by Joe Joyce
‘You guys are too efficient,’ Linqvist said with a laugh after another few steps. He took another two strides and then a deep breath. ‘We were hoping that the Norden would find its way to the Germans.’
Duggan stopped by a manicured hedge and stared at him. Linqvist stopped as well and shrugged. ‘I know,’ he nodded. ‘Our secret weapon. All that. But it’s a complicated situation. And what I’m about to tell you is obviously top secret. I’m relying on your discretion.’
Duggan was too surprised to agree or disagree. He took out his cigarette case and automatically offered Linqvist one.
‘Yeah, I’ll try one,’ Linqvist said, seeming glad of the respite. Whatever it is he’s going to tell me, he’s not happy to have to do it, Duggan thought as he lit their cigarettes. Linqvist inhaled deeply and coughed at the unaccustomed harshness of the Afton.
‘People back home think we have this magic bombsight,’ he said. ‘Drop a bomb into a pickle barrel. Or down Adolf’s chimney if we have to. And it’s true that it is very accurate. But only in test conditions. The RAF has tried it out in combat conditions, and it’s a different story when you’re being shot at and trying to take evasive action and your nerves are stretched to breaking point and all that.’
Duggan nodded. That was all simple enough, but not a reason to give it to the enemy.
‘There’s another aspect to it as well,’ Linqvist said, taking a more cautious drag on his cigarette. ‘The secret aspect. The Germans know all about the Norden. Have known about it since before the war started, we think. Thanks to a German who worked for Norden and gave them the original plans a couple of years back.’
‘And they’ve made their own sights the same way,’ Duggan said, remembering the Air Corps commandant’s insistence that the diagram he had given him was from a Heinkel bombsight. The one he had shown him in his maintenance hangar. Though it didn’t look anything like the device in the box on the front seat of his car.
‘Yep,’ Linqvist nodded. ‘They based theirs on the same technology. But that was one of the early models. We’ve refined it as time’s gone on. This one’s said to be the latest and much-improved model.’
‘And you want to give it to the Germans to show them that American know-how is getting better?’ Duggan suggested with a sceptical look.
‘Not quite. This particular one has been adapted in ways which should send them down some blind alleys if they try and adopt its changes.’
That makes some sort of sense, Duggan thought.
Linqvist took his time taking another drag and exhaled the smoke in a long stream, like a penitent preparing to confess all. ‘That’s not all,’ he said. ‘There’s another reason why we want this to fall into their hands in the right way. To trap a German spy ring in the US.’
Numerous thoughts competed for attention in Duggan’s brain. Tell me more, one insisted. You don’t want to hear any of this, another said. It’s sucking you into another complicated conspiracy. You know why he’s telling you all this, the darkest one said. To blackmail you into doing something you won’t want to do.
‘The FBI has been tracking them for a while, building a case,’ Linqvist was saying. ‘They’re mostly German-Americans, members of the Bund, and some others who’ve kept their heads down. But the Bureau’s had difficulties tying them all together and getting a simple narrative that’ll show their treachery and convince a jury of solid citizens.’
‘Catch them sending the Norden to Germany,’ Duggan said as another brick dropped into place. So that was how the Germans had known about the Norden going missing in Ireland before G2 had. They had been told by their American agents that it had been on its way to them on board the Flying Fortress that had crashed.
‘Exactly,’ Linqvist said. ‘One of the crew on board the Flying Fortress was an FBI plant on the fringes of this group. And he’d told them he would smuggle it on to this milk run to England and hand it over to someone there who would take it on to Germany.’
‘But it didn’t get to England.’
‘It ended up in a bog in Mayo.’
‘So you’ve had to abort the operation.’
‘The colonel doesn’t approve of aborting,’ Linqvist said. ‘He believes in improvising.’
‘Colonel Donovan?’
Linqvist nodded.
‘You’re working for his new organisation.’ Duggan made it a half-question, half-statement.
Linqvist nodded again.
‘Does it have a name?’
‘Office of Strategic Services.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything in particular.’
‘It’s not meant to. It means anything you want it to mean. And the colonel’s gung-ho to get going. Firing on all fronts.’
Duggan dropped his cigarette end on the ground and buried it in the gravel. A wisp of smoke emerged from between the pebbles and he watched it until it disappeared. A cloud passed between them and the sun, dulling their surroundings.
‘What we want to do,’ Linqvist said as he dropped his butt and copied Duggan’s action, ‘is to get the Norden to the IRA and for them to give it to the Germans.’
Duggan shook his head emphatically. ‘My people will never agree to that.’
‘Why not?’
‘They won’t have any truck with the IRA. Certainly won’t help them do anything which might increase their credibility with the Germans.’
‘Your people don’t have to know about it.’
Duggan felt his stomach sink. Here it is at last, he thought. The return for the favour Linqvist had done for Gerda. It had been so long coming he had almost hoped it would never arrive. But he had always known that it would. He turned and began to walk back the way they had come.
Linqvist fell into step beside him. ‘All you need to do is identify the right person to give it to. You can do it yourself or I can help.’
‘I don’t know the right person,’ Duggan said. ‘I don’t have anything to do with them. Know nothing about them.’
‘But you can find out.’
‘Jesus, Max, it’s not like they have a liaison officer for contact with the Germans.’
‘Isn’t it? I don’t know. You know more than I do.’
‘I’m sure your Office of Strategic Whatever won’t have any difficulty making contact with the IRA. Here or in America.’
‘We can’t risk that,’ Linqvist countered. ‘We can’t be seen to be involved in any way in getting it to the Germans. We have to appear to be doing our best to stop that happening.’
Duggan kept walking until they got back to the car. He opened the passenger door and stood back to let Linqvist take the Norden. Linqvist made no move to pick it up. ‘Listen,’ he sighed, ‘I really don’t want to do this but . . . ’
‘Why don’t you just send it on to England?’ Duggan interrupted him. ‘Give it to whoever was supposed to take it from there.’
‘Can’t,’ Linqvist said. ‘For one thing, they’ll want to know how it got to them. For another, the contact there has switched sides. A hard-line communist who believed in the Hitler-Stalin pact. He was a German ally when the Flying Fortress left Washington but he’s now Adolf’s greatest enemy since he invaded Russia.’
Duggan shook his head.
‘I had to pull a lot of strings to get Gerda Meier into the US,’ Linqvist said with a touch of sorrow. ‘For you.’
Duggan stared at him. He hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected that Linqvist would use Gerda as a pawn in this game. Had expected a more direct threat to himself. A threat to expose what had happened before Gerda left.
‘She could be in trouble if anyone questioned the validity of her visa,’ Linqvist added.
‘You can’t do that,’ Duggan said. ‘You can’t have her sent back here.’
‘She’s Austrian,’ Linqvist said.
Duggan resisted an urge to hit him. Deport a Jew to Austria, to ‘Greater Germany’. The bastard.
Linqvist put his hand on the passenger door and pushed it just hard enough to c
lose it without a bang. Duggan let it go.
‘I’m sorry,’ Linqvist said. ‘Really, I am. But Wild Bill doesn’t take no for an answer.’
He walked away.
Duggan stopped on his way back to the office, pulling on to the verge just beyond the growing clamp of turf on the park’s main road, to calm his anger at Linqvist's threat to Gerda. Two men were up on the back of the army truck, tossing sods into the outline of the clamp, while two others on the ground built up its slanted side. He lit another cigarette and opened the window, letting in the sounds of the sods and the desultory chat of the turf workers.
It’s a bluff, he thought. Linqvist or Colonel Donovan couldn’t deport Gerda back to Austria. Couldn’t send her back into the hands of the Nazis with all that was known about their treatment of the Jews. It’d kill her. Even the threat of being sent back could be enough to make her do something drastic. Even kill herself. Stop being overly dramatic, he told himself. But I know how much she hates them, hates everything German now. Even the language. ‘Don’t speak German to me again,’ she ordered me once.
It has to be a bluff.
But in this war the fates of individuals mattered little. Not at all when you thought about the blanket-bombing of civilians. What would one more death be among the many? It was only about one thing: winning. And doing whatever you thought had to be done to win. This case probably wasn’t even about convicting some German spies in the US. It could be about staging a show trial to justify American entry into the war. Or at least take another step towards that end.
He rested his head on his hands on the steering wheel, the half-smoked cigarette sticking out between his fingers, and tried to get his thoughts in order. An elderly couple walked by, giving him a curious look.
He moved when the heat of the cigarette reached his fingers, tossed the butt out, and ignored a shout from someone at the clamp of turf about the danger of fire.
What to do? he wondered. He didn’t know any current IRA men. But it wouldn’t be a problem finding the best person to pass the Norden on to. Gifford would probably know off the top of his head. Or could find out with ease. And they could just give it to them. And no one would be the wiser.
But what if the guards then found it in one of their raids? And there was an almighty stink about it? Questions were asked of the Americans? And the Americans denied that they ever had it? And the finger came to rest on him? That was court-martial territory.
The other option was to report all that Linqvist had said. Except the blackmail threat, of course. His superiors knew nothing of how Gerda had gone to the US. They wouldn’t agree to what Linqvist wanted. That would call his bluff. Which I can’t afford to risk, he decided.
He closed his eyes and slumped back in the seat, letting his thoughts drift, listening to the workers behind him and the fast clip-clop of a passing trap and children’s shouts in the distance. There was only one choice: he had to go back to Lisbon.
He carried the Norden back into McClure’s office and placed it on his desk. McClure leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and waited for an explanation. Duggan gave it to him, telling him what Linqvist had said, without the threats.
‘So this is a decoy duck.’ McClure stared at the box when he had finished. ‘Designed to lure some game into a trap.’
‘Something like that,’ Duggan agreed.
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘I told him we’d never agree to hand it over to the IRA.’
‘And how did he think the Germans would get it from Ireland back to Germany? When our friend Dr Goertz, a seasoned spy, failed to find a way to get himself back there for the best part of a year.’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘You didn’t ask him?’
‘I didn’t think of that,’ Duggan admitted. ‘I was so taken aback by what he told me.’
‘Probably on one of those U-boats they think pop up regularly in western bays,’ McClure said with a tired voice. ‘Fairy tales.’
‘You think it’s all a fairy tale?’
McClure raised his shoulders in a non-committal shrug and reached for his cigarettes. He tossed one to Duggan and they both lit their own. They smoked in silence for a bit.
‘There’s one way we can turn this to our advantage,’ Duggan said, seizing the opportunity to outline the only way out of his dilemma that he could see. ‘Sean McCarthy could give it to the Germans.’
McClure fixed him with an unblinking stare. ‘Go back to Lisbon,’ he said after a long moment’s thought.
‘Yes.’
‘Too dangerous,’ McClure said, shaking his head.
‘Think about it,’ Duggan said, trying to keep a touch of desperation out of his voice.
‘I just have.’
‘It’s the best chance we’ll ever have of convincing the Germans that the McCarthy link is genuine. That this link to the IRA can produce results. Get things done. Carry out whatever they want the IRA to do. Get them to trust us.’
‘And what will they think when this German spy ring is rounded up and the Norden is Exhibit A for the prosecution?’
‘They can’t blame us,’ Duggan argued, slipping into his McCarthy role. ‘We didn’t offer it to them in the first place. They asked us to find it for them. And we did. That’s all we did. It was their own
people in America who were fooled. Who fooled them.’
McClure gave a half-nod, accepting the logic of what he was saying.
‘And it puts us in the Americans’ good books,’ Duggan pressed his case. ‘At least in the good books of this new . . . ’ he paused to remember the name, ‘Office of Strategic Services that Colonel Donovan’s setting up.’
‘Linqvist is in it?’
‘Yes. And it’s in our interest to be friendly with them. To counteract the State Department and the diplomatic bad feeling that’s grown up with Mr Aiken’s visit.’
McClure raised his hands in a gesture meant to slow him down. ‘We keep out of politics,’ he warned.
‘I know,’ Duggan conceded. ‘But it’s just like our relationship with MI5. A counterweight to what the politicians are doing. You said it yourself.’
‘It’s very dangerous. We're still not sure the Germans have really bought the McCarthy story. Remember?’
Duggan nodded, noting how McClure had gone from describing it as ‘too dangerous’ to just ‘very dangerous’.
‘But they sent us the reward money,’ Duggan said. ‘A sure sign they have bought it.’
McClure sighed, indicating that he wasn't entirely convinced.
‘We’ve put a lot of time and effort into setting up the German link,’ Duggan said, pressing his advantage. He pointed at the ceiling, at their superiors’ offices. ‘And they want us to maintain it.’
‘We don’t have to do this to maintain it.’
‘No, but we can copper-fasten it with this. Convince the Germans. Secure the link for our own purposes and for the British if they want to use it. And do the Americans a major favour at the same time.’
McClure reached for his ashtray to put out his cigarette. Duggan took a final drag of his and stubbed it out.
‘OK,’ McClure said. ‘Do nothing for the moment. Think about whether you really want to do this. Then I’ll put it to the powers that be.’
‘It has to be done,’ Duggan said with more truth than McClure knew.
‘What are you so happy about?’ Sullivan demanded when Duggan returned to their office.
‘Me?’ Duggan asked, unaware of the half smile of relief on his face. There was every chance that McClure would agree to his plan and ensure that Gerda was out of danger. ‘It’s a lovely sunny day.’
‘Bollocks,’ Sullivan retorted. ‘What was that present I saw you carrying up to the boss’s office?’
‘Can’t tell you,’ Duggan said, sitting down at his place and unlocking the drawer of his desk. He took out the message he had prepared for transmission to the Germans. He was about to tear it up and drop it in the burn b
ag but hesitated. The deal wasn’t done yet.
‘I know very well what it was,’ Sullivan said.
‘What?’ Duggan looked up with sudden interest.
‘A chicken or two. A side of bacon. Couple of pounds of butter.’
‘Shit. How did you know?’
‘Sucking up to the boss again. And you wouldn’t even take Maura for a drive in the country.’
‘News travels fast. Does she tell Carmel everything I say?’
‘I’d work on that assumption if I were you.’
‘And Carmel tells you.’
‘Not everything. I only hear the complaints.’
Duggan muttered a curse to himself. This is ridiculous, he thought. Do I want a relationship with someone like that, who’s going to gossip about everything we do? Do I want to get sucked into Sullivan and his fiancée’s circle? It didn’t seem to bother Linqvist, who was already part of it. But that’s another reason now that I don’t want any part of it.
‘Is it true about your Special Branch friend? He’s getting married?’
Duggan nodded.
‘And I thought he was a homo, the way he carries on.’
‘And you were wrong.’
‘I’m not convinced.’
I can’t take Maura to meet Gifford and Sinead, he thought. Not if she’s going to gossip about them, about the pregnancy and everything. I can’t not take her either. That would cause all sorts of bad feeling.
‘Word is that he’s caused havoc with the black market,’ Sullivan went on. ‘Upset the whole applecart. There’s going to be severe shortages of everything now.’
‘Did Carmel tell you that too?’
‘No, that’s the gossip around town.’ Sullivan missed the edge of sarcasm in Duggan’s voice.
‘I don’t think you can blame it on him. Blame it on the people who were running the black market.’
‘That’s not the way things work.’
Duggan nodded, realising that Sullivan was right. Very often it wasn’t the wrongdoers who got the blame, but the person who exposed them. When nobody wanted them exposed, wanted the trouble of having to deal with them. Or in this case, really wanted the safety valve of the black market disrupted too much. If people couldn’t supplement the rations with a little more now and then, they might turn hostile towards the powers that be.
