“There’s another possibility.” Salinger turned away. “The men who killed her husband—they were aware we were in Isafahan asking questions. By now Abbosi’s body has been found at his villa.”
“If it makes any difference, I’m sorry, son. I really am. The fact is that unless this is linked to the German, then this is none of our business. Not right now, at least. If it is . . . ” his voice faded away. Perhaps the wrong things said. “I’ll give you a minute.”
Mayfield turned back to the sedan several yards away. Salinger walked down the hill closer to the burning wreckage. He could feel the heat on his face, the sickening smell caught in the back of his throat. Several of Mayfield’s men moved away, standing in the shade watching him.
An object shining in the sand just beyond the wreckage caught Salinger’s eye. He kicked it over several times with his foot. His heart sank. The cigarette lighter he had given her, bought in a small gift shop on a side street off the Marktgasse in Bern. He remembered that it was snowing the day he had gotten it for her. Now . . .
. . . she was so alive just hours ago. Beautiful and dangerous and alive. To possess so much, Salinger realized, in the end Goli had so little happiness. Just like all of us, Salinger thought, we’re all looking for something. Then the words from their conversation in the restaurant just two days ago came to him. It was almost like her voice moved in the wind. ‘At one time we were good for each other.’ She had honestly believed that. But she had been wrong.
None of what had happened between Goli and Julia and himself had ever been good for any of them.
-Twenty-Eight-
Berlin.
The opera was one of the last leisures of life Theodor Richter allowed himself as an escape from his draining duties.
Tonight he sat in his balcony box watching LaTraviata, one of his favorite operas, a tragic account by Giuseppe Verdi. But Richter was irritated that tonight his mind wandered from the wonderful scenes playing out on the stage below. Even as Alfred Germont attempted valiantly to win over the beautiful Violetta Valery, Richter’s thoughts constantly turned to Traveler and the plot she was playing out.
He was confident in one thought—whatever this information or the plans of the allied plot unfolding there— Traveler would succeed in getting it to him.
Twenty minutes later, a man approached from the aisle above Richter’s box, making his way along the aisle above them. He excused himself crossing in front of two ladies in the box adjacent to Richter. He leaned forward and he whispered to Richter. A message from Traveler! Richter quickly gathered his coat and hat and followed his man past the irritated women, and to the aisle. Just as they were about to step out into the upstairs lobby, Richter took a moment and glanced back at the stage.
He would miss the end of LaTraviata, his favorite scene, when the beautiful Violetta lies in her apartment dying. Alfred has come to beg her forgiveness. Such a tragic ending.
Then Richter was outside, footsteps clicking on the stone steps until he was at the dark sedan. The streets were empty. He stood in the cold night air and was handed a piece of paper. Richter took the telegram and stood under the streetlight, and the words he read excited him. A telegram from the Hotel Darbund sent to a communications house in Paris.
“To my office quickly,” he told his man, his hopes soaring now.
The sedan sped away. Imagine, Richter thought. Only moments ago he was comparing his personal events unfolding to that of the ending of the tragic opera. Now . . . now, his optimism was stirred again.
----
Ten minutes past midnight.
Richter stared out his office window, wondering where Frick could possibly be, when his assistant burst into his office. His face was flush with drink and his suit smelled of cigars. Richter allowed himself a smile, realizing that his friend’s adventurous night had been rudely interrupted.
Frick dropped into the chair opposite Richter.
“Read this,” Richter said, handing the telegram across the desk.
As Frick read the paper, he sat it on the edge of the desk and a puzzled look came across this face. “I don’t understand. I thought—”
“As do the Americans and British, I can only hope,” Richter told him with some satisfaction. “And I would certainly think MI6 thinks the game is almost over. That it will end in their favor. But the simple fact is that it isn’t.”
“What does it mean?”
Richter turned to the window. He loved the night and at times like this he knew exactly why. The darkness was so deceptive. Like his long played out plans. “She’s making a run for it, Frick. By now the enemy has tied her to our friend Hance, and suspects the supply plane as a possible escape route. We’ll send back a message to divert her from the plane . . . and for her to utilize an alternate plan. We’ll have the communications center send additional instructions to the train station. Also, we’ll tell her to work with two copies of whatever documents she possesses, leaving one set hidden at the site.”
“Why go to the bother?” Frick was silent for a long time. Then the paper fell from his hands and he whispered, “We could always send someone else in even if she is stopped from escaping.”
“We will have to anticipate her next move,” Richter said, though he wasn’t ready to tell his assistant the real reason. “Without that she could be doomed.”
Within moments, Richter and Frick dashed through a heavy morning rain, without hat or umbrella, and across the open space to the Foreign Office. There was little time to waste, Richter was dreadfully aware of that now. Perhaps only enough time to move his pawns on the game board once more before events unfolded. The simple instructions to make two sets of the documents Leni possessed, leaving one at the archaeological site? She wouldn’t understand—but she would follow orders.
Not even the deep thumping pain in his chest could slow him as he raced across the yard.
-Twenty-Nine-
Naderi Guesthouse.
The dream had come to Leni as she feverishly napped on the couch in her room waiting on Hance to return . . .
. . . the day had been bright, cold, and off in the distance were purple mountains floating with heavy gray clouds. She had met the Fuhrer . . . at a reception on the veranda of the Berghof, his mountain headquarters. Leni was one of a group of thirty being honored, and she was so excited. After all, not just anyone was invited to the Berghof, Hitler’s retreat. Hess and Goebbels were there mingling with the young people as photographs were taken amid nervous laughter and joking.
The Fuhrer appeared briefly, his steel-eyes flashing as he shook hands with several of the young girls. But she also remembered the half-hidden sadness behind his eyes, awash with the knowledge that his would be a hard struggle. He appeared so exhausted, causing Leni to weep as she shook his hand and then turned away to stand at the terrace wall.
After the Fuhrer had disappeared into the house, Leni had remained by the wall, alone, while the others gathered in small groups and laughed and talked. She had stood alone until it was time for them to leave, deciding she would be willing to die for him . . .
----
With her head cradled in her hands, elbows resting on the table, Leni studied Hance as he worked skillfully with a sharp roofing knife. His white shirtsleeves were rolled up exposing thick forearms. They sat in a huge high-ceilinged room with a balcony overlooking the street.
Hance had arrived back at 1:23 with the message from Berlin and she read the message beneath the light of the desk lamp. What was Richter telling her? The two sets of documents had been easy enough. They had gone to the postal office and made photostatic copies of Fields’s documents while Leni stood guard making certain no one came too close. Then Hance had dropped her off at the guesthouse while he went to an obscure photography shop owned by a friend on Amirieh Street and made another set of photographs in the dark room.
After placing the documents in his business valise, Hance left to hide the papers in the supply shed at the site.
Two boo
ks lay before him on the table. Earlier he had glued all the pages together around the outer edges. Now he used the knife, and cut out the center of the pages. One book had been finished and laid aside, the top cover open exposing the hollow square, the photographs hidden within. The other book would be prepared to hide the papers taken from Major Fields’s valise seven days ago.
“I’ve often thought of this day, Leni,” Hance said. “That one day we would put our skills together to accomplish great things.”
She leaned back, closing her eyes. “If you’re going to be silly . . .”
“I’m not being silly, Leni. There’s a difference between being silly and being honest, even if the truth sounds impractical.”
Leni turned to him, brushing her hair. “You love me, don’t you, William?”
“I’m risking everything to get you to Berlin, aren’t I?”
“But you can’t go to Berlin with me, not for a while anyway.”
“I’ve thought of that. And I don’t mind . . . if I can come to you later.”
“What about your wife?”
“She’s in love with the war not me,” he said.
“So, where will you go?” Leni asked.
“Africa,” he announced bravely. “I’ll go to Africa once we get you out of here. The allies . . . they always seem to have a way of forgetting the deeds ones does if one is patient enough and gives them time.” He smiled. “They left me alone here, didn’t they?”
“They certainly did, William.”
“Anyway, Africa . . . that’s where I’ll go . . . for the moment anyway,” his face widened into an expression of misgiving. “If what you say is true about what you’ve uncovered here, then Germany will win the war. Then, I could come to Berlin.”
She touched his arm. “William, I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me. And Germany will win this war. You have my word on that. Are you hungry?”
“Famished.”
“Our last meal in Tehran then.” She went to the Bakelite phone on the desk and ordered food from the Café Naderi on the first floor.
“I’m going and get dressed.”
Hance held up the second book. “How is this?”
Leni took the book. Inside the hollow square the documents were folded. Once she closed the cover the book appeared as only that. A book carried on the train to keep the lady occupied while she traveled. She leaned over and kissed him. “You’ve done excellent, William.”
Later, Leni came out of the bathroom wearing a white dress.
Hance sat at the table. The food had arrived and he had mixed himself a drink and handed her one.
Leni sat and took the message from Richter. Unfolding the paper, she again read the message from Berlin: ‘I’ve never liked you flying. The train is safer. I’ll be waiting. Father.’
“Our plan, Leni, did this message tell you what to do?”
“Just the opposite, William. It instructed us what not to do.” Why was Richter leading her away from the supply plane? Then the train it would be.
Through the window Tehran sat hot and clear, more foreign and strange to her than it ever had. She had never liked this place. And now, finally, she was leaving. How many men had she killed for Richter? Somewhere along the way she had lost count, or did she just not want to remember?
She would trust Richter and avoid the supply plane. Richter would have his great secret and save the German nation. He would be decorated by Hitler. And she would, finally, be free.
When she turned back, Hance was staring at her.
“So—now our plans, William.”
In another fifteen minutes, Leni had laid out their actions.
“I’ll drive us to the station,” Hance said. “I brought my automobile.”
“Your Simca Cinq,” Leni said.
“I washed and polished her. I suppose the British authorities will have her once we’re gone.”
“The love of your life.”
“Yes” he said, “another sacrifice for the fatherland. But really, Leni, I don’t mind.”
----
The coupe hugged the road south of the city as Mayfield, both hands tight on the steering wheel, raced toward Tehran. The desert slipped by as a blur. Ahead were the first signs of the city.
“I don’t understand,” Mayfield said. “The supply plane was a perfect vehicle of escape. It was there . . .” He was certain he and Salinger had wasted precious time in laying in wait at the archaeological site.
“She could have been using it as a decoy.”
“Possible. But still the perfect—never mind. I guessed wrong and it has cost us dearly. Now—we have to be right.”
Mayfield guessed the train station. Salinger knew it was probably their last hope. If they were wrong, then Traveler would disappear into the night desert. Finding her would be almost impossible.
Mayfield turned to him. “All of these years that we’ve known each other, and I don’t know if you’re a religious man or not.”
The automobile lurched forward at a ridiculous speed down the narrow road. The wind whistled through the window and Salinger felt as though he were living a dream full of unreal characters. Two automobiles of Mayfield’s men followed somewhere behind in the dust cloud.
“What has that got to do with anything?” Salinger asked.
Mayfield turned back to the road. “I thought if you were, then you would pray that we aren’t wrong.”
----
Tehran Central Railway Station. Shush Street. 3:34 p.m.
Leni and Hance arrived at the train station and entered immediately into the main building. It was a stucco affair, low ceiling and very crowded with people forming several lines in front of two caged windows. The air was humid and thick with the smell of too many people jammed into such a busy waiting room.
Leni looked for any other venue, a door to an office, a separate window for telegrams. But there wasn’t much time. She sensed the British officer Mayfield couldn’t be far behind.
“Is there anything else we can do?” Hance leaned closer.
She said, “Be patient.” But five minutes later, the lines had hardly moved. Leni kept her eyes straight ahead hoping for the chance to catch the attention of one of the officials, dressed in dark brown uniforms, milling behind the counter.
Finally, it happened.
One of the officers, a tall dark man with glasses and hair combed straight back from his forehead stared at Leni for a long moment. He stepped from behind the counter, pushing people aside as he made his way through the crowd, until he was standing beside her. He smiled exposing wide, white teeth. “May I be of assistance?” he asked in broken English.
Play the part, she thought. You’ve done it so many times.
“I was to receive a telegram here,” Leni told him. “My sister and I were traveling together. She left the city several days ago on her own when she became ill. There was to be a telegram explaining where I was to travel to meet her.”
“I’m sorry to hear of your sister’s sickness, but there are many trains leaving this time of day. You can see that. But maybe I can be of assistance. Please follow me.”
He cleared a path through the crowd, Leni following. Hance was several paces behind them until they went through a door to the right of the windows and came in behind the counter.
One of the ticket clerks glanced back at them. “Please assist her,” the tall man instructed. “This lady is looking for a telegram from her sick sister.”
The clerk, a small dark-faced man, even with this supervisor standing there, appeared perplexed. He turned back to the window and excused himself from the customer. “Name.”
“Leni Boland.”
He grunted and excused himself. Shortly, he returned with an envelope. He handled it to her. Her heart leaped. Finally! She was to learn her escape route and deliver to Richter the most astonishing secret of the war. She tore open the envelope, and unfolded the telegram. So that was it then! She had to get to Chalus, a town on the Caspian Sea. Richt
er had men on board a ship there. She ridiculed herself for doubting Richter. She should have known he would have come through.
“How far to Chalus?” She asked.
“Two hundred miles,” the clerk answered.
“And how long by train?”
“Three hours. A train leaves in half of an hour.”
“Could you arrange two tickets?”
“Most certainly.” The clerk turned to his counter and produced a ticket. “Loading Station Two.”
Then a thought, a simple inspiration, came to her of how she could distract the British Intelligence officer if he came too close. “Are there any trains departing at the same time as my train?”
He looked at a piece of paper from his desk. “A train departs for Tabriz at approximately the same time.”
“Very good,” she said. “Two tickets for Chalus, and two tickets for Tabriz. How much?”
He told her and she placed twice the amount in his open hand. “For your troubles.”
For the first time he smiled. “You have luggage?”
“Only a small bag and my friend will take care of that. You have been most helpful.”
She stepped out into the noisy, crowded room, pushing her way back to the doorway where Hance waited. “Two trains leaving at the same time, William. The British have to be close by, and could well be here before we depart.”
“But—”
Leni handed him the tickets, and took his arm. “Do you remember our plan, William? Do you possibly think it will succeed?”
He looked into her eyes. “I’d say you’re practically in Berlin.”
Out in the fresh air, her spirits lifted.
Leni had a plan . . . not even Hance knew all the details . . . and she was actually beginning to believe that it would work. When she was on the ship docked at the Caspian Sea harbor, only then could she say that this part of her life was truly over. Still, she allowed herself one pleasure during this doubting moment that of imagining Richter’s face.
----
A Spy in the Shadows (Spy Noir Series Book 1) Page 21