Settling accounts with the detective left McColl’s supply of dollars seriously diminished. Outside, the fog showed no sign of lifting, which seemed like a comment on his recent work. He paused to scan the surroundings, but there were no lurking shapes in the immediate vicinity.
Walking on, he told himself to look on the bright side—he had, after all, unmasked a German agent, even if the German agent had unmasked him first. The fact that von Schön’s countrymen had tried so hard to prevent McColl from leaving their Chinese enclave suggested that, for all his blundering, he had managed to garner some useful information. And whether or not his work here in San Francisco would bear useful fruit was still an open question. A reborn intelligence setup was bound to find the photographs, names, and addresses useful, and Father Meagher might prove a thread worth unwinding. His misreading of von Schön hadn’t proved fatal. Not quite.
But his vanity had taken a knock. He owed his shot at Father Meagher as much to knowing Caitlin as to anything else, and the odds on their getting together must have been infinitesimal. When it came to writing the next report for Cumming, he would need to be creative.
Farther down Powell he stopped off at the Chicago & North Western passenger office and booked himself onto Monday’s Overland Limited. There were no single compartments left, which was just as well since he couldn’t afford one. He prayed that Caitlin had reserved one in time, or their three-day journey would be less of an idyll than planned.
Next stop was the telegraph office and a cable to Jed and Mac announcing the date of his arrival in New York City. He would, he reckoned, be only a day or so behind them. His last task took him back to his hotel, where he watched the manager place the envelope of photographs in the cast-iron safe, clang the door shut, and twirl the combination wheel with a wholly spurious flourish.
With nothing left to do that day, and wary of secluding himself in his room, he went back out into the fog. The restaurants on Geary seemed like well-lit caves in shadowy cliffs, and after eating lunch in one he wandered down to the junction with Market and caught a tram heading west. By the time he got off at the northeastern corner of Golden Gate Park, visibility had begun to improve, and as he took the long walk west toward the ocean, it seemed as if a vast curtain were lifting in front of him. When he finally reached the shoreline, the sky behind him was a mass of gray, the heavens ahead the purest blue.
He stared out across the Pacific, remembering the weeks spent crossing it. Von Schön had certainly not been who McColl thought he was. Had Caitlin?
He took the tram back to the city center and walked up to Union Square. There was another message waiting for him, but it contained no warning of a second assassin. The consul wanted to see him and suggested they meet at eight that evening in a bar called the Schooner. McColl left a message of acceptance on the consulate phone and spent the next hour stretched out in a hot bath, getting his story straight.
The Schooner was close to the fishing wharves, with the low-beamed ceilings and wood paneling of many an English country pub. Maybe that was why Fairholme liked it, or maybe he’d taken a fancy to the buxom brunette behind the bar. The consul led the way to a booth in the corner and leafed through the envelope of photographs that McColl had brought along. “Excellent,” was all he said, a judgment he perhaps regretted when McColl explained about von Schön. “You make interesting friends,” he eventually murmured, removing a folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket. “You asked me to request a check on Caitlin Hanley and her family.”
The good news was that Caitlin was exactly who she claimed to be, a working journalist with extremely radical views on a wide range of issues, most notably those concerning women’s rights, workers’ rights, and European behavior in the rest of the world. The bad news took longer to digest. Her father, Ronan, had, until recently, been secretary of the New York branch of Clan na Gael and was still a close confidant of its leader, John Devoy. Ronan Hanley was almost certainly a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and was suspected of helping to organize an arms shipment to India three years earlier. Caitlin’s sister, Finola, was not involved—at least openly—in political activity, but her older brother, Fergus, was a lawyer who had represented known Clan na Gael members. Her younger brother, Colm, was a member of both the Irish Brotherhood and the homegrown Industrial Workers of the World. He had spent a month in Dublin the previous year, where his contacts had included extreme socialist friends of the rabble-rousing union leader Jim Larkin.
“They sound like a family to give London nightmares,” Fairholme concluded. “If Finola’s as innocent as she seems, she must be wondering what she’s done to deserve the rest of them.”
McColl bristled inwardly on Caitlin’s behalf but managed a thin smile. He dreaded to think what Cumming had made of the report, assuming he’d already seen it.
“Look,” Fairholme said, “I’ll be blunt. I assume you realize that working for the Service and having a good time with this girl are not very compatible pastimes. And that anything more than a good time would be completely out of the question. The only thing you have to ask yourself—because this is what Cumming will ask you—is how willing you are to use this relationship to serve your country.”
McColl could not smile at that. “To betray her, you mean.”
“Don’t be insulted,” Fairholme said quickly, raising a hand. “I’m trying to help. If you don’t feel you could do that, then drop her now, while you still can.”
The last four days in San Francisco felt endless. On Thursday, Palóu sent him a final bill, along with the information that Rainer von Schön had taken the previous morning’s train to Los Angeles. He had waited, it seemed, until he knew the result of his plotting.
Caitlin had promised to come by on Friday, but only a message arrived—she had a bad cold and was in “such a foul mood you wouldn’t want to see me.” She softened the blow by saying how much she looked forward to Monday.
He went nowhere near the Shamrock or the ashrams, and spent most of his time away from the hotel, in case another assassin had been primed. On Saturday he hired a Model T and explored the still-Spanish towns farther down the peninsula; on the wet Sunday he spent half a day playing eight ball in a bar on Geary and won enough money to leave a tip at his hotel. Those long-past evenings in Oxford billiard halls had not been completely wasted.
Compartment 4
The train was stretched out on the Oakland quay, ready to leave. The weather had cleared again overnight, and the sunlight sparkling on the waters of the bay almost offset the chill of the wind. McColl’s compartment was toward the rear, his three fellow sharers already in occupation. A dark-haired man with a long and bushy mustache introduced himself as William Pearson, and a younger replica as his son, Gabriel. “Pearson and Son,” he added, as if to stress that business came before family. The third man was a young naval officer named Bragg, who offered McColl the choice of upper or lower bunk. Unsure of how much nocturnal rambling his trip would entail, McColl opted for the latter.
He had caught a glimpse of Caitlin on the railroad ferry, wearing her rose-colored scarf and hat, and had started walking toward her. She had noticed him and quickly shaken her head, adding a slight tilt of explanation in the direction of her companion. Father Meagher, resplendent in long black cassock and biretta, was too busy arguing with a railroad official to have noticed McColl, and she obviously liked it that way. He felt a pang at being spurned but knew he was being ridiculous. Doubtless she had her reasons.
Once his suitcase was safely wedged under the lower bunk, he moved back into the corridor to watch their departure. A shrill blast of the locomotive’s whistle and the train clanked into motion, pulling away from the quay but keeping to the edge of the bay. Two battleships were anchored close to shore, reminding him of the morning he had fled Tsingtau.
He walked forward in search of the club car, found it still empty, and took possession of a leather armchair facing west across the bay. After ordering a beer from the steward, he noti
ced a fan of newspapers on a table at the end of the car and went to choose one. As McColl returned with an ancient, dog-eared copy of the London Times, the steward arrived with his drink and proudly pointed out the electric reading lights that hung above each chair.
McColl read through the paper, occasionally pausing to return a new arrival’s greeting or admire the changing view of the bay. In recent months he had acquired the habit of scanning a newspaper for signs of change in the international weather, but on this occasion nothing leaped out at him—no reports of bloodthirsty speeches or frontier incidents or suspicious war games. The Kaiser obviously hadn’t wedged his foot in his mouth in recent weeks, and the Balkans seemed quiet as Balkans could be. It might be the lull before the storm, but maybe the governments that mattered had finally begun to see some sense.
The one story that did draw his attention concerned fellow spies. A British husband and wife had been arrested in possession of “documents relating to the navy.” Who they were spying for was not mentioned, but the woman had been caught heading for Brussels and a meeting with someone called Petersen. The police had discovered as much after laboriously reconstructing a note that she had torn to shreds in one of their vehicles. Why no one had stopped her was not explained.
The moral of the story, McColl decided, was burn or memorize.
By the time he’d finished the paper, the train had reached the Carquinez Strait and was being divided for loading aboard what the railroad company proudly proclaimed the “largest ferry boat in the world.” The Solano was certainly enormous, with two towering chimneys flanking the paddle wheel and four tracks running the length of the vessel to hold the segmented train. The strait was about a mile wide, and the crossing itself took much less time than the maneuvers that preceded and followed it.
The train put together again, the journey resumed. McColl took lunch in the buffet car, then walked back down to the observation car at the rear. All the seats were occupied, but one opened up as he stood looking in, and he gratefully took possession. The upholstered armchairs, like their leather cousins in the club car, all faced inward, which seemed a strange decision, in that observation had to be conducted through the gaps between those sitting opposite. But the arrangement did have the advantage of preventing an approach from behind, which, in view of his recent experiences, McColl found somewhat comforting. As did the fact that all the babbling voices sounded distinctly American.
He wondered if the Germans would persist in their efforts to kill him. There seemed no reason they shouldn’t; spies weren’t like grouse—there was no official season for bumping them off. The Germans could just keep trying until they succeeded, which was rather a chilling thought.
Then again, there had to be some sort of limit—surely he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life evading the Kaiser’s minions. Perhaps Cumming could arrange some sort of deal, offer to abandon an ongoing British vendetta, if such an animal existed. Cumming would have to do something about McColl’s predicament, if only to show he could protect his agents. In the meantime McColl would have to be careful.
It was still a nice day, the sun accentuating the rich colors of the Sacramento Valley. Soon after two they reached the state capital, where a second locomotive was added for the long climb ahead. As the line ascended the valley of the American, the river itself receded beneath them until only a silver ribbon was visible, at least a thousand feet below. A white blanket now covered the slopes, and as the light began to fade, the train drummed its way through a series of snowsheds and tunnels.
The novelty had clearly worn off, and the observation car had almost emptied out, leaving only McColl and two old women at the other end. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts turn, as they often had in the last couple of days, to what Fairholme had said about the perils inherent in continuing his romance with Caitlin.
The man had meant well. More to the point, he was probably right.
But so what? McColl had never known anyone like her—and very much doubted he ever would again. Given that, he had no intention of simply throwing in the towel. A love affair with an Irish radical and a career with the British Secret Service might not be compatible in the longer term, but for a few weeks more? If this turned out to be nothing more than a glorious interlude, then he didn’t want to lose his career as well. And if by some miracle it lasted, then perhaps by another they might make it work. Because when all was said and done, there was no real conflict of interest. They didn’t even disagree about Ireland, not in a fundamental way.
He knew that keeping his work a secret was a form of lying. But he thought the man she liked was the man he really was—he couldn’t imagine her having this sort of affair with an ordinary automobile salesman. Deep down—unconsciously, as Freud would say—some part of her knew that he was more than he seemed.
He asked himself who he was kidding, and the answer was no one. But he still wouldn’t choose between her and the Service.
It really was dark now, and time to show himself. Dinner was already being served, and after eating he lingered over coffee and liqueur in hope of seeing her. He’d almost given up when she finally appeared, with Father Meagher in close attendance. This time the priest did notice him and seemed visibly irritated when Caitlin stopped to wish him good evening. En route to the toilet a few minutes later, she contrived to slip him a piece of paper, which he read outside in the vestibule: “Car 4, Compartment 5, eleven o’clock. Knock ever so quietly.”
Three hours later he was outside the door, rapping it softly as she had requested. She appeared with a finger across her lips, beckoned him into the compartment, and pointed toward the en suite dressing room. Once inside it, she closed the door behind them, put her arms around his neck, and gave him a passionate kiss. “He’s in the suite next door. That way,” she added, “on the other side of my stateroom—sorry, that’s a nautical term, isn’t it? But you know what I mean. And this room seems to be next door to my other neighbor’s dressing room, so Father Meagher’s bedroom must be next to mine. Either we drag the mattress in here or we’ll have to make love in ghostly silence.”
As he loosened the cord of her dressing gown, slid a hand inside, and kissed her again, the train roared its way through another short tunnel. “I think we can afford a few creaking bedsprings,” he said.
They did creak, but not alarmingly so, and sometime after they’d spent their passion, McColl was surprised to hear other springs vibrating through the wall. “I told you so,” she whispered gleefully.
He eventually put his clothes back on in the dressing room, and they stood hand in hand by the window, looking out at the moonlit fields of snow. “Father Meagher is taking me to breakfast at eight o’clock,” she said. “Arrive a few minutes later and I’ll invite you to join us. He won’t refuse. As far as he knows, I met you in China and you helped me out with some translation work, both there and on the ship. Tell him you’ve a wife and children at home and how much you’re missing them.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t have a wife and children you’re missing?”
“No. I had a wife once, but we’re long since divorced.” He hoped he sounded as indifferent as he actually was.
Her hand loosened in his, but only for a second. “You never said.”
“I hardly ever think about her. It was all a long time ago, and we were only together a couple of years.”
“And you haven’t seen her since?”
“Oh, I see her—she’s my boss Tim’s sister. But only to exchange the odd polite word. She’s married again now.”
“What’s her name?”
“Evelyn. You’re not upset, are you?”
“No. Surprised perhaps, which is absolutely ridiculous. For some strange reason, I just assumed you had always been single.”
“To tell you the truth, I’ve never felt anything else. And never more so than when we were married. But I don’t want to talk about her. Let’s go back a bit—what made you dream up a fictitious family for me?”<
br />
“To deflect him, of course. If he thinks you’re interested in me, he’ll keep watching me like a hawk. So when we meet at breakfast, remember to hardly notice I’m there. There’s nothing he’d like better than to tell my father that I’ve fallen from grace. He positively revels in other people’s sins.”
“Does he know your father?”
“They’ve met a few times, but they’re not friends. Even my father has better taste than that.”
“Okay,” McColl said. “So I’ll see you at breakfast.”
“Quiet as you go,” she reminded him.
He could hear the priest snoring as he let himself out, and back in his own compartment Pearson and Son were both hard at it. He lay on his bunk cursing the two of them but knew in his heart that they weren’t the ones keeping him awake. His conversation with Caitlin had stirred up memories he normally left alone, and now he found himself thinking about Oxford and Evelyn and the man he had been then—a very square peg in a very round hole. Spies were outsiders, too, but usually of their own volition.
The sleep that finally took him was fitful and dream-filled, and he woke to the first hint of light feeling barely rested. Now father and son were both turned to the wall, and the officer above him was snoring.
He put on his trousers, shoes, and socks, made his way to the washroom at the end of the car, and doused his face with cold water. The car steward had already brewed coffee, and McColl carried a mugful down toward the observation car, stopping to admire the sunrise when the train was on a curve. Darkness still filled the rear windows when he reached the observation car, but over the next few minutes, with what seemed astonishing speed, light flamed on the ridgetops of the receding Sierras and began to conjure all manner of colors from the surrounding desert.
The coffee was strong, but he still found himself dozing off, and he finally woke with a start when the train jolted to a halt in what turned out to be Elko. The station was bathed in sunlight, but frost glistened on the ground, and as they pulled out, he noticed a porter’s telltale plume of breath.
Jack of Spies Page 14
