Eldorado Network

by Derek Robinson

  Nobody answered.

  There was a letterslot. She crouched and peered through it. A big room, gaunt-looking, with an office table and a typewriter. “Hey, you in there!” she called through the slot.

  One half of her had very cold feet and wanted to beat it right now, urging sensibly that everything possible had been done. “Just shut up!” she snarled, and delivered another angry rap on the glass. It cracked. They were small panes, set in lead, and this one had cracked from edge to edge. The half of her with cold feet felt slightly sick.

  She squinted through the slot again and saw a letter on the table. She stood up and thought about that.

  The cracked pane resisted the pressure of her thumbs, but eventually the lead channeling around it stretched and split. The glass fell inside and smashed.

  Nobody heard. Nobody came. Her hand was trembling as she reached through and turned the handle.

  It was her letter. Torn open and quickly read, by the look of it: the single sheet of notepaper hastily stuffed back in the envelope.

  Right all along.

  She felt some relief and a great amount of bitterness. He never told the truth. A cheat and a swindler. He used everyone for his own gain, without having the balls and the bravado to admit it. He lied and then he ran away. Here was proof.

  It was a bleak sort of room, just a few thin books on a shelf, two scruffy filing cabinets, the table, the chair, the typewriter. It made her feel empty just to look at it: her determined hunting had brought her to this dusty nothingness. The typewriter had paper in it. She sat and read, and became steadily enraged.

  To: TOMCAT

  From: ELDORADO

  Subject: Allied Convoy Routes, North Atlantic

  I have today returned from further discussions in Liverpool with SEAGULL (whom I paid according to the rates agreed with you; he asked me to express his satisfaction) and also with a colleague of SEAGULL’s employed in the Liverpool oil-storage depot. They informed me that the British Admiralty is now so concerned about the sinkings of ships by U-boats that it plans to introduce a new convoy system.

  The essence of this is the separation of fast and slow merchant ships into different convoys, so that the fast convoy may stand a better chance of getting through, while the slow convoy is to be more heavily defended.

  SEAGULL’s colleague has information that slow convoys will include a very high proportion of oil tankers, thus making them an unusually attractive target for U-boat attack. SEAGULL himself has gathered details of planned convoy sailings in the next 4—6 weeks and I include these in his report, attached.

  Morale among seamen, especially those who have experi

  The ink faded as the ribbon ran out. Julie re-read the page, not because the meaning was unclear but because it was too clear. She got up and searched the filing cabinets. There were files marked Convoy, Troop Movements, Airfields, Naval Strength, Rationing, Civilian Morale; each holding carbon copies of typed reports which were dense with facts and figures. She heaved the cabinets shut and leaned on them. She would have liked to cry but crying would be an act of self-pity at a time when millions of others needed far more pity than she could ever create. Pity couldn’t help them but maybe action would: destroying all his lousy stinking files, for a start. She tugged open a drawer and something rattled in the back. She opened the drawer completely. It was a gun. A large revolver. It had a lanyard-ring on the base of the butt and its cylinder looked as fat as a pineapple. She picked it up. Her hands were strong but her fingers barely reached the trigger. Out on the end of the barrel the foresight stuck up like a thumbnail.

  She carried it over to the desk. It was very heavy, like carrying a mason’s hammer. There were patches of rust, scratches, dents. Was it loaded? She shook it: nothing rattled. She despised her stupidity: bullets don’t rattle, for God’s sake. With enormous caution she broke it open. Six bullets filled six holes. She was holding a goddam six-shooter. She closed the gun and spun the cylinder, not knowing why but if Hollywood always did it there must be a reason; found the safety and thumbed it back.

  She knew what to do. She found herself staring at the unfinished report in the typewriter, not seeing the words clearly because her eyes were filling with tears. The tears were for the unknown seaman and his tortured face. Her eyes were blurred but her mind was very clear. Nobody could be allowed to go on doing that sort of thing. Nobody.

  Probably because of her tears she didn’t hear the footsteps until they reached the last flight of stairs, but that was plenty of time. As the door handle turned she finished wiping her eyes and got a good grip of the revolver. When Luis Cabrillo came in she only had to pull the trigger and the gun went off with a roar like a quarry-blast. He fell as if his legs had been hooked. Julie didn’t see him drop. She was on her back, and her wrist hurt like fire.

  Chapter 42

  Otto Krafft met Wolfgang Adler on the way to the weekly review meeting. “How’s the old foot coming along?” he asked.

  “They remove the plaster next week.”

  “Oh, good.”

  The two men covered half the length of the corridor without saying any more. Otto strolled while Wolfgang trudged.

  “Look, Wolfgang: I know you’ve had rotten luck with your leg and so on,” Otto said, “but can I give you some advice? Try and forget you ever met Eldorado, and for heaven’s sake drop this one-man vendetta against him. You can’t win.”

  “It’s not a matter of winning. It’s a matter of the truth.”

  “So you say, and that’s all very noble, but you’ll never persuade Christian to drop Eldorado, will you? He’s doing too well out of him. I happen to know there’s a promotion on the way, and the section budget’s already gone up forty percent.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Then you ought to. And please don’t push your luck today. The old man’s feeling a bit liverish. We can all do without your dyspeptic help, thanks very much.”

  For most of the meeting, Wolfgang sat silent while the others went over the activities of what was now known as the Eldorado Network. Occasionally he cleared his throat and suggested a possible weakness or an omission, but these were few and nobody else considered them important. Christian cut the discussion short. “That’s all,” he said. “Eldorado continues to show every sign of becoming one of the Abweh’s most successful operatives.”

  Wolfgang sucked his teeth in a way that made the others look.

  Christian said: “An important factor in Eldorado’s success is his adaptability. In this business it’s dangerous to let yourself become inflexible. If an attitude gets you nowhere—change it. That completes everything for today.” He stood, and the others gathered their papers.

  “Nothing about America,” Wolfgang said.

  Christian ignored him. When the lack of response became uncomfortably obvious, Otto said: “What do you want about America?”

  “How do I know? I’m not in England. But there must be something. The U.S.A. has given Britain fifty destroyers.”

  “Not given,” Fischer said. “Exchanged. Lend-Lease.”

  “Which means America is in the war.”

  “Rubbish,” Christian said. “And furthermore Roosevelt has said—”

  “Yes, I read it in the papers.”

  “Well then.” Christian was annoyed at being interrupted.

  “I read the papers in 1938 too,” Wolfgang said, “when someone announced that he had no further territorial demands in Europe.”

  That brought a considerable silence.

  “Make your point,” Christian snapped. “I haven’t got all day.”

  “My point is that Eldorado has failed to report any American intelligence of—”

  “Yes, all right, put it in a memo.” Christian started banging open his desk drawers, noisily searching for something. Wolfgang sat stiffly for a moment, and then just as stiffly walked out.

  The others followed, except Otto Krafft. Christian gave up his search and thumped the last drawer shut with his knee. “Y
es?” he barked.

  “It may be nothing, sir,” Otto said, “but I thought you ought to know I’ve had a rather unusual offer from someone in the Swiss embassy.”

  “You? Why you?”

  Otto shrugged modestly. “Don’t know, sir. Perhaps he met me somewhere and remembered my name.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Oh, nobody you’d recognize, sir. A very junior attaché. That’s what makes it all so unusual.”

  Christian dropped into his chair and heaved both feet onto his desk. “Then you’d better get it off your chest, hadn’t you?” he said.

  “Well, sir,” Otto began.

  *

  The ambulance doubled as a hearse. It was a glossy black with a lot of chromium trim and the driver kept a wreath under his seat which, when necessary, covered the red light on the roof. There was nothing he could do to alter the inside, which had ample room for a coffin or a stretcher but only cramped space for anyone sitting alongside. Luis Cabrillo lay on the stretcher. Julie Conroy braced herself in her seat and tried to keep her right arm absolutely still in its sling.

  “Well, you can’t say you didn’t have it coming to you,” she said. “You asked for it and you got it. Right?”

  The ambulance took a corner and Luis Cabrillo rolled slightly, then rolled back again.

  “Until the doctors have made their examination,” he said, “I suggest you talk as little as possible. You may be concussed.”

  She thought about that for a while.

  “Who were all those people?” she asked.

  “From the other offices. They heard the noise. I told them you fell off the table while changing the lightbulb.” He sounded terse and formal. Like his new mustache.

  “Oh yes. Bits of glass everywhere.”

  “I did that.”

  “Terrific. You’re a terrific liar, aren’t you? Let me tell you one thing. You had it coming to you, mac. You and your terrific lies.”

  She felt suddenly dizzy. She shut her eyes, and time began doing its accordion-trick again, stretching itself out very slowly for a spell and then squeezing itself together very fast. It was hard to keep track of what was happening.

  When the accordion-trick stopped, they were sitting in a hospital room and her wrist was in plaster. She was sipping a glass of blue liquid. It tasted red. She examined his face and was pleased to notice that it was extremely pale and tired.

  “I see you bled to death, then,” she said. “That’s good. I’m very very glad. You had it coming and I’m glad I gave it to you. Glad.”

  There was a tiny graze on his chin. He touched it with the tip of one finger.

  “Have you ever fired a revolver before?” he asked.

  That was very funny, asking an American if she’d ever fired a revolver before, hell of a joke, made her laugh out loud. “Never,” she said.

  “You were holding it like this.” He crooked his arm as if his hand held an imaginary teacup. “All wrong.”

  “They do it like that in the movies.”

  “You hit the picture-rail.”

  A doctor came in, shone a light in each of her eyes, said something in Portuguese, and went out.

  “Listen, you Spanish shit,” she said. “As soon as this plaster gets good and hard I’m going to beat your goddam head in. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said. Anger sent blood pounding into her head, and that triggered off the accordion-trick again, stretching and squeezing time for the best part of a good bit.

  The next clear scene happened in a restaurant. There was a lot of bustle and she was not eating an omelet.

  “You wanted it so much,” he said. “Eat the bloody thing.”

  “It tastes green. Looks yellow but that doesn’t fool me. Definite greeny taste.” She stuck her fork in it like a flagpole. Slowly it toppled. “See?” she said. “Not ripe.”

  “Well … have something else.” He sawed at his steak. “The hospital said your blood-sugar level is low. Understand? You need to eat.”

  She watched the bustle until it hurt her eyes, so she looked instead at his steak.

  “Ever seen a sailor with a face like that?” she demanded. “I have. And it’s your goddam fault!” She threw a punch at him with her overloaded arm, and fell off her chair. After that the bustle intensified considerably.

  There was a car, which looked deep red but smelled light brown. There was an elevator which sang to itself and was definitely the happiest thing she had met all day. There was a bedroom, with Luis Cabrillo handing her a pair of his pajamas. She handed them back. “Stripes keep me awake,” she accused, stiffly.

  “Jesus Christ Almighty,” he said. He sat on the bed and rubbed his face. “This is just what I don’t need. There is so much work I—”

  “Yeah, sure, I know, I saw. Convoys, oil tankers. All that spying shit. I know, chum. It’s a hell of a hard life. Not as hard as getting torpedoed and drowned, but nearly. Why don’t—”

  “If you’re so damn sure I’m spying for the Germans,” he said harshly, “then what am I doing living in Lisbon?”

  She couldn’t answer that, so she glared instead.

  “Listen.” He stood up. “Tonight I must work. Tomorrow I shall explain. Now go to bed.”

  This time she was ready for him. “If you’re not spying for the Germans,” she said, “why are you writing to them about convoys?”

  “I really don’t think you are in a condition to understand.”

  “No? It seems pretty clear to me. You’re working for the bastards.”

  “Yes, I am. But I’m not spying for them. I’m not spying for anyone, anywhere.”

  “But they’re paying you.”

  “Yes.”

  “For nothing?”

  “No, for information which they think I get from Britain. But I don’t.”

  “Then where do you get it?”

  “I make it up.”

  Julie sneered as hard as she could. “I don’t believe you!” she shouted. Her head reverberated painfully.

  “Good,” Luis said. “The more incredible you find the truth, the less likely the Abwehr is to suspect it.”

  “All you ever gave me was lies,” she said. Her eyes were getting very tired. She had difficulty focusing on him. “You’re a shitty German spy and I’m going to kill you,” she insisted. “I’m going to kill both of you.”

  “Fine. Do it tomorrow. Now I’m going to work.” He switched off the light and went out.

  She took off all her clothes, dragging the sleeves over the plaster cast, and got into bed. Immediately she had an idea. If Luis really wasn’t a genuine German spy, she could inform Colonel Christian of that fact and Christian would therefore arrange to have him killed. There was something wrong with this idea, but she fell asleep before she could work it out.

  Chapter 43

  There was a note on the kitchen table. It read: 5:30 a.m. Gone to bed. Please wake me at 10:30. Coffee in big blue and white jar. Beware hot water very hot.

  Julie, wearing a red toweling robe she had found hanging behind the door, padded around the apartment. It was spacious: four rooms, kitchen and bathroom. One room was shut. Presumably he was asleep in there.

  She stood and looked at the door and tried to make sense of her scrambled memories of yesterday. A corpse, a cop, several taxis, a revolver as big as a starting cannon, pain, anger, steamy heat, bustle, bad temper, night, lies, exhaustion. They made no sense. Nothing made sense at that moment except her stomach. It sent a loud, clear message. She went back to the kitchen, found coffee, bread and eggs, and cooked breakfast, slowly because the plaster cast made her virtually one-handed.

  Sunlight flooded the room. There was a balcony with scarlet geraniums and a view over Lisbon so huge that it made her breathe deeply just to look at it: a flood of angled, red-tiled roofs falling away to the glittering Tagus. The coffee was good, too. She remembered that it was all bought with German money, asked herself whether she should be enjoying it, and got the answer: Why not?

&nbs
p; Just after ten he appeared in pajamas, looking stiff and tired, and raised a hand in greeting. She said nothing. He put water on to boil, went into the bathroom, came out shaved and awake, made coffee.

  “You had breakfast?” he asked, looking at the dishes in the sink.

  She rapped her cast with her knuckles. “Can’t wash up with this,” she said.

  He ate a rapid breakfast of bread rolls and black coffee.

  “Can you dress yourself?” he asked.

  “Are we going somewhere?”

  “We’re going to the office.”

  “Suppose I don’t want to go to the office.”

  “Suppose you shut up and get dressed.”

  They took a taxi. When they arrived, the lift still wasn’t working and the three flies on patrol had been joined by two friends. Because the staircase climbed to the right she could not hold on to the banister. The climb left her with leaden feet and gasping lungs. Luis Cabrillo said nothing until they were in the office.

  “Let’s get one thing clear from the start,” he told her. “I didn’t ask you to find me, and life would have been a lot easier for me if you had stayed away.”

  “You and Hitler both, maybe.”

  “Please shut up and listen. I have a great deal of work to do today. The only reason I’m taking the time to explain my situation to you is because otherwise you might go to the German embassy with a story of your own, and I can’t afford that risk.”

  “I don’t collaborate with krauts,” she muttered.

  “Alternatively you might go to the British embassy, and I can’t risk that either.”

  “Sure. You don’t want the truth to get around.”

  “I certainly don’t. As long as the Germans think I’m spying on the British for them, they’re happy. As long as the British don’t know what the Germans think, they’re happy too. So let’s not upset people with the facts.”

  There was a muscular discipline about Luis Cabrillo that surprised her. “I’m not people,” she said. “Go ahead and upset the hell out of me.”

  “The simplest way is to start at the beginning. The German embassy in Madrid trained me as a spy and—”