Jack 1939

by Francine Mathews

  Schoenborn Palace, as the embassy was called, was four hundred years old. It had been built on the ruins of an even older building destroyed by the Swedes during the Thirty Years’ War. Four distinct wings enclosing three green courtyards spread out from the deceptive little gate letting onto Tržište Street; the palace had more than a hundred rooms. Some of the ceilings were thirty feet high. From its windows, the castle walls and the spire of St. Vitus Cathedral were visible.

  As he followed Kennan’s car through the gates and parked within the palace’s encircling arms, he knew that he had shut out Heydrich’s killers for the night; but he would have to leave the embassy in the morning, and the Gestapo would be waiting for him.

  He’d invaded their territory.

  The long delay at the border and the longer drive back to Prague had given them time. They would know how to use it.

  * * *

  “DAVID ARMSTRONG,” the commercial attaché said, as he shook Jack’s hand. “Long day? Want a drink? Food’s a crapshoot, under the circumstances, but alcohol’s plentiful. The palace has cellars, and successive generations of ambassadors have stocked ’em.”

  George Kennan had barely acknowledged Jack as he strode into the embassy, being far more intent on a brief of the situation since he’d left Prague that morning. But before he completely ignored the ambassador’s son he’d ordered Armstrong to show Mr. Kennedy his room, and make sure he had what he needed.

  “I’d love a drink,” Jack said.

  “Will rye suit, or do you prefer Bourbon?”

  “Either. Both.”

  “I like a two-fisted drinker.”

  Armstrong showed Jack to his room. It was clean and spare. A window overlooked the gardens, blowsy with August.

  “Meet me at the foot of the stairs in twenty minutes,” Armstrong said, “and I’ll hand you a glass. If you’re not too tired, there’s a place down the street that does a good beef stew. We’ll have to hurry. Curfew.”

  “I thought only Germans got beef in Prague.”

  Armstrong grinned. “So it’s probably horse. Or mule. But the food’s not the point. It’s been weeks since I’ve talked to anybody from outside. I’d like the view from London.”

  “I’d like the view from Prague,” Jack replied.

  “Ah, yes. The senior thesis.”

  “Kennan told you.”

  “He told everybody. At the top of his lungs. You’re persona non grata here, Mr. Kennedy, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Then call me Jack,” he said.

  * * *

  ARMSTRONG’S CAFÉ WAS sandwiched into one of the tiny buildings that lined the quarter, a narrow but deep room that was airless in August. The only available table was in the back, near the kitchen, where the smells and the heat were most intense. Privately, Jack thought the celebrated stew was made of goat, not horse. He toyed with it while Armstrong talked about his reassignment. He was headed to London himself in two days.

  “It’s taken a few weeks to figure out the protocol,” the commercial attaché explained as he poured a glass of raw red wine for each of them, “but the Czech government-in-exile has set up shop in your dad’s neck of the woods, and State doesn’t want to burden him with a second job. They’re relocating most of the Prague staffers to London, so we can liaise there with our old friends.”

  “An embassy-in-exile. Will Kennan be ambassador?”

  “He’d like that,” Armstrong said with a smile, “which is why he’s running such a damn tight ship as chargé now. But I don’t think he’s senior enough. Not the kind of guy who makes a statement to the Germans. For that, Roosevelt’ll want one of his friends. Tony Biddle, for instance, if the Nazis run him out of Poland in a few weeks.”

  “You leave Wednesday?”

  Armstrong nodded. “Part of the legation’s advance guard.”

  Jack’s heart thumped painfully. “Kennan said the airport was closed.”

  “Depends who you pay.”

  Naturally. He filed the fact away in a corner of his brain, in case he needed to leave Czechoslovakia fast. How much would it cost to save his particular hide? Probably depended on whether he had to pay the Czechs, or the Gestapo.

  “Tell me something, Jack,” Armstrong said. “Why is Neville Chamberlain still in power?”

  “I thought he was grouse-shooting in Scotland.”

  “I suppose that’s as good a way as any to ignore Poland.”

  “How long do you think they’ve got?”

  “—before the Panzers show up?” Armstrong glanced at his watch. “Hitler likes to invade on Fridays. Catches people like Chamberlain off guard, just as they’re closing up shop and heading to the country house for the weekend. But it’s already Monday and there’s no smell of war in the air, so I’m betting on next week. First of September.”

  “Five bucks says it’s this Friday,” Jack offered.

  “Done,” Armstrong said. “I’ll collect when we’re both back in London.”

  There was a commotion at the café door; Jack glanced over his shoulder and saw three Germans.

  One of them was Hans Obst.

  Diana’s butcher was hanging behind his two companions, who were loudly demanding a table. He wore a Gestapo uniform tonight and his blond hair shone with virtue. The Pride of the Aryan Nation, in search of Jack Kennedy and a free meal. It was a foregone conclusion the Gestapo didn’t pay.

  “Time for the check,” Armstrong said, with a glance at the Germans. “Those guys are unpredictable, and they’re already drunk.”

  Jack was staring at the Spider, a whistling in his ears. His body flooded with heat, then with cold. Standing there. As though he’d never sliced into her heart—

  “Jack?” Armstrong shook his arm. “You all right?”

  He didn’t answer immediately, his mind sifting the possibilities. Dobler was in Prague—Dobler was in this restaurant—because he was following Jack on Heydrich’s orders. There would be no mistakes this time: Jack was supposed to die. Which made the likelihood of getting Diana’s stash out of the train station pretty remote. The Gestapo would follow him and corner him there, by the Main Train Station’s Left Luggage counter.

  “Sure I’m fine,” he told Armstrong. “Is there a back way out of this place?”

  The attaché looked at him strangely. “You short on cash, or something?”

  “No—no. I just can’t walk past those guys.”

  Armstrong did not glance at the Gestapo. Instead, he rose and tossed some currency on the table, purposely screening Jack with his body.

  “You’ll have to go through the kitchen. The doors are fifteen feet behind you, to the right. The kitchen opens onto an alley. Move casually or you’ll draw their eyes.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jack shoved back his chair and slouched toward the kitchen doors, his chin tucked into his collar and his hands in his pockets. Waiting for gunfire or a shout in German.

  The doors swung violently open and a waiter skirted Jack neatly, an oval tray held high over his head. Jack ducked through the opening and the doors swung closed behind him.

  The kitchen was tiny and sweltering. Heat struck him in the face like a blast wave. A single range with three pots bubbling on its burners was against the far wall, a triad of ovens beneath. A chef in a dirty white jacket stood before it, surrounded by three waiters and a woman Jack recognized as the hostess, arguing loudly in Czech. None of them turned to look at him as he slid by. The door to the alley was open to the August night.

  He stepped out, his breath coming in gasps. He glanced left and then right, forcing himself to think. They had walked down Tržište Street from the embassy toward the river. If the alley ran parallel to the street—and why should it not, except that the quarter was a thousand years old and never built on a grid?—the river would be on
his left. Therefore, he should turn right to head back toward the embassy.

  He turned right.

  He had gone perhaps fifty feet, stumbling on the cobbles in the blackout darkness, trying not to breathe too loudly though his heart was racing, and listening for some sound, any sound, that might betray a waiting enemy. There was a fainter darkness ahead of him that suggested an opening in the narrow alley, as though it ran into a wider lane. He stepped carefully toward this gray area, navigating the piles of garbage that punctuated the back lots of Malá Strana.

  And then suddenly there was a nerve-tearing screech and an indistinct form rocketed over Jack’s shoulder.

  He cried aloud in shock, his nerve ends jumping, and pressed himself flat against a wall. The Luger already clutched in his right hand.

  It was only a cat, foraging in the garbage. Only a cat, he told his thumping heart.

  “Jack.”

  He glanced to the end of the alley, and the man waiting there. Obst?

  “Hey, Armstrong,” he said, pocketing his gun. And stumbled toward him.

  FIFTY-FOUR. THE DECOY

  “I CABLED SECRETARY HULL,” Kennan said as he stopped Jack in the embassy’s foyer the next morning, “and lodged my official complaint. I told him I had better things to do than babysit Joe Kennedy’s kids. His answer came this morning.”

  “I’d like to hear it.” Jack bounced a little on the balls of his feet, his hands thrust in his trouser pockets. Hull was no fan of his father’s. He expected the secretary’s language would be choice and abusive.

  “Please offer Mr. Kennedy every possible assistance,” Kennan recited scathingly, “per the orders of the President.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “I guess I’m just one of them,” Jack said.

  “Oh, believe me, you are.” Kennan’s eyes snapped with dislike. “So what possible assistance can I offer you today, Mr. Kennedy?”

  “Von Neurath.”

  “Konstantin von Neurath?” The chargé was stunned. “The Protector of Bohemia?”

  “Well—only Hitler calls him that, you know. The Czechs have saltier names for him. I’d like to interview the guy.”

  Kennan’s face flushed. “And you think I can just pick up the phone and get you a slot?”

  “Personally, I doubt you’ve got that kind of clout, George,” he said apologetically. “But Hull seems to think otherwise. And Roosevelt certainly does.”

  For an instant he thought Kennan was going to punch him. But the chargé merely thrust his face dangerously toward Jack’s, before he wheeled and went into his office. The door slammed. Jack grinned and saluted it before he strolled down the hall in search of Dave Armstrong.

  * * *

  HE FOUND THE COMMERCIAL ATTACHÉ packing up his office for London. Jack was glad he’d taken the time to eat with Armstrong last night, and not simply because the man had saved his life. Armstrong was good in a tight spot, and he had something Jack thought could be useful: a plane flying out of Prague tomorrow.

  “Think you’ll be searched on the tarmac before takeoff?” he asked as he glanced around the chaos of the attaché’s office.

  “By the Gestapo? I doubt it,” Armstrong said. “We’re neutral diplomats, Jack. And if they touch our commo equipment, I can tell you we’ll put a bullet through their brains. Why?”

  “Would you do me a favor, and take something home for me?”

  “To London?”

  “Sure. You’ll get there long before I do.” He made a show of fishing through his wallet for Diana’s claim stub, and handed it to Armstrong. “Only I haven’t got the package, exactly. It’s at the train station. So you’d really have to be a pal, and pick it up.”

  Armstrong studied the ticket in bewilderment. “You’re asking me to quit packing and run all the way over to the Left Luggage counter? What the hell is this about?”

  “My mother.” Jack studied the attaché’s office; crates were strewn everywhere, filled with files and mementoes. He slid a photograph from a manila sleeve. A dark-haired girl in a headscarf and sunglasses smiled at the camera. Armstrong was no fool: the real subject was behind the girl—some kind of factory. Munitions, probably. On the Slovak border. Maybe where the Germans had developed the Heydrich-Enigma.

  Jack whistled appreciatively. “Say, she’s a looker, Dave. Anybody I should know?”

  “Barbara Casey, Smith ’37,” he replied, harassed. “Look, Jack, I’m busy. I’ve got the entire office to pack, not to mention my clothes. The plane’s scheduled for eight a.m. tomorrow.”

  “My mother,” Jack persisted, replacing the photograph in its sleeve, “was wandering around the world this winter. Cairo, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Athens—and then she got this sudden call from my dad about a command performance at the Pope’s Coronation. Dropped everything and flew to Rome, in the middle of March.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “It is. Very Catholic, Rose—big fan of the Pope’s. Had him to the Bronxville house when he was just a cardinal, and never used the chair he sat in again. Put a rope across it, so our mortal asses wouldn’t sully the great man’s seat.”

  “Jack—”

  “Point is, Dave, she parked some things in Prague on the way. In mid-March. And then a few days later Hitler took over Czechoslovakia! Can you imagine? Bit of a facer for Rose—”

  “So she sent you back here with a letter of safe passage,” Armstrong said, “to pick up her stuff. I get it. Go to the train station yourself.”

  “Can’t,” Jack said diffidently, “because Kennan just got me an interview with Konstantin von Neurath. The Nazi Protector himself. And Kennan’s booting me out of Prague as soon as my interview’s over. I’m under orders to vamoose before the curfew tonight. So if you could be a pal. . . .”

  Armstrong glanced at his watch and sighed. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with those Gestapo guys you were running from, would it?”

  “Mother’s the toast of London, you know,” Jack said, ignoring his gambit. “The hostess with the mostest. I’ll get her to invite the entire Czech government-in-exile to dinner, Dave, and seat you next to my sister—she’s a swell girl. Whole world’s in love with Kick. Has to beat off the boys with a stick.”

  “Whereas you just use that gun you hide in your pocket.”

  Wordlessly, Jack met his gaze.

  Armstrong threw up his hands. “All right. I’ll do it.”

  Jack pressed the Left Luggage ticket into his palm. “Thanks. I’m grateful. More than you know. And Dave—”

  Armstrong was slipping the ticket into his wallet.

  “—If I miss you this afternoon—if for some reason I don’t make it back—take the stuff to London, on the plane tomorrow.”

  “Why wouldn’t you make it back?” Armstrong asked.

  But Jack was already gone.

  * * *

  AN EMBASSY CAR DROVE HIM to the Protectorate headquarters, which turned out to be Prague Castle. Word of his appointment had been relayed to appropriate channels—a black Mercedes pulled away from the curb near the embassy, and followed Jack quite obviously up the narrow streets of the Malá Strana. He hoped to God it was the Spider behind him. Jack was bait this morning, a decoy in the service of Diana and all she’d died for; his sole purpose was to lead the Gestapo in the opposite direction from Dave Armstrong and the Main Train Station.

  As they passed through the wrought-iron gates at the top of Loretánská Street, and entered the First Courtyard, he asked his driver if he’d wait.

  The man shook his head. “The Krauts get suspicious if you loiter with intent. Think there’s a bomb in every glove box. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  A soldier in gray stood ready to conduct him to Von Neurath; Jack had no choice but to follow. There was a Second Courtyard, and beyond it, a third, with
the fantastic medieval gyrations of St. Vitus Cathedral. The soldier turned right in the middle of the Third Courtyard and made for a much smaller building—the palace. At the entrance, Jack was frisked.

  One guard looked on while another patted down his shoulders and rib cage, feeling for a holster. They even ran their hands down his trouser legs and prodded his ankles, searching for a knife. He’d expected that. He wasn’t stupid enough to call on Hitler’s man in Prague with a Parabellum in his pocket.

  He’d tucked the pistol inside his boxer shorts, butt in the crease of his groin and muzzle along his inner thigh, using a first-aid bandage he’d scrounged from the embassy medical kit that morning. He’d found a diagram of the maneuver in Gubbins’s Art of Guerrilla Warfare.

  The soldiers were too squeamish to frisk his balls. A pair of pleat-front gray flannels and the tails of his jacket helped disguise any bulge; he simply looked like a healthy bit of manhood. Which he liked to think he was.

  He handed the guards his passport and waited. And then he was walking down the vaulted corridors to Von Neurath’s office.

  He tried to remember what Professor Bruce Hopper had taught him about the man. An old-school career diplomat in his high sixties, a respected ambassador who’d risen to be Foreign Minister—until he fell out of Hitler’s favor. Von Neurath believed in diplomacy, not war; and his lack of enthusiasm for the Nazi regime had cost him his career. Von Ribbentrop—a rabid Aryan expansionist if ever there was one—replaced him as Foreign Minister. Prague was a retirement post. The end of Von Neurath’s personal and political road.

  He rose from his desk as Jack entered the vast room, a portly, white-haired figure. The ruins of a once-handsome face.