by John Gardner
‘Absolutely. I visited the place twice during my whole time in Orléans. Once soon after I arrived and once after July 6, 1944. Almost a week after, but before Tarot. I know I saw Klaubert there on that second occasion, and there was something unusual about it. I have gone over it many times in my mind. He was there with other people, and I believe the odd thing was that they were in civilian clothes. I think perhaps that Triangle was one of them.’
‘Let it be,’ the senior interrogator counselled the others in private. ‘He’s either playing some game with us – unlikely because of his frankness – or he’s buried the incident deep. If that’s true we’ll trigger it out of him at some point.’
So they dropped this possible first sighting of the man they called Screwtape – Nathaniel Dollhiem – and Otto knew as Triangle, informer to Hans-Dieter Klaubert. Instead, they began to zero in on one of the other mysteries: Hannalore Bauer, one-time mistress of Klaubert.
Otto could add little to what he had already told the Tarot Enquiry. Fräulein Bauer had disappeared before his arrival in Orléans, but gossip had it that she had been replaced by a Frenchwoman. There were many rumours running around the Rue de Bourgogne – that she was one of his informants; that she was a wealthy woman, a countess some said, who planned to marry Klaubert when it was all over.
Some stories had him meeting her in a château nearby – on the Paris road – but that was not likely, for the château was used as a convalescent hospital for troops back from the Eastern Front. Certainly Klaubert’s official car had been seen there. But it was also often seen parked in another street – the Rue Bannier. All three inquisitors had heard that name before, but at first could not put the finger of their minds on the context.
The whole thing came together, with startling – almost shocking – clarity during the following week, when they drove Otto Buelow out to look at Dollhiem and Tertius Newton.
They took Otto in the back of an unmarked van. There were small windows in the sides and rear – one-way so they could observe without anyone seeing into the van, which was also equipped with recordings, radio, and the usual paraphernalia of surveillance. For an hour they sat quietly almost directly opposite the entrance to Dollhiem’s office on 6th Street.
‘That’s him!’ Otto almost shouted when the man appeared. ‘Older, fatter, but that’s Triangle. I’d know him anywhere.’
Two of the interrogation team in the back of the van with him nodded and smiled. ‘We want you to take a quick look at someone else, Otto. Just a guy. You probably haven’t ever set eyes on him before, but it’s best to be sure about these things.’
Newton would be leaving his apartment building near Dupont Circle to start the late-afternoon shift at the Atomic Energy Commission’s headquarters. Two teams had been keeping watch on him, and they had discovered nothing as yet sinister about him. In fact, unlike Dollhiem, he kept to a very regular routine and used no antisurveillance techniques.
The van stopped where there was a good view of the parking lot nearest to Newton’s building. The man’s car was there, plainly in sight – a grey Chevy – and they pointed it out to Otto. ‘Very soon a man will come out of the building over there and go to that car,’ one of the Agency men said. ‘Just tell us if he rings any bells. We’ll let you know the minute he appears.’
Tertius Newton came out a little after five o’clock in the afternoon. The weather had changed to a light drizzle and he was wearing a raincoat and a snap-brimmed hat which did not bode well for any clear identification. But, on the sidewalk, just outside the building, Newton hesitated, stopping to turn up the collar of his coat. In that moment he appeared to look directly toward the van and they all heard Otto Buelow’s sharp intake of breath and muttered. ‘Mein Gott!’
‘What is it?’ – from one of the agents.
‘He was there. That’s the one. Now it’s clear. Now I remember.’ Seeing the former OSS man, Tert Newton – aka Screwdriver – appeared to have demolished a huge wall in Otto Buelow’s memory.
They allowed the German to continue watching Newton as he walked to his car and drove away. Otto’s face was a map of incredulity mixed with fear, which caused one of the agents to ask if he was frightened.
‘Only for my own sanity. How could I have forgotten?’
‘Tell us about it now, while you’ve got it fresh in your memory.’
As the van drove back to the main Agency Technical Branch, the recordings were switched on and Otto Buelow talked.
Yes, he had seen Klaubert on an unspecified date, but between the Romarin disaster and the harvesting of Tarot. It had been on his second and last visit to the restaurant called La Vache Grise.
‘I can even remember what I ate. It’s so clear now. God knows why I could completely forget a detail like this.’
They told him it was perfectly normal. So much went on at that time – and afterward. ‘Memory is a selective thing. You recognised the guy we call Screwtape right away when they showed you his picture in London. You told them you’d seen him many times at the Rue de Bourgogne office; you knew he was Klaubert’s informer. You simply told them what you knew. Your mind buried the other guy.’
Buelow had eaten simply – a potato soup, some lamb cutlets, and a mousse. He did not notice Klaubert until he had paid his bill and was about to leave.
‘I remember the waitress asked me, rather archly, if there was anything else she could get me. I shook my head, left a tip, then asked if I could have another coffee – you must understand the coffee was not the real thing; even the army of occupation could not get real coffee. It was the stuff we called Muckefuck – Ersatz. I smoked a cigarette and drank the coffee slowly to digest the meal.’
He paused, then shrugged, the incredulous look coming back into his eyes. ‘I looked around – the place was crowded: mainly with Wehrmacht officers. Then I saw Klaubert. He was in uniform, with his back to me. How could I forget this? Two men were with him, in civilian clothes. I couldn’t understand that – the civilian clothes. I must have known then that they were either undercover Gestapo, collaborators, or informers. Later, of course, I knew one of them was an informer, the man Triangle. But the other I have not seen until today.’
‘You did not see the one we call Screwdriver in London?’
He shook his head almost violently, ‘No. Never. Since that night three years or so ago I have not seen him. Until today. The one you call Screwdriver was with Klaubert and Triangle – Ach, why play games? He was with Klaubert and Dollhiem at La Vache Grise on that night.’
‘You’re absolutely positive?’
‘Otto, you’re one hundred percent sure about this?’ The men spoke in unison. The van slowed for a red light and the recorders went on turning.
‘I first saw the man Dollhiem with SS-Standartenführer Hans-Dieter Klaubert at La Vache Grise in Orléans on one evening after the debacle of what I now know was an OSS operation code named Romarin, and before the arrests and deaths of members of the réseau known as Tarot. On that occasion Dollhiem and Klaubert were with another man who I have seen this afternoon. The man you call Screwdriver. I am positive about this. Certain.’
One of the agents nodded, the other asked how they were behaving.
‘They laughed a lot. All three of them seemed pleased with themselves. They also appeared to be having a good time. As I left, the waitress was taking two of the bar girls over to the table. As far as I know none of them saw me.’
The agents looked happy, and one of them spoke the date, names, and a code word into the microphones. Then he stopped the recorders, removed the spool, and placed it in its box, marking the label with time, date, and destination. When they arrived at the car pool of the Technical Branch he had a messenger sign for the box, writing out an authorisation slip for the recording to be taken immediately to the senior agent handling the case – his name was Marty Forman and he worked under James Xavier Fishman.
It had been a good afternoon’s work, and the agents drove Otto back to his own apartment
building. They both lived out in Alexandria and were sharing the ride home, but first they came up to Otto’s apartment where one of them asked to use the telephone.
He spoke directly to Forman, who had received the recording but not yet listened to it. They had five minutes of telephone double-talk, which contained a great deal of self-congratulation. After this, both men told Otto he had done very well and was there anything he would like to do that evening? They were both prepared to come back into town for a night out, but Otto said he would like a quiet evening. A few minutes later, the agents left him.
Twenty minutes after this, in the now pouring rain which had superseded the drizzle, the agents’ car, heading out toward Alexandria, was deliberately sideswiped twice by a heavy truck. On the second hit, the car overturned, catching fire and exploding. The emergency services pulled out only blackened and twisted remains. The two agents were eventually identified by dental evidence.
Otto Buelow heard about the ‘accident’ on the radio but naturally did not link it to the men who had been with him.
Just after nine o’clock that evening, as he finished his lonely dinner, the doorbell rang in Otto’s apartment.
There was a strict routine about callers. Otto was under instructions not to open up to anyone he did not recognise or connect with the Agency, which now kept only a light – logging – surveillance on the apartment block.
He called, asking who it was, and his visitor replied in a manner which, for Otto Buelow, constructed a bridge back over the years of his life. He peeped through the little glass eye they had installed in the door. The person standing there immediately registered in both eye and mind. He knew his caller was telling the truth, just after one tiny glance.
Otto unchained and unlocked the door. ‘Good gracious,’ he said. ‘Is it really you? What are you doing here? How did you find me?’ Such was his excitement that he did not see the curious long barrel of the weapon rise up from under the visitor’s coat. He was conscious of a thump, and then the blinding pain in his eyes, nostrils, and throat as the cloud of hydrocyanide wreathed for a second about his head. The burning went down into his chest and there was great pain.
As he fell back into eternal darkness, he croaked half a word.
‘Ott – ’ he said, and died.
His caller put a gloved hand on the door and pulled it almost closed, then ran, dropping the weapon in panic, for the telephone had begun to ring in Buelow’s apartment.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Outside the huge one-way mirror that was the window of the interrogation room of the house near Frankfurt, the sun blazed down on the neat terraces, drying the earth and creating cracked brown patches on the lawns.
Inside, Caspar was gently bringing his brother towards the moment for which they had all worked and waited. In the bowels of the house Naldo and Arnie sat watching the recorders turning, straining their ears enclosed by the heavy padded earphones.
Herbie sat outside the interrogation room door, his mind replaying the Mahler Second Symphony.
Caspar had taken Ramillies through his career a dozen times, always stopping short of the agent-handling during the war. Now he had reached the point again. Offering his brother a cigarette, he lit one himself and paused, as though dreading the moment and so delaying it a little longer.
‘Now we come to your agent Klaubert.’ Caspar looked hard at his notes, speaking as though this was an unimportant aspect. ‘You’ve told me a great deal about him already – how he offered himself in the 1930s, how you helped train him and persuaded him to stay in place. Now I’d like to hear about communications and the kind of intelligence he passed on to you.’
Ramillies gave a smile which seemed almost as secret as the grave. ‘I wondered when we’d get back to Lightning.’
‘Your agent, Klaubert, was Lightning?’
Ramillies nodded. ‘We never mentioned it in the signals. I presume you have all those, Cas. Personally I considered the method very unsafe.’
‘And what was the method?’
‘Oh, come on, Caspar. You must know what happened.’
‘I’m asking you. Just as they will ask you again in London if we’re ever allowed to take you there. Tell me.’
So Ramillies confirmed the method of what had become, during the Tarot enquiry, the Orléans Russians – how the SOE ‘pianist’ coded Descartes had been captured, together with his radio and supply of one-time pads. ‘Klaubert spoke reasonable Russian,’ Ramillies said. ‘It was his idea to transmit on regular schedules, translating the one-time pads into Russian. I felt someone in England would pick it up very quickly. Did they?’
‘Not as fast as you might imagine.’
Ramillies raised his eyebrows.
‘Was he an assistance? A help to you?’ Caspar continued to put on pressure. Over the weeks they had broken down many barriers. A bond was slowly being built between interrogator and subject. Caspar was almost desperately trying to turn this into a full relationship of trust – occasionally offering Ramillies morsels of intelligence for his side of the barrier. Deep inside, Caspar knew the dangers of this, just as he was all too aware of the razor’s edge he was walking in trying to speed up the whole business.
Ramillies cleared his throat before speaking. It had become a habit and Caspar wondered if it was done to give him time to come up with plausible answers. ‘Excellent on the state of play in Berlin, with the top brass, when he went back there to receive personal briefings. Twice he gave us magnificent résumés on Hitler’s physical and mental condition and some interesting inside intelligence on Himmler. Pity he wasn’t called back to Berlin more often. Apart from that, he was very good on troop movements and the like. A little bit of stuff on supply and economics. Kept us abreast of the situation generally in his area.’
‘More than that, surely? He held his cover together exceptionally well.’
‘Yes – ruthless bugger. Did his SS job with what one might call enthusiasm. But he concentrated mainly on Jews, and you know the Russian attitude on that subject.’
‘London will want a lot of detail, you realise that? What, for instance, are the chances of us getting to him?’
Ramillies looked genuinely puzzled. ‘What d’you mean, getting to him?’
‘Just what I say. London, Washington – and Paris, come to that – could well ask you to produce him for us. Or, if not produce him, point us along the route. They would like him in the flesh.’
Ramillies looked startled now, and Caspar felt his stomach churn.
‘But you’ve got him, haven’t you? You must have him somewhere. It was on my list of priorities – find him, they told me in Moscow. Find Klaubert. The Allies have him and we can use him.’
Caspar felt the onset of what appeared to be great fatigue. ‘You’re joking, Ram. Klaubert’s a priority of ours. We need him, so cut the rubbish and give me some solid facts. Apart from anything else, he’s wanted for war crimes – he wasn’t called the Devil of Orléans for nothing. But we also want to get to the bottom of some other matters. So where is he, Ram?’
Ramillies spread his long fingers wide, turning his palms upward, like a magician showing that his hands were empty. It was an obvious gesture of truth. ‘My people’re just as anxious to get hold of him.’ His eyes only betrayed concern. He did not display any signs of being an accomplished liar – the constant denials, the eyes clear, locking into those of his interrogator, and the voice a shade too steady. In the time he had already spent with his brother, Caspar thought he had learned the man’s deceptive tricks. He had even caught him out twice. Now Ramillies gave nothing: his whole manner was of a man in anxious shock, his eyes darting to Caspar’s face and then away, like some animal who fears the unknown.
‘Truly, Cas. We wanted to bring him in. We searched for him. In the end it was assumed that you, or the Americans, had him.’
‘Truly, Cas’ – that had the ring of falsehood about it. Caspar coughed and asked, ‘Did he have an exit plan? Was he set up for a fast e
scape to your people?’
‘Nothing in detail. All our people in place had passwords, and the senior officers knew the words.’ He gave a cynical shrug. ‘Not that passwords would have helped them much, knowing some of the Red Army officers. There was a scorched-earth policy. The only good German was dead, if you follow. Personally, I had advised him what to do.’
Caspar nodded, then started to press the point. For two hours he pushed Ramillies about Klaubert. It was impossible to accept his brother’s word first time round, so his questioning changed – the queries designed to dazzle and confuse, then return again to Klaubert, like large-scale military feints which turned into attacks from some unexpected quarter.
He went through the tradecraft Ramillies had used with Klaubert, the signals and infrequent meetings, trying to catch his brother on the wrong foot and so lead him into error.
‘You ever meet Hannalore Bauer?’ Caspar asked.
Ramillies raised his eyebrows, smiling. ‘The thorn in Lightning’s flesh? Yes, I met her once, when he first went to Orléans. I was in for a day or so. He introduced me as a senior SS investigator. At that time he seemed to be genuinely fond of her. It changed when she caught him out.’
‘How?’
‘How did it change? Or how did she catch him out?’
‘Both.’
‘She suspected his game. Hannalore was an ardent Nazi – a fan of Hitler’s, and an old friend of Eva Braun. I don’t know the exact circumstances, but she either saw him with somebody and put two and two together, or she got a glimpse of his notes before he had a chance to destroy them. Whatever it was, she threatened to expose him to the Party – to the High Command, I suppose.’
‘And Klaubert did away with her?’ It went through Caspar’s mind – not for the first time – that, right up to the OSS Romarin operation, their information was that Hannalore Bauer was still in Orléans, acting at Klaubert’s hostess.
‘She disappeared.’ Ramillies spoke as though this was the most natural thing in the world. ‘I really don’t know what happened, but, when you are about to be exposed by your lover, survival comes first. The loved one is of secondary importance. In any case I suspect he was already deeply into his affair with our plant in the local Resistance.’