The Tristan Betrayal Page 8

  Metcalfe glanced at Corky, whose expression seemed distant, as if he weren’t quite there. “Actually, I’m not going to be infiltrated into Russia in the guise of a native,” he said. “I’m going in the open, in the clear—as myself.”

  Corcoran cleared his throat. “You’ll be arriving as yourself, James, that’s true. But you never know all the eventualities. Always know the exits. You may well need to become someone else.”

  Metcalfe nodded. The old man was, of course, right.

  Nolan next produced a subminiature camera, which Metcalfe recognized as a Riga Minox. He nodded, no explanation needed. The FBI man pulled out a pack of playing cards, fanning them out on the table. “Get a slant at these.”

  “What are they?” Metcalfe asked.

  “Top-secret map of Moscow and its environs. You don’t want to be caught with a map over there, or they’ll toss you in the Lubyanka and throw away the key. Sandwiched in between the front and back of each playing card is a numbered section of map. Just peel off the face of the card. You can rub off the excess rubber adhesive with your thumb.”

  “Clever,” said Metcalfe.

  The FBI man produced an assortment of concealed weapons, all of which Metcalfe had seen before: a wrist pistol, a webbed belt whose buckle contained a modified .25 caliber Webley pistol, activated by a length of cable. He then took out a canvas shaving kit, unzipped it, and pulled out a razor and shaving brush. Nolan rolled the ivory shaving brush across the table, and Metcalfe picked it up, examined it. Metcalfe tried to twist the handle, to pull it apart, but it appeared to be solid. “You can leave that in your hotel room without worrying about it,” Nolan said. He grabbed it back, then twisted the handle clockwise, revealing a cavity from which he removed a rolled-up sheet from a onetime pad, a system of encoding messages that was impossible to crack. Metcalfe nodded; he had been trained in the use of onetime pads. “Printed on cellulose nitrate, so it’s highly flammable, for rapid destruction if you gotta screw.”

  Nolan took out a tube of Ipana toothpaste from which he squeezed out a white ribbon. “The Ivans aren’t going to suspect it’s mostly hollow.” He tugged at the crimped tinfoil end of the tube and withdrew a bladder from which he pulled out a rolled-up silk foulard. A dense grid of numbers had been printed on it. Metcalfe recognized it as a key list, printed on silk for ease of concealment. He nodded.

  “More one-time pads in this. You smoke?” Nolan produced a pack of Lucky Strikes.

  “Not often.”

  “You do now. More often. Another key’s in here.” Nolan showed him a fountain pen. Then Nolan placed another suitcase onto the table. This one was a fine leather Hermés case. “For when you travel as you, an American.”

  “I’ve got a case, thanks.”

  “Concealed in the brass fittings of this one, buddy, are the key components of a radio transmitter. Without them, the transmitter won’t work.”

  “What transmitter?”

  “This one.” Nolan hoisted a third leather suitcase onto the table. This one appeared to be quite heavy. He unbuckled it, revealing a black steel box with a wrinkle finish. “The BP-3,” he announced proudly. “The most powerful two-way communicator ever built.”

  “It’s one of the first prototypes,” Corky said. “Built by a group of Polish émigré geniuses for MI-6, but I managed to get them first; don’t ask me how. This makes everything else obsolete. All those other machines are now museum relics. But please, do guard it with your life. You can be replaced, but I’m afraid this device cannot.”

  “It’s true,” Chip Nolan said. “It’s a pretty nifty toy. And in Moscow, you’ll need it. So far as I know, the only other way to communicate with home base is the black channel, right?”

  Nolan looked at Corky, who simply nodded.

  “But that’s to be used only in an emergency. Otherwise, there’s this, or encrypted messages passed through trusted intermediaries.”

  “Are there any?” Metcalfe said. “Intermediaries I can trust, I mean.”

  “There’s one,” Corcoran put in at last. “An attaché at our embassy whose name and contact information I’ll give you. One of mine. But I want to warn you, James. You’re on your own over there. No backup.”

  “And if something goes wrong?” Metcalfe said. “You’re always saying know your exits.”

  “If anything goes wrong,” Corcoran said, drawing himself up within his cassock, “you’ll be disavowed. You’ll have to fend for yourself.”

  A few minutes later the FBI man left. Corcoran took out a pack of Gauloises and a box of matches, scowling. Metcalfe, remembering, took a pack of Lucky Strikes out of his pocket and placed it in front of his mentor.

  “No Chesterfields on the market these days,” Metcalfe said, “but I figured this is better than nothing.”

  Corky unwrapped the pack without saying a word, though his faint smile revealed his pleasure. Metcalfe told him about the break-in at his apartment.

  After a long silence, Corcoran said, “This is concerning.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “It may be nothing more than an overly exuberant Gestapo. You are, after all, a well-traveled foreigner—automatic grounds for suspicion. Yet it might be a symptom of something more.”

  “A leak.”

  Corcoran inclined his head slightly. “Or a penetration. Despite my insistence upon compartmentalization, I have no doubt that lines are crossed, things are said, security is compromised. All we can do at this point is stress vigilance. I don’t imagine this Moscow mission will be easy for you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Corcoran pulled a cigarette from the pack and, striking a match deliberately, lit it. “This woman, this ballerina—she was someone important to you once, was she not?”

  “At one time, yes. No longer.”

  “Ah, I see,” Corcoran said with a cryptic smile as he inhaled a lungful of smoke. “Now she’s just part of your long history of romantic entanglements, is that it?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So seeing her again—in the arms of another man—won’t be trying?” He held the smoke in his lungs for a long while.

  “You’ve given me far more difficult assignments.”

  “But never a more important one.” Finally he exhaled. “Stephen, do you understand the gravity of what you’re about to do?”

  “Put that way,” Metcalfe said, “no, I suppose I don’t. Even if von Schüssler turns out to be genuinely anti-Hitler and willing to betray his own government—which is a lot to hope for—then he’ll be just one more source. I’m sure we have others.”

  Corcoran shook his head slowly. The old man looked even gaunter than when Metcalfe had last seen him, in New York. “If we hit the jackpot and you’re able to turn him, Stephen, he will be one of our most important lines into the German High Command. He’s close to the German ambassador to Moscow, Count Werner von der Schulenberg. His family is upper-class, terribly well connected—you know what that’s like.” He chuckled dryly. “They look down their noses at this rabble-rousing Viennese upstart Adolf Hitler. They all have contempt for the Führer. But they’re all German patriots at the same time. Quite ornate.”

  “If von Schüssler’s a German patriot, as you suspect, he’s hardly going to betray his own country in the midst of a war. Führer or no Führer.”

  “His allegiances may turn out to be more complex than they appear on the surface. But we don’t know until we try. And if we—you—succeed, the intelligence he may be able to provide will be astonishing indeed.”

  “The intelligence on what, exactly? Even a highly placed diplomat in the Foreign Ministry isn’t going to be privy to the military strategy of Hitler’s inner circle,” Metcalfe countered. “He’s not going to know the details of the Nazi plans for the invasion of England.”

  “Correct. But he will be quite well informed about the state of relations between Germany and the Soviet Union. And this is where our only hope lies.”

  Metca
lfe shook his head, uncomprehending. “They’re allies. Since last year, Hitler and Stalin are partners in this goddamned war. What more can we possibly learn?”

  Corcoran shook his head sadly, as if disappointed. “They’ve signed a scrap of paper. A treaty. But a treaty is like a mirror, Stephen. One sees in it what one wishes to see.”

  “You’ve just gone over my head, Corky.”

  “Hitler offers Stalin a piece of paper to sign, a paper that says we’re friends, our interests coincide, we’re partners. But what Stalin sees in that treaty is what he wishes to see: a reflection of his ambitions, his hopes, his aspirations. And what Stalin sees reflected in that treaty is not necessarily what Hitler sees in it. Hitler may see a different vision entirely. And we, the onlookers, the rest of the world, we may choose to see reflected in this mirror a pact between two villains genuinely joining together in larceny, or a game of deception in which one is attempting to out-maneuver the other. Why does a mirror reverse left and right but not up and down?”

  “You know I’m not much good at your riddles, Corky.”

  Corcoran sighed in exasperation. “It doesn’t, Stephen. A mirror doesn’t reverse left and right. It merely shows what it sees. It reflects what’s in front of it.”

  Metcalfe nodded again. “You want to know what the Russians are thinking about the Germans, and what the Germans are thinking about the Russians. That’s the truth you want to learn, correct?”

  Corcoran smiled. “Truth is the shattered mirror. Strewn in myriad bits. Each believes his little bit is the whole truth. If you’ll permit me to paraphrase Sir Richard Francis Burton’s version of the stanzas from the Kasidah of Haji Abdu.”

  “I’ll permit it,” Metcalfe said. Corky was often reciting a few lines from that Persian panegyric.

  “The alliance between those two tyrants,” Corky said, “is the great mystery of the war. It is of the utmost importance. You remember the Peloponnesian Wars, Stephen?”

  “I’m afraid that was a bit before my time, old man. You must have been in knee pants yourself.”

  Corcoran gave a thin smile. “Athens survived only because of discord between their two most formidable enemies.”

  “You’re saying there’s some kind of rift developing between Germany and Russia?”

  “I’m saying I’d like to find out if there is. That would be valuable intelligence indeed. And our only hope, really.”

  Metcalfe’s furrowed brow told his mentor that he didn’t quite follow. Corcoran went on: “While Hitler was busy fighting Britain and France, the Russians were sending iron and rubber, grain and cattle. The Russians were feeding Hitler’s soldiers and supplying his army. Bear in mind, Stalin’s own people were starving while he was selling Hitler thousands of tons of grain! These two tyrants have divided Europe between themselves, now they plan to divide up the British Empire, and together they plan to rule the world.”

  “Come on, Corky. They’re not going to be dividing up the British Empire. Churchill’s resolve seems pretty firm to me.”

  “He’s as firm in his resolve as a leader can be. But there’s only so much he can do in the face of an enemy as overwhelming as the Nazis. When he says he has nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat—well, I take him at his word. England has little else. Its very survival is in serious doubt.”

  “But you believe Stalin really trusts Hitler?” Metcalfe shot back. “Those two madmen are like scorpions in a bottle!”

  “Indeed, but they need each other,” Corcoran said, exhaling smoke through his nostrils luxuriantly. “They have much in common. They’re both totalitarians. Both untrammeled by any concern for individual freedom. The alliance between the two was a stroke of genius. And it’s not the first time. Look at what happened in the last war, Stephen. When Russia realized it was losing to Germany, it signed a separate peace with Germany at Brest Litovsk. And then spent the next decade secretly rearming Germany, in absolute violation of the Treaty of Versailles. It’s thanks to Russia that we face such a formidable enemy today.”

  “You don’t think Hitler’s just biding his time, waiting to attack Russia when the time is right? I’d always thought Hitler despises the Slavs, the Commies. I mean, look at what he wrote in Mein Kampf—”

  “We know he’s not planning an attack. We have intelligence, sporadic but reliable, from Hitler’s inner circle, indicating such. Hitler’s no fool. For him to launch a war against Russia while at the same time fighting the rest of the world—well, that would be utter madness, a deathblow to the Nazi cause. For us, it would be too good to be true. And I’ll tell you something else that’s really agitating me just now. I’m getting a lot of pressure on the home front from people in military and intelligence circles who believe that Hitler isn’t really the main enemy anyway.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They consider the Bolsheviks to be the real threat and regard Adolf Hitler as an important bulwark against them.”

  “But how—how can anyone believe Hitler’s anything other than a bloodthirsty tyrant?” Metcalfe asked.

  “Many people prefer the comforting lie,” Corcoran said. A sardonic smile played on his lips. “I learned that lesson quite early, when I was a child and my aunt died. They told me she’d ‘gone to a better place.’ ”

  “How do you know they were lying?” Metcalfe needled the old spymaster.

  “You didn’t know my aunt,” Corcoran replied.

  Metcalfe appreciated the old man’s mordant wit, all the more at a time of such tension. “All right,” he said. “What are my arrangements?”

  “I want you to leave Paris tomorrow,” Corcoran said crisply. “Do us a favor and forgo the good-byes to your string of lovers. No one must know where you’re going. Feel free to write postcards, which we’ll have mailed from the Canary Islands or Ibiza. Let them think the elusive and glamorous Mr. Eigen was called away abruptly on pressing business. No one will raise an eyebrow.”

  Metcalfe nodded. Corcoran was right, of course. Better to avoid explanations. Tomorrow! That meant there would be no time to return to Flora Spinasse and get her list of personnel at the German embassy in Moscow: a loss, but not insurmountable.

  “You’ll be traveling on the Chemin de Fer du Nord from the Gare du Nord to Berlin, and thence to Warsaw. A first-class berth has been reserved for you under the name of Nicolas Mendoza. There you’ll exit the Warszawa Centralna station, return two and a quarter hours later, and board the train for Moscow under the name of Stephen Metcalfe. You’ve reserved a room at the Metropole.”

  Metcalfe nodded. “Papers?”

  “You have contacts here. We don’t have time to get them produced by my people and sent from the States.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “You will have your work cut out for you. The stakes are immensely high, so no more of your hotheaded showboating. There’s a good deal that can go wrong.”

  “I ask you again: What if something does?”

  Corcoran adjusted his chasuble. “If anything goes wrong, Stephen, I suggest you pray.”

  Chapter Seven

  The violinist waited in the man’s apartment.

  The Sicherheitsdienst had obtained the man’s address from the telephone number provided by the whore. Kleist still did not know the location of the wireless station—the whore, of course, had no idea. And their informant, who had alerted them to the parachute drop in the first place, did not know, either: information was strictly compartmentalized. During the hours he had spent waiting for the British agent to return, he had had ample opportunity to search the man’s apartment carefully. He now knew the Brit’s true identity, which was a start. He knew that the Brit worked at night and slept during the day.

  Kleist would just have to wait.

  At a little after seven o’clock in the morning he heard a key turn in the lock. The Brit hummed to himself as he bustled about, put on water for tea, went into his bedroom to change into pajamas. He opened the door to his clothes closet, and as
he parted the clothes hangers he barely had time to scream before Kleist leaped forward out of the closet, both of his hands grabbing the Brit’s throat, slamming him to the floor.

  The Brit gurgled, his face deep red. “What the—!” But Kleist shoved a knee hard into the man’s groin, so hard that he could hear the coccyx snap.

  Now the Brit moaned. His tears flowed copiously. He was crying like a girl.

  “All I want to know is the location of your wireless station,” said Kleist. His English had a heavy German accent; he had learned English too late in life. Now he released one hand from the man’s throat.

  “Fuck you!” the Brit said in a high, gurgling voice.

  The Brit must have thought he had removed his hand from the man’s throat in order to allow him to speak, but in fact Kleist did so to reach into his pocket for the coiled violin string. He snapped it open and had it against the man’s throat in a matter of seconds, just above the cartilage of the laryngeal prominence and below the floating hyoid bone. It was the point of greatest vulnerability. As he compressed both the airway and the carotid artery, he could see the Brit’s eyes bulge.

  The young man was not exactly meticulous about his personal hygiene, Kleist realized. He had probably not bathed for several days. True, hot water was limited, but that was no excuse.

  “I ask you again,” Kleist said slowly, deliberately. “I wish to know the location of the wireless station where you work; that is all. If you answer my question, my work is done, and I will leave at once. I will let you live. There is no need to be brave.”

  The Brit was trying to say something. Kleist let up on the catgut just enough to let the man speak.