The Tristan Betrayal

by Robert Ludlum

  But no decoy site in all of Germany was as elaborate as this.

  The Brandenburg Studios had been founded in 1921, when the German film industry was at its peak and a serious rival to Hollywood. Such legendary stars as Marlene Dietrich and Pola Negri and such talented filmmakers as Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch had all worked there. Shortly after the Third Reich came to power and seized control of the film industry, banishing all “non-Aryans,” the Brandenburg Studios went out of business. The Nazis appropriated the gigantic lot, which had been used to film westerns and biblical epics. The mammoth soundstage, located in the concrete building at the center, was filled with stage sets and props that had accumulated over the almost two decades of the Brandenburg Studios’ history. That had been left alone; the sets where so many classic German movies had been filmed were now gathering dust.

  But the deception experts in the Luftwaffe had created, on either side of the soundstage, a series of false brick buildings, turning the whole site into an astonishing replica of a weapons-manufacturing complex. Even the artificially generated smoke that poured from the chimneys—smoke intended to attract enemy aircraft—was convincing. The optical illusion was nothing short of brilliant.

  This area immediately west of Berlin had been well chosen to fool the British fighters, for it was close to where so much of Germany’s military-industrial manufacturing facilities were located. Siemens’s Kraftwerk West facility was nearby, as were the AEG plants, Telefunken’s radio-communications factories, the Alkett tank-production facility, and the Maybach engine factory. Berlin was ringed with the industries that were feverishly churning out the components of the Nazi war machine.

  The site was, of course, deserted, as were all Nazi decoy fire sites. This made it one of the most secure locations in Berlin for Metcalfe, Lana, and Kundrov to meet. Far more important, though, was the open, snow-covered field, several hundred yards square, which had been the old studio back lot. It was an area large enough for the Lysander to land and take off comfortably; the small craft needed no more than two hundred yards.

  The three-quarters moon was bright in the sky, which was fortunate; it would provide adequate illumination for the pilot, Metcalfe thought. RAF photographic reconnaissance already had detailed aerial photographs of Berlin; this decoy site was, in fact, well known to British intelligence. After all, the RAF had made more than forty bombing sorties over Berlin since August and, with each raid, was improving its accuracy.

  Still, there were procedures that had to be followed in order to ensure that the pickup went off without a hitch. Corky had dispatched Chip Nolan to assist Metcalfe with the landing. The FBI man would bring an assortment of needed supplies, including flashlights to be used to send the prearranged recognition signal to the pilot in Morse code. If the Lysander pilot didn’t see the flashed signal on the ground, indicating that all was safe to land, he would simply pass by without touching down and return to England. Nolan would also bring flares, presumably from a cache stored in Berlin by the anti-Nazi underground. Three flares, Corky had instructed, were to be set down on the landing field in the shape of a large L to mark the landing path. The pilot would land the monoplane at the first flare, then turn around approximately one hundred and fifty yards down between the other two. He would keep the engine running—the chances of the Lysander stalling and then being unable to start back up were too great. All in all, the plane would be on the ground no more than three minutes, assuming all went well.

  But that assumption seemed an increasingly untenable one. There was just too much that could go wrong, far too many human variables.

  The entire fake armaments facility was enclosed by a low chain-link fence, which had been placed there not for security but for the sake of appearance from above. Metcalfe drove the Daimler through one of the open gates and parked in a macadam lot in front of the concrete soundstage building.

  Surveying the area to make sure there were no unexpected visitors, he got out and approached the soundstage, inside of which he was to meet Chip. He passed one of the fake brick buildings. Even from a few dozen feet away, the painted bricks looked real. Rows of windows had been painted on the plywood facade, enhancing the illusion. The structures had been built with walls and roofs, cut-out doorways, a few cut-out windows, the effect remarkably realistic.

  He glanced at his watch. Chip should have arrived by now.

  He walked around the soundstage to the front entrance, which faced the open field. A voice—Nolan, he recognized—called out to him from inside the building.

  The FBI man was holding a wooden crate, standing in front of an amazingly realistic replica of a Berlin street, a long row of nineteenth-century building facades along a fake cobblestone street lined with streetlights, a mailbox, an outdoor café. Metcalfe instantly recognized the set from a classic Marlene Dietrich film.

  “Hey, there you are!” Metcalfe called out. “Right on time. I’m glad you’re here. This is not going to be easy.”

  He looked around the interior of the building, marveling. It was as large as a European railroad station, but it was crowded with sets in long aisles, some collapsed and stacked up, many simply abandoned in place, as if the filming of a dozen movies had been momentarily interrupted. There was a line of crazy German expressionist houses, tilted every which way, windows painted on at random angles, like something that might have been used in the filming of the classic silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The interior of a sophisticated Manhattan apartment. A miniature Swiss chalet set against a painted backdrop of the Alps. The storefront of a bakery, KONDITOREI painted on the plate glass in gilt Gothic letters, its windows heaped with shellacked pastries. The rooftops of London done almost life-size.

  Chip gave a modest smile. “Well, you know what they say at the Bureau. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night . . . No, wait a minute—that’s the post office.” Nolan’s eyes were warm but watchful as he set down the crate.

  “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Are you?” Nolan smiled. “Gotta respect that principle of compartmentation and all. But sometimes keeping your colleagues in the dark is the most dangerous thing of all.”

  Metcalfe shrugged. “Could be.”

  “You know, I only found out about the rendezvous from the home office about an hour ago. And the thing is, I’ve got some real worries about operational integrity here. Our security seems to have been compromised on a high level.”

  “You mean you’ve only just figured that out? After Corky’s already lost . . .” Metcalfe trailed off. The aging spymaster was always intent upon partitioning information, within and without the Registry. “Look, is there something you have to tell me? Then tell me now.” He glanced at his watch and tried to figure out what piece of country the Lysander would be flying over just then. The nerves in his body felt stretched taut.

  “You’re misunderstanding. I think you have something to tell me.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “I think there are a lot of things we can put together, the two of us, if we compare notes. But you’ve got to put your cards on the table. For starters, what are you doing in Berlin?”

  “I think you know.” He gestured around them. “An exfiltration.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  “It’s complicated, and there really isn’t time to get into this right now, okay? Let’s just say it involves a Russian asset.”

  “A Russian asset, right.” Nolan took a step closer, his face grimly intent. “And you’re running this Russian asset.”

  Metcalfe shrugged uneasily. “In a sense.”

  “Or are the Russians running you?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I need to know what they’ve told you, my friend.” Nolan spoke in a level tone.

  “I don’t follow.” Metcalfe didn’t bother to hide his bewilderment.

  The FBI man watched him stonily; Metcalfe knew the look. It was the look of a professional interrogator who knew t
he power of a watchful silence. “Look, I saw you and your GRU friend together. Kundrov, right? Outside the opera house? You think I don’t know you’re working with him?”

  “Working with him, did you say? Boy, have you got this all wrong. He’s working with us—helping us out, at considerable risk to himself!”

  Nolan emitted a short, derisive laugh. “You know the story about the guy who finds a rattlesnake on a snowy mountaintop. Rattlesnake says, ‘I’m freezing here, I’m starving here. Take me down to the valley, and I promise I’ll never harm you. I’m not like the others.’ The guy does just that. Soon as they reach the valley, the snake bites him on the ass. Guy says, ‘But you promised!’ Snake says, ‘Hey, you knew what I was when you picked me up.’ ”

  “Hey, thanks for the wildlife tip. But if we don’t get the flares in exactly the right position, and I mean right away—”

  Nolan talked over his protests. “I’m just saying. You can’t trust anything they tell you. Everything has a purpose, and the purpose is always manipulation. To sow discord. To turn people against their real friends.” Nolan paused. “So what did he tell you about me?”

  “What?” Metcalfe’s bewilderment gave way to a surge of annoyance. He glanced at his watch again. “We didn’t talk about you. Why would we have?” A moment after he spoke, he remembered that Kundrov had, in fact, asked about Nolan. I’ve seen the face somewhere. Maybe in one of our face books.

  “No reason,” Nolan said equably. “Hey, I’m just a flaps-and-seals guy—‘Peek and ye shall find,’ right?”

  “If you’re thinking I’m the security breach . . . that’s just crazy, all right?”

  “Calm down, kid.” Nolan continued to scrutinize Metcalfe’s face, and after a few long moments he gave the younger man a wink and a smile, as if his suspicions were allayed. “I just had to know for sure.”

  “Listen, are you going to help me or not?” Metcalfe said, biting off the words.

  “Then again, the whole art of espionage is getting people to do your dirty work without them realizing it. The Russians are masters at that. Here’s the thing. In the past few weeks, I’ve learned about this spy ring. Very formidable, very covert. It’s operating all through Europe, and even in the US of A, and it’s completely compromising the integrity of American foreign policy. A Stuka dive-bomber over Washington couldn’t do more damage.”

  “Christ, Chip, are you sure about this?”

  “Sure as shooting, my friend. But we’ve been making progress against it. Rolling it up. Deadheading the bastards, one after another. Soon as I learn another name, we act. There’s just too goddamn much at stake to pussyfoot around. I’m talking about a cell-based network of highly placed Americans and Europeans, many of them from old, established families, some of them belonging to the inner circles of power. It’s an incredible feat, really.”

  “But if the Soviets put this ring in place . . .”

  “I didn’t say they did. They didn’t have to. You gotta remember Comrade Lenin’s favorite question: Who benefits? When you’re the beneficiary of a spy ring like that, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge of it.”

  “How come Corky never mentioned this?”

  “Maybe because he’s part of it.” Nolan winked and took a step toward Metcalfe. “And you’re part of it, too.”

  Blood pounded in Metcalfe’s ears. “Do you have any idea how insane you sound? There’s no time for your paranoid fantasies. And the next time you feel like making accusations, I suggest you—”

  “What you gotta appreciate is, I watch the traffic signals. I know the patterns. Believe me, I’m plugged in five ways to Sunday, in ways you can’t even imagine. Russian intelligence cracks a code my friends in the Sicherheitsdienst assured me was unbreakable, and suddenly the GRU sends their guy to Berlin to rat me out. Next thing I know you’re on the phone to Corky, who contacts me with some cockamamie pretext about showing up at the Brandenburg decoy site with flashlights and flares.” He shook his head slowly, a disgusted smile on his face. “Sorry, I’m not buying it. I’m not in the market for any more of Corky’s bullshit. Let’s just be clear about that, James—or should I say Stephen?”

  Metcalfe was thunderstruck. My friends in the Sicherheitsdienst. Recognition dawned suddenly, with a terrifying rush.

  Nolan was the traitor.

  It had been Nolan all along.

  “Jesus Christ!” Metcalfe cried. “You’re the one—you’re the one who burned them all!” His mind was reeling.

  The gun—a Colt .45—had somehow materialized in Nolan’s hand before Metcalfe had even noticed it. It was pointed directly at Metcalfe’s forehead.

  The telephone rang, its bell strident and jarring.

  Lana Baranova, lying in bed, watched it ring, dreading the call, the knowing making it all the more terrifying.

  After three rings, the phone was answered, presumably by a servant, and there was silence. She lay trembling. She was packed and ready.

  A few minutes later came a knock on her door.

  “Yes?”

  The door opened slowly. Eckbert, one of Rudi’s footmen, stood there in a bathrobe, his hair uncombed. With an awkward bow he said, “Entschuldigen Sie, madam. I am sorry to disturb you, but there is a telephone call for you.”

  “The guys in the Paris station . . . There’s no way the Nazis could have penetrated that without you. . . . Roger Martin . . . Amos Hilliard . . . It was you!” Metcalfe could feel his heart thudding.

  Chip’s ruddy face was shiny with perspiration. His watery gray eyes seemed dead. “You give me more credit than I deserve, pal. I just point the SD in the right direction, give ’em names and locations when I learn stuff. They have people who do the . . . housecleaning.”

  “The housecleaning . . .” Metcalfe echoed. A gruesome mental image of Scoop Martin, garroted, flashed into his head. Of Amos Hilliard. Of Derek Compton-Jones and Johnny Betts, in Paris. . . . Now a surge of anger overtook him. He looked at the barrel of the gun that was aimed directly at him. It was like a fierce staring black eye. He raised his glance to Chip’s eyes, which looked like another set of boreholes. “Put down the gun, Chip,” he said.

  “Look, sometimes patriots have to make ugly choices,” Nolan said. The gun didn’t waver. “The world isn’t a pretty place. You’ve got to choose sides.”

  “Choose . . . sides?” Metcalfe exploded. “And you’re on . . . what side? The side of the fascists? The Nazis? Adolf Hitler?”

  “I’m on the side of realism, fella. I’m on the side of a stronger America. Not the soft socialism of the welfare state, which is what Roosevelt and his pro-Soviet New Dealers have been trying to turn America into. See, Metcalfe, if you weren’t so blinded to what’s going on around you, maybe you could face the brutal facts. There are thousands of Communists on the payroll in Washington, and Roosevelt knows about it. What does he say? He says, ‘Some of my best friends are Communists.’ Who’s his closest adviser?”

  “Harry Hopkins. Put down the gun, Chip.”

  “Correct. Harry Hopkins. A known Soviet agent of influence. Actually lives in the White House. Most of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust are card-carrying members of the Communist Party. Trucklers to their ‘Uncle Joe.’ ‘Uncle Joe is a good man to know,’ the comrades say. What’s the first thing Roosevelt did when he came into office? Recognized the Soviet Union—legitimized the thugs who stole Russia, the Bolshies who made it clear they want to spread Communism around the whole goddamned world. Roosevelt and his Red-loving cronies want to hand the world over to the Soviet slave empire. Establish one-world government, run out of Moscow. You don’t get it, do you, Metcalfe?”

  “I get the fact that you’re a goddamned fascist,” Metcalfe said quietly.

  “That’s just a word,” Chip snapped back. “The National Socialists, the Nazis, the fascists—call ’em what you will, I don’t care—you better pray they’re the wave of the future. Whether you agree or disagree with Hitler, you’d have to be a fool not to see how he took a rotten, decay
ed country, overrun by Jews and Communists, and cleaned it up, built it into a goddamned powerhouse, the strongest, most powerful nation in Europe.”

  “A tyranny is what it is.”

  “No, pal. A ‘tyranny’ is what the Slavic hordes are perpetrating in Russia, with their genocide against the white race. Tell me something, Metcalfe: did your rich Social Register parents raise you to be a pinko, or did you get converted at Yale?”

  Metcalfe smiled. “So that’s what you think—that I’m a Communist.”

  “No, you’re not a Commie, Metcalfe. You know what you are? You’re what Lenin called a ‘useful idiot.’ That’s what he called all the mindless pro-Soviet apologists and lickspittles in Western democracies who always seem to defend the Communist Internationale no matter how brutal it is. Now all you useful idiots are trying to push us into a war against a nation that poses no threat to us. So millions of American boys can die overseas to make Europe safe for Uncle Joe.”

  “The ‘nation that poses no threat to us’—you’re talking about Nazi Germany? The Third Reich? Whose tanks have already rolled into France and Poland, Norway and Denmark and Holland—”

  “Lebensraum. Call it breathing room. I guess you haven’t noticed how your Uncle Joe’s been grabbing up real estate right and left while we’ve been staring down Hitler, huh? He’s already invaded Finland and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, big chunks of Romania, Poland . . . And the war’s scarcely started. Roosevelt and his Bolshevik masters aren’t happy with the way Hitler defeated Communism in Germany. Nazi Germany is the only brake on Bolshevism we’ve got. No wonder Roosevelt wants to get us into war. This is a titanic global conflict, buddy, and America’s being pushed over to the wrong side of it. The White House and the striped-pants boys in the State Department, they’re all whoring for Uncle Joe, and then Roosevelt had his asshole buddy Alfred Corcoran sending agents all around the world to fight Hitler, the only real friend we have. Agents like you, Metcalfe, are actually doing something. You’re in the field, conducting operations, and that makes you a real menace. Because if men like you aren’t stopped, your friends in Moscow will soon be going through Europe like shit through a goose.”