Saboteurs by Michael Dobbs

Author:Michael Dobbs
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780307427557
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

THE INVADERS (JUNE 20–22)

THE FBI HAD still not put a tail on Peter Burger when he stumbled back to his room at the Governor Clinton Hotel at three o’clock on Saturday morning after what he later described as a meeting with “some chance girl acquaintances.” 1 But they arrived in force soon after breakfast, establishing a base of operations in the neighboring room. Since there was still no sound from Burger by 11:30 a.m., the agents made what was known in police jargon as “a mistake of identity call” to his room: when the subject answers, tell him you have dialed the wrong number.2

Five minutes later, Assistant Director Connelley reported to Washington that Burger was just getting up, apparently as a result of the FBI call. Agents also intercepted the letter that Dasch wrote to Burger from Washington the previous day, telling him to look after “the boys.” They allowed Burger to receive the letter, calculating that it would encourage him to meet with Quirin and Heinck.

Burger finally emerged from his room at 2:40 p.m. Five FBI agents followed him as he turned right on Seventh Avenue, cutting across to Fifth Avenue along Thirty-third Street. He then walked north on Fifth Avenue for eight blocks until he reached the Rogers Peet clothing store, where he stood in the doorway, as if waiting for someone. Sure enough, he was soon joined by two other men: one slender with a long face and prominent nose, the other swarthy with a large scar running across his forehead. After picking up some packages from the clothing store, the three men entered a restaurant, where they ate a meal. As they emerged from the restaurant, FBI agents observed them shaking hands with each other and saying goodbye.

Burger walked back to his hotel, trailed by the agents.3 Quirin and Heinck took a bus back uptown toward their lodging house, getting off at Broadway and Seventy-second Street. They were killing time. Before meeting Burger at the clothing store, they had visited a cinema to watch the latest newsreels, including one about the big New York at War parade the previous Sunday. They had no immediate plans, but thought vaguely about going to a beach or an amusement area such as Palisades Park, across the river in New Jersey, over the weekend.

Heinck told Quirin he had a few purchases to make, but would be right along. He visited a drugstore, and then a delicatessen. Quirin continued walking up Amsterdam Avenue.

The agents arrested Quirin first, at 4:30 p.m., bundling him into an FBI car and driving away at top speed. They apprehended Heinck a few minutes later as he was coming out of the delicatessen. Both men were taken to the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, where the FBI had its New York headquarters. There they were “processed” for arrest by being photographed, fingerprinted, and issued a set of prison clothes. They were then escorted to detention cells on the thirtieth floor of the building.

Back at the Governor Clinton, Burger tried on the new sharkskin suit he had bought at Rogers Peet.

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