by John Knoerle
I returned with the bottle of Port and three plastic juice glasses, set them down on the low lacquered coffee table and made a joke which the young hooligans found amusing.
“How did you get in?”
I poured myself a full glass and crooked an eyebrow. Patrick looked to Sean, who nodded. I poured two more. “How’d you know where to find me?”
“You and Ambrose, you mean,” said Sean.
“Ambrose sent us a letter,” said Patrick.
I offered a toast. “Welcome to Berlin. Your timing is impeccable.”
We drank, kept silent and drank some more.
Then I told them all that had happened. I told them where their brother was being held and didn’t mince words about how tough it would be to bust him loose. They took it stoically, bless ‘em.
“The good news is we’ve got some help. General William Donovan arrives today.”
“Himself? The Fightin’ Harp?” said Patrick, eyes wide.
I nodded.
“Bloody hell,” said Sean.
Wild Bill was a Hibernian legend from way back. He won the Medal of Honor commanding New York’s heavily-Irish 69th Regiment in World War I.
I didn’t mention that I might be on the legend’s shit list after he learned about Col. Norwood, or that Ambrose Mooney would be last on Donovan’s list of concerns if he made the list at all. I couldn’t give them the big picture. But I did tell them I would free Ambrose or die trying.
“With your help.”
They drained their glasses of red wine and made the sign of the cross. I smiled at their youthful courage. And thought about their mother.
I had spoken to her once in Cleveland, when I telephoned for Ambrose. She hadn’t been pleased to hear from me. And now here I was again, about to kill off her own three sons. I had to do what I had to do but I didn’t need both Sean and Patrick to do it. I needed a lookout, but a backup was...well, it would be nice to have as I prowled the corridors of the Armory but I was a seasoned espionage agent with eyes in the back of my head.
I could spare one of them, Sean or Patrick. I could do Mrs. Mooney that small miserable favor.
The boys wouldn’t part easily, and calling to mind their sainted mother praying for their safe return would only tick ‘em off. So I tried another approach.
“We’ll need to get some more L pills before we mount this operation. I’ve only got one.”
“What’s that?” said Sean.
“An L pill?” said Patrick.
“Cyanide. L for lethal. We spies keep them handy in case we’re captured. And tortured. The Russians have a guy named Beria who’s pretty good at it.”
I poured more wine and waited to see how this went over.
“An operation is it?” said Sean.
“Bloody impressive,” said Patrick.
“And I don’t see where any L pills are necessary,” said Sean. “If Patrick’s captured I’ll shoot him dead.”
“And if Sean’s caught I’ll do the same.”
I said a silent apology to Mrs. Mooney. There would be no separating Sean and Patrick. I shoved onto the couch next to Patrick, planted my feet on the lacquered table, put my chin to my chest and dozed.
I woke up a minute later. Beards. Sean and Patrick had scruffy beards that made them look like anarchists.
“If you gentlemen expect an audience with Wild Bill Donovan you will have to go to the sink and make yourselves presentable.”
Sean sat up with some alarm. “You mean shave?”
“I do.”
Sean and Patrick groaned as one.
Chapter Forty-four
“Bill Donovan is a military man, first and foremost,” I said to the Mooney boys the following morning after we were all showered and shorn and dressed to kill.
I was surprised to see that they came equipped with brass buttoned Navy blue blazers and silk ties till I remembered that they were wealthy young gentlemen now, courtesy of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Well turned out they were, save for the plugs of toilet paper pasted to their shaving cuts. I understood why they had grown the chin spinach. Without it they looked fourteen years old.
“Military bearing in his presence at all times. Shoulders back, chin down.”
I demonstrated. The Mooney boys mirrored me.
“Do not speak unless spoken to, and always use sir. Got it?”
“Yes sir!”
-----
We drove south to Dahlem, the traffic light, the weather mild, almost warm. Sean and Patrick were keyed up, chattering like schoolgirls. I was glad to have them on board. My free lancing days were over. I would have to tell General Donovan of my hare-brained scheme to rescue Ambrose from the Armory, somehow convince him to give his blessing. Having two proud sons of the Old Sod arrayed behind me couldn’t hurt.
When we arrived at the white brick mansion in Dahlem the redheaded receptionist told me General Donovan had issued ‘a change of plans.’ The meet was now taking place twenty kilometers south in the town of Babelsberg, just east of Potsdam. She gave me a bright smile and typewritten directions.
“Is this a snub?” I asked. “To the CO?”
She answered by way of gazing at the elderly bartender and the frau in a peasant blouse standing around the parlor with no one to serve. The boys and I washed down some finger sandwiches with a glass of champagne and returned to the delivery truck.
I drove southwest as instructed, wondering how I was going to brief the CO about Col. Norwood while in the presence of Bill Donovan.
Victor Jacobson would be on thin ice. He had presided over the brutal destruction of our White Russian network at the hand of his trusted new hire, Leonid Vitinov. I owed Jacobson the courtesy of a private heads up so he could determine what to tell Donovan about Norwood, and when.
We jounced southwest to Babelsberg on cratered roads. The countryside was thickly wooded and lushly green. I turned due west at Grossbeerenstraße, Big Berry Road. We passed an enormous bomb-damaged complex of buildings big as airplane hangars, though no airstrip was visible. The road swung north.
I turned right at the park as instructed, drove quiet streets lined with Hansel and Gretel cottages until I found what I was looking for. An 18th Century peak-roofed stucco villa with a circular drive and a four-pillared portico that looked out on a very wide river or a very narrow lake. An MP wearing button-up white leggings stood guard on the front steps.
Sean and Patrick fell silent as I pulled up the drive and parked the truck at the base of the stone steps. The MP saluted. We were expected.
I was anyway. The MP got jinky when he saw the Mooney boys spill out of the truck. He checked his clipboard. They weren’t on it. I told the MP that the gentlemen were with me.
Didn’t matter. They weren’t on his list. “Back in the truck, gentlemen,” I said, climbing the steps. “I’ll be back in no time.”
Sean and Patrick climbed back in the truck like kids sent to their rooms on Christmas morn. I crossed under the pillared portico and pushed the doorbell. It chimed a dolorous tune, I felt a chill. There was something creepy about this old place. I saw a dark shadow behind the opaque glass panels of the double doors. Who was this now, Boris Karloff?
Just a stooped housekeeper with a toucan beak and angry black eyes. She bustled off before I could say a word.
I stepped inside, saw a very formal living room directly off the entry hall, and a big dining room to the right. To the left, a long wide carpeted corridor that ran along the outer wall of the house. All the rooms off the corridor faced the back of the property. Security precaution maybe.
I found the CO down that corridor, sitting outside the door to an office, lost in thought. The door to the office was closed. I told him the Mooney brothers had arrived unexpectedly.
“What do they want?”
“Their brother.”
“Shit.”
“It’s okay sir. They’re capable, they’ll do as they’re told.”
“You’re sure?”
&n
bsp; “One hundred percent.”
I told him they were awaiting permission to enter the premises. We went outside. I introduced Sean and Patrick. Jacobson shook their hands. “Welcome to The Little White House.”
He explained that this creepy old manse was President Truman’s place of residence during the Big Three Potsdam Conference two months after VE Day. We were suitably impressed. He rambled on about Babelsberg, the German Hollywood, site of the Ufa Film Studios where Marlene Dietrich and Fritz Lang got their start. Had we noticed the cavernous sound stages on the drive in?!
He was wound up, the CO.
Jacobson had a chat with the MP, signed something on the clipboard and waved us in. We trooped down the wide corridor to the office with the closed door. Jacobson told Sean and Patrick that the facilities were two doors down. They took the hint.
“How’d it go with Colonel Norwood?” said the CO when they were gone.
“One question first. Do we know a Petrov Voynivich?”
“He’s an NKVD Colonel operating in the Soviet sector.”
That was the answer I was looking for. “Voynivich is Col. Norwood’s boss.”
No visible reaction from Jacobson. “How?”
How did you determine that is what he meant. I wasn’t supposed to tell Norwood about Leonid’s confession so I couldn’t tell the CO that I had done that in order to accuse Norwood of Commie collusion and force a reply. But I had to tell him something.
“The more I chewed on it the more I suspected that Norwood had been turned. Too much coincidence, he was always a step ahead. I wandered off during one of Norwood’s long-winded speeches, did a quick search. And found this.”
I showed the CO the scandalous photo. I had promised the Colonel I’d keep the photo in my pocket, but we spies lie all the time.
Jacobson shook his head at the stupidity of it, and at the endless bad tidings I brought him. I told another lie. “Norwood thinks I threw it in the fireplace.”
“Which was why he gave you Voynivich.”
“More or less.”
“You could have used it to spring Ambrose.”
“Yes sir.”
The CO nodded his appreciation. No riot act, no ass chewing. I was home free.
“How did you leave it?”
Maybe not. “I told the Colonel to go to some tropical paradise and stay there.”
“You did what?”
Sean and Patrick returned about then. Jacobson, not wanting to dress me down in their presence, lit a cigarette and fumed.
I returned the photo to my coat pocket and wondered who Bill Donovan was talking to behind that closed door. Had to be Klaus Hilde. What a thumb in the eye to the CO. Made to cool his heels in the hallway while General Donovan consulted with a Nazi fugitive. That’s the military for you. Hilde was a Nazi, sure, but he was also a general. And generals stick together.
The door opened a minute later. Herr Hilde emerged, spit and polish in a pin stripe suit, beard shorn, sentried by Jug Ears. He turned to Victor Jacobson, bowed and clicked his heels.
Of course, I should have known. Hilde was a Junker, a member of the landed Prussian aristocracy who dismissed Hitler as a bumbling corporal until it was too late and who more or less invented modern warfare. The Whiskey Colonels would worship at his feet.
The CO did not return Hilde’s Prussian nod. I did, when my turn came.
“I owe you a debt of gratitude, Herr Schroeder,” he said, “for your successful mission to free me from captivity.”
“You are most welcome, Herr Hilde,” I replied. “Sleep well tonight.”
Hilde paused before he nodded, uneasily. When I intoned a well-loved lullaby the Brigadeführer turned on his heel and stalked down the hall, Jug Ears scrambling to keep pace.
“Schlaf, Kindchen, schlaf / Ich gebe Dir ein Schaf / Und es soll eine Glocke aus Gold haben / Für Dich zum Spielen und zu halten / Schlaf, Kindchen, schlaf.”
The CO didn’t ask. He stood up as Wild Bill Donovan stepped out of the office to greet us a short time later. Sean and Patrick stood to attention.
“In here,” said Donovan, hand on the door knob.
I gave the Mooney boys a stay-patient palms-down and followed the CO into the dark office, closing the door behind me.
The office had striped gold and brown wallpaper, a white marble fireplace and a massive intricately-carved desk suitable for treaty signing ceremonies. The only light came from late afternoon sun bleaching through the muslin drapes and a two bulb desk lamp capped by a black metal shade.
General Donovan took his place in a high-backed upholstered chair behind the deck. There were no other chairs in the room, no stenographers or adjutants. Wild Bill was flying low to the ground this trip.
“Good work on Hilde,” said the General to Jacobson. “He’s very knowledgeable.”
“That was Hal’s doing General.”
I got a brief nod. This wasn’t the back-slapping Wild Bill I had met in New York. This was a Major General in a foul temper.
“And this Committee that Hilde tells me about. Why wasn’t I kept abreast?”
“I cabled you sir,” said Jacobson.
“Never saw it. Is it true?”
“We believe so sir.”
“Explain.”
“I sent Mr. Schroeder to one of their meetings. He determined that the Committee to Free Berlin was a front bent on mayhem.”
“On what evidence?”
Donovan said it to me. I think. The downward lamplight cast his face in shadow. I wrangled up my tongue, not sure what to say. No mention of Leonid’s double dealing had been made as yet. I wasn’t going to be the one to reveal my CO’s major career embarrassment to Bill Donovan. But how to explain it elsewise?
Tell the truth. The best of it anyway.
“I went as a Stars’n’Stripes reporter, General, got a very cool reception, as if they were hiding something. When I went to leave I was greeted warmly by a founding member who assured me that the Committee was on the up and up.”
“Make your point.”
How to say this? I wasn’t going to flat out lie to the Great Man.
“Our counterintelligence officer Leonid Vitinov informed me in advance that I would be so approached. And that the approacher would be an NKVD agent.”
Well he did. Inform me. Leonid just didn’t know he did.
Donovan filed this away this without comment. “What else do you have?”
I looked to Jacobson. He answered for me.
“Mr. Schroeder reports that Col. Norwood of MI6 has been compromised by the Soviets and is in the process of fleeing to a distant country.”
“John Norwood? Who knows about this?”
“Just the people in this room General.”
Donovan looked to me for further explanation.
“The Colonel admitted this to me personally sir. He’s been reporting to Col. Petrov Voynivich, Soviet Sector.”
Donovan didn’t ask why Norwood made this stunning admission to me. Didn’t want to know the sordid details maybe. I could keep my scandalous photo in my pocket.
Wild Bill looked me over. And smiled. “You have been keeping your eyes open, haven’t you?”
“Trying my best sir.”
“Where is Norwood now?”
“I’m not sure General, but as of about 0300 hours he was still in his chalet on Spirchenstraße.”
Donovan gave me a long and complicated look. I came clean.
“I didn’t say anything till now because I promised the Colonel I would give him a chance to flee in exchange for the identity and location of his Soviet Case Officer. It seemed a good bargain at the time, perhaps not so good now in the cold light of day. Col. Norwood has a way of confusing a person.”
I braced myself for a tongue lashing that didn’t come.
“Did Colonel Norwood indicate why he turned against the Directorate?”
“The who, sir?”
“The Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section Six,” said Donovan i
mpatiently.
I’d always wondered what MI6 stood for. “Yes sir. The Colonel said their checks bounced.”
Donovan exchanged a knowing look with Victor Jacobson, and said, “Let’s move to the Club Room.”
Wild Bill jumped up from behind the massive desk as if he couldn’t wait to get out of there. We followed him out into the hall. The CO introduced Donovan to the Mooney brothers. The Fighting Harp invited them to join us, to their infinite delight.
I too was glad to be out of that dark office. There was something sinister about it. Walking down the hall I realized what it was. That dark room would have been President Truman’s office during the Potsdam Conference, which had adjourned in early August. About the time Truman made the decision to drop the A bomb on Hiroshima, incinerating more than 100,000 Japanese.
Truman gave the order in that room. I knew he did, I could feel it. It was a momentous decision, a horrific decision, and the correct decision in this man’s opinion. But not one you wanted to cozy up to.
There were ghosts in that dark office. Thousands of them.
Chapter Forty-five
The club room had a piano, a checkerboard table with checkers lined up and, by the rear window, two of those low slung leather wing chairs you need a winch to climb out of. An orderly took our drink orders. We followed Donovan’s lead. Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.
Bill Donovan seemed back to his old self in the new setting. He asked the Mooney brothers their names, and what county they hailed from.
“County Cork sir,” said Sean, shoulders back, chin down.
“By way of Cuyahoga County, Ohio,” said Patrick, likewise. The boys did a quick take to one another and concluded, in tandem, “USA!”
This brought a twinkle to Wild Bill’s baby blues. We stood around and shot the shit and waited for beer and generally had a fine time until the General asked Sean and Patrick why they were here.
The boys froze. Me too. The CO intervened on our behalf. “It’s something we need to discuss General.”
Shiny cold bottles of Pabst were served. Also bowls of mixed nuts, pretzels and a plate of rollmops. The others ignored these pungent rolls of marinated herring so I appropriated them for myself. They came with wedges of rye toast. Perfect.
