from the nether side of the Brooklyn Bridge, Lepke Buchalter, Gurrah Shapiro, and Mendy Weiss. These were the presiding experts at running weapons in and out of New York. And there were few shortages of customers. Everyone, back in those days, had someone he wanted to shoot. Sometimes, even an entire group of people.
While he was at it, Cochrane uncovered and blew the whistle on several middle-range operations associated with the same gangs, mostly shlom jobs in the garment centers that had to do with sash weights and lead pipes massaging the skulls of labor organizers.
"There's only one problem with Cochrane," observed the other agents who worked out of the New York F.B.I. office on Cardinal Hayes Place. "He can't keep his nose out of someone else's case."
By mid-1937, the other agents in New York and the jagged-fingernail set along Hester Street received the fulfillment of their most earnest wishes. The need for American agents abroad had reached a crisis point. President Roosevelt himself was concerned about access to information in Europe should the United States be drawn into another world war. The U.S., after all, had never engaged in espionage abroad. There was something inherently unseemly about it. Nonetheless, the President took two steps.
He asked a Wall Street lawyer and world war hero named William Donovan to travel to Europe and study how an intelligence service might be established. And second, he launched a personal directive to J. Edgar Hoover to establish a foreign branch posthaste.
At the invocation of the word "foreign," J. Edgar Hoover remembered Bill Cochrane's letter of 1934. He abruptly recalled Cochrane to Washington to prepare for European service. "What's been our success rate so far in Europe?" Cochrane asked Frank Lerrick toward the end of a second week of reorientation.
"Success rate? What do you mean?"
"Other agents?" Cochrane asked. "How are we doing?"
"There, uh, are no other agents. You're the first."
There was a long, long silence. "Oh," Cochrane finally said. "Thanks for the honor."
Cochrane traveled by the Polish liner Pilsudski from Washington to Bremen, working under the cover of an American businessman sympathetic to Hitler's National Socialist Party. His only orders from the F.B.I. were, "Find out what you can, and don't get caught. More than likely, we won't be able to get you out."
"Any particular set of rules to play by?" Cochrane had asked the day before leaving.
"Spies don't play by rules, young Agent Cochrane," Hoover had snorted. "And that's what you are now. A spy."
"And remember this," Frank Lerrick added, by way of benediction. "In this line of work, there is no such thing as coincidence. Keep your eyes open. Always."
Hoover was concluding. "Use the brains you were born with and the skills this Bureau taught you. If you're exceedingly lucky, that might be enough and you won’t get killed."
SEVEN
Bill Cochrane's arrival in Berlin from Bremen coincided with a state visit by Mussolini. Cochrane was grateful for the public activity. Easier for him to move around the city and become oriented. Better for him to observe.
The old Germany, the one he had read about, was still there. The polite, orderly people, the handsome blond children. There were the quaint, aging gingerbread buildings both from the medieval period and the previous century. And there were the stark iron monuments erected to those who had sacrificed "for the Fatherland" in the Great War.
But then there was the New Germany. Everywhere, particularly upon Il Duce's arrival, there was the new red and black facades. Everywhere Bill Cochrane looked there was a march. Everywhere there were Swastikas, Hitler Youth, evening parades by torchlight, and grandiose, overstated new buildings.
Once, on a hot afternoon, Cochrane fell into step with the front phalanx of marchers. Wearing a fedora, a suit and tie, he was mistaken for a plainclothes party official and seated on a podium behind the Fuhrer himself as
While he was at it, Cochrane uncovered and blew the whistle on several middle-range operations associated with the same gangs, mostly shlom jobs in the garment centers that had to do with sash weights and lead pipes massaging the skulls of labor organizers.
"There's only one problem with Cochrane," observed the other agents who worked out of the New York F.B.I. office on Cardinal Hayes Place. "He can't keep his nose out of someone else's case."
By mid-1937, the other agents in New York and the jagged-fingernail set along Hester Street received the fulfillment of their most earnest wishes. The need for American agents abroad had reached a crisis point. President Roosevelt himself was concerned about access to information in Europe should the United States be drawn into another world war. The U.S., after all, had never engaged in espionage abroad. There was something inherently unseemly about it. Nonetheless, the President took two steps.
He asked a Wall Street lawyer and world war hero named William Donovan to travel to Europe and study how an intelligence service might be established. And second, he launched a personal directive to J. Edgar Hoover to establish a foreign branch posthaste.
At the invocation of the word "foreign," J. Edgar Hoover remembered Bill Cochrane's letter of 1934. He abruptly recalled Cochrane to Washington to prepare for European service. "What's been our success rate so far in Europe?" Cochrane asked Frank Lerrick toward the end of a second week of reorientation.
"Success rate? What do you mean?"
"Other agents?" Cochrane asked. "How are we doing?"
"There, uh, are no other agents. You're the first."
There was a long, long silence. "Oh," Cochrane finally said. "Thanks for the honor."
Cochrane traveled by the Polish liner Pilsudski from Washington to Bremen, working under the cover of an American businessman sympathetic to Hitler's National Socialist Party. His only orders from the F.B.I. were, "Find out what you can, and don't get caught. More than likely, we won't be able to get you out."
"Any particular set of rules to play by?" Cochrane had asked the day before leaving.
"Spies don't play by rules, young Agent Cochrane," Hoover had snorted. "And that's what you are now. A spy."
"And remember this," Frank Lerrick added, by way of benediction. "In this line of work, there is no such thing as coincidence. Keep your eyes open. Always."
Hoover was concluding. "Use the brains you were born with and the skills this Bureau taught you. If you're exceedingly lucky, that might be enough and you won’t get killed."
SEVEN
Bill Cochrane's arrival in Berlin from Bremen coincided with a state visit by Mussolini. Cochrane was grateful for the public activity. Easier for him to move around the city and become oriented. Better for him to observe.
The old Germany, the one he had read about, was still there. The polite, orderly people, the handsome blond children. There were the quaint, aging gingerbread buildings both from the medieval period and the previous century. And there were the stark iron monuments erected to those who had sacrificed "for the Fatherland" in the Great War.
But then there was the New Germany. Everywhere, particularly upon Il Duce's arrival, there was the new red and black facades. Everywhere Bill Cochrane looked there was a march. Everywhere there were Swastikas, Hitler Youth, evening parades by torchlight, and grandiose, overstated new buildings.
Once, on a hot afternoon, Cochrane fell into step with the front phalanx of marchers. Wearing a fedora, a suit and tie, he was mistaken for a plainclothes party official and seated on a podium behind the Fuhrer himself as
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