Artillery of Lies (22 page)

Each controller took a section and scanned it quickly.

“How d'you get diphtheria?” Otto Krafft asked. Nobody knew. “The Hampshire Regiment's got it,” he said. “Quarantined on Dartmoor. Bad rations, perhaps?”

“That could mean the U-boat war's been worth it after all,” Fischer said. “Berlin will like that … I wonder what all this intensive low-flying training is in aid of?”

“Obvious,” Franz Werth said. “It's in aid of a lot of intensive low-level strafing, in due course. Who's doing it?”

“Yet another American fighter wing. The 293rd.”

“Christ Almighty!” Otto said, flipping pages. “Look at all these troop movements!
And
two new American infantry divisions,
and
one Canadian,
and—”

“Haystack's having an affair,” Richard announced. They all looked up. “Wife of a building contractor. She never sees him because he's always building army camps, dozens of them, Haystack says, all over southeast England.”

“Just a hop, step and a jump from Calais,” Franz said. “Well, well, well.” He waved a page. “Remember the highly secret Low-Level-Opening Parachute that
Luftwaffe
Intelligence were so snotty about? Eldorado's found two—no,
three
independent confirmations. It's beginning to form a pattern, isn't it? After the low-level strafing come the low-level paratroops. What d'you think, Doctor?”

“Possibly.” Dr. Hartmann was staring into space. He took off his glasses and frowned so hard that his poor overworked eyes almost disappeared. “Possibly …” Now he was mumbling. “I wonder … Of course doubling the power won't double the bombload but they probably don't care about that …”

Richard went and looked over his shoulder. “An eight-engined
bomber,” he said. “Pinetree reports that Boeing are planning a production line for an eight-engined bomber.”

Hartmann put his glasses on. “The Brigadier must know of this immediately.”

“What's the fuss?” Otto asked. “We had a five-engined bomber in the last war. This is nothing new. Just a bigger target for the flak to hit.”

“No, no. It's not as simple as that. Consider the variables. And then the variables of the variables. The implications are manifold, can't you see?” Dr. Hartmann looked at Otto and saw a scientific caveman. He gave up and turned to Richard. “Not merely manifold but threatening.” That was not a word they had heard him use before.

Fischer took him upstairs to Wagner's office.

“Power can be converted in many ways,” Dr. Hartmann said to the Brigadier. “It can mean speed, it can mean load, it can mean range, or any combination of these three.”

“Wait a minute,” Wagner said. “Does doubling the engines mean doubling the power?”

“Of course not. Not the
useful
power, that is.” Dr. Hartmann suppressed his impatience at having to explain the obvious. “You need a bigger airplane to carry eight engines, therefore a heavier airplane. Engines themselves are heavy. Much of the extra power is absorbed in the work of lifting the extra weight.”

“So what you're saying, Doctor, is that one eight-engined bomber is worth two four-engined bombers because it's twice the size.” Wagner signed a letter and tossed it into a tray. “Pardon me if I don't panic.”

“There is more,” Hartmann said softly. If the bloody Brigadier wanted to play silly games, then so be it. He pointed a finger upward. “Look at the ceiling.”

“Oh?” Wagner actually looked at the ceiling; looked for some secret message written overhead; before he worked it out. “Ah,” he said. “Ceiling. Yes.”

“Eldorado mentions pressurized cabins. The existing B-17 Flying Fortress is not pressurized, yet it has a ceiling of thirty thousand feet. Some new models even reach thirty-five thousand feet, which is an embarrassment to our fighter defenses. Suppose this eight-engined model operates at forty thousand feet?”

“We won't be able to touch it,” Richard Fischer said.

Wagner gave it perhaps five seconds' thought. “What a scoop!” he said. “Eldorado strikes again. I want that on the teleprinter to Berlin
Abwehr
within the hour.” He smiled at the ceiling. “Thank you, God. Nice timing.”

Oster was not in the building as the telephone clacked out its message. Christian discovered this when he took the printout to Oster's office. He did not hesitate. He went straight to Admiral Canaris.

“Um,” Canaris said. “Numbers. Are we impressed by numbers?” He was wearing a double-breasted gray flannel suit with a dark green silk tie and his hair was brushed hard until it shone like silver. He had the appearance of a banker wondering whether or not to refuse a large loan to an old friend. “A multiplicity of engines is nothing new. I seem to remember that Dornier built a flying boat that had twelve engines, and everyone cheered, but it didn't last long.”

“Very true, sir. Dr. Hartmann comments on that precise point.” Christian leaned over the desk and indicated Hartmann's words. “The difference, he says, is that Dornier had to use lots of small engines to compensate for the fact that no really powerful engine was available and flying boats have to overcome considerable drag on takeoff. Whereas …” Christian moved back respectfully and let Canaris see for himself.

Canaris read, and grunted, and read again.

“Whereas,” Canaris said, “Hartmann has reason to believe, from previous Eldorado intelligence, that Rolls-Royce have discovered how to improve engine performance out of sight, the British have told the Americans what the secret is, and so this new wonder-bomber may well fly at over forty thousand feet.” Canaris scratched his head, disturbing the silver sheen until he smoothed it back. “What if I said that this is good news, Commodore?”

Christian worked hard on the question, gave up, and shook his head, baffled.

“As often as not, from twenty thousand feet the enemy cannot guarantee to hit anything smaller than Hamburg,” Canaris said. “From forty thousand they'd have difficulty hitting Schleswig-Holstein, wouldn't they?”

“Hartmann has a comment on that too, sir. Paragraph seventeen, I believe.”

Canaris found it and read it. He shook his head, rather sadly, took a firmer grip of the paper and read it again.

“Do you understand this?” he asked.

“I understand some of the words, sir,” Christian said; which at least made Canaris smile, so Christian didn't feel so bad. “Radar-controlled, for instance,” Christian said. “I understood that.”

“Well, if we can have radio-controlled planes, I suppose they can have radar-controlled bombs, in which case great height might even be an advantage.” Canaris was alarmed by a sudden thought. “None of this is tainted with Garlic, is it?”

“No, sir. It's all pure Eldorado.”

“Good. Boil it down, forward the results to OKW with a copy to the Fuehrer's own headquarters at Rastenburg. Top priority, both. And be sure they're marked “Source: ‘Eldorado.'”

Christian got the signals out by midafternoon. Next morning Freddy Garcia got a call from the Director asking him if he could pop into London. Freddy could, and did, and the Director showed him the translations of some intercepted German radio messages. “Crikey,” Freddy said.

“We can't claim all the credit,” the Director said. “If they're alarmed at the prospect of an eight-engined bomber it's because of the damage our four-engined types have done. Besides, Hitler's just as likely to revoke this directive next week.”

“Still,” Freddy said, “it does amount to a huge switch of enemy resources, doesn't it, sir? I mean, just to develop an anti-aircraft gun that can chuck a shell forty thousand feet … And putting all these factories underground … And forming new squadrons of Junkers JU 188s. What on earth are they?”

“An advanced version of the JU 88. Mainly used for reconnaissance. They fly rather high. Perhaps the
Luftwaffe
believes it can turn them into fighters. It really doesn't matter, does it?”

“No, sir,” Freddy said. “What matters is they're wasting their time and brains and aluminum and energy on the wrong priorities.”

“And that relieves a bit of pressure on us. The gratifying part is that it all happened within forty-eight hours.”

Freddy looked at the dates and times on the transcripts. “Last night,” he said. “This directive got sent only last night! How the dickens did we get it so fast? Or, come to that, at all?”

“I never ask,” the Director said, “and nobody tells me. How is Eldorado, by the way?”

Freddy searched his mind for a diplomatic phrase and found nothing. “Fairly bloody, sir.”

“Most spies are,” the Director said. “I've never met a nice spy yet and I don't think I want to. It's not a nice job, is it?”

“Eldorado isn't really a spy, though, is he, sir? He's a writer.”

“Even worse. Writers are thoroughly nasty. Just because they understand the subjunctive they think they created the world. Agents are bad enough, but at least they're in it for the money. Writers …”

“You sound as if you speak from experience, sir,” Freddy said.

“My sister married a novelist,” the Director said bleakly. “He's in MI6 now. In Casablanca. Says he hates it, but you never know when they're lying, do you?”

“I'd better get back,” Freddy said. “I'm up to my ears in Bamboozle.”

By the time the complete version of the Eldorado report had been teletyped from Madrid to Berlin, Oster was back in his office. He was delighted with what he saw. In particular Eldorado's response to three queries which the
Abwehr
had sent, regarding previous items of intelligence, pleased him. “That explains what became of the convoy that didn't take Churchill to India,” he said to Christian. “Canceled because the British Admiralty found out the U-boat packs were waiting. Doesn't say much for our naval communications, does it? And the Low-Level Parachute story is kosher, if you'll pardon the expression, so
Luftwaffe
Intelligence gets another black eye. And Buranda …” Oster laughed. “Remember the elusive Buranda?”

“Something to do with manganese. In Peru, isn't it, sir?”

“No. No, it isn't. Buranda doesn't exist.”

“Eldorado blundered?”

“Not really. Haystack got conned. He met a man in a pub who said he was one of the Buranda Manganese Delegation. Actually, Buranda is the brand name of a patent medicine for shrinking piles.” Oster could scarcely speak the word for spluttering with laughter. “Dear me … There's nobody more gullible than a spy, is there? Eldorado is profoundly apologetic.”

“So he should be,” Christian said.

“Rubbish! Don't be such a schoolmaster, Christian. No harm's been done, and Eldorado didn't try to cover up Haystack's mistake. Nobody's perfect, you know, and there is such a thing as a redeeming fault in a man. I must tell Domenik about Buranda.”

Later he did, and Domenik enjoyed it. “It's the piles that really makes the story, isn't it?” he said. “I mean, Buranda could have been a brand of tinned pilchards, but that wouldn't have worked nearly so well.”

Oster stretched his neck and eased his tie. “I don't follow you,” he said. “Eldorado didn't
choose
to make Buranda a patent medicine.”

“Didn't he?”

“Certainly not. What are you driving at?”

“Nothing at all,” Domenik said. “It's just my wild imagination at work. Besides, you know him far better than I.” And he strolled away, whistling. Not “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” but “Take the ‘A' Train.” Just as bad.

At Athlone, bang in the middle of Ireland, the train stopped and everyone woke up. Ferenc Tekeli woke up to find Laszlo Martini watching him. “You will not get out here,” Laszlo said. Ferenc got out and drank two pints of Guinness in the station bar. He cantered across the platform and swung aboard the train as it was pulling away.

Laszlo had a face like warped wood.

“Laszlo, Laszlo, don't you recognize me?” Ferenc cried. “It's me, your twin brother Ferenc, kidnapped by gypsies when I was two days old but now I'm back to claim my inheritance and you …” He grabbed Laszlo by the ears and kissed him on the forehead. “You will get bugger-all, you miserable fart.” The compartment was full of nuns. “I beg your pardons, ladies,” Ferenc said. “He hates me because I was born ten minutes before him. Even then, you see, Laszlo was abysmally slow.” Ferenc enjoyed the word. “Abysmally, abysmally, abysmally,” he said. The train clattered over points and he staggered. Docherty grabbed the back of his coat and made him sit down, with a bump. “My manservant,” Ferenc explained to the nuns, who were fascinated. “And that is my maidservant. The oxen and the asses are traveling in the guard's van.”

“He has the drink taken,” Docherty told the nuns.

“Also the serpents,” Ferenc said. “I brought lots of serpents, in case anyone needed a plague of them. It's been an awful long time since we had a plague of serpents but I think we're due for a change, don't you?” Ferenc waved at the late-afternoon sunshine flooding the compartment.

“There are no serpents in Ireland,” an elderly nun said firmly. “Saint Patrick saw to that, God bless him.”

“A fine fellow,” Ferenc agreed. “He gave me a very fair price on the little creatures.”

“Preposterous.”

“With an option on the next plague of locusts he can get his hands on.” She shook her head, angrily. “Listen,” Ferenc said, eyes wide with sincerity, “make me a better offer, I'm always ready to listen. Or manna from heaven, now there's something never goes out of fashion. I can—”

“Shut up, you fool,” Laszlo barked.

Ferenc sat back and folded his arms. “Take my advice and you'll never buy a pig from that man,” he said to the nuns. “He hasn't been to Mass in forty years.” They looked sideways at Laszlo. He stared at the luggage rack and tried to soothe his acidic stomach. He knew what they were thinking:
Forty years! Tha's almost worse than being a Protestant!
It wasn't true (Laszlo went to Mass each year on his birthday without fail) but denial would sound feeble. On the other hand the silence was intolerable. “As it happens I do not sell pigs,” he stated. “I am not engaged in the pig trade.”