The Last Goodnight

by Howard Blum

Betty wrote it down.

  The next setting came more quickly: “Three right twenty.”

  Suddenly there was a noise. Someone was coming! But it was only Brousse, checking to see how things were proceeding. “Get back!” she snapped at him brusquely, and he immediately retreated. She felt ashamed of her rudeness, but he had scared her, and worse, he had left his post.

  “Two left ninety-five.”

  The one good thing about having to keep the flashlight steady, Betty told herself, was that she couldn’t raise her hand to read her watch. Still, she didn’t need to know the exact time to realize that it was getting late. Very late.

  “One right two.”

  And an eternity later, a triumphant whisper: “Now I’ve got it.”

  The Mosler door swung open, the flashlight illuminating the cipher books on its shelves. The prize was within her grasp.

  But Betty’s triumph was short-lived: when she looked at her watch, she saw that it was after 2:00 a.m. The code book would need to travel to the Wardman Park, be photographed page by page, and then returned—all before the watchman woke from his drugged sleep or the morning cleaning crew arrived, just before dawn. Huntington had warned that the ciphers must be back in the safe and the two agents on their way home by 4:00 a.m. Any later, and they’d run the risk of being discovered.

  Betty took a moment to think. Should she take the chance, try to get the codes photographed and the mission completed in less than two hours? Perhaps the Nembutal would remain effective for longer than had been promised. Perhaps the cleaning crew might not arrive precisely on time. It would be close, but if she was daring, maybe she’d succeed.

  But if the cipher books were not returned to the safe, or if she was discovered, or if there was no time to put things back as they were and someone became suspicious, then all would be lost. The codes would be changed, and this time they would be placed under armed guard. Everything risked and nothing accomplished. And she would never get another chance.

  She instructed the Cracker to close the safe.

  Yet no sooner had Betty given the order than she told him to stop. She reached into the safe and ran her fingertips across the cover of each book. It was a lover’s caress. And it was also a silent promise: she would return to hold them in her hands. At last she slammed the safe shut.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she told the Cracker.

  “TELL THEM FROM ME THAT I never in my life laid eyes or fingers on such tantalizing reading material,” she told the Cracker as the taxi pulled up in front of the Wardman Park. As had been planned, he’d leave the taxi at the airport and then catch the next flight back to New York. When he made his report, Betty wanted to make sure the deskmen understood how close she had come. She had touched them! They had almost been hers!

  Up in her apartment, both she and Brousse found sleep impossible. It wasn’t simply that the dangerous night had left them too energized, although that was surely part of the reason for their restlessness. But Betty was also bereft; she felt she’d let the Service down.

  Brousse, though, was now anxiously running through all the things that could still go wrong. The watchman would wake up with a tremendous headache and realize he’d been drugged. Someone might notice that the code room lock had been tampered with. The naval attaché would go to his safe and decide things just didn’t look right. As the litany of fears flooded his mind, he tried to prepare himself for each one. He pictured himself arriving at work. Suddenly two security goons would be at his side, pinning his arms behind his back and dragging him off to a brutal interrogation. How much could he endure before he revealed that Betty was in on it too?

  At eight o’ clock he decided he’d return to his apartment, shower, and dress in a clean suit. He told Betty he’d go off to work as usual, but he’d meet her back at her apartment at noon to let her know the mood at the embassy. He didn’t bother to tell her that if he didn’t return, she’d very likely never see him again, and she’d better vanish at once. He realized there was no point in articulating what they both understood only too well.

  As soon as Brousse was out the door, Betty picked up the telephone and started to dial. Pepper had recently returned from his mysterious trip to London, and she decided to appeal to him rather than Huntington. Johnny had been running her longer. He knew her better. He’d have more confidence in her ability—or so she desperately hoped.

  I want another chance, she told Pepper when he answered. She explained that since she now had the safe’s combination, the rest of the op would proceed swiftly. She wanted to go back in that night.

  Pepper said he needed to think about this. He’d get back to her. Just wait by the phone, he instructed.

  By “think about this,” Betty knew he meant that he had to talk to Stephenson. And that Stephenson would undoubtedly confer with Donovan. And Donovan would ask Huntington what he thought.

  Betty had no idea how long these discussions would take. Yet she had no choice; she had to wait. Still, that didn’t make things easier.

  She sat across from the telephone staring at it, wishing for it to ring.

  Three long hours passed before Pepper called back.

  You can’t go tonight, he declared as soon as Betty got on the line. She started to protest, but Pepper cut her short. The feeling is that tonight will be too soon, he said. You must be exhausted, and you’ll need your wits about you. It’d be better to get some rest, to regroup, before the next attempt.

  Betty insisted that she was fine. She didn’t need any rest.

  I predicted you’d say that, Pepper said. But what about Brousse?

  Betty suddenly realized she had forgotten about him. All that had mattered was her getting another chance at the ciphers.

  But before she could think of anything to say, Pepper continued on. “It’s a go for tomorrow night,” he said. “June twenty-first.”

  Betty began to thank Pepper, but again he interrupted her. There’s something else, he said. The Cracker won’t be coming along this time. One more unauthorized person inside the embassy only increases the risks. You and Brousse get caught—maybe you can talk your way out of it. But the Cracker wouldn’t have a chance. Anyway, now you know the combination. You can open the safe. Correct? he challenged.

  Betty agreed. She could handle the safe. This time there would be no problems, she reiterated. But once she hung up the phone, she worried that Charles might not share her confidence. In fact, he might not even be willing to make another attempt. Then she looked at her watch and saw the time. It was past noon, and Charles had not returned. She found herself wondering if she should start packing.

  She waited, as she knew she would. The operation had been rescheduled. She couldn’t run.

  When Brousse finally arrived, he brought, he said excitedly, “good news.” Everything at the embassy was as usual—no security alert; no naval attaché shouting that his safe had been opened; even the watchman had greeted him with a jolly “Bonjour” and a conspiratorial wink. They had gotten away with it, an elated Brousse told Betty.

  Betty decided she would take advantage of his ebullient mood to share her news: they would be going back in to steal the ciphers the next night.

  Impossible! he boomed. They’d never get away with drugging the watchman again. He’d suspect something. Besides, how would they persuade him to join them for a drink? It would seem far too much of a coincidence, ludicrous even, for them to bring in champagne to celebrate another occasion so soon. Or, he said with irony, perhaps Betty intended to explain to Chevalier that she’d been mistaken about the date of their anniversary, that they’d celebrated it two days too soon.

  Patiently, Betty let him rant. When he’d finished, she told him that she agreed; they could not risk drugging the watchman again. This time they would wait until Chevalier finished his rounds and retired to his basement office to sleep. It was, she said, the only way.

  “That’s all very fine,” said Brousse. “But supposing he appears while you are in the code room.”<
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  “Tell him that I am in the toilet. Then, if he has the indecency to look for me there, he will find me back with you on the divan in the hallway, be ashamed of himself, and go away.”

  Brousse considered. It might work: if Chevalier came upstairs, he’d send him off to look in the restroom while Betty scampered out of the attaché’s office. But something else now troubled him. The longer we wait for the watchman to settle in for the night, he challenged, the less time the Cracker will have.

  Betty had known all along she would need to tell him; now was as good a time as any. The Cracker won’t be joining us this time, she said.

  Then who—

  Betty cut him off. She’d open the safe. She had the combination; it would be simple.

  Brousse erupted, offering a dismal litany of all the things that could go wrong. Betty had to listen to him, he pleaded. She had to heed his warnings before it was too late.

  Once again Betty had the wisdom not to try to rein him in. She let him vent—and when he was done, she went to work.

  Betty played all her cards. She dismissed the dangers. She reminded him that they’d already had “a dress rehearsal.” With great and sincere eloquence, she spoke of his “patriotic duty,” how France needed his help in its time of need. And shrewdly, she saved her most persuasive argument for last. “I’m counting on you,” she pleaded to her lover.

  In the end, Brousse could not summon the will to resist. He agreed to return to the embassy the next night.

  IT HAD BEEN DIFFICULT ENOUGH the first time, when Betty had not fully anticipated the torrents of fear that would flood through her when she entered the embassy. But this evening it was impossible to delude herself into believing there wasn’t anything to worry about.

  She arrived hand in hand with Charles after midnight, trying to lose herself in her role as his charming, besotted companion. Chevalier greeted them in the front hall, and this evening he had his Alsatian with him. Betty ad-libbed, saying what a splendid animal he was, and that only encouraged the watchman. As proud as any parent, he went on and on about the dog, its pedigree, its rigorous police training. “One never knows,” the watchman speculated, when the dog would be called on to attack an intruder. Betty listened with, she’d remember, a smile glued to her face, all the time trying not to imagine the ferocious animal’s sharp teeth sinking into her arm.

  At last Chevalier, full of a coy familiarity that Betty, she complained to Hyde, found unseemly, said the couple had not, of course, come to talk to him. He would retire downstairs to his office and give them some privacy.

  The two spies sat on the hall divan and waited. They did not embrace; in truth, the thought never occurred to them. They simply stared at the ornate clock on the marble mantel. When a half hour had passed, Betty announced that she had waited long enough. The watchman had to be asleep.

  While Brousse kept guard in the hallway, she made her way to the code room. As efficiently as the Cracker, she removed the lock on the office door. It swung open at her touch.

  Once inside the attaché’s office, she took the slip of paper with the combination from her purse and went to work.

  She spun the dial attentively, making sure she landed on the settings the Cracker had detected. It took only a few moments to reach the final stop. Eagerly, she pulled the handle.

  It would not budge.

  She decided she must have misread one of the settings she’d written down two nights before. Confidently, she spun the dial again, this time even more careful to land on all the correct numbers. She was certain that when she pulled the handle, the old Mosler would now swing open.

  It didn’t.

  She tried again and again, spinning the dial through the correct combinations time after time. It was tedious, and frustrating, and completely humiliating, but she couldn’t get the safe to open. After each attempt, she’d tug at the handle, but the door would not move. The only thing she could do was keep trying. But then it grew too late.

  She returned to the front hall and, her voice breaking with despair, told Brousse they had to go.

  He looked at her, perplexed.

  “The damned thing won’t open!” she moaned.

  Chapter 51

  BLINDFOLDED, TRAPPED IN A WORLD of darkness, Betty heard the crash of waves breaking and the rush of water lapping against the beach, the sounds magnified in her ears. But her concentration was broken as a harsh voice ordered, “Again!” Obediently she pushed everything else out of her mind and reached out. Her fingers touched cold steel. With infinite gentleness, she slowly twisted the unseen dial of the safe.

  It was the day after her second aborted mission, and it was unfolding as a day full of surprises. It had begun with a crash meeting with Pepper at his Manhattan apartment on East Fifty-Seventh Street. He’d cut off Betty’s agonized apology in midsentence. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I understand the article you are dealing with is very temperamental and is apt to behave unpredictably.” It was just what Betty’d wanted to hear, even though she still felt incredibly stupid to have made such a mess of things. Yet before she could thank him for this small kindness, Pepper abruptly announced that they had to go.

  The cab drove downtown, but Pepper still had not told Betty where they were heading. Betty considering asking, but she assumed he had his reasons for all this mystery, and anyway she’d know soon enough.

  On lower Broadway, not too far from the southern tip of Manhattan, Pepper ordered the driver to pull over. Then he turned to Betty. “Hop into that black car standing by the curbside.” He pointed to a roadster parked at the corner. “And come back to the apartment before you catch the Washington plane.”

  Betty crossed the street and got into the front seat of the black car. The intrigue was making her nervy, and she was ready to bark at the driver, demanding to know just what was going on. But when she turned toward him, she saw that it was the Georgia Cracker.

  “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life,” she said with genuine emotion; the lingering disappointment over her failure had left her devastated and vulnerable. “How I wish you had been with me last night.”

  The Cracker wore his habitual smile, and his words were also cheery. “I don’t like that piece of junk myself. Why do you suppose they don’t get themselves a new one?”

  Betty made a joke about French thrift. It was a small remark and not a particularly witty one, but for the first time in days she felt like laughing. Since the decision was made to enter the embassy, she had lived with an unremitting tension, and her two failed missions had only made things worse. Her nerves were badly frayed, but sitting next to this capable man with his perpetual smile, she felt as if she might be able to escape all her doubts for a while.

  As they headed out of the city, Betty, more exhausted than she realized, fell asleep. The Cracker drove in silence, glancing admiringly from time to time at the brave woman sitting next to him. At that moment, he’d later confide to his BSC bosses, he felt very protective of her, and wanted to do all he could to help.

  When the car stopped, Betty awoke. As she opened her eyes, she felt as if she was still caught up in a dream. They were parked on an empty beach. The waves were crashing. The sand was smooth. And the sky was wonderfully blue and bright.

  The Cracker saw her bewilderment and explained that they were on Long Island, a place called Jones Beach. He got out of the car and Betty, still mystified, followed. She wondered where they were going.

  But they weren’t going anywhere. The Cracker swiftly removed the roadster’s back seats revealing what he had hidden on the floor—a safe. Betty stared at it, and recognized that it was her nemesis: a Mosler identical to the one she’d failed to open.

  He ordered Betty to get into the back of the car. “Now,” he instructed, “do exactly what you did the other night—and I mean exactly.”

  She spun the combination, and at once he began shouting with great indignation. No! No! he chastised. You need to take your time, “feel” the dial, listen
to the tumblers falling before you proceed to the next setting.

  And with that, her tutelage began. She lay uncomfortably curled on the hard floor of the car, the smell of the ocean in her nostrils, the summer sun beating down, willing her mind to shut out everything but the dial of the safe. She soon lost track of time. Everything faded away but the hard voice of the Cracker pushing her on, keeping her at it until she had the “feel.” Then, when he finally announced that he was satisfied, he blindfolded her.

  In the darkness, the combination numbers she had memorized were irrelevant. She had only her touch to guide her. It was a very tactile, oddly sensual exercise. Her long fingers expertly twisted the steel dial back and forth until it felt satisfyingly right. She had the gift; it did not take her long to master this thief’s trick.

  “You want a job,” the impressed Cracker told her, “you can be my assistant.”

  When, late in the afternoon of that same long day, they returned to Pepper’s apartment, the Cracker assured Pepper that Betty didn’t need him anymore. She could open the safe on her own.

  Good, agreed Pepper. It’s settled: the mission is on for tomorrow night.

  But for the first time in her operational life, Betty refused. She would not go back into the embassy without the Cracker.

  She had not changed her mind about the mission. She still passionately wanted to get the ciphers. And her reluctance wasn’t a case of nerves, although the prospect of furtively breaking into the attaché’s office a third time was utter hell. It was two other realizations that forced her to dig in her heels.

  First, this would be her last chance. It would be foolhardy to count on the watchman’s good-natured indulgence any longer. He was bound to grow suspicious—if he hadn’t already. If she didn’t land the ciphers this go-round, it would be too dangerous to try again.

  And second, there was Charles. She had called on all her wiles to persuade him to go back into the embassy for a second attempt. It would be a struggle, and far from a sure thing, to convince him to return for a third shot at the prize. But even if she could somehow manage—Charles did love her, after all—Betty knew he’d balk if the Cracker wasn’t along to unlock the safe.