The Poison Tide (32 page)

‘Let’s talk about tomorrow,’ said Hinsch, opening his rough hands on the table. ‘The
Linton
, a small freighter, about four thousand tons. Grain and some artillery shells. There should be no difficulty.’

‘Our associates are responsible for the security,’ Rintelen explained.

‘Irish associates?’ Wolff enquired.

‘Friends of Sir Roger’s, yes.’

‘Those chaps from Green’s,’ Wolff persisted. ‘I met them, remember?’

‘McKee is there to get you aboard,’ said Hinsch sourly. ‘All right?’

Wolff reached for his glass. ‘All right.’ He didn’t want to lose his new advantage. ‘Once the grain catches, well . . .’ he paused to sip his wine, ‘. . . you can imagine.’

Rintelen
could
imagine: satisfaction was expressed plainly in every middle-aged line of his face. Wolff was reminded of his promise:
I’ll buy what I can and blow up what I can’t
. His preference was distinctly for the latter. They discussed the number of detonators and the rendezvous, and Rintelen boasted of his ‘other operations’. ‘The Dark Invader’s empire grows,’ he joked. ‘And what do you say to this, gentlemen?’ Rising quickly, he stepped over to his cabinets, took a key from his jacket and opened the middle one. A wafer tumbler lock, Wolff noted, and one of the simplest. The two other cabinets appeared to be sealed the same way. ‘Here.’ Rintelen lifted a file. ‘Clear the glasses, would you?’ Then he opened it on the table. ‘Recognise this?’

‘Black Tom.’

‘Yes, I drew it myself,’ he said with a smug smile. ‘I have given it some thought and the correct thing to do is land by sea, here . . .’ he prodded his map with a well-manicured forefinger; ‘. . . a boat to pier four to place them on barges . . . here and here. It is the best way to make it look like an accident. So,’ he said, straightening his back, ‘what do you think?’

Wolff was sure his opinion was of no importance and Hinsch may have thought the same because he shook his head but said nothing.

‘The time isn’t right, I know,’ Rintelen continued; ‘we must wait, but it’s important to have a plan.’

He closed the file and picked up the bottle to fill their glasses once more. This time Wolff refused. ‘I must go.’

‘You have a dinner engagement?’ Rintelen enquired, leaning forward as if inviting a confidence.

‘Something like that,’ he said casually. ‘Don’t trouble, I can make my own way.’

‘That won’t be necessary. I will have a guide take you to the gangway.’

‘Still a question of trust?’

‘Of manners,’ Rintelen lied; it was something he did smoothly too.

But for once there wasn’t a sailor on station in the passageway. Rintelen seemed to hesitate, his hand lingering on the rail: ‘If you don’t mind.’

Wolff had already taken a few steps down the companionway. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then I’ll leave you.’

Wolff turned to offer the flicker of a smile – ‘Until tomorrow, Captain’ – then continued down the companionway. A few seconds later he thought he heard a door swing to behind him but he didn’t risk a glance. Was this the moment? There might be no better. He wasn’t going to sink another ship. He’d tried to think it through a hundred times; he’d hidden in corners, picked locks, made excuses, fought his way off the ship and felt his heart freeze as he plunged from her side into the bay, but hours of imaginary effort had left him with no more than a great leap of faith. Should he stay and hide or leave and then try to bluff his way back aboard? He pushed through heavy stateroom doors to the top of the main companionway, acknowledging a passing steward with a smile. By the time I reach the bottom I’ll know, he thought. If Rintelen was watching the gangway to be sure he left the ship it would be over in minutes, but if he did leave and then tried to return with a story, the watch officer might insist on an escort. By now he was a companionway and a passage of fifteen paces from the shelter deck, another forty from the seamen at the top of the gangway. Wolff, you can never know, he told himself.
You’re here now, you’re alone. He pressed his pocket and felt the heft of the revolver. Do it now. You must
.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

A steward had stepped from a cabin in third, apron about his middle, duster in his hand. What the hell was he polishing at that hour on a ship without passengers? Like a lonely middle-aged hausfrau taking out her frustration on the silver.

‘I know my way,’ Wolff replied haughtily.

The steward shuffled back to let him pass. At the end of the corridor he turned right and kept walking towards the last companionway. Fear was his driver; the cold controlled fear that sharpens perception and urges one to action. He had to lose himself and quickly, but higher. If the main companionway was amidships, there would be another towards the stern. From there he could climb back to ‘A’ deck and find a corner somewhere close to Rintelen’s office. Turning on his heels, he walked back through the cabins on the port side of the ship. At the foot of the main companionway a petty officer was issuing orders to two seamen. They turned to acknowledge him but he passed with only a supercilious glance, the first-class gentleman and friend of the captain. He touched his forehead; it was wet with perspiration, and he was conscious of his shirt clinging to his back. Come on, you fool.

At the polished mahogany doors of the dining saloon, he was forced to turn on to the open deck where second class was accustomed to promenade at sea. Leaning on the rail, a young member of the watch was smoking a cigarette. As soon as he saw Wolff he tossed it guiltily over the side and straightened his back, a crooked forefinger to his cap. Twenty sharp paces then back inside, pantry on the right, head steward’s cabin on the left, ahead of him the foot of the stern companionway. He climbed it quickly but like a gentleman, battling the urge to take the steps two at a time. As he approached the top he heard the murmur of voices through the door of what was either a lounge or smoke room. A junior officer, to judge by the hoops on his sleeve, was holding the handle, his back turned to the passageway. Don’t hesitate, Wolff told himself, not now, not for a second; sharp suit and coat, saboteur or spy, he will know me for one of the Dark Invader’s men. And if the officer did glance over his shoulder he said nothing.

I’m shaking, Wolff thought, how strange, and he tried to concentrate on breathing deeply. If Rintelen sees me, I’ll say I came back to speak to him.

But nobody noticed him as he made his way for’ard again and a minute later he was in the starboard passageway, only the width of a first-class cabin from Rintelen on the port side, torsion wrench in one hand, pick in the other. Come on, come on, he muttered under his breath as he felt for the lock. Voices suddenly somewhere, a door swinging to, but he was in, panting quietly, his back to the cabin wall. He couldn’t risk the electric light but enough was spilling through the porthole for him to move freely. It was half past ten: settle, disturb nothing and pray. Two hours, perhaps three. If only I could smoke . . . He sat and listened for steps in the passageway, a steward, a search party, but minutes slipped by in plush silence. He took off his coat and checked his gun and the watch camera; he considered his route from the ship and concluded again that there was only one. Then he leant forward and placed his head on the table, wristwatch ticking in his ear, tick, tick, tick, carrying him to the future and to the past, twisting an uncertain contour through hopes and memories, but alive always to the present: a motor car on the quay, the rattle of cable on the boat deck, the striking of the bell.

He left the cabin an hour into the First Watch. Softly along the carpeted passageway, clutching the barrel of his gun like a club, a few yards only to the first turn, a few more to the port side then back; on his right, suite six, five, the door of number four. He bent close: nothing, not a sound, and no telltale splinters in the lock. It took only seconds to open. Pitch black, and he remembered von Rintelen dropping the deadlight and drawing the curtain. No one spoke, no one was waiting, the cabin was still. He switched on the wall sconces just long enough to be sure of no surprises. Everything was in its correct place, neat pencils and paper on the tabletop, floor lamp close by, the oak cabinets just in the loop of its light. He stared at them for a few seconds, breathing deeply. All right, from the left to the right, see what there was first and keep the files in order. It took no time to pick the lock.

‘How on earth . . .?’ In the top drawer, there were dozens of copies of telegrams to the National City Bank of New York authorising munitions purchases and the harbour dues for Allied ships. Names, cargoes, sailing times, all the intelligence a saboteur or submarine needed to sink a ship, and most of them sent from the Consulate in Whitehall Street. Yellow slips in date order. He thumbed through to 6 November and found the SS
Blackness
. ‘Clever bastard.’ Rintelen had someone inside the bank that the Allies used for their business.

In the next two drawers, intelligence on other targets: gun foundries, factories, railroad routes and bridges to blow before a munitions train, grain stores, ports east and west, and the Dark Invader’s plan of the Black Tom. But the gold was in the middle cabinet. ‘I knew you would have to,’ Wolff muttered under his breath. Every one of the Kaiser’s pfennigs, every mark, because meticulousness is a state of mind and accountants like Dr Albert are born to their figures. In one ledger, the million-dollar munitions purchases of Gaché’s cover company; in another, the handfuls of grubby greenbacks paid to men with Irish names. The paper trail of the network’s activities: so much stuff it frightened him. Follow the money and the payroll regulars, he told himself, settling at the table with the ledgers. Glancing through the accounts of the cover company he could see that Albert had authorised millions of dollars to force the price of war matériel up and prevent it falling into the hands of the Allies. All he’d done was feed the machine. He must have recognised it because the defrayments stopped in September. Of more use, three large account books of payments to the members of Clan na Gael, to Jim Larkin and the other strike leaders, and half a dozen detective agencies in as many ports.

Thumbing through the files in the cabinet, he was able to cross-reference the lines in the ledgers with receipts signed by Paul Koenig and others. Some he photographed as evidence, the rest he carefully noted in his pocketbook. Then, at three o’clock, he began hunting for the identity of Rintelen’s contact at the National City Bank. No reference in the accounts, no contracts, no receipts. Turning to the last cabinet, he was fiddling with the lock when a sharp noise in the passageway made him start. What was he thinking? He’d almost forgotten he was in danger. Crossing to the table, he picked up his revolver and switched off the lamp. The shuffling of feet, a light knock at a door further down the passageway.

‘Franz,’ hissed someone with a young voice. ‘Are you there?’

Wolff breathed a little more easily. Some other business? Personal. Casement’s sort of business.

‘Franz! It’s me.’ But no answer came.

Wolff listened impatiently to his retreating steps. At twenty-five minutes past three he turned on the lamp again. Half an hour only, he couldn’t risk more. In the middle drawer of the third cabinet, a brass strongbox, the lock a simple pin tumbler. He reached inside with both hands: ‘What the hell!’ Lifting the box had triggered an alarm like a London bobby’s whistle.

Damn you. His hands were trembling so much the pick rattled in the lock. Damn, damn, damn . . . Half a turn left, then right, then left, and the alarm cut out. Silence, but for the ringing in his ears and the thumping pulse in his temple. He snatched the revolver from the table and stood shaking in the dark. What now? The alarm had sounded for what felt like an eternity but was only seconds, so if no one was sleeping in the neighbouring cabins, perhaps . . . He switched the lamp back on and pulled the strongbox closer. I’m a fool, he thought; remember Turkey.

Two feet by one, large enough for a ledger and a stack of papers, and a simple electrical alarm concealed in a false bottom. On the spine of the ledger:
Secret Section
. The pages were laid out like an ordinary account book but the recipients were denoted by a number and the disbursements coded in five-letter groups. But they’d been careless with the loose paper. On top of the bundle there was a contract with the New Jersey Agricultural Chemical Company for certain scientific services. It was signed by a Dr Walter Scheele of Hoboken. Wolff’s thoughts jumped to the doctor with the grey walrus moustache and Jersey drawl who’d demonstrated his cigar bomb in the field: he’d wager good money they were one and the same man.

In the same papers he found the receipts he’d signed for Albert with a false name and one authorising a cash payment to Laura McDonnell. Of the rest, the most intriguing were large transfers to two accounts bearing the baroque signature of a Mr Paul Hilken of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Shipping Line. Wolff photographed them both and twenty pages of the coded ledger. By the time he’d locked the strongbox away it was after four o’clock. Cursing himself for a fool, he checked the cabin carefully to be sure everything was as he’d found it, then slipped into the passageway. But no one troubled to ask his business as he retraced his route. The ship’s watch had changed a few minutes before and was still wiping the sleep from its eyes. So much for Rintelen’s ‘good German crew’. Bloody hell, he thought, I might pull this off. At the head of the gangway a young Third greeted him with a cheery ‘Good morning’.

Wolff took refuge in ill temper. ‘If you say so.’

The lieutenant was a little taken aback. ‘Working late, sir?’ he ventured.

‘Don’t ask a friend of the captain’s what he’s doing,’ Wolff replied, brushing past and on to the gangway. Relief and something close to euphoria washed through him as he rattled down to the dock. Damn you, Rintelen, damn you, Gaunt, you too, Cumming, he thought. I’ve done it! He was in range of a shot from the ship but they weren’t going to kill him because they were stupid and complacent. That’s it, let me waltz away with your secrets.