A Gathering of Spies

by John Altman

  “I’m sorry,” Rupert said. “’Taint much.”

  “It looks wonderful.”

  She devoured the food in a few bites, then picked the crumbs off her plate with her fingers. The old man wasn’t paying attention. He was back behind his desk, drinking again, misty-eyed, talking about his daughter.

  There was no need to kill him.

  Just thinking it made her scorn herself even more. How had she lost her edge? She had seen what had happened to Fritz; she should have been more wary than ever of commiserating with the enemy.

  But her mind kept coming back to the thought. There was no need to kill him. He was old, drunk, and kind. He was half mad with mercury poisoning. He was helpless.

  On the other hand, any unforeseen quantity presented a possible danger. The safe route …

  “Aha!” the old man cried. “She gets that, too!”

  Katarina blinked. “What?” she said.

  He leaned across the desk, pointing. His finger stopped an inch short of her forehead and hovered there.

  “The worry line,” he said. “Marion gets that, too. When she’s thinking about something, thinking hard, she gets that line right down the middle of her forehead, just the way you’ve got it there.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out how on earth I’m going to get to Bridlington tomorrow, with my bicycle gone.”

  “You and Mare would like each other. I know you would. She’s a fine young woman.”

  “I’m sure she is.”

  “Fine young woman,” Rupert said again. He reached for his glass and found it empty. He reached for the bottle and found that empty, too.

  He grinned foolishly. “Hell,” he said.

  He pushed himself out of his chair, swayed for a moment, then carefully knelt on the floor, his back to Katarina, and reached for his liquor cabinet.

  She picked up the knife.

  Afterward, she vomited up the bread, the cheese, the cabbage and potatoes, and the tea. Waves of dizziness rolled over her like surf over the beach below.

  But she got her hands under his arms anyway, and dragged him up the narrow stone staircase. He was heavier than she would have thought. People took on weight, in death. Sixty stairs wound up. By the time she reached the top, her breath was coming short and hard. A film of chilly sweat covered her face.

  It was, she feared, the first stirrings of pneumonia. If only she could lie down, close her eyes, just for a few hours …

  She placed old Rupert, with some effort, in the mercury bath under the great lens. The lens was a two-ton beehive of layered glass; the mercury filled the huge tub beneath it. Rupert settled into the viscous substance tentatively, but refused to sink below the surface. For several minutes, Katarina tried, without success, to prod him down. Time after time, he rose again. Finally she gave up.

  She stumbled back downstairs. Sleep was coming for her; she couldn’t pretend otherwise. She was on the verge of … on the verge of God only knew what. An hour or two was all she needed, that and some food that would stay down. Then she would return to the Fatherland and save all her countrymen and there would be parades and flowers and music and dancing and perhaps Fritz would be there, holding her, gently kissing her, as flashbulbs popped and the gallows swung in the background …

  No, Fritz was dead. She had seen it herself.

  Delirious, she thought. You’re delirious.

  The thought of food was tempting, but the demands of finding and eating it seemed altogether too daunting. She staggered off the bottom step and moved past the study to see what else was in this hovel. She found one bedroom with a small bed neatly made. Better than the chairs in the study. She collapsed onto it face-first. Stripped off her filthy, sodden bandages, dropping them on the floor. Lying on a dead man’s bed. A man she had just killed. A man who had taken her in, taken her out of the storm …

  The storm, she thought.

  She could hear it raging.

  I wonder,. she thought, and then slipped into a deep, dreamless slumber.

  She swam back to consciousness slowly, clawing her way up through layers of sleep.

  Somebody was standing over her. Watching her. She could feel the eyes boring into her. Whose eyes? Richard’s? Where was she? Princeton? New York? Or was it Hamburg? No … She remembered. She was in a lighthouse on the eastern coast of England, and—

  She opened her eyes.

  A man was standing beside the bed.

  She sat up and immediately scooted away, staring up at him with panic-bright eyes. She had fallen asleep. Stupid, weak, clumsy, soft …

  How had they found her?

  Lightning flashed; she saw that the man held a gun.

  The old fat one, she realized. The old fat one from Highgate.

  A sheet of rain slapped violently against the window, making the pane rattle in its frame. The man turned his head reflexively a few degrees toward the sound.

  She went for him.

  16

  HAM COMMON, SURREY

  Taylor was sitting at the table, smoking a cigarette, when Rudolf Schroeder was shown into the room.

  The guard behind Schroeder prodded him toward the empty chair with the butt of his carbine, evidently low on patience even after the brief walk from the barracks. Taylor said nothing as Schroeder fell into the chair. The man’s usual insolent grin was painted on his face, but Taylor thought there was a forced element to it tonight.

  The guard turned toward the door.

  “A-hem,” Schroeder said. He lifted his hands above his head again and shook them. The cuffs there made a small, musical sound.

  The guard looked at Taylor, who shook his head.

  “Oh, dear,” Schroeder said as the guard left. His insolent smile was replaced by a mock, exaggerated pout. “Have we fallen so far, Andrew, that you need me handcuffed when we speak?”

  Instead of answering, Taylor reached down and found the package he had brought from Whitley Bay. He put it on the table between them—a small white parcel loosely wrapped with a piece of twine.

  Schroeder eyed it suspiciously. “What is it?”

  “Open it and find out.”

  “I’ve had enough chocolate, Andrew, thank you very much. Your friend tried to poison me, you know.”

  “It’s not chocolate, Rudolf.”

  Schroeder reached for the box, hampered somewhat by the handcuffs around his wrists. His fingers manipulated the twine until it fell onto the table; then he poked the flaps of the package open and upended it.

  Nothing came out.

  He shook it twice, then turned the package over again.

  “Empty,” he said.

  Taylor nodded. “I hoped to make a point. No more gifts.”

  Schroeder pulled a face.

  “You said that you would speak to me in person,” Taylor said. “Here I am. I’ve traveled a fair distance, Rudolf, when time is of the essence, to hear what you have to say. I don’t suggest you try my patience any more.”

  Schroeder leaned back in his chair, seemingly sober.

  “Andrew,” he said, “I apologize for dragging you all the way out here. But you must understand …”

  Taylor brought the cigarette to his mouth; Schroeder’s eyes followed it.

  “I’m out of cigarettes,” Schroeder said. “Can you spare one?”

  Taylor shook his head.

  Schroeder, licking his lips, rearranged himself on the chair.

  “You must understand,” he went on. “You hold all the cards, so to speak. Except, Andrew, for one. One card. The true location of rendezvous number four.”

  “Mm,” Taylor said.

  “If I had told you that over the telephone, what would I have? Nothing. So you can see, Andrew, why I need to play this close to the vest, as they say—that is how the expression goes? Close to the vest, yes. Because once I tell you my bit of information, I will truly have nothing.”

  “But you will tell me?”

  “In exchange for a promise,” Schroeder said.

  �
��What promise is that?”

  “The same promise the professor made me. Except in your case, Andrew, I’ll expect you to keep it.”

  “To bring you along for the treff.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I can’t make that promise. Let you go, back to Germany?”

  “Then you won’t catch your spy.”

  “Spy?”

  “He told me that much.”

  “Ah.”

  “He made it sound important.”

  “It is.”

  “I wish I could help, Andrew. I like to think that we’re friends, you and I. I like to think that under different circumstances … But you must understand, I require something in return, hm? That is only natural. It is what makes the world go ’round, hm?”

  “Hm,” Taylor said.

  “I see two possibilities,” Schroeder said. His eyes were still on the cigarette in Taylor’s hand. “I could reveal the location to you en route. That way I would be guaranteed, at least, of being brought there. But I would have no guarantee of actually being allowed to go aboard the U-boat, hm? So there is a second option, hm? Which is that we trust each other. I will tell you where it is, and then trust you to bring me along—once you’ve given your word, of course.”

  “Hm,” Taylor said again.

  “I do trust you, Andrew. And I hope that you trust me—this one unfortunate exception aside, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “It goes without saying that upon my return to Berlin I will not mention your operation here. As far as the Old Man will know, I found work at the pub near Whitehall. I arranged the treff. But Winterbotham, the agent of my choosing, was apprehended at the last moment by MI-Five. I escaped—barely.”

  “I see.”

  “Do we have an agreement?”

  Taylor took another drag of his cigarette. He inspected the fingernails on his right hand.

  “Why should I believe you now,” he asked, “when you’ve just finished lying to me?”

  “Because you have no choice. But better: Because it is in my best interest to tell the truth once you’ve promised to take me along.”

  “Hm.”

  “Surely you can see the wisdom,” Schroeder said, and grinned slavishly.

  Taylor shook his head.

  Schroeder watched as he tapped out another cigarette, stuck it in his mouth.

  “Tell me something else I can do for you, Rudolf. Anything else.”

  “There is nothing else.”

  “Money?”

  “Please.”

  “Women?”

  Schroeder laughed. “I just want to go home.”

  “But I can’t allow that.”

  “But you must.”

  Taylor lit the cigarette in his mouth. He ran a hand over his pate.

  “You’ll find a way,” Schroeder said.

  “God damn it, Rudolf.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s that or nothing.”

  “All right. Where?”

  “You are promising?”

  “Yes,” Taylor said. “I am promising.”

  “I’m trusting you, Andrew.”

  “And I you. Where?”

  “Yorkshire.”

  “Where in Yorkshire?”

  “Flamborough Head. There is a lighthouse. The window is Sunday mornings, three to five.”

  “Three to five,” Taylor said. “Good Christ.”

  He stood so suddenly that the table rocked. He turned, heading toward the door.

  “Andrew,” Schroeder said.

  Taylor paused, his hand on the doorknob. After a moment, he turned back to face Schroeder.

  “You promised,” Schroeder said reasonably.

  Taylor said nothing.

  “Andrew,” Schroeder said, and manufactured a laugh. “You promised.”

  “I lied.”

  “You can’t leave me here. I go crazy here. The walls close in on me. I was never meant for this.”

  “You won’t be here much longer.”

  “I’m being moved?” Schroeder said. “God damn it, one cell is the same as the next. Take me with you, for God’s sake! You promised! You promised me!”

  “You’ll never spend another night in a cell, Rudolf.”

  Schroeder stared at him. “Andrew,” he whispered. “You wouldn’t.”

  Taylor left the room, closing the door behind himself.

  17

  THE NORTH SEA

  The U-boat surfaced to find a storm turned to fog.

  The fog was thick, palpable, impenetrable, choking the sporadic lightning into a diffuse alabaster glow. Kapitänleutnant Schmidt could barely make out his own hand held at arm’s length from his eyes. But Hagen was peering off into the haze as if he were seeing something of great import.

  It came as little surprise when he turned to Schmidt and said: “If she were to signal, we would not see it.”

  Schmidt held his tongue.

  “We must move closer,” Hagen said.

  Schmidt shook his head. “Herr Hagen,” he said, “I will not.”

  He felt, more than saw, Hagen bristling.

  “If we cannot see the signal, Kapitänleutnant,” Hagen said, “then we are not fulfilling our duty. I would take that as—”

  “If we move closer, Herr Hagen, we will lose this vessel, your spies, and our own lives. I will not brook argument on this matter. If you wish to try to take control of the boat, do so now. If not, you must respect my wishes.”

  Although Hagen was only a few feet away, Schmidt was unable to make out his face. He could only wonder how his stand had gone over.

  Nearly half a minute passed. Then Hagen said, “You are right. It does not make sense to risk the boat.”

  Thank God, Schmidt thought. “We will send the dinghy to shore,” he said. “Two men will look for the signal. If they see it, they will make contact.”

  “Indeed. Those two men shall be Herr Gruber and myself.”

  Schmidt managed not to grin. “I will prepare the dinghy immediately, Herr Hagen,” he said.

  FLAMBOROUGH HEAD, YORKSHIRE

  In the dream, the bullet passed through her shoulder and lodged in the wooden doorjamb and she barely felt it and she was fine and life went on.

  But in reality, the bullet was still inside her.

  She could feel it every time she pulled herself up another stair. It was wandering around inside her body, prodding at the muscle and tissue and skin from the inside out. Sometimes the pain of the shifting bullet would become so fantastic that she would actually lose consciousness for a moment. She was on the verge of losing consciousness anyway, between the stairs, the fever, the exhaustion. But it was the bullet in her shoulder that kept pushing her over the edge—kept pushing her into the dream even when her attention was sorely needed here, in reality.

  In the dream they were leading her to the gallows. Fritz held one of her arms, and the old fat man held the other. Both were smiling at her with expressions of condescending pity, or perhaps it was pitying condescension. They were walking to the gallows between throngs of British citizens who were howling for her execution. Even the children were howling. The children, it seemed, were howling loudest of all.

  Then thunder broke and she found herself back in reality, halfway up the staircase in this goddamn lighthouse, bleeding, sobbing, unable to continue.

  She pulled herself up another stair.

  The fact that she was climbing the tower in the first place illustrated just how poorly she was doing. She should have gone the other way, outside, to the beach. Then she could possibly have given the signal, somehow, and perhaps even gotten some help from reinforcements.

  She had kicked up at the old fat man, from the bed; the gun had barked twice. One of the bullets had slammed into her left shoulder, spinning her around. A lucky shot. She had rolled off the bed, rolled onto the floor, and kept rolling. Not realizing yet that the bullet was still inside her. Before he could find her in the gloom, before he could fire again and finish it, she
had slipped away into the corridor.

  And stumbled in the wrong direction.

  There had been a time, she knew, when her training would have gotten her through the worst of the shock, when her reflexes would have proven sound. Even in bad circumstances she would have acted correctly.

  It’s not too late, she thought. You still have a chance to make things right.

  Yes—because her body was an instrument, and she was its master.

  She forbade her body to pass out again. There were things to do, in reality. Like climbing this staircase, like killing the old fat man, like staying alive long enough to tell her secrets to the crew of the U-boat floating at this very instant off Flamborough Head.

  She pulled herself up another stair. The bullet moved again in her shoulder. She didn’t cry out, but her face scrunched into a mask of agony. For several seconds, the rictus remained on her features. Then the lines slowly vanished as her muscles relaxed—except for the deep groove between her eyes.

  She achieved another stair, and then, despite her noble intentions, drifted away again.

  She was Catherine Danielson, not yet Carter, getting off the train in Princeton ten years before. Richard was there, coming to meet her. She had seen in his eyes from the very first that he was attracted to her. He was leading her back through the campus, back to his little university house, carrying her suitcase, giving her a tour that felt more like a lecture. A group of young men in frayed gowns was ogling her, but Richard didn’t seem to notice. Richard was explaining something about … wages …

  But it was the gallows he was leading her to, of course, not the house; no, not the gallows but the … yes, the gallows. How could she have thought otherwise? He was leading her up the stairs, and the crowd all around was chanting. She was frightened, terribly frightened. They were going to kill her, these people. A priest stepped up, unfolding a piece of parchment. The priest charged her with espionage. Then he named her—her real name. Her given name.

  “Heinrich,” he said.

  Except she was back in the lighthouse again.

  “Katarina Heinrich,” the voice repeated, and echoed.

  She blinked, sucked in a pained breath, and pulled herself up another stair.