Page 67 of The Little Liar
In short time, Udo Graf, aka George Mecklen, became an unofficial spy for the U.S. government. He had his own town house, his own phone, a car in the garage, and a barbecue in the backyard. As the years passed, and the cold war intensified, he worked on missile development at the lab. But he was deemed most valuable outside it, gathering information on Communists. His old country, Germany, had been divided in two, with one side loyal to the West, the other to the Soviets. The agency wanted Udo to gather intelligence from his former contacts. They arranged for him to listen to German wiretaps and read intercepted messages. Suspicion ran so high that Udo was able to make up much of the information he shared, and no one could prove it wrong. He sometimes created shadowy enemies entirely from his imagination.
Through the 1950s, this was enough to justify his salary. Udo’s English improved greatly. He blended into American life. He mowed his front lawn. He attended Christmas parties. On one company outing, he visited an amusement park and rode a roller coaster with his fellow workers.
He met a woman named Pamela who answered telephones at the lab. She was short and pretty with wavy blond hair and a penchant for decorating and smoking filtered cigarettes. The first night she made hamburgers for Udo, he decided she would be an excellent American cover. Udo had given up on his dream of finding a perfect German wife to raise a family. He needed a partner in his ruse. Pamela had typical Americanhabits—she watched soap operas, chewed gum, and seemed enamored with Udo’s status at work, especially his compensation. When he proposed, she first asked if she could have her own car. When Udo said yes, she said yes as well.
They married in a church. They played tennis with friends. They made love regularly. But for Udo, the woman was companionship, nothing more. He judged Americans as an undisciplined people. They ate too much dessert. They watched too much television. When their nation went to war in Vietnam, they protested. They even burned their own flag!
Such disloyalty was repulsive to Udo. But it made him think that this so-called mighty nation could be defeated by the right enemy.
That gave him hope.
What gave him concern was a story in the newspaper.
A man in Vienna, a Jewish survivor of the camps, had formed an entire organization devoted to exposing former Nazis. This crazyJudewas releasing lists of names to foreign governments. On some occasions, the men were actually brought to trial!
Udo wondered how many people knew he was in America. He doubted anyone would come across an ocean to find him. But in 1960, one of the Wolf’s top architects, a man named Adolf Eichmann, was captured in Argentina, drugged, brought to Israel, convicted, and hanged. Udo realized he was not safe. None of them were. He needed to stop this Jew in Vienna.
For that, he would need more than a false identity.
He would need power.
***
The opportunity came soon enough.
Agent Ben Carter, who worked with Udo for years, had left the agency in 1956 and gone into politics, winning a state election in Maryland, then another, then another, eventually running for a Senate seat in 1964.
Udo and Carter had stayed in touch. Udo figured it would be good to have an elected official in his corner, and the two men enjoyed drinking brandy together at a particular bar, away from their wives. Over the years, Carter had confessed a certain admiration for the Nazi Party, their organization, their dedication to pure ideals, pure bloodlines.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he’d told Udo late one night, “you can’t just go around gassing people. But a country has the right to deal with undesirables, doesn’t it?”
Udo humored Carter. He complimented him often. He knew someday he could use this man.
His chance arose during Carter’s Senate campaign. He and Udo met at the bar one night. Carter was distraught and drinking heavily. After some prodding, he admitted to Udo that his campaign was in jeopardy, that “everything is about to come apart,” all because of a woman whom, as Carter put it, “I should never have gotten involved with.” For years, she had been smuggling diamonds into the country and selling them at a great profit. Carter had used his government position to acquire phony paperwork for her efforts, in exchange for halfof the money. But now that he was running for national office, he told her they had to stop, it was too risky. That made her angry. She was threatening to expose him.
“Once my opponents get ahold of this,” Carter groaned, “I’ll be finished.”
He put his head in his hands. Udo swigged his drink and slammed the glass down hard. He was embarrassed by Carter’s weakness. A woman?
“Give me her name,” Udo said.
“What?”
“Her name and where she lives.”
“This isn’t some spy thing.”
“No,” Udo said. “It’s easier.”
A week later, having followed the woman several times and knowing she went for walks at night over a bridge near her home, Udo stopped his car on that bridge, took out a jack, and pretended to be working on a tire.
When the woman appeared, by herself, Udo, on his knees, nodded up at her.
“Sorry to be in your way,” he said.
“Trouble?” she said.
“A flat.”
