Six weeks passed like lightning. He clomped around with less and less difficulty and was able to do away with crutches. A wheelchair had long been abandoned. Then, at her insistence, he went back to the hospital. He was x-rayed and the cast on his arm was removed. As Stephanie had predicted, the x-ray of his ankle had revealed that the healing process was not complete.
“How long?” he had asked, remembering his mission.
The doctor had shrugged. “No way of knowing.”
Each day he called his unknown contact was a telling reminder of his involvement. He wished it were over. His relationship with Stephanie threatened to change everything. He felt he had been turned inside out, as if his meeting Stephanie were the start of a new life.
She was transferred to the dayshift, and they changed their routine, although the car remained their love chamber. For some reason, the night increased the intensity of their feelings. He spent his days anxious with expectation. Although he continued to make his daily call, the idea of his mission seemed to fade, then disappear. His past seemed like a dream. He paid little attention to current events. He couldn’t care less. His one focus, his one obsession was Stephanie Brown.
One night in January, they had parked on a deserted country road in Virginia. The air was crystal clear, and fresh snow began to fall on the windows of the car. The heater was on, and they felt encapsulated and alone. In the backseat, they made love.
“Frank, please. Now! I want the memory of this. I want to mark its significance. I want to seal our love.”
Love? The word frightened him. He had never before been confronted by the power of this emotion.
“Please — for us, darling. For me, this is the most important thing in my life.”
He was confused by her assertion. She maneuvered herself under him and inserted him. He felt the barrier, and she surged up to meet him. She groaned briefly, and the barrier gave way.
“Thank you, darling,” she whispered.
He felt her tremble.
Later, driving through the light snow toward Washington, she leaned against him.
“I love you, sweetheart,” she said.
He did not respond. To utter such a word would be a mark of hope for a future that he knew he yearned for desperately and for which he dared not hope — not yet.
She sighed, and caressing her face, he noted that she was crying.
“Tears?”
He felt her nod. He supposed they were tears of happiness; he was wrong.
“There are obstacles ahead, Frank.”
He didn’t understand.
“We come from different ends of the spectrum.”
“What does that mean?”
He was confused.
“I played with fire, but I couldn’t help myself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been less than forthright, darling. I’m not what I appear.”
He was tempted to say: Neither am I.
She was silent through a long pause.
“I’m Jewish, Frank. My family would never approve.”
Chapter 10
Dimitrov stamped his feet on the hardened snow outside Beria’s dacha thirty miles from Moscow. Despite his thick, fur-lined boots, fur hat with earlaps, and his heavy, fur-collared overcoat, his breath seemed to freeze in his lungs. From where he stood near the side entrance of the large dacha, he could see the high-voltage electrified fence through the tall evergreens that lined the property.
When summoned in this way and directed to the edge of the side porch, Dimitrov knew that Beria had something of extreme importance to impart. That they were to discuss this outdoors in subzero weather, free from any possibility of bugging devices, invested the subject matter with top-secret urgency.
Dimitrov had to pass through two gates guarded by more than a dozen NKVD uniformed soldiers at each gate. He presented his pass for careful scrutiny at both checkpoints. There were no exceptions to this procedure, despite Dimitrov’s confidential relationship and high rank. He ran what was often jokingly referred to as the “NKVD within the NKVD,” but everyone knew he was Beria’s man, even though Beria had theoretically given up the post as Stalin’s boss of the NKVD apparatus. Beria’s tentacles were everywhere, and with the exception of Stalin, his power was absolute.
He was now the man in charge of getting Russia the bomb. Stalin was obsessed with that mission, deeply angered by the Americans’ arrogance about their possession of it. According to Beria, who revealed this information to Dimitrov, Roosevelt had told Stalin in Yalta that they were working on this super bomb, and the American president had indicated that he would share it with the Soviets. Of course, that was at a time when the battle was still ongoing, and Stalin was pressing Churchill and Roosevelt for a second front while Russia was in agony. Things had changed considerably since the president’s untimely death. As for this new American president, it was still too early to tell if he would honor his predecessor’s intentions.
Dimitrov heard a door close and, turning, saw Beria step outside. Steamy vapor poured out of his mouth, and as he approached Dimitrov, he took off his pince-nez and wiped off the condensation, putting them on again in his one-handed way.
Moving his head in the direction of a partially snow-cleared trail that snaked through a thickly wooded forest of evergreens, Dimitrov took his place next to Beria, and the two men followed the path. Surrounding the house and eyeing the two men were a number of NKVD soldiers holding submachine guns at the ready. Beria took no chances. This was not the first time that the two men used the outdoors for their discussion. Beria was paranoid about bugging, which was ironic, since he was the champion bugger of them all. This was often a joke between them.
“Even paranoids have enemies,” Beria chuckled, as they moved deeper into the forest. At times, he often made jokes about himself. Dimitrov exhibited the required appreciation.
Dimitrov’s role was to eliminate obstacles in what they referred to privately as the offspring countries, those who were destined for growth within the Soviet family: Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, their part of divided Germany, their zone in Berlin, as well as Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.
According to Beria, who often shared this information with Dimitrov, everything was going well. The ranks of “antis”—thanks to Dimitrov’s dedicated actions — were thinning daily. Beria’s gratitude, expressed often, filled Dimitrov with pride and, of course, tangible honors.
Because of Dimitrov’s efforts, Beria stressed, the Soviets were pulling the strings in all the recently liberated countries, some of whose citizens were avid Nazi sympathizers who had mounted armed divisions in the service of Hitler’s cause. Under the guise of rooting out such elements, Dimitrov’s men showed no mercy and gave no quarter. The campaign, for reasons thoroughly and secretly explained by Beria, was to be deliberately kept clandestine. Stalin did not wish to be considered heavy-handed while enjoying the residual support of his wartime allies.
In terms of his career, Dimitrov had, indeed, picked the right horse. Not only was Beria in Stalin’s confidence, there was talk that at some point in the future he might be Stalin’s successor. Of course, such speculation was unspoken, although Beria often hinted at the possibility. Such hints raised Dimitrov’s expectations that he would one day take over the command of the entire NKVD apparatus.