Back Aa

Rat Race

<h2>CHAPTER 20</h2> There was a brisk knock on the bedroom door. I walked over and opened it, to see F.B.I. Special Agent A. J. Harcourt. He gave me a reproachful glance and pushed his way into the room. "I can only stop a minute, Mr. Tompkins," he said, "but I have orders from the Director to call on you in person and present the apologies of the Bureau for having inconvenienced you. If you had only told us you were connected with Z-2 there would have been no trouble." "Sit down, Harcourt," I urged him. Then I crossed to the bathroom door. "Don't come out until you're decent, dear," I called to Germaine. "The F.B.I. is here." Some muffled instructions answered, so I went around the room and picked up the various scattered wisps of silk and rayon, and thrust them through to my wife. "That's all I was to say, Mr. Tompkins," Harcourt repeated, still standing, "that the Bureau is mighty sorry about the whole business." "Sit down!" I told him again. "Now get this Z-2 thing straight. There isn't any Z-2. I just invented it, trying to get myself out of this jam. I never was a Z-2 agent. What I told these people was all moonshine." Harcourt nodded. "We know, of course, that you're not allowed to admit you're in Z-2 to anybody but the top guys, but we know that Z-2 does exist. If it didn't how could the President abolish it?" "How's that again?" I asked, sinking into the one easy chair. "Yeah, special confidential Executive Order No. 1734, signed today, abolishing Z-2 and transferring its duties to the War Department. There was something else, too, about giving you the Order of Merit for quote special services which contributed usefully to the conduct of the war. Unquote." "Listen here, Harcourt," I insisted. "I can't help it if the President pulled a boner. I told him there wasn't any such thing as Z-2 and all he said was that I ought to take a good long rest. I simply got so damned tired of trying to prove that I couldn't remember what Winnie Tompkins had been doing before April 2, that I invented my own alibi—Z-2." Harcourt scratched his head. "Cross my heart and hope to die," I assured him. For the first time since he had delivered his wooden official apology, the Special Agent relaxed. "That's one for the book," he said with deep feeling. "Mrs. Harcourt's little boy isn't going to let it go any farther. So far, only the President of the United States, the Army, the Navy, O.S.S. and the F.B.I. believe you were in Z-2. I'm not sticking my neck out to tell them it's all a lot of malarkey. That leaves only the State Department and the Secret Service. How come you've skipped them? You must be slipping, Mr. Tompkins." "I'm seeing the State Department tomorrow morning," I explained. "I think I'll let the Secret Service alone. Incidentally, Mrs. Tompkins also believes all this Z-2 business. It will do as a stall until I learn what I was really doing before I drew a blank." "Not for me!" We both looked up. In the doorway—which I must have forgotten to latch—stood Virginia Rutherford. "No Winnie"—she began. "Oh, hullo, Mr. Harcourt—You haven't fooled me. I know there's something behind all this business. Imagine the nerve of that silly General, practically jerking me out of bed to come down and listen to him babble about Von Bieberstein to that pretty Mrs. Jacklin. Who is this Von Bieberstein anyhow? He sounds like a brewer." "Kurt Von Bieberstein," explained A. J. Harcourt, "is supposed to be the ace Nazi Operative in the U.S.A. The Bureau has been trying to locate him for the last ten years. We don't know what he looks like, nothing about him, except his name. All we ever got on him was one fragment of a short-wave message in 1935 and a letter in a code we couldn't break, just before Pearl Harbor." The bathroom door opened and Germaine entered the room. "Well, Virginia," she observed, "you seem to be making yourself at home. Mr. Harcourt, have I no legal right to privacy in my hotel room?" Harcourt rose and bowed. "Certainly, ma'am," he told her. "If you object to her presence you are entitled to order her out. If she refuses to go, you can throw her out or call the house detective." Jimmie laughed. "Good! Virginia Rutherford, you get out of my bedroom or I'll throw you out." Virginia relaxed back against the pillow. "Act your age, dearest," she said. "You don't want any public scandal about your husband, do you?" "Oh!" Germaine paused. "Of course not!" There was another knock on the door. "Come in!" we chorused. This time it was Dorothy Jacklin. "Oh!" she exclaimed, none too brightly. "So we're all here." "This is Mr. Harcourt of the F.B.I., Mrs. Jacklin," I said. "He's an old friend of mine." Dorothy turned to me. "There's one thing I'd like cleared up, Mr. Tompkins," she said. "Yes?" I asked. "I certified to O.S.S. that you were with Z-2. I've checked over our confidential files and I can't find any record of Z-2. Things like that go on my efficiency rating and I might get into trouble. After all, you were admitted to the Administration Building without the usual references and identification. General Donovan is very strict about such things." "There is no such thing as Z-2, Mrs. Jacklin," I assured her. "Aha!" Virginia chortled, "here it comes." "Winnie!" Germaine was hurt. "President Truman just today signed a special order abolishing Z-2 and transferring its duties to the War Department. If you need the references for the O.S.S. record that dear little colonel of yours can get it from General Wakely at G-2. That's right, isn't it, Harcourt?" "That's right, Mr. Tompkins. All government intelligence agencies have been notified. When you get back to your office, Mrs. Jacklin, you'll find that O.S.S. has a copy of the order." Dorothy turned to me. "Isn't that lousy!" she exclaimed. "After all the splendid work Z-2 did, to have the Army take it over and grab the credit!" I shrugged my shoulders. "It's what we expect in this government game," I said. "A passion for anonymity is not only expected of us, it's rammed down our throats. Only Admirals and Generals are good at intelligence. Period. However, I'm just as glad it's over. The President told me to take a rest and I think it's a good idea." "Well!" said Germaine. "Of all ingratitude!" "I think the best idea is for us all to go downstairs and have some champagne cocktails," I suggested. "Things often seem better that way." Harcourt looked grave. "I'm not allowed to drink on duty, Mr. Tompkins," he observed, "but I'm not on duty now. Come on, Mrs. Jacklin," he continued, "let's go on and show them." Dorothy looked startled. "Show them what," she asked. "Show them that we intelligence services can take it ma'am," the Special Agent observed. "You're O.S.S. and I'm F.B.I. and these others have just been consolidated out of the game." Dorothy flashed him a smile. "Well—" she began doubtfully. "Go ahead, Harcourt," I urged with malice aforethought. "Show her a photo of your wife and three children in Brooklyn." He grinned. "That gag was strictly for Miss Briggs," he said, "but down here I'm an unmarried man." "Pooh!" said Dorothy. "I never saw an administrator down here yet who let himself worry about a wife and family somewhere else. The F.B.I. must be weakening." Harcourt smiled. "Well, anyhow, Mrs. Jacklin, ma'm, the first round of drinks is on me—just to celebrate Mr. Tompkins' happy release." I didn't care so much for that one. "Expense account, you spy-catcher?" I asked. The Special Agent nodded. "Yep," he agreed. "My own expense. I was ordered to apologize handsome to you, sir, for the Bureau, and by gum we Harcourts do it right. What'll it be? Root beer or Moxie?" <hr class="tb" /> The next morning, early if not bright, found me fumbling my way around the corridors of the State-War-Navy building in search of the proper official to handle secret intelligence reports. I finally unearthed him in the form of six-feet of languid Bond Street tailored perfection—a red-headed diplomat lily by the name of Dennis Tyler, Chief of the Liaison Section. To him I addressed myself. "Oh, yes, so you're Tompkins—of Z-2," he observed. "Yes, yes. Quite too tragic for you." "Tell me, Mr. Tyler," I inquired, "did you ever hear of Axel Roscommon?" Tyler leaned back in his chair and contemplated me soulfully. "Now don't tell me that poor old Axel is a Nazi agent, Mr. Timkins—" "Tompkins, Mr. Wiley." "The name is Tyler, Mr. Tompkins," he grinned. "No, dear old boy—to quote Axel—we do not think that Mr. Roscommon is a Nazi Agent. We know it. I had the devil of a time fixing it up with the F.B.I. so they wouldn't arrest him. We can't let the Swiss—God bless their cuckoo-clocks—represent Hitler over here. We need a man of the world who realizes that milk chocolate has no place in diplomacy, to maintain contact with the Third Reich. No, Axel's a fine fellow. He's on a strict allowance. One military secret a month—usually a little one and every now and then a phoney—so as to keep his job. He sees that our people in Berlin get the same allowance. All very cozy and no harm done." I nodded agreement. "Yes, Mr. Tyler," I told him, "I know the picture. It's just that I have a hunch that Roscommon may be Kurt Von Bieberstein." Tyler exploded. "Absolute, obscene rot, Tompkins! Not a word of truth in it. Roscommon is foxy, if you like, but he hasn't got Von Bieberstein's ruthlessness. No, we made a thorough check on our Axel, before we let the Gestapo accredit him to this government. He's just a good contact-man and a first-rate field operative—plays a dashing game of backgammon and a sound hand of poker, holds his liquor well, and, with an unlimited expense account, stands unlimited rounds of drinks. No, we can't get on without Axel Roscommon. He's taken half the sting out of my income-tax, he's so lavish with his friends. "What on earth made you confuse him with Von Bieberstein?" he concluded. "Kurt's a devil. He's slipped through the fingers of every Allied intelligence service. Even the Gestapo doesn't know much about him. He's never been photographed or fingerprinted and he reports directly to Hitler. Even Himmler has no file on him." "It was only this, Mr. Tyler," I told him. "It was Roscommon who warned me two days before Roosevelt's death that the President would die within the week. That isn't easy to laugh off." Tyler became deadly calm. "Don't ever repeat that story outside of this room," he warned me. "We know who did it and why. We'll settle that score some day. In the meantime, just forget it, unless you don't mind diving into the East River in a concrete life-belt." "Then Roscommon wasn't guessing," I observed. "Of course he wasn't guessing. As a matter of fact, it was I who told him. Just as it was I who told F.D.R. God! He was a good sport. He listened to what I had to say and then do you know what he did? He laughed. He said that so many Americans had died in this war that one more made no difference and he ordered me to hold off until after the peace treaty before getting the group responsible." This was getting too deep for me, but I owed it to Germaine to make a grab for the brass ring. "President Truman was very complimentary about my work for Z-2," I told him. "He wants me to take a rest now that the War Department has taken over our work. After that, I wondered whether there mightn't be something in the diplomatic service. The President thought I would be useful here. I've plenty of money and—" Dennis Tyler groaned convulsively, hunched forward over his desk and clutched his flaming red head in his hands. "—and you have a beautiful wife who would make a charming American Ambassadress, no doubt: Yes, Mr. Tompkins, I see it all. You went to a good school, no doubt you even attended Harvard. You just missed combat service in the last war and were unfortunately too old for this one. You know how to make money in Wall Street, if it wasn't for those damned Roosevelt taxes. You do not speak French—except for the purpose of 'La Vie Parisienne'—nor German nor Italian nor Spanish nor Russian, not to mention Arabic and Chinese. You know nothing of economics, sociology, natural science or political geography. You have been to Canada, the West Indies and no doubt to 'Gay Paree,' and to cap the list of your qualifications, you are a Republican and this is a Democratic Administration." "Then there isn't a chance," I mumbled, my cheeks flaming with embarrassment. "Did I say that you had no chance?" demanded Dennis Tyler. "On the contrary, you seem to be fully qualified for any diplomatic post within the gift of this Administration, at least as much as any of a dozen of our well-named envoys extraordinary. But, Tompkins, you're a decent sort of chap. Don't do it! For your wife's sake, if not mine, let the poor old State Department go to hell in its own quiet way without speeding the process—Oh, well, I suppose I shall never learn. Doubtless you will be our next Ambassador to Portugal and I shall have one more black mark against me." I held out my hand. "If the popular demand becomes too great for me to resist, Mr. Tyler," I assured him, "I may be forced to accept a diplomatic appointment, but even then you would be safe from me. I don't like double-talk." Dennis Tyler looked up, shook my hand and winked broadly at me. "Just between us, Tompkins," he whispered, "who put you up to that Z-2 line of yours? You have the whole town fooled. No, don't look virtuous, dear old boy—again to quote the immortal Axel—I happen to know that you can't possibly be connected with Z-2, because until yesterday, when the Army grabbed it, I was head of Z-2 myself!" <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.