He pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. “Here are the orders, sir.”
McKinley took the papers. He added them to the HARBORAGE file. He would need them at his meeting with Stimson and Marshall.
“I shall recommend that the operation be approved,” he said. He looked at Reed “When is D-Day for mounting it?” he asked.
“Jump-off date is twenty April, sir. It is expected that Haigerloch will be entered on the twenty-fourth.”
“April twenty-fourth,” McKinley said. “Three weeks. We should be in no trouble.”
4
Five days!
Could he hold out that long?
In five days it would make no difference, one way or another. The final test at Haigerloch would have been successfully concluded — or Dirk would have found a way to wreck it. What he did then, what they made him confess then, could do little harm.
Five days. And nights…
Sig stood in the cold, drab office of the Gestapo jail in Tübingen, watching the SS officer behind the desk engrossed in the contents of a voluminous file folder. A nagging headache throbbed in his temples. He had not slept at all during the night. He had been placed in a tiny, glaringly lighted cell that stank of putrefaction and stale urine. No one had said a word to him.
At first he had thought he and the others had been picked up by sheer chance. In a dragnet. His captors had taken his papers — all his belongings — from him. He hoped the Moles back in London were as good as they claimed to be. He knew there had been nothing to connect him with Oskar or the Storp house. But now — as he stood in the dismal office, doubts began to gnaw at him. Had it been completely by chance? The Gestapo already knew a great deal about him. And Dirk. Did they know about the safe house? Or — at least that it was located in that particular neighborhood? Was that why the men had been picked up on that particular street? His legs began to tremble. The questions boiled in his mind.
He stared at the SS officer, who was seemingly oblivious to him. What was in that file the man was examining? What kind of information did he have? How much did he already know? He seemed to have been studying the papers for an eternity.
Five days. What horrors did they hold for him?
Obersturmführer Franz Rauner was enjoying himself. He had been in a foul mood when he arrived at the prison in Tübingen early that morning. The short drive from Hechingen had been miserable. It was raining, and a stretch of the road had been all but impassable where an enemy terror-bomber for God knew what reason had dropped a stick. The mud had been hubcap deep.
Yet he was pleased that Harbicht had placed him in charge of the preliminary screening of the subjects rounded up in the Hechingen scatter raids. It was the first real responsibility the Standartenführer had delegated to him since he became his aide Rauner meant to show his superior what he could do. He had, for instance, some very specific ideas on how to break a man quickly. And economically. He was anxious to try them out.
The trick was — let them do most of the job themselves, before the interrogator took over in earnest. Interrogation by silence. That's how he liked to think of it. It was rather clever, he felt. Give the suspect every chance to let his own imagination conjure up a myriad possible horrors, a myriad reasons why he was lost.
That much he had learned from Harbicht. But he had thought up his own little refinements.
For instance, that thick file he was apparently studying so meticulously. How was the suspect standing in front of him under mounting tension, for a time that must seem eternal to him — how was he to know that the file contained only four unimportant items pertaining directly to him? The only four documents found on his person. His Ausländer Kennkarte—his Foreigner Identification Card as a Swiss technician born in Zürich, his work permit and war-service exemption, his Führerschein—a valid driver's license issued by the Stuttgart authorities, and a soiled and wrinkled envelope, worn in the folds. The envelope was addressed to Sigmund Brandt, Poste Restante, Postamt Hechingen, Deutschland, and was postmarked Zürich, 18 Jan 1945. It had been opened by the censor and resealed with the standard strip of paper bearing the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht—the Army High Command eagle insignia — and the word Geöffnet—Opened. It contained a small snapshot — Agfa film, he noted — a middle-aged couple smiling uncertainly in front of some snow-capped mountains, and a rather banal letter from concerned parents trying hard not to show their concern and failing miserably. Rauner put it aside with a small gesture of contempt. He had, of course, no way of knowing that the letter actually had been written by a smashing-looking, twenty-four-year-old London Mole with a forty-inch bust and a pedantic handwriting….
The other papers making up the bulk of the impressive “file” were simply irrelevant circulars and routine orders. Strictly for show. The ashen-faced young man standing before him, watching him with fear-filled eyes, meant nothing to him. Absolutely nothing. Just one of the many fish caught in Harbicht's net. A nobody — with a shiny film of sweat on his pale face. The trick was to make him feel special. Singled out…
He finally looked up.
“Your name is Sigmund Brandt!” he barked, more an affirmation than a question. It was one of his theories. If you ask your question as a statement, it tends to give the impression that you know a lot more than you do. Someday, he thought fleetingly, he might write a handbook of interrogation.
Sig shied like a nervous horse. “Yes,” he said.
Rauner sat up ramrod straight. He glared at Sig.
“Yes, Herr Offizier!” Sig said quickly. What was it Dirk had said? Cringe…
Rauner referred to the file.
“You are a native Swiss?”
“Yes, Herr Offizier.”
“Born in Zürich?”
“Yes, Herr Offizier.”
“You are a — scientific technician?”
“Yes, Herr Offizier.”
Rauner had run out of knowledge. He bent over the file. He made a show of shuffling a few of the Spapers. He frowned. He gave a quick glance at Sig. He returned his attention to the file. He pretended to think.
Sig was getting increasingly uneasy. What the hell was in that damned file? What did the man know? How could he be sure to tell the interrogator just enough, without giving away something the man did not already know? Or holding something back he did know? He could feel the beginning of panic building in him. How could he cope?
“Your work is strictly technical?”
“Yes, Herr Offizier.”
“Describe it.”
“I — it has to do with electrolytic plating, Herr Offizier. I—”
“What else do you do?” Rauner shot the question at him.
Sig started. What else? “Nothing, Herr Offizier That is all.”
Rauner smiled a thin, unpleasant smile. “Really?” he said.
Deliberately he returned to the file. He turned over a sheet of paper and began to make a note on it.
It was going well, he thought, the man was thoroughly cowed. Give it a few more minutes. He doodled. It was a doodle he did quite often. It started out being a fish — and invariably turned into a grotesque phallic symbol. He crossed it out.
Sig was watching the officer. What did he mean—What else? My God! He knew. He knew about the unloading job at Haigerloch! That must be it. He had been caught in the first lie. Would the officer put two and two together? How could he get out of the lie? What could he say? He felt cold sweat trickle down his sides from his armpits. The SS officer looked up and gazed at him in silence. That damned accusing silence. He returned to his note. What else did he already know?