A Despicable Profession (7 page)

I elbowed my way into the conversation. “So they snatched Hilde in Karlsruhe?”

Leonid squared his well-tailored shoulders. “They did not, as you say,
snatch
Herr Hilde. They bought him.”

“How do you know?”

Leonid relaxed his posture, smoothed the back of his neck, held up one finger. “The NKVD has the names of our White Russians. In one day. Torture takes time.”

Jacobson and I looked to one another. What Leonid said made sense. It also made for very bad news. The most knowledgeable living member of the Nazi Abwehr was now in the employ of the Soviet Union. I asked the CO what he wanted me to do.

“Go find him!”

Well, it was hard to argue with that kind of thinking. I would. I would go find Brigadeführer Hilde. But I had done enough solo work for one lifetime, I wanted help. And I knew who I wanted that helper to be. A young man with a criminal past and no experience in espionage.

“This is a two-man job sir. I need a legman out front or a lookout in back. I can't do it myself.”

I waited for the CO's response. He waited for me to stop waiting. Spit it out, Schroeder. You're Bill Donovan's fair-haired boy.

“Does Global Commerce have an office in Ireland?”

“Yes,” said Jacobson. “Dublin.”

“Is that in County Cork?”

“No, it's in County Dublin.”

“What's the biggest town in County Cork?”

“Cork.”

Of course. “Tell your Dublin office to send an agent on a pub crawl in Cork, looking for three brothers in their early twenties. They won't be hard to find. They're from the States, Cleveland, and they'll be spending a lot of greenbacks. It's the eldest I want. His name is Ambrose Mooney.”

The CO appeared to consider this ridiculous suggestion. Expecting a long list of questions I got, “You swear by this guy?”

“I do.”

“He'll be your responsibility.”

“I understand.”

Victor Jacobson nodded. Meeting adjourned.

Bill Donovan & Co. had Ambrose Mooney, wanted by the FBI for the robbery of the Cleveland Branch of the Federal Reserve, on the macadam at Templehof within 48 hours of my request. I knew this because Victor Jacobson interrupted my conversation with a reporter from Stars and Stripes to say he would be here soon.

Here was Dahlem, the CO's residence. A three story white brick mansion on a block untouched by war. The neighborhood was far enough south of the central city that the B-24s hadn't bothered it. And far enough west that it hadn't been shelled during the Russian advance. Step out onto the porch it might've been Shaker Heights. And me in a cold water flat.

We were attending a reception, with
Fräuleins
in peasant blouses serving trays of canapés and an elderly bartender in the kitchen pouring champagne with both hands. The CO was hosting members of the staff of Stars and Stripes for my benefit. My cover job was reporter for S'n'S, but the newshounds didn't know about my cover so we had to invent a cover so that I could ask them questions about being a reporter so that I could cover my cover. So to speak.

I had suggested that I could be part of an advance team for a congressional delegation. The CO nixed that, too high profile. So we settled on salesman for Global Commerce, specialty metals division. The reporters didn't ask any further.

I made the rounds and asked questions. What I learned was that being a journalist in post-war Berlin was difficult, monumentally difficult. I learned also that their paymaster could squeeze the beard off a buffalo nickel, that the barkeep gave a pour that was all bubbles and no blood and that they couldn't
wait to go back home. I nodded and smiled and waited for Ambrose.

He arrived shortly. I don't know why I was so glad to see him. He didn't know the first thing about espionage and he'd be worthless undercover with his Irish brogue and Yankee ways. But my face split ear to ear when he sauntered in the front door, pigskin satchel in hand.

He had grown into himself, chest and neck thickened. Same widow's peak of copper hair biting his forehead. Sporting a brown tweed jacket and a green silk tie. He was going to be an Irish handful, he was.

His eyes found mine a moment later. I rubbed my nose lazily with my middle finger. Ambrose grinned. We were back in business.

We made our way around to each other eventually. He didn't ask why I had sent for him. I was prepared to introduce him as my associate at Global Commerce Specialty Metals Division but the staff of Stars and Stripes didn't ask. They were too busy draining glasses and scarfing grub.

We moved on to little Leonid and his skinny wife. Leonid had dressed down for the occasion, his brown suit and soup-stained tie indicating his station as a hireling. I introduced them to Ambrose.

“I am Leonid and my wife Anna.”

I almost laughed. The way he said it sounded like he was both people.

Ambrose and I exchanged moist handshakes with Leonid. Anna regarded my outstretched hand as if it were another, cruder, appendage. I withdrew it. She stared at her shoes. Did Russian women not shake hands?

We made small talk with Leonid. Yes, it had indeed been a very rainy May. And so very cold! Anna followed our conversation from beneath long eyelashes. She was fair skinned, so fair-skinned you could count her veins. She opened her
mouth to speak just as I felt a quick poke in the back and caught sight of the CO motoring past.

I asked Leonid if the gentleman's lounge wasn't thataway. He said that it was.

Ambrose gave me an eyebrow. I ran my hand over my head, back to front, indicating he should follow the CO. He spent a moment with Leonid and his wife before he ankled off. I went in the opposite direction. It was as silly exercise in stealth under the circumstances, the newshounds were spilling more than they were drinking. But I liked it that Ambrose understood without explanation.

I ducked into the hall, saw Ambrose climbing the stairs and followed. At the end of the second floor hall was the Communications Center. The CO was in the first room on the right. A room with a four poster featherbed and pale blue walls. I closed the door behind me.

Victor Jacobson looked grim. “The MPs found another one of our White Russians, what was left of him. Our émigrés don't sleep in the same bed twice. That they're being killed so quickly indicates that Klaus Hilde is moving among them, knows where they are at a given time.”

I asked why the émigrés would trust Hilde.

“Well, they worked with him before war's end.” Jacobson ran his hand across his mouth. “But that was a long time ago.”

“We'll find Hilde sir, Ambrose and me. Just give us some idea where to start.”

Jacobson grunted. He sat on the foot of the four poster and looked tired, looked like he wanted to flop backward and sleep for a week.

“Goebbels primed the pump for years. Russians were
Unter Menschen,
sub-humans bent on ravaging Aryan womanhood. Then the Red Army invaded and did just that, gang raped every female they could get their hands on,” said the CO, his voice trailing off as he sank deeper into the featherbed.

We waited. Jacobson continued.

“Berliners hate their guts. The Soviets' greatest fear is that the White Russian and Ukrainian émigrés will link up with the locals and attempt to seize the Soviet Sector. They would need heavy weapons to do that,” said Jacobson and yawned. And closed his eyes.

Ambrose and I swapped a look. The CO put his hands on his knees and stood up, refreshed after his five second nap. “We'll build you a light legend and send you in.”

“As what?”

“International arms dealers. Don't worry, we'll provide sample wares, quality stuff.”

I worried anyway. A light legend meant a half-assed cover story on top of our existing half-assed cover story and no backstopping if further inquiries were made.

“We have a contact,” said Jacobson. “That is we know of one. A former Gestapo Captain who's procuring weapons. If you can do a small deal with him the word will spread quickly through the anti-Soviet underground. You'll be in demand. If you're lucky you can get a line on Hilde.”

Ambrose posed a question. “What happens if we're not so lucky?”

The CO shrugged. “You'll be whisked off to a private meeting with Lavrenty Beria in the basement of the Lubyanka.”

It was doubtful Ambrose knew what the CO was referring to but he got the gist.
The basement of the Lubyanka
has a certain ring to it.

“So we're bait,” said Ambrose.

“Not at all,” said the CO, wryly. “The proper term is ‘throwaway lead.'”

Ambrose and I had a good laugh at our expense.

“We'll mock up an FBI Most Wanted poster,” said Jacobson. “You're gun runners on the lam.”

The CO opened a closet and grabbed a spiffy new camera with a flash attachment. “A Kine Exakta, cost me two cartons.” Ambrose and I took turns posing against the back wall.

“Don't smile,” said Ambrose. “It's a wanted poster for feck's sake.” I gave the lens a curled lip scowl. “Now you look like George Raft. Relax.” I relaxed. “Look bored.” I looked bored.

“Better.”

I drove a big rumbling delivery truck east the following afternoon, toward the entry point to the Soviet Sector. Ambrose sat in the passenger's seat and took in the destroyed central city without comment. We weren't sure what we would find at the Soviet checkpoint though the CO had assured us we wouldn't have a problem.

We didn't. The checkpoint had a guardhouse and a wooden sign in four languages. ‘You are now entering the Soviet Sector.' The guardhouse was unmanned.

I drove through. The delivery truck was the CO's idea. It made sense for our mission. Making a delivery to a grocery store.

The former Gestapo Captain's name was Horst Schultouer. He worked the loading dock of a grocery store, good cover for receiving black market munitions. The CO said Schultouer was desperate for quality product. We had a bit of that, in a crate in the back of the truck.

We found the narrow street and hunted the address. The late afternoon light was gray as dishwater. Papa Joe looked down upon us from a two story mural.

“Who's that?” said Ambrose.

He was kidding, he had to be. I drove on. Ambrose's blind trust in my judgment was starting to annoy me for some reason. You'd think a guy who got clonked unconscious with the butt of a shotgun and whose brother almost bled to death on our last operation would ask a few questions about this one.

“That's the market,” said Ambrose as we passed a squat building made of cinder block. No display windows, no advertising banners, just a front door in a wall of concrete.

“You sure?”

“Saw a woman leaving with a grocery bag.”

I nursed the delivery truck through two narrow right turns. The alley behind the store was littered with overflowing garbage bins and a couple old heaps on bare rims. The loading dock was puny, shielded by an overhang of corrugated tin. I pulled up alongside the concrete slab and tooted the horn like I had every right to be there.

There are two ways to work an undercover operation. Slow and cautious or fast and furious. Slow and cautious pays better odds over time. But we didn't have any clock to waste. And if you wanted slow and cautious why hire Hal Schroeder and Ambrose Mooney?

No one appeared on the loading dock. I leaned on the horn. A big-shouldered Kraut came stomping out, shouting
“Vas ist das
?” He fit the rough description the CO had given me, though he had grown a beard. I turned to ask Ambrose if he was ready to do this but he was already out the door.

Horst Schultouer demanded to know who we were as Ambrose rolled open the truck's back gate. I scooted across the cab to address the former Gestapo Captain through the passenger's side window.

I explained, in Deutsch, that we were the new kids in town, paying a courtesy call. That shut him up for the moment. I said we had a special one-time-only introductory offer for him and him alone. That brought a squint of interest.

Ambrose hoisted the crate onto the loading dock. I did a quick 360 and nodded. He crowbarred it open.

“Fresh pineapples,” I said. “Right off the tree!”

Herr Schultouer looked down upon the gleaming lined-up bounty in the crate. Dozens of brand new American-made hand grenades. I removed two and stuffed them in his coat pockets.

“Free samples. We'll be back tomorrow morning after you test them,” I said.

Ambrose re-sealed the crate. Schultouer wanted to know who sent us.

I handed him the freshly-minted FBI Most Wanted poster bearing the photos of Ambrose and myself. “J. Edgar Hoover.”

This was meant to establish our bona fides. Everyone in the Western World had heard of the all-powerful Director of the FBI. But even the old Bulldog himself would have been surprised at Horst Schultouer's reaction. His face paled and he reached into his coat pockets, as if to return the grenades.

“We have a no return policy on sample merchandise,” I said in Deutsch.

Horst kept his hands in his pockets. I stepped forward, got close enough to smell his breath. Beer and braunschweiger.

“We don't care who you are or who you used to be. We're here to move some merchandise. We have everything from sidearms to howitzers. All new, all clean.” Horst started to speak. I cut him off. “No, I'm not going to tell you how. All I'm going to tell you is how much. Interested?”

Herr Schultouer didn't answer right away. In fact he gave me a fearsome stare, which annoyed me no end.

“Sind...Sie...interessiert
?” Are you interested?

Horst sneered and shuffled his bearded mug around. I did an over-the-shoulder to Ambrose but he wasn't there. When I turned back he had Schultouer down on one knee.

Ambrose yanked one of the samples from the man's coat pocket, pulled the pin and handed the live grenade to Schultouer, who clutched the suppressor handle with both hands.