The Secret Houses

by John Gardner

  ‘And we kept light surveillance on him.’ Dick stretched his long body, as though stiff from so much sitting around. ‘He sold the Thun property and after it was all over – the war, I mean – he went to Paris and purchased the place in the Rue de Rivoli.’

  ‘And you thought it would be a good idea for me to look him up – just for old times’ sake?’ Arnie asked, disgruntled.

  ‘In a word, yes. There had been no hint that he knew anything about Caroline’s and Jo-Jo’s disappearance. No hint at all. I gave you the Paris address almost on a whim, and it’s paid off. The very fact of his disappearance with Jo-Jo shows he’s frightened. What I’d like to know is who he’s frightened of. Caspar? Me? Any of the family? Or is he afraid C’ll send some hoods over to drag him back for a further interrogation? Tiraque’s no idiot. He must have weighed the chances of your recognising Jo-Jo, Arnie. Up until now we’ve cleared him of any complicity in the events surrounding the girls’ disappearance. Now he’s linked in again. So why’s he gone to earth? Is someone else after him?’

  ‘You really think Caroline was Klaubert’s mistress? That she shared him with Florence?’ Naldo looked puzzled.

  Dick said the probability was high. Then C took over, quickly, as though he wished to divert them from that subject.

  ‘On the positive side,’ he began, ‘we know that Jo-Jo Grenot got out alive. We cannot presume too much, but that suggests Caroline escaped as well. I agree that we should first concentrate on finding Tiraque and the girl.’ He looked toward Dick. ‘As Liaison with CIA, will you bargain for their assistance?’

  Dick nodded and C continued to talk. ‘Now listen to me.’ He particularly looked at Arnie. ‘I apologise if I didn’t put you fully into the picture, but many things can alter. In the beginning was Tarot and the “Orléans Russians,” together with the two missing girls. We’ve all been obsessed by the Soviet threat – the moves they have made regarding what we like to think of as atomic secrets; and the question of Berlin. On the latter the wind blows very cold, incidentally. They’ll try something drastic very soon. Our immediate intelligence is that they could attempt a blockade on Western Berlin.’ He paused, his little eyes sparkling as though relishing the thought of future troubles.

  ‘I suppose that my own prying – into dead files and documents well hidden – sparked the possibility of further investigation. There’s also a moral issue. Klaubert. Do we continue to look for him? Rehabilitate him…?’

  ‘If he’s alive, why can’t we hang the bastard?’ Naldo became suddenly angry.

  ‘Though we did not know it, he served us well.’ C looked at him blandly.

  ‘And, in serving us, he kept his head by destroying hundreds – thousands – of innocent lives.’

  ‘Then I think we should try and find him. The whole thing remains a riddle, a mystery. And there are mysteries within the mysteries.’ Another pause. Naldo thought it was for effect. ‘Think,’ C said. ‘Think about the plots within the plots, and ask the reasons. Everything was plain sailing when we started. Yet once you lifted Ramillies from the East, problems started to beget problems.’

  Arnie slipped in as C took a breath – ‘You mean as soon as we lifted Ramillies and you gave Buelow to my people in Washington?’

  ‘Quite so. As I understand it, Buelow and his two interrogators were wiped out in one night. Which means?’

  ‘A team effort. Not just one person acting on his, or her, own initiative,’ Arnold answered coldly.

  C nodded like a Buddha. ‘Right. And it was a carefully coordinated effort. We presume that Buelow was removed because someone was afraid he knew too much – which meant taking out his interrogators as well. Then the trees began to move closer to home. First Munich, from which we had to move you. Then – though we did not alert you – people were sniffing around the Frankfurt area. The object?’

  ‘To put an end to any further enquiries?’

  ‘Or to Ramillies Railton. You see, there’s been some activity near Warminster. Nothing we could pin down, but there have been strangers in the vicinity. So we moved Ramillies into London. He’s a hard nut to crack. And now Nathaniel Dollhiem – one-time OSS officer and full-time Soviet infiltrator – is dead. One by one they go. Reasons? Grudges, or operational necessity? We won’t know until we’ve had a chance to talk to Jo-Jo Grenot, Tiraque, and, if she’s alive, Caroline Farthing.’

  ‘And Klaubert.’ Naldo sounded positive.

  ‘Oh, yes, we have to talk with Klaubert.’

  ‘If he’s alive,’ Arnie almost whispered.

  C looked up sharply. ‘Oh, he’s alive. I can tell you that. I put a good man onto him. Did you ever meet the ingenious young Shepherd during your move back home with Ramillies?’

  Naldo answered for them all. ‘Curry Shepherd? Yes.’

  C said that Shepherd had followed Herbie’s trail – ‘The one who called himself Klausen and claimed to have been a Norge Waffen SS officer. He got back to Norway, from whence he never came, of course. Then he disappeared. I suspect he somehow got papers and managed to bluff himself into your country, Arnold. Soon we shall have to take a look at the Franciscan houses here.’ His finger pointed toward the paper on which Caspar had written the Saint Augustine cipher. Under the letters

  O-E-T-H-E-E-N-E-N-F-H-E was the decrypt – O-F-M-N-E-W-Y-O-R- K-C-T.

  ‘One can only presume the CT means City. I’ll brief people to peep at the Franciscans living out their holy lives among the skyscrapers. I suspect that you – Arnold – will be getting a recall to Washington soon. I also suspect that my little Symphony team will be heading towards Manhattan.’ He gave an uncharacteristic twinkle, using both his mouth and the piggy eyes. ‘We’ll take Manhattan, the Bronx – and Staten Island, too,’ said the CSS.

  Part Three

  The American Houses

  Chapter Thirty-six

  They pulled in Tertius Newton at the end of the first week in October. He had been on the night shift at the Atomic Energy Commission’s headquarters, and left at his usual time – seven-thirty in the morning. Everything was normal. Newton drove for half a mile to stop across the street from the drugstore, just as he always did, crossing the road to pick up his newspaper and buy cigarettes.

  The moment he entered the shop, two cars pulled up, blocking in Newton’s vehicle front and back. There were four FBI agents in one car. The other held Marty Forman with another backup man from CA.

  Two of the FBI agents went into the shop and browsed through magazines on a wire rack until Newton moved to leave. They followed him out, and on the sidewalk Newton found himself sandwiched between the pair already waiting and the couple behind him.

  He showed startled surprise, but put up no resistance, merely asking if he could call his wife. They said he could do that later. Actually she knew already, for FBI men had arrived at Newton’s apartment with a search warrant some thirty minutes earlier. Mrs Newton was asked to go along with the agents, who were accompanied by a team of CIA people who knew what they were looking for.

  Atomic secrets were landing in the Soviet Union like ‘sea gull shit on a beach’ – Marty Forman was the coiner of this graphic description. So, with this in mind, the Agency team took the place apart, looking for filched papers, radio transmitters, one-time pads, and the usual paraphernalia of espionage. The fact that they found nothing in no way deterred them. They were spurred on by the fact that the British had already put away one traitor – Dr Alan Nunn May, who had given atomic secrets to the Russians – and were investigating others, notably Klaus Fuchs, the German-born, naturalised English scientiest who took part in work on the first atomic bomb in Los Alamos.

  The FBI handed their prisoner over to Marty and his man, who drove Newton away to a clapboard house which stood in open country near Alexandria. Here, the CIA interrogators began their work. The house itself was ringed by officers from the security section of Counterintelligence. They left Newton in no doubt that he was there as much for his own safety as for the interrogation.


  The decision to arrest Tert Newton was recommended by the CIA’s head of Counterintelligence, who had secured the full backing of a small committee set up to analyse what was actually taking place in Washington.

  James Xavier Fishman chaired the committee, which met regularly in his office. From there, through the one large window, it was just possible to see the Washington Monument spearing toward a lowering sky on the left, and a portion of the Senate House away to the far right. So it was Fishman, Marty Forman, Roger Fry, Arnold Farthing, and his uncle, Richard Railton Farthing, who made the final decision.

  Some thought there had been too much prevarication already – particularly Fishman, who spent many sleepless nights concerned that the Agency had been penetrated by the Soviets. If they could have been infiltrated so easily into the OSS, with Dollhiem and Newton, how simple would it be to dig through the new walls which protected the Agency?

  In London, as soon as they knew Arnie’s recall to Washington was inevitable, C had decreed that it would be better if Dick went along with him. By this time Dick had been added to the charmed circle with access to the First Folio, together with all the Tarot Enquiry transcripts. It was also argued that, as Dick was their official Liaison officer with the CIA, he would be the best man to plead their case for assistance in the search for Tiraque and Jo-Jo in Europe. ‘I am also concerned for Tiraque’s safety should Dick be around when we catch up with him,’ C confided in Naldo.

  ‘What about Caspar? He’ll hire thugs to kill him in the field.’ Naldo was seriously concerned about it.

  C shook his head and tried to look wise. ‘I think not. Caspar feels responsible for Caroline and Jo-Jo. He’ll want to see real justice done. Yes, in the heat of the moment, he can threaten, but he wouldn’t act on his own. With the father it’s a different matter.’

  Dick quickly secured agreement for what the Agency called the ‘skip search’ in Europe, then he suddenly found himself being asked his opinion, by the head of CIA’s Counterintelligence. Should they or should they not interrogate Tertius Newton? James Xavier Fishman wanted men around him who would come to a confident, unanimous decision, and it was to Dick Farthing that Fishman looked to explain how he saw the current situation and its dangers.

  ‘Somewhere in this town you’ve got a hit squad, led by a professional agent with instructions to minimise danger to a specific operation.’ Dick’s accent became more noticeably American whenever he returned to his native soil. ‘Whoever’s giving the orders appears, in effect, to be dismantling an operation mounted either against the Agency or to gain access to atomic secrets.’ Dick had a clear, logical mind. He was putting himself in the shoes of the person at the heart of the killings.

  ‘My personal theory is that the hit team arrived here too late. Hence Otto Buelow’s death. Before he and his interrogators died, Buelow had already pointed the way to both your targets – Dollhiem and Newton.

  ‘Let’s say I’m correct: that the team got here only to find Buelow was already in town. They would know Buelow might be able to identify their two agents; somehow they realised he was being taken round on an identity parade that afternoon. So, when it was over, they killed him and clumsily tried to make the death of his inquisitors look like an accident. Whoever removed those three must have thought he had plugged a leak. Now, with Dollhiem’s death, it would appear that the chief executioner has realised failure. It’s a silencing operation.’ He gave Fishman a quizzical look. ‘You have no alternative. Grab Newton as quickly as possible. Drag him to safety and then go for him. Clean him out.’

  Fishman inclined his head gravely, like a bishop accepting the views of one of his clergy. ‘My sentiments exactly,’ he said. ‘But the Director takes a slightly different view. He wants to use Newton as a tethered goat.’

  ‘And snaffle the hit squad?’ Arnie looked doubtful. ‘There are no points in that. These guys must feel very insecure about their agents.’

  ‘Very,’ Fishman agreed. ‘I’ve put that to the Director. If the killings are taking place in order to minimise damage, we can only assume Dollhiem and Newton know a great deal, much of which they would disclose under pressure. Can I take it that you all agree? We should lift Newton as soon as possible?’

  The agreement was unanimous, as was their opinion regarding the hit squad – it could be as small as two people, working closely together, or as large as six.

  The photographs taken by the surveillance unit outside Buelow’s apartment building on the night of his death had been closely scrutinised. All those identified – including the girl and the man with military bearing, who had originally so interested Fishman – had been eliminated. Both the man and girl were honest upright citizens who lived in the building.

  In short, there were no direct clues. One person had fired the cyanide pistol; one person had driven the truck which slammed into the car containing Herbert and King, Buelow’s interrogators. The truck had been found, abandoned ten miles away, and there were traces of another car having picked up the driver. That could have been reasonably accomplished by two people.

  As for the slaying of Nat Dollhiem, there was one clue only.

  Even though surveillance on both Dollhiem and Newton had been stepped up, the teams working Dollhiem had been lulled into a familiarity which, in turn, bred its customary contempt. Nat Dollhiem had still gone through the same old antisurveillance routines which Arnold noted when he had first tailed the man. But by now these deviations had become part of Dollhiem’s life – in themselves they formed a pattern. On the night that Dollhiem died, the surveillance crew had lost their target – waiting for him to turn up in his usual spot, trying to be too smart, knowing he always reappeared at this place before he went home. That evening Nat Dollhiem did not arrive. When the panic of truth hit them, the surveillance team had no idea where to go next. They tried the Dollhiem home, calling from a phone booth. He never went home again.

  Both the surveillance team and the officers monitoring Dollhiem’s telephones had been roasted. One incoming call on that day should have alerted everyone.

  At eleven minutes after three in the afternoon Dollhiem’s office phone rang. He answered, and a woman’s voice asked –

  ‘That you, George?’

  ‘I think you have a wrong number,’ Dollhiem replied. ‘Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m trying to reach a George Bleecher.’

  ‘Not here, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness. I have to contact him. We have an appointment at six-thirty tonight. You sure he’s not there?’

  ‘I’m sorry, you have a wrong number, caller.’

  ‘Oh, heavens. Could you help me, sir? I’m trying to locate the Crawford Motel. I’m due to meet him there and I haven’t the faintest idea where it is.’

  ‘I’m sorry, lady, I never heard of it.’ These were the last recorded words of Nathaniel Dollhiem, who was found, with the top of his head blown away by a .38 caliber slug, in the Ford Motel, near the National Airport. He had arrived at seven-thirty – soon after the watchers assigned to him realised they had lost touch. The manager of the motel agreed that it was possible Dollhiem had an assignation. ‘You can’t spot them all,’ he told FBI men. ‘Any motel is open to abuse. You just can’t check on everyone.’

  The cops knew that the Ford was a well-known trysting place for hookers and their johns. Just as everyone with inside knowledge of the Dollhiem surveillance knew the logged telephone call was a most obvious tip for a meeting. For six-thirty, read seven or seven-thirty; for Crawford read Ford. It stuck out, as Marty Forman said so bluntly, ‘Like a cock on a honeymoon.’

  They listened to the woman’s voice on the tape, but nobody could come up with any speech pattern that would help to identify her. One analyst suggested that the woman was not American born, but that was about as much help as the two other .38 slugs they pried out of the motel room wall.

  A week after Newton’s arrest, the committee was due to meet again, but at the last minute there was a message from Jim Fishman apologising, s
aying that he would be late. He nominated Roger Fry to take the chair until he could get there.

  ‘So what’ve we got?’ Fry opened as though on the attack.

  ‘As yet, nothing.’ Marty Forman had spent a lot of time out at the safe house, assisting in the interrogation of Newton. He was very good at making people talk. ‘Newton looks at us with innocent eyes. He says he doesn’t know what we’re talking about. We take him through the story again and again. He sticks to the same ancient fable. The Rornarin shit. St Benoît. Tarot, and his farewell to Tarot. When he went. Where he went. How he got picked up by the German unit and put in a stockade. How he was released and fought with that irregular unit, and ended up with the Ninth Army at the Remagen Bridge. All the stuff he’s already given the Brits. No changes. And the hell of it is – it’s all on record.’

  ‘And what about the Brits?’ Fry asked, looking at Dick. ‘Anything?’

  ‘You thinking about anything in particular?’ Dick Farthing asked.

  ‘Well, you’ve got this guy under the third degree – ’

  ‘What guy?’ Dick snapped back. ‘And we don’t operate the third degree, as you put it.’

  ‘The Russian.’

  ‘What Russian? I know of no Russian.’

  ‘You know damned well who I mean.’

  Very quietly Dick Farthing let him know he was off-limits by even mentioning this subject.

  ‘We’re to share the product.’ Fry became belligerent.

  ‘Like you shared the product by letting Otto Buelow get murdered? It strikes me that your Agency leaks like a damned sieve.’ Dick knew this was not true, but he was aware that it was a touchy subject. ‘Now, Marty’ – Dick Farthing almost took control of the meeting – ‘you want to share your thoughts about Newton with us?’ Dick had already been granted the favour that he had come to Washington to get, ‘Agency assistance in the search for Marcel Tiraque and Jo-Jo Grenot.’ He did not care how many feathers he ruffled now.