The Gemini Agenda

by Michael McMenamin

  Cockran passed under the tall elms surrounding the main building, looking for an entrance. He moved quickly around the front of the building to the right-hand side. The elm trees provided more cover on the left-hand side and he intended to gain entry from there if he didn’t find Mattie first.

  Mattie was nowhere to be seen as he emerged from behind the back of the building and moved quickly down the left-hand side, looking for a point of entry and finding it. A stairwell that led below ground level. Perfect for breaking a window and gaining entrance.

  “Don’t move. Hands on your head or I’ll blow a hole in your spine,” he heard someone say as he felt a pistol barrel jammed into his back.

  Cockran froze at the sound of the voice. Ted Hudson! Cockran did as he was told, the pressure of the gun staying firmly in his back while an expert hand patted him down. He kicked himself for his poor tradecraft. He sure as hell hadn’t been quiet approaching the stairwell.

  “Turn around,” Hudson said and Cockran did.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

  “First things first, Cockran. With your left hand, slowly remove your weapon from its shoulder holster,” Hudson said, keeping his .45 automatic pointed directly at Cockran’s chest.

  Cockran did and placed the weapon on the ground. He kicked it away as instructed.

  “Next, the weapon in the waistband. There’s a good boy. You know the drill.”

  Again, Cockran did as instructed. Hudson knelt and picked up each weapon, tossing them behind him, then pointed his service .45 Colt at Cockran’s chest. He looked at Cockran and flashed him a smile. “What am I doing here? I might ask you the same question. What I’m doing here is taking care of your girlfriend.”

  “Listen, we don’t have time for this crap. Mattie’s in danger. She’s walking into a trap.”

  “A trap?” Hudson asked and then laughed. “Come on, Cockran. You can do better than that. Mattie told me what a big pussy you were about her coming here tonight. Same as you always were. Afraid to do what has to be done. Always following the rules. Just like the time with that Bolshevik baker in Brooklyn. You were a pussy then and you still are now.”

  Cockran didn’t reply.

  Hudson grinned. “The only danger Mattie faces is you trying to stop her from doing her job and she wants me here specifically to stop you from interfering. Which is just what I’m going to do.”

  “God damn it, Hudson, we’ve got to help her. She could be killed.”

  “Mattie’s a big girl, Cockran. She can take care of herself. You know what I think your problem is?” Hudson said, tilting his head to one side. “You’re jealous, aren’t you? Afraid I’ll take her back from you. I saved her pretty little ass in Ohio you know. She tell you about that?” He paused and smiled but Cockran didn’t reply. “Guess not given all that happened after that. Let me tell you that girl knows just the right way to show a man she’s grateful.”

  “Listen Hudson.…”

  Hudson stopped smiling. “No, you listen, Cockran. Mattie and I go way back, long before you ever met her. I know she’s told friends in the Hearst organization that she and I only had dinner a few times and that there was nothing romantic between us. She probably told you the same thing, didn’t she? I can well understand why she kept you in the dark because we were something of an item, you might say, and she was one hot little number.”

  Cockran didn’t reply, his attention focused on the .45 Colt leveled at his chest. “We had more than a few dates, I can tell you that but that’s all I’m going to tell you. The boys at MID used to ask me whether Mattie was one of the many skirts who spread for Ted. But I don’t go in for vulgar expressions like that nor do I ever answer questions from others who are curious about my love life.” Hudson said and then flashed a smile. “Look at you. You’re no better than them. You really want to know, don’t you? Did she or didn’t she? Well, you’ll never hear about it from me. You want to know why?”

  Cockran didn’t reply.

  “A gentleman never tells. That’s something you wouldn’t understand, you shanty Irish bastard. All you micks nail your round heeled tramps and then brag about it down at the pub with the boys. And later you probably bring her to the pub yourself, don’t you? So all the lads can undress her with their eyes and make believe they’re all fucking her. That’s what you Micks do, isn’t it? I’ll bet that’s just what you did with Mattie, didn’t you?”

  Again, Cockran made no reply. Hudson was feigning carelessness. That gun might look as though it were held inattentively, but Cockran knew he was waiting for an excuse to fire. Hudson knew all about Cockran’s temper and was goading him into making a dumb move.

  His only thought, however, was Mattie’s safety. Much as he wanted to knock out all the teeth in Hudson’s head and let him choke on them, Mattie came first and time was running out.

  “But don’t you worry about what Mattie and I did before you met her. That’s all in the past.” Hudson said. “You ought to pay more attention to the present. Did you receive those hotel bills I sent? You know, from where Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Stanhope Hudson, IV, stayed in Ohio? What did you think when you saw all the late night and early morning room service chits signed by Mattie from our suite? Oh, that’s right. You were in military intelligence. You should be able to figure it out. Why don’t you just run along home now? Mattie’s in more than capable hands and she doesn’t need you to keep her safe. Or for anything else. Now that she’s had a chance to compare the two of us in more ways than one, I’d say she’s ready to trade up for a better model. Someone who really knows how to take care of her.”

  A sharp crack interrupted Hudson’s monologue. The sound of a pistol shot from inside the building and, for a fraction of a second, Ted turned his head in the direction of the shot. That was all Cockran needed. He bolted from his position, launched into a flying tackle, and caught Hudson square in his midsection. Hudson managed to snap off a shot just as Cockran made contact and the impact knocked him to the ground, the weapon flying out of Hudson’s hand.

  Cockran aimed his head at the bridge of the other man’s nose, but Hudson moved his head aside and Cockran’s forehead only grazed his cheek. Hudson twisted over onto his front and attempted to get to his feet, but Cockran put him in a headlock and began to apply pressure, choking off his windpipe. Hudson rammed his elbow back hard into Cockran’s stomach, creating space to twist from Cockran’s grasp. He leapt to his feet, spun around and aimed a kick at the still-kneeling Cockran’s head.

  Cockran wasn’t quick enough and his ears rang from the kick, his perspective jarred for a moment as he staggered to regain his feet. But Hudson followed up with a kick to the midsection sending Cockran back down to his hands and knees. A third vicious kick caught his jaw and sent Cockran flat on his back. He felt the warm trickle of blood spreading over his left cheek.

  “You’re pathetic, Cockran. You never could take it!” Hudson shouted as he dropped onto his chest with the weight of both knees and put his hands around Cockran’s throat. “Don’t worry about your girlfriend, Cockran. You’ll be a dead man soon enough and that sexy broad will soon enough find better men than you to share her bed.”

  Cockran’s air supply was being choked off and the blood from his face was blurring the vision in his left eye — but blurry or not, he saw exactly where Ted was now, hovering above him. He stiffly jammed two fingers of his right hand into Hudson’s left eye. Hudson screamed and brought one hand to his face while Cockran slapped the other hand away from his neck. Then Hudson howled with pain when Cockran grabbed his crotch and squeezed. Hard. Cockran used his newly acquired leverage to roll Ted off him and onto his back.

  Cockran released his grip on Hudson’s crotch and rammed his knee into Hudson’s groin once. Twice. Three times. Hudson had no countermoves and groaned as he curled into a fetal position in a vain effort to protect himself. Cockran was in no mind to show mercy. His blood was up and he wanted some teeth. Hudson was helpless and moaning as Cockran grabbed h
im by the back of his coat, lifted him to his feet and threw him back against the wall of the building. A right cross to Ted’s jaw was followed by a left uppercut that snapped Hudson’s head against the wall. Cockran grabbed him by his shoulders and this time his head butt didn’t miss, striking Hudson on the bridge of his nose. With no fight left in him, he crumpled to the ground.

  Cockran moved in to finish him off. Hudson was dazed, his eyes glassy, thoroughly beaten, as the sound of two more shots emerged from the building. Mattie! Cockran looked around for his weapons and quickly found them. The Webley was in his right hand as he tucked the .45 in the front of his trousers and looked down at Hudson who coughed, spat out blood and what looked like a tooth. He was still breathing but his face was a bloody mess.

  Damn Hudson! He hoped he wasn’t too late Cockran thought as he headed toward the building, holding the Webley straight down at his side. He saw Ted’s .45 laying on the ground, paused, picked it up and tucked it into his waistband also as he resumed sprinting towards the building. Another shot rang out. There would be dirty work at the crossroads tonight.

  39.

  I Work Best Alone

  The Railway Hotel

  Hamburg, Germany

  Tuesday, 24 May 1932

  KURT von Sturm dressed slowly and methodically in his hotel room. He had slept little the night before. The fading evening sunlight filtered through the blinds, casting shadows across his bed and illuminating the dust motes that drifted in the air. He focused on the mechanical details of the knot in his blue silk tie to keep his mind from dwelling on the operation ahead. The details had been finalized, the assignments given, the surveillance arranged, the traps set for both Frau Waterman and Bruno.

  For several years now, Sturm had been betraying the Geneva Group’s agenda in large ways and small, a betrayal originally known only to his mentor Berlin and now shared by other powerful members like Manhattan and Munich. But that was to achieve a common goal. Hitler as Chancellor. To achieve his goal of stopping the assassination of Manhattan’s wife, he would be alone. Completely alone. Good, Sturm thought. I work best alone.

  Sturm reached for two soft caps — one a bright blue, the other a soft green — stuffed them both in the waistband of his trousers before covering them with the jacket of his charcoal gray suit. He topped his head with a fedora and walked out of his hotel room. Outside, he hailed a taxi to take him from his hotel to the Hauptbahnhof, Hamburg’s central train station.

  Sturm’s taxi pulled to a stop at the northwestern corner of the station. It was the primary drop-off point for motorcars and it was where Ingrid would enter. The building was a magnificent canopy of glass and steel that stretched along the length of the station, sheltering its passengers from the elements. It was sleek and simple, a house of industry proudly exposing its naked steel girders to the world. The face of the canopy resembled the giant grille of a motorcar, its vertical steel beams reaching their apex at the center and sloping down to the earth in the shape of a spade. Two clock towers framed the Wandelhalle, a more traditional bridge building of Prussian style that hung over the tracks below, housing a bustling shopping center.

  Sturm stepped out of the taxi and looked up at the clock tower above him. It was just after six o’clock. Her ticket was for a seven forty-five departure. Bruno’s plan anticipated that Frau Waterman would take a specific path through the train station to the ticketing office so they had placed men at each turn along the route, each within sight of the other, to monitor her progress. But Sturm had carefully nurtured Bruno’s anxiety that Ingrid might stray from the expected path. In turn, Bruno had spread his men too thinly over the station to compensate for this which left a narrow gap in the surveillance along her expected route that Sturm intended to exploit.

  He made eye contact with the first point in the surveillance, a neatly dressed young man sitting in an off-duty taxi. Sturm gave a slight nod and walked through the entrance near the base of the clock tower. The noise was tumultuous, exactly what he had expected. The early evening crowds of business commuters filled the Wandelhalle, rushing to and from their trains.

  Sturm noticed the second man in their net standing by the public telephones who by now should have received word of how she was dressed when she left the Vier Jahreszeiten. He approached him and asked the time. The man looked at his watch and whispered “Pale yellow dress, white hat.”

  Sturm thanked him and went back to alert the first man. Then he moved on through the Wandelhalle, removing a pen from his coat pocket and jotting the clothing details down on a note card. As he neared his own position, he spotted Jaeger, the third man in the surveillance outside a small café. Jaeger asked for a light and Sturm told him “pale yellow dress, white hat” as he lit the man’s cigarette. Sturm kept the note card to himself and walked to his own post. He was the natural choice to cover the most vulnerable point along the route, a blind spot within the corridor leading to the tracks. Blind to all but Sturm. There, on a stool just inside the blind spot that Bruno had unwittingly designed, was a tow-headed, skinny 10 year old boy, a shoe shine box under his arm.

  The boy perked up at the sight of Sturm. “You’re here!” he said.

  Sturm smiled and reached into his pocket to reward the boy as promised. “Good work.” he said, handing the boy the note card. “Take this to the tailor and come right back.”

  “Yes, Sir!” The boy leaped off his stool and navigated the thick crowd to the small dress shop run by a young Jewish tailor, another man Sturm recruited for his counter-op. Meanwhile, Sturm approached Kalb, the last man along the path, the only one between him and Bruno’s post at a telephone booth by the ticket counter. “Yellow dress, white hat,” he told him.

  Back at his own post within the blind corridor, Sturm dumped the green cap in a trash bin. The blue hat would do fine. Now, it was up to the tailor and his blonde sales clerk.

  Already, the boy had returned to his stool. “What did he say to you?” Sturm asked.

  “Nothing. I gave him the note and he said, ‘Yes, thank you.’”

  “Good,” Sturm said. “Now, do you remember your last assignment?”

  An enormous smile filed the boy’s small face and he nodded. His next assignment ended with fifty reichsmarks, more than he could make in an entire year.

  Sturm left the boy and walked towards the Wandelhalle. Jaeger signalled that the woman still had not arrived. He checked the clock over the entrance. Six thirty. Time to wait. At times like this, Sturm was cool. Today was no different. And yet it was. He was doing something for himself, not another. A matter of honor. He felt like his father. It felt good.

  Finally, Jaeger removed his hat and wiped his brow. She was here. Sturm walked to the other end of the corridor to pass the signal to the fourth man, Kalb, who would alert Bruno. Once back at his post, Sturm could see Jaeger helpfully offering directions to a woman in a white hat wearing a yellow dress. He pointed toward Sturm’s location.

  Sturm handed the shoe shine boy fifty reichsmarks and said, “Go! Now!” The boy headed back toward the boutique to signal the tailor that it was time. Standing within the blind zone, Sturm stared at the crowd until he saw a distinctive white hat over blonde hair flowing with the stream of passengers. He looked past her to the tailor’s shop but saw no sign of activity. If the tailor didn’t provide the diversion Sturm required, he might well have to abort. Or improvise. He needed the diversion. Now. Or they would both be in danger. As the crowd began to thin, he could see the pale yellow of her dress, the smooth white skin of her collarbone exposed to the air, and then — he saw her face. She was more beautiful than he remembered.

  Ingrid.

  Her golden hair was bound and wrapped neatly for travel under a broad-brimmed white hat and she carried a small case of luggage. Her expressive blue eyes flitted left and right, seeking the sign that would take her in the right direction. And then she saw him. There was a moment of hesitation at spotting a familiar face. Her face wrinkled in surprise and then broke into a smil
e at seeing her lover in a foreign train station thousands of miles from home.

  Sturm looked to the tailor’s shop. Still, nothing.

  Sturm’s eyes returned to Ingrid. He froze. She seemed on the verge of calling out his name. That would place them in peril and she was too far from him to reach her, to stop her. There was nothing else he could do but vigorously shake his head no and hope she understood. Both their lives were in Ingrid’s hands now.

  40.

  The Street Was Empty!

  The Eugenics Record Office

  Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island

  Tuesday, 24 May 1932

  MATTIE heard voices speaking in accented English but she couldn’t place it. She lay still, feigning unconsciousness. Both men’s backs were to her. They were big men with thick necks. Each had casts from hand to elbow, one of them on his left arm, the other on his right.

  “What do we do with the broad?” Righty asked.

  “You clubbed her pretty good,” Lefty replied. “She’s not going anywhere soon. We need to check Davenport’s office to see if the Gemini clinical files have been disturbed.”

  “But what about this folder she had in her camera bag?” Righty asked as he held up the Project Gemini correspondence file.

  “Put it there on the desk for now,” Lefty replied.”I’m not sure where it belongs.”

  “And her camera?”

  “Smash it.”