Thomas Ochiltree (9 page)

The drinkers paid little attention. Their schnapps and beer were clearly more important.

If this was a trap, it had not yet been sprung. So far, von Falkenburg knew, he had not worsened his position except by committing a minor infraction against the regulation that doubtless made this hole off limits to officers – and perhaps even to enlisted men. He could still walk out, or so he thought until he realized that his curiosity would not permit anything of the kind, come what might.

“Va banque!”
he said to himself, using the traditional term for going for broke in the game of baccarat, as he pulled at his sword knot, the prearranged signal. And there was someone coming toward him through the gloom. In a moment, von Falkenburg knew, some of the drinkers might be leaping from their chairs, declaring themselves to be undercover agents and arresting him.

“Captain von Falkenburg?”

“Yes.”

“Would you please follow me to my table? It’s in the corner, and we will be able to talk privately.”

It was a somewhat shabby little man who had spoken to him, but shabby in a lower-middle-class, respectable sort of way which seemed even more out of place here than did von Falkenburg’s military elegance. Von Falkenburg looked him in the eyes; they were nervous eyes, but they did not suggest deceit and betrayal.

“Lasky, journalist,” the little man said by way of introduction as they sat down.

Lasky had a schnapps glass in front of him, and the pencil marks on the cardboard coaster indicated that it was not his first. A waiter headed towards them. Von Falkenburg ordered a brandy.

“I’m glad you came,” Lasky said quickly. “I’m sorry to have troubled you by making you come here, but I would not have been safe if I had visited you at your quarters. For that matter, this isn’t my regular café – I ran into it by chance during my work as a reporter some years ago.”

“Safe from whom?” von Falkenburg asked.

Lasky held up his hands, his fingers spread in a gesture that seemed to indicate what a delicate subject that was.

“If
they
had found out I had met with you, they would have gotten me dismissed from my job. Or worse. They threatened worse. Physical violence!”

There was as much indignation as fear in those words.

“Imagine, threats like those coming from Austro-Hungarian officers! As if they had the right to call themselves officers!”

“I see you set high standards for officers,” von Falkenburg said.

Lasky spread his hands out again, this time with the palms upwards.

“I am an Austrian,” he said simply. Then he added, “just because I am a Jew does not mean that I am not a loyal subject of His Majesty!”

His voice was bitter, and von Falkenburg could understand why. There was no legal discrimination against Jews in the Empire, and some of the most wealthy ones were even given titles of nobility, but the unaccountable tide of anti-Semitism seemed to rise ever higher. Twelve years ago, when von Falkenburg had served as Rubinstein’s second in that duel, there had been eyebrows raised in his regiment at his willingness to serve as second to a Jew. Those eyebrows would rise a lot higher if the situation occurred now, though of course that would not stop von Falkenburg if it did.

“But I don’t seem to be doing a good job of telling you what you need to know,” Lasky apologized. “And that despite the fact that I am a journalist.”

He took another sip at his schnapps. He was a strange little man, but von Falkenburg already liked him. And he knew that his instinct for human beings rarely led him astray.

“To begin at the beginning,” Lasky said, “I received – quite unsolicited – a tip that there was an espionage scandal of some kind in the works. I began to make inquiries. As a journalist, I have many contacts, most of whom would never dream of receiving me socially, and I made a little progress. I learned that important military information had been provided to the Russians. I also learned that the whole matter was very, very delicate.”

“Then a Colonel von Lauderstein on the Staff contacted me and told me in no uncertain terms that if I continued to poke my nose into official business, I would find myself under arrest. I told myself that that was fair enough. After all the army has to have some secrets.”

“I did not want to drop the matter, but I sensed that this Colonel von Lauderstein was not bluffing. And all my contacts clammed up. Except for one, and all he was willing to tell me was that he thought some ‘funny business’ was going on.”

Von Falkenburg found himself leaning forward over the table. He no longer had the slightest doubt about Lasky’s sincerity, and although the shabby, honorable little man had so far told him little that he could use, von Falkenburg felt that for the first time he was getting a glimpse of the machinery which threatened to crush him.

“How did you get my name?”

“It was given to me by Colonel von Lauderstein.”

“Who gave it to
him
?”

“I don’t know,” Lasky said quickly and apologetically. “All I know is that he told me there had been a change of policy: that the scandal was
not
going to be concealed. He showed me documents. They implicated
you,
Captain.” Lasky looked embarrassed as he said this.

Von Falkenburg realized that this man really believed he was innocent. Finding someone who did was almost as exciting to von Falkenburg as to be finally getting some information.

“Colonel von Lauderstein told me to be patient. He would give me the word when I should break the story.”

“And…?

“Captain, I may not be a rich or famous newspaperman, but I’m a good one. I knew that something was wrong: first, the refusal to reveal anything, then the decision to show me the evidence. Why would the army do a thing like that? Why would it want any more embarrassing publicity than it had to have?”

Indeed, von Falkenburg could hardly imagine a normal decision by Military Intelligence or the Staff to let a reporter know that an espionage scandal was about to break. Did these changes of course represent the embryonic stage of the plot against him, a formative period when important decisions still had to be made?

“And, Lasky went on, “most suspiciously, Colonel von Lauderstein told me that I must not reveal to anyone,
not even the other officers who worked with him,
that I had this information.”

Any decision to reveal evidence of this sensitivity, von Falkenburg realized, if duly made, would have required a certain amount of high-level discussion. There was no earthly reason for this Colonel von Lauderstein to insist on his colleagues being kept in the dark
unless he had communicated the evidence to Lasky on his own, unauthorized initiative.

Von Falkenburg swallowed hard as he realized he might at last have the name of one of his tormentors.

“Then,” Lasky said, “I got an anonymous letter. It said that if I got in contact with you, I would have ‘physical as well as legal problems.’ Those were the words. I said to myself, ‘Lasky, if this is above board, why an anonymous letter? Why the threat? Our army doesn’t threaten people with physical violence!’”

Lasky was clearly one of those civilians whose patriotism inspired in them an unquestioning love of the army as great as – greater than, for that matter – that felt by many serving officers.

“Captain, the Empire has its faults. As a Jew, perhaps I know that better than some other people. But anonymous threats of physical violence – that’s something I can’t believe it capable of!”

The virtues of Austria-Hungary to one side, von Falkenburg knew that anonymous notes and physical threats were simply not its style. For that matter, they were something that its bureaucratic mentality was not imaginative enough to think of. All of what Lasky had described, from the presentation to him of the evidence against von Falkenburg, to von Lauderstein’s instruction to keep his mouth shut, to the mysterious threat, was highly irregular. And as von Falkenburg knew, regularity was
the
fetish of the army.

“So,” Lasky said, “after thinking all this over, I contacted one of my best sources. One of the few sources I have whom I can call a friend.”

“What is his name?”

“That I cannot possibly tell you. It is a question of honor. I know it may be hard for an officer to imagine a little reporter like me having honor, but I do, in my own way.”

“
Herr
Lasky, by taking a risk to help someone you believe to be innocent, you have shown yourself to have as much honor as any officer I have ever known.”

“Anyway,” Lasky said quickly, as if unsure how to respond to the compliment, “I told this source – he is an officer on the Staff, that much I think I can tell you – that I had my doubts about the guilt of this man who was being accused. My source, who I think is sometimes incautious, got
very
nervous this time. He told me not to ask any more questions along those lines. ‘Lasky,’ he said, ‘I believe in justice too, but I also believe in common sense. Just don’t go out of your way to look for big trouble, or you’ll find it!’ But I persisted. I asked him again if he knew anything. He replied, ‘just rumors. Unfounded rumors. Lasky, stay out of this. You can’t imagine how high this thing goes! It’s a political mess. I stay out of things like that.’ So I said to him, ‘what about this captain who may be innocent?’ And do you know what he said to me?”

Of course von Falkenburg did not. But he was very, very eager to find out.

“He said, ‘forget about the captain. He’s finished, but he’s unimportant. The captain is nothing in this. Just stay out yourself!’”

“Good God,” von Falkenburg said. He was beginning to understand….

“But despite this warning, you contacted me,
Herr
Lasky. Why? You don’t know me.”

“It’s not just you, Lasky replied. “Not really you at all. It’s justice. I believe in justice, just as I believe in Austria-Hungary. The Empire is not perfect. Far from it. But we must work to make it better. ‘A political mess’! You know what our politics is all about: disloyalty to Austria-Hungary. Hungarians who want what they call freedom, as long as that includes the right to dominate all the Slavs within their borders. German-Austrians, the people who founded Austria and provided the Imperial Family, who now hate the name of Austria and want to be subjects of the German Kaiser, the King of Prussia! And the same for all the other peoples. I am a Jew who wants to be an
Austrian
Jew, one of the Emperor’s many peoples!”

The little man spoke with burning intensity. Von Falkenburg was a loyal Austrian, but one who normally had little sympathy for political phrase-making, perhaps because he took his own loyalty for granted. But he could not help admiring Lasky’s fervor. It was easy to be a loyal Austrian when one was a Baron von Falkenburg. Harder when one was a Lasky, which made Lasky’s patriotism all the more admirable.

“If there is treason and espionage, it should be punished,” Lasky continued. “But if an innocent man is punished, is sacrificed to protect the guilty, justice is made mock of and the treason can go on. I want to expose the treason, not as a newspaperman after a story, but as an Austrian!”

Lasky stopped suddenly. Von Falkenburg was not sure if he had run out of breath, or suddenly felt self-conscious at having revealed so much of his deepest feelings.

“And you want me to help?” von Falkenburg asked.

“Yes. By helping yourself. By fighting against your enemies.”

“I’ll do what I can, but God knows, it isn’t easy. Can you get more information for me?”

“Perhaps,” Lasky said, “even though my main source is
very
nervous. Come here tomorrow.” Then he added with an embarrassed smile, “this isn’t my regular café, as I think I mentioned.”

“I didn’t think it was,
Herr
Lasky,” von Falkenburg said with a smile.

“I think we had better go,” Lasky said. While he had been talking, the nervousness he had first shown had gradually vanished from his voice. But now that he had said all that he had to say, it was creeping back in again.

Lasky suggested that von Falkenburg leave first and turn to the right. He would follow and turn to the left, so that no one would see them together. Von Falkenburg thought of pointing out that that would take Lasky down that dark, sinister street, but he figured Lasky knew the neighborhood better than he did.

Von Falkenburg rose from the table and left the room. The cold night air was like champagne after the fetid atmosphere of the café. He walked briskly down the street, trying to order his thoughts, when behind him he heard a scream, short and sharp, and the sound of fast-running feet.

Von Falkenburg whirled around. He could see nothing in the darkness. He pulled his sword from its scabbard. He had never drawn it before except for salutes and parades, but he knew that it had a razor edge.
By God, if someone had harmed Lasky…!

Down the street he ran, into the darkness, which closed behind him like a door, the symbol of his honor in his hand.

A second later, his foot slammed into something both soft and firm, and he pitched headlong, hitting the pavement hard, his sword clattering out of reach.

It was Lasky. By the light of a match von Falkenburg could see the lifeless face, contorted with terror, but recognizably that of the shabby reporter, the ardent patriot, the little man who had believed that there should be a place in his country for every race and religion, and it seemed at that moment, von Falkenburg’s sole friend.

Von Falkenburg retrieved his sword and clutched the hilt until knuckles ached.

“They’ll pay for it, Lasky. I promise you they’ll pay for it. You loved the Army…well, you have an officer’s word!”

The captain is nothing in this.

It was the following morning, and that remark of Lasky’s source had been running through von Falkenburg’s mind ever since he had awakened from what had been a very restless night’s sleep. He realized that it was one of the most important pieces of information the little reporter had been able to give him before getting a knife between his ribs. As important as the name of the mysterious Colonel von Lauderstein.