The Fifth Column

by Andrew Gross

  “Be right back,” I heard him say up front.

  I froze, huddled there. I heard him go around the side, unlatch the chain at the rear, twist the outer handle, and then the back doors swung open. Cool air rushed in. I crouched, hidden by the row of beer kegs—thank God the one that had fallen over was in the row closer to the door—and covered up by the tarp.

  “Christ, this thing weighs a fucking ton,” Curtis grunted, hopping up into the truck and taking the keg by its sides and righting it. Huddled there, I could literally feel him not five feet from me. I prayed my pounding heart wouldn’t give me away.

  He set it back up, pulled the tarp back over it, and seemed to pause a second or two—or what seemed to me like a full minute—where I was sure the next sound I would hear was the hammer of his gun being pulled back and the command: “Whoever you are, come on out of there now!”

  I stayed as still as I could. Without releasing a breath.

  But to my relief, I heard him shout up front, “Back in business,” and felt the gaze of Willi Bauer probably nodding through the small window, and then I heard Trudi Bauer’s voice from outside—they were obviously following closely behind—“Is there a problem, Kurt?”

  “No, Frau Bauer,” Curtis said, jumping back down onto the road. “Just a little housekeeping. We’ll be back on our way.”

  He jumped out, then the doors slammed again, the chain was reattached, and I took the deepest breath of my life in relief.

  The temperature in the frozen cargo space couldn’t have been more than forty degrees, but I had sweated completely through my clothes.

  “Let’s go,” Willi said. “We’ve fallen behind schedule.”

  I heard Curtis jump back in the front and felt the engine release back into drive. I felt both relieved and nervous. Relieved that I hadn’t been discovered; nervous, that wherever we were heading, we would be there soon.

  Continuing on, I crawled out from under the tarp again and caught a glimpse as we passed some small towns. An old church. Shops. Old clapboard houses. All were dark. Empty. Barely a light anywhere. It was almost two in the morning.

  As the truck slowed on one street, I finally caught a glimpse of a sign.

  Bridgehampton General Store. Bridgehampton? Farther out than even Southampton. What were we doing all the way out here? Not any beer delivery, I was sure. I checked my watch. Certainly not at two in the morning.

  As I was thinking that, the truck slowed and made a right turn. It continued along a long, bumpy road, the kegs bouncing. This went on for at least a mile and seemed to take minutes. I kneeled up and peered out ahead and all I saw was darkness all around and the thin, smoky beams from the truck’s headlights barely illuminating the road ahead. Then we slowed once more and made a right turn, bouncing along at a slow pace, until it jerked to a stop. I felt the emergency brake catch.

  We were here.

  If you’re going to make a run for it, Charlie, now’s the time.

  Curtis came around back and undid the chains. My heart started to race. He turned the latch and flung open the back doors. Again, cold air rushed in. Hidden under the tarp, I didn’t move a muscle. I sucked in a breath, worried that this was it for me. They were going to unload the kegs, pull up the tarp, and find me there.

  I waited to hear Willi or Trudi shout, “Unload the cargo.”

  But they didn’t.

  Not just yet.

  Instead, I heard the crunch of gravel and Curtis and the Bauers engaged in conversation a short ways away. “Out there,” Willi said. I lifted my head out from underneath the tarp.

  And smelled something.

  Something that I didn’t expect. But that now made sense.

  Close by enough that I could reach out and touch it.

  The ocean.

  26

  The door was left open. No one seemed to be around. The Ford I had seen earlier had driven up and parked directly behind us. Trudi and the dough-faced driver, Freddy, had walked on past and were with the group. Everyone was huddling, out of view. I could hear their voices, dimly now, several yards away.

  I knew this was my chance.

  I crept out from under the tarp and crawled to the open doors. No one was on guard. Taking a breath, I lowered myself onto the ground, a mixture of pebbles and sand, careful not to make a sound.

  A short ways away I could hear the Bauers and Curtis engaged in conversation. But they were no longer speaking English. It was German now. No more pretense.

  We were at the shore. They clearly weren’t making any beer delivery.

  I stole around the edge of the truck and caught sight of them around twenty yards away. Willi was pointing out to sea. It was dark, but the shore had to be right behind them. I could hear waves lapping up on the beach. I knew I had this one moment of opportunity to get away while everyone was distracted. Before they came back for their cargo. I could probably sneak away now, find my way back to the main road, and they would never know I was ever here. But what had I seen? What could I tell anyone was going on? Nothing. On one side of the truck, I spotted a wall of hedges and bushes I could easily hide behind. Behind me, I saw an old clapboard house, not a light on. And no other houses in sight. This was about as quiet and remote as it could be. Hugging my camera to my chest, I tiptoed over to the hedge and slipped behind it.

  The night was moonless, completely dark. We were literally on a beach in a totally deserted location. Through the bushes, I could see Curtis and the other driver smoking. Willi Bauer took out his pipe. I checked my watch. 2:30 A.M. Why were we here? What was going on?

  Then I remembered—whatever was happening, if my code held up, and so far it had, it would take place at three. In half an hour.

  0300.

  I waited.

  Twenty minutes passed. I spent it crouched, observing, watching Willi Bauer and his group preparing, though I couldn’t tell what for. So far they still hadn’t unloaded the kegs. I was no longer even afraid. I had to see what was happening. The four of them were all the way down by the water now, which I could hear lapping onto the beach in small waves. They had a lantern affixed to a rope, which they lit, and occasionally swung back and forth as if signaling someone. Willi Bauer intermittently looked out through a pair of binoculars. Always staring out at the sea. Waiting.

  I crept a little closer along the row of bushes, taking care not to make any noise against the pebbles. I snapped a photo or two, though I had no flash, and given the lack of light, I was doubtful anything would come out. There wasn’t even a moon.

  All of a sudden, Willi shouted out. “There!”

  He pointed out to sea. Everyone got up and looked. To my shock, far out in the darkness, I saw a light flashing back at them.

  They all cheered.

  Excited, Curtis swung the lantern back and forth. I saw what looked like a dark shape crest through the surface, black on black, like some long serpent rearing its head.

  Until I realized it wasn’t a serpent.

  “Mein Gott!” Trudi Bauer uttered in awe, her hand to her mouth.

  It was a submarine.

  A German sub, I had no doubt.

  Far out in the water. But here … in American waters. Maybe a quarter mile offshore.

  I stood there, watching, just as awestruck by the sight as they were.

  And also at the fact, which was slowly dawning on me, that I was right. Right, since my very first suspicion.

  The Bauers were spies. They were plotting something. Operation Prospero. And Curtis was part of their group.

  I checked my watch. It was 0300.

  27

  About fifteen more minutes passed, the group on the shore actively preparing for something. Curtis waved the lantern in sweeping turns. Willi kept scanning through his binoculars.

  Finally, Freddy pointed out at the dark tide and shouted, “Hier! Hier!” Waving into the void. Joyously patting Curtis on the shoulder. “Uber hier!”

  Out of the darkness, a small craft began to appear, riding the wave
s in. My God … I focused my eyes. I leaned forward, snapping as many photos as I could. One, two, three, four … But I only had three or four left.

  A sub.

  To my shock, a team of dark-uniformed Germans jumped into the surf and made their way onto the shore. There were four. Two had submachine guns strapped over their shoulders. The others seemed like workmen. Trudi, Willi, and Curtis ran out to help them in. The sailors pulled the boat ashore; it had a tarp in it covering up something as well. A bearded senior officer in a black leather jacket shouted to his men, “Schnell. Schnell!”

  They jumped out of the boat and started to unload. German soldiers. On American soil. The senior officer warmly shook Willi Bauer’s hand.

  I looked beyond them out on the water. The sub they had come from had submerged.

  Prospero.

  Abandoned on a distant shore.

  I crept closer and kneeled behind the hedge to snap another shot. I heard a twig snap beneath my foot. I froze. Twenty yards away, Trudi Bauer turned toward me. On the shore, everyone was excited and filled with purpose, unloading the craft. Perhaps a spark of suspicion lit up in Trudi as she looked my way. I crouched, perfectly still, my heart pounding, as her gaze knifed right through me. If she chose to come over and investigate, with all these characters around, no way I could get away. I’d be shot on the spot. I held my breath, till someone called to her from the shore and she looked toward me one more time, but then Willi introduced the senior officer to her and her attention became diverted back to the task at hand.

  I let out a breath of relief.

  They lifted the tarp and I saw what I took to be supplies. Two of the sailors dragged onto the beach what looked like a heavy crate. They pried it open to show Willi and Trudi, and I could make out it was full of guns. I snapped a shot of it through the bushes. But there was something else in the boat too. Something big and shiny. That must be what they were bringing in.

  A bomb was my first thought, and I readied my camera. But when they lifted the shiny objects from under the tarp and rolled them onto the shore I saw exactly what they were.

  Beer barrels.

  Just like what had been loaded into the truck.

  Except these, I was sure, didn’t have a mug full of beer in any of them.

  Snap.

  Gradually, the German seamen plus Curtis and Freddy, the driver, lugged the barrels back to the truck and hoisted them up into the cargo bay. I watched them arrange the new kegs, four steel barrels, into the rear of the bay, behind the ones they had brought with them from the brewery, as if the ones they had brought were merely meant to conceal these new ones. Right where I had been hiding.

  What was inside them?

  Time was of the essence. Everyone worked quickly. I raised my camera and hit the shutter at German sailors on American soil. Click. Click. Suddenly I was out of film. Damn. When they were done loading, Curtis covered the kegs up with the tarp and relocked the truck. He wrapped the chain back through the latch, this time using a padlock to keep it secure. He put the key in his pocket. Then they all headed back to the beach. There, they said their goodbyes. More hearty handshakes and hugs, and a “Sieg Heil” from the bearded senior officer. Willi and Trudi and the others raised their arms in return.

  Then the Germans climbed back into their launch. Curtis and Freddy helped them push back into the surf. They pushed off, rowing against the tide, back out to sea. In minutes, the boat melded into the darkness, the Bauers continuing to wave. No one left.

  In the distance, I heard a deep whooshing sound and saw that the sub had reemerged, an amorphous black shape against the equally dark sea and sky. In about fifteen minutes, the launch made it back to the mother ship, and a minute or two later, after the men climbed aboard, I heard the same whooshing sound, and in a flash it was gone. Only silence remained, like it never was there. Crouching behind the bushes, I watched as Curtis and the other driver lugged the crate of weapons back to the car and placed it in the trunk, while Willi smoothed out the sand where they had been, erasing the footprints. Only then did they all say their goodbyes.

  Willi and Curtis climbed back in the truck; Trudi and Friedrich into the sedan. In seconds, the two vehicles drove off. Not even a trace that any of this had just happened. Not even tire marks and a cloud of dirt and dust, or footprints in the sand.

  Only then did I step out from my hiding place.

  But something had taken place. An enemy sub had come ashore and dropped off a secret cargo. And I had seen it occur. Maybe not the enemy—at least, in a literal sense. We weren’t yet at war. But illegal, for sure. Seditious. Something the government had to know about immediately. I’d been right all along. The Bauers weren’t Swiss. I had wandered into a nest of German spies. Spies who were executing a mission, whatever was in those kegs, and had to be stopped from carrying it out.

  28

  It took me the whole next day to find my way back to the city. I got away from the house on the beach as fast as I could and walked in the direction I assumed would lead me to the highway. But the road wound around and, in the dark, I became lost. I fell asleep on the porch of a deserted house, huddled in my coat like a blanket. I woke up after 9 A.M., exhausted, cold, and started on foot again, finally catching a ride from a worker on a farm truck, who said he could take me all the way to Southampton.

  “You look like you could use a coffee, pal.”

  I grabbed that coffee in a café on Main Street, as well as some breakfast. Then I waited for the next train at the station. It was a Saturday, and this time of year, they only ran every couple of hours. It was a cattle car, chugging to a stop at every town on eastern Long Island, and I didn’t get back to the city until four in the afternoon.

  I wasn’t sure what to do with what I had seen the night before.

  I reminded myself over and over that only a couple of hours ago I’d seen Willi and Trudi Bauer make contact with a party from a German submarine on American soil. And that a secret cargo was unloaded, possibly weapons.

  The best plan, I decided, was to try to reach Latimer. But it was a Saturday; I tried his office in D.C. from the phone outside my apartment, but no one picked up. I guess the Department of Immigrant Affairs didn’t work weekends. I also tried the main switchboard at the State Department but the weekend operator said she had no idea how to raise him. “There are over two thousand employees at the State Department,” she said, to my frustration. I thought about going back to the New York City police. But I already had the sense where that would lead. Nowhere. And now, I’d be raving about some German submarine that had come ashore, and have to explain everything all over again: The Bauers. How I figured the time and date out. My own past. I’d look as suspicious as they would. That no, I didn’t know what was in the beer kegs they’d dragged ashore, how could I? Or how crucial it all was. They could well be explosives. But I gave it till Monday. Till I got my film developed. I prayed a couple of days wouldn’t matter much. The fact was, Germany and the United States weren’t even at war, so there should be time. Latimer seemed my best bet.

  When I woke there was an envelope for me. I didn’t get much mail these days. My bills were paid in cash. This one was light blue. It didn’t take much effort to figure out who sent it.

  My name and address were in large, basic cursive with a crayoned heart on it and the return read Emma Mossman.

  I opened it, my heart filling up a bit. It was a card. Hand-drawn on drawing paper. Mountains with white peaks and a blue river and bright green fields. Two stick-figure persons, one pint-sized with blond, curly hair, Emma; the other tall, smiling, with an arrow pointing to it saying Daddy. And with what looked like a Saint Bernard.

  They were holding hands.

  I miss you, Daddy, the card read in bright red print. It brought tears to my eyes. It had been over two weeks since I’d seen her. “I miss you too, peach,” I said.

  I looked at the mountains and river and the Saint Bernard and figured it was Switzerland.

  Then I turn
ed the card over and saw Emma had written: Aunt Trudi helped me make this.

  A chill ran through me. It was almost like a message. Like they were digging their clutches deeper into her and letting me know. Especially with what I had witnessed last night. I was on the outside, not even able to see my daughter, and they were drawing with her, playing with her, spending time with her. Were they telling me, We have her? You’d better be aware. You’d better stay out of our business.

  She’s ours.

  * * *

  I had a date with Noelle that next day. Sunday. It was a cold but pretty day in New York. Bundled up, we went for an afternoon walk in Central Park. Though it was December and the wind was biting us in the face, the sun was shining and it felt warm. Noelle had on her wool coat and a green beret. She latched on to my arm and made me feel whole again, walking around with the time bomb I was carrying inside that I was keeping from her.

  It helped put the past day and night behind me.

  We bought some bread crumbs at a stand and fed the ducks swimming in Central Park’s pond.

  “You seem distracted, Charles,” she said.

  “No, I’m fine,” I lied. “Here…” I kneeled down and handed her some crumbs. “I am.”

  “Good.” She smiled and squeezed my arm. “I want you all to myself, Charles Mossman, and your mind to be completely with me.”

  “Tell me how your thesis is going,” I asked.

  But she was right, of course. I was distracted. I was quiet and insular and focused on what I was keeping from her, what I had witnessed the previous night, and barely lived through, that I dared not share. Reminding myself that it wasn’t some crazy dream I had made up, but something real. Chillingly real. And happening. Now.

  “C’mon, let’s get a bite to eat,” I said.

  We went to a little brasserie in the Drake Hotel. They had a café there, with dark wood walls and low-hanging brass lamps. I thought Noelle would feel at home. We each ordered a beer. I figured I deserved one after the previous night, and took a pretty deep swig.