I glared at him, wondering why again I’d brought him along. Oh, yeah--friendly face.
“Well,” he mumbled, blowing his nose into a handkerchief, “at least I didn’t say Great Ganymede.”
Fleming went on. “Nicolas was the youngest of the two brothers, born in Kiev in 1921.”
I calculated. “So he’s at least thirty-eight. Any distinguishing features? Walks with a limp?”
“Ah...possibly. Accounts vary on that point.”
“Affects a knowledge of rare books, but hasn’t any?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Never mind. So he’s a man of mystery.”
“He is that. But I’ve got our top people working on it and we’ll know more soon.”
I switched topics, trying to find firmer ground. “And who, exactly, is this Agent Poole, anyway?”
Molly seemed more interested in this subject than I’d expected. “Aye, I’d like to know more aboot that pairson maself.”
Fleming shot Walt a glance to indicate that the ball was in his court.
Walt appeared to have anticipated the question. He snuffed out his cigarette, eased back in his chair, and took a deep breath. “That’s--” he said, as I leaned forward, “--classified.”
“Wad!?” Norman screeched.
“Come on, Walt,” I said, almost upsetting an ashtray with the sweep of my open hand. “That’s horseshit and you know it.”
Fleming edged between us. “Well, I know that Agent Poole has a long history of successful operations, the most recent being undercover work with another American agent who died during the shooting of that Ben Hur movie in Italy.”
Walt said nothing, so Fleming went on. “Back-channel chatter has it that the agent who died during filming was secretly involved in high-level Central-European espionage operations. And that his death would be an embarrassment to your nation. The Soviets plan to use Agent Poole in order to capitalize on the matter and its immediate cover-up. It will be a coup for them if Agent Poole gives up the necessary information and confirms the rumor as the truth.”
“How do we know we can depend on this guy keeping his mouth shut?” I asked. “What if he’s made a secret deal with the Russians and is only pretending to be captured?”
“This is simply a rescue operation,” Walt said, firing up another cigarette. The reflected flame gave his face an odd highlight, illuminating it with un-guessed strength. “And you’re wrong for two reasons. One, Agent Poole has been a loyal operative for over fifteen years. During that time, several highly financial offers have been made in the past and turned down flat.”
“And the other reason?”
“He’s a she.”
Okay. Play your silly game, I thought. “Isn’t that irrelevant?”
Walt puffed quietly. “Not always. And not in this case. The important thing is that the opposition is bound to apply pressure or resort to drugs. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Which is why we must move quickly,” Molly mused, “ta save the poor woman.”
No one argued the point as the meeting broke up, but I still had what felt like reasonable doubts.
***
The next morning, Molly called my room. “Ah, yar awyke,” she purred and invited me to breakfast. “That white streak in yar hair is very sex-xy.”
“I’ll be down in ten minutes.”
Seated in the near-empty restaurant, after we’d ordered, she confided that she’d conducted a “Wee-bit-o spyin” the evening before and had overheard Ian and Walt talking together last in the night after we’d all retired.
“Can I ask ya a question?”
“Of course,” I replied, noting the stirring effects of her lilac perfume. She wore a thin scarlet ribbon around her neck and I just couldn’t take my eyes off it.
“Would ja like for me ta give ya a blow--”
“Hold it!” I said, stiffening my neck and one other place.
Her green eyes searched mine, as she continued, “--by blow description of what I heard them discussin’?”
My heart rate slowed to normal. “Just hit the high points.”
“Well,” she breathed. “They thought you might be a sort of barginin chip with Agent Poole and kept talkin aboot ya two.”
“Both me and Norm?”
“I’m not certain exactly. It sounded more like ya two were a kinda codename or somthin’.”
I was beginning to feel lost again and it was only nine o’clock in the morning. I realized that I was going to have to adapt to her new information or ignore it. I didn’t like the sound of the bargaining chip comment and frankly didn’t care much what happened one way or the other to Agent Poole. “I’m not here to play games,” I told her. “I’m here for one reason only and that’s to get a crack at the people who threatened me and killed Max.”
Her smile froze for a second, but she seemed to accept my words as the final comment on the subject, adding, “I love a tough guy.”
We finished our poached eggs and bacon and, an hour later, we were back in Ian’s room with the other three tough guys. He distributed flight information and altered passports. We each needed a new profession if we planned to go into East Germany, behind the Iron Curtain. Walt was now a film importer from Hollywood. Ian and Molly were travel writers for separate British newspapers. Norm and I were reporters from the Saturday Evening Post.
Norm was a little disappointed. He’d had his heart set on getting a “secret identity” and a new name during the mission behind enemy lines. He wanted to play the role of a successful Pasadena businessman and already had a name picked out: Mr. Martin N. Lewis.
“Some other time,” Fleming said, handing out German Marks and a few small diamonds to each of us. “These roles will make more sense once we meet our contact in West Berlin.”
Walt seemed satisfied, but warned, “The entire city will soon be barracked and blocked, East to West, with barbed wire, high walls, and even land mines. All in order to stop the daily flow of hundreds of refugees to the West.”
“Hmm,” I mused. “And we’ll be going the other way, like lambs to the slaughter.”
Fleming smirked. “I can see that you are a man of quick intelligence.”
‘Cheeky bastard,’ said the Noir Man.
“‘Fret not thyself because o’ the ungodly.’ Psalm 37, verse 1,” Molly said.
There was nothing to say to that.
But Norm advised, “A greab man once said, ‘We cannot hab peace widout sacrifice.’”
“Who?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but it sounds greab, huh?”
CHAPTER 15
Once we landed at the Tempelhof airport in West Berlin, we pretty much knew what our next move would be. After an uneventful flight, if you didn’t count the fact that Norm was airsick again, we filed through customs and gathered at a table near the big window-wall of the airport lounge. Through the plate glass, I could see a bright green BP truck refueling the wing tanks of our DC-6.
Molly had been to West Berlin before and told us how her ex-partner had died here, falling screaming into a band saw, sliced to shreds.
Norm was certain that she’d made up the tale just to confound us, but she swore, “He was an arse, in the end,” and chuckled lightly at her own pun. I was never going to understand British humor.
“There’s no peace, saith my God, to the wicked,” she added with a wink. “Isaiah 57, verse 21.”
Not to be fully taken in by her tale, Norm immediately came back with, “Yeah, well, who’s the straightest man in the Bible?”
Molly glanced at all of us, hoping for an answer and then shrugged, “I dinno?”
“Joseph, since Pharaoh made da ruler of him. Genesis 41, verse something.”
“The only thing older than yesterday’s espionage information,” Walt commented, “is a bad joke like that one.”
I had to agree and I said that it was a sign that the diverse members of our little team were beginning to bond.
This last word c
aused Fleming to suspect yet another pun, which I didn’t understand at first until Norm said through his stuffy nose, “You dough--James Bond?”
A cloud of black smoke puffed out of the starboard inboard engine of the shining DC-6, as the prop began to turn. It felt like my last chance to get out.
‘Quit while you’re ahead,’ the Noir Man insisted.
I found myself yearning to be back on my boat, safe and listening to cool jazz. And that reminded me again of the last time I’d seen Max. I owed him to continue on with this affair to its conclusion, wherever that led.
“Anyone know who that guy in the tweed suit is?” I asked. “He’s been watching us and is now coming over.”
Like Molly, Fleming apparently had been to West Berlin before. Our approaching contact man turned out to be a German theoretical physics professor named Herbert Franke, who enjoyed drinking beer and smoking cork-tipped cigarettes. Norm was delighted to learn that the solid-looking man with the lazy smile also dabbled in science fiction and had arranged for our happy crew to attend a small conclave of “sci-fi” writers in the Soviet side of the city.
Our reason for going to the East would be based on that literary event. Ian was to pretend to be working on an idea for a sequel to his airplane-car novel, Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. Walt was thinking of casting Fred MacMurray in the picture. And I was supposedly researching the concept of putting a time-machine in the flying vehicle. All perfectly sane cover stories for science fiction, but Norm said, “Dat’s da stupidest thing I eber heard of,” and sneezed again.
We piled into a couple of waiting taxis and drove to the Café Marquardt on Kurfurstendamm, not far from the gutted ruin of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The bombed out tower of the church stood on its traffic island as a solitary reminder of the war, silhouetted against the glass facades of new office buildings.
West Berlin didn’t strike me as a particularly friendly town. The streets were clogged with those bug Beetle cars, like an infestation.
The tram noises and distant screeching of the U-Bahn as it took a big curve into the zoo station accompanied our light lunch of schnitzel and potatoes with cream.
From there we walked a short block to the Hotel Kempinski, near the Brandenburg Gate. The big and brooding structure was set in a small park, less than a hundred yards from a railway underpass. In the old days, the building might have been a town house, but it had come down in the world since then.
Franke got us checked in and then begged off from any further association with our party. We were on our own, but this smoke and mirrors stuff appeared to be a piece of cake, easy as pie. I hoped the menu wouldn’t change.
After a shower, I found that my suitcase had been searched. When we got back from sharing a drink in the hotel bar, it appeared that it had been searched again. Under the circumstances, I could hardly wait to see what would happen when we got to the Soviet sector.
Norm’s condition became worse. He was feverish now from his infected leg. I knew that he would have to stay behind here in the West and hoped that Molly could supply him with protection and medical assistance. “You two can play chess and wait for our call,” I said.
Molly accepted this mildly, but Norm still insisted on going along.
The Irish lass began combing her auburn hair, trying to entice him. “Yar one hep cat, Norman, ma lad. Stay awhile with me until yar feelin better.”
But he still wasn’t buying it, saying that he’d be letting me down. “Mock my words, you’re gonda need me.” Then he gave a harsh, liquid cough.
“Look,” I reasoned, “when things get grim, you’re the guy I go to for help and to lift my spirits. You’re not just my Tonto, Bernardo, or Alfred. You’re my partner, buddy. We can’t both be down at the same time, right?”
“I guess...” he said in a voice that sounded like Andy Devine’s and then he sneezed again.
“Bless you. Okay then,” I said, taking a small key from a flap in my wallet. “If I don’t make it back, use this on a safety deposit box at the CalFed bank. I want you to have what’s inside and--”
“Is dis where the bodies are buried?” he asked, accepting the key.
“--and tell Suzi that I love her.”
“She lobs you too. She said so before we left. An’ subthing else, but--”
“I’ve got one for you,” I went on. “Have you heard? It’s in the stars. Next July we collide with Mars.”
He nodded and completed the lyric with: “Well, did jew eber. What a swell party dis is.”
“That’s absolutely right. Swell party,” I said, handing him Karloff’s cane. “Now stay off that leg. You can pretend to be Bat Masterson with that walking stick. Get me?”
“Gotcha good,” he replied, sniffling.
“Look after him, Molly,” I said. “Get him to tell you all about Jack Kirby, the Green Ashcan, or Phil Dick. We should be back by then.”
As I closed the door behind me, I heard her ask him about Flyface. They’d get along just fine together.
***
Walt and Ian were arguing. They did that a lot.
“You make films, for God’s sake,” Fleming protested. “What do you know of real life?”
“Stagecraft is much like spycraft,” Walt replied, waving his lit cigarette. “Remember how we held you all together during the war?”
“The war?” Fleming bristled under his growing mustache. “Why you insufferable--”
“Hey!” I shouted. “Do I have to separate you two? Keep it together until after Operation Bay City.”
“What’s that?” they both asked, which was my intent all along.
“What we’re doing now. Named it after the most corrupt city I ever heard of. Seems fitting, don’t you think?”
“Well, he’s creative,” Ian said to Walt. “I’ll grant you that.” Then he turned to me. “Why are you always joking things up?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably something I heard about Hemingway. He said a real man performs with grace under pressure.”
“Well, we’ve certainly got the pressure,” he allowed. “But we’re not going anywhere near the state of Grace.”
I tasted bile. Despite what we’d been through together, neither one of these men would let their guard fully down and take me into their confidence. I was beginning to better understand how Norman must have felt at times while learning “eye-craft” from me.
I noticed that the bags under Walt’s eyes were almost as large as Bob Mitchum’s. His shoulders and back were carried stiffly, as if he’d left the coat hanger in his suit jacket. Coming all the way from LA, he must have been suffering from severe jet lag.
I informed them of my decision to hold Norm back and asked Ian if Molly could protect him while we were gone. He thought it through and agreed that it could be useful to have them waiting at the British station here in the West.
An hour later, we went down to the street and caught a jam-packed city subway into East Berlin. Most of the people in the train were heavily shawled women who had probably taken the risk of crossing over to the West to shop.
The doors closed and the train slid into its dark tunnel. I’d never ridden underground before and found it less unnerving than traveling high above it.
When we stepped off at the Spittelmarkt station in the Soviet sector, we lined up before military guards who searched us for weapons. Ian was pinch-searched and his Walther 7.65 was confiscated. A serious-faced youth in an ill-fitting uniform only patted me down and I got through with my Beretta still resting in an inside coat pocket. They let Walt keep his Mickey Mouse watch.
As we left the checkpoint, we passed a huge poster showing two Germans in the uniforms of the Volks Polizei and the State Security Police. Ian had previously briefed us on the dangers of encountering the Vopos or the MVD. At least the cops of Bay City weren’t armed with machineguns like the police here were. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, I thought.
Monolithic blocks of apartment buildings stood guard along the arbit
rary line that divided East from West--their doors and windows boarded or cemented, their roofs spotted with small nests of baby machine guns.
In square area, the old imperial capital of Germany was almost as big as Los Angeles. In a few places, there’s no high or solid wall across the border, just rows of barbed wire and patrolling military men with occasional guard dogs. There’s a no man’s land that must have been mined and re-mined, perhaps by both sides. If you set foot there, you’d be blown to bits and bratwurst.
Seeing all the guard towers and fast patrol boats even on the canals that flowed through the city, I wondered how and if we’d ever get back.
But the Rover Boys didn’t seem concerned as much as I was. They were back to arguing with each other.
“I hear that your Sleeping Beauty was a financial loss,” Ian said.
“Let’s not discuss it,” Walt answered, looking strange without his mustache.
“If I were you,” Ian went on, sliding a cigarette into the metal tip of his holder, “I’d be thinking of abandoning animated features. Maybe consider an adult picture? Possibly a Bond movie?”
“Your over-sexed spy-boy doesn’t fit my audience demographic.”
Fleming shrugged. “Kids grow up before you know it, Walt.”
They were so alike and yet so different.
We skipped the science-fiction meeting, of course, and finally spotted our contact man with the red carnation seated alone at a sidewalk table in front of a café. He was a dapper, but plump soul toying with a butter knife and digging at table cloth in what appeared to be bored distraction. Before we could approach him, two Vopos stopped in front of him and escorted him to a waiting car that carried him away.
I caught Walt looking behind us, as if he were searching for someone or something.
“Now what?” I asked.
Ian gestured and we assumed the empty table as the service and table cloth were cleared away for the next customer. Life goes on in East Berlin, just as it does in the rest of the world. Right?
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