He inclined his head. “That I was an intelligence officer in the war, and remained active as a case officer—a handler—until the year after your father was born.”
“If that’s the case, you were part of the Office of Strategic Services—the OSS,” I said, “which then became the CIA after the war.”
“That’s correct,” he said. “After the war, I was also a part-time reporter for the Associated Press as part of my cover. I was good at it and liked it, so I remained in journalism full-time afterward until I turned sixty-five, just like you’ve always known.”
“Did you tell Gran you’d been with the OSS?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation, “though I never divulged any classified information or told her of the missions we did, and she knew never to ask.” He smiled. “During the war, your grandmother was too young to officially sign up with any of the women’s auxiliary outfits, but she worked at the airbase at Ellington Field in Houston. She learned to work on airplanes with the one and only group of Women Airforce Service Pilots trainees in 1942 and ’43, before they moved the WASP program to Sweetwater, Texas. She knew how to keep a secret, your grandmother, so when I could, I always told her the truth. And I’ll do the same with you.”
I nodded. “That’s all I can ask for.”
I got up and went to my freezer and pulled out something I’d just remembered I had. I scooped generous dishes of chocolate–peanut butter ice cream into bowls and handed him one.
“But Gran would say we should eat something first, then talk,” I said, and held my spoon out at an angle with a smile. “Cheers.”
A look of relief washed over his face, and I realized then that my grandfather had been worried about my reaction, worried that he’d lost my trust. He clinked his spoon against mine like we always did. “Cheers.”
NPH sat up, sniffing the air in case my bowl might be something worthy of his discerning tastes. I gave him another kitty treat, then Grandpa and I dug in. Two bites in, Grandpa started talking again.
“If you’re wondering, the story I told Mrs. Pollingham—the story you and Maeve have always known—that my C.O. found out my age and made me a war correspondent—that was true. I actually trained for a couple of weeks under Ernie Pyle. Do you know who he is?”
I smiled. “Only the most famous World War Two war reporter. Won a Pulitzer and had a movie made about him—The Story of G.I. Joe, which you’ve made me watch at least five times over the years.”
“Just checking,” he said with a grin, before saying soberly, “Ernie was a nice man as well. Killed at the tail end of the war. Anyway, it was Ernie who noticed certain abilities I had.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Oh, like the fact that I picked up languages quickly. That I had mechanical know-how—I could jerry-rig just about anything, too. And…” He picked up the pen once more, and it disappeared before my eyes. “I knew a few magic tricks.”
My jaw dropped like it had wanted to in the Hotel Sutton ballroom when he’d switched the pens the first time. “Since when do you do magic tricks?” I’d never so much as seen him make a quarter fake-appear from behind my ear, for Pete’s sake.
“It was better that I wasn’t known for knowing magic, so I tended to only use them in a professional situation.” One corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’ll tell you what, though, sleight of hand kept me from getting shot several times—and kept me from having to shoot someone in turn. I wish it could have been that way in combat, too.”
A wash of feelings came over me. Knowing my grandfather had indeed participated in combat in the war, I always guessed that he, like most soldiers, had shot one or more of the enemy. For whatever reason, I understood this from an early age and never asked him about it, nor had I ever requested his service records as a genealogist. But knowing that the circumstances of war had forced him to take another’s life, and that he’d lived with the pain of it for decades, made me see my grandfather a little differently.
“What did you do in the OSS?” I asked. “And how does this pen fit in?” I looked around for it. “Where exactly is the pen, anyway? And what is that cylinder thing you found inside it?”
With a smile, Grandpa made the pen reappear; I never saw where it had been hidden. “I have many stories I could tell you about my work with the OSS, but I’ll leave them for another day,” he said. “Today, my love, you need to hear just one story—but first we need to go to the police. We need an item from Hugo’s wallet.”
“Okay, but can you at least start with why?”
Grandpa had removed the little cylinder, which I now realized was slimmer in the middle and looked more like a tiny dumbbell. He held it up.
“Because Hugo Markman sent you and me a message, and this will help us read it.”
THIRTEEN
Once again, the questions came out before I could stop them.
“He left us a message? How can you tell? And how do you even know Hugo Markman?”
Grandpa ran his thumb over the pen’s cap. “When you were telling me your story this morning and you mentioned a Mr. Markman, I didn’t think much about it. But then you showed me this pen, and I knew right away that you must have meant Hugo, and that he had sent me a message through you. After that, I knew whom to contact to confirm it was indeed Hugo who had ended up on a pull-out shelf in the county refrigerator.”
I made a face at his choice of words, but he didn’t notice.
“So, are you going to tell me who Hugo Markman was?”
Grandpa shifted in his seat to look straight at me. He seemed to have made a decision.
“Yes, you deserve some information before we go to the police. Lucy, Hugo was a very nice man who was a full-time forensic accountant and a nearly full-time conspiracy theorist and wannabe spy.”
His smile held a sadness for the man who’d died at my feet. “Everybody in the intelligence community in Texas has heard of Hugo. He’d be, oh, in his late fifties now, and has been a consistent hanger-on in the intelligence world since he graduated from college and didn’t get accepted into the CIA. Apparently someone encouraged him to go into forensic accounting, telling him he might get to work for the Company that way.” Grandpa shrugged. “In the end, though, his tendency to think everything was a government plot continued to hurt him.”
“Poor Hugo,” I said.
Grandpa nodded. “Still, there was no denying he was a nice guy with a good brain, so he was considered harmless. I’m told he occasionally gave a good tip, too.”
“Did you ever meet him?” I asked.
“You could say I knew Hugo a little. Met him in the mid-eighties, well after I’d retired,” he said. “I was in Langley one weekend at an OSS reunion and Hugo was there representing his grandfather. Hugo was just out of college and trying to work his way into the Company, but without success. Believe it or not, by this time, he’d already gotten the reputation for being a bit of a harmless nutter. We talked quite a bit that day, and I’ve heard his name several times since then through friends still in the business, but I haven’t seen him.”
I had a sudden thought, and clamped my hand over Grandpa’s. “Mrs. P. said she thought he might have been slowly dying.” I lowered my voice to a whisper, glancing around me as if we were in a public place and not in the safety of my condo. “Do you think the … you know … the company you worked for … may have poisoned him?”
Grandpa was silent for a second, then sat back with a belly laugh.
“No, my love. Hugo wasn’t the kind of nutter who needs silencing. In fact, I was told that in the last decade or so, he’d come around less and less frequently. He apparently worked for a consulting firm out of Houston doing forensic accounting, and they kept him busy. He’d go all over the US for weeks at a time, scaring the life out of corporate bigwigs when he took his eagle eye to their books. The CIA felt he was focusing his mind in a good direction, in catching white-collar criminals, and had become happy.” He shook his head again. “No, the CIA had no
knowledge of anything against Hugo, and I trust my contact to at least have hinted to me if there had been.”
“Okay, but how would Hugo even know me?” I asked. “How did he even find me? And why not you?”
Grandpa gave me a lopsided grin. “Well, your Gran and I moved three times to different cities in the decades since I last saw Hugo. If he were desperate to find one of us quickly, you were the easier to find. You advertise your genealogy services, don’t you? Hugo probably found you in a snap,” Grandpa said, snapping his fingers for emphasis. “Knowing Hugo’s desire to be an operative, he may have even followed you a bit, just to make sure he had the right person, that you weren’t involved in whatever this is.” He held the little cylinder on his palm, then closed it with a wave of his hand, and it disappeared. A second later, it was back on his palm. “Then when he’d cleared you—at least, cleared you in his own mind—he either knew or hoped like hell you’d show me the Montblanc.”
I was nodding, but it turned into a gasp.
“He did follow me,” I said. I stared at my grandfather’s face, but my mind was seeing the weak-looking old man at the cemetery in New Braunfels. How the breeze had ruffled the wispy patches of hair on his head and how he’d turned to look at me just before he’d been driven off. I told Grandpa about seeing him.
“He was far away, but he looked right at me as if he knew me. Then at the Hotel Sutton, he came staggering up the path. When he saw me, he looked … I don’t know, relieved … like he’d been looking specifically for me.”
“What happened then?” Grandpa asked. “Because it’s clear you had more interaction with Hugo than just seeing him drop a pen.”
I flushed. “I didn’t want to worry you,” I said.
He reached out and squeezed my hand. “I understand, my love. Now, go on. What happened?”
“I was trying to hold him upright,” I said. “So when he gave me the fountain pen, he could only press it against the back of my hand. He said, ‘Keep them safe,’ and that was it. He collapsed and died. The pen had dropped to the ground and Boomer picked it up before I even truly realized what it was.”
Grandpa was quiet for several moments.
“You know, I suppose there could’ve been a slight chance I was wrong about this,” he said, holding up the little cylinder once more. “But that seals the deal. Even though Hugo could be an oddball, he was smart and wanted to do right. His last act was to find you so you could give me this. It was very brave of him.”
“I agree,” I said, then pointed to the cylinder. It was about a half inch in length, and one end was threaded so that it could screw into something. “What exactly is that, by the way?”
Grandpa gave it to me. “It’s a microdot viewer.”
“Microdots?” I said, feeling a zing of excitement. “Like real spy intel on something the size of a small dot?”
His eyes twinkled. “Generally the size of a printed period, actually. Go ahead, look through it.”
I held it up to my eye, but all I could see was blurriness. Lowering the viewer, I said, “Nothing’s there.”
“No, unfortunately,” Grandpa said. “I was hoping he might have stuck it on the end of the viewer. That’s why I gate-crashed your event at the Hotel Sutton and did the old switcheroo instead of arranging to meet you at a more appropriate time.”
“So where’s the microdot?” I asked.
“It could be anywhere,” Grandpa said. “But I think that if Hugo were still lucid enough to get all of this to you before he died, then he would have put it somewhere that was easy enough for us to find.”
“Like where?”
Grandpa rubbed his chin. “What else did he have on him?”
“Two dollars, a grocery-store receipt, and a theater ticket to the play Oklahoma!”
While he mulled this over, another question came to me. “Grandpa? You don’t think Hugo was trying to alert you to an impending national terrorism event or something, do you?”
“No, my love,” Grandpa said. “As much as Hugo wanted to be James Bond, my contact assured me he wasn’t unbalanced. That tells me Hugo wouldn’t have left something of national importance to chance. He’d have alerted the proper channels.” Now he scooped up the Montblanc, which was in three pieces, and opened his palm so I could see them. “No, Lucy, this particular fountain pen tells me he’s referencing something I worked on in the war.”
He’d tacked on that bit of information so casually, it was a good two seconds before I could respond. “Are you serious?” I asked. “Something from World War Two? How can you be so sure?”
Grandpa’s smile was grim as he indicated the Montblanc.
“Because only eight of these pens, with this particular engraving and with this cap, were created, for an operation that took place in early 1944. They hold the reader, which can be used on its own if needed, but also screws into another device about the size of a quarter that more easily holds the microdot for viewing.”
I held up a hand, confused. “But, Grandpa, Montblanc was a German company. How did these get made for American spies?”
“Well, I can’t say I know for sure, but I do know Montblancs were being manufactured in Denmark at the time, not Germany, and could be easily purchased. Also, when I said ‘created,’ I maybe should have said ‘retrofitted.’ The eight pens were originally basic black, with no engraving on the nib other than the forty-eight ten—and they certainly didn’t come ready to hold a microdot viewer.”
“So, what, there was some fountain-pen artisan working for the OSS and he made all the changes?”
My grandfather’s blue eyes twinkled. “Very likely. You know as well as anyone that the war drafted people from all walks of life, including artists, jewelers, and craftsmen. Amazing things were done during the war by low-ranking soldiers with high-level skills, believe you me.”
“That’s very true,” I said. “Come to think of it, one of my client’s grandfathers had been an artist and set-builder for one of the big Hollywood studios. He was recruited to work with the so-called Ghost Army, creating fake tanks and radio signals and such to fool the Germans.”
“Those guys did some cool stuff,” Grandpa said.
I nodded toward the pen. “Clearly so did these spies. Go on, tell me more.”
He smiled, holding up the pen’s cap again. “Lucy, these fountain pens were made so the eight operatives who were issued them could recognize each other. First by the cap, and if the cap were lost, by the nib inside.”
“The spies didn’t all know each other?” I asked.
“We didn’t at the beginning,” Grandpa said.
My mouth dropped open. “Wait, you were one of them? Not the handler, like you were later? Or a desk clerk or someone behind the scenes?” I pointed to the pen. “You had one of these and were out in the field, risking your life?”
His grin was amused. “How do you think I recognized it?”
I flung up my arms, making NPH sit up on his bar chair and swat at the gold bangle on my wrist. “I don’t know. Maybe you took dictation for whatever general ordered the mission? Grandpa, you were just a kid. What were you in forty-four? Eighteen?”
Now he really did laugh. “I’d just turned nineteen when this mission happened, yes. But, my love, I’d had months of intensive training—and, oh”—he looked up at the ceiling, mentally counting—“at least six successful missions under my belt.”
“Get outta town!” I exclaimed. “Really?”
He put his hand on my cheek, smiling. “I’ll tell you about some of them, too, but not today.”
“Of course,” I said, forcing myself to get back to the here and now. “You said there were eight spies connected with this mission. Were you all OSS?”
He shook his head. “It was a joint mission with OSS and SOE.”
“Wow. Did you know any of the other spies?”
“I only knew the one I recruited for the mission,” Grandpa said. “The other six, I only knew their code names. In fact, to this day, I sti
ll don’t know any of their real names.”
“Seriously?” I said.
“You have to understand how these things worked, my love,” he said patiently. “A couple of the operatives I only ever saw for a few minutes, when we passed information. Others, I worked with very closely. We were all part of the same mission, but we all had different jobs to do.” He tapped lightly on the Montblanc. “That was another reason for having the pen on us. It allowed us to recognize each other without any code words or looks. One of the guys who passed intel to me? He walked up to me at the designated time and place, in a café in France. I was writing a letter with my pen. We never spoke a word to each other, nor did I ever even see more than the side of his face. He slipped me a coded message and was gone.”
“Wow,” I said again, with reverence.
“I suppose there’s a way to find out who they were, now that a lot of wartime activities have been declassified,” Grandpa said, “though I don’t know if this one has.”
I was fascinated, and dying to ask a million questions, all of them jumbled up in my mind, jockeying for position. One leapt out.
“How would Hugo know about this pen? How would he know that you know about this pen?”
Grandpa shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know, darlin’. Like I said, I know Hugo’s grandfather had been OSS, but I didn’t know anyone named Markman.”
“Then maybe he’s the grandson through the OSS agent’s daughter,” I said thoughtfully. “Did he look like anyone who was part of your mission?”
He considered for a moment. “His demeanor reminded me of one guy. Anxious, jumpy sort of fellow. Always so earnest about everything. He was SOE, however, not OSS.” I could see Grandpa going back in time in his memories. “He was dashed smart, though—utterly brilliant, in fact—and when the time came to be brave, he was. His code name was Rupert, but that’s all I know.” Grandpa sighed, running his thumb over the fountain pen’s gold bands. “Rupert’s bravery lost him his life, but ensured our successful mission, which helped us win the war.” He looked into my eyes. “You and I sit here today because of him.”
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