Jack of Spies

by David Downing

  He asked how her family was treating her.

  “Like a homecoming queen. But what have you been doing?”

  “Not much, compared to you. Jed and Mac had arranged everything by the time I got here, and they seem so proud of how professional they’ve both become that I’ve more or less left them to it. I’ve been doing a lot of walking—I even got lost the other day.”

  “In Manhattan?”

  “Well, I expect I’d have found my way home, but a six-year-old sold me directions for a dime.”

  She laughed. “Have you taken the Staten Island Ferry? That only costs a nickel, and it’s a lovely ride. When I go away, it’s usually the first thing I do when I come back. Like I’m saying hello to the city.”

  “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  “Oh, and Central Park. You have to walk from one end to the other—it’s close to three miles. But pick a nice day.”

  “Maybe we could do that together.”

  “I’d love to, when I have some time to spare. Now I have something to ask you. My aunt invites you to lunch next Sunday—will you come?”

  “Oh. Of course. I’d love to,” he added, though his emotions were actually mixed. He welcomed what the invitation implied about her feelings, but couldn’t help worrying over how Cumming and Kensley might seek to exploit it.

  “Didn’t you think you’d be meeting my family?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about that.”

  She took his hand. “Much as I like being ravished in luxury hotel rooms and train compartments, I think it’s time we brought our romance into the open.”

  “You’re not going to announce that we’ve been enjoying intimate relations since Shanghai?” he asked, more than slightly alarmed.

  She laughed. “At the dinner table, you mean? No, I don’t think so. But I’d like you to meet my family, and I’d like them to know that you and I are … are fond of each other.”

  “Have you told them anything about me? About us?”

  “Just my Aunt Orla. What you do, where you come from, how we met. That we like each other.”

  “Will they all be there? At dinner, I mean.”

  “Maybe not Fergus, but everyone else. And there’s a young man from Ireland who’s staying with us for a few weeks.”

  “Will I have need of the Scottish accent?”

  “Just a touch, perhaps.”

  McColl had cause to visit Central Park earlier than he expected. The note on his carpet the following morning was brief and to the point: “59th and Fifth at 10:00 A.M., NK.” He saw the others off to the showroom, lingered over a second coffee in the hotel restaurant, and took the elevated on Sixth up to the Fifty-Eighth Street terminus. It was a fine spring day; above the soaring buildings the sun was playing hide-and-seek in a forest of white clouds.

  Kensley was waiting on the specified corner, wearing the usual clothes and smoking the usual cigarette.

  “Why the change of venue?” McColl asked as they dodged across the busy street toward the park entrance.

  “It always pays to keep them guessing,” Kensley said. “And my girlfriend tells me I need the exercise.”

  They walked down a wide pathway, a small expanse of water off to their left. McColl had recently read a newspaper article lamenting the state of the park, but it didn’t look too neglected.

  Kensley stopped to light a new cigarette from the butt of the old. “Cumming has a proposition for you,” he announced.

  “Yes?”

  “A full-time job with the Service.”

  “I see.” It was what he had wanted, but what would Cumming want in return? “And how would that work?” he asked warily.

  “What do you mean?”

  He wasn’t going to do Kensley’s work for him. “Well, I’d need a new cover story for a start.”

  The Canadian grunted. “Well, you wouldn’t be much use with an automobile permanently in tow. So yes, you would. But I’ve no idea what Cumming has in mind—something diplomatic perhaps.”

  “Not a permanent posting somewhere?”

  “I doubt that very much. He tells me you speak nine languages, and I expect he intends to make use of them all.”

  They were on a bridge across a transverse road, and Kensley stopped to watch a bright red Ford pass underneath. “I had a look at your Maia the other day. How much would that cost me?”

  “Almost three thousand dollars.”

  “Pity I don’t have a grandmother to sell,” was the Canadian’s reply. He tossed the cigarette over the parapet and set off again. “Your first job would be here,” he went on, almost too casually. “And you’re not a fool—I’m sure you can guess what Cumming wants from you.”

  “Why don’t you spell it out?”

  “Okay. He wants you to use your relationship with Caitlin Hanley to infiltrate republican circles here in New York. To find out how and when they plan to ship the arms and what de Lacey’s ‘joint operation’ is, assuming it even exists.”

  They walked awhile in silence, McColl wondering if Kensley had checked that he and Caitlin were still seeing each other or had simply taken it for granted. The former, most likely.

  “We’re assuming she doesn’t know that you’ve been working for the Service?”

  “No, of course not.” Though he’d been tempted to tell her more than once.

  “Well, in that case …”

  It was McColl’s turn to stop. “So since I’m already lying to her, I might as well betray her completely?”

  Kensley ignored the anger. “There’s no suggestion that she has any part in any of this. Or her father, come to that. From what we can gather, his activist days are over.”

  “And her brother Colm?”

  “Not even him,” Kensley insisted, setting them in motion once more. “You wouldn’t be targeting the Hanleys, just making use of their contacts.”

  They were passing a statue of Columbus, which seemed strangely appropriate—the Italian explorer had never had more than the foggiest idea of where he was actually going. McColl knew he shouldn’t blame Cumming, who could hardly ignore such an obvious opportunity.

  “And Cumming asked me to tell you this,” Kensley went on. “That your country is facing its greatest challenge for a century and that this business you’ve uncovered could make a huge difference to whether or not it survives.”

  “The stakes are high, then,” McColl murmured sardonically. He sighed. “I find it hard to believe that a few Irish exiles in New York City could do any serious damage to the British Empire.”

  “The world’s a much smaller place than it used to be,” Kensley retorted. “And trouble tends to spread more quickly.”

  “Maybe,” McColl conceded. Rather than swap more bland assertions, he changed the subject. “Where I come from, a job offer usually comes with a figure attached.”

  “I suspect you can more or less name your own.”

  “Which means Cumming hasn’t?”

  “No, but I do know that the Admiralty has increased his budget. Their lordships are worried, too.”

  McColl put up a hand. “Look, I’ll have to think about it. I’d love a full-time position, but this particular business … I don’t know.” How could he justify spying on her?

  “This business doesn’t exactly suit serious relationships.”

  McColl looked at him. “That sounded heartfelt.”

  “When I moved to New York, my wife stayed in Toronto. The job had already done us in.”

  “Ah.”

  “Have you met her family yet?”

  “No.” He almost told Kensley he was meeting them on Sunday, but something held him back.

  “Okay. You think it over. In the meantime we’ll be tackling the German end. We’ve confirmed that Rieber works for Hamburg America, but what position he holds is far from clear. It’s probably a shell job. He doesn’t seem connected to their embassy in any way, and Cumming thinks it’s possible that the Germans have set up a Secret Service like ours, one even
more independent of the military than we are. Rieber lives in a very nice apartment uptown on the West Side, so someone’s plying him with funds. He might lead us straight to his Irish contacts here, but they’re probably using a cutout, and it might be easier to make the connection from the Irish side.”

  And perhaps through the Hanleys, McColl thought. “And the GF in the letter,” Kensley was saying. “There’s a Geli Furtwangler who works in the San Francisco consulate, but she’s only nineteen and seems an unlikely prospect. Of course GF could be Irish …”

  “If I run into a Gerry Flynn, I’ll let you know.”

  After leaving Kensley at the park entrance, McColl took the subway south to the end of the line and sought out the ferry to Staten Island. He needed a place to sort through his options, and the rail of a ship crisscrossing New York Harbor seemed as good as any.

  The day was getting even nicer, and as the ferry struck out for the distant shoreline, he spent a few minutes just enjoying the view. A sudden awareness of movement to his rear had him twisting around, but it was only a boy in pursuit of a rubber ball. The mother gave McColl a What’s the matter with you? look and walked on toward the stern.

  Was he getting careless? He found it hard to imagine the Germans sanctioning his murder in such a public place, particularly one that offered the killer no hope of escape.

  He could see the Statue of Liberty now and away to the right the huge immigration building on Ellis Island, which looked from a distance like a cross between the Tower of London and a railway terminus. The Ellis Island wharves were lined with small boats, which had presumably ferried would-be immigrants from their transatlantic ships. Most would be welcomed, but some, after all that hope and effort, would be sent back to Europe. Compared to theirs, his problems were small.

  But real enough. Why did he want to work for the Service? Because until Caitlin had appeared, working for Cumming had been the one thing in his life that had allowed him to feel good about himself. Speaking a multitude of tongues had always made him feel a bit of a freak, more like a performing animal than the master of a real craft, and learning that he had a talent for something else had pleased him immensely. It was dangerous work, but he rather enjoyed danger, as long as he had some measure of control over the situation. It wasn’t like being in the army, where you could end up buried in a trench on the say-so of some moronic general you had never met. And if worse came to worst, a full-time post in the Service would presumably exempt him from ever being at that sort of idiot’s mercy again.

  If Caitlin had never appeared, he would have jumped at the offer.

  But she had, and as he was willing to admit to himself, he had come to love her. Had, in fact, loved her almost from the day they met. So how could he justify spying on her family and deceiving her in order to do so? Loving someone should involve some sort of honesty.

  This felt like the moment he had to choose, but was it that simple? Given a choice between life with her and life with Cumming, he wouldn’t have needed to think about it. But if a few more hours of hotel passion and a sad good-bye were all that she was offering, then the scales began to tip. Whatever they’d had certainly bowled him over, but that didn’t mean it was built to last. Once they brought everything out in the open, would it all just crumble away? People said that sexual passion always cooled eventually, and how did he know the two of them had anything more? If it turned out they didn’t, he would have given up the life he wanted for a few weeks of romanticized lust.

  What would happen if he refused Cumming’s request? Someone else would be found to investigate the Hanleys, someone much less sympathetic. And if her father or her brother ended up in prison, his own role in the chain of events would probably be revealed and his refusal would count for nothing.

  What if he said yes? He had bristled at Kensley’s unspoken suggestion that a betrayal had already occurred, but only because it contained more than a few grains of truth. He had certainly deceived her, and although he didn’t believe he had betrayed her in any real sense, he knew that she would think he had. In this regard he had nothing left to lose.

  If Kensley was right, and not just sugarcoating the pill when he said that the Hanleys were not really implicated, then perhaps there was a way. If they were only stepping-stones, could he not step lightly across and leave them none the wiser? If it turned out that they were implicated, then the question would be—in what? If father and sons were up to their necks in plots against the empire, then he would just have to play God and decide for himself how big a threat they posed. A German alliance, a bombing campaign in London, a plot to kill the King—any of those and he would have to give them up and no doubt lose her in the process. But despite de Lacey’s letter, he found anything that ambitious hard to imagine. Irish-Americans had been making anti-English noises for decades, but what had they actually done? They were still celebrating the Fenian triumph of 1867, which as far as McColl could make out had been a catastrophic failure.

  And if all that the Hanleys were involved in was running a few guns to Ireland, then good luck to them. Everyone on God’s earth seemed hell-bent on arming themselves, so why not the Irish Catholics? He would simply tell Kensley and Cumming that he hadn’t found anything out.

  Whatever dark secrets the Hanleys had, he would be the one to uncover them and the one who decided which to pass on. He would not betray her if he could possibly avoid it, and maybe, at some point in the future, the moment would come when he could tell her the truth and perhaps even earn her forgiveness. It didn’t sound the likeliest outcome, but stranger things had happened, and what other hope did he have?

  As the ferry steamed back toward Manhattan, his relief at reaching some sort of decision was tempered by a sudden flash of memory—his mother in the kitchen at Fort William, talking to his grandmother about his father and saying, with a striking blend of bitterness and awe, “That man could forgive himself for anything.”

  He spent most of the next three days with Jed and Mac, working by day and making the most of New York’s entertainment industries by night. A couple of hours on the Friday afternoon were all he spent with Caitlin, and there was no fresh word from Kensley or Cumming. They had probably decided that further persuasion would be counterproductive, and McColl, for his part, was in no hurry to announce acceptance of the proffered job.

  At noon on Sunday, he found himself standing across the street from the Hanley family’s four-story Brooklyn brownstone. A twitch of the front parlor’s curtains told him he had been spotted, and he started across the street. He hardly had time to let go of the iron knocker when the door swung open to reveal a thin young girl wearing a maid’s cap and a plain working shift. Behind her in the hall, a small, elderly woman was waiting to greet him, Caitlin at her shoulder.

  “I’m Orla McDonnell,” the woman said, offering a hand. She seemed older than McColl had imagined, well into her sixties. Stern features were softened by warm brown eyes, and her long gray hair was coiled in a loose bun. Her short, slim figure was encased in a wine red dress of heavy fabric with a high, military-style collar.

  “Jack McColl,” he replied, presenting the bouquet of daffodils he had bought on Prospect Avenue.

  “They’re lovely,” she said, with more than a trace of Irish accent. “Thank you kindly. Mary, find a vase and put these in water. Mr. McColl, please come through.”

  “Jack, please.” He followed her into the front parlor, giving Caitlin’s hand a brief squeeze as he went past her.

  The man within was probably seventy. He put aside his newspaper, rose from his chair with less than perfect ease, and advanced to shake McColl’s hand. “This is Caitlin’s father,” Orla announced, “my brother, Ronan.”

  Ronan Hanley was several inches taller than his sister and stocky without being fat. His gray hair was slicked back from his forehead above—and there was no other word for it—twinkling green eyes. After everything Caitlin had told him about her father—and much that she hadn’t—McColl had been expecting a man to d
islike, but his first impression was quite the opposite. He reminded himself how amazed acquaintances of his own family had been whenever they heard him criticize his father.

  There were two others in the room. Caitlin’s sister, Finola, had neatly curled light brown hair and big green eyes; she was the prettier of the two, but not, in McColl’s estimation, the more beautiful. Her husband, Patrick, was dark and almost insultingly handsome, but he seemed friendly enough.

  They all sat down. Caitlin’s father asked McColl a couple of questions about automobiles and their possible future and then seemed content to let his sister dictate the conversation. She was more interested in McColl’s gift for languages and ticked all nine off with her fingers. “What do you do—learn a new one each year?”

  “Nothing so deliberate. I’ve traveled a lot, and I just seem to pick them up.” On the wall behind Orla, there was a painting of a woman who looked remarkably like Caitlin and was presumably her mother.

  “I understand that your elder son is a lawyer,” McColl said to Caitlin’s father after Orla and Caitlin had excused themselves to check on lunch.

  “Yes, he’s at his wife’s parents’ today. I have two children with sense, Mr. McColl—Fergus and Finola here. And then there’s Caitlin and Colm—I expect the boy’ll be down when the mood takes him. Orla tells me I shouldn’t complain—that once upon a time I was a bit of a rebel myself—but these days the young don’t seem to know when to stop.” He looked at McColl. “But then I suppose you’re of a mind with Caitlin and her radical friends or you wouldn’t be taking up with her.”

  “I agree with a lot of her ideas,” McColl said cautiously. “Though I sometimes think she expects too much too quickly.”