Glenn Meade (60 page)

It was almost three in the morning
when Weaver finished talking. The hotel lobby was empty and the bar staff had
gone home. The khamsin had stopped blowing hours ago, a heavy mist had crept
in, covering the city in a ghostly veil, and somewhere out on the
Nile
a foghorn sounded. It faded, and he put down his
glass. 'Well, Carney, there you have your tale.'

I looked at him with amazement.
'It's almost unbelievable.'

'Almost, certainly, but it's the
God's honest truth of what happened. I take it you'll keep to your promise not
to publish anything until after I die? If you still want to write about it,
that is.'

'Of course, you have my word. It's
just that I wonder if anyone would believe such a story.' I hesitated. 'May I
ask you something?'

'Ask away.'

'How did you know about the body
at the morgue? And what made you suspect that Haider might still be alive after
all these years?'

'I have a lawyer friend in
Cairo
, an old man now,
someone whom I hired many years ago to try to help me find Jack. Like you, he
read the piece in the newspaper, and immediately contacted me. The name and the
age of the dead man, along with his German nationality, seemed too much of a
coincidence not to investigate. So I got on the first flight I could, arriving
yesterday afternoon. Damned lucky to make it, too. Those winds shut the airport
down less than ten minutes after we landed.'

'And you had no stronger evidence
than that?'

'Some, but it went back a long
time.'

'How long?'

'I discovered some years after the
war that the Haiders' family estate in
New York
had been sold through a Swiss bank attorney, in
Zurich
. Jack's parents were both dead so
naturally I wondered who had authorised the sale. I contacted the bank but they
refused to give me any information. You know the Swiss, they're absolutely
paranoid about secrecy and protecting their clients' interests, so my enquiries
led absolutely nowhere, despite help from old intelligence contacts. Then out
of the blue, some months later, I received a single postcard from
Casablanca
. It said simply,
"All is well, Jack".'

'So he did escape and survive.'

Weaver nodded. 'I tried to find
him over the years, but it proved impossible. Franz Haider had been a
much-liked and respected man, with lots of important contacts in the
Middle East
, people who would have been glad to help his
son. Jack could have moved anywhere in the region. Besides, his father had been
a wealthy man. I'm sure there was a little something salted away in a bank
account somewhere, and with the proceeds from the estate, it would have helped
him remain anonymous for the rest of his life.'

'Do you think Jack Haider learned
the truth of what happened to his own son?'

'I've no doubt he did. I visited
Pauli's grave in
Berlin
many years ago. The boy is buried with his mother.' Weaver paused.

'You know what was odd? There were
two fresh lilies on the gravestone, one for each of them. Apparently, the
flowers were delivered from a
Berlin
florist's once a month. White lilies, exactly the kind my father grew for
Haider's mother. I eventually discovered that the instructions came from the
same bank in
Zurich
,
which led me absolutely nowhere. The last time I visited the graves was five
years ago. The fresh flowers were there, as before. Another fact that made me
suspect that Jack might still be alive.'

I went to refill my glass; the
bottle in front of us was empty. I put it down again. 'And the others. What
happened to them?'

'Canaris I'm sure you know about.
Soon after Sphinx failed, the Abwehr was dissolved and its functions taken over
by the SD. He was arrested as part of the group that plotted against Hitler,
and later hanged. It eventually came out that he'd been supplying important
information to the Allies for years, through contacts in British Intelligence.
Schellenberg, true to form, carried on thinking up more insane plots. A week
after Sphinx, he tried much the same trick, in Teheran this time, where
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin were meeting. Again, he came close to
succeeding, but ultimately failed once more. He was captured by the Allies and
sentenced at
Nuremberg
in 1949. He escaped the gallows but was sent to prison as a war criminal, then
released two years later because of ill-health, and died shortly after from
lung cancer. Himmler was caught too, trying to escape disguised as a private,
but committed suicide before he could be brought to trial, by taking a vial of
cyanide concealed in his mouth. As for the rest of them, Reggie Salter survived
his wounds, believe it or not, but six months later he was found guilty of
desertion and murder by a military court, and executed by firing squad. Harvey
Deacon met the same fate, on charges of spying.'

'And what about Sanson, and Helen
Kane?'

'Sanson had been right all along,
of course. And I'd have to admit, a good soldier, despite our differences. The
kind of Englishman you'd want on your side in a difficult battle - driven,
relentless, determined not to give the enemy any quarter.

He served out the rest of the war
in
Cairo
, then returned to
Britain
. Surprisingly, he ran a
successful public relations business for many years, until he eventually
retired. He passed away ten years ago in
London
.'
Weaver hesitated, and his eyes misted. 'As for Helen Kane, she learned that her
boyfriend was a prisoner in a German camp in
Greece
. They were reunited after
Athens
was liberated, married, and eventually settled in
England
.
God knows if she's still alive. But I often think of her. She was a remarkable
woman.'

'You know what amazes me? How such
a story could have been kept hushed up for all this time. It seems incredible.'

'There's been a veiled hint or two
in certain history books over the years, but I agree nothing substantial has
ever come out, and certainly not the full truth. That it was kept secret shouldn't
really surprise you, not when you think about it. At such a critical stage in
the war, the American and British public would have been totally
demoralised
to learn that the Nazis had come dangerously
close to killing their leaders, not to mention the effect it would have had on
the troops.
Washington
and
London
put a security clamp on the whole
thing, as tight as anything I've ever seen.

'
Berlin
wasn't too keen to admit failure,
either. In late 1943, the Nazis were beginning to find their backs to the wall,
and needed victories, not defeats. The humiliation wouldn't exactly have been a
morale-booster for their armed forces, so Hitler gave instructions that all the
papers on Sphinx be destroyed, and any personnel who knew about it sworn to
secrecy. Besides, there were so many stories flying around in those days - some
true, others incredible. The Allies were planning to assassinate Hitler, or
kidnap Rommel, and Hitler was going to get Roosevelt and Churchill, or some top
Allied commander or other. It was hard to distinguish fact from fiction. After
the war ended, I guess Sphinx got lost among the bunch of them.'

'What happened to you?'

A tiny, wry smile played across
Weaver's lips. 'I was never court-
martialled
, if
that's what you'd like to know. And that was the odd thing. For some reason
best known to himself, Sanson never brought charges against me. The question of
Haider's disappearance came up, of course, but it wasn't pursued, or the matter
discussed further. Maybe behind it all, Sanson really knew what I was going
through - a conflict between duty and love and friendship. After that, I became
an unwitting expert in presidential security. What could I say? That
Roosevelt
's life had been saved in part by a German
agent, sent to help kill him, and I'd aided his escape? It would have caused
unwelcome questions about what had really happened to Jack. So I guess I let
sleeping dogs lie.'

'How did you learn all the facts
about Rachel Stern's true identity?'

'Some of the SD's personnel files
fell into Allied hands in '45.

Hers was among them, and I managed
to get a copy. I was also lucky enough to wangle an interview with Schellenberg
while he was in prison. It was he who filled me in on the rest of the story.'

I looked at Weaver's face. 'Do you
reckon she really loved both of you?'

I For a moment he said nothing, a
wistful look in his eyes, a hint of infinite sadness. 'You know, I guess I'll
never truly know the answer to that question. I'll take it with me to my grave.
And perhaps that's the way it should be. Some questions are best left
unanswered. But if you want the honest truth, I always liked to think she
really did.'

'What happened to her body?'

'She was buried in an unmarked
grave, in the desert near
Sakkara
. No proper
religious ceremony, just a military burial detail, and a sergeant read a brief
passage from Revelations, I which seemed oddly appropriate under the
circumstances.'

Weaver shook his head. 'I didn't
attend, I'm afraid. I guess I really didn't feel up to it. But afterwards I
drove out to the spot and said a prayer, for whatever good it did.'

'And her family?'

'Himmler, of course, was never one
to keep his promises.

Despite Schellenberg's pleas for
clemency, her father was executed with the other conspirators against Hitler,
along with her two beloved younger brothers, innocents who had absolutely
nothing to do with the plot. Only her mother was spared, but she passed away
soon after, poor woman.'

I looked at Weaver steadily. 'Why
do you think Haider never tried to see you again? And why would he stay in
hiding all these years? You said the
United States
could have hanged him
as a traitor. But that was an outside chance, surely? He was a soldier, not a
war criminal. And why the secrecy?'

He took a deep breath, sighed.
'You're probably right. God knows I've thought about it often enough, but there
are only a couple of reasons I can think of as to why he hid himself away and
never got in touch with me again, both of them connected.

One, he was quite a proud man. I
think in some way he felt he had let his mother's country down by going along
with the Nazis in the first place. But he had no choice, really. Like so many
good Germans, he'd been swept along by the current.

And he only agreed to play his
part in Schellenberg's plan because of his son. But you also have to remember
he came from a strong Prussian background. Honor matters. The German word -
pflicht
- that Jack was driven by. It translates as
"duty", but I've learned it means much, much more than that. It means
you don't
dishonour
those closest to you. I think he
felt he had somehow
dishonoured
our friendship, and
believed he could never face me again. But who knows? 'As for the second
reason, it seems the most plausible. After all the pain Jack had been through -
the loss of his wife and child, and his father's death, not to mention what
happened in Egypt on the mission - perhaps he simply wanted to put everything
behind him, to start a new life and try to erase the torment of the past. I
believe it happens, you know. It's not been unknown for people who have been
through unbearable trauma to cut themselves off totally from their old lives
and try to start afresh.

Give themselves a clean break -
new identities, new families, new careers - and obliterate anything associated
with their past.

A kind of cleansing of the soul, I
suppose. I'm sure the psychologists could explain it in better detail, but it
seems to me to make some kind of sense. And I have a feeling it might be what
Jack tried to do. You might say he never forgot his wife and son, and didn't
cut himself off completely by having flowers regularly delivered to their
graves, but then I guess if you'd lost a family you'd dearly loved, you
wouldn't forget their memory entirely.'

There was a sound behind us. A
couple of hotel cleaning staff on the night shift came in. They looked
surprised to see anyone still in the bar, but they promptly ignored us and got
down to work, clearing away tables and chairs. Weaver glanced at his watch.

'It looks like we're overstaying
our welcome. Well, I must get some sleep, Carney.' He stood. 'I've got a flight
to arrange tomorrow, back to the States.'

He offered a firm handshake and I
walked with him to the elevator. 'I've one more question.'

'Oh? And what's that?'

'You're certain the body in the
morgue wasn't Haider's?'

'Jack had a noticeable scar on his
left leg, an old injury from childhood when we used to play together in the
grounds of his mother's estate. The poor soul in the morgue had none. As to who
he really was, we'll probably never know.'