by Joel N. Ross
A shadow fell over him and the youth with the welt on his face said, “Now we’ll see, won’t we?”
THE NEIGHBORS WERE a lovely old couple. They thought Duckblind was Mr. Pentham’s niece, and they waved her close as she made for the house. She hadn’t time to gossip, but politeness was so very important, so she stopped. They told her about the factory fire at Huddersfield as Loochie scampered around her ankles in an ecstasy of wagging. She tickled him behind the ear, and the neighbors asked if she’d heard about the German spy. Her heart leapt, but her smile didn’t waver as she said she hadn’t.
“Well!” the woman said. “The Dublin police arrested one Hermann Goertz—five years of penal servitude.”
She said, “Oh! I must be off,” and gave Loochie a farewell pat as she straightened. Hermann Goertz be hanged. So long as Bookbinder was safe.
In Mr. Pentham’s house, she checked the wireless one last time. The earphones, the aerial wire, and the spare valves were all safely swaddled in the pram. Even the Richter leather—beautifully executed in red and black—was in perfect nick.
They would transmit tonight. She felt like a bride proceeding down the rose-strewn aisle, so elegant and cool as she trembled inside. It all resolved upon her transmission tonight. Of course, Bookbinder knew radiotelegraphy, too. He had a dreamy light “fist”—his transmitting signature—but tonight it would be she who transmitted.
She went through the house one final time. Everything in order. She thanked generous Mr. Pentham for his hospitality, told him she’d not be returning, and closed the door to the coal cellar firmly.
Like a Schmetterling, she was shedding her chrysalis. Tonight, she would fly.
HIGHCASTLE GRUNTED at the traffic. “Clear it.”
“We can’t, sir.”
“You bloody will. Drive them onto the pavement.”
“They say it’s a UXB, sir.”
Unexploded bombs. Highcastle cursed. The teams were assembled, waiting for him. “Clear behind, then.” He consulted his mental map. “We’ll cut down, cross the bloody depot, and—”
“The depot, sir? It’s not—”
“Move!”
The driver reversed down the half block. The lorry scraped along the alley and shot across traffic to the depot, horn a steady whine. Bumpy ride. This side of the depot, the road was theirs. Breathless, they pulled to the rendezvous site, coordinated, and moved.
The forward team split on the fly, Beta for the rear, Alpha for the front. An old married couple sitting by their fence gawked and shrilled. A dog barked—a little mutt, might as well have been a Pekingese. Thank God. His hunch wasn’t a waste of hours and twenty men.
The old marrieds said yes, Mr. Pentham’s niece was staying the month, and a lovelier girl—
The men shot forward, smooth as clockwork. And four minutes later, Highcastle stood at the open door of the coal cellar as Abrams told him Mr. Pentham was dead. In the back parlor, the needle was skipping on the gramophone, a record playing static to an empty house. No wireless. No women’s clothing, no money, and no papers.
Duckblind was gone.
BACK IN SHEPHERD MARKET, Rugg cracked the door next to the haberdasher’s shop. The stairs were narrow and as crooked as the devil’s tongue. Two flights up, the room was small and square, with a worktable and long-view windows facing the street. Lady Harriet Wall’s street. Renard knew every nook in the city. He’d found this haberdasher’s room, made for watching over Shepherd Market—just as Sonder had asked.
“No trouble at Central Hall?” Sonder said from the window, his voice syrup.
“Not a sniff,” Renard said. “Left Chilton behind, too.”
Fookin’ right. Sonder had said there wasn’t any reason for Chilton, that he was a complication and better left behind. Plus, the old ponce set Rugg off. Weak little man behind his fancy suits and grand house.
“And the weapons?” Sonder asked.
Renard opened his mack and showed the guns.
“Ah, fine examples of Mr. Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease. Smith & Wesson, at a dollar apiece.” Sonder smiled, warm like summer. “This is an excellent observation post, by the way. Well done. Best seats in the house.”
Rugg stood next to the headmaster, bowed his head to watch the street below. “On with it, then?”
“Not long now.” Sonder clasped his shoulder like a father might’ve done. “Tom Wall will make his entrance shortly. However, if you’d be so kind as to ensure that nobody else awaits his arrival?”
Rugg went outside, staying in shadow and glowering at the Shepherd Market streets, cramped alleys in the middle of Mayfair. Nobody was about who shouldn’t be. He bought a pack of Abdullahs at the corner—Renard’s reward for hoisting a car, even if it was a Riley Ascot, a two-fookin’-seater, with the three of them to sardine inside. Renard said he fancied the green. Fancied smoking Abbies, too, though they were meant for birds.
Halfway back to the haberdashery, a young girl tapped past, all heels and stockings. Rugg eyed her and she eyed him back and turned toward Wall’s street in a waft of sweet apple blossom. Wasn’t right, how she looked him over. No young girl, slim and sweet as she, eyed him bold as that. He rambled in her wake and she passed him going in the other direction. She’d headed toward Wall’s house, then circled back, playing like she was deciding if she should keep a date. What was the bleedin’ word? Vacillating.
Two of the mews had second floors hanging over a narrow alley—closing off the sky. He caught the girl in the passage and said, “Oi.”
She turned as if surprised, white teeth happy in the darkness, but when he stepped forward, her eyes turned to slits and she slashed at his face with a hat pin. He clouted her on the cheek and knocked her against a rubbish bin. She mewled like a cat, and he grabbed the hand with the hat pin and lifted her off her feet. She kicked him in the shin and opened her mouth to scream help.
He cuffed her, and bone snapped in her neck.
She went slack. No sweet apple smell now. He shoved her behind the rubbish bins and opened her bag. She wasn’t bleedin’ official, wasn’t nobody. Some fookin’ cow, too quick to call rape.
He took what bobbins she had and went back upstairs to the haberdashery. Found Renard in a hopping fit. “He’s just come. Tom Wall. He’s there now.”
“We go on, then?”
“Not yet. Neighbor woman’s on her step. Moment she scarpers, we push in.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
EVENING, DECEMBER 5, 1941
IT WAS DUSK. Tom headed for Shepherd Market but couldn’t find a taxi or the Tube. A metal post jutted from the curb at a skewed angle, and there was a bridge on the road ahead, a series of arches under a low-peaked canopy. A man was bedding down in an alley under a ripped poster reading DON’T BE VAGUE, ASK FOR HAIG.
The man told him where to find the Underground.
“What about Haig?” Tom said.
The man didn’t laugh.
Tom didn’t feel much like laughing himself. He’d done nothing right—there was nothing right to do, nothing but tell Harriet that Earl was dead. He caught the Tube and lost himself in darkness—his failure and loss, a pawn in Sondegger’s game. The train slowed and swayed at Green Park. He steadied himself with his right hand and swore at the pain, a thick-gauge needle pushing through his palm.
He left the train and headed for Shepherd Market. He stopped at the corner, cradled his hand to his stomach. Fucking Sondegger. It wasn’t enough to use Tom as a distraction while he blew the Double-Cross System; he had to drive a pencil through Tom’s palm. Blood and lead poisoning . . .
Lead? A memory sparked.
“Holy hell.” Tom went breathless. “Sweet holy hell.”
He took off running. Get to Harriet’s and— No, not yet. What did he need? A photographer. There wasn’t one in the market, but maybe the optician was still open. He
cut across the street; a bus screeched behind him, and a man yelled. He shoved past a group of office girls. The penny dropped, and he knew. Lead poisoning. He ran into Shepherd Market, with its narrow streets, spun round a corner. There was the antique shop, the dentist . . . the optician!
Closed. Fuck. He’d break in. No, there were too many people on the street. The dentist next door was open. Tom barged past the receptionist, and after ten minutes—begging and threatening—he just took what he needed: a magnifying sheet from the X-ray view box.
Now to Harriet’s, for privacy and tools and a place to bleed. He jogged to the little mews and swung the gate open. Harriet’s neighbor with the red kerchief was talking with an elderly man outside her front door. “Good evening, Mr. Wall.”
“Not yet,” he said. He knocked on Harriet’s door, but there was no answer. He jiggled the knob—the door was unlocked—and called her name, but there was no response, so he slipped inside. He was in the kitchen before he realized he wasn’t alone. Harriet was sitting in the dark room, staring at an iron frying pan on the table.
“Harriet?”
“Tell me what you know of loyalty, Tom.”
He snorted a laugh. “Me? Nothing.”
“You’re the most loyal man I know.”
“I’m a sap.” Dancing to Sondegger’s pipes. “Loyalty doesn’t excuse stupidity.”
“And family? What does family excuse?”
“Your father? What’s he done?”
She didn’t answer. She traced the edge of the iron pan with her fingertip.
He put the magnifying sheet on the table and rummaged in the drawer.
“What is that?” she asked. “What are you looking for?”
“It’s a magnifying glass—for X rays. Where are your tweezers? Or a sharp knife, a paring knife.”
“Tommy— Knives are in the block. You haven’t . . . You aren’t . . .”
“No, I’m fine.” He found a thin boning knife, lighted one of the gas rings on the stove, and sterilized the blade over the flames. “I have something to tell you, Harry, and there’s no time to do it right.” He removed the knife, placed it on the table to cool. “I’m the last person who should be telling you.”
“Is it Father?”
“No.”
Her gray eyes were sharp, then soft. “Earl. He’s dead.”
“I came from the morgue.”
She became very still. “When?”
He told her. “Do you need—is there anyone you can call?”
“Almost two weeks,” she said. “I think I knew. I’ve known for days he’d not be back. It seems forever. . . .”
Tom switched on the overhead light, stacked tea towels on the table, and began unwrapping his bandage. What else did he need? Nothing. Do it fast. Get it done.
“Have you rung your mother?” she asked. “The embassy?”
“I came straight here.” His right hand was naked on the tea towels, the skin puckered and the incision inflamed. “I’m sorry, Harriet, I have to—”
She finally saw what he was doing. “What on earth?”
“The last thing Sondegger said was that I had the proof in the palm of my hand. Then he stabbed—right into the stitches. I saw it, in slow motion. I saw the shiny lead of his pencil.”
“Tom, stop.”
“His pencil had no lead, Harry. It was snapped off.” Tom took the boning knife in his left hand and caught his breath. “He put the pencil in his mouth. It happened so fast, I didn’t realize. Don’t you see? I’ve had it with me for days.”
“Stop, Tom. Please.”
“Will you do it?” He saw from her face she wouldn’t. He tried to smile. “You used to like playing doctor.”
He dug the blade into his palm and it caught against something through the pulp of his flesh. It wasn’t the microfilm. It was the blade scraping bone. He closed his eyes. His right hand was a tight knot of agony. His left probed deeper and he felt something shift inside. He levered the blade under and lifted a small furl of plastic from the bloody mess.
It rolled from the knife blade onto the blood-wet towels. He lay the knife aside, hands sticky and trembling. He was dimly aware that Harriet rose, ran water at the sink, and returned to the table.
When he could breathe again, he lifted his head. The microfilm was sitting in a bead of water in the iron pan. “Proof,” he said.
“Tom,” she said. “I know it’s true. The attack on Hawaii. I know.”
“It’s proof. Take it to the embassy. Read it, Harriet. Now—unroll the—under the glass.”
“Tommy, what if it is true? You still don’t know why Sondegger gave it to you.”
“Tomorrow’s December sixth. We have no time. Read it.”
She unfurled the microfilm into a strip and arranged the magnifying sheet and a lamp. She squinted and brushed her hair behind her ears. “It’s too small; I can’t make out . . . Oh, here. It references the other microfilm. It says . . . I can’t . . . Oh, yes. It claims proof of provenance will be established by Lord Haw-Haw’s broadcasts.”
Tom closed his eyes as the pain ebbed. Haw-Haw was a Brit, had been a member of the British Fascist party and the BUF before fleeing to Germany in ’39. He broadcast propaganda on his radio show, a perfect way to send information.
Harriet puzzled over the magnifying sheet. “Yes, I see. It lists statements he’ll make on air, and dates, running through to the fourteenth. I can’t make them out, not with this.”
It didn’t matter. They’d get a print from Harriet’s photographer, then match the text with a broadcast. It meant the microfilm came from people who could put words into Haw-Haw’s mouth. And yet . . .
“It proves where the microdot came from.” Tom stood unsteadily, washed the blood from his hands in the sink. “Doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“It means they’ll have to act. And Tommy—it is true.”
He wrapped his bandage tightly around the cut. “Why?”
“You need a doctor.”
“Why, Harriet?”
“Don’t you see? There’s a Japanese strike force within days of Hawaii. Why would the Nazis inform the Americans?”
“Because there’s not enough time. X-One has already passed.” Tom looped the bandage and tied it off. “No, nix that. It was meant to go through Earl, with plenty of time, but then something happened—they fought—Earl got himself killed. . . .”
Harriet’s eyes deepened, but she showed no other reaction. “Sondegger approached the only other American he knew how to reach, Tom—you. He’d researched Earl’s family, or Earl told him. But why?”
“To stop the attack on Hawaii. Because if Japan attacks, Germany declares war on the U.S.”
“And why do the Germans want the States in the war?”
They didn’t. That’s what she was saying. The Germans didn’t want the States in the war. “So if the Japs don’t attack, the States stays neutral. Roosevelt had to twist arms to get the Republicans to send dried milk—”
“And he had to promise to stay out of foreign wars, to get re-elected,” Harriet said.
“It’s not a foreign war if Japan attacks—”
“Exactly. If Sondegger’s microfilm stops Japan’s attack, the States will remain neutral. If Japan doesn’t attack Pearl Harbor, the States won’t fight.”
The only sound was the dripping of water in the sink. The room was still and small. “We still have to stop the attack,” Tom said. “You don’t let your own men die while you watch. You do what you can, with what you have. That’s all you ever do.”
“You sound like your brother.”
“Thank you.”
Her breath caught. “He’s really dead, then.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stood and slipped the microfilm into a pillbox. “Disturbing Mr. Bloomgaard, at least, will be a p
leasure. We’ll drive to the embassy. Fix your revolting bandage.”
“It’s fine,” he said, following her down the hall. “It can wait.”
She took her coat from the rack at the front door. “Father was here, Tom. He’s working for the Germans.” She turned the doorknob, and Rugg and Renard burst inside, pistols in their clenched fists.
“Not one blinkin’ word.” Renard gestured with his gun. “Get back.”
Sondegger entered and closed the door gently behind himself. “Lady Harriet, this is a great pleasure.”
“I gotta tell you, Hans,” Tom said. “I’m starting to dislike you.”
“A pity,” Sondegger said. “I’m rather fond of you. Shall I tell you a tale?”
“I have a tale,” Harriet said as they were herded into the parlor. “I this moment got off from the police. If you would rather not meet them—”
“How very theatrical,” Sondegger said, his voice warm and rich. “But as King Shahrayar never told Sheherazade: Do be quiet. We have pressing matters to discuss. Your husband—”
“Whom you killed,” Harriet said as she backed against the piano.
“I’d hoped my business with Earl would be congenial. He preferred otherwise.” Sondegger turned to Rugg. “Would you be so kind?”
Rugg nodded and stepped from the room.
“You’re aware,” Sondegger asked, “that there were two microdots smuggled from Germany? The second is in a most curious location.” Sondegger glanced at Tom’s freshly bandaged hand. “Ah. Did you already find the matter was within your grasp? Excellent. The story itself is simple. Earl was contacted by an agent, a certain Monsieur Galland, who’d stolen the— Oh, the chain of events is too tedious to recount. But of two stolen microphotographs, one was passed to Earl, and the second, the confirmation proof, I managed to secure. May I ask who has it currently?”
