CHAPTER TWELVE

“How magnificent you were this evening,” Rudolf von Schiissler said as he stroked Svetlana Baranova’s hair. “My very own Red Poppy.”

She shuddered as he touched the porcelain skin of her neck, and for the barest instant he wondered whether it was a shudder of rapture or one of revulsion could it be? But then he saw her lips form themselves into the sweetest smile, and he was reassured.

She wore the negligee he had bought her in Munich, made of the sheerest gossamer pink silk, and the way it concealed and yet revealed the swell of her breasts, her tiny waist, the voluptuous flesh of her lean yet muscular thighs, was enormously exciting to him. She was the most appetizing dish he had ever been fortunate to have, and von Schiissler was a cultivated man who had always enjoyed the finest meals. Some might call him portly, but he thought of himself as well fed, a gastronome, a man who liked to live well.

Yet living well in Moscow was well nigh impossible. The food one could get here, even through the German embassy, was simply substandard. The apartment he had been given, which had formerly belonged to some high Red Army official who had been executed in the purges, was spacious enough. And certainly the dacha in Kuntsevo, outside Moscow, which he used as a weekend house, was adequate. He’d had to pay quite a bit under the table to the Russians to secure a lease on the place, and he’d had to suffer the unspoken derision of his colleagues in the embassy who were less fortunate, who didn’t have family money that allowed them to make special deals with the Soviet government, but it was worth it.

He’d had to import all his best pieces of furniture, there was no decent help to hire for his dinner parties, and he had long ago tired of the diplomatic circuit here in this gloomy city. All you ever heard about was the war. And now that the Russians had signed the nonaggression pact with Berlin, that was all anyone ever talked about. He’d go out of his mind with the tedium of it all if he hadn’t found his Red Poppy.

How well everything seemed to work out for him. It wasn’t luck; no, it just went to show the truth of what his father had always said: the bloodline was everything. Ancestry nothing mattered more. He took justifiable pride in his own ancestry, in the grand manor outside Berlin that had been in the family for more than a century, the service his many illustrious forebears had paid to kaisers and prime ministers. And of course there was the great Prussian general Ludwig von Schiissler, the hero of 1848 who led the military forces that had put down the liberal uprisings while Frederick William IV, the King of Prussia, was dithering and capitulating. Von Schiissler was keenly aware of the distinguished name he had to live up to.

Unfortunately, there were always those who would assume that he had gotten as far as he had by virtue of his name alone. Indeed, von Schussler often found himself gnashing his teeth over the way his talents went unrecognized. He wrote brilliant and beautifully composed memoranda, garlanded with allusions to Goethe, yet they only seemed to molder.

Still, one did not become Second Secretary in the German embassy in an important posting like Moscow without intelligence, skill, and talent. True, he owed his position to an old family friend, Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenberg, the German ambassador here, who was the doyen of the Moscow diplomatic corps. But for heaven’s sake, the German Foreign Ministry was full of aristocrats look at the Foreign Minister himself, Joachim von Ribbentrop, or von Ribbentrop’s second in-command, Ernst von Weiszacker, or Hans-Bernd von Haeften, or the last Foreign Minister, Freiherr Konstatin von Neurath … and the list went on. Who else had as deep an appreciation of the greatness inherent in the German Volk the civilization that had given the world Beethoven and Wagner, Goethe and Schiller? The civilization that had given the world civilization itself?

Adolf Hitler hadn’t had the privilege of a bloodline as great, but at least he had vision. There was something to be said for fresh blood. As tiresome and vainglorious as der Fuhrer could be, at least he had an appreciation of the greatness of the German people. And after all, for all its rhetoric about the masses, the Third Reich craved the legitimacy that could only be conferred upon it by such aristocrats as the von Schiisslers.

It was for that reason that von Schiissler spent every weekend in Kuntsevo writing his memoirs. His illustrious ancestor Ludwig von Schiissler had taken pains to write his memoirs, thus ensuring his place in history. Rudolph had read it five or six times, and he was sure that his memoirs would be far more important than those of his forebear. After all, the times he was living in were far more important, far more interesting.

Well, Moscow was tedious, truth be told, but there was glory in his posting to Moscow, he’d simply have to keep reminding himself. Soon enough, Germany would win the war this was inevitable: the only country remotely powerful enough to vanquish Germany was Russia, and Stalin was being meek and compliant and then von Schiissler could retire to his schloss with the glory of having served his government and ride his beloved Lippizaners in the beautiful German countryside…. He would finish, and polish, his memoirs, and they would be published to great acclaim.

And he would take with him his jewel, his Red Poppy, the one thing that brightened the gloom of Moscow. For that he would ever be grateful to another old friend, Dr. Hermann Behrends. Behrends he now went by the title SS Untersturmfuhrer der Reserve {Waffen-SS) and he had gone to school together, at the

University of Marburg. Both had received their doctorate of law degrees there, and both had practiced fencing together. Behrends, who was a far more avid fencer than von Schiissler, proudly bore his scars: deep slashes in his cheeks from the fencing swords. The two had taken different paths after university; while von Schiis-sler went on in the Foreign Service, Behrends had joined the SS. But they stayed in touch, and Behrends had taken him into his confidence just before von Schiissler had left Berlin. He had divulged, as one friend to another, a secret of which he had become aware. A secret he thought his old school chum might find useful.

Behrends had told him the secret of Mikhail Baranov, the Hero of the Russian Revolution.

And when von Schiissler had met the old man’s daughter, shortly after arriving in Moscow, at a party at the German embassy … Well, as the old German proverb had it, Den Gerechten hilft Gott. Good things happen to good people. Ancestry had proven decisive once again, and this time it wasn’t just von Schiissler’s bloodline that had proven decisive. It was the stunning ballerina’s ancestry as well. The secret of her father. “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” How true, how true.

He hadn’t blackmailed her no, no, that was the wrong way of looking at it. It was merely a way of establishing a connection, of ensuring her attention. He remembered how she had grown pale when, in a quiet corner of the embassy party, he had let on to her what he knew about her father…. But all that was in the past. What his own father had told him was so true: Mars off net das Tor der Venus. Der erste Kuss kommt mit Gewalt. Der zweite mit Leidenschaft. Mars opens the gate to Venus. You get your first kiss by force. And the second comes from passion.

“You seem quiet tonight, my darling,” he said.

“I’m just tired,” the lovely girl replied. “It is a strenuous performance; you know that, Rudi.”

“But that’s not like you at all,” he persisted. He stroked her breasts, squeezed her nipples. She made an expression that at first appeared to be a wince but which von Schiissler quickly recognized as a twinge of pleasure. He moved his other hand lower and began to stroke her. She did not seem to respond down there, but that was normal: this was a girl who had to be pursued, a fortress that had to be stormed. She was certainly not the most sexually responsive woman he had been with, but every woman was different. She just took a little longer to warm up.

She gave him a smoldering look of what he knew was passion, although from a certain angle one might almost mistake it for … banked rage. But no, it was passion. She was a fiery little filly.

He reached over to the box of German chocolates Russian chocolate was unspeakable, after all and placed one against her lips. She shook her head. He shrugged, stuffed it into his mouth. “I think I’d go mad without you,” he said. “Mad with boredom. There’s nothing worse than boredom, don’t you agree?”

But Lana did not meet his gaze. She still seemed distant. There was a strange smile on her face. He never knew what she was thinking, but that was all right. He liked a woman of depth.

She would be an excellent prize to take back with him to Berlin when all this unpleasantness was over.

Washington

The President always insisted on mixing the drinks for himself and his visitors. This evening it was some sort of blend of grapefruit juice, gin, and rum and it was appalling, but Alfred Corcoran pretended to enjoy it.

They sat in the President’s favorite room in all of the White House, the second-floor study, a comfortable, homey place crowded with tall mahogany bookcases, leather sofas, ship models, and nautical paintings. This was the place where he read, sorted his stamp collection, played poker, and saw his most important visitors. Roosevelt sat in his high-backed red leather chair. Corcoran always marveled, whenever he saw his old friend,

at how powerfully built Franklin was, the wrestler’s arms and shoulders so broad that, if one didn’t see the polio-withered legs, one would get the impression that the President was a much larger man than in fact he was.

The President took a sip of his drink and made a face. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me how awful this is?”

“I’m really not much of a rum drinker,” Corcoran said politely.

“You’ve always held your cards close to your vest, Corky, old man. Now, what happened in Paris?”

“Some very good agents were burned.”

“Killed, you mean. Gestapo?”

“We believe it was the work of the Nazi Sicherheitsdienst. Obviously there was a leak.”

“The fellow who escaped does he know why you’ve sent him to Moscow?”

“Of course not. The truth must be decanted in measured quantities. And like a fine claret, it must never be served before its time.”

“You think he’d refuse to go if he knew?”

“Not exactly. I think he wouldn’t do what needs to be done, certainly not as effectively.”

“But you’re sure he can pull it off?”

Corcoran hesitated. “Am I sure? No, Mr. President. I’m not sure.”

Roosevelt turned to look directly at Corcoran. His eyes were a piercing blue. “Are you saying he’s not the best man for the job?”

“He’s the only man for the job.”

“An awful lot rides on this one agent. Far too much, I’d say.” The President put his mother-of-pearl cigarette holder to his lips and struck a match. “Great Britain is in a perilous state. I don’t know how much longer they can survive this Nazi bombing. The House of Commons is all but destroyed; Coventry and Birmingham have been leveled. They’ve been able to beat back the Luftwaffe, but who knows how much longer they can keep it up.

Meanwhile, the Brits are on the verge of bankruptcy they don’t have the money to pay us for all the munitions they’ve ordered, which they need desperately to stave off the Nazis. Congress will never go along with loaning them the money. And we’ve got all these rabid America Firsters accusing me of trying to drag us into the conflict.” He sucked at the cigarette holder; the end of his cigarette flared like a dying sun.

“We’re in no shape to go to war,” Corcoran put in.

Roosevelt nodded gravely. “Lord knows that’s the truth. We haven’t begun to rearm. But the plain fact is, without our help, Great Britain is finished in a matter of months. And if Hitler defeats Britain, we’ll all be living at gunpoint. And there’s something else.” The President lifted a folder from the end table next to him and held it out.

Corcoran got up and took it from him, opening it as he sat back down. He nodded as he scanned it.

“Directive Number Sixteen,” the President said. “Signed by Hitler. The Nazis call it Operation Sea Lion their top-secret plans for the invasion of Britain by two hundred fifty thousand German soldiers. Paratroop assaults, then an amphibious landing, the infantry, the panzers … I don’t think Britain can survive it. If the Germans go through with it, all of Europe will become the Third Reich. We cannot allow this to happen. Do you understand, Corky, that if your young agent doesn’t pull this thing off, we’re all doomed? I ask you again, does your man have what it takes?”

Corcoran narrowed his eyes as he inhaled a lungful of Chesterfield smoke. “It’s a huge risk, I admit,” he said, his voice muzzy, “but not as risky as doing nothing. Whenever mortals undertake to shift the course of history, things can go horribly wrong.”

“Corky … if a single word of this plan gets out, it could backfire so badly that it’ll be worse than our never having attempted it at all.”

Corcoran snubbed out his cigarette butt and gave a hacking cough. “The time will likely come when the young man no longer serves a purpose. Sometimes when your vessel starts taking on water, you must throw the ballast overboard.”

“You always were a bloody-minded soul.”

“I take it you mean that in the best sense.”

The President gave a chilly smile.

Corcoran shrugged. “In fact, I assume he won’t survive the expedition. If he does, and he has to be sacrificed, so be it.”

“Christ, Corky, is that blood or ice water in those veins of yours?”

“At my age, Mr. President, who can tell the difference?”