A Spy in the Shadows (Spy Noir Series Book 1) (7 page)

That simple act of confessing and gradually realizing his inability to change events somehow reattached Salinger to the real world.  He began to laugh and joke with her.  He told her about Julia and about Goli and how they had grown up in Tehran as children and how much he loved the desert.  He began to read again.  In the evenings he filled in the crosswords when Mrs. Walker could find him an English newspaper.

On a chilled, sun-bright morning Goli came for him in the big sedan with the stuffy heater.  They rode back on the same road that had brought him here except now it was like a different planet he was traveling through; cleaner, fresher, and free of that smothering darkness and self-induced pity and pain. 

Goli’s face was sharp, and in the new light satisfied, her forehead against the window where her breath drew small circles on the window glass.

Salinger rolled down the window and leaned back; hands clasped in his lap, and let the cold air sweep against his face.  Cold, free wonderful air.  He didn’t realize how much he had missed it, and he wondered . . . just how close had he come to going mad?

Ahead he could see the Bern city lights growing brighter, a beacon beyond the black trees.  Then Goli’s hand was on his shoulder.  “I said, roll that window up silly, you’ll catch cold.”

That night, in the Bern apartment, Salinger opened a casement window and they shivered beneath a pile of blankets while listening to street noises, people moving about.  They stared at the lights on the ancient Catholic Church across the street and whispered to each other in low, new voices about the approaching betrayal. 

Later, they became lovers.

----

Cairo.

At nine o’clock the next morning, Mayfield and a driver picked up Salinger in a staff car.  The British officer’s mind appeared cluttered as they were driven through the narrow streets.  He informed Salinger that he would be leaving for Tehran a day early.  “I’d like to stay and help you here with gathering information about Fields, but Churchill wants me in Tehran, you understand.  He and Roosevelt are meeting today with Chinese officials, and then they should depart Cairo sometime late tomorrow if they stick to the schedule,” Mayfield said.  “Tehran is going to be a political labyrinth what with the Soviets involved.  Stalin’s army has beaten back Hitler’s best soldiers at the gates of Moscow, so he’ll be negotiating from a position of arrogance, we can be certain of that.  What Stalin wants more than anything is for us to open up the ‘second front’ we’ve promised him since 1942.”

“Any chance Fields was killed by Soviet intelligence and the information now in the hands of Stalin?”

“I hope not,” Mayfield said.  “Can you imagine the horrifying ramifications of exposing that?”

“Would we tell the world even if we knew?”

“No, probably not,” Mayfield looked at him for a long moment.  “After we finish this war out, there’ll be time for allies to turn on one another.”

Salinger turned to the window and watched the sights of the old city slip by.  They drove by the entrance to a bazaar flanked by small shops.  On the street side a thin boned shopkeeper sold antiquities lined out on the sidewalk.

“How is she doing, Booth?  Your wife?”

“Gradual deterioration of the eyes caused from the accident,” Salinger said.  “I’ve tried to talk to her, but she won’t have anything to do with me.”

“Maybe one day it will all change,” Mayfield said with a certainty that made Salinger pause.  “Does Julia read the Bible?” Mayfield asked.  “The Bible teaches we are all sinners.  I would think none of us are beyond offering forgiveness to each other.”

Salinger opened the manila folder in his lap.  “Sinners aside, I’d rather discuss Fields this morning.”

“I wasn’t trying to pry into your personal affairs, Booth.  If it were possible I’d rather not send you back to Tehran.  You’ve paid your dues.”

“Let’s discuss Fields, Major.  That’s why I’m here.”

Mayfield leaned closer.  “The conference should run about six days.  Security will be at the highest level, though the Iranians somehow manage to halfway accomplish those sorts of details.”

“And the political atmosphere?”

“We applied pressure to persuade
Riza Shah to resign because he was pro German, but in doing so we created a new set of enemies.  The new ruler, Mohammed Riza Pahlavi and many of his close collaborators in fact sympathize fully with the Nazis.”

“Making the existence of a network of German agents in the city a distinct possibility.”

“A certainty,” Mayfield answered, eyebrows lifting.  “The Soviets performed an excellent job of eliminating German agents, but how many still exists is the question.  I have a report on my desk of over a hundred slipping back into the country dressed up as Siit pilgrims?”

Salinger took a moment to flip through the folder.  “Not much information on your intelligence officer.”

“We don’t make a habit of publishing our intelligence backgrounds.”

Salinger read the two-page text.  Major Benjamin Fields born 1895 in Mayfair village, excelled in school, academically and in sports.  Amateur lightweight boxing champion.  Aviator in the first war flying
Sopwith Camels.  After the war, he turned to business, owned a profitable radio manufacturing business.  Sometime later he went to work for Admiral Sir Reginald Hall within British Intelligence.  Once the war broke out in Europe in 1939, he was promoted to Major and was reassigned to MI6.  No mention of family or wife, or ex-wife.

“A bachelor?”

“Confirmed,” Mayfield said.  “Apparently he was having too much fun to take any one woman seriously.”

There was a blast of horns and the staff car came to a sudden stop.  The driver leaned out the window exchanging insults with an old man pulling a cart stacked with fruit.  They cursed each other in rapid Egyptian before the driver swung the staff car wide and sped around.

“Uncivilized heathens,” Mayfield hissed.

----

The British General Headquarters for the Middle East was located at Gray Pillars referring to four Corinthian colonnades squaring its dignified foyer.  Situated at number 10 Tolombat Street, it was one of a group of buildings surrounded by barbed wire fencing.  Next door in a large block of apartments was the headquarters of the SOE—British military intelligence.

In the lobby, Mayfield introduced Salinger to a woman named Perkins.  She was middle-aged, with a tight, all-business air about her, but with a pleasant face framed with black hair.  “She’ll take good care of you,” Mayfield told him as he said his goodbyes and informed Salinger he would see him in Tehran.  “When you finish up here, I know there are things to get off your desk at HQ.”

“I’m scheduled to catch a plane to Tehran late afternoon tomorrow.”

Mayfield’s staff car cleared the gates when Mrs. Perkins turned to him.  “Would you like to start with the major’s office?”

“I’ll trust you on where to start,” Salinger said.  When they started down the hall, he asked, “Did you know the major well?”

She continued staring straight ahead.  “No one knew him very well at all.  Even though he had an office here, and spent a good deal of time across the street at ‘number ten’, he was a distant sort of fellow.”

She led Salinger up a flight of marble stairs and to the second door on the right.  Salinger found Field’s office an intelligence officer’s workplace: a cheap desk, two telephones on a polished credenza, one obviously coded, and a green safe in the corner for putting away dossiers and documents.  The desk was by the window, papers sorted out into three careful stacks.  The standard issue Middle East map hung on the opposite wall.

Salinger took a moment to roam around the room and take everything in while Mrs. Perkins lingered patiently at the door as if to enter she would violate sacred space.

“Were you familiar with his schedule?”  Salinger asked.

“The major was here at least once a week, I remember.  Sometimes more often,” she said.  “I know he had established an office in Tehran within the last three weeks preparing for the upcoming conference the Prime Minister is attending.”

“Where was he when he wasn’t here or Tehran?”

“Traveling, I suppose.”

“Do you know why?”

“I didn’t work under the major’s direction, limiting the information I can offer to you this morning.  However, as I informed Major Mayfield, I’ve lined up several interviews with people who did work for him.  Clerical staff mainly, maybe they can assist you.”

Salinger spent the remainder of the morning conducting those interviews.  He was disappointed that nothing much came out of the discussions.

The first, a young Iranian woman who served as a clerk, college educated and very sharp, told Salinger that she found the major to be very polite and all business.  The second interview was with a middle-aged clerk with the highest security ranking available for such workers, who produced two files containing carbon copies of correspondence between MI6 Tehran office and London.  Salinger flipped disappointingly through the files.  “This is it, his complete correspondence for the last six months?”

“Except for personal correspondence,” she said defensively.  “I didn’t have access to his personal writings.”

Salinger closed the file.  “Of course you didn’t.  Do you know where the major was when he wasn’t in this office?”

“Tehran, I imagine.”

The last interview was with the Iranian driver.  He had been issued standard security clearance and background check, which was conducted on all drivers utilized by the British and Americans in and around Cairo.  Salinger dismissed him within twenty minutes.

He placed Fields’s files in his briefcase, prepared to leave when a short, thick man strolled into the office, hands in his pocket.  He seemed surprised to see Salinger.

“Sorry,” he said tightly, “didn’t mean to interrupt.”  He glanced quickly around the room.  “Has the major reported in this morning?” he asked as if expecting Fields to rise out of a chair or walk around the corner. 

Salinger walked up to him.  “No, he hasn’t.  Who are you?”

“Lawrence . . . Larry Card.”  He offered his hand.

“You’re American?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You know the major?”  Salinger asked.

“We worked together over the last two months.  Had the occasional drinks.”  Sensing something wrong, he pulled back.  “Where is the major?”

“What is you
r purpose in Cairo, Mr. Card?”
“I don’t think I want to answer any more questions until you tell me what’s going on.”

“I work for the British government.  Major Fields was murdered outside Tehran two nights ago.”

Card’s face slackened.  “I wouldn’t have known . . . I was away on business since the middle of last week.  Do you mind if I sit down?”

Salinger gave him a moment to gather himself.  “Now  . . . what is it that you do, Mr. Card?”

He was rubbing his forehead.  “I’m an engineer.”

“With the British military?”

“International Business Machines.  We set up secure lines in several rooms.  Of course, we have to change out the wiring.  This building used the French 12-volt systems, so we converted it to 110-volt.  The army brought in some old German equipment.  We wired that up.”

“Where did you do all this work?”

Card nodded.  “Here in the major’s office.  And a communications room down the hall.”

“Anywhere else?”

“You mean in Cairo?  No.”

“Besides here in Cairo, Mr. Card?”

“Three of my men were sent to Tehran two weeks ago.  They’ve since completed their job and they’ve been flown back to England.”

“Do you ever go to Tehran?”

Before he could answer, Mrs. Perkins entered suddenly.  “Mr. Card, I didn’t know you had returned.”

Card told her, “Got back late last night . . . were you aware about Fields?”

“A dreadful business, yes.”  She touched his arm.  “Let’s not bother Mr. Salinger any longer, he’s quite busy.”

“We were just discussing—”

“I know, Mr. Card, perhaps later.  Let’s get you some tea.  I imagine this has been all such a shock to you.”

They started out of the room when Card turned.  “You’re going to find out who did this, aren’t you?”

“I’ll do my best,” Salinger said.  “I’d like to talk to you later.”

“Later,” Mrs. Perkins said leading Card by the arm toward the door.  “I hope you have all the information you need, Mr. Salinger.”

“You’ve been helpful, Mrs. Perkins,” he said.

After they were gone, Salinger stood at the door studying the office.  Something was askew.  Or maybe it was the fact nothing was really out of line at all, that everything was too organized, as if it had all been prepared for him.  Yes, that was it.  As if everything had been prepared for his review, everyone rehearsed for his interviews. 

Except for Larry Card.  Meeting the engineer was never supposed to happen, Salinger was certain of that.