The Eldorado Network

by Derek Robinson

  'If I had my way the U.S. Navy would be out there now, blasting those U-boats out of the Atlantic.'

  Clark nodded his appreciation. Now the noise had reached the street outside; they could hear the hurrying beat of feet like a muffled drumroll beneath the eager chant. He got up and closed the windows. 'Do you understand Spanish?' he asked.

  'Not much. Not enough to understand that stuff. What's going on out there?'

  'I can't really tell.' Clark's room was on the second floor. 'We often get this sort of thing; there are embassies all around here. One doesn't mind the noise, but they do drop such a lot of litter in the street.' He came back to his desk. 'I'll be frank, Mrs Conroy. There is nothing you could do to assist the British war effort. On the contrary, His Majesty's Government would find itself with another mouth to feed at a time when food is already extremely scarce and likely to become more so. Therefore . . .' Clark paused and glanced sideways as the noise in the street gained a new level. '! regret I cannot recommend your application for approval.'

  Julie had seen it coming and was ready to counter-attack. 'Listen, this is my war too, you know! If Britain goes under, how the hell is the United States ever going to stop Hitler? You think I want that kind of future? You just get me to London, Mr Clark. I'll soon find some way to help beat those bastards, if it's only by giving blood to the Red Cross three times a week.'

  'As I've already explained--'

  'Okay, I lied, I'm a trained nurse and fighter pilot and I can type three thousand words a minute.' Julie was leaning forward, gazing hard at George Clark's sombre face when a brick shattered the window and, still spinning end-over-end, rushed at her head. Her hands were gripping the arms of the chair and she thrust herself sideways, twisting her neck and contorting her face. The last thing she saw was Clark's solid torso surrounded by glittering fragments; the brick battered her shoulder and the chair crashed over backwards in a wild somersault of pain and shock and confusion. She lay for a long moment, stunned, and heard clearly the tinkle of glass on polished floorboards, followed by a raucous, exultant roar gushing through the hole. Then she dimly saw the extraordinary sight of George Clark vaulting over his desk, landing nimbly beside her, and kicking the chair away. She felt herself being dragged rapidly across the room, her shoes coming off, sunlight suddenly giving away to deep shadow, a hard, cool corner propping her up. The racket in the street swelled- and faded and swelled again like waves on a beach. Clark was gone, then he was back. Cushions slid behind her. For a while she felt sick and she closed her eyes. Elsewhere, more windows were being broken. When her eyes opened, Clark was sitting cross-legged in front of her. One ear was brilliantly red. It was all very strange. 'As soon as you can,' he said, 'I think you should try to

  raise that arm.' Julie thought about that. Clark, she decided, seemed to know best. Another brick smashed through their window and they saw it whizz across the room, a long way off. Glass fragments tumbled harmlessly over the desk. She sat up and slowly raised her arm. Her shoulder felt like a sack of cement. "Good,' he said. 'That means your collarbone isn't broken "'How did you jump over that desk?' she asked weakly. I used to play scrum-half for Blackheath.'

  She looked at him. He was serious. 'I don't know what that means,' she said.

  It means you learn to move bloody fast unless you want your head kicked in.' Julie gave up on that. 'Who threw that goddam rock at

  'Probably the Falange. ' The Spanish Government couldn't let such a demonstration happen unless they approved, so it must be the Falange. Do you hear those slogans?' They listened to the pounding chant of the mob. 'They're expressing support for Germany's invasion of Russia.'

  'By chucking rocks?' Well, this is the British Embassy.' Julie began a gesture of disgust which sent a streak of pain flaring through her shoulder. 'Who the hell do those bums think they are?' she demanded. 'I'm a neutral! And Spain's neutral! Tell 'em to go chuck their rocks at the Russians!'

  'No doubt some of them will,' Clark said. 'The Falange is ] already recruiting volunteers to fight on the Russian front. As to your neutral status ..." He found a piece of glass in a fold of his sleeve and delicately removed it. 'I wonder ii anyone is really neutral any more.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'Well, take the Irish Republic. They say they're neutral, but that didn't do Dublin any good last month when the Germans bombed it by mistake.'

  'Just shows how crazy they are,' Julie grumbled.

  'Of course. Then there's Sweden. Is Sweden neutral? She's just allowed a division of German troops to cross her territory, en route from Norway to Finland. Finland, of course, is stuffed quite full of German troops. One could argue that the Russians are quite entitled to, as you put it, chuck rocks at neutral Finland.'

  'I don't care,'Julie said. 'America's certainly neutral, and I'm American, and my shoulder's American, and as far as I'm concerned that rock counts as a declaration of war. Your ear's bleeding.'

  'I know. The blood congeals more readily if one doesn't touch it.'

  'You sound like this sort of thing happens all the time.'

  'Oh, occasionally. Stoning the embassy is an irregular event in the diplomatic calendar. This is my sixth or seventh, I suppose.'

  Outside, there was a short lull.

  'Egypt too is technically neutral,' Clark said. 'We, of course, have even more troops in Egypt than Hitler has in Finland. As for Turkey--'

  'I don't care,' Julie said. 'How much longer are we going to be stuck here?'

  Clark checked his watch. 'The Spanish police usually allow them fifteen minutes. We can expect relief before long.'

  He was right. Soon the wail of approaching sirens cleared the demonstrators from the street. Clark fetched Julie's shoes and helped her up. 'I expect you could do with a cup of tea,' he said.

  'Tell me something,' Julie said. 'Why have you been going on and on about neutrals?'

  'To show you that this war is a confused and confusing affair,' he told her. 'One cannot always join in on one's own terms.'

  'Or stay out, either,' she said, touching her shoulder gingerly.

  'Quite so.' Clark took his bowler hat and opened the door for her.

  Chapter 34

  Lionel Christian came back from the lavatory as Otto Krafft was opening the afternoon mail in the anteroom. It was the colonel's fourth visit that day; Otto could tell where he'd been by the smell of soap on his hands. It was Spanish soap and it smelled of lemons. A great number of lemons.

  'Whose idea was that silliness outside the British Embassy?' Christian asked.

  'Don't know, sir.'

  'Childish self-indulgence. Just the sort of idiotic provocation that gives us a bad name in the diplomatic corps.'

  'Yes sir.' Otto slit a few more envelopes. 'I heard a rumour that Captain Mullen has set up a new team to encourage anti-British agitators,' he said. 'Perhaps they were behind it.'

  'Mullen set up a new team?' Christian squared his shoulders and stared. 'That's the first I heard of it. I was with him yesterday and he said nothing. I don't think he should create a new unit without at least consulting me.'

  'You know what these rumours are like, sir,' Otto said shuffling the correspondence into a pile. 'Probably nothing in it.'

  Christian sucked his teeth. 'Mullen's so damn short sighted he can't see beyond tomorrow. Quick results: that' all he can think of. Whether they might not be the right results is something that doesn't seem to occur to him.'

  Christian wandered away into his room, and Otto saw him lunging about, swatting flies with a rolled-up copy of Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. After a while he came back looking more restless than ever, 'You know what he'll say don't you?' he said. 'He'll want to know why we can't show any results.'

  'Eldorado's only been gone just over a week, sir.'

  'Listen: von Bock has advanced a quarter of the way to Moscow in just over a week! Raeder's U-boats have sunk two dozen ships in just over a week!' Christian threw his newspaper into a waste bin. 'I can't afford to wait
while Eldorado learns his trade. 'Let's face it, the lad's a lousy spy, he looks like Rudolph Valentino playing the Duke of Windsor, mean who's going to trust him? Anyway I don't suppose he can tell the difference between a bomb-aimer and a boy scout. No, he's a waste of time. I think I'll switch him to sabotage.'

  'Well now . . .' Otto risked a smile. 'That's a bold decision, sir.'

  'Hit their morale, that's what we've got to do. Mercury can put Eldorado in touch with those I.R.A. fanatics from Ireland. I don't care what they blow up, it doesn't matter, in fact it's better if the sabotage is utterly random. Senseless, sporadic destruction: even Eldorado should be capable of that, shouldn't he?'

  Otto didn't answer. He was looking at the first page of a six-page letter, closely typed. He leaned back and held it at arm's length, then, with a little snort of surprise riffled through the other pages. He got up, stapled the corners together, and handed the document to Christian 'Eldorado's first report, sir,' he said. 'He seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself in London.'

  Christian took it and fanned himself with it. 'Fancy that, he said. 'Bang goes my bright idea.'

  Next morning Christian called a breakfast meeting to consider the Eldorado report. All those attending -- the men who had played a major part in Luis's training-- had been given copies to read the night before.

  Christian tapped salt into his boiled egg, and called for comments.

  The others looked at each other, politely deferring. Richard Fischer paused, then raised one cautious finger. Christian waved him on.

  'In my opinion this is undoubtedly Cabrillo's work, sir,' he said. 'The style, the syntax, the overall format: it couldn't be anyone else. I believe it's authentic.'

  'Did anyone suggest otherwise?' Christian asked. 'No sir, but since the channel of communication used is, I believe, new and different, I thought it best to . ..." Fischer let the sentence die while he buttered some toast.

  'So he didn't use radio,' Franz Werth said. 'I suspected not, with a message of such length.'

  'Eldorado has his own private channel,' Christian said. "An official in the Spanish Embassy in London puts Eldorado's report in their diplomatic bag. The bag travels airmail to Lisbon and another kind gentleman in their Lisbon Embassy extracts it and mails it to us.'

  'Presumably those are the two men he refers to in Appendix "A",' Dr Hartmann said. There was a flapping of pages. "Financial remuneration of communications assistants",' "ire read out.' "I have agreed a rate of twenty English pounds per week for BLUEBIRD (in London) and twenty-five U.S. dollars per week for STORK (in Lisbon). This is best paid direct to them by me. Please credit my Lisbon account accordingly".'

  'Steep,' said Wolfgang Adler.

  'Surely not.' Franz swallowed hastily and licked crumbs from his lips. 'Not if the system works as well as this.' 'I like it,' Fischer said. 'It's as rapid and painless as any method I've come across.' 'Agreed,' Christian grunted. 'Pay him, Otto.' 'Yes sir. This stuff on page three about their new tank is very interesting,' Otto said. 'In many ways it parallels what our own people are working on. Greater speed, heavier armour-plating, automatic gun-sight ...'

  During the next twenty minutes, each man picked his own plums out of the report. Dr Hartmann was impressed by Luis's summary of new bomber airfields in eastern England. Fischer endorsed what Luis had to say about the effect of rationing on morale, based on Fischer's own experience in other wars. Franz got quite excited over Luis's analysis of British convoy strategy and how it might be turned to advantage by the U-boat packs. Even Wolfgang Adler conceded that Luis was probably not far wrong in his brief review of British, Russian and Axis prospects as seen by officials of the major neutral embassies in London. It became quite a cheerful and optimistic meal.

  'Thankyou, gentlemen,' Christian said. 'It seems that we are all pleased with Eldorado.'

  'After only a week at work,' Franz pointed out, 'this is a remarkable achievement.'

  Christian wiped his mouth, and stood up. The others stood too. 'Nobody has overlooked anything?' he inquired.

  Dangerous question. No takers.

  'I operate on the basis that all agents are fools and villains until proved otherwise,' Christian declared. He rapped the report with his knuckles. 'For all we know, Eldorado wrote this while sitting in a pub in Piccadilly, gathering worthless gossip.' He stabbed Otto in the chest with a hard finger and made him wince. 'Get all this in code and have it transmitted to Mercury as soon as you can. Tell him I want it checked, and I want the answers on my desk in forty-eight hours. All the answers.'

  'Yes sir.' Otto hurried away.

  'I suppose it's not impossible,' Wolfgang suggested, 'that Mercury himself is sitting alongside Cabrillo in the very same pub.'

  'Mercury doesn't drink,' Christian said. 'It gives him heartburn.'

  Wolfgang grunted. The meeting broke up.

  Chapter 35

  When Julie left the British Embassy, Spanish workmen were sweeping up the last of the broken glass and carpenters were nailing boards over the ground-floor windows. She wondered if the Falange organisers had had them standing by during the demonstration. That would be very Spanish, she decided gloomily. Everything here was such a damn ritual. Even when they bust you with a rock, there was nothing personal about it. It was just a formal rock.

  She felt restless and dissatisfied, and decided to visit Angela, maybe see if she could call up some friends and all go out for dinner. But Angela, when she opened the door,. was obviously in the middle of packing.

  'Oh, Christ . . . You're not leaving too, are you?' Julie stepped over open suitcases and between heaps of coat-hangers. 'Madrid's going to be like the tomb, at this rate.'

  'Tomb?' Angela didn't know the word.

  'You know: dead, buried, cemetery . . .'

  'Ah, yes.' She went on wrapping shoes in tissue paper. '"Well, for me, Madrid is a cemetery.'

  Julie sat on the arm of a sofa and watched. It was not a happy line of conversation to follow, but what else was there? 'You still reckon Freddy's finished, then.'

  'Oh, I know he is dead.' Without pausing in her packing, Angela very lightly touched the middle of her forehead. Here, I know it.'

  Julie thought: She seems very tough about it. She said, "You can never be sure until there's a body.'

  Angela just looked at her: a cool, Mediterranean, Catholic look which said Death is death so don't give me that fuzzy Protestant optimism.

  'Supposing the worst,'Julie said. 'Any ideas about what • might have happened?'

  'It was the war. Freddy was doing something.'

  'Spying?'

  'Maybe. Or maybe catching spies.' Angela began sorting through a pile of books, keeping some, dropping others into a waste basket. 'Often they are the same, I think.' The basket shuddered to the thud of books. 'Ask your Luis.'

  'I can't. He went away, to England. That's what he said, anyway ...'

  'I go to Brazil,' Angela said. 'Away from the war, away from stupid fools like Freddy and Luis. I am glad Luis went away. If he had stayed I think I would have tried to kill him too.'

  'You would?' Julie studied her intently and saw nothing but porcelain calm. 'What did Luis ever do to you?'

  'I think he killed Freddy.'

  Julie felt slightly sick. The effect of so much alcohol, pain and medication seemed to have weakened her body until with this last shock it suffered a thousand tiny cracks. She got up and walked to the window. There was a man in the apartment opposite doing bar-bell exercises. She took a couple of deep breaths. 'You don't know that,' she said.

  'I know that Freddy was thinking of killing Luis. So I think Luis acted first.'

  The man doing the bar-bell exercises saw her watching and moved out of sight. 'That's crazy,' she said.

  'Crazy to kill someone before he kills you?'

  Julie turned away from the window, massaging her face to drive away the weary, grubby feeling. 'It's all guesswork,' she said. 'You don't know--'

  'I knew Freddy. For years I have known Fred
dy, and sometimes he had to kill people, I don't know why but I could tell when he was thinking of it. And at that tennis game I caught him looking at Luis, very serious and sad, and I knew straight away, because I have seen that look before.'

  'Oh . . .' Julie let out a long cry of despair. 'Why can't they all just sell goddam insurance, like any normal idiot?' She pounded the wall with her fists.

  'If you want to break something,' Angela said, 'I have no use for those ornaments.'

  Julie kicked a suitcase instead.

  'A long time ago I discovered that everything is a game for men like that,' Angela said. 'Look at this.' She showed Julie a cartoon sketched on the flyleaf of a book. It showed Angela playing cricket, naked except for the huge pads strapped to her slim legs and a cap with a peak like an eagle's beak. She looked funny and happy and exciting. 'Freddy drew that,' she said. 'He was very clever at some things.' She threw the book into the basket.

  Later they went out for dinner. It was pleasant, but they had nothing left to say. They parted without emotion and without promises. When Julie got back to the Hotel Bristol the night clerk had a letter for her. She recognised Luis's writing, and all the wretchedness she had carefully pushed away during dinner came sweeping back. She gave the letter back to the man. 'I'll pick it up in the morning,' she said.

  In Spain breakfast is not so much a meal as a gesture, something to acknowledge the passage of night. Julie woke up with a shoulder so stiff and sore that she had to eat her breakfast one-handed, and this gave her an excuse for making it last. Nevertheless the time came when she had finished all the rolls and drunk all the coffee and it seemed Acre was nothing for it but to go and get Luis's letter.

  She used the back of her knife to rake all the crumbs and flakes of bread into a line. She shaped the line into a square, and turned the square into a triangle. The whole situation was so damn obvious that unless she was going to be utterly dishonest, there was only one decision. Angela believed that Luis had killed Freddy, and Angela knew a lot about that .sort of thing. Luis had ducked and dodged so many questions that he was obviously up to the neck in some kind of dirty work. He was very cosy with the German Embassy; almost certainly they were paying him; and now he was in England. Put all that together, and Luis came out at best a mercenary and at worst a hired assassin. Okay, she told herself, so he's got a nice face, so he's hot stuff in the sack, so what? Do you seriously imagine you have any future with a like that?