Legacy of a Spy (5 page)

“It’s an Olympic run, you know. I believe it’s rather fast,” she said. “If this is your first day, Mr. Wyman, I suggest you try another one first.” Sensible girl, thought Slater. “I have a luncheon engagement,” she added, “or I would take the Kaseralm to the village of Kirchberg and come back by train.”

“I’ve been down the Streif before,” said Wyman. “There’s nothing to it.” He turned to her. “Europeans aren’t the only skiers in the world, Fräulein Wieland.”

“I see,” she shrugged.
“If that’s the case, Mr. Wyman, after you.”

Wyman pushed off and went straight down. Slater watched him hit the first turn at least fifty yards below. Wyman took it wide open and gracefully and surely, his weight well forward and on the downhill side. Slater shook his head. There was no doubt about it, Wyman could ski.

Fräulein Wieland went next. She rode her skis easily, checking her speed occasionally, keeping them well under control. She was beautiful to watch. Slater was mesmerized by the long fluid motion of her body, as she maneuvered her skis in several long turns and disappeared below.

Slater pushed off. He turned repeatedly, trying to get the feel of the deep powder snow, hoping to regain his ski legs and make up in one run for two years of no practice. As he rounded the turn, he saw Fräulein Wieland below. She had stopped, and Wyman was nowhere in sight. He was probably halfway down by now. Slater skied up to her. When she saw who it was, she started to move off.

“Wait,” said Slater. “Don’t go away.” She hesitated. “I want to apologize for being so stupid.”

Fräulein Wieland regarded him frankly and critically for a moment. “All right,” she smiled slowly. “I accept. Anyway,” she added, “apparently my escort has left me behind, and I don’t think anyone should ski the Streif alone.”

“I agree,”
said
Slater, “but you’re a beautiful skier. You certainly won’t have any trouble.”

“I have skied since I was a child,” she said simply. “Anyone can have an accident on skis.”

Slater was flattered that she spoke to him in German.

“I could use some instruction,” he said. “I’m a little out of practice.”

“I thought you were doing very well,” she said. “Go ahead and I will watch you.”

Slater left her, feeling very self-conscious. He resisted the crazy impulse to take the trail straight. He would have liked to impress her. Instead, he tried to control his speed and practice his turns. It was very steep, and he continued his run until he was below the timberline.
He christied to a stop and turned to look for Fräulein Wieland.
She pulled up neatly beside him just as he turned.

“You do very well,” she said. “Apparently, your legs are in good condition. Perhaps you are not getting your weight quite far enough forward. Otherwise, I would say you are very good.”

“Thank you. I did better than I thought I would. What’s your name?”

“Ilse Wieland. What’s yours?”

“Bill Slater.”

“It is nice to meet you, Bill Slater.”

Slater felt like a schoolboy again. He thought that was the nicest sentence he’d ever heard, and he couldn’t think of anything to say. He looked down and realized for the first time that he had stopped on a knoll, that immediately below, the trail was very narrow and looked as steep as the inside of a cup. It was a plunge of at least a hundred yards with no turn-off except at the end of a short level stretch that curved away, out of sight, into the woods. Once he started over the lip, he would be committed to going straight the whole distance. It was probably icy, way down there in the trees.

Ilse looked down with him. “It is quite steep,” she said, “but you will do all right.” Slater flushed. “Oh, please,” she was immediately upset, “don’t be embarrassed. I meant nothing.”

“That’s all right,” Slater said hastily. “I am a little afraid. I didn’t mean to show it.”

Much to his surprise, he found himself smiling at her, ruefully perhaps, but smiling. It was the first time in ten years he had ever admitted to anyone but himself that he was afraid of anything. It felt surprisingly good.

“I think I’ll do all right, Ilse, but you better go first. I don’t want to clutter up the trail and force you to crash into a tree or something.”

“I trust you, Bill. You can go first.”

“Please go ahead.” His smile was quite gentle. “I won’t be offended.”

Slater knew German well. He spoke it with ease. He was well aware of the important difference between the polite and “du” form of address. Germans who had known one another for years rarely used anything but the formal “Sie,” yet Bill found himself calling Ilse by her first name and referring to her as “du.” It wasn’t until she had started over the lip that he realized she had responded in the same way.

He watched her anxiously, as she rapidly picked up speed. By the time she hit bottom, she looked like a little bug. He estimated that she must have been going at least fifty miles an hour. She hit the flat track between the trees, her little black figure standing upright and as sure as if the skis were glued to the snow, and disappeared around the corner.

Slater muttered a “here goes nothing” to himself and began the crazy plunge down the side of the mountain. The wind tore at his clothes. His ski pants, flapping against his legs, sounded like a partridge taking off in the brush. His eyes stung as he crouched lower and lower and felt the trees go whipping past. He zoomed into the flat, going at least a mile a minute. He straightened up slowly, took the turn at the far end still standing and managed to stop himself in a snow-spraying turn about fifty yards beyond. He rubbed his smarting eyes and looked for Ilse. She was pulling herself out of the snow about twenty yards above him.

“Are you all right, Ilse?” he yelled.

“Yes, but I could use some help.”

The snow on the sides of the trail was very deep and soft, and he could see that she was having difficulty getting herself out.

“What happened?” asked Bill as he walked up to her and offered his arm so she could pull herself up on her feet.

He had removed his skis and stacked them in the snow. Ilse’s right ski was buried in the snow, and he waded in, thigh deep and managed to unfasten her harness.

“What a relief! Thank you.”

She stood up and brushed off the snow. Her face was wet, and snow clung to her eyebrows and copper hair. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes looked greener than ever.

“I made the turn all right, and then I started thinking about you.” She looked at him and smiled. “The next thing I knew, I was neck deep in snow.”

“Every copper-haired, green-eyed Fraulein should be covered with snow,” said Slater. “It’s very becoming.”

“Dankeschoen!”
Ilse looked up at him expectantly.

“Bitte schoen!”
Bill was about to take her in his arms when they were both startled by someone shouting, “Track!” They got off the trail just as a skier rushed past them and stopped in a violent christy about twenty yards beyond. Bill immediately recognized the green and white sweater. It was Wyman.

Bill got back on the trail and walked down to his skis, wondering how the devil he and Ilse had passed him. There were no turnoffs. Either Wyman had something special to do, someone to meet, or that conversation at the top of the trail between him and Ilse was deliberately staged and Ilse had been left behind to find out more about the brown-haired American who had tried to get her ticket.

Bill was angry with himself. He had no business flirting with some Fraülein, even if she was beautiful—especially if she was beautiful. He put on his skis and started off without a word, letting himself go wide open the rest of the way down through the timber, out onto the steep open slopes, past a wooden goatherder’s hut and down again over the practice slope. He turned in his skis at the red rental shack and walked to the hotel. There were things he had to do. He couldn’t fritter away his time, skiing all over Kitzbühel.

BACK AT THE HOTEL, he changed into Carmichael’s clothes again and found his way through the back streets to the Eggerwirt, the pension at which Webber had stayed.

The little back streets were slushy, and Bill had to share them with horse-drawn carts and hand-drawn sleds with wooden runners. The boardinghouse was just beyond
a sawmill
. The Eggerwirt was typical of the hundred or so pensions in Kitzbühel: a steep roof with a foot of white frosting on top, scrollwork edging the roof and a wooden balcony on the second floor. Bill entered the main door, framed with stacked skis, and went along a corridor to a door with a small sign which read “Büro!” He knocked on the office door, and a gaunt young man with steel-rimmed spectacles told him there were no vacancies.

“I’m not looking for a room,” said Bill. “I’m looking for a friend by the name of Heinz Mahler. I had a letter from him a week ago. I wondered if he was still here.”

“One moment.”
The young man was old before his time. He shambled, stoop-shouldered, to a wooden file in the corner and took out a folder. Bill wondered how a young man who lived in a place like Kitzbühel could be so pale and unhealthy looking.

“Yes,” he said, looking up from the folder, “just as I thought. Herr Mahler is here, but he intends to check out at noon today. He should be here at any—ah,” he looked over Slater’s shoulder, “here comes your friend now. Good afternoon, Herr Mahler. I have a pleasant surprise for you.”

Slater turned around and broke in quickly, his back to the proprietor. “Hello, Heinz! A good friend of ours told me I would find you here. I hope we have time for a drink before you leave.” Mahler looked perplexed. “We have a lot to talk over,” Slater added.

“Yes, we have,” Mahler said slowly. He knew this tall man must have some connection with Charlie Webber, but he’d expected an American, not a German. Mahler looked at Carmichael’s clothing. Nothing visible appeared typically German, but, on the other hand, his clothes didn’t look particularly American. Mahler was on his guard.

“May I have another hour before check-out time, Herr Nadler?” Mahler asked.

“Yes, yes, of course. Perhaps your friend will convince you to stay with us a little longer?” Nadler added.

Bill expected to see Nadler rubbing his hands.

“Come, Heinz,” said Bill. “I will show you a little café I have already discovered.”

“I see you haven’t changed a bit,” said Mahler, and the two men left the pension and walked back past
the sawmill
toward the main street.

Neither man said anything until they had gone a couple of hundred yards from the house. In ski clothes, Mahler looked at the moment much more like an American than Slater. Mahler was well under six feet, had black, short, curly hair above a wide forehead, and regular, smallish features. His build was athletic and wiry. Slater thought he was probably in his early thirties.

“Well, Herr—”

“Carmichael,” said Bill.

“What do you want from me?”

“Can you speak English, Herr Mahler?”

“Only a little.
I am still learning.” Mahler frowned. “You are an American then?”

“Yes. I am a friend of Charlie Webber’s,” said Bill, smiling.

“A friend,” Mahler smiled, “or an enemy?”

Slater looked thoughtfully at Mahler, trying to make up his mind how far he could trust him. In ten years of counterespionage, Slater had not found any sure way to eliminate all the guesswork. There were times when you had to operate by intuition alone.
If you didn’t show trust in a man when you should, you couldn’t win his confidence later, and you couldn’t tell him enough of the truth to make him sufficiently useful.
If your impulse was wrong, and you exposed yourself to an enemy, well, that was that.

“Look here, Mahler,” said Slater, “I don’t know anything about you, beyond what Webber said in his letter to Putnam. Webber apparently liked and trusted you.”

“He had good reason to trust me.”

“Where is Webber now?” Slater asked.

“I don’t know.” Mahler appeared surprised at the question.

“What do you know, Mahler?”

“I know only that I have never seen you before, that you talk exactly like a German. Webber is an American. As far as I know, Herr Carmichael, I was the only German friend he had.”

“You also know now,” said Slater, “that I have read Webber’s letter; otherwise I couldn’t have known about you.”

“I didn’t read the letter!” Mahler was indignant. “I only mailed it. You could have intercepted—or stolen it.”

“True, Mahler,” said Slater, his mind made up, “I could have, but I didn’t, and I am an American.” Slater produced Carmichael’s passport. “You’ve seen enough of these at the Bundesbahn Hotel to know the genuine article.”

Mahler looked it over carefully. “You could still be working against Webber.” Mahler’s glance was shrewd. “Another American was.”

“Do you know his name?” Slater asked quickly.

“No. And I don’t know his reasons for disliking Webber.”

“Did Webber tell you where he was going?”

Mahler hesitated, and then said. “Yes. He said he was going back to the American Consulate in Zurich.”

“Did you know that he never got there?”

“I assumed that he did not.”

“Why?” asked Bill. “How could you have assumed that?”

“He promised to send me a card, if he had made it.” Mahler paused. “I never received that card.”

Slater tried to think of a way to establish himself with Mahler. Europeans were much less gullible than Americans, and Mahler wasn’t going to be easy to convince. Slater tried again.

“Why, if you know that Webber is missing, do you suspect me? The fact that I am trying to find him should be proof that I mean him no harm.”

“Because I know,” said Mahler, “you are not his personal friend.”

“True,” said Slater, “but I’m not his enemy and I must find him.”

“Then why don’t you produce some official papers and tell me you’re from the American police or something? After all,” Mahler continued, “Webber is an official in your Foreign Office.”

Mahler might look American, Slater reflected, but his respect for official papers was German to the core.

“Look, Mahler,” said Slater, shaking his head, “you’ve got to trust me! You’re the only direct contact with Webber I know. As for the lack of papers, let us say that my government prefers, for the moment anyway, not to do anything in an official way.”

“Why?”

Slater looked at Mahler’s serious, stubborn face, looked desperately at the sky, and suddenly began to laugh.

“Dammit to hell, Mahler.
You are the most stubborn man I’ve ever met. To use a favorite expression of mine, you are a pistol!”

“I am a—revolver?” Mahler looked perplexed. “What kind of an expression is that?”

“Never mind.”
Slater laughed harder than ever. “Look,” he said finally, “Webber’s enemy is a man named Wyman who also works in the Zurich Consulate. Charlie Webber had reason to believe that Wyman was working for another government, and followed him down here to make sure. Wyman must have gotten suspicious and had Webber tailed. Now Webber has disappeared. I have been assigned by my government to find out what happened and why.”

“Wyman was working with Communists?” asked Mahler.

“Presumably, but so far there is no positive proof that he’s doing anything wrong. The United States wouldn’t exactly care to announce to the world that one of the members of its Foreign Service had been kidnaped by another member who is a Communist agent.”

“Yes,” Mahler nodded slowly, “I can see that.” He looked up at Slater. “You were afraid I might be a Communist.”

“We have them in our country,” said Slater.

“Did Charlie say in his letter that I was a—”

“—a prisoner of war in Russia,” Slater finished the question. “Yes, he did. POW’s have been brain-washed.”

“Not this one.” Heinz Mahler smiled for the first time. The smile made him look very boyish. “I will do anything I can to
help,
Herr Carmichael, but I don’t see what I can do. I have to go back to my job.”

“Can you possibly extend your vacation?”

“Perhaps,” said Mahler, “but I have no money.”

“Don’t worry about money. I’ll take care of that.”

“I don’t want your money,” Mahler said quickly. “Charlie Webber is my friend, and,” he smiled again. “I’m not very impressed with Communism.”

“Neither am
I, Heinz,” said Slater, “
but I get paid. People still have to live.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Mahler.

“Well,” Slater smiled, “you might start off by answering some of my questions for a change.” They both laughed at that.

“I have no idea where Charlie is now,” Mahler began, “but I do know the name of one of the men who was following him.”

“The one who lived at the Eggerwirt?”

“Yes. He is called Stadler, Fritz Stadler. He has a German passport.”

“Webber described him,” said Slater, “as having a face like a waxed apple.”

“Is that another American expression?”

“No,” Slater chuckled.

“I like your American expressions. I don’t understand them, but they’re very comical,” said Mahler.

“They gain something in translation.” Slater smiled. “Is Stadler still at the inn?”

“Yes. He seems to be staying indefinitely.”

“Would you say that he is keeping an eye on you?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t know. I’ve seen him talking with the other man Charlie suspected. I don’t know his name, but he is also here.”

Slater tried to assess what little information he now had. One thing was certain, he and Heinz Mahler had to organize their meeting times and places. Fortunately, on this occasion, the weather was beautiful, and a noontime stroll through the small back streets of the town was as good a way to get acquainted as any. Stadler and his rustic friend must be at least aware of Mahler, so there wouldn’t be much use in his trying to follow them; but Mahler could call him and let him know when Stadler was in or had just left. Slater debated telling Mahler of his dual existence, but decided to wait.

Finally, Slater said, “I will be at the Winterhof Hotel this evening. I expect to enter the dining room with Wyman, if possible. If I’m not with him, I will arrange to sit near him. I will find some way to point him out to you. To cover all possible times, I want you to be there, preferably at the center table, from six p.m. on until, let’s say, nine o’clock. If I haven’t shown up by then, forget about me.

“Tomorrow, if things go as scheduled, I will phone you and tell you what time I plan to go skiing. That will mean that Wyman has just left in his ski clothes. Incidentally, he wears black ski pants and a green and white ski sweater. I want you to go, as quickly as possible, to the red ski-rental shack near the practice slope and pick him up there. I want you to follow him and try to remember everyone he talks to, and what trails he takes.”

Heinz Mahler repeated the instructions carefully.

“One more thing, Mahler,” said Slater. “If you have a girl friend, it would be better if you could bring her along tonight—and tomorrow as well, if she’s a good skier. On second thought,” Slater continued, “you’d better bring a different one tomorrow, if you can arrange it.” He grinned.

“There are plenty,” Mahler smiled. “Anyhow, those who are good skiers eat too much.”

“I’m happy to know,” said Slater, “that I didn’t exhaust your supply of girl friends.”

“That’s not easy to do with a Rhinelander.” Mahler made a low graceful bow.

Slater found himself returning it.

“Here’s some money,” said Slater. “I’ll see you this evening.”

Mahler took the money reluctantly.

“Don’t you want a receipt?” he asked.

“No,” Bill smiled. “This is tax free.”

Mahler grinned and turned back down the narrow street. He waved and disappeared around the corner.

Slater stared after him for a few moments. Receipts were sometimes valuable. They were proof that a man had worked for you and could constitute a hold for the continuation of his services. Slater believed that, for the present at least, Mahler was acting out of sympathy for a friend and possibly ideologically against Communism, but that could change should some more important motivation or pressure come along. Suppose the German government had its own ax to grind and requested Mahler to act for his country in some way counter to United States’ interests? Suppose money was offered by any other government? Money was the greatest temptation of all. A man in Mahler’s position, as desk clerk at a crossroads hotel, could be very useful to a lot of people. He should have asked for a receipt. The threat of giving it to the appropriate German authorities, as proof that Mahler was working for a foreign power, might deter him from acting contrary to Slater’s wishes, and it might secure Mahler’s services in the future.

Slater shook his head and turned back toward his hotel. This was a dirty business, and he must be getting soft, but he had always believed that it was much better to motivate a man positively than negatively with potential threats. He differed in this aspect of his profession with some of the best operators in the business.