Last Night of the World

by Joyce Wayne

  “The Soviets, the Brits and the Americans will support you at the UN. You’ve done nothing dishonourable.” Grierson was confident, but Ellery believed differently.

  Oleg poured more wine for Ellery and Grierson as they spoke of the dangers Homer posed. I covered my glass with my hand. Homer had stood as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Washington for much of the war. In the summer of 1945, he was acting as Secretary of the Combined Policy Committee on atomic energy matters, a joint committee of Americans, Brits and Canadians in Washington. If, as Zabotin warned, it was discovered that he was run by the Soviets, Homer might crack.

  Ellery explained to Grierson that although Homer didn’t relay technical information to Moscow about atomic secrets, he did report on the progress of the scientists at Los Alamos, and his intelligence was encrypted, and sent directly to Zabotin, who in turn, transmitted it to the Centre. Ellery didn’t know if the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa used the same Soviet encryption method as the one the Americans were about to break. If so, Homer’s messages to Zabotin could be translated by the de-coders in Washington. “We’ll be exposed,” he whispered to Grierson, “on matters of atomic espionage.”

  Grierson took a long drink of his wine.

  “You could help us, Miss Linton,” Ellery said, finally turning to me and offering me more wine. “I’d be grateful if you could find out how Zabotin transmits his cables to the Centre. Does he use the wartime encryption code or the Soviet diplomatic pouch? Could you find out?”

  I said I would try.

  “Security at the Ottawa embassy is impenetrable, and even if the code is broken, we were working to defeat the Germans, not endangering the Allies,” said Grierson, but again Ellery disagreed.

  “No John, everything is up for grabs now that the Americans have exploded two atomic bombs. Understand that Soviet hotheads, excuse me Miss Linton, believe they must replicate the device to maintain the balance of power. What will happen to me, to us, if Washington cracks the Soviet code? Apparently the Nazis knew it for years. A pro-Nazi Norwegian decoded it for the Germans. That’s how Washington got their hands on it, through this Nazi who needed to get out of Norway after the Germans surrendered. The Americans welcomed him.” Once Ellery starting talking, it was hard for him to stop.

  “Eventually the FBI or this new organization, the Central Intelligence Agency, will figure out that it was Homer who passed the information to Zabotin who in turn passed it on to Moscow. I helped Homer to gather that information and I assured Zabotin that he was safe to send it from Ottawa to Moscow. It was my duty. Churchill was holding back financial and military support to the Russians. Otherwise the Allies would have lost the war.”

  Ellery put his head in his hands. “My appointment as Secretary-General will look like a Communist plot. I’ve spent the entire war easing relations between the West and the Soviet Union. So did you, John. Now we’ll be ruined.”

  “Did Homer send the actual formula for the bomb, or the drawings themselves?” Grierson asked.

  “God no, not the drawings or the actual formula. As I said, nothing highly technical. I don’t believe Homer or Zabotin or any other Soviet operator outside Los Alamos is privy to that.”

  Grierson threw back the remainder of his wine. “Freda, what about your friend, Harry Vine? Wasn’t he in Los Alamos?”

  Ellery was curious about Vine. “Who is he? One of Zabotin’s boys?”

  I couldn’t believe our best-kept secrets were being discussed in front of Ellery.

  “They go way back. Vine, Zabotin and Freda hail from the same village, a God forsaken place near the Soviet-Polish border. Could you elaborate, Freda?” Grierson asked me.

  “John is correct. The three of us come from Nesvicz, a village inside the Pale, but it’s not important.”

  “You’re an odd triangle, aren’t you?” John liked to talk. “Zabotin and Vine can’t stand the sight of each other from what I’ve gathered.”

  “We’re from a different world than you are,” I commented, trying to put an end to this line of conversation.

  Ellery asked me if I knew what transpired on Vine’s trip to Los Alamos, but I said I didn’t know.

  “Could you find out, could you ask your friend Vine? Our continued anonymity depends on me knowing the facts.”

  “I’ll ask,” I assured him.

  After that, the two men placed their linen napkins on their seats as they stood up to leave the Club. I followed suit. On the way out, Ellery invited Grierson to his lodge on Pink Lake for the Labour Day weekend. “Our sainted cook is spending the summer with Patsy at the lake house and you’ll enjoy the roast beef and her storied maple syrup pie.”

  “How’s Patsy?” Grierson asked kindly.

  “I suspect she’ll spend a great deal of the weekend in her bedroom,” Ellery replied. Ellery shook my hand and disappeared into his waiting limousine.

  Grierson’s car and driver were resting across the street under the shade of a tree, and he offered me a lift back to the office, but I declined. “Spend the weekend with your friend,” I said curtly. “I have work to do.”

  I walked back to the Party office where I painstakingly jotted down whatever I could remember from the luncheon conversation. Then I translated my notes into Soviet code and destroyed the originals. The Chairwoman of the Canada-Russian Friendship Association pretended that she wasn’t interested in what I was scribbling and as I was stuffing the encryption in the prescribed drop, she looked down at her desk loaded with photos of a smiling Tim Buck and Stalin shaking hands. I told her to remain at the office until a courier from the embassy picked up the drop, and like the good comrade she was, she nodded her head in acquiescence.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Friday night

  August 31, 1945

  Ottawa

  The weather changed after I returned to my flat on Florence Street. The sun retreated behind the clouds and a blanket of hot, humid air was hanging over the Ottawa Valley. No one, except spies and journalists, worked late on Friday during the summer in Ottawa. It was the last long weekend of the season and the civil servants were heading up to their cabins on the other side of the river in Quebec. Parliament would re-convene after Labour Day.

  I considered walking over to the Soviet Embassy, but Zabotin didn’t appreciate it when I made unscheduled visits. Neither of us thought his wife Lydia knew about our trysts at the safe house or the Château Laurier, but there were others at the embassy who did. If Gouzenko was one of them, I didn’t wish to give him more ammunition.

  I found Vine at the Florence Street flat. I’d expected him to be gone or to give me the cold shoulder, but he opened a bottle of cheap red and a packet of liver pâté from Bousey’s, the market on Elgin Street. We spread it on the black bread I’d bought at the Rideau Bakery on my way home from the Laurier Club.

  By midnight the temperature inside my flat was thirty-three degrees. The living room was an oven, and with Vine and me attempting to be civil to each other, it became unbearable. I suggested we take our sheets and pillows outside onto my little balcony facing the Ottawa River. We both felt it that night: the improbable stillness. Zabotin hadn’t contacted me, not since receiving my notes from the luncheon with Ellery and Grierson. The weather report said the summer heat was expected to break around midnight.

  In the early hours of the morning, Grierson phoned from Ellery’s lodge. I’d gone swimming there with him during the war when Ellery was in Washington. It was the most peculiar lake in Canada. The upper warm and lower cold waters did not mix. Only a three-spined sea creature was able to withstand the temperature shock of the disparate waters.

  I asked Grierson why he was calling me at 3 a.m. He said Ellery’s wife, Patsy, was raging and no one could sleep. Everyone in Ottawa knew Patsy drank and that the diplomat tried to keep her hidden away at the lake and far from cocktail parties.

  “What else?” I asked Grierson.

  “Convince Vine to stay in Ottawa. Zabotin wouldn’t want him in Chalk River wi
th Alan Nunn May, not right now. It could be dangerous if our scientist was seen with a stranger, a foreigner at that. We need to know what Vine found out when he was at Los Alamos and who’s privy to that intelligence. Who has seen it other than Zabotin? Have you found out how Zabotin transmits his findings to Moscow? By wire, by courier? How?”

  I didn’t bother asking him how he knew that Vine had been scheduled to be at the atomic laboratory in Chalk River or if he knew the exact nature of the visit. “Why shouldn’t he go?” I asked. Grierson didn’t know that Zabotin had already cancelled his trip.

  Grierson was distraught. “Homer claims it is not safe.”

  I assured him I would be speaking with the rezident before the weekend was over.

  I wanted to tie it all together, Ellery and Zabotin’s outpouring about the encryptions, Vine’s cancelled visit to Chalk River, but I began to worry that the RCMP might be listening in. “I’ll talk to Zabotin,” I said again and hung up.

  I was wearing a white cotton nightgown. Vine could see me standing beside the desk light with the receiver in my hand.

  “It was Grierson. He thinks you shouldn’t go to Chalk River.”

  “You didn’t tell him that Zabotin cancelled my trip?” Vine asked.

  “Not on the phone. Grierson is with Ellery at Pink Lake. They had lunch together. I was invited to sit in and Ellery claimed that Homer is worried that Washington will decode the cables he transmits to Zabotin. You do know about Homer?”

  Vine was stunned by this revelation. “Fred Rose mentions Homer. It makes him feel important.” Vine grimaced. “We’re finished. We’ll be exposed. Fuchs’ drawings of the bomb, the ones I brought back from New Mexico, Zabotin must have sent them to Homer and to Moscow. And any information I’ve uncovered about a prototype reactor and heavy water at Chalk River from Nunn May, that will be exposed as well.”

  “It’s possible.” I couldn’t tell him that Zabotin had never sent Fuchs’ drawings to the Director, and he certainly would not have wired them to Homer as an afterthought.

  I worried about how much we were revealing by speaking so openly. All this talk on the telephone and in my apartment had to stop. The world was changing so fast. I was trying to convince Vine to be more careful, when he unexpectedly began chanting in Yiddish, as if the old language would shield him from harm. “Since the destruction of the Temple, prophecy has been taken away from the prophets and given to madmen and children. I learned that long ago in Nesvicz,” he sang, rocking back and forth as if he were praying.

  Climbing back onto the balcony, we pulled the white sheets around us. Cold air was blowing in from the north. We were solitary ghosts, caught up in our private fears, careening in the black Ottawa night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Saturday morning

  September 1, 1945

  Ottawa

  Before daybreak, Grierson rang again. This time he asked me to join him at Pink Lake, explaining that Ellery requested to speak with me in person and that it was urgent. Ellery offered to send his chauffeur in one hour and I agreed. Vine didn’t try to stop me, but he did ask if Grierson knew about the missing cryptograms from the safe at the Soviet Embassy.

  “If he doesn’t, he will before long.”

  Vine shook his head in dismay. “Zabotin should warn Moscow so the politburo has time to react.”

  “Let Zabotin be the judge of that,” I said firmly.

  “He knows how serious the breach is,” he urged. “He should not delay. It will only make things worse for us.”

  “Give Zabotin a chance to recover the cables before he alerts Moscow.”

  Vine didn’t agree. “What if there’s no time?” he asked. “Maybe we should pack our bags.”

  “Where will we go?” I asked Vine. “Who will take us in?”

  “What if we return to Nesvicz?”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “Sit tight,” I cautioned him. “Wait until I’m back from Ellery’s lake house. Zabotin will attend the Labour Day celebration at the Gouzenko’s. Svetlana Gouzenko prepares the best potato perogies in town. We don’t want to miss that.” I was surprised at how practical I was becoming.

  I wanted to hold my own at Ellery’s, so I quickly curled my hair, applied my brightest lipstick and placed a double row of pearls around my neck. The ones Zabotin had presented to me for my birthday.

  The drive into the Gatineau Hills gave me courage. Across the Ottawa River and into the sultry hills of Quebec, where the trees grew tall in a thousand shades of green and the lakes were cold and mysterious. How could anything go wrong amidst this delicate beauty?

  I prepared what I should say while revealing as little as possible. I couldn’t tell Grierson or Ellery that Zabotin hadn’t sent Fuchs’ drawings to Moscow. I didn’t want this information to get back to Homer via Ellery and risk Zabotin being betrayed to the Centre. I took it for granted that by this time Zabotin would have reviewed my notes from the Laurier Club as well as debriefed Oleg. He would know everything of importance and would be planning his next move.

  Ellery greeted me at the door and ushered me into the front room of the house where Grierson sat beside an open window that overlooked Pink Lake. He rose when I entered.

  It wasn’t a grand parlour, not the least bit ostentatious. For a second, I remembered my first conquest, Klopot the haberdasher, and his red-and-black bedroom, decorated in the taste of Odessa. Here the dimensions were shapely, the colours muted. It was expensive, filled with paintings of the Canadian landscape, accented by buttery-tan leather and maple wood furniture. The walls and floor were polished pine; the rugs Turkish and the lamps made of brass. Although it was warm, a delicate fire burned in the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace. Shards of burned paper were disintegrating in the glow. A red telephone sat on the end table beside Ellery’s rocking chair.

  Since I was wearing three-inch heels, Ellery did not ask me to climb down to the lake with him. Patsy, his wife, was still asleep and “under the weather,” according to Grierson.

  He took my hand. He was too polite to mention my shoes, but I could see that he was amused by my attempt to overdress. I realized that I looked like a version of Klopot’s bedroom to these men.

  Before speaking again, Ellery closed the door to the kitchen and the window beside Grierson. “The situation is dire, my dear. Homer tells us that there is a mole at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa and he’s contacted British intelligence. The mole has been trying to persuade MI6 to get him out of Canada.”

  I felt the ground moving below my feet. The same sensation I had when Zabotin first told me about Gouzenko’s recall to Moscow. What Zabotin didn’t know was that the cryptographer had already made plans to defect before he was recalled by the GRU.

  Ellery continued. “Apparently Homer’s handler in London reports that the mole wants out of Canada on a diplomatic passport. He’s looking for a safe haven in England, but neither Homer nor MI6 can promise that. We’re fucked. Excuse me, my dear,” Ellery said clearing his throat.

  “I’ve heard worse,” I admitted.

  Ellery began to pace. “There’s this clever young woman at the State Department in D.C. She’s working with the Nazi who originally decoded the Soviet cyphers during the war. The Norwegian, I spoke about yesterday. The operation is labelled Venona and I suspect Washington already knows more than we could have imagined. For now they aren’t letting on. Homer believes the mole here wants to expose you, your entire group in Ottawa. He can prove that atomic secrets have gone between the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa and Moscow.” Ellery stopped when we heard Patsy calling to him from the bedroom.

  “Put her down to sleep,” Ellery ordered the cook, who came into the parlour looking for instructions.

  “Homer will be exposed. I’m sure of it,” said Ellery as he continued to pace the room. “The role he’s played with the Manhattan Project, with Fuchs and Nunn May. He’s the go-between for all that and Zabotin—and, ultimately, the Director in Moscow. Miss Linton, you must tell Zabotin to get Nunn
May back to Britain, where he’ll by protected by our friends.”

  “I can do that,” I said immediately. “The mole must be Igor Gouzenko,” I added. “He’s in charge of the cipher room at the embassy. He’s been recalled to Moscow.”

  Grierson’s hands began to shake. “And you know this how?”

  “Zabotin told me,” I said.

  “We can’t be kept in the dark about this. Does Zabotin realize what danger we’re in?”

  “I don’t know what Zabotin realizes,” I replied. “How could I?”

  Grierson and Ellery looked at each other. Grierson guessed that I’d spent the night before last with Zabotin. I suppose he’d told Ellery about my roaming affections.

  “Do you understand how serious this is, Freda?” Grierson asked me. “And for Vine. What did he conclude from his visit to Los Alamos? Did he have information for Zabotin?

  “I wouldn’t know,” I lied. “Why don’t you ask Zabotin yourself, or Homer? You’re such good friends.” At that moment, I looked at Grierson with contempt.

  “You can help us,” Ellery stated.

  “How? The two of you will be protected. Possibly Homer will be saved by his English friends. Like him, your lives will continue, perhaps with less grandeur, but they will continue. Particularly you, Mr. Ellery. The prime minister championed you. He’d have egg on his face if you were seen aiding the Communists. And John, how would the government appear if the head of the Wartime Information Bureau turned out to be a Soviet operative? I bet the Canadians will try to cover up their mistakes in your case.”

  The two men were silent.

  “Have you thought about the rest of us? Vine, Sybil Romanescu, Fred Rose. Even Zabotin. And me. What will happen to us? Do you believe that Moscow will rescue us? They will blame us for being sloppy. Gouzenko, of all people. He’s the clown who will bring us down.” As an afterthought, I admitted that the code the Soviet Embassy used was, indeed, the same one as the wartime encryptions. “This mess will be over soon.”