Nightshade

by M. L. Huie

  “Right then, better give me that folder.”

  Fleming’s hand slapped the desk. “It’s not that simple.” He smashed his cigarette out, half-smoked, and went over to the credenza beside his big desk, removing the top from a bottle of gin.

  Livy took a breath. Did the man start drinking this early every morning? She felt uneasy, watching her normally unflappable boss behave like this. But how could she leave this office without knowing what was in that folder?

  “Look, sir, it seems to me you sent me to Anka as a warning, but also as a sort of test. Well, I heard what she had to say. All of it too. I didn’t have to come back here. But I did, and we may as well get on with it.”

  Fleming poured a thimbleful of tonic into half a glass of gin and dropped in two ice cubes. He swirled the drink and studied her.

  “Your impertinence doesn’t lessen your charm.”

  “Your reluctance to show me that folder only makes me want to see it more. And you know that.”

  Fleming took a long drink. He swallowed hard, as if it burned his throat. Must be strong gin to make a world-class drinker like him cringe.

  Then, he said, “You knew Margot Dupont?”

  “I did. We trained together before the war. We were mates.”

  “And have you seen her since?”

  Livy shook her head. “I heard she was captured. They listed her as missing, presumed dead not long ago.”

  “Last week someone at RAF Eastcote decoded her wireless call sign. It came again two days later. Same fist. Apparently the same person.”

  The enormity of Fleming’s words washed over Livy. Her mind raced back to the last moment she’d seen Margot on that hill near Manchester. Even though she’d not seen her in years, Livy still considered Margot the dearest of friends.

  The news that she hadn’t been captured and was listed as missing after the war fairly devastated Livy. First Peter Scobee gone, and then Margot. The double punch of those two losses had sent Livy into a spiral that ended in a bottle.

  Now came the news she might be alive. If so, that meant she’d been held captive since the end of the war. The thought of it made Livy’s stomach turn over.

  “We have to find her,” she said.

  The words surprised her. They’d come out almost involuntarily. The hell with Anka. The hell with the consequences.

  “I have been asked to try to do exactly that,” Fleming said, sitting again.

  “Right. Do we have any idea where this signal came from?”

  “The original was picked up at Gatow, our base near Berlin. So we presume it originated inside Germany. More than likely from the Russian sector.”

  Livy knew this was the worst possible circumstance. Since President Truman’s speech back in March, offering aid to any country threatened by Soviet aggression, tensions between East and West had intensified. Many feared Stalin would close down the Soviet sector of Germany for good.

  “If we don’t act soon, sir, she could be gone forever.”

  “Olivia, yesterday you sat in that chair and told me you longed for something different. A normal life. If there is any part of you that truly wants that, then you have to get up and—”

  “We’re not just leaving her there,” Livy said. “A prisoner. For two years now. Wherever she is, I want to help find her.”

  Fleming finished off the gin and picked up the black folder. His hand shook ever so slightly as he held it out to her.

  The thick paper felt heavy in Livy’s hand. Her fingertips hesitated at the edges. She got control of her breath, leaned forward, and opened it. Inside, paper-clipped to the top of a standard MI6 dossier, was a five-by-seven official Soviet military photograph.

  The man in the photo looked about forty years old and had a gleaming smile. He wore the standard uniform of a Soviet NKVD officer, but the medals across his chest, including an Order of Lenin, lifted him above the rank and file. The NKVD had been Soviet secret police during the war. But this man looked like he ought to be in a film opposite Betty Grable. He had a V-shaped face with a strong Italianate nose and a wide, mischievous smile that caused his face to appear lopsided. While the grin seemed boyish, the deep dark eyes challenged the camera. They seemed to say, “I’m here. Take my picture, but be quick about it.” The dichotomy between the smile and the message the eyes gave was striking.

  Fleming studied her. “You know him, don’t you?”

  The photo was yet another shock. Her mouth went dry. The man’s undeniably handsome face brought back memories of some of her lowest times after the war. Livy took her time answering. Her stomach clinched. She turned away as heat rushed up her neck, flushing her face. It galled her that somewhere at MI6 a file existed with information on her lovers. Suddenly her visit to Anka made that much more sense.

  “I knew him. A few years back.”

  Seeing Yuri Kostin’s face again took her back two years to just after V-E Day. She’d met him at a big party thrown by a few lads from the old Firm. In those heady days of victory, there was no East and West. Livy didn’t remember many specifics about the soiree, but it had been an international affair attended by Brits, French, Yanks, and even a few Russians. She and Kostin had vodka on a balcony with a spectacular view of St. Paul’s. Of course she’d been taken with him. They drank. A lot. And ended up in bed. The affair continued for almost two months before he left London. Kostin knew how to respond to women, and frankly, he was thrilling in bed. Livy sank into a bit of a depression when he left.

  In hindsight, that year was a low point for Livy. The memories of the war had driven her to drinking. Black Market Billy and his endless supply of booze kept her going most days. Kostin supplied the vodka, however, and had the added bonus of being a damned good-looking Russian with that charming crooked smile.

  “What does Yuri Kostin have to do with Margot, sir?”

  “He is a major in the MGB now. Moving up in the Soviet hierarchy. Special diplomat at their embassy in Washington. At the end of the war, though, he was in charge of the rather meager attempt at repatriation of the concentration camps liberated by the Red Army. Margot was at Ravensbrück.”

  The name felt like another gut punch. Ravensbrück had been the German concentration camp for women. Few survived and those that did suffered at the hand of Nazi doctors. Fleming went on.

  “She’s one of a few the old Firm couldn’t account for after the war. So if anyone on their side knows where she might be—anyone we might have access to, that is—it would be Kostin.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would the Russians want to hold her, sir? It makes no sense.”

  “I asked the same question,” Fleming said, scoffing. “We do know they rounded up large numbers in their march to Berlin, but no one can be certain of how many. And yet this is her call sign. Nightshade. We’ve received it twice now. With her signature. If she is alive out there sending us signals, then Yuri Kostin is our best chance at finding her.”

  Anka. Kostin. Margot. It added up now. Her best friend might still be alive, and to find out where she was being held she had to rekindle this—what? Was “flame” the right word for what Kostin meant to her? The ghosts of the end of the war and her past had come calling for Livy again. And what choice did she have? She couldn’t possibly measure her own fear at what lay ahead against Margot’s two years or more in a foreign prison.

  Livy took a breath. “I want the job, sir.”

  Fleming crushed his cigarette in a large glass ashtray buried in the clutter that engulfed his desk. He didn’t speak for the longest time, so the only tangible sensation in the room was the smell of tobacco that lingered in Livy’s nostrils and the fabric of her clothes. He sat back and regarded her. He looked tired and sad.

  “You were chosen for this, obviously, because you have history with Kostin, but also because of your background. Your run with SOE is perfect cover. A young woman who gave everything for England but returned home only to be shut out of the intelligence community. A woman who feels betrayed by her ow
n country.”

  “Betrayed” felt a bit strong, but Livy remembered a time when she wasn’t given the time of day by men like Henry Dunbar, who transitioned into a cushy chair at MI6 right after the war. She had to admit the role fit her. Fleming was the playwright creating a starring role for Livy as leading lady.

  “I don’t have to tell you that the best cover always has elements of the truth. You could play this role quite well.

  “Everything we have on Kostin is in there,” he said, flicking a finger at the folder in Livy’s lap. “Despite your intimacy with him, you should have no illusions about his toughness. His wartime reputation could best be described as fearsome. But he has certain traits we feel can be exploited. Apparently, he’s something of an Anglophile, obsessed with Sherlock Holmes of all things. Loves women and as many Western comforts as can be allowed a Soviet agent of his stature. That’s what you’ll have to exploit if you’re to gain his trust.”

  Livy listened. She’d had no real feelings for Kostin even two years ago. He was like alcohol, a way to deal with the pain. So how would she regain the trust of an old lover? Her emotions bounced back and forth between thoughts of Margot and her own creeping anxiety about what this new assignment meant.

  “You’ll be working with FBI counterintelligence. They’ll provide you with the information you’ll give Kostin. He has to believe you’re more than just an old flame. That your feelings of being left behind by your own people have pushed you not only back into his arms but into betraying your own country. In a way, it’s how a new lover must believe you no longer have feelings or desire for your old one. He has to trust you.”

  “I think I understand how it works, sir.”

  “No doubt. But once you earn his trust—and understand that will take time—then and only then can you start to work him for information on Margot’s whereabouts. You have to move him to a point where he is willing to give you the information and give it freely.”

  “Oh, I’ll get it, sir. Count on it.”

  Fleming leaned forward, the devil-may-care insouciance replaced by an uncharacteristic severity. “You can’t force this, Olivia. You must be surgical. Anything less and they will make you disappear. Do you understand me?”

  “Is that what you told Anka?”

  “The circumstances were different. She’s Austrian. Sent here to spy on us during the war. We caught Anka, turned her, then forced her to work against her own people. If she’d failed, then … she’d have been one less Nazi spy.”

  “I’m flattered. I think.”

  “Dammit it, girl, this is no time for your bloody cheek!” His eyes flashed and he smacked the table again. “I’m sending you into a viper’s nest.”

  “Not for the first time, sir.”

  “No. I’m just hoping it won’t be the last either.”

  “Makes two of us.”

  “Fine, let’s get on with it.”

  Fleming pulled a black Mont Blanc pen from his desk. Even when his underlying stress seemed to be showing, the man was so preoccupied with gadgets and the other trappings of status. He scribbled an address on the paper and passed it to her.

  “That’s where we’re having dinner tonight. About half-past nine I should think.”

  “Dinner?”

  “The two of us. Another couple will join us. And, with any luck, one or two chaps from the Soviet Embassy here. This is opening night, my dear. The true challenge of this operation is for the Russians to believe that Olivia Nash, formerly SOE, former copy girl for the lowly London Press and Journal, and now sometimes correspondent for Kemsley News, would actually betray her country. You must have sufficient motivation, you see. So, we’re meeting for dinner and drinks tonight at The Ivy, a somewhat over-rated restaurant in the West End that is nevertheless frequented by theatricals as well as one Dimitri Grimov. He’s what we call a talent spotter. Recruiter for Moscow. Typically you’ll find him planting stories in leftist papers or cozying up to academics, but he also has his fingers on the pulse of the artistic community here. Tonight you and I will be putting on a show for him.”

  “What sort of show, sir?”

  “One that might make our Russian friend believe you’re unhappy with your job and employer.”

  “I’m guessing you have something in mind, then?” Livy said, a tinge of excitement in her voice.

  The twinkle had returned to Fleming’s blue eyes as well. His wide mouth expanded in a grin worthy of the Cheshire cat.

  “Nothing so obvious, my dear. At some point in the evening, I will make a rather public pass at you. Behave accordingly. Make it good for our Russian friend.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Good, then. Oh, and wear something a bit provocative,” Fleming said. “You do have something not entirely drab in your wardrobe, don’t you?” His nose wrinkled as if he wasn’t quite sure the answer would be yes.

  Chapter Six

  Livy Nash grew up a backstage baby. She remembered birthdays where greasepaint filled her nostrils instead of the scent of cake and candy. Many nights she slept on a cot in a narrow gap between wooden flats and the floor of the Tower Circus, the resident attraction in Blackpool. Her father performed on the high wire, which wasn’t quite as high as people thought, but nevertheless gave her mother fits every summer when the season started and her sweet Archie performed twelve shows a week for nine months of the year. But Livy adored being behind the scenes. The smells, the makeup, the sweat all made worthwhile by the energy and appreciation of the audience. Even though Livy’d never gone onstage, she felt like show folk were her people.

  So she felt a little extra swagger in her walk as she made her way out of the cab toward The Ivy. Livy’s somewhat meager salary didn’t allow her to frequent as many West End shows as she would have liked. She and Pen Baker had gone to see Can-Can last year. It did not impress. She’d managed to get tickets for Olivier’s King Lear as well, and adored it. Such a mature play, and this had been a full-blown production, with Alec Guinness and Margaret Leighton. Olivier was too young for the role, but that didn’t matter onstage. Livy sympathized with the fever pitch of the lives of Shakespeare’s characters.

  So tonight, as she strolled toward the first entrance of her starring role as the mysterious double agent, Livy felt more than a few butterflies. Her lines had to be perfect because these critics would be savage.

  The Ivy resided in a building that resembled a blunt triangle with the name of the restaurant at the top. Green awnings marked the entrance as Livy swayed past theatregoers scurrying to catch post-show trains or duck into one of a number of pubs.

  Livy, of course, had never eaten at The Ivy, or for that matter, any of the best restaurants in London. Much less one with the reputation of being a favorite post-curtain destination for the West End’s most notable. But this wasn’t the first time an assignment had caused her to feel like a fish out of water and in a saucepan. She pulled the gray silk wrap tighter around her shoulders and tried to shrug off the feeling that Livy from Blackpool would be rubbing shoulders with the elite of the theatre world. Tonight, she took security in the part she was about to play for God knew how long. The role of the double agent—the women who would betray her country—countered her very real working-class neuroses.

  A doorman, a sure sign of this place’s posh credentials, gave her a grin and whisked open The Ivy’s thick wooden door. Livy breezed in like she owned the place. The restaurant felt intimate inside. At nine thirty the theatre crowd had descended. Men, dressed in navy and dark wools, smoked in the corners. Women clustered together all in black, deep burgundy, and grays. No pastels for the denizens of the night here.

  “Livy!” Her name rose from amid the sea of diners. The mass parted, and a petite blonde appeared out of the sea of navy blazers. Pen Baker looked more marvelous than Livy could have imagined. As in the office, everything was in its place, tucked and lifted where appropriate. In this environment, though, she seemed to glow, from her delicate nose down to her smooth gold
en ankles.

  Every male head turned as she sauntered past.

  Pen grabbed Livy by the arm and pulled her into the crowd, careful not to make eye contact with the gaping boys. One small glance, Livy knew, and they’d be devoured instantly.

  “Darling, Mr. Fleming has the best table for us all,” Pen said, speaking loud enough to be heard. “Now you can finally meet Christopher. He’s so marvelous. You’ll love him.” Her voice softened. “I’m dying for chips, but joints like this just ruin them.”

  Livy listened as her friend chattered away. So Pen and her man were “the other couple” Fleming had mentioned. That meant Fleming’s personal secretary would be front row for whatever saga of betrayal might unfold tonight. Livy forced a smile as they walked. She had to hand it to Fleming. Brilliant move. The veracity of this evening would be verified by Pen’s honest reaction tonight as well as afterward. Livy wondered whether whatever happened tonight might damage her friendship with Pen.

  Right, Livy thought, put that aside. She had a part to play and couldn’t anticipate the next scene.

  They emerged from the throng and entered a dining room that looked like the set of a Noel Coward play. The space itself felt crowded, but the thick white linen cloths on every table enlarged it. Carved Greek figures hung from the walls, and although each table had a small ornate lamp, the light in the room felt designed. The tables glowed warm and soft. Darkness hung around the edges, so the waiters seemed to appear out of the blackness.

  The real ambience of The Ivy was its customers. A vision of beautiful people eating, laughing, drinking, smoking, and whispering overwhelmed Livy as Pen pulled her through the big room. Finally, at a small round table near a window, she saw the familiar figure of Ian Fleming. He wore his “uniform”—a simple navy suit, polka-dotted bow tie, and white shirt—and a grin that betrayed nothing of the coming scene they were about to play.

  Pen’s Christopher stood beside Fleming. He looked just as Livy’d imagined. Tall, dark hair, solid chin, deep blue eyes, barrel chest. The Jerries must have surrendered just looking at this one.