"I'll pass along the details about your family," he said again. "That's all I can do. Good luck."
Mauer answered with a complacent, resolute shrug and raised an eyebrow as if to wish Cochrane good fortune, also.
"Need anything to read?" Mauer asked as he switched into English. He motioned to two cartons of books and explained that this seemed to be part of an F.B.I. program to keep him amused and, presumably, out of trouble. "Duplicate copies from the library of the U.S. Congress," said Mauer, picking through the top copies of two corrugated cartons of books.
"Foreign copies, originals, and in translation,” Mauer said. “I once complained to your Bureau that I couldn't find anything to read. Now they send me five dozen books every four weeks."
Cochrane could see the grim humor of some bureaucrat somewhere in the headquarters building.
"Honest. Take anything you like," said Mauer. Mauer stood and weaved slightly from the cognac.
Graciously, Cochrane stood and leaned over to see what Mauer offered. Most were translations of technical manuals. Others dealt with butterfly collecting in Bohemia or beekeeping in Austria.
One large volume caught Cochrane's eyes immediately, The Fighting Liners of the Great War. Published in London five years earlier, it recounted in text and pictures the re-outfitting of the luxury cruise ships of the mid-teens as troop transports. Cochrane flicked it open.
"Take it," insisted Mauer. It was a fresh copy.
"You're serious?" Cochrane asked.
"Just bring me my family in return," Mauer said, switching back to German. "Before I turn the shotgun on myself."
Cochrane reiterated: no promises, but he had see what he could do.
The parking spaces were filled in front of the ramshackle house on Twenty-sixth Street, so Cochrane parked down the block. He was halfway to his house when he saw two visitors on his front porch, and at first he thought someone had to be mistaken. Who would visit him? He was a professional leper this afternoon, received only by brooding expatriates.
He was several steps closer when he recognized Reverend Fowler's wife. Laura saw him at the same time. She stood, and so did the tall man who was with her. Cochrane stopped on the sidewalk before them. As he looked up, she gazed down at him. Bill Cochrane sensed trouble.
"I didn't think I'd see you again so quickly," he said.
"Nor I, you," Laura answered. Then after an awkward moment: "Oh, sorry," she said. "This is Peter Whiteside. He's been a friend of my family all my life."
Cochrane offered a hand, reaching upward. Whiteside took it and shook.
Then Cochrane turned back to Laura. "Look," he said, "I should tell you something."
"I know," she said. "The F.B.I. dismissed you."
A pause for a second. "Oh. I get it. You tried me there first?"
She nodded. "I made a pest of myself," Laura said. "Pretended that my interest was romantic. Finally a young man gave me your home address. On the sly, of course."
"I'm leaving Washington," Cochrane said.
"What a shame."
"Not really. I look forward to living quietly."
"But if you'll excuse the suggestion," Peter Whiteside interrupted, "you're leaving with business unfinished."
There was accusation in Cochrane's voice. "Now how would you know that, sir?" Cochrane asked.
To which Laura lowered her voice, though there was not another human being in sight. "Peter is with Britain's SIS," Laura said calmly. "Secret Intelligence Service. I work for them also. I think if we go inside and put our heads together," she suggested, "we'll all be able to help each other."
Cochrane looked at them quizzically, from beautiful Laura to the lean, dapper Whiteside, then back again. And suddenly the whole kaleidoscope-Hoover, Siegfried, Roosevelt; Fowler, Laura, and Mauer-took on new shapes, shades, and hues.
"Unless I'm mistaken," Whiteside added as a teaser, "you're looking for a man named Siegfried. Well, we are too."
Cochrane pulled his house keys from his pocket. "Let's go," he said, motioning to the door.
THIRTY- SIX
"You wouldn't have any tea, would you?" Whiteside asked. "Bloody cold out there all day. Last time I was in Washington was a July, I think. Nearly broiled."
"We've hit a cold streak for the last week," Cochrane said. He led Laura and Peter Whiteside into the kitchen and prowled through jars and cans that had been there since young Jenks had first assigned a housekeeper to the premises. He found a small square carton of Twinings. It was unopened.
"How's this?" Cochrane asked.
"Perfect."
Laura took over. She found a teapot, and soon had water boiling as Whiteside and Bill Cochrane sat down in the dining room. Laura kept an ear to the conversation.
Whiteside marked time at first, rambling pleasantly along about inconsequential topics, and Cochrane studied him carefully. Top of the line British intelligence officer; Cochrane could tell by the alertness and the eyes, as well as the accent and way he carried himself. As if on cue, when Laura appeared with three teacups, Whiteside began talking about the city of Birmingham in 1935. Not until Whiteside focused in on the topic of labor unrest and Communist marchers did Cochrane fully understand where the conversation was leading. By that time he was watching Laura more and more, wondering why he was thinking the thoughts he was about another man's wife, and fondly appreciating the way she crossed her slender legs beneath her skirt.
“…and it was when the marchers reached St. Chad's Circus," Whiteside continued, "that the first of two anti-personnel explosives was detonated." The sentence jolted Cochrane's attention back to where it belonged.
Explosives. Of course. That was what it was all about. Bombs. Sabotaged ships. A threat to the life of President Roosevelt.
Now Cochrane hung on every word that passed Whiteside's lips, and gradually the missing pieces of Siegfried came into view. The story took an hour, with several refills of tea, and if there were any details lost, Cochrane did not miss them.
The grand design was before him. The footnotes, such as why a man like Stephen Fowler would embark on a career as Hitler's disciple in America, could wait.
Which leaves me with Otto Mauer, Bill Cochrane thought. There has to be a way to tie it all together. How, for example, did a pipe bomb in a sock arrive under my bed?
Cochrane recalled a detail from Mauer's story in the Pennsylvania farmhouse: "Tell me about B.A. 1," Cochrane said out of the blue.
Whiteside looked considerably surprised. "Pardon me?"
"B.A. 1," Cochrane said confidently. "And a Major Richards, if I remember correctly. Based in London, charged with double-crossing of German and Italian agents."
Whiteside was silent.
"It's not enough just to talk," Cochrane insisted. "You have to answer questions, too."
"What about B.A. 1? It's part of M.I. 5, as I'm certain you know."
"I have a defector named Otto Mauer," Cochrane said. "He passed through the hands of Major Richards in London. Surely you know all about it."
Another pause. "Surely, I do," Whiteside said at length.
"If my guess is any good," Cochrane said, "you can tell me about Mauer's wife and child, also."
"Your guess is good," Whiteside answered. "Why is it so good?"
"Because I know Bureau tactics," Cochrane said. "They flashed the man a photograph of his wife and son in Spain. But they couldn't deliver the goods. If they could have, they would have brought them here and shown them around. So someone else is holding them. If the Nazis grabbed them in Spain, then Mauer's been feeding us bad information from the time he arrived here. But I don't think he is. So the only other possibility is M.I. 5."
"That's correct."
"Then you have them?"
Another pause and Laura eyed Peter Whiteside with considerable suspicion.