Comes the War

by Ed Ruggero

  Then there was the problem of how to get back into the action. Since his return from France and the propaganda coup he’d handed the Nazis, he’d been relegated to minor roles, like standing up a counterespionage unit that might or might not get sent to the continent and, at any rate, consisted of only one man so far, and that man—Harkins—had turned on him. Sinnott was smart enough to know he also had a drinking problem, but figured he could get a handle on that at any time.

  He could almost see a way out of his various dilemmas, except for this pain-in-the-ass former beat cop on his trail.

  He checked the pistol again, worked the action, made sure the safety was engaged. He doubted he would use it here, but—as one of his OSS trainers in Virginia had told him—it was better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

  Sinnott jumped at the loud knock on the door, sending his flask clattering to the floor.

  “Major Sinnott?”

  It was Harkins.

  Sinnott picked up the flask and set it on the tiny table, shoved the pistol down into the cushions of the settee beside him. He pulled the blackout curtain aside; there was just enough light to see Wickman standing on the sidewalk out front. Harkins was out of view on the top step. Sinnott went to the door and opened it. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said.

  “May we come in, sir?” Harkins asked.

  “Sure, sure.” Sinnott stepped aside. “This is an early call,” he said. “Is there an emergency?”

  “Just some things that need attention,” Harkins said.

  The two junior officers squeezed into the tiny parlor. Harkins looked eager, Wickman uncomfortable.

  “Get you some coffee?” Sinnott asked. “I have some from the officers’ mess. Real coffee from back home.”

  “Sounds great,” Wickman said. Harkins did not answer.

  Sinnott stepped into the kitchen, struck a match to light the gas. A few minutes later he emerged, three china mugs of coffee on a tray.

  “How are you feeling this morning, sir?” Harkins asked. He held Sinnott’s flask in his hand. Shook it to see how full it was.

  Sinnott took a sip of the coffee. “I’m great, thanks.” He sat on the small couch, left the two junior officers standing.

  “Because it looks like you had a long night,” Harkins said. “Like maybe you slept in your uniform. If you slept, that is. Or were you out?”

  This was the boxer come to call, and he would be relentless. Probably thinks he has me on the ropes.

  “You giving out fashion advice now, Lieutenant?”

  Harkins squeezed next to him on the crowded seat, practically forcing Sinnott to move. When Harkins leaned back, he felt the pistol; he reached behind him, pulled it out of the cushion.

  “Do you always keep a loaded weapon in the sofa cushions?” Harkins asked.

  “Not always.”

  “We found three pubs where your tabs add up to more than a month’s pay,” Harkins said, reading from a notebook. “Even more interesting, we learned that in these pubs—and there may be more, for all we know—you paid off even bigger bills over the last six months.”

  “So?” Sinnott said, trying nonchalant, trying to buy time to think. “You worried I’m not buying enough war bonds?”

  “I’m just wondering where you’re getting all this money, that’s all,” Harkins said.

  “Is this part of your investigation of Lionel Kerr?” Sinnott asked.

  “In a manner of speaking, yes, sir,” Harkins said.

  “I don’t see where my finances are any of your business.”

  Harkins actually smiled. He pulled a folded pamphlet from his back pocket, smoothed it out on his thigh.

  “This is one of the things Lieutenant Wickman here gave me to read when I came on board,” Harkins said. “It’s a—what did you call it, Tom?”

  “A draft handbook for the counterespionage section,” Wickman said.

  “That’s it,” Harkins said. “Imagine, we’re fighting this whole war using doctrine that’s still in draft form. Pretty amazing, if you ask me.”

  Sinnott knew what section Harkins was going to read. He looked up at Wickman, who wore a glossy sheen of sweat across his forehead. In contrast, Harkins was nearly gleeful as he flipped the pages.

  “Says right here in part two, paragraph seven, that—quote—indebtedness makes a person vulnerable to being recruited by a foreign agent.”

  Sinnott did not respond. He wanted Harkins to put all his cards on the table.

  “You told us that the Soviets were probably trying to recruit people in the U.S. mission,” Harkins continued. “So, you can see how all this cash caught our interest.”

  Sinnott studied Harkins. Did he know about Sechin?

  “Lieutenant Wickman very helpfully supplied me with some of those monies.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Wickman said.

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” Sinnott said. “It’s not like we tried to assassinate the king. Just a little misuse of government funds.”

  “I didn’t know anything about what you were doing with that money.”

  “Perhaps. But who’s to say, really, what you knew, or for that matter, what Colonel Haskell will make of it?”

  “The timing doesn’t work,” Harkins said. “Lieutenant Wickman wasn’t here when you paid those big bills over the winter.”

  Harkins was right, of course, and Sinnott knew the cop was smart enough to note the discrepancy. Sinnott had even anticipated the self-satisfied look Harkins would wear when he thought he had Sinnott backed into a corner. Harkins was proud; Sinnott couldn’t wait to squash that ego.

  Sinnott stood. “Let’s go out back,” he said. “There’s a place to sit.”

  He led them through the kitchen and into a tiny garden, where two chairs and a wooden stool were clustered around a small table that held a single candle. A small roof above them kept the light hidden. When the three men sat down, their knees were practically touching. Harkins laid his notebook and the pamphlet in front of him.

  “Either of you ever been to France?” Sinnott asked.

  “No,” Harkins said.

  “I was in Calais once,” Wickman said. “Before the war, on a trip with my family.”

  “How sweet,” Sinnott said. “How old were you?”

  “Twelve.”

  “And did Mommy and Daddy buy you ice cream? Let you pick out a special treat at la pâtisserie?”

  “Major,” Harkins interrupted, “what does this have to do with anything?”

  Sinnott leaned in, lowered his voice. “Because I fucking parachuted into France last year. By myself. Set up a Resistance cell to move downed Allied airmen into Spain, then Portugal. Either of you do anything like that?”

  Neither junior officer answered.

  “Ever have a price on your head? Had the Gestapo breathing down your neck? Shit your pants every time there was an unexpected knock at the door?”

  “We know all about your record, Major,” Harkins said. “We’re not disputing that you’ve done some good work.”

  “And I’ve got a lot more to do,” Sinnott said. “For one thing, I’ve got to teach you two enough to keep you alive.”

  Sinnott leaned back, slowed down his breathing.

  “So indulge me, Lieutenant,” Sinnott said.

  Harkins made a palms-up gesture; the floor was Sinnott’s.

  “Some of the maquis thought I could work magic. We’d talk about what we needed—small arms, some plastique—and a few days later we’d get a parachute drop. Like manna.”

  Harkins folded his arms across his chest.

  Arrogant prick, Sinnott thought.

  “The money, sir,” Harkins said, stone-faced. “Where did the money come from?”

  Sinnott drew the moment out, smiled at his visitors. “I stole it from a captured agent,” he said.

  Harkins and Wickman exchanged glances. “What?” Harkins said.

  “We caught some German agents who’d been put ashore by submarine near the
end of last year. It was almost laughable, how inept these bastards were. Thin cover stories, the wrong clothes, documents that were obviously forged. You almost felt sorry for them. Probably trained for a year only to get arrested on the beach by some seventy-five-year-old Home Guard sentries. The Brits did most of the work, but they let me in on it, let me help with the interrogations.”

  Sinnott paused, took a sip of the fast-cooling coffee. He had to keep track of the lies so that he didn’t contradict himself later.

  “Anyway, a couple of these guys got caught carrying cash. Operating funds. I managed to get my hands on some of it.”

  Harkins leaned back. Sinnott might have imagined it, but he thought Harkins looked disappointed.

  “You know you can get court-martialed for that,” Wickman said. “On top of the other charge, you could pull twenty-five years.”

  “I know, I know,” Sinnott said, trying to sound contrite, an attitude that did not come easily to him. “And I know I have a drinking problem. Have since I came back from France. All that shit over there really knocked me for a loop.”

  Wickman looked like he could drum up a half cup of sympathy; not so much Harkins.

  “How much did you get?” Harkins asked.

  “Three hundred and fifty pounds,” Sinnott said.

  “What was the alias of the spy who carried it?”

  Sinnott anticipated Harkins’ approach: he’d ask a bunch of questions rapid-fire, then circle back to see if Sinnott could remember the details. But Sinnott had survived months in occupied France with the Gestapo chasing him; he had some skills, too.

  “Geert van der Laan. His story was that he was Dutch, a merchant seaman who’d been pressed into service by the Germans. Claimed he jumped ship in Portugal. Signed onto another ship bound for Dublin, then crossed into Northern Ireland on foot.”

  “Where was he apprehended?”

  “South of Liverpool. Walking by himself early on a Sunday morning.”

  “With a suitcase full of cash?”

  “Right.”

  “And you say it was three hundred pounds?” Harkins asked, looking down at his notebook.

  “I said three-fifty.”

  Harkins stared into Sinnott’s eyes. Sinnott held his gaze, did not blink.

  “How do you know I won’t turn you in?” Harkins asked.

  “I don’t,” Sinnott said. He waited a beat, then another before pivoting. “But I still have a lot to contribute. Maybe some things to put right.”

  “Your redemption is not my concern, Major.”

  “We still have to find out about Kerr.”

  “We still have to find Batcheller’s killer,” Harkins said.

  “Kerr is the thread we’re going to pull for now,” Sinnott said.

  Harkins didn’t answer, but picked up his notebook and stuck it in his shirt pocket.

  “The trick is to find out as much about Kerr as you can without alerting him,” Sinnott said. “If we catch him out and the Soviets don’t know we’re on to him, it’s possible we can turn him into a double agent. The OSS brass is practically slobbering over the prospect. We’ll have him feed the Soviets whatever information we want them to have, and they’ll think it’s from a trusted source.”

  Sinnott stood, surprised to find his knees were a bit shaky.

  “Obviously I’d appreciate your keeping this conversation about my spending to yourselves,” Sinnott said. “I won’t forget your loyalty.”

  He opened a gate in the garden fence to let the two men out.

  “I’ll be in the office around six thirty,” Sinnott said. “I’m looking forward to hearing how you’re going to find out if Kerr is compromised.”

  Wickman went out first, then Harkins began to step through. Sinnott reached out and touched him on the arm.

  “I’m glad you came through that fiasco down on the coast,” he said. “Now let’s keep our eye on the ball, okay, Lieutenant?”

  “You mean this sideshow with Lionel Kerr?”

  “You don’t see it yet, but the murder investigation is already a feather in your cap,” Sinnott said. “I trust you’ll know everything we need to know about Kerr soon enough. Then you can concentrate on getting ready for your next job, over on the continent somewhere.”

  “I can’t wait, sir,” Harkins said. He walked away without saluting.

  * * *

  “So you’re saying it’s a diversion?” Wickman asked when they were back on the street.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. This sudden fascination with Kerr—it all just looks fishy to me.”

  Lowell was asleep in the car when they left Sinnott’s house. Harkins startled her when he knocked on the window, but she was instantly awake and had them back at headquarters in just a few minutes. Harkins told her to take a few hours to get some sleep and a change of clothes.

  “So what now?” Wickman asked when they were in the building.

  “Look,” Harkins said. “Kerr isn’t going anywhere, and Sinnott is stonewalling us. Since Cushing is definitely getting court-martialed, let’s try to clear him before we spend any more time worrying about Kerr, and before Sinnott ships me off to invade France, or Holland, or fucking Timbuktu.”

  “Sinnott was pretty adamant,” Wickman said. “He wants us looking at Kerr.”

  “To hell with him.”

  “I’ve only known you for a few days, but it sure seems you spend a lot of time and energy doing things you’ve been told not to do.”

  “Gives me a certain charm, don’t you think?” Harkins said.

  “He’s got me by the balls with this money thing.”

  “I’m not sure he does,” Harkins said. “You weren’t here to give him any OSS money when he was paying those big bills a few months ago. And that story about stealing money from a captured agent was total bullshit.”

  “So what do you propose we do now?”

  “Novikov,” Harkins said. “He wanted me to do something for him, and I said I’d consider it if he found out if someone from the Soviet mission had Batcheller killed.”

  “You think he’d rat out somebody from his own side?”

  “I don’t know,” Harkins said. “It seems unlikely, until you weigh it against the possibility of a failed invasion. It’s worth a try.”

  “And what if it was Kerr? If he’s an asset they’re not going to give him up.”

  “I’ll tell him that Kerr’s career as a diplomat is over because he’s come under suspicion. He’s of no use to them anyway.”

  “Is that true? Is it over for him?”

  “Probably,” Harkins said. “I don’t know for sure, but if you get painted with that brush—a suspected foreign agent—I imagine it’s tough to be considered trustworthy.”

  “So you’re going to meet this Novikov again? Aren’t you a little worried, since it looks like they tried to kill you after the first meeting?”

  “I’ve got a plan,” Harkins said. “Half a plan, anyway.”

  29

  1 May 1944

  0800 hours

  Eddie Harkins got just three hours of sleep before he heard Beverly talking to someone in the kitchen on the first floor. He took his time getting out of bed, careful of his bruised ribs, dressed, and went downstairs to find Wickman chatting with his landlady. They sat at her tiny table, Wickman’s long legs jammed below.

  “Good morning!” Wickman said, unfolding himself gingerly from the too-small chair.

  “Sorry if we woke you, Eddie,” Beverly said. She checked her watch, then stood, slinging her bag over her left shoulder. “Off to the salt mines.”

  “Don’t break up the party on account of me,” Harkins said. Beverly smiled; Wickman’s face got bright red.

  When she was gone, Wickman said, “She’s great, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, she is,” Harkins said.

  “Smart, too.”

  “Yep.”

  Harkins went to the WC, shaved and brushed his teeth. When he was finished he strapped on his pistol belt with his hols
tered forty-five—Wickman was also wearing his sidearm—and the two men set off by bus for the orderly room of the 371st MP Company, where Harkins was to meet Colonel Sergei Novikov.

  “You have any way of knowing if he got the message?” Wickman asked. “Or if he’s even willing to come out here?”

  “Lowell told me she could get the word to him,” Harkins said. “Some back-channel thing through a woman she knows over there, and Lowell hasn’t let me down yet.”

  When they arrived, they found two squads of military policemen, twenty men in all, in formation outside their Quonset hut barracks, waiting to march to a pistol range to practice marksmanship. Harkins had gotten permission from the commander to tag along, but it wasn’t marksmanship that concerned him.

  Harkins was nervous about meeting Novikov—not because he was disobeying a direct order from Sinnott that he was not to meet with any Russians, but because of the attempt on his life after the memorial service. He figured a broad daylight meeting more or less in the company of twenty armed American MPs was as safe a place as he was likely to find in all of Britain.

  The pistol range was carved into a natural berm at the southern edge of Richmond Park, southeast of London. The MPs were part of the security force for nearby Bushy Park, where SHAEF headquarters was located. Eisenhower had disappointed a lot of Allied officers and soldiers by moving his giant staff out of London and away from its distracting nightlife to the more remote area that was almost halfway to the channel coast. Fewer distractions, Ike figured, more work getting done.

  Harkins and Wickman followed as the two squads marched a mile to the range. Harkins moved slowly—his ribs hurt with each deep breath—and fell behind by a hundred yards or more by the time they reached the training area. There was no sign of Lowell or Novikov.

  “Let’s wait out here,” Harkins said as they reached the gate; the soldiers were already inside, putting up their paper targets.

  “You want me here with you?” Wickman asked. “Because I’m not sure that’s a great idea.”

  “Why?”