The Bavarian Gate

by John Dalmas

  "Deutsch," Anna answered in German. "You were no doubt given erroneous names for us. I am Anna Hofstetter, and he is Kurt Montag. He speaks only German."

  The man's eyebrows arched. "Only German?" he said. "It is strange to send someone here who speaks only German." He turned to Macurdy. "How did you come here? Under the circumstances."

  "We came in an Unterseeboot!" Macurdy's pride and pleasure sounded childish. "All the way from"—he paused as if groping for the place name—"Saint-Nazaire. That is in France."

  Their host's eyebrows had jumped again, not at what Montag had said, but at his dialect. "You are Baltic German!"

  "Jawohl."

  "It is good to hear baltisches Deutsch after so long. Where are you from? East Prussia I think."

  Their host proved talkative, soon addressing himself more to Anna than to Montag, because she seemed much the more intelligent. He was an ethnic German from Lithuania, from Memel, where his father had worked in a shipyard, when there was work to be had. Times had been hard. As a child, he himself had gotten involved in the underworld, and later in political issues. "Here," he said, "I pass as a Litvak, a Jew," and chuckled sourly. "I am known as Israel Geltman. At ten I was a runner for a criminal syndicate, and the fences to whom I carried messages were mostly Jews. I got on their good side by learning Yiddish. In Memel were enough Germans, the Yiddish wasn't too different from German anyway."

  Then he asked more about Kurt Montag—where he'd grown up, what he'd done. Not primarily out of curiosity; he was examining the two, watching for signs of deceit. Macurdy was considerably protected by his mentally dull persona, and at length Geltman asked, "Fräulein Hofstetter, what is it that Herr Montag does, that he has been sent here?"

  "He has certain—abilities, Herr Geltman, which I am not free to talk about, and you are better off not to know. Be content that he is not here to handle cargo on the docks, as he did before he was—discovered."

  Geltman looked at Macurdy thoughtfully; he had no idea what she was talking about. "Excuse me, Fräulein. I did not realize..."

  "Of course. One would not realize. That is another virtue of Herr Montag's: People look at him and do not realize."

  She paused. "I presume you will be notifying someone that we are here?"

  He nodded and stood up. "Please excuse me. I must make a phone call." He went into his living room, and they could hear him speaking Yiddish on the phone. When he was done, he came back in. "It will be awhile before someone arrives. When did you last eat?"

  "At noon."

  "Ah. I suppose I must offer you supper." He took boiled potatoes and boiled beef from the icebox, heated them, and put out unleavened bread and margarine. "I eat and live like a real Jew," he said. "Ironic, is it not? I have even been circumcised! But I do not go to the synagogue. Fortunately, it is enough to be a secular Jew. Otherwise I'd have had to spend years learning all their verdammte rules." He shrugged, then smiled. "Actually it is not a bad life. I make eyeglasses. Not very many; enough to serve as cover."

  When they'd eaten, he took two narrow mattresses from a cupboard. To Macurdy they looked like those on army cots, right down to the blue stripes. "You might as well sleep," Geltman said. "We can't know when you'll be sent for, and I must leave. I have contacts of my own to see to."

  * * *

  Macurdy awoke to dawnlight filtering through sooty unwashed windows. Anna still slept. His watch read 6:14, Greenwich Daylight Time; he wondered when they'd be picked up, or whether someone would come there to examine them. Geltman hadn't returned, so he poked among the man's books. Most were in English, but some were in Hebrew script, Yiddish, Macurdy supposed, and wondered if Geltman could actually read them. If in fact Geltman read any of them; his life history didn't suggest someone who read much. After a while, Macurdy settled on one, a stout volume entitled—History of England from the Accession of James the Second, by Thomas Babington Macaulay. He didn't, he realized, know much about English history, so sitting on a sooty windowsill beside the bookcase, he browsed the book for quite a while, returning it to the shelf whenever he heard feet in the hall.

  While he browsed, Anna got up and disappeared into the bathroom, to emerge muttering that the tub wasn't fit for swine. She was poking around the small kitchen when Macurdy heard voices in the corridor and popped the book into its slot again. One of the voices was Geltman's, followed a moment later by a key rattling in the lock. While donning his Montag persona, Macurdy made a mental note to check Macaulay out of the Nehtaka County Library someday. Fritzi would like it too.

  Geltman brought with him a long, rawboned man with quick nervous movements and a Cockney accent. Dispensing with introductions, which was understandable, Geltman told his guests they were leaving right away. "To breakfast," he added.

  A taxi was parked at the curb. The Cockney got in behind the wheel, Geltman beside him, Anna and Montag in back, and drove off. The two men in front talked the whole trip in Yiddish, which surprised Macurdy: It hadn't occurred to him there were Jewish cockneys. He understood snatches of it from its kinship to German and its sprinkling of English. They were talking about the war, and rationing.

  About two miles from Geltman's, the driver let them out. Geltman paid him—presumably the cabby had to account for his gas if not his time—and led them into a Chinese restaurant. It was nearly empty of customers at that hour, and so quiet, it seemed to Macurdy that sound was somehow suppressed there. The Chinese host even walked soundlessly. Geltman asked for a private room, "Just large enough for four or five." Nodding, the Chinese led them to one, smiled, presented them with small, dog-eared menus, and left.

  Geltman spoke quietly to Anna in English. "We will meet someone here," he said, then gave his attention to the menu. Shortly a waitress arrived with tea, and following Geltman's lead, Anna and Montag ordered the "Assorted Chinese Favorites." They had no idea whether Geltman was familiar with the plate or not.

  Before the food arrived, the man they were waiting for came in, sitting down without asking, his cool gaze appraising Anna and Montag. Macurdy evaded it, while Anna returned it calmly, no doubt reading the man's thoughts. Finally their visitor spoke to her, quietly and in very proper, public school English, with a hint of accent that Macurdy guessed was Scandinavian.

  "Are you familiar with Professor Gebhardt? Personally or by reputation?"

  "I've never heard of him," Anna replied.

  "What of Friedrich Krohn?"

  "He's well enough known. He publishes the Volkischer Beobachter, or did at one time."

  "Anything else?"

  "Not insofar as I'm aware."

  "Colonel Sanne?"

  "I'm not free to speak of Colonel Sanne; I was assigned elsewhere, previous to my present activity."

  The man paused to digest that for a few seconds. "And what of Aktion Hess?"

  She snorted, as if impatient with the questions. "Many people knew of that, though most not by name. It was talked about openly where I was previously assigned."

  Her answers opened Macurdy's eyes; Anna was more than simply a psychic recruited for the Voitik Project. He began to see why MI5, and perhaps more, the SIS would be interested in her.

  The visitor nodded as if satisfied, and stood up. "Thank you for an interesting conversation, Miss Hofstetter," he said, and nodding, left.

  Macurdy would have liked to ask her questions of his own, but there sat Geltman, so they simply waited till their meal was brought to them. Then they ate and left.

  A different cab sat at the curb, its flag down. When the driver saw them come out, he reached over and raised it. "Cab!" Geltman called, and the driver, getting out, opened the back. They climbed in, and a moment later the driver pulled away from the curb without asking their destination or being given one. Geltman said nothing; obviously their transportation had been prearranged, perhaps with the help of the Yiddish-speaking Cockney or Anna's Scandinavian questioner.

  For several minutes the cabby followed a seemingly random course, as if watching for a pos
sible tail, then drove west for a mile or more toward the city's heart, as always passing through or around bomb-shattered blocks and burned-out neighborhoods, the damage put to order, but awaiting less demanding times to be rebuilt.

  Turning north, they entered a residential district and stopped in front of a flat, then went to the entrance, where the driver, not Geltman, pressed one of the buttons by the door. A round speaker grid sounded, the voice electronic, female, and British.

  "Who is it?"

  "Miss Henderson," the driver said, an obvious reference to Aunt Agnes. If there'd been any doubt before, Macurdy told himself, this killed it: Theirs was not an ordinary cabby.

  "Just a moment. Someone will be down."

  They waited. In perhaps two minutes the door was opened by an oriental male. This one had curly hair: part Chinese and part something else. The man also reminded him a bit of Roy Klaplanahoo—shorter, perhaps five feet nine, and even burlier, but giving a similar sense of physical strength.

  The eyes were different though—slanted, hooded, suspicious. "Come in," he said after a moment, his voice surly. Macurdy found himself surprised the man had actually spoken. Geltman and the cabby stayed behind, no doubt to leave in the cab, and Anna and Montag followed the oriental up flights of stairs, through the smell of old carpet, mildew and disinfectant, to the third floor flat, where he let them into a small foyer, then a sitting room. There they were met by an attractive young woman with wire-rimmed glasses.

  "You are Anna Hofstetter?" she asked.

  "I am. Though the cabby announced me as Miss Henderson."

  The woman ignored the comment, and did not give her own name. Without looking at him she asked, "I take it then that this is Mr. Monday."

  "That's right."

  "When did you arrive?"

  Macurdy's guts grabbed. This was a moment of threat.

  "I might better ask why you didn't," Anna replied. "We were put ashore three nights back, and spent several hours freezing on the beach while we waited. When dawn came and your people hadn't, we walked to a road, caught a ride, took a room and slept."

  She paused, staring critically at her questioner. "The next night we walked back to the beach, which was not an easy task for Mr. Monday, with his war wounds. Hopefully you can appreciate the risk, going about like that so near the coast, with Mr. Monday speaking only German! No one came that night, either, so we returned to East Dunsford and called my Aunt. We'd have been quite stranded if it weren't for her."

  The young woman had stiffened. "You must recognize the strain on operations here," she countered. "Captain Streicher and two others were arrested last Wednesday, and operations were totally disrupted. We'd expected you some time, but didn't know on what night. We never received the signal."

  Anna nodded. "Quite understandable. And I suppose one never knows if the—transportation—will get through the naval and aerial patrols."

  "Of course."

  It felt to Macurdy as if the two women had worked out a needed basis of mutual respect. For a moment he'd been prepared to cast a shock wave at the Oriental, if there were trouble. For at that moment he realized what had been missing in his lessons at the schloss: To cast an emotion effectively, he, at least, needed to feel emotion.

  "You've eaten, I presume," the woman said.

  "Within the hour. After your Scandinavian questioned us."

  "Well then. You'll have another bit of a wait, but it shouldn't be extreme. Meanwhile I've work to do." She gestured at the oriental. "Bahn will look after you. You'll find magazines and newspapers. Don't believe the news from the war fronts. It's all lies."

  "Naturally."

  The woman turned away, then paused and looked back. "By the way," she said, "my name is Alice," then left the room.

  Anna caught Macurdy's displeasure at the prospect of sitting around for an indeterminate time with nothing he could safely do, so she translated aloud to him from the paper, from articles on the war. Pausing several times to repeat in German, "You see now, Kurt, why it is so important to the Fatherland that you are here. When it is all over, you will be a very great hero."

  The wait was shorter than he'd expected. The buzzer sounded three short blasts in rapid succession, startlingly loud and harsh. There'd been no call from the front entrance—this was someone with access to the building—but Bahn got quickly to his feet, stepped to the door, and opened it.

  The new station chief stepped inside and spoke in pure American English. "Hello, Bahn. Have we had visitors yet?" Stepping into view, he looked toward Anna and Montag, and Macurdy's blood froze. He made a flash self-review: His hair had been lank then, now it was bur-cut. And he'd known no German.

  Anna was getting to her feet. Slowly, clumsily, Montag followed suit, standing round-shouldered, gaze fixed on the floor, looking as small as he could, creating an image of a different him, while opening his mind to Anna.

  The man switched to German. "Ah! Fräulein Hofstetter I presume. And this must be Herr Montag." Abruptly he stiffened, and his right hand shot out in the Nazi salute. "Heil Hitler!" he barked, but not too loudly, then relaxed and smiled. "You will excuse my slowness in greeting you properly. It is a practice I've had to repress since I've been here."

  He stepped toward them and shook first Anna's hand, then Montag's, showing no suspicion. Macurdy had regained his composure, but did not relax his exaggerated Montag persona. Apparently since they'd passed the preliminary vetting by the Irishman, Geltman, and the Swede or whatever he was, Hansi was accepting them at face value.

  "I am Oberleutnant Hans Dietrich Schweiger, and as you have realized, I am the station chief here. I am also known as John Sweiger, of Portland, Oregon, USA. I report on the war for the Associated Press, and on occasion have spoken to the American public via NBC radio." He smiled wryly. "Journalists are the only contact Americans have with what, to Europeans and the English, are the realities of war."

  He examined Montag more closely now, looking not for falsenesses, but at a claim he found hard to accept, even from Berlin—that this creature, this refugee from the eugenics authorities, was an actual, functioning psychic who could cast confusion and panic through SHAEF, and disrupt the invasion.

  Or had the eugenicists already had him? The fellow certainly seemed cowed; he could almost smell his timidity. He'd heard rumors that thousands of the feeble-minded had been sterilized, and assumed it meant castration.

  "Well," he said, "we have work to do, you and I. Fräulein Hofstetter, if you and Herr Montag will come with me to my office..." He turned and led them down a hall to the study: a fairly large room with a desk, file cabinets, supply cabinets, work table, and a gas fireplace. "I'm afraid I'm not fully operational here yet," he told them, "though Fräulein Gwynne has made major headway. We've had to move some of my things out to make room, and assemble, move in and organize a good deal of material for my new responsibilities. All having to be done very carefully, you understand. I have also been obtaining the materials which Herr Montag must have to carry out his mission here. And of course, I must continue my duties as a journalist, which not only provide my cover identity, but provide important contacts and information."

  From the supply cabinet he took a map tube and laid it on the work table, then from a file cabinet, several large envelopes, meanwhile continuing to talk. "I've arranged locations from which Herr Montag can see both the Bushy Park headquarters and Norfolk House. I have even—" he paused to flash a grin at them "—have even obtained floor plans of both buildings, marked with the departments assigned to different areas.

  "There may be difficulty getting near enough to recognize individual personnel, but perhaps we can work around that." From one envelope he took photo prints of uniformed men. "Here are enlarged photos of all the major ones: Eisenhower, Tedder, Montgomery, Smith, Leigh-Mallory ... all of them. The names are on the bottom. And here are photos of some of the lesser fish, with their names and what they do. Can he work from photos?"

  "I don't know that he's ever tried,"
Anna said. "And I must tell you, being in a strange country has affected him. He has always been shy; now he's become somewhat depressed. He will be happier when he has things to do. In training he was sometimes like a happy child."

  She paused, frowning thoughtfully. "Do you have a photo of someone we can test him on? They'd need to be in a building he can see—in a known part of the building—and we'd need some way of knowing whether he's had an effect or not. We should look into that before we go further."

  Hansi nodded. "I believe you are right. But first we should eat."

  He took them back into the sitting room, where Bahn was already fixing lunch. They had open-faced sandwiches with cheese paste, a kind of fish Macurdy wasn't familiar with, potato, rice pudding, and tea—not a lot of any of it. Macurdy decided that in countries where civilian rationing was tight, he'd been fortunate in eating military meals.