He rang the bell and waited with apprehension. It had been only a few weeks since he had last seen Corky, in Paris, but it felt like years. He had gone to Moscow as Daniel Eigen, really—the cover that had become his true identity: the trivial playboy, cavalier in his personal dealings, carefree in the midst of the war’s travails. But Daniel Eigen was no more. Not just because the cover was blown. But because the persona no longer fit. The murder of a close friend, the betrayal of a lover—these things could not help but change a man.
His attitude toward his old mentor had changed, too. He had followed orders, had drawn Lana into Corky’s scheme, had misled her. He had done what he’d been told to do. But he could no longer follow Corcoran’s orders unthinkingly, blindly.
The Tristan Betrayal 453 The door opened; a housekeeper let him in. She was a matronly woman with her hair in a tight bun, Swiss by the look of her. She asked his name, nodded when he gave it, then showed him into an airy, spacious sitting room with tall windows and two large fireplaces. In one of them a wood fire was burning; before it sat Corky, in a wing chair. He turned as Metcalfe entered.
Corcoran looked even paler, even more wizened, than he had just weeks before. Had the stress of the war, of Operation WOLFSFALLE, aged him so much? The pressures of losing his field agents, his crown jewels, as he called them? The rumors about his health seemed to have some basis in truth: Corky did look ill, markedly worse in a matter of weeks.
“Stephen Abernathy Metcalfe,” Corky announced, his voice high, crackly yet firm. “You never cease to amaze me.” There was a ghost of a smile on the old man’s face as he rose to his feet. A cigarette burned on an ashtray next to him, the plume of smoke curling in the air.
“Should I take that as praise?” replied Metcalfe, approaching and shaking Corcoran’s hand. “Or reproach?” The smell of Pep-O-Mint Life Savers arose from Corky’s tweedy suit as strongly as the odor of cigarette smoke.
Corky paused contemplatively. “Both, I think. I wasn’t sure you would make it here.”
“It wasn’t easy arranging a flight out of Helsinki, I’ve got to say.” He seated himself in a brocade-covered chair on the other side of the fire.
“Oh, that was the least of my concerns. I’m speaking of Moscow. Far too many things went awry.” Corky had turned toward the fire again and was poking at it with an andiron. There was something about the fire, something primitive, elemental, that set Metcalfe at ease. The aging spymaster was a staunch believer in theatrics, in stage setting; Metcalfe had no doubt that Corky had chosen this house, with its fireplaces, its churchlike medieval architecture and comfortable furnishings, its location on a cobblestoned street in the Altstadt, for its utility in making visitors feel comfortable, inclined to confess all sins to the father-confessor.
“And even more things went exactly as you planned,” Metcalfe said, feeling his anger rise. “Not that you ever bothered to tell me what the plan was.”
“Stephen—” Corcoran began, warningly.
“Was it really necessary to lie to me about why you wanted me to go to Moscow in the first place? And then to lie about the documents you wanted Lana to pass to von Schüssler? Or maybe it’s just that lying is second nature to you. You can’t help it.”
“I know it must have been hard for you,” Corcoran said, very quietly, staring into the fire. “What there was between you two—it was rekindled, wasn’t it? The thing that made it so difficult for you was the very thing that ensured she’d do what you asked of her. You want to know why I lied to you? That’s why, Stephen. That’s precisely why.”
“You’re not making sense.”
Corcoran sighed. “If you had known you’d be using her in this way, you’d never have been able to win her back. Only authenticity could fan the flame of love. I lied to you, Stephen, so you wouldn’t have to lie to her. At least, not at first.”
Metcalfe was silent for a minute, his mind reeling. He didn’t know what to say. He had to let go of his anger, which was preventing him from thinking clearly.
“Stephen, you don’t know the half of what’s going on. Things are far more dangerous than you realize.”
“I find that hard to believe, Corky. I was there. I was in the goddamned Lubyanka, for Christ’s sake!”
“I know.”
“You know? How the hell—? Don’t tell me you have a source in the NKVD!”
Corky handed Metcalfe a sheaf of papers. Metcalfe examined what appeared to be an intelligence intercept. He read it through quickly, confused. It was a detailed report of Metcalfe’s interrogations within the Lubyanka, including a partial transcript of his exchanges with his NKVD investigator.
“What—what the hell is this, Corky? You have a source in the Lubyanka?”
“I wish we did. No, alas, we have a source at one remove.”
“What does that mean, ‘at one remove’?”
“I’m speaking somewhat facetiously. We have been successful of late in intercepting Abwehr agent transmissions. What you have in your hands is a transcript of one of those intercepts.”
“Meaning that the Abwehr has an asset within the Lubyanka?”
Corky nodded. “Apparently a very good one, too.”
“Jesus!” Metcalfe spun away from the fire and stared at Corky. “So does that mean they know about our connection to Lana?”
“Evidently not. Nothing more than your casual acquaintance with her. Not your tradecraft involvement with the girl. That would have come up, most certainly. Serious doubts have been raised about the WOLFSFALLE documents, but not for that reason.”
“What do you mean, ‘Serious doubts have been raised’?”
“The operation hangs in the balance, Stephen.” Corcoran took a long drag from his cigarette and looked into the fire. “Hitler’s generals are deeply divided about the wisdom of invading Russia. There are those who have always wanted to do so, though they’re a fanatical minority. A large segment has been won over by the WOLFSFALLE documents. They are pushing for an invasion as early as May of next year—before the Red Army can launch any preemptive strike. But there are others within the Nazi High Command who see any invasion of Russia as sheer madness—utter folly. These are the levelheaded generals, the ones who seek to restrain Hitler’s insanity. They remind their colleagues about Napoleon’s ill-fated attempt to invade Russia in 1812.”
“But if Stalin is planning to attack them first, as our documents tell them, how can they justify doing nothing?”
“They justify inaction by casting doubt on the intelligence itself. It’s a natural response.”
“Casting doubt? Have the documents been exposed as fakes?”
Corcoran shook his head slowly. “I have no indication of that. The documents are really first-rate counterfeits, I must say. No one within the Nazi leadership, to our knowledge anyway, has any reason to suspect that the papers were created by the Americans. But they say it’s not impossible that they have been cooked up in Moscow, by the Russians.”
“That makes no sense! To what end? To get the Nazis to invade them?”
“Don’t forget, there are elements within the Soviet leadership whose hatred for Stalin runs so deep that they pray for a Nazi invasion—they see Hitler as their salvation. Those elements are particularly strong among the Red Army.”
“They’d wreck their own country to eliminate Stalin? Insanity!”
“The point, Stephen, is that there are serious reasons to doubt the bona fides of the WOLFSFALLE documents. Especially if one wants to doubt them, if one sees any potential invasion of Russia as a quagmire, which it certainly would be. So questions are raised. Certain German military leaders argue that if the NKVD is so good, why have they not caught this woman, this general’s daughter who is passing top-secret papers to von Schüssler?”
“But as long as the documents seem authentic—”
“Doubts continue to be raised,” Corky replied, his voice steely. “And these doubts, combined with the quite reasonable, logistical arguments against a blitzkrieg
strike at Russia, are beginning to gain the upper hand. Time is against us. Unless something more is done—something that confirms the authenticity of the documents—our plan is doomed.”
“But what more is possible?”
“The source must be unimpeachable,” Corky said after a pause.
“The source . . . ? The source is a daughter of a Red Army general—a general whom the Nazis know to be a secret conspirator against Stalin!”
“A secret conspirator against Stalin,” Corky echoed with a sarcastic twist, “who just happened not to be caught and tried?”
“It’s the hold that von Schüssler has over Lana! He has the evidence.”
“The spy business, my son, is a wilderness of mirrors. Learn it now, before it’s too late. Mirrors reflecting other mirrors.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“In April of 1937, Joseph Stalin received a dossier from Prague containing evidence that his chief of staff, Marshal Tukhachevsky, as well as his other top generals, had been plotting with the German High Command to carry out a coup d’etat against Stalin.”
“Obviously. That was the basis for the treason trials, the massive purges that followed.”
“Yes. Thirty-five thousand military officials shot. The entire leadership of the Red Army, on the eve of war. Rather convenient for the Nazis, no?”
“Convenient . . . ?”
“Surely you don’t imagine that we’re the only ones capable of forging documents, Stephen. Hitler’s intelligence chief, Reinhard Heydrich, is a formidable opponent. Truly a brilliant man. He knew how paranoid Stalin is, how willingly he’d believe that his own people were plotting against him.”
“You’re saying the evidence against Tukhachevsky was forged?”
“Heydrich enlisted two of his deputies, Alfred Naujocks and Dr. Hermann Behrends, in an ingenious deception operation. He had his SD documents experts forge thirty-two documents—correspondence between Tukhachevsky and other Red Army leaders with the top mucketymucks in the Wehrmacht. Seeking their help in ousting Stalin.”
“Jesus Christ!” Metcalfe gasped. “Forged?”
“Heydrich had the documents planted well. Dr. Behrends carried the documents to Prague and sold them—sold them, mind you, for millions of dollars—to Soviet agents there.”
“Tukhachevsky was framed? Is that what you’re saying?”
“The Revolution, like Saturn, devours each of its children in turn. My point is that Heydrich knows the truth, because he engineered the lie that manipulated Stalin into decapitating his own military. He knows that Tukhachevsky wasn’t guilty, and so he knows that General Mikhail Baranov is no conspirator, either.”
So the grip that von Schüssler had on Lana was a fraud! Metcalfe could not wait to tell Lana the truth. But his elation dissipated quickly as soon as he realized the implications of this revelation. “So the bona fides of Lana’s father remain in doubt,” he said.
“Everything remains in doubt.” Corky exhaled twin plumes of white smoke. “Including the fate of Die Wolfsfalle. Unless we’re willing to burn our own agent. A sacrifice that will save the operation—and, dare I say it, save the world at the same time.”
Blood drained from Metcalfe’s face. “I don’t understand.”
“But I think you do understand,” Corky said, his voice quiet, barely audible. He continued poking at the fire, unwilling to meet Metcalfe’s eyes.
“Spell it out for me,” Metcalfe said fiercely. “I’m slow.”
“You’re anything but slow, Stephen, but you seem to want me to speak the words aloud. If that’s what it takes, I’m willing to do so. Svetlana Baranova must be caught by the NKVD. She must be arrested. It’s the only thing that will convince the Nazis that the documents she’s been passing on are genuine.”
Metcalfe leaped up, stood directly in front of Corky. Pointing an index finger at his mentor’s face, he rasped, “Any means to an end, eh, Corky? Is that it? If a human being gets in the way, becomes a hindrance, you won’t hesitate to hurl her to the wolves? Even a woman who acted so bravely on our behalf, put her own life in jeopardy—”
“Spare me your school-rector sanctimony. I’m talking about the survival of Europe, the United States—the survival of democracy upon this planet. I don’t need any lectures from you about operational ethics.” Corcoran’s heavy-lidded eyes were dead calm.
“Operational ethics? Is that what you call it?” Disgusted and speechless, Metcalfe returned to the chair and sank down. He resumed staring at the fire. “To have her arrested is madness!”
“Yes, well, as Lord Lyttelton said, ‘Love can hope where reason would despair,’ hmm?” The amber firelight seemed to pencil in the creases in the old man’s face.
“What do you know about love?”
“I’m a spy, Stephen. What I know about is despair.”
“How about reason?”
“That, too. Reasons to despair, mainly. Believe me, I understand the woman is a dilly. But you know what? World peace—well, that’s a dilly, too. Saving the planet from being devoured by the fascist armamentarium? A real beaut. Preventing the Third Reich from engulfing civilization? Now that’s a cool drink of water.”
“Stop it,” Metcalfe said stonily.
“You took the words out of my mouth.” Corcoran’s eyes were unblinking.
“You never change, do you, Corky?”
Corcoran inclined his head a few degrees. “I sense that you’ve changed, though.”
Metcalfe shrugged. “Have I? Maybe it’s the world that’s changed.”
“Stephen, Stephen. Why do you still not understand? The world hasn’t changed. The world hasn’t changed at all. And it won’t change—not until we change it.”
Metcalfe put his hands over his face. The wheels in his head began to turn rapidly. There had to be a way! After a moment, he looked up from the fire, resignation seemingly in his face. “What do you intend?” he asked tonelessly.
“Tomorrow afternoon, the Bolshoi Theater’s leading ballet troupe is arriving in Berlin—a friendship delegation sent by Moscow. They’ll be performing at the Staatsoper. Probably take their tired old production of Swan Lake out of mothballs again for those undiscriminating Germans.”
“Lana will be there.”
“And her Nazi lover, von Schüssler, as well. A little home leave, visiting the old homestead, I’m sure. A well-placed tip to the NKVD is all it should take. The NKVD will arrest her, and the Germans will witness it. And all will be right with the world. I’m terribly sorry, Stephen.”
“And she’ll tell the NKVD the truth.”
“Will she?” Corky said without interest. “At that point, it really makes no difference. She can protest all she wants, but once the Nazi High Command hears that she’s been arrested, the WOLFSFALLE plan will be salvaged.”
“You wish it were that simple,” Metcalfe said, carefully controlling his voice. “No. I have a better idea. You get me into Berlin and I’ll—”
“You’ll restring the marionette.”
“Something like that.”
Corcoran peered at Metcalfe for several seconds. “You want to say good-bye to her, is that it?”
“Allow me that,” Metcalfe conceded. “And I promise I’ll do my best.”
Corcoran shook his head slowly. “Forget about it. You’re going back to Bar Harbor. You’re going to spend afternoons sailing to the Cranberry Islands with a Tom Collins in one hand and a lovely blond girl recently graduated from Westover in the other. And you’re going to put all this behind you.”
“Goddammit, Corky—”
“Don’t be like that. You’ve already earned our everlasting gratitude.” Corcoran displayed a quick, chilly smile, like a magician flashing a face card from a trick deck. “But let’s be practical. All the covers you had are blown. Putting you back in the field is a risk I won’t take.”
“But I will,” Metcalfe replied.
“You don’t understand, do you? The risks aren’t to you alone. Th
ey’re to all of us—the remnants of the Registry—to the very operation itself.”
“I think I’m in a better position to decide.”
“Stephen, please. The failure is mine. I taught you many things—”
“Everything I know. I’d be the first to say it.”
“But I never taught you something truly crucial: humility. I thought life would teach it to you, but apparently I was wrong. No, Stephen, you don’t get to decide. The stakes are far greater than even you could grasp. Your usefulness has come to an end. Go back home. A great playground awaits. Put the horrors behind you. And leave the rest to your elders.”
Metcalfe was silent for a long while. “Fine,” he said at last. “Ship me back home. But let me tell you what you can expect to happen when you do. I don’t know what your sources are telling you, but I know the woman, and I’ve spent a great deal of time with her recently, and I happen to know that she has a soft spot for von Schüssler.”
Corky was taken aback. “You never gave me to believe anything of the sort!”
“Maybe you think you understand a woman’s heart better than I do. All I know is what I can sense. I think she feels a little sorry for the German—she may even have feelings that run deeper than that.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning that there’s a real danger that Lana may compromise the mission—tip off von Schüssler that he’s been set up. That’s all it would take, and all our efforts will be for naught.”
“That cannot be allowed to happen,” Corcoran snapped.
“Indeed. And I promise I’ll do everything I can to keep it on the rails. I know how to control her.” He looked at Corcoran with a fierce determination. It was crucial that Corky believe what he was saying now. Far too much hung on it.
Corcoran’s stare was like an X ray; he seemed to be trying to penetrate into Metcalfe’s soul. After a full minute, he said, “Chip Nolan is staying at the Bellevue Palace. He can set you up with all the papers you need.”