by Ed Ruggero
“Goddamn paper shufflers, that’s what happened,” Sinnott said.
Sinnott looked at Harkins. “No talking to the fucking Soviets. Got it?”
“Got it, sir.”
Sinnott left them at attention while he paced the small space behind his desk. He drew and let out a deep breath, then stood at the window. It would have made a good photo, Harkins thought—Sinnott looking out on war-ravaged London—except that the window was boarded up.
“Have you been asked to testify at Cushing’s trial yet?” Sinnott asked, a bit calmer.
“Not yet.”
Sinnott turned around. “You will be, I’m sure. Don’t go bringing up all this wild conspiracy horseshit you think you’ve been uncovering.”
Harkins did not respond.
The major studied Harkins for half a minute. “It’s time for you to start getting ready for your follow-on assignment,” he said.
“What’s that, sir?”
“You’ll be going over after the invasion. Maybe with the invasion.”
“To do what?”
Instead of answering, Sinnott sat—Wickman and Harkins still at attention—and pulled a cigarette case from his desk drawer. He clicked it open, stuck a cigarette in his mouth, and produced a lighter from his jacket pocket. He studied Wickman and Harkins over the flame.
“At first you’ll be a liaison with the Resistance. We’re expecting the French to help us by delaying German reinforcements. Someone has to coordinate as the landing units roll inland. After that—if you’re still alive—you can help us chase spies, maybe French collaborators. Colonel Meigs thought you were a good detective, apparently. He didn’t tell me you were a goddamn cowboy.”
Sinnott reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a heavy glass ashtray, PARK DRIVE CIGARETTES painted on the side.
“There’s a landing exercise taking place in a few days. I’m going to make sure you’re part of that.”
“I’m in the middle of a murder investigation, sir.”
“You’re closer to the end of the investigation than you are to the middle,” Sinnott said. “You’ve got your man.”
“I’m not sure I do, sir.”
“Well, that’ll be up to the court now, won’t it? Any other goddamn problems you want to bitch about?”
“I don’t speak French,” Harkins said.
* * *
“Now what?” Wickman said after he and Harkins were kicked out of Sinnott’s office. “Let me guess: no way in hell you’re going to stop.”
“Well, I have to admit I’m a tiny bit curious as to who was trying to kill me,” Harkins said. “I’d like to find out, if for no other reason than to make sure I don’t give them another opportunity.”
“Seems pretty obvious it was because of this investigation. Cushing, Batcheller, the Russians,” Wickman said. They reached the bottom floor, where a sergeant and a private stood at the security desk, the sergeant showing the young GI how to break down an army shotgun. Outside, Lowell stood by the staff car, which was parked at the curb. Surprisingly, the sun was shining. In the harsh light, Harkins could see that Lowell’s eyes were puffy. She’d been quite upset by the night’s events.
“Look at this, gentlemen,” Lowell said, saluting. “Your first sunny day in London.”
“Somehow we’ve got to go back at the Soviets without Sinnott getting wind of it,” Harkins said. He and Wickman stopped about fifteen feet from the car, Harkins facing his partner. “Wish I could tell you it will all work out. I can keep at it on my own.”
“In for a penny,” Wickman said, forcing a smile.
Harkins turned back to the street, where Lowell, looking tired but determined, had opened the back door of the sedan. “You, me, and the world’s most energetic ATS driver. The Russians won’t know what hit ’em.”
* * *
Major Richard Sinnott stood, as instructed, on the south bank of the Thames. The Tower Bridge, an icon in this city of icons, stretched across the brown water just a few hundred yards upstream. Everywhere he went in this town he smelled ash: burned buildings, burned docks, charred history as far as one could see. On his first visit to London, when he’d come for his Rhodes in 1935, their guide talked about the Great Fire of 1666, the thousands of buildings destroyed, the desperate footrace for the river, the legions of homeless. The Germans had tried to do the same thing and had mostly failed. Now the allies were incinerating Berlin.
He pulled a silver flask from his jacket pocket and took a swig. A British couple passing by noticed, gave him an unfriendly look, probably because it was only nine in the morning.
“Cheers!” Sinnott said, raising the flask in salute when the couple looked back.
He took another pull. The flask was engraved with a gothic “CGZ,” the initials of the medical officer with whom he’d shared a cabin on the crossing from New York in ’43. He’d liked the doctor, right up until the officious little prig told him that drinking in the morning was not a good sign.
“How you gonna drink all day if you don’t start in the morning?” Sinnott had joked. The doctor hadn’t smiled, so Sinnott pocketed the flask while the man slept.
One more sip.
A man approached from behind, gestured at the bridge. “Something the Luftwaffe missed,” he said.
“Their aim is not so good after all,” Sinnott said, the second half of the recognition signal.
The man turned away and Sinnott followed him, down into a passageway that snaked below some warehouses, dark in spite of the bright daylight above ground. Sinnott stayed behind the man, scanning the sides of the walkway for alcoves, possible hiding places where an attacker might lurk. He looked over his shoulder once; there was no one behind them.
They emerged onto a mostly empty street and his guide pointed to an American-made staff car, this one with its markings removed. Of course, he thought, the Soviets get all of their equipment from us.
Sinnott got in the backseat, where he found Colonel Yury Sechin of the Soviet NKVD. If the Americans and Soviets had actually been cooperating, Sechin would be an ally in Sinnott’s work tracking down spies. Instead, Sinnott feared for his life.
The driver glanced in the mirror, Sechin nodded, and the car slunk away from the curb. Sinnott resisted the urge to pull out the flask again.
“A little early for the drinking, is it not?” Sechin said. His English was stilted, like he was reading from a textbook, but he could hold a conversation.
“Or perhaps you need the liquor courage.”
Sechin smiled at him, a frigid look he’d probably perfected torturing enemies of the state in Lubyanka prison.
“It’s ‘liquid courage,’ Colonel,” Sinnott said. He knew he shouldn’t provoke the man; Sinnott was quite sure Sechin was capable of murdering someone right in his own car. The Soviet looked at him sideways with his small, black eyes.
“What do you want?” Sechin said.
“I want you to stop having people killed,” Sinnott said. “Or attempting to have people killed. It’s drawing too much attention.”
“If you managed the situation better, there would be no need for these drastic measures.”
“I already got our criminal investigators out of the way, and I have a plan for getting Harkins out of the way,” Sinnott said. “One that doesn’t involve piling up bodies. If he’d been killed, they just would have replaced him with another investigator. Maybe a whole team.”
“And you are afraid they will investigate you, no?”
In the beginning, Sinnott had believed that he and the Soviets could work together; they were allies, after all. He had discussed with a few of his counterparts details of how the British captured German agents sent to Britain. Basic counterespionage that his bosses at OSS should have been willing to share. His handler, Sechin’s predecessor, had not asked him for more than he was willing to give. He’d felt no pressure, had been excited, truth be told, at the idea of being an unofficial liaison between the OSS and the Soviets. The trouble wasn’t ideolog
y or information or spy-catching techniques.
The problem was money.
Sinnott was perpetually short on cash. He had requested an entertainment budget from his OSS bosses and been flatly refused, even though the agency was swimming in money, thanks to Wild Bill Donovan’s friendship with FDR. As far as Sinnott knew, no one was counting what OSS spent. Not even the simplest bookkeeping rules were in place until Wickman started working for him. Thanks to the former L.A. cop, Sinnott got his hands under the spigot, but it wasn’t enough and there was always the chance Wickman would start asking awkward questions. Sinnott still spent his own money to take OSS officers and newly arrived Americans out on the town, burning through his paychecks. He borrowed money from others in the agency, then borrowed from still others to pay off the first loans. He thought of himself as a gentleman—he was a goddamn Rhodes scholar—and was determined to cover his debts. It was simply a matter of timing. He spent money faster than he earned it, sure that he could convince his bosses that the rewards for his socializing, in terms of close relationships within the agency, were worth every penny. But so far, every official request for reimbursement had been turned down.
A friend at the Soviet Embassy picked up one bar tab for Sinnott. Now, looking back, he knew that had been his first misstep, though others followed quickly. Bar bills, then cash, then quid pro quo payments for information. Sinnott had been hooked, like some unsophisticated newcomer.
He needed Sechin—more to the point, he needed Sechin’s purse—but he was also angry. Sechin’s penchant for violence threatened to expose him. And of course there was always the threat that Sechin would decide that Sinnott was of no use to him any longer, at which point Sinnott would be revealed as a spy and jailed by his own people, or simply shot to death by some Russian on a dark London street.
Finally, he had nowhere else to turn.
“I need money,” Sinnott said. The sentence left a copper taste in his mouth.
Sechin smiled. He held all the cards and he knew it. He would only give Sinnott more money if there was a chance the American OSS officer could be useful in the future.
“What will you do to stop this investigation?” Sechin asked.
“Send the investigator, this guy Harkins, to train for the invasion, then send him over to the continent.”
Sinnott didn’t want Harkins to uncover his connection to Sechin. Eighth Air Force, in the person of the lawyer Captain Gefner, didn’t want Harkins interfering with their plan to get rid of Major Cushing.
“You’re going to need me even more when things start moving quickly, after we reach the continent.”
He hated the way his voice sounded. Pleading.
“Perhaps you are right,” Sechin said. He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat and produced an envelope. Not a very fat one, Sinnott observed.
“This Harkins is a threat,” Sechin said. “It will not be good for you or for me if he starts asking who has helped me.”
“The court-martial is starting in a few days,” Sinnott said.
“Major Cushing,” Sechin said.
Sinnott couldn’t help but admire Sechin’s ability to gather information.
“Yes, Major Cushing. He was with Batcheller the night she was murdered. He’s also a bit of a maverick in the air force, a real pain in the ass for his superiors. Once there is a conviction—and I’m sure there will be—Harkins will have no reason to investigate any further.”
Sechin held the envelope, drawing out the moment and Sinnott’s humiliation. Finally, he dropped it on the seat between them.
Sinnott waited until he had the cash in his pocket before he said, “And no more murders. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
Sechin said something in Russian to the driver, who pulled over.
“I want to know what the OSS has planned for the first weeks after the invasion,” Sechin said.
Sinnott paused with his hand on the door handle. “I can’t tell you that before I know.”
Sechin made no further comment, so Sinnott opened the door and swung his legs out.
“Major Sinnott,” Sechin called. Sinnott, standing on the curb, leaned down to see into the backseat.
“Be careful. The Blitz is finished but London is still a very dangerous place.”
18
24 April 1944
1000 hours
Annie Stowe was waiting for Harkins in the crowded lobby of OSS headquarters, sitting on a bench, legs crossed, her raised foot beating time on an invisible drum. She stood quickly when Harkins, bone tired after a sleepless night, made his way down the stairs.
“I’m glad to see you,” she said. “I heard about what happened last night. How are you?” When Harkins stepped close, she put her hand on his shoulder. A few people hurrying by had to steer around them.
“Doing all right, I guess,” he said. “Though I don’t really have much to compare it to. It’s been a while since someone tried to kill me.”
Stowe, surprised, put her hand to her mouth. “So it’s true.”
Harkins, unsure about how much she knew or had heard, didn’t want to discuss it in the teeming lobby.
“Let’s go outside,” he said, taking her arm.
Lowell was still parked at the curb. When Harkins drew close, he told the driver, “Let’s go to my flat.”
Lowell glanced at Stowe, whose arm Harkins held. It was the kind of look his sisters gave him if they ran into him when he was out with a date.
“To drop me off,” Harkins said. “Then you can take Miss Stowe where she needs to go while I change clothes.”
“Of course, sir,” Lowell said.
When Harkins and Stowe were in the backseat, Stowe inclined her head toward Lowell. “Is it okay to talk?”
“It’s okay to talk about me,” Harkins said. “But if you’re finally going to tell me about your job we should make Lowell jump out.”
When Lowell looked at him in the rearview mirror, Harkins said, “You can jump from a moving car, right, Private Lowell?”
“Of course, sir,” Lowell said. “I used to be in the circus. Got shot out of a cannon three times a night.”
“Well, you two are pretty cheery, considering,” Stowe said.
“What did you hear?” Harkins asked.
“The scuttlebutt is that you witnessed a murder. That you and a woman—I assume it was Lowell here—that you and a woman were walking by and saw the whole thing.”
Harkins studied her face. It was possible that she knew more and was fishing for details, maybe out of a morbid curiosity, maybe out of genuine concern for him.
“Actually, I think I was the target,” Harkins said.
“Oh, my God,” Stowe said. She pivoted to face him on the seat. “What makes you think that?”
“It was a woman from the Soviet Embassy, or a woman who claimed to be from the Soviet Embassy, who took me out to where the shooter could see me. We crossed paths with another couple, and I think the shooter got the wrong guy.”
“Oh, that’s just awful!”
“Especially for the poor bastard who got shot.”
Stowe sat upright, her back off the seat, ran her palms over her thighs, smoothing her skirt again and again. Anxious gestures.
“Any reason you can think of that the Soviets might want to kill me? Might want to stop this investigation into Helen’s murder?”
“How would I know?” Stowe said.
“You were roommates,” Harkins said. “Did she talk about her relationships with the Soviets? With anyone in particular?”
“No, no. I just know she soured on them.”
“On a particular person or the whole alliance?”
Stowe looked out the window. They passed a small park where an antiaircraft battery snuggled behind a triple wall of sandbags. A truck was delivering cases of ammunition for the guns, male and female soldiers working side by side hefting the wooden crates.
“They’re shitty allies,” she said finally, meeting his eyes again.
“They want us to share information and techniques and don’t want to reciprocate,” Stowe said. “And now it seems their mission here is full of thugs. Murderers.”
Harkins thought of Patrick speculating that Novikov might have been trying to compromise him by giving him classified documents.
“Are they trying to recruit spies?” Harkins asked. “Maybe moles inside the U.S. or British delegations?”
Stowe dropped her eyes to her lap. “I think Helen thought so.”
“Helen thought the Soviets were trying to recruit spies?”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure,” Stowe said. “But she had that blowup with a couple of people who were pro-Soviet.”
“Lionel Kerr.”
“He’s one of them, I guess. Then she made that cryptic comment about knowing where the bodies are buried.”
“And you think that means she knew who’d been compromised?”
“It’s just a theory,” she said. “She and I never talked about it in any great detail. No names or anything.”
“Is that what turned her against the Soviets? She found out that they were recruiting people?”
“Maybe,” Stowe said. “There was also an incident of some sort. In Poland. I feel like a dummy because I only just found out about this.”
Lowell had stopped the car at an intersection. There was no cross traffic; she waited, hanging on every word.
“What was the incident?”
“This is all based on gossip,” Stowe said, tugging at the cuffs of her jacket sleeves. “I mean, I guess some people saw some things in writing, some official reports. Anyway, it seems a bunch of Polish prisoners were murdered. Captured Polish officers. Thousands of them.”
“By the Germans?” Harkins asked. Poland had been the testing ground for the German blitzkrieg, lightning war. In late 1939 Harkins had seen newsreel footage of Polish lancers on horseback riding out to meet German tanks.