The Eldorado Network (26 page)

'If that's your attitude, my good fellow,' Freddy said quietly, 'I don't care to have any.- Take it away, it's interfering with our work. And I warn you: if you ever ask me for money. I shall report you to Colonel Christian.'

'I have never asked for money!'

'I should think not. You don't get people in British intelligence,' Freddy told Luis, 'borrowing money from the agents. They wouldn't dream of it.'

Franz Werth was relatively easy meat: he was just a signals technician, blinkered by his work, nervous of straying outside it. But Freddy manipulated all their tutors, varying his approach according to each man's character and interests. Otto's weakness, Luis discovered, was humour. He could not resist jokes. Freddy knew dozens. In the middle of a lecture on the Abwehr's safe-house system in southern England, Otto mentioned a building called 'Abbey Gates' near Swindon. Freddy raised a finger. 'Extraordinary coincidence. Last time I was in Swindon-- which, incidentally, is often described as the arsehole of England, and frankly, having visited Swindon several times, I think that remark is an insult to the British rectum--  anyway . . . What was I saying?'

'Extraordinary coincidence,' Otto said, already hooked.

'Yes, This man Delahaye, Major Delahaye, they say he introduced the head-on attack when he was in the Royal Flying Corps. He flew head-on at the stinking enemy --  that was your chaps, Otto-- and the first man to give way presented an easy target.'

'Evidently Delahaye never gave way,' Luis said. He swung his feet onto Otto's desk.

'Never, "De-constipate or bust", that was Delahaye's motto. According to his adjutant Delahaye never knew the meaning of fear. I doubt if he knew the meaning of many other words, either, but that's not the point.'

'This has something to do with Swindon?' Otto inquired, as a gesture to responsibility.

'Patience, Otto, patience. The trouble with these Prussians,' Freddy said to Luis, 'no self-control. Headstrong, impetuous fellows. Awfully good at hacking each other about the face with sabres, but I sometimes ask myself: is that the way to get on in the world? Is it, Luis?'

'It's a beginning, I suppose,' Luis said. 'Unless one of them hacks too hard, in which case it could be an end.'

'Could indeed. That sort of thing wouldn't have appealed to Delahaye, especially when they put him in charge of security at the Spitfire factory . . . Otto, you're looking rather pale. Isn't he looking rather pale, Luis?'

'I think it's all this unarmed-comb at training.' Luis was rapidly learning how to pick up Freddy's clues. 'You've been overdoing it, Otto.'

'Why don't you send for some nice cold beer?' Freddy suggested. 'My God, you've certainly earned it.'

Together they stared with concern at Otto's paleness.

'You stay there, old chap,' Freddy said, half-rising, 'I'll get them to--'

'Please!' Reluctantly Otto picked up the telephone and ordered three cold beers.

'I don't think he's been getting enough sleep,' Luis said to Freddy.

'I'm sure he hasn't. How much sleep have you been getting, Otto?'

'Please. I feel fine. You were talking about the Spitfire factory in Swindon.'

'The beer will do him good,' Freddy murmured. 'Anyway,' he went on, 'Stubby Delahaye-- he was only five-foot-four, you know -- Stubby bought me a drink one day and told me a remarkable story about the wife of his managing director. While the chap was at work building lots of lovely Spitfires to play havoc with the poor bloody Luftwaffe--  that's your crowd, Otto -- she was being unfaithful. Committing rather a lot of adultery, which is the sort of thing you get stoned to death for in Arabia, but not in Swindon. The soil's all wrong, very little stone, lots of rather sticky clay which clings to the fingers, you can't chuck it more than about seven feet and even then it has very little impact.' Freddy made feeble throwing gestures.

'Extraordinary the way geography shapes people's manners,' Luis remarked.

'She was unfaithful, you say,' Otto prompted.

'With any man who would lie still for five minutes. The lady was rabid, absolutely rabid with lust. It's not an uncommon thing in certain sectors of the British middle class, Luis. Chaps like us have to be damned careful. You get invited round for sherry and the next thing you know the bank manager's wife whips your bags off and seizes you warmly by the origin of species. Terrifying.'

'Good God . . .' Luis whistled. 'Still, I expect they do things differently in Prussia, don't they, Otto? More formality?'

Otto said: 'We seem to be losing the point.'

'Exactly what the bank manager's wife told me on more than one occasion.' Freddy said. 'An extremely impatient lady.'

'You know, for the risks we run,' Luis remarked. 'I really think the Abwehr ought to pay us more, don't you, Freddy? I mean, dash it all . . .'

'Swindon,' Otto insisted. 'Spitfires, adultery.'

'Oh yes.' Freddy shook his head sadly. 'Tragedy, really. Shows just how corrupt and degenerate the British have become. Even the Catholics, and this was a Catholic family. What happened was their little boy, a precocious brat, noticed what was going on, and after each infidelity he pedalled off on his tricycle to pay a call on the lucky man, looked him straight in the eye, and offered to sell him his teddy-bear for five pounds.'

'A lot of money,' Luis said. 'That's a week's pay.'

'It's incredible,' Otto said.

'Government statistics,' Luis protested.

'Five pounds,' Freddy repeated firmly. 'Every time his mum wandered off the straight and narrow path, sonny followed through and sold the man his teddy-bear for a fiver. Well, dad was fully occupied at the Spitfire factory, mum was keeping herself amused, and sonny was getting rich quick selling teddy-bears -- so much so that his mother began to suspect. She noticed all the banknotes stuffed inside his rompers.' Freddy stopped and looked away.

'Well, go on,' Otto demanded. 'What happened?'

Freddy sighed. 'I had a very unhappy childhood, you know,' he said. 'People were rotten to me. I'd rather not be reminded of it, if you don't mind.'

'But I do mind. I want to know what happened.' Otto was half-pleading, half-threatening.

'All right. All right, if you insist. It's very tragic, it really is. The kid wouldn't tell his mother how he got the money so she packed him off to confession. The priest said "What d'you want?" And the kid said, "I've come to confess." "Thank God for that," the priest said, "I thought you were going to sell me another bloody teddy-bear." '

Otto stared for a moment, and then burst out laughing. 'Very good!' he cried. 'Excellent! I must remember ...'

'And today,' Freddy added firmly, tapping his forefinger on the desk, 'that boy is Governor of the Bank of England and plays inside-right for Tottenham Hotspur.'

Otto, by now well alight, went off into further fits of laughter. 'He hasn't the vaguest idea what Tottenham Hotspur is,' Freddy said. "Tottenham Hotspur is in fact a first-class football team.'

'Well, that's never been completely proved,' Luis said.

Otto got his lungs under control. 'And now, to get back to the Abwehr's safe-house system,' he began.

'I haven't finished yet,' Freddy said. The beer came, the picaresque adventures of the Swindon Spitfire factory's managing director's wife continued to grip Otto; and Luis marvelled at Freddy's fluent, effortless dominance.

He seemed to know something about everything. He could talk about aircraft with Wolfgang/Pongo (who, Luis discovered, was an ex-pilot), about journalism with Richard Fischer, about short-wave radio with Dr Hartmann. Luis was fairly sure that Freddy made up half of everything he told them, but he was never sure which half it was. 'Funny thing,' Freddy told Wolfgang, 'seven out of nine murderers in the state of Michigan have brown eyes. And sixty per cent of them are lefthanded. And threequarters are unemployed.'

'That is quite remarkable,' Wolfgang agreed.

'When I was over there, the Michigan police did an experiment. They rounded up all the lefthanded brown-eyed unemployed they could lay their hands on. The murder rate fell almost to zero.'

'What happened when they set them free?'.Luis asked.

'Total carnage,' Freddy said. 'Look here, Wolfgang: can't you get hold of some better detonators than this? The Mexican guerillas stopped using this rubbish twenty years ago.'

Wolfgang, who was supposed to be coaching them in sabotage techniques, began defending the quality of his detonators.

'They're junk,' Freddy scoffed cheerfully. 'I remember we used to use them as firelighters in Manchuria in '34. They're not bad firelighters provided you soak them in paraffin overnight . . . Still, if this is the best the Third Reich can do, I suppose ...'

'Give me a chance, Freddy, for heaven's sake,' Wolfgang said. 'I'll try to get something better. What were you doing in Manchuria in '34?'

Freddy was equally brisk with Fischer's secret inks and Dr Hartmann's radios. 'It's gnat's-piss, old boy,' he said to Fischer. 'And what's more I'm pretty sure the gnat was glad to be rid of it.' Dr Hartmann was halfway through his talk on the repair and maintenance of Abwehr transmitters when Freddy exclaimed: 'Dundonald!' and slapped his thigh. Hartmann and Luis stared, 'jock Dundonald at Cambridge!' Freddy explained eagerly. 'I've been trying to remember his name all day. Now he could get one for me.'

'One what?' Hartmann asked.

'A Shoebox. The American miniature version of the Russian's Obolensky ultra-long-range transmitter. Jock works for GPO research, they're bound to have a few going spare, and Jock owes me a favour or two . . . Yes, of course. The very man.'

'I am not familiar with anything by anyone called Obolensky,' Hartmann said warily.

'Oh, old Obo's dead,' Freddy said. 'In any case he pinched the idea from Beiderbecke.'

'Ah.' Hartmann polished his glasses. 'Beiderbecke. Now his name is familiar to me, but I cannot quite place his work.'

'Not surprising. Bix Beiderbecke, bit of a recluse, not the sort of chap to blow his own trumpet.'

Luis's brow cleared. 'Of course!' he said.

Freddy hurried on. 'They call it the Shoebox because that's about the size of it. Nice and compact.'

Hartmann replaced his glasses, 'Ultra-long-range, you said?'

'Fairly ultra. They used to experience slight distortion above ten thousand miles, but Jock Dundonald was working on that, he's probably got the answer by now . . . Sorry, doctor. Didn't mean to interrupt your lesson.'

'It's not possible, a shoebox.' Hartmann looked unhappily at the standard Abwehr equipment. It filled a large suitcase. 'How can it be possible?'

'Jock explained it to me once, but I'm afraid I wasn't paying much attention.' Hartmann threw up his hands in shocked dismay. 'The crucial thing, I seem to remember,' Freddy went on, 'is the way the Shoebox sort of kidnaps the local electricity network and converts it into an enormous free antenna for transmitting signals and things.'

'I say, that's clever!' Luis said, not understanding a word of it. Hartmann's head swung and stared at him, heavy with anxiety.

'It cannot be done,' he said, in the voice of a non-swimmer trapped on a raft. 'It is a scientific impossibility.'

'Well, all I know is I saw Jock unplug his Hoover, plug in his Shoebox, and start talking to some bloke in British Columbia,' Freddy said.

'I must inform Berlin of this.'

'Not that they had much to say to each other,' Freddy added.   'What's-the-weather-like-with-you,  that   sort  of thing.'

'Yes, Berlin must know at once.' Hartmann reached his decision and stood. 'I must report everything.'

'He said it was raining over there at the time, if that's any help,' Freddy called as he bustled out.

They sat and listened to his eager heels attacking the tiled corridor with diminishing zeal.

'Bix Beiderbecke,' Luis said. 'You know, they'll catch you out one of these days.'

Ryan stretched easily and looked at the tiny, shivering dapples of sunlight reflected onto the ceiling from the highly polished floor. 'Why can't the weather be like this in England?' he asked. 'It'll soon be coming up to Wimbledon fortnight, which is usually hot, but of course there won't be any Wimbledon this year so I expect it'll pee down.'

'I don't see why you take such risks,' Luis said.

'It's safer than not taking any risks at all.' Ryan slowly closed his eyes. 'You've got to give them what they want, old chap. They expect agents to be colourful characters, a touch of the rogue-and-vagabond, a bit of a buccaneer, adventurer, gentleman-crook. Damn it all, Luis, anybody who was completely straight wouldn't do the job. Would he?'

'No,' Luis said, grudgingly. Admit it, you're not completely straight, he told himself, you tell lies, you pinch bank money, you used to twist news-stories right left and centre . . . 'Still,' he said, 'I don't see why you tell them such enormous lies. They're bound to find out, eventually.'

'And by that time we shall be in England. Meanwhile they want mystery, glamour, intrigue . . . Not too much, but enough to flatter them that their boring, dusty little lives are worthwhile.'

'I thought Germans were more efficient than that. More . . . cold-blooded.'

'They try to be. Deep down they're all sentimental romantics, great soft sentimental romantics.' Ryan yawned. 'D'you really think they want us just to sit quietly, pay attention, work hard, get good marks? Pishtosh. We're spies, Luis, a special breed of men, full of guile and flair and swagger and a fantastic eel-like ability to wriggle in and out of dangers that would leave the bravest soldier pissing down his left leg.'

'Guile and flair,' Luis said. 'I don't think I've got a lot of guile and flair.'

'Well then, pretend. Put on an act. That's what I do, and that's what they pay me for.' Ryan opened his eyes and let his head turn towards Luis. 'More than they pay you, I shouldn't be surprised. I get a thousand pesetas a day.'

Envy stuck its bony fingers into Luis's bowels. 'I get less,' he mumbled.

Ryan climbed onto his chair and took a pencil and wrote on the ceiling in huge letters THIS WAY UP. He climbed down. 'Come on, you poor undervalued Spanish eavesdropper,' he said, 'I'll buy you lunch.'