A Spy in the Shadows (Spy Noir Series Book 1)

by Randy Grigsby

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  Leni had lied to Allen Miles.

  Over the last months, she had made it her business to attempt to know everything going on around Tehran. An embassy officer’s wife on an early morning drive in her convertible drew attention—but it didn’t draw suspicion. Three weeks ago on a drive out into the countryside, she noted construction ongoing in the area close to where Miles had described, having filed away the site in the back of her mind. Now, she could use it to her advantage and find out more about Benjamin Fields.

  Two miles out of Tehran, she pulled over on the side of the road and lowered the Chevrolet’s convertible roof. When she continued, the radiating sun fell on her face; the wind blew through her hair. This morning, with the excitement of the secured site, Leni was able to push into the back of her mind the sadness of missing her son. This morning her personal sacrifices for the fatherland suddenly seemed worth it.

  Another five miles and the outline of the oasis appeared on the horizon. She slowed and pulled over on the roadside. A tomb tower loomed against the pale blue sky. To the left was a high, ancient wall, and beneath a ditch, bordered by a row of fir trees, ran along between the wall and the tower. Off to the right beyond the wall was a gathering of brown tents. The encampment. This puzzled Leni. Why would a military camp of any significance be located so far out of the city?

  She searched the landscape for another long moment, had just decided on venturing closer, when a voice boomed out behind her, “And where would you be going?”

  She turned quickly.

  A British solider, automatic weapon slung menacingly across his chest, stood by the door. Leni’s first impulse was that he was much too young to be a soldier. “I . . . I seemed to be lost,” she said, nervously running her fingers through her hair.

  “Wrong place to be lost, I can tell you that,” he said sternly.

  “I’m terribly sorry. I certainly don’t want to interfere with the military.”

  “You should leave this area immediately m’um, or I’ll have to detain you.”

  She attempted to appear frightened. “I don’t want that. I’ll just go up to that hill and turn around.”

  “Hold it.” There was a heavy thud as he let the barrel fall across the door. “You’ll have to turn around right here.”

  “But . . . the road is so narrow. I might have an accident.” She tried smiling. “I’m not very good at driving machines.”

  He pulled the weapon up. “Well, we’ll just do our best, won’t we? Come on—I won’t let you go into the ditch.”

  “But—”

  “Sorry.”

  Leni hesitated, realizing this could be her only chance to get this close. Flirting, or arguing with a soldier who took his position seriously would do her absolutely no good. Deciding to try another approach Leni said, “Young man, this automobile is a gift from my husband who happens to be a very important man in the British Embassy. Now—you can see that the road is wider twenty meters ahead. I will attempt to turn around there . . . or you can explain any damage to the automobile if I attempt to turn around here.”

  The soldier stared at her thinking over the threat. Finally, he cradled the weapon in his arm and pointed up the road. “No farther than the rise, and remember, I have orders to shoot.”

  Leni shifted the gear. “I certainly wouldn’t want you to do that.”

  The tires cracked on the rock road as she drove to the rise. A hundred meters from the wall and the ditch, she swung into the wider part of the road. She pulled the Chevrolet back and forth several times, acting out her awkwardness in handling the automobile, before finally backing as close to the ditch as she dared.

  Then Leni leaned back, one arm on the top of the seat, glancing back as if watching the edge of the ditch now perilously close to the back tires. Instead, she was studying the horizon.

  Shifting the knob into first gear, Leni headed back down at the road, gunning the motor. The Chevrolet roared by the young soldier. She waved and smiled. The solider stared.

  When Leni reached the main road, she turned toward Tehran, her heart racing in her chest. The additional twenty meters had done the trick—it had given her a brief glance into the encampment confirming what she suspected since the night she killed Major Fields and read his notes. He was involved in some sort of special operations timed to coordinate with the arrival of Churchill and Roosevelt. She would have to design a plan to uncover what the facts meant, but for now she was certain she was following clues that would lead her to something worthy of passing on to Berlin.

  Because what she had seen—hidden among the fir trees lining the wall—was a row of radio antennas.

  ----

  It was almost an hour later when Leni drove into the archaeological site. The sun was well up in the sky and a sweltering heat danced over the desert sands.

  She got out and walked past the tents and the supply building and found Hance leaning over, hands on knees, staring through a piece of transit survey equipment. He wore white trousers and a darker blousy shirt and his large cloth hat. A young worker held an umbrella over his head. On the next small hill just beyond, workers worked with shovels methodically skimming dirt from the surface and tossing it aside.

  Directly in front of Hance, two workers worked at the bottom of a trench, brushing away dirt from around a half-buried piece of broken pottery. “Careful,” he warned Leni pointing with a digging tool in his left hand toward the trench. “There are relics all along the bottom of this trench.”

  “Oh, William, I’m always careful around your silly site.”

  “What are you—?”

  “Doing here in the middle of the day? Again?” She walked up to him. The young worker held the umbrella over her as she leaned closer. “I have something important to tell you.”

  “Well, go ahead,” Hance said nodding toward the boy. “Speak German. He won’t understand a word you’re saying.”

  “You’re relics may be important, William, but not nearly as valuable as what we have.”

  Hance took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped at his neck. “What do you mean?”

  “Information, William . . . once hidden within British Intelligence, but now within our grasp.”

  “What information?”

  She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I haven’t figured it all out yet, but trust me when I tell you it’s important,” she told him with seriousness, “We must get a message to Berlin.”

  His face turned to one of bewilderment. “But the rules?”

  “Blast the rules, William,” Leni said. “I’ve just driven from south of Tehran where Major Fields was assigned to a highly-guarded encampment.” She leaned closer. “An encampment with sophisticated communications equipment.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Radio antennas fifty feet high, hidden among fir trees. Guarded by a special detachment of British soldiers? How important does that appear to you, William?”

  Hance stared at her. The digging tool fell from his hand, thudding on the clay floor of the trench. “Codes.”

  “Exactly,” she said. For a moment there was an awkward silence. “Now—do we break the rules and send that message or not?”

  Hance didn’t answer, turning on his heels and headed toward his tent. Leni followed closely behind beneath the shimmering sun.

  -Thirteen-

  Winston Churchill arrived in Tehran distrusting the Soviets more than President Roosevelt. Born in Blenheim Palace, his family’s ancestral seat in Oxfordshire on November 30, 1874, young Winston appeared destined for greatness. Of the three leaders gathered in Tehran, he possessed a desire for intelligence work as a way to effectively fight wars, and it was his strong belief that wars could be won as much on the backstreets of a European city as on a battlefield in North Africa. He was a brilliant orator, a strength that had led the English people through the worst of German bombings of their cities.

  But Churchill had another side, a dark side—‘the black dog’ as
he referred to the overwhelming depression he suffered through in long bouts. His varying moods could strike at any time. In his letters he referred to this distressing ‘dog’ as a person . . . ‘he seems quite away from me now . . . it is such a relief when all the colors come back in the picture.’

  To add to his mood, Churchill caught a cold in Cairo and would be sick for most of the conference.

  Franklin Roosevelt came to the conference with the goal of winning over Stalin. The Russian leader insisted on an Allied invasion of Europe, the opening of a second front to the war relieving his armies in the east. The American president had promised just such an action, one that had never taken place. And because of that lack of a second front, the President felt it was his goal to gain confidence from Stalin.

  Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York on January 30, 1882, the only child of James and Sara Delano Roosevelt. His family was one of old mercantile class involved in commerce, banking, and railroads. As Britain fought against the Axis nations, Roosevelt provided aid to Churchill and the British war effort. When Pearl Harbor was attacked everything changed.

  The Premier of Russia, Joseph Stalin, was from Georgia, a province in southern Russia, the son of a shoemaker. Stalin entered theological seminary, but at age 19, after joining the Socialist-Democratic Party, he was expelled. When the party split into two factions in 1903, Stalin joined the Bolshevik faction, casting his destiny. As leader of Russia, he signed a pact with Hitler in September 1939, which Hitler broke soon after with the invasion of Russia. In July 1941 Stalin took over as Commissariat of Defense. He arrived at the Tehran conference frustrated that there had not been the second front. He went to Tehran determined to court Roosevelt, without Churchill present, to attempt to accomplish just that.

  ----

  At six-twenty on the afternoon of the twenty-seventh, Mayfield sent a message to Salinger’s hotel that he was sending a car at the top of the hour to pick him up. When Salinger asked where he was being taken, Mayfield calmly told him ‘the British Embassy to see Churchill. Something has come up’.

  ----

  Mayfield waited at the top of the stairs when Salinger arrived at the entrance and pulled him aside. “It appears Soviet intelligence has uncovered something big . . . a German assassination plot unfolding around the conference,” he told him.

  “You think Fields’s murder could be linked to this plot?”

  “There are several options that came to mind,” Mayfield said, “the first being that Fields stumbled upon something that looked suspicious to him. What is beyond me is why he didn’t report it.”

  A black sedan pulled up at the steps.

  “It’s why we’re here, Booth. Both Roosevelt and Churchill want us to hear what the Soviets have to say.”

  The back door opened and a man short in statue, but with dark powerful eyes stepped out. He wore round glasses and had a thick mustache and moved quickly through the door. “Stalin’s right hand man,” Mayfield said quietly. ‘Molotov.”

  Vyacheslav Molotov was an old-line Bolshevik born 1890 in the village of Kukarka the son of a shop clerk. Sent to be educated in Kazan, he was introduced to the works of Karl Marx and joined the party in 1906. His rise to power began in the 1920s as a protégé of Joseph Stalin and rose to the position of Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, which he held for eleven years. In May 1939 he was appointed Commissar of Foreign Affairs when he negotiated the pact with the Germans, which made possible the Nazi invasion of Poland. Following the invasion of Russia by Hitler’s armies, Molotov conducted urgent negotiations with Britain, and later the United States for wartime alliances. The Russian’s abrupt manner had earned him the nickname ‘The Hammer.’

  After Molotov passed, “If the two events are linked . . .” Salinger mentally sorted through the information, “Fields’s murder and a German plot against one of our leaders . . . then the plot has an agent deeply planted within the circle of influence in Tehran.”

  Mayfield turned on his heels. “Well, that’s good news.”

  They were allowed into the large conference room and took their positions standing against the near wall. Roosevelt and Churchill sat at a long meeting table. Aides to the President, Averill Harriman and Harry Hopkins, were present. Also in the room were several British officers serving as aides to the Prime Minister.

  Molotov stood at the end of the table, holding his hat in his hands. He had wasted little time in beginning the discussion. “Our intelligence group has monitored a situation for several months telling us German Intelligence as parachuted a forward group into Iran in March. Their purpose was to blend into the city and establish radio contact with Berlin. We have been intercepting and monitoring their radio transmissions since their arrival. Two weeks ago, eight separate commando groups were deposited in the mountains around Tehran. Once they are aware for certain that the president of the United States and the Prime Minister of England has arrived, they will merge on Tehran.”

  Churchill shifted in his chair. “And I suppose Hitler has sent some of his best.”

  “Our information tells us many were trained by Skorzeny in the Ukraine . . .”

  “Skorzeny?” Churchill interrupted. “Impressive.”

  “Many were anti-communist Russians recruited from Wehrmacht prisoner-of-war-camps.” Molotov said. “They were outfitted with Russian army uniforms to blend into the Soviet security forces here in Tehran. However, there appears to be a conspiracy within a conspiracy. Several of these men were actually loyal communists who have betrayed the plot. Soviet army command has captured all but six of the men.”

  “Do you know the man leading the six?” Churchill asked.

  “German SS Sturmbannfuhrer Paul Heuss.”

  Churchill turned to one of his military people. “Find out everything you can about this Heuss fellow.”

  Roosevelt leaned forward. “What is the name of this German operation?”

  “Operation Long Jump.”

  “I rather like that,” the President said with humor. “The Germans are very good at code names, but they aren’t as entertaining as you are, Mr. Prime Minister.”

  “I’m extremely jealous,” Churchill grumbled.

  Then Roosevelt turned serious again. “What do you propose?”

  Molotov looked around the room. “You should move into the Soviet compound where you can be protected. That way we will have the participants within secure areas.”

  Roosevelt angled his chin and looked off into the distance. “Gentlemen, thank you for your concern. Now, if you would allow us to discuss this among ourselves for a moment.”

  Once the Russians left the room, the mood shifted. Harriman stepped forward. “I don’t like it, Mr. President. I don’t like it one bit.”

  Averell Harriman was often counted on by Roosevelt as the one who could represent him faithfully as an emissary to Churchill or Stalin. A past chairman of the board of Union Pacific Railroad, recognized link between the New Deal and American business, the converted Republican was known for his cautiousness.

  “And why is that, Averell?” Roosevelt asked lightly.

  “We don’t know yet how, but I think the Russians are attempting to use this situation to their advantage.”

  The President asked, “And what do our British friends think of the arrangement? Major Mayfield?”

  “By moving into Soviet territory you will have to make certain every conversation is guarded,” Mayfield said. “But perhaps the most dramatic effect would be, sir, that it practically eliminates you and the Prime Minister having any private conversations during the conference.”

  Roosevelt stared at Mayfield for a long moment, considering the suggestion. “Harry?”

  Harry Hopkins was the president’s closest wartime adviser. Since Pearl Harbor he had moved into the White House, never for the next four years to be more than a few steps away when Roosevelt needed him. Born in Sioux City, Iowa, Hopkins had headed up the WPA, the Works Progress Administration. Surgery on stomach canc
er three years before had left him severely weakened and gaunt. His frayed suit hung around a sagging, bony frame.

  “We may be attempting to read too much into the Soviet suggestion,” Hopkins said. “I think it may only show how seriously they take your security, Mr. President. And—the desperate hours Hitler now lives in.”

  “Mr. Prime Minister?”

  “If nothing else,” Churchill grumbled quickly, ‘”I am genuinely touched by Stalin’s concern for your safety, Mr. President. I simply don’t share this anxiety toward the matter.”

  Roosevelt lit a cigarette as if posing for one of his famous photographs. “I think we shall take up the Soviet’s offer of hospitality.”

  ----

  Dismissed, Salinger and Mayfield moments later were back on the front steps of the Embassy. Mayfield stopped at the edge of the steps, one hand jammed in a coat pocket. “Well, what can we take away from all that?”

  “It’s possible Stalin is honestly concerned about the president’s safety.” Salinger said. “After all, it was Stalin’s idea the conference be held in Iran. Anything happens to the president; it would come across as his fault. What’s interesting is Soviet intelligence has been aware of the plot for such a long time—apparently over two months—and hasn’t let us in on it. That means our Soviet friends, including Shepilov, could be of more value to us than first believed.”

  “And Goli Faqiri,” Mayfield said thickly.

  “Yes. And Goli,” Salinger said.

  ----

  The forest sixty kilometers north of Berlin.

  It had taken the messenger two hours from the city on the snowy, treacherous roads to reach the hunting party.

  Richter sat at a table beneath a large canvas cover in the midst of a beech tree orchard. He was seated around a large fire dressed warmly against the cold weather in full hunting gear, enjoying a lunch of beer and sausage. Since dawn they had been hunting wild boar. A row of six of the dead animals lay in a line twenty meters away.

  The chilled, invigorating weather and his medication had subdued the thumping pain in his chest at least for this morning. Seated at the table was Frick, several members of their office staff from Berlin, and at the head of the table Hermann Goering who had extended an invitation to Richter to join the hunting party. It was the only reason that Richter would be away from his office freezing to death killing pigs while events were unfolding in Tehran.