Rag and Bone (21 page)

“Operation Frantic Joe,” Bull said.

“Now simply called Operation Frantic,” Cosgrove put in, as if reminding a child of a forgotten lesson.

“Right,” Bull said. “The idea began as a response to Stalin’s demand for a second front against the Germans. The Soviets wanted us to do something to take the pressure off them on the Eastern Front. We will, but on our schedule, not theirs. For now, we do have long-range bomber forces, and can put them to work pretty damn quick.”

“Did Frantic Joe refer to Joe Stalin?” I asked.

“Yes, but it was thought to be more diplomatic to shorten it to Operation Frantic. We’re going to set up Eighth Air Force airfields in the Soviet Union, flying shuttle missions back and forth between there and our bases in England. That’s what they brought me back from Northern Ireland for, to plan optimal routes for our bombers.”

“So we’ll be hitting targets on the Eastern Front for the Russians?”

“Yes, plus our own strategic targets. You see, the plan has a dual purpose. It’ll play havoc with the German air defenses. They won’t know if we’ll be flying back to the base we started at, or straight through the Reich. Right now, their air defenses try to intercept us on the way to the target, or on the way home.
Once we’re set up with the Russians, they’ll have to spread themselves thin, since we can fly to bases in Italy as well.”

“That’s what the Russians were doing at High Wycombe,” I said. “Planning for their end of Operation Frantic.”

“Exactly. No one was supposed to know. Then you show up asking questions, and everyone gets nervous. So here we are. We need you inside the tent, Billy. Just keep your mouth shut about it.”

“It is important that you solve the murder of Egorov,” Cosgrove said. “We must know if that was a security breach, a personal matter, or simply a random crime. If word about Operation Frantic gets out, there will be hell to pay.”

“I need to question the members of the delegation, to see if any of them know anything. I tried at the embassy and got the cold shoulder from Sidorov.”

“He’s NKVD, like Egorov was,” Bull said. “They sat back and watched, hardly ever participated.”

“Yeah. The question is, who’s watching them? Can I have Big Mike in on this, Colonel Harding? And Kaz.”

“Impossible,” Cosgrove sputtered.

“Why?” Harding said.

“Kaz speaks Russian, and I trust him.”

“He’s Polish,” Cosgrove said. “The Russians won’t stand for it.”

“How about he just listens? They ought to be used to that.”

“I’ll see if we can get him back from the Poles,” Harding said. “But he’ll have to remove the Poland shoulder patch. He’ll be attached to SHAEF headquarters, so they won’t have a basis for complaint.”

“Never stopped the bloody Bolsheviks before,” Cosgrove said. “Tomorrow the joint planning committee is moving operations down to Dover. Be prepared to join us, Boyle.”

“Dover? Not High Wycombe?”

“That’s where the Royal Navy comes in. Major Cosgrove decided that Red Air Force officers at Eighth Air Force HQ might lead people to put two and two together. So we’re moving
everyone down to Dover Castle, on the coast. It’s a Royal Navy base, secure, with underground tunnels. Made to order.”

“In case there are any spies about,” Cosgrove explained, “we’ve put out word that we are giving the Russians a tour of the castle and of the defensive measures taken in the area, earlier in the war, when invasion was a real possibility. There will probably be a photograph in the newspapers of a Russian or two and some Home Guard chaps, that sort of thing.”

“Perfect. I can interview them while the public relations stuff is going on.”

“You’ll have to cut them out of the herd, Billy,” Bull said. “Those Russkies stick real close together. You can start tonight. We’ve been invited to the opera at their place.”

“Russian opera,” Cosgrove said. “Dreadful stuff.”

“Major Cosgrove,” I said, trying to sound respectful, “I’m investigating one of the London gangs that may have been involved with Egorov’s death. Archie Chapman is the head guy.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Cosgrove said. “He runs a well-organized operation for a fellow who’s off his rocker. Spreads a bit of the wealth around locally, which makes it difficult for the Met, I understand.”

“Right. I’m interested in his son, Topper Chapman. Can I get a look at his file?”

“He’s not in the army, so we wouldn’t have a file on him,” Cosgrove said.

“I mean the secret files you have access to. It may be important.”

“Very well. I’ll see what we have.”

The meeting broke up and I hung back in the outer office until everyone was in the hall. Big Mike sat at his desk, the office chair creaking under his weight as he went through a stack of files.

“What gives?” I asked him. “Didn’t you tell Harding about the truck?”

“Sure I did, Billy. I also told him about your idea to get it back. He liked it.”

“My idea?”

“Well, I didn’t want anything to mess up getting Estelle back here, so I figured we both had to come out looking good. I told him you wanted all the pubs and restaurants in Shoreditch placed off limits to U.S. personnel until the truck and shipment were returned.”

“That’s a stroke of genius, Big Mike. A lot of those joints must pay protection to Chapman. He’ll have to give it up to protect his income.”

“And his reputation. He can look like a hero on his home turf, getting us to lift the restriction. Plus he gets a few crates of peaches out of the deal. We only want fifty back.”

“You make me sound like I’m one crafty lieutenant.”

“That’s a noncom’s job, Billy,” Big Mike said as he returned to the files and forms on his desk.

CHAPTER
•
FIFTEEN

I
T’S NOT EVERY
pair of lieutenants who get their shoes shined regularly at the Dorchester, but I almost wished Kaz hadn’t left our best patent leathers out for a workover. The smell of shoe polish was a reminder of home, so I didn’t mind a go with a good brush. When I was a kid, it was my job to take Dad’s shoes down cellar once a week and give them a spit shine. I’d sit on the wooden steps, with the door open behind me, listening to the sounds of the house. Mom cleaning up in the kitchen, my little brother Danny running around, and Dad fiddling with the radio. It felt like it would always be that way, that I’d never run out of weeks to put a shine to my father’s shoes.

So I liked shining shoes, but I couldn’t explain all that to Kaz. It would make me sound like I wasn’t a tough guy. I sipped good Irish whiskey instead, hearing the
swoop swoosh
of the brush in my mind as it went back and forth over countless pairs of shoes, the aroma in the glass a poor substitute for mink oil, leather, black shoe polish, and the traces of my old man’s sweat that I picked up on my fingers as I curled them inside each shoe, forcing out the folds and buffing them with all my might, desperate to do this job right, as if everything depended on a perfect shoe shine. I always complained, but I worked as hard as I could at it. Funny, the things you miss. Right now, I’d have given anything to have that shoe brush in my hand.

I watched Kaz knotting his tie in the mirror and felt ashamed of my homesickness. His family was dead, and his nation occupied by the Germans, with the Russians up at bat next. There was a lot of politics going on about Polish borders after the war,
but reading between the lines I knew that the Soviets were going to bite off a big chunk for themselves and call the shots in what was left. I still had a home to go to. Kaz had nowhere to go, and no one to be with in England after the war. I wondered if he’d want to settle in Boston. Never mind that, I told myself. Make sure he doesn’t hang first.

“Kaz, you need to see your tailor,” I said, shaking off the melancholy. “You’re busting the seams of that shirt.”

“Do you think so, Billy? My collar feels tight also.” He put on his dress uniform jacket, the one he’d had tailored. It did look a little tight in the shoulders. There was a barely discernible patch of darker fabric where the red Poland patch had been. Kaz had been glad to be released back into service with SHAEF, and had cut the stitching with no regrets.

“It’s true,” I said. “Those weights are working. You’ve got some real muscle.”

Kaz beamed, proud of his new strength. I was glad of it, too. I knew I needed our morning workouts as well, to sweat out the alcohol I’d been dousing myself with. Some of it had been in the line of duty, but the rest was in the line of drowning my sorrows, worrying about Kaz and Diana, and feeling sorry for myself. I had to work at remembering I didn’t have it half as bad as Kaz, or everyone else in this war who might get in the way of a bullet. I started to down the rest of my drink, and then thought about what we might encounter that night at the Soviet Embassy. If it shaped up anything like the Poles and their vodka and the Chapmans and their gin, I needed to save my energy. I set the glass down. Moderation was my middle name.

Shoes shined, ribbons and brass all in order, we put on trench coats and walked across Hyde Park to Bayswater Road, heading for the embassy. Clouds blew across the evening sky, and patches of stars shone through the breaks, glimmering on the still waters of the Serpentine.

“It could be bombing weather tonight,” Kaz said, scanning the sky.

“You don’t think it was an isolated raid?”

“No, I don’t think so. Have you noticed the newspapers haven’t reported it yet? They don’t want it to appear as if it’s a new phase of the Blitz, but it could be. If there’s another attack, they’ll probably report it as nothing more than a nuisance raid, to keep morale up. The Germans will likely report a thousand planes destroyed the London docks. If you want the truth in this war, the last place to look is in a newspaper.”

“Where, then?” I asked.

“To people like Eddie Miller, and those who pay them.”

“Who did you pay, Kaz, when you were with the Poles?”

“Ah, a gentleman does not kiss and tell, or reveal his sources. There are Eddie Millers everywhere.”

“Are there Russian Eddies?”

“They proved quite difficult. There is a tremendous amount of fear, and of course they only go about in groups. It is hard to speak to a Russian alone.”

“There was another guy in the room the whole time I was speaking to Sidorov.”

“That is their system, which makes the killing of Egorov intriguing. Although the NKVD must be above the rules. I’m quite curious to meet this Captain Sidorov.”

“You feel OK about going?”

“Yes, I don’t think there will be overt hostility. As long as you don’t fall asleep during the opera.”

“Elbow me if I snore. Looks like quite a gathering ahead,” I said, pointing to a line of cars parked in front of the embassy. British and American staff cars, black Rolls-Royces, and other private cars disgorged officers and ladies who made their way through a covered walkway into a formal side entrance. No burly guys in ill-fitting suits frisking these guests, just a Red Army officer with a clipboard.

“Lieutenants Kazimierz and Boyle, welcome, on behalf of the peace-loving people of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I am Captain Rak Vatutin. Please, go in and enjoy
some refreshments before the film starts. There will be a reception afterward.”

“Thanks. How long is the film?” I asked.

“I have not seen it yet,” Vatutin said. “But the opera is four acts with an epilogue. There is an intermission,” he said with an apologetic smile.

We entered a large hallway filled with a mix of elegant evening gowns and dress uniforms. There were half a dozen colors, from the steel blue of the Red Air Force to the dark blues of three navies and the brown and khaki of Yanks, Brits, and Russians amidst a smattering of diplomats in tuxedos. I spotted Sidorov and he glided over, glad-handing as he went, the confident, genial host.

“Captain Kiril Sidorov at your service, Lieutenant Kazimierz. Thank you so much for coming. Lieutenant Boyle, it is good to see you again.”

“Thanks for the invite, Captain. What’s the occasion?”

“Simply a cultural event, to show the world that even in the midst of war against the Fascist aggressor, the Soviet Union still attends to the arts. We often screen new films as they make their way here from Moscow.”

“You’re a busy man,” I said. “Aren’t you in the middle of planning Operation Frantic?”

“Billy,” Kaz said, “one does not bring up names directly, especially at an event like this.”

“You Americans are so direct, aren’t you?” Sidorov said. “Lieutenant Kazimierz is correct, and not simply about the social niceties. The walls have ears, as the ancient Greek said. So, I must say, I have no idea what you are talking about. Here, have some vodka.” He signaled to a waiter, who brought a tray of tall, thin glasses over.

“To victory,” Sidorov said.

“To victory and freedom,” Kaz said. We drank, and three more glasses appeared.

“You must eat something,” Sidorov said. “There are only a
few minutes before we must be seated.” He led us to a long table, where senior brass were feeding like locusts. “We call this
zukuski
, little bites. Things to eat while you drink vodka. Enjoy, please, and I will see you inside.” He snapped his fingers, and Vatutin, fresh from clipboard duty, joined us. He guided us through a selection of pickled onions, caviar tarts, salmon pastry, beet salad, and half a dozen things I didn’t recognize.

“Why do we rate all this attention?” I said as Vatutin went off in a search of a fresh tray of cold vodka. “Why do a couple of lieutenants get the royal treatment, in the midst of this high society?”

“Perhaps Sidorov took a liking to you,” Kaz said. “I see what you mean about him. He is not as heavy-handed as most Russians, although he says all the right words.”

“Think he believes them?”

“In their system, belief does not matter as much as obedience. If he has survived this long, and has been posted here, it is because he is trusted and connected.”

“Family connections?”

“Not his family. We did manage to pick up a few tidbits of gossip about Kiril Sidorov. His parents died of typhus, and he was raised in a Soviet orphanage. From there he went straight into the Komsomol, the Communist youth organization. As soon as he was old enough, he began service with the NKVD border guards. Shortly before the war, he was transferred to internal security, courtesy of his wife’s father.” Kaz interrupted his story to wolf down another caviar tart.