Wheeler's head shot upward, then relaxed when he recognized Cochrane. "Decipher it, did you?" Wheeler asked. Then he read Cochrane's expression and turned very serious. "Well, Mercy Almighty," he grumbled, removing the pipe and setting it aside. "Don't be shy about it. What have you got?"
"We've got this invisible German floating around the country. No one sees him, no one recognizes him. We only know where he's been, never where he is." Cochrane looked down to what he had written on a yellow legal pad as if to check that it was still there. Then he handed it to Wheeler. "And this is what he's up to. The final mission."
Wheeler read Cochrane's sprawling but semi-inspired handwriting.
"Now," said Cochrane. "You tell me. What does this mean to you? There's only one target that changes American politics. Am I right or am I crazy? And note carefully the wording. 'Approved by Berlin.' Normally the fifth column works out of Hamburg. But this went up and down the chain of command, into and out of Hitler's own office on the Prinz Albrechtstrasse, if my guess is anywhere accurate."
Wheeler scanned and Cochrane saw his superior's face go white.
Roosevelt. Of course, Roosevelt. What else could it possibly be?
"Holy Mother of Christ," Wheeler breathed. He tossed the pad back onto his desk. He reached to his telephone and dialed Hoover.
"Who the hell is this Siegfried?" Wheeler ranted as he listened to an unanswered ringing on Hoover's end. "Who is he? Where is he? And why can't we catch him?"
"He can't stay out there forever," Cochrane said stubbornly to the skeptical gaze of Wheeler. "He has to show himself somewhere."
Then Hoover came on the line, and Wheeler, with unusual deference, began to speak.
*
Siegfried was in Liberty Circle.
He stepped out of his car and gazed at the clean white spire of St. Paul's Lutheran Church. It was a crisp day, the kind Siegfried liked, and he felt invigorated. He looked to the tower of the church where his radio room was concealed within the walls.
He began to think. And absently, he reached to the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pack of Pall Malls.
He drew one with his lips, lit it, and began to smoke. He lowered his eyes away from the spire and his radio room. No use calling extra attention. There were people on the sidewalk. People who did not even know there was a Siegfried.
He puffed on the cigarette. Then he heard a woman's voice, which jarred him.
"Why, Reverend Fowler!" the woman said, glaring at the spy. "Smoking! You smoke! I never knew!"
It was Mrs. Dobson, a plain little woman whose husband owned the hardware store, and her friend Mrs. Jarvis, who worked for Bell Telephone of New Jersey.
"I'm surprised at you, Reverend!" Mrs. Jarvis chimed in. "I didn't know you had any vices. Such an otherwise decent young man! But, smoking!"
The two ladies, both parishioners, laughed good-naturedly.
Reverend Fowler extinguished the cigarette against the side of the car.
"I apologize, ladies," he said, grinning and shaking his head. "I quite forgot myself! See you both on Sunday, now, hear?" He laughed, too, making light of his small sin.
Then they were gone and Siegfried shuddered. The cigarettes. He had neglected to throw them away. They were part of Siegfried, not part of Reverend Fowler. A little mistake like that again could cost him everything!
He shivered. Charlotte. The swim across the Potomac to the presidential yacht. The necessity of now assembling the biggest, most lethal bomb he had ever made. The pressure was mounting on him. Why else would he have forgotten a detail like the cigarettes?
He calmed himself. Perhaps it was a good thing. He would be more careful now. More careful than ever. Nothing short of perfection would do, not until Roosevelt was dead and he was safely in Germany, an American-born hero of the Third Reich.
Cigarettes! A man like Siegfried did not need them anyway. Siegfried was an Aryan! Made of steel! Better than the rabble that surrounded him!
Stephen Fowler turned toward the parish house, which was quiet. Where, he wondered, was Laura?
PART SIX
TWENTY-EIGHT
"A Mrs. Laura Fowler found the body," said Chief of Police Bob Higgins of Liberty Circle. "Horrible thing. Just horrible. The poor woman went out for a walk behind her husband's church. About an hour before the Reverend returned from a trip. There's a cemetery behind St. Paul's, then a couple of acres of woods. Well, sir, she's walking and her foot hits something."
Bill Cochrane followed Chief Higgins closely, listening to each word. They walked from the police station only about two blocks to the church. Higgins was not used to having F.B.I. visitors. It was still a nice afternoon.
"She sees what hit her foot and she looks down. Well, sir," said the red-haired, lean Higgins, "sure enough. It's the arm of a dead woman reaching up from a makeshift grave."
Cochrane nodded. They walked quickly. "Thank you for telephoning," he said. He hadn't been off the train from Washington for ten minutes.
"Well, sir," answered Higgins. "I got that F.B.I. circular about that sailor who was murdered. Wasn't that a horrible thing? Well, it stuck with me. Couldn't get the case out of my mind. The boy's body lying out there in the woods. Well, sir. Then we get this one right here in Liberty Circle. Almost the exact same thing. So, well, sir, I made up my mind to call."
The local police officer was correct. It was like Billy Pritchard all over again. Higgins led Cochrane fifty yards through the woods and they came to a black blanket that covered a corpse. The rest of the Liberty Circle Police Department, two deputies, sprung to attention when they saw that Chief Higgins had a visitor.
"This killer you're looking for…" Higgins said. "Must be important."
"Why's that?"
"Murder don't bring the F.B.I. in unless it's real important. Well, sir, I'm just a country cop, but I know that much."
"Fact is, Chief," Cochrane said, "there's both kidnapping and bank robbery involved. That's what brings us in."
"Holy heck," he said. "Is that a fact?"
The deputies uncovered the corpse. Cochrane grimaced and looked down. The odor of the corpse was building.
"Strangled," said Higgins helpfully. "Just like the boy in New Jersey."
Cochrane stooped down and looked at the neck. "Looks like a pair of hands did this," he said. He did not volunteer that a chain had been used in Red Bank.
"She's been dead for two days at the most," said Higgins. "I went to a forensics science course in Trenton last year. And, well, I'll tell you something else, Mr. Cochrane, sir, she was here on Wednesday."
Cochrane had already noted the clothing. The undergarments were still wet. "Why's that?" Cochrane asked.
"It hasn't rained since Wednesday," he said, looking to his deputies, who were suitably impressed. "But she was here in the rain. That means she was killed Wednesday afternoon."
Cochrane was looking carefully at the neck now. A pair of very strong hands, he noted. The throat was crushed.
"Very observant," he said, glancing up. "But I thought you didn't touch the body."
"Didn't move anything," the chief said with sudden defensiveness. "But we checked the body."
"No one recognizes her?"
"It's a town of four thousand," Higgins said. "I know everyone. I don't know her."
"What about the neighboring towns?"
Higgins suppressed a chuckle. "Well, sir, I had the other police chiefs over here this morning. Wanted to give you as much as I could. None of them could identify her, either, Mr. Cochrane. She's from out of the area."
"No identification?" Cochrane asked.
"No, sir."
"No purse? No wallet?"