Beautiful Assassin

by Michael C. White

  “Yes, I’m quite sure,” I said.

  Semyonov glanced at Zarubin and nodded. Then he turned his gaze back to me, studying me for a moment as he took a sip of tea. Any fool should have been able to see through my pathetic lie. But they had so convinced themselves that their scheme would work, they were ready to believe anything. They had been trained in the Communist system, which warped their sense between what was real and what they were told to believe.

  “Make sure to alert Kharon of this development,” Semyonov instructed to Zarubin. From the coffee table he picked up a manila envelope and set it on his lap.

  “May I inquire what all this is about?” I asked.

  “You don’t have to concern your pretty little head with the details, Lieutenant,” Zarubin interjected. “Suffice it to say, the Americans and their British lackeys might be developing a new sort of weapon. We don’t know much about it. What we do know, however, is that the Americans are pouring tremendous resources into it and that they have done their utmost to keep it a secret from us. Our code name for it is—”

  A split second before he could utter the word, it came to me like a blindingly bright flash, like one of those brilliant flashes the world would very shortly see—the infernal explosion of light followed by the blackening mushroom cloud unfolding ever upward toward the heavens, an image later imprinted on all of our mind’s eyes.

  “Enormous,” I blurted out, glancing at Vasilyev as I said it.

  “Why, yes,” Semyonov said, surprised, also looking toward Vasilyev.

  “That’s why you repeatedly used the word in my speeches,” I said. I could only guess that they’d used the word in my speeches as some sort of code, to inform our agents here and those back home of our progress.

  “The less you know, Comrade, the better,” Zarubin advised me.

  “We hope to learn whatever we can about Enormous from whatever sources available to us,” said Semyonov. “We feel that Mrs. Roosevelt might prove instrumental in this.”

  “Assuming for a moment she’s even aware of this secret project,” I said. “What information do you hope to gather from her? She’s not a scientist.”

  “But she might have overheard her husband talking about meeting someone like this Szilard fellow,” Semyonov said. “Even if we can confirm they have actually begun work on it, this would be of great assistance to us.”

  “And you expect that Mrs. Roosevelt will share this with us?”

  “As I have already mentioned to you, Lieutenant,” Zarubin interjected, “we hope to be able to persuade her.”

  “Blackmail, you mean?”

  At this, Semyonov opened the manila envelope and removed its contents. They appeared to be a group of photographs. He extended them toward me.

  “What are those?” I asked.

  “Go ahead. Take a look.”

  I leaned forward and picked them up. As I began shuffling through the pictures, I felt sick to my stomach. They were black-and-white photos, some grainy and from a distance, others quite clear and sharp, as if the person taking them had been just a few feet away. Some were of Mrs. Roosevelt alone, but most were of her and Miss Hickok. They showed them standing together, walking side by side, in various settings. In one they were strolling hand in hand, somewhere in what appeared to be a rural area, or at least where there were trees and shrubs and grass in the background. In another they were embracing. In the background of this photo I spotted first one headstone and then another and soon realized they were in a cemetery, and then I realized that the cemetery in question was the same Rock Creek Cemetery to which Mrs. Roosevelt had taken me. In yet another photo, several people were seated at a restaurant which proved, on closer inspection, to be the Russian Tea Room. They were close-up shots. One of the captain, another of me. How had anyone taken them, I wondered, without us noticing? Then I recalled the waiter who’d struck up a conversation with me. Had he somehow taken these pictures? Others showed the captain and me at the baseball game, getting into a taxi, riding in the carriage in Central Park. Just when I thought their little show was over, Semyonov handed me one last picture. It had been taken out of doors, during a rainy night, the black water glistening in spots off the pavement. The quality of it wasn’t particularly good. It showed a woman and a man, both in uniform, standing together under some sort of overhanging cover. They were kissing. That much was clear. If I had not known the two participants in the photo, their identities would have remained anonymous. But I did know them: it was Captain Taylor and me. My God! I thought. The bastards had been spying on us all day.

  “What is the meaning of this?” I cried, feeling a little as if I had been violated.

  Semyonov just stared at me while Zarubin had a thin, crooked little smile pasted on his face. I glanced over at Vasilyev, to see if he was part of this, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  “Are you still contending that the captain and you are not intimate?” Zarubin stated.

  “You had no right.”

  “The fact of the matter, Lieutenant, is that we had every right,” Zarubin said to me.

  “I won’t stand for this.”

  “You will shut your pretty mouth and do as we tell you,” Zarubin commanded.

  I got up, started for the door. Before I reached it, however, the fat man in the undershirt stepped out of the bedroom and blocked my way. He stood there with his arms folded over his chest.

  “Come and sit, Lieutenant,” Semyonov called to me. “There’s no need for any of these dramatics.”

  I hesitated, then turned and walked back and sat down.

  “Good. Are you sure I can’t interest you in some tea?”

  “I don’t want your damn tea,” I spat at him.

  “Very well. We want you to continue to monitor the activities of Mrs. Roosevelt,” Semyonov explained. “Work to gain her confidence. Get her to trust you. I want to know everything she says, particularly regarding her husband and his plans. Also, I would encourage you to capitalize on your relationship with this Captain Taylor.”

  “Capitalize?” I scoffed.

  “It’s obvious his interest in you is more than professional. We would not be opposed if you were, shall we say, receptive to his attentions.”

  “You mean you want me to sleep with him,” I said.

  “You are free to use whatever means to find out information from him,” Semyonov said.

  Zarubin chuckled. “He wouldn’t be the first man who let himself be led around by his cock.”

  I felt my jaw knotting. I hated these men with a passion, as much if not more than I had the Germans. At least the Germans I’d faced had been soldiers. They’d fought and died bravely. These men were lackeys, cowards who hid behind their influence.

  “Comrade Vasilyev will keep me apprised of your progress,” Semyonov said. “And do not, I caution you, mention the American project to anyone. Do you understand?”

  I stared at Semyonov, then Zarubin before saying, “I understand.”

  Semyonov then reached into his inside coat pocket and removed what appeared to be a letter of some sort.

  “Here,” he said to me, handing me the envelope, which was sealed yet had no address on it. “We would like you to deliver this to our contact in Chicago.”

  “Why me?”

  “The Americans are watching us very closely. It’s too dangerous to go by the usual means. They won’t expect you to be carrying anything. Keep it on your person at all times. These are very important documents. You mustn’t let them fall into the wrong hands. Someone will be in contact with you. His code name is Larin.”

  “Larin?” I said.

  “Yes. That is all for now.”

  With this, Vasilyev stood and gave a perfunctory nod to the others, and I followed him to the door. Just before we left the apartment, Semyonov called, “Remember, Comrade Levchenko, you are still a soldier. You are merely fighting a different enemy now.”

  20

  I woke to the rhythmic swaying of the train, the remnants of a d
ream snaring me like barbed wire. In the dream a mustachioed man with soulless black eyes asked if he could trust me. I couldn’t utter a word. My mouth seemed frozen. Finally he said, “If I can’t trust you, you are worthless to me.” Only when I woke did I realize who it was. Stalin.

  We were headed for Chicago, hurtling through the night. For the past several days, Mrs. Roosevelt and I had been giving whistle-stop talks along the way, in small towns and villages where people came to hear us. Sometimes, as we had in Pittsburgh, we spoke in a large auditorium, followed by a dinner with local dignitaries. Often I would be interviewed by the press. At each event, they would sell war bonds and ask for donations for the Eastern Front. At a stadium in Cleveland before a baseball game, I gave a short address, for which I was given a rousing ovation. Afterward, Mrs. Roosevelt turned to me and, through Captain Taylor, said, “I think we just bought you another tank.”

  I lay in my berth in the dark, thinking even darker thoughts, the rails beneath me clicking away the miles. I almost had the feeling that each mile was bringing me closer and closer to some uncertain but equally unavoidable destiny. I thought about what they were asking me to do—to spy on Mrs. Roosevelt, to use Jack Taylor to get information, to be a courier of secret documents.

  Ironically, they had so little faith in me they were spying on me at the same time they were the Americans. Otherwise what was the significance of the pictures of me and Captain Taylor? Why had they followed us around? What were they hoping to learn? Were they going to blackmail me too? Or did they think I was betraying them to the Americans and planning on using the photos as evidence against me once I was home (though, of course, I knew if they wanted to arrest me, they didn’t need any evidence). Since the meeting with Semyonov and Zarubin, I’d found myself looking over my shoulder, wondering if someone was watching me. Snapping my picture. And now that I suspected I was a target of their interest, I had taken care to keep my distance from the captain. I didn’t want to draw him into this morass any further than I already had. I was polite but formal with him. Once or twice when we chanced to be alone for a moment, I would excuse myself, thereby avoiding any sort of contact of a personal nature. I think he sensed my coolness toward him, and several times over the preceeding days, he would glance at me with an expression both confused and hurt. If only I could have told him all that was going on behind the scenes. I pondered my options. I could go along with them and betray Mrs. Roosevelt and Captain Taylor. Or I could disobey them and risk everything—my reputation, my freedom, perhaps even, as Vasilyev had put it, my own neck.

  A couple of nights earlier on the train, I had gone into the club car for a drink. It was crowded with people, White House staff and reporters covering the First Lady. I saw Viktor seated at a table playing solitaire and drinking vodka.

  “Can I sit down, Viktor?” I asked.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, without looking up.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “So talk.”

  “Someplace private.”

  Finally he glanced up at me. He stood, and I followed him outside between cars.

  “So what’s going on?” he asked.

  I explained to him in general terms what Semyonov had wanted me to do. I didn’t tell him, however, about Enormous. I felt the less he knew, the better. For both of us.

  Viktor humphed. “Those fucking chekist whores,” he said. “So what are you going to do, Lieutenant?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come with me.”

  “Defect?” I said. “How can I do that? That’s madness, Viktor. You know it as well as I do.”

  “What’s madness is staying with them and doing their bidding.”

  “Where would I go?”

  “I have some friends here in America who would take us in for a while.”

  “You know what they’ll do to you if they catch you,” I said.

  “First they will have to catch me,” he said, smiling. He grasped my hand and added, “Don’t let them do this to you. Come with me.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I must think on it.”

  “Don’t think too long on it.”

  That was two days earlier. Since then, I’d found myself contemplating his offer. I knew it would be unimaginably difficult trying to break free from the iron grip of the Soviet secret police. I knew they would come after anyone who tried it, hunting them down, even if it took decades. But I also considered something else, something I hadn’t really thought of before—what I felt for Jack Taylor. I could no longer deny that I felt something for him, something very powerful. And I was pretty certain he felt the same way for me. However, I hadn’t seen Viktor the previous night at dinner. The day before we’d made a stop near Toledo, Ohio, and now I was worried that he’d already made his move without me.

  That morning at breakfast, I met with Vasilyev. He was already eating, stuffing his face with food, washing it down with gulps of coffee.

  “Do you want something to eat?” he asked.

  “Just coffee,” I said.

  A black waiter happened to be passing by, so Vasilyev got his attention and said, “Kofe,” and pointed to me. When his cup was refilled he took out his flask and spiked it liberally with whiskey. Between forkfuls of food, he said to me, “They want you to bring up a name the next time you speak to Mrs. Roosevelt.”

  “What name?”

  “Fermi.”

  I shrugged.

  “He’s actually quite famous. Won the Nobel Prize.”

  Since the meeting with Semyonov, I had been passing along notes of my conversations with the First Lady to Vasilyev. Mostly I tried to steer Vasilyev toward topics that might on the surface appear of interest to Semyonov but in actuality were really quite benign—what Mrs. Roosevelt felt toward the labor unions, whether she thought her husband was going to run for office again, some sudden issue regarding the president’s health. I once told him that Mrs. Roosevelt had said in passing that her husband had recently called in his entire cabinet for an urgent midnight meeting. With this, Vasilyev’s ears perked up. It was, of course, a complete falsehood. I fabricated what I could, evaded where I was able, anything I could do to protect my friend the First Lady. Whether he suspected this or not—my guess was on some level he did—I could only imagine on his end that he also elaborated and falsified enough to keep Semyonov and Zarubin thinking that we were making progress. My attitude toward Vasilyev had changed a little. I still didn’t trust him, but I looked upon him no longer as the evil architect of all this but as someone who also had to follow orders, who was being pressured to do what he was told. I even felt a bit sorry for him. He seemed to perform his job now with a perfunctory indifference, as if he were just going through the motions. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he disagreed with Semyonov and his plans, or if he had been so devastated by the death of his son that his mind was preoccupied. He had also taken to drinking more than he had. Before he had always managed to carry it off. Now he sometimes got quite drunk. Once in the dining car, he was slurring his words so badly that Gavrilov and Dmitri had to help him back to his berth and put him to bed. He would take down what I told him without seeming to have the slightest interest, his thoughts drifting elsewhere. And now it was an amorphous “they” who wanted to know this.

  “This Fermi is an Italian national,” he continued. “Up to this point Italian nationals couldn’t move about the country. However, the president just gave the order declaring them no longer enemy aliens. We know too that this Fermi has recently moved to Chicago, and we believe he is conducting experiments there with other scientists, which might be connected to Enormous. See if you can work his name into the conversation.”

  “And just how would I go about doing that?”

  “Use your head. You can say something to the effect that you read about him in the newspaper. See if she bites at it.”

  I told him I would try.

  “I see you’ve been rather aloof with Captain Taylor,” he said.
/>   I shrugged.

  “What is it they say?” he offered with a smile. “Honey catches more flies than vinegar?”

  “I am not your damn whore,” I cursed.

  “Ssh,” he said, glancing around the dining car. “I’m simply trying to protect you. You don’t want to end up like Viktor.”

  “What do you mean? What happened to him?”

  “Ah,” he said. “Your friend was called home suddenly.”

  “‘Called home’?” I said, startled at the implication.

  “He returned yesterday, accompanied by Comrade Shabanov.” That was the one we called the Corpse.

  “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “He was warned. It’s out of my hands now. If you don’t want to share his fate, you had better be more cooperative.”

  That evening in the dining car, I was invited to join Mrs. Roosevelt, Miss Hickok, her assistant Miss Thompson, as well as two other women I had not previously met, and, of course, Captain Taylor. Mrs. Roosevelt and one of the two women, a Mrs. Smythe from England, spoke of refugees streaming into the West from Eastern Europe.

  “We have to do something about these poor people,” Mrs. Roosevelt said. “Especially the orphans. Why, it just breaks your heart.”

  They spoke of ways of helping the displaced people, how to involve the Red Cross more, sending packages of food, getting their two countries to allow more refugees to immigrate. While they spoke and the captain translated, I felt his eyes on me. At one point during a lull in the conversation, he whispered to me, “Is something the matter, Tat’yana?”

  “No, why do you ask?” I said, pretending not to know what he was getting at.

  “I just had the feeling that something was wrong.”

  Mrs. Smythe turned to me and said, “You must have seen your share of refugees, Lieutenant Levchenko.”

  “Indeed,” I replied. I suddenly recalled Raisa, the young girl Zoya and I had rescued in the sewers of Sevastopol. I remembered that Zoya had said that some orphans from the Crimea were sent to Canada to live.