by John Gardner
Newton’s eyes flared briefly with anger, but he did not even throw an oath in Dick’s direction.
‘No doubt you’ll tell Marty. Oh, I almost forgot, Colonel Rogov, one of your old teachers at Bykovo sends his best wishes. He’s with us now.’
Dick Farthing went out of the house, anxious to get on with what he considered to be the real business – finding Tiraque and Jo-Jo; putting faces to the ghostly figures who were the Soviet hit squad in Washington; and – best of all – meeting Hans-Dieter Klaubert and choking the truth about Caroline from him.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Caspar was in charge of the British effort to seek out Marcel Tiraque and Jo-Jo Grenot. After all, he had run Tiraque as Night Stock and was considered the best man for the job. In London there had been meetings between C, Caspar, and senior CIA officers based in Europe. Military Intelligence had also been circulated – docks, ports, and the growing number of commercial airfields were on alert. It seemed impossible that the couple would escape the huge net being trawled for them.
Tiraque’s house near Ascona was put under discreet surveillance, and Caspar went through his personal notes, checking for places he knew Night Stock had used during the war – houses, lofts, barns, and cellars, and the people associated with them in towns, villages, and cities where for a time Tiraque had disappeared and gone deep.
They even covered the old ground of the Tarot réseau, with Naldo returning to Orléans accompanied by an officer of the French Service. He went to the safe house in the Rue Bannier which had been used by the visiting ‘pianist’, Drake, and was also known to have served as a lovers’ meeting place for Klaubert and his mistress Florence, and – if you believed the secret gospel according to Night Stock – Caroline Railton Farthing as well.
They found nothing. The safe house had been turned into three small apartments and was now occupied by a trio of families who had no contact with the Resistance. Jules Fenice had retired to Orléans, and at St Benoît-sur-Loire the pig farm and the house, where Tarot had gone about its business in an amateur but well-meaning manner, was now derelict – the roof caved in, and a public notice, peeling on one unsteady wall, proclaiming that the property was due for demolition and rebuilding. It was to be some kind of community hall, and Naldo wondered what ghosts would rise up among the good parishioners of St Benoît as they went about their meetings, or Le Bingo in aid of the tower restoration fund.
As for himself, he could sense the ghosts there as he stood silent and bareheaded, gazing as if to see his relatives or those who had died in the terrible events of 1944. For a moment he wondered if Caroline and Jo-Jo were in fact still alive, for he seemed to feel their presence close by. Was it Jo-Jo whom Arnie had seen in Paris? Or had Tiraque taken another who merely looked like Josephine Grenot? When they had put questions to him, Arnold had described her as a woman in her twenties, yet they all knew Jo-Jo, if alive, would now be over thirty. Could she have kept her youthfulness and looks living under the duress of deceit within Tarot?
Tiraque’s Rue de Rivoli apartment was also under watch, yet, as the months changed from October to November, there was no sign of the missing pair.
Naldo returned to England and C granted him his promised leave so that he could be married, as planned, at Christmas. He spoke with Arnie on the telephone, and his American cousin said nothing would keep him from England to act as best man. Secretly he also wanted to spend a Christmas at Redhill Manor – the holiday season there was talked of as a ritual of fun and rest within both the Farthing and Railton families.
Meanwhile, all trails and traces appeared to have gone cold. It was as though Tarot had never been, and Caspar began to feel the onset of depression. The mysteries, he considered, would never be solved.
He was not to know that, in late October, C had received the CIA’s blessing to go ahead with a search for Klaubert himself. To this end he instructed two of his most junior and inexperienced recruits. Curry Shepherd, who had assisted so well in helping to get Ramillies back to England, was to leave for New York in the first week of November. With him, still under instruction, would be Herbie Kruger, young indeed, but old enough for more field experience.
During the week of their departure, two things occurred in Washington that had an influence on both the families and the investigation.
*
In less serious moments, when members of the Agency got together in groups or pairs, the talk usually turned to that kind of gossip which pervades any large organisation. Who was sleeping with whom; whose wife or husband was having an affair; who, in this city where politics was the true growth industry, was being bribed; what was being planned in Washington behind the façades of those beautiful buildings, first envisioned by Pierre Charles L’Enfant.
So it was not unusual for Arnie Farthing to hear, second or third hand, of the continuing affair between his case officer, Roger Fry, and Miss Gloria Van Gent, who worked as personal assistant to one of the great but relatively nameless men at State.
The Fry/Van Gent saga was sometimes the cause of much hilarity, for Roger Fry – undoubted hero that he was – could not be in any way called dashing. He was certainly a dandy but, as some wag commented, ‘The only dashing thing about Roger is the way he dashes from meetings to airplanes, and from airplanes to Miss Van Gent.’ There was much talk about whether Roger had actually made it with Gloria – in fact he had. Even more speculation concerned the moment of transition, when Gloria would be named as Mrs Roger Fry. Most people doubted that this would ever come to pass. ‘Roger hasn’t the imagination or intelligence for Gloria,’ these folk maintained.
So it became known by the end of October that there was a serious rift in the lute which had for the past year or so played more or less in tune. Gloria’s problem was said to be that of most ladies attracted to members of Roger’s profession, he was always having to rush away from Washington, disappearing for weeks at a time; he was secretive; and, by no means least, he talked in a way which resembled clues to The Washington Post crossword puzzle, while Gloria was a bookworm. Roger just could not keep pace with her.
The love match was on in early October but off by the end of the month. Fry became more impossible than ever.
Arnie had never set eyes on Gloria Van Gent, though he had heard extravagant descriptions of her from other members of the Agency. When he finally did meet her, at a small Halloween cocktail party in the home of an old family friend, his first thought was, How on earth did Fry manage to keep such a beautiful girl for as long as he did?
‘Gloria, this is an old friend, Arnie Farthing. Arnie, Gloria Van Gent.’ That is how their host introduced them, excusing himself to deal with another late arrival as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
‘Oooh!’ Arnie heard his voice rise like that of a boy during the painful transition to manhood. ‘Oh!’ he tried again, lowering the pitch.
‘Do I take that as a compliment or are you working on your scales?’ She had a voice which made Arnie think of honey being poured over piano strings that had first been wrapped in velvet. She wore her hair loose, so that it touched her shoulders. It was a kind of reddish blond. Later he found that the hair tended to alter with the seasons. It was reddish blond because the fall was well under way. Arnie sensed that his personal fall was also under way. Why, he silently queried, was he feeling so different all of a sudden? He had not wanted to come to the party. Now he would not have been anywhere else.
Gloria was more striking than beautiful, her face a shade too long, the nose a fraction too big, but the whole, when placed on top of a stunning figure, could cause even the most fastidious head to turn. Later he was also to discover that her grey-green eyes – ‘They’re hazel really,’ she would say – together with the near-perfect mouth, made up for everything else.
‘Ah, yes…’ Arnie struggled. The idea of Roger Fry croaking his way through an evening of light banter – or heavy petting – with this most attractive creature appeared ludicrous to him.
‘Yes…’ He finally got control of his imagination. ‘I think we’re connected. Not by marriage but rather by machination.’
‘Meaning precisely what?’ The welcoming lips opened to show good teeth and a very warm smile.
‘Meaning that I sometimes – for my sins – work for Roger Fry.’
It was her turn to say, ‘Ah!’ Then she added, a shade too quickly, ‘I think, Mr Arnold Farthing, we had better go our separate ways and mingle at opposite ends of the room.’
‘We’re not all like Roger, you know.’ Arnie realised that he said the line as though it had been rehearsed, but also as though he really meant it.
‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ She smiled again, which – thought Arnie – was a step in the right direction. ‘If you were all like Roger, I would be exceptionally worried about the nation’s security.’
‘I can only repeat it – we’re not all like Roger.’
For a couple of seconds there was a kind of stalemate. They both started to talk at the same moment, stopped, then started again. Arnie gave her a one-handed gesture meant to convey his apologies and that it was her turn in the conversation.
‘Do you stand girls up at the last moment?’ She came to the point immediately.
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘Do you go away without telling your girlfriend you’re going?’
‘I have no girlfriend. If I had, then I would always try to let her know. I am going to England for Christmas.’
‘Really? By yourself? To plan skulduggery? Or what?’
‘To be best man to a relative by marriage.’ He grinned. ‘Anyone can come, actually.’
‘Is that an invitation?’
‘That would be presumptuous. Particularly as your former boyfriend is my superior.’
Gloria finished her drink. ‘Tell you what.’ She had a nice way of smiling, the lower lip protruded slightly as her eyes lit up. ‘Could you be an angel and canter over to the bar and get me another stinger? I’ll wait here for you and we can talk about presumptions.’ Once more he was later to learn that Gloria, though she never rode horses, always spoke in terms of the animals. She trotted here and there instead of walking, cantered when she was in a hurry, and galloped when she was incredibly late.
Within the week she had used another equine simile to Arnie Farthing. ‘Well.’ She smiled up at him from tousled sheets. ‘I didn’t refuse that fence, did I?’
By the end of their first meeting, when they discovered they could speak each other’s own kind of shorthand, they became friends. On the following evening, over dinner, Arnie discovered that, in spite of the honey voice and tantalising figure, Gloria had hidden depths. Plainly she was the best-read woman he had ever encountered. Her greatest passions were Shakespeare, to which Arnie had been subjected in more recent days by Naldo, and opera, which Arnie had yet to experience. He could rub along with the books, and Uncle William of Stratford-upon-Avon, but the wonders of Verdi, Puccini, and even Wagner were closed to him.
No wonder Fry lost her, he thought after the third day, when they had talked almost constantly about movies – another of her obsessions. Fry’s only conversation, as far as he knew, was politics and the Agency. Gloria was not only head and shoulders above Roger Fry, but also had an almost photographic memory, quoting from books, plays, and movies after one reading or viewing.
She was also a nice girl, in the best meaning of the word. Arnie heard her criticise Roger only once in those first few days. ‘Did you know that Roger hasn’t read a single book of Graham Greene’s?’ she asked.
‘Good grief!’ Arnie had read only Brighton Rock and This Gun for Hire. He scribbled a note on his mind: Read G. Greene.
In that first week they met each night and dined in quiet restaurants in Georgetown, where her father lived. All of which made matters easier for Arnold.
The romance went straight through the sound barrier – too fast, some said. On the third night they kissed for the first time, and on the seventh, after returning to Arnie’s little house, it was Gloria who said, ‘Mr Farthing, would you care to lie down with me?’
‘Only if you’ll marry me.’
And so it happened. Arnie walked around to Gloria’s father on the next evening and went through the whole business of asking him for her hand in marriage. ‘It’s wonderfully old-fashioned,’ Gloria told one of her closest friends. ‘Daddy was almost bowled over.’ She added that Roger Fry would not have dreamed of doing such a thing.
To be honest, on the night he proposed, Arnold also thought it was all a shade fast, as though he was on a runaway express. They both talked about it well into the early hours – Gloria did not get home until four – and when the morning came they talked again, for an hour on the telephone. Could someone be completely bowled over as quickly as this? Arnie had to admit that you could. By the time he went to Rear Admiral Michael Van Gent (Rtd) his mind was completely clear. Gloria’s name, and the reputation she had gathered as Roger Fry’s girlfriend, belied the person. Who, Arnie decided, could ask for anything more? He sent a cable to Naldo: GOT MYSELF ENGAGED STOP ARNIE.
To which Naldo replied, ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU WERE VACANT STOP TURN HANDLE COUNTERCLOCKWISE TO RELEASE LOCK STOP NALDO.
When the engagement was announced, Fry went straight to Jim Fishman and asked if he could be relieved of the duty of being Arnie’s case officer.
‘Funny,’ Fishman said in an abstracted way – his mind was on other, more serious, things, like Tert Newton – ‘Arnie’s been asking for all that year.’
On the day after the engagement was announced, a different kind of drama took place.
*
Marty Forman was spending the bulk of his time at the safe house outside Alexandria. There were two other Agency interrogators with him, but Fishman – who was a good judge – could see that Marty was determined to crack Newton.
Yet, since Dick Farthing’s visit, Tert Newton had refused to talk. ‘I’ve told you the truth. My own story, and I’m sticking to it. You can’t hold me here indefinitely.’
‘You wanna bet?’ Marty grouched. He was concerned, for Newton’s wife had been just as stubborn. As well as their respective stories of what occurred during the war, they both claimed lives which they could trace back to childhood. ‘But the records don’t show you lived in Idaho until you were seven, Tert!’ Marty would almost scream.
‘Then the records are wrong; or the records have gotten mixed up,’ Newton would reply. ‘My life’s an open book.’
‘But the book’s missing from the library.’
‘Then someone still has it out, and you oughta fine them.’
The routine did not vary. They rose at around seven, breakfasted at eight, and went into an interrogation session at nine. At midday they had lunch, after which Tert Newton was allowed an hour’s exercise, walking around the lawn at the back of the house, watched over by two of the security men. Others, now joined by armed Secret Service officers, ringed the house, watching skyline and trees for any signs of movement, and usually walking out to around half a mile from the house twice daily to circle it, looking for any signs of other watchers. There were no blind spots except for odd clumps of trees, which were raked regularly with field glasses.
During the week that Arnold was meeting and falling in love with Gloria, Marty Forman, depressed at both his lack of success and Newton’s stubborn attitude, went to see Fishman. He had come to the conclusion that many interrogators, the free world over, would arrive at in future years.
‘To get the facts, we gotta give something,’ he told Fishman. ‘The reason this guy ain’t talking is that, deep down, he’s afraid that we’re gonna go public, give him a show trial, then burn him.’
‘Damn right that’s what we’re going to do,’ Fishman responded. ‘Dick Farthing’s back in England now, getting a signed statement from Klaubert’s Russian case officer. We’ve got cast-iron evidence against Newton.’
‘Look.’ Marty sighed. ‘With a clever lawyer this guy is gonna get aw
ay with it. Can’t we give him some kinda immunity? Offer it to him in writing, everything legal and above board, with the Attorney General’s signature? Tell him he gets this if he spills the beans? Because he isn’t gonna talk without a piece of paper like that.’
Reluctantly, Fishman agreed to talk with the Director, who clearly saw the wisdom in Marty’s proposal and went to the Attorney General.
Forty-eight hours later, Marty began the first session of the day by pushing an official-looking document across the table toward Newton. ‘That’s it, Tert. You sing for us and we don’t take you into court. We’ll even keep you safe for the rest of your life. Give you a new name, new background – like your guys say, we’ll give you a new legend. All we want is the whole story.’
He did not think his chances were high, even though he had patiently explained to Newton that the evidence included identification by one of the men who trained him in Bykovo.
Newton read the document, then quietly put it down and said, ‘My name is Pavel Denisovich Rosten, I was born in the town of Bobrka in the Ukraine and educated in Moscow. Because of my proficiency in languages, I was chosen by the NKVD to attend their special school in Bykovo in 1935. On Beria’s personal orders I studied there for five years – I met my wife there. We were introduced and it was explained to us that we would be given a marital legend and placed in the United States to work for the cause of International Communism.’
With those words they began the first of several sessions in which Newton gave a brief outline of his life, orders, and the object of his mission.
‘It’s a sketch map,’ Marty Forman reported to Fishman. ‘We’ll have to fill in the topography later. There’ll be enough raw material for two whole sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and eventually we’ll get to the heart of how these guys’ve been operating their illegals.’