A Gathering of Spies

by John Altman

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  A Gathering of Spies

  John Altman

  For my parents

  I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality …

  —GOETHE

  PROLOGUE

  NEW YORK CITY

  DECEMBER 1933

  A light dusting of snow had fallen; the city looked almost pretty.

  They walked toward the waterfront. Catherine could hear the whisper of a halfhearted Christmas carol from somewhere, the mystical hoot of a foghorn, the soft diffuse sound of music drifting over the river.

  Her coat had lost all but one of its buttons; she was forced to hold the neck closed with one hand. How did Katarina manage to keep her coat looking so new? she wondered. How did Katarina always manage to traipse around a half foot above the realities of life, floating around, really, so untouchable and stylish and happy?

  Katarina was talking about a movie she had seen: The Eagle and the Hawk, starring Cary Grant and Carole Lombard. Her green eyes sparkled; her blond hair bounced around her shoulders in time with her steps. She chattered on gaily, without a hint of self-consciousness. Katarina’s English, Catherine found herself thinking, was better than the English of people who had lived here twice as long. Why, she even spoke with less of an accent than Catherine, who had been born in the Bronx. How on earth did Katarina do it? How was it that everything came to her so naturally?

  Farther uptown, a ship was coming in; the water of the Hudson was alive with a thousand dancing lights. Catherine could see the bustle of activity on the quay, but she couldn’t make out any detail—just a shapeless, undulating mass of humanity. A band was playing on the cruiser’s deck, something brassy and celebratory but small with distance.

  She shivered. She was cold. She shouldn’t have come out in the first place. It was time to go home.

  She turned to tell Katarina, but Katarina was gone.

  After another moment she spotted her friend—moving off down a deserted dock, out over the black water.

  “Katarina!” she called.

  “Come on!” Katarina called back.

  Then she vanished into the darkness somewhere beyond a stack of crates on the dock.

  Catherine stared after her. I won’t follow her, she thought. It’s late and it’s cold and my coat only has one button, and besides, I’m not like Katarina. I don’t enjoy adventures on dark, deserted docks late at night.

  Besides, she was starting a new job the next day. She wanted to make a good impression on her new employer—be in passable shape, at least, when he first saw her coming off the train. Not that she was hoping for anything to develop in that direction, of course. He was a widower, true enough, but she had no illusions about her own attractiveness. No, she didn’t harbor even a tiny little hope. Still, a solid night’s sleep seemed like a good idea. She wanted to be as presentable as possible when he first laid eyes on her.

  She stepped onto the dock, hesitated for a moment, then took another step forward. God only knew who was lurking around out there at this time of night. She held her beaded purse more tightly to her body. A freezing sea spray leapt up from nowhere, turning her coat damp. She shivered again. Where had Katarina gone?

  “Katarina,” she said, “I’ve got to get home.”

  “Just come look at this, Cat, and I’ll walk back with you.”

  “Look at what?”

  No answer.

  Catherine stayed where she was for another moment, still holding the coat together with one hand. A flicker of some odd, foreign emotion was moving through her. After an instant, she recognized it as anger. Why was Katarina dragging her out onto this deserted dock the night before she started a new job? Katarina was jealous, that was why. Katarina had to keep working at Owen and Dunn, getting pawed by old George Gardner every time she turned around, while Catherine got to go off to the country and live in a nice house with a respectable man. Katarina wanted to ruin it for her.…

  That’s ridiculous, she thought. She came to see you off. She’s your friend.

  She took another few steps forward, moving around the crate.

  “Katarina?” she said.

  It had been two years since the last time.

  But it went perfectly. Her body took the responsibility itself, without waiting for instructions from her mind. She watched from a polite distance as her hand dug into her purse and removed the switchblade. She watched as her thumb depressed the catch and the blade snicked out into the night. She watched as she put her back against the crate, waiting for Catherine to step into range; and then as her left arm came up and snaked around Catherine’s throat, expertly, the fingers slipping inside Catherine’s mouth. She watched as her right hand moved the blade up, finding the correct angle perfectly, elegantly, as if she had done this just yesterday.

  She slid the blade between the fourth and fifth ribs, directly into Catherine Danielson’s heart.

  Catherine began to shake. Katarina, embracing her from behind, held on tightly. For a few seconds, Catherine shivered almost sensuously; then she let out a papery sigh. Not dead yet—but her chest cavity already would be filling with blood. Her punctured heart would drown itself.

  Katarina removed the switchblade before she lowered Catherine to the dock. She wiped the blade clean on Catherine’s raggedy coat, then flung the knife into the water.

  After that she worked quickly, without looking at the body lying on the dock by her feet. She found the box she had put there earlier in the night, a small cardboard parcel tucked between two crates. From the box she withdrew two heavy, misshapen pieces of scrap steel, already entwined with ropes. She tied the loose ends of the ropes to Catherine’s ankles. The wind was bitter and cold; she ignored it. From farther up the dock she could hear intermittent cheers as the cruiser discharged its passengers and the band played on.

  Once she had the weights fastened to Catherine’s ankles, she stood up and surveyed her handiwork. She took a long, critical look; a small furrow of concentration appeared on her brow. Then, abruptly, she rolled the body off the dock with one foot. The splash sounded very loud. Following the splash came a few moments of hissing as the ocean closed back up over the intruding object.

  Then silence.

  The band struck up a fresh tune—“Don’t Blame Me.”

  Katarina picked up Catherine Danielson’s purse, dug through it, and found a cigarette. She slung the purse over her shoulder, lit the cigarette, and moved back down the dock.

  PART ONE

  1

  SALISBURY, WILTSHIRE

  DECEMBER 1942

  They had been driving in silence for twenty minutes. Winterbotham’s eyes were beginning to drift shut, despite his best efforts to keep them open, when Colonel Fredricks suddenly said, “You know, Professor, you’re not at all what I expected.”

  For a few moments, Winterbotham considered letting it pass. He knew what the colonel meant, and he wasn’t in the mood for a fight. He was too goddamned tired. But then his pride—his old bedraggled pride, never knowing when to stay down—forced him to respond.

  “How do you mean, Colonel?” he asked.

  The colonel let out a small chuckle. “I had been led to expect a sort of wildcat, I suppose.”

  Winterbotham looked out his window for another moment before answering. The countryside drifted past in absolute darkness; he couldn’t make out even the top of the tree line. For the previous two years, all of England had been shutting itself down every night when dusk fell. He suppos
ed they served their purpose, these voluntary blackouts; they made it difficult for the Luftwaffe to find their targets. But they also took a toll, one that was purely psychological but very real. Hitler hadn’t won the war, not yet—but he had forced them to live in darkness, like animals in caves.

  Then Winterbotham turned his head slowly to look at the man sitting beside him in the gloom. Colonel Fredricks was a tall, pallid man who resembled a cadaver. In the darkness, Winterbotham could see only a pale smudge, which would have been his face.

  “A wildcat,” he mused.

  “So I had been warned.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Oh, don’t apologize, Professor. It is my great pleasure to find you …” He trailed off.

  “Manageable?” Winterbotham said.

  “Yes,” Fredricks said, relieved. “That’s exactly right.”

  “You thought I would demand to know where we’re going,” Winterbotham said, “and I would make the trip as unpleasant for you as possible.”

  “It had occurred to me. Yes.”

  “So it must have been Taylor who sent you.”

  Fredricks didn’t answer.

  “Taylor has always overestimated me,” Winterbotham said, and allowed himself a thin smile at the man’s silence.

  “I’m afraid I can’t—”

  “I haven’t demanded to know our destination,” Winterbotham said, “because I already know our destination, Colonel Fredricks. We’re going to a small nondescript house somewhere in the countryside, correct? I can’t see that it much matters if I know the precise location or not. Once we’ve arrived, we’ll meet with my old friend Professor Andrew Taylor, correct? And he will explain the reason for this rather bizarre invitation you have extended me, correct?”

  Again, no answer.

  “I haven’t asked you what the matter is,” Winterbotham said, “for the simple reason that you don’t know what the matter is. Isn’t that right, Colonel? You’re his retriever, but you don’t know what you’re retrieving, let alone why, correct?”

  Fredricks cleared his throat. “We’re nearly there,” he said stiffly.

  Winterbotham turned and looked out his window again, feeling vaguely satisfied.

  He knew they were near Salisbury because he spotted the extraordinary, unmistakable spire of the gothic cathedral—a stab of darkness just slightly darker than the sky behind it—shortly before they stopped. The car pulled up outside a small Tudor house that stood among a row of similar houses, modest dwellings all, with crossed slats of honey-colored wood on the peaked roofs.

  Winterbotham waited for Colonel Fredricks to open his door for him, then stepped out into the night, trying to keep his teeth from chattering. A bitter wind immediately took his chestnut hair and increased its disarray. He pulled his tweed jacket more tightly around himself, crinkling his eyes against motes of flying dust.

  The room they entered had a claustrophobically low ceiling; it smelled of cabbage and fish. The only light came from a crackling fire in a stone hearth. Blackout shades had been drawn over the windows nonetheless. A wireless radio somewhere, turned low, was playing softly “She’s Funny That Way.”

  Winterbotham had guessed right: Andrew Taylor was sitting in one of two easy chairs by the fireplace. He rose as they came into the room, and offered his hand. He was a man of a certain age, like Winterbotham himself, and, like Winterbotham, he was a man of a certain weight, even in the midst of wartime rationing.

  Winterbotham had not seen Taylor for several years, not since they’d been teaching together at the university. His first impression was that the man looked older, more haggard, more harried. His second was that he also looked healthier, in a strange way: His eyes were sparkling, and his handshake was firm. The war was doing him good, Winterbotham realized. Sometimes you found people like that; these dark days brought out the best in them. They were the Churchills of the world, the ones who thrived on conflict.

  “Evening, old chap,” Taylor said. “They found you.”

  “That they did. In my bath.”

  “Sorry about that, Harry. Come in, have a seat. Thank you, Colonel. That will be all.”

  Colonel Fredricks executed a courtly half bow, then stepped back out through the front door and closed it behind himself.

  “You’ve got him well trained,” Winterbotham remarked.

  “Not I. It’s the Royal Artillery who trained him so well. Tea?”

  “Something stronger, if you’ve got it.”

  Winterbotham settled down in one of the easy chairs beside the fire. A marble chessboard had been set up on a table between the chairs. He inspected it with a small smile. Perhaps Taylor had dragged him all the way out here simply because he was hungry for a good game of chess … although he rather doubted it.

  Taylor handed him a chipped mug and sat opposite the chessboard, holding one of his own. Winterbotham raised the mug and sniffed suspiciously. Whiskey. He took a sip into his mouth and rolled it around. Not just whiskey, but good whiskey. How long had it been since he’d had good whiskey?

  “You’re looking well,” Taylor said.

  Winterbotham glanced at him with a raised eyebrow—he knew how he was looking, and well had nothing to do with it—and drank some more of the good whiskey without comment.

  Taylor seemed content to let the quiet linger. The fire crackled and the wireless hummed and a whistle of wind rustled through the eaves of the house. Presently, Winterbotham turned his attention to the chessboard. The ranks were arranged in starting position. He reached out, took the king’s pawn between thumb and forefinger, and moved it forward two spaces. The king’s pawn opening, so simple, so workable, had always driven Taylor mad with frustration. Taylor felt that every move in a chess game, as in life, should be a feat of brilliance. He had no appreciation for the simple pleasures of a job well done if there was not some element of spectacle.

  Taylor leaned forward, rubbing his chin, and then countered with the knight’s pawn—nothing ever could be simple with him.

  He said, “I didn’t bring you here to play chess.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Winterbotham said, bringing a bishop out.

  “I heard about Ruth,” Taylor said. “I’m sorry, Harry.”

  Winterbotham nodded without looking up.

  “Any word on her?” Taylor pressed. “Any hope?”

  Winterbotham shrugged. “There’s always hope,” he allowed.

  In Ruth’s case, however, there wasn’t much. She had gone to Warsaw, despite Winterbotham’s warnings, in the summer of 1939. She had family there—two brothers, assorted cousins—and she had been determined to convince them to come out before it was too late. But by the time she arrived, it already was too late. Hitler and his SS squads marched in a week later. Now she was either dead or imprisoned; Winterbotham had no way of knowing. But her chances, as he long ago had admitted to himself, were not good.

  He remembered that Taylor had a wife of his own. He couldn’t quite recall her name. Alice, he thought, or possibly Alicia—or possibly Helen, probably Helen. He took a chance.

  “How’s Helen?”

  Taylor was staring at the chessboard. “She’s passed on,” he said. “Nearly two years now.”

  “The bombs?”

  “Tuberculosis.”

  “I’m sorry, Andrew.”

  “Mm,” Taylor said.

  For ten minutes, then, they played without speaking. Taylor tripped himself up, as was his habit, with his own ambition. He played dramatically, unwilling to take the time to build simple defenses, always looking for an unexpected cross-board coup.

  Winterbotham whittled him down pawn by pawn, then split his king and his rook, nabbed the rook, and began to press his opponent’s flank. He finished his mug of whiskey and waited to be offered another. Finally, Taylor tipped his king over and laid it down in resignation.

  “The more things change …” he said with a sour smile. “Care for another drink?”

  “I won�
�t refuse.”

  “I didn’t think you would. So, old chap, still teaching?”

  “You must know that I’m not.”

  “I do know that, as a matter of fact. But I’ve been unable to discover exactly what it is that you are doing.”

  “Very little,” Winterbotham said. “Locking myself in the library with my books, for the most part. Except when I’m being mysteriously interrupted during my bath and dragged out into the countryside.”

  “That’s a shame,” Taylor said. “A bloody shame.”

  He had fetched the bottle; now he refilled the mugs and then sat again, looking at Winterbotham contemplatively.

  “It’s a waste of talent, is what it is,” he said. “England could use you. Now more than ever.”

  “The way she uses you?”

  “Mm,” Taylor said.

  “It does seem to agree with you—whatever it is that you’re doing.”

  “Mm.”

  “Bringing your extensive knowledge of the classics to bear on the Nazis,” Winterbotham said. “What scares them the most, Andrew? Chaucer? Or is it Shakespeare?”

  “You’re digging,” Taylor said, smiling.

  “I’m curious. I don’t understand exactly how elderly professors like ourselves are of service to His Majesty in wartime, I’ll admit.”

  “How curious are you?”

  “Mildly.”

  “Curious enough to want to know more?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

  “Honestly, old chap, I wish I could tell you everything I’m doing. But I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  “Yet you didn’t bring me out here just for a game of chess.”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  Taylor chewed on his lip for a moment. “There was a time,” he said slowly, “when you were not eager about this war.”

  Winterbotham said nothing.

  “You were rather vocal with your opinions,” Taylor said. “Extremely vocal, as I recall. What was it you called Churchill?”