A line of perspiration broke out on his forehead as the adrenaline coursed through his veins. Has my cover been blown? he wondered.
Do they know why I’m here?
The only solution was to burn the agent, render him useless. He was far too good, dangerously so. But once the agent had been identified by the target, he would no longer be of use in the field; he would have to be withdrawn.
Plastering a friendly, if clueless, look on his face, Metcalfe traipsed over to the wooden shelter, mentally rehearsing his line of patter: Awfully sorry, but d’ya mind giving a steer? I seem to have gotten lost. . . . The face-to-face encounter would ensure the blond agent’s replacement.
Circling around the structure, Metcalfe stared in astonishment, his heart pounding. Christ, the watcher was good.
He had vanished.
Chapter Fourteen
The American embassy in Moscow was on Mokhovaya Street, next to the National Hotel, facing Manege Square and the Kremlin. The offices were bleak and run-down, but the security was tight. It was ironic, Metcalfe thought with a grim smile as he displayed his passport to gain admission: both the Russians and the Americans participated in defending and protecting the American embassy. Posted in front of the chancery were both U.S. Marines and agents of the NKVD. The marines were there to keep out the Russians; the NKVD was there to keep out the Russians as well—to make sure Russians didn’t try to force their way in and attempt to defect.
The man he was here to see, Amos Hilliard, occupied a small, austere office devoid of personality. He was a third secretary and consul, a small bespectacled man with a balding head, pale skin, and hands so soft that it seemed a paper cut would be fatal to the man.
But the softness of the man’s flesh belied an inner core of steel. Hilliard was plainspoken to the point of being blisteringly frank. Metcalfe understood quickly why it was that Corcoran, a man who trusted so few people, trusted Hilliard, the blunt-talking Iowa farm boy who’d spent his career in the Foreign Service. Amos Hilliard was a Russia expert who didn’t believe there was any such thing as a Russia expert. “You know what a Russia expert is?” Hilliard had said with a snort a few minutes after Metcalfe had sat down in his office. “Someone who’s lived in Russia twenty years—or two weeks. And I don’t fit into either of those categories. Hell, there’s no experts in these parts. Just varying degrees of ignorance.”
Hilliard was more than one of the few State Department officials Corky trusted. He was secretly one of Corky’s agents as well. It was highly unusual for Corcoran to permit one of his operatives to meet with another: this was a violation of his vaunted principle of compartmentation. “In this case, I have no choice,” Corky had said to Metcalfe in Paris. “I have serious doubts about the trustworthiness of the other embassy staffers in Moscow. Hilliard is one of the very few you can trust. Inasmuch,” he icily added, “as anyone can be trusted, which is a proposition very much to be debated.”
“Even you?” Metcalfe had replied with an impish grin.
Corcoran, however, didn’t treat Metcalfe’s glib remark as a joke: “Isn’t that invariably where we first go wrong—placing too much trust in ourselves?” In the old man’s eyes was an indictment, a familiar reproach that hardly needed to be spoken: Don’t get too full of yourself, Stephen—you just might not be as good as you think you are.
“Welcome to Happy Valley,” Hilliard said, lighting a Camel. “Our . . . mutual friend must think highly of you.”
Metcalfe shrugged.
“Obviously he trusts you implicitly.”
“And you. It’s certainly rare that two of his nodes are permitted to come in contact.”
Hilliard shook his head as if clearing it, and he smiled. “Ask our friend how the weather is and before he answers he’ll stop to ponder on whether you have a need to know.”
“Obviously Moscow is a special exception.”
“Correct. Simply by entering this building your name has become known to about a dozen of my fellow employees. Of course, you’re a visiting American businessman, nothing more than that, but you’re meeting with me, which may raise an eyebrow or two.”
“How so?”
“Not in the way you may be thinking. I’m just a diplomat who does his job, keeps his head down, but I don’t belong to any of the several factions, those with their own agendas, so I’m automatically suspect. I should warn you—though I’m sure it’s a warning that’s unnecessary to you, but indulge me—not to talk to anyone else in this building. No one can be trusted. It’s a rats’ nest here.”
“Dual loyalties?”
“Dual?” Hilliard scoffed. “As in two? Start counting, my friend. The Moscow embassy has come to resemble Ankara or Istanbul in the nineteen-thirties, crawling with agents all with differing agendas and loyalties. It looks like what you see when you lift up a rotting log—dozens upon dozens of creatures you’ve never seen before scuttling around frantically. For which I blame our own government. The Roosevelt White House. Which itself is run through with fault lines. They keep switching the way they think about Russia, can’t make up their minds, and so they’ve been sending out wildly mixed messages to those of us in the field.”
“You’re not one of those who consider Mr. Roosevelt some kind of Red, are you?” Metcalfe said dubiously.
“Not now. But for years, since the day he took office, he looked at Moscow through rose-colored glasses—there’s no question about it. One of the first items on his agenda was to do what no other U.S. President had done since the Bolshies threw out the czar—formally recognize the Soviet government. Which he did right away. And his main adviser, his trusted counsel, Harry Hopkins, he’s always badmouthing us so-called ‘Russia experts’ in the Foreign Service for being too hard on good old Uncle Joe Stalin. ‘Why can’t you fellows see the good side of these guys?’ he’s always saying. I mean, for Christ’s sake, look at the last ambassador Roosevelt sent over here!”
Metcalfe nodded. The last ambassador was famous for fawning over Stalin, defending Stalin’s bloody purges. “What are you saying, that some of your colleagues here are a little soft on the Russians, a little pink? Or that there may be out-and-out spies for the Kremlin planted here?”
Hilliard looked uncomfortable. He ran a plump hand nervously over the babylike peach fuzz of his balding pate. “There’s a difference between a spy and an agent of influence. I’m referring to men who believe in the double-column ledger. Who believe they can work for us while still doing favors for their friends in Red Square—passing along tips, making calls, even trying to work from within to shape American foreign policy in a manner more, shall we say, amenable to Moscow.”
“Call them whatever you want,” Metcalfe said, “but I call them traitors.”
Hilliard shrugged wearily. “I wish it were that simple. Men like that tend to be guided by the actions of the men at the top. And if Harry Hopkins and FDR are seeking to build a strong Soviet–American relationship as a bulwark against the Nazis—which they were until Stalin shook hands with Hitler two months ago—then it makes a kind of weird sense for them to leak to their friends in the NKVD or the Kremlin, doesn’t it? After all, they’re just helping the cause. Freelancing. The most dangerous traitors are those that act out of love—they always think they’re the true patriots.” Hilliard gave him a piercing gaze.
What the hell is he trying to say? Metcalfe wondered. “You’re describing an embassy of the United States government where you can’t trust your own colleagues? Where you don’t know who might be working for Stalin?”
“As I said, that’s only one of the factions here. Only one of the elements. It’s only recently that Roosevelt has started admitting that Uncle Joe Stalin maybe isn’t a nice guy. He’s starting to learn some hard facts about the Bolshies.” He lowered his voice. “Look at the latest knucklehead he’s sent over as ambassador. A fat-cat campaign contributor, a slick New York lawyer who doesn’t know beans about Russia, hates it here even more than the rest of us do. Despises the Soviets,
but without knowing anything about it. Nothing worse than fanaticism based solely on ignorance. And he’s got his claque, the hate-Russia crowd, guys so frightened of the virus of Bolshevism that they’ll do whatever the hell they can to sabotage our relations with the Kremlin. They’re happy to help out Berlin any way they can. They see the Nazis as the only hope for stopping the spread of Communism around the world.”
“You’re seriously talking about people working for Hitler?”
“In the same double-entry way, yes. Or worse. Problem is, you just don’t know! It’s a goddamned vipers’ nest here.”
“Point taken.”
“But that’s not why you’re here. If I read my coded communications accurately, you’re looking for some concrete intelligence from me. You want to find out what we know about the Nazi–Soviet alliance—whether it’s real. Or some kind of tactic on either side.”
“That’s part of what I’m after.”
“And that’s the great unanswerable. It’s the riddle of the Sphinx. It’s what we all want to know. Why you want to know, however, intrigues me.”
“And we’ll have to leave it there.”
“Compartmentation,” Hilliard said with a nod. “Segmentation. Well, let me tell you this. For over a year and a half, I’ve been sending telegrams to Washington warning them that Stalin was going to sign a nonaggression treaty with Hitler, and you know what I kept getting back? Complete and utter disbelief. Denial. ‘Nope, it’ll never happen,’ the idiots kept replying. ‘A Marxist government would never make a deal with their ideological enemy.’ Washington just didn’t seem to understand the simple fact that Stalin’s only concern is preserving the Soviet system. Ideology has nothing to do with it. It’s self-preservation now.”
“You knew they were going to sign a deal?”
“I had sources.”
“In the Kremlin?”
Hilliard shook his head and smiled cryptically. “Everyone knew Berlin and Moscow were talking, but even the Russians didn’t know they were actually going to come to an agreement. How do we know that? I’ll tell you a story. When the German foreign minister, von Ribbentrop, came to Moscow to sign the deal with Stalin, the Russians didn’t even have any Nazi flags to put up at the welcoming ceremony at the airport. Searched everywhere, couldn’t find any. They’d spent the last six years attacking the Nazis; of course they wouldn’t have any. Finally they turned some up at a movie studio in Moscow where they were being used in some anti-Nazi propaganda film—which of course got scrapped.”
“But you knew,” Metcalfe prodded. “You knew a deal was coming.” That means Amos Hilliard must have a source in the German embassy, Metcalfe thought.
“The secret of what limited success I’ve had here in Moscow,” the diplomat said, “is that I’m able to think like Stalin. Not a pleasant process, I’ll admit. But he’s a supremely pragmatic man. I’ve met him; I’ve had the opportunity to take the measure of the man. He’s ruthless, but ruthlessly practical. I know how he thinks. He sees that France has fallen, that the Brits have turned tail and pulled out of the Continent. He sees that London has no allies in Europe—none! And Stalin knows he has no other cards to play. He knows you always make the deal with the strong man, not the weakling. Whatever it takes to keep German panzers from the Soviet borders.”
“Even better if the Führer throws in half of Poland, the Baltics, and Bessarabia.”
“Exactly. And Hitler gets to avoid a war on two fronts. Which would destroy him. It would be sheer insanity for him to attack Russia at the same time he’s fighting the Brits. That would spread his army, his resources, so thin that he’d be guaranteed to lose. And Hitler, whatever you say of him, is not stupid. Which brings us back to the riddle of the Sphinx, the great unanswerable. Is this alliance between Hitler and Stalin for real? Well, let me answer it for you. Hell, yes, it’s for real. It’s as real as warfare. It’s as real as self-interest.”
Metcalfe nodded, his thoughts spinning. An idea had just occurred to him, something at the back of his mind, not yet wholly formed. . . . “But if this alliance is for real, we’re all cooked,” he said. “An armed alliance between the two great empires of the European continent, with immense armies and millions of soldiers? They can just divvy up the spoils, divide Europe and then the rest of the world among themselves, redraw the map, and there’s nothing we can do about it!”
“Now I see why our mutual friend trusts you. You’re a strategic thinker.”
“Stalin conducted the negotiations with von Ribbentrop personally, didn’t he?”
Hilliard nodded.
“He wouldn’t have done that if he weren’t genuinely committed to making it work.”
“And when the treaty was concluded, Uncle Joe drank a toast to Hitler. Called him a molodyetz.”
“A good guy.”
“You know Russian.”
“Just a bit,” Metcalfe lied. “Enough to get around.”
“And now the Soviets are buying millions of marks’ worth of turbines, gun borers, lathes, and antiaircraft guns from the Germans. This is a matter of record. You think Germany would sell this kind of stuff to Russia if they didn’t consider them partners in the war effort? I don’t think so. We’re in a tough spot, Metcalfe. You think Washington wants to join this war? You think Roosevelt wants to take on both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany?”
“Our only hope is if there’s a falling-out among thieves.”
“You’re whistling in the dark, Metcalfe. You’re dreaming. These dictators know how much more powerful they are as allies—how, together, they can split up the world between themselves. And I’m hearing things from my British friends here—that there are highly placed members of Churchill’s government, though not Churchill himself, who are pressing for a separate peace with Germany against the Soviets.”
Metcalfe chewed his lower lip a moment and pondered. “How well do you know the German embassy staff here?”
Hilliard looked suddenly guarded. “Fairly well. What do you want to know?”
“There’s a second secretary in the German embassy named von Schüssler.”
The diplomat nodded. “A mediocrity. Aristocrat, comes from a long line of upper-class Germans, which is the only reason he got a job in the German Foreign Ministry. A nonentity. What do you want to know about him?”
“Do you have any sense of his true politics?”
“Ah,” Hilliard said, understanding. “There are indeed members of the German embassy here who, shall we say, hold no brief for the Nazis. Loyal German patriots who love Germany but hate the Nazis, who’ll do what they can to undermine Hitler. Members of an underground, anti-Nazi resistance. But von Schüssler? Hardly. He knows what side his bread’s buttered on. I don’t think the man has any ideology. He’ll do what he’s told. As far as I can judge—and I’ve met the man quite a few times; it’s a small town here—he has some sad, self-deluded notion of himself as the heir to the great Prussian nobility. He wants glory, no doubt about it. But he’s not brave. He’s a weak, vain man. Von Schüssler does what he’s told. Just wants to retire to his castle with his ribbons. And write his memoirs, from what I hear. Christ.”
“I see,” Metcalfe said. He trusted Hilliard’s judgment. A weak, vain man. Not a hero, not one who would do something brave or be a secret member of the anti-Nazi underground resistance. Not someone, it appeared, who could be turned. Of course, this was just one man’s assessment, but if Hilliard was right, von Schüssler was not a good prospect for Corky’s assignment. He’s not brave. It was not the portrait of a potential double agent. Yet Corcoran had sent him here to size the German up as a potential asset. How could Corky have been so misguided? He had a source on the ground in Moscow, Amos Hilliard, who could have told him not to bother. Metcalfe was baffled.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, but if you’re interested in meeting the fellow face-to-face, I’m told he and his Russian ballerina girlfriend will be up at the dacha tonight.”
His Russian baller
ina girlfriend, Metcalfe thought. Lana!
“It’s the center of the social whirl in the diplomatic enclave. Yep, it’s just one goddamned continuous round of pleasure here in the Happy Valley.”
“I’ll be there,” Metcalfe said, getting to his feet as Hilliard did the same. The diplomat came around from behind the desk, and Metcalfe extended his hand to shake. He was surprised when the small man instead gave him an embrace, a bear hug. Then at once he understood why when Amos Hilliard whispered in his ear: “Watch your back, you hear me? Do yourself—and me—a favor, Metcalfe. Don’t ever come here again.”
Chapter Fifteen
Metcalfe retrieved the key to his hotel room from the elderly woman, the dezhurnaya, who sat at a desk on his floor, watching all comings and goings. At the Metropole, as in every Soviet hotel, you picked up and dropped off your room key with the dezhurnaya, who was often as not an old woman, like this one, and who sat there at all times of day. At night she would doze, her head on a pillow on the desk. Presumably this archaic system was designed to make hotel guests feel safe, to make sure keys were only given out to the proper people, but the real reason, of course, was to keep a close watch on the guests for security reasons. Everything in Moscow was about security—the security of the state.
His first thought when he unlocked the door was that the maid had still not been by to clean and make up the room. Which was strange, since it was late afternoon.
As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, his second thought—and it was a realization that struck him like a blow to the solar plexus—was that his room had been searched. Theoretically this should have come as no surprise; the Russians usually searched the hotel rooms of their foreign visitors. But it had been done crudely, obviously, ostentatiously. He had been meant to see the evidence of the search.
The Tristan Betrayal Page 17