iron lip, but he lay still a few seconds longer, breathing deeply. Somewhere above him the beat of pigeons’ wings. I’ve spoilt my coat, he thought, with a wry smile. He was too relieved to care.
From his vantage point in a derelict shed, Masek had watched Dilger and the others leave the warehouse. Minutes later he saw Wolff do the same.
‘The doctor travelled with Hinsch,’ he observed as they walked to the motor car. ‘Maybe go back to your friend Miss McDonnell.’
But Wolff didn’t think so. ‘Drive me to a telephone, would you?’
The duty clerk at the embassy in Washington was wet behind the ears. Sir William was dining with the Ambassador and shouldn’t be disturbed, he declared, and certainly not for a man who refused to give his name and wasn’t prepared to share his business. It took ten minutes and the sort of language more commonly heard in a sailors’ whorehouse before Wolff bullied him into delivering a note.
‘Find Dilger?’ Wiseman asked as soon as he picked up the mouthpiece.
Wolff told him what he’d seen. Eight seamen, eight ships perhaps, he couldn’t say for sure. ‘They were instructed to wait until the end of the voyage before they infected the animals — horses and mules, I suppose — I don’t know.’
For a time the line crackled emptily.
‘Our soldiers.’ Wiseman sounded shocked even on a bad line. ‘They’re attacking our people, too.’ More crackle. ‘My God. I can’t quite… their own countrymen. It’s come to this?’
‘Yes.’
Another long pause.
‘The best men in my battalion were Irish.’ Wiseman’s sigh was long and audible from two hundred miles. ‘Sugar cubes, you say. Harder to find.’
‘Yes. If we want to catch Dilger we’ll have to…’
‘An American citizen, what can we do?’ Wiseman interrupted. ‘No, we have to stop those sailors, and stop the enemy sending more.’
Another silence filled only by the fizzing of the phone, as if a thought was taking shape on the wire.
Wolff spoke first: ‘I won’t recognise all of them but if the War Office and the Admiralty can hold British merchant ships here in port — the least we can do is check for Irish names.’
‘Actually, there’s another way,’ said Wiseman, a little too casually. ‘A better way.’ This time the line seemed to spit portentously. ‘That’s if you’re willing, Wolff?’
34. Inside the Hansa Haus
FOR ONCE MR Paul Hilken informed his wife by telephone that he would be working late at his office in downtown Baltimore. It wasn’t necessary or customary, but in the last few days he’d surprised her, and himself, by being attentive — even affectionate. It’s the uncertainty, he reflected, as he sat waiting for the call. He was frightened he would lose the things that made being married to a man like him tolerable. Hinsch had organised everything, taking it in his ungainly stride. No evidence, he said, no laboratory and no one who would dare speak to the authorities. To be sure, he’d sent the longshoreman caught with the poison to the West Coast: at least, that was what he said.
‘And the doctor?’ Hilken protested. ‘If they find him…’
‘They won’t. Now, in God’s name behave like a man,’ Hinsch had upbraided him.
Hinsch was a brute, but a clever one, Hilken mused. Their relationship had changed: he’d always tried to bully, now he expected to be obeyed, and when he’d asked Hilken to wait at the Hansa Haus for a telephone call, it was issued as an order.
In the hall below his office, seamen from ships washed up by the war were gathering round the piano, as they did most evenings. A few cheap beers, a distribution of letters from home, and by nine o’clock they were ready to sing. Floating up the stairs a Plattdutsch shanty he’d heard countless times since the beginning of the war. At one time he used to hum the tune. There was a sudden swell as the door opened and his clerk brought in more papers: victualling orders, ships’ repairs, the day-to-day business of the Line. He tried to settle to them but found it impossible to anchor his thoughts.
‘Is it true?’ Miss Dilger had demanded on the telephone. ‘Was my brother doing what they said — those diseases?’ She’d been quite hysterical. All lies, he’d assured her; spies trying to discredit Germany. It wasn’t the first time the enemy had tried this sort of propaganda. ‘Believe me, Miss Dilger, they made up the story because they hate us and hope America will as well,’ he’d said, and she was desperate to believe him. She had scrubbed their basement and repeated her brother’s lies to neighbours and spies without question or complaint. When Hilken had spoken of patriotic duty she had cut him — ‘I love my brothers,’ she’d said, and that was enough. When the time was ripe, Carl Dilger would resume the work and she would cook, clean and look the other way as before.
‘Is that Mr Hilken?’ he heard someone say. After so long, the tinkling of the telephone bell had startled him and he’d dropped the receiver. ‘Mr Hilken?’ The line crackled and hissed like an old phonograph. ‘Mr Paul Hilken?’
‘I’m Hilken,’ he replied.
‘John Devoy.’
‘Yes, Mr Devoy, I’ve been waiting for your call.’
‘Your friend’s gone.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Of course I am — I saw him go aboard myself.’
Hilken closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
‘Are you there, Hilken?’
‘Yes, I’m here,’ he said, ‘thank you, Mr Devoy. Thank you. A weight off my mind, I can tell you.’
Perhaps he’d said more than was wise because the Irishman growled something inaudible and hung up the telephone.
Hilken was too relieved to care. He’d said harsh things about the Irish after the von Rintelen affair, but honestly, thank God for them! He took another deep breath: they’d almost tied up all the loose ends. What a state he’d worked himself into. Rising from the desk, he stepped into the corridor to instruct the clerk to arrange for his motor car. Then he poured a drink. He was carrying it to one of the armchairs at the hearth when there was a sharp rap at the door.
‘Yes.’
There was no response. ‘Come in,’ he shouted impatiently in German. This time the visitor knocked more forcefully. Exasperated after a tense evening, he walked back to the door, ready to give him the sharp edge of his tongue. The stranger was dressed as a petty officer in a pea jacket and bosun’s cap, his face thin, his eyes dark and hostile.
‘Hello, Hilken,’ he said, barging into the room.
They’d talked about breaking in and rummaging the safe but the Hansa Haus was never at rest. From a doorway across the street, Wolff had listened to the pianist thumping out the old tunes and the singing of a rowdy chorus. Some of the songs he’d learnt in a Wilhelmshaven beer cellar when spying felt like an adventure and a respectable profession for a gentleman. ‘Every night sing — wait until they sing,’ Masek had counselled. ‘Then they will be too drunk and sad to notice a stranger.’ Somewhere in the shadows of the street he was waiting to be sure Wolff was safe. He must have noticed Hilken at the first-floor window, and watched Wolff turn up the collar of his coat and cross the street to follow a group of seamen inside.
‘Who are you?’ Hilken stammered at last.
Wolff placed a hand in the middle of his chest and gave him a shove. ‘This won’t take long. I see you have a drink — why don’t you sit and finish it?’
‘How dare you touch me,’ he protested, angrily brushing Wolff’s arm aside. ‘Who the hell do you think…’
