The Spy (21 page)

Leaving a string, too short on one end.

Paul Warburg, who had paid cash, and who had stolen the produced wealth of millions of Americans, condemning generations to massive debt and reverting their nation to a colony, had conveniently died and gone to heaven, leaving the location of
the Receipt
as the greatest unanswered question of the century.

So, where was it?

Blackstone chuckled.

He didn't know
...

The final notation, dated and initialed 24 March 1943, and on whiter bond, was from Bletchley Park.

P. Warburg, immortalized as Daddy Warbucks in the comic strip “Little Orphan Annie
.”

The verifying officer, unable to resist black humor, had scribbled on the side in India ink, “
Sandy, no doubt, was wired for sound
.” It was Blackstone's favorite. In any event, a proper gentleman read
The Times
. The lower classes, shopgirls and that sort, read
The Daily Telegraph
.

Mayor La Guardia, in New York, read the funny papers.

Which brought him to bibliography,
Bechtel Construction Corporation
, filed under ATLAS.

Warburg, Paul Moritz. Born 8/10/1868. Married Nina J. Loeb 1894. Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Dir. B & O R.R. First Chairman, Federal Reserve Board 1914•18. Appointed by Pres. Wilson. Died 1/24/32.

Blackstone, turned the page, he wet his lips.

...the Council on Foreign Relations...Bildiburgers ... the Royal Economic Institute, and with Bruno von Schroeder is a Trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation
.

“
Was
, you mean,” the Commodore corrected. But the dead were not there to bear witness. Behind him, salient as a dream, a shadow moved across the sundrenched walls. In spite of the day, he was feeling cold. Perhaps he should take Emily up on it. A few weeks in Bermuda. Blackstone adjusted the lamp, turning the pages. Outside, the first day of July rose hot.

“Hello?”

Secret profiles on American war correspondents: George Seldes, marked ITALY, and Edward R. Murrow, tagged MINISTRY OF INFORMATION, apparently out of place. A Note stamped by the Admiralty read “bears watching.” Seldes, turning his back on the British Official Secrets Act, had nearly let the cat out of the bag: Four years ago during
Götterdammerung
, the final moments of the Blitzkrieg, the injuries to England were so massive that Churchill, unknown to the public, had been within eleven hours of surrendering. Seldes, who had the story but didn't file it, had been nipped by the War Office. What bothered Blackstone, was that he wrote it.

If that blighter Hearst got wind of it...

Blackstone pulled the files of the two reporters loose, scribbled the correct routing, and placed both in the OUT file. The rest of the data was tediously written, unusually thick, and already bracketed....

ULTRA SECRET.

The Commodore lay the cumbersome dossier aside, and turned to the one it had been hiding. American stock brokers had lobbied Roosevelt not to bomb the Krupp watch factories in Germany. Roosevelt had said
no
. Deal struck with R.A.F. concurred; protesting Air Marshal replaced...

“Bloody dark business, I'd say,” the Commodore said. He finished the page. The name of the officer, his late friend, had been mercifully removed. The initials confirming this were unclear, but it looked as though the ax had come from Tedder. Advising Eisenhower these days, ay? About what? Weather reports?
That bloody Irish mistress
? The file on her was growing thick. No! To put the proper face on it, Parker should let slip to Bridley that Tedder's advice to Eisenhower was actually about Mountbatten! Cousin of the King, was he? What Lord Louis got first hand from Bletchley Park, via Bridley, wouldn't hurt his betters. Mountbatten was a fish, he'd swallow anything. Blackstone rang for his Adjutant.

He returned to his files.

Historically, the protesting Air Marshal no longer existed. Secretly, Blackstone wished the same for that blasted girl, their new Lieutenant, with “the Big Ones,” that agent who wore panties!

Lieutenant
, indeed!

As though before a slow mirror, uncomfortably and with distress, the Commodore's thoughts turned to Sinclair. In forty-eight hours, she would be ashore. The same sun that was rising on Occupied France was glaring through his window. The knock at the door was Parker. Blackstone instructed him to pull the blinds. He did so. The Commodore had other instructions: “leaks” to Bridley, for Mountbatten. He spoke in a low voice, and the Adjutant listened intently. “Take care of it then,” Blackstone said. The younger man nodded and left. The Commodore, starting to call after him, watched the door close. He had meant to ask him about the vibration. Some problem with the pipes, probably. He returned to the folders, his attention disturbed, reading the same page twice. That damned girl! Telling Hamilton she'd been followed by a man without a face! What nonsense! She had them wrapped around her little finger. Churchill's conception, granted; but it was his, Blackstone's brains that were making it work. It had been
his
idea to paint over
HM Tuna
, to send an unmarked sub; his idea that the records would show her in port tomorrow night; his idea that...

He looked at the doleful photograph of his wife, Emily, and wondered uneasily if this Sinclair had ever seen, or had access to, the files on his desk.

But how could she?

Of course not! Not even Hamilton had seen them, nor did he know of them! Certainly, his own office was safe! Still, one should never take these things for granted. With that
photographic memory
...He stared at them, bibles of strangers, and reviewed the security measures taken to protect them: no duplicates, no tapes, and the Southampton office outside their wire. Nothing to worry about then.

Just himself, and Whitehall.

He gave each of the remaining half dozen or so little more than a cursory glance, familiar with their secret histories, assigning them to judgment. Now, there were just the three. The first was the dossier on de Beck, painstakingly added to by Hamilton; and which bore, on the opening page, the current list of the Frenchman's Medals and Commendations. He would serve them well. Blackstone thumped it with pride, threw it on the stack, then sat staring for a long time at the folder in front of him.

Sinclair, Valerie
.

His smile faded.

Jaws clenching, he shoved it to one side, attending first to the buckram, coded with a red stripe. Here, the subject matter, unshared with the Yanks, was more cryptic and to the point:

ROTHSCHILD.

Blackstone read.

Not much there. The usual list of charities. Helping in the war effort and all that. Internal data. The Warburgs again. Felix M. Warburg—that would be Max. D.O.D. 10/20/37. Left a daughter: Mrs. Carola Rothschild.

In Diplomacy, all the right people were connected.

The Commodore wet his thumb, and turned the page.

A block history, and all old hat. Meyer Bauer, forming banks, had changed his name to “Red Shield” or Rothschild; and, in 1846, gained control of the Bank of England.
Certain about that date, were they! Waterloo, wasn't it?

Rothschild was #1.

Taking his time, he went over the last few pages.

Kuhn Loeb...ah,
Schroeder
! The connection? Brown Bros. Harriman, New York. Yes, of course. That would be #2. But where was he? Where was #2? Stephenson's file? Sir William Stephenson, a Canadian, was rumored to be Churchill's personal spy. Seems Parker had mentioned that. The Commodore double-checked...no file on him? Hmmm, curious that, he should have been listed. The others seemed to be there. To a man, all good men, and true.

Blackstone closed the files.

Compared to
them
, what was one officer—and a
woman
, at that! If forced he would discredit her, and remove her from honor!
That wouldn't look very good for Mountbatten
. Blackstone, smiling thinly, scratched his nose and placed Sinclair's folder on top. Satisfied, he opened the desk drawer, took out the ink pad and the large hand-sized stamp.
All Files
, the wife had written,
pass beneath the eyes of the Sphinx
.

He acknowledged the wise saying.

As for this other, this Interloper—this Sinclair-Marchaud thing—chances were the Jerries would kill her straightaway: they had, the others. But if she prevailed? Suppose she talked? Correspondents were getting sharper, and nastier, these days. That Murrow fellow, for instance. Hadn't his car recently exploded? Certainly it had! Few weeks ago, wasn't it? Protest by CBS? Fire in the Hotel Ritz, big row with Paley?

Britain couldn't police the whole bloody world
.

Then there was de Beck. Someone dependable, that. Understandable, that he had been off his stride at the dance. One then, is all it would take. David Hamilton had his orders: if the girl failed to show,
and on time
, he and de Beck were to leave without her. Even the Almighty could hope. De Beck, certainly, could bring him what he wanted; delivering what partners needed to know. “Photographic memories,” indeed! No point to keep sending these bloody women. Besides, surely Churchill was ahead of it. Insurance was his field—that business of his Code Override, absolutely smashing—provided Hamilton wasn't rash enough to bag the credit. Rumor had it that Winston had already started his Memoirs. Naturally, the name of John Blackstone, otherwise known as #11, would be prominently featured. Meanwhile, with the Commander moving up in the Firm; the Commodore was concerned that he not move too quickly. In the Royal Navy, in its history books, one had to earn one's place! Well, he would handle it. Hamilton worked for him. He must remember to tell the P.M. that...the next time he was invited over.

Blackstone pulled in the files. He raised the stamp. It was the DESTROY stamp. Hitler was a threat to business! But that girl, a threat to—and he slammed the stamp home, remembering his first piece at Dartmouth underneath the midnight limbs with that working girl who needed the money and whose tears had mixed with the blood on his trousers, there on the grass, before his wars, and before Emily.

Breathing slightly heavily, barely noticeable, really, John Blackstone stared uneasily at his wife's photograph. When was their club date? Emily had looked forward to it for months. He glanced at the calendar:
Saturday, 1 July 1944
. Next week? He remembered:
Wednesday, July 5th, 1900 hours
. And who was that, the guest artist? Alec Templeton, the blind British pianist. Back from America?
Chesterfield Supper Club
sort of thing, was it? Tux, and all that? There could be no question about it.

Britannia ruled the waves:

Fragile to her enemies, yet concealing a barnacled fist, en during, endearing, the Little Orphan Annie of nations. And it was he, John Blackstone, who would save her—her Empire, her Eminence, her grandeur and her glory, the glory of the Royal Navy itself—from this...hybrid exigency, these
females
that Whitehall had so painfully thrust upon him. In the arcane orifice of a Victorian mansion, in the rarefied world of the megabankers, the Commodore stood tall upon the crest of their finest hour, the Union Jack thrust forward into History, gripped firmly in his authoritative hand. A hand, that would never change...

Just like Daddy Warbucks.

Orphan in a foreign-owned hotel, Sinclair scratched her head. To travel through time, one must start in one's bed. Too bad she had slept through it. How could one recall such things, if one's eyes were crossed? Splitting a beam of light, she brought her own back into balance. Maybe she would meet him at Elstree. It was certainly something to think about, the man of her dreams. After Hamilton departed, she had not remembered the night. Her camera without film, it had vanished.

Gown gone, naked...pillows on the floor.

Maybe it wasn't a dream. On the one hand: falling asleep, the last thing she remembered was sex. But with whom? How would Hamilton, who hadn't put it, put it?

Arrived
, had she?

Tortured by vague recollections, Sinclair had turned and was noting, in the cool shadows of the room, provocative sculpturing, body parts, appearing in ravaged sheets and gathering in the crumpled chenille: faces of gargoyles, tongues hanging out; elongated legs and pieces of torso; triangular eyes staring up at her from the black sockets of the quilt. The air crawled with invitation, and the walls thumped.

Party time.

The couple in the next room, not caring who knew, yet hoping that somebody would, had been transmitting their lovemaking in
voice prints
; and these wishes, as it were, forming faces in the fabrics all around her, had taken over her room, the one she was suffering in, without a partner. Hamilton, stickler for privacy, had taken charge of her dating schedule, which was void of dates.

Such a sport.

Splashing about in the bathtub, and examining herself with alarm, Sinclair was thinking of love. Where was it? Sergeant Blumensteel, the daddy type, drinking double whiskies in which she had allegedly joined; and whose out-of-town affair, with somebody else, that same night and the next morning, she had not been able to remember; it was seeming to her now that she had not experienced anything approximate to last night's—?

Coming together of parts?

—in more than a year, if then. She wet her lips: they were slightly parted. She got dressed. Glancing at her watch, she recalled she had to be on a train. She sighed, gathered up her gear, and limped from the room.

Along the route, a rough ride, she thought of Hamilton, comparing him to his descriptions of Blackstone. One seemed so different from the other. Commodore Blackstone, emanating suspicion, hid in her mind like a black shadow. Was that why her film darkened, each time she focused on him? Sinclair stared moodily out the window, searching for happier subjects.

Face to the sun, she found them.