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Page 78.

First, Tim called the restaurant where Anna was waiting for him. She sounded patient, if a bit disappointed. She seemed happy when he asked her to meet him later at the hotel. Then he hailed a taxi and rode it to the only place he thought he should sensibly turn right now: his Navy chain of command. Jack Stone had recently made captain, and lived with his wife and three children in a tidy little Tudor style second-floor apartment in Alderney Street. As the taxi drove him along rain-slicked streets, Tim could picture himself having a soulful conversation with his bland and friendly Navy-side boss, whose reaction, as Tim thought about it, would have to be increasingly veiled and furtive. After all, Stone gave Tim top ratings. He winked an eye shut each Thursday afternoon as Tim absented himself for Special Operations duties. Throwing himself under Stone’s protection would serve to blow what was left of his own cover, Tim began to see, and he told the driver to change course. “Union Street near Blackfriars Road in Southwark,” he told the driver, who nodded at the sight of an extra pound coin and swung sharply right onto a side street.

Tim stepped from the taxi, paid the man, and put his collar up. The rain had spent itself a bit, but a sharp wind drove cold stinging slivers of water against his cheeks as he hurried down several townhouses, up a flight of steps, and tried to look into a dark hallway through a door whose glass was criss-crossed with wires. Gold lettering arching over a gold bird with a scepter in its claws and a fish in its mouth on a black background advertised a victualer company called King’s Point & Pelican Purveyors To The Crown. He pressed a doorbell and waited. A dim red light winked on, and he looked into a wall nook with little marble columns on either side. A small square of onyx-black plate glass reflected his face. Tim held up his service card, pressing it against the glass. The door buzzed, and he pushed inside. Letting the door shut behind him, he opened his coat and shook water from it. He stepped into a dimly lit, narrow hallway with offices on either side, and stairs leading to a second floor.

The inside was bustling—anything but a civilian supply company asleep for the night. Young women carrying cable printouts strode by, wearing U.S. Army uniforms. Soldiers and sailors with headsets ran from office to office with dispatches. Officers rushed like foot soldiers through the smoky corridors.

At the reception desk, a heavyset, older sergeant with three chevrons and one rocker, and a T between them, looked up and saw his I.D. card. “Lieutenant Commander Nordhall, Sir. What can we do for you tonight?”

“I need to see the Staff Duty Officer, M.I.”

“That won’t be possible, sorry.”

“It’s urgent.”

“What about, Sir?”

“Can’t tell you. I need to see the Old Man.”

“You’ll have to go up the chain first.”

“Let’s do it—fast!”

“Yessir. Please hold.” The tech sergeant turned and spoke into his huge telephone switchboard. Then he said: “Down the hall, Sir. Room 101.”

Tim strode down the hall, cap in hand and coat over arm. In Room 101, the duty officer, an Army lieutenant, briefly reviewed the cryptic bits of his situation that Tim could tell him. After some cajoling, Tim reached the assistant Staff Duty Officer, a major, who seemed more interested in an upcoming Saturday football game between an Army and a Navy command near Brixton. Tim and the major were approximately equal in rank, and the conversation became forceful.

“What, you want to keep secrets from me?” the major said, putting his feet up and playing with a leather football.

“It’s a matter of—it’s important.”

A side door opened and a gray-haired colonel stuck his head out. “What’s the commotion?”

The major rose and with a red angry face explained, in effect, that this Nordhall had disturbed his betting pool reveries and should be shot, although he did not express it in quite those words.

“Come in and close the door,” the colonel told Tim.

Conscious of the major’s venomous eyes on his back, Tim followed the colonel into a large office with plenty of bookshelves and oak furniture. The wallpaper was ghastly mustard and yellow stripes, with large bright spots where some family portraits, no doubt a century or more old, had been removed for safe keeping from Yank cigarettes and other depredations. The colonel was a slender, aging tennis player type. He strode about with his tie loose and his collar open. One hand in his pocket, he held a cigarette with the other and smoked incessantly. The room had layers of smoke that looked almost solid. “Lieutenant,” the colonel said, “I’m the S.D.O. My name is Jack Haywarden. You’re one of Donovan’s boys, I take it?”

Tim wanted to speak, but couldn’t bring himself to.

“Bill and I play poker on Friday evenings. He and I go way back. Columbia, Class of 1905.” Seeing the look of mistrust on Tim’s face, he dialed through to Donovan’s headquarters. Moments later, the familiar voice of one of Donovan’s assistant adjutants was on the line, and he assured Tim it was okay to spill the beans to Haywarden.

“You can square with me,” Haywarden said, hanging up the phone.

Tim took a deep breath. “Thank you! I’m in over my head, Colonel. I think my contact has framed me. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I need to tap the mat. I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Tell me what you feel you can.”

Tim had his own metaphor. “I’ve been a blind, like in duck hunting.”

The colonel grinned. “Long as you’re not a dead duck.”

“Not yet, Colonel. I supposedly hold a commission as a major in your service branch, strictly an O.S.S. creation. I’m supposedly a Major Robert Malone who was actually killed in Africa. Tonight I happened to go back to my office because I’d forgotten my wallet, and there was my opposite, posing as Major Robert Malone and walking out with a tube full of who knows what from the Top Secret Engineering Review Division.”

“Did you follow him?”

“Sure did. He passed the tube off to another fellow, and I had to make a split second decision.”

“You’re not a seasoned operative, are you?”

“More like a piece of meat for bait, Sir.”

Haywarden nodded. He picked a piece of tobacco off the tip of his tongue. “Offhand, I’d say you went for his bluff. Whatever he was carrying, it was probably in his pocket. The tube act would have been to throw off any potential followers.”

Tim’s heart sank. “You mean, I was had?”

“That’s my guess, Nordhall. Don’t worry, it happens. Who signed you up for this espionage racket?”

“Man named Crane, in the Congo, in 1942.”

The phone rang and Haywarden picked up. “Yes? Yes. Yes. Yes...” After saying yes a bunch more times, he hung up. “Well, that’s interesting. The license plate you gave...that particular cab made a stop near the Soviet embassy. The fare was a man with a document tube, who got out and walked toward the embassy. The driver remembers seeing a door open, and two embassy guards let him in.”

The room was silent for a moment.

Haywarden said: “You’ve delivered another important piece of information without meaning to.”

“What’s that, Sir?”

“This reaffirms that we can’t trust the Soviets, no matter how close an ally they may be at the moment.”

Tim rose. He was tired of shadowy games.

Haywarden seemed mildly nonplused. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Sorry. Effective right now, I’m resigning from my position as Major Robert Malone, since I’ve become redundant. If you’ll excuse me, I have a dinner date waiting.”