Chapter 20

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.”