The House of Special Purpose Page 8

  ‘We haven’t checked the other building.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have kept it there. It was too valuable.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what he wanted everyone to think.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ said the Kraut. ‘You could roll that one over forever.’ He shook his head then lit a cigarette. ‘Besides he would have wanted to get at it quickly if he ever had to run.’ He shook his head again. ‘No. It’s not here. Probably never was.’

  ‘Not according to our information,’ said Sneezy. ‘Levitsky was in Tampico when the tanker from Norway arrived. He secretly gave it to the Kahlo woman, Diego Rivera’s wife, and she handed it over to Trotsky on the train from Tampico to Mexico City. Levitsky got away before we could get to him. Disappeared.’

  ‘How can they be sure?’

  ‘In the first place the tanker – Ruth, I think she was called – was one of ours and in the second place, the Norwegian cop, Jonas Lie, was on our payroll.’

  ‘Well, it’s not here now.’ The Kraut sighed.

  ‘Which means it was sent somewhere else.’

  ‘You’re always stating the obvious.’ The Kraut checked his watch. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. Maybe we can have a beer or two before we catch the flight back home.’

  The man and the woman observing the Kraut and Sneezy’s movements from the shadows of the second watchtower at the far end of the garden saw the two men come out of the main door of the villa, walk down the steps and then along the gravel path to the exit.

  The name on the man’s Canadian passport was Nicholas Fisher, while the woman, supposedly his wife, was named Maria. Their cover names were Pair and Reef and both were longtime agents from the illegal NKVD Rezidentura in Mexico City. Both were armed and either one of them could have easily shot and killed the two Americans but neither made a move. A few moments later they heard the sound of a car engine starting and then the grinding of gears as the Kraut drove the old Dodge away from the curb.

  ‘They weren’t carrying anything,’ said Maria Fisher in Kiev-accented Russian. ‘They didn’t find it.’

  ‘One of them could have had it under his jacket.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said the woman. ‘The customs officers on duty have been bribed. They will search our two American friends very thoroughly. If they have it, they won’t have it long.’

  Chapter Six

  Sunday, November 23, 1941

  Washington, D.C.

  Fleming picked up Jane Todd and Morris Black at six thirty the following morning, using the same nondescript brown car but this time driving it himself. Dropping them off the previous afternoon, he had instructed both his charges to wear whatever they had in the way of comfortable ‘country’ clothing on the following day.

  They drove out of Georgetown and headed for the Francis Scott Key Bridge, crossing into Virginia. Fleming turned the car onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway, flicking the wipers on and off to clear the windshield of the early morning mist that lay in tatters across the landscape.

  ‘This isn’t quite how it’s done normally,’ said the British Naval Intelligence officer. ‘The average candidate gets a very cloak-and-dagger introduction. He’s told to arrive at the Schools and Training Headquarters at Twenty-fourth and F Streets, usually at an even more ungodly hour than this. All smoke and mirrors, of course, supposed to make them take it all very seriously. They hand over their personal effects, change into army fatigues and then they’re told to pick a fictitious name from a list they’re to use for the duration. After that they’re loaded into trucks and spirited away. Nacht und Knebel, as the Gestapo likes to call it, Night and Fog. Meant to deter the peasantry from doing anything even vaguely un-Nazi.’

  ‘Knights of ghost and shadow,’ Black murmured.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Jane.

  ‘The people who think up gambits like taking your personal things and making you choose a new name for yourself. That’s what I called them. Knights of ghost and shadow because that’s the sort of wretched world they live in.’

  ‘Sounds like the title of a dime novel.’

  ‘I’m a little miffed,’ said Fleming. ‘I mean, after all, I’m one of those knights you’re talking about and that’s my wretched world you’re talking about.’

  Black laughed. He took out a cigarette and offered one to Jane. ‘They’ll never give you a gong, Ian. His Majesty doesn’t like men who like women and his wife likes them even less. Not to mention the fact that deep down you think it’s all a game.’

  Fleming lit a cigarette of his own and blew smoke at the windshield. ‘That’s what my dear brother Peter calls it,’ he said, ‘the Great Game.’

  Jane used her hand to wipe condensation off the window and stared out through the streaky glass. They were well out into the country now. Rolling hills, mist-filled dells and patches of dark, brooding forest that looked like something out of the Brothers Grimm.

  ‘Mind if I ask a boring question?’ she said.

  ‘Bore away, my dear,’ said Fleming.

  ‘Where exactly are we going?’

  ‘Place called Ravenwood Run,’ Fleming answered. ‘A grand old plantation right out of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler.’

  ‘Ravenwood Run. Another dime-novel title,’ said Jane.

  ‘You keep on bursting my bubbles,’ said Fleming with a mock pout. ‘I’ve always thought I’d be rather good at writing dime novels myself.’

  They turned to the west, heading even more deeply into the Virginia countryside, occasionally going through small villages and towns, most of them still shuttered and quiet, only a few farmers up and about, driving their cows to pasture.

  ‘Pretty,’ said Jane. She turned and glanced at Black. He was sitting quietly, barely moving, staring out through the windshield, obviously deep in thought. In the end it was Fleming who spoke.

  ‘Katherine is in Switzerland.’

  ‘Really?’ said Black.

  ‘I thought you might like to know.’

  ‘I was wondering.’

  ‘Working for Big Bill, just like she was in London.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Been there almost since the last time you saw her,’ said Fleming.

  ‘Um,’ Black responded. For a brief instant Jane thought about asking who Katherine was, then decided against it. Sitting beside Black, she could see the rigid cords of his throat and a small pulsing vein at his temple. Katherine was from his past and from the looks of it Black wasn’t enjoying his little trip down memory lane.

  ‘Married,’ added Fleming. It sounded as though the younger man was doing some kind of morbid duty, filling in unpleasant blanks. His hands were gripping the steering wheel tightly enough to blanch his knuckles.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Career diplomat. Plodding sort. You know the type.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They have a child. Boy from what I understand.’

  Let’s pray the woman didn’t call him Morris, thought Jane.

  ‘She liked children. Always wanted to have them,’ said Black.

  ‘Called him Nicholas.’

  ‘Nice name.’

  ‘I thought so too,’ said Fleming and the conversation ended.

  They drove on in silence for another fifteen or twenty minutes, eventually going past a small, single-runway airport and through a village called Bailey’s Crossroads.

  ‘The people in the village have been told that Ravenwood Run is actually an army rehabilitation centre. That’s even what the sign at the main gate says. The villagers are all convinced that the place is full of raving lunatics. All the candidates have cover stories as well, to go with their false names.’

  ‘I’m not sure I get the point,’ said Jane. ‘We don’t have cover names, we don’t have cover stories and we’re not dressed in army fatigues like everyone else. We’re going to stand out like sore thumbs.’

  ‘I think that is the point,’ Black said before Fleming could offer his own explanation. ‘We’re supposed to stand
out, aren’t we, Ian? Donovan thinks one of his communist cuckoos might be in the nest at this Tara of his in the bosky countryside.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I’d like a better explanation before we get there,’ said Black. ‘We’re the ones putting our necks in the noose.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go quite that far.’

  ‘I know exactly how far people like Donovan are willing to go,’ said Black, anger like a dark undercurrent in his voice. ‘We’re being set up like clay pigeons. I’d like to know why.’

  ‘Me too,’ Jane put in. ‘All this stuff about nooses and clay pigeons is starting to make me a little nervous.’

  ‘Do either one of you know who Ramon Mercador is?’

  ‘The guy who ice-picked Trotsky in Mexico City.’

  ‘It was an ice axe actually,’ said Black.

  ‘Pick, axe, it killed him.’

  ‘Yes, well, at any rate,’ said Fleming, ‘in forty-eight hours you’ll be in Mexico City, interrogating the man.’

  ‘Really,’ said Jane. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we know for a fact that Levitsky, the man who actually shot the film, managed to get the film to Trotsky when he arrived in Mexico. That was the last anyone ever saw of him.’

  ‘What does Mercador have to do with it?’ asked Black.

  ‘The assassination was botched,’ said Fleming. ‘Mercador was supposed to use the pointed end of the axe, not the blade end. Trotsky was supposed to die instantly and silently. Mercador was supposed to retrieve the key that hung around Trotsky’s neck on a chain, day and night, then slip away, then hand the key over to a husband-and-wife team of NKVD agents. He never got the chance.’

  ‘What was the key for?’ Jane asked.

  ‘That’s what we want you to find out from Mercador.’ They turned slightly and Fleming eased down on the brake, negotiating a long winding hill with thick forest on either side.

  Black spoke up. ‘Presumably you’ve primed the pump?’

  Fleming nodded. ‘A few rumours have been spread. Most of the staff will know this is just a quick course for you before you go down south. It has also been rumoured that you’re the best “Gestapo interrogator” in SOE, which is most of the reason you’ve been brought over. The assumption is that for whatever reason you’ll be able to break Mercador.’

  ‘At which point your man at the school here does a bunk and leads us to the film.’

  ‘Something like that. Trotsky had a number of bodyguards, several of them American. We have reason to believe one of them worked for the NKVD, either out of Washington or San Francisco.’

  ‘And now you think he’s working here?’ Jane asked. ‘I’m surprised he’d be able to get a security clearance.’

  ‘All he’d need would be a degree from an Ivy League university.’ Fleming laughed. ‘Big Bill sees Hitler as the main threat. He doesn’t mind the odd commie academic. For the moment anyway.’

  ‘Asking for trouble,’ said Black. ‘In the end, the world is going to find out that Stalin was the master and Hitler just a student.’

  ‘Well, for now we’re allies,’ said Fleming.

  ‘Except for the one who has that can of film,’ Jane observed.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Fleming. ‘Except for that one.’

  They reached the bottom of the hill and Fleming braked even harder. On the left appeared a three-plank white fence with a metal gate. Parked just inside the gate was a dark blue Mercury station wagon with varnished wooden side panels. It looked brand new. Beyond it a long, perfectly straight paved road cut through the trees. Jane could read the large black-and-white sign on the far side of the service road:

  RAVENWOOD RUN REHABILITATION CENTER

  NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY

  DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS WITHIN ONE MILE

  ‘Now that makes sense,’ said Jane. ‘Everybody in the area knows it’s a loony bin and they put up a sign telling you not to pick up hitchhikers.’

  ‘Government efficiency.’ Fleming grinned.

  He pulled in at the gate and waited. Jane noted that the gate was bound to the fence with a large linked chain with a heavy padlock. A tall man in a tweed jacket, corduroy trousers and high-topped boots stepped out of the station wagon. He was carrying an open double-barrelled shotgun casually across his arm and he was wearing a flat tweed shooting cap that matched his jacket. A second man in the car watched, neither of his hands visible.

  ‘Looks like a bloody country squire,’ Black commented. ‘Is he really supposed to fool anyone kitted out like that?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Fleming answered. ‘They just want to keep down the military presence. Uncle Adolf hasn’t come knocking at the American door yet.’

  The man approached the car and Fleming rolled down his window with one hand and fumbled for his identification with the other. As the window came down, the man outside snapped the shotgun closed.

  ‘State your business, please.’

  Fleming handed out his identification card. ‘Bringing in two new recruits.’

  ‘Why didn’t they come in with the others an hour ago?’ the man asked. ‘In the trucks.’

  ‘Special orders.’

  ‘I don’t like special orders,’ the man said. ‘I don’t like Limeys either.’ He handed back Fleming’s card and peered into the car. ‘You two Limeys as well?’ he said, speaking to Jane and Morris Black.

  ‘Break it up, Bruno,’ Jane said. ‘It’s none of your business who or what we are so take a pill and open the gate.’

  The guard stared at Jane, his mouth open to say something. He backed away from the car, took a large key out of his pocket and began unchaining the gate. He looked over his shoulder and Black smiled at her.

  ‘Well done,’ said Black.

  ‘Give him a little New York. Works all the time. They don’t expect it from a girl.’

  The gate opened and they drove through, Jane waving and smiling as she went past the man with the shotgun, who was still staring at her. They drove down the long lane for at least half a mile and then they were suddenly out of the trees and driving through open, rolling meadowland. In the distance, backed by what appeared to be an orchard and a formal garden, they saw an enormous mansion, painted pure white, the only other accent being pale grey window frames. Jeffersonian columns ran along the hundred-foot-long front porch of the great house and Jane counted seven windows on each side of the black painted double front doors. A few men in army fatigues were clipping bushes in front of the house and off to the left, following a gravel pathway, Jane could see a dozen men running to some sort of muffled cadence. She didn’t see a single woman anywhere.

  ‘Looks like a man’s game,’ she said.

  ‘We give the ladies an equal chance on our side of the Atlantic,’ said Black. ‘They’ve run tests and were quite disturbed when they found out that women could endure pain under torture somewhat better than men could.’

  ‘The same tests discovered that they lie a lot better as well,’ said Fleming.

  ‘Of course,’ Jane said without batting an eye. ‘Comes from thousands of years of telling men what they want to hear instead of the truth.’

  ‘Donovan uses a lot of woman actually,’ said Fleming. ‘Mostly at Arlington Hall.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Cryptography section,’ Fleming answered. He threw a quick glance at Black but didn’t say any more. Jane didn’t miss the look.

  ‘Another secret between the two of you?’ she said. ‘I’m starting to feel left out.’

  ‘Some things we’re not allowed to talk about,’ said Fleming. ‘Not until you’re cleared.’

  ‘And he is?’ said Jane, nodding at Black.

  ‘He’s got a higher security clearance than I do,’ Fleming answered.

  He pulled the car up in front of the building and pushed the gear lever into neutral. ‘This is where we part company for the day,’ he said. ‘You’ll be met inside by the director and then taken off to your various assessment points. S
ometimes you’ll be together, sometimes not. I’ll pick you up here at six and we’ll go back to Washington. I’ll take you to Naylor’s for oysters as payment for being clay pigeons.’

  ‘Does the director have any idea what’s going on?’ Black asked.

  Fleming shook his head. ‘None at all. All he knows is that you’re Donovan’s pets for the moment.’

  ‘Anything special we should be looking for?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Somebody who asks too many questions,’ said Fleming.

  ‘Or none at all,’ put in Black.

  ‘That too,’ said Fleming. ‘And by the way, you do have cover names: Morris is Jack and you’re Jill.’

  ‘How imaginative.’ Jane pulled down the door handle and climbed out of the car. Black followed and before Jane closed the door she peered in at Fleming.

  ‘Two dozen oysters and a lobster,’ she said.

  ‘Done.’ Fleming grinned. She slammed the door and he crashed the car into gear and drove off.

  Jane looked up at the looming, bright white façade of the mansion. She turned to Black. ‘Knights of ghost and shadow, Nacht und Knebel. I don’t know if I’m cut out for this business. I can’t tell who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.’

  ‘Assume everyone is lying,’ said Black. ‘It simplifies matters.’ He took her by the arm and they went up the front steps. Black opened the right-side door and they stepped through into the front hall. It was gigantic, with a massive chandelier hanging down from the upper storey and a magnificent spiral staircase winding up the curving wall on the left. The floors of the hall were black, green-flecked marble and there were several large leather armchairs scattered here and there along with several freestanding ashtrays.

  A tall man with close-cropped reddish hair wearing the uniform of an army colonel was sitting in one of the chairs closest to the staircase, smoking a cigarette. He stubbed it out as Jane and Morris Black came through the door.

  ‘Jack and Jill, I presume?’

  ‘Come to fetch a pail of water,’ Jane said tartly. The colonel didn’t seem to appreciate her humour and indicated his displeasure by completely ignoring both the comment and Jane herself.