Chapter 10: Haystack - Lisbon, January 1942

At least Sandy managed to get me a contact, Clegg thought as he made his way into town.

Potentially this was the most difficult part of his mission. He had a name — Irena Lanz — of someone that might or might not be in the country. That was about all he had to go on in a city he didn't know; in a country whose language he didn't understand. The one consolation was that the place was a hot bed of refugees and the intelligence services of the Allies and the Wehrmacht. Deception, evasion, and desperation were the currency of many of those that had come to the city in the last few months. That at least was something Freddie felt comfortable with.

Clegg's hotel was welcoming enough. The suite he had booked into was comfortable if a little faded. The bar seemed as good a place as any in which to start. Clegg ordered a beer and took it to a corner table, using the opportunity to watch the ebb and flow of men and women, couples, groups forming and dissolving.

He'd been watching a man and women deep in almost conspiratorial conversation when a short dark man appeared beside his table. "The Comtesse suggested that you might need someone to show you around."

Clegg looked up. The man was neatly, almost fastidiously, dressed. His hair slick, greased, flat against his scalp almost as though it was painted on. A thin moustache stretched across his upper lip.