said, “Don’t forget, half the time is for Follum and me.”
“Such a waste. The pride of Stuttgart could be yours with a single honk.”
“Drive carefully, Callard. We want our half back, undented.”
FLECKS OF CRIMSON
But don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden:
your Father had an accident there;
he was put into a pie by Mrs. McGregor.
–Beatrix Potter
CAPTAIN MCQUIRE ASKED, “DO you have a sport jacket and a pair of slacks, Bradford? Ones that you brought from stateside when you came?”
“Yes, ma’am”
“Do you have plans for the week-end?”
Even though I feared that the McQuire was asking me out for a social event, I told her no. I hoped it was not a reception at the consulate, thin-lipped functionaries in the overheated salons or a concert performance of Wagner going on past midnight. Everybody knew that McQuire loved music and missed little of importance at the concert hall.
“Splendid, then. We’ll courier some documents to Zurich, down there on Saturday, back by Sunday morning. You know about courier duty, don’t you, Bradford?”
“Somewhat, ma’am. But not all the details.”
“I’ll catch you up on the train. Be ready to leave at o-eight-hundred on Saturday. Wear your jacket and slacks, and a tie. No suitcase, no identity papers, no laundry marks.”
That sounded ominous; nothing to identify the body. What I did know about courier duty was limited. Communications in Europe in 1957 were unreliable: telephone lines to Berlin went through Russian-held East Germany and were presumed to be tapped at multiple locations. Lines south to Switzerland could not be verified past Donaueschingen and those to France went through the Black Forest, where there were many opportunities for unwitnessed splicing. Any form of radio was impossible because scrambling devices could not be trusted. Important Army documents were required by regulation to be delivered by hand, an officer and at least one enlisted aide, two aides in matters of highest security. Couriers left Schloss Issel every day in all manner of dress, like centurions on horseback with rolled parchments from Rome.
That evening at the club I asked Callard about courier duty. He said that McQuire was annoyed with him after their trip to Luxembourg, so she had been trying out replacements. I was merely the newest replacement.
“Why was she annoyed?”
“I can’t say. She’s ruthless with her favorites; like Tiberius, she throws them over with the first flicker of boredom.”
“I’ll take care that the emperor is amused, then.”
“Tread lightly near any cliff, my friend.”
The next morning the plain gray sedan met us at 0800. McQuire was in civilian attire, a checkered black and white suit with a salamander brooch, brownish stockings, a black coat over her shoulders and a shiny black hat with a feather. In her military uniform, she appeared much younger. Now, she looked like a middle-aged Nebraskan on vacation, Miss Partridge on a schoolteachers’ tour of the Swiss cantons.
She said, “Your checkered jacket and slacks are perfect. I couldn’t have found any as good in the Supply Room.”
“I guess that’s a compliment.”
“Take it that way.”
When I asked her a question about the assignment, she put her finger to her lips and pointed to the driver. We motored in silence to downtown Stuttgart to an iron-fenced house called Villa Ingrid. Very near to the Hauptbahnhof, it had survived the blanket bombings of the Allies. Gossip about Villa Ingrid lived a healthy life among the desks at the Historical Section.
We knew that it was involved with Hungarian matters, the debriefing of refugees from the revolution, training of agents, agendas for the future, but little more. Volunteers needed special clearances to work in the villa and assignment there was highly sought after. The steel driveway gate opened automatically and we drove into a bay of the garage, the driver closing the garage door before McQuire moved to get out.
A woman who resembled McQuire in stature met us at the garage door and took us to a room on the ground floor. There were two fake crocodile suitcases, medium-sized, on the center table. Without a word, McQuire took one and motioned for me to take the other. Mine was heavy. We walked through hallways with closed oak doors and out through the garden behind the villa. Unlike the front, the back garden had a large lawn, linden trees and a high wall with a gate, which buzzed open as we neared. We ducked out onto the back street, McQuire looking both ways. The street was empty and the boarded up back windows of adjacent villas were eyeless.
We walked the few blocks to the Hauptbahnhof and waited for the train to Zurich at 0935. On the bench in the large waiting hall she told me about the assignment.
“Switzerland is, on the surface, our ally, but they strongly forbid the US from covert operations or counterintelligence operations of any nature. To get secret documents to our offices in Zurich, we need to look like ordinary citizens on vacation, a mother and her son from Boston, or an aunt and her nephew, we’ll have to decide which on the way there. I have your papers in my hand-bag.”
“Will somebody meet us in Zurich?”
“No, we’ll take the first taxi to the museum, talking all the time about modern art. The consulate is on the next street, so after the taxi leaves we’ll walk around and leave our suitcases there. There will be identical suitcases waiting for us, packed with old clothes, which we will bring back to Bad Issel.”
“Do you expect trouble?”
“We should always expect trouble.”
I looked around at the other benches in the hall, red-cheeked Germans taking on a more sinister aspect with this new information. Germans often stared energetically at Americans, so that only added to my mistrust. It appeared that a woman all in black on a far bench was watching us without respite. Would a foreign agent not be trained to look away now and then? To stare was a dead giveaway. I was sure that McQuire had seen that danger in the black dress, but she did not deem it worth her comment.
“Don’t get too spooked, Bradford, but we will be followed. It only remains to identify which of these seated are the ones. Usually more than one.”
“Shouldn’t we be armed?”
“I am, but you should hold tight to your suitcase.”
“I thought that the Regular Army agents did this work, the ones with years of training.”
“They do, but I prefer a new man like you. Intelligent amateurs, quick to respond to new stimulus, make the best couriers. There’s something about a trained agent that gives them away. A tired nonchalance, I think, like priests who have heard too many confessions.”
“Don’t they recognize you after so many assignments?”
“I change my appearance each time.”
This
