The Alex Kovacs Series Box Set

by Richard Wake

  "Might be?" My voice had risen several decibels. One of the fossils looked in our direction, just for a second.

  "Calm down," she said. It was more a hiss than a statement.

  "Why can't you leave this alone? Why can't you leave me alone?" I shucked my arms into the sleeves of my coat and began buttoning.

  "Because I care about both of you, and whatever happened can't be all that bad. You have to be able to fix it."

  "Have you ever considered that it might be that bad? Have you ever thought for one damn second that I don't want to fix it?" And with that, I kept walking, away from the pregnant matchmaker and out into the Zurich night.

  It was still early, and it was Thursday, and I remembered that I had not checked the MCMIX fountain since Monday. It was in the wrong direction from my flat, but it was only about 10 minutes away, and I had energy and anger to burn. It must have been 20 degrees, maybe lower, and the wind cut. I hated scarves but had taken to wearing one in the previous few weeks. On this night, I was more than glad -- scarf, collar up, hat secure, head ducked into the wind, eyes slightly tearing up. It was from the cold, I knew, not any thoughts about Manon. I really was done. It was only natural that I would still get upset at Liesl's meddling, but I really was done. I did wonder, though, why Manon had agreed to come to the cafe. Perhaps Liesl had assured her that I was out of town or something.

  The moon was full, the light shimmering off of the lake. It was cold enough that the path around the lake was empty, the typical nightly dog-walker undoubtedly setting for a quick smoke for himself and a quick piss for Sparky in the alley behind his flat. And standing there at the fountain, standing quite alone, I saw two yellow chalk marks. I didn't know if two meant something different than one, because Brodsky and I hadn't worked that out. My first thought was that the extra mark signified some elevated level of urgency, but I didn't really know. Whatever it meant, I figured, it wasn't even 8:30, and maybe it was urgent. Bellevueplatz, where a handful of tram lines came together, was only a couple of hundred yards away. I would be at the bar, the Barley House, in 15 or 20 minutes.

  32

  The tram ran north and west of the old town and ended up on Limmatstrasse, parallel to the river and about a block away. This was working-class Zurich, and there was no more honest work -- God's work, some would say -- than working in a brewery. In this case, it was the Lowenbrau brewery, a red brick fortress which we passed on the right just before reaching my stop, Escher-Wyssplatz. Lowenbrau was more than drinkable, much more than the Feldschlösschen piss that was sold seemingly everywhere in the city. Lowenbrau also was superior to Hurlimann, another local, a semi-piss on the official Alex Kovacs rating scale.

  The Barley House was, as Brodsky had said, right outside of the tram stop. I got off the train and looked to see if anyone was following. No one was -- I was the only departing passenger, just as I had been the only person getting on the tram at Bellevueplatz. So far, so good.

  The bar was, as Brodsky had said, jammed with men wearing blue coveralls with a little Lowenbrau crest on the breast. The second shift was likely on its lunch break. If I had to guess, the brewery staggered the break times, as there was a group of workers leaving and heading back to the brewery just as another group was arriving, several of them shoveling down the last of their sandwiches at the door. A two-minute walk in each direction left 26 minutes available for the purposes of hydration, and the Barley House was quite available.

  Inside, a layer of smoke about a foot thick was clearly visible along the ceiling, even in the dim light. The walls were once white, probably, but were by then covered with the brownish stain of a million cigarettes. The floor was sticky. But the time from order to mug-in-hand was perhaps 30 seconds, which made up for the amenities. So armed, my search for Brodsky began, and I wended my way through and around the knots of brewery workers, most of whom were standing. The search, too, took about 30 seconds, as Brodsky and I were two black swans in a heaving sea of blue coveralls. He was sitting at a small table off by himself, the last one before the toilets.

  "Quaint, isn't it?" he said. I could barely hear him.

  "It's a shithole and a goldmine, a rare combination." I had leaned over and was nearly shouting in his ear. The notion that anyone could possibly overhear our conversation was out of the question. Brodsky had chosen well.

  "The owner is a friend, and you're right -- they print money. They're only closed two hours a day, between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., when they hose down the floor, and open all of the windows, and try to clear the fug. He is just a neighborhood guy, but he actually owns a chalet near St. Moritz. But he never can get away."

  "He must have to burn his clothes every night," I said. Then I theatrically sniffed the air. Picturing the owner of this place, sitting by the fire at a ski resort, sharing a fondue pot with the Duke and Duchess of Something-or-Other, was too absurd to consider. I actually chuckled out loud.

  "What's so funny?" Brodsky said.

  "I don't know. Life."

  He scolded me for not checking the fountain for chalk marks. The reason there were two marks, he said, was because he left one on Monday and a second one on Wednesday.

  "I've been drinking here four straight nights now," he said. "My liver isn't made for this. Or my lungs."

  "So what's so urgent?"

  "Only the fate of the free fucking world."

  "So the non-Soviet part?"

  "Let's agree to argue about dialectical materialism another time," he said. "At a quieter place, with proper drinks. And maybe a fire. Now just listen."

  Brodsky leaned in closer and began telling a story that, as it turned out, I already knew. It was the same story Fritz Ritter had told me in the bar in Liechtenstein -- well, pretty much the same story. The critical point was the same -- that the German attack would come through the Ardennes, and not until at least April because of the weather. The reason he offered was different, though.

  "There was a little plane crash," he said. "Two guys in a tiny plane, the one guy carrying the German invasion plans. He was supposed to be dropped off in Cologne or something, but the plane veered off-course and crashed in Belgium. Apparently, the guy tried to burn the plans before the Belgians caught him, and he thinks he succeeded. But the Germans don't believe him.

  "He was carrying the original plan, to get to France through Holland and Belgium. So Hitler demanded something different."

  Brodsky's was a more exciting tale, but the end result was identical to Ritter's, and that was the important thing. Without tipping off my source, I then leaned in and told Brodsky what Ritter had told me. He sat silently for a second. He looked kind of hurt.

  "What?" I said.

  "Why didn't you tell me before now?"

  The truth was, I had never thought about telling him because, well, I had never thought about it. Ritter was our guy, and he was too valuable to risk by sharing the info too widely, even though I wasn't sure exactly how it would be a risk.

  "I thought the deal was, I would share information that directly affected the Soviet Union," I said.

  "And this doesn't?"

  "No, not directly. Hitler can't try to screw you guys until after he's done with France and England. It's not like that's going to happen tomorrow. I wasn't given a solid date for the invasion, either, not that it would matter much to Stalin. Well, not unless he was planning to fuck Hitler while he was busy in France."

  "Ah, the pre-emptive fuck," Brodsky said. "It isn't a bad theory but, no, that isn't it. I just thought you would share it."

  "I couldn't risk the source," I said.

  We were quiet again, and in the silence was an agreement to disagree. The important thing was that we each had a second source for the German invasion plan -- and given Brodsky's background, and Ritter's connections, and the differing rationales in the two accounts, it seemed unlikely that the information originated with the same person. This was not a second parroting of the same information. No, this was confirmation.

  "I have to get
out of here -- like I said, my liver," Brodsky said. "You have one more and then go." Which is what I did. I don't know what it said about me, but I felt more excited than depressed that I was now in possession of a re-affirmation that Hitler was about to try to overrun France.

  Luckily, the tram arrived within about five minutes, which meant I could still feel the tip of my nose when I got on, barely. I walked home and chose a route past Fessler's. It was nearly 10:30, and the door was locked. But a few lights were on, and I knocked softly on the glass.

  Gregory was just finishing up, an apron tied around his waist, a white towel tossed over his shoulder. He unlocked the door, and let me in, and immediately commented on how bad I smelled. He made me take off my coat and hang it out the back door of the cafe before allowing me up the stairs to his apartment. There, we sent the new information to London. The reply arrived almost immediately. Dash, dash, dot.

  33

  The postcard was waiting for me at work about a week later. On the one hand, I was thrilled that Groucho had finally acknowledged the information we had sent and was ready to involve me in whatever was coming next. On the other hand, the picture on the postcard was of cold-assed Uetliberg, again. Wednesday at 2:30.

  And so, as instructed, I took the train out to the mountain. Seeing as how Ruchti knew about our last meeting, and likely knew about this meeting, I didn't even bother much with the counter-surveillance rigamarole that I had begun to develop, like taking the tram one stop too far and walking back to the station. Besides, there wasn't another soul in my train car. On a Wednesday afternoon, in the first week in March, after a miserable winter that had yet to bless us with its final belch -- 34 degrees and light rain were on the day's menu -- who would even think about an outing to Uetliberg?

  And so, I clambered up the iced-over path to the top, thankful that the gravel embedded in the ice somehow saved me from a pratfall. I considered the fact that I never once landed on my ass to be one of the great athletic feats of my life, second only to the time in 1914 when, at school, I won a head-to-head race against Bruno Sensenbrenner, a 100-yard dash organized by the faculty, thus gifting those in my grade having last names beginning with A-to-M a week off from physical education class. I was a hero for the rest of the term. Students I barely knew were suddenly clapping me on the back in the school hallway. If only they could see me now, lurching from one patch of gravel to the next. Back then was mere speed. This was pure athletic grace.

  At the summit, it wasn't hard to find Groucho, mostly because there wasn't another person up there, not even the hot chocolate man. The first thing I said to him was, "Will you please get some different fucking postcards before you leave town this time?"

  He responded by offering me a pull from his flask. I reached into my pocket and showed him my own, and we toasted the low cloud that hugged the mountaintop like a sweater. The drizzle had stopped but, looking out, you really couldn't see shit.

  "So?' I said, and Groucho began. His bottom line was that the British and the French didn't believe the German invasion would come through the Ardennes. I exploded with a "you've got to be fucking kidding me," and he told me to calm down and repeat everything I knew, which I did. It took me a few minutes to get through the story from Ritter about Hitler being unimpressed with the original plan, and Manstein supplying the new one, and then the story from Brodsky about the plane crash and the original plans falling into the possession of the Belgians. Groucho took it all in, nodding a few times in seeming recognition, surprised by other details and making me repeat them. Then he took a long pull from the flash, a few drops dribbling out of the side of his mouth. He wiped it with his sleeve.

  "Okay," he said. "The Manstein bit is new to us -- and that's from Ritter, yes?" I nodded.

  "This is what we have," Groucho said. "We believe the plane crash is the key element here. From the information that we have gathered, the plane crashed, and the officer tried to set fire to the plans before being captured. He was in some farm field, and a farmer even helped him with some matches, but they were captured before too much was burned up. Then they took them to a jail and left them alone with the plans for a few minutes, then the officer burned the shit out of his hands on a hot stove, trying to shovel the plans into the fire inside. They caught him, and the plans were pretty scorched, but they rescued enough of them to get the gist -- that they were coming through Holland and Belgium, very much like 1914."

  "But your best source, a fucking Abwehr general, says it isn't true anymore," I said. "And my Russian confirms it. Why won't they believe it?"

  "Because they don't think it's possible."

  "Who exactly is they?"

  "The French and British general staffs," Groucho said. "The truth is, they don't tend to agree on shit, but they agree on this."

  "But why?" I was shouting at this point.

  "They just don't see the Ardennes as a possibility. They say, 'The terrain is prohibitive.' If you look at a map, it's hard to argue."

  I had looked at a map, but I also had looked Ritter in the eye. I couldn't believe they were dismissing his intelligence.

  "This is what they think happened," Groucho said. "They see the Holland and Belgium route as the only one that makes sense militarily, given the obstacle of the Maginot Line. When the plane crashed, and we got the plans, it just confirmed what is sound military thinking. We tried to let it leak that the officer managed to burn up the plans and that we didn't really get much information. It's hard to know what the Germans believe about that. But the French and British see this Ardennes plan as misinformation from the Germans, to throw us off from the only plan that makes sense."

  At which point, I completely exploded on Groucho.

  "He's your best fucking agent," I said.

  "Well, yes."

  "And now I have confirmation from the Russian."

  Groucho nodded.

  "What am I not getting here? He's as good a source as you've ever had. He's been right about so many things. He's been right about fucking everything. He was right about Poland -- and you ignored him then."

  "How do you know that?" Groucho said.

  "How do you think?"

  I stood there, cocooned in cloud on the top of Uetliberg, seething. I had agreed to do this, to run this risk, and now my information was being ignored. I mean, what was the point?

  "Look," Groucho said. "I shouldn't tell you this, but we are a little concerned about Ritter?"

  "Concerned how?"

  "Not what you're thinking, not that he's turned on us. But we're worried that the Germans might have discovered that he has been working for us and are using him to send us false information."

  "But why?"

  "Because the Ardennes just doesn't make any sense -- how many times can I tell you? The people in charge of knowing about such things just don't believe it's possible to move a mechanized army into France on those windy roads through the woods. They consider the whole idea 'foolish.' That's what one of the Frogs supposedly called it. 'Foolish.'"

  I was thinking about quitting on the spot -- the spying, the bank, all of it. I had enough money, and I had two passports, Czech and Swiss. I could go anywhere, as far away from this whole thing as I wanted to go. The truth was, I could steal a lot more from the bank than was in my account and be over the border before anyone knew. What were they going to do -- sue me?

  "I don't know if I've ever told you this," Groucho said, "but it's dangerous to get too attached to any agent, even someone like Ritter. You need to know that. And besides, why are you defending him so strongly? I thought you believed he fucked you."

  I had thought about this. I had thought about this a lot -- how Ritter had set me up in order to neutralize the Gestapo captain who suspected him of being a Czech agent, set me up and then rescued me. I had thought about it and come to terms with it. When I answered Groucho, I wasn't yelling anymore.

  "I don't think he fucked me," I said. "But he did use me. But the more I have thought about it, I believe he used
me for the right reasons. And I think he did intend to protect me if it went wrong. And in the end, he did protect me. In a rotten fucking business, that isn't a terrible set of facts."

  We parted without a handshake or a plan to meet again. Groucho left first. I stared off into the gauze, emptying my flask. Then it was down the path for me, the descent even harder than the climb. About halfway down, I fell. The gravel tore through my pants and my drawers and ripped the skin of my ass. I felt through the hole in the cloth and then looked at my fingers. I was bleeding.

  34

  The next night was First Thursday. Marc Wegens had become a regular no-show, which further led me to believe that Hitler was going to be in the neighborhood sooner rather than later and that Marc was running around under orders, from unit to unit, attempting to maximize the abilities of Switzerland's pop-gun army in any way he could. I wouldn't have minded talking to him about the Swiss theory of the case -- whether they really thought Hitler might invade their mountain-protected, enchanted land of chocolate and hard currency -- but he might have seen that as a bit intrusive, seeing as how Herman kind of believed that Marc knew I was a spy.

  Whatever, he wasn't there. But Herman and Brodsky were, and getting shitfaced seemed to be on all three of our schedules for the evening. Dark did not begin to describe my mood, after what Groucho had told me. And after I told Herman and Brodsky that nobody believed what we had been told, it was a suitably morose threesome.

  "So let me get this straight," Herman said. "You have information about the Ardennes being the invasion point from an excellent source with an impeccable history. And Brodsky has information from a source of his that confirms what your source told you. And they still don't believe it?"

  "That's about the size of it," I said.

  "Are they idiots? I mean, truly mentally deficient?"

  "That's not it." Brodsky had been quiet, and he was still quiet, barely audible above the cheery background music, some big band I didn't recognize, lots of happy clarinets.