KEEPING WATCH ON SPIES
“P. K.” also kept a most carefully prepared note-book of his spies and of persons in New York, Boston and other cities who were useful in furnishing him information. In another book he kept a complete record of the assignments on which he sent his men, the purpose and the cost. In this book of names were several hundred persons—German reservists, German-Americans and American clerks, scientists and city and Federal employés—showing that his district was very large and that his range for picking facts and for supervising other pro-German propaganda was broad. For his own hirelings or reservists, over whom he domineered, he had specially worked out a system of numbers and initials to be used in communicating with them. These numbers were changed at regular intervals and a system of progression was devised by which the agent would know when his number changed. He also employed suitable aliases for his workers. These men likewise had codes for writing letters and for telephone communication, and they knew that on fixed days these codes changed.
Always alert for a listening ear or a watchful eye—because playing the eavesdropper was his job—he looked for spies on himself. He believed that his telephone wire was tapped and that he was overheard when he spoke over the telephone. Accordingly, he instructed his men in various code words. For instance, if he told an agent to meet him at five o’clock at South Ferry that meant: “Meet me at seven o’clock at Forty-second Street and Broadway.”
His wire was not tapped, but P. K. kept the men who were spying on him exceeding busy and worried. He would receive a call on the telephone and would direct the man at the other end of the wire to meet him in fifteen minutes at Pabst’s, Harlem. Now from Koenig’s office in the Hamburg-American Building to 125th Street, it is practically impossible to make the journey in a quarter of an hour; but his watchers learned that Pabst’s, Harlem, meant Borough Hall, Brooklyn. Just as he eluded espionage for days and months, this man, skilled in shadowing others and in doing the vanishing act whenever necessary, boasted that the Federal authorities or the police never would get him. “They did get Dr. Albert’s portfolio,” he said one day, “but they never will get mine, for I won’t carry one.”