Oster said something in very rapid German. Canaris gave it a moment’s thought. “As far as military operations allow, yes,” he said.
“But the war in the east takes priority over everything,” Donovan said briskly. “That right?”
“We see no alternative,” Canaris told him. “Either we resist, or we allow the Russian Communist armies to sweep over us. If they did that, they would not stop until—”
“Forget it. I’m interested in knowing exactly where your German armies intend to call a halt in the east,” Donovan said.
“He can’t answer that, Bill,” Menzies said, “it’s a military decision; a general goes as far as he has to and he doesn’t stop until his men are safe. If you had any battleground experience you’d know that.”
“All the same, I’d like to hear the Admiral’s answer.”
Canaris and Oster conferred in whispers. “The best I can say is that our campaign in the east will continue until we are satisfied that the Red armies are no longer a threat to Germany,” Canaris said.
“You want Moscow. Isn’t that right?”
Canaris said nothing. There was a long pause while they all mentally re-drew the map of Europe.
“You won’t need your navy to fight Russia,” Menzies observed.
“Alas, there is very little to surrender,” Canaris told him with a sad smile, “but you are welcome to have such as there is.” Oster slid a note in front of him, and he nodded. “As soon as the ceasefire takes effect, the Allies will of course be free to transfer ships and soldiers to the Pacific, on a very large scale.”
“That fact hadn’t escaped us,” Donovan said.
“You will have calculated its effect on the Japanese war, I’m sure. With such huge forces concentrated against her, Japan might well surrender.” Canaris glanced at the note again. “Another million young lives saved. Perhaps two.”
“Never mind the Pacific,” Menzies said, which annoyed Donovan. “First things first. Let’s clean up Europe. What do you propose regarding your secret rocket sites at Peenemunde?”
“Not so secret any longer. Five hundred of your heavy bombers raided Peenemunde last week.”
“Glad to hear it. Do much damage?”
“Not enough. You must insist that Peenemunde be raided again and again.” Canaris leaned forward and stabbed repeatedly with a silver pencil to stress what he was saying, each stab ending so near the table that he created a sudden sense of risk. “Germany still believes in a miracle. Hitler has a secret weapon! A death-ray will destroy the Allies. The Reich will triumph! People believe this! Men in important positions—men with power—know about Peenemunde. They tell me, ‘Don’t worry, the Fuehrer still has a trick up his sleeve!’ You must keep hitting Peenemunde. Then they will begin to fear that the Fuehrer’s sleeve is empty and perhaps tomorrow their town will be bombed flat and suddenly now is the time to save themselves and save their town and save Germany and listen to what I tell them must be done.” He sat back, a little out of breath.
Nobody was in a hurry to follow that speech. The two generals waited until their aides had stopped writing, and then looked at each other. “After you, Claude,” Menzies said.
“This is a nice little plan you’ve got,” Donovan said to Canaris. “Unfortunately the weak spot is crucial. How do you grab Hitler?”
“We have made arrangements.”
“So has he, you can bet your last dollar on that. The man’s a survivor. Also supreme commander of the German armed forces. He’s got loyalty on his side. What have you got?”
“Treachery.” The word sounded unreal, theatrical; and yet what other word was there? “We do not deceive ourselves,” Canaris said. “If we fail we shall be traitors to the Third Reich. On the other hand, if we don’t make this attempt we shall have betrayed the German people.”
“What are your arrangements?” Menzies asked, and when Canaris hesitated he said: I withdraw the question.’
“Our arrangements are best left to us. They do not involve you. But allow me to tell you how you can help. It’s very straightforward. The military intelligence which is reaching the Abwehr from England is not dangerous enough. What I mean is the reports we receive are too cautious, too restrained, the threat to the Reich is still not great enough for anyone here to be seriously worried. We must be told of your RAF Bomber Command’s plans to raid every German city, on the same scale as Hamburg.”
“There’s a US Air Force over there, too, you know,” Donovan said sharply.
“Of course, of course. Tell us that daylight raids will be redoubled. And the Allies must have more secret weapons, things like OWCH and GABLE, only far more lethal.”
“How secret can you get?” Donovan asked the air.
“Forgive me for seeming obtuse,” Menzies said, “but why should your High Command—who I take to be the intended audience—believe these threats?”
“They always have in the past,” Canaris said.
Menzies could make no sense of that, so he nodded.
“Why?” Donovan asked.
“Because of the source. The source is impeccable. Therefore the intelligence is treated with great respect. You know the source. You’re operating it. All I ask is that you intensify the operation. Exploit your channel of communication to the utmost, and you can be sure the Abwehr will distribute the intelligence in the most profitable places.”
“I see,” Menzies said. There was a long and thoughtful silence.
Oster suggested: “Perhaps this might be a good moment to adjourn. All of us have plenty to think about.”
“Yes indeed,” Menzies said.
The Barcelona’s launches carried the Allied parties back to their destroyers, and returned Canaris and Oster to Santander. They drove to the villa. Christian was waiting. “There’s something vaguely different about you,” Oster said. He ran a finger along Christian’s pale white chin. “You’ve changed your eye-shadow, is that it?”
“Eldorado’s arrived,” Christian said. He knew it would sound foolish, and it did. Canaris and Oster were vastly amused.
“Don’t explain,” Canaris said. “Any explanation would be an anticlimax. Just go and fetch him.”
The fly was clearly out of condition. After only seventeen hundred laps of the ceiling light, it quit and took a long rest on a curtain. “Give up the cigarettes,” Julie advised.
She felt empty: drained of ideas, of enthusiasm, of energy. What she needed was a hot shower and a good meal. She knew that. Her room had no shower and no bath and she couldn’t bring herself to go searching along the gloomy corridor. She sat on the bed, knowing that she was never going to sleep in it, knowing that she was in the wrong place, knowing that she ought to get up and go out and look for Luis, yet unable to make the first move.
It was the rank arrogance of the cockroach that got her on her feet.
She had seen plenty of cockroaches before, especially in New York when Harry had briefly rented an apartment on the Lower East Side after they got married. It was between an Irish bar and a Jewish bakery and it was steam-heated like the Brazilian jungle so the cockroaches thrived. Being in Manhattan, they acquired a lot of big-city chic. They strolled around the Conroys’ apartment as if they owned it—which, in a sense, they did. Julie hadn’t seen such truculence until she saw this Spanish cockroach swagger across her hotel room.
She jumped up and stamped her foot, and it turned and ambled away. Probably decided to go downstairs and buy a paper, find out what won the three-thirty at Belmont. She stamped again, and this time noticed from the corner of her eye more scuttlings and hustlings in other parts of the room. Jesus! she thought, what is this, a monster roach rally?
She knew from messy experience that she could never kill them all and that those too bloated to escape would die a bloody, splattering death, so she didn’t even try. Instead she lay on the bed and wondered what Lois Lane would do next. A spider slightly smaller than a beer-mat was walking across the ceiling directly above her. Its feet left dirty f
ootprints on the plaster. It had horns you could hang your hat on. Just relax, Julie told herself. Spiders never fall off ceilings. Have you ever seen a spider fall off a ceiling? Well, then. You’re a grown-up woman. It’s just a spider. Show it who’s boss. She rolled off the bed and landed on her hands and knees, pulse pounding.
She needed something to whop the spider with. A broom would do. A panzer division would be better. There was no broom to be found. She stood in the middle of the room, hating the spider. It stood in the middle of the ceiling, casually upside-down, and watched her, this funny American lady with the clenched teeth. That was when the couple in the next room began to fight.
It was all in Spanish, or Calabrian, with a bit of Flying Ashtrays thrown in. She had a voice that was shrill and got shriller. He was gruff and grumpy, and he kept using the same words; he could have been driving cattle. What was disconcerting was the way each of them stopped in what Julie felt was the middle of a sentence; the emphasis was all wrong; the anger never found its climax. Julie listened in pity and despair and wished they would shut up or die or something. Then they began hitting each other, the woman was weeping, and Julie grabbed her purse and got out.
The desk-clerk had gone from reception. The porter who had carried her bags was in his place, reading the sports pages.
“You didn’t give me a room,” she said, “you gave me a zoo.”
He knew that word. He pointed left, down the street, and delivered a long string of bubbling Spanish advice which she broke into. “I believe you,” she said. “Now whatcha gonna do about my spider?” He gave a goofy smile. “There’s a spider as big as a B-17 on my ceiling and it’s looking for someplace to land,” she said.
“No comprendo.”
“Sure, sure. That makes two of us.” She looked around for help and saw only a flyblown calendar, two months out of date. “I need that taxi-driver,” she said. “What’s he called? The guy that …” They gazed at each other, mutually baffled. Then the name came back. “Gomez!” she said. “Antonio Gomez.”
It had a strange and startling effect on the porter. All his amiable helpfulness vanished. He glanced up and down the lobby, and when he saw nobody he frowned hard at Julie, pursing his lips and sucking his breath: a warning in any language. Then he used his right hand to turn back the left lapel of his coat: a very deliberate gesture. Julie looked. There was nothing under the lapel. Before she could speak he had hustled away and was busy dusting the hatstand. The show was over.
She walked out of the Marques de Salamanca and turned right because it didn’t lead to the zoo.
Half the streetlights were bust, and those that worked were saving their strength for winter, but that didn’t discourage the population of this part of Santander: they were out in force, strolling through the gloom with their dogs and their children. There were lots of bars of the type where you could get a drink for a dime and a fight for free, several grocery stores, kids peddling newspapers, radios belting out sports commentaries, and potholes. It was like the Lower East Side without the pawn shops. Maybe Santander never had pawn shops. Maybe they all went up in the big fire. Julie weaved through the crowds, telling herself to forget about pawn shops, they didn’t matter. So what mattered? Finding Luis mattered. Also finding food. She was too hungry to think straight. She passed plenty of places that were serving food but they were all too crowded, too noisy, too confusing. She wanted simple solutions to simple problems. She hurried on and gradually found herself moving out of the low-rent high-garlic quarter of Santander and into the business district. Without even trying, she saw a hotel called the Commodore that was clearly better than the Marques de Salamanca. Why hadn’t Gomez brought her here? She went in and showed them the photograph. No luck. She wanted to question them about other, possibly better, hotels but the grammar was difficult and the problems of etiquette were insuperable: how do you ask a good Spanish hotel if there’s a better place in town? She gave up and came out.
Her stomach wasn’t speaking to her anymore. It had gone on hunger-strike: if she wouldn’t feed it then it damn well wouldn’t eat. She stood and watched the traffic swing by. All those cars full of smiling people who knew where they were going: she hated them. And the lights were brighter here. They showed up the foreign strangeness of the place. Julie Conroy didn’t belong here and she didn’t have a friend within a thousand miles, bar one, and he was lost. Loneliness stabbed, as it always does, in the back. On impulse, she turned away, seeking a corner to hide in, perhaps to cry in, and saw a priest watching her.
Well, it was a free country. If he wanted to watch her, she would watch him back. Actually it wasn’t a free country, it was a Fascist dictatorship, but what the hell … The priest approached: tall wiry build, gray crew-cut hair, long bony nose, black suit, much worn. “Are you in trouble?” he asked, in English; American-English. “Can I help?”
“You could sell me a ham on rye with coleslaw.”
“Ah. Now that may be difficult, here in Santander. Would you settle for a plate of paella?” She nodded, speechless with gratitude. “I’m on my way to dinner,” he said. “It’s a friendly little place. I’d be honored if you’d join me.”
He was Father Desmond, a Jesuit, teaching at a nearby college. He hadn’t seen America for thirty years; there was a lot he wanted to ask her about. It was a splendid meal: good food, good wine, good jokes. She had never met a priest who laughed so easily.
“Have you somewhere to stay?” he asked at the end.
“I wanted to get your advice on that. What’s the best hotel around here?”
“Really the best? It’s expensive.”
“Come on, Father. Where would you go if money didn’t matter?”
“The Wellington. It’s out at El Sardinero. That’s the peninsula, you know, very pretty.” He watched her as he touched his napkin to his lips. “You’re not seriously troubled if a plate of paella and a room at the Wellington can solve all your problems,” he said. “Or have I overlooked something?”
“No.” She had a suicidal urge to tell him everything and she quashed it fast. But it reminded her of the hotel porter. “Yes. Maybe. Something I don’t understand. What does this mean?” She reached across the table and turned back the left lapel of his jacket. At once his hand came up and swept the lapel flat again.
“You’d be well advised not to do that in a place like this,” he said. “It could be misinterpreted.”
“As what?”
Father Desmond leaned forward. “There are policemen everywhere in Spain,” he said softly. “Secret police, plain-clothes police. It’s generally believed that they wear a little badge under their left lapel, I don’t know if that’s true, but when someone turns back his lapel and looks toward a man, it means that fellow’s a secret policeman, so don’t trust him.”
“Ah,” Julie said. “That explains a lot.” It explained, for a start, why nobody had been pleased to see Gomez, and why Gomez had steered her away from the Wellington. It also meant that Gomez was probably working with the Abwehr, in which case the Abwehr would know by now that she was in Santander looking for Luis. She smiled at Father Desmond, trying not to look troubled. She felt worse than troubled. She felt beaten.
They went Dutch on the bill. Outside, the traffic was much thinner: it was past ten, and Santander was beginning to go home. “You’ll need a taxi to get to the Wellington,” Father Desmond said. She nodded. “I see one across the street,” he said, and took her to it. A truck came to a halt for their benefit and he waved to the driver. “Nobody knocks down a priest in this part of Spain,” he told her. “It’s one of the few perquisites of the job.” They shook hands.
“Bless you,” she said.
“Hey, hey! You’ll put me out of business.” He laughed and walked away. She got into the taxi. The driver was Antonio Gomez.
For a while neither of them spoke; they just sat and looked at each other through the rearview mirror. Gomez was relaxed and expressionless, with eyes like small black pebbles. “You’re
following me around, you bum,” she said. It sounded weak. She felt weak.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Don’t be coy with me. You’re a cop, you work for the secret police.”
He examined that statement carefully. “Perhaps,” he said.
“Yeah, you’re right. Who cares?” She stretched her legs and rested her head. “You certainly don’t work for the Better Business Bureau. Why d’you take me to that dump of dumps, instead of the Wellington Hotel?”
“You did not ask—”
“Yes I did. Best hotel, I said.”
“Best, yes. Not most expensive.”
“You ever stayed in the Salamanca? It’s bug heaven.”
“Good value for money.”
“Who runs it? Your brother-in-law?”
“Perhaps.”
“Tell him to feed the spiders more often. They’ve begun to eat the rats.”
He reviewed that suggestion. “No, I think not,” he said.
“OK, let’s quit horsing around. Is Señor Cabrillo at the Wellington?”
“Perhaps.”
“Let’s go and see.”
Gomez drove as far as the nearest phone box, stopped, got out, made a call. When he came back, she said: “Did you get your orders?”
“Perhaps.”
“Take my advice, never get married,” Julie said. “She’d strangle you in your sleep before the honeymoon was over.”
He drove on. The streets became broader and soon the car was speeding past the sea on their left. Moonlight raced along the curved back of the surf as it angled toward the shore. Sometimes Julie heard the thump of a wave and smelt the tang of the Atlantic: brine laced with iodine. Very bracing. She didn’t need to be braced. Her nervous system was doing a fine job all on its own. It was telling her that everything was wrong. She was trapped in this taxi. Gomez was in command and Gomez was unlikely to do what she wanted. You loused it up, she told herself, and got the angry reply: So tell me what I should have done instead. Stony silence.
The sea curved away and was hidden by trees. The road made so many turns that she gave up trying to remember the route. Suddenly and surprisingly, the sea glittered to the right. Tall white walls reflected the headlights and the taxi stopped at a pair of high wrought-iron gates, dense with metal decoration. A man came out and looked at Gomez, and went back and leaned on one half of the gates. It trundled open on rollers.
Artillery of Lies Page 33