Artillery of Lies

by Derek Robinson

  Oster read the report. “I grant you it looks odd,” he said, “but there may be an explanation. What else have you got?”

  “A lot, sir. Just compare each Garlic card with the one beside it. Here … Garlic on Commando training in the Scottish Highlands, which he claims to have observed. There … Haystack reports a ban on travel by foreigners of more than thirty miles. Garlic is Venezuelan.”

  “Haystack could be wrong.”

  “Yes, but could they all be wrong, sir? Look there: you can’t believe Garlic on minefields if what Seagull says about railway sabotage is true. Garlic says this about food rations, Nutmeg says that. Garlic’s report on oil tankers doesn’t make sense if you believe what Hambone says about fuel stocks. And so on and so on. Is everyone out of step except Garlic?”

  Oster said nothing. He continued to say nothing for about ten minutes, while he read and re-read the colored cards. Christian went and sat on a couch. Once, the telephone rang and Oster, without looking up, took it and said: “No calls,” and put it back. An airplane droned somewhere out of sight. Eventually it came into view, very small and slow. Christian watched it until it flew behind a tiny fault in the windowglass, was lost, then reappeared. By moving his head slightly he put the plane back in the fault and kept it there, a helpless, unseen prisoner. Domenik’s last line sidled into his head: Man walks into a bar. It sounded like the absurd title of some absurd modernist painting. Christian’s head would move no further: the plane appeared and escaped.

  “Yes,” Oster said. “Yes indeed.” He linked his hands behind his head and looked down at Christian.

  “I should have brought the relevant files,” Christian said. “Stupid of me. I can easily—”

  “Forget the files. We’re going to see the Admiral and, believe me, Canaris won’t waste time checking your paperwork. Come on!” Oster was through the door and heading down the corridor at a quick jog-trot.

  Admiral Canaris heard the news without a blink. “And you really think the SD is behind all this,” he said.

  “Who stands to benefit except Himmler?” said Oster. “Not Eldorado, obviously. The last thing he wants is a rotten apple in his barrel. Not us. Not the OKW. No, the only explanation that adds up is that Garlic was infiltrated by the SD so that in due course Himmler can expose Garlic and denounce us, thus scoring points twice over—first for discovering a traitor inside the Abwehr, and then for saving the Reich from the consequences of our alleged monstrous folly. Next step: the SS takes over the Abwehr.”

  Canaris took off his wristwatch and carefully, thoughtfully, wound it up. “There is one other possibility,” he said. “The British Secret Service may have stumbled across Garlic and turned him.”

  “Yes, sir, they may,” Christian said. “But Garlic was recruited by Eldorado and he reports to Eldorado. If the British grabbed Garlic they would never be satisfied with one sub-agent. They would roll up the entire network.”

  “Like a carpet,” Oster said.

  “And we’d spot it,” Christian said, “and they’d know that we’d spotted it, and so the game would be over before it began.”

  “It was just a thought,” Canaris said. He was still holding his watch, following the second hand as it marched stiffly around the dial, sixty paces to the minute. “What now?”

  “What do you suggest, sir?” Oster asked.

  “Kill him quick,” Canaris said.

  Even when the police had taken them all to the stationhouse, Luis treated his arrest as a huge joke. The police were not amused. They could tolerate his rant-and-rave speeches in German—if it was German—but when he tried to steal the inspector’s pistol they promptly locked him in a cell. “I’ll give you a good price,” Luis shouted. “Thirty feet of salami and all the sauerkraut you can eat.” They ignored him and got on with questioning Freddy and Julie. Soon Luis fell asleep.

  When he awoke it was daylight. Freddy had made the necessary phone calls; the police had satisfied themselves that Freddy really was in MI5; apologies all round; they could go. Luis demanded breakfast.

  “Don’t be such an idiot,” Freddy said wearily. “There’s plenty of breakfast just up the road.”

  Luis looped his arms around the bars of his cell and hooked his fingers together. “Breakfast,” he said. A policeman tried to unhook his fingers.

  “Don’t damage him, for God’s sake!” Freddy said. “He needs those to write with.”

  In the end Luis got his breakfast: fried bread with Daddies sauce and a mug of tea. “What’s wrong?” Julie asked from an uncomfortable armchair. “Gone off your sauerkraut?”

  “Mother?” he said, turning his head like a blind man. “What on earth are you doing in a dreadful place like this?”

  It was not a very funny joke; not at that time of day; not after a long, dreary night. Even so, Luis might have got away with it; but he had woken up feeling fresh and then the victory over getting served breakfast had made him cocky. Now he found his own remark irresistibly clever. He tittered at it. Tittered like a schoolboy.

  There was a brief, frozen silence.

  Julie got up. “I’ll wait in the car,” she told Freddy.

  Nobody spoke during the short ride back to Rackham Towers. Julie took a bath and went to bed. She slept badly and had a series of drab, exhausting dreams; or maybe it was only one dream endlessly repeating itself. She awoke at midday with just enough strength to dress and walk downstairs. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the flowers were florid. It was a truly lousy day.

  She found a couch to lie on, and stared at the ceiling. Decorative plasterwork, very complicated, very tiring. Why did people have to make life so difficult? Luis came in, singing. It was one thing he had no talent for, his timing was sloppy, he couldn’t carry a tune in a bushel basket, she wished he would shut up and go away. No, not go away: stay but change. Stay but change? Then he wouldn’t be Luis. She gave up.

  “I have had a very fertile morning,” he said. He pronounced “fertile” to rhyme with “turtle,” in the American way. This was done to annoy her, so he was obviously in top form. “Go piss in your hat,” she said, and that amused him, which made her realize that she had reacted just as he wished. Damn.

  “I found a new Twenty Committee memorandum waiting on my desk,” he said. Now he was jigging around the room, fox-trotting between the furniture, his heels tap-tapping on the parquet. “And I have already written five thousand outstandingly brilliant words. You are in the presence of the most prolific man who ever lived. Since breakfast I have created six new squadrons of heavy bombers, a division of infantry and two convoys. And my loyal and hardworking servant Wallpaper has discovered an amazing new invention which can double the range of an American Flying Fortress. It is called the Ski Jump. The Abwehr will love it, Eldorado will get a huge bonus and I shall buy you a pair of French silk knickers—two pairs, I mean who deserves them more? And I too deserve a reward since I have created so much creation and yet I feel gallons of creativity still gurgling in my loins and is that couch comfortable or shall we frolic and fumble on the fireside rug? ‘Frolic and fumble,’ I got that out of a sixpenny romance. Come on, Julie, take your American knickers off.” Luis was rapidly undressing, leaving a trail of clothing around the room, until he stood by the couch, naked except for his socks.

  Julie had not moved. “You’re not even a sixpenny romance, Luis,” she said. “You think that all you need to do is wave that sawed-off frankfurter at me and I’ll come running. Well, fuck you, buster.”

  Luis didn’t know what to do with his arms, so he folded them; but that felt as if it looked formal. He let them hang. That felt gawky. He gave up. “I just thought that we …”

  “No you didn’t. You never think ‘we.’ You think ‘me.’” Even as she spoke, part of her was registering the beautiful body standing there, slim and muscular, olive-skinned and lithe. “I don’t want you,” she said. “I don’t need you. Go fuck yourself and I hope you both enjoy it.”

  She got up and walked away
.

  “There was a time—” Luis began.

  “Several hundred years ago,” she said. She stopped at the door. He hadn’t moved. “You look stupid in your socks.”

  “The floor is cold,” he said.

  She went out.

  Oster and Christian flew to Brest in one of the latest Dornier 17E reconnaissance planes. Christian was impressed by this display of the top-level influence of the Abwehr: after they left Canaris they drove to the nearest Luftwaffe field, Oster spent five minutes with the station commander, and an aircraft was theirs. Two hours and twenty minutes later they landed at an airfield outside Brest. Brigadier Wagner was waiting on the tarmac. “I’m starving,” Oster told him. “We can talk while we eat.” They went to the officers’ mess. “You tell Wagner what it’s all about while I order,” he said to Christian. “Have you got lots of ham and several eggs and vast amounts of fried potatoes?” he asked the waiter. “Also some iced beer?”

  Christian told Wagner what it was all about; all except the supposed involvement of the SD. Wagner was surprised but not shocked. “Garlic,” he said. “If it had to be anybody I would expect it to be Garlic. Medical students are notoriously hard-up. It looks as if Garlic got a little bit too greedy.”

  “Kill him,” Oster said.

  This time Wagner was slightly shocked, or perhaps hurt. A dead Garlic meant a lessening of Wagner’s authority, especially when it was done on Oster’s orders. “Is that absolutely necessary, sir?” he asked. “I’m thinking of the morale of the network. How will Eldorado feel if—”

  “Listen, Wagner,” Oster said. “We haven’t come rocketing down here from Berlin on a whim. Eldorado is the hottest property the Abwehr has ever had or is ever likely to have.” He stopped talking as the waiter approached with plates of food, and waited until he had left. “Eldorado could be a turning point in this war,” he said. “I’m not exactly sure what a turning-point is or does, to tell the truth.” He took a forkful of ham.

  “I think it means—” Christian began.

  “I don’t honestly care, thanks,” Oster said. “It’s bound to be different in the navy anyway; everything always is. What matters is that Eldorado works. He works his little Spanish tail off for us. Maybe the Fuehrer really has a secret weapon, maybe he hasn’t, but until something better comes along Eldorado is the best secret weapon we have. Your turn,” he said to Christian.

  “Eldorado is a weapon that works only if he is trusted and believed,” Christian told Wagner. “It’s like a witness in court; prove he lied once and the jury won’t believe anything else he says. That’s what makes Garlic such a threat.”

  “He’s got to be wiped out,” Oster said. “Every minute he’s alive Garlic is a menace to us all.”

  “I think you know I’m sending four new agents into Britain tonight, sir,” Wagner said.

  “That’s why I’m here. Is there one of them you can trust to do the job?”

  Wagner nodded. “You ought to meet him,” he said. “I’ve never known anyone with quite such an itch to kill people.”

  “But is he competent?”

  “Shot three in the last two weeks. Killed one.”

  “Good God!” Christian said. “Who were they?”

  “Casual acquaintances. Laszlo’s not fussy, he’ll shoot anyone. The Spanish police were quite pleased to hear we are sending him abroad.” Christian looked alarmed. “Egypt,” Wagner said, “en route to India, so the police believe.”

  They drove to the seaplane base and Oster took Laszlo for a long stroll around the harbor. At first Laszlo was a bit gruff, a bit taciturn; he had never met a general before. Oster asked his opinion about Spanish wines: how did they compare with French or Italian? Which could he recommend personally? Oster made a few notes and eased the conversation round to bullfights—how curious it was that the stupid British, always condemning the so-called cruelty, never appreciated the courage of the bullring? Laszlo was off and running. Later Oster asked him the story of his life and was gripped, fascinated, amazed by what he heard. Then they talked about spying, the challenge and the privilege and the glorious rewards of spying when one man, one brilliant, courageous agent, could do more than an army! They were so much in agreement, Laszlo and the General, it was quite remarkable … “I think I was born for this mission,” Laszlo said. “I have been waiting for it, and it has been waiting for me.”

  Oster stopped. He clasped Laszlo by the shoulder, and looked into his eyes. “That is exactly what I hoped you would say,” he declared. “There is a man in Britain who is waiting for you, although he doesn’t know it. Waiting for you to kill him.”

  “Yes,” Laszlo said. “Winston Churchill.”

  Oster was taken aback but only a rapid blink betrayed it. “An even greater threat to the Third Reich than Winston Churchill,” he said. “All I can tell you is that his codename is Garlic, he is a medical student at Glasgow University in Scotland, and he is Venezuelan. Will you find him for me?”

  Laszlo didn’t think twice. “There can’t be many Venezuelans studying medicine at Glasgow, can there?” he said.

  They shook hands. “Of course the others must know nothing about this,” Oster said. “Utter, total secrecy is paramount.”

  “Naturally.”

  “There is a simple way of communicating to me from Glasgow,” Oster said, “which I shall now explain and you will memorize.”

  They strolled back, arm in arm. An hour later, Oster and Christian flew to Berlin. “Will he do it, d’you think?” Christian asked.

  “He’ll kill Garlic, Garlic’s best friend and the band of the Coldstream Guards if they get in his way,” Oster said.

  Stephanie Schmidt was curious about Laszlo’s long conversation with the distinguished visitor. “It’s top secret,” Laszlo said. “I’ve got to bump somebody off.” Stephanie was thrilled.

  *

  Julie went to their room and packed all her clothes. Then she found the most remote bedroom in the building and moved into it. Freddy met her lugging a suitcase along a corridor. “Oh dear,” he said.

  “I quit.” She kept walking. “Luis loves Luis. Who am I to spoil the romance of the century?”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Sure,” she called over her shoulder. “Kick the living shit out of him. Should keep you busy for the rest of the week.”

  Freddy went downstairs and found Luis in a favorite position: upside-down in an armchair, his head on the floor, his feet hooked over the top. “Seen my latest?” Luis asked. “Isn’t it terrific?”

  Freddy hadn’t read a word of Luis’s report yet. “Well up to your usual standard,” he said. It was hard to tell, but Luis looked disappointed. “Did you like the Ski Jump?” Luis asked.

  “Loved it, Luis. Absolutely loved it. How on earth did you get the idea?”

  “I was thinking about the Petrified Bog and what a terrific difference it would make to aerodromes in the rainy season, although there’s a drainage difficulty that I’m still working on …” Luis frowned and then quickly put it aside. “Anyway, I suddenly realized that the real problem with bombers is takeoff. You can actually fly with a far heavier load than you can takeoff with, did you know that? Getting the stuff off the ground, that’s the big obstacle. So I just thought, well, gravity’s free, isn’t it? And there are plenty of hills, aren’t there?”

  “Brilliant.” Freddy had no idea what Luis meant. “Madrid Abwehr will be thrilled, and as for the Luftwaffe …” He shook his head in wonderment.

  “Maybe they’ll try it out.” Luis unhooked his heels and slid off the armchair, ending up in a heap on the floor. “Oh well, back to the drawingboard,” he said, not moving.

  “I just bumped into Julie in the corridor,” Freddy said.

  “Lucky you. Did she bump into you?”

  “She’s packed her things, Luis. She’s moved to another room.”

  “Yours?”

  “She was very upset last night. I was only trying to comfort her.”

/>   “Don’t kid yourself, Freddy. That woman is made out of armor-plating. You couldn’t upset her with a blowtorch.”

  Experience told Freddy to back off, not to interfere in other people’s love-hate affairs. Freddy told experience to shut up. “That can’t possibly be true,” he said. “And frankly, I’m appalled to hear you say it.”

  Luis stood, and straightened his clothes. “Are you feeling brave, Freddy?” he asked. “Brave and strong and what’s the word? Resilient. That’s it. Because the terrible truth is that she doesn’t love me. Isn’t that dreadful? Shall I tell you why? Because I’m not lovable. Anyone who was stupid enough to love me would have to be an idiot and Julie is no idiot. You don’t believe me. I can see it in your eyes. Too bad.”

  “I’d sooner let Julie speak for herself,” Freddy said.

  “No point in asking her. She thinks she can make something of me. All women do. They find a man and they say to themselves he’s not bad, he’ll be OK when I’ve smartened him up and changed his habits and generally knocked him into shape.” Luis began shadow-boxing around the room. “They can’t help it. All women are mothers. Well, I don’t need a mother. I’ve managed very nicely without one all my life and I don’t intend to get trapped now.” He aimed three jabs at a lampstand.

  “Sounds simple,” Freddy said. “Sounds lonely too.”

  “I’ve got Eldorado and his gang to keep me company.”

  “Fine!” Freddy said. He knew when he was beaten. “If you’re happy, I’m happy. But just bear in mind that we’ve all got to live together and work together, so try and be pleasant to each other. Yes?”