The House of Special Purpose Read online

  ‘My name is Colonel Watts,’ said the man, staring directly at Black. ‘I am the director of this facility and for the rest of your time here you will be under my orders. Our job here is to discover, if you have them, any special skills, unique abilities and individual talents that we may find of use.

  ‘You must claim to have been born in some place other than your natural birthplace, educated in institutions other than those you attended, working at an occupation other than your real profession and living in a location other than where you reside. Let me warn you at this point that various members of the staff will, from time to time, try to trap you into breaking cover by asking casual questions about yourself when you are off guard. Do not be caught.’

  Black smiled. If it was anything like the SOE facilities in England they would have been under surveillance from the moment they arrived. Nothing would be as it seemed and no one would be who they said they were. The chances were quite good in fact that Watts was neither a colonel nor the director of the facility; it was far more likely that he was a psychologist or psychiatrist of some kind.

  Watts began speaking again, clearly by rote; this was a speech he’d given a hundred times. ‘Normally your stay here would be three full days but in your case we are under acute time pressure. Therefore every hour will be taken up by mental tests, psychological tests and physical tests. To estimate your ability to observe and draw correct inferences you will be placed in a room containing twenty-six articles of clothing, personal belongings, timetables and newspaper clippings. After studying these items for four minutes you will be taken to another room and given a questionnaire about the mythical person whose effects you have just examined: age, marital status, weight, colour of hair, residence, occupation and so on.’

  ‘Kim’s game,’ said Black, knowing the interruption would annoy Watts during his droning dissertation.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It was in a story by Rudyard Kipling. Set in India. Baden-Powell used it in his Boy Scout manual, Tenderfoot to King’s Scout.’

  Blood flooded into Watts’s face and his lips thinned out into a scowl. ‘This is not a story or the Boy Scouts, Mr Black, and it is most certainly not a game.’

  ‘Who’s Mr Black?’ Jane asked innocently. ‘I thought he was Jack and I was Jill.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s one of the diabolical traps meant to make us break cover,’ said Black.

  ‘The two of you don’t seem to be taking this very seriously.’

  ‘Maybe you’re missing the whole point,’ said Jane sharply. ‘Maybe we’ve been sent here to test you. Maybe we’re not who you think we are at all.’

  ‘This serves no purpose whatsoever,’ said Watts. ‘I have much more important things to do than trade jibes with either one of you. Other than your mental tests you will be given two physical objectives. One is the Brook Test, in which you must find the quickest and most efficient way to cross a small stream, and the other is a construction test.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Jane, looking down at the skirt she was wearing. ‘Not in these glad rags.’

  Watts pointed to a door on the far side of the entrance hall. ‘In the dressing room you will find two sets of fatigues. Put them on. Your individual guides will meet you on the front portico in five minutes.’ With that Watts turned on his heel without another word and trotted up the spiral staircase.

  ‘Prig,’ muttered Black, watching him go.

  ‘I was going to be a little more vulgar than that but it wouldn’t have been ladylike.’

  Black made a little bow in the direction of the dressing room pointed out by Watts. ‘After you, madam.’

  Jane returned a gentle nod and went to get into her army clothes.

  A few minutes later they were standing on the columned front porch, waiting for their ‘guides.’

  ‘Well, there goes us sticking out like sore thumbs,’ said Jane, plucking at the too-large overalls that had been given to her. Beside her Black was dressed in regulation olive drab fatigues without any rank or insignia of any kind.

  ‘Oh, yes. We’ll meld right in,’ Black answered, looking down at himself. ‘A “Limey” and a woman in WAAC overalls.’ He let out a small, tired laugh. ‘I can feel my thumbs beginning to ache already.’

  Black could see a couple of young men in military uniform, right down to their British-style soup-bowl helmets, jogging towards the mansion. ‘I think our Indian guides are arriving, Jill, my dear. Just remember what we’re here for.’

  ‘Roger wilco,’ said Jane. Black gave her a curious look and then their guides were upon them. The two men were young, clean-shaven and blank-faced. They could have been cut from a pattern.

  ‘Jack, sir?’ said one.

  ‘So they tell me,’ said Black.

  ‘And you’ll be Jill, ma’am?’ said the other.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘We’re supposed to split you up for the day.’

  ‘Not very nice,’ said Jane.

  ‘Prevents collusion. Probably Colonel Watts’s idea.’

  ‘Colonel Watts?’ asked one of the young soldiers. ‘There’s no Colonel Watts on staff here.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Black. ‘Here we go.’

  Chapter Seven

  Sunday, November 23, 1941

  Fairfax County, Virginia

  They completed their battery of tests, then, as promised, Fleming picked them up in front of the mansion at six sharp and drove them back to Georgetown. Both Jane and Morris Black changed into more reasonable clothes and then Fleming drove them across town to Maine Avenue and the Washington Channel, the city’s working waterfront. Naylor’s Restaurant was right on the pier, close to Seventh Avenue and the Potomac River Lines sightseeing boat terminal. It wasn’t the kind of place Jane would have chosen – the whole area looked run-down and smelled of fish and brackish water – but the cars parked in front of the long, low, warehouse-style building were mostly late model and expensive and the customers at the bar just inside the front door obviously weren’t hicks from the sticks.

  The low-ceilinged restaurant was packed but Fleming had reserved a window table that looked out onto the channel, giving them a pleasant view of the sunset over the trees and hillocks of East Potomac Park a few hundred yards away on the opposite side of the water. Fleming flagged down a passing waiter and ordered drinks for all of them.

  ‘Thank God that’s over,’ said Jane, dropping down into one of the padded captain’s chairs at their table. She used the flickering candle to light a cigarette and let out a long sigh. ‘It was like being in a mental hospital and not being able to convince people you were sane.’

  ‘My sentiments exactly,’ said Black. ‘Particularly the so-called construction problem.’

  ‘That was the one with the giant Tinkertoys?’

  The construction problem consisted of being shown into a large room empty of furniture, containing a pile of wooden blocks and half blocks drilled with circular holes and a stack of long dowels sized to fit the holes. There were also two men in the room, both wearing G.I. uniforms. When asked, they referred to themselves as Buster and Kippy. Jane’s experience had been unpleasant but bearable, probably because having a woman to deal with caught the two G.I. tormentors off guard. Black on the other hand had been infuriated by them.

  Both men were fat, wore glasses and smelled faintly of some sort of cheap aftershave. Within ten seconds of meeting them Black was privately thinking of them as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Tweedledum had the flat accent of a Midwesterner and Dee was definitely from New Jersey.

  ‘So,’ said Dee. ‘Whatcha in, the Limey navy? You look like one of them curly-headed navy boys all the girls are after. Or do you like boys better?’

  ‘I don’t have curly hair,’ said Black, examining the pieces of wood laid out in front of him, knowing that every second he wasted talking was coming off his ten-minute total.

  ‘You must be in some kind of service,’ said Dum. ‘You guys are at war, aren’t you?’
/>   Black had come to the conclusion that no response was the best response of all. He kept his mouth shut and started fitting pieces of his oversized puzzle together. His silence did nothing to deter his two companions.

  ‘You look healthy enough,’ said Dee. ‘You some kind of draft dodger or something?’

  Dum stared at the pile of wood and Black’s efforts to put it together. ‘What kind of work did you do before all this? It sure as hell wasn’t in the building trades.’

  ‘Bugger off,’ said Black, allowing himself a moment to relieve his building tension.

  ‘Bugger. That’s, like, sticking your dick up someone’s ass, right? You Limeys do that a lot I hear.’

  ‘Arse,’ Black answered, finishing the left side of the cube and bracing it with a longer dowel across the diagonal.

  ‘Arse.’

  ‘As in arsehole.’

  ‘Nice mouth on you, pal,’ said Dum. ‘You don’t have to be insulting, you know. We’re only here to help.’

  ‘You haven’t done a bloody thing.’

  ‘Well I never,’ said Dee. ‘First time anyone ever complained about me not working. I think I deserve an apology. What’s your name anyway or do I just call you Limey?’

  Black continued to concentrate on putting the cube together. By his estimation he’d used up nearly all of his time.

  ‘Hey, at least tell us your name,’ said Dum. The man was actually pouting. Black slammed a dowel into the cube, connecting another section.

  ‘Call me Buffalo Bill.’

  Dee looked surprised. ‘You’re a Limey and you know about Buffalo Bill?’

  Black didn’t answer. In fact he knew a great deal about the life and times of William F. Cody, and the old American West in general. His Shepherd’s Market flat had a library full of history books on the subject.

  Dum made a derisive sound in the back of his throat. ‘Better to call you stupid, pal. You can’t even put together a kid’s toy.’

  Black snapped in the last piece of dowel. ‘Go fuck yourself… pal.’ Black turned on his heel and started out of the room.

  Dee looked at his wristwatch. ‘Two minutes over. You lose.’

  Black slammed the door behind him as he left.

  By the time Jane and Black had filled Fleming in on the rest of their day the trio had gone through three dozen bluepoints, several Chesapeake Bay crabs and a Maine lobster apiece. They all had dessert and by the time they reached coffee and cigarettes the restaurant was rapidly emptying.

  ‘What I want to know is, was the whole operation worth it?’ said Jane. ‘That was a one-day course in how to be Mata Hari or the Green Hornet. It’s not like Morris and I are going to be parachuting into Berlin anytime soon.’

  ‘In other words,’ said Black, ‘did the clay pigeons draw any fire?’

  ‘Well,’ said Fleming, ‘not to mix metaphors but we seem to have flushed our pheasant.’

  ‘Do tell,’ said Jane.

  ‘Anyone want to hazard a guess?’ Fleming asked.

  Black spoke up, tapping his cigarette into the imitation ship’s wheel ashtray in the centre of the table. ‘I’d have said one of the staff members at the so-called Gestapo interrogation.’

  ‘The Stress Interview.’ Fleming nodded.

  ‘Back in England we call it the third degree, actually.’ He shook his head. ‘But it was all too melodramatic. All that foolishness with the dark room and the spotlight, for instance.’

  ‘I’m surprised one of the quizzers wasn’t wearing a monocle and speaking with an accent. “Cross your legs, uncross your legs. Smoke, do not smoke. Zis is no joke, fräulein!”’

  ‘And then telling you that you failed the test to see what your reaction would be,’ said Black. ‘I doubt anyone ever passes, do they?’

  ‘No,’ said Fleming.

  ‘Well, all I know is no one said a word about Trotsky, Mexico or home movies.’ Jane shrugged.

  ‘I think I know,’ said Black finally, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘Jane is quite right. No one really showed more than simple curiosity about us.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So by process of elimination it has to be Watts,’ said Black. ‘He was the only one who really seemed to know we were coming. He was waiting for us.’

  ‘Well done!’ said Fleming, clapping his hands together. ‘Watts it is. Both Big Bill and I have been watching him for some time. Today our suspicions were confirmed.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He did a bunk, didn’t he?’ said Jane. ‘Took off.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Fleming. ‘Within five minutes after leaving you, in fact. Sadly he managed to give us the slip. We’ll catch him up eventually, though, never fear.’

  ‘What’s the connection?’ Black asked.

  ‘His real name is James Quentin Maddox. He was a professor of economics at Yale before he signed on with Donovan’s organisation. A security check was done on him, of course, but at the time there seemed to be no connection between him and CPUSA.’

  ‘The Communist Party?’

  ‘Umm,’ said Fleming. ‘As it turns out when we dug a little deeper recently we discovered that one of his students was a young man named Robert Sheldon Harte.’

  ‘The name rings a very faint bell,’ said Jane. ‘He was a New Yorker, right?’

  ‘Quite right. He was also a communist. When the FBI searched his apartment in Brooklyn they discovered a poster of Stalin on the wall.’

  ‘Not a Trotsky follower then,’ said Black.

  ‘So you’d assume.’ Fleming nodded. ‘But Harte was one of Trotsky’s bodyguards and sometime secretary, translating things from English to Russian for Comrade Bronstein.’

  Black frowned and lit another cigarette. ‘A traitor or an agent provocateur?’

  ‘Once again, that would seem to follow,’ said Fleming. ‘But according to the so-called evidence you’d think he was actually a martyr. He was unaccountably kidnapped following the first attempt on Trotsky’s life and then murdered. Shot in the head, once in the face, once in the back of the head, NKVD style, then covered with quicklime and buried in the basement of a farmhouse in the countryside.’

  ‘This was the first attempt?’ asked Black.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then how could he be involved in the actual assassination?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Because the body they found in the basement wasn’t Harte. It was established that he was murdered five days after the first attempt, May twenty-ninth. The body was discovered by the police on June twenty-fifth, almost a month later, yet Trotsky himself made a positive identification of the remains.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Black. ‘Even without being covered with lime, a month after death there’d be nothing left to identify. The body would have been utterly putrefied. Believe me, I’ve seen enough of them over the years.’

  Jane made a face. ‘Please. I just ate.’ She chewed on her lip for a moment, then turned and looked out the window at the blinking lights of a trawler as it came late into port. She turned back to Black and Fleming. ‘I don’t get it. Why would Trotsky identify the body?’

  ‘To save face,’ Fleming answered. ‘Heaven forbid that the great Leon Trotsky, father of the Russian Revolution, could be duped by a traitor. He even went so far as to put up a plaque to the young man in his garden.’

  ‘It still doesn’t make much sense.’

  ‘It does if you accept the fact that the body they found buried in the basement wasn’t this Harte fellow,’ said Black thoughtfully.

  ‘Explain that.’

  ‘Harte’s body is replaced by some other poor blighter’s. Presumably someone of about the same size and weight. Harte’s simulacrum is dead, ergo the real Harte is free as a bird.’ Black looked across the table at Fleming. ‘How long was Harte employed by Trotsky?’

  ‘Eight weeks.’

  ‘Just enough time to acquire enough intelligence within the Trotsky compound. He’s whisked away, supposedly kidnapped, then killed, for no particular reason
that I can see… unless he was alive and sent back to whoever his NKVD contacts were with his inside information.’

  Jane stared at Black, impressed. ‘You’re pretty good at this, aren’t you?’

  ‘He’s very good at it,’ said Fleming. ‘Which is precisely why he’s been brought over here, kicking and screaming all the way.’ Fleming took a long draw on his cigarette and let the smoke trail out through his nostrils. ‘We can assume that Harte was provided with one of those passports the Bolshies picked up during the Spanish War. God knows what name he’s travelling under now.’

  ‘The only problem is you’ve gone and lost this Watts, or Maddox or whatever his name is, and he was probably Harte’s handler. It’s all supposition. There’s no way to prove any of it.’

  Fleming glanced at his watch. ‘There is, as a matter of fact. Either one of you mind a quick flight to New York? United has a flight at ten. If we catch it we can be there by midnight.’

  ‘Why New York?’ Jane asked.

  ‘We’re going to do a little grave digging of our own.’

  Chapter Eight

  Sunday, November 23, 1941

  Berlin

  Emil Haas drove the plain grey BMW 315 through the night fog of Berlin-im-Westen, a large, dull district of stone buildings and rooming houses on the eastern side of the city. Haas, like the car, was unprepossessing, of average height and weight, wearing a suit the same colour as the car and no hat to cover his thick greying hair. His eyes were a cornflower blue that was almost feminine, his nose was small and his mouth was a little too wide for any woman to call him handsome but overall it was an interesting face and one that most people, men and women alike, found attractive.

  By day Haas knew Berlin-im-Westen was a place of strange contrasts, alternating between the shabbiness of a slum and the rough energy of commerce. Most of the buildings were ramshackle old dwellings unconvincingly converted into storefronts – pawnshops, cheap Kinos that were really no more than peep shows, second-hand dealers in clothing and resale shops of every kind.

  What few people he saw – invariably men except for the obvious streetwalkers – moved with their shoulders stooped and their faces well hidden beneath their hat brims. Whatever the truth of the world was, the führer deplored all vice and all those who indulged in it. To be caught soliciting a prostitute, or worse was dangerous these days, especially in a place like this. In the darkness, lit only by bright windows and flickering electric signs, a man would sometimes hesitate before a window, ashamed and scared. As he heard the BMW’s engine he would turn and walk quickly away, like a fish frightened from a baited hook.