Too Bad to Die

by Francine Mathews

Only a few months ago Roosevelt had sent Harriman as his ambassador to Moscow and upended his cozy London life; Ave hadn’t loved the change, but he’d gone. From the heart of Russia and the heart of the American government, he could supply Hitler with any amount of intelligence. Even if it meant losing his mistress . . .

  Which brought Ian to Ed Murrow. The hero of a million American households for his tense nightly broadcasts from London. The man who dispatched a team of cub reporters all over England and Europe to ferret out information. The trusted authority on world war. That, too, wasn’t a bad cover job for a Nazi spy.

  But Ian balked at the idea that either Harriman or Murrow could be a traitor; and he knew if he voiced his suspicions to Churchill or Roosevelt, they’d have him committed. If Alan Turing was right, the Fencer was a friend at the Mena House table. On that ground alone, Murrow and Beaverbrook ought to be struck from the list; but Harriman was joining them all in Tehran. And if Pamela was indeed the Kitten, why couldn’t she be sending the messages Turing had intercepted? Did she have a radio transmitter hidden in her room at Churchill’s villa—and could she speak German?

  There are other women here besides Pamela, you know, Hudders had said wearily last night. You’ve got to take a hard look at all of them. Any could be the Kitten.

  Or the Fencer herself. Ian hadn’t ruled out the idea that Hitler’s agent might be a woman. Very well. That was why he’d come on this shopping expedition—to clear his mind and think. Ian tossed his ash over the rampart and inhaled some more smoke. There were only a few women among the Allied delegations, but each of them was a corker. And each had a partner she could play.

  There was Sarah Churchill Oliver, for instance, and her lover, Ambassador Gil Winant. Sarah had unquestioned access to Churchill and most of his political allies. Winant was beloved in England—unlike his predecessor, Joseph Kennedy, he’d made a broad show of support for England even before Pearl Harbor brought America into the war, but—

  But if Winant is secretly working for Hitler, Hudders had argued, wouldn’t that be his best possible cover?—Along with Sarah?

  Ian considered Winston Churchill’s middle daughter. He wouldn’t exactly call Sarah Oliver a kitten—although she was damned attractive and rumored to be fairly wild when she was tight. Sarah was too bright to be simply somebody’s pet. She was a highly regarded member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, something in Photographic Intelligence. Studying aerial reconnaissance pictures of Nazi sites, Ian thought. Which in itself could be damning.

  He knew Sarah was separated from her husband, Vic Oliver, an aging bandleader and funny man whose peccadilloes were wearing thin. The Olivers had never been terribly successful and the Churchills were notoriously short of cash, so if Sarah meant to change her life—divorce Oliver and claim Winant after the war was over—she might be looking for a few payments under the table. And she was a trained actress. Able to pull off any role. A smashing candidate for Nazi spy.

  But would even a willful girl who’d once run away to the stage betray her father so completely? Particularly when that father was Prime Minister Winston Churchill?

  It was hard to imagine. Hard to swallow. Ian ground the butt of his cigarette under his heel and squinted down the ramparts, shading his eyes with one hand. Surely that was Madame Chiang? He remembered her scarlet silk cheongsam and matching coat, beautifully cut in a way that bridged Asia with Paris, perfect for the climate of Egypt as Pammie’s sables never could be. That blot of bloodred color under a black Robin’s Hood hat was unmistakable. She was grasping Elliott Roosevelt by the hand, pulling him with a secret smile in the direction of the Citadel’s heights.

  What’s her game? Ian wondered. Play with the President’s rake of a son while the Generalissimo is tied up with business? Or pry what she can out of Elliott, under her husband’s orders? She was no spring chicken. Probably ten years older than Elliott—who was thirty-three. But there was no denying that Soong May-ling was a strikingly beautiful woman. Her perfect oval face was fine-boned and full-lipped, her chic knot of black hair drawn back like a ballerina’s. She was slender as a blade of grass, and moved with a dancer’s grace. Ian could perfectly understand Elliott’s interest. With two broken marriages and a string of affairs behind him, he’d be an easy mark for a Nazi agent.

  You know she slept with Wendell Willkie, Michael Hudson had told him last night. When he showed up in China last year. The few people who know think that’s why she toured the U.S.—because she’s in love with Willkie and leaving her husband.

  Ian hadn’t known. And if this was news to him, it would be news to most of the world if it got out. He’d never met Wendell Willkie, who’d famously lost the 1940 presidential election to Roosevelt. Willkie had made the best of his disappointment by joining Roosevelt’s administration as an ambassador-at-large. He’d spent the past several years flying all over the world in an old Army bomber named The Gulliver. Besides China, he’d visited Stalin in Moscow.

  And the new Shah in Tehran.

  Ian stopped short. Could Wendell Willkie possibly be the Fencer? It would make a perfect revenge for losing the last presidential election. Pose as Roosevelt’s loyal man, and sell out the United States in the middle of Roosevelt’s war.

  But Willkie wasn’t in Cairo. Chiang Kai-shek was. If he’d been flying on to Tehran, Ian thought, the Chinese strongman would require watching. Tonight, however, was the last evening the Chinese would spend with their Allies. Ian would have to keep them under his eye.

  There was one more woman Michael Hudson had forced him to assess: Grace Cowles. The very last woman he wanted to suspect. But Hudders was right. Gracie was already up to her neck in spycraft.

  She had pled work this morning and turned him down when he’d invited her on the Cairo jaunt; no surprise there. She avoided him like typhoid now. There’d been a time when that wasn’t true, he remembered, as he lit another cigarette and began to stroll toward the rampart’s steps. A time when she’d seemed to feel as much hunger for him as he’d felt for her. But what if her passion had been a sham? What if she’d surrendered to him not because he was devastating in bed but because he was Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence?

  It was a damnable thought. But possible. Whether from a deep insecurity, trained cynicism, or his abundant respect for Grace’s inscrutability, Ian could easily cast himself in the role of her fool. He was a source to be exploited. An easy mark, rolled and left.

  Why break it off, then, before the conference was done? his gullible self pleaded. Why give me the toss when Overlord is in the works?

  Because Grace didn’t need Ian for that. He might have been useful when he was planning Deception Ops against the Enemy, but Grace could get the details of Overlord from Pug. As Ismay’s disseminator of secrets to his commanders in the field, she was brilliantly positioned to betray all their trust, flying around the world with Churchill’s Chief of Military Staff. She had her ear in the PM’s War Rooms and her fingers in every Signals pie; she was running communications in Cairo and Tehran! She might have an Enigma encoder in her luggage right now, and nobody would even notice. She could send a message to Berlin without thinking twice. Gracie was the obvious choice for traitor. Except Ian for the life of him couldn’t see General Lord Ismay—of Charterhouse and Sandhurst and the 21st Prince Albert Victor’s Own Cavalry—as having the slightest interest in selling Britannia to the Nazis. Grace’s Fencer—or Kitten—must be somebody else.

  He’d have to keep her very much in his sights for the rest of the conference. And neither of them, Ian thought uneasily, would like that.

  —

  HE TURNED AWAY from the broken rooftops of Old Cairo, its desert colors and plumes of smoke, and saw her.

  A sloe-eyed woman with fragile skin and a petal-like mouth. Her blond head was inadequately veiled with a silk scarf, the color of saffron. When his eyes met hers, she smiled slightly. The rose-petal mouth unfurled.


  Despite her dress, she was not even remotely Egyptian.

  “Light?” she suggested, lifting a cigarette in her delicate fingers.

  She could not be more than twenty.

  As he offered her the flame, her hand briefly cupped his and she leaned toward him. Then she smiled again and turned away.

  She’d left a slip of paper in his palm.

  He moved casually back toward the ramparts and rested his elbows on them, as if intent on the Cairo traffic below. Then he opened the girl’s note.

  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  He glanced up and searched the crowd of tourists. In the distance, a saffron-colored wing of silk was flying. Ian decided to follow it.

  CHAPTER 8

  The girl led him swiftly down the Citadel’s ramparts and out into Mahomed Ali Square. He thought she might cross it and make for the Old Helwan train station directly opposite, but instead she turned north and hesitated in the chaotic circle of traffic that was Rumeleh Square. While she did, he crossed to the official cars waiting for their party—Alex Kirk’s with an American flag fluttering on the hood—and leaned through the window of the British one. A Canadian sergeant was behind the wheel. He saluted Ian.

  “When the ladies return with Mr. Winant and Colonel Roosevelt,” he told the driver, “go on directly to the bazaar. I’ll join you there.”

  He glanced over at the corner where the girl still stood. A donkey trap slowed as it approached, but she shook her head. A few seconds later Ian saw her point her finger at the road—universal Cairene for “taxi.”

  One stopped. She got in the back.

  He made a business of lighting a cigarette and moving slowly away from the official cars to a newsstand, but he was fairly obvious with his height and his British uniform and there was no point in trying too hard to fade into the background. She’d contacted him with her bit of paper. She expected him to follow. Any subterfuge was for the benefit of those enemies she’d mentioned. Rommel might be long gone, but Cairo was riddled with German spies.

  As soon as her taxi moved into traffic he strolled forward and hailed another. This was complicated by the fact that every driver in Cairo negotiated his price before agreeing to take a fare—but Ian handed the Nubian a fistful of Egyptian lire and told him it was “war business.” The girl’s taxi was headed around the circle and into the broad arrow that was Sharia Mahomed Ali. Ian’s followed it.

  Sharia was the Arabic word for way or street—and this one was a boulevard that ran for several miles straight from Old Cairo to the fashionable district of Ezbekiyeh Gardens, past various mosques and government buildings, the King’s palace and the Arabian museum. It ended in front of the Opera House, and, with a bit of jogging left, Ian found himself in Ibrahim Pasha Street.

  Up ahead, past the Tipperary Club, was Shepheard’s Hotel.

  It seemed the girl in the saffron scarf wanted a Suffering Bastard, too.

  Ian ignored the shaded terrace where Khawaga, or European Cairo, surveyed the life of Ibrahim Pasha Street from the comfort of wicker chairs. He plunged straight into the dim coolness of the Moorish Hall.

  The saffron scarf was not to be found among the plump club chairs drawn up to the octagonal tables; and so he nodded to a bellman idling by Reception, and made for the grand staircase flanked by bare-breasted ebony caryatids. One of Ian’s friends once described Shepheard’s—which had dominated expatriate life in Cairo for a hundred years—as Queen Victoria’s Egyptian Tomb; and the description was apt. The ballroom groaned under red damask and fake pillars of Karnak; the smoking room might have been a pyramid’s central vault, upholstered in club leather. Even the loo was ponderously inhibiting; men preferred to relieve themselves in the alleyway behind Shepheard’s rather than inside it. “Too British Museum,” Ian liked to explain. “One expects a docent to wipe one’s arse.”

  The Long Bar just off the main staircase was only dotted with drinkers this November afternoon. It was early yet for officers and government people. No girl in a saffron scarf, of course; just a smattering of civilians of uncertain origin. North Africa was awash these days with refugees of every stripe and class—but only the most affluent and presentable were admitted to Shepheard’s.

  He strolled over to the bar and nodded at Joe. “Gin and tonic,” he said.

  While the grizzled Swiss reached for a bottle, Ian casually surveyed the room. In the far corner, almost lost in the draperies of the last window, sat a gray-haired man with a magnificent mustache. He was turning over the pages of the weekly Étoile Égyptienne. There was a saffron scarf neatly folded in the breast pocket of his dark gray suit.

  Ian paid for his drink and made his way to the newspaper rack. In the Long Bar, the top papers in the world were available—some only a few days old—and all were ironed and hung over separate wooden dowels. He fingered Beaverbrook’s flagship rag, the London Evening Standard. He’d read this edition at White’s club before flying out of England.

  The gray-haired man rose from his table with an audible sigh and joined Ian at the rack. He replaced the Étoile Égyptienne on its dowel. “So much betrayal in the news,” he said mournfully, his voice part gravel, part honey. “One no longer knows whom to trust.”

  “Well—as they say, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’” Ian replied.

  The man smiled. “An old Arabic proverb. You’ve learned from your wandering in the desert, Commander.”

  Ian set down the Standard. “May I buy you a drink?”

  “Vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred.”

  —

  CALL ME NAZIR, he said. Everyone does—and I’ve long since forgotten my real name.

  It was clear he was no more Egyptian than his granddaughter, Fatima, whom he explained was the girl who’d led Ian to Shepheard’s. She was now back behind the counter of the small shop in the heart of Old Cairo where Nazir sold scavenged antiquities. A Russian family, Ian assumed—although it was possible Nazir was Georgian, like Stalin himself. Uncle Joe liked to keep his countrymen in positions of power, and Nazir’s position was very powerful indeed. Ian gathered from hints and boasts and things left unsaid that Nazir was the Soviet NKVD chief in Cairo.

  The NKVD, or People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, was responsible for many things in the Soviet Union. They ran the traffic police, the firefighters and the border guards; they secured the national archives. But what the NKVD was best known for, in Ian’s world, was knocking on doors in the dead of night and spiriting people away to the gulag. Within the Soviet Union, they served Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s chief of secret police. Outside it, they were his assassins and spies.

  In Cairo, Nazir explained, they sold antiquities—because he had been a passionate Egyptologist since his youth, and could not imagine doing anything else. Besides, his network of Cairene pit diggers knew everything that happened in Egypt half a day before it occurred. They were a natural intelligence force. And they didn’t ask to be paid. A fair price for pilfered artifacts was enough; information was free.

  “Good Communists, then, too,” Ian observed generously.

  “Aren’t we all?” Nazir inclined his head. “We hate the Germans equally. Nazir’s pit diggers and Fleming’s Navy.”

  Ian did not bother to ask the Russian how he knew his name, or how he had traced him to the Citadel. Nazir would not have said; and besides, he was enjoying his role as all-seeing intelligence chief far too much. Ian preferred the why of things to the how.

  “You remember our countries’ joint invasion of Iran, two years ago?” Nazir persisted.

  “Vividly.”

  “Together we ran the Germans out of Tehran and toppled the King.”

  “And replaced him with his son.”

  “Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. He is not entirely easy on his throne.” Nazir shrugged. “And what boy would be? With English and Russian soldiers running the town, and N
azi spies all over the place, pretending to be Swiss or American—even Russian, the fools—who would sleep much at night? Especially in the face of this conference tomorrow. All three of them in Tehran! Churchill! Roosevelt! And my God—Stalin! I’m surprised young Reza hasn’t drunk himself to death in a bathtub by this time.”

  “You’re well informed,” Ian said.

  “It’s a living.” Nazir shrugged. “When my colleagues in Iran stumbled across some German paratroopers in the hills outside Tehran—and tortured a few of them—they thought I should know. Does the phrase Long Jump mean anything to you, Commander?”

  “I was better at the steeplechase myself.” Ian studied Nazir. “But I suppose anytime you step out of a plane in midair, the jump must feel like a long one.”

  The Russian smiled, his mustache lifting like a walrus’s. “These paratroopers are Nazi commandos. Who take their orders from an agent known as the Fencer. And my friends in Iran only captured some of them. The rest are still training in those hills. This is news to you?”

  Ian set aside his glass. “I’m aware that Hitler wants to know why the Allies are gathering tomorrow. It’s the Fencer’s job to tell him. But why the Fencer needs commandos is beyond me.”

  “Oh, my dear sir,” Nazir said softly, his mustache lifting further in amusement. “You thought the Fencer wanted intelligence from the Big Three? If only it were that simple. His orders, in fact, are to kill them.”

  —

  IT WAS A GLORIOUS DAY, and she was stuck inside yet again, monitoring dreary Signals traffic. Her lot had seemed bitterly hard to Grace that morning as she watched the other women laughingly arrange themselves in a cavalcade of cars, dressed to the nines, with three attractive men as their guides. She had turned resolutely away and seated herself at her desk, headphones in hand. She was a serious girl—she understood the stakes in this war and was thankful that Pug Ismay trusted her with so much—but once in a while she felt desperate for fun. An uncomplicated dance with a dashing stranger and a great swing band at Café de Paris. A coupe of champagne, then perhaps another. A pretty dress that wasn’t borrowed or four years old. A real pair of stockings, instead of black greasepaint seams drawn on her bare legs.