Authors: Alan Bricklin
The clip clop of the horse's hooves sounded like a metronome, the
cadence of their final journey in Germany. The farmer had a cousin, a woman who
was widowed by the war, and who lived alone with her young son in Jengen, a
town approximately forty kilometers away. It was not unusual for him to visit
her, occasionally bringing along a person or two to help her with planting or
harvesting, and the farmer was therefore a familiar site in the area, a visitor
who would be unlikely to arouse suspicion. Larry and Maria spoke to each other
infrequently and in quiet tones, jealously guarding their love. He was glad
they had each other because he didn't think their chances of getting out of the
country alive, especially through Austria, were very good, and it would be nice
that they had at least a few days with each other. The farmer carried on an
intermittent commentary as they traversed the countryside, pointing out the
changes that the war had caused, not only in the landscape, where military
emplacements of various kinds had sprung up, now mostly bombed out or abandoned
as the allies advanced, but also in the lives of the agricultural folk who
lived in the region. In the beginning of the war, national pride, which had
been at a low after World War I, reached its apogee, and while it remained high
for much of the populace as a whole, those who worked the land saw more clearly
than the others how Germany's aggression and the response it elicited from the
rest of the world would sap their resources, their strength and eventually
their will.
By early afternoon they reached Jengen, and after offering
his suggestions as to the best route to the Austrian border, the farmer thanked
them each again, wished them God's speed and watched for a moment as they began
their trek along the dusty road, before turning his rig up an isolated cart
path that led to his cousin's house.
They walked in tandem, Maria in the lead, each carrying a
small pack. Larry wanted her to be in front for two reasons —— as a
native born German from the general area she would be more likely to be able to
deflect questions, especially since they had discussed in detail what their
story would be, and secondly, because Larry wanted his body to be between Maria
and the deadly cargo he carried on his back. After about an hour on the road
Larry moved up almost abreast of Maria, staying just slightly behind her and
shifting his pack to one shoulder opposite where she walked. Although he was
still concerned about the plutonium, his misgivings about the locals they might
encounter had quickly dissipated as Maria greeted the occasional fellow
traveler they met, and even paused momentarily to say a word or two to a few
villagers they passed while traversing a small town. Each meeting had been
uneventful, and the brief exchange seemed to defuse any suspicion before it arose.
For the first time since he woke up in the farmhouse he felt that their chances
of making it to safety were better than even. They walked at a brisk pace,
their steps buoyed by the confidence they felt, and by evening Larry was
pleased with the distance they had covered. Outside the town of Marktoberdorf,
as evening gave way to night, they came upon a small inn, a rather dilapidated
structure, which at first glance appeared to be uninhabited, but on closer
inspection revealed a light and the flicker of a fire reflecting off the
windows. The farmer had insisted that they accept a small amount of money and,
even more importantly, had provided them with some eggs, cheese and a small
amount of cured meat, commodities that could be used as food or money as circumstances
demanded. Approaching the inn with caution, they managed to casually glance in
the windows, hoping to avoid the appearance of stealth, and were relieved to
find few occupants and nothing that looked like a uniform. Following a hasty
conference, they strode to the door and Larry opened it for Maria who entered
first.
Warm air and the smell of food cooking mixed with the odor
of pungent pipe tobacco greeted them as they walked into a low ceilinged room,
a misty haze of smoke lingering among the stout wood beams that added to the
confining appearance. A bar on one side ran most of the length of the room and
the floor was populated with assorted tables and chairs of varied materials and
construction, no two of them alike, as if the owners had made a point of buying
one piece of every old dining set they could find, the only requirement being
that they be in disrepair and not match any of the furniture they had already
acquired. A couple with a small child looked up from their corner table,
pausing, spoons poised in mid air, to survey the new arrivals, then, seeing
nothing of particular interest to them, returned to their soup. An old man at
the bar, the only other patron, turned in his chair to also give the once over
to the interlopers, not because he was at all curious, but rather because the
owner, a plump woman behind the bar with whom he had been conversing, turned
and walked away while he was in mid sentence in order to take care of what she
hoped would be two paying customers. He sat there glaring in their direction
before exhaling a cloud of smoke from his pipe and turning back to his
unfinished beer to await the resumption of his unfinished conversation. The
smoke loitered around his head for a moment then drifted upwards to join the
cloud above.
The plump woman hurried over to them, wiping her hands on
her apron, and welcomed them most politely. Their clothes, although not fancy,
were of decent quality and were in good repair and, coming from a long line of
merchants who had honed their ability to quickly size up a potential customer,
the owner could see that the two persons before her were not riff raff despite
the dust of a long journey; hence her deference in greeting them. After a brief
discussion, it was agreed that a few fresh eggs and a few marks would pay for a
hot meal and a room for the night. They chose a table along the wall, away from
the windows and just outside the glow of the fireplace, speaking in the
whispered tones of lovers while they awaited their meal.
The old man, having no one to talk to while the owner
rummaged around in the kitchen, ambled over to the table and, uninvited, sat
down and began talking as if they had both been regulars and he was merely
picking up the thread of some conversation from the night before. Maria did
most of the talking, but Larry could not keep mute without arousing suspicion,
and so he was forced to participate, although he kept his comments to a
minimum. After a few minutes the codger turned to Larry and exclaimed,
"You don't sound like no German."
"That's because he grew up in Italy," Maria chimed
in, following the front story they had prepared before leaving. "They're
our allies, you know."
"Oh," said the old man, then followed quickly with
a couple of questions in somewhat broken Italian, apparently trying to catch
them in some kind of lie, although to what purpose did not seem clear, even to
the old fellow himself, who seemed merely cantankerous and a bit confused,
rather than a hinterland defender of the Third Reich. Larry responded in flawless
Italian, complementing the man on how well he spoke the language. "Yep, I
lived there for two years back in 1920, after the war." Satisfied with
Larry's authenticity, he looked back at Maria and started to say something when
the plump woman walked over to the table carrying a large tray with bowls of
steaming soup, a pot of some kind of stew, empty plates and a basket of bread
as well as two pints of beer.
She set the tray down and transferred the items to the
table, grabbing the old man by the shoulder as she withdrew and pulling him
back to the bar. "Come on Wilfred, let's leave the young couple have some
privacy." Maria and Larry paid their compliments to Wilfred and thanked
the woman, then dug into the food, the aroma reminding them of just how hungry
they were.
After the meal, the innkeeper showed them to a small second
floor room looking out over darkened meadows, placed a lit candle in a bent
metal holder on the small night table and closed the door behind her.
Exhaustion overtook them and they quickly shucked their clothes, sliding under
the covers from opposite sides of the bed, their warm bodies uniting in the
center, each finding solace in the arms of the other. Larry was ill at ease,
confused and guilty. He found himself thinking that perhaps Maria was correct
when she said that the doctors had mixed up his x-ray with that of another
patient. But if that was true, he was committing suicide by carrying the
plutonium and, in addition, how could he become involved with Maria knowing
that his demise was a forgone conclusion, even if she was unwilling to accept
it. He felt that he had to get these feelings out in the open, as difficult as
it would be for him and as painful as he imagined it would be for Maria, so,
trepidation in his voice, he began. Stumbling through the first few sentences,
thinking he was making no sense, he paused to gather his thoughts, and it was
then that he heard her gentle deep breathing as she slept the sleep of the
exhausted. Ashamed at the relief he felt in being able to put off having this
conversation, he, too, closed his eyes and was soon in a place where the world
was far distant.
* *
Some eighty kilometers to the northeast, Eva, impatient and
annoyed, paced back and forth in one of the cluster of small rooms that now
served as SS headquarters in Munich. The corporal who manned the communications
center had sent word to Waldman's command post in northern Italy and he was
anxiously awaiting a reply. The radio operator was ill at ease, and had been so
since Eva stormed into his domain earlier and demanded that she be put in touch
with the General immediately. His first inclination when she had launched what
amounted to a blitzkrieg assault on him as soon as she entered the room,
barking instructions and demands in a tone that would be the envy of any drill
sergeant, was to tell her to fuck off, but since he knew who she was and how
explosive a temper the General had, the soldier meekly carried out her orders.
He dearly wished she would leave, and thus his hope for a prompt reply.
"Call again. Are you sure you reached the proper
unit?"
"Yes, Fraulein. They have gone to tell him." Eva
started to say something but was interrupted by the crackle of the speakers as
a static laden incoming voice message began, arriving via radiophone and
landlines. He held up his hand for quiet. "This is SS command,
Munich," he said as he put on earphones and switched off the speakers.
"Yes, understood." Corporal Schultz removed the earphones and held
them out to Eva. "General Waldman wants to speak to you. Sit here and hold
the microphone close to your mouth." He motioned to the chair next to his
as he pushed the large microphone towards her.
Eva slipped the earphones over her head and took hold of the
microphone with both hands. "Yes, General, it is me. No. Right away."
She turned to the corporal. "Wait outside, I'll let you know when I'm
finished."
"Yes, Fraulein." He stood up and quickly left the
radio room, his alacrity commensurate with his relief at being anywhere where
Eva wasn't.
Waldman and Eva conferred for ten minutes or so, then she
strode out of the room and directly up to Corporal Schultz, handing him a piece
of paper as she commanded, "Get me a car and a driver right away; give
this to the driver, it is our destination. This is a direct order from the
general." The latter statement was not in the least necessary since the
corporal was only too anxious to have her as far away as possible and as soon
as possible. In short order Eva found herself in the back seat of a black
Mercedes heading out of Munich to the Southwest, a young and somewhat
frightened private at the wheel.
* *
Hans Mettler realized that the information he provided to his old
friend was very useful, but he could also tell from his face that he was
saddened by it at the same time. Dulles walked Hans to the door, opening it for
him and ushering him through the anteroom to the hall, where he shook his hand
then turned back to his office. As he passed Bill's desk, he said, "Get me
all of Templeton's case files and tell the military attaché at our Embassy that
I need to see him today." Back at his desk, he spun his chair to face the
window, and stared out at the sunlit vista over the rooftops, while he reviewed
the situation. He had a rogue agent, one agent that was in all likelihood dead
and a field agent behind enemy lines on a mission that was compromised. With
German forces in retreat or disarray, and the French border open, he was
concerned that Julian might bolt, but he was more worried about the safety of
Larry, the agent in the field. It was only two days ago that he inquired as to
his name and who he was. Normally he was not involved in operations to that
degree of detail, but now he wanted to know, not only because he had to make
sure that Larry had been properly vetted and was not involved in Julian's plot,
but also because of the guilt he felt for allowing a traitor to thrive in his
midst and thus place this young man in even more danger than was engendered by
the mission itself.
When Bill brought in a pile of folders that represented
Templeton's casework, Dulles was still looking out the window. Without turning
he said, "Thanks. Just leave them on the table." He spent the rest of
the day pouring over the documents, creating a list of all the operations which
Julian had run or with which he had been connected in any way. Then he wrote
down all the personnel involved —— agents, staff, informants,
targets, partisans and any other listed person who may have been contacted.
Accurate record keeping was an integral part of any espionage system, and the
effort involved often yielded results that were invaluable in detecting
connections and maintaining the security of the network, as Dulles hoped would
be the case today. He looked over his notes, wrote "Waldman" and
"Schroeder" at the top of each page, leaned back in his chair staring
at the pages, then asked his aide to come in. Phone logs had to be reviewed and
he would need Bill's help with that, as well as following up on connections
that might show up after his study of all the files.