The Talbot Odyssey

by Nelson DeMille

  Pembroke got up into a kneeling position, a pistol in his hand, the other hand pressing Stanley to the ground.

  Van Dorn said, “Just a warning. Get moving.”

  The four Russians stood and quickly did an about-face. They began picking their way down the dark narrow trail. Van Dorn lowered his pistol, then slid it into a big holster under his jacket. “You can’t let those goons push you around.”

  Pembroke holstered his own revolver and helped Stanley to his feet. The boy was visibly shaken but seemed to be nodding in agreement with Van Dorn.

  Pembroke looked a bit exasperated. He said sharply to Stanley, “What are you supposed to be, then? A commando?”

  Stanley mumbled something that sounded surly. The shock was wearing off and already he felt cheated and angry.

  Van Dorn rubbed his hanging jowls, then said brightly, “Hey, I’ve got a Russian flag. Want it?”

  Stanley’s eyes widened. “Sure.” He paused, then said, “Where’d you get it?”

  Van Dorn laughed. “At the Elbe, Germany, 1945. It was a gift. I didn’t do anything crazy to get it. I think you deserve it. Come on, I’ll buy you a Coke or something, and get you cleaned up before you go home.”

  They began climbing the path. Van Dorn said, “You live around here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you know your way around in there?”

  “Sure.” Stanley was feeling much better. He remembered his pictures, and the Russian file in his field bag. And if Van Dorn gave him the flag, he could show it around . . . but maybe what really happened would make a better story. He had to think about that.

  Pembroke said, “Do you do this often? I mean, go into their estate?”

  Stanley replied, cautiously, “I’ve jumped the fence a few times, but never got close to the house before.”

  Van Dorn commented, “If we hadn’t heard a lot of commotion—dogs and shouting—you’d be in their house right now.”

  Stanley didn’t believe they could hear anything from so far off, especially with that damned music blaring.

  They reached the top of the path and began walking across a flat, open lawn that had a set of rising bleacher seats at one end. Van Dorn said, “This is a polo field. But I guess you know that, don’t you? You’re not the guy who steals my tomatoes, are you?”

  “No, sir.” Stanley looked across the polo field. On either side of the bleachers were two high poles, each supporting a loudspeaker. The speakers were silent now, and Stanley wondered if they hid directional microphones aimed at the Russian estate. Maybe that’s how they knew what was happening. On the far side of the lawn he saw the big white-lighted house.

  Van Dorn was pulling at his jowls again, then asked, “Hey, how’d you like to do some work on my place? Saturdays. After school. Good pay.”

  “Sure.”

  “We can talk a little about your adventures.”

  Stanley hesitated, then said, “I guess that’s okay.”

  Van Dorn put his arm awkwardly around Stanley’s shoulders. “How’d you get so close? To the house, I mean?”

  “Drainage culvert.”

  Van Dorn nodded thoughtfully. He said with a smile, “You didn’t get in the house, did you?”

  Stanley didn’t respond at first, then said, “I think I could.”

  Van Dorn’s eyebrows lifted.

  Pembroke said, “What’s in that bag you’re carrying?”

  “Things.”

  They walked for a while, drawing near the big house, where Stanley could see that a party was going on.

  Pembroke asked, “What kinds of things?”

  “You know, patrol things.”

  “What are patrol things, lad?”

  “You know. Camouflage paint, flashlight, camera, candy bars, patrol maps. Like that.”

  Van Dorn stopped walking. He looked at Marc Pembroke, who was looking back at him. Van Dorn nodded slightly.

  Pembroke shook his head.

  Van Dorn nodded again, very firmly.

  Stanley watched them. He had a funny feeling he had not seen the last of the Russian estate.

  BOOK II

  THE WINGATE LETTER

  8

  Katherine Kimberly read:

  Dear Miss Kimberly,

  A curious and perhaps fateful incident has occurred which prompts me to write you. As you may know, your late father, Henry, was billeted here at Brompton Hall during the war. After his death, an American officer came round for his per sonal effects. The officer was most insistent on recovering every thing that belonged to your father. This was done, I presumed, not so much out of a sentimental regard for Major Kimberly’s family but for security reasons, as your father, I’m sure you’re aware, was involved with intelligence work of a sensitive nature.

  Colonel Randolph Carbury stroked his white mustache pensively as he regarded the attractive woman sitting at her desk. She was, he thought, a remarkable American specimen; nearly forty, as he knew, but looking closer to thirty. Her long hair was a light blond color, her pale skin slightly freckled with a spring tan. He was told she was a runner and he could believe it from the looks of her trim body and well-shaped legs.

  She looked up from the letter and met the eyes of the Englishman sitting across from her.

  He inclined his head toward the letter. “Please continue.”

  Katherine stared down at the gold-embossed letterhead: Lady Eleanor Wingate, Brompton Hall, Tongate, Kent. The letter was handwritten with black ink in what Katherine thought was a script so perfect it could have been copperplate. She looked up at Carbury. His face was taut, almost grim, she thought. “Would you like a drink?” She indicated a sideboard and Carbury rose wordlessly and walked toward it. She continued to read.

  We were as helpful as possible under the circumstances, but Brompton Hall is rather a large house, and there was almost no staff available to make a thorough search of the places where a man in your father’s line of work might choose to secure sensi tive documents.

  You can see, perhaps, where this is leading. A few days ago we were clearing out Brompton Hall in preparation for its transfer to new owners. In one of the storage closets in the muniment room—a sort of family archive room—was a parcel wrapped in oilcloth which turned out to contain a U.S. Army despatch case. My nephew, Charles, who was supervising the work, brought it to me straightaway.

  Inside the case were well-preserved papers, mostly ciphers and that sort of thing, of no importance by now, I should think. There were also letters bundled and tied. They appear to be a few rather touching notes from your sister, Ann, who was then about five years of age. There was also an item of immediate concern: a locked diary.

  After some deliberation, I decided to open the lock to be certain it was your father’s diary and, if it was, to determine if there was anything inside that might be painful for you to read. As it turns out, there are references to me and to your mother. But I’ve decided to delete none of them. You’re quite old enough to understand love, loneliness, and war.

  Most of the diary, however, is not of a personal nature. There are pages of notes of which I believe you and your government should be made aware.

  Katherine paused in her reading. This was really too much to assimilate, she thought. Yet, it was not entirely unexpected. Eleanor Wingate was a name dimly remembered from her childhood, though she couldn’t recall the context. Now the memory and the context were clearer. And Randolph Carbury’s visit was not unexpected either, though he had been totally unknown to her fifteen minutes ago. She had known that some day Carbury, or someone like him, would appear out of the blue. It was inevitable that the ghost of her father would reach out to her. She read on:

  The circumstances involving your father’s death in Berlin were, I think, quite mysterious, dying as he did some days after the end of the war. I never had much faith in the official version of what happened. Also, your father said to me once, “Eleanor, if I should die without at least a dozen reliable witnesses to testify that
it was from completely natural causes, you’ll know the Russians finally got me.”

  I replied, “Henry, you mean the Germans.” To which he responded, “No, I mean our sneaking, cutthroat allies.”

  And there was something else. The American officer who came for Henry’s effects—I didn’t like his conduct or the looks of him. Why did he come alone to search this big house and recruit my small staff in this tiring business? Why did another officer come the next day on the same mission? This second officer seemed incredulous that someone had come before him. He said the Army had learned of Henry’s death only hours before.

  At the time, I was too overcome with grief to make much sense of any of this, but some weeks later I tried to make enqui ries. Wartime security, however, was still in effect, and it was quite hopeless.

  Well, your father’s diary clears up a great many things.

  Katherine looked at Carbury and said softly, “Talbot?”

  Carbury’s eyes widened slightly. “Yes. Talbot and Wolfbane. I didn’t realize you knew. How much do you know?”

  “Not enough.” She turned the page of the letter and continued.

  Seeing Henry’s things in that despatch case has brought back many memories and rekindled an old sense of guilt—not of our relationship, which was guiltless (my husband had died in Malta early in the war, and your mother was in the process of divorcing your father for some Washington bureaucrat), but guilt at not having contacted you at some point and telling you some of the good things about your father, who was a remark able man.

  Well, there’s little more to say. I’m going up to London to live with my nephew, Charles Brook.

  These last few weeks have been rather strange—rather sad, too—closing up Brompton Hall, your father’s papers, the awak ened memories of “the best of times and the worst of times.”

  But the point of this letter is to advise you of the despatch case and, more specifically, the diary, which names people who may still be with your government or who are highly placed in American society, and names them in a way that forebodes, I’m afraid, the gravest consequences for your country and for all of us. At least one of those named is a well-known man who is close to your President.

  This letter is to be delivered by a trusted friend, Randolph Carbury. He will, I hope, locate you at the law firm with which he tells me you are associated. Colonel Carbury is an old mili tary intelligence man and an excellent judge of situations and people. If in his opinion you are the one who ought to receive the diary, he will arrange with you for the delivery of same.

  My first thought was to make these papers available to my government or yours, or both simultaneously, in photostat form. But Randolph seems to think, and I agree, that the material might well fall into the very hands of those it exposes.

  O’Brien, Kimberly and Rose was, of course, your father’s firm, and many of the OSS intelligence officers who stayed at Brompton Hall were also associated with the firm. If I’m not being indiscreet, Colonel Carbury indicates that the firm still has ties with the intelligence community here and in America. Also, he mentioned that your sister, Ann, is somehow connected with American intelligence. Perhaps you ought to show the di ary to her—or to trusted people in your firm—for critical evalu ation. I pray that it is not as grave and foreboding as it appears to be—though I’m fairly certain and afraid that it is.

  My best wishes

  (signed) Eleanor Wingate

  Katherine stayed silent for some time, then said, “Why didn’t you go directly to my sister?”

  “She’s not easy to locate, is she?”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “Given the choice, I’d still prefer dealing with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, as Lady Wingate indicated, and as we both know, your firm takes more than a nostalgic interest in affairs such as this. It’s in your hands now. Distribute the information as you see fit. But please be cautious.”

  “Should I ask Mr. O’Brien to join us?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Nearly all of us from that time and that profession are automatically suspect. Including myself, of course.”

  Katherine stood and looked out from the forty-fourth-floor window of her office. Across Fifth Avenue, the intricate gray masonry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral spread out in the shape of a Latin cross. In the café below, the two dozen or so tables were empty. It was an unusually raw and overcast May afternoon, a day of gray vapor plumes and long gray shadows.

  Colonel Carbury stood also and followed her gaze. “This view has changed considerably since these were the offices of British Security Coordination. I last stood at this very window in 1945. Yet, you know, the major landmarks are still standing—the Waldorf, Saks, St. Patrick’s, the St. Regis—and I fancy it is 1945 again, and I see myself down there, a younger man dashing across the avenue. . . .”

  He turned from the window. “I see myself in this office again with my American associates—General Donovan, the Dulleses, Clare Boothe Luce, and your employer, Patrick O’Brien, who never arrived at a meeting without a few bottles of liberated spirits. Algerian wine in the beginning, then some Corvo from Sicily, and, finally, champagne. . . . I met your father here one Sunday. He had a little girl with him, but that must have been your sister, Ann. You would have been an infant.”

  “Yes, my sister,” Katherine said.

  Carbury nodded. His eyes passed over a wall where vintage black-and-white photographs hung. “What brave and pure lads and lasses we were. What a war it was. What a time it was.” He glanced at her. “It was, Miss Kimberly, perhaps the one moment in history when all the best and the brightest were within the government, unified in purpose, with no distinctions of class or politics . . . or so we thought.”

  Katherine listened as Carbury reminisced, knowing he was not deviating from his point or his purpose, only taking the longer route to get there.

  Carbury looked directly at her. “The past comes back to haunt us because it was an imperfect past, a shaky foundation upon which we’ve built so much.”

  Katherine moved away from the window. “You have my father’s diary?”

  Colonel Carbury walked to the center of the room. “Not with me. I only brought the letter for now.” He nodded toward the three sheets of cream-colored vellum stationery on Katherine’s desk. His eyes met hers and he seemed to appreciate her wariness. He spoke softly. “It is not pure chance, as you know, that the law firm of O’Brien, Kimberly and Rose occupies the same offices my people occupied during the war. It was Patrick O’Brien’s decision, I believe, to move his firm here. Nostalgia, continuity . . . karma, if you will.” He smiled. “I spent some time in India.”

  Carbury seemed suddenly tired and sat back down in the chair beside her desk. “Do you mind?” He lit a cigarette and watched the smoke drift upward. “It’s difficult to explain to someone so young what a marvel these buildings were in 1940. Futuristic design, air conditioning, high-speed elevators, restaurants with decent food. We English treated ourselves rather well, I can tell you. But it was not much fun, really, for we were all painfully aware of what our island was going through.”

  “I think I can appreciate what you’re saying.”

  Carbury nodded absently. “Yet, we knew that our mission in America was the single most important contribution to the war effort. We came to New York, over a thousand strong, to fight a different kind of war.” He looked around the large office as though trying to recall how it looked then. “To get America into the war, actually. To raise money and arms, to collect intelligence, to lobby, to plead, to beg. . . . We were in a rather bad way. Whisky warriors, some called us. And I suppose we did drink a bit much. . . .” He shrugged.

  Katherine said, “History has recorded your contribution.”

  “Yes, only recently. I’ve lived long enough to see that. Most didn’t. That’s the nature of clandestine work.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “It is a lonely and
frustrating way to serve one’s country. Don’t you find that so?”

  “I’m a lawyer. My sister, Ann, is the one in intelligence.”

  “Yes, of course.” Carbury stared off into space for some time, and Katherine could see that beneath the composed exterior was a man burning with emotion.

  “When will I see the contents of the dispatch case?” she said.

  “This evening.”

  “I have an appointment this evening.”

  “Yes, I know. The Seventh Regiment Armory. Table fourteen. I’m at table thirty-one with some compatriots of mine.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll arrange the details of the transfer with you at that time.”

  “Where are you staying, Colonel?”

  “My old hotel—the Ritz-Carlton.”

  “The Ritz-Carlton has been torn down.”

  “Has it?” He rose. “I’ll have to find another place.” He extended his hand, and she took it. Carbury said, “I’ve read the diary, of course, and this is most serious. We’ll discuss how to proceed tonight.”

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “It was my pleasure. You’re as beautiful as your mother”—he nodded toward a picture on the wall—“and I suspect as intelligent as your father. Thank you for the drink, and again please forgive me for not making an appointment. I came from the airport straightaway.”

  As she walked toward the door, Katherine wondered what he had done with his luggage. “How can I reach you between now and this evening?”

  “I’m afraid you can’t. Sounds a bit paranoid, but I’m being rather cautious.”

  “So am I.”

  “Good.” He turned and stepped up to the window again, focusing on the scene below. He spoke quietly, almost to himself. “Things may not always be as they appear, but there is a logical explanation for everything. Not always a reassuring explanation, but always logical. We should keep that in mind over the coming days.”