The Road to Betrayal
The getting of explosives was, however, the most difficult part of Fay’s undertaking. This was true not only because he was here most likely to arouse suspicion, but also because of his relative lack of knowledge of the thing he was dealing with. He did know enough, however, to begin his search for explosives in the least suspicious field, and it was only as he became ambitious to produce a more powerful effect that he came to grief.
The material he decided to use at first was chlorate of potash. This substance in itself is so harmless that it is an ingredient of tooth powders and is used commonly in other ways. When, however, it is mixed with any substance high in carbons, such as sugar, sulphur, charcoal, or kerosene, it becomes an explosive of considerable power. Fay set about to get some of the chlorate.
Fay’s fellow conspirators were Germans—some of them German-Americans—and each in his own way was doing the work of the Kaiser in this country. Herbert Kienzle was a dealer in clocks with a store on Park Place, in New York. He had learned the business in his father’s clock factory deep in the Black Forest in Germany and had come to this country years ago to go into the same business, getting his start by acting as agent for his father’s factory over here.
One of the first things in Fay’s carefully worked out plan was to locate a place to which he could quietly retire when his work of destruction should be done—a place where he felt he could be safe from suspicion. After a talk with Kienzle he decided that Lusk’s Sanatorium, at Butler, N. J., would serve the purpose. This sanatorium was run by Germans and Kienzle was well known there. Acting on a prearranged plan with Kienzle, Fay went to Butler and was met at the station by a man named Bronkhorst, who was in charge of the grounds at the sanatorium. They identified each other by prearranged signals and Fay made various arrangements, some of which are of importance later in the story.
Another friend of Kienzle’s was Max Breitung, a young German employed by his uncle, E. N. Breitung, who was in the shipping business in New York. Breitung supplied Fay with the information he needed regarding munitions-laden ships which Fay should elect to destroy.
Fay asked Kienzle how he could get some chlorate of potash, and Kienzle asked his young friend Breitung if he could help him out. Breitung said he could, and went at once to another German who was operating in New York ostensibly as a broker in copper under the name of Carl L. Oppegaard, though his real name was Paul Siebs, and for the purpose of this story he might as well be known by that name. Siebs had also been in this country in earlier days, and during his residence in Chicago, from 1910 to 1913, he had become acquainted with young Breitung. He, too, had gone back to Germany before the war, but soon after it began he had come back to the United States under his false name, ostensibly as an agent of an electrical concern in Gothenburg, Sweden, for the purpose of buying copper. He frankly admitted later that this copper was intended for reëxport to Germany to be used in the manufacture of munitions of war. He did not have much success in his enterprise and he was finally forced to make a living from hand to mouth by small business transactions of almost any kind. He could not afford a separate office, so he rented desk room in the office of the Whitehall Trading Company, a small subsidiary of the Raymond-Hadley Corporation. His desk was in the same room with the manager of the company, Carl L. Wettig.
When Breitung asked Siebs to buy him some chlorate of potash Siebs was delighted at the opportunity to make some money and immediately undertook the commission. He had been instructed to get a small amount, perhaps 200 pounds. He needed money so badly, however, that he was very glad to find that the smallest kegs of the chlorate of potash were 112 pounds each, and he ordered three kegs. He paid for them with money supplied by Breitung and took a delivery slip for it. Ultimately this delivery slip was presented by Scholz, who appeared one day with a truck and driver and took the chemical away.