Out of Control (7 page)
Our allies in Great Britain were still getting the spit kicked out of them every night from bombing raids by the German Luftwaffe. Our own boys in the Pacific were fighting and dying in their attempts to regain one small island after another from the Japanese.
But in New York, we laughed and danced and drank champagne.
I was twenty-two, and thought I was quite the experienced and cynical woman of the world. I’d graduated from college. I’d traveled to Europe. I’d had my heart broken. I’d worked for nearly four years now as a double agent, code name Gretl.
Most of the other young women I knew complained about the inconveniences of the war—the lack of silk for stockings, the shortage of men and chocolate, and the fact that the blackout was disrupting the glitter of the city at night. What was the point of turning off the lights? We were far from Europe, far from danger.
I sometimes had to bite my tongue to keep from telling them that the war was closer than they thought—that I was fighting it every day from my office at Grumman, where as part of my cover I actually worked a full ten hours a day as Jonathan Fielding’s secretary while I also maintained my Nazi contacts and fed false information to the Third Reich. All the while, I constantly prayed that today wouldn’t be the day that my Nazi “friends” discovered my allegiance was not to der Vaterland but rather to the land of the free and the home of the brave—not to mention my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers.
Yes, because I was “Gretl,” I knew far more than the average twenty-two-year-old woman in New York City. I knew that German U-boats moved silently and unseen just outside of New York Harbor. I knew they often came close to shore just off Long Island to allow Nazi spies and saboteurs to disembark.
I had been told by my Nazi contacts that if I found myself facing “discovery” by the Americans, I should head to South America. There was apparently a Nazi stronghold in Brazil, the idea of which gave me nightmares of squads of German soldiers—similar to the ones I’d seen in Berlin in 1939—goose-stepping their way through Mexico, up into Texas and beyond.
No, we were not far from danger. Yet on the evening of January 23, I put on my best gown—a low-cut dark blue number. The color set off my fair hair and eyes, and the daring neckline set off my other attributes.
In this war, my pretty face and female figure were my weapons and my gown was my uniform. I marched forth that night, heading into the thick of it—Nazi hunting.
I’d heard rumors that a high-powered Nazi agent, code name Charlemagne, was due to arrive in New York at any moment. I was planning to hit the Supper Club and the Bubble Room—and all the other popular nightspots—to scan for new faces, after stopping briefly at Jonathan’s party.
I remember the disdain with which the maid took my winter wrap and my hat at the door to the Fieldings’ apartment. She glanced pointedly down the hallway, as if looking for my missing escort, who, of course, didn’t exist. In 1943, if a woman went out only when she had an escort, chances were she wouldn’t go out at all.
And, considering that I was supposed to be Jonathan Fielding’s mistress as well as his secretary, the scandal of my appearance at his party far outweighed the scandal of my lack of escort.
Evelyn Fielding, Jon’s wife, greeted me with the warmth of a glacier. She was so good at hating me, I nearly always laughed aloud when we came face to face in public.
She knew darn well that I wasn’t her husband’s mistress, that I was a double agent working for the FBI. Jon had told her the truth from the start.
At first, I’d been terribly upset by this. It was bad enough that Jon had to know who I really was, but his wife . . . ? My very life—and the lives of my dear mother’s brothers and sisters back in their tiny village outside of Freudenstadt—depended on total secrecy.
But then I met Evelyn and she became the older sister I’d never had. I knew instantly why Jon trusted her so completely, why he adored her. And once a week, when Jon would take me—his “mistress”—for a daytime rendezvous at the Grand Hotel, Evelyn would meet us there, and we’d all have a cozy luncheon a trois.
She was always so worried for me, always bringing cookies and homemade soup. She was sure that I wasn’t taking the time to eat properly, and Lord knows she was right.
“I’m afraid I can’t stay long,” I told her now as I took a glass of champagne from a passing tray.
“What a pity,” she drawled, so beautifully disingenuous, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Fortunately, anyone watching would think I was laughing at her out of spite, or maybe nervousness at such close contact with my lover’s wife.
“Careful.” She leaned close to whisper with a near perfect sneer that made her look as if she were quietly threatening to boil my panties if I didn’t leave immediately. “Euro-God at nine o’clock. He’s got you in his radar, Rose. You’re in trouble now.”
She was always saying things like “at nine o’clock” and “radar.” Even though I’d told her again and again that the life of a double agent in New York City wasn’t all that exciting, she didn’t believe me. One of these days I vowed I’d show her the paperwork—the endless encryption of messages with ridiculous codes, the endless searching through classified ads in the New York Times for messages that contained phrases such as “Grandmother’s favorite dog missing” or “Attic room to let”—and let her see firsthand what I spent most of my time doing—waiting for contact. Aside from the threat of being found out, it could be pretty dull.
Except, of course, when I was out Nazi hunting.
“Don’t count on it,” I told Evelyn, not bothering to lower my voice, since my retort worked equally well both for her true comment and any potential threat to boil my underwear or slit my throat. I turned to see exactly what her idea of a “Euro-God” was this week.
And nearly dropped my champagne flute.
It was Heinrich von Hopf. Right here in Manhattan.
Needless to say, he wasn’t wearing his SS uniform.
Rose stopped reading, silently counted to five, then said, “May I take a short break?”
The microphone from the engineering booth clicked on and Delvin’s voice came through her headphones. “Absolutely, Miz H. Can we get you some coffee?”
Rose stretched as she stood up from the desk. Old bones, old muscles, old aches and pains. There was actually one twinge in her hip that she’d had longer than the engineer, Delvin Parker, had been alive. Way longer than his assistant, a baby-faced, fresh-mouthed, smart-assed boy named Akeem, who swore he was twenty-five but didn’t look a day over sixteen.
“Actually, one of the reasons I could use a break is because I’ve already had a little too much coffee.” She set the headphones down next to the computer screen and headed for the door.
Akeem beat her there, coming from the other side. He pushed open both sets of soundproof doors that isolated the recording studio from the mixing booth and propped them open. “This shit you’re reading—this Nazi spy story—is it all true?”
She had to laugh. “Here’s a hot tip, child.” She knew it made him squirm when she called him that. “When you’re speaking to an author, you might think of a more flattering word to use to describe her book.”
He followed her into the hallway. “I didn’t say it was bad shit. Matter of fact, it’s good shit. Usually I fall asleep.”
“Ah,” Rose said dryly. “Quite an endorsement.”
“Yeah, it is. Did it really happen like this, or did you jack up the action to make the Times list?”
She stopped outside of the ladies’ room door. “What do you think?”
He looked into her eyes for several long moments. She liked that about him. Too often today young people didn’t take the time to look at the person to whom they were speaking. And forget about young people, the entire world tended to ignore the elderly altogether. But not Akeem.
He grinned. “I think you’re a crazy woman now. I think you probably were worse when you were twenty-two. I think you dialed it down, instead. I think you left out all those games of strip poker, and all those times you streaked through Times Square—so as not to embarrass your uppercrust family.”
She laughed.
“I’m right, aren’t I? Okay, don’t admit it. But answer me this—you ever meet Hitler when you were in Berlin?”
“Why don’t you read the book and find out?”
“I did read the book. I read it the night after your first recording session. Like I said, it’s good shit. But I figure if you ever met Hitler, he woulda hit on you. You know, Ach du liebe, vat a hot goil. Vant to join me for some Nazi nookie?”
“Yes, that was the first thing I noticed about Adolf Hitler,” Rose said. “That he had a heavy Jewish accent, just like a Catskills comedian.” She shook her head. “No, dear, I never met him. I tried my best to keep from being noticed by the Obergruppenfuehreren—the upper level Nazi leaders. And if you’ve read the book, you know that I was not alone in Berlin.”
“Yeah, that occurred to me.”
“Rose. There you are. How are you?”
She turned to see a man at the end of the hall, in a perfectly tailored, very dapper dark suit. He was better dressed than most FBI agents, but she’d been with the bureau long enough to know one when she saw one.
But good heavens, was it . . . ?
“George Faulkner,” he identified himself as he moved closer.
It was. Anson Faulkner’s boy, George. Except he wasn’t a boy anymore. Lord, how the years—decades—flew by.
She could tell from his face that this wasn’t a social call.
“Oh, yeah,” Akeem said. “I’m supposed to tell you, Rosie—suit here wants a word with you if you’ve got a sec.”
Rose’s heart was already pounding and her damned eighty-year-old knees felt weak. A visit, not a phone call. That wasn’t good. She forced herself to stand tall, to face whatever was coming with her head held high. “Who’s dead?”
“No one’s dead, ma’am.” George pointed to the ladies’ room door. “Were you on your way in or out? Because this can certainly wait a few minutes.”
No one was dead. Thank God. Still . . . “Have you come to tell me I’ve won the lottery?” Rose asked.
George, like his father, was an exceptionally handsome, almost pretty man. They both had the kind of face in which lines of stress and strain—both mental and physical—stood out. And somehow, in a way that was entirely unfair to women everywhere, those lines only made them better looking. If he were a woman, he would look haggard and hideous. But George managed to look attractively exhausted. “I wish. But, no.”
She turned to dismiss Akeem. “Please excuse us.”
“Oh,” he said, backing toward the studio door. “Right. Except . . . Are you sure? You know this guy, right?”
“Yes. I need to speak to him privately,” Rose told the young man. “Now, please.”
George waited until the door closed. “This may be nothing—”
“Alex or Karl?” This had to be about one of her sons. Her daughters were too smart to get into any kind of real trouble.
“Alexander. He went to Jakarta on a business trip,” George told her.
“He travels to Jakarta all the time.”
“This time, he failed to appear for a scheduled conference call with his office in Malaysia. Bob Heath, his personal assistant back in Kuala Lumpur, called the U.S. Consulate in Indonesia after—over the following two days—he failed to reach Alex at his hotel. Because of who Alex is—”
“My son.”
“Yes. Because of that, the State Department was given the heads up for a possible abduction.”
Oh, Alex . . . “He’s diabetic, you know. He needs insulin shots every day.”
George got out a small leather-bound pad and made a note. “I didn’t know.”
Still, it had been only two days. “He might’ve met someone,” Rose said. “Gone off on a spontaneous holiday without letting anyone know. It wouldn’t be the first time.” Or the last.
“Absolutely,” George said.
“But you don’t think so. Why else would you be here?”
“I’m here,” he told her, “because I love you. Because of all the times you went out on a limb for Dad. Because someone made a decision not to notify you about this, and I believe—with your service record—you have the right to know.”
Rose knew that George was going to get into serious trouble for telling her this.
“It may be nothing. They might’ve already found Alex,” he continued.
“Or they might not have. Who’s heading the investigation?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Our local guys in Jakarta will find out if Alex is missing or if he’s missing. If it is an abduction . . .”
“Max Bhagat will get it.” Rose was certain. “Do you know him?”
George exhaled a burst of air that might’ve been a laugh. “I assume you mean, do I know of him? Yes. It’s kind of hard to miss him. The man has his own page on the Urban Legend Web site, right next to Superman’s. But I’ve never met him. I mean, other than in my dreams.”
“If Alex is missing, you’ll be assigned to Max’s unit,” Rose decided.
George laughed. “I appreciate the thought, ma’am, but . . .”
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