The Sword and the Net

12 SAN FRANCISCO—HIGHWAY—PALITOS

Upon the twenty-second day after he had announced that he could make himself strong within three weeks, Otto was in San Francisco. He was driven there in the Ingolls’ car by John, the Ingolls’ jet-black man-of-all-work. He made John set him down at the small apartment house where he had retained his quarters. He gave John ten dollars and shook hands with him and then stood and watched the car until it turned the corner and had gone, taking with it the last link with Clare and Waldemar that he would know—ever or until he should have wrought the miracle needed to bring success to his solitary, incredible campaign.

He stood for a while after the car had vanished. His head was turned still as it had been while he watched, but now his eyes were seeing nothing within the range of his vision. He was seeing and thinking of Clare.

He wrenched his mind back to fact and the present and the need for instant and welcome and important action. The drawn, gaunt lines of his face were smoothed away and he even smiled, as he went quickly across the pavement and into the doorway of the house; a taut, hard little smile which had in it resolve and the happiness brought by the imminence of action; the delight of certainty of mind and a purely physical joy in once more having the free and strong and unhampered use of his body.

As he ran up the stairs he limped a little, for now his left leg was slightly shorter than his right: but both legs were strong and sure and quick once more—not to the full of their strength perhaps, but strong enough.

He was busy, very busy, for two hours. He saw his landlord and behaved as if he were back to stay. He went to his bank and drew out all his money, which was three hundred and seventy-two dollars, with the exception of fifty which he left as a lull to possible suspicion. He purchased twenty yards of white blind-cord at a hardware store and some broad adhesive tape from a druggist. He also pondered the advisability of buying a gun—but decided against it. There was a better way of procuring one, and he seemed to remember talk of new regulations which made a permit necessary before firearms could be sold. He went to the garage where he kept his car and ordered it checked and ready for service—and then visited another garage, on the far side of the city, and paid a handsome deposit upon a U-Drive-U’rself roadster which he rented in another name and ordered ready for this evening when he would pick it up. He found a huge dilapidated store near the waterfront and purchased, as accessory to ‘a joke upon some friends,’ an outfit of clean but well-worn clothing which had belonged to and would suit a longshoreman out of work. He ate a large meal of some luxury and sat over it until it was three o’clock.

And then he telephoned and found that Altinger was not at the office and discovered him at the third outside number he called and was responsive to Allinger’s raucously cheerful welcomes and told Altinger that he was fit and ready for work. He also made use of a phrase that was in their private code for telephonic use and meant that he had something of vital importance to discuss and after that had no difficulty in making an appointment for them to meet, as was essential to his plans, in Altinger’s office.

“After five would be best,” Otto said.

“Five-forty-five,” said Altinger. . . .

Otto was there fifteen minutes earlier than this. Every one in the building had gone, as he knew they would have, but he still had his keys.

He went into Altinger’s private office. Without much hope of success, he tried the drawers of Altinger’s desk. But they were locked and he sat himself down to wait and employed the time of waiting by going over in his mind, for perhaps the three-hundredth time, every step of his plan.

He was undisturbed for seven minutes, and then the janitor came in upon his final rounds, attracted by the open outer door of the suite. He was an ancient, perpetually tipsy Irishman, and he was volubly delighted to see Mr. Jorgensen back after his terrible experiences. He exhibited symptoms of far too long a stay, but Otto managed to get rid of him before the quarter hour.

“Good night, Michael,” said Otto. “I will lock up when I leave. And I will see you to-morrow.” He smiled and closed the outer door and stayed by it, listening to the old man’s footsteps as he shambled away along the corridor.

He looked at the clock upon the wall above Miss living’s desk. There still lacked three minutes before the appointed time, and unless Altinger were early, there would now be none to know—at least before the late visit of the night-watchman—that there had been anyone here but Nils Jorgensen. That was good, very good. It fitted well.

It was not until five minutes before the hour that Altinger arrived.

Otto met him in the outer office: he had heard the quick, familiar footfalls.

“Well, well!” said Altinger. “Look who’s here! How are you, young Jorgensen? How are you?” He seized Otto’s hand in a powerful grip and the bright dark eyes flickered over Otto from poll to toe.

Otto produced an answering smile. He said:

“I am well now. Fine!”

“Yes, you look it!” Altinger led the way into the inner room and slammed the door and turned and once more let the quick eyes roam over Otto in appraisal. “Look hard, too. How’d you manage to keep so fit?”

Otto said: “I invented exercises for myself.” He was trying to see, without letting his gaze direct itself too plainly, whether Altinger were wearing the shoulder-holstered gun which was occasionally an adjunct to his immaculacy. “That is, before they would let me stand. The last weeks I have been able to do more.”

“Hot as hell in here!” said Altinger. “Whyn’t you take off your coat?” He ripped off his own, and there was no gun, nothing save a silk shirt of quiet splendour.

Otto said, truthfully: “I have not felt it very hot here.” He watched Altinger’s back as he strode across to the desk, pulling the key chain from his pocket as he went. There was no gun in the hip pockets—which left only the one in the right-hand drawer of the desk.

And now Altinger, who had thrown himself into his padded swivel-chair, unlocked this drawer and opened it and pulled out a flat box of cigars and left the drawer open.

“Have a cigar?” he said, and took one himself and bit off the end with large white teeth.

Otto walked over to the desk but did not sit. He shook his head, and Altinger found himself a light and presently sat back with a blue haze about his head.

“Well,” said Altinger, “now business! What’s on that I don’t know about? Why did you give me the sign on the phone?”

Otto let his eyes flick a glance at the open drawer. He could see the butt of the Lüger. He said:

“It is very important. I have seen Mrs. Van Teller. . . .”

Altinger took the cigar from his mouth. He said quickly:

“When? Saw her myself yesterday, on her way to Santa Barbara. She didn’t say anything about you.” He sounded angry, and Otto, sweating a little at the thought of so narrow an escape from immediate revelation of his lie, thanked his providence for the man’s overweening egoism. He played upon it some more. He said:

“That is strange. She said nothing of having been with you. It was this morning. Before I left. She telephoned to me and arranged that I should meet her on the road. At the roadhouse restaurant near Palitos.” He had to talk Altinger away from the desk and the Lüger. He said:

“I met her. She was very . . . strange. She said to me too that she was en route to Santa Barbara. But she did not speak about you.” He saw the effect of this stroke again: Altinger twisted in his chair and smoked furiously.” She told me there were two important matters to which I must attend at once—as soon as I was arrived back here, in San Francisco.” He wondered what the first matter could be—and made a quick decision. “The first matter was that I must find out how were the arrangements for Plan Six . . .”

He got no further. Altinger jumped to his feet, his eyes blazing. He said, almost shouted:

“I reported to her on Plan Six; spent half a day on the job. I told her everything—even though I didn’t want to! What the hell sort of monkeyshine is this!” He cursed, both in English and in German.

Otto was startled by the German—not by the words, which were those of any barrack-room, but by the accent, which placed Rudolph Altinger as originally in a stratum from which it would never have occurred to Otto that he had climbed.

“And why in hell,” said Altinger, recovering control, “they ever let women muddle with men’s work, I don’t know!” He tried to laugh away his outburst of a moment before, but found it difficult. He came out from behind the desk to the clear centre of the room and began to pace up and down, his powerful shoulders hunched forward, his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets.

He had been talked away from the desk and the Lüger, and Otto, behind a mask-like face, was jubilant. He moved away from the desk himself, standing between it and Altinger. Now the campaign could begin. He said:

“That was strange—to ask me about Plan Six! But it was not so strange as the second matter.”

Altinger, who had ceased his pacing near the window and was staring out of it, wheeled about as if a knife had pricked him.

“What was it?” he said. The words came through unopened teeth, and his whole blunt face was twisted in a peculiar, snarling grimace which might have been mistaken for a smile if the eyes had been hidden.

Otto said: “She asked me to find out . . . to calculate for her how long a time would have to be taken, in an acute emergency, to evacuate all the officers of all the units under the Staff Council!”

“What?” said Altinger in a whisper. He came closer to Otto and stared into his face.

Otto said: “To . . . to get them all safely out of this country.” He took pains to sound as well as seem bewildered. “I could not believe what I was hearing. So I asked her questions—and she repeated. It did not matter, she said, where they arrived, so long as it was in some place not under American or British jur . . . jur-is-diction. The very fastest method: I was to find out, and report to her within three days at Santa Barbara. She told me a telephone number.” He made a convincing little gesture towards his pocket, as if to bring forth a book or paper on which this number was written.

But Altinger was not looking at him. Altinger was lost in deep and utterly concentrated thought.

Otto reached past him and quietly pulled down the windowshade and shut off any possible view into the room. The bowl-light in the centre of the ceiling jumped into sharpened life and the walls pulled closer together.

Altinger whispered: “What in hell is this?” He was speaking to himself and not to Otto.

Otto said: “I did not know what to do. I considered—and I saw that the only thing was to tell you.”

“Quite right. Absolutely right!” Altinger was aware of him again.

Otto said: “Perhaps she meant that I should ask you. And I am not exceeding her orders by asking you. Because I think you are the person who would know, or would be able to . . . to calculate.”

Altinger smiled at him. “Quite correct, young Jorgensen; hundred per cent!”

Otto said: “It is very curious!” He was not happy: the man must tell him; must be made to tell him. “Do you think perhaps that there is some trouble that we do not know? And that we must be ready to . . . to evacuate? I have thought that it would take long—too long if there were real trouble—three weeks or perhaps more.”

Altinger laughed. “You’re crazy, son. I got out a scheme twelve months ago—on higher orders than Madame Van Teller’s, too! Ten days is the maximum!” The self-laudatory smile went from his face and he frowned. “But what does . . .”

He got no further. An astounding, impossible, bewildering thing happened to him then. Young Jorgensen laughed—and shot out a hand and gripped him by the front of his shirt. The grip hurt—and the laugh had been a strange, harsh sound.

Otto tightened the grip. His heart was pounding in his ears and there was a racing surge of excitement through him. It had worked. The first, essential step of his plan had been made. He ordered himself to be cold and calm. He said:

“Ten days! That is what I wished to know!”

Rudolph Altinger, the first stunning shock of his amazement past, was staring up into the unknown face of this known man with eyes again bright and shrewd and calculating. He said:

“What’s the matter with you!” in too smooth a tone, and Otto saw the muscles tighten across the heavy shoulders.

Otto said sharply: “Do not move!” But he was too late—for Altinger, with a sudden explosion of force almost unbelievable in a man of his age, broke loose from the grip and left a shred of silk in Otto’s right hand and swung a tremendously powerful underarm blow for the pit of Otto’s stomach.

He was quick, but not quick enough—for Otto’s right arm struck away the advancing blow while his own left fist, moving in a flashing six-inch arc, cracked against the point of the heavy out-thrust chin.

A strange little snarling sound broke from Altinger’s mouth, and he twisted a little and fell forwards, pitching on to his face upon the thick pile of the carpet. . . .

The senses of Rudolph Altinger came back to him with a painful and immediate rush. It could not have been many seconds since they had been driven out—but he could not move. He lay on the carpet still, but upon his side. And he could not use his arms nor legs, for something bound them together. And he could not open his mouth: there was something over it which was stuck to his lips and the skin of his cheeks and hurt both when he tried to speak or draw in a deeper breath. There was a deep ringing in his ears and fiery specks danced before his eyes. He closed the eyes—and felt arms about him which raised him as if his hundred and seventy pounds were the weight of a child and then thrust him roughly into a hard chair whose arms scraped against his elbows as he fell into it.

He opened his eyes again. The ringing in his ears was less and the specks in front of his eyes were fewer and he was aware of the figure of young Jorgensen bending and looming over him and winding something about his middle which forced him cruelly yet further back into the chair.

Otto stood over his prisoner and looked down at him.

“Now!” said Otto. “I will explain. You can hear me—and understand what I am saying? Nod your head.”

Rudolph Altinger nodded his head.

Otto said: “If you do not understand me, shake your head. I will tell you now why this has happened. I am no longer a loyal soldier of the Reich. Nor do I consider myself a subject of the present Germany. I am opposed completely to the aims and principles of the present leaders of Germany.”

He paused. He had been speaking very slowly. He knew the words he had said, and those which he was going to say, by heart. He had rehearsed them, many times. But he was slow because he must be sure, absolutely sure, that he was understood without possibility of error. An error would make no difference whatsoever to his enemies, but every difference to himself and his motives and his . . . honour. He thought, suddenly and unexpectedly, of Clare—and then of her father. It was a long moment before he spoke again.

He said then: “I am not going to tell you why I have . . . changed. You would not understand. I am telling you only that I have changed. When I found that I had changed, I did not know what to do. Again you would not understand, so I am telling you only what I have decided. I have decided that I cannot betray you and the others in this country who serve the Reich. I have decided that I must warn you, and then allow you ten days—that is the time you have told me—to get them and yourself out of this country. After the ten days I shall tell in the Capitol all that I know—everything. And that is a great deal: it is all the names of the officers—and where they are—and all the Plans, including Plan Six—and the names of the Staff Council and where they are to be found—and much more! Enough to be sure that when they know, the authorities of this country will at once be able to seize all of you. . . . Do you fully understand what it is that I am saying?”

Rudolph Altinger nodded his head. His eyes were sharp and bright again. They seemed darker than ever Otto had seen them.

Otto said: “I could have spoken to you more quickly in German. But I do not wish to do this—again for reasons which you will not understand. But you will understand this: I am not going to speak anything of what I know, to anybody, until the eleventh day from to-night. I have not told anyone anything which would make them know the names or plans. I have left nothing written which would tell anything. What I know is in my head and only there. So that it is now a . . . battle between us, between myself alone and the whole of the Staff Council and their units. That is not a battle which is equally matched—but the balance is over upon your side so that I can never say to myself that I changed and was a traitor to the men I had been with before I changed. You do not understand that feeling, but you do understand what I am saying? Nod your head, or shake your head.”

Rudolph Altinger nodded his head.

Otto said: “I am taking this advantage only—that I have planned before what I shall do, and have put you there, like that, so that you are unable to do anything until someone frees you, and you will therefore not be able to set your men and yourself after me so soon that I should have no chance against the numbers. But that is only a little advantage for me—it leaves the balance down upon your side still.”

He stopped speaking. He looked at Rudolph Altinger for a long time. He said at last, in a different tone, and much more quickly than he had been speaking:

“I could have killed you. I have the thought that perhaps I should have killed you. But that would be against the plan I have made for myself.”

Altinger’s eyes were staring into his. They said to him:

“You’re a damned fool not to kill me. I shall kill you!”

Otto said: “I am going now. It is my ob—objective to be in Washington upon the eleventh day from to-night and telling all that I know.”

He did not look at the man again. The Lüger from the desk-drawer was in his pocket, and in it was a full clip of cartridges. He turned away and went swiftly to the door and turned out the light and in a moment was out of the suite and had locked all the doors behind him and was going softly down the stairs.

He left the building by the back door and went through the paved yard and into the alleyway and came out on to June Street at the end of the block. Before he crossed into Gate Avenue, he turned and looked up at the window of Altinger’s inner office. The blind was down and there was no light behind it; he knew there would not be, but it was no harm to make certain.

He went down Gate Avenue with a quick, sure stride in which the limp was barely perceptible. He felt light and hard and almost gay. He found his car where he had parked it and drove off, not too fast, towards his apartment house. He heard himself whistling—and realized with a little shock that the air was something from the Offenbach Parisienne ballet.

He stopped three blocks away from the house and parked inconspicuously upon a dirty, narrow by-street. He walked the rest of the way and reached his apartment without so much as being seen by anyone else in the house. He locked the outer door and stripped and took a shower. But he did not shave, although the beard was beginning to be stubbly upon his face, and when he dressed himself it was in the faded sweater and dungarees which he had bought in the waterfront store.

He put his money in his belt and some socks and two worn shirts and a toothbrush in the duffel bag which went with the clothes. He took a light, long polo-coat from its hanger and tied it up in an ugly bundle which he strapped to the duffel bag. He was ready—a full seventy-five minutes ahead of his careful schedule. He was smiling as he went softly out of the apartment door and reached the rear stairs, still with no one seeing him, and made his way down them and thence to the street behind the house.

He was very careful as he went to his car by devious ways. He was not followed and knew he could not be so soon, but he wanted to leave no impression upon any eyes which saw him.

The by-street was empty when he got into the car and drove away. He look off the greasy peaked cap and set it on the seat beside him and was secure in the thought that the street-lights were not strong enough to show any incongruity between his clothes and the car.

He had a long time before his next move, and there was no point in picking up the U-Drive car any earlier than was necessary. He determined to eat, and found, with some surprise, that the thought of food had made him voraciously hungry.

He went to Panama Pat’s, which is dirty and crowded and filled with the riffraff of the port, but which is completely unknown to sightseers and serves meals both admirably cooked and enormous.

He parked the car two hundred yards away and presently drifted into Pat’s and was safely lost among the throng. He had a drink at the bar and then sat down in one of the narrow single-seater booths and ordered a steak.

He was half-way through it when he heard the voices from the bigger booth at his back. Whether the men had been there all the time or had just sat down he did not know. He heard the rustling of a newspaper, and then the first voice.

“See they pinched his wife now,” it said, and mentioned a famous Nazi name.

“So what?” The second voice was scornful. “That won’t help ’em any.”

“Maybe not. But they done it jest the same. They pull that all the time!”

“Yeah. Regular standard Nazzy trick. They figure th’ bes’ wayta make surea gettin’ a guy’sta grab his dame or his kid ’n then he’ll cometa them without no more trouble!”

Otto heard no more. His heart seemed to stop beating and then to start again with a shaky, irregular thumping.

He had not even considered the possibility!

He fought against blind panic and began to think. Was there any chance—any chance at all—that they would somehow guess at what Clare meant to him? Was there any way in which the thought of her might occur to them? Because, even if it were just the thought, with nothing to base it on save her very existence, they might try! They would have to use any and every potentiality! They might try!

But would they even get the thought? Altinger had seen her, of course. . . .

And so had Carolyn Van Teller! So had Carolyn Van Teller!

He closed his eyes—and he could see the smile with which Carolyn Van Teller had looked at Clare as they both stood by his bed. . . .

He pushed his plate away and rapped upon the table for the dirty-coated Chinese waiter. His mouth was dry and his heart was thudding somewhere up in his throat and he felt as if he were going to vomit.

The waiter came and Otto gave him two dollar bills and waved away change and got out of the place and back to his car as quickly as he could without running.

He sat in the car without turning on the lights. The quiet and the darkness helped him to think. And, as he thought, the worst of his fear subsided, to be replaced by a great thankfulness that he had happened to overhear the idle words which had shown him the danger in time.

Because it was in time. Altinger could not yet be free; the Machine was not yet in motion—and what he must do was to warn Waldemar and make certain that Clare’s safety was sure and then return to the prepared steps of his plan.

How should he warn Waldemar? Over the telephone? He could, because Waldemar would understand the guarded sort of talk he would have to use. Or should he—better, far better!—make swift alteration in the campaign and carry out the business with the two cars as planned but then drive north-west instead of south and go by Los Robles and deliver the warning in person and . . . and see Clare again as he did so?

Yes: that was it. It was safe and right—and he would see Clare.

He started the car and switched on his lights and drove away, uptown, towards the U-Drive garage.

His nearest way would take him right across the busy intersection of which the office building was the north-east cornerstone. He used this way now, though earlier he had not intended to do so. The light was green, and he shot across the main road and then slackened as he entered the familiar block of June Street and leaned across the seat and peered up, just to check, at Altinger’s window.

It was shaded still—but there was bright light behind the shade!

The car lurched—and he pulled it straight as he sat up with panic wrapping cold fingers around his entrails. Out of the corner of his eye, he tried to see the doorway to the office building, but the car was too far past by now and he dared not check nor stop. He drove on, slowly increasing speed. His mind raced, trying against deadly fear to be cold and direct and certain.

Altinger could neither have worked himself loose nor attracted attention: someone, by some frightful mischance, had gone to the office, and now Altinger was free! How long had he been free?

The clock on the dashboard said eight-thirty. He had left Altinger and the office building at twenty-five minutes past six and looked back from the corner and seen the lank, unlighted window. So that, conceivably, Altinger could have been free for over two hours! And an hour for Altinger, working at pressure, was half a day for other men!

He must find a telephone. At once he must find a telephone—as soon as he had made sure and doubly sure that he was not followed. He began, driving as fast as he dared, to weave a maze about the hilly streets. He turned left three times and right a couple; then four times right and one left and then straight ahead and around a block and back upon his own tracks. And then he found a narrow street which rose more steeply than the others and turned into it and drove uphill and then stopped and pulled in to the curb and watched in his rear mirror for pursuers.

But there were none. There were no cars at all—and very soon he slipped in his gear and climbed the hill and turned west and reached a more populous district and put the car into a park beside a petrol station and ran to a chemist’s upon the other side of the street and shut himself into the telephone booth and put through a long-distance call to Los Robles.

He waited for age-long minutes.

“Hehlo!” said the operator. “Hehlo: on your call to Palitos three-one, sir, there seems to be trrouble on that line! We cannot make a connection. . . .”

Otto put the receiver back upon its hook. His stomach felt like water and it seemed, difficult to breathe. He slammed open the door of the booth and ran out of it and across the road for his car.