Bureau? Since 1934, right? The Chief doesn't want to know about techniques. Results count, not methods. If you can't appreciate that, you're dreadfully naive for a man your age.'
There was a pause, then Wheeler continued. 'You know what, Bill?' Wheeler asked, his mood shifting tangibly as he cupped the bowl of his pipe in his right palm. 'I don't like crap like that, either. Frank Lerrick authorized it and I know for a fact that it turns his stomach, too. But what do you do? Give the other side a chance to kill us first? You can be bloody well sure that the other side doesn't behave any better.'
'So what separates them from us?'
'We're right,' Wheeler answered quickly. He motioned to the transcript again. 'Well, enough philosophy. Maybe you'll see something that I didn't in those papers. What are you doing for lunch?'
Cochrane wasn't doing anything, including eating. He had the transcript for lunch. He read it once, twice, three times, closed into his office before the skein of it began to make sense. He tried to purge the delirium from the German's voice. He picked up his pencil and wrote isolated sentences on a yellow pad. He felt himself go very cold, though the room was warm.
Hunsicker's final meeting with Duquaine. That was the key. Cochrane isolated the sentences because the account of the meeting was scattered across thirty- eight pages.
Siegfried… All alone… Approved by Berlin,.. Special mission… to change American politics… One final target… Keep America out of the war…One final target…
Then Cochrane was on his feet and hurrying down the hall, bumping into buxom Dora McNeil and continuing around the corner to Wheeler's office, where he entered without knocking.
Wheeler's head shot upward, then relaxed when he recognized Cochrane. 'Decipher it, did you?' Wheeler asked. Then he read Cochrane's expression and turned very serious. 'Well, Mercy Almighty,' he grumbled, removing the pipe and setting it aside. 'Don't be shy about it. What have you got?'
'We've got this invisible German floating around the country. No one sees him, no one recognizes him. We only know where he's been, never where he is.' Cochrane looked down to what he had written on a yellow legal pad as if to check that it was still there. Then he handed it to Wheeler. 'And this is what he's up to. The final mission.'
Wheeler read Cochrane's sprawling but semi-inspired handwriting.
'Now,' said Cochrane. 'You tell me. What does this mean to you? There's only one target that changes American politics. Am I right or am I crazy? And note carefully the wording. 'Approved by Berlin.' Normally the fifth column works out of Hamburg. But this went up and down the chain of command, into and out of Hitler's own office on the Prinz Albrechtstrasse, if my guess is anywhere accurate.'
Wheeler scanned and Cochrane saw his superior's face go white.
Roosevelt. Of course, Roosevelt. What else could it possibly be?
'Holy Mother of Christ,' Wheeler breathed. He tossed the pad back onto his desk. He reached to his telephone and dialed Hoover.
'Who the hell is this Siegfried?' Wheeler ranted as he listened to an unanswered ringing on Hoover's end. 'Who is he? Where is he? And why can't we catch him?'
'He can't stay out there forever,' Cochrane said stubbornly to the skeptical gaze of Wheeler. 'He has to show himself somewhere.'
Then Hoover came on the line, and Wheeler, with unusual deference, began to speak.
*
Siegfried was in Liberty Circle.
He stepped out of his car and gazed at the clean white spire of St. Paul's Lutheran Church. It was a crisp day, the kind Siegfried liked, and he felt invigorated. He looked to the tower of the church where his radio room was concealed within the walls.
He began to think. And absently, he reached to the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pack of Pall Malls.
He drew one with his lips, lit it, and began to smoke. He lowered his eyes away from the spire and his radio room. No use calling extra attention. There were people on the sidewalk. People who did not even know there was a Siegfried.
He puffed on the cigarette. Then he heard a woman's voice, which jarred him.
'Why, Reverend Fowler!' the woman said, glaring at the spy. 'Smoking! You smoke! I never knew!'
It was Mrs. Dobson, a plain little woman whose husband owned the hardware store, and her friend Mrs. Jarvis, who worked for Bell Telephone of New Jersey.
'I'm surprised at you, Reverend!' Mrs. Jarvis chimed in. 'I didn't know you had any vices. Such an otherwise decent young man! But, smoking!'
The two ladies, both parishioners, laughed good-naturedly.
Reverend Fowler extinguished the cigarette against the side of the car.
'I apologize, ladies,' he said, grinning and shaking his head. 'I quite forgot myself! See you both on Sunday, now, hear?' He laughed, too, making light of his small sin.
Then they were gone and Siegfried shuddered. The cigarettes. He had neglected to throw them away. They were part of Siegfried, not part of Reverend Fowler. A little mistake like that again could cost him everything!
He shivered. Charlotte. The swim across the Potomac to the presidential yacht. The necessity of now assembling the biggest, most lethal bomb he had ever made. The pressure was mounting on him. Why else would he have forgotten a detail like the cigarettes?
He calmed himself. Perhaps it was a good thing. He would be more careful now. More careful than ever. Nothing short of perfection would do, not until Roosevelt was dead and he was safely in Germany, an American- born hero of the Third Reich.
Cigarettes! A man like Siegfried did not need them anyway. Siegfried was an Aryan! Made of steel! Better than the rabble that surrounded him!
Stephen Fowler turned toward the parish house, which was quiet. Where, he wondered, was Laura?
PART SIX
TWENTY-EIGHT
'A Mrs. Laura Fowler found the body,' said Chief of Police Bob Higgins of Liberty Circle. 'Horrible thing. Just horrible. The poor woman went out for a walk behind her husband's church. About an hour before the Reverend returned from a trip. There's a cemetery behind St. Paul's, then a couple of acres of woods. Well, sir, she's walking and her foot hits something.'
Bill Cochrane followed Chief Higgins closely, listening to each word. They walked from the police station only about two blocks to the church. Higgins was not used to having F.B.I. visitors. It was still a nice afternoon.
'She sees what hit her foot and she looks down. Well, sir,' said the red-haired, lean Higgins, 'sure enough. It's the arm of a dead woman reaching up from a makeshift grave.'
Cochrane nodded. They walked quickly. 'Thank you for telephoning,' he said. He hadn't been off the train from Washington for ten minutes.
'Well, sir,' answered Higgins. 'I got that F.B.I. circular about that sailor who was murdered. Wasn't that a horrible thing? Well, it stuck with me. Couldn't get the case out of my mind. The boy's body lying out there in the woods. Well, sir. Then we get this one right here in Liberty Circle. Almost the exact same thing. So, well, sir, I made up my mind to call.'
The local police officer was correct. It was like Billy Pritchard all over again. Higgins led Cochrane fifty yards through the woods and they came to a black blanket that covered a corpse. The rest of the Liberty Circle Police Department, two deputies, sprung to attention when they saw that Chief Higgins had a visitor.
