‘Is that where you keep the corpses?’ Max joked, nodding at this door.
The kid was flustered for a moment, taking Max seriously. Then seeing the grin on Max’s face, he said, ‘No, sir. That’s the chemical pantry. Acids and poisons and that sort of thing. I don’t think you’d find it very interesting.’
But Max did, and he moved to a nearby window for a moment as if to take in the view of an alley below before following the intern on the rest of the tour.
That evening he ate in town, waiting for nightfall. After dinner he went to a movie, Birth of a Nation, which he had seen three times before, but he so loved the scope of it and the beauty of the camera work that he never failed to become completely absorbed in the moving images, as if they were his own life unfolding before him. Also, he liked the feeling of being close to all these strangers in the dark, as if he were truly one of them.
By eleven that night he had scouted the lab building and saw only one old guard on duty at the rear, sitting in a tiny cubicle. There would be no trouble from that quarter: the man looked old enough to be a grandfather and was nodding off with a newspaper in his lap.
On the west side of the building, in an alley across from a windowless side of another brick building, the fire escape stairs hung ten feet above ground level. Max pulled a disused crate under the stairs, stood on it and by jumping up was able to grab hold of and bring the stairs down to ground level. He looked out toward the street: there were no passersby.
It took him only five minutes to climb the stairs, find the window he had left unlatched earlier in the day during the tour, climb into the lab building, jimmy the lock to the door of the chemical pantry, light a match and track down a small bottle marked H2SO4 among the plethora of other chemicals. This he wrapped in a lab towel and put in the coat pocket opposite the lead tube.
In another three minutes he had closed the door, climbed out the window and closed it after him, and then climbed down the fire escape to street level.
They’ll discover the jimmied door, he knew, but there was nothing to trace him to it. Not unless the intern remembers me, he thought, and he might. But I gave him no name. And will they even miss one tiny bottle of sulfuric acid?
He jumped down the last couple of feet to the snow-covered alley, feeling happy with himself.
My bomb is now complete.
Before turning to the street, he straightened his overcoat. A hand clamped on his shoulder, swinging him around.
‘Hey now. What’s going on, fella?’
It was the old guard looking rheumy eyed but wary. Max quickly took in the situation: if I don’t act swiftly the old man is sure to raise an alarm, if he hasn’t done so already. He’s armed, but his revolver is still holstered. Max could see its butt just showing under the tunic of his watchman’s uniform.
‘What the hell you doing up there?’ the man said, his voice louder this time.
God or whomever forgive me, Max thought. He has seen me now; there will be a description. I cannot risk a description; not now. Not with Appleby in my hands.
‘I’m sorry,’ Max began, then threw a punch to the old man’s face, landing precisely on the bridge of his nose.
The blow sent the man reeling, and he grunted, blood spurting from his nose. Max simultaneously grabbed the back of the man’s head with his left hand and brought his right knee sharply upward, jamming the guard’s face on it and sending cartilage and broken bone into the old man’s brain. His body crumpled to the ground.
Max looked out to the street: a car went by, then another, but no pedestrians.
He looked down at the old man’s lifeless body, at the pitiful strip of white shin showing where his pant leg had rucked up. Dark splotches in the snow next to his face would be blood, Max knew.
Tears built up at the back of his eyes. ‘You stupid old man,’ he said out loud. ‘Why did you have to come along? Why couldn’t you just stay in your office and sleep?’
He stepped over the body and began leaving the alley, forcing himself not to hurry, not to draw attention to himself. As he got closer to the street lights on H Street, he could see bloodstains on his right knee, and he wrapped the coat tightly around him to hide them.
A couple fresh from the theater, by the look of the man’s top hat and the woman’s fur, passed him laughing and smiling at each other. They did not glance down the alley. Max pulled the brim of his hat down and walked away from them to the streetcar stop, a hollow feeling in his stomach.
THREE
Until the delivery van pulled up at 8:30 on Tuesday morning, Fitzgerald had completely forgotten about the fountain that he and Catherine had purchased several months ago from Paul Davidson, the well known Maine sculptor. It seemed quite inconsequential in light of recent events.
Eight workmen, dressed in dungarees and tweed jackets with wool caps pulled down over their faces, hauled the crated fountain on two timbers: two men in front, two in back, and two on each side. Their rough hands were turning white with the strain. The morning was gray and raw; snow was still frozen underfoot at spots; a cutting wind blew off the river.
The men trudged down the snowy slope to the lower garden, skirting the limestone wall hung with ivy which separated the two levels, and avoiding use of the icy stairs leading down to the lower level. He watched the men gently set the crate down and begin rubbing blood back into their hands.
At that very moment, Appleby, dressed in Norfolk jacket and breeches, a gray worsted coat draped over his shoulders, made his way down the path and Fitzgerald waved at him.
‘That should do it, Mr Fitzgerald,’ the foreman of the crew said. ‘Shall we be unpacking it then?’
‘Not just now,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘It’s a bit cold for that.’
The man nodded. ‘Good enough. We’ll be on our way, then.’
‘You’ll let yourself out,’ Fitzgerald said as he went to meet Appleby whose face was smiling but ashen and drawn.
‘You’re up awfully early, Adrian.’
‘I just received a cable from London,’ Appleby said, reaching into his coat pocket and retrieving a flimsy yellow piece of paper with no watermarks, no engraved address. Its top edge was ruffled where it had been torn from a pad.
Fitzgerald took the message and read it slowly:
London–
Intercepted message this p.m. via German Trade Legation New York. Contents herewith decoded: ‘British target found in Washington STOP Will eliminate him Tuesday evening STOP M.’
Said message routed MI Berlin, Colonel Berthold. Advise personal discretion in matter.
Balfour
Fitzgerald had to read it a second time before he got the full impact of it. Suddenly he felt his stomach churn.
‘Someone means to kill you! Some German agent!’
It was something that happened in thrillers and detective novels, not in real life, Fitzgerald thought. There was a certain absurdity to the situation, yet looking at Appleby, Fitzgerald knew he found nothing absurd in the proposition.
‘That about sums it up, yes,’ Appleby said with forced sang-froid. ‘I do not think I am being immodest if I say that I am the most likely “British target” to be found in Washington. It looks as though this M chappie means to have a go at me tonight at the Belgian do. It was announced in the Post.’
Fitzgerald felt the enormity of what he had read finally sink in: not only that Appleby was a target for a German assassin, but that London had somehow become aware of the fact.
‘Lord knows how he got on to me,’ Appleby was saying, almost to himself. ‘Loose lips in Whitehall. How many ministers know of my mission, I have no idea.’
Things were beginning to come into focus for Fitzgerald: the evil premonition he’d had about the telegram and its provenance.
‘You want to give me the full story now, Adrian?’
Appleby looked at him quizzically for a moment, then gave it up as Fitzgerald continued to fix him with an icy glance.
‘You mean about this intercept?’
Fitzgerald nodded.
A clump of snow fell from a branch of a noble fir in back of them, making a splatting sound as it hit the ground. Appleby visibly jumped at the sound. All around them the world was white and gray. A black crow cawed angrily overhead.
Appleby sighed. ‘Well, Balfour himself advises personal discretion. And you were not deceived with the Mexico City rigmarole.’ For it had been Appleby’s story that the Zimmermann telegram had, in fact, been intercepted by one of their agents in Mexico.
Fitzgerald said nothing, fixing Appleby with a hard stare.
Appleby went on blithely: ‘Well, now I suppose there is no need for subterfuge vis-à-vis that. You see, old boy, we’ve broken the German code. Our Navy Intelligence fellows have this top-secret code-breaking section. Room 40, they call it, under the direction of Admiral Hall. It is all very hush-hush, cloak and dagger stuff. That is how we got this message.’
He took the yellow slip of paper back from Fitzgerald, holding it up to the light as if looking for marks of forgery. Then he looked back at Fitzgerald expectantly.
‘And that’s how you got the Zimmermann telegram, as well?’ Fitzgerald asked.
Appleby nodded.
‘And you withheld that vital bit of information from me.’
Another nod from Appleby. ‘Had to, old boy. We could not risk compromising the code.’
Fitzgerald felt his face going red at the implication of Appleby’s last remark. ‘You don’t actually think I would—’
Appleby cut him off: ‘Let me explain, Edward. Room 40 is only part of the problem. There is also the origin of the Zimmermann telegram to consider. In point of fact, it was sent from your embassy in Berlin to your State Department in Washington.’
Fitzgerald could not disguise his surprise. ‘What!’
‘True, I’m afraid. We cut Germany’s undersea cables early in the war, but Wilson and his aides appear to have allowed Germany the use of your own diplomatic cables to help conduct peace negotiations with the Kaiser. Encoded messages to boot.’
‘The fools!’
‘Yes,’ Appleby said.
A further level of understanding was granted Fitzgerald now, like peeling away successive layers of an onion.
‘And you’ve been eavesdropping on our State Department cables, haven’t you? That’s the other difficulty.’
Appleby, to his credit, did not blush. ‘We can hardly go to President Wilson with Zimmermann’s telegram and tell him it came from his very own State Department cable service. Such an admission could very well rankle his sense of decency. Perhaps even give him an excuse to discount the onerous nature of the proposed German alliance with Mexico. In that case, we would not only lose the U.S. as an ally, but also risk compromising the fact of our having broken the German code. And it is absolutely vital to protect the code, Edward. Granted, we have lost thousands upon thousands of tons of shipping already, but we have also saved uncountable tons. Were the Germans to suspect that we are listening in on them at will and thus alter their code, why the effect could be devastating. Devastating.’
The black crow overhead continued circling in the bruised sky, calling out occasionally as the two men looked at each other, saying nothing.
Fitzgerald had suspected chicanery on Appleby’s part. Now that it was exposed, other fears about Appleby’s reliability arose: is the telegram itself authentic? Is this German agent just one more invention to get me and other influential Americans lined up on Adrian’s side?
Fitzgerald now understood why Appleby had not used normal diplomatic channels for the delivery of the telegram: Wilson cannot be allowed to wonder too deeply about the provenance or authenticity of this cable. Yet at the same time, Fitzgerald knew none of this mattered. What did matter was that America get into the war before it was too late. His feelings on that score had not altered in the least: the Zimmermann telegram still had to be gotten to the president.
He broke the silence finally. ‘I don’t envy you your mission, Adrian.’
‘Oh, all in a day’s work,’ Appleby joked rather lamely. ‘And really, were our German friend to succeed, that would eliminate the problem of proof, would it not?’ His voice was heavy with irony as he continued, ‘After all, my assassination would be proof positive to Wilson of the authenticity of the Zimmermann telegram.’
He was joking, Fitzgerald knew, but there was a grain of truth in the quip.
‘Don’t rely on it, Adrian,’ Fitzgerald quickly replied. ‘Dead men are notoriously poor negotiators. Your only value is in remaining alive and vocal.’
‘It looks like I’ll have to cancel my appearance tonight, Edward. We’ll have to make some excuse for Catherine.’
Fitzgerald was not listening to Appleby. His mind instead was calculating, planning, and putting pieces together. Suddenly the solution to their problem was so clear to him, so simple. A bold plan, it came to him all in one piece, entire and rather lovely in its simplicity.
‘I think you’re partially correct about the German assassination plot being your proof. In fact, the Germans are handing you a solution to the problem of protecting the secrecy of Room 40 on a platter. This M has let you know both his mission and his venue. What we have to do is catch him red-handed before he can kill you.’
‘That would be nice,’ Adrian said.
‘And catch him alive, as proof to the president of just how important it is to Germany to stop your mission. Wilson will have to listen to reason then, and without being over-curious as to the origin of the Zimmermann telegram.’
The blood was slowly coming back into Appleby’s cheeks as he considered this. ‘It may work, Edward.’
Fitzgerald had to smile at the typical understated nature of his friend. ‘Yes, Adrian. You might be able to both win an ally and keep your life.’ He clapped him on the back.
‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘We have some planning to do. We can hardly call the police in on this. They’d want to know how we found out about the assassination plot, which would bring us right back to square one at your Room 40. I think we may have to bring in some Pinkerton agents to lay this little trap.’
With that, Fitzgerald took the slippery steps two at a time back to the house; Appleby followed behind him more cautiously.
The first few strokes of the oars came with difficulty. Catherine had not worked out in several days and it was always the same after a period of inactivity, she knew. The body was reluctant; it took time to warm up. She stuck with it and soon her muscles began to loosen, to feel the rhythm, and sweat began to form on her upper lip. She was dressed in a heavy white linen gym suit: tunic, pantaloons and canvas rubber-soled shoes. Even with the room unheated as she demanded it be, she was warm from the exertion. One thing she did not have to be concerned with was her hair: she had cut her long tresses several months before so to keep them out of her face while exercising. It had made her feel boyish at first and had brought stares from people in the street, but now many other women were beginning to ‘bob’ their hair, as the salons called the cut.
Suddenly the image of the poor woman in the alley dwelling came back into her mind; the pitiful cries of the big-eyed baby rang in her ears.
After another twenty minutes of exercise, Catherine’s heart was pounding and sweat was dripping off the tip of her nose. She felt clean and vital and ready to get on with the day.
Yesterday she had gone to Brentano’s bookshop, and with the help of a friendly shop assistant had purchased a bag full of books in an attempt to understand what she had seen. There were books by Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis, and of special interest were two photographic books: one by Jacob Riis and the other by Lewis Hine, both clearly men with heart and vision who portrayed the poor and the dispossessed of America in a way that Catherine had never before experienced. Their photographs made you feel the squalor, the hunger, the thwarted ambition without turning the people depicted into either objects of pity or disgust. The child at work on the loom, the immigrants sleeping ten to a
room caught in the phosphorescent glare of Riis’s flash still had their dignity, their humanity.
These were angry photographs, a call to action. And seeing them, Catherine knew at once her vocation. She would photograph the poor of Washington; she would capture the injustice of such poverty in the very shadows of the White House and the Capitol; she would raise a clarion call for change and reform.
While at Brentano’s she had also come across a lovely blank book bound in green Moroccan leather with Italian endpapers. In it she had begun to keep a journal of her photography: the lens setting used at various times of the day and the locations photographed. She also reserved a back section of the journal for jotting down her thoughts, something she had not done in far too long. Personal and private thoughts about everything from her life with Edward to impingements of the bigger world, as with the visit of her Uncle Adrian and what it might mean for the United States.
It seemed suddenly ridiculous to her that there should be all this rubbish of talk about the US going to war to save Europe while thousands of its own citizens lived worse than the most oppressed people in the world.
Catherine left her exercise room and went down the hall to her bath, appointed with modern built-in enameled tub and brightly colored tiles from Italy. Edward’s bathroom next door was like some hospital room by comparison: all sterile white tiles and a monstrous tub that sat on paws.
She let the water fill her tub before sliding into the warmth. This was a sensuous pay-off to her exercise routine.
How far apart Edward and I have grown, Catherine thought as she allowed the heat to steal into her body. But whose fault is that? There was a time when we truly were together, when we felt like becoming partners.
The German Agent Page 5