Sleeper Agent (13 page)

There were about a hundred detainees in the 459th AAA enclosure. Tom and Larry selected their sergeant—a big ruddy-faced bruiser of a man with his right hand missing and a voice that seemed to orginate in his groin and nimble up through his barrel chest.

The sergeant lined up the men, and Tom and Larry walked along the rows inspecting the detainees mustered in the enclosure. A cold drizzle began to fall. Some of the detainees huddled against the chilly wetness. They would be the civilians who had no military training, Tom thought idly. Others stood at attention, oblivious to the weather. The ex-soldiers. A lot could be learned from very little. All you had to do was open your eyes.

As Tom walked along the line of men he looked briefly, searchingly into the face of each one of them. The trick was to appear as if you knew some deep, dark secret—pointing an accusing finger at just that one man. Tom had the look down pat. In his wake he left a string of captives, each worrying why
he
had been singled out for a penetrating all-knowing stare. Larry, following behind, would note each man whose concern seemed greater than normal. It was a crazy system. But it worked.

The detainees of the 459th AAA cage were true to form. All ages and all sizes; well dressed and in rags; well groomed and imbedded with the grime of defeat and retreat; ex-soldiers in stripped uniforms and civilians in every conceivable kind of clothing—an embroidered Bavarian jacket, a fur-collared ankle-length overcoat, a near-new tan trench coat, or no coat at all. But all of them apprehensive and hostile.

Only one man was obviously more apprehensive than the situation demanded. A small youngish man with eyes that avoided contact and hands that trembled slightly.

They ordered the burly German noncom to dismiss the men and to bring the shaky suspect to the little hut that served as quarters for the enclosure guard detail.

Larry took over the interrogation. “You know who we are?” he demanded brusquely.

The little man oozed the sweat of fear, “
Ja.”
He nodded. “American secret police.”

Larry looked fierce. Had to play the part bestowed upon him, after all. “Your papers!” He held out his hand.

With quavering hands the little German began a fidgety search through his pockets, coming up with a collection of dog-eared cards and smudged, crinkled papers.

Nervously he poured out a stream of words, giving the CIC agents his entire story, while gathering his ID from his numerous pockets.

He was a war correspondent. For a big important Swedish newspaper. He was born in Sweden of Swedish parents and was a Swedish subject. But his parents had moved to Germany when he was a small child. He had never been to Sweden, and he only knew a few words of the language. He had sent in his stories in German. To a large Stockholm paper. He had been on the Eastern front when it collapsed before the Russian onslaught, and he had secured permission from American front-line troops to-travel into Germany. He had been on his way to seek out and report to the proper military authorities when he had been picked up as a travel violator and thrown into the American concentration camp.

His voice took on a plaintive whine. He had
told
them who he was. That all he wanted was to go to Sweden to join his parents who had moved there just before the war.

Quite a story. Just unconventional and unbelievable enough to be true. And the man’s papers and ID corroborated his statement—including the obviously valid travel pass issued to him by a U.S. Infantry unit commander.

Tom contemplated the little man. Was his story true? Or at least partially true? Which meant, of course, partially untrue, as well. Any interrogator believes only half of what he’s told. A
good
one knows
which
half to believe! Okay, which was which? It
was
possible that his papers were genuine. It was also possible that they had been issued to him to go with a carefully planned cover story. It
was
possible that he’d been able to con an American Infantry officer, and it
was
just the sort of procedure a clever agent might adopt in order to get to the destination of his mission unmolested, realizing that without proper permits he’d be in constant danger of being picked up.

Larry was about to hand back the man’s papers to him. Tom stopped him. He turned to the German. “You are a writer,” he said pleasantly. “A journalist Must be interesting.”

The man started. Then he beamed nervously at Tom. “
Ja,
Herr Offizier,” he agreed, head bobbing. “Most interesting.”

“How long did you work for that Swedish newspaper?”

“Three years, Herr Offizier. Three years—plus.”

“All through the war. Must have been a little difficult, getting your stuff to Sweden?”

“Not at all, Herr Offizier. It was routine.”

“You used the mail?”

“Yes. Sweden is a neutral country. There is no difficulties with mail. It is quite efficient”

Tom nodded. “I see. And I suppose they could send their checks back to you. In payment And you had no trouble cashing them?”

“No trouble, Herr Offizier. There is very good business relations between Sweden and Germany.”

“Did the paper use a lot of your material?”

“Yes. Many stories. Many first-hand descriptions.”

Tom nodded. He handed the man a sheet of paper and a pencil. “Here,” he said. “Write the name of your paper for me. I’d be interested.”

“
Jawohl,
Herr Offizier.” The man wrote, meticulously printing the words.

Tom took the slip of paper. He glanced at it. Suddenly he began to laugh. At first he tried to hold back, but he soon capitulated. He laughed till he felt the tears gather in his eyes.

Larry looked at him, dumfounded. The German stared uncomprehendingly. But then the color began to drain from his pinched face as he began to suspect.

At last Tom turned to Larry. “Hold on to his papers,” he said. “That little bastard goes back to Army Interrogation Center. They’ve got the time to get the
truth
out of him!”

The German shivered. He seemed to shrivel. He stammered. “The . . . truth? But . . . I . . . I
have
told the truth!”

Tom suddenly dropped the merriment from his face. He glared at the cowering man. “Have you?” he snapped icily. “Stop lying!
Who
and
what
are you?”

The German tried to moisten his thin, dry lips. “
Ich
. . .
verstehe nicht,”
he whispered. “I . . . do not understand.”

“
That
I believe,” Tom said with scathing contempt “You’re too goddamned dumb! A war correspondent! A man who for three years plus has been sending stories to his newspaper in Sweden! And cashing checks! And you don’t even know how to
spell
the paper’s name!”

For once the little man’s eyes stayed riveted to one spot He stared at Tom. “But . . . I—”

“
But,
my ass! You made a very stupid mistake, my friend. A very
German
mistake.”

He held out the paper on which the man had written the name of his Swedish publication. “Look at it! Look at what you wrote!” He stabbed a finger at the words
SWENSKA DAGBLADET.

The German stared at the paper, his face an uncomprehending mask. He looked up at Tom almost pleadingly. He was unable to utter a word. He kept shaking his head in utter incomprehension.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Tom gave a short mirthless laugh. “Well, I’ll explain it to you. You wrote the name of your damned paper all right, the
Swedish Daily Paper"
—he pointed to the first word on the paper—"but you used a W in
Svenska
instead of a V! A
V,
you dumb bastard! That’s what it
should
be.” He looked at the man with disdain.

“You have never written a fucking line to that paper. You have only
heard
the name of it. You have never
seen
it written. On checks—or anywhere else! You think because W is pronounced as V by your
Master Race,
and V as F, it’s got to be the same in every other language! Well, it’s not In Swedish a V is a V—and sounds like a V! If you had been a correspondent for the
Svenska Dagbladet,
you’d damned well know that, even if you are a fucking German!”

The little man stared at Tom with eyes widening with growing horror and shock. He began to shake uncontrollably. He sank down in a chair and buried his face in his hands.

The two CIC agents watched him. They could almost see the thoughts churning convulsively within his head. He’d been trapped. Trapped by one tiny overlooked detail. What else had he overlooked? Where else had he slipped up?

Larry took him roughly by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet “Okay,” he growled. “
Now
let’s have your real story!”

Half an hour later they gave up.

The man was so frightened, so shattered, that he was incoherent. They could get nothing from him. All they knew was that he could not be connected with that damned Oberwiese shot He’d been right there in the 459th AAA detention enclosure at the time the shot was fired.

Larry looked with utter disgust at the broken man. “We might as well give him to Sloan to transport back to AIC,” he said. “Maybe he’ll calm down by the time he gets there. Right now he’s so damned scared, he’d go into a panic at the sound of his own fart!”

They turned the German over to a guard and started back to the battalion HQ. The drizzle had stopped. Larry was driving. Curiously he glanced at Tom. “How the hell did you know about that Swedish bit?” he asked.

“I guess my bout with European lit in college wasn’t a total loss.” Tom grinned. “I studied Lagerlöf and Söderberg. And Strindberg. His collection of short stories—
Swedish Fates and Adventures.
I didn’t speak Swedish, of course, but I did look at the original titles. Strindberg’s
Fates
was called
Svenska öden och äventyr.
And
Svenska
Was damned well spelled with a V!”

“I’ll be damned!” Larry shook his head. “My study of Swedish is limited to
skoal!"

“What more do you need?”

“Right now a good cold reason for showing off my entire Swedish vocabulary!” He grew sober. “I think we could both do with a little liquid cheer. It’s been a pisser of a day, that’s for sure.” He lapsed into silence.

Tom suddenly felt glum. A pisser of a day was right They’d gotten exactly nowhere with the Oberwiese shot investigation. And his secret hope of running into a Prague lead—okay, a KOKON lead—had petered out into a big fat nothing. One lousy suspect was all they had to show for their efforts. And
that
was below par for a detention camp screening.

He still had the nagging feeling of having overlooked something. At Oberwiese? At the AAA compound? Interrogating that fake correspondent? Some . . . clue? That was something else. Clues. How the hell did you know when you missed one? The clues that broke cases weren’t exactly neon signs that lit up when you got within a mile of them. They were stupid
little
things. They didn’t stand out from the tedious sea of trivia like some Loch Ness monster rising from the calm surface of a lake. The hell they did. They were little things that could have perfectly reasonable, logical and damned obvious explanations. They could be perfectly innocent Or—they could not.

A hell of a lot depended on that little word;
or.
Sometimes the difference between freedom
or
arrest Joy
or
anguish. Life
or
death.

All because of one damned little clue. One little mistake. Like a sentimental clinging to the wrong object. A missing match. A mix-up of organizations in some bastard’s mind. A misspelled word. So what
had
he missed?

They were driving past the detention compound. He glanced at the barbed-wire enclosure with the barn that served as shelter for the detainees.

One damned little clue. Something that meant nothing at all.
Or
everything. He suddenly sat bolt upright. He knew what it was that kept nagging him. That one little out-of-place clue. The belt! The goddamned belt on that guy’s trench coat!
The crease was wrong.

He was suddenly excited. His depression vanished. He
knew
he was onto something. He turned to Larry. “I got it!” he exclaimed.

“Keep it.”

“Turn back into the compound. I just figured out what’s been bugging me. I want to take a look at those jokers again!”

The burly German noncom did not allow his bewilderment or his annoyance to show on his grim, expressionless face. In no time he had the detainees lined up for inspection once more. The ominous uncertainty and apprehension of the waiting men hung like an ill-omened mist over the detail.

The man in the tan trench coat stood at attention in the second row. Tom went straight to him. He stared at the belt on his coat. The belt was too big. An extra hole had been made in it for the leather-covered buckle to fit into. But halfway along the leftover tongue was a crease, the indented mark of the buckle. The coat had been worn by a large man. It was almost new. How had it come into the possession of this detainee? How did he come by it here, in the middle of nowhere?

He suddenly felt uncertain. It probably meant nothing at all. He’d made a damned fool of himself. It was just an other one of those stupid little things that had a perfectly logical explanation.

“Take off your coat!” he ordered. The man obeyed. He looked confused.

Tom grabbed the coat from him. He stared at it He turned the collar inside out and examined the back of it Quickly he turned to the blank-faced noncom. “That man,” he snapped. “Bring him to the hut!”

He looked once more inside the neck of the coat The haberdasher’s label read, w.
NEZVAL. PRAHA.

Prague!

Leutnant Meister, Emil, discharged, had nothing to bide. As far as he was concerned the war was over. He talked freely.