The Saboteurs

by W. E. B Griffin

  Ingrid Müller had told Fulmar to meet her at Wagner’s Restaurant and Market, Eighty-fifth at Second, and as the cab drove off he started walking slowly in that direction.

  He was surprised—though he wasn’t sure why—that there were still quite a few people out and about in the cold at this late hour.

  As he passed a dimly lit bakery and coffee shop—the sign read: KONDITOREI KAFFEEHAUS—he looked inside and saw that it was about a quarter full of patrons.

  That impressed him, but not quite as much as the reason why it took a bit of effort to see the people inside: From the top of the shop’s window, next to a chalkboard menu, hung a huge American flag. It filled half of the big window, and he guessed that if they could have put a bigger one there, they would have.

  As he approached the next block, Fulmar saw that someone had pasted on the side of a redbrick apartment building a series of U.S. Navy recruitment posters so that they covered—mostly, anyway—the pro-Nazi graffiti beneath.

  Block after block, he passed more nicely kept shops and apartment buildings.

  By all appearances, Yorkville seemed just another normal New York neighborhood.

  If you didn’t look too deeply, it’d be hard to believe it’s a boiling pot of subversion….

  Ahead, Fulmar saw the brick and glass façade to Wagner’s Restaurant and Market.

  The establishment’s name was painted in large gold lettering on the main picture window, above a round, red neon sign—RHEINGOLD EXTRA DRY—advertising beer. Its street number was painted in the same gold lettering, but much smaller, on the glass panes above the dark wooden door.

  Fulmar glanced inside the window, past the blinking neon sign, but did not immediately see Ingrid Müller.

  He grabbed the big brass handle of the door, pulled hard, and went inside.

  The first thing that he noticed was the blast of heat that greeted him.

  He pulled off his overcoat and draped it on his left arm, over the sleeve concealing his baby Fairbairn.

  He saw that Wagner’s was more of a bar and grill than a real grocery, such as Schaller & Weber’s, which he had noticed on Second Avenue just up the block.

  The interior of Wagner’s had dark-stained paneled walls. The ceiling was of pressed tin in a burnished gold color. The bar, also of dark wood, ran the length of the right side of the room—where a series of four U.S. flags hung from staffs in a row above the mirrors. There were wooden tables and chairs in the middle of the room and a line of booths down the left side.

  At the back of the restaurant was the “market”—two open refrigerated cases, the kind found in full-service grocery stores, these containing packages of kielbasa, bratwurst, potato salad, and such, all menu items that had been prepared in the kitchen on the premises for carryout.

  About half of the bar’s twenty or so stools were taken—including by a half-dozen sailors in uniform—and three of the tables were each occupied by couples enjoying their cocktails.

  Fulmar noticed motion on the left side of the room, and when he looked he saw in a booth a blonde woman in a dark outfit waving to get his attention.

  She was sitting alone, smoking a cigarette, and had on the table in front of her a cup of what he guessed was probably coffee.

  My God! She’s gotten even more gorgeous.

  He smiled and made a direct line for her table.

  As he walked up, she smiled.

  “I knew that had to be you,” she said. “You haven’t changed…but, then, you have.”

  She remained seated but held out her right hand. When he reached to take it, she leaned forward and turned her head to offer her cheek. Fulmar took her hand, bent over, touched his right cheek to hers, and made the sound of a kiss. She turned the other way and he touched his left cheek to hers, and again made the kissing sound.

  Damn, she has soft skin.

  Fulmar looked at her. She wore no makeup that he could tell.

  And she doesn’t need it.

  Her fair skin was flawless. She had a soft, narrow face with high cheekbones, a thin nose, delicate lips, high eyebrows, and deep, ice blue eyes. Her hair was rich and thick, heavy with big waves. And her dark outfit tried but failed to hide the fact that she was fantastically built.

  “It’s great to see you again, Ingrid. You look sensational.”

  She smiled appreciatively.

  “That’s very kind of you to say.”

  She gestured to the seat across the table from her.

  “Please, have a seat.”

  Fulmar tossed his overcoat onto the seat and slid in the booth after it.

  The cushioning or the springs—or both—in the seat were soft or old—or both—and he instantly found himself sitting in a sort of self-formed bowl.

  The back of this bowl pressed at his lower backside, which, in turn, pushed at the nose of the .45 tucked in the small of his back. He discreetly reached back and repositioned the pistol so that it would not fall out of his waistband.

  Ingrid said, “I’m so glad that we could get together again. It’s been—what?—five, six years?”

  “Ten,” Fulmar said.

  “Really? No! That long?”

  “And some ten thousand letters,” he added with a smile.

  She blushed.

  She looked down momentarily as she absently ran the long, thin fingers of her left hand through her thick, wavy golden hair.

  When she looked back up, she took a puff of the cigarette she held between the tips of her right-hand index and middle fingers, then exhaled as she leaned forward. She rested on her right elbow, her wrist cocked, her thumb angling the cigarette upward.

  “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty,” she grinned, “you’re being successful.”

  “I apologize.”

  “Please don’t. They were very sweet letters, and I should be ashamed for not responding to them.”

  “Well, I imagine you get quite a bit of fan mail. You can’t answer every one. And lately you have been writing me back….”

  She smiled a smile that said, Thank you for letting me off the hook.

  After a moment, she said, “Would you like something to eat or drink?”

  He nodded. “Is that coffee?”

  “Tea.”

  “Actually, I have a weakness for the power of persuasion.”

  She cocked her head quizzically.

  “How so?”

  “That neon sign in the window?”

  She looked at it, then back at him.

  “What about it?”

  “I’m convinced it’s there for me,” he said with a straight face, “and for me alone.”

  She laughed. It was a deep and husky laugh—one that had become, in addition to her stunning looks, her signature on screen.

  Fulmar waved to get the bartender’s attention.

  “A Rheingold, please,” he called.

  The bartender nodded.

  Fulmar looked at Ingrid, who was pushing aside her cup.

  “Make it two,” she said with a smile. “Suddenly, this tea tastes like acid.”

  Fulmar turned back toward the bartender, who was drawing Fulmar’s beer from the tap.

  “Make it two.”

  “Two Rheingolds it is,” the bartender replied.

  Fulmar turned back to Ingrid.

  “So,” she said, “how is your mother?”

  Fulmar did not immediately reply.

  “You would probably know better than I,” he said finally, without emotion.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I thought you knew,” he explained.

  She shook her head.

  “My mother and I don’t talk. I don’t exist to her, at least to her as Monica Sinclair, Star of the Silver Screen.”

  Ingrid reached out with her right hand and gently squeezed Fulmar’s left wrist. He liked the warm feel of her hand, and its strength.

  “That’s so sad,” she said softly.

  Jesus Christ, Fulmar thought, looking into her eyes. They’
re even more sensual in person than on screen. Can she turn that on and off as needed—or is it sincere?

  He shrugged.

  “You get used to it,” he said.

  She looked off into the distance.

  “And all this time,” she added, “I thought that it was just me that brought out the bitch in Monica.”

  “Well, welcome to the club.”

  Ingrid shook her head sadly.

  She caressed his wrist, then looked more closely at it.

  “You have unusually dry hands,” she said suddenly.

  It was more a question than a statement.

  Fucking Cosmoline, Fulmar thought.

  He said, “That’s a long story. Had trouble washing some gunk off of my hands.”

  She stared at him with a look of amazement.

  “You seem to deal with things so well. Nothing seems to bother you—”

  She paused as the bartender arrived with the two glasses of beer.

  He placed one in front of Ingrid, then one in front of Fulmar.

  “Danke,” Fulmar said.

  “No problem,” the bartender said.

  The bartender showed no reaction, one way or the other, to Fulmar thanking him in German and walked away.

  Fulmar smiled at Ingrid.

  “Let’s change the subject, huh?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  She let go of his wrist and put her hands in her lap.

  Shit! he thought. Maybe we should get back to discussing Sweet Ol’ Mom….

  Fulmar picked up his beer.

  “To reunions,” he said, holding it toward her.

  She grinned.

  “Why not?” she said, picking up her beer. “To reunions.”

  They touched glasses and took sips.

  Fulmar put his glass on the table and leaned forward.

  “Tell me about yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What are you up to these days?”

  “I read the terrible scripts that my agent in Hollywood sends me, then scream at my agent for sending me terrible scripts.”

  “What’s wrong with them?”

  She let out her trademark laugh loud enough that, Fulmar saw in his peripheral vision, two of the sailors at the bar turned and looked and smiled along before going back to their conversation.

  “What’s not wrong with them!” she said. “Forgive me, but these are roles even your mother would not take.”

  She looked wistful.

  “It’s hard in these days of war,” she went on, “particularly with a name like mine, to get good parts. I’m looking at changing agents. There’s a very young guy named Ovitz who I like a lot. Funny guy, and sharp as razor.”

  “Stan Fine mentioned him once,” Fulmar said. “Had nothing but nice things to say, and that I understand is unheard of in Hollywood.”

  He took a sip of beer.

  “So you’ve got some time on your hands between scripts?”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Fulmar glanced around the room before replying.

  “What we sometimes talked about in our letters.”

  She raised one of her thin eyebrows, then looked at her cigarette and took a long pull on it.

  Fulmar said, “You know who my father is, yes?”

  She nodded as she exhaled the cigarette smoke toward the ceiling.

  The memory of when she learned that was very clear in her mind.

  Years earlier, in one of Monica Sinclair’s weaker moments—she’d been stone-drunk after a long day of being extremely difficult on the set—Ingrid had been told about “that sonofabitch” with whom Monica had had a fling.

  And by whom she had had an unwanted son.

  Monica Sinclair had vividly described the Baron von Fulmar as not only “a miserable fucking prick of the highest order” but as one highly placed in the Nazi Party and as the general director of the very important Fulmar Elektrische G.m.b.H.

  So, Ingrid knew, not only was Fulmar arguably as German as anyone in Yorkville, but he was unquestionably better connected than probably everyone there. Including Fritz Kuhn, whom Hitler tolerated but did not necessarily like.

  She looked him in the eyes.

  “And,” he went on, “you have alluded to the fact that you are friendly with Fritz Kuhn.”

  Ingrid quickly looked away.

  “I’d prefer we not talk about that here.”

  She picked up her beer and took a healthy swallow.

  Fulmar did the same, then put down his glass. He leaned forward.

  “I want to help,” he whispered.

  “Help what?”

  “The Bund.”

  Fulmar noticed that the mention of the German-American Bund—the federation of American Nazis—seemed to pique her interest.

  “Especially,” he went on, “if there’s any connection to the bombing of the American cities.”

  Ingrid looked at him a very long moment—he thought he saw sadness or maybe even some disappointment—but she did not say a word.

  She looked away, lit a fresh cigarette, took a puff and exhaled.

  She looked back at Fulmar, her ice blue eyes calculating, then drained her beer and stubbed out her barely burned cigarette.

  “Let’s discuss this in my apartment,” she said with a smile.

  Fulmar smiled back.

  Yes, let’s discuss this in your apartment.

  This…and maybe how I get in your pants.

  He turned to the bartender and pointed to their table.

  “Check, please!”

  [ THREE ]

  Room 909

  Robert Treat Hotel

  Newark, New Jersey

  1829 7 March 1943

  Mary was late.

  Kurt Bayer stood looking out the big window of the hotel room, trying to see if he could get a glimpse of her coming down the sidewalk to the hotel. It was no use. At this distance, from the ninth floor, it was impossible to distinguish many details of the people beyond the kind of clothes they wore—suit or skirt—and the coloring—dark or light—of that clothing.

  He checked his watch again.

  She was now almost exactly an hour and a half late.

  When she had been only a half hour late, he had gone from being excited about her arrival to the early stages of being annoyed. And at an hour, he had started getting mad.

  But now, after nearly ninety minutes, he had begun to worry about her.

  And I have no idea how to check on her, he thought, frustrated. I can’t very well go down to that topless dance bar—if I could find the fucking thing—and ask around about her.

  Bayer knew, too, that he wasn’t about to go ask Richard Koch for any help, either. They had spent all day together going over again—for what in Bayer’s mind had to be the fiftieth time—their plans for putting a bomb on a New York City transit bus.

  At one point, after Bayer had asked Koch for just a few dollars—which Koch reluctantly gave him—Koch had gone after him about Mary, had gone on and on and on about how the relationship had to end. Period.

  Koch had even tried to make Bayer admit that not only was the relationship stupid but it was dangerous, too, and he wanted him to promise to think only of the mission.

  To which Bayer had promptly stood, glared at Koch, said that he wasn’t about to walk away from a woman he thought he might be falling in love with, and then stormed out of the room and went to his own.

  Where, now some two hours later, he waited and worried.

  I’m going crazy in here, he thought as he turned away from the window. Maybe going downstairs and meeting her there will help.

  If nothing else, I’ll get to see her sooner….

  He picked up his Walther PPK pistol from the bedside table, slipped it into the right pocket of his woolen winter coat, and went out the door.

  As he approached the bank of elevators, he saw that the floor indicator above the right pair of doors showed that
that elevator was stopped at the eleventh floor. He looked above the left set of doors and saw that the needle of its indicator was moving; the car was coming up, now passing the seventh floor.

  Maybe she’s on it….

  The needle of the indicator moved past 7, then 8, and then 9. He heard the car itself actually pass his floor. The needle then showed that it had stopped on 10.

  Damn!

  He pushed the DOWN button, illuminating it.

  The indicator of the right elevator began moving. The needle moved past 10, approached 9—then passed 9 and kept going all the way to 1.

  What the hell?

  He looked at the DOWN button. It was still illuminated. He stabbed it twice with his right index finger anyway.

  He next heard the sounds of the left car coming down from the tenth floor, then the clunking of the mechanism that opened its pair of doors on his floor.

  The car was empty.

  Bayer quickly entered it, but as the doors started to close he had a sudden desperate thought.

  What if she comes up while I’m going down?

  He stepped one foot out of the car, into the path of the closing doors, and they tried to close completely. With considerable effort, he fought the mechanism and, after a moment, forced them back open.

  He stood there, leaning against the door, trying to decide what to do.

  This is driving me nuts. What is it with this girl that’s making me act this way? Ach!

  He shook his head, stepped back inside the car, pushed the button labeled L on the wall and sighed as the door mechanism clunked the doors closed.

  Bayer spent a frantic twenty minutes checking the lobby of the hotel, then the sidewalk outside—going all the way to the street corner in both directions—then the lobby again, before taking a seat in the same upholstered chair in the lobby that Richard Koch had waited that morning before breakfast.

  With his clear view of both the elevator bank and the front door, he watched a steady stream of guests going to and from the elevators. He even noticed that at least once the elevators had carried a guest or guests plural to the ninth floor.

  But no Mary.

  After about ten minutes, he had had enough.

  He got up, walked to the elevators, and rode the left one back up to the ninth floor.

  When Bayer stepped off of the elevator, he noticed movement to his right and looked toward it.