The Crook Factory

by Dan Simmons

  But the look in Hemingway’s eyes the previous morning had told me that he still dreamed of how war should be—Quixotic contests on the high seas between the Pilar and a German submarine—rather than how it was, with a child dead in a ditch with his throat cut.

  Krivitsky had understood the reality of things. Estamos copados. He had been perched on the brink of the abyss for years, much as I sensed Hemingway had been. All Walter Krivitsky had needed was some vodka, some late-night conversation, and the loan of a .38.

  Is this why you sent me down here, Hoover? I thought as I drove up to the Ambos Mundos Hotel. Is that the way this is supposed to play out with Hemingway? Is that my role in all this—to drink and talk with Hemingway until it’s time to hand him the gun?

  THEODOR SCHLEGEL DID NOT recognize me. For a second I thought he recognized the black Lincoln, but taxis and hired cars in Cuba ran the gamut of makes and models, so after a cursory glance he settled into the back seat while the porters scrambled to put his two bags in the trunk. He did not tip them, merely saying “Aeroporto” and nodding at me to drive off. All that illicit Abwehr money, and he couldn’t even tip his hotel porters a few cents.

  Schlegel read a newspaper as I drove out of town. He did not lower the paper as I turned onto the dead-end road just on the outskirts of town. He did not look up until I stopped.

  “Why are you—” he began in bad Spanish, and then stopped when he saw the muzzle of the .357 pointed at his face.

  “Get out of the car,” I said.

  Schlegel’s eyes were wide as he stood by the side of the Lincoln. He raised his hands.

  “Put your hands down,” I said as I unlocked the trunk and removed his bags, tossing them onto the side of the road with one hand as I held the pistol in the other.

  Schlegel looked at his bags and then blinked at his surroundings. I had stopped only ten yards from where we had found Santiago’s body. There was growing alarm in the chubby Abwehr agent’s eyes, but no shock of recognition at the place. This answered one of my questions.

  “I know you,” Schlegel suddenly said with something like relief in his shaky voice. “You were at the—”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Turn around.” I patted him down. He had no weapon on him. “Pick up your bags and walk straight ahead to that shack.”

  “What do you—”

  “Shut up!” I said in Portuguese, and slammed the barrel of the .357 against the back of his neck just hard enough to draw a red welt and a few drops of blood. “Spazieren Sie,” I snapped. “Schnell!”

  We walked to the first shack, Schlegel panting slightly as he carried his heavy bags up the muddy hill. No one was around. Insects made noise in the thick underbrush beyond the shacks. The building had been burned out some years before, leaving only the charred walls with no roof.

  “Zurücklegen,” I said when we were inside the shell of the building. Schlegel dropped the bags. I noticed that he was stepping carefully, trying not to get soot or carbon black on his white suit. It was very hot out of the breeze.

  “Look here,” Schlegel said in English. “I remember that you were a decent sort. There’s absolutely no reason for you to aim that pistol at me. If it’s money you want, I am willing to—”

  His voice was sounding more confident, although it was still shaking slightly. He had started to turn when I tapped him on the side of his head with the lead pipe I had wrapped with duct tape.

  IT TOOK SCHLEGEL almost ten minutes to regain consciousness, and I had begun worrying that I had hit him too hard when he started moaning and stirring. I had used the time to go through his bags: clothes, underwear, shaving kit, eight bow ties, a business appointment book with no immediately obvious codes or cipher, and a folder filled with papers relating to his job with the Companhia de Acos Marathon in Rio. There was also a 9-millimeter Luger and $26,000 in crisp, one-hundred-dollar bills in the bottom of his larger suitcase.

  Schlegel moaned again and tried to move. I stood behind him and to one side and watched. He stirred again. I saw his eyes flicker open and then grow wide as he remembered what had happened and realized where he was and what was happening to him.

  That last fact might have been the hardest for him to piece together. In front of him and in his field of view were the open suitcases—the Luger and the money atop his scattered clothes in one suitcase—and his white suit coat, trousers, blue shirt, white shoes, and red bow tie folded and stacked neatly atop the other pile of clothes. I watched as Schlegel tried to look down at himself, realized that his hands were taped behind his back and that he was wearing only his undershirt, boxer shorts, and black socks. Then he moaned as he realized that he was draped over an oil drum. The moan was muffled by the duct tape I had placed across his mouth.

  I stepped closer and set my foot on the backs of his legs, pushing slightly so that he rocked forward on the rusted barrel. His face grew red as gravity forced the blood forward and down. I took the double-wide strip of tape in my hand and pressed it over the German’s eyes before he could twist his head away. The man moaned through the tape over his mouth, and then I rocked him back so that his toes could touch the ground and he could breathe more easily.

  “Schlegel, listen to me,” I said in rapid German. “What you say in the next few minutes will determine whether you live or die. Be very careful. Tell me only the truth. Hold nothing back. Do you understand me?”

  Schlegel tried to speak and then nodded.

  “Sehr gut,” I said, and ripped the tape from his mouth. Schlegel cried out and then fell silent as I held the blade of my knife against the side of his neck.

  “Your name,” I snapped. I had long since decided that German was by far the best language in the world for interrogation purposes.

  “Theodore Shell,” said Schlegel in English. “I am technical adviser to the Marathon Steel Company, headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with a subsidiary in São… Ach! Stop! Do not do that! Cease!”

  I used the knife to finish cutting the length of his undershirt, then slipped the razor-sharp blade under the elastic of his shorts and cut them away. The process had drawn blood here and there.

  “Your name,” I said again.

  Schlegel was panting in fear now. He wiggled on the oil drum, his black socks trying to find purchase in the loose soil, his face redder than ever. “Theodore Schlegel,” he whispered.

  “What is your code name?”

  Schlegel licked his lips. “What do you mean? I have no—”

  I drew the point of the blade across the cheeks of his buttocks. Schlegel screamed.

  “You can scream all you want,” I said. “There is no one to hear you. But every time you scream, you will be punished.”

  The bellowing stopped.

  “Your code name?”

  “Salama.”

  “Do you work for Abwehr or AMT VI?”

  The overweight man hesitated. I slipped the knife into my left hand, lifted the screwdriver in my right, and dipped the metal end of the screwdriver in the open can of grease.

  “Who are you?” whispered Schlegel. “What do you want? Is it the writer who is paying you? I can pay you more. You’ve seen the money… Ahh! Jesus! Stop! Jesus Christ! Acchh! Oh, my Jesus.”

  “Shut up,” I said. When he was silent except for the gasping, I said, “Abwehr or AMT VI?”

  “Abwehr,” said Schlegel. “Please do not do that again with the knife. I will pay you any amount—”

  “Silence!” I took a breath. In his shock, Schlegel had urinated against the oil drum and his legs. “Tell me about Alfredo,” I said.

  “Alfredo?” said Schlegel. “No, wait! Wait! Stop! Yes… I forgot the code name. Alfredo is Albrecht Engels. In Brazil.”

  “His transmitter?”

  “We call it ‘Bolívar.’ ”

  “Do you use it?”

  “Nein… nein! It is true. Last year I paid twenty contos… a thousand dollars… of my own money to build our transmitter in Gávea.”

  “Operator’
s name?” I snapped.

  “George Knapper was the first. He was sent to the United States a year ago. Rolf Trautmann is my current operator.”

  Was, I thought. Trautmann had been rounded up in the FBI/Brazilian police operation almost four months ago while Schlegel was traveling on the Southern Cross.

  “How does Hauptsturmführer Becker figure into your present operation?” I said.

  I felt Schlegel’s body stiffen. As terrified as he was, he seemed more terrified of Becker. “Who?” he began. Then he screamed, “No… you cannot do that! Mother of… stop! Just stop! I will tell you! No! Christ, just stop!”

  I pulled the head of the screwdriver away and wiped it on the grass. “Becker,” I said.

  “He has worked with us in Brazil,” panted the German. His legs were quivering. Tears flowed from beneath the duct tape and trembled on his cheeks and jowls.

  “Is he Abwehr or SD?” I said. So far, I had asked no questions for which I had not known the answers.

  “SD,” gasped Schlegel. “AMT VI.”

  “Is he your superior in this operation?” I asked, laying the knife against Schlegel’s spine.

  “Yes, yes, yes.”

  “Describe this operation,” I said flatly. “Goals. Purpose. Timeline. Agents involved. Status report.”

  “I don’t… Yes, no! Stop! Please!”

  I waited while the man stopped sobbing.

  “Operation Raven,” he gasped. “Joint Abwehr/SD mission. Authorized by Admiral Canaris and Major Schellenberg.”

  “Goals?”

  “Infiltration of the Viking Fund. Use of—”

  “Infiltration?” I said. “The Viking Fund doesn’t know about your objectives?”

  “No, they… Oh, stop! Christ! No! It is true! The boat was purchased for them. We have… I have… contributed money to the fund. But they think, they do not know… Jesus, I tell the truth!”

  “Continue.”

  “We use the radio equipment on the Southern Cross to communicate with U-boats and Hamburg,” gasped Schlegel.

  “Objectives,” I said again.

  Schlegel shook his head. “I do not know them. Becker has not… Ahhh!”

  This time the scream went on for a long minute. I looked over my shoulder at the open door. There was no guarantee that no one was within hearing distance, but I trusted the Cubans’ well-honed sense of survival to insure that we would not be disturbed.

  “Truth!” said Schlegel, weeping openly. “Hauptsturmführer Becker has not told me. We have paid much money to the Cuban National Police, but I do not know what the money is for.”

  “Who receives it for the Cuban National Police?” I said.

  “Lieutenant Maldonado,” said Schlegel, his body quivering on the oil drum. “He conveys it to his superior officer, the one known as Juanito the Jehovah’s Witness. He, in turn, pays General Valdes.”

  “What is the money for?”

  “I do not know.” Schlegel’s body flinched in anticipation, but I made no move.

  “How can you not know, my friend?”

  “I swear to you! I swear on my mother’s soul! Hauptsturmführer Becker has not confided in me.”

  “Name all of the other agents,” I said, touching the blade of the knife to his back for a second before transferring the knife to my left hand and picking up the screwdriver again.

  Schlegel was shaking his head. “I know only Becker, the current radio operator on the boat… Schmidt… who is an SS sergeant, very stupid… and no one else… Wait! No! Please, no! Stop!”

  I did not stop for some seconds. By this time, Schlegel was certain that a knife had been tearing his vitals apart, but no real damage had been done to anything but his pride. The screwdriver was cold steel but well lubricated. I thought of Hemingway’s introduction to Men at War. The writer boasted of knowing “what war is really like rather than what it is supposed to be.” He had no idea.

  “Who else?” I said. I wanted this over with. “You used agents to hunt for the missing whore. Who?”

  Schlegel was shaking his head so violently that sweat and tears struck me three feet behind him. “Truly, I tell you truly. I know of no one else. We used Falangists… sympathizers… to look for the girl. We did not find her. We used no real agents. But there will be landings… one is scheduled for the thirteenth… No! Stop!”

  “Tell me the purpose of the landings,” I said.

  “I do not know. I swear. They are Abwehr men. Two. To be landed by submarine at some location on the Cuban coast. I do not know where.”

  “Why?” I did not expect an answer to this question.

  “To meet with the FBI,” gasped Schlegel.

  I almost dropped the knife and screwdriver. “Continue,” I managed to say after a second.

  Schlegel was still shaking his head. “I discovered this by accident. I swear. Hauptsturmführer Becker did not tell me. I know this from the Cuban… Lieutenant Maldonado… who said that Herr Becker was to meet with the FBI and that there will be further contacts after a submarine insertion of agents.”

  “Who from the FBI?” I said.

  “I do not know. I swear to you. I do not know. Please let me go. I beseech you, as a man. As a Christian.”

  “What is the purpose of this rendezvous with the FBI?” I said.

  “Please. I beg of you. I have a wife. I am a good man. You must not… Stop! Oh, Jesus fuck! Fuck! Shit! Stop!”

  “The purpose?”

  “I am not supposed to know… but I am aware… these things were rumored in Rio… Becker has made mention, indirectly…” Schlegel was gasping and babbling, a phrase in German, a fragment of a sentence in Portuguese, words in English. I waited patiently.

  “There is some contact between the Abwehr and the FBI,” he panted. “It has been rumored for at least a year.”

  “And the landing has to do with that contact?” I said.

  “I think so… I do not know… perhaps… I think so. Becker said that this is a very important operation. That the future of the Reich depends upon it. Oh, please let me go.”

  “Who killed the boy?” I said.

  “Boy? What boy?” said Schlegel, and his terror was in not knowing how to answer the question. “Please, what boy?” He clearly knew nothing of Santiago’s death.

  “Name the operatives other than the radioman and Becker,” I said.

  Schlegel started to shake his head. “Wait… wait! No, wait! Wait! Stop! There are two others in Cuba.”

  “Who?” I said. I was trying not to vomit in the heat and stink of the burned-out shack. “Where?”

  “I do not know. They are a Todt Team. That is a team trained to—”

  “Names,” I said.

  “I know no names. Honestly.”

  “Is Helga Sonneman an agent?”

  “I do not know—”

  Schlegel screamed and screamed again. When he got his breath, he said, “I swear by all that is holy and by my faith in the Führer, I do not know their names. I do not know if Sonneman is an agent or simply a rich, foolish bitch. I know that one of the Todt Team members is close to Hemingway’s group. Becker receives constant information from that agent about what the writer’s amateur organization is doing.”

  “What is that agent’s code name?”

  “Panama.”

  “And the other’s code name?”

  “Columbia.”

  “The Todt Team,” I said. “Are you sure that there are only two?”

  “Two. I am certain. Two. Becker receives transmissions from two.”

  “Male or female?”

  “I do not know. I swear to you, I do not know.”

  “Who are they going to kill?” I said softly.

  Schlegel shook his head so fiercely that sweat pattered in the ashes and struck the burned-out beams. The gray tape over his eyes wrinkled as he furrowed his brow. “I do not know. I do not think the transmission has been sent yet with authorization for them to… to complete their mission.”

 
Here we were. This was the reason for all this. I said, “Give me the cipher base for the numerical-based transmissions.”

  “I do not… Christ! Stop! Please! No!”

  “The cipher base,” I said.

  “You must believe me. It is Becker’s code. He had me deliver it to the radioman aboard the Southern Cross, but I have no memory for numbers and do not remember… No!”

  The screaming stopped eventually. I said, “If you have a bad memory, you wrote it down somewhere. If you want to live, Herr Schlegel, find it for me within the next ten seconds.”

  “No, I cannot… Wait! Stop! Yes! In my appointment book! On the third to last page. There is a column of phone numbers.”

  I retrieved the book and checked the page. Beside a list of Rio-based businessmen’s names, there were phone numbers. Brazil used a seven-digit system.

  “The fifth number down,” gasped Schlegel. “I had to write it down to remember it.”

  “Two-nine-five,” I said. “One-four-one-three?” Something in Schlegel’s tensed muscles told me that this was not all.

  “I will discover if this is not correct,” I said softly. “You will not leave here until I know. And if it is not…”

  Schlegel’s body collapsed then, that is the only way to describe it. It was as if all the air went out of the man and he simply deflated and became a vaguely human-shaped jellyfish draped over the oil drum. I am ashamed to admit that I had seen this before.

  “It is the number,” he said, sobbing loudly. “It is reversed.”

  I dropped the screwdriver into the ashes, stepped closer, raised the knife blade, and cut through the tape that bound his wrists. I ripped the tape away from his red and swollen eyes.

  I picked up the Luger and dropped it into my jacket pocket. Walking to the door and looking out at the ditch where little Santiago had been murdered, I said, “Clean yourself. Get dressed. Repack your suitcases.”