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Pov of German spy
16-March-5-April-1921
''Look, the matter is simple. I am willing to pay you practically the same as your employer pays you, but I only need you to memorize what happens around your workplace. You move boxes every day near Madison Avenue, so I only want you to tell me what you see passing through there, anything that seems suspicious to you and the movements of the police. That is all. And, as I already told you, any truly important warning will be generously rewarded'' I explained while taking out two fifty-dollar bills and showing them to the young American worker, feeling the fabric of the balaclava rub against my face.
''I only have to report? Nothing more than that? I do not have to make things disappear or do anything illegal?'' he asked nervously.
''Yes, exactly. Once a week. The mailman will pass by your house on Saturdays and you will hand over everything you have seen, trying to indicate the times as precisely as possible. Focus especially on that; the schedules interest me even more than many of the things you may observe. If you accept, you will send a letter addressed to Mr. John Doe and that letter will end up reaching me'' I replied while getting up to look for another bill among our money reserves.
''I understand… I… accept. On Saturday, you will have what you asked for'' the young worker said while smiling and showing his teeth, although he still seemed quite nervous.
''Yes, I will be waiting. Leave me your address here so I can add it to our records and… well, take one hundred and fifty dollars. Buy yourself something nice. Surely with this you will manage to catch the attention of some good-looking girl'' I said while placing the money in his hands and giving him a couple of pats on the cheek.
''Yes… ha, ha, ha'' he replied while looking at the money, unable to stop smiling.
It did not take him long to get up and leave the room.
''With this one, we now have informant number seventy-three inside the city. We should have eyes and ears near a good part of the most important intersections in Chicago, William'' Lewis said while watching me attentively.
''Yes, although they are still low-level informants. Much of the information we receive may be trivial, but it is still preferable to having our most valuable operatives roaming the streets of Chicago trying to discover absolutely everything by themselves'' I replied while taking off the cloth that covered my head.
''In any case, we will have to send some of our own people to have truly reliable sources. But these boys are young and hungry for money, especially with the kind of recession this country is going through. The money is far too useful for them to refuse, and that should keep them on our side for quite some time. We only have to make sure to change certain habits from time to time to avoid creating too obvious a pattern'' Lewis commented.
''Yes. I will rotate them periodically. I have someone trying to convince the milkman, the newspaper boy and some warehouse owners to help us with the correspondence system. But we need everything to start working as soon as possible. It is only a matter of time before we have to begin the operation in full, and by then we must know the names of the gangs operating inside the city, as well as which police officers and patrols require our attention'' I replied while beginning to take notes with the data they had given us.
Later, we would have to incorporate them into the information book we periodically sent back to the Duchy, so they would know who our informants were and so we could justify our expenses.
''The current network is costing us around eighty-eight thousand dollars a year. That means we need to generate at least one hundred thousand annually if we want to maintain it and keep a reserve for unforeseen events. So, finally, what are we going to do to obtain funds?'' Lewis asked while watching me, waiting for an answer because I was the one directing the operation.
''The Puppeteer left us considerable freedom to secure financing. We could counterfeit American dollars, but that would require carefully studying their currency, obtaining specialists and dedicating too much time before getting results. We could also enter directly into alcohol smuggling or resort to robbery, but the ideal would be to use activities that do not attract too much attention'' I replied while beginning to walk with my hands clasped behind my back.
''So first things first. I was thinking of using part of the money we have to invest in some warehouse or old mill on the outskirts of Chicago. That would give us a legitimate commercial activity and a stable source of income while we look for other opportunities. And, if later we decide to get involved in the clandestine alcohol market, we would already have a cover from which to do it. From what I have heard, a good part of the liquor currently circulating through the streets is absolute shit. Some bottles can even leave you blind'' I added while continuing to walk slowly around the room.
''So we will produce beer. We will have to see what can be done. Perhaps we could bring in some architect and a construction crew from the Baltic to make some renovations to the warehouse we are going to buy'' I said.
''No. I already have the perfect place. As I said, it is a warehouse that also functioned as a mill and, before Prohibition, had a reserve of wine barrels. It has an underground space ideal for hiding things and, best of all, since it is a relatively old building, its municipal paperwork is quite outdated. The administration barely has any detailed information about its layout, beyond some fire regulations. It is perfect for our purposes'' I said with a smile.
''That already sounds considerably more interesting'' Lewis replied.
Shortly after we finished our conversation, one of my men, whom I had sent to negotiate the purchase of the building I had fixed my eyes on, returned with good news.
We had reached an agreement.
It would be a little complicated to explain how newly arrived immigrants had so much money, but according to our false British identities, we were middle-class men who had left the country after selling our properties.
Naturally, if the American Government decided to consult directly with the British one, they would discover our lie rather quickly.
But I doubted we would awaken that kind of interest as long as we paid our taxes and the purchase appeared to be a completely legitimate transaction.
So we gradually left the house we had rented and began moving our operations.
We handed the agreed money to the owner, a rather elderly man who seemed more than willing to rid himself of that property, and finally we were able to calmly inspect the building.
It did not take us long to discover that it had quite a few problems.
''Well, careful, William… The building is not exactly in the best condition'' Lewis commented while looking at some of the walls.
''I know. The land is what truly matters, along with the old cellar where the wines were aged. We can carry out the necessary repairs. What we do not want is to attract too much attention. Building from scratch would mean hiring American architects, presenting plans and going through all of Chicago's bureaucracy. If we want to keep our activities discreet, this is far more convenient. We will spend more on repairs, but we will be safer'' I replied while touching one of the wooden supports, which seemed dangerously close to rotting.
Fortunately, we had ample funds.
The problem was not having money, but knowing when and where to spend it. Every dollar used there had to produce some benefit for the operation.
So we quickly hired a local construction company to renovate the visible parts of the building and carry out the necessary repairs.
While we carefully made use of that time and our new headquarters began taking shape, we devoted ourselves to understanding Chicago better and, above all, the reason why the Puppeteer had sent us specifically to that city.
One of them was obvious.
There was an enormous number of people who were still looking for alcohol.
The alcohol that could still be legally sold because it had been acquired before Prohibition reached absurd prices, to the point that the working classes could practically no longer afford it.
A simple beer that had previously been bought with a small fraction of an hour's wage had risen so much in price that, in some places, someone could end up spending a considerable part of what they earned during the entire day just to obtain something that had once been completely ordinary.
That created an enormous market.
But there was another question that, for us, was even more interesting.
Chicago offered an extremely wide margin for recruiting discontented people.
The United States was full of communities that felt marginalized or treated like second-class citizens. If one did not belong to the social group considered respectable by a good part of the institutions, one could quickly find oneself facing prejudice, labor difficulties or political distrust.
And among those groups were our own compatriots.
German-Americans had suffered enormous pressure during the war and many continued to be watched with distrust for having been considered possible sympathizers of the enemy. Some communities had lost political and economic influence, while many families were now going through rather difficult conditions.
That made them obvious targets for our network.
People in need of money. Resentful people. People willing to talk in exchange for a little help.
Informants, collaborators and, in the most extreme cases, men angry enough to want to strike back at someone.
So, slowly, we extended our networks while finishing everything necessary to put the company into operation. We even received a visit from several members of the Chicago administration, who carried out fire prevention inspections to verify that the old building complied with the regulations and, in addition, demanded that we send a plan of the interior layout to city hall.
Naturally, we only sent the upper part.
We conveniently forgot to mention that beneath it there was an enormous underground space where we were already making preparations to install our equipment. In addition, we began expanding the mill with a bakery, which would provide us with a reasonable explanation for a good part of the building's industrial activity.
Within our program, the Puppeteer had even sent a chemist to work with our network.
He was not a spy.
He was simply a technical agent who had kept up to date with scientific studies related to the brewing of beer and alcohol. We wanted to maintain a fairly high standard of quality and, at the same time, reduce the waste of raw materials to a minimum.
The chemist would practically be in charge of supervising the entire production process.
It did not take him long to modify my order for machinery when he pointed out that there were some Baltic designs intended for beer production that were more efficient and consumed less electricity than a good part of the equipment we could obtain in Canada.
Although then another problem appeared.
How the hell were we going to get Baltic machinery into the United States?
That forced me to extend part of our operations into Canada. We would have to find some way to acquire the necessary equipment there and then get it to Chicago, something that was not exactly simple either, considering that the American authorities kept a fairly close watch on the northern border because of all the smuggling of beer and liquor crossing through the region.
So we continued spending dollars as if they were hot bread.
Partly in a completely legal way, hiring workers for the mill and bakery.
And another part on the less visible activities of our organization.
We had also begun recruiting German-Americans and even Irish-Americans to expand our ranks and prepare the next phases of the plan.
But our project to produce beer was being delayed.
The funds were beginning to diminish and I did not want to request another injection of money from the Duchy so soon. We needed to quickly find some source of income that would allow us to continue paying the informants and the men who worked for us in the streets.
That was when we received interesting information.
Some places frequented by the wealthy classes, among them the Chicago Athletic Association and several private cellars in rich sectors of the city, still kept important quantities of alcohol acquired before Prohibition.
Whisky, wines and other liquors that could reach enormous prices on the clandestine market.
We had already established some contacts with illegal bars.
The problem was that we still had no product to sell them.
Trained men, on the other hand, we had plenty of.
Many of ours had been prepared to infiltrate, carry out reconnaissance and act against far more dangerous targets during the war. Compared with that, taking possession of the alcohol stored by some rich people seemed, at least on paper, a considerably simpler task.
So I gathered several of my best men and we began reviewing all the information we had accumulated over the last few weeks.
We knew quite well the general movements of the police in the areas that interested us and we also knew which small gangs operated there, something important because moving large quantities of someone else's liquor could quickly attract the attention of other criminals.
We also studied the security of the places that interested us.
For approximately a week, we gathered all the information available and prepared the group.
If we wanted to keep our network functioning without asking the Puppeteer for money again, we needed to obtain funds on our own.
And that would be our first serious attempt to do so.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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