man gave me your home address. On the sly, of course.'
'I'm leaving Washington,' Cochrane said.
'What a shame.'
'Not really. I look forward to living quietly.'
'But if you'll excuse the suggestion,' Peter Whiteside interrupted, 'you're leaving with business unfinished.'
There was accusation in Cochrane's voice. 'Now how would you know that, sir?' Cochrane asked.
To which Laura lowered her voice, though there was not another human being in sight. 'Peter is with Britain's SIS,' Laura said calmly. 'Secret Intelligence Service. I work for them also. I think if we go inside and put our heads together,' she suggested, 'we'll all be able to help each other.'
Cochrane looked at them quizzically, from beautiful Laura to the lean, dapper Whiteside, then back again. And suddenly the whole kaleidoscope-Hoover, Siegfried, Roosevelt; Fowler, Laura, and Mauer-took on new shapes, shades, and hues.
'Unless I'm mistaken,' Whiteside added as a teaser, 'you're looking for a man named Siegfried. Well, we are too.'
Cochrane pulled his house keys from his pocket. 'Let's go,' he said, motioning to the door.
THIRTY- SIX
'You wouldn't have any tea, would you?' Whiteside asked. 'Bloody cold out there all day. Last time I was in Washington was a July, I think. Nearly broiled.'
'We've hit a cold streak for the last week,' Cochrane said. He led Laura and Peter Whiteside into the kitchen and prowled through jars and cans that had been there since young Jenks had first assigned a housekeeper to the premises. He found a small square carton of Twinings. It was unopened.
'How's this?' Cochrane asked.
'Perfect.'
Laura took over. She found a teapot, and soon had water boiling as Whiteside and Bill Cochrane sat down in the dining room. Laura kept an ear to the conversation.
Whiteside marked time at first, rambling pleasantly along about inconsequential topics, and Cochrane studied him carefully. Top of the line British intelligence officer; Cochrane could tell by the alertness and the eyes, as well as the accent and way he carried himself. As if on cue, when Laura appeared with three teacups, Whiteside began talking about the city of Birmingham in 1935. Not until Whiteside focused in on the topic of labor unrest and Communist marchers did Cochrane fully understand where the conversation was leading. By that time he was watching Laura more and more, wondering why he was thinking the thoughts he was about another man's wife, and fondly appreciating the way she crossed her slender legs beneath her skirt.
“…and it was when the marchers reached St. Chad's Circus,' Whiteside continued, 'that the first of two anti-personnel explosives was detonated.' The sentence jolted Cochrane's attention back to where it belonged.
Explosives. Of course. That was what it was all about. Bombs. Sabotaged ships. A threat to the life of President Roosevelt.
Now Cochrane hung on every word that passed Whiteside's lips, and gradually the missing pieces of Siegfried came into view. The story took an hour, with several refills of tea, and if there were any details lost, Cochrane did not miss them.
The grand design was before him. The footnotes, such as why a man like Stephen Fowler would embark on a career as Hitler's disciple in America, could wait.
Which leaves me with Otto Mauer, Bill Cochrane thought. There has to be a way to tie it all together. How, for example, did a pipe bomb in a sock arrive under my bed?
Cochrane recalled a detail from Mauer's story in the Pennsylvania farmhouse: 'Tell me about B.A. 1,' Cochrane said out of the blue.
Whiteside looked considerably surprised. 'Pardon me?'
'B.A. 1,' Cochrane said confidently. 'And a Major Richards, if I remember correctly. Based in London, charged with double-crossing of German and Italian agents.'
Whiteside was silent.
'It's not enough just to talk,' Cochrane insisted. 'You have to answer questions, too.'
'What about B.A. 1? It's part of M.I. 5, as I'm certain you know.'
'I have a defector named Otto Mauer,' Cochrane said. 'He passed through the hands of Major Richards in London. Surely you know all about it.'
Another pause. 'Surely, I do,' Whiteside said at length.
'If my guess is any good,' Cochrane said, 'you can tell me about Mauer's wife and child, also.'
'Your guess is good,' Whiteside answered. 'Why is it so good?'
'Because I know Bureau tactics,' Cochrane said. 'They flashed the man a photograph of his wife and son in Spain. But they couldn't deliver the goods. If they could have, they would have brought them here and shown them around. So someone else is holding them. If the Nazis grabbed them in Spain, then Mauer's been feeding us bad information from the time he arrived here. But I don't think he is. So the only other possibility is M.I. 5.'
'That's correct.'
'Then you have them?'
Another pause and Laura eyed Peter Whiteside with considerable suspicion.
'That's correct,' Whiteside said again.
'Where?'
'Is it relevant to Siegfried?'
'It's relevant if you want any cooperation out of me.'
'The precise location is classified,' Whiteside said. 'But we moved them from Spain.
They're safe. And nearby.'
'How far away? In days?'
'Two. Maybe three, depending on transport.'
'So your people took their picture in Madrid and turned it over to the Americans, right?'
Whiteside nodded.
'Why?'
“We didn't know what to do with them, obviously,' Whiteside said, as if it were self-evident. 'We had them in inventory, so to speak, but there was no way to cash them in. So we offered them to the Americans. Free. Had to move them from Spain, anyway. Franco's national police run the country and are like this' – briefly Whiteside's hands clasped each other- 'with the Gestapo.'
Whiteside sipped some tea, which was now cool in his cup. Cochrane noticed through the window that the afternoon had faded and already the darkness of evening was upon Washington. He heard a car go by.
Whiteside continued. 'We wanted to give them to the Americans. A favor for the future when we needed a favor in return. It was as simple as that. So we notified State Department. Got a man who used to sell cars in Colorado, but is now a career diplomat. Said he had pass the picture on to F.B.I., but that was all he could do. We never heard anything more.'
Cochrane now sat leaning back, his arms folded across his stomach, his head forward and his clear eyes upon the Englishman. He had a sense of constantly being shown a moving picture-Mauer's story-with frames missing or out of order.
'Wait a minute,' he finally interjected. 'You've forgotten an entire step.'
'Have I?'
'How did you know to intercept Natalie and Rudy to begin with?'
'We knew,' Whiteside said cryptically. 'We knew a major defection was under way.
Double guards of Gestapo, SS, and SD at all the rail and air terminals. We knew something was afoot. So we kept our eyes also on Major Asena in Gibraltar.'
