Flowers From Berlin

by Noel Hynd

  A sergeant unlocked the cell. Wheeler stood as Cochrane was admitted. "I'm sorry I can't offer you more gracious surroundings," Wheeler began. "We're not very long on comfort here."

  Cochrane sat down on a straight-backed wooden chair and Wheeler sank back onto the bed. "They even took my pipe. They had some insane idea that I might fashion a shiv out of it. Imagine."

  A hundred reactions hit Cochrane at once. First, there were the charges against Wheeler. Second, there was the depth to which Bureau activities had been compromised since 1936. Cochrane envisioned the days when he had fled Munich with a Luger tucked into his coat and a Gestapo shield in a sweat-soaked palm. His anger flared. Then, just as quickly, there was little point in rage. Before him was Dick Wheeler. Big Dick. The Bear. And they used to throw junction boxes and catch crooks together in Kansas City.

  "They told me you wanted to see me," Cochrane said. "Instead of a lawyer."

  "Oh, I'll see a lawyer eventually," Wheeler answered. "But I'd rather see a friendly face right now." Cochrane realized that he must have remained impassive, because, Wheeler studied him for a moment and quickly added, "You are a friendly face, aren't you?"

  "As friendly as you're going to be seeing," Cochrane allowed.

  Wheeler laughed very slightly and seemed to be looking for his pipe out of force of habit, then stopped when he remembered. Cochrane smiled very uneasily.

  "They"-meaning the inquisitors who had spent two days "talking" to him-"seem to think I'm some sort of Nazi," Wheeler explained. "I was hoping maybe you would explain things to them."

  "Only if you explain them to me first."

  "You don't understand?" Wheeler was surprised. Cochrane gave a mild shake of the head.

  "Doesn't anyone in this country see what's coming?" Wheeler snapped angrily. "We're about to embark on a second world war. And you know what? We're on the wrong side!"

  Thereupon Wheeler launched an account of himself and his politics, harking all the way back, Cochrane suddenly realized, to an impoverished boyhood in the Ozark hills of rural Missouri. The real enemy of America, Wheeler maintained, was the subversion of what he called "America's national spirit."

  "This is a God-fearing, white Protestant country," Wheeler explained without remorse or hesitation. "And may it always remain so!"

  But Wheeler had lived forty-two years, he reminded Cochrane, and wasn't happy with what he had seen over the last ten. "A tidal wave of immigrants… a rise of home-grown leftist politics… a flood of Jewish rabble into the country… it all takes its toll on the American fabric. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  Cochrane felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, but did admit to being familiar with Wheeler's point of view. It wasn't unpopular in these insular days.

  "Roosevelt is responsible for much of it," Wheeler maintained. "He made left-wing politics acceptable during the Depression. Roosevelt embarked us on the road to socialism. First step to making us all Red."

  And now, Wheeler postulated, there was in the offing an alliance with Russia. The Bolshevik demons. Told by Dick Wheeler in a soft Midwestern drawl, it all did sound very frightening. Stalin was the incarnation of the crimson Marxist devil, sculpted moustache, pointed tail, cloven feet, and all. America was about to go to war against the industrious blond-haired Germans, with Satan as our sidekick.

  "Does it make any sense to you?" Wheeler asked, seeming to want an honest answer.

  Then he forged ahead, not waiting.

  "Compare the two systems," Wheeler explained. "Look at Germany in 1920. Weak. Impotent. Poor. Now look at what Hitler has done. Pride is restored. The Left has been vanquished. And a powerful Wehrmacht rules Europe."

  "For today," Cochrane allowed.

  "Now look at Western Europe. And look, if you wish, at America. Socialism crept in during this decade and what has it brought us? Second-class world status, a tidal wave of filthy immigrants, twelve million unemployed, and a legion of Communists who wish to destroy every institution we have. Do I make my case clear?"

  Wheeler sipped the remainder from his bottle of Coca-Cola and waited.

  "And so for this Roosevelt was to be killed?" Cochrane asked.

  No, Wheeler answered, shifting his position on the cot. It was not quite that simple. His own sympathies, Wheeler explained, were never so much pro-Hitler as they were pro-America. Early on in his F.B.I. career he made a conscious decision. He would do what he could to keep America away from any entanglement with the Communists. If that meant helping the America First Committee, the German-American Bund, the Campfire Girls, or the Nazis themselves, which it gradually and inevitably did, well then, so be it.

  "Siegfried started to work independently," Wheeler said, "and Fritz Duquaine was the key link. Fowler brought his services to Duquaine early on; his pro-American editorials caught everyone's attention, including theirs. He insisted upon anonymity and to some degree he maintained it. But from the very outset, Duquaine knew who Fowler was. Did not take him very seriously at first, then suddenly realized how brilliantly efficient he was."

  "And you did nothing to stop him?"

  "Since he was potentially harming an Anglo-American-Russian alliance, no, I didn't." He paused and elaborated, "I'd been in contact with Fritz Duquaine, myself. I helped him stay a step ahead of everyone on this end."

  "And the death of Roosevelt?" Cochrane asked.

  "Fowler's grand design, I imagine. But as war approaches, grave steps must be taken. If it's the death of a President… well, we've survived that before, haven't we?"

  Cochrane nodded without conviction.

  "My goal," Wheeler concluded, "was to save America for white Christians. That's what I told those morons this afternoon. That's what they failed to understand. Kept asking me instead about Bund networks in Wisconsin. What crap!"

  "I'll see if I can straighten them out."

  "Would you?" At least a quarter minute passed. It was an uneasy lapse of time, and when it ended, Wheeler's tones were considerably sadder. "I know what's in store for me, after all," he said. "Know what I mean?"

  He seemed to want an answer, so Cochrane gave him an honest one. "You'll be tried for treason. Probably be executed."

  "And you know what?" Wheeler asked. "I consider myself a patriot." He was suddenly adamant: "The real enemy is the Soviet Union, Bill. Joe Stalin and his unwashed Bolshevik hordes. As long as you live, don't ever forget that."

  Then the gears shifted. Dick Wheeler began to ramble. He talked again of the penury of his own boyhood in the Ozarks and how his family, honest working people, never took a handout from the government, never needed the writings of Marx, always sent their males into the armed forces, and worked their way from lean to prosperous times. Why, Wheeler wanted to know, couldn't everyone do that?

  From there Wheeler returned to his politics. Cochrane found himself listening politely but turning a deaf ear to it. There was no point in discussing it, challenging it, or even prolonging it. Afterward, certain phrases stayed with Cochrane:

  Roosevelt will have all of us-white, yellow, and colored-communized and intermarried. By the year 2000, we will all be niggers…

  I hate the Jews very deeply. Every boatload of them that arrives in New York should be turned back out to sea and set on fire…

  To safeguard the Republic from Bolshevism, presidential elections might someday need to be canceled; a strong Christian leader from the military could then guide the country indefinitely…

  And, to round things out as Bill Cochrane grew weary:

  Unionized labor should be outlawed…

  The Bill of Rights should be suspended. Summary executions of known criminals by police squads could be held in public places…

  American fascism is the only ideology that can save Christian America…We need to become a fascist state.

  The monstrosity of all this, weighing in on Bill Cochrane as the afternoon died, helped prompt him to his feet. Cochrane promised that he would attempt to make clear Dick Wheeler's point of view
to the inquisitors. Wheeler said he was grateful.

  "They have such sledgehammer personalities, Hoover's people," Wheeler said. "You're about the only one to whom I can make an intellectual appeal."

  "I'm honored."

  Wheeler cocked his head in a diffident manner. "Something else," he said.

  Cochrane asked what.

  "You fed the German naval code to Lanny Slotkin intentionally, didn't you?" Wheeler asked. "The proper additive and all."

  Cochrane nodded. "You figured if I slipped a trap through the F.B.I.," he answered, "it would have come through Bobby Martin or HopeMing. Or even Roddy Schwarzkopf or Liz Pfeiffer. So I figured Lanny was the surest way of showing you the bait."

  "Point." Wheeler grimaced.

  Cochrane felt his anger rise very slightly. "Well, someone was going to take the bait from within the F.B.I.,”he said. "My contact in Berlin was murdered before my arrival. I was under surveillance the entire time. Otto Mauer and his family escaped only because hey were both ingenious and lucky. And someone, someone, tipped Siegfried as to who was closing in on him. How else does a bomb magically arrive under my bed?"

  For the first time, Wheeler appeared unnerved by the whole conversation. But he looked without remorse at the younger man.

  "Well, nothing personal you understand, Bill," he said. "But you'd become a nuisance.

  Something had to be done."

  "But why was I selected in the first place?"

  "Not my idea!" Wheeler snapped, rummaging again for the missing pipe. "I argued long and hard for someone else. But you were the only choice: experience against Gestapo in Germany, veteran Bureau, background in explosives in the U.S. Army. Roosevelt handpicked you, himself, in case you never knew."

  Which brought Cochrane to attention. "No. I didn't know."

  Wheeler's eyebrows arched. "Final point?" he asked, Cochrane waited.

  "Word reaches me," Wheeler said, "that you're having it on with Stephen Fowler's widow. Any truth to that?"

  "We're seeing each other," Cochrane admitted after a suitable pause.

  Wheeler considered it and then gave Cochrane schoolboy grin that had a conspiratorial leer to it. Then Wheeler laughed. "Do one other thing for me. On you way out see if the soldier boys who are guarding me will slip me another bottle or two of Coke. I’m dying of thirst."

  Cochrane said he would. He rapped on the cell door for a guard while Wheeler added a request for newspaper.

  "They're nice young men, these soldiers," Wheeler said in closing. "It's a national obscenity that they're all going to be sent off to be slaughtered it Europe. It's Stalin who's the real enemy. Did I stress that? Don't forget!”

  Cochrane called it a day, said good-bye, and left.

  *

  On the drive back to Washington, Cochrane realized how much the afternoon had depressed him. There had been a morose, condemned air to his entire meeting with Dick Wheeler. He wondered very deeply, weighing the entire intrigue involving Wheeler and Fowler, whether anything had been gained by anyone. Like a war itself, there seemed nothing but waste and destruction everywhere one looked.

  Cochrane drove directly to the Shoreham, anxious to redeem the day in any way possible. He arrived toward 8 P.M.

  Laura, when she came downstairs to meet Bill Cochrane, took his breath away. She was in a slim, tailored dark blue gown that featured the most interesting neckline that he had seen in ten years. Or maybe that was simply because it was beautiful Laura in that gown and the day had otherwise been so beastly.

  The Shoreham dining room was grand and ornate, patterned after the great hotel dining rooms of England and the continent. The room was a sea of white tablecloths and floral arrangements beneath a high-beamed ceiling. Waiters and captains in black formal attire scurried from party to party. The room was busy. Washington scuttlebutt and policy were bandied from diner to diner. Men were in dark suits and their female companions wore their finest gowns and jewelry. Earlier that week, Soviet Russia had attacked tiny Finland.

  As the maitre d' showed them to their table, the piano player in the corner sang Anything Goes. Laura and Bill sat and looked at each other for a moment.

  "Heck of a day," he said. And as he spoke, he realized one of the things that had brought him through the day was the prospect of seeing her this evening. "Do you mind if we don't talk about it?"

  "I'd prefer we didn't. Want a better subject?"

  "I could use one," he answered.

  "One of your Bureau errand boys," she said archly, "came by the hotel today. Brought me an airline ticket to Havana. Imagine that. Institutionalized immorality."

  "It happens in the best of democracies," he joked. He cleared his throat. "I thought we might get away for a few days. If you're interested."

  "When would we leave?"

  "Monday of next week," he said. "Ever been to Havana?"

  She shook her head. "I hear Senor Battista is very charming and highly pro-American. Casinos and night clubs. Very romantic."

  "You hear correctly," he said.

  A waiter brought a menu and took orders for drinks. Bill Cochrane thought of all he had to put in order. His house. His office. His non-government career. His life.

  "I suppose I should be making some other travel plans soon, too," she said at length.

  "Back to England?"

  Laura nodded. "I have to face the facts. I'm at loose ends here. Further, there must be something in England I can do to help. My country's at war."

  She heard an echo from long ago: For England. But she did not repeat it. Nor did she need to elaborate. Bill Cochrane understood.

  "You'll certainly be welcome to visit me any time," she said. "I want you to, of course."

  "Of course." He was nodding unconvincingly as their drinks arrived. His and hers: a good stiff bourbon and a dry sherry.

  "You don't look terribly enthused," she said.

  "Well," he said, looking downward for a second, then meeting her soft brown eyes with his, "your scenario isn't exactly the same as mine."

  "It's not?"

  "I thought maybe," he began, "that I should talk you into staying on a bit in the United States-"

  And she was thinking, not saying, Oh, Peter Whiteside! What a schemer you've made me! What an outstanding subversive!

  "I'm sure"-Cochrane continuing-"you could find a job in Washington. Travel's dangerous these days, and, uh…"

  For the first time since he had known her, he groped for words. He looked away, then boldly back at her.

  "Look, Laura!" he said. "It's very simple. I'm not letting you leave."

  *

  The next evening they found an informal little French bistro in Georgetown called Chez Lucien. The owner, Lucien himself, was from Normandy and practically embraced Bill Cochrane as a long-lost brother when Cochrane spoke fluent French to him.

  A bottle of the best Margaux appeared, compliments of the house, and the waiter, Julien, also from Normandy, directed the attention of Bill and Laura to the roast duck, which is what they ordered.

  Crepes suzette, made specially by Lucien with a startling flourish of liqueur and flame that nearly singed the ceiling, followed the duck. An Armagnac from 1897 completed the memorable evening. Or so it seemed.

  Emerging from the restaurant past ten, full and satisfied, they walked back to Twenty-sixth Street, only to find a jeep of the United States Army Military Police, a black Plymouth belonging to the F.B.I., and a D.C. police car all lining the curb. Half a dozen armed men stepped from various vehicles.

  "William Cochrane?" an MP sergeant asked.

  "Yes?"

  "We have orders to take you to Fort Meade."

  "Now?" Cochrane asked, more conscious than ever that Laura was on his arm.

  "Yes, sir. Now."

  "Am I under arrest?"

  "No, sir," the soldier said.

  "But you have 'orders'?"

  "We're to ask nicely, sir, then bring you anyway, sir."

  Laura looked at him in disbelief
. Then someone in a suit spoke from an unmarked Plymouth. The man held up something that looked very familiar to Bill Cochrane.

  "Bureau business, Mr. Cochrane," the agent said. "Assistant Director Lerrick sent us."

  "Naturally," said Cochrane with a groan. "Can we drop the lady back at the Shoreham on the way?"

  "Not a chance!" said Laura. "I'm coming with you."

  Bill and Laura stepped into the back of the Plymouth and the green and white D.C. police car led the way, its lights flashing but with no siren. Halfway there he began to get the idea. Something had happened. And fifteen minutes later, after a harrowing fast ride across slick Maryland highways, Cochrane knew what it was as Laura waited outside the army guardhouse.

  The MP's checked Wheeler twice an hour, they said, and it never occurred to them how quickly a man could bleed to death. From somewhere he had obtained a Coca- Cola bottle-strictly against regulations-and he had shattered it against the cement walls of his cell. He had sharpened the big round shard that came off the heel of the bottle. Then he had set it to both wrists as well as his throat and ankles.

  Dick Wheeler's body lay on the floor of the cell in a pool of blood that was immense. Cochrane gagged when he saw it, wanted to throw up, did not, and turned with undue vehemence upon Frank Lerrick, who stood with him.

  "So what's this? Something for my memory scrapbook?" Cochrane demanded. "What'd you bring me here for? You fired me, you know. Or did you forget?"

  "Well, uh, he killed himself."

  "So it appears."

  "Well, uh, why?"

  "Why? You're Hoover's handpicked detective. You find out why."

  "Cochrane," Frank Lerrick said, "you were the last one he talked to. In your own way, you were the only one in the Bureau who he, uh, had any respect for. What did he say to you yesterday afternoon?"

  "He said he was deeply depressed. He said we were going into the war on the wrong side. He said we'd end up fighting the Russians by 1955." Cochrane paused. "He also specifically said that you and Hoover were a pair of feather-brained assholes."

  Lerrick was obviously disappointed. "That's all?"