Flowers From Berlin Read online

  At Forty-ninth Street Siegfried saw a green and white Checker cab sitting outside the Waldorf Astoria, the driver sleepily peering over a tabloid newspaper. The spy raised his hand.

  The driver set aside his newspaper. He moved his cab a few feet up the curb and looked at the passenger's suit, peaked brimmed hat, and expensive raincoat. He took his fare to be a businessman out on the town.

  "Just goin' home, Mac?" the driver asked amiably as Siegfried slid into the back seat.

  "Trying to." Siegfried spoke with a neutral, clipped accent which the driver took to be

  American.

  "Where to?"

  "Pennsylvania Station."

  "Not many trains at this hour," the driver said as he pulled out onto the empty avenue. "Hope your wife isn't waiting up for you."

  "It doesn't bother her, so it shouldn't bother you," the passenger answered.

  "Yes, sir."

  En route to the station, the cabbie spoke one other time. "You see about that game Hubbell pitched against the Dodgers yesterday?" the driver asked.

  "What?"

  "Carl Hubbell. The New York Giants pitcher. One-hit shutout."

  "I don't follow baseball," Siegfried said.

  "Oh," the driver said. "Never mind." He glanced at his passenger through the rearview mirror. Siegfried was staring at the driver's hack license, posted near the meter. On the license were the cabbie's name and photograph. The passenger was staring intently, as if to memorize them for later use. A sudden tremor overtook the driver. The quiet man three feet behind him, seated equidistant between the two doors, gave him the creeps. There was something about the man, he suddenly realized, that filled him with fear. That sensation only deepened when, as if by some sixth sense, the passenger raised his eyes to glare back into the rearview mirror. When they arrived at Pennsylvania Station, the fare was eighty-five cents. The passenger gave the driver a dollar, refused change, and disappeared between the two eagles at the sandstone steps to the terminal.

  Within the station, a crew of redcaps, black men all of them, dozing and nodding sleepily near a baggage cart, raised their heads hopefully when Siegfried entered. But they lowered their heads again when they saw that the man had no luggage. Siegfried walked to the baggage counter at the far end of the lobby and claimed a small brown suitcase. Then, bag in hand, Siegfried found an open gate leading to a train that would leave for Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, and Baltimore in another twenty-five minutes.

  Perfect, the traveler thought to himself.

  Siegfried walked into a nearly vacant car, passed two shabbily dressed men who were snoring in their seats, and entered the washroom. In the cramped quarters, he pulled from the suitcase a complete change of clothing, retaining only his white shirt and underwear. He folded his raincoat into the suitcase and neatly packed his dark suit and his tie. He replaced his neckwear with a sportier, more colorful tie and then donned gray slacks and a dark blazer. He closed his luggage.

  He re-combed his hair and put on a pair of glasses. He studied himself in the mirror. He looked rather different. Younger. Sportier. More like an out-of-town businessman than a city-bred executive. He was pleased with the transformation.

  Siegfried was off the train in five minutes. At a second checkroom on the lower level of the station, he rid himself of the suitcase once again. Now it was almost 3 A.M.

  He went to a telephone and dialed a number in Murray Hill. Siegfried pictured the small apartment in the East Thirties where the number rang. He envisioned the dark-haired woman sleeping in her bed, rising and walking into her living room. Then she answered.

  Siegfried gave her a moment to emerge from sleep. "I'm in town for a few hours," he said softly. "But only a few hours."

  The woman's name was Charlotte. She recognized the voice of a man she knew to be Mr. Bolton, a manufacturer of inexpensive clocks and timepieces in Meriden, Connecticut. She also knew him to be a wayward husband.

  "Tell me, sugar," she said, running a hand through her brown hair, "What do you do earlier in the evenings? Whenever my phone rings past two A.M. it's only one person. You."

  "I missed my connecting train back from Atlanta," he said amiably. "But does that mean I should miss my fun?"

  "I'll be waiting."

  Charlotte lit a cigarette and straightened the three compact rooms of her apartment. Then she took off her night gown, showered quickly, perfumed herself, and changed into a lavender peignoir.

  Men, Charlotte knew, had their likes and dislikes. A man's request varied little from one visit to the next. In the five years that she had supported herself in this way, the five years since the collapse of her second marriage, men had ceased to be much of a mystery. They came to her for what they did not get at home. She would serve them and make them comfortable. And Mr. Bolton, her clock manufacturer, was one of her more desirable customers, she thought as she finished with her eyeliner. A true gentleman. A man of breeding, if she was any judge. She looked in the mirror and entertained an idle thought about him. He was exactly the type of man, she had thought many times, that if she were to, well, remarry… But she quickly dismissed the notion. No use entertaining the impossible. Besides, her buzzer had just rung.

  She kissed the spy on the lips when he stepped through the door. Mr. Bolton had his routine, just like her dozen other regulars. He never went into her bedroom. She led him to the armchair in the living room. She poured him a scotch and water. She let him sit down and relax. He spoke for many minutes on the state of the clock business-meaningless garble to her. But she did not know a single businessman who did not pour out his professional problems before he could fully relax. The doctors, she had observed long ago, were different. They wanted to be in and out in a few minutes.

  Mr. Bolton talked of main springs and timing mechanisms and of contracts filled and unfulfilled. He said he was depressed about the nature of the world. America was headed for another war, he feared, and while a mobilization might make him rich making inexpensive watches, he grieved at the prospect of being a war profiteer.

  "What do you think about Roosevelt?" he asked her. "Do you think he'll get us into the war?"

  "He says he hates war," she answered, surprised at being asked her opinion on anything.

  She stifled a mild yawn, but he caught her. Then he looked at her differently. "I know you're sleepy," he said. "You're very kind to entertain me at this hour."

  He withdrew his wallet and counted out twenty-five dollars.

  "A girl has to keep her boyfriend happy," she answered soothingly. She watched him fold the money and place it on an end table.

  "Business gets a man all tensed up," she continued. "He can't sleep. A real man has to let go sometimes."

  He nodded. She moved closer to him and sat down on the arm of his chair. He smiled and let her lean down to kiss him. He slipped his arm around her waist. Then she let her peignoir tumble open so that he could see her. His hand was within the peignoir a moment later.

  "I think this would be the perfect time," he said.

  She let her clothing slide away completely, then she helped him undress. He reclined in the chair, relaxing completely. She knelt before him. She knew what Mr. Bolton liked.

  "You're very kind," he said as she began. "And very gentle."

  Men were so predictable, Charlotte thought. Their impulses were so simple. And her Mr. Bolton was not a difficult man to please. Why did not his wife do the few extra things he asked? What, she wondered, was wrong with his wife, anyway?

  It was past seven when Siegfried returned to Pennsylvania Station. The waiting room and grand lobby were coming alive with the earliest of the daily commuters. Siegfried studied the dowdy weariness of the men and women who passed this way each morning. He shuddered.

  At a Union News stand, Siegfried bought a Herald-Tribune from a man who appeared to be blind. Then Siegfried walked to Gate 15, where the Lackawanna Railroad's first train of the day would take him through northern New Jersey to his home.

  "Mo
rning, sir," said a cheerful conductor, recognizing him from many previous trips. Siegfried fumbled for his ticket. "Never remember where I put the thing," he muttered absentmindedly. Then he found it.

  "Here we are, Jeffrey," he said, calling the familiar conductor by his name. He handed the man his ticket. "See what the Giants did yesterday?" he asked. "Hubbell was it?"

  The conductor's face flashed with surprise. "You bet it was Hubbell!" he said. "One-hitter against the Dodgers. I didn't know you followed baseball, sir."

  Siegfried shrugged. "Doesn't everyone?"

  He flashed his most gracious smile, took back his canceled ticket so that he could doze on the short train ride, and found a seat at the rear of a NO SMOKING car near the door.

  Hubbell, he thought. The Giants, he thought. Baseball. Americans were so dumb, Siegfried mused. So provincial. So naive and so painfully easy to fool. And Siegfried was so expert at preying upon the smallest and most precise details.

  The next morning Siegfried examined and opened the small green envelope placed in his hand by Hunsicker. Out rolled a diamond about the size of a peppercorn. For a moment, Siegfried coldly examined the gem. Somewhere in Germany or Amsterdam, Siegfried knew, some Jew's passage out of Germany had probably been purchased with it. Curse the filthy Jews, Siegfried thought. The parasites of the twentieth century! They had brought their persecution upon themselves! But then he closed his hand on the gem.

  He traveled to Philadelphia and sold the diamond to a dealer along the 700 block of Sansom Street. Then over the next few days he visited electronics stores at random and acquired the basic parts of a shortwave station. Purchase and assembly would be long, tedious jobs. But he had complete privacy in his home. And he had time.

  By July 6 he had completed the receiving unit and had strung a strong copper wire as an antenna. He switched the unit to the ON position and it leaped to life. As he turned to the construction of his transmitter, he listened for hours to the dots, dashes, an indeterminate blips of international Morse code that shot across the shortwave bands. His fluency with code returned as he worked. It became a language to him. Then he completed his transmitter, equipped it to operate off normal house current, and connected it to the same antenna as his receiver. It was July 10.

  Now Siegfried turned to his telegraph key. He worked off a dummy transmitting pattern, listening to his own transmission via headphones. When he began he could send approximately ten words a minute. But by July 14, he could send thirty.

  He was ready.

  The evening was warm on July 15. At 6:55 P.M., the sun was setting. In Hamburg, it was nearing 1 A.M. A perfect time for shortwave reception.

  Siegfried sat by the dials of his receiver and counted the minutes. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

  It was seven o'clock. Siegfried's frequency was tightly channeled and his receiver was tuned as sharply as possible, his antenna facing Europe. He waited. He could feel sweat begin to form on his hands and on his back. Then his receiver crackled and his scalp crawled with nearly adolescent excitement.

  He could hear Hamburg! Not as boldly he might like, but he could hear his Gestapo counterpart! Hitler's Reich itself!

  The message was in uncoded German. Siegfried wrote it down in pencil on a note pad as he measured off the dots and dashes.

  REGRET PORTUGUESE CONTACTS SEVERELY COMPROMISED. SEND ONLY ONE TIME PER WEEK. FURNISH DAY YOU EXPECT TO SEND. WE ARE PREPARED 700, 1300, AND 1800 HOURS ALL DAYS. FURNISH SECOND FREQUENCY OUTSIDE AMATEUR BAND. REGARDS. AOR-3

  To which, Siegfried immediately replied:

  YOUR SIGNAL VERY WEAK. IMPROVE IT. I WILL SEND WEDNESDAYS AND SUNDAYS 2300 HOURS. WILL LISTEN SATURDAYS, SAME TIME. SUGGEST CODE ON ALL FUTURE TRANSMISSIONS. AWAITING. CQDXVW-2

  Siegfried leaned back from his work and removed his hand from his telegraph key. He massaged the cramping muscles of his neck. He stared intently at his receiver, listening to the thin haze of static that encroached on the AOR-3 frequency.

  Several long minutes drifted by. He wondered if he should retransmit. What was wrong with those bastards on the other end? Did not they understand? Were they not pulling in his signal? Why didn't --?

  In the midst of his curses the frequency came alive again with a simple command: CODE UNNECESSARY TONIGHT. USE NAVAL CODE IN FUTURE. MESSAGE TONIGHT? AOR-3

  Much more like it, thought Siegfried. With satisfaction, he began his transmission. LYCOMING AIRCRAFT IN LONG ISLAND HAVE ENGINE DESIGNED TO FIT INTO WINGS OF FIGHTER AIRCRAFT LIKE A SANDWICH. HAVE STOLEN A BLUEPRINT. CONDENSED SAID BLUEPRINT AND HAVE SENT IT VIA SS PANAMA BOUND IN COVER BINDING OF HOLY BIBLE. ALSO: HMS WOLFE WAS TAKING MUNITIONS AND BOMBSITE CARGO FROM BROOKLYN TO CHERBOURG APRIL FOUR LAST. BOARDED SHIP BEFORE DEPARTURE. PLANTED HEAVY FLOWERS FROM BERLIN. MOST LIKELY SUNK WOLFE. CQDXVW-2

  Barely taking his eyes off his receiver or his telegraph key, Siegfried used his sleeve to mop the sweat rolling down his temples. Curse this small, cramped room, he thought. These bloody secretive working conditions! The almost nonexistent light! Being a spy meant working in spaces with the size and charm of an oak casket. Siegfried shuddered.

  He waited. Come on, you morons! he thought. Don't you know it's a matter of time before the Roosevelt administration sets up listening and tracking stations? Come on! Respond!

  Then in another five seconds his receiver was again alive with dots and dashes.

  Siegfried could "read" the Morse code as it came off his receiver. But he transcribed it onto paper, anyway.

  BRAVO, SIEGFRIED! AOR-3

  "Of course, 'Bravo, Siegfried,' you idiots!" he said aloud to himself. "You're safely in Hamburg, I'm here in America, and who do you think is going to win your war for you?"

  REQUEST NEW ASSIGNMENT. CQDXVW-2 Siegfried tapped out.

  He waited for a moment. This time Hamburg was ready.

  BROWNING MUNITIONS CORPORATION OF CHICAGO DEVELOPING LINE OF ANTIAIRCRAFT GUNS FOR EXPORT TO U.K. MUST KNOW: WEIGHT OF GUN IN FIRING POSITION-4-LEGGED CROSSMOUNTING-CALIBER, WEIGHT OF SHELL, WEIGHT OF CARTRIDGE, MUZZLE VELOCITY, HIGHEST ELEVATION, RANGE VERTICALLY AND HORIZONTALLY, FIRING SPEED, ESTIMATED DELIVERY DATE -

  Siegfried angrily broke into the German signal.

  STUDY YOUR MAPS! HAVE NO ACCESS TO BROWNING FACTORY. AM NOWHERE NEAR CHICAGO. SEND ASSIGNMENT IN EASTERN U.S.A. OR FIND ANOTHER AGENT, YOU HALF-WITS. CQDXVW-2

  Siegfried glared at his equipment. He reached to a pack of Pall Malls and pulled one out with his lips. He waited for a response. The wait was painful. He smoked two cigarettes. His anger grew. Then he heard a signal, grabbed his pencil, and transcribed: BRITISH VESSEL HMS ADRIANA SAILED TO U.S.A. UNDER STRICTEST SECURITY. DOCKED AT U.S. NAVY YARD AT RED BANK, NEW JERSEY. DISCOVER: MISSION, CARGO, DESTINATION. AOR-3

  Siegfried smiled. At last they began to understand. He tapped back: PERFECT. END. CQDXVW-2

  As his forefinger came to a rest, the spy leaned back in his wooden chair. He blew out a long breath and felt his pulse subside. He glanced at his watch. Seven and a quarter minutes of transmission time. He shook his head. Did Hamburg think he was playing games?

  Certainly the Americans wouldn't think so if they traced him. He cursed profanely as he took down his antenna. Piece by piece he sealed his station into the walls of his transmission chamber. He replaced the wallboards, panel by panel, using his left thumb to push nails into their proper grooves. Siegfried admired the way his nails slipped perfectly in and out of the holes he had bored for them.

  If only people behaved as diligently, he thought. He looked again at the notations he had made from the messages he had received. Then he crumpled them into an ashtray and set fire to them. He stirred the ashes when the paper was completely consumed. Next, he poured the ashes into a wastebasket that he would empty later that evening.

  He tucked his Pall Malls into the breast pocket of his shirt and was finished. His location was so ingenious, Siegfried was convinced, that in a century of searching, only he could find his station. As long as his signal escaped dete
ction and tracking, he would never be caught.

  Moments later, the spy was out in the open air, enjoying the peaceful evening. He was quite content with himself, having completed his last assignment with unparalleled brilliance. Now he looked forward to his next mission. The Adriana, whatever that was.

  He passed someone he knew on a quiet country lane and exchanged a greeting in perfect English. And the spy who would win the war for Adolf Hitler used his most insidious weapon, his anonymity, to disappear quietly into the vast population of middle-class America. For Siegfried on July 15, 1939, everything was that easy.

  PART TWO

  Laura Worthington

  England and America

  1935-39

  THREE

  Laura Worthington’s earliest memories were of her own room in her father's mansion overlooking Kensington Gardens. She must have been about four years old back then, she one day realized, because her father was home from the war and that was in 1918.

  On the brown uniform of the British Expeditionary Force he had worn an assortment of ribbons and medallions. They were pretty to a little girl. He had hoisted her in his arms, and after she had joined her mother in embracing Papa, her fingers had wandered to the bright colors and the gleaming brass and silver. She was fascinated by them.

  "Want them?" Major Nigel Worthington asked his daughter.

  The little girl nodded excitedly.

  He took them off his uniform, to the dismay of his wife, and removed the pointed ends of the pins. Then he placed them in a small ivory box that he had brought back from France for her. He set them on the floor and sat by approvingly. Thus, the Military Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, and the Victoria Cross, among others, became favorite toys for little Laura. She would pin them on herself and her dolls. A few days later one of the nursemaids of one of her playmates said that her father must have been very much of a hero to win all of those medals.