CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The shop was cluttered and dusty, its display cases filled with a jumble of silver, jewelry, and crystal. The shelves along its walls were lined with old plates and serving dishes, old busts of Lenin. It was neither an antiques store nor a pawnshop but something in between: a komissiony, a secondhand store located on one of Moscow’s oldest streets, the Arbat. Its narrow aisles were crowded with customers who came to either pick up a bargain or raise desperately needed money by handing over Mama’s treasured silver samovar.

Unnoticed among the raised voices and bustling were two men who sidled up next to each other, both examining the same icon. One appeared to be a Russian laborer in his thirties; the other was an older man in a foreign overcoat and a Russian fur hat.

“Almost didn’t recognize you,” Hilliard said under his breath. “All right. Just follow me out without speaking.”

Shortly Hilliard made his way out of the shop, Metcalfe following behind. As they walked down Arbat toward Smolensk Square, the two men fell in alongside.

“What the hell is it?” Hilliard hissed. “If it’s the second set of documents you’re after, I told you I’ve set up a dead drop for this express purpose, and in any case, the courier won’t be in until later in the day. I thought I also made it clear that face-to-face meetings were out!”

“A friend of mine was murdered today.”

Hilliard glanced quickly at Metcalfe, then looked away. “Where?”

“The Metropole.”

“The Metropole? Jesus. Where, in his room?”

“My room. I was the intended victim.”

Hilliard let out a long, slow breath, and Metcalfe explained about Roger, who he was, his connection to Metcalfe, why he was in Moscow.

“What do you need?” Hilliard asked, his voice softening.

“Two things. One, I peed to contact Corky immediately.”

“You’ve seen how the black channel isn’t safe, Metcalfe “

“I know you have ways to reach Corky. I don’t care whether it’s a back door, smoke signals, or a goddamned message in a bottle: guys like you always have a way. You know the drill as well as I do if a member of Corky’s network is hit, he wants to be notified soonest.”

“I won’t let you back in the embassy to use our communications facilities, Metcalfe.”

“I don’t give a damn you can do it for me. Tell him Scoop Martin’s been killed the same way his Paris station guys were killed. Same manner of death: strangulation. And I’d send out that cable without delay.”

“I will.”

Then Metcalfe, remembering his doubts about Hilliard, added: “And I want a confirmation. Proof that Corky’s received my message.”

“How?”

Metcalfe thought for a moment. “A word. The next word on the list.” Corky maintained a list of code words with Metcalfe, as he did with all active agents in the field, a list known to no one else but Corky and the agent in question. The list of words was drawn up by Corky and it was supposed to be random, though Metcalfe had his doubts about how random it was. Corky was too much of a puzzle lover to pass up the opportunity to impart meaning wherever he could.

“You got it,” Hilliard said. “What’s the other thing you need? You said there were two things.”

“A gun.”

From a pay phone Metcalfe called the Metropole and asked to leave a message for a hotel guest, Roger Martin.

The reaction would tell him a great deal. By now, of course, Roger’s body had been found, and it was a certainty that all of the hotel’s staff knew it. Very likely the police had been informed, certainly the NKVD as well. But the reaction of the desk clerk on duty would be a useful indication of the degree of alarm and suspicion of whether they’d been instructed to keep a watch out for Metcalfe, to lure him, to trap him.

The clerk’s voice faltered, the tension unconcealed. The clerk immediately switched into icy formality: “No, the hotel guest you are seeking is … is no longer at the hotel, I am sorry to say. No further information is available.”

“I see,” Metcalfe said. “Do you know when he checked out?”

“I have no idea,” the clerk replied. “No idea. I cannot help you further.” And he hung up.

Metcalfe stared at the walls of the phone booth, perplexed. That had been the frightened, genuine reaction of a hotel employee who didn’t know how to respond. This told Metcalfe something: the clerk had not been briefed. If a cordon were in place, a trap or if Metcalfe was simply wanted for questioning in connection with Roger’s murder the clerk would have been instructed to reply differently. He would have interrogated the caller, trying to find out what he could.

Very puzzling. This was not what Metcalfe had expected.

The hotel was located on Teatralnaya Square, close to the Bolshoi Theater, in front of which was a small park with benches. Metcalfe needed to stake out the hotel, but vantage points were few. He walked through the park, which was too exposed. It was not a place for him to take out his binoculars and survey the activity in front of the Metropole; there were too many passersby who might observe the suspicious sight of a man with binoculars.

Finally he settled on the columned facade of the Bolshoi. It was too early in the day; no one was entering or exiting the main entrance to the theater. He was able to stand in the shadows, unseen, staring through his binoculars at the Metropole.

He was not looking for anything so obvious as a visible cordon of NKVD troops around the hotel. Instead, he was hoping to discern any disturbance in the normal traffic pattern, the tiny, normally imperceptible signs that might indicate something out of the ordinary. The presence of NKVD or regular police in the hotel would, like the ripples on the surface of a pond into which a stone has been dropped, alter the normal pattern. One would see it in the furtive glances of those exiting the hotel, perhaps; the pedestrian who lingered a bit too long; movements that were too studied, too rapid.

But none of those signs were apparent. Everything seemed to be normal.

Strange. It was as if nothing had happened, and that bothered him most of all.

He circled back around the park and to the side of the hotel, the service entrance he had used earlier. Hesitating a moment, he entered the hotel. He passed the kitchen, whose double doors kept swinging open as workers came in and out with flats of dishes, crates of food, preparing for that evening’s dinner.

Nothing out of the ordinary, so far as he could tell. No guards stationed here.

He kept going to the back staircase, which was also unguarded, and took the stairs to the fourth floor. Emerging at the far end of the corridor, he saw that it was dark, empty. He could see the dezhurnaya at her desk.

No one was coming or going. No policemen or plainclothes guards seemed to be stationed anywhere.

The hall was empty.

It was baffling. If there was no one waiting to grab him upon his return, that was one thing. But no one there, no police bustling about? No indication of a crime scene?

He felt in his pocket for the bulky room key. When he had run out of the room earlier, he had taken it with him without thinking. Now he was glad of it; that eliminated the need to ask the old gorgon at her station, thus alerting the hotel staff.

Then again, he might not need a room key. Not if his room was open, policemen or NKVD waiting inside.

Moving stealthily, he walked down the hall and took a right. Now he was a hundred feet or so from his hotel room.

The door to his room was closed.

That was something else he hadn’t expected. The bellman had seen Roger’s body; the normal procedure, in Russia or America or anywhere else, was for the authorities to secure the scene of the presumed crime, investigate in place.

He approached the door stealthily, standing just outside, listening.

Quiet.

Nothing inside, no voices as far as he could tell.

It was a risk, of course. He put the key in the lock, turned it, then pulled the door open, prepared to bolt if there was anyone waiting inside.

The room was dark, empty. No one was here.

Looking carefully around, Metcalfe strode quickly through the room to the open bathroom, bracing himself for the nightmarish sight of Scoop’s body.

But there was no body.

Not only was there no body, but there was no trace of it. The bathroom was sparklingly clean. There was no indication whatsoever that there had ever been a body here just a few hours earlier.

It was as if the body had never been here at all. They had taken his body away and ordered the bathroom cleaned up, the crime scene expunged, but why?

What the hell was going on?

From another pay phone a few blocks from the hotel Metcalfe called the embassy and asked for Hilliard.

Hilliard answered his own phone, his voice gruff, almost a bark: “Hilliard.”

“Roberts,” Metcalfe said, the agreed-upon name. It was a given that the embassy phone was tapped.

There was a pause of ten, fifteen seconds. Then Hilliard spoke again. He said one word: “Tain.”

“Repeat,” Metcalfe said.

“Tain. Not taint, but tain.” With that, Hilliard hung up abruptly.

Tain. That was the next word on the list Corky had given him. Confirmation that Hilliard had indeed spoken to Corky, given him the news.

Tain. A strange, rarely encountered word that referred to the metallic backing of a mirror; it was from the French word etain, or tin.

Even the choice of word was classic Corcoran, who so loved words and phrases that were freighted with meaning. The backing of a mirror. It evoked that old conundrum Corky was so fond of: Why do mirrors reverse left and right, but not up and down?

And another: Truth is the shattered mirror. Don’t cut yourself on the shards, he’d warned.

It was as if Corky had been warning him all along, simply by his choice of confirmation words. Metcalfe had entered a world of mirrors, a world fraught with dangers.

But Corky, even Corky, had no idea how fraught it was.

Rudolf von Schlissler reviewed the pages again. Amazing! Just amazing! The fruit of his own brilliance it was immodest of him to say so, but the recognition of opportunity was itself the sign of the superior intellectual: the Fuhrer himself had said no less. He had recognized the opportunity the fact that his darling

Red Poppy had access to documents on the highest, most privileged levels. And the fact that she had given them to him: proof of her love for him. She was helpless, smitten, devoted to him; despite her toned ballerina’s body, she was a frail creature. For in every way, she embodied the Ewig Weiblich the Eternal Feminine. It was her nature to give, as it was man’s to take. And soon Herr Hitler would be taking the empire that was rightfully his!

It would make von Schussler’s reputation. No, better, it would result in his being recognized. Recognized in turn. Recognized for what he truly was. He could picture the Knight’s Cross being pinned on his fine navy tunic. What Ludwig von Schiissler had gained through brawn and sheer, frontal audacity, his descendant had secured through cunning, wiles cerebral qualities, seemingly softer, but no less redoubtable for all that.

His heart was beating hard as he made his way down the corridor to Ambassador von der Schulenberg’s office suite. Nodding curtly at some of his colleagues, bustling about with blase looks, and barely turning his head, he recalled some of the condescending remarks he’d overheard from others in the Foreign Ministry, long before his Moscow posting. They’d look at him differently now. Information was what won wars! It was always thus knowledge of oneself, knowledge of the enemy. And the greater the level of detail, the more valuable the knowledge. His eyes scanned the top page of the sheaf of documents, the neatly typed rows of numbers. No longer would the OKW have to speculate and surmise about the nature of the Soviets’ military capability. Now they would know.

“I’m afraid Graf von der Schulenberg is occupied,” said the fat-necked frau who served as the ambassador’s own private Cerberus. Werner was always cordial to him, albeit with a slightly patronizing air… but certain of those who surrounded him could seem almost brusque, verging on discourtesy without ever providing cause for formal complaint. One couldn’t complain about a tone of voice, a quick eye roll, an expression of vague contempt: one would oneself seem foolish. Yet von Schiissler noticed these things. He noticed a great many things. It was precisely his capacity for observation and inference that had resulted in this this! the most valuable piece of intelligence that the Reich had yet received.

“Oh, is he now?” von Schiissler replied in the purring voice of absolute confidence. Occupied: it was how she always described him. It meant nothing: Was he in a meeting? Was he enjoying a glass of schnapps by himself? What was the point of saying he was “occupied”? Somehow she felt entitled to treat him with borderline rudeness. Well, that would soon change.

A quick on-off smile from the fat-necked Cerberus. “Occupied. Sorry, sir. I’ll tell him you came by.”

“Occupied or no, he’ll want to see me,” von Schiissler said. He knocked on the ambassador’s office door himself, before turning the polished brass knob and letting himself in. The ambassador’s office was large and stately, wood-paneled, its floor covered with the finest Oriental carpets. Soon enough, von Schiissler would be able to decorate his office in such a manner. Until now it would have seemed presumptuous. But after today, the proper, dignified decor would be only appropriate.

Count Werner von der Schulenberg was at his desk, hunched over a pile of bureaucratic forms, looking bleary-eyed and bored. A glass of brandy sat on one corner of his desk. He squinted in von Schiissler’s direction. “Rudi,” he said, sounding less than pleased. “What are you doing here?”

“I have something for you,” von Schiissler said, his face crinkling into a smile. “Something that will interest you. Indeed, something that will fascinate the Fuhrer himself.”