The Iron Storm by CW Browning (classic literature books TXT) 📕

learn. Sifu had always liked to say that a man who was unaware of his limitations was the most dangerous of all. She had always taken that to mean that they would take reckless risks. Now she realized that if one were unaware of their own weakness, then they would never improve. Or, as in her present case, if she was unaware that she knew next to nothing about navigating the shadows to gather intelligence, then she would never learn how to do it successfully. And if she didn’t learn how to do it properly, she wouldn’t live to see the end of the month, let alone the end of the war.

Laying her gloves in her lap, she made herself comfortable and leaned her head back again. There was nothing she could have done about Lars today. There was no way she could have known that he was being followed. They had taken every precaution within the station, even moving into the thickest crowds before he passed her the packet. There was nothing more she could have done then. Could she have realized she was being followed earlier than she did? Perhaps. While she was getting better at paying attention to people around her and, more importantly, people behind her, Evelyn knew she could do better in that area. But how to prevent being seen to begin with?

Vladimir Lyakhov came into her mind suddenly, making her purse her lips thoughtfully. He was invisible. He moved throughout Europe at will, never leaving a trace. She knew this because MI6 had tried repeatedly to track him, all to no avail. The man was like a ghost. How many years had it taken him to learn to be invisible? How did he move through customs and borders without leaving a trace? How did he move valuable intelligence out of the Soviet Union and into the hands of agents like herself? These were the skills she needed to learn, and learn quickly.

And she had no idea how to do it.

Chapter Eight

Vladimir Lyakhov nodded in parting to the train conductor and stepped onto the platform. The woman was moving towards the door to the lobby of the station, and he paused to look at his watch. He didn’t want to be too close to her as she made her way from the train to the streets of Brussels. If she had any sense, she’d be on her guard now, and he didn’t want to run the risk of her seeing him. Not just yet.

He looked up from his watch as she disappeared through the wide opening into the lobby. Striding forward quickly, he went around a porter struggling with a pile of luggage and followed her through the entrance.

He’d been waiting for Evelyn when she arrived in Brussels from Paris this morning. A man of extreme caution, he’d gotten there well ahead of her with the intent to watch her and ensure that MI6 hadn’t tried to get sneaky with their meeting. If there was any indication that Evelyn Ainsworth wasn’t alone, or that she had a tail, he had every intention of aborting the meeting. There had been neither, but the young British agent had still managed to surprise him. When she bought a ticket for Antwerp instead of leaving the station, his curiosity had been piqued, and he’d followed.

Vladimir moved through the sparse crowd in the station lobby, his eyes on the blonde hair ahead of him. She had gone straight to one of the best hotels in Antwerp, checked in, and then promptly left again to return to the train station. Amazingly, the German agent camped out in the hotel lobby had never looked twice at her, his attention focused on another target altogether. That was a bit of luck, really. If the SS agent had been one of any stature at all, he would have recognized Evelyn for who she was. Vladimir shook his head as they moved towards the exit to the street. Soon she would have to change her appearance. Already too many German officers in the SS and SD knew what she looked like, and also knew that she was an enemy of the Reich. It wouldn’t be long before they disseminated that information down to the lower ranks. Once that happened, Jian’s relative anonymity would be gone. She was safe for now, but that wouldn’t last long, especially if another incident like what happened tonight occurred.

His lips tightened into a frown. The German agent in the lobby of the hotel hadn’t worried him at all. The man in the street who had followed her from the station was another story altogether. That man worried him greatly. He wasn’t German, of that Vladimir was certain. He looked like a local man. Most likely he was a Belgian agent working for the Germans. They were everywhere now, these double agents. It was one of the reasons he took so many precautions himself. Himmler and Canaris weren’t the only ones turning agents all over the world. His own agency had their fair share as well, and Vladimir had to avoid all of them. There were eyes and ears everywhere now, and that was just part of the war. He was used to it and, if he was honest with himself, thrived on the challenge of smuggling classified information out from the Soviet Union. Evelyn, however, had just had her first taste of the realities of operating on the continent.

The man she’d met in the station had undoubtedly been another agent. Vladimir had no idea which country he owed his allegiance to, but Evelyn obviously did. She had met with him, accepted a package from him, and the mystery as to why she had gone directly to Antwerp was solved. She was picking up a packet from another agent. Simple enough operation, really, and not very surprising. If MI6 was sending her to Belgium anyway, there was no reason not to have her complete a mission for them at the same