Garden of Beasts

he wisecracked in America.
    “You’re on a speaker here,” came Manielli’s irritated voice. “Just to let you know.”
    Paul laughed.
    Then staticky silence.
    “What time is it in Washington?” Paul asked Morgan.
    “Lunchtime.”
    “It’s Saturday. Where’s Gordon?”
    “We don’t have to worry about that. They’ll find him.”
    Through the headset a woman’s voice said, “One moment, please. Placing your call.”
    A moment later Paul heard a phone ring. Then another woman’s voice answered, “Yes?”
    Morgan said, “Your husband, please. Sorry to trouble you.”
    “Hold the line.” As if she knew not to ask who was calling.
    A moment later Gordon asked, “Hello?”
    “It’s us, sir,” Morgan said.
    “Go ahead.”
    “Setback in the arrangements. We’ve had to approach somebody local for information.”
    Gordon was silent for a moment. “Who is he? General terms.”
    Morgan gestured to Paul, who said, “He knows somebody who can get us close to our customer.”
    Morgan nodded at his choice of words and added, “My supplier has run out of product.”
    The commander asked, “This man, he works for the other company?”
    “No. Works for himself.”
    “What other options do we have?”
    Morgan said, “The only other choice is to sit and wait, hope for the best.”
    “You trust him?”
    After a moment Paul said, “Yes. He’s one of us.”
    “Us?”
    “Me,” Paul explained. “He’s in my line of work. We’ve, uhm, arranged for a certain level of trust.”
    “There’s money involved?”
    Morgan said, “That’s why we’re calling. He wants a lot. Immediately.”
    “What’s a lot?”
    “A thousand. Your currency.”
    A pause. “That could be a problem.”
    “We don’t have any choice,” Paul said. “You’ve got to make it work.”
    “We could bring you back from your trip early.”
    “No, you don’t want to do that,” Paul said emphatically.
    The sound from the radio could have been a wave of static or could have been Bull Gordon’s sigh.
    “Sit tight. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
    •   •   •
    “So what would we get for my money?”
    “I don’t know the details,” Bull Gordon said to Cyrus Adam Clayborn, who was in New York on the other end of the phone. “They couldn’t go into it. Worried about eavesdropping, you know. But apparently the Nazis have cut off access to information Schumann needs to find Ernst. That’s my take.”
    Clayborn grunted.
    Gordon found himself surprisingly at ease, considering that the man he was speaking to was the fourth- or fifth-richest human being in the country. (He had ranked number two but the stock market crash had pulled him down a couple of notches.) They were very different men but they shared two vital characteristics: they had military in their blood and they were both patriots. That made up for a lot of distance in income and station.
    “A thousand? Cash?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I like that Schumann. That was pretty sharp, his reelection comment. FDR’s scared as a rabbit.” Clayborn chuckled. “Thought the Senator was going to crap right there.”
    “Looked like it.”
    “Okay. I’ll arrange the funds.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    Clayborn preempted Gordon’s next question. “’Course, it’s late Saturday in Hun-ville. And he needs the money now, right?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Hold on.”
    Three long minutes later the magnate came back on the line.
    “Have ’em go to the clerk at the usual pickup spot in Berlin. Morgan’ll know it. The Maritime Bank of the Americas. Number eighty-eight Udder den Linden Street, or however the hell you say it. I can never get it right.”
    “ Unter den Linden. It means ‘Under the Linden Trees.’”
    “Fine, fine. The guard’ll have the package.”
    “Thanks, sir.”
    “Bull?”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “We don’t have enough heroes in this country. I want that boy to come home in one piece. Considering our resources . . .” Men like Clayborn would never say, “my money.” The businessman continued. “Considering our resources, what can we do to improve the odds?”
    Gordon considered the question. Only one thing came to mind.
    “Pray,” he said and pressed down the cradle on the phone then paused for a moment and lifted it once more.

Chapter Seventeen
    Inspector Willi Kohl sat at his desk in the gloomy Alex, attempting to understand the inexplicable, a game played nowhere more often than in the halls of police departments