The Fifth Column

by Andrew Gross

  “I don’t know, Charlie. I don’t know why someone would use a transmitter. I don’t know that they actually had one.” Her voice raised in frustration. “That’s what you say. So tell me, what exactly did the police have to say on this?”

  What did the police say? I couldn’t tell her what the police said. I didn’t answer.

  “I’m not surprised,” she said. “Since there was nothing fucking there.”

  “Well, they moved it then. They must have gotten suspicious when they found Emma and me on the landing. Which speaks volumes in itself, Liz. Why would they get it out of there? I’m only sorry that Emma had to be in the middle of it.”

  “You know what she said, Charlie? She looked around at us, our blank faces, and said, ‘Did I say a wrong word, Mommy?’”

  Like Lebensraum.

  I’d told her, Let’s keep this between us, darling.

  “I feel terrible about that, Liz. I’ll have to talk with her. I promise, from now on—”

  “There’s not going to be a ‘from now on,’ Charlie. At least, not on this. I don’t want you here anymore. Not for a while. If you are, I’m going to call the police and tell them exactly what happened from my point of view, and have you taken off the premises. If Trudi and Willi are too nice at heart not to do that themselves, I’ll do it for them. You can’t go around breaking into people’s homes.”

  “Liz, don’t. I told you, I didn’t break in.”

  “Then snooping. Whatever you want to call it. And using your daughter as a cover to gain entry.”

  “I told you, I didn’t use her as a cover.” I knew how I was beginning to sound. “And what’s important isn’t that I did some irregular things, but that these people who you think of as your friends are not who they say they are—”

  “I don’t care, Charlie. They are to me. I only know that if I told your parole officer what you did I don’t think he’d be particularly happy with you.”

  “Don’t, Liz. Please…” She was right. I could end up back in jail for this.

  “Charlie, listen to me. I don’t want you seeing Emma right now. Hear me? I’m going to talk to my lawyer. And I think you should talk to yours. From now on, we play it by the book.”

  “Liz, please…”

  “Don’t ‘Liz, please,’ me, Charlie. Just don’t come by. If you do, I’ll call the police on you myself. I’m not going to deny you access to Emma. That would hurt her too much. And through it all, you’re a good father. I know that. But I will insist that certain conditions be put on it. And from a personal perspective, Charlie, you’ve got to put this craziness behind you. You’re starting to act like the old Charlie. And it’s scaring me. For the moment, I’ll tell her you had to go on a business trip for a job or something. Until we work something out more permanent. But I’m begging you, Charlie, for the sake of our daughter. Stop. I mean it. Stop.”

  21

  I was disconsolate and stayed to myself over the next few days. My time with Emma was the most important thing in my life for me. I talked with Sam Goldrich, who agreed to handle things for me and save me the cost of a divorce attorney. Which I honestly couldn’t afford. It’s not like we had tons of assets to fight over.

  But my afternoons without Emma were empty, like being back in prison again for me.

  A few days later, Noelle called and said that her friend from the State Department happened to be in New York, and he could see me if I still wanted.

  I didn’t know what was right anymore, but the right people ought to know about them, the Bauers, I figured. If I told them what I knew then I could wash my hands of it. So I said yes, that would be great. Noelle was now about the only good thing happening in my life.

  “His name is Warren Latimer,” she said. “I’ll arrange it.”

  So we met in Latimer’s hotel room at the Chesterfield Hotel in New York, a quiet, unassuming place with a smoky wood-and-brass lobby in the West Forties. After a few moments all together in small talk, Noelle said she would leave the two of us alone. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said to me, and reached up on her toes and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  “Thanks for doing this,” I said, and squeezed her arm affectionately.

  The State Department man was tall and slight, with thin lips, wire-rimmed glasses, distinguished-looking gray hair on his temples, and narrow deep-set eyes. His handshake was firm and decisive. He had on gray pin-striped suit pants, the jacket draped over a chair. His striped tie was clasped by a pin. Suspenders over his blue shirt. His cuff links were shiny and gold. He directed me to a small table, and from a gold card case inside his jacket pocket he took out his card. Director. Department of Immigrant Affairs, it read, U.S. Department of State, in blue, important lettering.

  “I wish I could give you one of mine,” I said with a sheepish grin, shrugging.

  “No matter,” he replied. “Please sit down. Noelle tells me you have a story to tell me.”

  “Thanks. I think I do.”

  We chatted, about Noelle at first, and while he was vague on how he knew her and what their history was, he did remark how she was a “charming and beautiful woman,” and how “any friend of hers would be considered a friend of mine as well.”

  “I feel the same,” I said, though in truth I barely knew her.

  Latimer struck me as the kind of Ivy League blueblood who was fed from the top college straight into the top realms of government, specifically the State Department. Measured, tight-lipped, played it close to the vest. Still, he was relaxed and easy to talk to. He went to the rolling bar in the room and picked out a bottle. Glenfiddich. “Scotch?” He checked his watch. “It’s after five.”

  “Coffee would be great,” I said. Though a scotch would have made this a whole lot easier for me. It wasn’t every day I pointed the finger at someone to the U.S. government. I admit I was feeling some nerves.

  “Relax,” he said, brushing it off with an offhand wave, “it’s just the two of us.” He poured my coffee and sat down. He opened his tie clip and loosened his tie. “So start from the beginning,” he said. “Assume I know nothing. Let me hear what you have to say.”

  I kept it all as vague as I could, not fully knowing who Latimer was and how he fit in, and not wanting to have this boomerang back on me, if my accusations were somehow wrong or if he gave what I said to the wrong people. Until I knew I could trust him. So I painted the picture of this Swiss couple I’d met in my ex-wife’s apartment building.

  “You’re divorced then?” he asked. He took out an Old Gold from another gold case and pulled the ashtray over to him.

  “Shortly. And it’s probably best to get something else out of the way up front.…” I shrugged. “I’ve recently spent some time in prison.”

  “Yes. Noelle did brief me on that. She didn’t want me to be surprised. She said you got into a scuffle a while back with some Nazi supporters…? And someone was hurt.”

  “Not hurt, killed. He fell through a glass window. Man two. I was released four months ago. Though it’s not really pertinent to anything I have to tell you. I just wanted it out up front.” I ran him through the events that happened the night of the Madison Square Garden rally and the drunken punch I’d thrown; my time at the Auburn penitentiary, and how it had cost me dearly—how I used to teach history at Columbia and now I was barely able to find a job.

  “Columbia. I studied there myself,” Latimer said. “Under Arnold Krause. Know him?”

  I knew Krause’s name, of course. He was head of the economics department when I was there. A Nobel Laureate. He might as well have been John Maynard Keynes. Miles and miles above my pay station. “Then I went on to Yale for a law degree,” Latimer said. “But getting back to your story…” He beckoned me onward. “You don’t drink?”

  “Not anymore.” I took a sip of coffee. “In light of what happened.”

  “Commendable.” He nodded graciously, and put his scotch down.

  “Please, go ahead. And I should also admit up front, in what I’m going
to say, I’ve done some things that may not sound one hundred percent kosher.…”

  “Kosher…?” He squinted his narrow, reed-blue eyes.

  “Legal. By the book. But what’s important, I hope you’ll agree, is what I’ve found, not precisely how I found it. I fully admit I’m not exactly the FBI here.”

  “Yes, exactly, Mr. Mossman,” Latimer said, and smiled. “You’re not the FBI. I get it. So let’s begin.”

  I looked at him and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “There are these people who live across from my ex-wife up in Yorkville,” I started in. “On East Ninetieth Street here in New York. They’re Swiss, or claim to be, around sixty maybe. Could be older. They’ve been in this country a while. They even once had a small brewery in town. Called Old Berliner. My wife and my daughter think they’re the nicest, most charming couple in the world, and when I met them, it was easy to see why. I did too.” I took him through everything that had happened. Starting with the word Lebensraum, which he didn’t need explained. Then the people always showing up there—“customers,” Trudi called them, even after it turned out their business had closed a year before. And then the one I happened to see at The Purple Tulip, a known pro-Nazi hangout.

  “And how do you know this place is pro-Nazi?” Latimer asked.

  “It’s just known to be,” I said. “Even back before I went to prison. We used to live in the neighborhood.”

  “All right.” He took out a small notepad. “You mind if I take some notes?” He peered above his wire-rim glasses.

  “No,” I said at first, then upon reflection: “Well, on second thought, maybe I do. How about this first go-round, you just hear what I have to say?”

  “All right, Mr. Mossman, that’s fair.” He blew out a plume of smoke and closed the notepad. “I’m all yours.”

  I told him about the undestroyed strip of paper I had come across in Trudi’s trash bin that because of the sequence of numbers on it I presumed was some kind of code; carefully describing the look I’d received from Trudi Bauer while caught standing over it, conveying it was clearly something I wasn’t supposed to see. And unlike with Monahan at the police station, he didn’t interrupt me a dozen times with his skeptical barbs. He just let me go on, taking it all in in a measured, thoughtful manner. “That got me curious,” I said, “so one night I followed them when I knew they were heading out. I know that sounds a bit cloak-and-dagger.…” To that, he merely smiled. And I told him about the Marienplatz restaurant and the Sieg Heil-ing group of men in the back room there, and why would they go to such effort to hide their Nazi sympathies if they weren’t up to something? “But I still didn’t have anything really concrete,” I admitted. “We all read about these twenty-six Nazi agents the FBI arrested.…”

  “Yes.” Latimer nodded. “A good haul.”

  “Engineers and accountants, marketing people … Right under our noses.”

  “Fortunate how that all worked out,” Latimer said, “but, as I’m sure you know, sympathy for the Nazi cause, even now, is not a criminal offense in this country.”

  “Yes, I know, of course. Even in our own government, it appears. That’s been made clear to me a dozen times. That’s why I felt I had to go one step further.”

  “Further…?” Latimer stared at me.

  “Yes. I was at Emma’s a few weeks ago and saw they had left their apartment door ajar. I know it’s maybe not what I should have done. I said before I’d done a few things that weren’t kosher. But I snuck inside.”

  “You broke in?” Latimer’s narrow eyes went wide.

  “Snuck in, is more like it, I would say. Maybe there’s a difference. But I did go to the police with it, though they seemed to not have much interest.”

  “You went to the police?” He blinked, surprised. “That was before or after you snuck in?”

  “Well, after.” I shrugged. “With what I had. Anyway, I found this old steamer trunk inside and in it…”

  “You found a trunk where, Mr. Mossman?”

  “In the hall closet.”

  “In their hall closet. Open…?”

  I shook my head. “No. I managed to find the key. It was in a small bowl in the bedroom.”

  “I didn’t imagine it was. Anyway, you certainly made your way around the place.” He sniffed, amused. “Kind of like the Three Bears.”

  “Look, like I said, everything I’ve done may not have been a hundred percent by the book. Still, I looked inside it and I’m pretty sure I found something really important.”

  “I’m listening, Mr. Mossman. What?”

  “A radio transmitter,” I said.

  Latimer’s gray eyebrows arched wide. “A radio transmitter? You say you’re pretty sure?”

  “I mean, I’ve never seen one before. Only in the movies. But yes, I’m sure. I mean, it had knobs and gauges and an antenna and a headset. And what would anyone need a transmitter for unless they had something to hide, right?”

  “One might draw that conclusion.” Latimer seemed to agree. “But I see what you’re saying here. And why it would be concerning.”

  “See? These people may pose as Swiss, but everything about them shouts German. Which they’re going to great lengths to hide. And I even think I might have a lead on how they communicate.”

  “What do you mean by a lead?” Latimer asked.

  “I think it’s possible I may have broken their code.”

  I explained about the book on Darwin. And the State Department man leaned back in his chair, took off his glasses, and blew out of stream of smoke. “There are concerns, of course,” he said measuredly, “about what you might call a fifth column, if you’re familiar with that term? About Nazi agents, embedded deep into the fabric of life here, who might be spies. Or worse?”

  “Worse?” I said.

  “Potential saboteurs. Should our nations ever be at war. Which is looking increasingly more likely these days.”

  Everything he was saying fit together for me. Music to my ears. I explained I did know the term. That my brother had fought and died for the Republicans there. “So I was right?” I said. “To pursue this? To do what I did?”

  “I’m not the expert here, you understand. That’s for others to decide. I can’t say what would be admissible and what would not be in a court of law. But I think it’s something the right people would definitely want to know about. Are you prepared to be a little more specific with me? About who these people are. Give us an affidavit in writing?”

  “An affidavit…” I hesitated. I thought, What if I’m somehow wrong? Then what? And what if Liz holds it against me? She already warned me to stay out of it. I now had to get my daughter back through custody. Was it worth being further withheld from Emma just to prove my instincts on the Bauers had been correct? Would this prove that what I did was right to Liz or would it only make it worse? Without solid evidence. “You know, my personal history doesn’t exactly make me the most compelling accuser,” I said.

  “I assure you whatever you say will be held in the strictest confidence.”

  “Witness Number One, huh…? Still, they’ll know it was from me. Liz would know. And anyway, I’m told whatever was in the apartment has been moved.”

  “Moved. Told by whom?”

  “By my wife. Or my soon-to-be ex-wife. My daughter admitted we were in there. How about you let me think on it,” I said. “Regarding the affidavit. Maybe at our next meeting.”

  “And how do you propose we set that up?” he asked.

  “I have your card.” I picked it up and looked it over again. Immigrant Affairs. “Or through Noelle.”

  “I’ve found it’s best to nip these budding networks before they have a chance to take root,” Latimer said. “There’s no telling how long they’ve been at it. How many are involved. Or what their ultimate goal is.”

  “I understand.”

  “But that transmitter does suggest to me they have a larger network supporting them, of course.”

  “You mean like what, Berlin?�
� I asked.

  “Who’s to say? But I assure you they didn’t purchase it at Macy’s, that’s all.”

  “No, of course not,” I said. “So you believe me?” I felt a rush of validation spread through me. At last, someone did.

  “Let’s just say you don’t strike me as a crackpot in the least. But just to be clear,” Latimer probed one more time, “you’re saying the New York City Police know all this?”

  “They have a file there as thick as the phone book.” I stretched my fingers apart as wide as they’d go. “Filled with people making similar accusations. My sense is, no one will ever even read my report. The detective I met with—”

  “You met with where?”

  “At the Nineteenth Precinct. He just looked at me as some kind of Nazi-hater because of my past. That I was trying to build some kind of case against them, because of my run-in at the bar and my time in prison.”

  “And are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Are you simply just trying to build some kind of case…?”

  I looked at him directly. “You heard my story.”

  “Yes, I did. I did hear your story.” He stamped out his Old Gold. “And for the record, Mr. Mossman, that’s not what I think at all. You can be sure.” Latimer rubbed his jaw. “And do you recall this detective’s name?”

  “I do. But maybe we can keep that for the next meeting as well,” I said.

  “All right. I guess I can understand your hesitation. Anyway, it’s been eye-opening to talk to you on this, Mr. Mossman.” Latimer stood up. “And I hope you do decide to come forward. Shortly. I think you’ve done your country a great service. Shall we agree to stay in touch?”

  “Yes. Of course,” I said, placing his card in my pocket.

  “Then I look forward to hearing from you. At a time when we can be a bit more specific.” He walked me over to the door. “It’s important. And please wish Noelle my best. And by all means let me know if you come up with anything more.”

  “Anything more?”