Weapons of Peace

by Johnston, Peter D. ;

  “How about the truth?” she said softly. “I don’t want to alarm anyone by calling the castle guards to your bedside. But the facts are that you speak fluent German, your true identity remains unknown, and you arrived here amid peculiar circumstances in the dead of night. While my gut may tell me that you’re not a threat, my invisible detective badge from my youth tells me that I need to be wary and act accordingly on behalf of my other patients,” she said, glancing at the row of beds behind him on the other side of a stone fireplace.

  He needed allies, not more enemies. Events had transpired against him, first landing him in this castle hospital and then giving him the poor luck to draw an amateur sleuth as his nurse. Yet he found her likable. He needed someone to trust, to help him get out of this bed and back on track. He’d been sidelined while Hitler’s final, desperate scheme marched forward. Maybe this white-uniformed wunderkind presented him with an opportunity.

  “Nurse Doyle, I’m a negotiator,” he said, dropping the English accent and reverting to his Washington, D.C., roots and the looser-lipped, lower tonality that accompanied those roots. Her eyebrows betrayed her surprise. He chuckled. “Not perhaps your average negotiator. You can think of it as an influence expert for hire. In special circumstances, where no other means of intervention is possible—or there is danger involved,” he said, smiling ruefully as he looked down at the bandages that encased most of his body, “I get the call.”

  “And just what ‘special circumstances’ led to your lying in this bed?” she asked.

  He hesitated, considering each word. “I was hired by senior Allied officials for a very sensitive mission . . . one that could help end this war. A German mole must have infiltrated the highest ranks of either the American or the British government, blowing my cover and my mission—and aiming to kill me.”

  He didn’t tell her what he feared—that whoever had turned on him may somehow have convinced Roosevelt and Churchill that he was the enemy and needed to be terminated. There was no one inside either government that he could trust now.

  “Nurse Doyle, my real name is Everett Nash. I swear to you, this is the truth. And I apologize for not being more forthcoming before now. I would only ask that you not breathe a word of this to anyone. If the wrong people were to discover I’m here, I assure you both our lives would be at risk, along with the lives of many more. Whoever upset my mission will be looking for me—and hoping it’s a corpse they find.”

  Emma Doyle stared at him as he uttered these last words. She looked around the room—at her patients, at the priceless portraits on the wall.

  “And just why should I believe that you are actually who you say are?” she asked coolly, looking again directly into her battered patient’s green eyes.

  “Don’t believe me,” he responded. “Go ask your cousins.”

  —

  She received the package marked to her attention within a matter of days. A boy on a bicycle dropped it at the gatehouse, disappearing before the guards could find out who had sent him.

  That night, Emma jumped onto her bed, tore open the large, well-sealed envelope, and started reading. As usual, Alina had been thorough.

  There was a brief introductory note, followed by more than a dozen newspaper clippings, photographs, an in-depth magazine profile, and a telegraph from Washington that captured details from Everett Reginald Nash’s birth certificate. Nash was born on July 25, 1891. Emma did the math. That meant he was fifty-three. Really? Even with his injuries, I’d have guessed ten years younger.

  Photos from across time showed a gangly teenager maturing into a dashing young man in a tuxedo at a presidential inauguration event, to more recent pictures of her debonair middle-aged patient before his life-threatening injuries.

  Nash had been born a lone child into wealth and diplomacy. His mother, Gertrude, was a gorgeous Austrian-German clothing heiress, his father, Donald, a brilliant diplomat who’d argued passionately in favor of the U.S. joining the League of Nations to deter future wars—only to be undermined by the Republican Henry Cabot Lodge. A family friend told one interviewer how Donald had taught his son his craft from the youngest age, at times raising eyebrows by bringing the youngster to sensitive meetings.

  As one of America’s most savvy and well-known ambassadors, Donald Nash was constantly sent abroad, to more than a dozen nations in Africa, Asia, and Europe, usually taking his family with him. While he was posted in Moscow in 1907, Gertrude fell for a senior Russian official in the czarist regime, igniting the beginnings of a high-profile, ugly divorce. The outcome was described in a faded report from England’s Daily Mail:

  With lawyers lined up on either side of the Atlantic, and mud-slinging headlines on the rise in papers from New York to Saint Petersburg, the embarrassing divorce proceedings involving United States ambassador Mr. Donald Nash and his wife, Gertrude, have suddenly, most unexpectedly, come to a halt. The sparring pair announced yesterday to journalists gathered outside their home in the Russian capital that they had reached an agreement—not to separate but, rather, to renew their vows. The couple, among America’s most glamorous and well known abroad, agreed that there was just one person who managed to get them talking again and make them realize what they truly wanted. He stood silently between them as they addressed the press: Everett Nash, their sixteen-year-old son.

  Emma shook her head with a laugh. When I was sixteen, I was sneaking around, doing naughty things with boys, and creating so much havoc that I almost caused my parents to divorce!

  After studying anthropology in his undergraduate years, Nash added an MBA from the newly founded business school at Harvard, where he excelled at boxing and rowing. Just twenty-two, he wrote an acclaimed thesis in which he made the case that a failed negotiation during the ship’s building—not an iceberg—ultimately led to the tragic sinking of the Titanic the year before, in April 1912.

  Nash had tracked down the manager who oversaw production of the millions of rivets intended to keep the boat and its keel intact and waterproof. After many drinks, the man told him that with two other major liners being built at the same time in Ireland, the iron and the craftsmen needed to insert the Titanic’s rivets were in short supply, resulting in inflated prices. He asked his boss for more money but was refused. Without the necessary funds, he moved forward with lower-grade iron and less experienced workers. When the Titanic hit the iceberg, he admitted to Nash through tears, better rivets wouldn’t have popped under pressure. His worst fear had been realized. But he’d never even broached the subject of the safety concerns involved in using cheaper rivets with his volatile boss; he hadn’t wanted to risk incurring his wrath. If he’d explained his concerns and stood firm on principle, he said, the Titanic might have been unscathed or, at least, stayed afloat long enough for everyone to be saved. This revelation led to widespread anger and new shipbuilding standards in America and Europe.

  Emma had always been fascinated by the story of the Titanic, but she had never heard of the faulty rivets. She was beginning to feel guilty about having questioned Nash’s story.

  After the controversy settled down over his Titanic work, Nash all but disappeared from public view, according to Time magazine. But a copy of a U.S. government memo that Alina had somehow uncovered, confirmed Nash’s high-level security clearance during this period, along with some of the details of his training by both the U.S. State and Defense Departments.

  The negotiator resurfaced in 1924, grabbing the public’s attention when the two-year-old son of a senator was kidnapped in the middle of the day from a park. Nash led the negotiations for a million-dollar ransom, which he was authorized to pay. Instead, he hunted down the perpetrator and his gang and freed the boy—and without paying a cent. Reports could not surmise how he’d done it, and Nash politely declined any interviews.

  Emma glanced at a few more articles, and learned that various observers believed that, behind the scenes, Nash had gone on to ne
gotiate everything from financial reform after Wall Street’s collapse in 1929 and Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s to gathering vast resources for America’s wartime efforts. He’d been a lecturer at both Harvard University and Georgetown University.

  An anonymous aide to Roosevelt was quoted by the Washington Post as saying, “The American president and Winston Churchill respect each other but disagree on almost everything, including the best scotch, the best-looking starlet in Hollywood, and the best time to invade France. The one thing they agree on is Nash’s being the best at getting things done when it really matters.”

  Her eyes moved to one final piece from the New York Times, written the month before, July 1944. It was different from all the other clippings—raising serious questions about Nash’s track record, specifically in relation to Germany. He had many connections there. His father had even held a diplomatic post in Berlin. The article noted:

  Mr. Nash has traveled to Germany nine times over the past fifteen years without any known purpose. According to one of our newspaper’s senior government sources, he has been “too close” to those surrounding Hitler. Another credible source said, “Nash is undoubtedly the world’s greatest negotiator—but he has worked for himself as a ‘hired gun’ for some time now, and therefore might well be tempted to put his own interests before those of his nation.”

  Emma finished reading and surveyed the pile of papers spread around her. She didn’t know what to make of such damning speculation. But she did know that she had more in common with her patient than she’d realized—and that someone had indeed been listening to her prayers.

  Chapter 4

  Friday, September 1, 1944

  3:00 p.m.

  Dr. Paul Lowe was angry.

  The senior surgeon hadn’t been warned that representatives from the War Ministry would be inspecting his ancient medical facility, including all the patient quarters. This wasn’t the first unexpected government visit amid the chaos of war, but it didn’t lessen the inconvenience.

  He softened when he learned that the purpose of this particular inspection was to assess his needs. If there were too many patients or too few resources to take care of them, the inspectors said they would recommend an immediate boost in funding. Hearing this, Lowe vowed to show them every inch of his buildings so that they could see for themselves the poor conditions under which he and his staff were forced to work. It helped that as a first impression the doctor found the two men in lab coats conducting the inspection to be more engaging than the uptight bureaucrats who usually performed these reviews and who were quick to blame staff rather than limited resources.

  Lowe started toward the operating theater, the men from London in tow, freshly purchased clipboards in hand.

  —

  “I trust that everything I told you has been confirmed by Alina,” Nash whispered, catching Emma off guard as she changed his dressings. She’d read through her cousin’s materials just the day before. The next closest patient was several beds away, and on the other side of the large fireplace, but the pair kept their voices down.

  “Blimey, how did you know that?” she asked, her hands stilling.

  “Just a guess.” In truth, it had been long enough for confirmation to come in, and his nurse’s behavior had been slightly more deferential. “I’m probably better at reading people without so much morphine in my veins.” He took another drag on one of the cigarettes he’d received from a burn patient nearby, who had traded six packs for Nash’s worn and bloodied, but well made, leather jacket.

  “We can always increase your dosage again if you don’t behave,” Emma said, evading the bitter smoke as she finished with his dressings. She joked to calm herself. The thought of striking a bargain with a negotiator was unnerving. But she couldn’t lose her gumption now. She sat on the bed, looking at the ebony floor as she gathered her composure. “Mr. Nash—”

  “Please, Nurse Doyle, call me Everett.”

  He was intimidating—and nice. “All right, Mr. Everett Nash, I’m willing to play ball, as you say in America,” she began, then paused to find her next words. “Given what I’ve learned, I want to trust you. If the mission you alluded to was interrupted eleven days ago, what has to be done to set things right? And how can I help?”

  Nash had been hoping for this moment and was ready with his answer. “Thank you, Nurse Doyle. I need help with two things, now that I’m in a position to ask for them. First, I need to be moved to a private room where I’m less likely to be found and where I can better defend myself and make plans. They’re going to be here soon, and if they find me they’ll kill me.” She nodded her understanding. “Second, I need you to get me back on my feet much faster than the normal recovery time—four more weeks at most, even if I’m only eighty percent. My assignment must be carried out.”

  Dr. Lowe had said that Hargrove was doing well, but four weeks? It would be at least two weeks before he could put any weight on his right leg. While the penicillin was doing wonders, his wounds needed more time to heal. The surgeon had joked that the positive progress was undoubtedly due to Emma’s blood as well as to his own brilliant work in the operating theater—but there was no guarantee that it would continue to be smooth sailing.

  Emma hesitated. She hadn’t expected him to come up with terms so quickly. But she had terms of her own. “No promises, but I’ll do everything I can to get you that room and have you out of here within four weeks, even though both would be unprecedented.” She paused, looking down again, trying to keep her hands from fidgeting with the sheets. He leaned back against the pillow and inhaled more nicotine, watching her expectantly. She cleared her throat. “I have just one favor to ask in return,” she said.

  “And what would that be?” he asked. He tried to steady his racing mind. What could this suddenly nervous young nurse possibly want from him, given his condition? He was currently penniless, bedridden, and cut off from all his contacts.

  “I want you to teach me to negotiate.”

  He waited, blowing a little smoke out of the corner of his mouth as he gazed intently at her. “Go on,” he said.

  “I’ll naturally need to start with the basics, Mr. Nash. And then maybe we can work on more challenging situations—dangerous ones, like the one I’ll soon find myself in.” She stopped, wanting to be honest with him. “I should add that I don’t know the first thing about negotiating. In fact, I’m sure that I’m quite horrible at it.”

  “And I’m to teach you everything you need to know in the next four weeks for a dangerous negotiation?” he clarified, eyebrows raised.

  “My schedule is as tight as yours.” Emma looked away, toward the large medieval window across from Nash’s bed, worried that she was about to lose her composure with a patient for the first time. It was her job to help others. Asking for help had always made her feel uncomfortable and, in this case, vulnerable. “While the stakes you’re dealing with may be much more significant to the world, Mr. Nash, I assure you that the stakes in my own negotiation couldn’t be more important to me. And I’ll work as hard as you need me to. I suppose eighty percent ready is good enough for me as well.”

  “I understand,” he said. “And what can you tell me about your negotiation?”

  “Unfortunately, like your mission I’d prefer not to share very much at this point,” she said. She took a deep breath and held her head up. “What I can tell you is this: something has been stolen from me, and I want it back.”

  “I respect your need for privacy,” he said. “It’s part of my job.” What he didn’t mention was that he could fill in many of the blanks by observing people.

  “Do we have a deal?” she asked with a tentative smile, certain only that her heart was pounding blood through her system at well above 140 beats a minute.

  He smiled back. Tutoring sessions weren’t part of his plan for lying low, but his options were limited—for now, at least. “Absolutely.
We have a deal.” He stuck out his right hand. The gesture caused his torso to radiate pain. He winced but kept his hand out. “Same caveat, Nurse Doyle—no guarantees. But I’ll do everything I can to have you ready in four weeks’ time.”

  Emma extended her sweaty palm and clasped his.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She could feel the rush of emotion in her throat, and she hurried away to begin the search for a new room.

  —

  “Dr. Lowe, before we see your patient wards might we have a quick look at your records confirming names, dates, arrival times, and injuries? As you can imagine, it’s helpful for us to see the ebb and flow of the demand on your facilities,” one of the representatives, Carl Moore, said, mustering a smile.

  “Most certainly. Follow me, gentlemen,” said Lowe.

  After just a few minutes of chatting, Lowe had already decided that he liked Moore, a former rugby player. He wasn’t as sure about his subordinate, Fred Suggs, whose only revelation had been that he collected stamps in his spare time. The two men were certainly a study in contrasts. Moore was tall, lean, good-looking, had excellent teeth, a full head of sandy blond hair, and talked openly. Suggs was short, heavyset, had terrible teeth, including a missing front tooth, was almost completely bald, and spoke only when prompted, unless he was whispering to Moore.

  For half an hour, the inspectors scanned the records, murmuring to each other periodically. When they were done, Lowe sensed that they were somehow disappointed.

  Moore looked at Suggs, then at Lowe. “Just out of personal interest,” he said slowly, addressing the surgeon, “we both have an old mate who we figured came through your facility. In fact, he might still be here. Is it possible he’s been a patient of yours but his name wasn’t officially written down in your records?”

  “It’s unlikely but possible,” Lowe said. “We’re terribly understaffed, so sometimes when we rush a patient in, especially late at night, one of the nurses responsible for recording the arrival on our master list will forget to do so. We usually discover any oversight the following day, though, and most certainly before they’re discharged.” He smiled warmly at the men. “Perhaps I can help, gentlemen. What’s your friend’s name?”