Too Bad to Die (21 page)

W
hen Michael left her, Grace went in search of Pug Ismay. The Military Chief of Staff was closeted with Churchill, however—as he ought to be, she thought with irritation. They had, after all, come to Tehran to negotiate the timing and location of the Allied invasion of Europe. That night's dinner at the Soviet Embassy would be a strategic minefield. Pug was not invited to attend, any more than he had been last night; Roosevelt's military advisors were similarly in exile. Which meant the PM and the President would have to face the wily Marshal Stalin on their own. Pug would naturally want to coach his man.

What would she have said to General Lord Ismay, in any case?

It has come to my attention that the Prime Minister's daughter-in-law is a traitor to the Allied cause.

Oh—and by the way—Commander Fleming has deserted.

Damn these personal complications! What the
hell
was Pamela thinking? Was cold hard cash so irresistible, even at the expense of her father-in-law's career—Good God, his standing in
history
?

Traitors were shot in time of war. But Pamela would be cosseted and sheltered because she'd tried to do away with herself, Grace thought cynically. After a long period of contrition in a quiet nursing home in Devon or Cornwall, she'd sally back into town with a clutch of new evening gowns and a string of men willing to pay for them.

Did she think of no one but herself?

Grace's footsteps slowed. She was giving vent to something deeper than indignation at the betrayals of Pamela Churchill, and much more personal. She was feeling rage. The woman got endless chances at love and happiness—and she squandered them all. Without the slightest regard for the people who cared about her.

Like Michael.

Grace had seen it in his face. He'd hated what he'd found in Pamela's bedroom. Probably because he'd enjoyed his time there so much. The woman had no right to toy with hearts as carelessly as she did. Destroying the integrity of good, honest fellows—

Who searched through women's lingerie at the dead of night, Grace thought wryly.
Enough.
There was no way to make a hero of Michael Hudson.

The man she really needed to talk to was infuriatingly out of reach. She glanced at her wristwatch and calculated the time in England. Two o'clock in the afternoon here, eleven-thirty in the morning there. Alan Turing ought to have received her message by now. She had to make a decision about Ian Fleming. Keep his secret—or turn him in to Pug.

She almost ran back to the Signals Room, hoping for a few stuttered words from the Prof.

—

“S
O AFTER
I got sick last night,” Roosevelt said, “Churchill and Stalin decided the future of
Poland
?”

“I wouldn't go so far as that,” Harriman amended. “They were talking about borders. Recognizing that the Germans have completely swallowed the country, including the Free City of Danzig, and that the situation will have to be put right.”

“Sure. But it's too bad I couldn't have a say in the conversation. Did it occur to them I might care about Poland?”

“As I say. Nothing was
decided.
Mr. Churchill simply dropped some matches on a map of Europe. Showing where the future borders might be, and so on.” Harriman shifted in his chair uncomfortably and glanced around the President's bedchamber. He'd been ambassador in Moscow for only a few months, but he'd been informed when he walked into the post that his embassy was bugged. He assumed this one was, too. How detailed did Roosevelt want to get? Did he
understand
the Soviets had no compunction about eavesdropping on private conversations?

“How many Polish Americans do we have in the States right now, Ave?”

Harriman cleared his throat. “No idea, Mr. President.”

“Five or six million. And most of them vote
Democratic
. If I run for a fourth term next year—”

“Their concerns will be your concerns. I understand.”

Was
he running for a fourth term? It seemed fantastic to Harriman—this visibly aging paralytic who had already shocked history by refusing to say goodbye at the end of eight years. He'd been serving now for more than ten—a decade of economic chaos and physical violence that made everything previous seem tame by comparison. And if FDR was elected a fourth time, next fall? Harriman wondered if the country could survive it. The Imperial Presidency. The Democratic Dictatorship. People would grumble. They'd begin to think Roosevelt would have to die in office before they'd get rid of him.

Die.

His thoughts flitted away to the girl in the hospital bed he'd seen only a half hour before. What if that were his Kathleen, lying white-faced and still, her hair a damp mat against the sterile pillow? Pamela was out of danger, the doctor had assured him, in a stream of Iranian-accented French; but it had been a tricky business. A mess, Harriman thought to himself bitterly. A fucking mess, as only a woman can make it. There will be questions. From Winston. From Franklin, too, if he starts to think about the implications. If she starts to talk. Jesus, I wish I'd never had anything to do with her.

“Ave?”

His gaze returned to the inscrutable eyes behind the polished lenses. “Sir?”

“Where exactly did he put them?”

Harriman frowned, momentarily at sea.

“The matches,” Roosevelt said patiently. “Where did Churchill put them? There's no mention of it in Bohlen's notes.”

“He dropped them in the middle of Eastern Germany,” Harriman said quietly. “He thinks that part of the world should go to the Poles. Uncle Joe is sticking to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Line.”

“The one he established with Hitler, back when they were in cahoots?”

“Yes. If Churchill's going to give the Poles land on their western border, Stalin's going to take it from them in the east.”

“Well—I'm not sure I disagree.” Roosevelt reached thoughtfully for his cigarette holder. Harriman dove for his lighter. “Uncle Joe is worried about Germany coming back to bite us in the ass. He wants to see the country broken up so it's not a military threat in the future. Giving some of the terrain to Poland makes sense. I'd support it. What do you think, Ave?”

“I think Churchill wants to take good news back to London.” The Polish Government-in-Exile had set up shop there under General Sikorski. “And I think we need to look at both sides.”

“Of course.” Roosevelt lifted his brows expressively. “We're certainly not going to cave to Winston, after all, at Uncle Joe's expense. The British Empire is finished. It's our friends in Russia we have to think of now.”

Was he posturing for him, Ave wondered, or for the microphones in the walls?

—

H
ARRIMAN EXITED
the President's suite with relief when Harry Hopkins knocked on the door. He would have liked to call his daughter Kathleen, back in Moscow, to make sure she was all right. But the embassy line would be monitored and he wasn't sure he wanted to hand Stalin's goons the latest gossip about Pam Churchill. It could be used against him in future.

What he wanted was a real drink. He'd get one next door, at the British Embassy. He might even find Sarah Oliver there—and it was time he confronted her.

Harriman strode down the hallway under a gauntlet of NKVD eyes that failed to faze him in the least. He commanded respect and fear all over the world; no one would lift a finger against him. He had moved in a bubble of invulnerability for as long as he could remember—insulated from the realities of pain or love, loss or grief—even of world war.

I
t was nearly four o'clock when Arev came to him in the small cell lit by a single lamp, where he had been talking, in a friendly fashion, with the two German agents Zadiq owned body and soul. Ian did not think of this as an interrogation. He had no love for the Nazis, he hated what German bombs had done to his London and the people who lived in it, and he would continue to use every wit he possessed to bring Hitler down. But he enjoyed speaking German. He had liked any number of the Austrian girls who had beguiled his youthful summers in Kitzbühel. Most of them had been Jewish—wealthy daughters of Viennese merchants with summer homes in the Tyrol. In the past few years, he'd helped a few of them get out of Austria and set up new lives. They were still trying to get cousins, sisters, and elderly parents to England. But communication across enemy lines was difficult.

He did not mention all this to the turned radio operators. He ignored the entire issue of their race or allegiance. He talked instead of hiking in Austria and the freshness of the air among the tall black pines.

Very subtly, however, he drew them out regarding Iranian mountains. The terrain and the weather. The skills a man would require to survive for weeks alone and hunted on foot. He suspected the six paratroopers might be in dubious condition when they arrived that night in Tehran.

Siranoush was with Arev when he interrupted Ian. Although the boy might have spoken to him in German, too, Ian suspected he did not want the German agents to overhear what he had to say. So Siranoush told him in English.

“Your English woman,” she said, with a toss of her hair. “She is wandering the bazaar. You told her to find you there, yes? To make contact?”

“In the Perfume Sellers Hall,” Ian said, rising to his feet. He had been sitting on the floor and his back and arm were numb.
Foolish.
If the Germans noticed how stiffly he moved, they'd realize he was vulnerable.
Drop your gun, 007. We know you are incapable of using it in your condition. Fire it now and the ricochet will only kill us all . . .

“You're sure?” he said to Arev. “You recognize her?”

The boy nodded.

“He remembers the way she smiles,” Siranoush said with contempt.

—

“A
VE!
”

John Gilbert Winant was sitting alone in a small study at the rear of the British Embassy. The narrow, draped window overlooked the wintry parterre outside. He had pulled a book from the shelves, Harriman guessed; the binding was identical to the rest of the old calf lining the room. The gold light of an alabaster lamp fell across his chiseled profile and turned it iconic: the face of an Abe Lincoln, minus the beard. A coal fire was burning in the hearth beside him and the small room was an island of quiet. That was like Gil, Harriman thought; he carried an aura of peace and introspection with him wherever he went.

They were profoundly different people. Harriman loved activity, bustle, the center of things. Winant loved the country, a view of hillsides or dense forest, the quiet of birdsong. And yet he cared deeply about his work in London, Harriman knew; cared about the substance of his responsibilities far more than the fame his job brought him. They were both in their early fifties and their backgrounds were not dissimilar. Harriman had gone to Groton and Yale, Winant to St. Paul's and Princeton. But they attacked life from opposite poles. When Harriman gave Roosevelt advice, he talked tactics and strategy. How to wrestle the most concessions from a crafty opponent. Winant spoke of ideals: the integrity of American actions, and the decency of the world they wrought.

He was a philosopher poet, Harriman thought. And the idea came to him, unbidden: No wonder he loves Sarah and not Pam.

Strange, that they were connected by two women in the Churchill family. But even there, they had nothing really in common. Gil, Harriman guessed, had gone off the deep end. Gil was in love.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

“Walden,”
Winant replied. “For about the fifth time.” He closed the book and turned the spine toward Harriman. “Funny how old Henry David comes back to haunt you, even in the oddest of places. A British embassy in the heart of Persia. He'd be embarrassed, probably, to find his maunderings here. This place isn't really his style.”

“Nor the company,” Harriman replied.

“True.” And then, as if the observation naturally led his thoughts to another, Winant said, “I'm sorry about Pamela. I'm glad she's on the mend.”

Harriman glanced at his drink. Some of Churchill's considerable supply of Scotch. He took a sip—not for Dutch courage, but to buy an instant. Then his eyelids drooped a little, shuttering his thoughts. It was a characteristic look, one his daughter and Pam would recognize. Ave on the hunt. Ave the predator. There was nothing, really, but Robber Baron blood in his veins.

“She's the reason I've been looking for you.” He sat down next to Winant.

Gil dropped the Thoreau on the table beside him and turned slightly toward Harriman, his fingers laced over one knee. “Yes?”

“Pammie said some strange things. When I saw her this morning, at the clinic.”

“She wasn't herself,” Winant said carefully. “I wouldn't place too much importance on it.”

“I have to.” Harriman tossed back the remainder of his Scotch with a sigh. “She told me why she tried to kill herself.”

Winant's interlaced fingers tensed. Harriman watched the flesh go white, then flush with blood as Gil relaxed.

“You don't think it was an accident?”

“She never suggested it was. She clutched at my hand and said she couldn't face me. That she had no plausible explanation to give.”

“Oh, Lord. This isn't about her affair with Ed Murrow?” Winant said.

Harriman went rigid. So that was true. She
had
been two-timing him. He'd suspected as much before he even left London. But once he was safely across Europe—isolated by war and weather in Moscow—she hadn't lost a night's sleep before she'd gone public with her new boyfriend. If Gil knew—Gil, who was so unworldly he'd probably never even been to one of Pamela's famous parties—then the entire world was laughing at Harriman.

But all he said was: “That's not what she was talking about. No. This was about some sort of codebook found in her things. A German one. She said it had been discovered while she was in Cairo and she was going to be accused of spying for the Enemy.”

Winant practically gaped at him—like one of those tragedy masks, Harriman thought. “A codebook? Pamela? Are you suggesting she's been . . . that all these months, in Winston's back pocket . . . that the Nazis have been paying her? Jesus.”

“No. That's not what I'm suggesting.”

Winant waited.

“Pamela says she has no idea how the thing got into her drawer. She says this OSS guy on the trip—Hudson—went snooping and found it there. Never mind what he was doing in Churchill's villa. That's a security breach, to start with. But Pam says the codebook is a plant.”

“A plant,” Winant repeated.

“To incriminate her.”

“Pamela thinks she was framed?”

Harriman nodded slowly. “Do
you
see the girl working for Hitler? Come on, Gil—seriously? Party-girl
Pam
?”

“Nope,” Winant replied. “But who would do such a thing? And why?”

Harriman studied him, almost pityingly. “She told me she had a bit of a kickup with Sarah last night. Says the woman hates her.”

Winant raised his brows. “They aren't naturally compatible. You know that.”

“Pam was a wreck. Said it was a deliberate plot to ruin her marriage and destroy her place in the Churchill family. She's afraid she'll lose Little Winston, even.”

“Are you telling me she thinks
Sarah
put the codebook in her room at the villa?”

“And led Hudson straight to it.”

“That's preposterous!”

“Is it? Pam's edged Sarah out a bit, wouldn't you say, in Winston's affections?”

“Sarah's his
daughter,
Ave. To Churchill, blood will always be thicker than water.”

“Which is probably why Pamela tried to kill herself last night,” Harriman said, with mounting frustration. “Think of it—if she were publicly accused of
treason
? In the middle of this war? She'd be burned alive in Piccadilly. Of
course
she took too much chloral at bedtime. Because you're right, Gil—in any contest between Sarah and Pam, Sarah's the one Winston will believe.”

“Maybe Pamela has lied once too many times,” Winant said quietly.

“Hell, yes,” Harriman agreed. “She's a competent little fibber. But think about it, Gil. Sarah's a WAAF. She works aerial reconnaissance.
Intelligence.
Who else is likely to have access to a German codebook?”

—

I
AN WAS CAREFUL
not to startle Grace Cowles. She was halfway down the main hall of the Perfume Sellers Hall, her nose hovering uncertainly above a glass bottle, the stopper held aloft in her right hand. She looked unfailingly English, he thought—not just the neatly pressed uniform and the sensible shoes, but her sleekly controlled hair. That nose, for instance—aquiline as a countess's, from this viewpoint; it might have stepped down from a Gainsborough portrait.

He strolled over and touched Grace's elbow. “What are you sniffing?”

“Attar of roses,” she said briskly. “Far too overwhelming for a decent girl. It conjures a French love nest. Very Left Bank.”

“This one conjures an opium den,” Ian observed, with a flacon to his nose. “What ever happened to bay rum and vetiver?”

“Lilies of the valley for me,” Grace said sedately.

“That's exactly what I should have said,” he replied. “Which means we'll take the attar of roses.”

Arev had exchanged his five-pound note last night in the Money Traders Hall. Ian pulled a hundred rials from his pocket and offered it to the perfume seller.

“How foolish,” Grace chided. “I'll never wear it.”

“Certainly you will. On your Paris honeymoon.” He waited while the seller wrapped the bottle in brown paper. “Don't smash it on your way back to England, mind. Pug will have to torch his plane. Would you like some almond paste?”

“Not at all.”

“Coffee, then? Tea?”

“Real tea would be divine.”

“I'm sure we can find some version of it.”

He mooched along companionably beside her, trying to look for all the world like just another European in Occupied Persia. “Talk to me as we go,” he murmured, “in a normal tone of voice. Nobody will give you a second look.”

“Turing's wired back.”

“And? Does he vouch for me?”

“He's placed the Fencer in Tehran. Says the fellow sent out one coded message last night—to Berlin. Requesting permission to proceed.”

“Was it granted?” Ian demanded.

“Yes.” Grace's voice was strained. “Turing says Berlin gives the fellow anything he wants.”

“Did the Prof get a location? A time?”

She shook her head. “A second message was sent on the same frequency about an hour later. He's not sure where this one went. All it said was:
Long Jump. Operational. Proceed per instructions.
”

That would be for the Nazi paratroopers, of course. A short burst that would be largely undetectable in the greater scheme of Signal things, but for Alan Turing.

“We need details,” Ian muttered. “The blow could come at any time. Tell the Prof that he's to drop everything else or Churchill will die.”

“I'll tell him. He knows how serious it is.
You're
on the job.”

She met Ian's gaze squarely. There would be no more talk of desertion or fiction or insanity or Ismay. “I'd like a fix on the Fencer's location,” he said. “Turing couldn't narrow it down closer than Tehran, I suppose?”

Her brows knit. “He said the burst came from the center of the city. Rather near where we are now.”

“Did he?” Ian's heartbeat accelerated. The Park Hotel. Where the Americans were staying. The embassy district was too far north.

He should find Hudders and set him to watch his people. But he couldn't walk into the Park and expose himself if the Fencer was staying there. Too risky. Perhaps Grace . . .

“Are you listening to me, Ian?”

“What? Sorry.” He turned back to her with a start. She had led him to a tea seller.

“My treat.”

Grace held up two fingers to the peddler. “There's something you should know. Your friend Hudson found a German codebook in Pamela Churchill's bedroom. He was stupid enough to avoid normal channels and confront her himself.” The tea peddler busied himself with tall glasses. “Pamela tried to kill herself last night. A double dose of chloral.”

“Christ,” Ian muttered. “I'd have said she was too . . .
invested
in living to pull a stunt like that.”

“Funny, isn't it, that one always chooses monetary terms to describe her,” Grace observed dispassionately. She handed him a glass of tea. “Don't worry. They found her in time.”

“Did Hudders say what kind of codebook it was?”

Grace blew on her steaming drink. “He
showed
it to me. I suppose he thought I'd never accept an accusation like that without proof. It was a simple one-time pad.”

“Was there a wireless?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Ian's abdominals clenched. It sounded damning. The bursts from the city center, possibly the Park Hotel, where Pamela had gone last night . . . Pamela's ties to Averell Harriman, a man powerful enough to fence with the world . . . the German codebook Hudson had found in Giza. But Grace had not been informed of all the details. She could not know—Hudson would never have told her—that if Pam were transmitting to Berlin from that room in Churchill's villa, she ought to have been using an Enigma machine. That was the code Turing had broken. A simple one-time pad was anything but proof of guilt.