Rendezvous in Berlin

CHAPTER 1

London

14 months later

Friday 14th. August 1942

Marjorie Dawson would, if pressed, have probably acknowledged that the £250,000 pounds she had paid would have provided the RAF with a complete squadron of Spitfires; but that would have been a false comparison. The real calculation in these affairs was about what value you got for your money.

And quite frankly, since the Battle of Britain in the middle of last year, the value for money factor of the RAF had rather declined. The 'Boys in Light Blue' still attracted hero worship and newspaper headlines, but now that they had so decisively beaten the Luftwaffe and foiled a German invasion, the operational urgency had somewhat diminished.

Churchill's description; 'Never was so much owed by so many to so few', was still true, but it was yesterday's news, it was no longer current.

The Americans and the Russians might have both have needed a good kicking to get them into the war, but now the Yanks and the Japs were busy knocking seven bells of hell out of each other all over the Pacific, and Hitler was at the gates of Moscow; that rather took the pressure off Western Europe.

The Fuchs woman had started by demanding a million, but promptly settled for half that, so it probably hadn't come as much of a surprise when all she'd finally got was a quarter of it.

The cash was available from the Special Resources bribery fund, the same fund that was used to pay large sums to senior members of the Spanish fascist government, in a bid to keep them neutral. It wasn't a bottomless pit, but it was deep enough for this. It was also a bargain basement price for having a direct contact at the heart of SS headquarters in Berlin.

Since the first Nazi agent Fuchs had betrayed last year, some sleeper near Portsmouth, she had provided details of two more similar long term agents, both of whom had been picked up and disposed of: and all on the empty promise of the other half of the originally agreed sum.

It had occurred to her that Fuchs was only providing details of Abwehr agents, who she was well aware were direct rivals of Himmler's RSHA , the department that Fuchs worked for. Though very few of Marjorie Dawson's political masters were sufficiently well versed in the details of the German intelligence agencies to tell the difference, and that was what mattered.

All anyone in Whitehall knew was that MI6, as represented by Marjorie Dawson, had produced an impressive run of successes in the hunt for enemy agents. The money she had paid was beginning to look like a bargain.

The only slight surprise about Fuchs' visit to London last year had been that Sir Freddy had managed to escape before the Germans had been able to get him into the U-boat. But then Special Branch, over whom she had no control, had been pressing hard on Fuchs' heels when she made her getaway - in fact, the outstretched Special Branch hand had almost reached the Fuchs' collar. And all that despite MI6's best efforts at misdirection. To quote Wellington after Waterloo, it had been a damn close run thing.

Even so, MI6's official report on the incident had still claimed the credit for providing the necessary clues, it was just unfortunate that the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, the operational side of MI5, had been too slow to act on them. When it came to telling lies, you had to hand it to Doctor Goebbels, the bigger the lie, the more likely you were to get away with it.

Today's work was more routine. The standard weekly briefing paper for the War Cabinet Security Committee, providing a summary of all current operations was due out by lunchtime, and whilst it was issued in the name of Sir Stewart Menzies, the head of MI6, some of the sections were actually written by the heads of the relevant departments. One such relevant department was the liaison office between MI6 and the Special Operations Executive, or SOE for short, and that was Marjorie Dawson's domain.

SOE's specialist area of expertise was blowing things up; trains, bridges, power stations, they weren't all that fussy. A necessary part of their speciality was an expertise in close quarters killing, the closer and quieter the better. Their departmental training school, a converted Scottish country house, specialised in just that; creeping up on people and then stabbing or strangling them. Churchill, with his knack for the telling phrase, referred to them as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

In direct contrast, Sir Stewart took pride in MI6's old school professionalism, so that when his officers shot someone it was an operational requirement, rather than an end in itself. In his view SOE were no more than a bunch of trigger happy amateurs and he was happy to delegate all contact with them to a medium ranking officer, someone outside the MI6 inner circle. Then if anything went wrong and that someone had to be cut loose, the loss would be survivable, the fallout containable.

Churchill had said they had to cooperate, and what the PM said went, but he hadn't said anything about that cooperation being close or warm.

What Sir Stewart had probably never considered was that the resultant semi detached status of that SOE/MI6 liaison position, suited its occupant every bit as much as it suited him, if not more so.

Operation Cyclone was one of those border line grey areas, the sort of idea that gets talked about in bored moments 'wouldn't it be great if . . . . ' but somehow never quite makes it into real life. Except that for once, this idea had developed sufficient life to survive the initial disbelief at its weirdness, at its complete improbability. Somehow it had made it past Feasibility and into Planning and from there into Operational, and now it was out there and running. At every stage, SOE had been reassured that MI6 were fully onboard and MI6 had been reassured that it was still just a feasibility study. But when it came off it would be a triumph, and if it failed it was untraceable, it was one of those rare jobs that have no downside, and Marjorie Dawson was its midwife.

For the last two weeks she had been waiting for an opportunity, a chance to slip Operation Cyclone onto the record, and today was it. There had been a rush of Barbarossa information coming through from both Russian and German sources; just last week Hitler had inexplicably diverted the thrust of the German attack from Moscow down to Stalingrad, and it wasn't obvious why. That should be easily sufficient to divert attention from a brief mention of Operation Cyclone.

Para. 43: Plans to expand the sabotage programme in the Lille railway marshalling yards have been approved; operations continue to locate a contact within the French forced labourers at the Krupp factory in Essen; Operation Cyclone has been commenced to negatively affect Nazi Party leadership potential in Germany; shipping movements in the Skagerrak are now being monitored by two newly recruited lookouts in the Kristiansand to Grimstad area.

Marjorie read it as she imagined an otherwise occupied Cabinet Minister might, and as she did so the text turned into the visual equivalent of background noise, which was exactly what she had in mind. Next week she could slip in something along the lines of 'blah de blah; Operation Cyclone continues to make good progress; blah de blah' That should manage to bury it in plain sight, which is just where you want your bodies to be buried; all ready for the day of resurrection, when the plan struck gold.

Martine Villiers

Monday 17th. August

'How long will you be gone?' Freddy called up from the hall.

I thought for a moment, before replying, 'He says it will only take two days out there, but allow three, plus a day each way, I should be back by Saturday.'

'That's fine but we're due at the Curzons that night and I didn't particularly want to cancel, they're usually good fun. If you're delayed I could always go on my own, it wouldn't matter with them.'

I left the packing and walked out onto the landing. 'Over my dead body, if I'm not back in time, you have a mug of cocoa and an early night, as befits a man of your age.'

There was a snorting sound, a disappointed snorting sound. 'Don't be ridiculous, you're starting to sound like your mother.'

'You never met my mother, be grateful for that.'

'I don't need to meet her with you around the place, and what exactly is wrong with the Curzons?'

I leaned over the balcony for greater clarity. 'Charles Curzon is sleeping with his secretary, everyone knows about it, including Pamela. Which means that she's going to take any opportunity she can to pay him back. The last time we met them she couldn't keep her hands to herself, and you're too naive for your own good.'

He made a long Mmm sound, with more than a hint of surprised pride in the mixture. He really hadn't noticed, but now I'd told him, clearly thought it reflected well on him: which in a way I suppose it did. He managed to produce what he thought was a slightly offended, 'Well if you're going to be so negative about the poor woman I'll shall just have to pretend she's got leprosy - or something.'

'Oui d'accord, bonne idée.' I said over my shoulder as I went back to finish packing. Beirut in August, it will certainly be hot but with it being on the coast it shouldn't be completely unbearable, 28 or 30 degrees, something like that. But after three summers in England I still haven't needed to find myself much in the way of a summer wardrobe.

Marie at the office offered to lend me a couple of extra lightweight cotton dresses, but the diktat from Le Grand Charles says that I shall have to be in full dress uniform the whole time. It's not that I disagree with him, with the Germans occupying France we have to show the world there are still some of us carrying on the fight; it's just that I've got used to our more casual dress code whilst working in London.

The net result is that I shall probably end up sweating unattractively and taking three cold showers a day. I should tell Freddy to do the same.

Apparently de Gaulle is meeting the Grand Mufti, or some such local bigwig in Beirut, and wants to have a surrounding halo of his own courtiers and acolytes, of whom I will be one; after which my usefulness in the Middle East will be ended and I can come back to London.

Re-reading that last sentence I have suddenly realised just how English I've become, referring to the Grand Mufti, if that is indeed what he is, as just some local bigwig makes me sound uncomfortably like Freddy - still I suppose there could be worse fates. I do sometimes wonder if I shall look in the mirror one day and find myself wearing a twin set and pearls, at that point my transformation from French Chic to English County will be complete.

Although my husband, the baronet, and I still feel a girlish satisfaction as I say that, is normally very self assured he can sometimes get a little uncomfortable about our comparative ages. The other week I reminded him that the long dead Benjamin Disraeli was still Prime Minister when he was born, to which he responded with a triumphant smile that not only was Disraeli still alive then, so also were a great many of the soldiers who had beaten Napoleon at Waterloo.

Whenever I say something he takes personally, he produces some small dig at the dammed Froggies; which is his subconscious way of warning that I've gone far enough.

It might seem a little rough and ready, but underneath all the usual English bluster about foreigners he's remarkably cosmopolitan, and speaks French with a pleasant and easy fluency. He's the only man I've ever met that I would trust with both my life and my body; and if you don't know the difference, then you haven't lived, and if you were to ask me which comes first, I would say that it depends on the circumstances.

Is that love? I suppose it is, and whilst Freddy was previously happily married, it's certainly more than I've ever had before. Perhaps the best indicator of love is that each of us thinks that we're the lucky one in the relationship.

It was only in May 1940 that I came to England; though when I put it like that, it makes it sound like a rational decision. The sort of event that was preceded by sensible consideration and accompanied by some sort of planning, and perhaps even a degree of bag packing; except of course, it wasn't like that. It might have been only two and half years ago, but I was a different woman then, living in a different world; and what's more I didn't simply leave - Freddy and I fled Paris through a hail of gunfire, and in a stolen aircraft. ** (see 'Rendezvous in Paris')

Looking back now, that turned out to be more of a beginning than an ending, and I wasn't the only one to make that discovery. As we were being chased out of Paris by the Germans, a minor newly appointed General, who had served briefly as a junior minister, was being chased out of Bordeaux by his own government colleagues. The penniless unknown General was Charles de Gaulle and as for me, I was an unmarried Gendarmerie Capitaine from Chalons, which, in case you don't know it, is a sleepy and unimportant nowhere.

I now work for Charles de Gaulle's Free French Government, here in London, and have done since he and I arrived. For his part, de Gaulle has come to be recognised, by all the Allied powers, as the only legitimate voice of France. Whereas Petain's puppet regime in France can talk only to the Germans. It's a complete reversal of the status quo and, as far as it goes, quite satisfying.

I heard Freddy walk in the room behind me. 'I've brought you a cup of tea darling.' He said, before putting the tea on the dressing table and an arm round my waist. I looked at my watch, we had an hour before the car was due to pick me up.

I turned and moved closer, 'If the plane's going down in flames, it's not a cup of tea I'll want to remember.' I said, drawing us together. 'But if I get back here and smell Pamela bloody Curzon on you, you'll wish I'd stayed in Beirut.'

The poor man was genuinely shocked. 'I would never . . .' He didn't even like to complete the sentence. I knew he was telling the truth, unlike most of the British aristocracy, who have the morals of a stray dog; he never would be unfaithful. Except of course, for that time when he almost was - with Heidi Fuchs. But then we've both been there, so the less said about that the better.

Pamela Curzon's a good looking piece and keen to get her way, but she lacks Fuchs' practised determination, and her two or three years experience on the game. I would class Pamela as worth me giving Freddy a pretend scratch or two, but no real threat.

When we first began to live together it was natural for him to draw the bedroom curtains when we made love during the day, but some of my 'frankly my dear I don't give a damn' attitude must have rubbed off on him. In the unlikely event that the elderly gentleman across the road wanted to stand on a bedroom chair with a pair of binoculars, then we both agreed - good luck to him. We just hoped the excitement didn't make him fall off his perch.

The tea might have gone cold but we were both dressed again by the time the car arrived. I was booked onto the BOAC flight from Northolt to Gibraltar, after which I would be on a Free French Liberator for a long and circuitous route to Beirut. Including the changeover, it was going to take at least 24 hours and, if we didn't meet the Luftwaffe en route, I was going to be sore, deaf and dirty by the time I arrived.

Freddy answered the door bell. The driver held up and examined the piece of paper he was holding, to make sure he got it right. 'Chef d'Escadron Lady Villiers please?' he said, pronouncing my unfamiliar French title slowly but understandably. Once de Gaulle had realised that by marrying Freddy I had become Lady Villiers, he felt that in order to preserve Gallic honour he'd better promote me from a mere Capitaine to something more exalted, hence my new rank.

However, as I don't normally use the 'Lady' at work and the Escadron in my title refers to a squadron of Gendarmes, rather than a squadron of aircraft, the more usual English version of my name is simply Major Villiers. It's all an extremely long way from Chalons. I leaned back in the car seat and smiled to myself - if my friends could see me now.

CHAPTER 2

10 Downing Street

Monday 17th. August

Despite there being a more than adequate, and heavily reinforced, suite of underground cabinet meeting rooms, accessible by tunnel from Downing Street, Winston Churchill was not an underground sort of person. 'Do I look like a bloody mole?' being only one of his comments on the subject. However, when German bombs were raining down during The Blitz he had bowed to overwhelming advice and used the partial sanctuary they offered. But the bombers had mostly moved east by now and it was Stalin's turn to dive for cover.

The Prime Minister was sat at his usual place at the Cabinet table, with his back to the fire place and the portrait of Sir Robert Walpole. Even when the regular Cabinet or the more select War Cabinet were not in session, he often used the huge Cabinet table as his desk, spreading papers all over the place.

'Secretary!' His voice boomed out, as though intended to penetrate walls.

'Yes Prime Minister?' Came the immediate response, from a side table near the two windows which overlooked Downing Street's back garden.

Churchill swung round in slight surprise to focus on the voice, 'Ah there you are my dear,' he said, making no attempt to remember her name, 'I hadn't noticed you.' His gruff tone indicating this was more her fault than his. 'Will you find me last Friday's MI6 briefing paper, Miss Patterson will sign your vault chitty.'

Miss Patterson's title was Clerical Administrator, but what she actually did was to run the Garden Room Girls, the team of closely vetted young ladies, almost all good looking and well connected, who ran the clerical empire that enabled the British government to function. Miss Patterson probably had a first name, most people do, but her demeanour did not encourage familiarity, Churchill suspected that even her parents had called her Miss Patterson.

Less than three minutes later, the redoubtable Patterson strode into the room, there was no door knocking inside Downing Street, there just wasn't the time. She pointed the accompanying young lady back to her desk by the window and handed the Prime Minister a brown cardboard file. 'If you need anything from the vault sir, I will always get it for you myself.'

'What's wrong with young what's she called there?'

'It's the extra security clearance required for the vault sir, you instituted it yourself last year.'

Churchill looked to his left, towards the windows and the now re-seated secretary. 'Tell me, my dear, are you a German spy?'

The girl smiled. 'No sir, they didn't offer me enough money.' As long as you took note of the old man's mood, you could sometimes chance the occasional cheeky comment. Churchill preferred what he called spirit to any amount of subservience, especially from an attractive young woman.

'There you are then Miss Patterson, straight from the horse's mouth; obviously I didn't mean it to apply around here. Now can you find me a reference in there to something called Operation Cyclone? The Foreign Secretary said he didn't recognise it, and I don't think I even noticed it.'

'Yes sir, I think it was in the progress reports on the last page.' She ran her finger down the paper until she found it. 'Here it is Prime Minister, included in some fairly routine updates, as if you already knew about it.' She read out the entry. Operation Cyclone has been commenced, to negatively affect Nazi Party leadership potential in Germany.

Seeing Churchill's furrowed brow she answered the question he was about to ask. 'There hasn't been a reference to that name in the last two months. I would have remembered.'

'Read it to me again.' She did, but his brow remained furrowed.

'That could mean absolutely bloody anything, in fact it sounds to me as if it's supposed to mean absolutely bloody anything. Tell Sir Stewart I want a precise description of what's involved.'

'Today sir?'

Churchill was already directing his attention to the next item on the pile of papers in front of him, and looked up in vague surprise. 'What - today? No, no I've got far too much going on here, tell him to include it in this Friday's briefing paper.' His attention returned to the next document on the pile. Miss Patterson left silently and the young lady at the desk by the window, whose name was Tilly, continued transcribing the PM's notes for a speech this afternoon to a group of visiting American Senators.

Martine Villiers

Wednesday 19th. August

The flight down to Gibraltar had been quite civilised in its appointments; the seats had been cushioned, there were little curtains at the windows and there was even a steward to bring round cups of coffee and sandwiches. Unfortunately that all changed in Gibraltar; there are no civilian flights over the Mediterranean, it's an active war zone - highly active. With the Germans occupying Crete, and Malta being bombed on a daily basis, passenger flights to the Middle East now had to detour around the south of the Sahara, which involved us refueling at Fort Lamy in Tchad and then again in Cairo.

It was probably no more dangerous than any other sort of flying in wartime but, as I said, long and uncomfortable. I took ear plugs and an extra cushion. The B24 Liberator we took from Gibraltar was a partially converted heavy bomber. It had a temporary plywood floor over what I presumed was the bomb bay, and as for the curtains: there weren't even any windows in the bomb bay. The seats were steel frame canvas affairs that would have been too primitive to use as deck chairs. I took it all as a much needed lesson in humility.

But what I hadn't expected was the prize at the end of the trip. Our final approach brought us in from the east at just before 6.00 o'clock yesterday morning, and the captain had called any of us who were interested to go up to the cockpit and watch over the pilot's shoulders. Most of the other twelve passengers were either too blasé or fed up to bother, but I was neither, this was the first time I had ever been further east than Rome.

As we dropped down over the mountains, towards the coastal plain, there ahead of us was Beirut and beyond it the Mediterranean. The first rays of the morning sun, from directly behind us, were just touching the buildings and fields with that brief early morning flash of gold. It doesn't last long, beauty never does, but it was almost worth the preceding discomfort to see such a glimpse through heaven's gates - if you'll excuse my poetry.

Needless to say the reality was dustier and hotter, and a hell of a lot noisier. Colonel Malraux, with whom I had travelled from England had warned me about that. 'I don't know how they do it,' he said, 'but the Arabs always seem to have their volume control set to maximum, and none of them can drive anywhere without keeping one hand on the horn.'

Conversation had been impossible on the flight and so we chatted in the staff car, on the way to de Gaulle's villa in the suburbs. Malraux was normally based with the French Mandate Mission in Damascus, an uncomfortable mix of Free French and Vichy sympathisers. He thus mixed with a much wider spectrum of opinion than I encountered at French Headquarters in London. Working so closely with de Gaulle, tended to mean that our political views of French affairs were more or less de Gaulle's views. Malraux was not so constrained.

'You have to understand that your man is technically insane,' he said quite casually, as his opening shot. 'The American State Department say that on the rare occasions he doesn't see himself as Louis XIV, he imagines that he's Joan of Arc come back to life. Roosevelt and Churchill think he's an ungrateful pain in the arse, and they're probably right.'

None of these opinions were surprising, Freddy had routinely relayed this sort of British Establishment gossip to me, what was slightly surprising was to find a senior Free French officer relaying the same views.

'Do you think he should be replaced with someone less abrasive perhaps?'

'Good God no.' He was horrified at the idea. 'We've got no troops, no money and no territory, if it weren't for that madman and his delusions of grandeur we would sink without trace. The only thing keeping the idea of an independent France afloat is de Gaulle's over inflated sense of his own importance. The last thing we need is someone sensible, I'd lay down my life for the man, but he's still barking mad.'

Malraux didn't seem to know about the 25 million Francs that Freddy and I had first stolen, and then diverted into the Free French bank account last year, but then crediting other people's contribution is hardly the General's way of doing things.** (See 'Rendezvous in Madrid)

Our arrival at the seaside villa de Gaulle was occupying confirmed Malraux's opinion. Our leader was dressed in full formal tropical uniform, all gleaming white and with starched creases; he looked magnificent, the living embodiment of France, and undeniably if very slightly mad. Everyone else, including Malraux and I, were no more than courtiers.

Today's meetings with Lebanese and Syrian delegations were as formal and boring as I had expected, and my role was simply to help bulk out the entourage of smartly uniformed senior Free French officers. One of the translators told me afterwards that he had been instructed to introduce me with an Arabic title roughly equivalent to a Princess, and that would account for their exaggerated respect when shaking hands with me. If there's ever a repeat performance, I shall hold out my hand to be kissed.

However, apart from my somewhat inflated title and well dressed presence, there was nothing I was called on to contribute that couldn't have been done by a carefully rehearsed 15 year old, but then I have only had two sorts of experience in this war: boredom and being shot at. On the whole, having considered the matter carefully, I prefer the former.

In retrospect, I would have to admit that the spectacle de Gaulle presented for the meetings did manage to make us look like a well organised government in waiting, rather than the cash starved outfit with very little backing that we actually were. I suppose that at the heart of things, the trade of an international diplomat is not so very different from that of a stage magician.

We finished the last meeting at about seven this evening, and Malraux and I were told that we weren't needed until tomorrow morning. He suggested taking me to dinner, but I could see he had more than dinner in mind and decided to walk into town on my own.

It was a pleasant evening and the hotel was situated on the sea front road they call the Corniche, borrowing our own term from the Riviera. Their night life starts late in Beirut, and so while I was ready to walk back to the hotel by ten o'clock, the cafés and bars were still filling up.

It was, therefore, no great surprise when, as I was leaving some Francs in the small dish with the bill, another woman came to sit on one of the vacant chairs at my table. I assumed she was just moving in early to make sure she secured it. I looked up at her, a polite smile already forming on my lips, to show that I wasn't bothered by her pushy behaviour. The smile never materialised, instead my mouth dropped stupidly open for a moment.

If I had to address her at all, I would have preferred to address her more formally. However, instead of Fraulein, or Inspektor, I heard myself saying 'Heidi!' in astonishment. There aren't many Nazi killers I'm on first name terms with, but I suppose she would have to count as one of them.

She leaned forward to extend a hand under the table and rest it briefly and warmly on my thigh, as though confirming ownership. 'Chef d'Escadron Lady Villiers,' she breathed, 'what a magnificent title. Walter and I were naturally both delighted for you when we heard the news.'

'Walter?' I enquired slowly, as her hand slid smoothly off my thigh.

'Walter Schellenberg,' she said in the sort of encouraging tone you might use with a child, 'he's the head of Amt VI Foreign Intelligence, now that Heydrich's dead.'

As she said it I knew I should have remembered that sort of detail, but I was still in shock. There were so many different and pressing ways to take this conversation that I wasn't sure where to start. I settled for, 'You do realise that anyone involved in the reprisals you took for Heydrich's death will be hunted down and hanged, no matter where they hide.'

She looked grave and nodded. 'Destroying that village at Lidice was to be expected, and sending all the inhabitants to a labour camp would just be warfare - but killing all the men and boys was hardly my style. If you want any help tracking down the people responsible I'll be delighted to give it.'

I looked at her with narrowed eyes, if there was even the slightest hint of sarcasm in that face I would strike her down where she sat. But there was no sarcasm, she was looking at me seriously and, in so far as she's capable, sincerely.

'Strangely enough, it wasn't just the mass killings at Lidice that convinced me, it was the fact that they're actually going to put his head on a postage stamp.'

'Heydrich's head?'

'Yes, Heydrich's head, on a postage stamp. They should have put the filthy swine's head on a pole, that would have made more sense. But on a postage stamp! They'd have been better off putting my arse on the stamp, at least people might have enjoyed licking that.'

Despite my very best efforts not to, I still smiled, and she smiled back at me. Then I thought about what she'd said. 'The killings at Lidice convinced you of what?'

She looked surprised at my query, but then I'd hardly been at my best in this conversation. 'The pointlessness of those killings convinced me that Freddy might be right about the Fuhrer losing his grip, that was a sign of insanity, but even more so is what's happening in Russia. Schellenberg and Heydrich both agreed about one thing, if we hadn't captured Moscow in the first 12 months, then we never would. Well it's now 14 months and we haven't done it yet.'

'And you regard that as vital.'

'Capturing Moscow might or might not be vital, but to give up trying is to admit defeat. Three weeks ago Hitler overruled General Halder, commanding Army Group Centre, and told him to withdraw from the suburbs of Moscow and head south to Stalingrad. According to Himmler that's an admission that we can't take it this summer, which is to admit that we never will. Freddy said that we would win overwhelmingly in Russia for the first 12 to 18 months, after which we would start to lose. It looks as if he's winning the bet.'

Then realising that she had nothing on the table in front of her, she clapped her hands at the nearest waiter and called out loudly, 'Zwei grosse Cognacs bitte.' Now even though this is my first visit, I'm well aware there are three languages you can use in Beirut: Arabic, French and English, but not, definitely not, German. Especially as we're currently at war with them.

However, it seemed that no one had told the waiter any of this. He just muttered 'Sofort', the German for 'straight away' as if we were in Hamburg or Munich and went to get the drinks. A man and woman at a nearby table turned to stare at us, and the man muttered something. I ignored him and looked at Heidi.

'Do all the German spies come in here?' I asked politely.

'Not with these prices.' She said, looking at my own bill, and echoing the punch line of a million