Too Bad to Die

by Francine Mathews

  “Care for a drink?” she asked Sarah carelessly. The ambassador’s wife had pled a headache and escaped to her private rooms after dinner, leaving them alone in the salon. Wretched manners, Pamela thought, but perhaps the woman suffered from an inferiority complex. She was plain enough.

  “No, thank you.” Sarah closed the novel she was reading and rose from her chair. “It’s after ten. I think I shall retire.”

  Pamela surveyed the bottles on the drinks cart. A soda siphon. Whiskey. An indifferent sherry. What she wanted was a sidecar—or, barring that, pink gin. She wanted a silly little drink in a dark corner of Café de Paris, with Snakehips Johnson playing the latest tunes and Ed Murrow’s hand on her thigh.

  “Not waiting up for Winant?” she murmured, as she poured herself two fingers of whatever she could find. “He shall be disappointed.”

  “Don’t be vulgar, Pamela.”

  “Oh, dear.” She looked pityingly at Sarah. “Is Mrs. Oliver the Vaudeville Queen attempting to take the high road? Don’t make me laugh.”

  Sarah picked up her bag and wrap. “When are you going to ask my brother for a divorce?”

  Pamela took a stiff pull of her drink. “When I see him next. Whenever he gets leave.”

  When Ed finally tells Janet.

  “I’ll be counting the days.”

  Sarah swept through the doorway of the salon without a backward glance. It was the actress’s classic exit—on a good line. But Pamela didn’t have time to applaud.

  She gathered up her fur stole and evening bag and almost ran in her dance slippers to the embassy’s front hall. There was a porter there, writing something under a beam of light. He glanced up. Flushed dull red at the sight of her.

  “Would you be very kind,” she breathed, “and summon a taxi for me?”

  “A taxi, miss—ma’am? But . . .”

  “It’s rather urgent, you see.”

  They wouldn’t catch her waiting up for Ave. The good little woman sitting by the fire. She would have some fun if she died for it.

  —

  SAM SCHWARTZ hadn’t liked Michael Hudson’s hints this afternoon. The notion that he’d been gulled into placing the President of the United States in enemy hands was unnerving. He struggled against the fear it might be true. He considered himself to be well endowed with street smarts. A canny guy. He’d come up through the ranks of the Army, then a look-see with Hoover’s FBI, and finally the Secret Service, which he loved and which had rewarded his competence and loyalty. He was alive to the presence of evil in the world—but in his experience, it generally came from a fella with more firepower than brains. Hudson’s ideas were more complicated. He was a Yale man like so many of the new OSS people, and in some ways Schwartz thought he spoke a different language. He saw wheels within wheels, where Schwartz just saw . . . a truck.

  And Hudson’s whole take on things—the undercurrent of conspiracy—made Schwartz intensely uneasy. He preferred an enemy he could face to one he was expected to outmaneuver.

  When the Big Three convened that night for their first official dinner, he and Hudson were both shut out of the dining room. Schwartz immediately took a chair in the corridor and resigned himself to several hours of waiting. Hudson prowled, his hands shoved in his trouser pockets. At least four NKVD men pretending to be waiters were arranged around the hall. They never spoke to one another, nor did they speak to the Americans—but, like haunted portraits, their eyes followed wherever Schwartz or Hudson decided to go.

  “You’ve got a room in this place, right?” Hudson asked.

  “Upstairs.” Schwartz shrugged. “On the same hall as Colonel Roosevelt, Mr. Boettiger, and Mr. Harriman. The Chief’s down here. Easier on the wheels.”

  “Leahy? Marshall?”

  “At your hotel.”

  Hudson snorted. He strode down the hall and back, his glance flicking contemptuously to the spurious waiters. Abruptly, he crouched down by Schwartz’s chair. “Have you checked this place out yet?”

  Schwartz doubted the NKVD goons could hear them. But he made a show of removing his pack of cigarettes from his pocket all the same, and offered one to Hudson, who produced a lighter. They bent their heads toward each other.

  “I ran my fingers around the baseboard of the President’s room,” Schwartz murmured.

  Hudson emitted a particularly nasty laugh, as though Schwartz had said something dirty. One NKVD guy turned and fixed his gaze on them.

  “I need a diversion,” Hudson said softly, “without disturbing the President. Help me out?”

  “Sure.” Schwartz blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling, which was vividly painted. They might as well be in Rome, he thought, or any of those places where nymphs danced in the clouds and angels threw spears into the devil’s horns. The old Russians had done themselves proud. Or the old Persians. Hard to know who’d owned this palace originally. A whole lot of money had gone into it, regardless. Schwartz figured the nymphs and angels had been painted in blood. The more he saw of the Old World, the gladder he was that his grandfather had gotten the hell out of it.

  “When?” he murmured.

  “Anytime you like.”

  He rose from his chair, slapped Hudson on the shoulder, and stretched his arms over his head. The same NKVD guy—a hooked nose and a thatch of wheat-colored hair, eyes so light they might have been agates—glared at the two Americans. He’s the chief, Schwartz thought. Prizefighter, by the look of him. The rest of these goons take their orders from him.

  The man was holding yet another silver salver of ice water as though waiting to be summoned into the dining room. Condensation beaded the pitcher’s surface, a mist of cold. He had a napkin draped over his left arm.

  Schwartz sauntered toward the guy. He held out his pack of American cigarettes. “Have one, Comrade,” he said loudly. “Free. Like most things in life—for a good Communist.”

  No reaction.

  Schwartz took a drag on his cigarette, his eyes narrowed at the pseudo-waiter, hand still extended as though offering the pack. Without warning, he choked. Coughed. Rolled his eyes to the ceiling and scrabbled at the Russian’s coat. The pitcher of water flew upward into the man’s face just as Schwartz fell heavily against him. Schwartz had been a wrestler in college, and he made sure his center of gravity hovered right around the man’s groin.

  The Goon Chief doubled over, shaking the water out of his eyes and howling something in Russian. Schwartz slid into a heap at his feet. Two of the Russians came to the injured waiter’s side.

  “Jesus!” Hudson collided with the fourth as he headed in the opposite direction. “A doctor,” he said distinctly. “I’ll find a doctor.”

  He pelted down the corridor in the direction of Roosevelt’s suite.

  Schwartz did his best to look like he was dying. He writhed on the floor, spitting and gasping, his hands at his throat and his feet in the air.

  He might buy Hudson ten minutes.

  —

  IT TOOK Michael less than that to find what he was looking for.

  The microphones, he figured, were embedded in the walls or floor of Roosevelt’s suite. Probably behind the massive wardrobe thrust up against one wall or concealed in the overhead chandelier. He didn’t need to find them. All he needed was the listening post.

  It would be close to Roosevelt’s rooms—above, below, or beside them. He’d ruled out above—too much traffic upstairs with the rest of the Americans staying there. Roosevelt’s suite was in a corner of the building; on both sides were formal reception rooms with no sign of Stalin’s translators busily scribbling anything. That left Hudson with the basement.

  He made immediately for the staircase at the end of Roosevelt’s corridor. No one followed. But the place was crawling with NKVD; he’d have to seem anxious and confused if he ran into any of them. His feet slowed as he reached the last step.

 
; The embassy’s lower level was a service and support area—offices, storage rooms, communications equipment. The corridor in front of him was lined with closed doors and bisected by a second hallway. The electrical feed from the hidden microphone might run through Roosevelt’s bedroom floor to the room directly below it, or into the embassy’s Commo and Signals Room. Hudson would have to look for both.

  Where was Lavrentiy Beria tonight? The secret police chief was not included in the cozy dinner upstairs. Where was his son? Hudson had glimpsed the eighteen-year-old kid among the Soviet officials gathered to welcome Roosevelt earlier that day. He knew a little bit about Sergo Beria. The boy had graduated from a scientific academy; he spoke German, Georgian, Russian, and English. For the past two years he’d been part of the NKVD cell here in Tehran. A few months ago, Beria recalled his son to Moscow for fresh orders. It was no accident, Hudson thought, that Sergo had flown with Stalin to the Tripartite Conference. A spy who spoke English was essential.

  There was no one in the corridor in front of Hudson. But he could hear voices in the distance, a guttural Slavic rumble. He did not have much time.

  He quietly turned the knob of the first door in the hallway. A storeroom. Uniforms. Shoes. He went on and turned another two. Office supplies. Medical supplies. A large room ranged with typewriters that he guessed was for clerical workers. Canned goods. He reached the cross passage and hesitated. He hated blind corners.

  Look anxious and confused. He swung into the side hall as innocently as possible.

  Three men stood in the corridor, staring back at him. Only one wore a waiter’s uniform. The other two were in dark suits.

  Soviet diplomats.

  “Doctor?” he called urgently.

  Without pausing for a reply, he turned the knob of the nearest door and peered inside. Nothing.

  The three men lunged toward him. The NKVD man was reaching for his gun.

  Hudson reached for the door opposite.

  Pay dirt.

  A single lamp floodlit a bare desk. He saw a pad of paper. A silhouette in earphones, transcribing something.

  “Doctor?” Hudson said loudly.

  The silhouette swiveled and pulled off the headset.

  Sergo Beria.

  A hand gripped Hudson’s shoulder painfully and jerked him backward.

  He pivoted and nearly fell into the muzzle of a gun.

  “Hey,” he said indignantly. “A guy’s sick upstairs. I need a doctor. Doktor,” he added, with more emphasis, leaning in to the waiter’s face.

  The guy bared his teeth and thrust his gun close to Hudson’s ear.

  “You must go.” This, from one of the Suits. He was barely a foot away. Although his features were devoid of expression, his manner was menacing. “It is not permitted. Go.”

  “But he’s having a fit.” Bewilderment. Helplessness. “Right outside the dining room.”

  “You will show me.”

  The Suit made a slight movement with his head, and the NKVD gun was lowered. “Come.”

  Without touching Hudson, he suggested that Michael was entirely in his power as they marched back up the corridor and stairs. Hudson said nothing. They passed Roosevelt’s suite and swept into the hall outside the dining room.

  Schwartz was smiling benignly in a chair, his tie loosened and a glass of vodka in his hand.

  “Hey, Mike,” he crowed, “where you been all this time?”

  —

  THERE HAD BEEN eleven of them at dinner that night, but the party felt smaller. The three heads of state, of course; two ambassadors to the Soviet Union; a translator for each man; and Harry Hopkins. Churchill had brought Anthony Eden, his Foreign Secretary. Stalin had Molotov at his side. Only the three who counted really talked—and their translators. The rest crumbled bread and murmured appreciation for the quality of the food. A surprise, given the privations the Soviet Union had endured. Nobody said this out loud.

  Roosevelt excused himself early that evening. He felt sick to his stomach, although he would never broadcast that to Stalin. He grinned and lifted his hand and allowed Chip Bohlen to say all that was proper in Russian to Uncle Joe. Then Harry wheeled him out of the room and down the corridor—Sam Schwartz was nowhere in sight—to his private apartments.

  “Nice of you to give Winston some time alone with the Bear,” Hopkins said.

  “Bohlen will take notes on everything they say. Get me a basin, Harry, will you?”

  He vomited into his own shaving cup. Hopkins hovered gauntly, saying nothing. “Jesus, I’m sorry,” Franklin said.

  “That’s okay. You done?”

  He nodded. Hopkins took the basin away. Roosevelt heard the sound of running water and a toilet flushing from the bathroom. Good old Harry. He’d been with him from the start. Whenever he needed someone to be his legs, it wasn’t his Vice President or his Secretary of State—it was Hopkins, traveling to London to reassure Churchill, or to Moscow, to glad-hand Uncle Joe. The whole business would be harder when Harry was gone.

  Hopkins handed him a handkerchief from his own pocket. Like most things Harry wore, it wasn’t particularly clean. Franklin wiped his mouth anyway and sighed.

  “I guess the Nazi commandos poisoned you,” Harry joked. “I’ll call a press conference and make Uncle Joe’s day. You okay?”

  “Better, now.”

  “Want some water?”

  “That’d be grand.”

  He drank it down and removed his spectacles, pressing his fingers onto his eyes. “Aside from making me sick as a dog, I’d say the dinner went well.”

  “Uncle Joe sure hates the French,” Harry said.

  “And the Germans.”

  “Don’t we all. But Stalin wants to tear apart both countries when the shouting’s done. I loved it when Winston said he couldn’t conceive of a civilized world without a flourishing and lively France. He’ll start World War Three if Stalin ever threatens what really matters—Bordeaux, Champagne, and Burgundy.”

  Franklin smiled. “Some people think we started this war over Polish vodka.”

  A knock. Hopkins crushed out his cigarette and went to the door.

  “Sam,” Franklin said, with a feeling of relief. His bodyguard’s absence had been troubling him obscurely, a question on the fringes of his mind.

  Schwartz crossed the room quickly, a dispatch box in his hands. During this protracted trip, Roosevelt’s official business was flown in to every city he visited, for review and signature; Schwartz must have brought today’s packet from the legation’s diplomatic pouch.

  “Put it down on the table, please.”

  “Certainly, sir.” Schwartz deposited the box, sliding a single sheet of paper from the interior as he did so. With an eloquent grimace, he gestured toward it. Then he put his finger to his lips.

  Frowning, Roosevelt took the sheet.

  CAREFUL, it said in a scrawl of block capitals. HE’S LISTENING TO EVERY WORD YOU SAY.

  CHAPTER 21

  I like what you’ve done with the place.” Ian’s eyes roamed over the stone walls of the bazaar’s upper chamber. It was lit by two small windows set high near the ceiling, one of a warren of rooms connected by tunnel-like passages. An oil lamp burned on a broad wooden table and a few high-backed chairs were ranged against the walls. A samovar was steaming in the corner, and for an instant he was swept back to London and the Bohemian studios of his mother’s friends, the stout talk of world revolution that was such a persistent cliché of the Thirties, the overheated atmosphere and the clouds of pungent smoke. Always there had been a samovar in a corner, a nod to the host’s Red sympathies.

  Arev had led them swiftly into the NKVD headquarters, which was blocked off from the bazaar’s broader humanity by massive wooden doors hinged and locked in iron. Every few yards the greeting party passed an armed sentinel, who saluted their leader. None of these women
or men—Ian saw both—wore the NKVD field uniform of sage-green wool. No rank was obvious, except for that lightning-swift salute for the boy swaggering ahead.

  It feels more like a rebel band, he thought, than an arm of the Soviet state. He should consider the possibility that Nazir and Siranoush had deceived him about their allegiance, for reasons of their own. For the moment, however, he brushed conspiracy aside and tried to concentrate on the passages, in case he needed to retrace his steps. Hopeless, of course. If events turned against him he would die here in the bowels of Persia, and his body would be discovered weeks later at the bottom of a cistern.

  They had fetched up in this room at last, Siranoush standing mutely by Arev’s side and Ian flanked by two of Arev’s men. In front of them, seated at the broad table in one of the high-backed chairs, was someone who at last looked like a commander. He had Arev’s hooked nose but was altogether much fleshier. His grizzled hair and mustache were ragged and untrimmed. He was missing the index finger of his left hand. He did not acknowledge them, but continued to scan a sheaf of papers on the table before him.

  A ferret was crouched on his shoulder.

  From time to time, he reached up with his mutilated hand and fondled its head.

  “Thank you,” he said at last. This was a reply, Ian realized, to his muttered I like what you’ve done with the place. “It is sufficient to our purpose.”

  He held the papers to the flame of the oil lamp and tossed them, burning, to the stone floor. No one moved. He rose and poured a glass of tea from the samovar.

  “Barer dzez, Siranoush. Vonts ek?” he said, offering her the glass.

  She took a sip of it. “Vochinch.”

  He did not offer Ian a drink. He launched instead into what sounded like an interrogation—entirely in this language that was unfamiliar but just might be, Ian thought, Armenian or Kazakh or some other tongue of the Caucasus. One word was thrown repeatedly in his general direction: Angliatsi. Englishman?

  Siranoush remained self-possessed. Unruffled. She drank her tea between answers.

  The men at Ian’s side moved closer. He felt claustrophobic, hemmed in by these watchers as he’d been in the bazaar—at any second he might crack from the tension and bolt for the door.