Noel Hynd - Flowers From Berlin

"They have such sledgehammer personalities, Hoover's people," Wheeler said. "You're about the only one to whom I can make an intellectual appeal."

"I'm honored."

Wheeler cocked his head in a diffident manner. "Something else," he said.

Cochrane asked what.

"You fed the German naval code to Lanny Slotkin intentionally, didn't you?" Wheeler asked. "The proper additive and all."

Cochrane nodded. "You figured if I slipped a trap through the F.B.I.," he answered, "it would have come through Bobby Martin or HopeMing. Or even Roddy Schwarzkopf or Liz Pfeiffer. So I figured Lanny was the surest way of showing you the bait."

"Point." Wheeler grimaced.

Cochrane felt his anger rise very slightly. "Well, someone was going to take the bait from within the F.B.I.,”he said. "My contact in Berlin was murdered before my arrival. I was under surveillance the entire time. Otto Mauer and his family escaped only because hey were both ingenious and lucky. And someone, someone, tipped Siegfried as to who was closing in on him. How else does a bomb magically arrive under my bed?"

For the first time, Wheeler appeared unnerved by the whole conversation. But he looked without remorse at the younger man.

"Well, nothing personal you understand, Bill," he said. "But you'd become a nuisance.

Something had to be done."

"But why was I selected in the first place?"

"Not my idea!" Wheeler snapped, rummaging again for the missing pipe. "I argued long and hard for someone else. But you were the only choice: experience against Gestapo in Germany, veteran Bureau, background in explosives in the U.S. Army. Roosevelt handpicked you, himself, in case you never knew."

Which brought Cochrane to attention. "No. I didn't know."

Wheeler's eyebrows arched. "Final point?" he asked, Cochrane waited.

"Word reaches me," Wheeler said, "that you're having it on with Stephen Fowler's widow. Any truth to that?"

"We're seeing each other," Cochrane admitted after a suitable pause.

Wheeler considered it and then gave Cochrane schoolboy grin that had a conspiratorial leer to it. Then Wheeler laughed. "Do one other thing for me. On you way out see if the soldier boys who are guarding me will slip me another bottle or two of Coke. I’m dying of thirst."

Cochrane said he would. He rapped on the cell door for a guard while Wheeler added a request for newspaper.

"They're nice young men, these soldiers," Wheeler said in closing. "It's a national obscenity that they're all going to be sent off to be slaughtered it Europe. It's Stalin who's the real enemy. Did I stress that? Don't forget!”

Cochrane called it a day, said good-bye, and left.

*

On the drive back to Washington, Cochrane realized how much the afternoon had depressed him. There had been a morose, condemned air to his entire meeting with Dick Wheeler. He wondered very deeply, weighing the entire intrigue involving Wheeler and Fowler, whether anything had been gained by anyone. Like a war itself, there seemed nothing but waste and destruction everywhere one looked.

Cochrane drove directly to the Shoreham, anxious to redeem the day in any way possible. He arrived toward 8 P.M.

Laura, when she came downstairs to meet Bill Cochrane, took his breath away. She was in a slim, tailored dark blue gown that featured the most interesting neckline that he had seen in ten years. Or maybe that was simply because it was beautiful Laura in that gown and the day had otherwise been so beastly.

The Shoreham dining room was grand and ornate, patterned after the great hotel dining rooms of England and the continent. The room was a sea of white tablecloths and floral arrangements beneath a high-beamed ceiling. Waiters and captains in black formal attire scurried from party to party. The room was busy. Washington scuttlebutt and policy were bandied from diner to diner. Men were in dark suits and their female companions wore their finest gowns and jewelry. Earlier that week, Soviet Russia had attacked tiny Finland.

As the maitre d' showed them to their table, the piano player in the corner sang Anything Goes. Laura and Bill sat and looked at each other for a moment.

"Heck of a day," he said. And as he spoke, he realized one of the things that had brought him through the day was the prospect of seeing her this evening. "Do you mind if we don't talk about it?"

"I'd prefer we didn't. Want a better subject?"

"I could use one," he answered.

"One of your Bureau errand boys," she said archly, "came by the hotel today. Brought me an airline ticket to Havana. Imagine that. Institutionalized immorality."

"It happens in the best of democracies," he joked. He cleared his throat. "I thought we might get away for a few days. If you're interested."

"When would we leave?"

"Monday of next week," he said. "Ever been to Havana?"

She shook her head. "I hear Senor Battista is very charming and highly pro-American. Casinos and night clubs. Very romantic."

"You hear correctly," he said.

A waiter brought a menu and took orders for drinks. Bill Cochrane thought of all he had to put in order. His house. His office. His non-government career. His life.

"I suppose I should be making some other travel plans soon, too," she said at length.

"Back to England?"

Laura nodded. "I have to face the facts. I'm at loose ends here. Further, there must be something in England I can do to help. My country's at war."

She heard an echo from long ago: For England. But she did not repeat it. Nor did she need to elaborate. Bill Cochrane understood.

"You'll certainly be welcome to visit me any time," she said. "I want you to, of course."

"Of course." He was nodding unconvincingly as their drinks arrived. His and hers: a good stiff bourbon and a dry sherry.

"You don't look terribly enthused," she said.

"Well," he said, looking downward for a second, then meeting her soft brown eyes with his, "your scenario isn't exactly the same as mine."

"It's not?"

"I thought maybe," he began, "that I should talk you into staying on a bit in the United States-"

And she was thinking, not saying, Oh, Peter Whiteside! What a schemer you've made me! What an outstanding subversive!

"I'm sure"-Cochrane continuing-"you could find a job in Washington. Travel's dangerous these days, and, uh…"

For the first time since he had known her, he groped for words. He looked away, then boldly back at her.

"Look, Laura!" he said. "It's very simple. I'm not letting you leave."

*

The next evening they found an informal little French bistro in Georgetown called Chez Lucien. The owner, Lucien himself, was from Normandy and practically embraced Bill Cochrane as a long-lost brother when Cochrane spoke fluent French to him.

A bottle of the best Margaux appeared, compliments of the house, and the waiter, Julien, also from Normandy, directed the attention of Bill and Laura to the roast duck, which is what they ordered.

Crepes suzette, made specially by Lucien with a startling flourish of liqueur and flame that nearly singed the ceiling, followed the duck. An Armagnac from 1897 completed the memorable evening. Or so it seemed.

Emerging from the restaurant past ten, full and satisfied, they walked back to Twenty-sixth Street, only to find a jeep of the United States Army Military Police, a black Plymouth belonging to the F.B.I., and a D.C. police car all lining the curb. Half a dozen armed men stepped from various vehicles.

"William Cochrane?" an MP sergeant asked.

"Yes?"

"We have orders to take you to Fort Meade."

"Now?" Cochrane asked, more conscious than ever that Laura was on his arm.

"Yes, sir. Now."

"Am I under arrest?"

"No, sir," the soldier said.

"But you have 'orders'?"

"We're to ask nicely, sir, then bring you anyway, sir."