American Consulate, which was busy, overworked, and functioned with a staff of six. There Mauer demanded to see the chief diplomatic officer, who happened that day to be the consul himself.
The consul was a trim, laconic Vermonter named Fred Godfrey. Mauer introduced himself as Count Choulakoff, just in from Munich, and demanded passage at least as far as London. Godfrey nearly threw him out, having, in his experience in White River Junction, never encountered Russians making demands for free travel.
Godfrey would in fact have thrown the bogus count off the premises after two minutes discussion, but Mauer drew a Luger from his overcoat. He suggested in concise English that Mr. Godfrey rethink his position.
Godfrey went sheet white and followed instructions. He cabled the F.B.I. in Washington, citing an emergency of the highest order and asking guidance. He cited that a gentleman of the Russian aristocracy, name of Choulakoff, recently of Munich, was sitting in his office. What should be done?
As they awaited a response, Godfrey drew up an American passport. The count happened to have a recent photograph handy and Godfrey had no deeply rooted instincts toward martyrdom.
The cable came back after ten very sweaty hours, all of which Mauer spent sitting in Godfrey's office, his loaded Luger in his coat pocket, making small talk with the consular staff. Washington's instructions were to 'assist the count in travel westward.'
Godfrey heaved a huge sigh and handed Mauer a passport with five hundred dollars. Mauer apologized profusely for his poor diplomatic table manners, politely accepted the passport and cash, and was on his way. Within a minute he was gone.
'I was in Oslo by steamer within thirty-six hours,' Mauer recalled to Cochrane as the shadows elongated across the floor of the Pennsylvania farmhouse. 'I was in England via a second steamer within two more days.'
M.I. 6 pounced upon Mauer as his feet touched the dock in Southampton. Their agents at the harbor were expecting him, knew from the very outset that he was German, not Russian, and arranged to escort him onward to London, but very politely.
'Two of them brought me to London,' Mauer said, 'two very neat young men in Chesterfields. They both spoke fluent German and posed everything as a civil request.' He paused. 'They put me up at Coleridge’s,' Mauer recalled, not without a certain appreciation. 'A suite overlooking Brook Street.'
Mauer's eyes danced for a moment. Cochrane nodded and then a shadow came across the German again. 'But you see,' Mauer continued, 'my family was nowhere to be seen. And within a few hours I had been turned over to yet another Englishman. A Major Richards, a man in his thirties with very short dark hair and tortoise-shell glasses. He wore no uniform. He told me that he was in a branch of M.I. 5 called B.A. 1. I don't know what the letters stood for. But I knew what the branch did. Double-crossing enemy intelligence, both German and Italian. They would trap enemy agents and turn them back against the German or Italian spy masters who'd dispatched them. That, or execute them, I suppose, so the poor agents had little choice.'
Cochrane interrupted. 'Had you ever heard of B.A. 1 I before?'
Mauer's whitish eyebrows shot skyward. 'Good Heaven, young man! Of course. Abwehr has a thorough file on them. I even had heard of Major Richards. That's why Major Richards' offer was so laughable.'
'What offer?'
'He wanted to feed me back into Germany to work for England. I told him that I had already worked for the Americans and felt I was compromised. He laughed and said that the Americans had no intelligence service abroad yet. He told me that if I had worked for an American, I had actually probably been working for an American Communist in the employ of Stalin.'
'How did you answer that one?' Cochrane asked, choosing his words very carefully.
'I ripped into him. I said, 'Major, sir, you and the Americans share a common language. If you don't know what they're doing, why don't you go ask them for yourself?' He did not like that and suggested that perhaps I was not really Abwehr, but rather some sort of criminal. Maybe I should be returned. He said this, I know, just to get me hot. So I said very calmly, 'No, Major. I am in truth Abwehr. That is how I know you studied at Oxford and Heidelberg, were born in Taunton, married, and used to work in war office before being recruited into intelligence.' Major Richards withdrew very slightly, then nodded. 'Very good,' he answered me. Then I told him ten of his B.A. 1 agents who'd been discovered by the Gestapo. He didn't like that, either. He tried to make another offer to me, but I was getting very mad now. So I said to him, 'Major, you talk to your Major Asena in Gibraltar. You get my wife and son here and I'll see what else I can do for you. Until then, nothing!' I folded my arms and did not answer him for another half hour. Finally he grew tired and left. Good riddance.'
'You didn't care for him?' Cochrane asked as Mauer reached again for the bourbon.
'Pest,' retorted Mauer. 'But, ah,' he added with a brisk, contemptuous wave of his hand, 'he's paying my Claridge's bill. So naturally in two days he's back. But now he visits with five other men. Muscle. Looked like Englishmen off the docks, all standing around my suite in Basil Rathbone-type coats, getting my walls dirty. He shows me a handwritten note from Major Asena in Gibraltar saying that my family never arrived there. Then they quickly team up on me. They tell me that I cannot stay in England. They're squeezing me, you see. They tell me that I entered the country on a no-good American passport and I will be put in jail. I tell them to go directly to hell. They make me another offer. They want to give me new identification, money, and let me run networks of German doubles in Morocco or Egypt, I take my pick. I ask them if they are completely crazy. I mention my wife and family and suddenly I realize-they never believed my story about a wife and son in Spain. Maybe they did not even believe my identity within the Abwehr. But this they must have believed. My information had to check with theirs.'
There was a long silence and Mauer needed to be prodded again. 'So what did you do, Otto?' Cochrane nudged.
'What do you think I did?' he snapped. 'I say to this man, hey, I have an American passport. That makes me citizen of United States. I want to notify my embassy that I am here being recruited by foreign agents. Well, there was a pained expression around the room. They all filed out. But two of them stayed at my door for two days. I'm under house arrest now, can you believe? Then Richards came back yet again. Very reverential this time. Full of apologies. And an American diplomat comes in a minute later. We go through the Count Choulakoff charade again and the American turns to the major. 'Yeah, this is our man, buddy,' the American says. He tells me that my family is in Washington waiting for me. They put me on a disguised American military cargo ship that next night. I'm in New York in eight days, Washington in ten. I'm greeted by the F.B.I.. I demand proof that they have my family safe. They say, proof takes time. Just some questions first. I'm going crazy but I have no choice. I try to cooperate. We go through the whole stinking story again, everything I tell you in Germany, everything I tell the English in London. I know what they're doing. They're testing my story against yours. Then they discredit you to see if I change my story. I stick to the truth. It's all I have. Then I demand, absolutely demand, to see my family.'
'Who was doing the interrogation?'
'Several. The little idiot who stutters a lot was the leader. Moustache. Little thin Don Amice-type moustache.'
'Lerrick,' muttered Cochrane, almost unwillingly.
'That's the one.' Mauer grew angry again. 'He stands, walks to me with a smile, and slaps me across the face! He's fifteen years younger, but I jump out of my seat to strangle him. But other Bureau toughs grab me, put me back in chair. He says I'm in America now and in American they don't like Nazis. I tell him I'm not a Nazi, never was, but he doesn't want to listen. He hits me again and I'm held down. He says his Bureau gives the instructions, not me. He says I will cooperate or he will make sure I never see family again ever, Then they keep me awake. They change me from room to room. They take off my watch and change my clothing. I have nothing familiar anymore. I lose track of days. I tell them everything I know. Everything. At the end, this man simply says to his assistants. 'All right. That's enough. No more.' 'My family?' I said to him'- Mauer's voice was deeply plaintive here, almost brittle with emotion-''What about my family, you liar!' But he left the room.'
More bourbon, then Mauer moved toward a conclusion.
'Later that same day the other man arrives,” he said. “The big hulking one who looks like a bear and who visits me sometimes here. He says there is a terrible difficulty, but he can help. My family is still in Spain, he says. I explode. I scream at him that I'm betrayed three times now by his same rotten Bureau. I go for him, but he grabs my hands. He is very calm. Then he shows me. He has a picture. He shows me a photograph of Natalie and Rudy in Madrid. 'They are being cared for,' he promises me. 'They will be brought to America when it is safe to travel.' He gives me his word.'
Mauer exuded a long sigh. 'Here,' he said. The German reached to a drawer and handed Cochrane a black
