'Of course. No complaints,' Cochrane said again.
'Oh! I knew there was something else,' Wheeler said suddenly. 'This is just a sample of what's floating around our atmosphere at night.'
Wheeler handed Cochrane a memo.
'The Bluebirds picked up a transmission in German coming from somewhere between New York and Philadelphia, or so they think. Whoever was sending it was pretty cool. Beat the listeners by hustling his message along. Bluebirds got the end of it,' Wheeler explained, motioning to the sheet of paper. 'Make of it what you will.'
Cochrane scanned the words scrawled before him:
… Blumen von Berlin. Siegfried
'And that's it?' Cochrane asked. 'That's all of the message they picked up? 'Flowers from Berlin'? 'Siegfried'?'
'The hand on the key was quick as a cat,' Wheeler answered. 'Like I said, clever emission. Shrewd to the point of arrogance. Quick and even-toned, yet nervy enough to spout off in German. Didn't even bother to code it, the arrogant little punk'
Cochrane stared at the words before him, not knowing what significance to draw, if any. A rank amateur? A practical joker? A seasoned professional?
Wheeler spoke again. 'You might file it somewhere, Bill. We're going to have to take anything on the East Coast seriously from here on.'
Cochrane nodded. 'Did the Bluebirds get the transmission pattern?' he asked.
Wheeler grinned, appreciating Cochrane's insight. 'They've got the frequency pegged twenty-four hours a day now. If our Kraut pal goes back on the air, the Bluebirds will be perched on his shoulder. We'll try some triangulation right away, too. Can't run any risks.'
'Let's hope he doesn't change frequencies,' Cochrane said absently. 'Of course, it might be nothing at all, also.'
'What are you doing? Reading my mind?'
Cochrane folded away the paper. Then Wheeler slung his arm around Cochrane's shoulders, leading Cochrane back down the corridor in the direction in which they had come. Somewhere in the distance, Lanny Slotkin and Hope See Ming were having a noisy argument and someone had passed through Section Seven again with another cigarette.
'Hey,' Wheeler said. 'There's a new chili parlor in Georgetown that'll set fire to your esophagus. My treat, my friend. You got to be hungry after all this, Bill. By the way, there's been one slight change from the other evening. You'll be reporting directly to John Edgar Hoover yourself. Doesn't change anything, does it?'
'Not much, it doesn't,' Cochrane answered. “Why would it?”
He then changed the subject, leaving Wheeler to wonder exactly what he had meant.
EIGHTEEN
On Monday morning at 8 A.M., Bill Cochrane sat in his office and reviewed the material placed at his disposal. His sense of mission heightened, as did his bewilderment. Cochrane drew a long breath and exhaled slowly. For a moment he tried to recall how he had been maneuvered into this assignment. Then he remembered Banking Fraud in Baltimore. He looked back to the files before him, trying to conjure up an image of the man he might be looking for. No image appeared.
Cochrane was not beset with the self-doubts that had tormented him during his sabbatical with Mr. Hay. He knew he possessed the skills to be an outstanding detective. But he also knew that 95 percent of good detective work is routine, unspectacular inquiry, posing the right questions, ferreting out the proper responses. There are weeks of checking and double-checking. And there is the laborious placing together of disparate parts, never knowing exactly which parts are missing, which parts are incomplete, or how many make the whole.
Further, any successful federal investigation relied heavily at its inception on information received from local American police departments. Just as the cop on the beat had a better idea what was happening in his neighborhood than his commanding officer did, local police departments had a better insight than F.B.I. offices into their respective cities.
The departments knew who was in town to cause trouble or what unusual crimes had occurred. They knew what was perplexing and what was unsolved. They quickly noticed things out of the ordinary.
Over the years, Cochrane had always dealt respectfully with local police, from the department chiefs down to the rookies on patrol. Unlike most other special agents of the Bureau, Cochrane saw local cops as plodders perhaps, but men of a special sort of dedication. They were overworked and besieged. But they did their work to the best of their ability.
Equally, Cochrane reasoned that the man he was looking for had to break the law from time to time. By the very nature of the spy's profession, he had to have an assumed identity, at least part of the time. That meant the forgery of papers. Similarly, this particular spy had to have entered restricted areas to plant his devices. Had anyone gotten in his way? Somewhere along the line, the spy had probably stolen certain items. Who was a suspect in that theft? And where had the saboteur obtained the explosives to sink the Wolfe? Were they stolen? Purchased? From whom?
Somewhere, Cochrane knew, there were witnesses to this man. No one floated around like Peter Pan. No one failed to leave fingerprints. No one had no other human contact. Where did the spy live? To whom did he pay the rent? With whom did he sleep? Where did he buy his food? His clothes?
Cochrane began making notes.
*
In the early afternoon Cochrane reached for his telephone. He dialed numbers in Boston, Providence, Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. Since the Great War, every major American city had had a bomb disposal unit. Cochrane spoke to the head of that unit in each city. In many cases, such as New York, where the head of the Bomb Squad was Lieutenant Francis Xavier Sullivan, Cochrane spoke to men whom he knew personally. Cochrane guided the conversations carefully. Each took on an identical drift.
'Yes,' Cochrane would answer to the first query, 'I am acting in an official capacity… Conducting an investigation given the F.B.I.'s highest priority… We are looking for a man about whom we know very little… No, no name, yet. Not even a description… We know he is an expert on incendiary devices… Yes, there is loss of life involved. A considerable amount, in fact…'
In each case, the man on the other end of the line quickly asked why an inquiry was being lodged in his area. Further, what federal laws had been violated? Why was the F.B.I. pawing the ground for criminal activity in his city?
Cochrane was ready with a response which invariably brought a rising silence from the other end of the line.
'Unfortunately, it's not a simple matter of criminal activity,' Cochrane explained. 'It's a matter of military security. National security as well, sir. Our conjecture is that the man is either a well-trained mercenary or has extremely strong pro-Nazi sentiments.. . We assume he is a German, probably an infiltrator… No, we cannot confirm that. It's at the stage of theory, only… We'd like to know if you have anybody in this category in your files. Or if anyone springs to mind.'
Inevitably, the men who received these calls promised that their files would be scoured immediately and that their top lieutenants would also be questioned. Cochrane thanked the men generously and asked that they each get back to him within twenty-four hours.
Then, with the eastern calls complete, Cochrane placed a series of identical calls to the cities of the American Midwest with large German-American populations: Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago, and St. Louis. It was not until past seven in the evening that all Cochrane's telephone contacts had been established.
Cochrane then completed a printed form known within the Bureau as an LKW. The form, headed with the words LAST KNOWN WHEREABOUTS beneath the Bureau's imprimatur, was an official investigative request within
