The Eldorado Network

by Derek Robinson

  'Well. . . Look, why don't you handle that aspect, Julie? I'll be too busy with all the Eldorado stuff.'

  'Yes, but . . .' She poured herself more wine. 'I don't know where to start. What are Bradburn & Wedge going to do?'

  The previous tenant had left them a Lisbon trade directory, published by the Portuguese Chamber of Commerce, Luis opened it at random. 'Lemonade crystals,' he said. Highly desirable. Go out and buy lemonade crystals.' 'And what do I do with them when I've bought them?' 'You sell them, I suppose.' He smiled encouragingly. What else is there to do? Buying and selling, that's what business is all about.'

  Chapter 51

  As the summer of 1941 drifted into autumn, and the German offensives in Russia and the Atlantic continued to register steady success, people in beleaguered Britain searched a quick holiday as and when they could. Garlic, luckier than most, managed a week on the Isle of Man. Seagull visited his pub-owning relatives near Macclesfield: very quiet, after the Liverpool docks, if only those strange planes hadn't kept roaring around, day and night. Knickers enjoyed a dirty weekend with an old flame in Leicester, where she worked in a parachute factory and told him all

  sorts of amusing stories about the stealing and corruption that went on there. Even Eldorado took a break and had a day in Cambridge, wandering around the ancient colleges, punting on the placid river, and sampling the local ale at a friendly tavern, where several R. A.F. pilots in civilian clothing were to be heard speaking occasional phrases of elementary Russian.

  There was no holiday for Luis Cabrillo in Lisbon. He rarely left his office, except to take his bulky envelopes to the big post office in the Avenida da Liberdade, or to collect the Abwehr's slimmer letters from the Banco Espirito Santo in the Rua do Comercio.

  Nevertheless, there was more time for him to think and to plan, now that Julie-- her wrist mended, the cast removed -- took care of the office routine.

  His first reports to Madrid had required two or three drafts, sometimes more; now, with the confidence of experience, he usually got it right first time. The files were growing fatter, and he made a practice of re-reading them regularly so as to make sure that his sub-agents behaved consistently: if Seagull made friends with an American seaman at the beginning of the month, for instance, they should not meet again until the end of the month, to allow time for two crossings of the Atlantic. Madrid knew that Knickers had escaped military service because of his poor eyesight; this made it unwise for him to report in too much detail about aircraft or equipment he might have seen. And so on.

  Meanwhile Julie found someone in the commercial department of the American Embassy who knew about lemonade crystals, as a result of which she bought a thousand dollars' worth, that being close to the limit of the credit which Luis had arranged for her with the Banco Espirito Santo.

  'Who the hell uses this stuff?' she asked. She had brought back a sample to show Luis. He was munching a few crystals.

  'Who drinks lemonade?' he asked in return.

  'I'll ask Bradburn & Wedge . . . You look different, Luis. Has something happened?'

  'How different?'

  'I don't know.' She put her head on one side. 'Chirpier. More buoyant.'

  'Ah, that's because of Knickers. Knickers has fallen in love.'

  'Wow. And the sheets in Leicester are barely cool. What a man! Who is it this time?'

  'I'm not sure,' Luis said, bouncing on his heels, 'but I think her father's a rear-admiral or something.'

  'Hey, 'that's class,' Julie exclaimed. 'That should be worth a few bucks.'

  'I'm told she looks like the back of a bus,' Luis said, 'but. Knickers can't tell the difference even with his glasses on, so who cares?'

  'Sure. As long as they're happy.' She put the lemonade crystals away. 'They are happy, aren't they?'

  Luis sucked in his breath. 'I'll be honest with you, Julie,' be said. 'The real trouble is, she drinks.'

  'Like a fish?'

  'Like a barracuda,' he said happily. 'The family is very worried.'

  Wolfgang turned the pages with his left hand. The numbness in his right fingers made them clumsy and unreliable. He sat with his hand tucked inside his shirt, where the body-warmth to some extent countered the numbness, and he painstakingly scrutinised the file copies of the Eldorado reports. Sooner or later, he knew, even the best tight-rope walker stumbles, even the best trapeze artist fumbles. Sooner or later Eldorado had to attempt one of his famous triple backward somersaults and land on his famous Spanish ass. It was just a question of «me. Wolfgang turned another page, read another paragraph, and twitched with excitement. There it was! The fatal flaw! He skimmed the next paragraph and grinned with delight: another beauty! He raced through the rest of the report and smacked his fist on the page with the third and greatest, deadliest error. 'I've got the bastard,' he breathed.

  Otto Krafft, who was working at the other end of the room, looked around. 'Which bastard is that?' he asked.

  'Both of them,' Wolfgang said. He took his hand from inside his shirt and flexed the fingers. Blood was pulsing through them, tingling the skin like fresh snow.

  Julie found an accountant, a dapper man who actually enjoyed dealing with the Ministerio da Fazenda and who took an undisguised delight in dealing with Julie? He took care of registering Bradburn & Wedge, he took care of the complicated form, he took care of the baggy taxman. The only thing he couldn't take care of was selling one thousand American dollars' worth of lemonade crystals.

  Major Schwarz was a liaison officer between Abwehr headquarters and the Fuehrer's office. When he visited Madrid on a working holiday, Brigadier Christian took the opportunity to polish his apples.

  He began by introducing Otto Krafft, controller of Eagle. Schwarz remarked that he was impressed by Eagle's apparent freedom of movement in Britain.

  'So am I, sir,' Otto said, with such fervency that they laughed. 'Of course, he has two great advantages: he's an American citizen, and his company trades with Britain, so he can justify his visits to ports or customers all over the island.'

  'Invaluable,' Schwarz said.

  'Eagle is an extremely reticent fellow . . .' Otto began.

  'Like Gary Cooper,' Christian put in.

  '. . . so we know next-to-nothing about his background, but reading between the lines of his reports I suspect that he spent some time at an English university. Perhaps even as a Rhodes Scholar. He has visited Oxford twice this summer.'

  Schwarz snapped his fingers. 'That would explain some of his influential contacts. You know, by the way, that Operation Bandstand has been confirmed by a couple of other agents?'

  'Has it really, sir?' Otto looked very impressed. 'Well, that's encouraging.'

  'Yes. It wasn't always called "Bandstand" but that's not surprising: the British often change code-names during planning.'

  'Yes, of course they do,' Otto said.

  'And I heard just before I left that we've doubled our submarine patrols off Norway.'

  'That's a pity,' Otto said, 'because I've just heard from Eagle that Bandstand's been cancelled.'

  'Damnation!' Brigadier Christian smote his forehead. 'When did that come in?'

  'Ten minutes ago, sir. I was just reading it when--'

  'You can see what's happened, can't you?" Schwarz interrupted. 'Churchill's got cold feet! We move one piddling division into Norway and he calls the whole thing off. He knows we know.'

  'What does Eagle think?' Christian asked.

  As Otto Krafft opened his mouth, there was a knock on the door and Wolfgang Adler came in. He held up a folder. I have a special report for you to read, brigadier,' he said.

  Christian waved it away. 'Not now.'

  'It's urgent. It won't wait.'

  Christian glanced at Schwarz with a God-help-us smile. 'It'll wait, Adler,' he said. 'It'll wait for ever, if necessary.'

  'I take leave to doubt that, brigadier.' Wolfgang was pale with suppressed anger.

  'Just take leave, Adler.'

  There was a frozen m
oment while the two men stared. Then Wolfgang turned and went out. As he closed the door he heard Christian's snort of amazement.

  Later, Otto described the exchange for the benefit of the other controllers. 'It was quite extraordinary,' he said. 'He really hates the old man, for some reason.'

  'Adler's a fool,' Franz Werth said. 'At this rate he'll end up cleaning the lavatories. D'you realise that, strictly speaking, he should have been next in line to be controller? He should have had Nutmeg. I bet Christian never gave him a thought.'

  'Nutmeg? Who's Nutmeg?' Fischer asked.

  'New sub-agent,' Otto told him. 'Eldorado just recruited him. Ex-Indian Army officer in Cambridge. Works for the Ministry of Food, hunting black marketeers. Hates Bolsheviks.'

  'And who's controlling him?'

  'Me,' said Franz.

  'But you've got Seagull.'

  'Well, now I've got Nutmeg too.'

  'Good God!' Fischer exclaimed.

  'You'll be next, I expect,' Otto said. 'Eagle's already lending as much material as two ordinary agents, so I'm fully occupied.'

  'I wonder what Adler had in his magic folder?' Franz said.

  'Sandwiches, I hope,' Otto said. 'He's got a long wait ahead of him.'

  Chapter 52

  Two Portuguese delivery-men carried in the new filing-cabinets, placed them next to the old ones, gave Luis the keys, got his signature and went out. They had also brought a Dictaphone system and three second-hand typewriters.

  'Great idea,' said Julie from the door of her office. 'Now I can type three reports at once. I'd do four, but I need my left foot to beat time.'

  Luis tapped a space-key until the machine rang its little bell. 'Different type-faces,' he said. 'It occurred to me that all the reports should look different, you see, especially now that Garlic and Nutmeg are working. I got them cheap. Can you work them okay?'

  She shrugged. 'I guess so.'

  'If not I'll get some more. They're a deductible business expense.'

  It was eleven in the morning on a day of autumnal crisp-ness. Outside, the sky was a bowl of such pure blue that it looked as if it could be cracked with a spoon. A few gulls had wandered up from the Tagus and were flashing their extreme whiteness against the sky in a lazy display of flying skills. Down below, the red roofs and white walls of Lisbon stood out as sharply as the pop-up houses in a child's picture-book. It was, Julie thought, one hell of a day.

  Luis stretched, and rubbed his eyes; he had been writing since 8 a.m. 'Shall we get ourselves organised?' he asked. He found a sheet of paper with a list of items. 'Let's start with Bradburn & Wedge.'

  'I saw that guy Rodriguez again this morning.' She came over and sat on his desk. 'He says he's definitely bankrupt. He can't return the five hundred bucks' worth of lemonade crystals because the guy he sold them to has gone away without paying.' Luis grunted. 'No wonder he's bankrupt.' Rodriguez feels very bad about it all. He's offered to pay us back in de-greasing patents.' Luis looked sideways at her. 'What are they?' 'God knows. But Rodriguez reckons they're worth eight hundred bucks, so I said yes.' Luis crossed off item one. 'That still leaves us with half the crystals, doesn't it?'

  Maybe. Here's another reply to my ad in Diario.' He scanned the letter she gave him. 'He's a German,' he said. 'That's just his name. Joachim von Klausbrunner. For all you know he comes from Nigeria.'

  He's got offices in Hamburg and Rome.' Luis raised his eye-brows. 'Why does he want lemonade crystals?'

  His secretary told me she thinks it's for export to Rommel's Afrika Korps.' "Oh,' Luis said. 'Oh, oh.'

  'Yeah. That about sums it up.' She swung her legs. Luis looked at them, and then looked away. 'They want all they get,' she said. 'Twenty per cent above market price,

  'I don't suppose lemonade crystals can do the Africa Korps all that much good, can they?' Luis asked. 'I mean, really important thing is to get Bradburn & Wedge established. Isn't it?' I guess so.'

  It's a question of ends versus means. 'He twitched his nose. 'Damn, damn.' 'Spin a coin,' Julie suggested.

  Luis found an escudo. 'Heads we go ahead and sell them the stuff,' he said. It came down heads. 'Thank you, God, i can go home now.' He ticked lemonade crystals. 'Now, it Garlic. I think he ought to find out something to do with shipbuilding. Have you ever been to Glasgow?'

  'Drove through it once. Grim.'

  'Jasper Stembridge reckons they do a lot of shipbuilding in Glasgow.' He flipped open the book to a marked page. ' "The deafening noise of countless hammers tells that men are busy at work building a vessel that soon will slide into the murky waters of the Clyde, and later speed across the seas.' I bet they're working night and day.'

  'Sure. To make up for the U-boat sinkings.'

  'Exactly . . .'

  They talked about that, and about the four other items I on Luis's list, involving Seagull, Knickers, Nutmeg and I Eldorado. When he had crossed off the last one, Julie said: 'Okay, now let's get down to Any Other Business. The topic I under discussion is sex.'

  'Ah.' Luis adjusted the point of his propelling pencil 'Sex.'

  'Yes. Does it exist, has it a future, is there a place for it and why can't that be in our bed?'

  'I see what you mean. It has been a rather a long time, 11 suppose.' He scratched his chin.

  'It's been a week,' Julie said. 'A whole seven-day week.'

  'As long as that? My goodness.'

  'Your goodness is exactly what I need, Luis. Dammit every night we stagger home, dead beat, and you fall into bed. And every morning you're up and crashing about, fully dressed, before dawn!'

  'Seven o'clock.'

  'Same thing. I mean, Seagull and Garlic and all those guys are lovely people, Luis, but none of them has what you have. That is, assuming you still have it.'

  'Mmm.' He nodded several times. She looked away There was an awkward silence. 'The work takes up so much time,' he murmured.

  'I can remember when we were in Madrid ..." she began. She left it unfinished and went into her office Soon Luis heard her start typing. He sighed and returned to his report.

  There was another briefing letter waiting for him at the that afternoon. He scanned it, recognised Richard Fischer's style, and stuffed it into a pocket. That evening they worked until nine, and then went to a restaurant which overlooked the river. The view was deep and dark: blue-black sky and inky water. A few early stars gave depth to the night and the yellow lights of ferries trickled to and from the far shore. There was lobster and watercress salad with a cool white wine. There was every fruit that Julie had ever seen and a few she hadn't, and a waiter who could carve a fat orange into the shape of a perfect waterlily without spilling a drop of juice. The coffee was like molten gold and the port was like molten grapes, except that it was molten grapes-, but by that time Julie was too happy to conduct a careful analysis of her pleasures; she simply enjoyed them. 'You know, Luis,' she said, curling her leg inside his, 'for a dumb Spanish schmuck, you're not such a heel as you might be, even if you have got crumbs on your moustache.' He reached for his handkerchief, and pulled the letter out with it. 'I forgot to tell you,' he said. 'Madrid is now interested in the economic planning of the British. It looks as if the war might last longer than was first thought. Isn't that encouraging?'

  'Sure. What this world needs is another long war.' 'No. I mean it opens up a fresh area for us. I can feed stuff about manpower and raw materials and budgets and .. . .' And sex.' "Well, growth of population is a factor. I mean, look at Russia.'

  'Is there much sex in Russia?'

  Luis sipped his port. Julie stroked the inside of his thigh. I wonder,' he said thoughtfully, 'I just wonder if it isn't all a matter of energy,' Tell you what. Let's go and find out.' 'Productive capacity, for instance. You get out what you put in.'

  'It's worth trying,' she murmured. 'Who knows, we could be on the verge of a great discovery.

  Luis paid the bill and said nothing until they were outside. 'It really is a very promising development, you know, Julie,' he rema
rked. He was clicking his fingers and hoping from foot to foot as she searched for a taxi.

  'Uh-huh,' she said.

  'I mean, it offers us so many new opportunities, so many . . .'A taxi stopped. He held the door open while she got in, and he stood for a moment, twisting the handle back and forth. 'I'll tell you what: you go ahead. My mind's full of ideas. I'll just pop back to the office for a few minutes and dictate them into the -machine. Otherwise I'm afraid I might forget them.'

  'How long are you going to be?'

  'Not long. I promise.'

  He talked into the Dictaphone for half and hour, and I then glanced through Jasper Stembridge to check a couple of facts. What he read about iron-smelting in the Middles brough district--'By day smoke pours forth from the chimneys of many blast furnaces and steel factories, by night their lurid flames light the whole countryside'-- gave him new ideas about the effects of economic dislocation caused I by black-out restrictions. He looked up Middlesbrough in the 1923 Michelin. It was very close to the North Sea, which made it highly vulnerable to bomber attack from Denmark. What would the British be doing about that? He put a fresh roll in the Dictaphone.

  Julie was asleep when he got home; he was astonished to discover that it was three in the morning. Habit awoke him at seven; when he got up she stirred and blinked but fell asleep again. He was eager to be back at work, and he hurried his breakfast. She "half-opened her eyes to see hire getting dressed, and grunted. He paused and looked. 'See you later,' she mumbled. He squeezed her blanketed foot and walked softly away.

  It was ten-thirty when she came into the office. The were two Portuguese men behind her, carrying a new diva bed and a package of sheets, pillows and blankets. They put it where she said. She tipped them. They went out. Luis, watched with interest.

  Just a little idea I had last night while I was waiting for you to come home,' she said.

  Luis tested the springs. 'Very comfortable. What a good idea. If I ever to work really late--'

  'I said it was for Bradburn & Wedge, so the store gave me twenty per cent discount.'

  He nodded. 'I don't suppose it's a tax-deductible expense, but still ..." She watched him walk all around it. Don't forget to kick the tyres,' she said. He smiled, and picked a loose thread from the mattress. She looked at him while he looked at the bed. Eventually he got up. 'A nice thought,' he said. 'Thank you.' Julie held his gaze for perhaps five seconds. 'I'm pleased you're pleased,' she said, and went into her office. They worked separately for about twenty minutes. Then she called out: 'What's this word "loins"?' He frowned. 'I don't remember writing anything about