"Pretty well, I think. I was able to gain their confidence fairly easily, and I joined without anyone appearing suspicious. The last week or so I've been trying to get an audience with Gerhard Kunze, but no luck so far. He seems to be my best bet for finding a job with the Foreign Institute and getting a ticket to Germany."
Stephenson nodded. "Good. Now it's time to pick up the pace."
"How do you mean?" she asked.
"Tomorrow the FBI is going to have a mass roundup of Nazi spies in the New York City area. You are going to be one of them."
This had never been part of Charlie's plan. "All right…then what?"
"You will be brought to jail, briefly, quickly arraigned on charges of espionage and released on bail. Don't worry about the details, we have them all worked out. Immediately upon your release, you are to go to the Bund and tell them you need to leave the country and wish to immigrate to Germany, being a good volksdeutsche and all. Enough Nazi spies have been through the Bund in one way or another that this should not be unfamiliar to them. We know that Kunze has maintained contact with Walter Kappe, the former Bund press agent now with the Deutsche Ausland Institut, the German Foreign Institute. You will beg, cajole and cry your way into having Kunze arrange employment for you with Kappe as well as transportation to Germany."
Johanna ruminated on this for a moment. "It sounds like a good idea, I suppose, but it's rather sudden."
"Indeed it is. Time is of the essence. We are shipping hundreds of thousands of tons of war materiel under Lend Lease, much of it now at the bottom of the Atlantic thanks to U-Boat attacks. We are convinced that German spies and Fifth Columnists here in the United States are a large part of the problem, transmitting shipping information, convoy timetables and the like. We are equally convinced that the DAI play a major role in this.
"While we do not want you to take unnecessary risks by performing overt espionage, we believe that if you are able to wheedle your way into the American desk of the Foreign Institute, you will be in a position to tell us exactly what they are doing. Do you understand?"
Not for the first time, Johanna found herself having to consider a plan she thought suicidal at best. Not for the first time, she agreed to it.
"I'll do my best."
Through a cloud of pipe smoke, Brotherton said, "We know you will. You'll be just fine. We will be in touch with you right up until the moment you leave for Germany."
Just then, the door opened and a man Johanna didn't recognize walked in. He had close-cropped silver hair, impossibly blue eyes and wore an expensive-looking suit.
"Sorry to interrupt," he said. "I heard you all were in here, so I just wanted to drop by and say hello."
He smiled at Johanna and offered his hand. "Bill Donovan. How do you do?"
"Oh!" she exclaimed, standing up to introduce herself to President Roosevelt's Coordinator of Intelligence.
"Yes, Dr. Falck, I know all about you. I think you're incredibly brave to be taking this on, and I want you to know that we're all very grateful and proud. We will be anxiously awaiting the fruits of your labor." He nodded to the two MI-6 men and left.
"See, there Dr. Falck, you are known at the highest levels," Stephenson said with a wink. "Now, off you go, you've got a big day ahead of you."
16
Johanna was beginning to think that she had made a serious mistake.
For the last month, she had taken things with the Bund slow and worked at her own pace, getting comfortable in her new role. It had been surprisingly easy – even fun. Going off to Germany and having to worry about Nazis and the Gestapo seemed so far off as to be not quite real. Now everything was out of her control and she would have to deal with the dangerous reality of Hitler's Germany, and soon.
As she dressed and prepared to join her family for breakfast, she admitted to herself that she had been too eager to accept this assignment without fully weighing the risks. Had she been arrogant to think that she could figure it out as she went along? Maybe foolish was the right word. Her training at the hands of the British had gone well; would it be enough? She considered backing out, but reminded herself that there were people taking greater risks under worse circumstances. Resigning herself to going through with it, she decided to put her worries out of her head and do her best.
Right now, her immediate concern was that her plan to keep her parents ignorant of her "involvement" with the Bund was about to collapse. She couldn't tell them the truth, of course, so she would have to let the cover story stand. They would think that both of their children were Bundists and Nazis, as would everyone in the neighborhood, all of their customers and all of their friends. She couldn't see any way out of it. Looking in the mirror, she took a deep breath and went out to breakfast.
At the dining room table, her family was engaged in their morning ritual – studiously ignoring one another. Once Johanna sat down, her mother used her as a focal point to try to spark a conversation.
"Johanna, how is work going?"
"It's fine, Mother, thank you," she answered as she helped herself to some eggs and potatoes.
"I thought teachers have the summer free," her father said around a mouthful of bread.
Johanna stifled her impatience. This was at least the fourth time they'd had this conversation. She was getting tired of lying.
"Yes, Vati, I told you, I'm busy doing research. When classes start up again in September, I will be teaching also, but I have plenty to keep me busy until then."
She was beginning to regret not waiting to leave until they had all gone down to the deli, as she had been doing these last few weeks.
Just then there was a loud knock at the front door.
Klaus got up from the table with a curious expression and walked to the door. He asked who was there.
"FBI. Please open the door."
Klaus and Elisabeth both glanced over at Freddy with exasperated looks on their faces.
"Now what have you done?" Klaus asked him in a stage whisper. He opened the door.
Two men in gray suits and fedoras walked in holding up their identification. One of them had red hair poking out from under his hat.
"I haven't done anything! Go bother someone else!" Freddy shouted as he got up from the table and walked towards the FBI agents.
The red haired agent held up his hand as a command to stay away.
"What did he do?" Elisabeth sighed.
Klaus walked towards Freddy, his face reddening. The second agent, a slight man with a pencil mustache shook his head and barred the way into the dining room.
The red-haired agent looked at Johanna.
"Johanna Falck?" he asked. She nodded.
"I'm Special Agent Walter, FBI. You're under arrest for suspicion of espionage and violation of the Smith Act of 1940 for advocating overthrow of the United States Government. Come with us please, miss."
He put his hand on her arm and she stood up. Her parents each had looks of shock on their faces. Friedrich looked confused and seemed a little disappointed that they weren't there to arrest him.
"There must be a mistake here," Klaus said. "Johanna couldn't possibly be involved."
As he placed handcuffs on Johanna and walked her to the door, Agent Walter turned to Klaus.
"Mr. Falck, your daughter is a known member of the German-American Bund and has been caught on film committing acts of espionage and subversion against the United States in service of Germany."
The two agents walked Johanna out the door. She didn't know if the FBI men were aware of their role in establishing her cover, so Johanna kept silent, hoping that Stephenson had indeed taken care of the details.
The three of them walked out of the building where a black Ford was waiting by the curb. The agent with the mustache opened the rear door and waved Johanna in. Thankfully, Walter had cuffed her hands in front of her, so she was able to maneuver her way in. The door closed and she was sitting in the backseat next to Dan Wexler. He had a peevish look on his face.
"Good m
orning, Miss Falck. It would seem that the gods have cursed me to waste my time with you for all eternity," he said as the other two agents got in. The red haired agent sat at the wheel and, seeing Wexler nod, started the car and pulled away from the curb.
Johanna was in no mood for any more of Wexler's shabby treatment.
"I'm sorry you were the one picked for this. Trust me, it was not my choice." She didn't try to hide her contempt for him.
"Oh, wasn't it?" he asked with a smirk and a wink.
She turned away from him to look out the window.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Yes, well, we're both on a fool's errand today then, aren't we?" Wexler laughed. The two men in front joined in.
Johanna pegged them both as sycophants and rolled her eyes.
Wexler explained that they were taking her right to court where they would expedite her arraignment and bail.
"Although it would be a shame if we lost your paperwork along the way wouldn't it?"
She glared at him, knowing that he was powerless. This entire charade had been conceived and ordered high above him, and she knew it was the source of his ire. He could threaten, but he was no more than a bystander at this point. Seeing in her eyes that his bluff had been called, Wexler lost interest in the conversation and looked out the window at the busy morning traffic.
The entire court experience was a blur. At the US Courthouse in Foley Square, Wexler took Johanna up to the FBI offices where they had first met. There she was booked, fingerprinted and photographed just as if she were a real criminal. Wexler placed her at the head of the line and quickly shuffled her along the process. As a clerk at a typewriter asked for her name and address, she could hear German-accented English from all around her. She remembered that her arrest was part of a larger operation to capture real Nazi spies. During the short time she had been in the central booking area, she had gotten a good look at several of them and was struck by their ordinariness.
After making a circuit of the booking area, Wexler rushed her downstairs to a crowded courtroom and introduced her to a man who said he was her lawyer. She forgot his name immediately. The lawyer pulled her over to one of the two long tables in front of the judge's bench and told her to sit. Bright sunlight streamed in through the tall windows directly on her face. Shielding her eyes, she was able to make out three men sitting at the opposite table. One of them stood up and began speaking to the judge. Johanna caught among his rapid-fire words mentions of her name and something about espionage and the Alien Registration Act.
Her lawyer replied with equal speed, declaring her innocence and requesting bond. The three of them discussed numbers, the judge banged his gavel and the clerk read the next case.
She was free to go.
The cab pulled up to the curb on East 85th Street. Johanna paid the fare and got out. Her next step was here, at the Bund headquarters. She wondered if word would have gotten to them that there had been a roundup of suspected spies and that she had been one of them. She collected her thoughts and entered the narrow stairway, climbing to the fourth floor. If it was true what Wexler had said about Bund involvement with Nazi espionage, wouldn't Kunze know who all the spies were? If he didn't believe that she was indeed a German agent, she would have to improvise. She hoped that the goodwill her brother's name had generated for her would continue.
At the top of the stairs was a door with "Deutsche-Amerikanischer Volksbund" stenciled in black letters on the frosted glass. Johanna opened it and walked in.
A young brunette with too much makeup sat at a desk, smoking a cigarette and looking out the window. The Bund headquarters had clearly seen better days. Piles of old magazines and newspapers were on the floor and a fan with a frayed cord sat useless in a window. The entire suite was one room wide and four deep, each office opening onto another one behind it. The only remaining secretary sat in the outer room, like a guard with a typewriter. Seeing Johanna walk in, she sat up like she was snapping to attention.
"Oh, hi! I know you, don't I?" she asked with a dull expression. A big spot of lipstick was missing from her lower lip, smeared off onto the end of her cigarette.
"I'm Johanna Falck. Is Mr. Kunze in?"
"Oh! Hold on a minute, okay?" She crushed her cigarette on the sole of her shoe, threw it in the trash and scurried to the door of the next room. Johanna heard her open two more doors, sounding like she was making her way to some private sanctum. She heard muffled voices and then footsteps.
Gerhard Kunze came out looking like he had slept in his clothes and just woken up. The ends of his shirt collar poked up at odd angles and his hair was sticking straight up. The secretary returned to her desk and began reapplying her lipstick, looking over her mirror at Johanna.
"Hello, Miss Falck. I spoke with your brother just a little while ago. I was going to offer my help, but you don't seem to need it."
She did her best to appear nervous and helpless, rightly guessing that he would fall for even a poorly acted damsel-in-distress routine.
"Mr. Kunze, is there somewhere I can speak to you in private? I don't know what to do, I'm afraid I'm in terrible trouble."
"Yes, of course, dear girl," he said, his interest perking up. He tried to smooth his hair, with no success. "Please, this way."
He showed her through the two middle rooms, each with furniture and boxes piled in a jumble. The back room was his office. The desk looked like he had bought it secondhand from someone with a houseful of cats; each leg had been scratched beyond repair and several long gouges marred the surface. A rumpled, sagging cot in the corner confirmed Johanna's suspicions that he had been asleep. The two windows, looking out onto a brick wall three feet away, let in almost no light. It smelled like cigarette smoke and greasy food. She wondered if he lived here.
Opposite the desk was a blue couch with stuffing coming out of the arms. Kunze pushed boxes of pamphlets off it onto the floor and offered her a seat. His chair gave a loud creak as he sat behind the desk.
"So, you obviously don't need a lawyer, otherwise you wouldn't be here now."
"No, I was able to call a friend at the NYU law school to help me," she lied.
"It's good to have friends. May I ask, what were the charges?"
She told him.
"I see. And are you guilty as charged?"
Johanna, hoping to add to the drama and string Kunze along, paused before answering.
"Yes."
"Hmmph. What exactly have you done?"
She waited again.
"I'm afraid I can't discuss it."
Kunze's raised his eyebrows. There, I've got him, she thought.
"Can't discuss it? And why would that be?" he asked, leaning forward with interest.
"I'm under orders not to discuss it with anyone, even you."
"Orders from whom?"
Johanna felt her dramatic juices flowing. She glanced at the open office door and whispered, "Orders …from our friends."
Kunze jumped out of his chair and closed the door. He sat down next to Johanna.
"Our friends? Does that mean Berlin?" He waved his hands. "No, no, you can't tell me of course. I understand you can't talk about it, whatever it is, but I'm sure it must be very important. Please let me know what I can do to help, anything."
He looked as eager as a schoolboy. At this instant, Johanna's picture of him as a dangerous threat disappeared.
He's just a pathetic clown. He dresses up in his Nazi costume and shouts and marches, but he's really just a pitiful pretender. He's probably been dreaming of this moment since he joined the Bund. She decided this was his central weakness and she seized upon it.
Warming to her role, she thanked him.
"I appreciate that. I must tell you that under no circumstances can I allow the FBI to interrogate me or put me on trial. What I have done and what I know is too important. Too important to the Fatherland."
Kunze nodded vigorously. He didn't seem to think it odd that the FBI would have released her without having alre
ady done their interrogations.
"There is only one way for me to avoid the FBI finding out what I know," she continued. "I have to leave the country."
Kunze nodded. "Yes, of course."
"I want to rejoin the Fatherland, naturally, but it is very difficult to go there right now, for obvious reasons. Even if I were to find some way in, I would need somewhere to live, somewhere to work. These things I couldn't arrange on my own. I would need help from someone there."
"Hmmm." Kunze appeared lost in thought. "Why can't you just use your 'friends' to help you?"
"Because I was never in direct contact with them. I worked for a man here in New York, and he was arrested yesterday also. He's the only one that knows about me, and it would be too dangerous to try and contact him."
Fifth Column Page 10
