A Gathering of Spies

by John Altman

  “But you’ve no hard evidence to link the two of them?”

  “No hard evidence. But one tantalizing clue. Meissner began to receive letters last year—three letters, all arriving within the space of two months. Of course, they came directly to us. They were from New Jersey. They were signed with the name Anna Wagner. Meissner told us that Anna Wagner was a woman he had met in Germany in 1928, a married woman who had moved to America with her husband. He swore that the letters meant nothing. They seemed to bear him out; they were filled with affectionate drivel and, as far as we could see, no intelligence or anything of that sort. Nothing to raise suspicion.”

  “Perhaps they were in code.”

  “We gave them a good looking-over, Harry. If they were in code, it was a masterful job. They seem to be just what Meissner claims—love letters from an old flame. But now, with Catherine Danielson’s disappearance, we’re thinking that perhaps we dismissed them too hastily.”

  “You think she’ll come to him with her secrets about the bomb.”

  “It seems like a fine chance. Assuming she has managed to board a boat without the FBI knowing about it, her choices are limited. She may try for Lisbon or Madrid, but there’s a rule in the spy game, Harry: The more valuable a piece of intelligence is, the more perishable it is. If Heinrich knows what she’s got, we don’t think she’s likely to take the chance of getting hung up in some neutral country. We think she’ll come straight to England. She does seem to be an American, after all, to all appearances. And once she’s here, she’ll try to contact Meissner, whom she believes is still operating independently and is still in contact with Hamburg.”

  “And then she’ll walk into your trap.”

  “Assuming, of course, that we’re right about Meissner being her link to Hamburg, yes.”

  “Have you spoken with Meissner about this?”

  “I’m heading over there this afternoon. I was hoping you’d come along.”

  “What about the letters he received?”

  “They’re trying to find them in records even as we speak.”

  “Where is Meissner?”

  “He’s in a safe house not so far away. Come along, and I’ll show you.”

  The route from Whitehall led up, always up, to the Highgate section of north London. They passed through Waterlow Park, where antiaircraft guns, surrounded by sandbags, lay quiet under the sun; then through Highgate Cemetery, where such distinguished persons as George Eliot and Karl Marx slumber away for eternity, mindless of the Nazi bombs.

  “We choose the highest possible points for our safe houses,” Taylor explained. “Those are the points that the spies themselves would seek out; wireless contact is much easier with height. There’s no real way, of course, for the Nazis to know exactly where the signal is coming from, but we go to great lengths to achieve—”

  “I know,” Winterbotham said. “The appearance of truth is vital.”

  “It helps keep us sharp, anyway. Every time I go to visit Meissner, I see what he would see if he were actually at liberty. It keeps me on track when I draft the reports he sends back to Hamburg every week.”

  “You’re his case officer, then.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you told me he’s been in England for ten years. And you, Andrew, only began to work for Military Intelligence fairly recently, right?”

  Taylor gave him an odd, slanted half smile. “As a matter of fact, Harry, I was MI-Five long before I ever took the job at the university.”

  “What?”

  “Thought you knew me inside and out, eh? I may still have a few surprises left for you, old chap.”

  “Next you’ll tell me you threw all those chess games in order to keep a low profile.”

  Taylor smiled wider. “Here we are,” he said.

  The house was a three-story Victorian of red brick, perched on the very top of a hill in one corner of Pond Square. They were met just inside the front door by a squat, thickset young Briton who looked to Winterbotham as if he had seen too many flicks about Scotland Yard. Taylor introduced him as Dickens, and they shook. The young man had a crushing handshake. Winterbotham could see the bulge of a gun in a breast holster beneath his tweed jacket.

  “How’s our guest today?” Taylor asked.

  “Same as ever,” Dickens said. “No lack of complaints with that one.”

  “What is it now?”

  “Same as ever. Boredom. Claustrophobia.”

  “Let’s see if we can’t liven up his day,” Taylor said.

  They climbed a narrow, musty staircase, leaving Dickens standing guard by the front door. Winterbotham found himself not quite believing where he was or what he had just found out about Taylor. Games within games they were playing, here; and him without any sleep; and Ruth alive—alive!—in Dachau, and he with a chance to get her back, if he played his cards right; and a spy in the room above them, keeping secrets; and another spy crossing the ocean at that very moment, secrets in tow. Secrets within secrets, games within games—it boggled the mind.

  Another heavyset young man was sitting by a closed door on the second story. He was holding a thin novel—Conan Doyle, Winterbotham saw. The man stood as Taylor came off the top step, and looked as if he were about to salute.

  “At ease.” Taylor smiled. “Harry, this is Alf. Alf, Harry Winterbotham.”

  Alf nodded and grunted. Winterbotham nodded back.

  “Who’s that I hear?” said a voice from behind the door. The English was crisp and perfect. Ten years, Winterbotham thought. Ten years spent living in this country. A spy who is now spying on his spymasters. Games within games. Secrets within secrets.

  “Come on,” Taylor said in a low voice. “I’ll introduce you to the feather in Double Cross’s cap. We’ll see if we can’t shake the truth out of him yet.”

  Fritz Meissner was extremely tall and thin, pale, with receding blond hair and prominent blue veins in his temple. He lounged on a bed by an open window, enjoying the fresh spring air, smoking a cigarette. When Taylor and Winterbotham entered the room, he turned his eyes to face them—no other part of his body moved. There was something insolent in the man’s demeanor, something that Winterbotham found extremely distasteful.

  “Fritz!” Taylor said brightly. “I hope we’re not interrupting.”

  “Interrupting?” Meissner said. He smiled. “God forbid. But it’s not your usual day, Andrew. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I wanted you to meet a friend of mine. Fritz Meissner, Harry Winterbotham.”

  Meissner brought his cigarette to his mouth and took a laconic drag.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

  “The pleasure’s mine,” Winterbotham said stiffly.

  “I’ve brought you some things,” Taylor said, and handed Meissner a package he had carried from the car.

  Meissner immediately dug through it, lining up his treasures on the bed: a carton of cigarettes, matches, chocolates, a bottle of vodka, and a copy of Esquire magazine. He held the last up and examined the cover, where a leggy, hippy Varga girl was posed seductively. He looked pained.

  “Andrew,” he moaned, “what are you trying to do to me?”

  “All the way from America, Fritz. Take good care of it—soon enough the American censors will put a stop to it.”

  “You’ll make me crazy,” Meissner said. But he took the magazine and added it carefully to the pile on the bed.

  There was one chair in the room; Winterbotham took it while Taylor remained standing. For several moments they went through the rituals of lighting their various tobaccos. Meissner ignited a new cigarette from the butt of his last. Winterbotham puffed out a cloud of orange-flavored smoke.

  Taylor said, “Perhaps it is a bit cruel of me. But you must admit, she is attractive.”

  “Hm?”

  “The girl,” Taylor said, nodding at the magazine on the bed.

  “Ah,” Fritz said. He looked at the Varga girl again, then nodded. “She’s not bad.”

 
“Just not bad?”

  “I’ve seen better.”

  “Like Anna Wagner?” Taylor said.

  Something flickered in Meissner’s eyes. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “yes. Anna Wagner, among others.”

  “Tell me about Anna.”

  “I’ve told you before, Andrew. Are things that lonely at home?”

  Taylor smiled. “Tell me again, Fritz, if you don’t mind.”

  “Anna,” Meissner said. “Anna, Anna. So long ago, but I think I remember. A true beauty, Anna was. She worked in her husband’s shop in Berlin—”

  “What kind of shop?”

  “A pastry shop.”

  “Go on.”

  “And she took a liking to me,” Meissner said, “and I to her. We were friends, for a time. Then she and her husband moved to America. And that was the end of it.”

  “And suddenly, after ten years, she wrote to you.”

  “Mm,” Meissner said.

  “Why do you think she waited ten years, Fritz?”

  Meissner shrugged. “Perhaps that’s how long it takes for a wife to become bored enough of her husband to start thinking of old love affairs.”

  “She wrote to you three times in two months. Then she stopped again.”

  “Yes,” Meissner said.

  “Why is that, do you think?”

  “Andrew, you ask too much of me. Who could understand the mysteries of women?” He looked at Winterbotham and grinned a sly grin that spoke of male camaraderie.

  “I suppose so,” Taylor said. “But I should warn you, Fritz, that we are in the process of reexamining the letters you received from Anna Wagner. I sincerely hope that we will not find anything, of course. Because if we were to find something, that would mean that you’ve been lying to me. And we’ve known each other far too long to be lying to each other.”

  Meissner exhaled a cloud of smoke, seemingly unperturbed. “You won’t find anything,” he said, “except the sad words of a sad woman who wishes she had never let me go.”

  “Very good. That’s all I wanted to know. Harry, do you have anything to add?”

  Winterbotham shook his head.

  “Then I suppose we’ll be off.”

  Winterbotham stood, pipe clamped between his teeth, and followed Taylor to the door.

  “Ah! One more thing,” Taylor said, turning back with his hand on the knob. “Do you know the name Katarina Heinrich?”

  “Katarina Heinrich?” Meissner said.

  “Katarina Heinrich, yes.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Right! Well, then, take care. I’ll see you later in the week.”

  “Pleasure,” Winterbotham said.

  They left Fritz Meissner sitting on his bed, looking after them with a slight frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  “What do you think?” Taylor asked.

  “He’s lying.”

  “With any luck we’ll find the proof in those letters. Then we can go back and confront him with that.” Taylor pinched out his cigarette and tucked it carefully into his breast pocket. “I almost hope we’re wrong. If she’s got the same training that Fritz had, she’ll be a handful.”

  “When do you expect she’ll try to make contact?”

  “It’s been thirteen days since she went on the run. I would say she could reach England as early as next week.”

  Winterbotham nodded. “I assume you’re watching the ports.”

  “As best we can. But there’s an awful lot of cargo coming in from America these days, human and otherwise.”

  Winterbotham frowned. Even in his sleep-deprived state, he had begun to get a clear picture of the tasks before him. Getting Ruth back to England was the priority. But to do that, he would need to move farther ahead with his masquerade for the Abwehr, convincing them he had information of use to them. To do that, he would need Schroeder to continue brokering the deal. To do that, he would need the full support of MI-5. And to get that, he would need to help them clear their plate of their top priority: finding the Heinrich woman before she got her information back to Germany.

  Besides, he reminded himself, if she does get the contents of those blueprints to Berlin, and they do manage to build the chain-reaction bomb before the Americans, rescuing Ruth won’t make any difference. We’ll all be dead and Hitler’s armies will be goose-stepping right down Downing Street.

  “Let’s go have a look at those letters,” he said.

  “Very good,” Taylor said. “Care to stop for a bite first? I’ve got a friend at the Savoy—”

  “Now,” Winterbotham said.

  5

  NEWFOUNDLAND BASIN, THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

  MAY 1943

  The RMS Queen Mary sailed through the night.

  Her cargo holds were stocked with timber, meat, sugar, fuel oil, explosives, powdered milk, diesel, steel, tobacco, and lead. Her cabins and decks were filled with people: merchant seamen, American servicemen, Catholic missionaries, women from the Red Cross, and a handful of brave civilians who were willing, for reasons of their own, to risk the roving U-boat patrols scattered throughout the Atlantic.

  Sister Abigail Harbert believed that she had just met one of the nicer people on board the Queen Mary, a young woman named Eleanor Lewis. Young woman was not the fairest way to think of her, perhaps, since she was actually very close to Sister Abigail’s age, but Sister Abigail considered herself to have been made wise and ancient by her devotion to Jesus. Eleanor Lewis, on the other hand, had not yet accepted Christ as her savior. But she was a brave and kind young woman nonetheless, and Sister Abigail believed that she might very well be able to convert Eleanor Lewis before they pulled into port six days hence, if she kept at it.

  Eleanor was a pretty young woman with dark-brown hair cut short, a conservative style of dress, and a wet look in her green-gray eyes. That wet look, to Sister Abigail, encouraged sympathy. Eleanor always seemed on the verge of tears, even when she was telling a story as inspiring as the one she had just finished telling.

  “My darling Al,” Eleanor said, when Sister Abigail asked her why she was willing to risk the wolf packs roaming these black waters. “He was wounded in an accident last month—blinded when some G.I. threw his cigarette into a munitions dump. I got the letter two weeks ago and booked passage on the very next ship headed to England. Al needs me now. But I’m not sure he knows it. Do you know what he did? He said in his letter that we should break off our engagement. He doesn’t want to burden me, he said, now that he’s blind.”

  Sister Abigail clucked sympathetically. “He sounds like a fine young man,” she said. “Has he accepted Christ as his savior?”

  “Oh, I don’t think he gives it much thought,” Eleanor said breezily. “Although being blind, now, he may change his ways. I wish this boat could go faster, I’ll tell you that. He sounded hopeless in his letter. Just hopeless. But blind people can live very productive lives. Why, I just read about a blind man who’s doing his part for the war. I read about him in Time magazine. He joined the Signal Corps and taught them how to make emergency repairs in the dark.”

  “That’s fascinating,” Sister Abigail said. “He’s very lucky to have a young woman like you as his fiancée.”

  “Oh, no, I’m very lucky to have him. He’s wonderful.”

  It was this selfless devotion that had impressed Sister Abigail so deeply. In this day and age, it was rare to find women who were willing to devote themselves so completely to their husbands. Women these days played baseball and worked in factories and dressed in two-piece bathing suits. They cared little for the old values, the Christian values. The war was taking its toll in countless ways, ways that wouldn’t even reveal themselves until the war was long finished.

  But with a few more young women like Eleanor Lewis around, Sister Abigail thought, they all might get through this with their priorities intact.

  The story Katarina had told was half true.

  Eleanor Lewis did indeed have a fiancé named Al, and he had i
ndeed been blinded in the war. But the incident had occurred at Guadalcanal, the result of a Japanese bullet. Al had sent a letter to Eleanor telling her that he wished to break their engagement because he didn’t wish to be a burden; but he had done this from the San Diego Naval Hospital, where he had been recovering. Then he had gone home to Dennison, Ohio, where Eleanor had informed him that she would stick by him through thick and thin. Their engagement had been resuscitated, with a date set in June. Then had come a piece of good news from the doctor: Al had some hope, although slim, of regaining partial sight in one eye.

  Katarina had learned all of this from Eleanor Lewis shortly before killing her.

  Now Eleanor Lewis and Al Burke were rotting in the basement of Eleanor’s small frame house in Ohio. Katarina had met Eleanor Lewis at the Palace Movie Theater in Dennison, to which she had gained admission with her last fifty cents. By then she had been desperate, and Eleanor Lewis had provided her with a way out. The fact that her fiancé was blind only made things easier. Had he been left alive, an alarm would have been raised and her new identity would have been compromised. But Eleanor had been only too happy to invite her to dinner that night to show off her wonderful, worldly, heroic, half-blind fiancé.

  She killed Eleanor first. Eleanor was the one more likely to cause trouble, after all. Al was easy. He had tried to come to his fiancée’s rescue and had tripped over her corpse.

  Katarina wanted to be proud of what she had done. It had been resourceful; it had been effective; and it had been for the Fatherland. But thinking back on it, she felt nothing but disgust and shame.

  She had killed a blind man as he lay sobbing over his fiancée’s corpse.

  The act had enabled her, at least, to book passage on the Queen Mary. She had discovered nearly three thousand dollars in an El Duelo cigar box underneath Eleanor’s bed. Before boarding she had colored her hair, cut it into a bob, changed her wardrobe. She felt fairly certain that the FBI had no idea where Catherine Danielson Carter had gone. She believed that her chances of reaching Fritz in London were better than they had ever been.