‘As I said, Sir, I’m truly sorry, but if we have no vacancies, I’m afraid that’s it...’ From the tone of his voice and expression on his face you could tell how painful it was for him to say these words. ‘Right now, I’m afraid we are one hundred per cent full.’
The man nodded in agreement, as if he completely understood, but showed no signs of leaving. The receptionist, well versed in the ways of capricious clients, was about to embark again on his explanation, if in different words, when the phone rang.
‘Excuse me for just a moment, Sir,’ he said, reaching for the receiver. ‘Hotel Palácio, how may I help you...? Yes... Yes... Don’t worry, Sir, no problem at all. Thank you for calling. Goodbye, Sir...’
As soon as he hung up, the receptionist turned back to the man, but this time his tone had completely changed.
‘You are in luck, Sir,’ he said, his white-gloved hand reaching for Ivan’s passport. ‘Somebody has just cancelled. We do have a waiting list, and the rules say... But since you’re already here...’
‘I can’t thank you enough,’ Ivan said, accepting the offer.
‘Think nothing of it,’ the receptionist replied, now looking honestly pleased. Inside the passport he discovered five twenty escudo notes; a hundred escudos was a lot of money, especially when it came out of the blue like that. Now convinced that he had before him a likeable, generous guest deserving of his full attention, he went on to explain:
‘Believe me, if there hadn’t been that cancellation I wouldn’t have been able to do anything for you. What can I say when we couldn’t even help out the Duke of Windsor?’ he said in a hushed voice, as if this information was for the man’s ears only.
‘You don’t say? There was no room even for the Duke of Windsor?’ the surprised guest said even more quietly.
‘Absolutely true,’ the concierge replied, nodding. ‘Not even for him... There was no way. The Duke was on a private, unannounced visit. We weren’t given enough time... But that doesn’t matter now, what matters is that there are just a few little bureaucratic formalities to complete and then you can go up to your room.’
Ivan filled out the requisite forms while his luggage was being taken to his room. As soon as that was done, he was offered a glass of port as a welcome. Ivan accepted, though he did not want to sit down. He wanted to walk around the hotel ‘to see if everything people say about the Palácio is true,’ as he told the receptionist.
Before giving him the tour, the receptionist introduced himself properly:
‘I am Lino, your concierge. I’ve got twenty-two years of service and have been with this hotel since it opened, five years already.’
As they strolled through the hotel, the experienced concierge told Ivan some facts he considered pertinent. He dwelled on the hotel’s short but exciting history, and in the process mentioned other interesting details: which colonies the different marbles in the floor intarsia came from, where the fine wood for the furniture was imported from, the period of the Chinese porcelain and the abandoned palace that the table for the tea room originally belonged to... Had he not had a moustache, his build and manners would have been reminiscent of a eunuch. He was so smooth and honey-tongued that if you did not know better you could be excused for thinking that he was trying to sell the hotel.
Ivan barely paid any attention to his talk. He took advantage of the tour to scout the escape methods that had been explained to him during his training in Rome. Admiring the gold embroidery on the ground-floor curtains, he looked to see where, if need be, he could quickly jump out. He asked them to open the windows looking out on the garden not so that he could inhale the scent of the flowers but to see what kind of locks they had and whether they were actually used. While strolling in the hotel garden and marvelling at the ripe oranges hanging from the trees, he managed to identify all the visible exits from the building and the courtyard, evacuation routes and where the surrounding security points could be penetrated. Standing in front of the door to his room he engaged the receptionist in conversation about nearby sites worth visiting and trains to Lisbon, all the while registering the layout of the floor, the corridors and the stairs. Before parting, the guest inquired about the quickest escape route in the event of a fire, but his host, dazed by so many questions and so much attention from the charming, striking foreigner, was not at all suspicious: he walked his guest along the corridor, down the auxiliary staircase to the side service entrance and back.
* * *
On his way here, Ivan had spent a few days in Rome undergoing a short intensive course with the Abwehr. They told him everything an intelligence agent needed to know about the hotel where he would be staying.
Although much talked about of late, the activities of international intelligence agencies were not in evidence at the Palácio. On the other hand, it was widely believed that a fair number of the hotel’s guests and staff were agents and informants of the many intelligence and counter-intelligence services of the Allied and Axis powers and even of neutral countries; indeed not a small number were thought to be on the payroll of more than one employer. The Palácio was believed to be the centre of British espionage, though the manager was a national of the United States, a neutral country, while the Germans were believed to be operating from the nearby Hotel Atlântico, whose seaside location was more convenient for observing the movements of ships. The Atlântico was run by a German woman who often flew the flag of the Third Reich at the front of the building. All this information was to be taken with a grain of salt, of course, because in the world of espionage nothing was as it seemed and nobody could swear to knowing the whole truth. The local police probably knew more than anybody; they were everywhere, though given the category of the hotel and the calibre of its guests, they were discreet in their observations.
Ivan had been told that for security reasons the reservation would not be in his name, but that the matter would be resolved in due course. His job was to show his original valid passport with its valid visa and not to use forgeries unless otherwise instructed. Ivan completed the form for the police in sparse but truthful words – occupation: businessman; purpose of visit: transit/England.
Everything was going according to plan.
* * *
Ivan’s room was well placed, on the first floor. It had its own balcony, too high for anybody to reach from the courtyard without a tall ladder. Should the need arise, he could safely use the drainpipe or knot together some sheets to drop down to the ground.
By the time he had finished his cigarette Ivan had already identified two potential escape routes. One led from the ground floor, alongside the building, through the grove of evergreen trees, to a wall which he could easily jump over into the side street. That was the daytime exit, longer but better concealed. The other, shorter route took him through the middle of the courtyard and across a clearing. From there he would be visible and vulnerable from virtually all sides, so it would be better for nocturnal operations.
He did not know if the room had been aired or he had simply become used to the scent, but he no longer smelled the rosewater. Carefully he drew the curtains; the rule was that at night the curtains had to be closed so that nobody could see in. He did not disconnect the phone, there was no need; nothing that was said in the room would compromise anybody, and the mere fact that a guest had been fiddling with the phone could raise suspicion.
On the night table by the bed’s headrest was a lamp: a strapping woman in bronze was holding up the light bulb. Beside it was a black telephone without a dial, and beside that a book. The gold lettering on the black leather cover said: BÍBLIA SAGRADA.
The small print on the thin, almost transparent paper of the Holy Bible smelled as if it was fresh off the press. Ivan began carefully leafing through it. It did not take him long to find what he was looking for. In the Gospel according to Matthew he quickly found a passage marked with a barely visible pencil line:
Matthew 2:2: ‘Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his
star in the east, and are come to worship him.’
He transcribed it into his notebook as best he could. In the next gospel, a bit further on, he found the second sign. He tried to read and understand it.
Mark 8:18: ‘Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?’
He stopped there. He already knew what he needed to know. He just had to erase the faint pencil marks marring the Bible and place the seemingly untouched book back on the night table.
He was supposed to take a night-time stroll around the hotel and the courtyard, check the topography, see the layout of the streets, whether there was a shortcut, and which direction was the quickest and safest to take. That is what he was supposed to do, but he didn’t. He did not have the energy. After a day spent in a noisy plane from Rome to Barcelona, and then on to Lisbon, fatigue hit him early. When he switched off the light and laid his head on the pillow he still had that noise roaring in his ears. Rain started drumming on the windowpane. Somewhere shutters were banging in the wind. The cotton sheets had been dried in the sun and smelled of fresh air; snuggling down, the pillows and covers carried the distant scent of lavender and camomile.
* * *
The next morning, he took the train to Lisbon. He found Rossio Square easily. From there he located the public phones: four glass booths on the corner, opposite the theatre, where people were queuing up. This was the busiest phone booth in town, the last an experienced agent would think to phone from, but for Ivan, with his unknown face and the guidebook and map in his hand, it was an ideal spot in which he could go unnoticed. From here he was supposed to make his first contact with the service.
Standing in the confined space of the glass booth, Ivan called up from memory the biblical quotes: Matthew 2:2 and Mark 8:18.
‘Lisbon 22-818,’ he said to the operator.
A few seconds later a man’s voice answered:
‘Schmidt.’
‘Good afternoon, Herr Schmidt, this is Thomas Schneider,’ Ivan said introducing himself. ‘I arrived in Lisbon recently and I have a few little things for you from your cousins in Stuttgart.’
Herr Schmidt was pleased to hear from Ivan and invited him to come to the embassy the very next day. He even offered to send an official car for him. But Ivan, in keeping with his instructions, politely declined.
‘There’s no need. I have the address and will find my way there. What time would suit you?’
‘How about tomorrow afternoon, at three?’
‘Agreed. Three o’clock, tomorrow, at the embassy,’ Ivan repeated.
So far everything was still going according to plan. By introducing himself as Schneider, a friend of Schmidt’s cousins, the Germans knew that it was Ivan calling and nobody else. They confirmed by inviting him to come to the embassy, though the invitation was not to be taken seriously. He absolutely was not to go near the German embassy. It was right across the way from the British embassy, and were he to go to either delegation, the Portuguese authorities would quickly hear about it from the informants swarming the area, and by the next day, through similar channels, so would London and Berlin.
Agents were trained to think that somebody was always listening in on whatever they spoke about on the phone. Everybody knew it – those doing the talking, those doing the listening and those doing the wiretapping. That was why telephone conversations were often used to dupe the enemy. Everybody knew that too. This was not to say, however, that it was impossible to conduct an expedient but safe phone conversation. It simply required that the persons on either end of the phone had agreed on a key for decoding the conversation. These skills were crucial to the work of an agent, and Ivan had been properly trained in Rome.
Believe it or not, the meeting was arranged during the conversation we were in a position to overhear. The method for working out the date was simple: you just had to subtract one day from the date mentioned. So, Friday meant Thursday, the eighteenth meant the seventeenth, and when they said tomorrow, as was the case here, it meant today. The only exception to the rule would be if, for some reason, he said ‘come today’. That would mean ‘come yesterday’, which obviously meant that he should stop all activities and have no contact with the service until further notice. The code was equally simple when it came to the time: they would meet two hours earlier than the time arranged on the phone. Schmidt had said three o’clock, so they would be meeting at one o’clock in the afternoon.
They did not, however, discuss their meeting place on the phone. Ivan had been briefed on that back in Rome. He was shown the locations on the map and in photographs. Both places were in the centre of Lisbon and easy to find, even for somebody new to the city. He was told that if, for some reason, he had trouble finding them, he could simply ask, without worrying about drawing attention to himself because these were busy tourist venues and foreigners were a common sight. The first meeting place was under the magnificent Rua Augusta Arch, where it leads to the Terreiro do Paço. Should, for any reason, the rendezvous not take place, contact would be made half an hour later at the alternative location: the pavement in front of the second column on the left of the huge National Theatre colonnade. In both cases, he was to wait for a woman in a blue dress to make eye contact, after which he was simply to follow her. If no contact was made even then, he was to withdraw and call the same number the next day to schedule a new time.
In short, if they had understood each other well, the arrangement was: ‘Today, at one in the afternoon, under the Arch at the Terreiro do Paço. If not there, then at half past one in front of the Theatre.’
They had understood each other. A few minutes after Ivan had taken up his position under the arch, a girl, a real beauty, made unambiguous eye contact with him. That’s to say, she winked at him. Following his instructions, he let her move away and then followed her. His eyes were fixed on the rise and fall of her round buttocks under her blue dress, though he made sure to maintain his distance so as not to get too close lest he be noticed, yet not too far away to lose sight of her. Suddenly, the girl surprised him: she stopped, looked over her shoulder at the heel of her shoe as if checking to see that it was intact, while making sure that he was still behind her. Seeing that he was there, she continued on her way. When the blue dress turned the corner into narrower streets where it was easier to lose her, Ivan lengthened his stride to reduce the distance between them. In the third cross-street, a black Opel was parked by the pavement. Looking as if she was going to walk past it, the girl suddenly jumped into the car, leaving the door open behind her. Ivan slipped in and closed the door.
Shortly afterwards, the car was making its way through the intricate labyrinth of streets that were so narrow it was almost impossible to follow it without being seen. Even if they were being followed, this manoeuvre would have shaken them off. Ivan and the girl in blue sat side by side. She was turned towards the window, her eyes downcast like a widow’s, looking even more beautiful in the shadow of her hat than when he had seen her in the square. She gave him no chance to strike up a conversation because as soon as the car stopped to let a yellow tram pass by, she quickly opened the door, saying to Ivan: ‘Please stay where you are,’ and then stepped out, disappearing into the dark passageway between the buildings.
The tram passed by and the car went on its way, left and right, up and down hills until it finally came to a straight, smooth road. They drove westwards, along the riverbank, towards the ocean, and then along the beach, through the calming beauty of the subtropical landscape and the small coastal towns strung along the road. Approximately half an hour later, the driver suddenly addressed his passenger in German:
‘Crouch down, please,’ he said in the manner of somebody who brooks no objection. ‘The facility we are going to is probably under surveillance. Do not sit up until I tell you to.’
With his cheek resting on the leather seat, Ivan could see that they had left the highway for a narrower road and were now driving through a wooded area. A few minutes later the car st
opped, there was the creaking sound of a gate, and the car was moving again. The crunch of the wheels told him they were driving over gravel. A moment later, and he knew from the darkness and smell of petrol that they had entered a garage. The engine fell silent. The driver got out and opened the back door.
‘You can step out, mein Herr.’
IT’S JUST A WORD OF WARNING
High walls surrounded the inner courtyard where Ivan was standing, as if the villa were in the Maghreb. Waiting for Ivan at the garden table, by the pseudo-Moorish fountain, where they could be seen only from the house or the sky, was a slim man in his thirties, accompanied by a stunning young blonde woman. Two dachshunds were lying under the table and on the armchair a tame little monkey was wrestling with a pillow and doing somersaults.
‘Willkommen. Ich bin Ludwig von Karstoff,’ said his host, smiling warmly.
‘Pleased to meet you, Sir. I’m Ivan.’
‘There’s no need to be so formal, Ivan. Feel free to call me Ludwig, or, if it’s easier, Ludovico.’ They both knew that the one’s name was not Ludwig, or Ludovico or von Karstoff, and the other’s was not Ivan. All Ivan knew about Ludovico was that he was his handler. And Ludwig knew only what was in Ivan’s file, which was not much.
The German was a good-looking, smooth-talking man. Although the ‘von’ may have been just a pretentious embellishment to his pseudonym, he was a person of aristocratic demeanour and good taste. The woman, whose clothes and manner also matched her surroundings, was introduced as ‘Elizabeth Leichner, my secretary’. Ivan was introduced to the dogs as well: ‘What an odd coincidence: that’s Ivan I and that’s Ivan II.’ Only the monkey was left out of the introductions, which Ivan used as an excuse to start off the conversation.
‘Does the monkey have a name?’ he asked.
The question seemed to startle von Karstoff. There was something about it that he obviously did not like, though his reaction was cool and composed.
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