We thought it would be a good idea to put in a photo of ERICH. Here he is at our 1991 ‘Patrol’ in Chicago - always with another lady, bless his heart.

Synopsis

In Chapter 1 (KTB #148) ERICH begins his career as a spy, and he lets us know of his love of beautiful women. In Chapter 2 (KTB #149), he was transferred home to Germany and his shipboard romance with Karen ended. In Chapter 3 (KTB #151) he began his training as a spy - and he learned that a spy who falls in love with an enemy spy - gets shot! In Chapter 4 (KTB #152) we read where ERICH himself falls for a woman who turned out to be a German spy herself and her job was to lure German spies in training to betray themselves - and ERICH is nearly washed out of spy training. In Chapter 5 (KTB #153) we learned that ERICH was to be in charge of Operation PELIKAN, the plan to blow up the Panama Canal with two Ju 87 STUKA dive bombers brought over on two U-boats. At the last moment, it was thought by the German agency, that someone had tipped off the Americans to this plot, so the plan was scrapped. In Chapter 6 (KTB #154 and KTB #155) we read how ERICH and the Abwehr tried to find him a partner for his mission into the USA with the intended purpose of sabotaging the Manhattan Project - the atomic bomb project in the United States. In Chapter 7 (KTB #156) we read about the Atlantic crossing to the USA where ERICH and Billy were to be put ashore to assault the ‘Manhattan Project’. In Chapter 8 (KTB #157), the two agents landed on the coast of Maine, ready to begin their sabotage of the atomic bomb project. In Chapter 9 (KTB #158) ERICH gets the shock of learning that Billy has taken all the money and the diamonds, and deserted not only the mission, but ERICH as well. In the first part of Chapter 10 (KTB #159) ERICH is trying desperately to find Billy - and get his $60,000 and diamonds back. In the balance of Chapter 10, we see how ERICH outwitted Billy and got his suitcases, filled with money and spy equipment back - at Billy’s expense but in the meantime to nobody’s surprise, ERICH has found another woman.

Chapter 11: Billy Betrays Me to the F.B.I.

I took in every detail of her face, the high vaulted brow, the slender nose, the delicate, made-up lips, the unaffected, almost invisible smile, the long hair lying casually just as it fell. I stared at her, pondering at the same time how the outsize revolver I was holding could be made inconspicuously to disappear.

“How did you get there?” I asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she countered. She closed the door and came a few steps nearer. She walked on her high heels with such assurance and such gracefulness that she might have come into the world wearing them.

“I am a friend of Paolo’s,” I explained.

“And I’m a friend of his too,” she said.

I had at length succeeded in shoving the revolver back into my pocket where it was making an ugly bulge. On the radio a jazz drummer was demonstrating his skill in a passage which lasted a full minute. I felt as if my head was being used as the drum.

“Paolo has gone away,” I continued, “and has placed his apartment at my disposal for a few days.”

“That’s not bad,” said the girl. “He must have several keys. He gave me one too. I’ve got the decorators in my own flat; the place reeks of paint and that’s one thing I can’t stand.”

I decided to introduce myself. “My name is Edward Green.”

“I’m Joan Kenneth,” she said.

“In the circumstances I’ll move out, of course,” I said. “You must have priority.”

“Well, well, so there are still a few gentlemen left in the world. But actually there’s no need for you to go; after all there are several rooms, aren’t there?”

I nodded and stood there feeling rather embarrassed. Evidently she liked my reserve. She had no idea, of course, that I was less concerned with her reputation than with my mission.

“Well isn’t there anything to drink here?” She asked.

“The whisky’s over there. If you’d have arrived half an hour later you’d have to drink milk.”

“Oh, I always appear at the right moment.”

ERICH appears to be having some fantastic luck. We have had some luck here too, and one of our retired (?) ‘Spooks’, who does not wish to be identified, has located ERICH’s old friend (?) Billy, whom we know as William Colepaugh! There will be more information as it comes available. Lucky guy - so far.

She took off her coat, went into the bathroom for a minute or two and then reappeared. “I’ll take the bedroom,” she said. “You can stay in the living-room. Turn the wireless on a bit louder. It’s Tommy Dorsey, isn’t it? Do you like him?”

“Sure, I do.”

“We’ll make ourselves comfy. Or do you still want to move out?”

“Not necessarily.”

“There you are, you see,” she said. “And now come with me into the kitchen and give me a hand. Or aren’t you hungry?”

“I’m not hungry but I’ve got an appetite,” I replied.

We made hamburgers and they tasted heavenly. We found two bottles of beer and drank up the rest of the whisky. We listened to Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Louis Armstrong. Now and again the band stopped playing and a voice from the ether told us how many tons of explosive had been unloaded over the various cities of Germany.

“The war will soon be over,” said Joan, “thank God.”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Have you ever been in the services?”

“Yes, I was a naval officer.”

“My brother was, too. He was killed..............at Pearl Harbor, right at the beginning.”

“To hell with the Japanese,” I said.

We lit a cigarette.

“It’s nice here,” said Joan. “I hate sitting around in restaurants in the evening but I also hate being alone.”

“I’m just the same myself.”

“You’re not an American, are you?”

I felt my heart turn over. Suddenly the warmth and comfort of the evening was dispelled. The alarm has sounded. Was she an agent of the F.B.I.? Was she but a charming trap? Was she a precursor of the hangman?

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“You speak like a European, like a Scandinavian.”

“My parents were Norwegians,” I answered.

“Why are you so tense about it?” she asked. “I wouldn’t mind a scrap if my parents had been Norwegian. Oh, Europe! Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Rome.......Oh, damn this war!” She picked up her handbag, turned to me and said: “Good night. I hope I won’t disturb you getting up early. I have a little dress shop and I have to be first in.”

“Good night,” I said.

I listened to the radio for another hour. Joan had been to the bathroom and had then gone back into the bedroom. If the F.B.I. were already on my trail why should they post a woman agent here to watch me all night? Why didn’t they come at once and arrest me? Clap-trap, I told myself. But then it occurred to me how very little notice Joan had taken of my revolver and how few questions she had asked me.

I went to bed with the last drop of whisky. I woke up five or six times. By four or five o’clock in the morning I had reached the point where I was indifferent to everything, and in that state of mind I settled down to five hours sleep.

When I awoke Joan had already gone. So as not to waken me she had had her breakfast in the kitchen; her cup was still on the table, a tiny trace of lipstick on the rim. I washed the cup, took a shower, ate two hamburgers left over from the night before and went on my way to Mr. Brown on 41st Street, 8th floor, to talk with him on a matter of atomic espionage..........

I turned the corner three times and made sure I was not being followed, thinking meanwhile how lovely it would be to sit by the Christmas tree with Joan instead of chasing off after the Manhattan project, to celebrate the festival of love and peace instead of working in the service of war.

Here it was. 41st Street. I took the lift up to the 8th floor. The red-haired secretary considered for a moment whether she would attend to her fingernails or take notice of me. She finally decided for me. “You’re in luck today,” she said. “Mr. Brown is in. Actually you meant to come yesterday, didn’t you?”

“I intended to,” I said, “but it’s never too late to see you, or is it?”

“Oh, oh,” she countered. “There’s a boxing match on this evening. If you’d care to get some tickets, I’ll come with you.”

“I’d rather go to a theatre,” I replied.

“We’ll talk it over when you come out,” she said. She put her nail varnish down, went into Brown’s room and reappeared in a minute or two. Brown was a small man with a somewhat agitated manner. He got up from his chair and greeted me with outstretched arms.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“First make the walls and doors sound-proof,” I said.

He seemed taken back for a few seconds. “I don’t do any secret business here,” he said.

“You might,” I said, “just a bit.”

He sat down and offered me a cigar, which I refused.

“From 1938 to 1942 you worked for the German Secret Service,” I began. “For your services you received in all 64,293 dollars and 40 cents. You were supposed to have paid your sub-agents with the money. You were the only man who escaped the wave of arrests that went on at that time. I am here now to see that you give value for money.” He looked as if his limbs had turned to water. His eyes opened wide like the eyes of a rabbit about to be devoured by a snake.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“As far as you are concerned my name is Kenneth W. Smith,” I replied. I paused for a while and looked out of the window wondering whether the red-haired secretary could hear our conversation, then I continued: “I am from Germany, from Berlin. If you will give me your assistance nothing will happen to you.....you did some very good work on the previous occasion.”

“You must be crazy,” he said. “Things were different then. Now Germany has lost the war.” He stood up and paced the room, throwing his arms about and muttering inarticulately. He paused by the telephone. “What if I call the F.B.I.?” he asked.

“They’d hang you,” I replied. “and me as well, of course. They don’t pull their punches. Anyone who has once worked against America can expect no mercy. You don’t need me to tell you that.”

He nodded. “I have a family,” he said. “I have built up some sort of life for myself. The war is lost for Germany, but by God I’d have liked to see her win it. I hate America! For ten, fifteen years I washed dishes, was pushed around by every street-corner cop, had to put up with every Tom, Dick and Harry calling me a dirty bastard.”

“But now you have a flourishing business,” I replied, “and a pretty secretary. And you got it all with the money that came from Berlin.” I went to the window, looked down into the street and turned round to face Brown again. “I’m giving you a fair deal,” I said. “I will trouble you only once more if you tell me what I want to know. Introduce me to the people I want to get in touch with and you will be free. As far as we are concerned you will be dead, regardless of what may happen afterwards.”

I felt sorry for the man. My visit must have been a terrible shock for him, but I dared not take pity on him. Who felt any pity for me? Once you’ve walked on the devil’s highway you gave to go on walking there whether you want to or not.

“What do you want to know?” asked Brown.

“All there is to know about the Manhattan project,” I replied.

This obviously wasn’t the first he’d heard of it. He grasped the situation immediately. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Then it’s the end.”

“Then it’s the end,” I assured him. I was on the point of leaving when he said: “Have you any money?”

“Yes, I’ve got a whole heap of money.”

“Will you take a bit of good advice?”

“Yes, I can always do with that.”

Spy for Germany

Chapter 7: To America by Submarine (KTB # 156)
Chapter 8: The Landing in America (KTB # 157)
Chapter 9: Tricked by Billy in NYC (KTB # 158)
Chapter 10 (I): I Work Out My Own Situation (KTB # 159)
Chapter 10 (II): I Work Out My Own Situation (KTB # 160)
Chapter 11 (I): Billy Betrays Me to the F.B.I. (KTB # 161)
Chapter 11 (II): Billy Betrays Me to the F.B.I. (KTB # 162)
Chapter 13 (I): Grilled by the FBI (KTB # 165)
Chapter 13 (II): Grilled by the FBI (KTB # 166)