The Eldorado Network

by Derek Robinson

  'Like corrugated iron,' Luis said. 'A very hard word, corrugated iron.'

  'Not as hard as psychic phenomena.'

  'I thought psychic phenomena were soft. And mysterious. And ..." Luis kissed her on the neck and began undoing buttons. 'I don't know what else. The correct word escapes me.'

  'How about "indescribable"?' She was tugging his shirt out. 'That's a good three-dollar word. House-trained, washable. One size fits all.' She slipped out of her dress.

  'Yes, maybe.' Luis kicked off his shoes. 'It has an indefinable je ne sais quo!'

  'You couldn't put it better.'

  'Well, I'm going to try.'

  He was down to his boxer shorts and she was getting out of her slip when someone knocked on the door. They froze.

  'For Pete's sake!'Julie whispered.

  'It can't be room service, can it?' he asked softly.

  'The hell with them.'

  They stood motionless, waiting for the sound of someone going away. Instead the door opened and Wolfgang Adler came in.

  'Hullo?' Luis said.

  'Hullo. Is there anything left in that bottle? May I have some?'

  They watched him fill a glass and drink most of it. He lopped up the glass and found himself an armchair. 'That's much better,' he said. Excellent stuff.'

  'Periquita,' Luis said. 'They make it in Setubal. Quite undrinkable, isn't it?'

  Wolfgang took another big swig and breathed deeply. Sorry about my awful manners,' he said to Julie. 'I've been hi Russia, you see. The main problem is the cold. Were you going to bed?'

  She shrugged. 'It's a movable feast, I guess. Is this Wolfgang?' she asked Luis.

  Luis nodded. He was putting on his shirt and looking for his socks. 'Wolfgang Adler, Julie Conroy . . . Did you . . '.' He coughed, nervously. 'Did you forget something, or something?'

  'What do you think of the war?' Wolfgang asked.

  'The war? Well, it's going splendidly,'Luis said. 'I mean, Flock at Rommel. Look at the U-boats. Look at Russia.' He I found his socks. 'That's more or less what you've been doing, isn't it?'

  'And America, Mrs Conroy?'

  Julie did her best to sneer. 'You can forget America.'

  'By the way, Mrs Conroy is a close associate of mine,'

  Luis said, putting his trousers on. 'She knows all about my work. You can speak freely.'

  'Ah,' Wolfgang said. He drank more wine.

  'Americans aren't going to get involved in Europe,'Julie told him. 'They've got their hands full in the Pacific. My money's on Hitler, always has been.' Her voice was muffled as she pulled her dress over her head.

  'I see,' Wolfgang said.

  Julie tugged the dress straight and gave Luis a what-the-hell-is going-on? look. He made a brief, baffled lift of the eyebrows.

  'And Britain?' Wolfgang asked.

  'Oh, finished,' Luis said. 'Blockaded, demoralised and isolated. Britain is irrelevant.' He amazed himself by the clarity of his speech. He was suddenly very sober.

  Wolfgang sat nodding gently. Luis saw how tired he looked, how emotionally spent. 'Let me tell you the way it really is,' Wolfgang said. 'Hitler cannot defeat Stalin. The Russians will not be beaten. We shall have to kill them all. That's a lot of Russians, you know. Maybe two hundred million. Of course the S.S. is doing its best. They carry out about ten thousand executions a day, I reckon.'

  'Good Christ,' Julie said.

  'But at that rate it will take fifty-four years, ten months and ten days to kill them all,' Wolfgang said. 'I have worked it out, you see. And by that time the Fuehrer will be a hundred and seven.'

  'Oh dear,' Luis said.

  'In fact it's worse than that. While the S.S. executes ten thousand a day, the rest are still breeding! At a rate of five per cent per annum! That means the Fuehrer must live an extra seventeen-and-a-half years to see final victory. He'd have to be a hundred and twenty-four.'

  That old, huh?' Julie said.

  'It's asking a lot of the man,' Wolfgang said. 'I doubt if he can do it.'

  'Look, Wolfgang,' Luis said, 'I'm delighted to see you, of course, but . . . Why have you come back? Is there something you want?'

  Wolfgang drank from the bottle. 'I want to go over to the British,' he said. 'I know a lot, and I want to tell them everything. I thought you could help.'

  Chapter 59

  Luis telephoned room service and ordered two more bottles of Periquita.

  'I think we should be quite sure that we don't misunderstand each other,' he said. 'So perhaps you had better tell me again.'

  Wolfgang pulled three chairs up to a small table. They sat down. 'To start at the beginning,' he said, 'Why is Germany at war?'

  Luis rubbed his eyes, and thought,

  'So as to beat the Allies, I guess,' Julie said.

  Wolfgang wrinkled his nose: a disarmingly schoolboyish act. 'That's a consequence of going to war. It's not an aim of making war.'

  'Does that matter any more?' Luis asked. 'Once you start fighting, all that matters is to win.'

  'Then let me put it another way. How will Hitler know that he has won?'

  'When the other side gives in,' Julie said. Wolfgang gave her a sad smile. 'You've got a point,' she said. 'I can't see it happening, either.'

  It took me a long time to realise that Germany is-now at war for the sake of being at war.' Wolfgang said. 'We have an other aim. Therefore, since we have no other aim, how can we possibly know when to stop?'

  'All right,' Luis said. 'Suppose that's true, for the sake of argument. What next?'

  'I can show you that.' Wolfgang took out a small, square packet. 'I discovered something in Russia. I discovered that people must have a reason for making war, and if they are not given a reason then they invent one, I made this discovery in a small village about twenty miles from Kharkov. There had just been a very big counter-offensive by the Russians. The fighting was quite ferocious. Lots of dead on both sides. In the end the Russians lost, and I was in this little village when some German soldiers brought in a few hundred prisoners and shot them.'

  'That happened in Spain all the time,' Luis said.

  'Yes, it's not unusual. I don't think anyone was surprised. But afterwards the soldiers were not satisfied. Remember, they had just fought a terrible battle, seen their friends blown to bits, and for what? Not to conquer new land. They had gone through all that horror merely to stay where they were-- in a thoroughly unpleasant, wretched village, a long way from home.'

  'And that wasn't enough for them,'Julie said.

  'Oh, nowhere near enough. So they shot all the men in the village, about twenty of them. Then they shot the women. I think they found fifty women. After that they shot all the very old people. Perhaps a dozen.'

  'They went berserk,' Luis said. 'That happens too.'

  'Not berserk,' Wolfgang told him. 'They were very orderly, very controlled, very systematic. They worked their way through that village three times: first the men, then the women, then the old folk. I was watching and to me it made complete sense. They had given themselves a reason for winning: so that they could shoot Russians. I could almost smell the satisfaction in the air.'

  'That's very interesting,' Luis said.

  'Then they found the children.' Wolfgang opened the package but did not empty it. 'They'd been hiding under floorboards and so on. The soldiers went through the village again and winkled them out, but you know what children are like: they won't keep still for a minute. They kept breaking loose and running around. The soldiers had the devil's own job killing them. It was very messy.' He tipped a bundle of black-and-white photographs onto the table. 'And that

  was when the soldiers lost their tempers,' he said. 'They started smashing and kicking and using bayonets. I watched them, all these educated, trained disciplined Germans, slipping and falling about in the mud, chasing a bunch of ragged-assed ten-year-olds, and I realised that these men didn't know why they were fighting this war. They had no reason. You can see it in their faces.' He pushed the pictures acro
ss the table.

  The room-service waiter brought the wine while they were looking at the pictures. Wolfgang took it and topped up the glasses.

  'I saw some terrible things in the Civil War,' Luis said, 'but I never saw anything like that.' His voice was curiously flat.

  Julie said nothing. She was too close to tears.

  The children kept wriggling, you see,' Wolfgang said. He drank down his wine and poured some more. 'Now, the important thing is that I know all about the Abwehr. Not just Madrid-- the whole organisation. I can tell the British where all our agents are and what they've been reporting, and a lot more besides. So you must go to British intelligence at once and arrange for my reception. Tell them I won't move unless my safety is guaranteed.'

  'Why me?' Luis protested. 'Damn it all, Wolfgang, I'm working for the Abwehr too, remember.'

  Wolfgang flinched as if he had been hurt. He looked from Luis to the scattered photographs and back again. 'You intend to go on taking German money?' he asked.

  Luis knew that Julie was watching him. 'All right,' he said. 'I suppose I'd better go.'

  Charles Templeton met him in the lobby of the British Embassy.

  'Don't ask me a lot of questions,' Luis said. 'The main thing is I've got a fairly senior Abwehr man called Wolfgang Adler and he wants to change sides.'

  'Where is he now?'

  'Not far away. But he must be sure that you'll protect him.'

  'I see. You'd better come and wait in my office.'

  Luis sat on a hard chair and watched Templeton's secretary work at her typewriter. He felt mentally battered and emotionally bruised. Too much had happened to him; he had been running hard for many months, and at last his stamina was beginning to fade. The endless pecking of the typewriter made it hard to think. He felt a great desire not to think: to let others solve his problems.

  Templeton opened the door and beckoned him out.

  'I've had a word with Meredith,' he said, 'and the decision is that we don't want him.'

  'What d'you mean, you don't want him?' Luis said. Exasperation swelled inside him like a ballon. 'Of course you want the bastard. He's Abwehr, for Christ's sake.'

  'Makes no difference, old boy. He's no use to us.'

  'But that's bloody ridiculous. You must be insane.'

  Templeton shook his head. He was quite untroubled. 'As I said, old chap, the decision's been made. Sorry.'

  'But what am I going to tell him?'

  'Tell him to go home.'

  Luis walked away, beating his fists against his sides. He came back and gave Templeton a long, defeated look. 'I give in,' he said. 'What the hell is going on?'

  'Dear oh dear,' Templeton sighed. 'I was afraid you might ask that.'

  'Well, now I have bloody asked.'

  Templeton's tongue sought a bit of food from a back tooth. He nibbled it and swallowed. 'I suppose I owe you a favour from the old days, Luis,' he said. 'The fact is, we don't need Adler because we already know everything he knows. You mustn't tell him that, of course.'

  It took Luis a moment to comprehend this. 'You mean you know how the Abwehr operates?' he said. 'The names of all their agents? It's not possible. How can you know?'

  'Ah . . .' Templeton smiled ruefully. 'I'm afraid I'm not-allowed to reveal that, old boy.'

  He escorted Luis down to the street. 'Thanks for letting us know, all the same,' he said. 'You won't waste your sympathy on Adler, will you? Remember, he didn't want to change sides until he thought Hitler was losing.' He waved goodbye.

  Luis found a telephone and called the hotel. He was lucky: Julie answered. 'Where is he?' he asked.

  'On the John, I think. His plumbings in trouble.'

  'Meet me downstairs in five minutes.'

  The Hotel Sao Jorge had an English-style Palm Court Room with plenty of plants in tubs and a string trio punishing Franz Lehar. Luis found Julie waiting at a corner table which was half-hidden by foliage. She gave him no chance to speak.

  'Luis, you can't do it,' she said. 'I realised as soon as you'd gone: the very minute that sonofabitch upstairs joins the British, the whole Eldorado Network goes up in flames.'

  'Wait a minute, wait a minute.' Luis screwed up his face in an effort of concentration. 'What do you mean?'

  'Sure! It's inevitable!' She shook his arm impatiently. 'Look, the Abwehr will know he's gone, right? Or they'll suspect it, which is just as bad. They're bound to assume he's gone over to the British and betrayed everything he knows. Can't you see that?'

  'Yes.' Luis slumped. 'I see it. Why didn't I think of it? Anyway, it doesn't matter. The British don't want him.'

  'They don't?' She was amazed and relieved. 'Good God. Why not?'

  'Oh . . . he's no good to them. They know all about him, and he's worthless,or something.'

  'Gee. 'She relaxed, and they sat in silence. A waiter came. Luis ordered tea and cakes. 'I'm starving,' he said. 'I didn't get any lunch.'

  'What are you going to tell him?' she asked.

  'I don't know exactly. He'll have to go back to Madrid, that's obvious.'

  Julie gave him a curious, twisted smiled, 'I'm glad it's worked out this way,' she said. 'I was afraid that when you knew what would happen to Eldorado, you might try and stop Adler.'

  'Talk him out of it, you mean.'

  'No, I mean stop him. Like you stopped Alfred Krafft.'

  'Oh.' That possibility disturbed Luis. 'No, I don't think I could do that,' he said. 'I haven't got a typewriter.'

  'But you did bring this lousy cannon.' She held up the briefcase.

  'That thing. I can't see myself shooting anyone with that, not even to save Eldorado.'

  'Good.'

  'You can shoot him, if you want to.'

  'No thanks.'

  'I suppose I might shove him off a cliff, if no one were looking,' Luis said gloomily. 'That's painless, isn't it?'

  'As long as you don't sprain your wrist, it is.'

  'You know what I mean.' He propped his head on his hand and gazed wearily at the string trio, which was now attacking Vincent Youmans. 'I wish the damn food would come ... Is he all right upstairs, d'you think?'

  'Well, I left him a note saying ..." Julie stopped, and craned her neck. 'Forget it,' she said. 'Here comes tea and here comes Wolfgang, too.'

  The German sat down at their table as the waiter began unloading his tray.' My apologies,' he said.' I forgot that you would wish to have tea. It became very lonely in that room. Since Russia I don't like to be alone.'

  Well, that's understandable,'Julie said.

  'Although now that I have changed sides, I suppose I shall always be alone.' He sat hunched forward, with his hands grasped between his knees.

  'I wanted to talk to you about that,' Luis said. He poured himself some tea. Wolfgang watched closely.

  'It's good that you put the milk in second,' Wolfgang said. 'Christian put the milk in first. I told him that was wrong but he made a joke of it. He was a stupid man.'

  The waiter brought them an extra cup and saucer, and went away.

  'I saw the British,' Luis said. He took a bite out of a small cake and gestured with the rest of it. 'They're very excited, of course.'

  'Good.'

  'But they can't take you now. They want you to go back to Madrid and find out more--'

  'No, no, no. I can't go to Madrid. I can't go anywhere except to England.'

  'Surely you can if you go now,' Luis urged. 'I mean, nobody else knows.'

  Wolfgang took a sugar-cube and dipped it into Luis's tea. They watched the liquid soak up through the grains until the cube collapsed between his fingers. 'Everybody knows,' Wolfgang said. 'You see, before I came back to see you, I killed Brigadier Christian.'

  'Christ Almighty,'Julie breathed.

  'Oh no,' Luis said. 'Why on earth did you do that?'

  Again, Wolfgang wrinkled his nose in that casual, boyish way. 'It's not important any more,' he said.

  'But where is he?'

  'In the German Embassy, I expec
t. We went into the lavatories. I hit him on the head with a bottle of disinfectant and strangled him with his tie.' He licked sugar from his finger-tips.

  'And he's really dead?'Julie said. 'I mean, sometimes--'

  'Please. I killed him. I know he is dead. When you have finished your tea,' Wolfgang said to Luis, 'we should go to :he British Embassy again.'

  Luis chewed his cake and failed to think of an alternative. He swallowed, and licked his lips. 'I'm ready now,' he said.

  As they walked across the room, Wolfgang suddenly checked. 'Excuse me,' he said. 'Where is the toilet?' Luis pointed.

  They waited for him in the lobby.

  'Do you think he really killed Christian?' Luis asked.

  'He sounded pretty convincing,'Julie said. 'Mind you, he also sounds pretty crazy.'

  'Yes. Did you know I pushed him out of a window once? Maybe he landed on his head.'

  Around them, the usual endless hotel-lobby traffic came and went.

  'I still have to pay for the room,' Luis said. 'Don't let me forget the receipt. It's deductible.'

  'What are we going to do, Luis?' Julie asked.

  'I wish I really hated him,' he said. 'Maybe I could kill him if I really hated him.'

  'Do you want to kill him?'

  'Sometimes. When I think that he stands between me and a million dollars, yes, I'd like to be able to kill him. Painlessly.'

  'Where's the nearest cliff?' she asked.

  'We haven't got time for cliffs. It's got to be done now, within the next hour, or not at all. The German Embassy must know he's missing. If he doesn't turn up soon they'll assume the worst, won't they?'

  'I guess so.'

  'If Adler lives, Eldorado dies. That's what it comes down to. Then I'll be no use to anyone, not even the British.' Luis took a quick look inside his briefcase. 'I wonder if I could shoot him? Maybe if I thought hard about it I could . . . you know . . . sort of work myself up to it.' He sighed. 'Damn it all. Why didn't he stay in bloody Russia where he belonged?'

  'That revolver makes such a hell of-a noise,' Julie said.

  'Yes. You're sure you wouldn't like to do it?'

  'No thanks.'

  'You needn't sound so righteous. You keep wanting me to join the British and fight for freedom, don't you? Well, he's ruining all your plans too, remember. I thought you were very keen on bashing the enemy.'