The Colonel broke off, trying to order his thoughts. For some reason he had suddenly recalled an obscure incident from before the war, Stern's escape from a Damascus prison in the summer of 1939.
The episode had never made any sense to the Colonel, because Stern had been due for release from the prison within twenty-four hours.
Yet Stern had risked his life to escape. Why?
Later he had talked about it with Stern and Stern had turned the whole affair into a joke, moving around in his chair in his awkward way and belittling any courage it might have shown on his part, claiming simply that he had felt more useless than usual and had decided on a sudden whim to try to prove his superiority over his Syrian guards. Stern had even showed the Colonel the scars left by the thumbnail he had ripped away during the escape, clawing his way through some masonry, deep ugly scars slashing up the back of his thumb. The Colonel remembered how painful they had looked at the time, but Stern had dismissed them with a shrug.
It's nothing, Stern had said, laughing. Really painful wounds never bother with the body, do they? They cut deeper and the scars they leave are elsewhere.
And then they had gone on to talk of other things. But now the incident in Damascus troubled the Colonel and he began hunting through Stern's file. He seemed to recall that Stern had said he had gone to Haifa after the prison escape, and had hidden in Haifa until the war had broken out a few weeks later, turning everyone's attention elsewhere.
The Colonel stopped at a page in the file. He had found the corroborating evidence taken from the reports of other contacts that Stern had been in Haifa in August 1939. But when the Colonel looked at the evidence now, he realized that all the scattered bits and pieces of information had been provided by contacts who were known or suspected Zionist activists, involved with illegal immigration into Palestine.
The Colonel turned more pages in the file. Stern's unlikely adventure had also brought Poland to mind.
Why the association? Simply because the German invasion of Poland had followed so soon after Stern's escape?
No. There was a connection and he found it. A short paragraph from an informer's report to the Turkish police in Istanbul. To the effect that the informer had seen Stern in Istanbul shortly after his escape from Damascus. That Stern had been carrying a forged Polish passport and had been frantically arranging a secret trip to Poland. To the Pyry forest near Warsaw, on a mysterious mission of great importance.
Or so the informer had speculated, offering a personal opinion without a trace of evidence to back up his claim.
Under normal circumstances the Colonel would have smiled at these cobwebs of conjecture. The Turkish police were wildly inaccurate about everything, and Istanbul was notorious for its legions of aspiring informers who would gladly claim anything in exchange for a minor official favor. And in this case not even the informer's identity had been included in the report. Even the fact that the informer had subsequently been found dead floating in the Bosporus meant nothing, given the situation in Istanbul in that last summer before the war.
Pure invention from some desperate refugee. Ridiculous rumors whispered across a café table and set adrift in the clouded brain of a Turkish policeman lazily puffing hashish, dimly trying to focus his eyes on the crotch of a serving-boy across the way.
And yet?
The Colonel closed the file. He frowned.
Perhaps he had made a serious mistake in accepting Stern's explanation of what he had been doing in those last few days before the war began. Perhaps Stern had actually made a secret trip to Poland without telling anyone about it.
Why? wondered the Colonel. What did it mean and what had he been hiding? Why had he lied and taken such care to make sure his lie had been covered?
Stern had been unusually experienced and clever. He had been dedicated to a cause that was probably too idealistic ever to be realized, but the cause had still been straightforward and comprehensible, as splendid in its simplicity as Stern's ideals had been.
Or rather, as they had appeared to be. For it was obvious now that someone else had stumbled upon Stern's Polish adventure and had decided to look into it more deeply, and in so doing had caught a glimpse of something unexpected. A suggestion of some enigma, some profound truth, that must have subsequently been uncovered by the Armenian.
Who had then told Stern what he had discovered. Just before a hand grenade had come flying in through the door of a dingy Arab bar in a Cairo slum, and Stern had been killed saving the Armenian's life.
***
Where were we? asked the Colonel, looking up.
I'm not sure, replied the Major. You were talking about the important work Stern did for us, and then you seemed to have some doubts about something.
Yes, well, it's just that the situation isn't as clear in my mind now as it was. Because that seems to be the very nature of this operation. Somewhere a doubt arose, as I see it, a doubt with very serious implications. So a man who knew Stern from somewhere, an outsider, was recruited to come in and find out what he could about Stern.
That would be our Purple Seven, said the Major.
Yes, the Armenian. A professional who might have been a friend of Stern's once, or who might have worked with him at some point in the past. Possibly in Stern's gunrunning activities, without knowing they were just a cover for his role in intelligence. Well the Armenian went about his business and my guess is he was successful. Either he discovered the truth about Stern or he came close enough for it not to make any difference.
The Colonel leaned back. There was admiration and even a touch of awe in his voice.
My God, you just can't appreciate the enormity of that task without having known Stern. The layers to the man, the subtleties. He grew up in these parts and knew every language and dialect, every nuance, every corner and what lay around it. There was simply no competing with him out here. He could go anywhere and be anyone, and at one time or another he did seem to go everywhere and be just about everyone. As he wanted, as it served his purposes. Describe a tiny corner of the desert and he knew it.
Mention a shop hidden away in a bazaar in any of ten dozen towns and he'd been there, knew the owner.
An extraordinary experience, dealing with a man like Stern. And he was modest. You didn't even begin to sense the depths to the man until he happened to mention some unexpected thing in an offhand way.
The Colonel grimaced. He reached down and moved his false leg.
Anyway, the Armenian must have done whatever he did and then gone to Stern with what he'd learned, which is strange in itself. You'd think he would have gone first to the people who'd hired him, but obviously he didn't. Because if he had, those same people would now know that Stern is dead, and they don't. Not yet, because I haven't told them.
So the Armenian went directly to Stern, continued the Colonel, and that was the meeting in the Arab bar.
The Armenian got in touch with Stern and set up a meeting, and then he sat down in that bar and told Stern what he'd discovered, and it was the full truth or close to it. Which was what caused Stern to begin smiling halfway through their conversation. Because at last, after all these years of subterfuge, someone had uncovered the truth about him.
Stern's reaction to that would be to smile? asked the Major. Why not just the opposite?
I have no idea. It might have to do with who the Armenian is. The Armenian confronted Stern with the facts, in any case, and Stern's reaction was to smile with relief. That was the expression you used.
Jameson used, corrected the Major.
Yes, Jameson, our alter ego in this case. So we have Stern smiling and the Armenian not liking it at all, and that's when the conversation grew heated. The Armenian didn't agree with what Stern was doing, couldn't agree, and he argued about it. But Stern was confident. He was convinced of his rightness and he went on to justify himself. Your words again, or Jameson's rather. And that was where matters stood when the grenade came sailing in the door and Stern saved the Armenian's life.