Looking up, she saw stars through the open hatch and felt cool air on her face. After a week of the U-boat's stale atmosphere, the sea air smelled delicious. She took several deep breaths, savoring it as she climbed out. The small deck of the conning tower was slick with sea-spray. In the darkness below, she saw two crewmen holding a rubber dinghy alongside the boat. Each of them was staring at her, trying to get a glimpse of their mystery guest.
As Hagen led her down to the deck, Johanna looked off in the distance where she could see lights from a shoreline. She didn't know how far a U-boat could go in a week's time, but guessed they could be anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. There was a chill in the air – were they somewhere north? She searched in vain for a landmark.
They climbed into the dinghy, Johanna remembering to keep her head down to hide her face. The two sailors strained to look around her upturned collar to see her face, but Hagen barked at them to return to the deck and wait for his signal.
Hagen made a place in the dinghy for them both to sit, moving three leather cases off to the side. He sat with his back to the bow and grasped the oars. He threw off the rope and began rowing. Johanna stared at the shore, searching for some sign of where they were.
As Hagen rowed through the waves, she could make out two sets of headlights on what looked to be a deserted beach. Nothing about the cars or the beach gave her a clue where they were.
She thought she could hear music, but it was too faint to make out.
With one last stroke, Hagen brought the dinghy close enough to shore that the bottom rubbed on the wet sand. Before the receding waves could pull it back out, he put a leg over the side, drove his boot into the sand and hopped out.
The car lights blinked out, leaving them in total darkness. Hagen whispered to her to get out and help him pull the craft onto dry land. Now that she was on land, with no soldiers or policemen in sight, Johanna thought about escape. If she just ran as fast as she could into the darkness, maybe she could hide somewhere until Hagen gave up. Then she could figure out where she was and try to find a way home. There was obviously a road nearby – she saw those cars. If she could run along that road and flag down a passing car, maybe she could get help.
She let go of the dinghy's line and, for a brief moment, she thought she would do it. But her feet stayed were they were.
I could be back in Germany, for all I know. Or, I could be in some other hostile place where I can't speak the language.
Plus, I may be crazy, but I want to know what this is all about.
Once again, Johanna found herself waiting for her eyes to adjust to starlight. She could see a rocky coastline in both directions and a long concrete breakwater to her right, but nothing else.
"Take off that cap and coat," Hagen whispered, doing the same. When he removed his naval overcoat, Johanna saw he had discarded his German uniform in favor of a suit and tie.
He handed her one of the cases and picked up the other two. Johanna hefted the small suitcase in her hand. It was heavy and something thumped inside when she shook it. Hagen pushed a finger into Johanna's back to nudge her forward. Her heels sank into the sand, making her unsteady as she walked up the sloping beach.
Sand gave way to stalky sea-grass and she could see that the two cars were still there, parked one in front of the other. One sat with the engine running. She couldn't discern their makes in the darkness – both had the smooth curves and long hoods that marked almost every model on the road. She stepped onto the pavement, grateful for its solidity and, after a week at sea, it's stillness.
She heard the opening of car doors and saw the shapes of two men getting out of the front car. Hagen went over to them. They had a brief conversation in hushed tones and the men got back into their vehicle.
"All right, give me that case and get in," Hagen ordered, walking back to the trunk of the second car.
"Where the hell are we?" Johanna asked.
"Get in the car."
She handed him the suitcase and opened the passenger door. The dome light came on, and she looked around the car before getting in. It appeared new and had nothing inside besides an ashtray full of cigarette butts.
She got in and opened the glove compartment but it was empty. She felt under the seat. Nothing.
Looking through the windshield at the first car, she saw the glowing tips of two cigarettes bobbing as the two men smoked. Obviously they were working with Hagen. Fellow spies, probably. She assumed there were Nazi spies all over the world, so that didn't tell her where she was.
The radio.
Johanna reached to turn on the car radio, but was quick to withdraw her hand when Hagen opened the driver's side door.
Hagen got in behind the wheel and started the engine, his gun once again in his lap. He put the car into gear and flipped on the headlights, illuminating the rear of the first car. Johanna sat there for a moment before she noticed the license plate. It had a white background with red numbers.
At the bottom was the word 'Vacationland.'
At the top: 'Maine.'
26
US Route 1 – October 1941
Johanna was so stunned to find herself back in the United States that she sat silent as they followed the lead car from the shore and on to Route 1. When the other car pulled off, Hagen sped up and headed south down the empty highway.
She turned to Hagen, who drove with an expressionless face.
"All right, I know where we are. Now for the why. You're some kind of spy, right?"
He smirked.
"You have seen too many movies. I am a captain in the Abwehr, yes. A spy, no."
"Abwehr. That's military intelligence?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Now can you tell me what all of this has to do with me?"
His eyes switched from the road to Johanna and back.
"I need you for a very important mission."
Johanna let out a frustrated groan.
"I have had it with your cryptic non-answers." She jabbed her finger into the air. "You need to wise up to something, and quick. You are a spy illegally in the U.S. I can make your life very difficult if you don't tell me what the hell is going on. I'm sure the police around here would be very interested in reports of a screaming woman being held captive by a German-speaking man."
In the glow of the dashboard, she could see his lips tighten.
"You just told me that you need me," she continued. "So, I know you won't shoot me if I scream or try to escape. Start talking."
There was nothing but the noise of the tires clicking on the seams in the pavement as Johanna watched Hagen think it over.
He exhaled in a loud pop.
"I have been sent by Berlin to stop a rogue agent that is loose in the U.S. Berlin doesn't know who they can trust among the agents already in America, so they sent me."
She mulled this over for a moment, and couldn't decide if she believed it or not.
"That still doesn't explain why you need me, or why you think I will cooperate with you," she pointed out.
"I don't expect you to cooperate, just be a witness," he replied.
"Witness for what?"
He shook his head.
"No more questions," he said. He narrowed his eyes and gave her a look that chilled her. "And I will shoot you if I have to."
Route 1 in Maine wound through countless towns near the coastline – most looking half-abandoned for the season. As they passed through some place called Damariscotta, Johanna held up her watch to catch light from a streetlamp. It was after midnight, Germany time. That made it just after six p.m. East Coast time.
Hagen's explanations had raised more questions than they had answered. Feeling sleep overtake her in the warm car, Johanna forced herself to stay awake and think things over.
She couldn't see any reason to dismiss Hagen's story outright. She suspected that spies probably had to be reeled in now and then and that it was other agents who were sent to do it. That still didn't explain her role in all this. He had said
she was a witness. Witness for whom? And exactly what was she supposed to witness? Hagen obviously wasn't going to tell her anything he didn't have to, so she tried a different tack.
"Why did you pick me? I'm just a researcher. My work at the Foreign Institute is of interest only to other scholars."
She started when he laughed.
"You are no researcher."
"What…what do you mean?" she stammered.
"Abwehr knew that you were an American agent immediately," he replied with a low chuckle. "Everyone is so wrapped up in this volksdeutsche nonsense and eager to help a pretty girl that they couldn't see the obviousness of it. After you were arrested in New York, we checked you out and couldn't get any corroboration that you were indeed working for us. We concluded that the American government engineered your arrest to create a cover-story. We have caught the British at it many times."
Johanna was stunned. Her entire mission had been blown before it even started. But why did they let her in if they knew she was an agent? Of what use could she be to the Germans? As soon as the question occurred to her, she knew the answer.
The same reason they keep confirmed spies around – to use them as a conduit for disinformation.
She slumped in her seat. Not only had she been caught, but the 'intelligence' she had been sending to COI was probably worthless.
27
WashingtonD.C.
As soon as Eve Daly heard the phone ring, she knew it was bad news.
She was sitting at the kitchen table of their Georgetown home, reading the paper when the phone rang. She heard Charlie's muffled voice from the bedroom upstairs and then the creaking of the stairs as he came down.
He stood in the kitchen doorway, his face ashen. He fiddled absent-mindedly with the belt of his bathrobe.
"It's Johanna," he sighed. "Her courier seems to have disappeared."
"But there's no word about her?" she asked.
"No, but without the courier, we won't be able to get any information about her," he replied. "She could be fine, or she could be in trouble, we have no way of knowing."
28
Johanna awoke to the sound of beeping horns. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes she looked out the car window to see heavy traffic of cars with New York license plates. Hagen didn't look the least bit tired behind the wheel as he steered with one hand and held a map with the other.
"Where are we going?" she asked with a yawn.
"I need to get to a safe house in Brooklyn," he replied, giving her a wary look. "And I can't understand this map."
She gave him a blank look. "So…?"
"So…would you please help me?"
The request was trivial, but Johanna considered the implications of aiding a Nazi spy, even if it was just giving him directions. She was tempted to tell him no, but the part of her that wanted answers won out.
"Alright," she replied, sitting up. "What's the address?"
He gave her an address in BrooklynHeights. With the map and her dim recollection of the area, she directed him there with only a few wrong turns.
They pulled up in front of a small brick building. There was a butcher's shop on the first floor with apartments in the three upper floors. Hagen got out, pulled one of the cases out of the trunk and opened Johanna's door. She looked at the street, busy with morning traffic and pedestrians, and thought about screaming for help.
There's no way he would shoot me in broad daylight on a crowded street. Is there?
Once again, wanting to know what this was all about, she filed that idea away for later, if it became necessary. She got out of the car and stretched.
He prodded her toward the stoop and into the entryway for the apartments.
At the top of the first flight of stairs, Hagen knocked on the door marked '1F.'
The door opened a crack, revealing a man in a greasy mechanic's uniform. Johanna noticed his hand on the doorjamb. It looked like it belonged to a doctor, not a mechanic.
"Wie geht's?" Hagen asked the man.
"I'm sorry, I don't speak German," he replied in perfect American English, looking Johanna over.
"Neh? Aber, meine Frau ist hier mit uns."
The door opened and the man waved them in, closing the door behind them after a quick glance down the hall. Despite the bright sunshine outside, the apartment was dark, lit by bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling.
Now inside, Hagen greeted the man as if they were old friends.
"This is Simon," he said. He clapped the man on the shoulder. "Simon, this is Dr. Johanna Falck."
Simon inclined his head, his black forelock falling over his eyes. He was wearing a navy blue mechanic's uniform with an ID badge clipped to his pocket. It said 'Brooklyn Navy Yard.' Johanna groaned inwardly as she stared back at him.
Great. The Navy Yard is probably crawling with Nazis. God only knows what they're doing down there.
Hagen directed Johanna to a chair in the front room, telling Simon to keep an eye on her while he made some calls.
From where she sat in a wobbly armchair, she could see the entire three-room apartment. What passed for a parlor was barren except for a few pieces of cast-off furniture and a pile of food wrappers. Only the curtains looked new. They were heavy and nailed to the window trim all the way around.
To her right, she could see through an open door into the bedroom where three mismatched beds were crammed into the tiny space.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Simon was staring at her. She pretended not to notice.
Hagen was at the kitchen table, dialing a heavy black phone as he consulted a notebook. He made three calls, each lasting less than a minute. Johanna strained to hear, but couldn't make out what he was saying. Hanging up the phone, Hagen waved Simon over to the chair next to him.
Again, Johanna couldn't hear what they were talking about, but saw them looking over at her several times.
Not five minutes after Hagen had hung up the phone, there was a knock at the door.
As Simon went to answer it, Hagen walked over to where Johanna was sitting.
"Stay in that chair, and keep quiet," he ordered. He turned on his heel to greet the three men entering the apartment.
Johanna took notice of the men as they entered the front room. Nothing about them stood out. Each wore a bland suit, nothing too fancy or too tattered. Each had the pasty complexion of someone rarely outdoors.
Hagen pulled three chairs from the kitchen and directed the men to sit. They each threw furtive glances toward Johanna. One jerked his thumb in her direction and whispered something to Hagen.
"You may speak freely," he announced. "However, you are not to use your real names or any aliases, nor are you to refer to any of your colleagues or any locations of importance to our work. Is that understood?"
They all nodded.
Hagen pushed a pile of newspapers off a tattered couch and sat down. He pulled a black notebook from his jacket pocket and placed it on his knee, his pen poised.
"All right," he said. "Tell me what you know."
Talking over one another, they stumbled through what seemed to be a rehearsed report. They all spoke Low German, common in Northern Germany many years ago, but replaced in schools by the High German of the South. Johanna took this to mean they were either uneducated, or that they had immigrated to the U.S. before High German had been made standard in schools.
They told Hagen that constant FBI roundups had crippled their network and made it very difficult to operate. They each repeated the complaint that 'it had become much too dangerous out there.'
He sat up abruptly and interrupted.
"Enough!" he barked, glaring at each in turn. "I did not come two thousand miles to hear excuses. This is very important business, and you had better treat it as such. The Führer himself has ordered this mission, gentlemen. We must not fail."
The three men seemed to snap to attention in their chairs, their eyes widening. Johanna noticed one of them actually click his heels.
&nb
sp; She took note of the reference to Hitler and filed it away.
They then explained that since the FBI had arrested the Rumrich and Duquesne spy rings over the last few years, there wasn't anyone operating in the U.S. who knew the big picture anymore. All that was left was many small, disconnected cells. Hagen, his impatience showing, told them he was well aware of the situation.
"All we have been able to find out," said the heel-clicker, "is that there was supposed to be an SD agent working for the German Consulate here in New York. Since Roosevelt closed our consulates down last year, no one seems to know anything about him."
Fifth Column Page 15
