by Ken Follett
He was following Barney McHugh.
So was an FBI agent called Bill Bicks.
Barney McHugh was a brilliant young physicist. He was on leave from the US Army’s secret laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and had brought his British wife to Washington to see the sights.
The FBI had found out in advance that McHugh was coming to the concert, and Special Agent Bicks had managed to get Greg two seats a few rows behind McHugh’s. A concert hall, with hundreds of strangers crowding together to come in and go out, was the perfect location for a clandestine rendezvous, and Greg wanted to know what McHugh might be up to.
It was a pity they had met before. Greg had talked to McHugh in Chicago on the day the nuclear pile was tested. It had been a year and a half ago, but McHugh might remember. So Greg had to make sure McHugh did not see him.
When Greg and Margaret arrived, McHugh’s seats were empty. Either side were two ordinary-looking couples, a middle-aged man in a cheap grey chalk-stripe suit and his dowdy wife on the left, and two elderly ladies on the right. Greg hoped McHugh was going to show up. If the guy was a spy Greg wanted to nail him.
They were going to hear Tchaikovsky’s first symphony. ‘So, you like classical music,’ said Margaret chattily as the orchestra tuned up. She had no idea of the real reason she had been brought here. She knew that Greg was working in weapons research, which was secret, but like almost all Americans she had no inkling of the nuclear bomb. ‘I thought you only listened to jazz,’ she said.
‘I love Russian composers – they’re so dramatic,’ Greg told her. ‘I expect it’s in my blood.’
‘I was raised listening to classical. My father likes to have a small orchestra at dinner parties.’ Margaret’s family were rich enough to make Greg feel a pauper by comparison. But he still had not met her parents, and he suspected they would disapprove of the illegitimate son of a famous Hollywood womanizer. ‘What are you looking at?’ she said.
‘Nothing.’ The McHughs had arrived. ‘What’s your perfume?’
‘Chichi by Renoir.’
‘I love it.’
The McHughs looked happy, a bright and prosperous young couple on holiday. Greg wondered if they were late because they had been making love in their hotel room.
Barney McHugh sat next to the man in the grey chalk stripe. Greg knew it was a cheap suit by the unnatural stiffness of the padded shoulders. The man did not look at the newcomers. The McHughs started to do a crossword, their heads leaning together intimately as they studied the newspaper Barney was holding. A few minutes later the conductor appeared.
The opening piece was by Saint-Saëns. German and Austrian composers had declined in popularity since war broke out, and concertgoers were discovering alternatives. There was a revival of Sibelius.
McHugh was probably a Communist. Greg knew this because J. Robert Oppenheimer had told him. Oppenheimer, a leading theoretical physicist from the University of California, was director of the Los Alamos laboratory and scientific leader of the entire Manhattan Project. He had strong Communist ties, though he insisted he had never joined the party.
Special Agent Bicks had said to Greg: ‘Why does the army have to have all these pinkos? Whatever it is you’re trying to achieve out there in the desert, aren’t there enough bright young conservative scientists in America to do it?’
‘No, there aren’t,’ Greg had told him. ‘If there were, we would have hired them.’
Communists were sometimes more loyal to their cause than to their country, and might think it right to share the secrets of nuclear research with the Soviet Union. This would not be like giving information to the enemy. The Soviets were America’s allies against the Nazis – in fact, they had done more of the fighting than all the other allies put together. All the same it was dangerous. Information intended for Moscow might find its way to Berlin. And anyone who thought about the postwar world for more than a minute could guess that the USA and the USSR might not always be friends.
The FBI thought Oppenheimer was a security risk and kept trying to persuade Greg’s boss, General Groves, to fire him. But Oppenheimer was the outstanding scientist of his generation, so the General insisted on keeping him.
In an attempt to prove his loyalty, Oppenheimer had named McHugh as a possible Communist, and that was why Greg was tailing him.
The FBI were sceptical. ‘Oppenheimer is blowing smoke up your ass,’ Bicks had said.
Greg said: ‘I can’t believe it. I’ve known him for a year now.’
‘He’s a fucking Communist, like his wife and his brother and his sister-in-law.’
‘He’s working nineteen hours a day to build better weapons for American soldiers – what kind of traitor does that?’
Greg hoped McHugh did turn out to be a spy, for that would lift suspicion from Oppenheimer, bolster General Groves’s credibility, and boost Greg’s own status too.
He watched McHugh constantly throughout the first half of the concert, not wanting to take his eyes off him. The physicist did not look at the people either side of him. He seemed absorbed in the music, and only moved his gaze from the stage to look lovingly at Mrs McHugh, who was a pale English rose. Had Oppenheimer simply been wrong about McHugh? Or, more subtly, was Oppenheimer’s accusation a distraction to divert suspicion away from himself?
Bicks was watching, too, Greg knew. He was upstairs in the dress circle. Perhaps he had seen something.
In the interval, Greg followed the McHughs out and stood in the same line for coffee. Neither the dowdy couple nor the two old ladies were anywhere nearby.
Greg felt thwarted. He did not know what to conclude. Were his suspicions unfounded? Or was it simply that this visit by the McHughs was innocent?
As he and Margaret were returning to their seats, Bill Bicks came up beside him. The agent was middle-aged, a little overweight, and losing his hair. He wore a light-grey suit that had sweat stains under the armpits. He said in a low voice: ‘You were right.’
‘How do you know?’
‘That guy sitting next to McHugh.’
‘In a grey striped suit?’
‘Yeah. He’s Nikolai Yenkov, a cultural attaché at the Soviet Embassy.’
Greg said: ‘Good God!’
Margaret turned around. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ Greg said.
Bicks moved away.
‘You’ve got something on your mind,’ she said as they took their seats. ‘I don’t believe you heard a single bar of the Saint-Saëns.’
‘Just thinking about work.’
‘Tell me it’s not another woman, and I’ll forget it.’
‘It’s not another woman.’
In the second half he began to feel anxious. He had seen no contact between McHugh and Yenkov. They did not speak, and Greg saw nothing pass from one to the other: no file, no envelope, no roll of film.
The symphony came to an end and the conductor took his bows. The audience began to file out. Greg’s spy hunt was a washout.
In the lobby, Margaret went to the ladies’ room. While Greg was waiting, Bicks approached him.
‘Nothing,’ Greg said.
‘Me neither.’
‘Maybe it’s a coincidence, McHugh sitting by Yenkov.’
‘There are no coincidences.’
‘Perhaps there was a snag. A wrong code word, say.’
Bicks shook his head. ‘They passed something. We just didn’t see it.’
Mrs McHugh also went to the ladies’ room and, like Greg, McHugh waited nearby. Greg studied him from behind a pillar. He had no briefcase, no raincoat under which to conceal a package or a file. But all the same, something about him was wrong. What was it?
Then Greg realized. ‘The newspaper!’ he said.
‘What?’
‘When Barney came in he was carrying a newspaper. They did the crossword while waiting for the show. Now he doesn’t have it!’
‘Either he threw it away – or he passed it to Yenkov, with something concealed inside.
’
‘Yenkov and his wife have left already.’
‘They may still be outside.’
Bicks and Greg ran for the door.
Bicks shoved his way through the crowd still filing out of the exits. Greg stayed close behind. They reached the sidewalk outside and looked both ways. Greg could not see Yenkov, but Bicks had sharp eyes. ‘Across the street!’ he cried.
The attaché and his dowdy wife were standing at the kerb, and a black limousine was approaching them slowly.
Yenkov was holding a folded newspaper.
Greg and Bicks ran across the road.
The limousine stopped.
Greg was faster than Bicks and reached the far sidewalk first.
Yenkov had not noticed them. Unhurriedly, he opened the car door then stepped back to let his wife get in.
Greg threw himself at Yenkov. They both fell to the ground. Mrs Yenkov screamed.
Greg scrambled to his feet. The chauffeur had got out of the car and was coming around it, but Bicks yelled: ‘FBI!’ and held up his badge.
Yenkov had dropped the newspaper. Now he reached for it. But Greg was faster. He picked it up, stepped back, and opened it.
Inside was a sheaf of papers. The top one was a diagram. Greg recognized it immediately. It showed the working of an implosion trigger for a plutonium bomb. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘This is the very latest stuff !’
Yenkov jumped into the car, slammed the door, and locked it from the inside.
The chauffeur got back in and drove away.
(iii)
It was Saturday night, and Daisy’s apartment in Piccadilly was heaving. There had to be a hundred people there, she thought, feeling pleased.
She had become the leader of a social group based on the American Red Cross in London. Every Saturday she gave a party for American servicemen, and invited nurses from St Bart’s hospital to meet them. RAF pilots came too. They drank her unlimited Scotch and gin, and danced to Glenn Miller records on her gramophone. Conscious that it might be the last party the men ever attended, she did everything she could to make them happy – except kiss them, but the nurses did plenty of that.
Daisy never drank liquor at her own parties. She had too much to think about. Couples were always locking themselves in the toilet, and having to be dragged out because the room was needed for its regular purpose. If a really important general got drunk he had to be seen safely home. She often ran out of ice – she could not make her British staff understand how much ice a party needed.
For a while after she split up with Boy Fitzherbert her only friends had been the Leckwith family. Lloyd’s mother, Ethel, had never judged her. Although Ethel was the height of respectability now, she had made mistakes in her past, and that made her more understanding. Daisy still went to Ethel’s house in Aldgate every Wednesday evening, and drank cocoa around the radio. It was her favourite night of the week.
She had now been socially rejected twice, once in Buffalo and again in London, and the depressing thought occurred to her that it might be her fault. Perhaps she did not really belong in those prissy high-society groups, with their strict rules of conduct. She was a fool to be attracted to them.
The trouble was that she loved parties and picnics and sporting events and any gathering where people dressed up and had fun.
However, she now knew she did not need British aristocrats or old-money Americans to have fun. She had created her own society, and it was a lot more exciting than theirs. Some of the people who had refused to speak to her after she left Boy now hinted heavily that they would like an invitation to one of her famous Saturday nights. And many guests came to her apartment to let their hair down after an excruciatingly grand dinner in a palatial Mayfair residence.
Tonight was the best party so far, for Lloyd was home on leave.
He was openly living with her at the flat. She did not care what people thought: her reputation in respectable circles was already so bad that no further damage could be done. Anyway, the urgency of wartime love had driven many people to break the rules in similar ways. Domestic staff could sometimes be as rigid as duchesses about such things, but all Daisy’s employees adored her, so she and Lloyd did not even pretend to be occupying separate bedrooms.
She loved sleeping with him. He was not as experienced as Boy, but he made up for that in enthusiasm – and he was eager to learn. Every night was a voyage of exploration in a double bed.
As they looked at their guests talking and laughing, drinking and smoking, dancing and smooching, Lloyd smiled at her and said: ‘Happy?’
‘Almost,’ she said.
‘Almost?’
She sighed. ‘I want to have children, Lloyd. I don’t care that we’re not married. Well, I do care, of course, but I still want a baby.’
His face darkened. ‘You know how I feel about illegitimacy.’
‘Yes, you explained it to me. But I want some part of you to cherish if you die.’
‘I’ll do my best to stay alive.’
‘I know.’ But if her suspicion was correct, and he was working undercover in occupied territory, he could be executed, as German spies were executed in Britain. He would be gone, and she would have nothing left. ‘It’s the same for a million women, I realize that, but I can’t face the thought of life without you. I think I’ll die.’
‘If I could make Boy divorce you I would.’
‘Well, this is no kind of talk for a party.’ She looked across the room. ‘What do you know? I believe that’s Woody Dewar!’
Woody was wearing a lieutenant’s uniform. She went over and greeted him. It was strange to see him again after nine years – though he did not look much different, just older.
‘There are thousands of American soldiers here now,’ Daisy said as they foxtrotted to ‘Pennsylvania Six-Five Thousand’. ‘We must be about to invade France. What else?’
‘The top brass certainly don’t share their plans with greenhorn lieutenants,’ Woody said. ‘But like you I can’t think of any other reason why I’m here. We can’t leave the Russians to bear the brunt of the fighting much longer.’
‘When do you think it will happen?’
‘Offensives always begin in the summer. Late May or early June is everyone’s best guess.’
‘That soon!’
‘But no one knows where.’
‘Dover to Calais is the shortest sea crossing,’ Daisy said.
‘And for that reason the German defences are concentrated around Calais. So maybe we’ll try to surprise them – say by landing on the south coast, near Marseilles.’
‘Perhaps then it will be over at last.’
‘I doubt it. Once we have a bridgehead, we still have to conquer France, then Germany. There’s a long road ahead.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Woody seemed to need cheering up. And Daisy knew just the girl to do it. Isabel Hernandez was a Rhodes Scholar doing a Master’s in history at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. She was gorgeous, but the boys called her a ball-buster because she was so fiercely intellectual. However, Woody would be oblivious to that. ‘Come over here,’ she called to Isabel. ‘Woody, this is my friend Bella. She’s from San Francisco. Bella, meet Woody Dewar from Buffalo.’
They shook hands. Bella was tall, with thick dark hair and olive skin just like Joanne Rouzrokh’s. Woody smiled at her and said: ‘What are you doing here in London?’ Daisy left them.
She served supper at midnight. When she could get American supplies it was ham and eggs; otherwise, cheese sandwiches. It provided a lull when people could talk, a bit like the interval at the theatre. She noticed that Woody Dewar was still with Bella Hernandez, and they seemed to be deep in conversation. She made sure everyone had what they needed then sat in a corner with Lloyd.
‘I’ve decided what I’d like to do after the war, if I’m still alive,’ he said. ‘As well as marry you, that is.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going to try for Parliament.’
Daisy was thrilled. ‘Ll
oyd, that’s wonderful!’ She put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
‘It’s too early for congratulations. I’ve put my name down for Hoxton, the constituency next to Mam’s. But the local Labour party may not pick me. And if they do I may not win. Hoxton has a strong Liberal MP at the moment.’
‘I want to help you,’ she said. ‘I could be your right-hand woman. I’ll write your speeches – I bet I’d be good at that.’
‘I’d love you to help me.’
‘Then it’s settled!’
The older guests left after supper, but the music continued and the drink never ran out, so the party became even more uninhibited. Woody was now slow-dancing with Bella: Daisy wondered if this was his first romance since Joanne.
The petting got heavier, and people began disappearing into the two bedrooms. They could not lock the doors – Daisy had taken the keys out – so there were sometimes several couples in the same room, but no one seemed to mind. Daisy had once found two people in the broom cupboard, fast asleep in each other’s arms.
At one o’clock her husband arrived.
She had not invited Boy, but he showed up in the company of a couple of American pilots, and Daisy shrugged and let him in. He was amiably squiffy, and danced with several nurses, then politely asked her.
Was he just drunk, she wondered, or had he softened towards her? And if so, might he reconsider the divorce?
She consented, and they did the jitterbug. Most of the guests had no idea they were a separated husband and wife, but those who knew were amazed.
‘I read in the papers that you bought another racehorse,’ she said, making small talk.
‘Lucky Laddie,’ he said. ‘Cost me eight thousand guineas – a record price.’
‘I hope he’s worth it.’ She loved horses, and she had thought they would buy and train racehorses together, but he had not wanted to share that enthusiasm with his wife. It had been one of the frustrations of her marriage.
He read her mind. ‘I disappointed you, didn’t I?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘And you disappointed me.’
That was a new thought to her. After a minute’s reflection she said: ‘By not turning a blind eye to your infidelities?’
