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. In chapter 11, ERICH is doing well with this new woman, an old contact is going to tell him about the Manhattan Project - but his time is running out and Billy is about to betray him to the F.B.I.

Chapter 12: Love -- and then Arrest!

(ED NOTE - An F.B.I. agent was tailing Erich)

All was quiet behind me. The F.B.I. man was still standing at the reception desk and the two ladies were still discussing the Ardennes offensive. The sound of their voices carried to where I was moving and I could make out a word here and there. The porter left his desk again and went upstairs. Somewhere a radio was on quietly. The sun suddenly burst out and shone clear and strong through the window. A white-capped chef was making his way along the narrow corridor and I had to step aside to allow him to pass.

“Thank you, sir,” he said and raised his hand to his cap.

The door responded to my touch. The tradesmen’s entrance was open. This was pure chance, due perhaps to the negligence of some member of the staff. I tried to shake off my nervousness.

“Keep calm,” I admonished myself.

Slowly, with the utmost caution, I opened the door, afraid that the hinges might squeak. But they had evidently been recently oiled.

The F.B.I. man could not see me from where he was standing, but he must have been expecting me to reappear at any moment. He would be getting suspicious. I wondered why he had not acted already. Why hadn’t he simply put his hand to his revolver & said: “Edward Green! You are under arrest. I warn you that from this moment anything you say may be used in evidence against you.”

I was standing in the yard. It was in the form of a small quadrangle with a drive-in for the delivery vans. This stood open. To the left against wall of the hotel two men were working on a lorry. One was lying underneath it and the other was standing in the cab. They took no notice of me.

I walked slowly, very slowly. I had closed the door behind me. Surely the F.B.I. man must have noticed something by now; I was still twenty yards from the drive-in. A private car was standing in my path, a sky-blue Chevrolet of the latest type. The owner must have known all the right people. During the war there were plenty of jeeps being made but not many Chevrolets.

The two mechanics were shouting to each other but I could not understand what they were saying. I went up to the Chevrolet. Another five yards. Now I was level with it, and I saw something which made me catch my breath. The ignition key was in its place. I pulled myself together, glanced round at the two mechanics and looked back at the door I had come through. I sized up the way out. Everything was quiet. Everything was the same. Everything seemed to be going along as usual.

Now for it. The door was ajar. I seated myself at the steering wheel and pressed the starter. The engine started up straight away. Now down on the accelerator, slowly release the clutch. Turn left. Look in the mirror. A little more acceleration. Change to second gear. Now one more look in the mirror. Turn to the right. Accelerate again, third gear........

Now away! I took the first two curves so sharply that the back wheels scraped along the curbstones. Right, left, straight ahead. The red light. Amber. The green light. Accelerate. Turn to the left. Straight ahead. Across the main road. Now slowly. Drive slowly. Take care not to arouse attention.

I looked at my wristwatch. I’ll use the car for five minutes, I thought. The two mechanics must have noticed the theft at once. They would report the number to the traffic police, and the police had wireless cars. Everything would move forward at a great pace. If you want to steal a car it’s just as well not to do it in America.

I crossed Times Square, did a few more zigzags, making sure that in my excitement I was not driving round in circles. I found a parking place. Turn right, and now out! For the first twenty yards, I walked quite slowly, then I crossed over to the other side of the street, took a left turn, increased my pace, then jumped into a taxi.

“Quickly now,” I said to the driver, naming a railway station. “If you can make it in ten minutes, I’ll just catch my train.”

“Depends on the traffic,” replied the driver shaking his head. “People are always in a hurry and yet I often have to stand around for hours waiting for a fare.”

I replied in the same strain, meanwhile taking an occasional look behind me. The taxi was not being followed. How many F.B.I. men might be there after me now? The officer in the hotel would have given his first alarm. They would have found the car by now but I was still a couple of jumps ahead. I leapt out of the taxi, paid off the driver and gave him a dollar tip. I ran into the station, up to the platform and came out again.

The taxi driver had obviously driven on at once.

I continued on foot. How lovely New York was at this hour. The people seemed so gay, the Christmas bells were ringing joyously and the sound of fun and laughter could be heard everywhere. The passers-by were carrying bulky parcels, last minute purchases, and excited children were running along at their heels.

“Merry Christmas,” resounded from every loudspeaker.

“Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.”

“Flowers,” I said to myself. “A handkerchief, a few pleasant little trifles.” I got everything I wanted, took a taxi, changed taxis, went a stretch on foot and arrived at the door of the apartment house. I pressed the lift button and was carried up to the 11th floor.

I could not find my key and rang the bell. For a few seconds my nerves nearly failed me again. Suppose they were waiting for me here? Suppose the F.B.I. were behind the doors? Suppose they were armed?

Yes, someone was waiting for me. Joan...... She smiled at me. “Darling, you look exhausted,” she said.

“Yes,” I replied. “New York’s a strenuous place.”

“You’ve come at just the right moment,” she went on. “I’ve put up the Christmas tree and the turkey’s in the oven. Now you can make yourself useful.”

We hung the bright bubbles on the tree together. “We’ll decorate it the European way,” she said. “I’ll like it better like that. I intend that my first Christmas after the war shall be spent in Europe.”

“Plans.........dreams.......they’re the best things there are,” I said.

“But I believe in them.” She turned to me and smiled. “You are an old pessimist,” she said. “After all, you’ve still got the best years of life in front of you, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. We had finished decorating the Christmas tree. The wireless was on and the music sounded sweet, soothing, alluring. It was as if the spirit of the festival of peace was flowing from the instrument and drawing us ever more into its embrace. We sat together quietly; there was no need to talk.

The meaning of Christmas and how it should be celebrated is something you’ll never find in a textbook for secret agents. The previous year I had been in Spain for Christmas. There were plenty of good things to eat. When the faithful were setting out for Midnight Mass we were lying about on the floor. When they were getting ready to go to Matin’s we were trying to clear our thick heads with more alcohol. Two years previously I had spent Christmas in Holland. On the day before Christmas Eve two German agents had been shot. Two days later an English agent lay in his grave.

Christmas! What was Christmas? Flickering candlelight, the mild, loveable fragrance of scorched pine branches, the excited exuberant joy of children. As I sat there at Joan’s side beneath the Christmas tree I felt something creep up my spine and catch my by the throat. Something said to me: “It’s Christmas for everyone else, but not for you!”

Swiftly, clearly, my memory swung back over the years, over the decades. I saw my father, my mother, my teacher before me. Once before when I was only eight or nine I had experienced this same heaviness of spirit. My friend’s father, bank cashier, had shot himself on Christmas Eve. 12,000 marks were missing. That year the spirit of Christmas passed me by, excluded me as it was excluding me now. I swallowed two glasses of whisky. Smiling, Joan removed the bottle from my reach.

“Not before you’ve eaten,” she said. We went into the kitchen to see how things were getting along. Everything was in order. We left the turkey to look after itself while we looked after ourselves.

And then came the radio news. They couldn’t leave us in peace on Christmas Eve. The Ardennes offensive had been crushed. Decisively. I wondered whether it was propaganda, and whether the Department for Psychological Warfare had cut the offensive short more quickly than General Eisenhower. I was the war’s last fool, holding out on an outpost that was already lost.

The War’s Last Fool…..

“This would be a good time for a transmission,” I thought. Actually all the separate components for my set had been ready for some time and were in a suitcase which was lying underneath a couch in this very room, the room which housed our Christmas tree. No one would be playing any special attention to radio communications on Christmas Eve, but my reports were not ready. The information I had had from Brown had first of all to be checked and then followed up. There were still some difficult days and weeks in front of me..........I only hoped that Billy had not yet been caught. I wondered where he might be at that moment.

“You look like a general after a lost battle,” said Joan.

“Have you ever seen a general?” I asked.

“Only on the screen,” she replied, laughing. “But on the screen they’re always victorious.”

“That’s why they are always much nicer in the cinema than in real life,” I replied. We took the turkey out of the oven, carved it and served it. It was beautifully tender and crisp. We sat facing each other, smiling, eating with enjoyment, toasting each other, going over to the radio now and again to see what programs we could get. We drank Rhine wine. You could still get it in New York.

“It goes well with the food,” I said.

“Yes,” said Joan. “Today every American soldier gets a turkey from the Army.”

“Yes,” I replied, “and there are still 300,000 turkeys to spare. That’s the number of men the war has lost us so far.”

“300,000 Americans,” she went on. “And how many English, French, German and Italian?”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

Joan stood up, walked over to the light switches, turned the ceiling light off and the wall light on. “There are two G.I.’s I knew who will never eat turkey again,” she said. “One was my brother.”

I nodded. Suddenly all the magic of the evening was gone.

“Don’t you want to know who the other one was?” she said.

“I can imagine.”

“It was Bob,” she continued. “He was tall and slim like you, and he had your fair hair. I was going to marry him. I had known him for three years. He was a lieutenant. This time last year Bob and I were celebrating together. Do you see now why I didn’t want to go back to my own flat? I didn’t want to be alone there.”

Christmas Continues with Erich and Joan

I said nothing, but got to my feet and paced up and down in the room. “I’m a fool,” she said. “Now I’ve gone and spoiled everything. But on an evening like this you just can’t help thinking.......He was killed in March. In the Pacific. Landing on one of those damned coral islands that aren’t worth a cent. And after that they gave him a medal.”

“They always give them a medal afterwards,” I replied. “Oh, there’s no sense in going over it all.”

She smiled at me. Her eyes were shining. She went up to the Christmas tree and lit the first candle. The she turned towards me and said: “You must light the second candle.”

“If you light them all,” I said, “they’ll burn all the more brightly.”

“You’re a flatterer,” she said, “but it does me good. Do you know, I thought this evening was going to be awful, and look how differently it’s turned out. I rather approach myself that I can forget so quickly, that I can suddenly feel so gay at being with you. I feel I shouldn’t be enjoying myself like this.”

I put my arm round her. Then I went and fetched my little parcel. “I’ve probably chosen all wrong,” I said.

“I put your flowers in a vase ages ago.”

“I’m sure you won’t like the handbag; I’ve no experience with these things.”

It’s lovely,” she replied. “And if you were more experienced in these things I shouldn’t like you nearly so much. But what nonsense. Of course you are experienced, but it doesn’t matter.” She took a tiny box from her handbag. “There,” she said, “this is for you.” It was a pair of gold cuff links. I still wear them.

The flickering candlelight caressed her face, illumining eyes, nose, brow. I could not take my eyes off her. I went on staring at her, and she liked it. She was not embarrassed, she was not coquettish. She was just herself. Just Joan.

We sat together on the couch. The music had come on again, and the magic had returned. It was as if there had never been a war, as it there would be no more fighting, as if never again would a mother tremble for her son and a wife tremble for her husband. It was quite simply as if even the most evil, the most unenlightened, the most dangerous of politicians had suddenly heard and understood the message of Bethlehem. For us there was no battlefield. There was only that sitting room on the 11th floor. I was not a German and she was not an American, and we loved each other and we did not need the banalities of speech to tell each other so. We knew it.

I do not know how long we sat there, silent, relaxed, happy. The candles burned down to tiny stumps, and we had to snuff them out. Their flickering light no longer played over Joan’s face but the fragrance and the magic of Joan were there in the dark,

“It’s strange,” she said. “Actually we know nothing about each other. It’s even more strange that we’ve never asked each other who we are, what we do and where we come from. But I feel that’s how it should be.” She frowned fleetingly.

“I feel as if I’ve always known you.”

“I feel just that way myself,” I replied.

We kissed, and I forgot all the things I should have remembered. The time, the place, my mission and the fact that I was hunted man. Agent 146 of the German M.I., the human machine, the man who went through with every mission that was entrusted to him without question - that man died for a few hours ago I sensed, I felt, I realized that I was human being with his hopes and longings like every other, a human being with a heart which had certain rights that no power nor state on earth could deny it. I realize all this that Christmas Eve in New York. In New York, the biggest city in the world, where the F.B.I. were after me like a pack of bloodhounds. I realized it all as I lay in Joan’s arms.

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 12 (I): Love -- and then Arrest! (KTB # 163)
Chapter 12 (II): Love -- and then Arrest! (KTB # 164)
Chapter 13 (I): Grilled by the FBI (KTB # 165)
Chapter 13 (II): Grilled by the FBI (KTB # 166)