Jack of Spies (14 page)

“The consul suggested you bring me up to date with what’s been happening,” McColl said. It wasn’t strictly true, but he wanted to see whether Jatish’s take on recent events was the same as Fairholme’s.

In large part it was, but Jatish proved more willing—eager even—to apportion blame. According to the Indian, half the DCI operatives in San Francisco were incompetent fools and half the Americans were on the take. He named names and insisted that McColl write them down. “If you trust these men, Mr. Finney, you will know regret.” He pushed both palms down on the bed, then abruptly leaped up and walked to the window for another peek outside.

“I just need some basic facts,” McColl told him. “Like where is the Ghadar office? I assume they have one.”

There were two offices, Jatish told him, though strictly speaking both belonged to the Yugantar Ashram. Ghadar was the name of the movement, but its leaders were all members of the ashram, which rented two properties—a house on Hill Street that doubled as a hostel for Indian visitors and a second-floor office on Valencia. They weren’t that far apart, about two miles south of the downtown area. Har Dayal lived at the Hill Street address, but he was off to Washington in a couple of days to lobby against new congressional plans to limit Asian immigration. “Ramchandra Bharadwaj will be the new editor of the newspaper, but that is all.
Pandurang Khankhoje will be the party organizer, the one who must be watched. He has been Har Dayal’s favorite lieutenant for many months now.”

“I think I have a picture of him,” McColl said, taking out the photographs Fairholme had given him.

“That is Khankhoje,” Jatish said, jabbing a finger at one of the pictures as McColl leafed through them. “He often sleeps in the Valencia office.”

“How about the others?” McColl asked. “Can you add anything to what’s written on the backs?”

As they went through the photos together, Jatish offered lots of comments, some of which might well prove useful. In response to another question, he said that the Irish rarely turned up at the Ghadar addresses. The two groups had worked so closely together in New York City that a single informer had betrayed them both, and in San Francisco they were heeding the lesson.

“Do de Lacey’s people have a meeting place?”

They had several, but the Shamrock Saloon was the one they used most. It was a bar in the Mission District where de Lacey held court, often in the company of the priests he used as couriers. Collins, Doyle, and O’Brien were the ones he used most, but Father Yorke was the one who mattered. He was among the city’s most prominent figures, and he hated the English. He gave lectures and speeches about the Irish struggle and probably financed it, too. “He is a very rich man—he owns the building on Howard Street where the Irish print their newspaper.”

“But de Lacey is the man who makes things happen.”

“That is correct.”

“And what about the Germans?”

“Their consulate is near Lafayette Park. The military attaché—”

“Von Brincken.”

“Yes. He arranges matters with the Indians and Irish, but not in person. Other Germans go to the Shamrock Saloon, talking to de Lacey and his friends, and we think they are von Brincken’s men.”

“And do you know of any people on the other side—Irish or Indians—who might be willing to talk if enough money were on offer?”

Jatish shook his head. “Not now. The Ghadar people keep close watch for informers. You must have two party sponsors to join, and you are not told any secrets for first six months, so any informer must wait and wait. We had these people, but now they are gone, and most of them are probably dead. That is Ghadar punishment for telling secrets, and the Irish are same. It was Irishmen who killed the man found in the bay, and no one will want to be next.”

McColl asked Jatish what he would do in his place.

The Indian shrugged. McColl would stand out “like a sore thumb” at a Ghadar meeting and learn nothing useful. He wouldn’t be so noticeable at an Irish gathering, but the Indian found it hard to believe that anything illegal would be broached in a public forum. McColl’s best hope lay in intercepting messages between the two, but that would require a great deal of groundwork, identifying sources and their lines of communication. “These things take many months,” the Indian concluded. “More time than you have, I think?”

McColl asked him whether he actually considered the people he’d been watching a threat to the empire.

Jatish wouldn’t or couldn’t say. The Ghadar membership was already divided between those craving action and those who believed it wiser to wait, and if they lost Har Dayal—a likely development, if the BOI had its way—the movement might just splinter and collapse. On the other hand, if the Germans increased their support—if they backed someone like Khankhoje, with enough money and weapons to make a real splash—then Ghadar’s influence could grow, particularly in India. A European war would make all the difference, Jatish thought. That was what Har Dayal and de Lacey were waiting for. That would be their chance.

McColl thanked him for the briefing and offered his hand.
Jatish took it, smiling for the first time. “The best of British luck,” he said, without a hint of irony.

As he started back down the corridor, McColl heard the lock click behind him and hoped that the Indian was safer than he imagined. The elevator eventually arrived, and both passengers stepped out, leaving it free. The door was almost closed before he realized how Irish the faces had seemed, and his hand reached the button a second too late to abort the downward journey.

At the lobby desk, the day clerk was talking to a woman in a fur coat. McColl barged in front of her. “Those two men who just went up,” he demanded, ignoring the woman’s angry protests, “did they ask for Chatterji?”

“Yes, but—”

McColl strode back to the elevators, acutely aware of his lack of a weapon but knowing he had to do something.

He was still waiting when he heard the scream. It came from the street, and people were rushing out to see what had happened.

McColl followed, already knowing.

Jatish was lying in the road, a few feet from the sidewalk. The body shuddered once as McColl walked toward it and then fell still. Blood was trickling down the camber, pooling in the gutter.

A beat cop was approaching as fast as his girth would allow, and McColl hung back, one eye on the hotel doorway. What should he do if the two men came out? Follow them? Point them out to the dumb-looking cop? He’d probably just get the poor bastard killed.

In the end it was all academic—by the time more cops arrived with the mortuary wagon, it was obvious that the two men had made use of another, less public exit. McColl watched the corpse hauled aboard, one arm dangling loose. It was less than half an hour since he’d shaken that hand, felt the life in the Indian’s grip.

Walking toward the ferry terminal, he remembered how close he had come to stopping the elevator. A little bit quicker and Jatish might still be alive.

Or both of them dead.

As he watched the hills of San Francisco draw ever closer from the bow of the ferry, McColl tried to shake off the numbness that seemed in danger of immobilizing him. Jatish was dead, and that was that—he had no time to mourn a man he’d known for only an hour. But was he himself in danger?

He had been for the briefest of moments, but merely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jatish’s killers probably hadn’t even noticed him, and if they had, there’d clearly been no recognition. The Indian had been punished for his undercover role in an operation that predated McColl’s own arrival in the city.

He’d been shown how ruthless this enemy was, and he would have to be more vigilant. Disembarking, he scanned the waiting travelers with more concern than usual, double-checking several faces that instinct told him were innocent. In this job, he realized, paranoia could become second nature.

Keep moving, he told himself, take a tour of the enemy encampments. He would cast his eye over the ashram’s two addresses and the Shamrock Saloon and check out the surveillance possibilities. If a serious operation looked feasible, he would need to hire some help, which might turn out to be expensive. He could apply to Fairholme, but it would probably be safer to cable Cumming, now that the enemy had the consul’s number.

When it came to the Germans, perhaps he could make use of von Schön. The engineer had told McColl where he was planning to stay, and they had vaguely discussed meeting up for a meal. Von Schön might know someone in the consulate, perhaps even von Brincken.

Before getting started, McColl dropped in at the showroom. Mac was out with a possible buyer, Jed extolling the virtues of the vehicle to two more awaiting their turn. He sounded enthusiastic enough, but it had not, Jed told his brother in private, been a very good morning. A lot of people had turned up and duly admired
their beautiful vehicle, but most had left when they heard the price. “They all trot out what Henry Ford is charging for the Model T,” Jed said disgustedly, “as if it’s in the same league.” And those who hadn’t left, he added darkly, just felt like a drive.

The motor business had been fun while it lasted, McColl thought as he walked back up Market to a bookstore he’d noticed earlier. Jed might be right in thinking that Ford and his Model T were no threat, but someone would start making luxury automobiles on a production line before too long.

The bookstore had a street map for sale, and the woman behind the counter was willing to let him use their telephone directory to look up addresses. It was hard to tell where the numbers fell on the long streets, but the ashram’s two properties and the saloon were probably not that far from each other, a mile or more to the southwest. The German consulate was one of the official addresses listed on the back of the map; it was a mile to the north and west, facing Lafayette Park.

He thought for a moment about hiring an automobile but realized he had no idea how noticeable one might be in the districts he planned to visit. And the electric streetcars seemed frequent enough. He took one up Market, was pleased to find that it eventually veered south down Castro in the direction he required, and got off at the first stop beyond the junction with Hill Street.

The neighborhood looked less than prosperous, and Hill Street was badly enough in need of repair to deter any motorized traffic. There were not many more pedestrians, and the few residents sitting on their stoops seemed remarkably reluctant to return his smiles. The address in question was a three-story house with yellowed stucco walls and a yard full of rotting mattresses. There were no signs of any inhabitants and none that it served as a political headquarters. Walking past, McColl mentally compared it with the Admiralty building in London. He knew who he’d put his money on.

It was a ten-minute walk to Valencia, a busier, wider street with
tramlines running down its center. The ashram office was another three-story building, but much more modern, with double doors onto the street. There was a large apartment building opposite, which might provide a window for surveillance and photography.

There was a convenient coffee shop on the far side of the block, and McColl found a booth with a view across the street. He’d been there about five minutes when an Indian in a turban walked out through the double doors and stood on the sidewalk, gazing up and down the street. McColl was wondering whether the man was on the lookout for watchers when a woman and a small boy followed him from the building, and the threesome walked happily off together, looking more like a family out for a treat than agents intent on sedition.

McColl was struck—not for the first time—by the inherent absurdity of it all. He paid for his coffee and started working his way north and west across the Mission District toward Twentieth Street. There were signs of Irishness everywhere, from green flags to bars that looked more like pubs, from Blessed Virgins carved in alabaster to the Kellys and O’Learys that proliferated on the store and workshop signs. The Shamrock Saloon was at the bottom of Potrero Hill, a large, well-kept building with green velvet curtains drawn halfway across the windows and a wide room inside striped by beams of sunlight. Few of the tables were occupied, and only one pair of eyes seemed to notice his arrival.

He was confident he could manage an Irish accent but changed his mind at the last moment and ordered a beer in the Scottish tones of his youth. He might have abandoned the idea of bringing Caitlin here, but there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t walk through the door in the next few minutes—she was probably staying somewhere in the area.

The barman asked him what he was doing in San Francisco and expressed no further interest when told he was here to sell automobiles, leaving McColl with the distinct impression that all strangers were asked the same question. There was a copy of the
Irish Leader
on one of the tables, which he brought back to the bar and sat with, slowly drinking his beer and eavesdropping on the other patrons. There were framed drawings of Wolfe Tone and Edward FitzGerald behind the bar, but the two conversations he could hear concerned the coming weekend’s horse racing and a woman named Niamh who had thrown out her drunk of a husband.