Otto had to force himself to move. He took a match from the glass bowl and broke it in striking and had to use another. He succeeded this time and bent over the desk, shielding the flame in hands which refused to obey his command to be completely steady.
She lit the cigarette and leaned back in her chair and looked at him again.
“You’ve been wondering when your orders would come.” She made the words statement rather than question. “And in what manner.”
Otto stood stiffly before the desk and was silent.
She said: “We didn’t approach you before: you were being studied.” She knocked ash from the cigarette. “You did well under the circumstances—quite well.”
She waited—and Otto knew he must speak. He said, awkwardly:
“I did not know what to do. It was difficult. I decided that I should act in all matters like a Jorgensen.” He wished she would move her eyes.
She dropped the cigarette into an ash tray, but did not shift her gaze.
“Having made the first mistake,” she said, “you were right. But it was a bad mistake—a dereliction of duty, Captain.”
The tone was cold yet hotly stinging, like a lash. She said:
“You are honoured by being chosen for special duty—and you deliberately endanger your life by endeavouring to save the lives of enemies. It is only the purest chance that you were saved. Another hour and you’d have drowned; but without the burden you could have lasted far, far longer. . . . A bad beginning, Captain!”
The tone was harsher even than the words. A tinge of red showed in Otto’s face, and he stood yet more rigidly.
She waited, but he still did not speak. She said sharply:
“Have you nothing to say?”
“A very little.” Otto’s speech was slow and heavy. “It was . . . accident. The boy showed a way to get off the ship. It was the only way. So the three of us were together when we jumped.”
A lie came to him and he clutched at it. He said:
“Something struck my head. I do not remember much until I was in the water a long time. You understand?”
“Go on,” she said.
“We were all together in . . . in a knot.” Speech was easier now, and the words came more quickly. “I do not know who was helping the other among us. I made great effort, but my head was strange again from the blow. . . . Somehow the woman’s hair is tied around my neck. I do not know whether the boy did this, or the woman. And the boy’s hands are . . . are locked around my life jacket. I cannot get loose without my head going under the water. . . . That is all there is. After a very long time, the boat found us.”
He felt suddenly flat and wilted. The lie which had seemed so good was ashes in his mouth. He wondered drearily what would happen to him now.
She said: “I see. It is possible—quite possible.” She seemed to be thinking aloud, but her voice was clear and hard again when she went on. She said:
“I will tell you now, Captain, that whether or not you were guilty of dereliction of duty, things have worked themselves out well for you—very well. You are solidly established as a gallant, German-hating Swede; so solidly that it would be almost impossible to make the fools believe that you were in the service of the Reich even if one tried to give them proof. That is excellent—more than we could have hoped for! On top of that, Nils Jorgensen will shortly be a legitimate immigrant to this country—again more than we could have hoped for in the ordinary way.”
She took another cigarette from the silver box, and this time Otto had a match burning and ready. She tilted back her chair and looked up at him through a blue veil of smoke. He met the gaze with eyes studiously blank, but behind them his mind raced. He was feeling better now: the lie had worked and the reprimand was past and he had not disgraced himself in the new service and he was rapidly adjusting to the revolutionary changes which had been wrought in the past quarter-hour; in the fifteen minutes which had seen an invisible wand transmute Nils Jorgensen back into Otto Falken, and a beautiful, exciting benefactress into a superior officer, harsh-tongued and autocratic. He stood motionless, wondering at the confusion of feeling which surged through him beneath the racing thoughts.
“So now,” she said at last, and as if there had been no pause, “you can begin duty, Captain.” She sat straight now and ground out the half-smoked cigarette. She took her eyes from Otto’s face for the first time, looking down at her hand as if in thought—and he immediately became acutely conscious of her beauty: it struck him strangely and without volition of thought. He felt almost as if he were seeing it for the first time.
Unconsciously, he relaxed the tautness of his stance a little; then, as she looked up at him, snapped once more into rigid immobility.
“Pay careful attention to what you’re going to hear.” Her words were slower than before. “You are going to be told a great deal. And you are going to receive your orders. You will repeat them to me afterwards.”
“Yes,” said Otto. “I understand.”
She leant her arms upon the edge of the table and began to talk.
She said:
“We are servants—soldiers—of the Fuehrer and the Reich. There are many thousands of us here in North America. Most of us, like myself and you, are German-born, but none of us are the ‘fifth columnists’ they write about in the newspapers. Nor are we the ‘Nazi agents’ pursued by the energetic bloodhounds of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and no one of us is remotely likely to be uncovered by the clumsy rake of Mr. Dies. . . .
“No, Captain, we (the real soldiers of the Fuehrer) are all thoroughly spangled with the stars of Liberty and thickly lacquered with the zebra stripes of Democracy. We are, in fact, a daring division of special shock troops wearing the enemy’s uniform and therefore of far greater danger to him than our numbers would suggest. . . .
“This division, of course, is split into many subsidiary units. Each unit, except that its functions are controlled by a central command, is entirely independent of any others; does not, in fact, even know where or what the others may be. I have told you that they exist—and that is all I shall tell you except as regards the one in which you yourself will serve. . . .
“This is—for the time being at least—the most important unit of them alclass="underline" it is the one which brings about the major acts of general sabotage; I do not mean the destructions caused in particularized places such as factories where the damage can be done by one or two individuals who merely have to seize opportunity, I mean the outside attacks which must be carefully planned and executed by picked bodies of men. A great chain of such major operations has been brilliantly planned—and even begun. It will continue, in mounting importance, over the immensely critical period of the next six months. . . .
“The leader of this unit has been hampered by lack of trustworthy and efficient lieutenants. When you join him—which will be within the next four or five weeks—you will at once become what in this country they would probably call his Chief Executive Assistant. . . .
“That, Captain, will be your duty. It is important work—and you will carry it out efficiently, giving your superior officer all the assistance in your power. . . .
“But there is more to your appointment than this—very much more! While you will work indirectly for the Reich through Rudolph Altinger, you will, also and primarily, work directly for the Reich as an investigator of Rudolph Altinger. . . .
“In other words, Captain, there is doubt in high places concerning Herr Altinger’s personal ambitions—and you are in America primarily to report upon him. You will make such reports to me as and when I order you to, which I shall do either in person or through another of your superiors who will reveal himself to you in the manner you already know. You will never, of course, reveal to any other person the nature of your primary duty. . . .