The House of Special Purpose

by Paul Christopher

  Black sat back in his chair and regarded her seriously. ‘I would have thought you’d be rather good with children.’

  ‘Too late.’

  ‘Not possible.’

  ‘It is for this old horse,’ said Jane.

  Something in her expression stopped Black from continuing the conversation. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude on your personal life.’

  ‘No apology necessary.’ She stepped over to the other armchair, sat down and lit a cigarette. ‘My old man worked for the railroad. Nothing as exotic at this – he was a switcher in the Brooklyn Yards. He died in the war, 1917. Gassed at Passchendaele. My mother died a year later during the influenza epidemic.’

  ‘You were orphaned.’

  ‘I was eighteen and I had a feeble sister, Annie, to take care of. I went to work for New York Central as a telegraphist. It didn’t last more than a year or two. I had to put Annie in a hospital. I worked as a copy girl at a newspaper for a while and then I saved up enough for a Speed Graphic and went to work as a press photographer.’

  ‘We’ve established that you’re not married but you must have had offers.’

  ‘God no! All I do with men is make mistakes.’ She laughed then stopped abruptly, suddenly remembering that Black had been recently widowed. ‘I never really had the time. Always too busy,’ she added quickly. She took a drag on her cigarette, watching as the little fan fitted into one corner of the small room sucked up the smoke, pulling it back through a small ventilator grille.

  ‘I wonder where we are now,’ Black murmured, turning his attention back to the window. It was getting darker by the minute and more difficult to see anything but the sweep and blur of lights.

  ‘Glenn,’ said Jane, ‘according to the little sign we passed. Some kind of switchyard with all the tracks. That must be Midway in the distance, with all those lights.’

  ‘Midway?’

  ‘Busiest airport in the world,’ said Jane, ‘or so they say.’

  Half a mile away Black could see the lines of coloured runway lights and then the blinking navigation lights of aircraft taking off and landing. There seemed to be dozens of planes, all in motion at once. ‘It’s a wonder they don’t run into each other all the time,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t really trust them,’ said Jane. ‘Take a train and have an accident at least you’ve got a chance of surviving. Same with a boat. There’s lifeboats and life jackets and at least I can swim. No way can I flap my arms and fly.’

  ‘I’m afraid I tend to agree.’ Black nodded. ‘Is that why you got us tickets on the train?’

  ‘I got us tickets on the Super Chief because I don’t trust Fleming or any of the other dumb bunnies I’ve met on this little expedition. He won’t even miss us really until sometime tomorrow and by then it’ll be way too late.’

  ‘You don’t think he’ll figure it out?’

  ‘There’s half a dozen different airlines we could take and three or four ways of getting to L.A. by train. He’ll have the stations there covered but I can get around him on that. Los Angeles is my turf or at least it was until a week or so ago. I don’t think they have the manpower to cover everything.’

  ‘Even Mr Hoover’s people?’

  ‘Mr Hoover’s people couldn’t find their willies with a flashlight.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Black said, flushing slightly. They were on the outskirts of the city now, picking up more and more speed. The diesel engine’s triple horns blasted out a long, moaning warning note as they approached each level crossing.

  They sat silently for a long moment, staring out the window rather than at each other. Jane stubbed out her cigarette and thought about lighting another, realising that it would make her look both unladylike and nervous. She was nervous and right this second the last thing she wanted to feel was unladylike. Mind you, she thought, it was probably unladylike for her to be thinking the thoughts she was thinking, let alone feeling the physical sensations she was feeling – a soft liquid feeling somewhere down low as though her legs would turn to water if she tried to stand up and that familiar tingling sensation directly under her stomach.

  She wondered if Morris was thinking the same sort of things; he had that glazed look guys got when they were thinking rude thoughts but he was a Brit and they were about as poker-faced as the Chinese. On the other hand, they said that people on the lam usually got hot for each other. To hell with it. She knew perfectly well she should stop thinking about it unless she was going to do something about it. One thing she was sure of was that Morris wasn’t going to make a pass at her.

  ‘Anyone ever call you Moe? Or Morrie?’ she blurted out lamely. So much for her intestinal fortitude.

  ‘No. Never,’ he said, turning away from the window. ‘Either Morris or just Black.’

  ‘Which do you like better?’

  ‘It depends on who’s saying it.’ He was actually smiling now. She was making progress.

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Well, we are partners in crime so I suppose that makes us closer than most,’ Black said. Jane smiled back. Definite progress. Partners in crime. ‘I suppose I could let you call me by the nickname I had when I was in school.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Conker.’

  ‘Conker?’

  ‘A conker is a dried-out chestnut. You drill a hole in it and pass a string through, then knot the end. You go around challenging other boys to play conkers. You whirl your conker around, and he whirls his around, and you try to hit the other boy’s conker with yours. If his shatters, you win; if yours shatters, he wins. Every boy in England has a conker at the right time of the year.’ His voice sounded very nervous and he was blushing furiously, as though he was trying to avoid a single second of silence in the compartment.

  ‘So how come you got the nickname if they were so common?’

  ‘I was playing once and by accident hit myself on the head with my own conker. Knocked myself unconscious. I was ten years old at the time. The name stuck until I was twenty. When I was eighteen I thought I was going to be Conker Black for the rest of my life.’

  Jane tried to imagine whispering Conker in the dark and just couldn’t picture it. She tried not to laugh but a giggle slipped out. Black’s blush darkened.

  There was a sudden rapping on the door and Jane almost leapt out of her shoes. She stood up and opened the door. It was a porter, dressed in a white jacket.

  He stepped into the compartment. ‘My name’s Eli. I’m the night porter for this car. Thought I might come in and put down the beds if you’ve a mind to turning in a little early.’ He glanced at Black and smiled. ‘How many beds you want made up, by the way?’

  ‘Two,’ said Black quickly. Now it was Jane’s turn to blush.

  ‘Two it is then,’ said Eli.

  ‘But not right now. I mean…’ The sentence dangled.

  ‘Just let me know when you want it,’ said Eli pleasantly. ‘Super Chief aims to please.’ He tipped his hat and stepped back out of the room. Black stood up, moving awkwardly with the sway of the train.

  ‘Look, I didn’t mean to…’

  The car lurched as they went across a switch and Black was thrown forward, almost knocking Jane over. She put her hands up onto his chest to stop his fall. The touch lingered. Black pulled back as though he’d been burned. Jane reached out and took his hand. It was warm and dry, his fingers long and powerful, like a pianist’s.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Time for us to get something to eat.’ She grinned. ‘Maybe they’ll have a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Sunday, November 30, 1941

  Kinsman, Illinois

  Emil Haas sat alone at one of the two-seat tables at the head end of the Cochita dining car, his back against one of the ornately engraved glass partitions as he perused the extensive menu. The Americans really were extraordinary. Their British allies were living on turnips and tea, the French were being shipped off to work camps all
over the Reich and here they were serving Boneless Rocky Mountain Trout (10 oz.), saute meuniere chicken pies, calves liver, top sirloin au jus, shrimp cocktails, half a dozen different kinds of wine and desserts that included everything from freshly baked peach pie to strawberry shortcake. They even had a four-course Thanksgiving dinner with pumpkin pie for the holiday. If Hitler went even more insane than he already was and declared war on these people they’d throw up barricades of lamb chops and New Potatoes persillade to fight behind.

  The German eventually chose the twelve-ounce broiled sirloin steak with french fried onion rings and the Louisiana-style tossed salad with shrimp, all of it washed down with a half bottle of burgundy, followed by lemon sherbet and freshly brewed coffee. As instructed he wrote down his order on the guest check, which was promptly picked up by a black porter whose name was Ira. The porter brought over a chilled glass of tomato juice and dinner rolls and butter to satisfy any peckishness he might be feeling. Haas broke open one of the still warm, yeasty rolls, buttered it and sat back in his chair.

  His recent arrival in America had been relatively easy to accomplish. First he flew from Berlin to Occupied France via military transport. Since Spain was supposedly a neutral country, as was Portugal, Haas then flew on to Barajas Airport just outside Madrid in what appeared to be a Cruz Roja Espanolas, or Spanish Red Cross, aircraft but which was actually a Luftwaffe courier plane painted in the appropriate livery. From there it was a simple task to fly from Madrid to Lisbon in a German-made JU52 transport left over from the Spanish Civil War that was now operated by the state-owned Lineas Aeras Espanolas. From Lisbon he took the regular Pan American Clipper to Bermuda and then on to New York.

  The German’s shrimp salad arrived, as did the bottle of burgundy, which turned out to be a very pleasant 1938 Bouchard Pommard. Ira poured a glass for him without any of that absurd French pomp and let him be. Haas took a judicious sip of the wine then began to eat his salad.

  When he’d arrived in Washington, Haas had discovered that the German embassy was a pigeon-stained red-brick nineteenth-century horror on Massachusetts Avenue, complete with stubby parapets like a dwarf Rhine castle and endless amounts of rusting cast-iron ornamental railings, with red, black and white Nazi flags flapping wherever there was a place to put them. The place was a horror and so were the people inside it.

  At least it had been easy enough to track down his quarry. He was told almost instantly about the two newly minted OSS agents on the run and presumably returning to Washington. Tailing them from the train station had been a simple task to accomplish and almost immediately they’d met with Fleming, Admiral Godfrey’s liaison from British Naval Intelligence. Acting purely on instinct, he’d followed the woman after their brief luncheon at the Hay-Adams, first to the Pennsylvania Railway ticket counter, where she’d purchased two tickets to Chicago and inquired about the Santa Fe Super Chief schedule. She’d gone to the National Press Building, then come across the street to the Willard, where she met with her companion, the man Canaris’s analysts in Oster’s Research division, IHWest/Abteilung Z at the Tirpitz Ufer, had identified as Detective Inspector Morris Black, previously of Scotland Yard and presently working in one of the espionage schools of the Special Operations Executive in the south of England. According to the research people it was this same man, in conjunction with operatives from MI5, who had exposed the agent known as the Doctor in London less than a year ago.

  Not wanting to take any chances, Haas decided to get one step ahead of what was clearly a very dangerous and intelligent man and flew to Chicago on the last Eastern Airlines flight out. He’d purchased a roomette ticket on the Super Chief and waited in Dearborn Station until he saw his quarry arrive and board the train before boarding himself. According to his information, Black and the woman had almost certainly found something of interest at the Trotsky villa in Mexico City that was now leading them west to Los Angeles.

  The dining car steward brought Haas his steak, poured him another glass of wine and then withdrew, moving through the crowded dining car with a graceful sway that matched the lurching movement of the train exactly. Using the steak knife Ira had provided, the German spy carved out a minuscule bite, stabbed a small onion ring and popped the combination into his mouth. He glanced out the darkened window as the train roared through the little village of Kinsman, the name board on the tiny station an unreadable blur. He was staring at his half-seen reflection in the night glass and pondering the fact that he had less than forty hours to find out what it was that Black and the woman had discovered and then dispose of them when the couple appeared at the corridor end of the dining car and handed the chief steward their reservation card. The pair looked either nervous or guilty. Perhaps both.

  Keeping one eye on them, Haas continued to eat. Three or four minutes later an elderly couple occupying two of the four seats at the table directly across from him paid their bill, stood up and left the dining car, banging into tables and once into Ira as they stumbled towards the opposite end of the car. A few seconds later Ira stepped up as gracefully as a dancer, used a small stainless-steel device like a miniature carpet sweeper to clean up the old people’s crumbs and had the white linen tablecloth cleaned and relaid with cutlery and crystal in under a minute. Ira stepped out of the way and the chief steward, two menus under his arm, led the Scotland Yard detective and his female companion to their places at the table.

  Haas checked the lovely Tutima Fleiger wristwatch with alligator strap he’d been given on his last birthday. From the time he sat down to the arrival of his steak had been eleven minutes. He could probably count on that much time if not a little more – say fifteen or twenty minutes from arrival to completion of their meal at the very least. This was the last call and the stewards wouldn’t mind if their patrons lingered over drinks or coffee at the end of the meal.

  He took two five-dollar bills from his wallet, dropped them on the table and made his way out of the dining car. The chief steward’s back shielded him from Detective Black’s view as he slid past. Reaching the small, waist-high counter the chief steward usually stood behind, Haas quickly checked the top reservation card. The car number was 305 and the room assignment was bedroom D.

  The bedroom on a Budd Streamliner was six and a half feet wide by eight feet across. Included in this space were two fold-down beds, two collapsible armchairs for use during the day and a small toilet cubicle. The sink and potable water supply were built into one side of the toilet cubicle on the outside and the stainless-steel sink folded neatly down out of its recess to reveal the hot and cold water taps as well as the drinking water spigot. The narrow steel door to the outer corridor could be locked from the inside by sliding in a recessed bolt but the door could not be locked from the outside. This meant that when the occupants were visiting the dining car or the observation-lounge car, their bedroom was left open. When the door was opened from the outside, it opened into the compartment rather than outward into the corridor.

  Reaching the door of bedroom D, Emil Haas looked up and down the corridor to make sure he was not being observed. Although he knew that both Black and the woman were in the dining room, he took no chances. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he took out a brass, steel and Bakelite folding knife he’d purchased in a pawnshop on Canal Street in Manhattan.

  He had the little .25 calibre Mauser in his suitcase but on the off chance he was ever stopped in the street he didn’t want to be found with a pistol in his possession. The folding knife had a four-inch stainless-steel blade that Haas had sharpened to a razor edge. The toffee-coloured Bakelite body of the instrument had a photo-etched depiction of the Trylon and Perisphere with the words NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR down the side. Nothing more than an innocuous souvenir from the festivities in 1939. The German agent took a deep breath, used his thumb to pop open the blade, ensuring that it was locked, then pushed down on the door handle. It opened and he pushed it rapidly inward.

  The swinging movement of the door caught the two men already in the b
edroom completely by surprise. The taller, blond man was trying to jimmy the lock on an imitation leather suitcase while his partner, six inches shorter with a bulbous red nose, was doing the same with a smaller bag of the same type. The taller man spotted Haas, eyes widening. He dug under his jacket, scrabbling for the large automatic he kept holstered at his armpit. Barely pausing, Haas stepped fully into the room, swinging the door shut behind him and lunging forward over the short man’s back, sliding the blade of the knife deep into the back of the taller man’s neck. He withdrew the knife, used his free hand to pull back the shorter man’s head by the fuller hair in the centre of his scalp, then swung the innocuous little weapon up, planting the blade into the exact centre of the man’s eye, popping it like a ripe grape as the point slipped in through the right orbit of the man’s skull and sliced two and a half inches into his brain. The two men were dead in less time than it would have taken to say their names. Both dropped awkwardly to the thinly carpeted floor. Haas wiped the blade of the knife on the back of the shorter man’s suit jacket. He noted, approvingly, that there was very little blood. Haas folded the knife closed and slipped it back into his pocket.

  He began going through the men’s clothing. According to his wallet, the taller of the two men was named Trevor K. Harding and he was an investigator for something called the State Department Investigation Bureau, which Haas had never heard of. He carried a .45 calibre Colt Automatic pistol in a left-handed shoulder holster, indicating that he shot right-handed. He wore a Lord Elgin watch with a solid gold rectangular case on his left wrist and a small ring on the third finger of his right hand with a small enamelled shield and the Latin word Ver-It-As. A Harvard Law School ring. The second, shorter man had the same sort of identification but in the name of Conrad Bonafontini. He carried a Smith & Wesson Model 10 in a slip holster tucked into the back of his belt and hidden by his suit jacket. Bonafontini also wore a Harvard Law ring, although neither man quite looked the type. Not that it mattered. Trevor and Conrad had revealed themselves as players in the game when they stepped into bedroom D and had suffered for it. They were almost certainly looking for the same thing as Emil Haas: the Romanov film.