A Spy in the Shadows (Spy Noir Series Book 1) (32 page)

But when Salinger brought it up, the policeman himself thought it unusual.  Yes, why hadn’t the German agent flown away in the supply plane?  It was then that Salinger asked Chubok to assign his coroner to take a closer look at the body found near Goli’s burned out roadster. 

“I would hate for you to be disappointed, my friend.  Perhaps it is wishful thinking,” Chubok had insisted, “after all you are wishing your beautiful Goli isn’t dead.”

Salinger gave Shepilov sometime then went around to the back of the building and found a door leading into the basement.  He went up the backstairs, then up to a door that opened into the second floor.  Several exposed light bulbs gave off a pale light.  Salinger found his apartment and leaned against the door, and heard the sound of typewriter keys tapping.  He knocked lightly on the door, and the metallic clicking stopped.  “Come in.”

Removing the revolver from his coat pocket, Salinger slowly opened the door.  Shepilov sat at a table cluttered with stacks of papers and flooded with yellow light from a single lamp.  His face showed no surprise, only reaction changed the eyes.  “Ah, I wasn’t expecting you, Salinger.”  When he stood, Salinger raised the revolver and struck him in the temple.  He fell back in the chair and Salinger was over him, slapping him several times.  Shepilov raised his hand to the
side of his head.  Blood was running from his ear.

“No more games,” Salinger said sternly.

“I thought you would treat me better than this,” the Russian said, looking at the blood on his hand.

Salinger lowered the pistol to his lap.  “It’s all well beyond on that now, and you know it.”

Shepilov waved the threat away.  “If it makes you feel any better, I have a cocked revolver in the drawer beside me which I haven’t bothered to produce.”

“I would have shot you.”

Shepilov studied his face.  “I believe you would shoot me, Salinger.”  Then he stared down at the typewriter for a moment.  “How much do you know?”

Salinger produced the paper from his pocket he had kept from the valise in Isafahan, and handed it to him.  Shepilov unfolded the paper, read it as a growing interest registered on his face, then rested it back on the desk.  “I see.  Well, that does change matters, doesn’t it?”

“I want the truth.”

Shepilov cocked his head to one side and wiped at his ear with an open hand.  “Am I still bleeding?”

“It was the plane that started me thinking that none of this added up.”

Shepilov hesitated. 
“The plane?”

“Why didn’t the German agent use the plane at the archeological site?  It was there for the taking, a much less dangerous out than through the Spanish Embassy and the train.”

“How do you know she was a pilot?”

“Then she could have kidnapped the pilot.  Don’t stonewall me.”

“Yes, of course,” he admitted.

“Goli came to you with the names of the men who were responsible for her husband’s assassination?”

Shepilov shook his head.  “No, she didn’t know the names of any of the men.  She suspected many of them, but I was to get that information for her.  A German officer—Paul Heuss—was stationed here two years ago.  He knew the men responsible.  Once we had him, then the rest of the names fell into place.”

“He volunteered the information?”

“After some persuasion, and believe me he was very nervous about it.”

“Then the
phone call?”

“Yes.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know.  I tell you that I believe it was someone within British Intelligence.  You have a traitor among your midst.”

“Then you don’t know, do you?”

“What?”

“A British officer’s wife was the German agent.  She and Hance, the archeologist, were killed at the train station yesterday trying to escape with information.”

“What sort of information?”

“Information Berlin shouldn’t have,” Salinger said.  Suddenly very tired, he sat in the chair, the revolver in his lap. 

“Listen, I’d given Goli what she wanted,” Shepilov said.  “And you—played it out for her.  She used both of us,
Salinger, admit it and we move on.  You’ve saved the allied secret whatever it is and I’m a fool.”

“Who do you think Goli was really working for?”  Salinger asked.

“What does it really matter?”

“But I guessed correctly, didn’t I?”

Shepilov didn’t have to answer.  His expression gave everything away.  “She worked for herself.  Can’t we leave it at that?”

-Thirty-Four-

Churchill stayed over in Tehran another twenty-four hours to confer on long-range political matters.  Assured that there were no German assassins remaining in the city, the men in charge of the Prime Minister’s safety remained skeptical.  They assembled a procession in which a decoy sedan was protected on every side by motorized police, while Churchill and a single officer rode in the rear of the procession.  Several battered suitcases were tied on the roof to aid in the deception. 

Roosevelt had been driven by staff car to the airfield on a road leading through the southern part of Tehran, though narrow alleys didn’t present the ideal route for the secret service for the President’s safety.

Stalin traveled a road to the airfield guarded by fifteen hundred NKVD men.

----

On December 2 at 9:30 a.m.
  Roosevelt and Churchill departed Iran.

----

Salinger left the city that afternoon at 4:30 aboard a military transport destined for Cairo.  Shepilov’s confession had stirred doubts in him.  But perhaps he was being too cautious . . . everyone else involved was certain the danger had passed.

When Salinger departed Tehran, Chubok had still not phoned about the autopsy on the body.

----

Over the Mediterranean Ocean.
  Two hundred miles from Cairo.

Goli checked and double-checked her instrument panel.  She would have preferred flying one of her own company crafts, but the Weaver really wasn’t that bad of a machine.  Glancing out
over the bank of lead-gray clouds off to her left, she admired the amber outline of a setting sun.  Her plans were laid out.  She would land in Adama, Turkey near the coast, refuel and rest for the night.  She would schedule her landing in Cairo at dark tomorrow.

Leaning back in the seat, Goli was well aware of the only person she should be concerned about now.  If anyone could figure out her plan, it would be Booth.

----

Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Combined Chiefs landed in Cairo on the afternoon of Thursday, 2 December just as Salinger was departing Tehran.  They returned to the same lodgings—villas amid Tamarind and eucalyptus beneath the great Pyramid of Cheops—they had occupied some five days earlier.

The days in Tehran had been tiring for both leaders, especially for Churchill who had been ill for most of the time.  The next day, Friday, 3 December, was scheduled for relaxation, correspondence, and for the President turning attention back to legislation and business that had been neglected from America.

Dinner was scheduled for that evening as Churchill personally addressed two matters concerning the arrangements.  He had found out the President had never viewed the Sphinx—a matter that would be addressed after dinner.  And he insisted that the American agent Salinger and Major Mayfield attend.

----

Cairo.

Salinger arrived at Frank Bentley’s apartment shortly after his flight arrived in the city.  It was a smaller affair than he imagined, upstairs off a narrow street in the Cairo Bourse area, just off Qasr-Al-Nil Street.  The Cosmopolitan Hotel just down the street where the OSS officer had his afternoon drinks.

Bentley came to the door dressed in a robe explaining that he had come home to nap and shower, and then he had a late meeting at the embassy.  His face was flushed and ruddy red from alcohol.

He led Salinger toward two chairs, a couch, and a coffee table by the window.  There was the distant hint of a woman’s touch, the low tune playing somewhere.  A blue light blinked through the window blinds.  The silver-framed photograph of his wife looked at him from the mantle as Bentley sat at the end of the couch.  “I’ve been expecting you,” he said.  “I knew you would come here eventually once you had it all worked out.  I told you the night before you left that I wasn’t in favor of you becoming involved in this.”

“You could have been honest with me.”

“If I had we’re both certain that events wouldn’t have turned out the way they did.  Mayfield got his man, sort of speaking, and that’s what was important.  When did you begin to figure it out?”

“When you transferred Card, the engineer back to the states,” Salinger said, “that and the wiring.”

“The transfer couldn’t be avoided, orders from above.  I argued against that too, of course it didn’t do any good.”

“All a neat little package, Frank, except for one important fact.  The opportunity the German agent passed up.”

“What do you mean?”

“The woman—Traveler—she had the time and the place to escape.  There was a supply plane at the archeological site, and she could have been halfway into German airspace before we could have caught up with her.”

Bentley’s face went blank.  “I see what you mean.  What do you make of it?”

“That’s the problem.  It doesn’t mean anything to me,” Salinger said.  “It should, but I have another problem I’m trying to understand.  Why were you in Tehran?”

“How did you know that?” 

Salinger took out one of the papers from his coat pocket and smoothed them out on the table.  
“Abbosi’s papers in Isafahan.”

“You weren’t supposed to see those, Booth.”  Bentley shifted uneasily in his chair.  “The Soviets had developed a deep influence with the opposition leaders.  And yes, it was our fault, but we’ve discussed that before, haven’t we?  When we forced Reza Shah to abdicate it all created a political vacuum,” he said.  “We couldn’t control it any longer, and that wasn’t good with Iran’s strategic location.  We couldn’t control it, but we managed to keep it balanced, until Faqiri began to tip the scales in their favor.”

“You’re giving me a history lesson, Frank.  I want you to explain to me what was so important that people die.  People like Goli.  And Boland.  And the German spy, she died for her reason also.”

Bentley looked at his wristwatch as if checking to see if he had time to confess.  “It was all about protecting Churchill’s secret.  We leaked out that we had set up the assassination of Faqiri, but only to cover the British and Churchill.  Every move, every decision, and every deception was about shielding Ultra from the Germans finding out.  You certainly can’t blame us for that.”

If what Churchill had told him that night at the British Embassy was true, then he couldn’t blame them at all.  The problem was he didn’t know whom to trust anymore.  Goli had died thinking the Americans had ordered the killing, and that wasn’t true.  That, and he wasn’t going to give Bentley the satisfaction of agreeing with him.  He was keeping him on the hook, something to bargain with.

Salinger stood.

Bentley followed him to the door.  Then a lingering squeeze at the elbow.  “We were all part of a grand illusion, Booth, that’s the game we play.  If we allow it to, something like this would eventually take us all under.” 

----

Goli landed at dusk at the Cairo Airport.

She had signaled ahead that she needed an emergency landing because of engine trouble.  Once she had been cleared, she landed and taxied the Weaver to a hanger at the far end of the tarmac.  As a worker guided her into the building, several Egyptian soldiers and an airport official strolled out and stared at her.  After several tense moments Goli thought maybe they were on to her, the soldiers walked away.

The official, in a tan uniform, walked into the hanger.  He smiled.  “You’ll have to come with me.”

“Is there a problem?” Goli asked stepping down.  “I radioed ahead that I had engine problems.”

“No problem,” he said.

Goli felt his eyes on her as she stood and glanced out the window.  Across the tarmac sat an Airfreight truck.  Perfect, she thought.

----

Mena House Hotel.
  Twenty minutes from Cairo.

The dinner was held in a private dining room down the hall from the Al
Rubayyar Restaurant.  It was a small gathering of seven people.  Salinger arrived and was immediately escorted through the larger dining room by one of Churchill’s security people, and brought into the room.  Everyone else was seated, and Salinger was shown to his seat by Mayfield at the far end of the table away from the President and Churchill.  A casual affair, except that Salinger had learned over the last week that nothing was without purpose as far as Churchill was concerned.