‘We must also see if we can locate the detonators,’ Schutzmann said. ‘We could, of course, make our own, but it will simplify things.’
‘Yes,’ Weiss agreed. ‘And it will further reinforce the narrative.’
‘How’s that?’ Parker asked.
‘Never mind. Let’s just find what we came for and get out before someone happens by.’
It took them about six minutes to locate the eight-by-ten-foot area in the far corner that was set apart by a partition of thick bars like a jail cell with a door secured by a heavy padlock. Through the bars they could see the stack of heavy wooden boxes, each stenciled on the side:
USA XP 1923 GELIGNITE PR 17
EXPLOSIVES ** EXPLOSIVES
HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE
KEEP AWAY FROM HEAT
‘Goddam!’ said Weiss.
‘Yes,’ Schutzmann said. ‘It is the proper way. They are being careful.’
‘They could have put up a real wall,’ Weiss commented, ‘if they wanted to be careful.’
‘If these boxes were to blow up,’ Schutzmann said, ‘a wall, however real, would not help’
‘Let me at that padlock,’ said Parker.
In less than a minute he had the door open and Schutzmann and Parker were hefting one of the boxes, which according to the notation on the lid held twelve pounds of gelignite in six two-pound sticks, and stepping off toward the exit. Weiss had located a small box of blasting caps and was a few steps behind.
‘Herr Weiss,’ Schutzmann called, ‘would you close that door please. Then it may be some time before they notice the absence.’
‘On the contrary,’ Weiss said, ‘we shall leave it open. That way they will discover it the sooner. And one necessary final touch …’ He took an envelope from his pocket and, using his handkerchief so as not to touch it, removed a Workers Party of America membership card from it and allowed the card to flutter to the ground. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘let us get these boxes into the service cart and us and it away from here.’
THIRTY-ONE
The sword above here smiteth not in haste
Nor tardily, howe’er it seem to him
Who fearing or desiring waits for it.
– Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Milton came to the door of the morning room, where Lord Geoffrey was indulging in coffee and a selection of pastries from Kantor Bros. Jewish Deli on M Street. ‘Major Martell, my lord,’ he announced, and then disappeared behind the door as the major entered.
Coming to a halt and stiffening to attention just inside the door, the Major announced: ‘Major Chaz Martell, US Army Signal Intelligence, your lordship.’
‘Um?’ Geoffrey asked, waving the major in.
‘I hope I’m not interrupting you.’
‘Not at all,’ Geoffrey assured him. ‘Come in, Major. Have a cup of coffee and a piece of honey cake or a rugelach or two. I think that’s how to say it. We have acquired a Jewish, I guess, ward, and we’re trying the foods of her clan. They do well in the pastry department.’
‘No thank you, Lord Saboy, I mean, I have already eaten.’
‘Then just coffee? And it’s Lord Geoffrey, not Lord Saboy. British forms of address are a minefield for the unwary. I was just awaiting the events of the afternoon and here you are. Delighted. What can I do for you?’
‘I’m with the Signal Intelligence Service detachment at Fort Meade. We have a recent Italian Embassy intercept that I’ve been instructed to share with you. I understand it was you who acquired the copies of the one-time pads we’re using.’
‘My wife, actually,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Come and sit down. She’ll be joining us in a minute.’
‘Uh,’ the Major said, looking uncomfortable. ‘I was told to pass these on to you. Nothing was said about your wife. These are Top Secret, you understand.’
‘So is my wife,’ Geoffrey told him. ‘She is,’ he added, stretching a point, ‘one of Britain’s top counterespionage officers in the United States.’
‘Oh,’ Major Martell said. ‘Really? I had no idea. They didn’t say.’
‘And a good thing too,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Besides, they almost certainly didn’t know. She’s very good at her job. I’m trusting you not to divulge this to anyone.’
Major Martell eased himself into one of the upholstered chairs. He had the uneasy feeling of one who has just had a secret thrust upon him that one would just as soon not know. ‘Well …’ he said.
‘So the pads are useful?’
‘They are,’ Major Martell agreed. ‘We do have a man at the Western Union office sending us copies of all the Italian Embassy traffic along with, ah, other material. I shouldn’t …’
‘Better not, I am easily shocked,’ Geoffrey said. ‘But about the Italian stuff?’
‘Most of the messages are sent in the normal diplomatic code. For a while we could read everything – I understand we bought a copy of the code from a man in Geneva. Then about six months ago they changed the code. But apparently messages direct to the Ambassador from Count Ciano – he’s the Foreign Minister …’
‘Yes, he is,’ Geoffrey agreed.
‘Well, those are sent using this one-time pad. Presumably so that even if the diplomatic code has been breached the most-secret stuff will stay secret. But in this case …’
‘Yes?’ Geoffrey asked helpfully.
‘We have the pad. At least for the next twenty or so messages.’
‘Right. And what have you found?’
‘Oddly this most-secret stuff seems mostly to be gossip. You know, who’s doing what and with what and to whom, as the old limerick has it.’
At this point Patricia came through the inner door and smiled brightly at the two men. ‘My lovely husband,’ she said. ‘And a handsome guest. A major.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Major Martell said, rising to his feet. ‘Major Chaz Martell, United States Army Signal Intelligence.’
‘Welcome, Major Martell,’ Patricia said, advancing and offering her hand.
Martell shook her hand briefly and gingerly. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’
‘What wondrous things do you have to impart to us?’ she asked, sitting on the edge of the sofa and looking intensely interested.
‘Well, Special Agent Welker said that we should notify you if anything turned up regarding a Case or Operation Booth.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, we’ve only gotten three intercepts so far that keyed to the one-time pads, but the third one had a mention, although we don’t exactly understand it. Cabina di caso, that’s what it is in Italian.’
‘What does he say about it?’ Geoffrey asked.
‘Here,’ Major Martell said, taking an envelope from an inner jacket pocket and passing it over. ‘Here’s a copy of the original with an English translation on the next page. You read it. I’ll have to have it back when you’re done.’
‘Of course. Here, sit, sit. Have some coffee.’
Major Martell sat gingerly on the couch while Geoffrey took the two sheets of paper from the envelope and unfolded them. He held them side by side, stared at them for a minute, and went, ‘Umm.’
‘Geoffrey, you pig,’ Patricia said. ‘Don’t hog it. What does it say?’
‘Umm,’ Geoffrey said. ‘It is from Count Ciano himself to Ambassador Anducci. He thanks him for his recent hospitality and says he was Saturday at a big house party at Claretta’s—’
‘That would be Clara Petacci,’ the major interrupted. ‘She is known to be Mussolini’s, ah, mistress.’ He looked vaguely embarrassed at having said ‘mistress’.
‘Yes,’ Geoffrey agreed. ‘And then he says, um, um, ah – here. He says that his man in Berlin reports that Hess—’
‘That would be Obergruppenführer Rudolf Hess, Lord Geoffrey,’ Major Martell interrupted again. ‘He—’
‘Yes, I know,’ Geoffrey told him. ‘As it happens I met him a few weeks ago.’
‘Oh.’ Major Martell poured himself a cup of coffee and diluted it with four
heaps of sugar and a healthy dollop of cream.
Geoffrey looked back down at the paper. ‘That Hess told Renzetti—’
‘That would be Giuseppi Renzetti, the Italian Ambassador to Germany,’ Patricia informed him sweetly.’
‘Really?’
‘Was that a sarcastic “really”? Yes. I met his wife at that party at the Italian Embassy a few weeks ago. She was over here visiting relatives. She did not want her fortune told.’
‘Ah!’ Geoffrey said. ‘At any rate, he told Renzetti,’ he looked back down at the paper, ‘that Cabina di caso – “Case Booth” – was underway. That it was under the control of Herr Weiss, whom he – that would be Renzetti – had met at the divertimento a few weeks back.’
‘I believe I also met the gentleman in question,’ Patricia said. ‘Short, with a puffy face, a short blond beard clipped straight across at the bottom, and piggy eyes.’
‘Interesting, possibly useful,’ Geoffrey commented, and then turned back to the message: ‘And that Germany and Italy would soon have nothing to fear from the United States for some time.’
‘Nothing to fear?’ Patricia
‘So he said. And America’s eyes would be directed toward the East.’
‘Like China?’ Patricia asked. ‘Japan?’
‘He doesn’t say.’
‘What else?’
‘That Renzetti should appreciate the pun.’
‘The pun?’
‘Ah – Gioco di parole – that certainly translates to “pun”.’
‘What pun?’
‘Probably on Cabina di caso, or more probably the original German, Fall Bude.’
‘If you can parse a pun out of that,’ Patricia told him, ‘you’re welcome to it.’
‘Well, as my old friend Willy Ley is so fond of saying, “German humor is no laughing matter.”’
‘What else can we glean from the message?’ Patricia asked.
‘Um, where was I? Oh yes. Oh dear.’
‘What?’
‘He, that is Count Ciano, suggests, on the basis of what Renzetti was able to make out of what Hess said, that Anducci – well, let me read it to you: “We can be sure of nothing, but it is our strong suggestion, based on Renzetti’s perception of what Hess said, or rather what he deliberately did not say, that it would be a good idea if you keep all Embassy staff away from New York City for the next two weeks and particularly avoid A17 …”’
Geoffrey looked over at Major Martell. ‘Two weeks from when? When did you intercept this?’
‘Two days ago, your, ah, lordship. Just decoded it this morning. Came right over.’
‘Oh great. New York in two weeks. And A17. What the blazes is A17, do you suppose?’
‘It’s turned up in several of the other decrypts – not that precisely, but letter-number combinations like that,’ Major Martell said. ‘Professor Friedman – my boss – thinks it’s a nomenclature code. Somewhere there’s a list of things, all identified by a letter-number combination, so you never have to write the name of the thing, even in your encrypted messages.’
‘What sorts of things?’ Patricia asked.
‘Anything important that you’re liable to mention: bridges, tunnels, government buildings, even people.’
‘So something’s going to happen in New York sometime in the next two weeks,’ Patricia said, ‘but we don’t know what or where except that we should avoid A17, whatever that is.’
‘That would seem to be it,’ Geoffrey agreed. ‘And that this Herr Weiss is in charge of it. How good a look did you get at him?’
‘I’d know him again at midnight in a dust storm,’ Patricia told him. ‘He exudes an evil miasma.’
‘You exaggerate,’ Geoffrey said.
‘Let us hope so.’
Geoffrey turned to Major Martell. ‘Who else are you showing this to?’
‘Colonel Garsten of Military Intelligence back at Meade; our liaison at the FBI will get a copy; and Special Agent Welker, of course. And that’s about it. Perhaps we should alert the New York City Police Department, but I’m not exactly sure what we can tell them. And we can’t reveal the source of our information, so that’s a problem.’
‘We’ll let that be Welker’s problem,’ Geoffrey said. ‘He evidently has some connections in the NYC Police.’
‘We’ll get a copy of this to him in the morning,’ Major Martell said. He finished his coffee and stood up. ‘I should be going. If I could have the document back, please.’
‘Of course,’ Geoffrey said, handing it to him. ‘Thank you for sharing it with us.’
‘Yes, sir. Of course.’ Visibly resisting the urge to salute, he did a neat about-face and left the room.
‘Well,’ Geoffrey said. ‘What do you make of this?’
Patricia stood up. ‘I think we should go there,’ she said.
‘Where, New York?’
‘Yes.’
‘What on earth good could we do there?’
‘What good can we do here?’ Patricia asked.
‘Yes, well, there is that of course.’
‘They say that if you stand at the intersection of Forty-Second Street and Broadway sooner or later you’ll meet everyone you know.’
‘They do?’
‘Yes they do. I could stand on the corner there and watch for Herr Weiss. You could bring me coffee and donuts. We could take turns, except you don’t know what Herr Weiss looks like.’
Geoffrey considered. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘it’s possible that we could do some good. If we could make some sort of half-educated guess of where what’s going on might be going on, where Weiss might actually show up, we could hide behind a convenient potted palm and look out for the blighter.’
‘How would we do that?’
‘I think we go to New York and sit down with Welker.’
‘I could force myself to do that,’ Patricia agreed. ‘Under great coercion, of course.’
‘I noticed that you were attracted to him,’ Geoffrey commented, ‘but do keep it in his pants until whatever this is is over. You can be quite a distraction, I believe.’
‘I am innocent of intent,’ she told him.
‘Really?’ he said. ‘“While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.”’
She pursed her lips in silent thought for a minute, and then said, ‘Ah! I get it.’
‘Robert Browning,’ Geoffrey told her. ‘Wise man, Browning. He understood much that continues to befuddle the rest of us.’
‘And then he wrote it down, to befuddle us even further,’ Patricia offered.
‘At times,’ Geoffrey agreed.
THIRTY-TWO
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
omitted, all the voyage of their life
is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
and we must take the current when it serves,
or lose our ventures.
– William Shakespeare
Blake was staring down at his clam chowder. ‘They’ve taken a room at the Waldorf Astoria,’ he said.
Welker pushed the plate holding the remains of his hamburger to the side and centered his cup of coffee on the table before him. He had arrived at the Figaro first, a little after noon, and was already eating when Blake arrived. But he had waited patiently for Blake to ask the waiter if they really had clam chowder like it said on the board, to order the clam chowder with a toasted bagel and cream cheese and a cup of coffee, and to stare morosely at the giant espresso machine until the food arrived.
‘Who?’ Welker asked. ‘Who has?’
‘Lehman, or whoever he really is, he and his “Action Group”.’
‘At the Waldorf?’
‘I thought clam chowder was red.’
‘This is New England clam chowd
er, it’s white.’
‘Oh.’ Blake stuck a tentative spoon into the chowder, lifted it to his lips, and tasted. He thought about it for a minute. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Different. Creamy.’
‘What sort of room?’ Welker asked.
‘You know, a room. Like a bedroom. A room.’
‘Not a meeting room or a ballroom or a … whatever else they rent?’
‘Nope. Just a bedroom.’
‘Why?’
‘He didn’t tell me. I didn’t ask and he didn’t tell me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Lehman? He had me go rent the room for them under the name of Booth and then bring him the key. Told me to pay for a week in advance. Told me to stay away from the hotel after that. So that’s what I’m doing.’
‘Booth?’
‘Yeah, that’s what he said. Isaac Booth. He thought that was funny for some reason. I paid cash for a week.’
‘When was this?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. Six dollars a day. Can you believe that?’
‘Hey, there are people around for whom six dollars a day is piffle. But the question is, why did Lehman become one of them? Why does he need a room? And why at the Waldorf for six dollars a day?’
Blake finished his chowder and carefully set the bowl to the side. ‘It’s for the Action Group, he says.’
‘That’s my next question,’ Welker added. ‘What the hell is the “Action Group”?’
‘I told you about it a couple of weeks ago.’
‘Yeah. You told me they were setting one up, but you didn’t tell me what it is.’
‘’Cause I don’t know what it is. He asked for volunteers for this Action Group ’cause he says we’re just about ready for some meaningful action.’
‘What kind of action?’
‘He didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask.’
‘How many guys?’
‘Four guys. Maybe five. He peeled it down from nine or ten. A couple of the ladies volunteered too, but he said maybe next time, so it’s all guys. Four–five guys. Tough-looking guys. The kind of nut jobs who hope that “action” means a fight, you know what I mean?’
‘Do they do anything? Are they going to do anything? Hold meetings? Run around a track? Study ancient Persian manuscripts? Anything? Besides, presumably, going to a hotel room at the Waldorf?’
The Bells of Hell Page 24