Last Night of the World

by Joyce Wayne

The party was over. After the tornado warning, it couldn’t be revived. Zabotin looked disappointed. He approached me and put both of his hands on my shoulders.

  “Why so glum?” he asked. “It will all turn out the way I’ve planned.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of? Did you see Svetlana tonight? She was white as a ghost.”

  Zabotin didn’t disagree. “It’s Gouzenko’s only chance.” His eyes scanned the room. “Let’s go outside.”

  The night sky was clear and the garden glistened under the light of the moon. Zabotin lead me to a bench.

  “You need to know that the only original documents left in the safe for Gouzenko to steal were Vine’s reports to Moscow. He had the combination to that safe. Remember, I enticed him to take the reports, once he was recalled to Moscow. So, stop worrying. Everything is under control.”

  “What about Fuchs’ atomic drawings?”

  “I told you I have them,” Zabotin assured me again. But I knew, then, that he was lying. They were in Gouzenko’s cache, in Svetlana’s satchel. Why else would Zabotin have bothered with this entire operation if not to frighten the West into action?

  “Why not include them? Aren’t the drawings the proof that the Soviets have infiltrated Los Alamos?”

  Zabotin pushed me away and for a moment, I thought he would tell me the truth. “I’ll keep them with me for now as a safeguard. All in good time,” he assured me.

  “And the cablegrams from Homer?”

  “Gouzenko didn’t cable Homer’s critical reports to the Director. I told you I sent them myself, and only I kept copies of the originals.”

  “Won’t he realize that his stolen documents are of limited value?” I demanded.

  “He’s desperate. If Gouzenko doesn’t go to the press tonight, I’ll ship him back to Russia. His life hangs by a thread.” Zabotin looked smug and it irritated me.

  “Believe me, Freda, Gouzenko doesn’t understand that his cache isn’t as incriminating as he thinks. I’m telling you that I sent the critical ones myself to the Director. Do you think that I’m not able to decode and encrypt cables? When Gouzenko is debriefed by the Canadians, he can tell them intelligence was received from a source in Washington, but who knows what Gouzenko remembers or who he thinks Homer is?”

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Exposing us while Gouzenko stays safe in Canada?”

  “You know it is not about Gouzenko and what he knows and what he doesn’t know. I want to stop the Russians from making an atomic bomb.”

  I asked him if the papers in Svetlana’s over-sized handbag were the stolen documents and Zabotin broke out into his most electrifying smile.

  “So clever you are, darling Freda. Of course. I ordered Gouzenko to bring the documents with him tonight. He’d be mad to leave them in his apartment. That’s why he tried to approach Drew Pearson tonight, but Pearson wasn’t interested in the hysterical pleading of a lowly cipher clerk and his pregnant missus. Too bad for him. He might have broken the biggest news story since Hiroshima.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tuesday

  September 4, 1945

  Ottawa

  It was after three in the morning when I fell onto my bed exhausted. Grierson had missed the Labour Day celebration, spending another night with Ellery at Pink Lake. I was intending to skip work that day or at least to sleep in as late as possible. Zabotin promised to alert me as soon as Gouzenko’s revelations hit the news.

  At seven-thirty, Grierson poked his head into my bedroom. “How on earth did you get in?” I asked him.

  “Up the fire escape, like Vine does, he said. “I rang you over and over. I finally gave up.”

  Grierson’s petty jealousies struck me as ridiculous. He was an original filmmaker, but lacking in other talents.

  “Don’t try to keep up with me, John,” I said. “Allow me to shower and dress or I’ll be late for work.” Being at the office would be better than spending the morning with Grierson.

  “I need to talk to you.” Grierson was pleading with me.

  But I was tired of hearing men’s confessions. “Before you say anything, I’m going to put on a pot of coffee.” My head ached from last night’s vodka. “Then I’ll listen.” There were too many men in my life, and they all required immediate attention.

  In the shower, I ran the water as cold as I could stand it. I was worried about Vine, where he’d gone to hide after disappearing from the party. He could still make me feel exceptional, the way he did last night when he kissed me. I couldn’t say the same for Grierson.

  I heard him as he opened the bathroom door, undressed and pushed aside the shower curtain to get in behind me. Grierson grabbed the soapy cloth from my hand and began to wash my breasts and between my legs. When he pressed himself against me, I turned to face him.

  “Now is not the time, John.” I stepped out of the shower and away from him, drying myself and twisting a towel into a knot to cover my soaking hair. “Give me a minute.”

  I was barefoot and wearing my red silk dressing gown, the one I’d brought from Toronto. It was a gift from poor Klopot. I poured two cups of coffee from the pot brewing on the stove. Grierson was looking sporty in brown Bermuda shorts and a yellow-striped golfing shirt, the clothes he wore at Pink Lake.

  “I have no idea why Zabotin allowed Igor Gouzenko to work alone,” Grierson abruptly announced. “I suppose he trusted him.“

  “We’re all looking for someone to trust.”

  “When that worm Gouzenko left your party last night he walked over to The Ottawa Journal to hand the night editor a cache of secret documents.”

  I wondered if this was true. Zabotin hadn’t alerted me this morning.

  Grierson continued. “The fellow at the Journal thought Gouzenko was a clown, assumed he was joking.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Very late last night, the phone rang. I was exhausted by the endless conversation with Ellery at Pink Lake, but decided to pick up. It was my friend Andrew, the night editor at the Journal.” Grierson drank his coffee quickly. Clearly he’d been up all night. “He said a Soviet national who could speak little English was talking rubbish to him. He had his pregnant wife with him and a huge handbag that resembled a diaper bag. Andrew laughed. He knows I’m close to the embassy, so he suggested I call the Soviet Ambassador, just in case this Russian joker got out of hand.” Grierson was clenching his jaw.

  “I know Andrew.” I spoke softly. “Let me get in touch with him. I’ll meet him for a drink tonight. Did he actually send Gouzenko away?”

  “He did. The biggest story since the war, and he turned it away. Andrew told him to come back in the morning when the city desk editor was about,” Grierson said. “He told him to take care of his wife and get some sleep.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “No, I’m not. Gouzenko sent Svetlana home to tend to their boy. Apparently, he then decided to pace outside the Department of Justice’s front entrance throughout the remainder of the night.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He’s was waiting for someone to show up and bring him inside. I’m told that when a guard arrived, Gouzenko demanded to speak with the Minister. Apparently he begged the guard to let him in, but the man wasn’t having any of it.”

  “A man needs to follow orders, no matter what.”

  “The guard wouldn’t budge. Gouzenko became more vexed and said he was carrying documents that proved that the Soviets were spying on the Canadian government. Later when the guard was questioned he admitted that Gouzenko swore up and down that a Member of Parliament was an intelligence operative for the Soviets. Even so, the guard was proud that he’d held his ground. Gouzenko wasn’t allowed into the building until after nine.

  “At about 10 a.m. the Minister of Justice heard about Gouzenko. He too, thought it was a hoax, and left Gouzenko cooling his heels in the hallway outside his office for more than an hour.”

  “How do you know all these details?”

  �
��Zabotin contacted Ellery at the lake house and told him what was going to happen. He asked him to treat Gouzenko with compassion, as a defector. Ellery rang me directly afterward. Zabotin had said Gouzenko would be tried under Soviet law if he was returned to the embassy. He wanted Ellery to speak with the prime minister. Ellery was surprised that Zabotin wished Canada to accept Gouzenko as a legitimate Soviet defector.”

  “And what did Ellery do?”

  “Tried to fix it, as he always does. He immediately rang Norman Robertson, the deputy minister at External Affairs, and pleaded with him to pick up Gouzenko. But Robertson wouldn’t hear of it. Robertson didn’t want to tangle with the Justice Department. It wasn’t his territory and he’d didn’t wish to step on toes,” Grierson reported. “While Gouzenko was left sitting outside the Justice Minister’s office, he threatened to commit suicide. Apparently, Robertson was on the line at that moment and he thought it appropriate for Gouzenko to approach the Ottawa police rather than the federal government A tender-hearted Minister’s assistant sent him to the city police by taxi.”

  I could hardly believe what I was hearing, but Grierson wouldn’t exaggerate such matters.

  “Robertson should have spoken to the Minister, to St. Laurent, immediately. It’s up to the Minister of Justice to offer safe haven to Gouzenko and Svetlana.” I was livid. It was hard to believe that Norman Robertson didn’t realize that Gouzenko was exposing a foreign spy ring operating right under the Canadian government’s nose. I was nervous that Svetlana wasn’t resilient enough to withstand this comedy of errors.

  “The Ottawa police alerted the Mounties who transported Gouzenko to their headquarters. Robertson caved in then,” Grierson said, “sending his own limo to pick up Svetlana and the kid. They’ve joined Gouzenko at RCMP headquarters. They’re safe with the RCMP. Justice Minister St. Laurent never approved of the government’s wartime love affair with the Soviets. Now he can prove that his suspicions were justified. If I understand Ellery correctly, he wanted St. Laurent to be the one to alert the prime minister. Ellery is already trying to distance himself from the entire affair.”

  I asked Grierson if he knew how many documents Gouzenko had delivered to the Mounties. I thought about Svetlana’s bulging handbag, sitting at her feet during last night’s party. I could have taken the bag and done what with it? Put an end to Zabotin’s escapade. He was playing the hero again, but suppose he was acting honourably, as he was attempting to convince me? In 1917, he’d sided with the Bolsheviks. The old regime was rotten. His motives were admirable. In his eyes, little people like Vine and me and places like Nesvicz were dispensable, but if Stalin could make the atomic bomb, Zabotin was certain that he’d deploy it, after which the Americans would retaliate. It always came down to deliberately hurting those closest to us for the greater good.

  “Ellery knows. One hundred and nine documents, two hundred and forty pages of material,” Grierson said.

  “Zabotin knew this exact count and he told Ellery?” By then, I understood that Zabotin had selected the perfect cables for Gouzenko to expose to the West. The rezident knew exactly what the authorities were about to discover.

  “Yes,” Grierson said. “Zabotin kept count of the number of documents in the safe and so he knew the precise number missing.”

  “How prescient of him,” I said. “And he offered this information up to Ellery?”

  “It was good of him to let Ellery know that the authorities at the highest level will soon realize that we are working for Soviets intelligence,” he added. From the beginning, this was the chance we took.”

  “Did Zabotin say what was in the documents?” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Was there intelligence about the bomb?”

  Grierson put his coffee cup down on the table. His hands were shaking and he didn’t want me to see how frightened he was. He was kicking the table leg with one foot while swallowing hard. I watched his Adam’s apple move up and down. “Not exactly. Zabotin admitted to Ellery that he wasn’t certain of the content of the cables and how incriminating they were.”

  I wondered how much Grierson would pay for his transgressions, or Ellery for his. I was tempted to ask Grierson if he thought it odd that Zabotin kept count of the exact number of missing documents, but not their content, but I knew better.

  “There was probably no use in pushing Grierson for more information. He knew the least of all of us. Last night Zabotin tried to assure me that Fuchs’ diagrams were not in Gouzenko’s hands, but I was certain then he was lying.

  “I’m going to work, John,” I said calmly. “You should do the same.”

  “We need to take action,” he replied, searching for an emotional response from me.

  “And what do you propose? Kidnapping Gouzenko from RCMP headquarters?”

  Grierson was disappointed. He’d wanted to shock me, to make a lasting impression. “You and Vine, Sybil, Sam Carr, Mildred Macepeace, Raymond Boyer. The lot of you will be exposed. They’ll learn everything about us and that the one Communist Party Member of Parliament is working for the Soviets. They’ll throw the book at Rose.”

  About us, I thought, but said nothing. As I sat smoking his cigarettes and drinking coffee, he offered to rescue me, to smuggle me out of Canada. If I married him, I’d become a British citizen. He would be my protector.

  Grierson never understood me. “What makes you think I would run and hide?” I asked him.

  “Zabotin will leave you behind, Freda,” he said. “He’s already been recalled to Moscow.”

  Perhaps that was why Zabotin hadn’t contacted me this morning. “When?” I inquired.

  “Well, not for some months. The GRU wants Zabotin in Ottawa for now. Possibly to defend us or to wait until the furor blows over.”

  Of course, Moscow would watch to see how the Canadians handled Gouzenko and how hard the Americans pressed the RCMP to dig deeper to expose the activities of Zabotin’s spies. I wondered if the Mounties would round us up, interrogate us, demand to know how much we knew about Soviet intelligence and how it operated across North America. They would question us about Homer, if Zabotin was lying about the cryptograms from Washington. He’d given me his word that he had ordered Gouzenko to destroy the cables from Homer after transmitting them to Moscow. Only Zabotin kept copies of the critical ones. But still, the cipher clerk was certain to mention the Soviet mole in Washington. I never did believe Zabotin when he assured me that Gouzenko wouldn’t be able to recall the encryptions from Homer.

  Last night Zabotin also gave me his word that he’d retained the atomic drawings from Fuchs, that no one had seen them other than Vine and himself. Yet, I couldn’t help wondering if Zabotin had included them in Gouzenko’s cache of documents. If he truly wished to stop a nuclear war, he would signal to the West how deep Soviet intelligence had permeated Los Alamos.

  “What’s the prime minister doing?”

  “Probably what he always does, consulting his long-dead mother through a spiritualist, or so Ellery tells me.” John looked grey and exhausted. “President Truman wants him in Washington tomorrow, and Ellery is to accompany him.”

  “Are others exposed, our comrades in New York and Los Angeles?”

  “The old Marxists from the Frankfurt School, the ones living in L.A., who are advising the FBI how to handle the Nazis, are still sending cables to Stalin on the sly. Nuremburg was too easy on the criminals, they believe and rightly so. We aren’t the only ones worried that the Yanks are going soft on the Germans.”

  “That’s what Zabotin believes, too,” I added, wondering how Grierson knew about the German philosophers. “And Ellery?” I was curious to know if Ellery would become the top man at the United Nations. “What does he think will happen to him?”

  “Ellery expects he will be recalled to Ottawa. The Soviets will have to nix his bid for the top spot at the UN. He knows too much. Anyone could blackmail him.”

  I was surprised about how much Ellery revealed to Grierson and how Zabotin was using Ellery as t
he conduit between himself and the prime minister. “What happens to Gouzenko now?” I asked.

  “The Soviets are desperate to convince the PM to release Gouzenko to them on diplomatic grounds. He is an employee at their embassy. But Ellery is in on it now, advising King not to act imprudently.”

  Of course, Ellery would become the mediator. He would be the only one close enough to influence the prime minister while trying to avert a diplomatic crisis. As Zabotin predicted, if the Americans got out of hand, or if they discovered that a British diplomat in Washington, the very one who chaired their atomic committee, had been flipped by the Soviets, they, too, might be capable of rash action. It was only weeks since they’d exploded two nuclear weapons over Japan.

  I understood at that moment why the Director wished Zabotin to deliver a sample of plutonium from Chalk River to the Centre. It was why Zabotin was still considering sending Vine to meet with Alan Nunn May. He was under orders to obtain a sample of plutonium for transport to Moscow. Plutonium was the missing ingredient the hard-pressed Soviet scientists needed to make the bomb, as well as determine where and how to construct their heavy water plant, one modelled on Chalk River’s recent discoveries. Without heavy water to refine uranium, there would be no Soviet atomic bomb. I wondered how much Gouzenko knew about this.

  According to Grierson, Ellery had already been in to speak with Gouzenko. He was attempting to cool him down while trying to convince King that the best place for Gouzenko was in Canada. Gouzenko would give Canada leverage over the other Western powers.

  “It looks like Gouzenko will be offered asylum in Canada,” Grierson recounted.

  “Who else in Ottawa knows?” I asked.

  “By now, I expect a few people,” he replied. “Fred Rose. Norman Robertson rang him right away as soon as his limo delivered Svetlana to join Gouzenko at RCMP headquarters. Rose and Robertson were chummy during the war when intelligence between Canada and the Russians was shared. Robertson needed to make sure that Gouzenko wasn’t a crank before bringing him in. Afterward, Rose went directly to Zabotin. By that time, Gouzenko was under suicide watch by a cordon of Mounties. Ellery is surprised that Zabotin took it so calmly. Robertson is making certain the details of story don’t get out, at least until the PM talks to President Truman. The Americans are livid that security in Canada is so sloppy. Zabotin is practically operating right under the prime minister’s nose.”