The Hunt (aka 27)

  The next day, Ward Allenbee, as he decided he would be called, went back to Manhattan National and checked the new box. There was a single slip of paper in it. On it was printed a sentence:

  Das Gespenst ist frei.

  Was this how the contact would identify himself? With the phrase: "The ghost is free"?

  He folded the sheet, put it in his pocket and put the box back. Then he went upstairs and introduced himself to the vice president of the bank, Raymond Denton, a sallow, nervous man in his mid-thirties and a fawner. Allenbee did not like to be fawned over, but it was necessary as he began assuming and establishing his new identity.

  Lady Penelope Traynor had just cashed a check when she looked across the marble lobby of the bank and saw the handsome man in Raymond Denton's office. He was obviously just concluding business with the bank officer. Quite attractive, she thought. And the way Denton was fawning over him, obviously important. As they got up to leave the office she strolled across the bank toward Denton's office.

  Denton saw her and beamed. Such a little sycophant, she thought as she smiled back.

  "Raymond," she said, extending her hand.

  "Lady Penelope, how delightful. Lady Penelope Traynor, this is Ward Allenbee. Mr. Allenbee is a new customer of the bank and we're quite pleased to have him aboard."

  When they left Denton, they strolled toward the entrance together, making small talk.

  She smiled up at him. "Are you living in New York?" she asked.

  "Yes, I've taken an apartment at the Pierre."

  "How lovely. My father and I have adjoining suites at the Waldorf. What do you do, Mr. Allenbee?"

  "I'm in importing," he told her.

  "Really?" she said. "Art?"

  "Antiques."

  "How interesting."

  "It can be at times. Are you over for long? I assume you're from England."

  "We have a country house just outside London but we travel quite a bit so we keep a base of operations here, too. Actually I work as a researcher for my father. He writes a syndicated column. Sir Colin Willoughby? The ‘Willow Report'? "

  "Of course. I've read his articles. Quite perceptive. You were in the Orient recently."

  "Yes."

  "Interesting observation about the political situation in Japan. Does he really think we can avoid war with them?"

  "Well, you certainly should try. The situation over there is quite desperate, you know. The emperor doesn't really seem to know what's going on. Actually the country is under the control of Tojo and the right-wing military faction. The army and air force are quite strong and they have a very powerful navy."

  Allenbee smiled. It was refreshing to meet a woman as intelligent and perceptive as she was.

  "I have my car," she said. "May we drop you somewhere?"

  "May I be presumptuous and offer you a drink? The new bar at the Empire State Building is right up the street. I hear it's quite exquisite."

  She hedged a bit, looked at her watch, then finally shrugged.

  "Sounds charming," she said. "But I only have an hour."

  The car was a chauffeur-driven Packard. Obviously, Sir Colin did rather well with his column. The bar was brass and enamel, its style ultradeco. They sat in a corner booth and sipped martinis. She studied him carefully. Ward Allenbee was a handsome man with pale blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. His thin black hair was graying and archly widow-peaked and he wore a meticulously trimmed Prince Albert beard. His clothes were expensive and stylish, his speech perfect, his voice resonant. And he was intelligent and well informed. Quite interesting, she thought.

  Twenty-seven saw a woman in her late thirties, handsome, well groomed, yet oddly cold and detached. Her posture was a little too correct, her classic features a little too perfect, from the angular nose and pale green eyes to the petulant mouth, her red hair a little too tightly combed, her eyes a little too cold and suspicious. A snob who covered priggishness with a veneer of sophistication. She was awesomely well informed and outrageously opinionated and she was a casual name dropper. Some men might have found her intimidating. Twenty-seven saw in her a frustrated and repressed woman of high caste, ripe for the picking, a widow whose husband had been dead for years. A wonderful diversion while he awaited the next step in the mission.

  One drink became two drinks and then a third. The first hour passed and they were deep into the second when he suggested dinner at Delmonico's. She eyed him momentarily, her eyes softened by vermouth and gin, then she smiled.

  "Why not," she said. "But we must stop by my place, first. I really must change clothes."

  She had an ample one-bedroom suite adjoining her father's larger quarters in the Waldorf North Tower. It was pleasantly furnished but hotel furniture was hotel furniture no matter what one did with it.

  "I won't take long, I promise," she said. "I'll make you a drink before I change." She went to the bar in the corner and stirred him another martini.

  He sipped the drink and nodded emphatically.

  "Excellent," he said. "You are really something. You're a walking journal of events, you're quite beautiful and you make a great martini. You're full of surprises, Lady Penelope."

  He reached out, very lightly stroked her hair, then her throat. Stepping closer, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently on the mouth. She responded hungrily, a woman who had been chaste, untrusting of men, for years.

  She wanted him desperately, feeling he was a safe port in her otherwise stormy life. But that could wait. As he wrapped his arms around her, she buried her face in his neck, then raising her lips slightly, she whispered in his ear:

  "Das Gespenst ist frei."

  FORTY-NINE

  Twenty-seven was astonished when he heard her whisper the code phrase. Was she really his contact, this rich, titled Englishwoman whose father, the internationally famous journalist, had taken so many pot shots at Hitler through the years? Taken completely unaware, he stood flabbergasted as Lady Penelope walked across the room and opened the door to her father's suite.

  "Daddy," she said.

  The tall, trim, impeccable Englishman strode into the room. He wore a red velvet smoking jacket and a blue ascot. He was a handsome man, his mustache trimmed and waxed, his fingers manicured, his silver hair perfectly trimmed, his posture military. There was about him a cool, tailored, untouchable air. So this was the author of the famous "Willow Report." Looking at them together, Allenbee saw the family resemblance in the painfully correct posture, the classic features, the snobbish air.

  Willoughby thrust his hand out.

  "Well, well," he said. "At last we meet. We've waited a long time for this moment."

  "Sir Colin," Allenbee said cautiously. The Britisher leaned toward him and spoke a simple code phrase, "Willkommen Siebenundzwanzig, der Gespenstschauspieler."

  They shook hands.

  "So . . . time to make our contribution to the Third Reich, eh?" Willoughby said with a smile.

  "How did you recognize me in the bank?" Allenbee asked Lady Penelope.

  "Since you wouldn't leave a picture, I watched who went to the safe deposit room. You picked up your credentials yesterday so I had a rough idea what you would look like as John Allenbee, although I must admit, the beard threw me. Actually, it was just luck. I was looking for a man I might feel comfortable engaged to."

  "Engaged?"

  "We'll get to that," Willoughby said. "You know, old man, you gave us a start when we saw the personal in the paper and knew you were on the run. What happened?"

  "Somebody got on to me."

  Willoughby turned ashen for a moment but quickly regained his composure.

  "Who?" he asked, his eyebrows arching with the question.

  "Someone at a government department called White House Security."

  Willoughby shrugged. "Probably something to do with the guards on the gates and halls . . ."

  "I don't think so," Allenbee said. "They knew my name, address, occupation. They asked for the sheriff first, t
hen a park ranger to go with them to my place."

  "Where was this?"

  "Aspen, Colorado."

  "What did you do?"

  "I helped set up ski lodges there. Mapped out trails, set up base camps, ran avalanche patrols. It was a good job until these two showed up from Washington."

  "How did you get away?" Lady Penelope asked.

  Allenbee stared at her for a moment, then smiled.

  "With great difficulty."

  "What did they want, the two from Washington?" Lady Penelope asked.

  "I have no idea. I didn't wait to find out."

  "Well, never mind," Willoughby said with a grin. "You made it. You are here. The time is now. Ready to go to work, Herr Swan?"

  "Not Swan, Willoughby," he said sternly. "My name is Allenbee. Erase Swan from your mind. He no longer exists. And can the German expressions. You're English, I'm American."

  "Yes, yes, of course," said a flustered Willoughby. "I'll be more careful in the future."

  "See to it," Allenbee said. "So . . . what is this plan that we've waited six years to implement?"

  "Shall we go to my suite? Everything is there. Actually, the whole gambit is quite simple to explain."

  Allenbee followed them both into Sir Colin's suite. Unlike Lady Penelope's hotel decor, his living room had obviously been redecorated in oak paneling and leather furniture. One wall was dominated by an enormous Degas painting. Allenbee stared at it for several moments.

  "Early Degas," he said.

  "You know your art, John," Sir Colin said.

  "It's Ward. I prefer to be called Ward. John is too common."

  "Very good, Ward."

  "I once had a Degas," Allenbee said. "That was years ago. Willie Vierhaus has it now."

  "Help me, would you, please?" Willoughby said, walking over to the painting. With Allenbee's help, he took the painting down, turned it around and leaned it against the wall. Brown wrapping paper was stretched across the back. Willoughby took a sharp letter opener, scored the edges of the paper and tore it off. Beneath it, glued to the back of the painting, were two maps and a detailed blueprint. One of the maps was the eastern seacoast of the United States; the other was a blowup of a small section of the larger map, with an arrow pointing to a spot on the Georgia coast near the Florida border.

  "This is where we are going," Willoughby said, tracing his finger down the larger of the two maps to the town of Brunswick, Georgia. "About fifty miles north of the Florida line there is an island called Jekyll Island. This smaller map is a close-up of it. It's just across the marsh from the mainland. Actually, a very short boat ride. The island just to the north of it is St. Simons Island. They are separated by a sound—probably a quarter of a mile wide.

  "Jekyll has a somewhat checkered history. Among other things, the last slave ship to come to this country unloaded its unfortunate cargo on the island. I won't bore you with history for the moment except to tell you it is now the richest, most exclusive private club in the world. In 1885, a group of America's richest men bought the island and established it as a private playground. J. P. Morgan, Marshall Field, the Vanderbilts, George Pullman, James Hill, Richard Crane, the Goodyears, the Astors, the Rockefellers, Joseph Pulitzer . . . you understand what I am saying? The richest, most powerful men in the United States. The list goes on and on."

  He paused for effect. Allenbee leaned closer, studying its location among a string of other islands that dotted the southern coast.

  "Through the years, they have built a rather splendid clubhouse, two apartment buildings and several what we jokingly call ‘cottages.' The first ones were relatively modest. But as time went on and their egos began to clash, these so-called cottages got more and more lavish.

  "Since the early thirties, a group of regulars consisting of twenty-seven families have been going every year for Thanksgiving and returning just before Easter. Penny and I first started going down as a guest of the Vanderbilts. We've been going on this jaunt off and on since then. The first trip, the very first time, it occurred to me that it would be a relatively simple thing to lift one or two of them. Then I thought more about it. Why not get them all? I took the idea to Vierhaus and he took it to the Führer who was fascinated with the idea."

  He turned to Allenbee.

  "These men are the fatted pigs of American industry and society," he said, his eyes aglow with excitement. "Think of it, Ward . . . the captains of America's ships of state, some of the richest and most influential families in America with billions in foreign banks . . . all together at one time in one place, isolated from the mainland, literally unprotected. As the Yankees say, sitting ducks.

  "Oil, steel, coal, transportation, the press, shipping, arms, munitions, automobiles, banking. The stock market! The heads of two of the biggest brokerage firms in America. My God, these are the men, Allenbee, who will create America's arsenal if it goes to war with us. In fact, they are already providing England with the tools to fight us."

  Allenbee lit a small cigar with his gold lighter. He stared at the map without speaking, his face an unemotional mask.

  "The plan is simple," Willoughby continued. "We have been invited down for the first three weeks of the season. A U-boat is at this moment sequestered on Grand Bahama Island, approximately two hundred miles to the south. She will come up the coast on the night of November 23rd . . ."

  "Thanksgiving?" Allenbee asked.

  "Precisely. The U-boat will dock at the yacht pier and we will then take twenty-seven of the richest men in this country hostage, remove them from the island and take them back to Grand Bahama. We will negotiate with Roosevelt. If the U.S. remains completely neutral, when the war is over they will be released."

  "How do we get them off this island?"

  "Another U-boat will meet us in Andros. The hostages will be split into two groups, to reduce crowding on the submarines. They will be transported to a mother ship in the mid-Atlantic and from there a clipper can take them to Spain. We can have them on our soil in . . . seven days."

  "And this was your idea?" he said finally.

  Willoughby nodded, waiting for his reaction. None came. The man who was now Allenbee stood up and walked to the desk, studying the papers and documents and then the map on the wall.

  "The U-boat is already in place," said Willoughby. "The coded message you will send to the U-boat is in this envelope. It is in the Drei cipher. Not even I know what it is."

  He handed the envelope to Allenbee who tapped it against his cheek for a moment or two.

  "And when do we do this?"

  "The private train leaves in ten days. The trip down takes five. The timing is perfect. Poland is ours. France is in turmoil. The British have four divisions in France along the western lines. If America is neutralized, France and England will have to sue for peace."

  "That's an oversimplification."

  "Not at all. The Wehrmacht will be on the coast, ready to invade. And jolly old England will be sitting out there all alone with her bloody pants down . . ."

  "And," Allenbee said, interrupting him again, "we'll have the industrial and financial power of America in our hands."

  "Exactly."

  "What made such a good Nazi out of a stuffy old British bastard like you, Willoughby?" Allenbee said in a monotone, his expression still hiding his reaction to the scheme.

  Willoughby chuckled. He sat down behind his desk and leaned back in his chair.

  "I interviewed the Führer for the first time in 1927," he said. "He was nothing then—but I could feel his power. Then I became a disciple of Mein Kampf. I've worked for Jews for years, been exploited by them for years. The Empire is finished, Allenbee. That faggot, Edward, running off with the American bitch. Canada gone. India will be gone. Just a matter of time. A great empire dead of dry rot and run by gutless ninnies. Need I go on?"

  Allenbee slowly shook his head. "And you, Lady Penelope?"

  "What has England ever done for me?" she said coldly.

  He lit anothe
r cigar. "What's my cover?"

  "Why, you and Penelope are betrothed, old boy," Willoughby said with an almost mischievous grin. "We'll announce it here at a cocktail party two nights before we leave, that way there won't be time for anyone to check on your background, if they so desire, which I doubt. We'll be going down in Andrew Gahagan's private car. There will be twelve private cars on the train. I'll write the first story about the coming nuptials—parental pride and all that. If someone in the press begins to look too carefully into your background, it will be too late. We'll be off to Georgia."

  "And what's our story?" he asked Lady Penelope.

  "I met you on our last trip to the Orient," she said. "We fell in love in Hong Kong and you followed me back. All very romantic."

  "They'll welcome you with open arms," said Willoughby. "I've always written lovely stories about the place so they coddle me. You'll find that the very rich are just as vain as anyone else, perhaps more so."

  "Tell me more about the plan. I don't need lectures on human nature."

  "Quite. The island's contained, only two miles wide at its broadest and about five miles long. The cottages are all in a nice, tight little cluster around the clubhouse less than a hundred yards from the docking facilities for their yachts—plenty deep enough to bring our sub in and take thirty people aboard."

  "I thought you said twenty-seven."

  "Well, there's you and me and Penny, we'll have to leave. I will act as the negotiator."

  "Okay." He stared at the smaller map for a while. "So there will be twenty-seven millionaires, their wives and guests, is that it?"

  "Actually thirty-two. When we conceived this plot, twenty-seven regulars and their guests went down to the island every year. Since then the players have changed a bit."

  "And we take twenty-seven of them?"

  "The list is right here," Willoughby said. "We can take our pick. But it is my understanding that thirty is the limit."

  Twenty-seven picked up the list and perused it.

  "How spread out is this compound?"

  "Perhaps three city blocks square. But everyone will be in the dining room at precisely eighteen-thirty hours for dinner that evening. It's the big meal of the year and by club rule everyone must eat dinner in the clubhouse."