Out of Control (28 page)
“My grandmother had a summer house in Westport,” she said. “In Connecticut. When I was little, I used to go there all the time. I haven’t been up there in a while, though.”
Westport. To Savannah, fricking Westport was the rolling countryside.
“Actually we might want to save some of those papers—if you’ve got room in your bag.” Ken glanced up, wanting to watch her face as he added, “It could come in handy as toilet paper.”
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Nine
As I stood sipping champagne at the party at Jonathan and Evelyn Fielding’s Manhattan penthouse, I realized that Heinrich von Hopf was the man I’d set out to locate.
He was surely the top-level Nazi spy, code name Charlemagne, of whose imminent arrival in New York City I’d heard whispers.
His face was more angular than it had been the last time I’d seen him, his aristocratic cheekbones more pronounced. The rest of him was thinner, too. Leaner, harder. His hazel eyes, however, were exactly the same. Beautiful and luminous, he still had the eyes of an angel.
“You’ve grown even more beautiful,” he told me. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible.” He took me by the elbow. “Let’s go out on the balcony. There’s much I wish to say to you. Privately.”
Oh no, I did not want to go onto the balcony with this man, who knew I’d seen him as the Nazi he truly was—in his SS uniform, no less. He may have had the eyes of an angel, but he was pure devil. He knew I could blow his cover—even send him to his death as a spy.
However, one swift push off the balcony would silence me forever.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, dear reader. If he were a Nazi spy, he should have known that I was also believed by the Nazis to be one of their spies, right?
Wrong.
The German espionage network was organized very carefully. As a lower level operative, I didn’t know the names of hardly any of my superiors, although I was working all the time to find out as much as I could. And likewise, there were only very few in the Sicherhietsdienst command who knew that agent code name Gretl, working in New York, was actually me, Rose Rainer. This way, if one of us was caught, it didn’t mean the entire network would go down, too.
Which was a shame for those of us at the FBI and the OSS who were tired of a war that had already been going on too long.
Naturally, I resisted as Heinrich pulled me toward the balcony, trying to slow him down without flat out slugging him and creating a terrible scene. Or even letting him know that I was resisting him.
I’m not sure exactly why I didn’t simply slug him and start shouting that he was a Nazi spy. All I know was that I didn’t say a word.
Perhaps it was the shock of seeing him, of being this close to him again.
Maybe it was the realization that, although I’d tried to convince myself otherwise, I had not forgotten him. Despite all that he’d done, despite who he was—my enemy—I still found him to be the most attractive, most desirable man I’d ever known.
And on some level, I must have realized, too, that I was still in love with him, although I did not admit that to myself until later.
But as for now, I could see Jonathan Fielding heading toward us from across the room, ready to pretend to stake out his territory, the way he would if I truly were his mistress and another man had his hands on me.
“It’s cold out there,” I told Heinrich, stalling for time. “I’m going to need another glass of wine to keep me warm.” I quickly chugged my champagne in order to have an empty glass to wave at him.
He didn’t release his hold on my elbow as he took the glass from me and exchanged it for a new one from a tray, somehow gracefully juggling his own champagne flute at the same time in a way that only European aristocracy or Cary Grant could successfully pull off.
But then Jonathan was there, thank goodness, taking hold of my other elbow. For a moment, I felt like the rope in a game of tug-of-war, but then Heinrich released me.
“Well, von Hopf, I see you’ve met my Rose. Quite the looker, isn’t she? But watch out, there’s a brain in that pretty little head, too.”
Evelyn would’ve smacked him if she’d heard that one. Of course, just like her frosty greetings to me, Jon’s male chauvinist attitude—although all too common at that time—was pure make-believe on his part. One didn’t woo and marry a woman like Evelyn while actually believing that kind of drivel. I think, however, that Jon enjoyed saying such things while we had no chance actually to smack him.
“She’s been my secretary and all around gal Friday for . . . how long has it been?” Jon turned to ask me.
“Nearly two years,” I replied. “Six since I started working in your office.”
“Six years,” he mused, letting his gaze linger on my low-cut neckline. Later he’d chide me for wearing that dress. Too risque, he’d say. It gives the wrong kind of man the wrong kind of ideas. To him, I would always be eighteen and pure as the driven snow.
“Has it really been that long?” he continued. “It seems just like yesterday . . .” He pulled his attention back to Heinrich. “I’m a very lucky man, don’t you think, von Hopf? To have such a lovely and talented secretary?”
Heinrich was smiling, but I saw him watching as Jon’s hand moved from my elbow to my back and then lower. A muscle jumped in his jaw.
As if on cue, Evelyn appeared, stepping between Jon and myself. “Ah, Rose.” Her voice dripped with ennui. “I see you’ve met Heinrich von Hopf.” She turned to her husband. “Have you introduced these two properly?”
“Rose, Hank von Hopf,” Jon did the honors in his traditional straight-forward, New Yorker manner. “Hank, Rose Rainer.”
Heinrich was looking at me, no doubt waiting to see if I would admit to having met him before. In Berlin. While he was wearing the uniform of the Nazi SS.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. von Hopf, I’m sure.” I held out my hand.
Heinrich took it and kissed it. It was a more intimate kiss than many I’d received on the lips. He gazed at me and I couldn’t have looked away from him if my life had depended upon it.
“Hank von Hopf?” Evelyn scolded her husband. “I’m sure Rose would appreciate a little more information. His name is Prince Heinrich von Hopf,” she told me grandly. “He’s from Austria. He fled after the annexation—after the Nazis took control, isn’t that right, Prince Heinrich?” She turned back to me. “He’s been forced into exile, because of his opposition to the Nazis. If he’d stayed, they would have killed him or sent him to one of their horrible camps. He’s fighting on our side now.” She turned back to Heinrich. “What is it exactly that you’re doing for the war effort, Prince?”
He finally stopped looking at me, and turned his attention to Evelyn. “I’m afraid I cannot say,” he told her with one of those charming smiles that still managed to make my heart turn over. “And please. I do prefer to be called Hank. Particularly while here in America.”
I found my voice. “How long will you be staying?” If he was Charlemagne—and I was nearly convinced he was—this would be useful information. Of course, he could well lie. But I’d been given a crash course in Nazi spying techniques before leaving Berlin. We were urged to stick to the truth as often as possible. Chances are he would, too.
Heinrich looked back at me. “I’ll be here for just a few weeks. Then it’s back into the thick of things.”
“How thrilling,” Evelyn breathed.
The band had started playing in the other room. Can you imagine? An apartment in New York City large enough to hold a band? The money of course was all Evelyn’s. Her grandfather had invented some kind of gasket that was essential for sewer pipes, which brought a new meaning to the phrase filthy rich.
One didn’t make all that much money working for Grumman—unless, of course, one was also subsidized by the Nazis. If I’d kept the money I’d received from the Germans since 1939, I’d’ve been able to move into the apartment next door. But I turned that money around, putting it all back into the war effort. I got a certain grim amusement in knowing that the Nazis were helping fund the creation of the OSS—the American spy network that would be essential in bringing Hitler’s Third Reich to its knees.
“Since you’re not going to be in New York for long,” Evelyn said to Heinrich, “you must get in all the dancing you possibly can. I’m sure Rose would love to dance with you.”
She was playing a dual role here—a woman who saw the opportunity to throw her husband’s mistress at a very attractive man (and therefore getting her away from her husband), and a woman who was so happy in her own marriage that she couldn’t believe the entire world didn’t want to walk two by two, and was forever trying to set up her good friends with anything in pants.
“Rose did mention that she couldn’t stay long,” Jon pointed out.
“Rose can surely stay for one dance,” Evelyn countered, reaching for another glass of champagne. “Prince Heinrich appears to be smitten. Sir, you’ve hardly taken your eyes off our little Rose since she walked in. Perhaps you should just sweep her off her feet and abscond with her to Maryland. Marry her before midnight. Knock her up before dawn.”
That was going too far—even for outrageous Evelyn. But she was pretending she’d had too much to drink.
Jon had a sudden coughing fit.
And Hank—Heinrich—handled it with his usual charm, somewhat unfortunately for me.
Instead of asking Evelyn if she were completely out of her mind or stiffly excusing himself and walking away insulted, he smoothly said, “Surely Rose deserves better than a husband who will disappear in two weeks time, and perhaps never return. She’s already lived through that with her fiancée. She doesn’t need for it to happen again.”
“Fiancée?” Evelyn looked at me and laughed. “Since when have you had a fiancée? Really, Rose, what stories have you been telling this poor man?”
The jig was up, as all the famous gangsters used to say, at least in the movies. I’d been caught in a bald-faced lie. I glanced at Heinrich, and I’m sure my guilt was all over my face.
He grimly took my hand. “Why don’t we dance?”
Dancing with Heinrich von Hopf was only slightly higher on my list of things I wanted to do than having him push me off the balcony.
But I let him lead me into the other room and on to the dance floor. And then there I was. In his arms again. The band was playing a slow song, and he held me inappropriately close.
It was all I could do not to run away. Or weep. He smelled so good, so familiar. Even after all that time. Even though our time together had been so short.
“Why did you lie and tell me you were getting married?” he spoke to me very softly, and in German, right in my ear.
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t answer. It was the most hideous torture to have his body pressed so close to mine—to want something, someone, that I knew I shouldn’t, couldn’t want.
And yet I did. Oh, how I longed for him to kiss me, longed to run my fingers through the softness of his hair.
It was then that I realized I loved him still. It terrified me. How could I love a Nazi?
“Was it because of him?” he demanded. “Is that when you started—” He used a phrase of German that I had never heard before. “Besides the obvious, what did he offer you that I couldn’t?”
I had absolutely no idea who or what he was talking about and I stared at him.
“Jon,” he clarified angrily. “Did you end things with me because you wanted to be with him?”
He was serious, and I continued to stare up at him in total surprise.
He must have thought I still didn’t understand, because he said again, “I’m speaking of Jon Fielding. Your lover?”
Something must’ve flickered in my eyes. Or some expression must have crossed my face, because his eyes narrowed as he looked at me.
“Or the man you want people to believe is your lover,” he added softly. “Perhaps because it’s essential for your cover?”
“No,” I said. “Jon is my . . .” But I couldn’t say it. I had become an expert liar over the past few years, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get that one past Heinrich. Instead I tried to laugh. “Essential for my cover? I don’t know what you’re talking a—”
“It’s okay,” he said, pulling me even more closely to him, so closely, I could feel his heart beating. “It’s all right. Rose, don’t you know we’re both on the same side?”
Yes, but everyone thought I was on their side. So which side did that put him on? Again, I saw him in my mind’s eye, dressed in that Nazi uniform. Could I really have any doubt?
“How long has Fielding been helping you?” Heinrich asked me.
I shook my head. “Please, we must not talk of this. Not here. Not anywhere. Not at all.”
“You’re right, of course. Forgive me.”
We danced in silence as I prayed for the song to end. But the band segued right into another slow number. And Heinrich didn’t release me. He just kept right on dancing.
My mind was going a million miles an hour. He believed we were on the same side. That gave me a certain amount of power and control, since I knew that we weren’t. I also didn’t have to worry about him throwing me off the balcony any longer—unless of course, he was lying, too. In which case I was the one with a serious disadvantage.
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