The House of Special Purpose

by Paul Christopher

  ‘A woman?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Equality of the sexes in Stalin’s empire or so they say,’ Fleming answered. ‘It makes quite a lot of sense actually; most people would never expect a woman assassin.’

  ‘What about Maddox?’ Black asked. ‘Do you have a line on him yet?’

  ‘Odd that you should phrase it that way.’ Fleming made a small laughing sound, far back in his throat. ‘A little macabre actually. He was picked up in a net in the middle of the Bay of Fundy by a Canadian halibut fisherman. Bit of luck there, I think.’

  ‘Not for Maddox,’ said Jane.

  ‘Quite.’ Fleming nodded. ‘He’d been gutted and most of his face had been chewed off, most likely by a propeller from a boat.’

  ‘You’re sure it’s him?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what I meant by luck. He hadn’t been in the water long enough for the sharks to get at him or for his fingerprints to be ruined. It’s him.’

  ‘Murdered?’

  ‘Without a doubt. He had a great deal of false identification on his person. Supposedly he was a Canadian named Groman. None of it checked out. His address in Ottawa was an empty apartment. Frankly I don’t think he was ever meant to be found. He was interrogated and murdered.’

  ‘The Bay of Fundy?’ Jane asked, frowning.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘The closest American port of any size would be Portland, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which isn’t too far from Boston.’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘You think it was this Gomez woman?’

  ‘We think she was part of it. Donovan has a theory that Maddox running was just an excuse for them to get rid of him before he turned. They were planning it even before you two came on the scene.’

  ‘They?’ Black asked. ‘Gomez and who else?’

  ‘Fellow named Vassili Zarubin. Chief of NKVD operations in the United States, sometimes called Squirrel Cheeks behind his back because he has a faintly rodent look about him. Very smart, very methodical. Made his way up the Stalinist ladder by turning in his superiors until there weren’t any left.’

  ‘He was running Maddox?’

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘Anyone else in Donovan’s Swiss cheese of an organisation?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Yes. His sources of information are far too good to have all come from someone like Maddox. In the first place the professor didn’t have the access and in the second place he was a homosexual. Zarubin wouldn’t have trusted him. Too vulnerable to have played a senior role.’

  Jane took another sip of her beer and lit a cigarette. She pulled herself up against the back of the leather banquette of the booth and let out a small, frustrated sigh. ‘Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Donovan wants us to get hold of the film because he wants to help his pals in England but his operation has a commie spy in it who a) either already has the film or b) knows where it is. Stephenson’s bunch wants the film because they don’t want their man Lockhart exposed, because that would embarrass the king of England, and the Russkies want the film because they don’t want to be embarrassed either, which seems a bit silly if you ask me because I don’t think anything could embarrass Stalin, and all the Romanovs in exile want the film because that way they could get all the money, which is a billion or so dollars.’

  ‘Very succinctly put.’ Fleming nodded, sipping his martini.

  Black pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, wincing slightly, his eyes closing briefly. ‘All of this on the word of a woman who seems to have rutted her way through half the British and Russian intelligentsia. The word is bollocks. It’s been the better part of twenty-five years, Ian. Secrets don’t stay secrets for that long. I’m beginning to wonder if the film exists at all. If it did, somebody would have seen it by now.’

  ‘Someone has.’ Fleming shrugged.

  ‘Do tell,’ said Jane.

  ‘Yes, please do.’

  ‘Miss Budberg, of course,’ said Fleming plainly. ‘The man who shot the film, Levitsky, showed it to her.’

  ‘Her again,’ said Jane.

  Black snorted. ‘She lied to Maxim Gorky, she lied to Lockhart and she lied to Wells. Who’s to say she’s not lying about this?’

  ‘That’s what we thought the two of you could find out for us.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By talking to her.’

  ‘According to Wells she’s still in England.’

  ‘Mr Wells is wrong. Miss Budberg, referring to herself as the Countess Moura Zakrevskaia Benckendorff, is presently living in Los Angeles. The Bryson Towers, I believe. Some sort of posh apartment building.’ He handed Jane a slip of paper with the address and phone number on it.

  ‘And just how in hell did she get to Los Angeles?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Without much difficulty, it would seem. She flew to Dublin and then on to Lisbon via Aer Lingus. From there she took the Pan Am Clipper to New York.’

  ‘What lunatic gave her a visa?’ Black asked.

  ‘All very much on the up and up. The Yanks had no reason not to let her into the country. She’s supposedly acting as an adviser on a film they’re making in Hollywood based on one of Gorky’s works.’

  Black reached into the pocket of his jacket and removed the key he and Jane had discovered in the manure pile beneath the rabbit hutches at Trotsky’s villa. It was about three inches long, flat, with a place on the bow where a number had been stamped but filed off and the letters FNB/V engraved along the side. The Scotland Yard detective pushed it across the table to Fleming, who picked it up and examined it in the dim light.

  ‘The key to a safe-deposit box?’

  ‘Presumably.’

  ‘We think the FNB probably means First National Bank but the V is anyone’s guess.’ Jane shrugged. ‘First National Bank of Vainom Kug for all we know.’

  ‘Vainom Kug?’ said Black.

  ‘Place in Arizona. Something to do with ducks or silver mines. Came across it in a National Geographic article a while ago.’

  Fleming stared at the key in his hand. ‘You found this in Mexico City?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who else knows about this?’

  ‘Just the three of us,’ said Jane. ‘Morris and I think it should stay that way, at least for the time being.’ She paused and smiled blandly across the table. ‘That way we can keep track of who’s lying to who.’

  ‘Whom,’ Fleming corrected.

  ‘Who’s on first,’ Jane responded. Fleming gave her an odd look. ‘An old joke.’ Jane waved a dismissing hand. ‘The point is, Morris and I know perfectly well that Donovan and Stephenson and probably Foxworth are using us as a lure. We put our heads in a noose so you can follow all the little commie roaches that come out of the woodwork looking for this piece of film Miss Budberg has been whispering about. You say she’s a Russian spy but she could just as easily be working for you as well. It’s not like she’s the most faithful woman in the world. Maybe she’s collecting a paycheck from Donovan too.’

  ‘The ultimate agent provocateur,’ put in Black. ‘Working for and against all sides at once.’

  ‘There is some corroboration to her story. Miss Budberg informed us that she wasn’t the only one to have seen the film.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘The Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich Romanov.’

  ‘One of the pretenders?’ Jane asked. ‘Like this Anna Anderson woman?’

  ‘No,’ said Fleming. ‘The pretender. He’s officially next in line to become tsar. And to get his hands on all that money.’

  Black laughed. ‘Good bloody luck to him!’

  ‘Grand Duke Boris was a great traveller before the outbreak of hostilities. He came to New York in 1925 and was visited by Levitsky in his hotel suite at the Ritz Carlton. While Levitsky was there, the grand duke sent out for a film projector. The connection is clear.’

  ‘And circumstantial,’ Black responded. ‘They could have been viewing old home movies for all yo
u know.’

  ‘Unlikely and you know it, Morris.’

  ‘You say this story comes from the Budberg broad?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anybody back her story up?’

  ‘The concierge at the Ritz Carlton at the time and the bellman who brought the projector up to the suite.’

  There was a brief silence. ‘How come you think it was this Levitsky mook?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Good question,’ said Black.

  ‘The FBI has a running file on Grand Duke Boris. He was being watched, closely. When Levitsky went to the front desk the person on duty asked for his name so he could be announced. He told the desk clerk his name was Alexander Levitsky. It’s in the special agent’s notes and consequently it’s in the grand duke’s file. They had no idea who Levitsky was at the time.’ Fleming paused, smiling coolly. ‘They still don’t, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘So we talk to Countess Bugaboo, she tells us where to find Levitsky and he hands over the film?’ said Jane. ‘What about the safe-deposit key we found?’

  ‘A print? Who knows?’ Fleming shrugged.

  ‘You’re making this sound pretty damn easy,’ Jane said sceptically.

  ‘Budberg will cooperate,’ said Fleming. ‘If anything, she’s a survivor. She won’t be heading back to Russia anytime in the near future and London’s no fun with bombs falling all over the place. Donovan could have her thrown out of the country anytime he wanted and the same goes for Stephenson. Wells and Lockhart would have a fit, I’m sure, but he could have her visitor’s visa revoked with a snap of his fingers.’

  There was another short silence. Black sighed. ‘We’ll need some money.’

  ‘Already taken care of.’ Fleming reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a thick business-sized envelope and handed it across to Black. He in turn handed it to Jane, who dropped it into the new shoulder bag she’d just purchased at Garfinkel’s. At the same time she took a small pad out of the bag and a tiny, half-sized ladies’ pencil. She scribbled something on the pad, tore off the sheet and folded it, putting the sheet back in the bag.

  ‘Just a note to myself.’ She smiled. She took a last swallow of her beer. ‘So now what?’

  ‘Donovan wants to talk to you first thing Monday; then you’ll fly out to Los Angeles on an overnight that evening.’

  ‘Fine by me.’ Jane nodded. She smiled at Fleming. ‘You go buy the tickets, Morris here can find us a hotel room and I’m going back to Garfinkel’s to return this bag. I also have to buy a few ladies’ unmentionables.’ She lifted up the exquisite Italian Bojola handbag, which Black had characterised as being a suitcase on a strap. He also knew that it had been love at first sight for Jane and the bag. He gave her an odd look, but she cautioned him with a short, almost imperceptible shake of her head.

  ‘Why do you need a hotel room?’ Fleming asked.

  ‘You said it yourself: Donovan’s place is probably being wiretapped by the FBI or by Donovan himself.’ Jane grinned. ‘Maybe both.’

  ‘All right.’ Fleming nodded. ‘Dinner?’ He looked at the Omega he wore on his wrist. ‘It’s four now. How about drinks at the Mayflower at six thirty? Seventeenth and L. That should give us all plenty of time.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Black. He stood up and as Jane brushed past him he felt her right hand go into the pocket of his jacket for a few seconds. She threaded her way between the tables of the grill and then she was gone.

  ‘Seems to be in a bit of a rush, don’t you think?’ asked Fleming.

  ‘A woman of great decisiveness,’ Black answered. Not to mention a woman with something on her mind, he thought.

  ‘Bloody suspicious too, if you ask me. All these Yanks seem to be the same.’

  ‘Tough, single-minded and stubborn?’ Black said. ‘I can think of worse personality traits for a nation.’

  Black waited until Fleming was a few steps ahead before he took the folded piece of paper from his pocket – the note Jane had torn from her pad. Keeping the note hidden in his palm, he read it quickly.

  Bar at the Willard.

  Fourteenth and F

  6:00 sharp.

  The detective crumpled up the piece of paper and dropped it into a sand-filled pedestal ashtray as they went out through the doorway. There was a large placard on an easel outside the door reminding everyone that there would be a special Thanksgiving party the following evening and free cranberry cocktails served. Reaching the lobby, Black looked around casually and saw that Jane had already vanished.

  * * *

  Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich Romanov stood on the curved balcony of his top-floor suite at the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel, smoking a Lucky Strike cigarette in his ornate silver-and-ivory Fabergé holder and staring down into Pershing Square, ten storeys below. The rectangular park was a grotesquerie that even the French could not have come up with, a collection of trees from all around the world, planted together for no good reason, sprinkled with statuary ranging from half a dozen cupids apparently suffering from dropsy to a gaunt and extremely depressing figure of a Great War American doughboy staring balefully down at the pigeon droppings covering him. On his single tour through the park Romanov had seen everything from ragged, jobless and snivelling bums, lonely tourists looking for someone to talk to and a wild-eyed Bolshevik in a worn black suit babbling almost incoherently about the wrongs of the Forgotten Man and the sins of the Demon Rich. The grand duke quickly fled back to the creature comforts of his suite at the Biltmore – which, oddly enough, was being paid for in full by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and the Nazi Abwehr.

  It was all surreal. Emil Haas had made his requirements and his threats equally clear. The German spy was already aware that the grand duke’s cousin, Feodor Mikhailovich, was in the market for the Yekaterinburg film, and he, the grand duke, was to use any means possible to convince the younger man to purchase the film on the Third Reich’s behalf. Should he not be able to convince the young Prince Feodor, he and his family would be summarily imprisoned in one of the new concentration camps being built in Poland. According to their information, the film was either in the possession of one-time NKVD agent Moura Budberg or she knew where it was and was willing to auction off the information. The grand duke had not really ever had a choice in the matter and he agreed on the spot.

  From that point things moved quickly. The grand duke was put on a military flight to Berlin, transferred to a Lufthansa diplomatic flight to Lisbon and then transferred again to a Pan American Airways Clipper flight to Bermuda and onward to New York. From there’d taken a series of miserable and exhausting flights to Los Angeles, where he was to meet his young cousin, Prince Feodor. In all, the trip had taken five gruelling days and the grand duke’s mood was foul. To deal with one of the Grand Duchess Zenia Mikhailovich’s offspring was bad enough but to do it at the behest of the Nazis was almost unbearable. He’d been many things in life but never a friend to those inhuman savages.

  He heard a faint tapping at the door to the suite and went back inside. He crossed the plush sitting room and went down the short hall to the door. Opening it he found himself facing a man in his early forties with thinning hair and a rather dull expression on his face. He was wearing an expensive-looking suit and when he shot his cuffs the grand duke could see that his shirt was monogrammed with his initials in gold and the Romanov crest in black, red and yellow. To the grand duke’s experienced eye the fabric of the shirt was a very high quality cream-coloured silk.

  ‘Feodor,’ said Boris Vladimirovich.

  ‘Prince Feodor Mikhailovich Romanov, sir.’

  ‘As I said,’ the grand duke responded, ‘cousin Feodor.’ He opened the door wide and stepped aside, gesturing for the younger man to enter. He then closed the door, stepped around his cousin and led him back to the sitting room. Warm air was blowing in from the open doors out to the balcony. The grand duke pointed to a green velvet-covered club chair. ‘Something to drink, Feodor?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said the exq
uisitely dressed man with thinning hair. He sat down, looking uncomfortable, as though the green of the chair might be clashing with the pale cream of his shirt. Which it was. The grand duke went to the bar on the far side of the room and poured himself a large Scotch, neat. He took a swallow, then turned back to his cousin.

  ‘Feodor…’

  ‘Before you begin, let me make one thing clear,’ said the young Mikhailovich. ‘I am here only because my mother, the grand duchess, asked me to come. I have much more pressing affairs to attend to, I can assure you.’

  ‘I know all about your relationship with that Polish buffoon in Connecticut, what’s his name? Vonsiatskoy, Vonsiatsky?’

  ‘He is not Polish. He is Russian like you and me and he is a count.’

  ‘He is married to a woman who inherited a pig farm, I believe.’

  ‘She is as committed to the cause as the count.’ ‘

  That cause would be the All-Russian Fascist Party, I presume?’ said the grand duke. He had been fully briefed on the subject by Haas.

  ‘Yes,’ Feodor snapped, clearly irritated. ‘He will raise an army in our homeland and I will be restored to my rightful place as tsar.’ He started to rise from the chair but a word from the grand duke sat him down again.

  ‘You’re going off to buy the Yekaterinburg film, I suppose.’

  ‘What?’ The word was almost stuttered.

  ‘A countess this time. Who is really an NKVD agent named Moura Budberg.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’