The Eldorado Network (51 page)

There was an electric fire. Luis hung his suit in front of it to dry and stared at the glowing bars. He felt drowsy, so he went to sleep in Alfred Krafft's bed. It was three in the morning when he awoke. The rain had stopped. He shaved with Alfred's razor but drew the line at using Alfred's toothbrush. There was a yellow-and-blue bruise fattening one end of his forehead.

His suit wasn't completely dry, but it was dry enough. He cooked himself some eggs, and fed Bruno out of various boxes of dogfood. Alfred Krafft's raincoat was too small but it was better than nothing. Luis stuffed his dirty socks and underwear in the pockets. He collected the Abwehr letter and the big black hat from Alfred's briefcase, and wedged the front door open.

Still there was something he had overlooked. Luis stood in the doorway and patiently, carefully worked it out. Money. He had no money. He went back upstairs and cleaned out Alfred's wallet. Already the body was stiff and cold as soap.

The bicycle was where he had left it. He dried the saddle with his handkerchief, tucked his right trouser-leg into Alfred's sock, and pedalled away. Bruno cantered happily alongside until Luis stopped and ordered him back. The hound wrinkled its huge brow, sat in the road, and miserably watched him go. Luis felt sorry for Bruno, so sorry that there were tears in his eyes.

He rode downhill until he reached the river, and then rode alongside it until he found a bridge. He pedalled across the bridge, heading south. There was no other traffic. The first signpost he met said that Aveiro was 68 kilometres away. He reckoned that it would be safer to catch a train from Aveiro than from Oporto. It took him four hours to get to Aveiro. The bicycle ended up leaning against a wall near the station, where he was fairly sure it would soon be stolen again. He was in Lisbon by noon.

Well, I thought you were dead,' Julie said.

'That's funny. So did I.'

He patched her cooking ham and eggs. There was an uncontrollable tremble in his right hand. He wondered whether he would be able to hold his knife. It would look silly if he had to ask her to cut up his food.

'I had to go to Oporto,' he said.

She looked over her shoulder. 'Oh, yes,' she said. 'I hope the weather was nice.'

'Not very nice. It poured with rain. I got wet.'

She put the ham and eggs on a plate.

'You didn't miss anything,' he said.

She put the plate in front of him and took a close look at the dramatic bruise over his right eye. 'Looks as if something didn't miss you,' she said.

Luis began eating. He was ravenous. 'All a bit complicated,' he mumbled. 'I met this man at the bank and he went to Oporto and we had a fight.' His hand kept losing its grip on his knife. He gave the fingers a puzzled look. 'Something wrong there,' he said.

She took the knife and cut up his food. 'I thought you might telephone.'

Luis sat with his shoulders slumped and watched her work. 'Telephone,' he said. There was a good reason why he hadn't telephoned, but his brain had mislaid it. 'You'll never guess who it was,' he told her.

'Damn right I won't. So who was it?'

He began eating again. The dead man's name retreated as fast as his memory advanced on it. After a while he shook his head. 'Can't remember,' he said.

Julie sat on the other side of the kitchen table and watched him carefully. 'What can you remember?' she asked.

Luis stabbed his fork into some egg and pronged a bit of ham. 'We had a fight,' he said, nodding and frowning. He put the ham and egg into his mouth and chewed. 'Long fight.'

'And in the end?'

'In the end . . .' He swallowed. 'That's right. I killed him with a typewriter.'

Julie hid her face in her hands. After a while she looked up. 'You killed him?' she said. 'I mean, dead?'

Luis nodded. 'I had to.'

'You mean you hit him with a typewriter and . . .'

Again he nodded. 'I had to. You see, he was going for his telephone.'

He looked into her eyes for a long moment. 'That can't be right,' he said. 'Can it?'

'Oh, Luis . . .' She reached across and took his hand.

'I can't eat any more,' he said. 'I'm sorry." His right hand was trembling more violently than ever. She helped him into the bedroom, helped him take off his clothes, helped him get into bed. She closed the curtains and went out. Five minutes later, when 'she looked in, he was asleep.

Otto Krafft looked dreadful. For a man who had always been so trim and chipper, the change was almost shocking. His eyes looked as if he hadn't slept for a week, he had no appetite, and his nerves were a mess. 'Look, old chap, you obviously can't carry on like this,' Richard Fischer told him. 'Go and see the doctor, for God's sake.'

Brigadier Christian noticed his changed condition, too. 'What's the trouble, Krafft?' he asked. 'Off your food, or something?'

'No, sir. I don't know, sir,' Otto's thumbs fretted against his forefingers. He looked thoroughly wretched.

'Well, I don't want you going around in«that state. You make me feel tired. Why don't you take a couple of days off?'

Otto chewed his lip. 'I was just going to ask you if I might, sir.'

'Take a week. Get up in the mountains, do a bit of skiing. Hartmann can handle your work. Go on, get out of this dump.' Christian watched him trail out. 'Overwork,' he said to himself happily. He liked to see his staff trying too hard.

Luis slept the clock around. It was mid-afternoon by the time he had bathed and shaved and dressed, so he and Julie went out to have something to eat in one of the spacious tea rooms in the fashionable Rua Garrett, where the settees were comfortably cushioned and the waitresses were dressed in black and white like maids in an English stately home. 'Luis was hungry. They ordered hot sausage-rolls, pancakes with preserves, and pastries.

Julie was wearing a new dress of grey silk. It made every other woman in the room seem lumpy. Luis enjoyed looking at her.

'Listen, Luis,' she said, pouring tea, 'just give  me the bare facts. Don't try and gussy it up. The bare facts are bound to be crazy enough anyway.'

He described what had happened at the bank and how he had followed Alfred Krafft to Oporto. He told her about the bicycle, the room full of sharp edges, Bruno, the ammonia, the chase, the fight, the typewriter. 'The silly part about it is that I never wanted to hurt him,' he said. 'If only he had explained, we could have arranged something, I'm sure of it. But when he threw the ammonia, I had no choice. As it was he damn near got his hands on the gun before I hit him.'

'So far, so bad,' Julie said. 'Now tell me what he could have explained. And keep it simple.

'Oh, this was very simple. Alfred Krafft is related to Otto Krafft. You met Otto at the German Embassy. Brothers, probably. When Otto saw how much money Eldorado was making, he reckoned there was room for two in this business, so he invented an agent called Eagle. Alfred was already in Oporto, running his little shop, so Alfred became Eagle, just like me.'

'Wait a minute . . . Otto didn't get this idea from you?'

'Certainly not. He still thinks Eldorado and company are in England. Otto dreamed up his swindle all on his own.'

'Coincidence.'

Luis shrugged. 'We both saw the same way to milk the Abwehr, that's all. Actually, the Krafft brothers had a far better system, because Otto could write to Alfred and tell him what to put in his reports. < saw the letters.'

'That's sweet,' Julie murmured. 'Sweet and neat and foolproof. So what went wrong?'

'One of Eagle's reports contradicted one of Garlic's reports. When Christian heard about that, he ordered them to meet-- in Manchester, for some reason-- and straighten out the confusion.'

'Oh my God,'Julie said. 'Poor old Otto must have filled his pants.'

'Yes, he must. If he sent the order, Garlic would report that Eagle had failed to keep the rendezvous, and that would be the end of Eagle.'

'But he had to send the order.'

'Yes. And as soon as he'd sent it, he telephoned Alfred in Oporto, told him to get the first train to Lisbon and intercept that letter before my man Stork turned up from the Spanish Embassy to collect it and send it on to London.'

Julie shook her head. 'That was pretty damn desperate, wasn't it?'

'It only seems desperate to us because we know better. All Alfred knew was what Otto had told him: that the letter was going to be claimed from the bank by someone who worked for the Spanish Embassy.'

'I still think it was a hell of a gamble.'

'Maybe. But what would you have done?'

Julie sipped her tea.

'And look at it this way,' Luis went on. 'Suppose they'd succeeded. Suppose Alfred stole the letter and therefore Garlic never heard about the rendezvous. Then Eagle could safely report that Garlic failed to appear.'

'Eagle would be in the clear,' Julie said, 'and Eldorado would be in the soup.'

'It was worth the risk.'

He ate several sausage-rolls and a couple of pancakes.

'What now?' Julie asked. 'Will you tell Charles Templeton?'

'I think not,' Luis said. 'He would have to inform London. The British intercepted an Abwehr signal about Eagle. I don't want the Abwehr to intercept a British signal about Cabrillo. No, let's keep it a secret.'

'It won't be a secret in Madrid. They're going to know that Eagle's disappeared.'

'I've been thinking about that.' Luis brightened, 'Look, maybe I can help them. Suppose Garlic reports, via Eldorado, that Eagle kept the rendezvous but that he seemed very depressed and he talked of suicide. How's that?'

'Lousy,1 Julie said. 'Suicidal for you. How can Garlic meet Eagle? As soon as Otto reads that, he'll know you're lying.'

'Good heavens!' Luis exclaimed. 'So he will. I never thought of that.'

'You'll just have to play it straight, Luis.'

'You're absolutely right.' He took her hand. 'I really didn't want to do it, you know,' he said. 'I thought of it over and over again, coming back on the train .I'm sure he would have shot me if I hadn't . . . you know . . .'

Julie linked her fingers with his, and squeezed.

'Doing it with a typewriter makes it worse, somehow,' he said. 'And in front of the damn dog, too.' He looked down, blinking. 'I hope someone looks after that dog,' he said.

'Yes.' She gave him a few moments to recover. 'Now let me tell you something. While you were having such an exciting time in Oporto, the Japs attacked America. So now we're in the war too.'

'This war?' Luis exclaimed. 'Europe?'

'Sure. Hitler declared war on the States. Don't worry, it's all legal. I thought that would make you happy.'

'War on five continents!' Luis cried. 'My God, what a business opportunity!'

Otto Krafft came back after a week's leave. He still looked tired, but his nerves were much more settled. The first person he went to see was Dr Hartmann.

'Welcome back!' Hartmann said, shaking his hand. 'Yes, the fresh air has done you good, I can see that. Do you feel better?'

'More or less. Has anything Happened?' Otto's voice was flat, as if he found it hard to make an effort.

'The news is not good, I'm afraid. Yesterday we had a report from Garlic. Eagle failed to attend the rendezvous.'

Otto nodded. He seemed unsurprised. 'Let's go up and see Brigadier Christian,' he said.

Christian received them in the anteroom. 'My room's being redecorated,' he told them. 'Are you feeling better?'

'I've heard about Eagle,' Otto said.

Christian raised a warning finger. 'Let's not rush into judgement. There may be special factors, unknown circumstances which we--'

'Eagle's dead.'

Christian buffed his moustache with the back of his hand. Hartmann stared at Otto's profile. There were slight hollows in the cheek, he noticed. 'You sound as if you know something, Krafft,' Christian said.

'I can't explain it all,' Otto said. 'When I left I kept worrying about Eagle. I knew there was something wrong. Perhaps I had a premonition. In the end I telephoned his branch office in Oporto.'

'Was that wise?' Christian asked softly.

'I said I was a customer. They said he'd disappeared in England, he was missing, they were getting worried. So I . . .' Otto swallowed a couple, of times. 'So I went to Oporto.'

'Take your time.' Christian got up, stopped a rattling window, and sat down, carefully hitching his trousers. 'Now then: you went to Oporto.'

'Yes. The branch manager was . . . was ... .' Otto blew his nose while he searched for the word. 'Was shocked. He'd just heard that Eagle had been found dead. Head bashed in.'

Dr Hartmann recoiled.

'Where did this happen?' Christian asked.

'London. The police said it was robbery.'

'And what do you think?'

Otto rested his elbows on his knees and pressed his hand-kerchief against his eyes. 'I think MI5 killed him, sir,' he : said, his voice breaking.

Christian nodded. 'It was not your fault, Otto,' he said. "You did all you could. Don't feel guilty.'

Otto stood up, wiping his eyes. Christian gestured towards the door, and Otto went out.

The two men sat in sombre silence for a while. 'A remarkable demonstration of loyalty,' Christian remarked.

'Yes, indeed,' Hartmann agreed. The window rattled again, and Christian gave it a frown. This was obviously one of those days.

After the killing of Eagle, Julie Conroy stopped talking about going to Oporto. She had always been aware that what Luis did was risky; now the knowledge that it was murderously dangerous made her feel that any criticism would be petty. The danger did not come from the Portuguese police; reports of the murder dropped out of the newspapers after a couple of days, and Luis was certain that there was no way in which he could be linked with Alfred Krafft. But the whole affair emphasised even more violently that to work with the Abwehr was to take a ride on a tiger.

Luis's response was to work harder. In the first six weeks of 1942 the Eldorado Network added two more sub-agents: 'Haystack,' who ran a hotel in London, and 'Pinetree', a British employee at the American Embassy. This made a total of seven, plus Bluebird and Stork in the Spanish Embassies at London and Lisbon. Luis was anxious to fill the vacuum left by Eagle. His enormous appetite for work always impressed Julie, and sometimes depressed her too: there seemed to be no limit to his ambition, yet -- as far as she could tell-- no purpose to it, either. Luis, it seemed, wanted to succeed because he enjoyed being a success. For him, the Second World War was a sales territory. She was reminded of her father, striving to sell more Coke in Indiana than ever before. Luis Cabrillo really did aim to become the first spy millionaire. It puzzled and annoyed her until it finally provoked her into challenging him again.