Jack 1939 (20 page)

Somebody slid onto the neighboring bar stool and propped a handbag on the counter.

“He’s in Poland,” Diana said crisply. “Danzig, to be exact. Probably plotting how best to steal it. Buy me a cognac? We ought to toast something.”

He ordered the drink, grasped her gently by the arm, and led her to a cocktail table. She shrugged her furs off her shoulders and pecked him on the cheek. “You look tired.”

“It’s been a tough day.” He kept his voice deliberately low, as though he were talking smut. Diana smelled divinely of cold air and lilies of the valley. “How did you find out?”

“I rang up his wife.” She held her drink aloft and said, “The Thousand Year Reich.”

“
Heydrich’s
wife?”

“Of course. She’s a sad sort of cow, pathetically eager for chat—he married her years ago to advance his career, and barely spares her a thought. Keeps a string of mistresses without the courtesy of
hiding
it. You know the sort.”

He did. He thought of Gloria Swanson and Clare Booth Luce and pushed his father out of his mind.

“Anyway, she invited me to tea while you were storming Albrechtstrasse.”

“Speak softer,” Jack murmured in her ear. “People listen. Especially to English.”

“Sorry. It’s been rather a . . .
trying
 . . . afternoon.” She downed the cognac neat. “Unity Mitford was there. Know her?”

“I like her sister Debo better.”

“Unity came over for the Führer’s birthday last week. She gave him a
present.
From her smug expression, I assume it was her virginity.” She motioned to the waiter. “Another cognac, please. Then I promise I’ll
stop
.”

The man smiled at Diana. Her color was high.

“Heydrich’s been gone for weeks,” she murmured into her glass. “Prague, of course, and Warsaw, and some filthy little town on the Czech-Polish border I couldn’t possibly pronounce. Planning something. War with us, probably.”

“Thank you, Diana,” Jack whispered.

“We should leave for Danzig tonight. Whatever you’re looking for, it won’t be here. He’ll carry it with him. He trusts nothing and nobody.”

Jack lifted her chin and stared into her black eyes. “I’m hunting for Daisy’s account book.”

“You said the Spider took it. When he killed her.”

“My father’s name is in it.”

“The charity wasn’t a charity,” she said slowly.

“It’s a Nazi front,” Jack agreed. “Hitler’s trying to buy the next American election. Roosevelt’s running for a third term, and Hitler wants him to lose. He wants an isolationist in the White House, so that the United States will turn its back on Britain and everybody else in Europe whenever he decides to attack. He wants the vast firepower of America neutralized, Diana—and he found a willing bunch of isolationists and appeasers, in my country and yours, to fund his operation.”

“I bloody well did
my
bit,” she whispered. “I collected for Daisy. Begged alms from the Mitfords. And Lady Astor. The whole Cliveden House set— Good God . . .” Something in her expression sharpened. “Did Daisy . . . ?”

“—Know? I think so.”

“But your father . . . he was just giving alms . . . I mean, he
is
Catholic—”

“He’s ambitious.” Jack looked down at his hands. They were clasped in his lap and his leg was throbbing. “He wants the White House, too. Even if it takes Nazi money to get it.”

“He
admitted
to . . . to . . .”

“Treason? I haven’t confronted him yet.”

“Then you can’t be sure. You can’t be
sure
, Jack.”

“That’s a luxury I can’t wait for. Wohlthat expects Heydrich to blackmail him—and my father as well. That’s why the Spider killed Daisy for the account book, and risked everything to get it to Berlin—that’s why it’s so precious. Consider the possibilities, Diana, in all those names! Heydrich will threaten each of them, one by one, with public exposure, unless they do what he asks. Linchpins of the American and British establishment, terrified of the charge of treason. They’ll fall over themselves to do his bidding—little things, nothing important at all, really, that determine the fate of England. The alternative being unthinkable to each and every one of them.”

“Is it so unthinkable to your father, Jack?—Accepting responsibility, I mean? Taking whatever comes with
admitting
to what he’s done?”

“That’d be what you people call
cricket
.” He glanced away from the intensity of her face. “God forgive me, I wish I could believe old J.P. capable of that kind of courage—but he’s never been a courageous man, Diana. He’ll tell himself he can’t ruin his kids’ lives. My future and my brother Joe’s. He’ll say he’s doing it for my mother.
Christ
, that’s rich! And if he caves to Heydrich . . .
when
he caves . . .
The U.S. ambassador to England
will be under the Gestapo’s thumb. My father has been Roosevelt’s principal liaison with Neville Chamberlain, Diana. Chamberlain trusts my dad. That could give Heydrich enormous influence over England’s future . . .”

“So you’re off to save your father from himself,” she said acidly, “or die trying.”

“You don’t have to come.”

“Jack.”

He looked at her. She was more than annoyed, now. She was blazingly furious.

“Get me another drink. If I order it, the waiter will call me
ein Lügner
.”

“I don’t speak German, Diana.”

“A liar,” she said.

THIRTY-FIVE.
BACK CHANNELS

. . . AN IMPROVED MODEL
of the coding machine is presently being constructed at several factories on the Czech-Polish border, and is confirmed to be Heydrich’s pet project.

“How convenient for the sake of Herr Heydrich’s pet project,” Roosevelt sighed as he studied the document in his hands, “that the Nazis now control the entire Czech border. I wonder if Mr. Chamberlain knew how useful he would be, when he graciously invited the Führer to take the place.”

Sam Woods, the commercial attaché at the American embassy, Berlin, had sent his latest cable to the President; and the President was assiduously reading it. Woods was a highly trained engineer by education, a scientist first and a diplomat by only a distant second. His report did not deal with the “new physics,” as the chargé, Mr. Kirk, might have assumed; but it dealt with something equally interesting—something Roosevelt had specifically asked Woods to investigate, when the President arranged for the engineer’s transfer from Prague to Berlin: the newest form of encrypted communications currently under development by the German military. Roosevelt’s ad hoc adviser on all things espionage, General William J. Donovan, had suggested communications would be mortally important in the coming months.

The “Heydrich-Enigma,” as it is known, improves on the commercial version first developed after the last war. Sources say the new machine will replace all existing communications equipment throughout Nazi Germany. Heydrich is convinced the coming war will be won by unbreakable encrypted communication. The Polish Intelligence service has been breaking Enigma codes for the past six or seven years. This new machine is Heydrich’s response.

A knock on the door broke Roosevelt’s concentration. Sam Schwartz stuck his head around the jamb. “News from Scotland Yard, sir.”

“Tell me they nabbed the Spider, Sam.”

“He’s been traced. Seems a body was found last month near the Thames shipyards, with a spider cut into its chest.”

“Last
month
?”

“It took the Brits a while to identify the corpse, sir. The victim was a Polish merchant seaman—the Yard had to wire his ship for confirmation, which was halfway around the world by then. The man’s papers were subsequently passed in Italy and France.”

“Italy, and
then
France?” Roosevelt repeated. “The killer went east, and then doubled back?”

“Yes, sir.”

Roosevelt stared thoughtfully through his office window, which was streaming with spring rain. Jack had gone to Italy, and then France.

As if reading his thoughts, Schwartz said: “Any news of young Mr. Kennedy, sir?”

“He’s in Berlin.” Roosevelt didn’t add that young Mr. Kennedy had piqued the attaché Sam Woods’s interest with a few choice questions about Reinhard Heydrich. Or that Woods had arranged for Jack to interview the Gestapo.

Why was Jack on the scent of the most vicious man in Europe?

And why hadn’t he communicated with Roosevelt in weeks?

THIRTY-SIX.
CONTACT

THE FREE CITY OF DANZIG
was an anomaly in the heart of Europe, an ancient trading port on the Baltic Sea that acknowledged no overlord. It had once been part of the Teutonic Order and the Hanseatic League; but these were commercial ventures Danzig understood. It abhorred political ones, which had brought it only trouble. With its beautiful old medieval halls and red-tiled roofs, Danzig reminded Jack-of-Amsterdam or Prague; but its piratical merchant’s heart conjured Venice and Constantinople.

Every ambitious warrior in history had fought for Danzig, including Napoleon. Prussia and Poland had played tug-of-war with it for centuries, but Danzig’s people hailed from all over. There were Scotsmen and Russians, Dutchmen and Jews. Danzig had its own parliament and currency. Its own anthem and flag. Its own post office and stamps.

Its own immensely lucrative shipyards.

The city was dominated by Poland to the south, which needed it for access to the sea. Ninety percent of Danzig’s population, however, identified itself as
German
. German territory bracketed the city east and west. And therein lay Danzig’s fate: Hitler was screaming for it. What he really hoped was that the Free City would skip joyfully into the Reich of its own accord, just as Austria had done the year before. Then he could cut off Poland’s trade and its navy’s sole port.

Reinhard Heydrich and his secret police were in Danzig, Jack assumed, to make sure the spontaneous revolt went exactly as Hitler planned.

It was two hundred fifty miles from Berlin to the Free City, but Jack and Diana had set out in the late afternoon and the roads were so poor their progress was slow. Jack found his way into the heart of Danzig a few minutes past ten o’clock at night on May first. He was tired and suspected he had a fever. Spots were dancing before his eyes. He ignored them because the chance of finding somebody like Mayo’s George Taylor or even the Sorbonne’s Dr. LaSalle, with his convenient hypodermics, was extremely remote on the Baltic Sea. Jack’s DOCA regimen wasn’t quite working at the moment but he would simply have to gut out the Mystery Disease. His family’s salvation depended upon it.

The ancient city’s streets were extremely narrow and cobblestoned. When the signs weren’t written in Polish they were written in German, which made Jack swear at his misspent youth. Diana guided him by instinct, holding her lighter over a map and turning it around and around in her hands. They were reduced to shouting two words through the open window:
American embassy
. A series of gestures from brusque strangers showed them where to go.

The American legation was housed in a narrow, high-storied building that might have been five hundred years old. At this hour, all but one of the windows were dark. Jack pummeled on the front door. Diana sat in the car, flicking her lighter.

A night duty officer named Russell let them in.

He was only slightly older than Jack himself, and he flushed embarrassingly every time his eyes met Diana’s. With one imperious glance she succeeded in reducing poor Russell to speechlessness; he gabbled a little, offered a light when she reached for a cigarette, and swallowed hard as he tumbled to the fact of the Kennedy name.

“The place for you is the Kasino-Hotel.” Russell plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket. Jack waited while he dabbed his forehead miserably. “It’s ideal, really, under the circumstances—just a few miles up the coast, in the direction of Gdynia. It’s a smashing place, with its own beach. Tennis courts. The longest wooden pier in Europe, stretching right out into the bay. They call it the Monte Carlo of the Baltic.”

“I’d prefer to be—” Jack began, but Diana cut him off.

“There’s a spa there, isn’t there?—Massage?”

“Dancing, too,” Russell replied happily. “And a decent dining room—although the cuisine is rather
German
. Most of the patrons are, too.”

“German?” Jack repeated.

“Ribbentrop and Göring have stayed there. I guess they like to roll the dice now and again.” At this feeble joke, Russell emitted a high cackle of laughter.

Jack glanced at Diana. She was smiling her Cheshire-cat smile.

“Gimme directions,” he said.

* * *

THE BUILDING WAS MASSIVE
under moonlight. An avenue led to the front portico. Jack received a dim impression of a surfeit of staff, obsequiously bowing; of Art Deco armchairs; of the sea not far away. They took two rooms.

He awoke aware that he’d been sweating in the night. His mouth tasted of cotton and sewage. He’d administered some DOCA before bed, but he inserted a second pellet now, hoping to avoid disaster. His supply of the drug was rapidly dwindling. He considered the problem for a moment, frowning, then threw on his clothes. They were profoundly wrinkled. He knocked on Diana’s door.

She was breakfasting in bed, a picture of luxurious contentment, and waved him away. He descended to the dining room alert for the sight of a German uniform.

By day, the Kasino-Hotel was monumental. Perched on its stretch of beach, it suggested a banker intent on a dirty weekend. Jack strolled toward the wide French doors opening onto the terrace. The day was cloudy, and a brisk wind whipped the bay to white; not a bad day for sailing. He wondered idly if someone there rented boats. A few people were trekking the length of the pier, leaning into the wind; somewhere, he caught the popping sound of tennis racquets. The combined effect transported him instantly to his father’s house in Palm Beach. He went in search of the dining room.

It was immense and sparsely populated. Sporadic figures stretched into the distance, isolated at tables. Most were men. There was a definite haze in the air of Nazi gray.

He was led half the length of the room before they halted at his own little island. He’d been placed well away from the German officers, who had been given the best tables near the windows fronting on the sea. Jack hesitated, then shook his head. “I’d like to be over there,” he said firmly, pointing at the exclusive scattering of uniforms.

The maitre d’hotel gazed at him stolidly. Breakfast would be on his terms or not at all. Jack sat where he was told, and was handed a linen napkin for good behavior.

Coffee arrived immediately. The menu, he saw to his relief, was written in German, Polish, and
French
. He could read enough of the latter to survive. The meal ordered, he lit a cigarette and glanced casually at the distant Germans as he smoked it. Heydrich had a high forehead and small eyes, closely set, he remembered. Kirk, the Berlin chargé, had said so. He saw nobody he could identify as the man, but several had their backs to him. He looked next at his neighbors.

There was a white-haired Continental with a dramatic mustache. Two elderly German women in impassioned but whispered conversation, their lips trembling. And a neat, dark-haired, compact fellow with distinctly English tailoring and a vaguely military bearing, who had finished his meal and was in the act of quitting his table—

Gubbins.

Jack was on the point of rising and hailing the ex–colonel of artillery—inquiring after business in the lingerie shop—when something in the man’s air stopped him. Gubbins was quite deliberately avoiding Jack’s eye.

He followed the trim figure until it disappeared. His cigarette burnt down to his fingertips and he ground it in an ashtray.

A plate of fried eggs and wurst was placed before him. Jack ate half of it, his stomach cramping viciously.
Damn his bitch of a body. And damn the lousy
food.

He stopped at reception before heading back upstairs.

“What room is Colonel Gubbins in?”

The clerk consulted his register. “We have no one staying with us by that name, sir.”

“I see.”

His Majesty’s spies moved with craft and stealth. And traveled under aliases.

He felt his pulse quicken. It would be a definite mistake to push further, to describe the man who’d just eaten breakfast and attempt to learn his name. He jingled the change in his pockets and turned away.

“Mr. Kennedy—”

He turned back.

The clerk presented an envelope.

He recognized at a glance the colonel’s spare handwriting. With a casual air, he tore open the flap as he strolled toward the elevator, and withdrew the single sheet of stationery.

Meet me at the end of the pier at ten o’clock,
the note read.
Come
alone.