by Noel Hynd
What had Siegfried meant, "Keep America out of the war"? Fowler, Duquaine was now convinced, had delusions of grandeur. What a shame that Berlin was actually dealing with him.
*
"Where is your husband?" Peter Whiteside inquired on Wednesday.
Laura, seated on the sofa in her own living room, cocked her head. "So this is a business call, isn't it, Peter?" she snapped. Whiteside lowered his eyes and set aside the cup of tea she had brewed for him. She folded her arms and glared indignantly at him.
The two tall, sturdy men who had accompanied Whiteside found subjects to amuse them outside of the room. One sat on the front doorstep and Laura assumed he was a guard. The other was in the kitchen, and she knew he was covering the rear access to the house. Whiteside had introduced them as his associates, Andrew McPherson and Mick Fussel. It had not taken inspiration to peg them as M.I. 6, like Peter.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Peter Whiteside," she said sternly. "Coming into my home, pretending you're glad to see me, asking your idiotic, insinuating questions."
"I am ashamed, Laura," he attempted, "but not for coming here today. I lied to you last time we spoke. And I let you remain in considerable danger."
"You're trying to change your story now? Is that it?"
"After a fashion, yes."
"Well, I don't believe you! I don't want to hear your new account of things, Peter. Can you understand that?"
"I can understand how you feel, but you must listen to me."
"I should never have listened to you!" she snapped, getting hotter.
Fussel appeared in the doorway from the kitchen, and disappeared again.
Now Whiteside was angering. "No, Laura, perhaps you shouldn't have. But you did. So you made an error, too, did you not? So now you have to listen to the truth. For your sake, for your father's sake, for England's sake-"
"And for the sake of yourself and all those who sail with you." She glanced at her watch, a black-faced oval Tiffany timepiece with Roman numerals, a wedding gift from Stephen's parents. "You have five minutes to set the accounts straight, Peter Whiteside," she said sternly. "After that, I will thank you to leave my home."
"I shall need more than five minutes, Laura," he warned.
She looked back to the watch. "I'm counting already," she said.
*
Siegfried was counting, also. Or, taking inventory, actually, in the apartment in Alexandria. His wet suit was in perfect order and packed within a locked suitcase. He had U.S. currency, Mexican currency, a small amount of gold, and some Third Reich currency. He turned his attention to the explosives. He still had enough TNT to sink a ship, but now there would be a change of plans. He hated changes, but sometimes last-minute quirks could not be avoided.
He drew all the window shades in the small apartment, then carefully threw the extra bolt on his door. He loaded his Luger, just in case he was disturbed. He liked the feel of the weapon in his hand. For the Third Reich, he would not hesitate to fire it.
He laid the Luger at the right side of a desk that he had converted to a work space. He then went to his mattress, undid part of the seam, and withdrew one stick of dynamite.
Intent on his work now, he conjured up plans for a second bomb. Four sticks of dynamite should pierce the hull of the Sequoia and do away with Roosevelt. But first there was this meddlesome F.B.I. agent to address.
Siegfried sat down at his desk and worked meticulously. He opened one stick of dynamite and poured out an ounce of TNT. He removed from a paper bag one of two inexpensive watches he had purchased at Grand Central Station in New York. With the help of a knife, he removed the crystal from the watch, then used a pair of tweezers to snap off the minute hand. Next Siegfried laid out a large section of iron pipe, three inches in diameter and seven inches in length. He unfolded a thick black woolen sock, acquired in New Hampshire, the type used by lumberjacks on winter work details, and cut two six-inch lengths of copper wire. Then he withdrew from his pocket a nine-volt radio battery.
Foolish F.B.I. agent, Siegfried thought. Who did he think he was going to stop? The early word on the F.B.I. had been correct, he mused to himself: a bunch of amateurs, led by that incompetent vainglorious effete Hoover.
Siegfried used surgical rubber gloves. He held to his ear the watch with only the hour hand. It was not ticking. Perfect. Not yet time to wind it. He set it aside.
The thought came back: Cochrane. The F.B.I. agent deserved what he was going to get. Fowler did not like the way Cochrane looked at Laura. Laura was his, to do with, to use, and to dispose of at times suiting his benefit and convenience.
Siegfried was angry. He set to work with unusual vengeance.
*
Whiteside held Laura's attention for a full twenty- two minutes. He watched her face as he spoke and he laid before her every bit of evidence. The Birmingham May Day bombing. The circumstantial notion that Fowler could have acquired knowledge of explosives from German agents in America and further could have been the saboteur who sunk the Wolfe and the Adriana.
Whiteside felt he was winning, but toward the conclusion, he saw skepticism growing again. She refolded her arms. And by the end, she was studying the floor, not looking at Peter Whiteside.
Fussel and McPherson were still at their sentry posts. It was five in the afternoon. There was a long silence as Whiteside finished.
"Well?" he asked.
"Every bit as fatuous and disreputable as your previous tale, Peter," she said. Her tone wasn't hostile now. It was simply disappointed. Before her eyes, Peter Whiteside had shrunk to something small, mean, and mendacious, and petulant.
"Laura, please…”
"I'm sorry, Peter," she said. "You'd better go." Her eyes flashed. "Now!" She was furious. "I mean it. I don't want you in my home and I don't want to hear any more of these stories. Please leave before I call the police!"
Whiteside puckered his lips, then let slip a long sigh of resolution. He nodded to Fussel, who was watching, arms folded, leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen.
"If you should change your mind, Laura," Whiteside tried, "I-"
"I shall not."
"I can be reached," he spoke through her, "through the British Consulate in Washington. It's on Connecticut Avenue. Ask for me by name. I'm ready to arrange for your protection at any time. Please remember that."
"Go!" she demanded, not looking at him.
Whiteside gave Fussel a slight nod of the head. And he went, no further word spoken, taking McPherson from the front door with him.
THIRTY-ONE
Bill Cochrane lay on the bed in the house on Twenty- sixth Street. He stared at the ceiling. It was a Sunday night, Fibber McGee was on the radio, but Cochrane wasn't listening. There was something tangibly wrong at Liberty Circle. The Lutheran minister and his English wife. There was something within Stephen Fowler that Cochrane couldn't place, something hard and secretive. And how had an Englishwoman of Laura Fowler's rank landed in a quiet American whistle stop?
Then Cochrane piled on the coincidences that he had been trained to believe did not exist. St. Paul's was in the center of the Bluebirds' triangulation pattern. Siegfried unmistakably had passed through the town. But had he ever left?
Then there was his own attraction to Laura Fowler. Combined with his long pursuit of Siegfried and his worn-down nerves, was he now seeing shadows where there was no sun to cast them?
What was wrong with Stephen Fowler? Why were Cochrane's internal alarms sounding? Instinct? Nerves? Or attraction to Laura?
Out of curiosity, he ran Fowler’s name through the United States Passport Bureau on Monday morning and Laura’s through the Bureau of Immigration. Then he caught the one o'clock train north. Liberty Circle was worth a second look.
Laura found Bill Cochrane meandering along the side of St. Paul's. He had been waiting to be spotted, and sight him she did as she walked back to the rectory from town. She walked to him and smiled.
"Back again?" she asked.
"Must be an important case," she said.
"Any murder is important," he answered swiftly, wondering how lame he sounded. "How's your husband?"
"Away again," she said. "Visiting a parish in Connecticut, I think."
"You think?"
The vagueness of her response surprised her when he called attention to it. "I know," she said with an effacing smile. She walked with him until they came to the front door of St. Paul's. It was late afternoon now and the sky was darkening. "Wait here," she said.
She walked inside the church as Bill Cochrane stood outside. Then two small outside lights went on and another set illuminated the steeple. Laura reappeared. "The duties of the parson's wife," she said. "Lighting the steeple when he's out of town."
He smiled. "Short hours, no heavy lifting. Not bad duties, wouldn't you say?"
"Find anything?" she asked, suddenly quite serious. She motioned to the woods. The murder continued to disturb her.
"No," he said.
"Would you tell me if you had?"
"Maybe."
She smiled again. "Is it considered a bribe to brew a cup of tea for an F.B.I. agent?" she inquired. "It's chilly out here. Interested?"
He was. He followed her to the rectory, wondering what kind of fool or madman Stephen Fowler was to so often leave alone a woman like Laura. He wondered if they were happily married. A small wave of depression touched him: he concluded that he had no reason to believe they were not.
*
She made Earl Grey in a blue and white porcelain pot that she had brought from England. They sat in the warm living room of the rectory and the tea was delicious, even though Bill Cochrane wasn't a tea drinker. She also served a plate of cookies, setting them on a table between them.
Laura sat on a sofa, her feet curled under her. Bill Cochrane sat in an armchair on the other side of the table. He tried to draw a sense of the Fowlers. Somehow he failed. See a woman in too bright a light and everything else is obscured, he reminded himself. He recalled that he was there, after all, on business.
But Laura was talking and he was listening. Somehow he had nudged the conversation to her past, and she told him about Wiltshire, her father, and Edward Shawcross. Then she told him about Lake Contontic, the ballroom, and the young Princeton graduate, Stephen Fowler, who liked to swim across the lake.
"And you've lived happily ever after?" he inquired.
She held his gaze for several long seconds. "Why do you guess that?" she answered.
"Nice home. Attractive husband. Comfortable, secure life," he said, probing.
She found herself telling the truth. "It hasn't always been easy," she said. "Stephen is away too much. There are times when I've thought of…" Her voice trailed off into silence.
"Not divorce, surely," he said.
"No," she answered quickly. "Returning home indefinitely," she said. "Until Stephen could decide whether he wants to be married to me."
"Home to England?"
"Yes."
And according to immigration records, you did, he thought, not saying it. For two and a half months this past summer. Just when some of the worst bombs were planted.
"And did you?" he asked, testing.
"June of this year," she said. "Until mid-August. I went to see my father in Salisbury."
"A pretty cathedral city if my fifth-grade geography still serves me," he said.
"It serves you quite well. I’m impressed.”
"Did Stephen travel with you?"
"No, he did not."
Cochrane sipped his tea. Laura refilled his cup when he set it down. He waited for her to speak.
"Stephen was here in America," she said. "We weren't getting along. I thought some time away from each other might help."
"Did it?"
She found herself answering defensively. "Yes," she said firmly. "I think it did." Then she turned the questions back on him.
"And what about you?" she asked. "You should be ashamed," she said with mock severity, "turning your federal interrogation techniques upon an innocent Englishwoman. What about you, Mr. Cochrane? Happily married, I suppose, with a beautiful wife from a patrician American family. You have two little ones, a boy and a girl at a manageable interval, and a lovely home outside Washington, D.C."
He shook his head. "I have a three-room apartment in Baltimore when I'm not on an assignment. Right now I'm lodged in a crumbling old wooden structure in Georgetown. No children. I'm widowed," he said.
There was a heavy pause.
"Oh, I am sorry," said Laura, feeling inordinately clumsy. "I did not meant to-"
"It's all right," he said. "It was several years ago. But you were almost right. She was a very pretty woman from an old Virginia family. We had grown up together."
"What was her name?"
"Heather."
"A pretty name," she said. "I can remember when my mother died," she said after a pause. "Death creates such a horrible void. It's so difficult to fill it."
"One can't fill it," he answered. "One can only get on with the rest of one's life. Sometimes you have to go in new directions. I would never have joined the F.B.I., for example, if my wife hadn't been killed in a car accident. I needed new challenges. New scenery. New faces. Does that make sense?"
Laura nodded. "There's only one thing that doesn't make sense about you so far, Mr. Cochrane."
"Which is that?"
"Why you're testing me. Lying, actually."
"Lying? About what?"
"You're investigating Stephen," she said. "You came here ostensibly to investigate a murder. But a murder is a state crime, as you yourself said. And you've even come back for a second look. Or, should I say, a second snoop. What are you looking for, Mr. Cochrane? Be as honest as you can with me. Maybe I could even help you."
He studied her and was struck by the manner in which he had foolishly both underestimated her and talked too much. He reached for a cookie as she silently held him in view. Every bit of his training dictated that he stay with his cover story. But then there was instinct. That, and the most enticing brown eyes that had ever drawn a bead on him.
"I'm waiting," Laura said.
"Everything I've told you is true."
"Of course it is," she answered. She folded her arms and waited. “But there’s more, isn’t there?”
It was a decision based on instinct and hunch, just as trusting Otto Mauer had been.
"I'm looking for a spy," Bill Cochrane said. "A murderer and a spy. Same man. And I'm drawing close."
Then he told a story which fit astonishingly with the account given by Peter Whiteside. By the end of it, half an hour later, all the bombing dates coincided with Stephen's absences. As for Birmingham a few years ago, Laura thought, one could only draw certain conclusions. When he finished, she was greatly shaken. She spent a long time in the midst of several dark thoughts.
"I can't believe that my husband is the man you're looking for, Mr. Cochrane," she said at length. "He has his faults like any other man. But he's not the monster you described."
"I never said that he was," Bill Cochrane answered. "You came to that conclusion yourself. Same as I did."
There was a silence. Then the monstrosity of the whole thing was upon her, and it was too big, too horrible, and too terrifying to even comprehend. So she rejected it completely, and Bill Cochrane with it.
"How dare you!" she said, suddenly turning on him. "You come in here, accept our hospitality, and then make these accusations about my husband. I'll thank you, sir, to be on your way. And unless you have something concrete, don't ever come here with such stories again. Now, out!"
Cochrane nodded and said nothing. He rose and, in apparent defeat, left the minister’s home.
THIRTY-TWO
The vision was filled with its
usual irrationality. It was familiar. Cochrane had suffered it before.
President Roosevelt was sitting on the east portico of the White House, sunning himself, making pencil notes in the margin of a typewritten report. Cochrane stood to the right, arms folded behind his back, as a man who was no more than an unidentifiable spectre approached Roosevelt.
"Oh. Hello, my friend," Roosevelt said, looking up and grinning. The cigarette holder was in place.
The visitor handed Roosevelt a package as Cochrane tried to protest. But words would not escape his lips.
"Das ist fur Sie," the man said as Roosevelt accepted it.
Cochrane twisted and turned. His feet were cemented in place; his throat empty.
"Fur mich?" Roosevelt asked.
"Jawohl." The man nodded courteously.
"Danke schoen," said the grateful President. "I hope you'll consider voting next November. Are you a Democrat?"
"Nein," said the visitor, "I'm a National Socialist. Hell Hitler!"
Roosevelt looked quizzically at the man, then grinned at Cochrane, who was waving his arms to protest. Next, there was a tremendous explosion in red and gray and black; and upon the explosion, Cochrane saw the largest swastika he had ever envisioned.
Then everything settled and Cochrane was far away, as if in an airplane. The White House was tranquil down below him, except it flew the red, white, and black banner of the Third Reich from its flagpole and Hitler stood at the east portico, his arm raised in the Nazi salute as one million cheering people stretched from the lawn of the White House across the city to the Washington Monument.
Cochrane tossed himself upright in his bed and came awake. His neck and face were wet and warm. The bedside clock, when he turned the light on, said 1:30 A.M. His mouth was parched. Cochrane wished his mind would behave itself when he was trying to sleep. Wasn't Siegfried furtive enough without creeping into his dreams?
Cochrane stalked down the creaky staircase. He was midway between a fitful sleep and a fatigued wakefulness. Some ice water, which he found in the Frigidaire, might help. He stood by the kitchen counter and sipped. He thought of Laura and wondered where her husband really was. What was it about Reverend Fowler and his church, in the midst of the Bluebirds' triangulated zone of suspicion, that rankled him?
