A Despicable Profession (3 page)

Jacobson remained seated at the spy table - far wall, left hand corner. I stood just inside the door, profoundly confused.

I figured the job offer was something of a sham, a cover for gentlemanly snooping. But Victor Jacobson was a commissioned espionage officer who didn't like me one bit. Was this some sort of payback for my wartime failure to get myself killed? I didn't care. I wasn't going to work for this jerk again.

I pushed through the door and looked around for the jeep. No joy. I started to cross the street when the familiar voice said, “Schroeder, come inside. Let me buy you a beer.”

I should've kept walking but I didn't have anywhere else to go and was so parched I would have drunk a Shirley Temple.

I went back inside and sat down. Jacobson let me take his seat, facing the door at an angle. A skinny young
Fräulein
plunked down two liter steins. I eyeballed the heady brew with lust in my heart but this was Victor Jacobson's tea party. If he expected me to clink and drink he would have to do some very smooth talking.

He knew this of course. Jacobson was both hell bent for leather and very smart. Much like The Schooler, without the charm and the human decency.

“I'm the reason you're here Schroeder. I asked for you personally.” Jacobson let me chew on that for a moment. “You were the only wartime agent I ran who survived. That took a special kind of cunning. A kind of cunning I have come to respect.”

Cripes almighty, respect from the high priest. I gripped my stein and, through a lifetime of the practice of mortification of the flesh, managed not to raise it to my lips.

“I'll drink up when I hear what you have to say.”

Victor Jacobson wet his whistle. “Bill Donovan recruited me a few months after the OSS was dissolved. He saw what was coming, the gutting of US postwar intelligence capability. The current incarnation, the CIG - Central Intelligence Group - is understaffed and poorly funded. And toothless.”

“How so?”

“The CIG is chartered for intelligence gathering only, debriefing refugees, clipping newspaper articles. They can open mail if it's truly dire. What they can't do is anything operational, anything covert. The Berlin Detachment is particularly weak. Not a single Russian-speaker on staff. It's December 6
^th
, 1941 all over again. Poor intelligence and little to no co-ordination between State, FBI and the War Department at a time of great danger.”

I didn't bite. If we were facing another Pearl Harbor Jacobson would have to say how before I got myself all hot and bothered. “What do you and Bill Donovan plan to do about it?”

“What little we can.”

“How black, how wet? What are we talking about?”

Jacobson took another pull of beer. “We're talking about keeping the Red Army from rolling tank divisions across the Elbe and seizing all of Germany while we have our backs turned.”

Huh
? The papers were full of heartwarming stories about Yanks, Brits and Reds working together to rebuild Germany.

“You think our Russian allies are planning an
invasion?”

“Some of our White Russian émigré friends think so” said Jacobson. “I only know one thing for certain.”

“What's that?”

“If Stalin is planning to seize Germany he couldn't pick a better time.”

This got my attention. A serious mission. I eyed my beer, it was going flat. Tough shit.

“Who does Global work for? Who's their customer?”

“POTUS.”

“Who's that?”

“The President of the United States.”

“Oh. Directly?”

“Donovan has a back channel.”

“So CIG knows about Global.”

“I have a relationship with the Chief of the Berlin Detachment if we need to co-ordinate.”

“Sheesh, what a sideways setup.”

“Ad hoc espionage. Best we can do.”

“What's the chain of command?”

“You would report to me.”

“And if I needed to take it upstairs?”

“You talk to Bill Donovan.”

“And if I'm captured?”

“We never heard of you.”

I grinned, or grimaced. Just like old times. “And my first assignment would be?”

Jacobson leaned in. “Track down Klaus Hilde.”

“Who he?”

“A former
Abwehr
General with encyclopedic knowledge of Soviet orders of battle. He reached out to us before war's end. Word is he tried again recently but OMGUS screwed up.”

“OMGUS?”

“Office of the Military Government of Germany, US.”

“Where's Hilde now?”

“Headed south most likely, down the Rat Line to Lisbon and South America. Find him before the NKVD does. Take this.”

My former Case Officer was acting like my future Case Officer. He handed me a small leather purse with a drawstring. It was heavy. “What's in it?”

“Gold sovereigns.”

I fondled the purse. There had to be a dozen half-dollar-sized coins in there. A king's ransom.

“Okay, say I find this Hilde, what then? We turn him over to CIG?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It's complicated.”

“Try me.”

“OMGUS wants us to work together with our Russian allies. They think gathering military intelligence on the Red Army would be provocative. Brigadeführer Hilde is a treasure trove of Soviet military intelligence.”

“Okay.”

“There's more. The Chief of the Berlin Detachment of the CIG describes his group as semi-covert.”

“That's funny.”

“Yes it is.”

“Have they been penetrated?”

“I don't think so.”

“Why?”

“Why bother?”

Jacobson had my motor running I will admit. A chance to be a hero, an opportunity to atone for my sins. And a bag of loot to pave the way.

“Why me?”

“I said why.”

“Why really?”

“We're shorthanded. And you're a lifer.”

Me? A
lifer
? No way, no how. I said so.

“Settled down in a cozy cottage with a doting wife are you?”

“Up yours!”

“And yours as well.”

I giggled. I was dingy with travel and surprise and too much information. And so parched I was tempted to lick the beer rings off the table.

“Say I run this Nazi to ground, dangle these sovereigns under his nose and he still says no?”

“You're a very creative young man.”

I was at that, good at one thing. Backing myself into a corner and then improvising my way out. And I liked the CO's proposal. It was the antithesis of the bureaucratic by-the-numbers FBI.

“Sir, my special kind of cunning is real simple,” I said, leaning forward. “I was doing a decent job in Freiburg and Ulm and Karlsruhe logging troop movements and transmitting weather reports for bomber runs. I figured if I was dead my effectiveness might suffer. And why get croaked carrying out suicide missions dictated by some asshole Case Officer who was snug as a bug in Bern drinking Allen Dulles' wine cellar dry?”

“I wasn't,” said Jacobson, “but please continue.”

Please continue
? They were shorthanded.

“I have only one job requirement sir. Survival.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” said Jacobson, drier than my swollen tongue.

My liter of beer had fizzed down to nothing. I pushed it away. Nothing worse than a flat brew. I flagged our skinny
Biermaid for another. It was quick in coming. I raised my stein. My old-new CO did likewise.

We clanked and drank.

I was on the first leg of the Rat Line - the Berlin to Lisbon to Buenos Aires escape route favored by Nazi war criminals - watching the German countryside speed by from the comfort of a first class train compartment. The countryside reminded me of the Ohio Valley, rolling and green. Vegetable gardens were terraced against the hills, fields of barley held forth where the terrain smoothed out and every once in a while you got an eye-smacking acre of the bright yellow flowers they call
Raps.
They grind ‘em up for cooking oil or something.

Krauts were still Krauts. We rattled past a partially flattened farmhouse, a burnt out barn and a freshly-plowed field with furrows so true they could've been drawn with a straight edge.

I was stretched out in splendid isolation in my compartment, my legs draped over my suitcase. I had the full kit. A drawstring purse full of gold sovereigns, travel documents proclaiming me a reporter for the American military newspaper Stars and Stripes, and three cartons of Lucky Strikes, the local currency at fifteen Reichmarks per. And that's not per carton, cousin, that's per cigarette.

I was already twenty cigs low from stops at Frankfurt and Mannheim. I was going to have to stop playing Santa Claus or my bag of goodies would be empty long before Lisbon. You would think that blocks of cheese or canned hams would be the currency of exchange in food-strapped Deutschland but it was cigarettes people wanted, coffee a close second.

Coffee and cigarettes, the building blocks of a better tomorrow.

My Luckies netted me nothing more than a series of head shakes at the photo of Klaus Hilde that the CO had given me.
I'm not a gumshoe but showing a five year old photo of a fugitive who had the means to completely remake his appearance is what we in the espionage game call
using your dick for a flashlight.

It's a technical term. It means your question risks exposing more than the answer is worth. But I had to try. We didn't have any intelligence worth spit.

A conductor passed by. I asked him how long to Karlsruhe. He checked his pocket watch. One hour and thirty-eight minutes, give or take thirty seconds.

I mountain climbed my way to the dining car, hand to hand along the seat backs, dragging my loot-crammed suitcase behind me. Served me right. The train was wobbling over the rail bed our B-24 Liberators had spent two years pulverizing at my direction.

I had cleared bombing runs for Karlsruhe as well. I would soon get to see my handiwork close up.

The dining car was empty, save for an elderly waiter who grabbed up a menu and eyed me hopefully.

I smiled with my cheeks and found what I was looking for. A small semi-circular bar at the far end of the dining car. Two GIs sat in a cloud of blue smoke. I got there in time for the punchline.

“Parachutes? Ohh, we're using parachutes!”

The GIs were headed south to Marseille for a long boat home. They bought me a drink, I bought them a drink. And so on.

They had duffel bags full of black market swag that they just had to show me. Doug from Buffalo had a sterling silver serving platter engraved with two names and a date. A wedding present sold for cigarettes. His buddy had a topper. A bowling ball sized bronze bust of Herr Hitler. We set Adolph on the bar and drank to his health.

Doug and his buddy both had sweethearts back home and were itching to pop the question. Or were already engaged. Maybe one was already married, I forget.

I do remember one thing clearly. I remember thinking
Am I a lifer
? It wasn't a happy thought.

I looked out the windows streaked with rain. I recognized the distant outline of the Black Forest, low mountains covered in black firs. We were nearing Karlsruhe. I felt instantly sad, and stupid. How in the name of all that's holy had I managed to get myself back here again?

The train pulled into the station. I got up and wished my GI pals Godspeed. Though we had been deep in intimate conversation they waved a quick and cheery so long.

Soldier's wisdom. Here today, gone like that.

I climbed down from the railroad platform, grip in hand, to take in downtown Karlsruhe under a wet black sky.

The Fan City they call it because it's laid out in a semi-circle, the palace the hub that all the streets spoke out from. Behind the palace was a large greensward for ducal pheasant hunts and chasing maidens through the hedge maze and like that.

I hadn't set foot in the town but I knew the layout. Karlsruhe wasn't the Ruhr Valley but it had machinery-making plants and a harbor on the Rhine and had paid the price for that. And then some. The palace was a wreck.

I had plenty of pedestrian company on my stroll but saw no cars, trucks or busses. Just a couple of horse drawn carts and a determined young bicyclist on bare rims.

The locals looked more hale and hearty here. There were farms nearby. Milk and eggs for breakfast instead of rations of Zwieback and mock liver sausage made from breadcrumbs and beer yeast. I even saw a butcher shop with links of fat black
Schwarzwurstl
hanging in the window. Yum.

I was approached by two blue-black Africans in French uniforms suitable for a parade ground, wearing tall shako caps
with the lacquered bills pulled low. They wanted to see my papers, best I could make out.

My onionskins passed muster and I walked on, wondering why in the hell African soldiers were patrolling Karlsruhe. I turned to watch them accost a doughty farmer and his two daughters.

I understood. We were in the French Zone of Control, the small sliver of southwest Germany that Charles de Gaulle had won from the Big Three at the postwar negotiating table. The Froggies had all kinds of colonies in Africa. Putting black troops in charge of the remnants of the Master Race sent an unmistakable message.

The light rain turned pinprick hard. And me with no lid. I ducked into a clothing shop and startled the owner by making a purchase. A dusty Tyrolean hat, good for yodeling in an Alpen gorge. It made me look ridiculous but I was used to that. Kept the rain off my neck.

I repaired to the local
Biergarten
to chat up the locals. They were sitting out back, at rough hewn picnic tables despite the plinking rain. Farmers, in straw hats and flat black skimmers like you see in Pennsylvania Dutch country. They were smoking Luckies and Camels under the tall trees and hoisting steins to beat the band.