CHAPTER SIX

It was very early in the morning when Metcalfe finally returned to his apartment, on the fifth floor of a Belle Epoque building on the rue de Rivoli. It was a large and lavish flat, expensively furnished, as befit the international playboy that was his cover. Several of his neighbors were high-ranking Nazi officials who had seized apartments in the building from Jewish owners. They appreciated the convenience of having this wealthy young Argentine living nearby, who could procure for them the unobtainable luxuries, and so of course they left “Daniel Eigen” alone.

At the front door to his apartment, he inserted the key in the lock and then froze. He felt a tingling sensation, some kind of premonition. Something that told him that all was not quite right.

Quietly he pulled the key out, then reached up to the top of the door, where it jutted out an eighth of an inch. The pin he placed there whenever he left was gone.

Someone had been in his apartment.

No one but he had the key.

Although he was exhausted, having been up the entire night, his every instinct was now fully alert. He backed away from the door, looked both ways down the dark, empty corridor, then placed an ear against the door to listen for a few seconds.

He could not hear any sound, but that didn’t necessarily rule out the possibility that someone was inside.

In all his time in Paris, this had not happened before. He had lived his cover, attending dinners and parties, having lunch at Maxim’s or the Chez Carrere in the rue Pierre Charron, and conducting his affairs, and all the while collecting sensitive intelligence on the Nazis. Never had he had even an inkling that he might have been suspected. His apartment had never been searched; he had never been taken in for questioning. Perhaps he had grown complacent.

But something had changed. The evidence of that was as minute as the absence of a pin atop his front door. But it meant something. He was sure of it.

He touched the ankle holster under his trousers, assuring himself that the compact .32 caliber Colt pistol was in place, ready to whip out if he needed it.

There was only one entrance to his apartment, Metcalfe reflected. No, not quite. Only one door to his apartment.

Silently, swiftly, he ran down the hallway to the end. The casement windows there were rarely opened except on the most sweltering of summer days, but he had tested them, knew they worked. Always know your exits, Corky had drummed into him from day one of his training on the farm in Virginia.

The volets, the wooden shutters, were always left open to let in the light. He peered out, confirmed his recollection that a fire escape ran along this side of the building, accessible through the windows here. There was no one in the alley that he could see, but he would still have to move fast. The sun had risen; it was a bright, clear morning, and he risked being seen.

Moving quickly, he twisted the lever of the cremone in the center where the windows met. The rack and pinion assembly turned with a soft moan. He opened the windows inward, reached up to the sill, and climbed out onto the iron railing of the fire escape.

Stepping gingerly along the icy, slick iron slats, he made his way around until he reached the window that he knew opened into his bedroom. It was, of course, locked, but he always carried with him his trusty Opinel penknife. Having satisfied himself that there was no one in the bedroom, he slid in the blade and pried the lock, then worked the cremone open. Quiet, he commanded himself. He had oiled the window locks not that long ago, so he was able to work without making much of a sound, but it was not silent. Perhaps the slight scrape of the window opening would be masked by the ambient noise from the street. He stepped down into his bedroom, landing softly on his feet, crouching slightly as he touched down to minimize the sound of the impact. Now he was inside. He stood still for a moment, listening. He heard nothing.

Then something caught his eye: something subtle, imperceptible to anyone else. It was the gleam on the top of his mahogany credenza, the sun reflecting off the burnished surface.

There had been a fine layer of dust there this morning no, it was yesterday morning already. The Provencal woman who came in to clean twice a week wasn’t due in until tomorrow, and in this old apartment dust tended to settle quickly. Metcalfe hadn’t polished it, of course. Someone had wiped it down, no doubt in order to eliminate any traces of a search. Someone had been here, he now knew for certain.

But why? The Nazis didn’t break into apartments in Paris, as a rule. Furtive entry was not their modus operandi. When they conducted their house-to-house searches for criminals, for British servicemen in hiding, it was almost always in the middle of the night, yes, but always in the open. And always with a pretense of legality. Papers were produced, signatures waved about.

Who, then, had been here?

And: Was it possible that the intruder was still here?

Metcalfe had never killed anyone. He was entirely comfortable with the use of a gun, going back to his boyhood days on the estancia in las pampas. At the training farm in Virginia, he had been trained in the lethal techniques. But he had never had the opportunity to shoot a man to death, and it was an opportunity he was not looking forward to.

Still, if he had to, he would.

But he would have to be extraordinarily careful. Even if there was an interloper in his apartment, he could not fire unless his life was threatened. Far too many questions would arise. If he killed a German, the questions would not stop. His cover would be blown for sure.

His bedroom door was closed, and that was another thing. He always left it open. He lived alone, and when he was not there, there was no reason to close his bedroom door. The little things, the tiny unnoticed habits. They made up a scrim of normalcy, a mosaic of everyday life. And now that mosaic had been disturbed.

Approaching the bedroom door, he stood still and listened for a minute. Listened for the creak of footsteps, the movements of a stranger who did not know which floorboards squeaked. But nothing: not a sound.

Standing to one side of the doorway in a sniper stance, he turned the knob and pulled the door open slowly, let it swing open. His heart hammering, he stared into the living room, waiting for a minute shift in the light, a movement in the shadows, expecting it.

Now he shifted his gaze, sweeping the room, pausing at the places where someone might try to hide, assuring himself that no one was there. He reached for his gun, withdrew it from the holster.

Suddenly he stepped into the room, gun extended, and said, “Arret!”

Whipping his body from one side to the other, he thumbed the safety, cocked the hammer by pulling back the slide, and prepared to fire.

The room was empty.

No one was there. He was fairly certain of it. He did not sense the presence of an intruder. Still, keeping the weapon pointed, he swiveled from side to side, advancing along the wall until he reached the door to the small library.

The door was open, as he had left it. The library really just another, smaller sitting room furnished with a desk and chair and lined with books was empty. He could see every inch of the room; there were no hidden corners.

But he would take no chances. He raced to the kitchen, pushed open the double doors, entered with his weapon extended. The kitchen was empty, too.

He searched the potential hiding places that remained the dining room, the pantry, his large clothes closet, a broom closet and satisfied himself that they were all empty.

He relaxed his vigilance a bit. No one was here. He felt a little foolish, but he knew he couldn’t take chances.

Returning to the living room, he noticed another tiny change. It was his bottle of Delamain Reserve de la Famille Grande Champagne Cognac on the bar. The label normally faced out; now it faced in. The bottle had been moved.

He opened his ebony cigarette box and saw that the double layer of cigarettes had been shifted as well. The gap in the row of cigarettes had been third from the end; now it was fifth from the end. Someone had taken out the cigarettes to search underneath for what? Documents? Keys? He concealed nothing there, but the intruder didn’t know that.

Other traces. The switch on the antique brass lamp was now on the right, not on the left, indicating that someone had lifted it to search its base. A good hiding place, but not one he used. The telephone handset had been hung up differently, so that the cloth-wrapped cord now hung on the opposite side from the way he had left it. Someone had picked up the phone for some reason: To make a call? Or simply to move the phone in order to look inside the chest on which it rested? The heavy ornate marble mantel clock above the fireplace had been shifted a fraction of an inch: the dust outline told the tale. The search had been remarkably thorough: even the ashes in the fireplace had been swept aside and then moved back; someone had looked in the ash box, another clever hiding place he hadn’t used.

Now Metcalfe raced to the clothes closet, in the alcove off his bedroom. His suits and shirts still hung in the proper order, though the precise gaps between the hangers were different. Obviously someone had carefully removed his clothes and searched pockets.

But he, or they, had apparently not noticed the compartment that had been skillfully built into the wall by one of Corky’s craftsmen. He slid the panel open, revealing the heavy iron safe. Its dial still pointed to the number seven, and the fine patina of dust had not been disturbed here. The safe, which contained cash, encoded telephone numbers, and various identity papers in different names, had not been touched. That was a relief.

Whoever had searched his apartment so thoroughly and with such neatness had not discovered his safe, the only evidence that Daniel Eigen was in fact the cover of an American spy. And they hadn’t learned his true identity.

They had not found what they were looking for.

But… but exactly what were they looking for?

Before leaving his apartment, he placed a trunk call to Howard in New York.

His brother was surprised, if pleased, to hear from him. He was even more surprised at Stephen’s sudden interest in the family’s manganese mining concession in Soviet Georgia, which the Metcalfes still operated in partnership with the Soviet Ministry of Trade. It was a minor operation, and with all the Soviet restrictions and the necessary payoffs it barely eked out a profit. The Russians had long expressed an interest in buying the Metcalfes out. Stephen suggested that maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe he could go to Moscow, meet with some people, and further the discussion. After a long silence the hiss of the transatlantic call loud Howard understood what his brother was asking. He promptly agreed to make arrangements. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I am,” Howard said dryly, “that my baby brother wants to play a more active role in the family business.”

“You shouldn’t have to shoulder all the burden.”

“I don’t suppose a certain ballerina has anything to do with this resurgence of interest in business, right?”

“How dare you impugn my motives,” Metcalfe replied, a smile in his voice.

He changed quickly out of his tuxedo, putting on the more casual suit and tie of the international businessman he pretended to be. Fortunately, the fashion in the last few years had been loose, almost baggy trousers: they concealed the revolver, whose holster he strapped to his ankle.

He walked out of his building into the bright, cold morning, unable to suppress a feeling of dread.

About an hour later he was sitting in the dark nave of a gloomy, decrepit church in Pigalle. Barely any light filtered through the grimy stained-glass window in the apse. The only other parishioners here were a few old women, who knelt, prayed briefly, and lit candles. The place smelled, not unpleasantly, of matches and beeswax candles and sweat.

This small church had been neglected for years, but at least it had survived the Nazi invaders. Not that they had demolished any buildings in Paris, nor had they destroyed or even shut any churches. Far from it. The Catholic Church had struck its own, separate accommodation with the Nazi occupiers, hoping to safeguard its rights by accepting the new dictators.

Once again he felt for his gun.

Now, Metcalfe noticed a cassocked priest in a Roman collar, his rail-thin figure mostly concealed beneath the loose black vestments, enter and kneel at the statue of a saint. He lit a candle and then got to his feet. Metcalfe followed him to the ancient door that led to the underground crypt.

The small, dank room was dimly lit by a hanging overhead fixture. Corcoran removed the hood of his cassock and sat at a small round table next to an unfamiliar man. He was a fireplug of a man: short, ruddy-faced, rumpled. His shirt collar was too tight, his necktie too short, his suit jacket cheap and ill-fitting.

Next to the elegant, gaunt Corky, he looked markedly out of place.

“James,” Corcoran said pointedly to Metcalfe. “I want you to meet Chip Nolan.”

Interesting: Corcoran had called him by a fake name. Of course, Corky was famously paranoid, always making sure one hand never knew what the other hand was doing. He wondered whether “Chip Nolan” was a real name, either.

Metcalfe shook the smaller man’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

Nolan’s grip was firm; his clear eyes regarded him steadily. “Same here. You work in the field for Corky, that’s all I know. But it’s enough to impress the hell out of me.”

“Chip’s on loan from the FBI to our Technical Section. An expert on flaps and seals, and technical equipment.”

“You’re going to Moscow, huh?” Nolan said, lifting a large, heavy leather suitcase from the floor and placing it on the table. “I don’t know beans about your assignment, and that’s the way we’re gonna keep it. I’m here to outfit you, give you all the toys you might need. The bag of tricks, we like to call it.” He ran his hand over the worn hide of the case. “This is yours, by the way. A gen-u-ine Soviet suitcase, made in Krasnogorsk.” He popped open the case, revealing a row of neatly folded clothing, including a suit, all of it wrapped carefully in tissue paper. “Real Soviet clothing,” Nolan went on. “Manufactured at the October Revolution Textile Factory and bought at GUM, the Soviet department store on Red Square. Artificially aged and distressed, though. The Roos-kies don’t exactly get to buy duds often, so they have to wear stuff far longer than we Americans do. Everything’s been tailored to your exact measurements.” He unwrapped a pair of cheap-looking brown shoes. “These fellas here are the real thing as well. Believe me, you can’t buy shoes as lousy as this in the West. And the first thing the Russians look at is your shoes, you’ll see. That’s how they can spot a foreigner right away.”

Metcalfe glanced at Corky, whose expression seemed distant,

as if he weren’t quite there. “Actually, I’m not going to be infiltrated into Russia in the guise of a native,” he said. “I’m going in the open, in the clear as myself.”

Corcoran cleared his throat. “You’ll be arriving as yourself, James, that’s true. But you never know all the eventualities. Always know the exits. You may well need to become someone else.”

Metcalfe nodded. The old man was, of course, right.

Nolan next produced a subminiature camera, which Metcalfe recognized as a Riga Minox. He nodded, no explanation needed. The FBI man pulled out a pack of playing cards, fanning them out on the table. “Get a slant at these.”

“What are they?” Metcalfe asked.

“Top-secret map of Moscow and its environs. You don’t want to be caught with a map over there, or they’ll toss you in the Lubyanka and throw away the key. Sandwiched in between the front and back of each playing card is a numbered section of map. Just peel off the face of the card. You can rub off the excess rubber adhesive with your thumb.”

“Clever,” said Metcalfe.

The FBI man produced an assortment of concealed weapons, all of which Metcalfe had seen before: a wrist pistol, a webbed belt whose buckle contained a modified .25 caliber Webley pistol, activated by a length of cable. He then took out a canvas shaving kit, unzipped it, and pulled out a razor and shaving brush. Nolan rolled the ivory shaving brush across the table, and Metcalfe picked it up, examined it. Metcalfe tried to twist the handle, to pull it apart, but it appeared to be solid. “You can leave that in your hotel room without worrying about it,” Nolan said. He grabbed it back, then twisted the handle clockwise, revealing a cavity from which he removed a rolled-up sheet from a onetime pad, a system of encoding messages that was impossible to crack. Metcalfe nodded; he had been trained in the use of onetime pads. “Printed on cellulose nitrate, so it’s highly flammable, for rapid destruction if you gotta screw.”

Nolan took out a tube of Ipana toothpaste from which he squeezed out a white ribbon. “The Ivans aren’t going to suspect it’s mostly hollow.” He tugged at the crimped tinfoil end of the tube and withdrew a bladder from which he pulled out a rolled-up silk foulard. A dense grid of numbers had been printed on it. Metcalfe recognized it as a key list, printed on silk for ease of concealment. He nodded.

“More one-time pads in this. You smoke?” Nolan produced a pack of Lucky Strikes.

“Not often.”

“You do now. More often. Another key’s in here.” Nolan showed him a fountain pen. Then Nolan placed another suitcase onto the table. This one was a fine leather Hermes case. “For when you travel as you, an American.”

“I’ve got a case, thanks.”

“Concealed in the brass fittings of this one, buddy, are the key components of a radio transmitter. Without them, the transmitter won’t work.”

“What transmitter?”

“This one.” Nolan hoisted a third leather suitcase onto the table. This one appeared to be quite heavy. He unbuckled it, revealing a black steel box with a wrinkle finish. “The BP-3,” he announced proudly. “The most powerful two-way communicator ever built.”

“It’s one of the first prototypes,” Corky said. “Built by a group of Polish emigre geniuses for MI-6, but I managed to get them first; don’t ask me how. This makes everything else obsolete. All those other machines are now museum relics. But please, do guard it with your life. You can be replaced, but I’m afraid this device cannot.”

“It’s true,” Chip Nolan said. “It’s a pretty nifty toy. And in Moscow, you’ll need it. So far as I know, the only other way to communicate with home base is the black channel, right?”

Nolan looked at Corky, who simply nodded.

“But that’s to be used only in an emergency. Otherwise, there’s this, or encrypted messages passed through trusted intermediaries.”

“Are there any?” Metcalfe said. “Intermediaries I can trust, I mean.”

“There’s one,” Corcoran put in at last. “An attache at our embassy whose name and contact information I’ll give you. One of mine. But I want to warn you, James. You’re on your own over there. No backup.”

“And if something goes wrong?” Metcalfe said. “You’re always saying know your exits.”

“If anything goes wrong,” Corcoran said, drawing himself up within his cassock, “you’ll be disavowed. You’ll have to fend for yourself.”

A few minutes later the FBI man left. Corcoran took out a pack of Gauloises and a box of matches, scowling. Metcalfe, remembering, took a pack of Lucky Strikes out of his pocket and placed it in front of his mentor.

“No Chesterfields on the market these days,” Metcalfe said, “but I figured this is better than nothing.”

Corky unwrapped the pack without saying a word, though his faint smile revealed his pleasure. Metcalfe told him about the break-in at his apartment.

After a long silence, Corcoran said, “This is concerning.”

“You’re telling me.”

“It may be nothing more than an overly exuberant Gestapo. You are, after all, a well-traveled foreigner automatic grounds for suspicion. Yet it might be a symptom of something more.”

“A leak.”

Corcoran inclined his head slightly. “Or a penetration. Despite my insistence upon compartmentalization, I have no doubt that lines are crossed, things are said, security is compromised. All we can do at this point is stress vigilance. I don’t imagine this Moscow mission will be easy for you.”

“Why do you say that?”

Corcoran pulled a cigarette from the pack and, striking a match deliberately, lit it. “This woman, this ballerina she was someone important to you once, was she not?”

“At one time, yes. No longer.”

“Ah, I see,” Corcoran said with a cryptic smile as he inhaled a lungful of smoke. “Now she’s just part of your long history of romantic entanglements, is that it?”

“Something like that.”

“So seeing her again in the arms of another man won’t be trying?” He held the smoke in his lungs for a long while.

“You’ve given me far more difficult assignments.”

“But never a more important one.” Finally he exhaled. “Stephen, do you understand the gravity of what you’re about to do?”

“Put that way,” Metcalfe said, “no, I suppose I don’t. Even if von Schiissler turns out to be genuinely anti-Hitler and willing to betray his own government which is a lot to hope for then he’ll be just one more source. I’m sure we have others.”

Corcoran shook his head slowly. The old man looked even gaunter than when Metcalfe had last seen him, in New York. “If we hit the jackpot and you’re able to turn him, Stephen, he will be one of our most important lines into the German High Command. He’s close to the German ambassador to Moscow, Count Werner von der Schulenberg. His family is upper-class, terribly well connected you know what that’s like.” He chuckled dryly. “They look down their noses at this rabble-rousing Viennese upstart Adolf Hitler. They all have contempt for the Fuhrer. But they’re all German patriots at the same time. Quite ornate.”

“If von Schiissler’s a German patriot, as you suspect, he’s hardly going to betray his own country in the midst of a war. Fuhrer or no Fuhrer.”

“His allegiances may turn out to be more complex than they appear on the surface. But we don’t know until we try. And if we you succeed, the intelligence he may be able to provide will be astonishing indeed.”

“The intelligence on what, exactly? Even a highly placed diplomat in the Foreign Ministry isn’t going to be privy to the military strategy of Hitler’s inner circle,” Metcalfe countered. “He’s not going to know the details of the Nazi plans for the invasion of England.”

“Correct. But he will be quite well informed about the state of relations between Germany and the Soviet Union. And this is where our only hope lies.”

Metcalfe shook his head, uncomprehending. “They’re allies. Since last year, Hitler and Stalin are partners in this goddamned war. What more can we possibly learn?”

Corcoran shook his head sadly, as if disappointed. “They’ve signed a scrap of paper. A treaty. But a treaty is like a mirror, Stephen. One sees in it what one wishes to see.”

“You’ve just gone over my head, Corky.”

“Hitler offers Stalin a piece of paper to sign, a paper that says we’re friends, our interests coincide, we’re partners. But what Stalin sees in that treaty is what he wishes to see: a reflection of his ambitions, his hopes, his aspirations. And what Stalin sees reflected in that treaty is not necessarily what Hitler sees in it. Hitler may see a different vision entirely. And we, the onlookers, the rest of the world, we may choose to see reflected in this mirror a pact between two villains genuinely joining together in larceny, or a game of deception in which one is attempting to outmaneuver the other. Why does a mirror reverse left and right but not up and down?”

“You know I’m not much good at your riddles, Corky.”

Corcoran sighed in exasperation. “It doesn’t, Stephen. A mirror doesn’t reverse left and right. It merely shows what it sees. It reflects what’s in front of it.”

Metcalfe nodded again. “You want to know what the Russians are thinking about the Germans, and what the Germans are thinking about the Russians. That’s the truth you want to learn, correct?”

Corcoran smiled. “Truth is the shattered mirror. Strewn in myriad bits. Each believes his little bit is the whole truth. If you’ll permit me to paraphrase Sir Richard Francis Burton’s version of the stanzas from the Kasidah of Haji Abdu.”

“I’ll permit it,” Metcalfe said. Corky was often reciting a few lines from that Persian panegyric.

“The alliance between those two tyrants,” Corky said, “is the great mystery of the war. It is of the utmost importance. You remember the Peloponnesian Wars, Stephen?”

“I’m afraid that was a bit before my time, old man. You must have been in knee pants yourself.”

Corcoran gave a thin smile. “Athens survived only because of discord between their two most formidable enemies.”

“You’re saying there’s some kind of rift developing between Germany and Russia?”

“I’m saying I’d like to find out if there is. That would be valuable intelligence indeed. And our only hope, really.”

Metcalfe’s furrowed brow told his mentor that he didn’t quite follow. Corcoran went on: “While Hitler was busy fighting Britain and France, the Russians were sending iron and rubber, grain and cattle. The Russians were feeding Hitler’s soldiers and supplying his army. Bear in mind, Stalin’s own people were starving while he was selling Hitler thousands of tons of grain! These two tyrants have divided Europe between themselves, now they plan to divide up the British Empire, and together they plan to rule the world.”

“Come on, Corky. They’re not going to be dividing up the British Empire. Churchill’s resolve seems pretty firm to me.”

“He’s as firm in his resolve as a leader can be. But there’s only so much he can do in the face of an enemy as overwhelming as the Nazis. When he says he has nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat well, I take him at his word. England has little else. Its very survival is in serious doubt.”

“But you believe Stalin really trusts Hitler?” Metcalfe shot back. “Those two madmen are like scorpions in a bottle!”

“Indeed, but they need each other,” Corcoran said, exhaling smoke through his nostrils luxuriantly. “They have much in common. They’re both totalitarians. Both untrammeled by any concern for individual freedom. The alliance between the two was a stroke of genius. And it’s not the first time. Look at what happened in the last war, Stephen. When Russia realized it was losing to Germany, it signed a separate peace with Germany at Brest Litovsk. And then spent the next decade secretly rearming Germany, in absolute violation of the Treaty of Versailles. It’s thanks to Russia that we face such a formidable enemy today.”

“You don’t think Hitler’s just biding his time, waiting to attack Russia when the time is right? I’d always thought Hitler despises the Slavs, the Commies. I mean, look at what he wrote in Mein Kampf “

“We know he’s not planning an attack. We have intelligence, sporadic but reliable, from Hitler’s inner circle, indicating such. Hitler’s no fool. For him to launch a war against Russia while at the same time fighting the rest of the world well, that would be utter madness, a deathblow to the Nazi cause. For us, it would be too good to be true. And I’ll tell you something else that’s really agitating me just now. I’m getting a lot of pressure on the home front from people in military and intelligence circles who believe that Hitler isn’t really the main enemy anyway.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They consider the Bolsheviks to be the real threat and regard Adolf Hitler as an important bulwark against them.”

“But how how can anyone believe Hitler’s anything other than a bloodthirsty tyrant?” Metcalfe asked.

“Many people prefer the comforting lie,” Corcoran said. A sardonic smile played on his lips. “I learned that lesson quite early, when I was a child and my aunt died. They told me she’d ‘gone to a better place.” “

“How do you know they were lying?” Metcalfe needled the old spymaster.

“You didn’t know my aunt,” Corcoran replied.

Metcalfe appreciated the old man’s mordant wit, all the more at a time of such tension. “All right,” he said. “What are my arrangements?”

“I want you to leave Paris tomorrow,” Corcoran said crisply. “Do us a favor and forgo the good-byes to your string of lovers. No one must know where you’re going. Feel free to write postcards, which we’ll have mailed from the Canary Islands or Ibiza. Let them think the elusive and glamorous Mr. Eigen was called away abruptly on pressing business. No one will raise an eyebrow.”

Metcalfe nodded. Corcoran was right, of course. Better to avoid explanations. Tomorrow! That meant there would be no time to return to Flora Spinasse and get her list of personnel at the German embassy in Moscow: a loss, but not insurmountable.

“You’ll be traveling on the Chemin de Fer du Nord from the Gare du Nord to Berlin, and thence to Warsaw. A first-class berth has been reserved for you under the name of Nicolas Mendoza. There you’ll exit the Warszawa Centralna station, return two and a quarter hours later, and board the train for Moscow under the name of Stephen Metcalfe. You’ve reserved a room at the Metro-pole.”

Metcalfe nodded. “Papers?”

“You have contacts here. We don’t have time to get them produced by my people and sent from the States.”

“Not a problem.”

“You will have your work cut out for you. The stakes are immensely high, so no more of your hotheaded show boating There’s a good deal that can go wrong.”

“I ask you again: What if something does?”

Corcoran adjusted his chasuble. “If anything goes wrong, Stephen, I suggest you pray.”