The Spy (16 page)

“Lieutenant Sinclair?”

“Sir?”

“I want you to write two letters—to your family and your son—which you must hand to me tomorrow. They are just for the record, to be posted if you do not return.”

Valerie longed for fresh air: the bird-reek was getting to her.

“Tell them you have arrived in Southampton, and that you are finding the new training...interesting, just as you would, you see, had this been the case.” The Commander studied the shadowy walls of the cave, then brushed a tiny white feather from his sleeve. “‘A feather found is like Cupid's compass, pointing ever to love,'” Hamilton revealed abruptly. “That, gentlemen, for whatever it is worth, comes straight from Emily Blackstone, your Commodore's wife.” She had slipped him wise sayings, from time to time, to use with his agents. A postscript from the gods, the Commander hoped it would give them something to think about. The tiny feather fluttered to the floor. “Hmmm. Birds made quite a mess in here.”

“Sorry, sir!”

“It's nothing, Sinclair. So, there you have it! Stay sober”—he raised an eyebrow—“and stay alert.” They would return separately to the hotel. “And not a word of this to anyone, Lieutenant. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. I do now, sir.”

“Good show.” The Commander checked his watch. “Let's pack it in then, shall we?” The two men walked out into the sunshine. Valerie watched them leave.

Pierre stopped, he examined his boots. He did not like birds, knowing they carried lice. “Commander, back there” he jerked his thumb, “what kind of birds?”

“What kind?”

Valerie came dashing out of the cave, she was holding a feather. The Navy man placed his hand affectionately on the French Captain's shoulder. He winked.

“Shitty ones, old boy.”

“Go ahead,” said Eisenhower.

Lord Louis Mountbatten grabbed Bull Durham by the homs. “Delighted, yes...well! Indeed a pleasure to speak with you. It's about this morning's call from our
Boss
, you see—”

“Yours, or mine?”

“—asked me to clear up a few things for you. Seems there may have been some misunderstanding.”

Eisenhower waited. “I don't think so,” he said. “It's about the Weather Secretive, isn't it?” Churchill had filled him in, his phone was still warm. “Care to tell me the
real
reason...for conning me out of it?”

The Con, steerage of a ship.

“Come now! A bit harsh on each other, aren't we?” A Royal Navy man, Lord Louis disliked the American usage. “The entire matter can be explained, I assure you. You know about the mission, then, I presume?”

“I know about
a
mission, if that's what you mean. I also know you needed our Weather Command to pull it off, and it looks to me like you really didn't care how you got it.”

“I see....”

In previous meetings, and in friendlier days, he had noted Ike's voice to be similar to that of Clark Gable. When it came to brawls in a Klondike saloon, Englishmen usually didn't fare too well.

“That your view, is it?” Mountbatten loosened his tie. He could hear it, thunder was rumbling. “Would you feel better if I disclosed the entire matter to you, after the fact?”

“After
what
fact?”

Mountbatten, smiling through it, said: “I have an idea. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?”

Two days ago, Eisenhower, quartered at Southwick, had turned the Allied Weather Command back over to the British. The meeting, in secret and curiously called, had been with Air Marshal Tedder, a close advisor, valuable to him in his difficult dealings with Montgomery. Ike recalled it; something odd in his manner—too much urgency when Whitehall's man had handed him the pen. Still, Art Tedder's logic had made sense: the R.A.F. would work better with its own suppliers.

By the next night, doubt had entered.

Ike had called Churchill. At Churchill's request, Ike had just agreed to meet with Tedder again, this afternoon at Portsmouth. “Teddy will work it out,” the P.M. had suggested. Now, here was Mountbatten, all smiles and a mile wide, live on the line and trying to hogwash him.

“Okay,” Ike said. “Let's take it from the top. What's the code name of the mission?”

“I can't tell you that.”

Ike, in England, raised an eyebrow: “Wait a minute, what are you telling me? Something special?”

“Special? To British interests, yes.” The American Command was not in position to have MI.5's access to the facts.

From Ike's perspective, the cards on the other end did not appear to be the regular ones; more, Lord Louis seemed bothered by them. If a weak hand, he should try to get it on the table.

Mountbatten had called....

“Well, as far as
I
know,” Dwight Eisenhower said, “I'm supposed to be in charge here. Since you're using the Armed Forces Weather Command to cover up the mission you don't want to talk about, why don't we start by your telling me exactly what kind of mission it
is
, that's so god-awful important?”

“I would if I could, old boy, but I can't, you see? It's... something different, is all I can tell you.”

“ ‘Something different'? Look, I think it might be a good idea if you simply leveled with me. If you're counting on me to go along with somebody's colossal screw-up—” what else
could
it be? “—that
is
what you're counting on, isn't it? For me to understand your position, to work with you to straighten it out. That right?”

“Not right.” How much did he know? “The Prime Minister, indeed, is very concerned about all this—” Did he know about the girl? “—but I'm afraid it's too late now for us to do much about it.”

“Meaning, I take it, that you think it's none of my business.” After the signing on Wednesday, Tedder had met with Montgomery. “Tell me,” Ike said, “is this some deal between you and Montgomery?”

“Monty?”

“Monty. Because, if it is and I can find out”—this afternoon's meeting—“you can kiss it good-bye!”

“Here now, Dwight, don't be ridiculous!” Manners, man! “You know bloody well that we wouldn't...”

“... wouldn't what?”

Ordered to nudge Eisenhower into safe harbor, the Commodore was finding the decks awash; he had tacked into rough seas. “As I was saying”—veering into the American wind—“or rather,
trying
to say, right?” Mountbatten laughed; he was good-natured about it.

Ike could have liked him; there had been times. That all-night party last year with “Tug” Ismay, before the Roosevelt-Churchill meeting at Casablanca...

“Go on.”

“Fifteen previous missions,” Mountbatten said, “all with SOE, all with female agents, and you were the very first, outside of ourselves, to get a full report—”

In a lesser man, the voice would have carried censure.

“Yep. Thanks a million.”

“And?”

“I read them. I also know you stopped sending them after what happened to the Gladstone girl—” He had the dossiers in front of him. Bernstein had got them. “—six months ago, wasn't it? And now you've got a new one?”

“Well, perhaps.” Lord Louis, at any cost, intended to protect her. His voice, coming through loud, now fading,
vibration on the line
. “You've brought in an outside Operative. Civilian, isn't he? Your man in the trench coat? I can't very well see how you could know about her, though—”

Ike grinned. “You'd be surprised what I know.”

What the hell was he talking about?

Both men stopped; they were listening.

A third ear...it had taken over the phones, working faster than the eye could follow...pulling wires and rearranging circuits: magnetic current breathing curious from where another's interest was running parallel—each man thinking it the other.

Something had entered
...

Ike was hearing it—against a Kansas skyline, the creaking of the wagons. Mountbatten pausing, didn't Ike hear it?—spilling over into the sea swell...the ghostly sound of a Corsican bell... trailing away now... into the wake of remembered time.

“You there?” Ike said.

Mountbatten stared at the phone: it was in his ears, the cloy of accusation. Ike tapped his receiver a few times, it seemed to have passed. Couldn't possibly have been a tap, could it?
No
. Locked and secured downline, that possibility didn't exist. Weather condition, from Ceylon probably. “Anybody on the damn line?”

“Hope so,” Mountbatten said, both voices clear. He had seen a picture, or thought he had, during the static. It was the man in the trench coat; face not remembered, in the black sky below marble stairwells; the day of blue rain streaming across Peredynia. He had sensed it, during the lull.

Eisenhower knew about the girl!

“Getting back,” voice in England was saying, “I think I would like some answers.”

Looking in on GOLDILOCKS, and searching for bears, what else had the faceless Informant told him? Could The Spy not be leading both sides into a goose chase?

“Yes, I suppose that you would. It isn't as though we've been going ahead, you see, trying to hide something from you. Were that the case, it should have been clear to you that—”

“Bullshit!”

That was clear enough.

Mountbatten said: “I am not at all sure this is getting us anywhere, so why not have a go at it this way...?” Ike listened. “To begin with, I must say that I can vouch personally for the morality of this mission. Since it is my mission, you see, I stand personally responsible for it. Now, I readily admit that you were excluded. Moreover, I think it fair to tell you that you can probably count on that continuing to be the case, at least until after Sunday night.”

Ike made a note. He would be in Normandy. Mountbatten must have known. British Commanders had petitioned to change Army movements. Review had become necessary to reinstate American policy. Leaving tomorrow, spending the fourth with Bradley's First Army, Ike would return on Tuesday night.

“For the moment,” Lord Louis said, “all I can say is that the real reason for this mission, to use your words, exists precisely in the fact that it
is
based in national self interest, the autonomous self interest of the Commonwealth, and that I cannot, and will not, divulge anything more than you already know, because you see, to
do
so would be to betray my own principles, as a man.”

“I understand that.”

“Well then! I cannot tell you how pleased I am to hear it!” Mountbatten could relax. Churchill congratulated him; it was over his shoulder. He was smiling:

Buddha's voice
,
in the rain
.

“—should this prove to be the breach of trust it
appears
to be,” he was suddenly hearing, Bull Durham rearing from the ring, “then I think your ‘national self-interest' may have to go by the board. Anything this important that's done behind our back, my friend, does
not
support its own morality!”

Mountbatten switched on his desk fan: he needed air.

The Waterfall project was not being mentioned. Tightly protected in the most inaccessible reaches of British Naval Intelligence, it could not even be imagined. From Mountbatten's point of view, indeed, from Churchill's, the logic was simple....

It did not exist.

“See here,” Lord Louis said, “I have told you all I can.”

“Which is
zilch
.” Eyes sweeping the desk, Ike spotted the pack of Raleighs. Left by his Orderly, Colonel Tex Lee, he felt like smoking one. Tapping it out, he coughed: it was the weather. Wiping his mouth, the General continued, “Something's fishier than
hell
.”

“Oh? Really?”

Lighter clicked. “Yes.
Really
. While I do not purport to speak for Tom, Dick, and Harry, I
do
speak for Kilroy”—G.I. Joe, soon to be on half the walls in France—“for Bradley, for Collins, and for the policies of President Roosevelt, who—”

“Good luck to him.”

“
Listen
!” Ike was pissed. “I think I've lived long enough to know that nondisclosure by one of our Allies”—De Gaulle, for one, to whom FDR was allergic; Mountbatten, not much higher on the list—“could certainly be viewed by our government as a cause for real alarm.” His hands, scarred forever from his boyhood, from pulling Kansas wheat, were full with the war. Against its callousness, he saw the specter of the military-industrial complex, curling into his future like a snake, turning to confront him. In the race for post-war positions, the Soviets up shit creek, the American thought he might know: a grab for power, suddenly explaining the parts. And what Ike was hearing, he didn't like.

“That's right. I don't like it.”

Mountbatten looked at his cards, his hand had not changed. He wouldn't mind: Ike could like it less. Whitehall, barred by FDR from the Manhattan Project, had not forgiven him for the slight. Now, to complete their project, the Oppenheimer Group had begun to voice their need for more reliable data. From any source, at any price.

Meaning Germany.

If the American investigation, which this call was meant to contain, could be kept in the dark for a few more days, presuming the mission would launch on Sunday night, deliverance would come from the information relayed by Valerie Sinclair; revealing the locations of all the German nuclear projects in Occupied territory. Montgomery's armies would take care of the rest of it, reaching the secrets first, especially, the Waterfall. World parity for the British Empire was certain to follow from Whitehall's seventeen Merchant Bankers, nucleus of the London Financial District; from its Royal Navy scenario; and from its MI.5 cover.

Except—!

It would not be the Oppenheimer Group who would get it!

Mountbatten, returning to brass tacks, got down to them, “—strictly an in house struggle between us and Special Operations Executive. You know how SOE is. Worse than a bloody woman! Sore, wouldn't you know, because they feel they have not been properly acknowledged. See now, last month, that mess we had with De Gaulle. A few weeks, that's all. Well get the entire matter straightened out with him, and have it Johnny on your desk. We seem to have had a bit of a misunderstanding, you see.”