I seek, Cal thought. So this is where he’s going?

‘Naturally, the entire plan is at the headquarters of the German army in Berlin, along with those for defending at the same time the Rhineland from a French invasion.’

‘I hope you’re not going to suggest I go burgling in the Bendlerstraße.’

The idea of Cal picking the locks on those Berlin offices tickled him and caused him to chuckle, before going on to say where other plans were kept, equally impossible to get at: Hitler’s Bavarian retreat, the Berghof, high in a large fenced-off and SS-guarded compound in the Obersalzberg, another set with the designated field commander who was, at this moment, engaged in training his troops for the invasion under the guise of autumn manoeuvres.

‘You seem to know a lot about something supposed to be a secret.’

Moravec was too wise to fall for that bit of fishing. He obviously had good sources right at the top of the German state but they were not going to be discussed. ‘Case Green …’

‘Which is?’

‘The name of the plan for the invasion of Czechoslovakia; the one for the defence of the West is Case Red. The Sudeten German Party does not have the plan but it holds documents given to Henlein by Hitler only five days ago relating to the invasion plan for Bohemia and Moravia, so that they know what to do when it comes.’

‘Such as?’

‘What assets to seize or destroy, where the Wehrmacht columns will seek to penetrate our defences so that they can cause mayhem in the rear areas, as well as their own targets to attack, like roads to block, certain bunkers and the Czech police stations.’

‘Is it not lunacy to give the details to such amateurs? From what I know they are not soldiers but street fighters at best.’

‘That is what has happened and it also proves that Henlein is in Hitler’s pocket. The man is no more than a puppet.’

Cal was trying to imagine that on the table of Chamberlain’s cabinet room and the effect it would have; it would blow the appeasement policy out of the water and expose the Sudeten German leader as a fraud.

‘And you know where this is kept?’

‘It is in the possession of Henlein.’

‘Then why don’t you just break in and steal them?’ Cal asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.

‘That riot I told you of, the man who was supposed to have used his whip, was dismissed. So was the police chief and six more of his men.’

That was followed by a deep sigh and a long and windy explanation of the constraints Moravec was under. He had strict orders himself from the president’s office to do nothing that would make a bad situation worse while the British envoy, Lord Runciman, was in the country; in short, nothing that would antagonise the Germans or give the democracies an excuse to walk away from supporting Czechoslovakia.

To launch an assault on the building in which those documents were located was out of the question when the slightest act like an arrest, even for the proper imposition of order as it had been in Moravia, was blown up by the German press into an atrocity, another excuse for Hitler to rant on about the ‘plight’ of his racial brethren. That impacted in the West, weakening the hand of those trying to press for a policy of standing up to him.

The police in the Sudetenland had even stricter orders now to avoid provocation. Following the riot and the dismissal of Czech officials, they had been required to stoically bear it when the more rabid Nazis took to the streets to taunt them.

They had been backed up by the Sudeten German Freikorps, a group based on Hitler’s SA, who had hurriedly rushed to their side, with their uniforms, flags and arms, to parade through the streets where the riot had taken place singing ‘Deutschland über Alles’ and the ‘Horst-Wessel-Lied’.

Konrad Henlein would not take part in the negotiations with the Czech Government or any other body – Moravec suspected that was again on Hitler’s orders – and nor would any of the other top men in the SdP like Frank. It was becoming increasingly clear there were no concessions which would satisfy the Sudeten German Party: every time their terms were met they upped their demands – this, he was sure, on instructions from Berlin, so the Führer would have his ‘excuse’ to invade.

Not that standing off made any difference; Goebbels, or at least the German newspapers and radio stations he controlled, just made things up. They screamed daily about fabricated Czech atrocities: the beating of innocent civilians, children included, women being molested and in many cases raped, brutal police raids in which houses were reduced to rubble and furniture thrown out into the streets to be smashed, assassinations of activists and all the usual claptrap of Nazi propaganda.

‘My hands are tied, I cannot move, for if I even attempt to do so against the express orders of the Government, someone in my department will leak my intentions before I make a move, perhaps even to the Germans, and next day it will be banner headlines in the Völkischer Beobachter.’

So your outfit is split, just like MI6, Cal thought, though he did not say so. His other thought was to thank God he was a free agent, and it was that which underlined what Moravec was driving at: if he could not act he needed someone to do it for him, hence this little walk and talk.

The Czech was angling for him to be that someone. He had a lot of sympathy for his plight, but natural caution kept him from speaking even if he had a shrewd idea what was coming, not something to contemplate without serious consideration. If Moravec was frustrated by his silence, and he probably was, he hid it well.

‘I now know for certain you are not connected to the British embassy.’

And I won’t ask how you know, Cal thought; Moravec would have people in every embassy that employed Czechs as drivers, cooks and interpreters, which was just about everyone except the Germans and Soviets, the latter too paranoid to ever employ locals in their legations.

‘How do you know this document is where you say it is?’

‘Trust me to do my job.’

‘A spy in place, perhaps?’

‘You would not answer that, neither will I.’

It was time to nail him. ‘If you want help, and it sounds to me very much like you do, you’re going to have to answer that and a lot more besides.’

‘Go back to your hotel. There you will find a package waiting for you. Examine it tonight and I will call tomorrow and arrange another meeting.’

The package was bulky and when it was laid out it covered not only the bed but the floor as well, information relating to a small town called Cheb in Czech, Eger in German, which Henlein and Frank were using as their personal headquarters and from which they were running their political affairs.

No doubt they had chosen Cheb for the very good reason that it lay only a few miles from the German border; Henlein’s house was even closer in a hamlet called Asch, practically right on the boundary line. The SdP leader was taking no chances on a crackdown; any hint of trouble and he and his family would be in Germany and safe from arrest.

Frank had his HQ at the local Nazi Party HQ, which appeared to be a substantial edifice, while Henlein’s was over two floors of the Victoria Hotel, which was a three-storey classical-styled building in the centre of the town opposite the Cheb-Eger railway station, through which ran the Paris-to-Prague Express.

The detail of both locations was comprehensive: the package contained maps of both town and hamlet, as well as the surrounding country, photographs of the streets around both Henlein’s house and Frank’s HQ, and building plans of the hotel itself, where anything really vital would probably be kept.

There were armed members of the local Freikorps guarding the Victoria, day and night, their strength and a rota included, as well as the number of people employed there during the day, all checked as being of the right stripe, because it was still a working building so there was also included an estimate of the rate of occupancy by guests.