Flowers From Berlin (27 page)

"A few more hours," said Martin. "He's ready to break." He glanced at his own watch. "He'll be talking by midnight."

"And what if he doesn't?"

"He will," Martin said, taking out his own pack of cigarettes. "What are you feeling so bad about? They do worse to their own people, you know."

"Of course, but . . ." Lerrick's words were punctuated by a loud piercing scream from the room behind him. He grimaced and shook his head. "I, uh, understand national interest and all, but we never did anything like that back in Illinois."

"Really?" answered Martin, genuinely surprised, his furry eyebrows shooting toward the ceiling. "Back in Ohio we do it all the time."

TWENTY-SEVEN

Questions. Answers.

Siegfried had more of the former than the latter. So did Laura. So did everyone. Exactly which type of explosive would be best? Siegfried wondered as he drove his car northward. And how much of it? Should the
Sequoia
blow up at night when the President was sleeping? If so, the explosive could be placed just above the rudder and screw of the yacht, enough to blow the whole ship apart. But attaching that much explosive to the
Sequoia
could be cumbersome. And if the President boarded the ship in the morning, the charge would have to sit in place for a full twenty-four hours before detonation.

Or, Siegfried wondered, would a smaller charge be a better idea? A small charge fixed to a point below the President and Mrs. Roosevelt's chamber. Siegfried had studied the layout. Surely a 2 A.M. detonation below the waterline—about ten yards beneath the sleeping First Couple—would annihilate them. A relatively simple timing device could be used.

Much easier, Siegfried realized, than the elaborate work that sank the
Wolfe
.

What about boarding the ship? he wondered. Not necessary, he quickly concluded.The point was to kill one man in particular. Siegfried grinned. The President's yacht would no doubt have a naval escort. And right in their midst . . . a few hours after departure . . .

The spy laughed. How Goering and Hitler would welcome him to the Reich! What a hero he would be!

*

Questions. Answers.

Laura wondered about her husband. He was being so wonderful to her. Since her return, the marriage had been spectacular. It was like the old days in New Haven. He came to her every night minutes after the lights went out. He would reach to her—a strong, lustful primitive—and pull her to his side of the bed. Then their love games would start. Maybe the banter was silly. Maybe it was childish. She blushed to think of it. But it thrilled her.

"You are my prisoner now, little girl," he would say. "You must do as I say."

"And what do you say?" she would ask.

He would answer with his hands. He would take her nightclothes from her with just the right amount of roughness. She would be naked. His hands, his lips, and his tongue would be all over her until she would ache with her own desires and pray that he would hurry and satisfy her.

Then she would realize that he, too, was completely naked. She would reach to his legs and feel the strong hard muscles. She would guide her hand in the proper direction. Then he would be upon her, strong and rigid and powerful, kissing her passionately as he pressed himself far inside her.

Bed was delicious again. It was like having a new lover. The honeymoon all over again.

What was Peter Whiteside ever talking about? Laura wondered. There wasn't a Soviet spy anywhere within miles. Laura would be happy to help England, but being a wife came first. After a few days back with her husband, England and the rest of Europe seemed very distant again, very small and very marginal to one's daily existence. Laura began to understand the Americans. From their point of view, why should they get involved?

Of course, Stephen Fowler disagreed. Moral obligation, and all. Thy brother's keeper. She stayed out of political discussions with him, left him to his sermons, his writings, his occasional guest sermon at another parish, and his frequent visits to Protestant convocations in the surrounding cities.

Peter Whiteside, Laura had finally convinced herself, did not know what he was talking about. "A typically stuffy English windbag," as an American might say.

Laura smiled. It was a beautiful clear late autumn afternoon. Her husband was away that day but it was much too nice to be indoors. So she would go for a walk. That would be perfect. Through the woods, back behind the churchyard.

She felt a certain elation. Her life had come together at last. And this time, she felt, no one could take it away from her.

*

Hunsicker had not been listening to Bobby Charles Martin's predictions. Burns and Allen worked him relentlessly. By dawn the confession started trickling out.

To those who listened, the words of the German contained little of substance and much of times and places that no longer mattered. It was an hour before Siegfried's name passed Hunsicker's lips. By that time the German's jaw was about touching his belt.

Roddy Schwarzkopf, who was on duty, was called down to the basement. Schwarzkopf was stunned to find a bleeding, battered prisoner sitting in the center of the room. Four members of his own Bureau stood in soaked shirts with rolled-up sleeves. There wasn't an eye in the room that did not have a pupil like a pinpoint.

"Don't ask what we've been doing, Roddy," Lerrick snapped. "We're going to feed you some questions. You will pose them in German. That will be easier for the King of Prussia here."

Bobby Charles Martin operated the wire recorder and kept the microphone close. As if by osmosis, Schwarzkopf broke out in a sweat also.

"National interest, Roddy," Lerrick purred. "Now, uh, please . . . if you will . . ."

Hunsicker poured out as much as he knew. His drop point for contact with Fritz Duquaine --- "Probably no good anymore," Lerrick said --- and the address of the apartment in Yorkville --- "Long since empty, I'm sure," Lerrick added. Then there were other names, key pieces of several networks, and then they were back to Siegfried.

"What does the man look like'? Tell us what he looks like, Wilhelm."

Schwarzkopf translated and Hunsicker rambled. As Schwarzkopf translated back toEnglish, a portrait emerged that matched the one Cochrane had evolved from the Pritchard case in New Jersey.

"So we are talking about the same man," Lerrick breathed. "Keep sweating him, Roddy."

There were the meetings with Duquaine, Hunsicker babbled, and the saboteur known as Siegfried had been at several of them. Dapper. Guarded. Tall. Strong. Speaking aristocratic

German to Hunsicker's working- class ears.

"A gentleman," Hunsicker stressed with fading strength. "A true gentleman."

"Where does he come from?" the interrogators pressed. Hunsicker did not know.

"Where does he go to?" they asked. Hunsicker did not know that, either.

"Slap him around a little more," Bobby Charles Martin instructed. "If he still doesn't tell us, it means he doesn't know. Careful not to kill him, by the way."

The German still did not know. And before he lost consciousness the rest was a garble. He recalled his most recent conversation with Duquaine: how the spy master had arrogantly instructed him on American politics and how they would not be seeing Siegfried again.

Ein letzter . . . Angnffszeil . .
One final target.

Then the German had collapsed. Stiff and weary, the interrogation team rose from their own seats and stretched. Horrified, Roddy Schwarzkopf was the only one in the room to check if Hunsicker was still breathing.

He was.

Hunsicker's confession was transcribed onto paper by three different typists that same morning. There was a copy sitting on Wheeler's lap when Cochrane, punchy from only five hours' sleep, entered his own office at eleven and found Wheeler sitting there reading.

"Our German friend has been mildly helpful," Wheeler concluded as a cloud of pipe smoke rolled from his direction. "He's confirmed some of what we already knew. But he's added little. It's rambling. Curse Lerrick and his filthy methods." He tossed the report onto Cochrane's desk.

Cochrane picked it up. "So this is what they beat out of him, huh?"

"If you want to call it that," Wheeler said.

"What would you call it?"

"Doing what had to be done."

Cochrane glanced down to the transcript but did not read it. Not yet. Wheeler wouldn't let the subject drop.

"Sounds like you don't approve," Wheeler suggested.

"Whether or not I approve doesn't matter, does it?"

"No. Why would it?”

"So why ask me?" Cochrane countered. Wheeler was testing his patience these days, same as he had tested it in Kansas City and Chicago. But Dick Wheeler was always like that. Testing, testing, testing, then drawing the best performance from the men in his command.

"Does Hoover know?" Cochrane asked. "About Bobby Martin's interrogation techniques?"

Wheeler's pipe was in his mouth and he puffed out a prodigious cloud. "Bill, how long have you been with this Bureau? Since 1934, right? The Chief doesn't want to know about techniques. Results count, not methods. If you can't appreciate that, you're dreadfully naïve for a man your age."

There was a pause, then Wheeler continued. "You know what, Bill?" Wheeler asked, his mood shifting tangibly as he cupped the bowl of his pipe in his right palm. "I don't like crap like that, either. Frank Lerrick authorized it and I know for a fact that it turns his stomach, too. But what do you do? Give the other side a chance to kill us first? You can be bloody well sure that the other side doesn't behave any better."

"So what separates them from us?"

"We're
right
," Wheeler answered quickly. He motioned to the transcript again. "Well, enough philosophy. Maybe you'll see something that I didn't in those papers. What are you doing for lunch?"

Cochrane wasn't doing anything, including eating. He had the transcript for lunch. He read it once, twice, three times, closed into his office before the skein of it began to make sense. He tried to purge the delirium from the German's voice. He picked up his pencil and wrote isolated sentences on a yellow pad. He felt himself go very cold, though the room was warm.

Hunsicker's final meeting with Duquaine. That was the key. Cochrane isolated the sentences because the account of the meeting was scattered across thirty- eight pages.

Siegfried. . . All alone. . . Approved by Berlin , . . Special mission . . . to change American politics . . . One final target . . . Keep America out of the war . ..One final target. .
.

Then Cochrane was on his feet and hurrying down the hall, bumping into buxom Dora McNeil and continuing around the corner to Wheeler's office, where he entered without knocking.

Wheeler's head shot upward, then relaxed when he recognized Cochrane. "Decipher it, did you?" Wheeler asked. Then he read Cochrane's expression and turned very serious. "Well, Mercy Almighty," he grumbled, removing the pipe and setting it aside. "Don't be shy about it. What have you got?"

"We've got this invisible German floating around the country. No one sees him, no one recognizes him. We only know where he's been, never where he is." Cochrane looked down to what he had written on a yellow legal pad as if to check that it was still there. Then he handed it to Wheeler. "And this is what he's up to. The final mission."

Wheeler read Cochrane's sprawling but semi-inspired handwriting.

"Now," said Cochrane. "You tell me. What does this mean to you? There's only one target that changes American politics. Am I right or am I crazy? And note carefully the wording. 'Approved by Berlin.' Normally the fifth column works out of Hamburg. But this went up and down the chain of command, into and out of Hitler's own office on the Prinz Albrechtstrasse, if my guess is anywhere accurate."

Wheeler scanned and Cochrane saw his superior's face go white.

Roosevelt. Of course, Roosevelt. What else could it possibly be?

"Holy Mother of Christ," Wheeler breathed. He tossed the pad back onto his desk. He reached to his telephone and dialed Hoover.

"Who the hell is this Siegfried?" Wheeler ranted as he listened to an unanswered ringing on Hoover's end. "Who is he? Where is he? And why can't we catch him?"

"He can't stay out there forever," Cochrane said stubbornly to the skeptical gaze of Wheeler. "He has to show himself somewhere."

Then Hoover came on the line, and Wheeler, with unusual deference, began to speak.

*

Siegfried was in Liberty Circle.

He stepped out of his car and gazed at the clean white spire of St. Paul's Lutheran Church. It was a crisp day, the kind Siegfried liked, and he felt invigorated. He looked to the tower of the church where his radio room was concealed within the walls.

He began to think. And absently, he reached to the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pack of Pall Malls.

He drew one with his lips, lit it, and began to smoke. He lowered his eyes away from the spire and his radio room. No use calling extra attention. There were people on the sidewalk. People who did not even know there was a Siegfried.

He puffed on the cigarette. Then he heard a woman's voice, which jarred him.

"Why, Reverend Fowler!" the woman said, glaring at the spy. "Smoking! You smoke! I never knew!"

It was Mrs. Dobson, a plain little woman whose husband owned the hardware store, and her friend Mrs. Jarvis, who worked for Bell Telephone of New Jersey.

"I'm surprised at you, Reverend!" Mrs. Jarvis chimed in. "I didn't know you had any vices. Such an otherwise decent young man! But, smoking!"

The two ladies, both parishioners, laughed good-naturedly.

Reverend Fowler extinguished the cigarette against the side of the car.

"I apologize, ladies," he said, grinning and shaking his head. "I quite forgot myself! See you both on Sunday, now, hear?" He laughed, too, making light of his small sin.

Then they were gone and Siegfried shuddered. The cigarettes. He had neglected to throw them away. They were part of Siegfried, not part of Reverend Fowler. A little mistake like that again could cost him everything!

He shivered. Charlotte. The swim across the Potomac to the presidential yacht. The necessity of now assembling the biggest, most lethal bomb he had ever made. The pressure was mounting on him. Why else would he have forgotten a detail like the cigarettes?

He calmed himself. Perhaps it was a good thing. He would be more careful now. More careful than ever. Nothing short of perfection would do, not until Roosevelt was dead and he was safely in Germany, an American-born hero of the Third Reich.

Cigarettes! A man like Siegfried did not need them anyway. Siegfried was an Aryan! Made of steel! Better than the rabble that surrounded him!