Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

They sat in silence while the clerk served the coffee then slipped from the room.

‘On reflection, the consequences are quite unimaginable,’ Troester added. ‘I’m not a politician but America, international opinion, the law…’ He frowned and his gaze dropped to his hands.

‘My dear Professor, don’t trouble yourself with matters that aren’t your concern.’ Nadolny picked up his cup and held it to his mouth. ‘Our task is to help him execute this operation without being caught,’ he sipped his coffee, ‘and I’ve assured the Chief of the General Staff he won’t be.’

‘Yes, well, I’m sure I know my duty, Count,’ he replied, tetchily. ‘I have something to show you.’ Rising from his desk, Troester stepped over to a filing cabinet and lifted a stiff brown leather case from the top of it. ‘We’ve prepared this for the operation,’ he said, carrying it back to his desk. ‘As you can see, it looks something like a doctor’s bag, but the sides, well, they’re more robust and…’ he slid open the two brass locks, ‘…there’s a hidden compartment here.’

Nadolny got to his feet and bent to look inside. ‘Most ingenious,’ he muttered. ‘Isn’t it rather an unusual shape?’

‘Do you think so? He’ll be able to carry two phials of E and of B.’ Troester gazed over his pince-nez at Nadolny. ‘That will be sufficient to culture enough of both pathogens to meet your requirements — if he isn’t—’

‘But you’ve found the perfect solution,’ interrupted Nadolny, waving his ring at the case.

‘No, no, you don’t understand. If it’s handled roughly by a steward or the police, one or more of the phials will break and, well, you’ll lose your spy…’ he closed the bag, snapping the locks back into place, ‘…and a good number of other people too.’

‘That would be unfortunate. We won’t find anyone more suitable than our friend the doctor.’

‘Yes, I can see that, yes. It’s only…’

‘Please, Professor,’ prompted Nadolny. ‘There’s something else?’

‘Probably nothing.’ Troester took off his glasses and examined them thoroughly. ‘Only that he’s an American.’

‘Yes, that’s why we’ve chosen him. I’m sorry but you’ll have to explain.’

‘Simply, will he have the necessary resolve to go through with it when he’s there?’

Nadolny pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I believe so,’ he said at last. ‘One of my men followed him to a patriotic review and noted he was singing and cheering with the rest — louder than most.’ He smiled. ‘And he has quite a following in Berlin society, never short of an invitation — dining at the Kempinski, a regular at the Fledermaus , always gracious, especially to a lady. Often to be seen in the company of Frieda Hempel.’

Troester looked uncomprehending.

‘The opera singer, my dear Professor, the opera singer — really, you should enjoy life a little more,’ he teased. ‘Yes, he’s been observed at Frau Hempel’s apartment in the sinful hours. So, setting aside his late cousin and his other family ties for a moment, I think I can say with confidence that he’s embracing Berlin life to the full.’ Nadolny paused to lift his cup again. ‘And, as good fortune would have it, Frau Hempel has an apartment in New York too.’

They talked a little longer of the need for great care, of the timetable and final preparations, and the professor wanted to know who else Dilger would call upon to help carry out the operation in America. But that, the Count informed him with smooth assurance, was not his business.

AN EXCITED BELLBOY stopped Wolff in the corridor with the first news, and the old Baron who haunted the lobby accosted him with more a few minutes later. At Reception, an American woman from the International Peace League was trying to make sense of the front page of the Zeitung . ‘Yesterday, the 7th of May. A passenger liner from New York, the Lusitania ,’ the assistant manager explained to her in fractured English. There was great loss of life, a thousand people or more, some of them Americans. ‘Regret, madam,’ he said, ‘sunk by one of our German submarines.’ He didn’t sound in the least sorry.

‘A catastrophe,’ Casement declared at lunch a few hours later, ‘can you imagine? Our enemies will be having a field day in the American papers — the influential ones are all for the British.’

Acres of newsprint would be devoted to the ordeal of the families on board, heart-wrenching stories of separation and loss, pictures of dead mothers and small children.

‘They’ll tar our cause, tar me with a German brush,’ he complained. ‘It was a mistake to come here.’

He was a picture of misery, self-pitying, diminished, fallen. For God’s sake, thought Wolff, you’re supposed to be a threat to our great British Empire: be a man. He was surprised that Casement’s weakness irritated him so. Then it occurred to him that was precisely what a true friend should say: ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Roger.’

Casement lifted his eyes from his plate.

‘It’s a hard street, remember?’ Wolff continued. ‘It was you who said so. Don’t you have the stomach for it any more?’

‘I… of course…’ Casement was shocked.

‘Pull yourself together, man. Your people are relying on you. You’ve known difficult times before.’

‘Yes, I have,’ he snapped, dumping his napkin on the table. ‘Yes, and I don’t need to be told by you.’

He was angry now, pulling at his beard like an Irish Elijah. They glared across the table at each other. Have I gone too far? Wolff wondered. Before he could throw an olive branch, Casement’s expression softened and he looked away.

‘It’s so easy to lose oneself here, isn’t it?’ he observed.

Wolff smiled sympathetically.

‘…you know, lose any sense of perspective.’ He gave an embarrassed little cough. ‘I’ve hardly given a thought to those passengers. First, air raids on towns, then this barbarity at sea. Poison gas. There don’t seem to be boundaries any more.’

‘Were there ever any?’ asked Wolff.

‘But in this modern age it’s worse. I suppose all any of us can do is follow… well, follow what our consciences instruct us to be our duty.’ He paused and smiled at Wolff. ‘You were right, Jan, to remind me of mine.’

De Witt cared for his good name. Those few impatient words convinced Casement that a companion he wouldn’t have given the time of day to in Dublin was the best sort of friend, who was prepared to tell him what he didn’t want to hear. A few minutes later, he confided that he was visiting a prisoner-of-war camp in the morning and asked Wolff to accompany him. ‘There’s so much a man like you could do for our cause,’ he said. Wolff reminded him that it wasn’t his cause. ‘For me, then,’ he replied with a shy smile, like an old lover.

No doubt history would remember the Lusitania as a tragedy but Wolff couldn’t help musing that the confusion of waves left by the sinking ship presented him with an opportunity to escape. It was two days since his last meeting with Christensen and he was still sitting on the intelligence. He’d coded the Falkenhayn minute into another business report at once and buried it in a thick file, and that was as far as it had gone. No one in Whitehall was going to shower him with praise for proof that the enemy was promising rifles for a rising, but a network of saboteurs in America and a list of the British interests it was going to target was worth an official handshake or two. ‘First class, first class, Wolff, good fellow,’ C would say, bouncing in his chair.

Only, Wolff was very reluctant to send the report. The security police followed him everywhere. The instant it left his hand it would be picked up and delivered to their cryptographers. The Bureau’s man, Bywater, had given him the name of a courier he’d used before the war, an odd-job man at a hostel in the Moabit district. But Wolff didn’t like the look of the place. Just an uneasy feeling, but a feeling was quite enough. You’re behind the lines, he told himself, sometimes it isn’t possible to deliver — he felt guilty nonetheless. The hope that his new best friend was going to fill in the missing pieces at the prisoner-of-war camp made it possible to rest a little easier with his coded report still ‘on file’. Finish the job and escape, he told himself, that’s the answer.