"Acknowledge your message yesterday. Proceed," he read under his breath.
Again he took out the pad of code pages and began to write his message. Johanna saw him convert letters to numbers, add those numbers to ones written on the page and then convert the sums back to letters. As he did this he told her what he was sending.
"I'm having them look up Viersing's name. If he's stupid enough to be using his real name here and we have a little luck, he might just be our man."
Johanna pursed her lips at the word we, but said nothing.
32
Johanna sat on the old couch in the safe house parlor, shifting to avoid the springs poking through the upholstery. The three Abwehr agents had returned and were giving Hagen a report.
They gave him a list of possible SD Agents. Viersing's name was not on it. Hagen instructed them to follow up on all their leads and showed them to the door.
"There's one other thing," one of them said on his way out. "I know of a clique of Bundists that are always seen together. One tries to pass himself off as a man of importance, but I wasn't able to get any names." Hagen thanked him and they left.
"Sounds like he's talking about Viersing," Johanna offered.
"Yes, but that's not quite the corroboration I was hoping for. I thought maybe we'd get lucky and they would come back with Viersing's name."
"You still haven't heard back from Berlin," she reminded him. "They could still confirm it."
He nodded.
"So, what's next?" she asked.
Hagen gave her a grin.
"We're going out for a night on the town." He reached behind an armchair and produced a large shopping bag. "I had Simon buy some clothes for you. He has an uncanny knack for guessing a woman's dress size."
Dressed like a couple out for the evening, they visited each of the night spots that Viersing was known to frequent. Hagen went down the list of restaurants and cafes the Bund secretary had given him while Johanna did her best to remember where they all were. On the sidewalks and in the bars Johanna felt watched. She avoided eye contact with everyone on the street, but could feel them looking at her.
How's that for irony?, she thought as they walked towards The Yorkville Cafe. Now I'm worried that I'll be spotted and that my kidnapper will be arrested. Arrested before I can find out the whole story, anyway. I'll be sure to have him arrested once I know the truth.
Making matters worse, she felt on display. All of the dresses Simon had purchased for her were too revealing and ostentatious for Johanna's taste. She had tried to keep her old dress on, but Hagen said it wouldn't fit the image of a woman out for the evening. Now she tried to pull up on the bodice of the tight-fitting dress, hoping to minimize her exposed cleavage. She silently cursed Hagen, Simon and every other Nazi she could think of.
She saw a man in a mohair overcoat hold the cafe door open for his date and another couple. For a moment, the four of them were all looking at Johanna and Hagen.
Johanna felt her heart in her throat.
Then she noticed that the men were looking her up and down with a glance at Hagen and the women were doing the same, but with a sneer.
Johanna had to stifle a laugh. Her paranoia was getting the best of her. They don't know me, they're just jealous girlfriends!
One of the women swatted her date with her purse and went in the door. Still holding the door, the man in the overcoat gave Johanna a smile and a bowed as she and Hagen passed. She glared at him and went in.
Almost every table at the cafe was taken with Friday night (or was it Saturday night?) diners. A small orchestra on stage played a keyed-up version of 'Pennsylvania 6-5000.' Smoke floated in the footlights and waiters dashed in and out of the kitchen.
Hagen was able to find the way into a small booth near the bar, where they sat down.
Johanna watched a waiter carry a platter of food to the next table.
"I'm famished," she said.
They looked over the menus in silence.
They had to wait, but were eventually served. When the food came out, Johanna had to restrain herself from tearing into her roast chicken, forcing herself to slow down. Hagen felt no such compunction and devoured his sauerbraten in big bites.
Sitting across the table from Hagen in his crisp blue suit, she was able to see him as a man, just for a moment, and not as a German officer. She decided to try digging a little more.
"Earlier, you referred to Bundists as 'stupid thugs.' That seems like a strange thing for a Nazi to say about fellow Nazis."
Hagen put down his water glass and looked at her for a moment.
"You studied in Heidelberg, didn't you?" he asked. She nodded. "And what was the topic of your doctoral paper?"
"'Putting National Socialism in Context: An Examination of German Social and Intellectual History'," she replied.
"And what was your thesis in this paper?"
She hesitated before answering. Too bad for him if I offend him.
"I said that the question of why sixty million people enthusiastically support Hitler and the Nazis is not a mystery. The social and intellectual history of Germany suggests that its people are open to authoritarian brutes like the Nazis."
He resumed eating and nodded.
"Yes, I have read your dissertation. While your idea that the Hegelian dialectic leads to amorality is intriguing, I have to say that someone who has spent so much time studying Germany and National Socialism, your ignorance is appalling."
She put her fork down with a puzzled look.
"Excuse me?"
Hagen simply shook his head and continued eating, his attention focused over Johanna's head, looking for any sign of Viersing.
Johanna stared at him for a moment.
"Well?" she asked. "Would you care to enlighten me?"
"No," he replied, "although I do find it interesting that a German girl like you, who has gone to great lengths to become all-American and erase her German identity, has chosen to study Germany for a living. Very interesting."
"What are you talking about?"
Hagen shook his head, pointing back toward the bar.
Johanna turned and saw a man in a white suit leaning against a bar. His jacket buttons strained against the bulk of his belly and he wore badly scuffed brown shoes. She saw he wore more jewelry than most women: several rings, a gold wristwatch, gold cufflinks and a gold lapel pin. He was slapping the back of a man next to him, sloshing both their beers on the bar. Johanna thought he looked familiar, but couldn't place him. She turned back to Hagen.
"Viersing?" she asked.
"He fits the description," he replied. "We're leaving."
He stood up, pulled several bills from his wallet and left them on the table. He motioned for Johanna to stand up and helped her into her coat. Steering her towards the door, Hagen was careful to keep his back to the bar.
Once outside, they walked down the block to the car.
Hagen managed to find a place to park around the corner from the café. From there he could still see people coming in or out. He turned the engine off and they waited.
Johanna tried to get him to elaborate on why he thought she was ignorant about Germany and the Nazis, but he stayed silent.
They waited over an hour, but Viersing remained inside. Complaining of the cold, Johanna asked Hagen to start the car so they could have some heat.
"No," he said. "No one will notice two people sitting in a car in the dark. A running car, everyone will notice, especially in the cold with the exhaust."
"Look," she shot back. "You're so concerned about me being cooperative. You either turn that heat on, or I start screaming, running or both."
Hagen gave no reply and stared straight ahead. Johanna was about to ask again when he snapped the ignition so hard he bent the key. The engine roared to life and he flipped the fan switch to High.
Just then Viersing walked out of the cafe, alone.
Hagen put the car in gear and crept out into the street, headlights still off. Tra
ffic was light, so he was able to wait at the intersection to see where Viersing was going.
Viersing walked down East 86th street and Hagen followed some distance behind him. Viersing never looked over his shoulder and walked in a perfectly straight line. Johanna thought he was probably drunk and, like most drunks, was over-correcting. He caught his toe on a crack in the pavement and stumbled, catching himself before he fell.
Hagen gave a snort, but said nothing.
Viersing walked several blocks and stopped at a basement-level apartment door. He fumbled with his keys and went in.
Johanna looked to Hagen with her eyebrows raised.
He parked the car down the street and left the engine running.
"He is all I have to go on, so I will wait and see what he does."
Johanna noted that, this time, he said 'I' and not 'we.'
33
Johanna awoke with a start at the sound of an engine revving. She opened her eyes and saw the tail lights of a taxi as it turned a corner. In the darkness, she angled her watch to catch light from the streetlamp. It was 5am.
She looked over at Hagen. His chin on his chest, he was asleep.
Her breath caught in her throat. Now was her chance. Even if she woke him up by getting out of the car, she would still have enough of a head start to get away. He hadn't shown her his gun since their first day here but she knew it was there, and didn't want to gamble on him not using it.
Now is my chance, she repeated to herself. Right now.
She tapped her fingernail on the door window. He didn't move. She tapped again, louder. Still nothing.
She sat there, her adrenaline pumping more with every second she waited.
Oh, hell.
She put her hand on his shoulder and shook it.
Hagen snapped upright, looking disoriented. She saw in his eyes the realization of what had happened. He cleared his throat and looked at his watch.
"I need to call Berlin." He put the car in gear and asked for directions to CarlSchurzPark. It was only a few blocks away and when they got there, Hagen readied the radio for transmission. Through the trees, Johanna could see the lights of Welfare Island in the East River. She realized that each time Hagen transmitted a message, it was near water.
"I've been meaning to ask you," Johanna said. "How can this car have enough power for that radio to transmit all the way to Berlin?"
Hagen inserted the transmitter knob's wire into a terminal and tightened the thumbscrew.
"It doesn't," he replied.
"I don't understand. You say you're communicating with Berlin, but…" Her voice trailed off. "Oh."
"Yes?"
"You're not transmitting to Berlin, you're talking to someone closer."
"That's right."
She shook her head in exasperation.
"Great. Your spies must really be everywhere."
He smiled as he took out his notebook and code pad.
"Not everywhere, especially now that your government has finally decided that counter-intelligence is a priority."
"Right…now," she replied. "That means you've probably already made off with all our secrets."
"Not all," he said, putting on the headphones. He turned to her with a grin. "But most."
The beeping started and Hagen focused his attention on writing in his notebook. Once the transmission stopped, he took off the headphones and went to work decoding the message.
As soon as he finished, he held his notebook aloft and gave it a triumphant shake.
"We have luck after all," he said.
As he put the car's dashboard back together, he told Johanna what he had learned. Abwehr Headquarters in Berlin confirmed that Otto Viersing was the alias of Otto Ringlstetter, an SD agent formerly of the German consulate in New York City. He was officially missing after not returning to Germany with the rest of the consulate staff.
"So, does that mean that Viersing is your man?" Johanna asked. "He's the one on this special mission for Heydrich?"
"I think so," Hagen replied. "At the very least, he is all we have so far and our time will be well spent watching him."
They returned to the Brooklyn safe house where Hagen gathered supplies and the three cases they had brought ashore. They drove back to Viersing's apartment and sat in the car watching and waiting.
The heavy wool of the Navy overcoat scratched Johanna's throat, but it kept her warm. She pulled the collar away from her skin and peeled the wax paper from a roast beef sandwich. It was getting close to noon, with no sign of Viersing. Considering Viersing's drunken state the night before, Johanna thought it was unlikely he had left during the time that they were gone.
They sat and waited with a steady stream of traffic passing by. The usual mass of Manhattan pedestrians was everywhere. Johanna felt conspicuous sitting in the car, but no one looked at them.
She took a bite of the sandwich and glanced at Hagen out of the corner of her eye. They hadn't discussed what had happened earlier, but Johanna knew the point had been made. She wanted to know the full story, and she would stick around until she figured it out. Right now, however, Hagen himself was just as much of a puzzle as his mission. She decided to hold her questions about the SD plot and see what she could find out about him.
She put her sandwich down and turned in her seat.
"I'm curious why you said last night that I was ignorant."
"I don't care to get into it right now." He replied, not taking his eyes off Viersing's door.
She pressed him until he gave in.
"What you and everyone else fail to understand," he explained, "is that the SS and the SD are not loved within Germany. In the Army and especially the Navy, they are hated."
Johanna noticed Hagen becoming more animated as he spoke.
"You know who Admiral Canaris is?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied. "You've mentioned him – head of Abwehr."
"Right. As far as I'm concerned, he is the epitome of the German military man, simply brilliant. And Himmler, Heydrich and their cult of madmen are hell-bent on destroying him." He was red in the face now. "And I will see them in hell before I let that happen."
"Is that what this is about?" she asked. "Some internal squabbling between Abwehr and the SD?"
"Partly. Heydrich controls the RSHA – the Reich Main Security Office – which controls the Criminal Police, the Gestapo and SD. All except for military intelligence – the Abwehr. We probably spend as much time combating Heydrich and his men as we do with our own intelligence operations. They have been after Admiral Canaris for years – sending Himmler doctored photographs of him with women and the like." His knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel.
Seeing Hagen visibly emotional for the first time, it dawned on Johanna what this was all about. There was some SS/SD plot hatched by Heydrich to discredit Canaris and the Abwehr so he could gain control. That had to be it. She began to doubt what she had been told about Viersing's being on some mission against the United States.
Maybe he just told me that to keep me quiet. But that still doesn't explain why I'm here. That still only makes sense if I'm supposed to be telling other Americans what happened.
She was about to ask Hagen about this when the door to Viersing's apartment opened and he walked out. From their vantage point down the block they could see him cross the busy street and go into the Café Hindenberg. They waited a few minutes, but he didn't come back out.
"I'm going to have a word with him," Hagen said, turning to Johanna. He pulled the handcuffs out of his pocket. "And you are staying here. I appreciate what you did this morning, but this is too important for me to allow myself to trust you."
Johanna had had enough. She didn't want to be a captive anymore. If she was supposed to witness what Hagen was doing, she wasn't going to do it chained to the steering wheel.
"No," she said, opening the car door. "I'm coming with you."
Hagen threw open his door and leaped out of the car. He came around the front
and grabbed Johanna by the arm. She could feel him press his gun into her ribs through the pocket of his coat.
"Get back in the car," he hissed.
"No," she replied, turning to face him. "I'm coming with you. I'm your witness, remember?"
Hagen pulled his gun back, but didn't let go of her arm. He swore under his breath.
Johanna began to feel like she was gaining the upper hand.
Fifth Column Page 17