The Nostradamus Traitor: 1 (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

  He knew before Tubby told him that Worboys was available, and the masochist in the big man gave a small smile. He nodded. “Okay, perhaps he’d better get a real lesson. Give him some glory.” Worboys would report to him at nine-thirty and take orders from him and him alone. “No matter how senior anyone else may be. For Christ’s sake make that clear, Tubby. I really don’t know what we’ve got—a mare’s nest; one villain; or two; or none.”

  He had not eaten, and sleep did not come easy. Herbie’s mind revolved around the strange story of George Thomas’ operation with the Stellar network, the dramatics at Wewelsburg, and the abortive mission to assassinate Hess in England. He kept coming back to the awful picture of Kuche firing at the shadowy figure of Fenderman, and the terrible explosion which wiped out two of the four protagonists. He thought about Ramilies being rushed north, picking up George and taking him back to the Abbey—the hurried debriefing and, if he was right, the fast decision concerning the future: the face-saving and the interdepartmental fighting.

  Before the operation, George had been kept under wraps, so only a handful of people would know—Ramilies, Fenice Leaderer, Maitland-Wood, George himself, and, possibly, George’s wife, for he had married in the late forties, just before the end of the war, though they had met in London constantly from the end of ’42 onwards.

  Tomorrow, he thought, falling into a nightmare sleep.

  51

  LONDON 1978

  THEY HAD TO PAGE Frau Fenderman at the hotel. For a horrible moment, Herbie wondered if she had taken off on her toes in the night. But she was only having breakfast in the main dining room. He said he was sorry to bother her at this time in the morning, but wanted to check that their dinner date was still on.

  “You have news for me, Mr. Kruger?” She sounded stiff and cold on the line.

  “I think I have incredible news, Frau Fenderman.”

  “You have found out about my husband? About Claus?” Urgent now.

  “I know how he died. I may even be able to introduce you to somebody who was actually there. Will that calm your mind?”

  There was a long silence, during which Herbie wondered if this was what Hildegarde Fenderman had wanted: if this was the end of a long search or only the beginning of a new phase.

  “Can you explain more? Can you…?”

  “Better wait until this evening, Frau Fenderman. That’s why I have telephoned. I wonder if we can make our appointment a little earlier. Say six o’clock? I shall book a good restaurant, but, maybe, there will be someone you should see first.”

  She said six would be okay, and Herbie added the last piece of bait. “I might not pick you up myself. These are delicate times. If one or two men come from me, they will tell you that they are friends of Vermin. Can you remember that?”

  “Friends of vermin? It is odd. Vermin? Are you a rat catcher, Mr. Kruger?”

  “It is not good to use that word here anymore. They are called rodent operatives nowadays. Yes, Frau Fenderman, I am a rat catcher in some ways. In other ways I am like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. See you at six, or shortly after.”

  He called the pay phone in the house opposite Frau Fenderman’s hotel and checked that Schnabeln was there with Girren. “If I can’t be found, try Mr. Fincher—if she bolts that is. Just lift her and drive around. Drive to Manchester if you have to, but have her in the London area around six o’clock.” He added that he did not expect her to make a run for it. Worboys was ringing the bell while he still spoke with Schnabeln.

  He briefed Worboys over a cup of coffee. Tubby Fincher had armed the lad, which did not overplease the big German, but he managed to get everything said without actually telling Worboys any of the finer details.

  Hank, the man from the American Embassy, arrived just before ten-thirty; Rachendorf was ten minutes late. It all gave Herbie time to collect stuff from his safe—some of the remaining files, and the five photographs he had abstracted: two of the five being the doctored pictures pointed out by Bob Perry of Pix. The tapes of George’s conversations he left locked in his safe.

  Rachendorf looked unhappy. The American was full of bluster. Worboys sat near the door; the others were ranged around the table, coffee near at hand. Herbie opened—

  “This may be a fairy tale, gentlemen, but I want to talk, see what details you have brought me, and discuss the matter concerning the two sisters—Weiss, who worked for the Americans in the West, and her sister, Fenderman, who lived in the Eastern Zone. Until her illness, Weiss travelled for you a little, eh, Hank?”

  Hank said that she did a lot of things. He had told Herbie as much already. But she also travelled, Herbie persisted. “My friend here from the BND has details—haven’t you, Wolfie?”

  Rachendorf nodded glumly and removed a small file of flimsies from his briefcase. “All her outgoings and returns since she started to work for the American Secretariat in the late forties.”

  There were two sheets, the dates and places ranged in sequence, running down each page in two files. Until the clamp-down, and building the Berlin Wall, in 1961, there were infrequent visits into East Berlin. After that, about two official visits a year, to see her sister. But there were also visits further afield. From 1954 onwards, Gretchen Weiss had come to London on an average of four times a year. She had even managed a trip during the six months before she was finally confined to her bed.

  “Well?” Herbie raised his eyebrows, looking from Rachendorf to Hank and back again.

  Hank nodded. “Okay. I guess we should have come clean when you brought the matter up. Our people were running her. The sister was a contact. Late in the fifties—the spring of ’59—she became suspect of being a double.”

  Rachendorf laughed and said aloud, “Suspect? We told your people.”

  “Okay, okay. We knew she was working both sides against the middle. I had all this from the archives, and head of Berlin station last night. We kept her active and watched. It was felt we still had a hold over her if the sister—Fenderman—was kept in the East.”

  “And you got soft-hearted when the Big C struck, eh?” Herbie was not laughing; his eyes had gone very cold. “You knew all this and nobody thought it right to tell us? Even though she was paying regular visits to London?”

  “The London trips were strictly business. She came over as a guide for visiting firemen.”

  “Companion,” Rachendorf said, meaning whore.

  “She reported on them.” Hank was putting up a fight, dragging on a Camel. “We checked her out and she was ninety-five per cent right every time. She was a good watcher; a good cleaner. Gave us the works. Okay, we knew she was a double, but all doubles have their favourites. She did more for us than them, and we planted a lot of stuff through her.” He made a grimace. “Okay, we’d have closed her down, but the cancer struck first. There was no danger in her.”

  “No?” Herbie raised his eyebrows. “No danger? I wonder if Wolfie would agree with you.”

  Rachendorf swallowed. “It’s why we had her sister watched.” he spoke grudgingly. “Gretchen Weiss used to visit people in London. You should know, Herbie. They were your people. We thought you were running her as well. That’s why we watched the Fenderman woman. We thought she was simply carrying on a family tradition.”

  “You don’t know how close you may be.” Herbie grinned for the first time. “This is a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. We all know the squabbles in Western security during the Cold War. You”—he nodded towards Rachendorf—“had internecine strife between your people and the Ghelen Bureau. Neither trusted the other. None of you trusted our people or the Americans—with respect to Hank here.” He paused and looked at Hank. “Your boys trusted nobody. After the big scandals and defections, you trusted us—the British—even less. As for my people, they were all at loggerheads. In the meantime, Gretchen Weiss had two allegiances….”

  “To the West…” started Hank.

  “And to the Russians….” completed Rachendorf.r />
  Herbie shook his head. “I see it differently. She had two overriding allegiances. To herself, and to her sister. I doubt if we’ll ever know. Maybe. We shall see. I suspect that her little courier trips were all carried out for love of Hildegarde. Because I suspect Hildegarde has a husband in the West. It’s love and politics. Fanaticism and the hope that, one day, the lovers will be together in their little grey home in the East. The problem is”—Herbie stretched—“that her husband is deeply entrenched into Western security and has been for a long, long time. Since the war. Maybe before the war even. I suspect he’s probably done more damage than all the British traitors we’ve uncovered since the war. More than Vassalls, even more than Philby—king of the lot. Maybe he even ran Philby.”

  “Jesus.” Hank put his head in his hands.

  “Unlikely to be of help.” Herbie sat very still and quiet. “It’s exceptionally complicated—a comedy of errors. People keeping facts to themselves. Personally I am now only working by touch and instinct. Wolfie”—he smiled—“have you any details about Gretchen Weiss’s regular meetings in London?”

  “Only places. Descriptions.”

  “Was the Tower of London popular?”

  “Very. Every time. She would meet a man near the White Tower.”

  “She would speak to a Yeoman Warder first?”

  Rachendorf shook his head. “He would speak to a Yeoman Warder and leave a message—‘If a lady asks…’ You know?”

  Big Herbie knew—leave a message at the desk. Say you’ve been delayed and it means you’re there. The innocent-third-party technique.

  “Then she would ask and be directed or told that the gentleman could not wait,” Rachendorf continued.

  Herbie banged the table with the flat of his hand. The coffee cups rattled. “Nobody thought to mention it. God in heaven, nobody came to us and said…Never mind. I’ll have the bastard now.”

  “There going to be trouble?” Hank’s hand was shaking.

  “Don’t worry about your pensions,” Herbie rasped, his voice gruff, not the usual soft Herbie Kruger, but a tone raw with hatred. “Good morning, gentlemen. Just remain silent—like you have done all these years—not you personally, of course, but the beast organizations for which you work. Good morning.”

  When they had left, Herbie picked up the telephone. “We go and do some stirring now, eh friend Worboys? Lunch and then a big stir.” He dialled, fast, and spoke to Vernon-Smith, who said he had everything laid on. Herbie set their meeting at the Annexe at two-thirty. Then he dialled Tubby Fincher. “Flash him now”—the voice gritty. “I want a meet at two-thirty sharp and I don’t care if he’s got an appointment with God.” Tubby said he’d see all was ready.

  “Okay, lunch then.” Herbie let out a bellow at Worboys. “Set the table for two. I get the best cloth, you find the best place settings—in that drawer, there.”

  Worboys was galvanised into action. Together they set the table. Four courses, Herbie told him; and glasses for two lots of wine.

  “I don’t eat large lunches,” Worboys grumbled.

  “You’re not going to eat a large lunch.” Again the bellow—“This is for a dinner party that isn’t going to happen.” He set silver candelabra in the center of the table and charged about drawing the curtains and switching on lamps.

  Worboys just stood and watched, as though Herbie had gone out of his mind.

  When it was all finished, Big Herbie Kruger emptied the ashtrays, cleared away the cups, looked around, and told Worboys to get his coat. “We go out to lunch. I won’t be back here until late. Others might come though.”

  They drove into Kensington and parked in Abingdon Road. There were not many people lunching at the Trattoo, and Carlo was pleased to see them. “It’s been a long time, Mr. Kruger.” Carlo was good with names. “No film stars today?” Herbie asked. Carlo said only a writer, and they laughed.

  At two o’clock they left and drove down to Whitehall. Herbie was at his desk, Worboys by the door when Vermin Vernon-Smith arrived. A quick call to Tubby Fincher and they were on their way into the main building.

  Tubby had cleared the Deputy Director’s anteroom and stood guard himself. Herbie did not bother to buzz through.

  “Sorry about this, Willis, but we have to talk.”

  Willis Maitland-Wood looked surprised and went a shade white. “You’re always welcome, Herbie, but why…?”

  “Just to sit and listen. So we get it all right.” He indicated Vernon-Smith, Worboys, and Tubby Fincher.

  “Get what right?”

  “You tell me, Willis.”

  “George?”

  “Maybe George. George, Ramilies, Fenice, poor old Leaderer, and yourself, Willis. Old history. That bloody stupid Nostradamus Operation, and the aborted attempt on Hess. Have you not put it together yet? Or are you part of it?”

  “Can’t hear you, Herbie.”

  “Get your ears fixed, Willis. Let’s start at the beginning. Who recruited George?”

  Herbie knew all that, Maitland-Wood said, and Herbie replied that he wanted it from the horse’s mouth, so Maitland-Wood told him again. Ramilies was set to recruit young George Thomas while he was still at Oxford, but the lad went off and joined up. He picked him out after Dunkirk.

  “Okay, so Ramilies recruited George and set up the Nostradamus business—knowing it was bloody dangerous—knowing that friend Downay was probably a plant.”

  Maitland-Wood agreed.

  “Right. But you were quite relaxed about it, weren’t you?”

  “Well…”

  “What were you doing in the thirties, Willis?”

  “Recruiting mainly.”

  “In Europe?”

  “You know that.”

  “Where did you look?”

  “All over.”

  “No, what sort of people?”

  Worboys leaned against the door looking terrified. Vernon-Smith stood stock still, listening, or at least going through the motions. Fincher seemed worried, hovering.

  Maitland-Wood said he looked mainly among dissidents. In Germany, for instance, he sniffed around the local Communists. “They were good fodder, the younger intelligent ones.”

  “You reckoned you could sort out their politics later?”

  “We did in many cases. Youth is rebellious. Communism has an attraction which wears off with time and experience.”

  “You had a good war, Willis. It’s on record. Your people in Austria did incredible work, but some of them went back to the Russians.”

  “True. You can’t win ’em all.”

  “What about Germany?”

  “What about it?”

  “In the summer of 1933 you were on a recruiting drive in Hamburg. It’s in your book, Willis.”

  “Then that’s where I was.”

  “Who recruited Heinrich Kuche?”

  “I… I’m not sure, Herbie. Was it me?”

  “You know bloody well it was you, Willis. Tell me about Kuche, the man you put into the SS; the man who saved George Thomas and then penetrated the Ausland SD. Heinrich Kuche, the man who was killed on that incredible day’s outing to burn Rudolf Hess.”

  He was from a good family. Perfect material, the Deputy Director said. Disenchanted with what was going on, but not too overt about his contacts with the Communist Party.

  “But he was a Party member?” Herbie came close to the desk. “He was a committed Party member, wasn’t he, Willis?”

  “Weren’t they all? Yes, I suppose he was.”

  “And you got him to burn his card, have his name expunged, and join the Nazi Party.”

  “Something like that. He was the right kind of family. They bought it, didn’t they—or at least we know some of them did. He was into the SS like a shot.”

  “And you did it, Willis?”

  “Yes.”

  “Funny.” Herbie pushed some papers aside and placed his great bottom on the edge of the Deputy Director’s desk.

  “Strange. George clearly recalls K
uche telling him that he was recruited by their mutual friend Ramilies.”

  “A trick of memory. A mistake.” Maitland-Wood gave a nervous laugh and smoothed back his pelt of grey hair.

  Herbie slowly shook his head. “He was most explicit about it. According to George, he talked a lot with Kuche. Talked a lot about Ramilies. I don’t think you were mentioned much. Haven’t you ever wondered, Willis? Haven’t you ever really kept your eyes open? Sure you recruited Kuche. But why the rest of it? Can’t you see what you all did? What you’ve done?”

  Maitland-Wood looked at him, face frozen in shock. “Oh Christ. Oh no. He couldn’t. After all we did to…”

  “Tell us about it, Willis. Tell us about it; and why.”

  Vernon-Smith had a notebook out, but Herbie laid a hand over it.

  The telephone rang and Worboys stirred, but Herbie picked it up and muttered into the mouthpiece that the Deputy Director was not to be disturbed—only if there was a call for him: Kruger.

  After that, Willis Maitland-Wood talked. He spoke for nearly an hour.

  52

  LONDON 1978

  TUBBY FINCHER TOOK CHARGE of Willis Maitland-Wood. He would see him home and stay with him. The shock had been as great to Willis as any of them. The Director had been notified and was already on his way back. But even an RAF jet would not bring him home in time for the kill. In the space of an hour, the Deputy Director had filled in some of the gaps—the fairy story was not an imagined tale any longer. Though the final act had still to be played out.

  Herbie went up to George Thomas’ department on his own, carrying a pile of papers, smug with the knowledge that Frau Fenderman had not stirred from her room all day. There had been no word from Schnabeln and Girren. Vernon-Smith was back with his own people, probably on their way to one of the final destinations at this very moment—Vermin with a couple of his heavies and at least one woman officer.

  The fourth floor was as alive as ever. The watch bitch eyed Herbie with distaste. “Tell him I have news,” Herbie said, and, like magic, he was admitted to the office where George sat in his shirt sleeves.