Jack of Spies

by David Downing

  “Someone at the consulate is researching boats and trains, and they’ve also asked the embassy in Mexico City for advice—we don’t want you pitching up in a war zone. The moment I get anything, I’ll have it sent to your hotel.”

  “Okay.”

  “At least it’ll be hot down there,” Kensley told him. “Most likely in more ways than one.”

  McColl went back to his hotel and soaked in the bath for almost half an hour, pondering the sudden change in his situation. How was he going to explain an abrupt departure for Mexico? Business, he supposed, and once he thought about it, the fictional details came readily enough to mind. Sometimes he couldn’t help wondering why Caitlin hadn’t seen through him, but that, he knew, was only because he was so guiltily aware of the deception. She was focused on her own affairs, and he had given her no obvious reason to doubt him.

  She arrived soon after six, her eyes shining with excitement. “I’ve got a new job,” she burst out after they’d kissed and embraced. “On the Times no less. I’m the new editor for women’s issues. The very first one, come to that.”

  “That’s wonderful,” he said, and kissed her again. He knew how much this meant to her. “When do you start?”

  “Monday, eight A.M. Let’s go out and celebrate!”

  “Let’s.”

  They walked to a swanky restaurant she knew a few blocks north on Fifth. After eating a ridiculously expensive meal and drinking far too much, they took a cab back to the hotel, negotiated the elevator with what felt like great aplomb, and somehow ended up making love on the floor of his room. It was only after room service had provided the coffee to sober them both that he felt able to broach the matter of his imminent departure.

  She looked stunned. “But why Mexico?”

  “Our rep there has been taken ill, and right in the middle of sewing up some deals. So Tim wants me to go down there and tie things up.”

  “To Mexico City?”

  “Yep,” McColl lied, thinking Tampico might sound suspicious.

  “Will you be coming back here or going straight on to England?”

  “I don’t know that yet. But I’ll be back here eventually. You haven’t seen the last of me.”

  “No,” she said, and put her head on his shoulder. “And there’s no hurry, is there? For us, I mean.”

  “None at all.”

  “And we can have this weekend.”

  “Can you stay?”

  She smiled but shook her head. “Not tonight. They’re expecting me home, and I want to tell Aunt Orla about my job. She’s waited a long time for something like this.”

  “Of course.”

  “But Saturday and Sunday—I’ll make up some sort of story. Look,” she said, putting him at arm’s length and looking him straight in the face. “Come to Brooklyn in the morning—there are places I want to show you, places that mean a lot to me.”

  “I’d love to,” he said. “I love you,” he added, the words just slipping out, like light through carelessly drawn drapes.

  “And I love you,” she replied, with a smile that seemed almost sorrowful. “And that’s usually the end of the story, isn’t it? Not the beginning.”

  Next morning a package arrived from Kensley. The wad of dollars seemed more generous when McColl also found a railroad ticket to Galveston—the US government was apparently sending ships down to Tampico from the Texas port to pick up American citizens threatened by a rebel advance. It seemed less beneficent when he realized he still had the hotel bill to pay.

  He was expected to travel under the name John Bradley. The vice-consul in Tampico knew that someone with that name was coming, and would brief him on the local situation when he arrived. If Tampico fell to the rebels—a possibility, McColl noticed, that Kensley had previously neglected to mention—communication would be through the embassy in Mexico City.

  His journey would begin with a train to Washington, D.C., leaving from the New Jersey terminus of the Pennsylvania Railroad at ten on Monday morning.

  After breakfast on Saturday, he took the subway down to City Hall and the el from Park Row across the Brooklyn Bridge to the other Fifth Avenue. She was waiting at the Sixteenth Street exit, looking as gorgeous as ever and drawing admiring glances from every male who passed her. After taking McColl’s arm and steering him eastward, she told him how happy she’d made her aunt and how even her father had offered his congratulations. Neither had objected to her spending two nights in Manhattan with Eleanor, even though her fictional friend lacked a telephone. “My aunt might have her suspicions,” Caitlin admitted, “but I think she’s realized that either I’m still a virgin—in which case there’s no need to worry—or I’m already far beyond saving. Either way …”

  For the next couple of hours, they toured her childhood haunts—her first school, the family church, the store where she and Colm had bought their Saturday candy. They crossed Prospect Park, stopping to look at the menagerie—“I was crazy about animals when I was little”—and the swan boats on the lake in the Long Meadow, before riding the carousel with a host of noisy children. The last place on Caitlin’s list was Green-Wood Cemetery, a Gothic-gated enclave of forested hills, ponds, and mausoleums in the heart of the city. She added flowers to those already adorning her mother’s grave. “Finola comes every week,” she explained. “She remembers our mother. I don’t, not really. And sometimes I wonder how different my life would have been if she had lived. She wasn’t a strong woman like Aunt Orla. So I expect my loss would have been Colm’s gain.” She looked down at the gravestone. “But she was my mother,” she said after a few moments.

  Neither said much on the train back to Manhattan. He’d felt touched that she wanted to show him her past, but the tour had served to emphasize the reality of their imminent separation. He couldn’t stop counting hours now, imagining the world without her while she was still on his arm.

  She seemed to feel it, too, and her insistence on visiting friends that evening seemed designed to distract them both. The gathering, when they reached it, was part party, part political meeting, with animated discussions under way in every nook and cranny of several smoke-filled rooms. McColl was able to put faces to several of the names Caitlin had mentioned: the anarchist Margaret Sanger, who was vigorously lecturing two much younger men on the political significance of birth control; the author Sinclair Lewis, holding court with a pair of younger women; the journalist Jack Reed, who moved from group to group, wineglass in one hand, cigarette in the other, dropping off ideas like an intellectual postman.

  And there was also the famous Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who, much to McColl’s surprise, looked even younger than Caitlin. She had missed the rally in Paterson but had been there for much of the strike and seemed heartened and dismayed in equal measure by Caitlin’s report on the wives and McColl’s account of the mayhem on Market Street.

  He could see that Caitlin was in her element and found himself wondering if he’d ever fit in. He had hoped Oxford would be something like this but had soon realized his mistake. The crushing burden of hierarchy and tradition, the breathtaking prejudice, the remarkable stupidity of so many fellow students, who were only there because Daddy had money or breeding—all combined to thwart any real adventures of the intellect. Perhaps he was being naïve and Harvard and Yale were every bit as bad, but in these rooms, in this city, America did feel like the land of the free. These people were using their brains, and they seemed to enjoy the process no end.

  The party moved on soon after ten, when Reed announced he was keen to go dancing. Almost everyone came along, though some could barely keep to the sidewalk, let alone move to music. The dance hall around the corner was already full, the Negro orchestra louder than any that McColl had ever heard. He and Caitlin managed two dances before agreeing it must be bedtime.

  Sunday was the third bright day in a row, ready-made for a walk around Central Park. They were sitting by the lake when Caitlin suddenly announced that Colm was going back to Ireland that summer.

>   “With Tiernan?” McColl asked.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “Are you worried about him?”

  She laughed. “Of course. I spent most of my childhood looking after him. It’s hard to lose the habit.” She sighed. “But he’s a grown man now, and I’m the last person who should object to anyone chasing after his own star.”

  “But?”

  “I don’t like Seán very much. He’s one of those people with a deep sense of injustice but no sense of love.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. She had described Tiernan perfectly. And his friend Brady.

  That evening, lying in bed after making love, she asked him if he was tired of her.

  “God, no. How can you ask?”

  She took a moment before replying. “Do you remember me saying, on the ship, that one day we could part like friends, with no regrets?

  McColl felt a literal pain in his heart. “Yes.”

  “In case you hadn’t realized, I’ve changed my mind. So how about you? Do you think we have a future together?”

  “I thought you were about to say that this is good-bye.”

  She reached out a hand to caress his cheek. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “There’s nothing I want more.”

  “I have to take this job.”

  “I know.”

  “Will you think about coming to live here?”

  “If you’ll think about living in England. We have newspapers, too, you know.”

  She smiled. “All right. Anything’s possible.”

  Monday morning he was awake before her, and lying there studying her sleeping face, he had a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to make a full confession. But after waking she went straight to the bathroom and on returning snuggled into his arms, scattering all semblance of resolve.

  He had packed the previous evening, and after breakfasting downstairs they took a taxi together to the railroad ferry. One long last embrace and he was walking aboard, hardly able to credit the fact of their parting. As the ferry set off, his eyes sought and found her, standing by the open cab door, waving and blowing him a kiss. He waved back, and she stood there for what seemed a long time before finally turning and climbing inside. The cab pulled out behind a passing streetcar and was swallowed by the city.

  Hotel México

  The ship’s auxiliary tender moved up the wide Pánuco River in the tropical darkness, showing no lights and, so far, attracting no attention from whoever held possession of the two shores. It was still remarkably hot but not particularly humid, and over the last few minutes a welcome breeze had sprung up. That morning, according to the grizzled Texan named Doherty who commanded the tender, Tampico had still been in the hands of Huerta loyalists. It probably still was, but Pablo González’s Constitutionalist troops had been probing the town’s outer defenses for several days and sooner or later seemed bound to break through.

  The tender had already passed abandoned oil-company wharves and storage installations on both sides of the torpid river, and it was hard to judge how far away the occasional bursts of gunfire were coming from. Several fires were burning out on the coastal plain to the north, but it was impossible to tell whether they were intentional burn-offs or consequences of war.

  All in all, McColl had been to more welcoming places. Maybe by day it would look less threatening, but by night it reminded him of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, and he wouldn’t have been shocked to see men spread-eagle on fiery wheels lining the banks of the river.

  A week had passed since his departure from New York City. It had taken him two days to reach Galveston and two more for Cumming to secure him a place on one of the relief ships heading south down the Gulf coastline. This rusty old freighter had a top speed of around eight knots and had been overtaken by every other ship heading their way. Many of those had been American warships, whose reason for rushing southward doubtless had something to do with the escalating squabble between the two countries. This had broken out while he was still twisting his thumbs in Galveston; as the city rag had explained it, some American sailors in Tampico—whose only crime had been to purchase some much-needed fuel for their boat—had been taken into custody by insolent Mexican soldiers. They had quickly been released with an apology, but the local American naval commander had deemed the latter insufficient. He had demanded a more formal obeisance, one that included a twenty-one-gun salute to his flag.

  When McColl’s freighter had finally arrived off the mouth of the Pánuco three days later, the sea had been thronged with warships. The Dutch, German, and British were all represented, but most of the ships were American. This threatening presence suggested that the latest Mexican response had been insufficiently obsequious, an impression verified by the locally based Doherty. And in the meantime another incident had taken place—an American army orderly had been arrested in Veracruz, farther down the coast. According to Doherty, Washington had reacted to this second misunderstanding with an equally childish lack of proportion. “Wilson wants to make a point,” the Texan had concluded. He himself had voted for Roosevelt’s Progressives.

  Oh, good, McColl had thought—now he had the Americans to worry about as well as the Germans.

  The tender was gliding past another silent oil jetty, but if the faintly glowing sky ahead was any guide, the city of Tampico was not yet in darkness. Ten minutes later, as the tender rounded a sharp bend in the river, he could see it for himself, a scattering of yellow lights along the northern shore. These were soon hidden from view by the warehouse stretching the length of the wharf, which seemed suspiciously deserted.

  But no fusillade greeted their approach or interrupted their tying up and landing. McColl thanked Doherty for the lift and hung back while the representatives of government, navy and Big Oil who had shared his trip upriver started out, with evident trepidation, in the direction of the town.

  It was closer than it looked. Beyond the long warehouse, a pedestrian footbridge carried arrivals over a fan of railway tracks and deposited them at the southern edge of the town’s principal plaza. And here, McColl was pleased to see, life was still going on. There were uniforms on display but no drawn guns, and most of the walkers enjoying the evening air were couples, with or without obvious chaperones. Although the cantinas on the rim of the plaza were hardly doing a roaring business, none looked in any danger of going bankrupt.

  A sudden ripple of gunfire sounded in the distance, but no one seemed to pay it any mind. Still, McColl thought, it might be wise to check how far away the front line actually was. In the morning, when it was light.

  There were several hotels in the plaza, all looking much of a muchness. He had no idea whether von Schön was still in Mexico, let alone in this one small Gulf port, but if this was where trouble was brewing for the British, then McColl wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised to find him frequenting one of the hotel bars. According to the briefing from London that Kensley had sent on to Galveston, Mexico supplied over 90 percent of the oil that kept the Royal Navy at sea. It was hard to imagine a bigger prize for a German spy.

  If McColl ran into von Schön, he supposed he would shake the German’s hand. The man had probably saved his life, after all. And then each would try to thwart the other, in as civilized a manner as possible. Or something like that. But everything being equal, McColl decided, he would much rather that the German remain in ignorance of his arrival. Looking back over his relationship with von Schön, it was hard to escape the conclusion that his counterpart’s experience in these matters was greater than this own.

  He decided to eschew the plaza itself. On one of the streets leading off it, he found several other hotels, slightly more seedy perhaps, but less likely to have German guests. The young man at reception seemed slightly surprised to see a gringo, but business was clearly business, and at McColl’s request he showed him a room overlooking the street. It was remarkably devoid of furniture, just a bed and a jug of water, side by side on the floor. The walls were splattered with squ
ashed mosquitoes, but that didn’t worry McColl overmuch—when it came to natural gifts, his unpopularity with that particular insect rivaled his linguistic aptitude.

  On impulse he showed the young man the picture of von Schön leaving the Ghadar house in San Francisco. “Yes,” the Mexican said. “I have seen him in the plaza. Two days ago maybe. A friend of yours?”

  “A business acquaintance.”

  “Ah. You pay in advance, please.”

  After handing over the cost of an American coffee for a three-night stay, McColl was shown a cleaner-than-expected bathroom and toilet down the hall and advised to patronize a particular restaurant up the street, which was famous for its guachinango. Once the boy had retreated downstairs, McColl opened the door-length windows that led onto his balcony and stepped gingerly out onto the wrought-iron structure. He could give speeches from here, he thought.

  It seemed too early for bed, so he walked back down to the plaza and its parade of local life. He found a seat outside a cantina in a convenient patch of shadow and sat with a beer for half an hour, pondering the task that Cumming had given him. The first step was to seek out any suspicious German travelers without alerting them to his own presence or purpose. And provided he didn’t run into von Schön, that shouldn’t be difficult. The next move would be to intercept any communications with embassy or homeland and get a better idea of what they were up to.

  As he sat there in the semidarkness, watching insects orbit the lamp above the door and listening to the singer inside croon mournful melodies over a badly tuned guitar, it all seemed a bit unreal. He had never been to Mexico before, but he already felt fond of the place.

  He got up and walked warily around one side of the square and back across the footbridge to the long wharf. A line of big birds was perched on the ridge of the warehouse roof—vultures or buzzards of some sort or other—but they showed no interest in him. He sat on an iron capstan at the edge of the slow-moving river, feeling the weight of the rolling water and wondering what Caitlin was doing in New York. He had not yet written to her, and when he did work out what he wanted to say, the letter would have to be sent via the British consulate in the capital.