Hitler's peace

Missing the chance to see the city of Teheran gave me little cause for regret. Everything I had heard about the place-the water, the pro-Nazi Iranians, the haughty colonialism inflicted on the country by the British and the Russians-made me glad I wouldn’t be going there. All I wanted now was to clear myself of the murder charge and return to Washington. Once there, I was going to quit the OSS, sell the house in Kalorama Heights, and return to Harvard or Princeton. Whichever would have me. I would write another book. Truth looked like a subject that might be interesting. Provided I could decide exactly what truth was. I thought I might even write another letter to Diana, something much more difficult than writing a book about Truth.

Early on the morning of the fourth day of my holiday in the Citadel I awoke to find Mike Reilly in my prison cell. Even in his tropical cream suit, he was hardly anyone’s idea of the Lord’s angel.

“Did the maid let you in?” I shook my head, groggy with sleep. “What time is it?”

“Time to get up,” Reilly said quietly and handed me a cup of coffee. “Here. Drink this.”

“It smells a lot like coffee. How do you make it?”

“With a little brandy. There’s more in the car outside. Brandy, I mean. It’s just the thing to settle the stomach ahead of a long flight.”

“Where are we going?”

“Teheran, of course.”

“Teheran, huh? I hear it’s a dump.”

“It is. That’s why we want you along.”

“What about the British?”

“They’re coming, too.”

“I meant the police.”

“Harry Hopkins has spent the last thirty-six hours pulling strings for you,” said Reilly. “It seems both he and the president regard your presence in Teheran as absolutely essential.” He shook his head and lit a cigarette. “Don’t ask me why. I have no idea.”

“My things at the hotel-”

“Are in the car outside. You can wash, shave, and change your clothes in a room upstairs.”

“And the murder charges?”

“Dropped.” Reilly handed me my wristwatch. “Here. I even wound it for you.”

I glanced at the time. It was five-thirty in the morning. “What time is our flight?”

“Six-thirty.”

“Then there’s still time to drop into Grey Pillars.”

Reilly was shaking his head.

“C’mon, Reilly, we’ve got to cross the Nile to get to the airport, so Garden City is on our way. More or less.” I glanced up again at the barred window. Outside, the early-morning sky looked very different from its usual bright shade of orange. “Besides, haven’t you noticed the fog? I’ll be very surprised if we take off on time.”

“My orders are to get you to the airport, Professor Mayer. At all costs.”

“Good. That makes things easy for us both, then. Unless we go to Grey Pillars first, I’m not going to Teheran.”

Grey Pillars was only two miles west of the Citadel, and the journey, by official car, took but a few minutes. The British GHQ was always open for business and, showered and shaved and wearing the clean clothes Reilly had brought from Shepheard’s Hotel, I had little difficulty in gaining access again to the cells in the basement. I found Corporal Armfield just coming off duty.

“I’m here to see Major Reichleitner,” I told the bemused corporal.

“But he’s gone, sir. Transferred to a POW transport last night. On Major Deakin’s orders. He turned up here with your General Donovan, sir, wanting to know about some codebooks, sir. Major Reichleitner told your General Donovan that he’d burned them all, at which point the general got rather upset with him, sir. After that, he and Deakin had a bit of a chat like, and it was decided to put Reichleitner on a POW ship leaving Alexandria this morning.”

“Where’s the ship going, Corporal?”

“Belfast, sir.”

“Belfast? Did he leave a message for me?”

“No, sir. On account of how the general told him you’d been arrested on suspicion of being a German spy. Major Reichleitner seemed to think that was quite funny, sir. Very funny indeed. Fair roared with laughter.”

“I bet he did. What else did Donovan tell him? Did he tell him that I was accused of murder? About that woman who was shot?”

“No, sir. I was standing in the doorway all the time they were in there and I heard every word.”

So Reichleitner didn’t know that his girlfriend was dead. Perhaps that was just as well. A man facing a stretch in a POW camp in Northern Ireland needed something to look forward to.

“Have you heard? My arrest was a mistake. Just in case you were wondering, Corporal.”

“I was sort of wondering that, sir,” grinned Armfield.

“It’s been nice knowing you, Corporal. I’m pleased to see that not all the English are bastards.”

“Oh, they are, sir. I’m Welsh.”

Reilly was waiting impatiently in the back of the car, and even before I had closed the door, we were speeding west across the English Bridge and dashing between the limousines of the British pashas, the ice carts, the gold-and-tinsel hearses, the handcarts, the donkeys, and the gharries. “Are we flying via Basra?” I asked Reilly.