by M. L. Huie
Livy quickly scanned the back pages. She prayed Hitler hadn’t changed the names of too many towns.
The door upstairs opened.
“You need to come upstairs now,” Nadia said. Her voice as cold as the vodka in the freezer.
“Yes, of course. Let me just put this book away.”
Livy used her finger, found Berlin easily enough and then traced north. It took her a few moments to spot it, but there it was. Sachsenhausen, a district in the town of Oranienburg, perhaps twenty miles northwest.
Nadia closed the door and started downstairs. The tap-tap of her hard shoes on the wooden stairs sounded like a ticking clock getting louder with each second.
The typeface of the smaller towns was written in a minuscule old European style.
Nadia had to be halfway down by now.
There! Ravensbrück. A small village almost due north of Sachsenhausen. Livy compared the distance between Berlin and the two smaller towns. Maybe thirty-five kilometers. Livy closed the book, slid it into the open slot on the shelf as Nadia turned the corner.
The young Russian started at her. “How can you read? You know Russian?” As always her tone sounded accusing.
“‘Course not. Just looking at the pictures.” Livy smiled. “Tea ready?” She stood and walked upstairs past the young woman.
After all this time, she had a good idea of where Margot Dupont might be.
* * *
A few hours later, Livy made herself a cup of tea and sat on one of the stiff sofas in the front room. She sat in the quiet for more than an hour, thinking. The information she’d found in the map confirmed Kostin’s theory of Margot’s whereabouts. The job wasn’t over, though. The final confirmation would come once the Russian asked his sources back at the embassy. So Livy waited. Upstairs Nadia played the violin. The same piece again.
She checked her watch. Nearly three PM. No more waiting.
Livy went upstairs. The lock of hair across her doorway was gone. Instinctively, she put her hand on the Colt in her skirt. Then she stepped inside. Everything looked the same, but there had been slight disturbances. She found her reporter’s notebook and began to write furiously.
Minutes later, she walked into the kitchen. Nadia looked at her over the fret of the violin.
“I need to call my editor,” Livy said. “It’s been two days since we’ve talked. I need to give him something so he doesn’t think I’ve been kidnapped.”
“No calls.”
“Look, if I don’t at least check in today then he’s going to get worried. He might even pop ‘round to my hotel and ask after me. Can’t imagine Major Kostin would want that.”
Nadia dropped the bow to her side. “You call tomorrow.”
“Newspaper stories don’t wait. We have deadlines. It’s one call.” Livy’s voice became more than a little testy.
“Call tomorrow. Maybe.” Nadia’s bow sliced across the strings.
Tomorrow, Livy thought, this may all be over.
Chapter Twenty-Six
London
The same night
Geoffrey Collins had been waiting for the signal again for weeks. Every day he’d come to work wondering if this would be the day he’d hear it again. Today he’d agreed to change shifts with Reg Hopkins, who had a date with a woman he’d met three years ago in France. She’d finally made it to London, and they had two nights before she was due back. Collins was happy to help a friend.
Of course, that night, the signal came again. It began with the signature fist. N-i-g-h-t-s-h-a-d-e. The call repeated twice. Collins grabbed his log and recorded it. His heart racing as a wave of disbelief and joy swept over him. He thought he’d never hear the signal again. In the intervening weeks, he’d even rationalized the first instance as his own error. He convinced himself it had all been a mistake. Written down wrong. Who knows? But now, it had returned.
Then, something different.
A very clear, steady Morse code. S-O-S. He stopped writing and listened. S-O-S. S-O-S. It repeated three more times and stopped. Collins’s breath seemed caught in his chest as the silence lingered. He waited. The signal, so brief and so clear, didn’t repeat.
This time Collins didn’t wait until the end of his shift. He picked up the single phone on the wall near the door of room 118 and asked the operator to be connected immediately to his supervisor, Alfie Bromfield. He had to assure the telephone girl that the information he had was tantamount to national security before being put through to the boss’s home line.
* * *
The phone in the Kemsley News offices rang just after eight AM the next morning. Pen Baker rarely came in before nine. Fleming himself picked up on the second ring.
“Yes? Speaking,” he said, his voice clear and alert. “Right. Yes. What time then? I can make it earlier if he would like. Very well. Thank you.”
Fleming replaced the receiver and ran a hand through his thick, wavy hair. His heart sank a bit when the call came in from Dunbar. He figured the only reason MI6 might reach out to him at this point was to let him know the job was either done, or that something had happened to Livy. He walked back into his office still wearing yesterday’s trousers and a white undershirt, both heavily wrinkled after last night.
Since Livy left for the States, Fleming had slept most nights in his office, waiting for just such a phone call from Henry Dunbar. Or anyone who might know something about Livy Nash. During the day he’d pop around to his flat for clean clothes, then wake well before Pen arrived, bathe and dress in the men’s washroom down the hall, and look his normal self by the time the business day began.
Of course, Pen had commented on the dark circles under his eyes as well as his general irritability, but she attributed it to turbulence in his mysterious private life. Fleming trusted and admired Pen both for her resourcefulness and icy efficiency. He never discussed personal matters with her. Nor had he addressed the night at The Ivy restaurant where Pen had watched her boss make a drunken pass at Livy. She’d been a bit brusque with him since that dinner. He missed their repartee and, at times, Fleming had wished he could confess all to his secretary. This, however, was a case where Fleming’s reputation as a cad worked for him in the service of the operation.
Dunbar wanted to meet Fleming at ten that morning on the Tin and Stone Bridge in St. James’s Park. The day, rainy with persistent clouds, fit Fleming’s mood.
He’d known the risks sending Livy into this situation. He hoped she’d understood them as well after meeting Anka. There had been more than several occasions over the last two weeks when Fleming had wished the Austrian woman had frightened Livy off the job. Many nights he reassured himself the decision had been hers and hers alone. I gave her every possible out. He also knew that if he had denied Dunbar’s request to go after Kostin, then his own tangential relationship to the Intelligence Services might have been severed.
The memory of the grisly photograph of Livy’s double agent in Paris also haunted him. Fleming craved excitement, but he knew that if something happened to Livy, he would forever blame himself.
The two men had planned to meet at the spot where the bridge afforded a view of Buckingham Palace and the Queen Victoria statue. The rain had stopped. The cloud cover foretold the prospect of a continuance, so Fleming rolled his umbrella and strolled along the walkway.
The weather had kept most people inside today, save for the occasional mother pushing a pram, or businessmen in raincoats and hats, out for a morning constitutional.
Dunbar was already there. Dressed in his usual houndstooth, pipe clenched between his teeth. Fleming thought he looked like an older, tired Richard Hannay. Neither man spoke at first. Two couples, both arm in arm, stopped between them to admire the view. After a minute or two, they walked away. Dunbar removed the pipe from his mouth and looked at Fleming.
“You look awful, Ian.”
“Lovely to see you too, Henry.”
“Let’s take a walk.”
They strolled north in the direction of
Westminster and Big Ben. Fleming waited for Dunbar to break the silence.
“What have you heard from that girl of yours?”
“Nothing at all. She apparently contributed to an article written by my man in Washington, but that was several days ago.”
“Pity.”
Fleming frowned. “Is it now? You know, you could’ve sent a courier if that’s all you wanted. But I suspect there’s more, so why don’t you tell me what you know, Henry?”
Dunbar kept walking, eyes front. “Eastcote had another wireless signal last night. Same fist. Same everything as the first contact. Only this one was different. After the identification signature, the operator sent an SOS. Three times. I thought perhaps—I don’t know—something your girl did might have prompted it.”
Fleming stopped, pulled his silver cigarette case out of his pocket, fit the distinctive cigarette with three bands into his holder, and lit it.
“Forgive my confusion,” Fleming said after taking a thoughtful draw of his cigarette. He’d been smoking and drinking too much the last two weeks. His doctor wouldn’t approve. “How exactly would Olivia be able to influence a poor woman ostensibly being held in a Soviet prison in Germany, when she is in the United States?”
Dunbar bristled. “It was a question. Don’t read too much into it, old man.”
“Well, then, as I said, I’ve not heard one word from her since she left two weeks ago. Surely your man at the FBI has given you some sort of status report.”
“It’s all been too bloody quiet over there for several days. Something’s going on. Now this signal last night. It’s got to be connected.”
The two men walked and smoked along the misty bridge. Fleming felt the tapping of raindrops on his navy mackintosh, so he unrolled his umbrella.
“Well, as delightful as your company is, Henry, I do still have work to do.”
Dunbar grabbed his arm. Raindrops pelted down on the MI6 man’s shoulders. His eyes scanned the bridge in both directions. His quiet voice carried even over the patter of the rain.
“You need to know—I’ve not been completely forthcoming about Margo Dupont.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Washington, D.C.
The same morning
Like the day before, Livy woke up in considerable discomfort. Her cheek was less sensitive, but her neck still felt stiff and sore. Sitting on the edge of the bed she tried rolling it out. Even slow stretching sent shooting pain through her neck and shoulders.
She walked to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and retrieved her blouse and skirt from the closet. The last thing she felt like doing was wearing anything supplied by her Russian captors. She hung her wrinkled clothes in the bath, turned on the water, closed the door, and let the steam smooth them out.
Breakfast was ready as usual, but this time Nadia had only prepared toast and tea. A significant step down after yesterday’s plateful. The young woman didn’t sit with Livy while she ate, opting for the living room in one of the Queen Anne–style chairs, where she pored over an issue of Life magazine.
Livy had very little appetite. She had a piece of toast, drank half a cup of tea, and joined Nadia in the front room.
“I’ll be going back to the hotel today, then? Isn’t that the plan?”
The Russian woman ignored her. Engrossed in her reading.
“If I’m not going back to my hotel, then I’ve got to at least phone my editor,” Livy said. The anxiety in her voice was not an act. She’d heard nothing from Kostin since the day in the control room. What had happened to him? She couldn’t stand another moment in the house with this cold, bitter young woman. Again, no response.
“Did you hear me?”
Nadia flipped a page. “I hear.”
“Well, how about a bloody answer then, luv?” Livy lashed out.
Nadia stood. “No answer to give.” She brushed past Livy into the kitchen.
Livy thought about charging past her, grabbing the vodka from the icebox, and finishing it in her room. Instead, she took a deep breath and tried to sound several degrees calmer.
“I’ll be upstairs. Organizing my notes. All right?” No reply came, so she turned. Her neck twisted, sending pain up into her skull and down her back. Livy cursed under her breath. She put a hand on her shoulder and massaged the muscle. Her body seemed to be rebelling now. She hated waiting, and right now that was her only choice.
* * *
A hot cloth pressed against her neck, Livy sat on the edge of the bed, going over what she’d just written in her notebook. No shorthand this time, but she knew Nadia wouldn’t be able to decipher the old code she’d decided to use for this particular missive.
Livy’d spent the better part of an hour going over her notes without a sound from the young violinist. No practice today yet. Nor had the Russian checked on her, as was the routine.
After reading through what she’d written a final time, Livy carefully tore the pages out of the notebook and rolled them into the thinnest tube she could manage.
Downstairs, she heard a car pull into the back drive and a door open and close. Nadia’s ride to the Soviet Embassy must have arrived.
Livy reached into the waistband of her skirt, where she kept the photo of Margot. She withdrew the small picture and slid it between the notes. Then, wrapping them carefully, she slipped the paper along the seam of her skirt and folded it over.
She heard the door to the downstairs open and close. Whispers in Russian and then the sound of heavy footsteps coming upstairs. Livy turned to her door as it was flung open.
Yuri Kostin stood in the doorway. He hadn’t waited until Nadia left. Livy could smell vodka on his breath from ten feet away. The Russian hadn’t shaved or slept, from the look of him. He slammed the door shut.
“Yuri, are you—?”
Kostin held up a hand to silence her. He stalked across the room to a somewhat abstract painting that looked like a meadow, painted by Picasso’s less talented brother. He took the painting off the wall and tore into the paper backing of the frame. At once she saw a very fine black wire snaking out of the back of the picture into a pin-sized hole in the wall.
Kostin reached through the paper and wrenched out a piece of metal about the size of a half crown. He then pulled on the wire once, twice, then a third time before the black line snapped. He threw the bug and its wire on the dresser, leaving the painting lying on the floor.
He came at Livy fast, so quickly she didn’t have time to react. Kostin grabbed her upper arms and held her close. At first, she thought he might kiss her, his previous passion hard to distinguish from whatever this was.
“Margot Dupont,” he said. “How do you know her?”
“I told you. She and I trained together.”
Kostin scoffed and shook his head. He pulled her closer, their hips touching.
“Listen to me,” he said. “Tell me the truth, Livy. I need you to tell me the truth.”
What did he know? What had happened since yesterday? She felt the immediacy of the moment in every nerve ending and every bone. Adrenalin and fear healed her physical pain for the time being. This is how it happens, she thought. People get weak at times like this. They spill their guts in exchange for some sort of mercy. She couldn’t give in. Not with this man. Not right now when she felt so close to finishing the job.
She put her hand on his face. Her eyes locked on his. “I don’t know what’s happened or why you’re asking me this, but I am telling you the truth. Margot and I became friends during training. I’ve gotten to know her family since the war. What happened? Did you find out something about her?”
Kostin listened, but as she spoke, a cloud darkened his eyes, the energy he’d walked into the room with, gone. He dropped his head, loosened his grip on her shoulders, and turned away.
“Yuri?”
He stood facing the closed door. Livy was good at reading people, but she couldn’t keep up with his changing moods.
“I told them I believed you,” he said. His b
ack to her. Voice soft. “I told them I was certain. I told myself that as well.” Kostin turned to her, his hooded eyes half closed. The wide mouth turned down.
“I need the truth, Livy. Please.”
She had two seconds to think it through: change the story or stick to the closest she could come to the truth. No choice really.
“I’m telling you the truth.” Her voice even, calm.
She didn’t see his hand until it was too late. The right whipped across his body and slammed into her face. The ferocity of the blow surprised her. Her cheekbone and jaw took it all. It spun her around and dropped her hard on the bed.
She felt hands on her back, turning her over to face him. The punch disoriented her, landing in the same painful spot where Gennady had hit her. She couldn’t get her bearings. Kostin was on top of her now. Pinning her shoulders to the bed.
“You knew her family? You just wanted the truth for them? To comfort them?”
“Yes, of course. It’s been years. What are you—?”
“Margot Dupont is working for us.” He spat the words at her. Teeth bared.
The fear of this terrible moment drained away as her heart shriveled inside her chest.
“Since the end of the war, your friend has been a double agent. Giving us information about the British. Do you hear me?”
The words rained down on Livy like another blow to the jaw. She tried to make sense of what he’d said. Rationalize it somehow. She couldn’t.
“I didn’t know. I had no—how could I know, Yuri?”
“Lies!” he screamed at her. “You want me to believe it was accident? You appear out of nowhere, and all you want is to find one of your people working for us? So, now you know. Go back and tell her family that their Margot is fucking the commandant at Sachsenhausen. Ona—blyad! Just like you. Portovaya blyad. Whore.”
Livy had no time to consider the veracity of what she’d just heard. With each denouncement, Kostin’s temper flared.
She’d seen him like this once before. The anger and stark violence in his eyes when he’d found the big Russian Gennady over her. Now here it was again. Directed at her this time. Der Rote Teufel.
