Flowers From Berlin (26 page)

"Anything else?" Cochrane asked.

Mauer looked up. "I told you, you know everything."

"Well, it simply occurs to me," the American said. "You've been driven from your country by a bunch of cutthroats, separated from your family, placed here by people you don't know and can't trust. . ."

Cochrane probed the German's narrowing eyes for some resonance. He thought he found some.

"You must have done some time thinking, Otto,” Cochrane said. You must have theorized on what went wrong. And where."

Mauer looked at him glumly and his own voice was defensive again. "No theories," the German said. "I know."

"Then tell me."

"From the very start, young William Cochrane," Mauer said, "Gestapo had your number in Germany. And I should have known. But Abwehr didn't know at all. Only Gestapo. Trouble is, how do they have you before you even set foot in the Reich? How are they watching you every step of the way?"

"Exactly," Bill Cochrane answered.

"Better still, how did you escape when few others do?"

"I don't know."

"Then I tell you."

"Go ahead."

"You got very lucky, boy," Mauer said. "That's all. Like I said, Americans are bumbling amateurs in matters of intelligence and security. No match for Germans at all. When you get into the war—and make no mistake, England and France will drag you in again—you're all in great trouble. No doubt."

"We'll see."

"Ah." Mauer waved his hand contemptuously and dismissively again. "I show you!" he snapped, very angrily.

Impulsively he grabbed the shotgun again and whirled it upward as he remained in his chair. The moment seemed frozen in both time and horror to Cochrane because when the gun came up it was trained directly at Cochrane's upper chest, where it would blow a hole where his heart was. "I show you for sure!" the German said.

The German snapped the weapon open to check the ammunition and then clacked it shut again. "Ready?" he asked, and Cochrane did not have a half second to move before both triggers of the double-gauge were squeezed. There were two clicks. Two of the loudest clicks Cochrane had ever heard in his life. He stared at Mauer.

"When your Bureau gave me a weapon, they gave me no ammunition," Mauer said. "Fools!" He reached to his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of shells. He opened the weapon and slid them in. "Now, you go. You help me if you think you can. But you remember. When I am ready to shoot someone, I will be prepared, also."

A long final silence and then: "Remember, I could have shot you. You owe me your life. Bring me my family in return. Your own words once, 'One gentleman to another.' Now, go. We still have our agreement.”

*

Silence, darkness, and loneliness were the three great interrogators. Before them, a man's soul was bare and vulnerable. All three worked upon Cochrane as he drove the winding, black highway through the hills of northeastern Pennsylvania. It was night now and he had left Mauer standing on the farmhouse doorstep, cradling the shotgun, seeing his visitor off. The image stayed with Cochrane. But now the entire sky was the color of Mauer's eyes and mood. And the darkness accused.

The headlights of the Hudson shone a frail yellow beam on the road ahead, but Cochrane saw the road only absently. Other visions descended. Distant voices asked questions.

Why had his own Bureau endeavored so carefully to keep him away from Mauer? Similarly, why had he been discredited in Mauer's eyes?

Why was Hoover personally guarding Mauer's file?

Was Mauer telling the truth? If so, how much? If not, how much? Why had neither Lerrick nor Wheeler ever admitted that Mauer was in the United States in Bureau custody?

Cochrane worked the stories forward and backward, and turned everyone's account inside out. He searched for the details that did not fit, the subtle imperfections or the gross inconsistencies. He found none. He found instead only other images and other voices. And other questions.

Along the dark two-lane interstate, a vision came to him from somewhere deep in his own childhood. He was a boy again on a muggy summer day and he was skipping flat rocks across the river outside Charlottesville. Every once in a while he would throw wrong. The rock would plunge and not skip.

A smooth circle would emerge on the water, followed by another and another, round and concentric from the point where the rock had disappeared.

The perplexities now before him reminded him of the rocks that did not skip—disappearing into a fathomless surface, with other, deeper concentric questions rippling out from the epicenter.

At what point in 1937 had Cochrane actually been compromised in Berlin? And by whom? And how? Or was Mauer's "defection" a clever design to suggest just such unnerving questions? The purpose? To provoke America's embryonic intelligence service into jumping at its own shadow?

Cochrane turned on the car radio, trying to cleanse his mind of Otto Mauer, Germany, Siegfried, and how they linked together, if they did at all. He lowered the window to draw some fresh air into the car, and, as the radio warmed, first there was a rush of static and then a high pure swath of big band music from some ersatz ballroom in New York or Philadelphia.

Glenn Miller filled the car and Cochrane felt a momentary joy, almost a euphoria, disconnected from all the thoughts of this and previous days. It lasted for several minutes as, seemingly in a dark void, propelled by the evenness of the car's engine, and drawn forward apparently by the two yellow beams of light, he sailed smoothly through a universe separate from any other.

But then the purity of Glenn Miller's sound receded, just as Mauer's story had, and it was replaced by a screaming all-night preacher on KDKA in Pittsburgh who wanted to tell Bill Cochrane about salvation.

It occurred to Cochrane that he should be tired and he considered stopping. But then he realized that he wasn't tired at all, so instead of looking for lodgings, he drove like a banshee past the sleeping coal towns, figuring he could see the Washington Monument by dawn.

The static began to suffocate the preacher, too, and Cochrane took his eyes off the road long enough to look to the knob of the radio. And when he looked up again, like a mirage, there was a massive stag leaping into Cochrane's lane from the grassy divider in the highway's center.

He swerved wildly and his tires screeched. Somehow he missed the animal and then it was gone. Cochrane's heart was leaping like the stag, then—his heart still pounding—he wondered if he had been nodding off and it had all been a dream, sent from somewhere, to keep him awake.

He did not know. There were a lot of things, he reminded himself, that he did not know.

What was Siegfried's final, ultra-secret mission?

Why did Mauer insist that a Gestapo agent would not be working alone? Why, when Cochrane himself had seen the proof: the dead body of Ensign Pritchard?

What, in fact, did any of this have to do with Siegfried?

After weeks of investigation, Cochrane hadn't a clue.

He arrived in Washington just past dawn. He parked in front of his own house and, bordering on spiritual and physical collapse, climbed the stairs and slept.

Like Police Chief Zawadski in Ringtown, Cochrane parked in front of a hydrant. But unlike Chief Zawadski, Cochrane drew a summons when he slept past 8 A.M.

TWENTY-SIX

"You're a bachelor, Mr. Glover?" Mr. Fields, the rental agent, asked as they moved through the hallway.

"That's correct, sir," Siegfried answered. "Single." He managed a boyish smile. "Came close once or twice, but never married."

"Lucky you," said the rumpled little man in shirt sleeves and suspenders. "You've saved yourself one enormous pain in the ass, if you don't mind my saying."

Mr. Fields owned the apartment house in Alexandria, Virginia, and lived downstairs with his increasingly corpulent bride of thirty-eight years. Mr. Fields was tart-tongued, smelled of sweat, and had a small apartment for rent at forty dollars a month,

Fields turned the key in the door and flicked the light switch as they entered the apartment. Nothing lit.

"I'll get you a new bulb if you take the place," Fields said. "Look around. See what you think." He glanced at his watch. Fields had fringes of hair on the side of his skull, somewhat like a monk, and nibbled from a bag of salted peanuts.

The apartment was small and furnished, one long "L" with kitchen facilities and three windows. One of the windows overlooked the Potomac, four blocks away, if the tenant craned his neck.

"Like it?" Mr. Fields asked. "That's a new mattress over there, too." He motioned toward the bed.

Siegfried surprised Mr. Fields. "I'll take it," the spy said.

"You will?" Mr. Fields came to attention. Then from somewhere a smile danced across his lips for all of five seconds. "You will?"

"I travel a lot. I only have occasional business in Washington," Siegfried said. "I won't be here very often."

Siegfried took out his wallet and paid a month's security and two months in advance.

Mr. Fields felt rich.

"What sort of business are you in, Mr. Glover?" Fields asked as they walked down two flights to the main floor.

"Government. I'm a consultant."

"Oh. I see." Mr. Fields was impressed.

Using his forged driver's license, Siegfried applied for a passport via the Alexandria address. It would be delivered, the clerk told him, within a week. Later that same day, he visited the used-car lots along Rhode Island Avenue in the District of Columbia. He came away an hour later with a beige 1934 Ford with twenty-five thousand miles on the odometer.

He was two hundred dollars poorer.

Then he drove to Union Station and turned in a claim check for two suitcases he had placed in storage. These contained his diving gear and his explosives. The man who handed him the suitcase containing six sticks of dynamite was smoking. He returned to Alexandria and "moved into" his new, occasional quarters. He went to the window and craned his neck. Yes, he could see the river. And he could see the capital beyond. Then he looked at the sky and smiled. Everything was coming together. He would have a very light dinner, perhaps just a sandwich, he told himself, then come back and unpack his diving gear. It promised to be a fine night for a swim.

*

In actuality, it was a perfect night for a plunge. Siegfried prayed it would be as perfect the next time. President and Mrs. Roosevelt always began their Thanksgiving sojourn to Warm Springs by boat from Washington. This year, Siegfried had noted in the newspapers, the President's schedule would be the same. But Siegfried would be sending a special bouquet this coming November, one that would shake the world.

The moon was in the first quarter, just as the almanac said it would be. Siegfried walked from his car on the Arlington side of the Potomac. It was almost 11 P.M. He wore a tweed suit and carried a walking stick. He could see Washington clearly from the promenade across the Potomac.

Siegfried cut through a brambly area by the side of the road and the land led him to the shore of the river. There was not another human being anywhere in sight, which was the way he wanted it. Human beings only caused trouble. Like that woman. That Charlotte. Women had their purposes, Siegfried thought, but it was not to inhibit important work. Charlotte had gotten what she had deserved. Siegfried barely gave it a second thought. Yet it would trouble him until he got her into a permanent grave. Then the matter could rest.

By the water, he began to undress. He deftly pulled off his jacket, his shoes, and his pants. His shirt followed. He had a new Pirelli diving suit, developed for Italian frogmen, and pulled it on. He was ready for the river. He looked across and saw the object of his rehearsal:
The Sequoia
, moored at the basin just south of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. It was a twomile swim across the river and two miles back. Siegfried enjoyed exercise.

Charlotte. His mind kept coming back to her. Siegfried hated unfinished business, and now that's exactly what she was. Lying in a makeshift area in the woods like that. It was an invitation to disaster. He would have to return to Liberty Circle as soon as possible and deal with the situation.

Siegfried consoled himself with the fact that the sailor he had murdered in another set of woods had never been discovered. He would have heard of it if the corpse of that foolish Midwestern kid had surfaced. The news would have been all over, in fact. Nazis would have been blamed and there would have been a localized hysteria.

Americans! What fools!

Siegfried methodically rolled his clothing into the shape of a blanket. He tied them with string. Then he checked his equipment. A diver's knife was lashed to one leg. He fitted a loaded Luger, wrapped tightly in waterproofed canvas and sealed, into a specially designed rubber holster at his waist. Beneath his left arm was a small, tightly bound package containing a pair of red clay bricks.

The bricks exceeded the size and shape of the bomb that Siegfried would plant against the President's yacht. But this was the rehearsal. If it was feasible to cross the Potomac twice by moonlight, bring the bricks to rest against the slumbering ship and return, then Siegfried would have proven his method of murdering the socialist thirty-second President of the United States.

He checked his watch. It was 11:22. He entered the water.

The bricks were heavy, but Siegfried was a strong swimmer. He would take his time and conserve his energy. Speed was not an element. Not tonight, and not the next time when he would use a much shorter route. Accuracy and practicality were the elements Siegfried tested. He moved his arms in slow, patient overhand strokes. It was almost fun. Out for a midnight swim.

By his own estimate, he had done a half mile. Then a mile. He felt his muscles loosen and he found an even, steady pace. It was inordinately peaceful and quiet in the middle of the river. He could see very well. The moonlight was just enough to guide him along, but not enough to give him away.

He covered the first mile in twenty minutes. The second mile seemed a little quicker. His watch told him he was correct.
The Sequoia
, which had seemed like a toy on the horizon when he began, now was in front of him with the majesty of a small ocean liner. He was a hundred yards from it and could see through portholes and windows on the main deck. An occasional crew member wandered the main deck. Siegfried studied the port side of the ship, the side facing him, to check for any sailors who might be leaning against the railing. He saw none. He was fifty yards away.

Then he was within forty. And he could practically drift the rest of the way. He cut his strokes and paddled quietly to his left, moving into a giant shadow cast by the ship's hull against the lights from the shore. The stern of the ship was before him. The rudder and the screw were like appendages to a moderately sized building.

He looked up and saw nothing human. A few more strokes and he was within reach of the ship. Then he threw his hand forward and touched it.

A sense of victory coursed through him, a foreshadowing of the victory that would eventually be his. It was possible! He had reached the presidential yacht unobserved. He placed his hands against the cold steel of the Bath-built hull and exhilaration was upon him that was almost religious. He felt himself grin. He almost wanted to scream with joy.

He looked up. Again he was thrilled by the discovery. The area of the stern that housed the rudder and propeller was recessed from the main deck of the ship. This would be the ideal place to work, to bolt his bomb—the flowers—for the leftist President. In this space he could tread water unobserved from either ship or shore. Like the night, it was perfect. He examined the hull again and marked its seaworthiness and sturdiness. He made one mental note. The bomb would have to be even more powerful than he had previously estimated. He had to be sure it would blast through the steel. Siegfried would make certain that it would.

Carefully now, he rehearsed every move that he would make when he returned. He dived beneath the waterline and felt for a place where waterproof plastic cement could solidify the bomb in place in a matter of minutes. He also looked for, and found, areas of ironin the hull in case he opted for a magnetized attachment on his return. Then, using the package of bricks as his dummy, he rehearsed the placement of the bomb. Once satisfied, he pushed off from the ship and let the bricks sink into the Potomac. No use carrying the extra weight back to Virginia.

Siegfried took a final look and pushed off. The next time he saw the ship from such a distance he would be playing a game in dead earnest. The bomb would be live and triggered. It would be, in fact, ticking.

Someone would die. Probably many people. They would deserve it, he told himself, for being on board with Roosevelt. Imagine! An aristocrat leading America toward communism. Siegfried felt a wave of contempt overtake him. He spat at Roosevelt's boat. Then he saw sailors moving on the deck.

Very quietly, with hushed strokes, he turned in the water and pointed himself toward Virginia. He retraced his route, swimming easily with the current, and arrived on the opposite shore completely unobserved.

*

A chair scraped on the basement floor. The screech of wood upon the cement was momentarily the only sound in the room. Then there were the sounds of murmurs and heavy, panting breathing.

Hunsicker, his brow thick, puffed, and bruised, sat unrestrained in a wooden chair at the center. There was a single lamp at a small wooden desk. Behind the lamp sat Frank Lerrick, watching studiously as the light cast shadows like a Halloween mask across his moustache and cheeks. Bobby Charles Martin, who was an expert on things beyond basic map reading, sat to one side facing Hunsicker. He raised his eyebrows, puffed on a cigarette, and dropped it onto the floor. He extinguished it with the toe of one shoe.

He raised his gaze from Hunsicker to the two men who circled Hunsicker like hungry wolves, Allen Wilson and Jack Burns. Burns passed in front of Hunsicker and the German flinched. Then Wilson rushed to him from the side and delivered a heavy, punishing, open-handed half-punch half-slap to the side of the German's skull.

The German reeled and the chair tipped. Burns grabbed the silent German by the lapels, picked up his enormous body, and slammed it down again on the hard-backed chair. Then Burns took his own turn and delivered a similarly punishing blow from the other side. But this time his partner held the chair and the German did not fall.

Lerrick spoke almost from boredom. This had been going on for the better part of a day and a half. Hunsicker, with blood now trickling from the corner of an eye, looked at the man behind the desk with heavy, painful, dark tired eyes.

"Herr Hunsicker," Lerrick began with an air that suggested an impending end to the kindness and the patience. "You're a very noble man, Herr Hunsicker. You have held out for what you believe in. You have not told us anything for a very long time. Your own officers in the Gestapo would be proud of you. Truly proud. But how long can this continue? How long must it continue?"

Lerrick stared at the subject. Hunsicker's face was sweating profusely and his head sagged slightly to one side. The eyes, which had looked mean, now looked hollow and unfocused.

Burns rushed Hunsicker again, began to wind up with a tremendous punch, and Bobby Charles Martin raised a hand to halt him. The blow stopped in midair as the German flinched. "Not just yet, Jack," Martin said to his interrogator in kindly tones. "Mr. Hunsicker is conversing with Mr. Lerrick."

"Wilhelm," Lerrick said with sincerity, leaning forward, "I am being very candid with you. This will go on for weeks. We will not stop until you tell us what we wish to learn." A tangible pause and: "You have worked for the Gestapo yourself. You know that no man can hold out forever. You know that in the end the unfortunate man in your position always must talk. That is human nature." A lesser pause, and Lerrick concluded, "There are limits to pain, Wilhelm. There are things that you have heard about from your own people, but have barely dreamed about here. Injections. Electricity. Wires."

There was a response from Hunsicker's listless eyes.

"Yes, Wilhelm," Lerrick continued. "The worst is yet to come. And that will be followed by a long imprisonment. Unless you choose to speak."

The German's mouth moved and Lerrick smiled appreciatively.

"And after you speak with us, we will make you comfortable. We will let you sleep. A doctor will ease your physical pain. Would you like a woman, Wilhelm? We could even bring you a nice young fraulein who will take care of your other needs. Wouldn't that be much better than this, Wilhelm?"

Words formed on the German's lips. He mumbled. It was only an obscenity, but it was a start.

Then there was more silence. Lerrick glanced amiably to Burns and Allen.

"Hurt him," he said evenly.

As Burns steadied Hunsicker, Allen Wilson stepped behind him, brought the German's wrists together, and began to pull them sharply upward. It was too much even for Frank Lerrick.

Lerrick rose from his desk and went to the door. Bobby Charles Martin followed. The men went outside into a quiet, guarded corridor in a Washington basement.

Lerrick shook his head in disgust. "I, uh, can't stand this stuff." He glanced at his watch. It was three in the afternoon. He lit a cigarette.