His breathing shallow and steady, he fell into a rhythm that relaxed him. His body ran like a well-oiled machine while his mind’s pistons pumped. His senses took in everything: the damp, earthy smells, the occasional sweet exhalations of an Irish summer, the grainy aromas of the downtown pubs. The cool, bracing air suffused him with extra energy and vigilance.
He ran past sports fields by St. Anne’s Road, just north of the downtown area, apparently used for Gaelic Games and Pitch and Putt—whatever that was—according to the posted signs. The buildings in town were a mixture of just old and very old, some dating back to the 17th century, he guessed.
Most of the neo-Gothic ones, however, including the cathedral, had been built during the reign of Queen Victoria, the mid 1800’s. The ornate sign in front of St. Mary’s Cathedral dated the edifice back to 1856. Constructed of gray fieldstone and black granite, the style was Neo-Gothic, reminding Jake of St. Paul’s in London. Another St. Mary’s was a smaller Anglican church closer to the downtown area.
There was a large national park west of the town but he decided not to explore it by himself. With that lunatic around somewhere, that’d be foolish. It’d be dusk in about thirty minutes. He suspected the lake—Lough Leane, where Mary McCoy’s parents drowned—was located in that park. Tomorrow, in full daylight, he’d check it out.
Making the loop back to Muckross Road, he noticed a side street. Countess Road. The stateliest homes and mansions were located along this street and Muckross Road, according to the hotel brochure. This was the neighborhood where Mary McCoy spent her childhood and where their hotel was located. Mary Snider should recognize Countess Road, for nothing much had changed, if Major Temple’s notes were accurate. The stately homes and mansions appeared the same as the historical photo in the major’s file, the one supplied by Mary’s cousin, Mike McCoy, senior. He must’ve taken the photo in the early 1940’s.
By nine PM, he’d returned, had soaked some of the aches away in a hot bath, and was settling down to write some notes. What had he learned that day as a result of his conversation with Mary Snider on the ferry? A lot, he recalled. Also, what about the attack? Why weren’t Major Temple’s men more alert and on top of things? Maybe they could’ve prevented McCoy’s assault on the two women; maybe not. Where was the crazy old bastard now?
An hour later, he made his nightly call to Major Temple and cut to the chase.
“Here’s the lowdown: Mary Snider—and I believe her—admitted to her granddaughter and me that she was once engaged to a German spy. Horst Eberhard. I got the impression he worked for Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr during the war. She seemed to disapprove of Canaris’ execution later in the war by Himmler’s SS. The Abwehr was dissolved after that and, as you know, intelligence was taken over by the Schutzstaffel, or SS. Which effectively deprived the Wehrmacht and the anti-Nazis within the German army of an intelligence service of its own. After that, Himmler’s control of the military was total. A catastrophic mistake, in hindsight. Admiral Canaris essentially did his best to contain the Nazis’ lunacy. Using doctored intel, Canaris prevented the German invasion of Switzerland, among other things.”
“Hmm, yes,” was all he heard from the major’s end. Jake’s little history lesson was falling on deaf ears—or was he preaching to the choir? The major certainly knew all this.
“Anyway, Mrs. Snider said that she kept the engagement a secret for obvious reasons, said her fiancé asked her to spy for him but she refused. He was killed in 1944. She thinks in Italy, during the German retreat.”
“Did she say this Horst Eberhard was the Thomas McCoy she wrote to during her time with the War Office?”
“No, and I didn’t ask, but I bet he was. That would’ve been an easy way to stay in touch…and he was most likely using the Irish name as a cover. Which means, he was fluent in English, maybe even Gaelic—or as they call it here in Ireland, the Irish tongue. My guess, this Horst Eberhard was deep undercover, probably in Ireland for years before the outbreak of the war. Doing surveillance, contacting Nazi sympathizers, maybe setting up radio posts. Oh yeah, he gave Mary a pin. Covered with precious stones in the design of a hummingbird—”
“What?”
“A hummingbird. Yeah, I know. The Abwehr’s code name for one of their top female spies.”
“Could Eberhard have recruited her, despite her declarations to the contrary? He could very well have been her control officer,” Major Temple added. Jake could hear the tension in the man’s voice.
“Possibly.” He hoped for Mary Snider’s sake she’d told the truth. “She claims he tried but she turned him down.”
“Well, it won’t take long to find out if this Horst Eberhard was an Abwehr spy or worked for Himmler’s SS. You have to give it to the Germans. They kept excellent records of all their activities during the war. As though they were making templates for future militant Aryan generations to follow, God forbid.”
“I suppose he could have recruited her,” Jake said resignedly. His stomach churned with acid at the thought. “Maybe she was lying about refusing to help him, I don’t know. Why would he give her a pin in the shape of a hummingbird? It looked custom-made and expensive. Not mass market jewelry.”
“The hummingbird spy, according to one of the double-cross agents, worked for the SS. Hardcore Nazis were in the SS. Most of them murderous thugs.”
Both Jake and Temple were silent for a long moment, then the major cleared his throat.
“Good work, I’ve got enough to bring her in for questioning.”
Jake swore silently to himself. His pulse began to race as he thought of Meg. He doubled over as acid pain shot up his chest. The blood rushed to his ears and his head throbbed. Gone was the physical euphoria from his run.
“Look, Major, all you have is a pin in the shape of a hummingbird.”
“Not quite, Agent Bernstein. We have her admission about Horst Eberhard.”
“Can you hold off a bit? I think what I was getting today were bits of truth mixed in with some lies, but I don’t know which is which. Give me a little more time, okay? We’re in Killarney, her hometown. If she can prove to me she knows the place, can recognize childhood landmarks, then I think we have to assume she really is Mary McCoy. And maybe she’s telling the truth about Eberhard, that she didn’t spy for him, that they were just romantically involved. She fell in love with the guy, he tried to recruit her but she said no. Then he went back to Europe and got killed. End of story.”
Jake paused and rubbed his chin. You couldn’t help who you fell in love with. It just happened. For a second, his thoughts turned to Meg.
“Don’t you think it’s possible? That wartime enemies could fall for each other? That two people can connect on a real basic level?”
“Oh sure, and I believe in wee leprechauns and trolls under bridges.”
He hated to beg. “Major, give me a little more time.”
“Why do you think Mary Snider gave up all that information? To you and her granddaughter?”
Jake considered the reasons. “I’m not a psychologist, Major, and this’ll sound like so much psychobabble nonsense.” He sighed; might as well give it a try. “I’d have to say her age and infirmities are catching up with her. Her wall of lies is cracking. Like the wall of a dam. The weight of lies finally getting too much to bear. I don’t know. Maybe the stress of carrying this burden—guilt, remorse, fear, whatever—is getting to be too much for her. Too much for a woman her age.”
He gasped as the acid reflux worsened. Now his throat ached with shooting spurts. In desperation, he reached for the bottle of antacid tablets, popped a couple and grimaced at the chalky taste.
“Are you ill?” Major Temple inquired.
Chewing away, Jake took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Right away, the pain lessened.
“No, just skipped dinner tonight. Shouldn’t have. I get heartburn when I do that.”
Instantly, Jake recalled the way Mary Snider had locked eyes with him as she revealed the id
entity of her German lover. Like she was challenging, even daring, him to uncover the truth. The woman was old and tired but clever and devious.
“Maybe she sees me as someone to help her relieve her burden. I don’t know.”
Major Temple harrumphed loudly. “Or she’s using you to help her cover up her crimes. This eleventh-hour catharsis of hers sounds bogus to me. When she worked for the War Office, she took a loyalty oath. Meaningless, of course, if she were a German spy. I believe she’s trying to avoid a not-so-comfy prison cell for the remainder of her life.”
That statement sank Jake’s mood into the gutter. He could picture Meg’s reaction to that. She would blame him. She would despise him.
Not to mention the reaction of Navy Commander Snider—his elderly mother in a British prison cell! The scandal in D.C.!
And if the old lady were indeed telling the truth, she wouldn’t deserve to end her life that way. Sure, betraying her oath to England’s war effort was unconscionable, but wasn’t protecting her fiancé an extenuating circumstance that could be forgiven after all this time?
“Give me more time, Major. And while I continue working on this, keep that psycho away from us. He scared the shit out of the women—the whole motor coach group, in fact. He’s around here somewhere in Killarney, I’d bet my ass on that. The hair on my arms is telling me he’s close by and he’s not giving up. I’ve half a mind to start packing.”
“Packing to leave?”
“No, packing my weapon.”
“Yes, sorry about that. The team should’ve been there and after the tongue-lashing I gave them, will be from here on. By the by, that psycho, as you call him, runs the Muckross Stag, the pub in town that he inherited from his father, old Mike McCoy. Runs it successfully, by all accounts.”
“Well, sonuva—”
“Killarney’s his hometown, too. And by weapon, if you’re referring to that FBI pistol of yours, I dare say there’s no need. My boys’ll run interference, as you Yanks like to say. No need to upset the Irish. Remember, we’re operating on their soil now. The Republic of Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom.”
“No shit,” Jake grumbled, “so will you let me continue carrying the ball?”
“All right, ol’ chap,” Temple said, “but take care with the Irish. Sigmund Freud said they were the only nation on earth immune to psychoanalysis. Even the most sane are a bit dodgy.”
Jake had to grin. “The way you Brits see it, you’d have to lump Americans in there, too.”
“Oh, we do. At any rate, we know where to find young McCoy and Mary Snider. And you. Never far from the comely maiden, I suspect.”
“Meg just found out today about her grandmother’s past, I assure you. The shock on her face was genuine.” Thanks to Mike McCoy’s assault and his own slip-up, her suspicions were now on high alert. He doubted he’d get any more help from her.
Seconds later, he ended the call, tossed the cell phone into his carry-on next to his laptop. So much for paralysis by analysis. So far he’d analyzed this case to death. Now that they were in Mary McCoy’s hometown, he sensed things were going to heat up.
Jake threw down his bath towel and slipped on a pair of clean briefs. Then popped another two antacid tablets. Groaning aloud, he huffed out a breath of air as he lifted the laptop and plugged in the wireless connector. Punched in his encrypted password. Then two more passwords to get past the FBI firewalls. Time to write that updated report to the legate in London and copy Terry at Headquarters.
Fuck it. It wasn’t going to be pretty.
Chapter Twenty
London, January 1942
The sirens screamed through the night. One bomb fell two doors down from Mary’s rooming house. In her room on the top floor, kneeling by the bed, she felt the entire building shake. Plaster above her head cracked, like ripped cloth, and rained down. For a second, she thought of crawling under the bed. Then she looked up. The big ceiling lamp swayed dangerously. On all fours, she scrabbled over to the corner near the window. The glass hadn’t shattered but one long crack had formed.
Still in her flannel nightgown, she lurched to her feet to shut the heavy, blackout drapes. Instead, she stood there, mesmerized by the spectacle outside her window.
God, there had been little warning this time, no time to run down to the basement. Outside, others had been caught off-guard, too. The CD men and fire patrols scurried about in the street, risking life and limb to fight the fires and organize the evacuation. Fire nearby lit the night sky. Buildings on her street were on fire! Some of the people in those buildings, she knew by sight, some by name. Hardworking, ordinary Brits, trying to survive the Blitzkrieg.
Her heart pounding, Mary could barely gasp for breath. So far, the bombs hadn’t hit her neighborhood but now—Gott im Himmel!
Everything had changed since December. The Americans were entering the war as a British ally, so Germany had no choice but to double their efforts. The Brits had to agree to a truce before waves of Americans began crossing the Atlantic! The Third Reich was now fighting a war on two fronts—a perilous situation! Despite the daunting task, Mary was certain her Fatherland would triumph. They had come this far, conquerors of all Europe!
Still, there would be more destruction, for Britain now felt emboldened and hopeful. Those bloody Yanks! Why couldn’t they leave well enough alone?
Mary could hear nothing except the screaming sirens. She covered her ears while she watched one family, a mother and three children, run out of an apartment house across the street. They were gesturing for help and weeping. The mother pointed back to her building. For the first time, Mary felt a twinge of guilt. She knew that woman, had exchanged greetings with her on many occasions. The children were blue-eyed blonds, so Aryan—
This shouldn’t happen. Why didn’t the English just surrender? Why were they so unyielding? The Norwegians, Danes, Belgians, Dutch, even the Frogs—they’d all surrendered. Why were these stubborn English fighting against the inevitable?
A knock at the door, just as Mary closed the drapes. A female voice called to her. To maintain her deep cover, Mary had joined the neighborhood ARP, a local branch of Home Defence. She’d joined other women in manning searchlights and first aid posts, driving ambulances and fire trucks, even fighting small fires with hand-pumped hoses.
“Mary, come! We’re needed! Hurry!”
“Yes, straight away!” she called back as she grabbed her thread-worn coat. As clothing was rationed now all over England, she’d mended her heavy wool coat a dozen times. Back in Germany before the war, she’d worn furs and feather boas. This rag, she would’ve given to a beggar woman. Now, she clutched it to her, grabbed a pair of leather gloves and followed her flatmate into the street.
The street was a scene from Hieronymous Bosch’s hell, Mary thought. Fire everywhere she looked, flames crackling orange and gold and blue. Horrible, wrenching explosions that made her cover her ears again. Debris heaped up in random piles like giant, broken children’s toys. Incessant, ear-splitting sirens. People screaming and running here and there, like stampeding cattle. For a long, awful moment she and Catherine Collier stood paralyzed with fear. Then they sprang into action.
They ran to the local ARP warden, an older man who wore a helmet and an armband, signifying his post. His face sooty, his hair about his face was scorched. He turned to them and pointed to the stirrup fire pump and attached hose.
“Over there, ladies, that building.” The bucket was already filled with water from a fire hydrant, but as soon as the fire truck arrived, they’d have to relinquish the hydrant and refill the pump by hand from the rooming house’s kitchen. Then they’d concentrate on the smaller fires in cars on the street to prevent an incendiary bomb from spreading its lethal potential.
Catherine, an attractive brunette from York, hunched over and started pumping while Mary grabbed the hose and aimed it at the building from which the family had emerged. As she held on tightly to the hose and directed the water spray at the street-level
window, she heard a scream above the din. It seemed to come from an upper story. Looking up, she saw a teenage girl waving frantically at the third floor window. The roof had caved in and the entire structure shot flames from every window. The mother with her brood of three stood nearby even though the warden had told them to head for the Underground bomb shelters.
“Please, dear God, save her!” The mother glanced around, searching Catherine’s face, then Mary’s. “Please save her! She’s my daughter!”
They were out of water, so Catherine seized the large bucket and ran back to their rooming house. A fire truck had just rounded the corner, its lights flashing red. Mary raced over to the warden, who was preoccupied with directing other civilian emergency workers.
“Send a fireman over there, please, warden! A girl needs help getting out!”
The warden waved her away, out of the street so that the fire truck could make its way through. Debris the size of small cars clogged the street. A group of ARP workers were hoisting chunks of concrete, burning tree branches, pieces of cars and furniture out of the way.
“Forget the pump. Help them clear the street, Miss. We have to get the engines through. Tell that woman and her kids to head to the bomb shelter. We expect more raids tonight.”
A moment later, Mary returned to the mother, who was weeping uncontrollably, her children clinging to her skirts and sobbing. She looked up at the building. The teenage girl had disappeared from the window. Flames engulfed the very spot where she had stood.
“Please, take your children to the shelters.” Mary urged the woman along but she wouldn’t budge. Frightened, not only for herself but for this family, she yelled, “Now! Do you want your other children killed? More bombs are coming! For God’s sake, take them to the shelter! Please! I’ll tell the firemen to look for your daughter.”
By now, Mary was screaming through her own tears as she pushed the huddled family from the street. Finally, the mother and her three children moved along but as they made their way past the fire truck, they kept gazing back at their burning building. Mary looked up at the third-floor window and shook her head. She trudged over to the workers straining to clear the street of debris.
A Bodyguard of Lies Page 17