Authors: David Downing
“I saw you cross the plaza around one o’clock,” McColl told the boy. “Who was the other man?”
“His name’s Rivera. He’s well known in Veracruz. Some people call him a man of the people, but others just think he’s a troublemaker.”
“And what was he doing with Señor Tubach?”
“Acting as his guide, I think. They went to lots of places together.”
“What sorts of places?”
Hugo shrugged. “Places to do with death. They went to the naval academy yesterday, and then to a field near the power
plant where bodies were being burned. This morning it was the fiscal wharf. The Americans have dug a big grave there, and they’re bringing bodies from all over the city.”
“And what did Señor Tubach do at these places?” McColl asked, already knowing the answer.
“He took photographs, but not when the Americans were watching. He has a type of camera that I’ve never seen before—it’s really small.”
“Which he keeps in the pouch around his neck?” Now that he thought about it, McColl remembered reading that one German camera company had been trying to manufacture a pocket-size instrument.
Hugo confirmed as much.
“And this afternoon?”
“After the fiscal wharf, they visited a house on Cinco de Mayo—I don’t know why, but the number was seventy-five—and then they went to the whorehouse on Calle Morelos. But they didn’t stay long enough to enjoy themselves. They came back out with one of the whores and brought her to the Hotel México. I have a friend who works there, and he says they took her to the room at the top where three men died on Tuesday. When they came out, she was counting pesos. Rivera walked off with her, and Señor Tubach went back to the Hotel Terminal.”
McColl smiled, told him he’d done well, and added a bonus to the agreed sum.
“Tomorrow?” Hugo asked hopefully, pocketing the bills.
“I don’t think so,” McColl decided after a moment’s thought. “But I do want to know when he checks out. Do you have any friends at the Terminal?”
“I can buy one,” the boy said, tapping his pocket.
McColl let him out, then wandered across to the window. The eastern sky was almost dark, the harbor lights rippling in the water.
So that was it, he thought—a propaganda coup. Though could you call it propaganda if it was actually true? The photograph taken at the Hotel México would have been staged, but who would question it among so many genuine images? It wasn’t hard to imagine how von Schön had used the prostitute—a ravaged, half-naked Mexican heroine, lying in pools of patriots’ blood.
How was he going to stop the man? He had to get hold of the camera and any other damning evidence of American bad behavior, real or faked. One obvious solution was to take the whole matter to the American authorities, who would presumably ensure that the photographs never saw the light of day.
But would they? Englishmen tended to assume that Americans preferred them to Germans and thought of the latter as their common enemy, but the facts suggested otherwise. There were many Americans who heartily loathed their British cousins, and, like any other nationality, they had their share of idiot officials. The last thing he needed was an American too prejudiced or stupid to appreciate the international ramifications of these pictures being published.
He’d be better off dealing with the business himself, and the best way of doing so looked like the simplest—he would pay von Schön a visit, take the camera away at gunpoint, and throw it into the sea. Unless he shot the German and threw him in, too, von Schön would be free to take his revenge, but what did that matter? The pictures would be gone.
It would be risky. Von Schön would have a gun of his own, and McColl would need to surprise him. He would wait until one in the morning and trust that his last American dollars would be sufficient to tempt the night clerk.
There were still people in the bar when he slipped out of the hotel, but the moonlit plaza was empty. He kept to the shadows as he made his way down Independencia, but the only
other thing moving was a sad-looking dog, which padded after him for a couple of blocks before running out of interest or energy. There was no sign of an American patrol, which suited him fine. If his meeting with von Schön went badly wrong, he wanted no witnesses to his being out.
A single yellow lamp was burning over the entrance to the Hotel Terminal. He looked around, half expecting to see Hugo lurking in the shadows, but if von Schön had returned for the night, then the boy would have gone home to bed.
He walked in, expecting to find the night clerk asleep, but the young man concerned had a girl in his lap. From the sound of the panting, it seemed safe to assume that at least their tongues were entwined, and he felt almost cruel interrupting.
McColl said “
Buenas noches
,” quietly, and the heads leaped apart. “I am a friend of Señor Tubach—”
“He is no longer here,” the young man said automatically. The girl just looked stunned.
“When did he leave?” McColl asked disbelievingly.
“One hour ago.”
“Where was he going?”
“He did not say. Now …”
The girl turned her face to McColl, adding her own appeal for privacy. She had a beautiful face.
He wished them both a good night and walked back out. Where the hell had von Schön gone? There was no way he could wander around town checking out all the other hotels, not with a curfew in force.
It suddenly occurred to McColl that Hugo might have followed the German to his new hotel before he called it a day. But he had never asked for the boy’s address. A mistake, no doubt about it. Now he would have to wait, and probably till morning.
But could he afford to? As he worked his way back up
Independencia, he tried to put himself in von Schön’s shoes. Even if the American authorities would let him, there was no point in publishing the pictures in Veracruz, because the town was effectively cut off from the rest of Mexico. The capital was where they would do the most damage, but how could he get them there? He wouldn’t risk the mail, not with the Americans in charge at the post office. Someone would have to take them, and McColl couldn’t imagine von Schön trusting anyone else with the job.
The only way there was by train. One had left early on Thursday morning, steamed the six miles to the rail break, and returned with three hundred foreigners from Mexico City. It had been scheduled to collect another batch that morning, and he had no reason for thinking it hadn’t. But were the trains from the capital waiting for passengers traveling back? Who would be? Not foreigners, and he doubted that the Americans were allowing any locals to leave.
The two journalists still propping up the Diligencias bar agreed that this was unlikely, which eased his mind a little. The news that the last two trains had left long before daybreak had the opposite effect, and he’d more or less resolved to head for the station when a breathless Hugo rushed in from the plaza. “Señor Tubach has gone to the train, and I think it is leaving in a few minutes.”
As McColl ran the four blocks, slowing only once in a vain attempt to placate the stitch in his side, he cursed himself for not searching the station earlier. He’d passed it twice on his way to and from the Hotel Terminal, but nothing he’d seen or heard had suggested that anyone was inside, let alone preparing a train for departure.
The reason, as he now found out, was depressingly simple. The train—a locomotive and several coaches—was standing out beyond the platforms, another few hundred yards away. He forced himself into motion once more, stumbling across
loose stones until he reached the flattened ground between the tracks. As if eager to thwart him, the loco released a huge plume of steam, which hung in the moonlit air until further, more purposeful blasts scattered it.
The train was beginning to move, and it was several despairing seconds before McColl realized, with a surge of hope, just how slowly it was actually traveling. He was still gaining, and as long as his legs held out, he could catch it.
It was a close thing. He must have run another quarter mile before his reaching fingers grasped the rail of the rear vestibule steps. After hauling himself aboard, he just stood there for a couple of minutes, gasping for breath as the tracks receded beneath him.
He told himself there was no hurry—at this speed the train would take the best part of an hour to travel six miles.
Once he had his breath back, he pulled out his pistol and opened the door to the rear carriage. There were no seats inside, just a couple of crates, on which two British sailors were sitting. The British, McColl remembered someone saying, had taken charge of at least one of the trains to the rail break.
The sailors were shocked to see him—or his pistol at least—and looked more than relieved when he put it away. “I work for a special department of the Admiralty,” he told them, more or less truthfully. “Who’s in charge of the train?”
“That’s a bone of contention,” one of them said. “The Yanks agreed to us having it tonight, but then they found out their ambassador is on the one we’re meeting, so then they wanted it back. Couldn’t bear the thought of him being met by the wrong flag.”
“So who’s in charge?” McColl asked again, with as much patience as he could muster.
“Captain Hogg-Smythe is our man, and theirs is a major, I think. We’re flying both flags, if they’re still stuck on. We had a devil of a job fixing them to the front of the engine.”
“Okay,” McColl said. “Could one of you go and fetch the captain for me? I need to talk to him, without any of the passengers seeing me.”
“There’s only one. The German bird-watcher, and he looks harmless enough.”
“Just do it,” McColl suggested.
“Okay, okay. Keep your hair on.”
The sailor was back in a couple of minutes with a tall, fair-haired young Englishman in a shining white uniform. He smiled at McColl, shook his hand, and asked him what the blazes he wanted.
McColl shepherded him down to the end of the car and explained the situation as briefly as he could. Rather to his surprise, Hogg-Smythe got it straightaway—he was clearly not as dumb as he looked. “So let’s go and get them,” he proposed.
“What about your American counterpart?”
“I can’t see he’ll have any objection. Quite the reverse. He’ll probably want to arrest the blighter. But let’s go and ask him—he’s two cars up. The bird-watcher fellow has a carriage to himself at the front.”
They walked forward and found the American major—his name was Matheson—dozing in his seat. He was also quick on the uptake and equally willing to confront von Schön. He’d been lucky with these two, McColl told himself as they walked on up to the front car. Through the windows the Mexican countryside looked flat and uninspiring, but as they crossed between cars, the moonlit mountains in the distance looked decidedly inviting.
Von Schön was sitting with his back to them and didn’t bother turning his head at the sound of approaching footsteps. The surprise in his eyes when McColl appeared in his line of sight quickly gave way to the wryest of smiles.
“Hello,” McColl said, sitting down in the opposite seat.
“Herr McColl. How unexpected.”
“Herr von Schön. If that’s your real name.”
“It is. We met on German soil, remember? No need for an alias there.”
“Of course. Well, we need to search your suitcase, I’m afraid. And to confiscate your camera.”
Von Schön nodded, as if expecting nothing less.
The camera was in the suitcase, the smallest camera McColl had ever seen. He put it in his pocket and went through the rest of the contents. There was one printed photograph, showing a small group of American soldiers, arms held triumphantly high, boots firmly planted on the backs of Mexican corpses.
“And your wallet,” McColl remembered in time.
The German handed it over.
There was nothing in it but Mexican money and the picture of von Schön’s wife and daughter that he’d produced in Tsingtau. The former could be used for bribes, but there seemed no point in confiscating the latter, so McColl returned it.
Von Schön glanced at the woman and child and handed the photograph back. “An actress and her niece,” he confessed. “I can’t even remember their names.”
The American major was growing impatient. “You’ll be coming back to Veracruz,” he told the German.
“You’re arresting me?” Von Schön asked. “For taking a few photographs?”
“Espionage is espionage,” Major Matheson insisted. “If my superiors think otherwise, you can catch tomorrow’s train.”
McColl turned to the American. “Could I have a private word?” he asked. “If the captain will look after our friend here.”
The two men went out onto the vestibule platform. “I think we should let him go,” McColl said without preamble. “Hear me out,” he added as the major began to protest. “You don’t
want an open conflict with the Germans, not with the situation in Tampico the way that it is. And you don’t want to make a martyr of this particular German. If the Mexicans find out why he’s been arrested, you might as well publish the photographs—it’ll look like you’re punishing a German for siding with your victims.”
Matheson was not stupid. “I take your point,” he said after a few moments’ thought. “So what’ll we do with him?”
“Just let him go on to the capital. He can’t do much harm without the pictures.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“So do I. Let me go and talk to him.” McColl walked back in and asked Hogg-Smythe to join the major.
Von Schön was not exactly grateful for the offer. “And what if I prefer American custody?” he asked.
“That’s no longer on the table,” McColl lied. “I managed to convince the major that arresting a German would be embarrassing after Tampico, so he’s given you to us. If you come back to Veracruz, you’ll be traveling home with me on a British warship.”
Von Schön gave him a look, uncertainty warring with disbelief.
“But I’d rather you didn’t,” McColl went on. “Not after you saved my life in San Francisco.”
“I’m beginning to regret that,” the German said, smiling as he did so. “But not really,” he added more seriously. “Dying for one’s country in war is one thing. Dying for one’s country in peace seems … I don’t know—disproportionate?”