The Quest for Anna Klein
Thomas H Cook
When 'new blood' meets an 'old dog' there is a tale to tell. The violent acts of today are matched by the violence and plots of a man’s youth. Thomas Danforth had a future mapped out – a successful family business and a fiancée – until Robert Clayton introduced him to Anna Klein and seduced him into ‘The Project’. It was enough for him to drop his plans for marriage and journey around Europe with her.
Anna had her own thoughts about what sort of project would have some impact. Not this Project. Not this glorified administrative endeavour – logistics for a raggle taggle army fleeing the Spanish Civil war. No, she wanted to play a part in the ‘big game’ What that needed was Ted Bannion to persuade others of the idea – a plot to kill Hitler before war had broken out. A plot that was betrayed, leaving Danforth with nagging doubts. Questions that would only be answered when he found Anna again.
Getting ready
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America, 1939. Thomas Danforth had thought himself a settled man. The import business his father had built up would come to him – and there had already been enough adventures as they traded their way through Europe. Dinner with Robert Clayton started a new, life changing, chapter. First he was intrigued, then he was introduced to the work of an agent, Anna Klein. It was only a small step for him to agree to make available a place where she could work…
And to provide the cover of employment at Danforth Imports. And to meet La Roche , the man who would train Anna for the task she had ahead of her. And to become party to the development and honing of the skills she would need: pistol shooting at close range, bomb making and explosives, sabotage, wireless operation and disguise. And to take care of her safety until, finally, he wanted nothing else but to be part of whatever it was she would face. For that, he had a severe test to pass.
In France
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Paris is a beautiful city and, even though they didn’t share a bedroom, Danforth and Anna spent time together sight-seeing. Taking in the delights of the Gardens, of walks along the Seine and the splendour of Sacre Couer. The plan for the ‘Project’, when it started, was simple. Use the aftermath of the Spanish Civil war to help protect France from any German ambitions.
Soldiers who had fled Spain were held in transit camps in South West France, near the mountains through which many had made their escape. How many? Enough to make a real army again; nearly two hundred and fifty thousand. The first task was to check out the camps where they were held. Little problem there with security. Problems elsewhere though. A trip to London and a murder in Paris raise questions about loyalty, betrayal and revenge. And warnings by a French politician, about the dangers gathering in Europe, force Anna to see the ‘Project’ in a new light.
New target
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Little spies – they were just little spies. Their’s was a little game, until Anna remembered the advice; to kill a snake you have to cut off it’s head. And the head in question this time was Adolf Hitler. So the three of them, Anna, Bannion and Danforth, got permission from Clayton to change the ‘Project’. Danforth helped them get close to the man, Bannion got the pistol, the cyanide pills for himself and Anna and, courtesy of Rache, his source, intelligence about Hitler’s movements. Only it fell at the last hurdle and betrayal was in the air.
Danforth eventually returned to the fray of regular clandestine wartime action, but never gave up on Anna. At war’s end he obsessively looked for the woman he’d been told was dead. Nurenburg, Ukraine and Moscow were where the trail led. Lubyanka was the first of many prisons he visited; labour camps that reached further and further east, right through the Gulag and up to the Road of Skulls. Paying the price for playing the big game. A game in which Anna played her part; a game where betrayal and deceit vie with conviction and the truth.
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