Yet he still could not make up his mind. He had already been to Gleicher’s villa. Until now he had not been afraid of the possibility of foul play on Gleicher’s part, believing the man to be too compromised to be able to do him any harm; but this evening his manner was distinctly alarming. The German read his thoughts.
“Believe me, Herr Arvers, you have nothing to fear. I give you my word, this isn’t a trap.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” Arvers replied sharply. “Let’s be off.”
They went out into the dark. Gleicher led the way without saying a word and Arvers asked no questions. This traitor, whom he thought he held in the palm of his hand, was beginning to appear a formidable person, an enemy to be added to the long list of those who were bent on disturbing the harmonious development of his dreams.
Gleicher showed him into the living room, which was brightly lit. Arvers gave a start as he saw there was someone there already. Otto rose to his feet as they came in.
“Gently, now, Herr Arvers,” Gleicher chuckled.
“You're very jumpy, aren’t you? It’s only Otto, the friend I was telling you about. He has known about you for a long time. He wanted to meet you in person. You can trust him completely. He knows whom he’s dealing with . . . don’t you, Otto?”
Otto nodded, grinning at his chief's playful remark. Gleicher seemed extremely pleased with himself and poured drinks for them.
“Herr Arvers is in rather a hurry, Otto,” he went on.
“We mustn’t waste his precious time. We’d better start our little audition right away. Are you ready, Herr Arvers?”
Arvers acquiesced with a gesture. Otto went over and switched on the tape recorder he had brought in and placed in a comer of the room. Then he straightened up and remained standing by the machine, watching Arvers intently. All they could hear at first were a few indistinct sounds.
“Listen carefully, Herr Arvers/’ Gleicher repeated. “It’s a really remarkable recording.”
22
At first Arvers did not understand at all. He failed to recognize his own voice. For a few seconds he thought he was listening to a stranger talking and felt a momentary sense of relief—but only for a few seconds, as though some perverse power had decided to grant him this brief respite so that the blow it dealt him later should be all the more crushing.
Then, with the gradual progression of a refined torture, while his heart began to thunder and the walls of his palace of illusions started to crumble about his ears, he felt himself sinking into a bottomless pit of disaster by sufficiently slow degrees for his conscious mind to grasp every detail of this utter hell.
A dismal swarm of gruesome memories, which the miraculous will of a mind bent on self-preservation had warded off for several months, now started circling around him, approaching more closely at each successive revolution, spinning faster and faster, drawing nearer and nearer to a certain central image, the axis of their rotation—a human shape none other than himself, bound hand and foot, lying powerless on a heap of straw in a room in a tumble-down farmhouse.
Faster and faster, in time with the accelerated rhythm of his heart, the demons of reality, released from the dark cage in which he had kept them imprisoned, started to smother him under their loathsome wings, whispering in his ear in a conspiratorial tone, murmuring one after another their scraps of partial evidence, then raising the pitch and hastening the pace of their monstrous accusations until their yelps dissolved into a single prolonged shriek. This clamor brought to life a former state of being that, in spite of the sublime crusade of oblivion waged by his mind, had existed at some point in the past, leaving its mark in the indelible archives of time and space. Bit by bit this state emerged from the mists in which he had hidden it away, his ignominy intensifying at each revolution of the tape. The words now came back to him like long-lost friends. They were so familiar that he moved his lips and involuntarily uttered them at the same time as the machine—sometimes even a split second before—unconsciously allowing his present voice to serve as an accompaniment to this sinister echo from the past.
When Cousin had dared to open his eyes again, the Gestapo officer had his back turned toward him and was bending over an instrument Cousin had never seen before, which was connected by some wires to a dry-cell battery. He thought it might be a generator, clutching at the wild hope that he was simply going to be subjected to a few electric shocks—how gentle that torture now seemed!—but it wasn’t that at all. The officer looked around, abandoned the mysterious machine, and signaled to one of his men. The man walked over toward Cousin brandishing the poker, the point of which was glowing as brightly as a star.
That was the precise moment he had given in—at the mere sight of the red-hot iron. He could not bear the idea of its contact with his flesh. He was overwhelmed by the anticipation of the pain. He surrendered in a flash, in wild haste bom of headlong panic. Up till then he had somehow hoped to gain a little time by arguing with his executioners. These vague intentions were in- stantly obliterated by the gleam of the poker.
There was only one thought left in his head, only one desire onto which his mind could fasten—to be quick about it, so as not to give the man time to take another step. His dominating terror now was that he might not be able to talk soon enough, that at the last moment—just when there was nothing he would refuse them—he might not be able to make them understand, that he might not have time to convince them he was at their mercy, body and soul, only too ready to do whatever they asked. Provided they had no doubt on that score! Provided they did not think they would need to break down his resistance by a brief application of the iron!
And so, with his brain inflamed by the urgency of his surrender, he succeeded, in the time it took for the man to take one step forward, in spitting out his glass capsule—the poison he had never had any intention of swallowing—and in blurting out these words, words the tape was now playing back to him with relentless fidelity:
“Stop, stop! I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything, everything! I’ll do whatever you wish! The whole network . . . the links with London . . . names and addresses. I’ll give you the whole thing.”
With cruel perfection the machine reproduced all the fine nuances of his terror—his stumbling speech, for instance, when he almost choked, so thickly did the words gather in his throat, so anxious was he to furnish immediately as much information as possible.
Since the Gestapo officer appeared to hesitate, he had hastened to repeat his offer.
“It’s extremely urgent ... As you see, I’m not trying to hide anything . . . Tonight, this evening . . . No time to lose . . . A raid organized . . . The roundhouse . . . A party of twenty . . . Rendezvous at the Café du Commerce ... I can give you the address . . . The recognition signal is . . .”
His abject terror came over with surprising clarity. There was no need for him to mention this operation—no need, except, perhaps, the urgency to make it quite plain to them that torture was superfluous. He insisted on making this gratuitous confession because he felt it was the best proof of his readiness to fall in with their wishes.
“Tonight . . . In a few hours; you’ll just barely have time . . . Twenty men . . . At the Café du Commerce. There are some submachine guns hidden away there . . . Also some explosives.”
The executioner had halted at a signal from his chief. Even after this longed-for reprieve was granted, Cousin went on groveling, begging for mercy, blurting out the first thing that came into his head in order to ingratiate himself with them.
“Don’t hurt me. There’s no need for that. I can be extremely useful to you. I have the confidence of my superiors. Think how helpful I can be to you . . .”
The recording went on in this vein for several minutes, punctuated by questions from the Gestapo officer, to which Cousin replied with painstaking accuracy, over and above what was demanded of him. This practical demonstration of his cowardice caused him untold agony. He felt he could not stand it a moment longer. This torture h
ad to be brought to an end one way or another. He was certainly going to faint. But the loss of consciousness for which he prayed with all his might was denied him and he had to listen to the bitter end, unable even to summon up sufficient strength to cover his ears with his hands.
The audition was over. Otto had switched off the machine some time before and was now waiting, motionless, for an order from his chief, who seemed to be in no particular hurry. Gleicher had listened to the tape several times before, but each time it gave him fresh food for thought. He emerged abruptly from his daydream to straighten his back, pull in his stomach, and assume the demeanor of Colonel Count von Gleicher. It was an unconscious reaction of defense against the servility of the person slumped in the armchair, in front of whom he felt it unworthy to force himself to keep up his former role.
“Give him a drink, Otto,” he said contemptuously, “otherwise he'll pass out on us and that wouldn’t do at all. . . . Well, my dear sir, now you’ve heard what we had to tell you. I don’t intend to make any comment. But when you’ve pulled yourself together a little, I'll tell you exactly what I want from you.”
His “my dear sir,” uttered with icy scorn in which there was no longer the slightest trace of irony, sent a shiver even down Otto’s spine. Cousin drained his glass mechanically but made no sign of protest and said nothing in reply. Gleicher paused for a moment, then continued:
“Here are my orders, my dear sir. I’m sure that you appreciate the situation you’re in and that I need not call your attention to the unpleasantness in store for you at the first sign of disobedience. . . . Oh, dear, I can tell from the look in your eyes that you don’t understand. I’m not a complete savage. If our secret police, like the police of any other country, happens to number a few subordinates who debase themselves by the use of torture, I myself scorn these practices and never use them. You have nothing to fear from me on that score; I give you my word of honor as a German officer. No, if you don’t toe the line, my dear sir, I shall merely see that your superiors in London get a copy of this tape recording.”
PART FOUR
23
Austin entered Dr. Fog’s office, as usual admiring the peace and quiet that reigned there. Engaged on more and more absorbing tasks of his own, Dr. Fog had left the Arvers case entirely in Austin’s hands, with the proviso that he was to be notified of any important development. Deciding that at this juncture he needed his advice, Austin had applied for an interview. Dr. Fog greeted him with his usual affability.
“I’ve got some news for you, sir.”
“Really?” Dr. Fog exclaimed, rubbing his hands together.
“First of all, this message that came in last week.”
“From Arvers?”
“Yes. I thought you’d better have a look at it.”
The doctor read it under his breath, pausing now and then for reflection.
“FRESH DEVELOPMENTS FROM GLEICHER. HAS BEEN CONTACTED BY SENIOR ABWEHR OFFICER WHO CLAIMS TO KNOW ABOUT MY ACTIVITY AND HIS. PSEUDONYM OTTO. OTTO AS WELL AS ABWEHR HEADQUARTERS CONVINCED GERMANY HAS LOST WAR SEEKS CONTACT WITH ALLIED SECRET SERVICE AUTHORITIES FOR EXTREMELY IMPORTANT NEGOTIATIONS. CAUTION, BUT GLEICHER APPEARS TRUSTWORTHY. WHAT ACTION SHOULD I TAKE?”
Dr. Fog showed no sign of surprise. Instead of giving advice in reponse to Austin’s tacit request, he simply said:
"I suppose you've answered it already?”
"At once, sir, in the following terms: ‘If you consider offer genuine, establish contact with Otto yourself. Obtain details and guarantees.’ ”
This message met with the doctor’s approval.
"I felt this was the best course to follow, sir. Isolated as he is, there seems nothing against his meeting an enemy agent who in any case knows all about him already. Furthermore ...”
"Furthermore, when a trap has been set, we must always pretend to fall into it. It’s an excellent principle when dealing with mental cases and enemy secret services. . . . But perhaps this isn’t a trap.”
"Perhaps it isn’t, sir,” Austin echoed without much conviction.
"We mustn’t automatically discourage an approach of this kind, however strange it may seem. You realize, of course, who the head of the Abwehr is?”
"Admiral Canaris.”
"That’s right. Now, this may surprise you, but there have already been several rumors that he’s trying to get in touch with us. I mean, with someone of importance in the service,” Dr. Fog corrected himself with a hypocritical smile.
“Really?”
“Furthermore, some people are convinced that he’s only waiting for a sign from us to come over to our side—which seems a little far-fetched, to say the least. . . . Did Arvers answer your message?”
“Yes, sir, like this: ‘Have met Otto. Evidently important person and seems genuine. Guarantees: firstly, has shown he knows all about Gleicher’s treachery, information provided, my own activities, links with London, radio wave lengths. Enough to have us all shot, yet has always left us undisturbed. Secondly, has himself provided me with documents I believe to be of great importance on which urgent action needed. Anxious establish contact with responsible authorities.’ ”
“What about these documents?” Dr. Fog asked.
“They arrived yesterday,” Austin told him. “I passed them on to the specialists after glancing through them myself. All our opinions agree. They’re infinitely more important than anything else we’ve had, and they appear to be accurate.”
“How so?”
“We've been able to cross-check quite a number of them. There are some that refer to the new submarine shelter, on which a group of French engineers has already provided information; but these are far more complete and detailed. Others, covering a wider field, should prove extremely useful. Unless, of course . . .”
“Unless they’re all part of a vast deception scheme.”
“That’s exactly what the specialists think, sir. But they add: ‘In which case it's an extremely high-level scheme, drawn up by a service in close contact with the High Command . . .’ At all events, this seems to prove that it’s definitely an Abwehr authority who is interested in us.”
“Which doesn’t make it any more reassuring,” Dr. Fog muttered.
“There’s also another reason why we should be on our guard, sir.”
The doctor looked at him intently. Austin had lowered his voice, like a lecturer preparing an effect.
“It’s this, sir. These last two messages were encyphered in a code only Arvers knows, one reserved for top-secret messages. Their importance certainly justifies this precaution. Claire therefore sent them off without knowing what they were all about.”
“You’re quite sure it was Claire who sent them?”
“Absolutely certain. I asked the operator who usually receives her and there’s no doubt about it. You know how they can recognize an operator's ‘touch’ when transmitting, even better than a signature. So it must have been Claire who sent them. Only . . .”
“Only what?”
“She inserted a warning sign, sir. Two letters inverted in a certain group. That doesn’t present any decoding difficulty for our experts and, according to prearrangements, it means we must be on our guard.”
Dr. Fog wrinkled his brow but made no comment. Austin waited a moment, then went on earnestly:
“It’s still too early to form an opinion, sir, but it’s certain our team isn't getting on very well together. The use of the special code can only mean that Arvers is suspicious of Claire. Her signal proves his feelings are reciprocated. Since my job is to keep an eye on this team, my presence over there is indispensable.”
“It’s rather dangerous,” the doctor observed, without betraying any further sign of surprise.
“It would probably be even more so to let him take action on his own. As for taking no action at all, you yourself pointed out that we might be missing a golden opportunity.”
“Claire sounded the alarm,” the doctor observed pensively.
“
She might have done that just because Arvers did not let her into the secret. Her obsession is quite capable of affecting her reason. I’ve been afraid of that all along.”
Dr. Fog, who had had ample opportunity to judge the merits of his assistant and who valued him more highly than ever, agreed to his plan. As was his custom, he allowed him the greatest freedom of action. Austin would keep an eye on the team, study the German offer on the spot, have an interview with Gleicher, and even with the famous Otto, if he thought he could afford to take this risk. Eventually he would arrange a meeting at a higher level. The doctor brought an end to this conversation by advising a policy of caution.
“Don’t forget, Austin,” he said as he showed him out, "that the professionals in our organization would never have employed an agent who had once fallen into enemy hands.”
24
Colonel Count von Gleicher was certainly no savage. He even prided himself, and with reason, on being highly civilized. He was as fond of philosophy and the arts as he was of war. During his week ends at the villa, after he had finished with Arvers and his professional obligations, he would often spend the evenings listening to records of classical music or immerse himself in the works of some great thinker, either ancient or modern. It was these very qualities that had singled him out for an important position in the Abwehr.
He was also a man of absolute rectitude and imbued with a sense of military honor. And so, as he listened for the first time to Arvers’ confession, if his immediate action was mental nausea and his only remark, “Schwein!”, he did not for a moment think of making an exception in this case to the rule he had set himself in his dealings with enemy agents. This was made manifestly clear when his assistant, Otto, stressed the importance of the tape recording in a manner he did not care for at all.
A Noble Profession Page 12
