Jack of Spies (37 page)

“So you’ll take the train on?”

“I suppose I must. But I expect we’ll meet again.”

McColl offered his hand. “In happier times, perhaps.”

Von Schön took it and gave him a sad smile. “I doubt that.”

Ten minutes later McColl watched the German stride off past the hissing locomotive and up the empty track bed. It was
a two-kilometer hike across the cactus-studded plain to where the rails resumed, but a beautiful night for a stroll. If McColl had known how to work the confiscated camera, he’d have taken a picture. As it was, he just raised a clenched fist to the starry heavens. He was, he had to admit, feeling pleased with himself.

He took the train again the next day and this time walked the gap himself. The Mexicans on the other side had refused to allow any Americans up the line, so the British had volunteered an officer named Tweedie to retrieve those foreigners still trapped in the capital, and McColl was along for the ride. The trip was punctuated by arguments with Mexican officers, but Tweedie, in true imperial style, had persuaded the first of these to lend him a train and all the others to let it through. Mexico City proved remarkably fraught, the locals far from friendly, but while Tweedie saw to business, gathering a horde of would-be refugees for the return trip, McColl warned the embassy to keep a watch on von Schön. On impulse he also dropped in at the central post office. Expecting a cold shoulder at best, and demands for his arrest at worst, he was pleasantly surprised to be handed a letter from Caitlin. He read it in a nearby park, surrounded by birdsong and pantomime whispers of “
Gringo
.”

She had written the letter not long after he left, but he was still astonished to receive it—civil wars were clearly less obstructive than he’d thought. Her new job was going well, but she missed him. She was glad he was in the capital and warned him against venturing anywhere near the Gulf Coast—“I fear my government is about to do something stupid in that neck of the woods.” She asked him to write back.

He did so, bookending a glibly concocted false history of the last few weeks with honest protestations of his feelings for her. It felt wrong, but what else could he do? He took the
finished article back to the post office and was almost comforted by the look on the clerk’s face, which suggested that it would never reach her anyway.

The return journey proved equally eventful, with several hundred semihysterical refugees adding to the excitement. White people weren’t used to being hungry, scared, and in fear of their lives, McColl realized, particularly in a brown people’s country. It didn’t bring out the best in them.

But they all reached the safety of occupied Veracruz, where boats were waiting to carry them forward to mother- or fatherland. There was certainly no room for them in the occupied city, which seemed fuller than ever now that the US Navy had decanted another few thousand marines. The final snipers had been mopped up, but off-duty troops brimming with tequila were posing a new threat to life, limb, and a woman’s right to say no.

Three days after his return from Mexico City, a young Royal Naval officer arrived at McColl’s hotel-room door with fresh instructions from Cumming. He was to stay in Veracruz for the time being, keep an eye on the local Germans, and, if the Americans insisted on shooting themselves in the foot, try to limit the damage. Another visit to Tampico might be in order, but Cumming left that to McColl’s own discretion.

As far as he could tell from the bits and pieces of news that reached him, the battle for Tampico was coming to a climax, and before he ventured north, he thought he would wait until one side or the other was in undisputed control. Over the next couple of weeks, he did as Cumming had asked, but as far as he could tell, all the Germans still in Veracruz were genuine businessmen of one sort or another. More to the point, perhaps, the wider situation was growing less congenial for anyone intent on stirring up trouble. President Wilson was certainly responsible for the initial blunder of occupying Veracruz, but so far he had avoided making matters worse by
sanctioning the march his generals wanted on the Mexican capital. Chile, Argentina, and Brazil had also soothed the relationship between the two nations by offering to mediate, and talks were under way at Niagara Falls between the Americans and Mexicans from both sides of the civil war. The war itself was clearly going against Huerta, so any German hope of using him against Washington seemed to be fading.

All in all, McColl felt his job was done, and there were only so many ways of filling an idle hour in an increasingly steamy Veracruz.

Toward the end of May, boredom got the better of him and he begged a ride up the coast on an American refugee ship. Tampico had fallen to the anti-Huerta forces almost a fortnight earlier, and the town, though sadly scarred by the fighting, was already settling back into its habitual torpor. McColl found no trace of German plots—in fact, over the past few weeks the German sailors and diplomats had worked closely with their British counterparts on behalf of all the white foreigners, and the hotel bars were full of Fritzes and Cecils toasting each other’s countries and wives. The oil was still flowing, albeit in slightly reduced volume, but even that didn’t matter any longer. According to a British oilman McColl met, their government had just asserted its control over several privately owned fields in the Persian Gulf. Mexico, it seemed, could safely be left to the Mexicans.

The very next day, a cable arrived from Cumming, summoning him back to London. A homebound warship would be stopping to collect him in a couple of days at the mouth of the Pánuco. If he could arrange his own trip downriver, it would be most appreciated.

Oakley Street

After Tampico and almost three weeks of ocean horizons, London seemed to whir with activity. Automobiles had been few and far between in Mexico, but as he stood on the pavement outside Embankment Station, it seemed clear to McColl that they were well on their way to inheriting the earth. The horse-drawn hansoms still jostling for space already looked out of place.

During his nine-month absence, the pace of innovation had shown no signs of slowing. On the train up from Portsmouth, a buffet attendant had told him that tea was now sold in small porous bags, for dipping in individual cups, and only a few minutes earlier he had been brought up from the new Hampstead Railway platforms on a moving metal staircase.

He walked under the South Eastern & Chatham Railway bridge and turned away from the sparkling river. The Service’s HQ had moved into 2 Whitehall Court in 1911, gaining more space and easier access to the nearby Admiralty. The building’s entrance was on the corner with Horse Guards Parade, the actual offices in Flat 54, up under the roof. McColl took the lift, reported in, and was shown straight through to Cumming’s spacious office, where nothing seemed to have changed. The large desk was covered in papers,
the various shelves and side tables crammed with maps and charts; models of airplanes, submarines, and automobiles filled all the space that was left. The painting on the wall—of a Prussian firing squad executing French villagers in the War of 1870—had survived the move from the old HQ on Vauxhall Bridge Road.

Cumming seemed his usual self—friendly but brusque, or was it the other way round? His gray hair showed no sign of thinning, gray eyes no sign of dimming, and if he’d put on weight, no one could tell.

His first questions were also typical. How had the Maia behaved in tropical climes? Was a new model under development? What did McColl think of the new De Dion–Bouton, with its electric ignition and water-cooled engine?

McColl answered the first question but regretfully pleaded ignorance regarding the other two. He had been away a long time, he reminded Cumming, and obviously had a lot of catching up to do.

The Service chief did his best to help, and McColl tried to look more interested than he actually felt. The two of them had met at a motor rally, and McColl suspected that his knowledge of automobiles ranked above linguistic skills in Cumming’s estimation of his talents.

They eventually got around to Mexico and the job McColl had done there. No actual praise was forthcoming, but his boss seemed satisfied. He had news of “that character von Schön,” who had last been sighted heading back across the Pacific. “I doubt we’ll see him for a while,” he announced, with the air of someone watching a foe limp off into the distance. “But I didn’t call you back to hand out plaudits,” he went on. “Kell’s people can’t seem to find your Irishman.”

McColl tried not to show how little he liked that news. “Tiernan?” he asked. “Didn’t he come back to Dublin?”

“They think so, but they’ve only got hearsay to go on. Either the picture they have is poor or he’s changed his appearance somehow, but no one has actually recognized the man. So Kell would like to borrow you for a few weeks.”

“In Dublin?”

“In Dublin’s fair city, as the song has it.”

“How long do they think Tiernan’s been back? What happened in New York after I left?”

“Not a great deal, I’m afraid. As far as we know, Tiernan and Rieber had no further contact before Tiernan took ship at the end of April. Rieber’s still in New York, so if Tiernan’s still plotting with the Germans, he must have a new contact.”

“What about Aidan Brady? And Colm Hanley?”

“Brady left New York with a ticket to Chicago, but he wasn’t on the train when it got there. We’ve no idea why, or where he went, but as Kensley said, at least he was headed in the right direction—away from us. Colm Hanley, on the other hand, left New York two weeks after Tiernan, jumped ship at Queenstown, and promptly disappeared. He’s presumably with Tiernan.”

Oh, shit, McColl thought.

“And we still have no idea what the ‘action on enemy soil’ might be,” Cumming continued. “Or even which ‘enemy soil’ we’re talking about. Kell’s people think it might be Belfast, the enemy being Ulster.”

“No,” McColl said flatly. “Tiernan’s after bigger fish than that.”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out the hard way if we don’t find Tiernan first. Can you leave tomorrow?”

“I’m visiting my family this weekend,” McColl said firmly. “I haven’t seen them in a very long time. But I can take the boat from Glasgow.”

“That should do,” Cumming conceded.

“And my expenses?”

“Ah. I took the liberty of opening a bank account for you. My secretary has all the details. You’ll find that your salary for the last three months has already been deposited, and any further expenses … well, you’ll just have to claim for them in the usual way.”

It was better than nothing, McColl thought. The three months’ salary might even cover his debts. “What about the wider situation?”
he asked. “We and the Germans were getting on like a house on fire in Tampico, and I read in the paper that the government’s just reached an agreement with them on the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway. It sounded promising …”

Cumming shook his head. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he said. “The Germans have just finished widening the Kiel Canal to accommodate their biggest ships, and last week the chief of their General Staff met with his Austrian counterpart. He told him—and I quote—‘any adjournment will have the effect of diminishing our chances of success.’ ”

“Oh. But surely they’ll need an excuse.”

“They’ll find one.”

The night sleeper from Euston didn’t leave until ten, which gave him time to meet Mac for a homecoming drink on Eversholt Street. The pub Mac had chosen was full and noisy, so they joined the overflow out on the pavement and stood with their beers watching the sun slide down through the smoke suspended above the station.

Mac was in good spirits. He said their former boss was trying his best to be furious with McColl—“First he abandons my sister, then he abandons my business”—but couldn’t quite get there. “If he was really angry with you, he wouldn’t have taken your advice and given me your job.”

“How is business?” McColl asked.

“Booming, but I think it’s the beautiful summer. In this sort of weather, the rich all want to drive themselves down to their country piles for the weekend.
And
have the best-looking automobile in the park.”

“Is it still the best?”

“One of them. Have you been in New York all this time?”

“No, I left soon after you did. I’ve been in Mexico, trying to save the navy’s oil.”

“And now?”

“First Glasgow, then Dublin. Have you heard from Jed lately?”

Mac sighed. “Yes. He’s not happy. He says he hates his job, and he probably does, but, you know, a trip like the one we did—it can either cure your itchy feet or make them itch all the more.”

“And you?”

“Oh, I’ve seen enough of the world to keep me happy for a while. I’m enjoying London.”

“What’s her name?”

“Ethel, if you must know.”

“So tell me about her.”

“She’s lovely. She likes me. Her father’s an office manager at St. Katharine Docks.”

“Hair color?”

“Auburn.”

“Nice.”

Mac smiled reflectively, as if he were picturing her. “What happened to the American girl?” he asked.

“We’re still in touch. She was taken on by one of the big New York papers.”