“The land of the free,” Amy murmured.
“Yes, yes it is,” her aunt insisted. “We should be grateful. I don’t care what they say. Anyone who helps the Germans should go to the electric chair.”
“But that’s what Amy’s saying. We’re fighting the Germans because they’re wrong, not because they’re Germans. It’s the wider morality that counts, not the nation that happens to represent it.”
If only you knew, Amy thought. She was fond, very fond, of her Uncle Harry, had been ever since her return from Germany in 1933, when he’d been so patient with her, so understanding, even though she’d told him hardly anything of what had happened. The fact that she’d worked through a lot of her pain in being like a second mother to his son, James, had brought them together. If she felt any regrets, they would be on his account. She knew how much he was going to be hurt by it all.
Her Aunt Bertha didn’t matter. They had never liked each other, never really pretended to. Amy thought it was jealousy, not of her but of her mother, Bertha’s sister. Elisabeth had died young, a heroine to some, leaving her memory to hang like an unliftable pall over Bertha’s more mundane existence and Amy to serve as a constant reminder. Now she might live to see her niece strapped into the electric chair. The chill of the thought couldn’t quite obliterate an almost pleasurable sense of irony.
Amy had thought about such consequences, not often, but she knew the possibility lay there at the back of her mind. Every time a German spy was caught and paraded across the newspapers and newsreels she pictured her own face in his or her place. People would spit on her picture, would press their ears to the radio for the details of her execution.
She knew it was real, but it didn’t seem so, not really. Fear, yes, an underlying fear, a subterranean darkness. But she could cope with it, she knew that much; she would hold herself together to the end. She had promised her mother, promised Effi. She was only offering up her life, like so many millions of soldiers, like James in France. The manner of the death was neither here nor there. What mattered was to be true.
“One more time,” Fyedorova asked him, “what’s wrong with Vladivostok?”
“I’m not convinced it’s the best solution to our problem,” Sheslakov muttered, tracing his finger across the Pacific on the wall map.
“But it is a simple answer.”
“Yes, it is,” he conceded.
“And that’s why you don’t like it.”
“No. It’s more than that.” He filled both their glasses with vodka and walked to the window. The streets were empty, but he thought he could make out a lightening of the sky above the cupolas of the Kremlin. A whole night they’d been going around in circles. A decision had to be made, but he felt too tired to make it.
Fyedorova swung her legs off the couch and leaned forward. “Right. Let me assume your usual role. Fact one — the earliest we can get a ship to Seattle or Portland is August 12. Fact two — the earliest we can get one there by the safe route is August 20. Fact three — if the Americans find one of our ships in mid-Pacific…”
“It’s a big ocean.”
“It’s still possible, and would be highly suspicious. Fact four — an August 20 arrival would leave our people and the material stranded in America for almost three weeks…”
“And then find the ship surrounded by American customs. If they’re tightening up at Great Falls, there’s no reason to suppose they aren’t tightening up everywhere…”
“Which is why we ruled out the Atlantic convoys.”
“Yes.”
“Well, we’ve still got to cross an ocean.”
“Apparently.” Sheslakov rubbed his eyes. “So, the short route or the safe route?”
“The short route,” she said.
“Zhdanov will want to play safe,” he said morosely.
“Zhdanov…” Fyedorova’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Oh yes, yes!” she said.
“What?” he asked irritably.
“I was talking to one of the secretaries at Trade about a year ago. Do you know how Zhdanov gets his Havana cigars?”
Kuznetsky’s train from Chicago pulled into Union Station early the next morning. He checked into a nondescript hotel on Massachusetts Avenue, shaved, and went out to shake the long train journey out of his limbs. He’d never been to Washington when he was young; in fact he’d never been farther east than Chicago, and the sights, familiar from school textbooks, seemed almost artificial, like life-size versions of photographs. At noon he put through a call to the prearranged number and informed the unknown answering voice that Rosa’s brother was in town. “Five o’clock,” the voice said, and the connection was cut.
He then walked to the Capitol, past the White House, and to the Lincoln Memorial. The sun seemed to get hotter by the minute, and he sat in the shade listening to the sightseers talking about Lincoln. He could tell that most of them seemed to come from the South, and few of them had anything complimentary to say.
Yakovlev arrived precisely on time, looking as hot as Kuznetsky felt. He was dressed American style, loose trousers, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, jacket thrown over one shoulder, a jaunty hat hanging on one side of his head. “Well, Comrade,” he said in thickly accented English, “how is Moscow?”
“Same as ever,” Kuznetsky replied. “Not as hot as this.”
“Ah, Washington was built on a swamp, you know.”
“Yes.”
Yakovlev took the hint. “It’s better we complete this quickly,” he said. “I won’t see you again — any problems, you have the telephone number. Call any hour, day or night.”
“We already have problems,” Kuznetsky said. He explained the situation at Great Falls.
Yakovlev swore in Russian, thought for a moment, and then shrugged. “That’s for Moscow to sort out,” he said. “Today is July 16 — there won’t be any word for at least a week. Start telephoning on the twenty-fourth. As for this end, everything is going as planned. The Germans arrive on the night of August 2, and all the advance work has been done. The July train ran as scheduled and the plan was checked through by Rosa and her friend from the Abwehr. They’re picking up the weapons Tuesday night. You meet her tomorrow, at the Tidal Basin, just west of the Jefferson Memorial, at six o’clock. She’ll be wearing a white blouse, burgundy suit, and carrying an orange.”
“I’ve seen her photograph.”
“Of course. Attractive, don’t you think?”
“So’s Ingrid Bergman,” Kuznetsky said dryly.
“I don’t think you’ll find Rosa lacking in other qualities,” Yakovlev said with a trace of irritation. “Now, what do you need?”
“A gun. Preferably a Walther automatic. A reliable car and enough gas coupons to run it.”
“There’s no difficulty there. The car is ready. It was hired in the Abwehr agent’s name last week. It will be left outside Union Station tomorrow morning at nine. The number, key, and coupons will be delivered to your hotel tonight. With the gun.”
Kuznetsky told him the address and got up to leave.
“Good luck,” Yakovlev said.
Kuznetsky had an enormous steak for dinner and then went into the first movie he could find. He got back to his hotel at around eleven, was handed a package by the night clerk, and persuaded the man to dig him out a bottle of ersatz whiskey. Once in his room, he inspected the gun, took off his clothes, and lay down on the bed with a glass of the amber fluid. It tasted awful, but he assumed it would eventually relax him.
He thought about the movie, had to admit that it had been an enjoyable enough piece of propaganda. The hero had not only discovered his sense of duty, but he’d also won the beautiful heroine as well. “You do know how to whistle, don’t you?” she’d asked him. Kuznetsky laughed. A partisan who didn’t know how to whistle wouldn’t last long. He remembered Bogdanov, who’d claimed he could imitate thirty-seven different species of birds. Dead now.