Rag and Bone (45 page)

There was a sharp rap on the window. It was time for Sidorov to go.

“Good-bye, Captain” was all I could say.

“Farewell, Billy. I’m afraid the confession has not helped my soul, and only unfairly burdened yours. But you asked.”

“I did,” I said, as Sidorov opened the door.

“Do you know what is odd?” Sidorov said, one foot out the door. “At night, I still pray. When I am alone, I pray. As if anyone might answer.”

The door slammed shut, and the Lancaster engines roared their desire to fly into the high, cold darkness. I stayed in the car and watched until the bomber was lost in the starry sky and silence cloaked the night. I knew then why Dad had never told me what he’d done to get Nuno out of trouble with the Mob. There are times when the wheels of justice have to go off course to set things right, and those times are best kept to yourself. I’d never ask again.

T
HIS TIME, AS
I entered the headquarters of MI5, I didn’t have to cool my heels in the foyer. I was expected, and a guard escorted me up to a small conference room, slightly larger than Cosgrove’s office, where the previous meeting had been.

“Ah, Lieutenant Boyle,” Cosgrove said warmly as I entered. There were eight men in the room, and they all closed their file folders as I came close. Folders with
Most Secret
stamped in red. “You know Kim Philby, of course. The others, well, you don’t really need to know their names. Sit.” There was a round of chuckles, and I took a seat next to Philby. Besides Cosgrove, his was the only face I recognized.

“Where’s Mr. Brown tonight?” I asked.

“Mr. Brown has been reassigned. Mr. Smythe has taken over his responsibilities, should you need to discuss anything with him. Now, tell us, how did things go with Sidorov?”

“Fine,” I said. “He’s on his way to Lisbon now.”

“Good,” one of the unnamed men said. “We can do without any further difficulties. Well done.”

“Tell me, Lieutenant Boyle,” Philby said as he lit his pipe. “Why did you ask to attend this meeting? Are you looking for a different posting? MI6 is always looking for new talent.”

“Thank you, sir, but no. I’d been curious if I could get Sidorov to agree to work for us—meaning the U.S. and Great Britain—thinking it would be useful to have someone on the inside in Moscow. I had a hunch he might go for it, but I needed more time. I decided to try and close the deal on the way to the airfield.”

“Close the deal?” Philby asked, arching an eyebrow. “In what way?”

“Talking to him, trying to figure out what motivated him. It seemed clear that if he wanted so badly to get out of going back, he must not be a big fan of the workers’ paradise. Turns out he hates his father-in-law, who’s some NKVD bigwig. Not too fond of his wife, either. She’s too much of a dedicated Communist for his taste. Apparently she works for the Propaganda Ministry and believes everything they publish. I finally got him to see it would be his best revenge, to use them against Stalin, as his cover.”

“Remarkable,” Cosgrove said.

“I also promised him a bankroll, if he ever managed to get out,” I said.

“Money is not a problem,” Philby said. “But how are we supposed to contact him?”

“
Corpora dormiunt vigilant animae
,” I said. “That’s the password. He’ll repeat it back in English.”

“The bodies are asleep, the souls are awake,” Cosgrove said, slowly translating the Latin. “Fitting.”

“Excellent, Boyle,” Philby said. The others nodded, making notes. “It will be especially useful after the war.”

“And now as well,” one of the others said. “The more we know about Stalin’s postwar intentions, the better. We’ll put a man in touch with him.”

Philby rose to show me out. When we were in the hallway, with the door shut behind us, he leaned in close and spoke in a low voice. “I wanted to thank you for putting me onto Dalenka. We never knew a member of the Three Kings had survived, much less made it to London. She’ll be very valuable.”

“I’m glad,” I said as I shook hands with Philby. I hoped working for MI6 would be an improvement over the Chapman gang.

I left them to their pipes and files, and walked back to the Dorchester. It was a starry night, but no bombers flew over London. The crowds were out, filling the sidewalks and taking in the sights. I imagined Diana looking up at the stars in Rome, and felt certain that, at least for now, she was safe, doing what she needed to do. Someday, we’d walk arm in arm again, perhaps in London, perhaps in some city not yet free of the Nazis.

I thought about the eight men I’d left in that room. From Sidorov’s hints, I knew there was a spy in MI6. There was a good chance it was one of them, or somebody who worked for them or to whom they reported. That was why I’d wanted to ride with Sidorov, to give myself enough time with him to make my story plausible, and to leave no chance of its being checked. Also to give him a chance to convince me he didn’t deserve to be set up. But that hadn’t happened. Instead, he told me what I needed to do. To be the one who held him to account.

I didn’t know who it might be, and had to trust that Cosgrove would investigate discreetly, as he said he would. But I didn’t dare raise suspicions at this point; whoever it was, I wanted him to think he was safe and secure so he wouldn’t hesitate to send on information about Sidorov.

I had no idea how these things worked. It might be as simple as a telephone call or as complicated as a coded message left at
a blind drop. Maybe the information would be sent to Moscow by the diplomatic pouch, or by radio. It might take days or weeks, but I was certain that justice of a sort would soon find Kiril Sidorov, as the NKVD took him in the dark of the night, arrested him as a traitor and spy, and threw him into Lubyanka Prison, perhaps in the same cell where Tadeusz Tucholski had been held. Perhaps he’d have a trial, but it didn’t matter. The verdict was already decided. Kiril Sidorov had betrayed his family and the Motherland. The executioner would become the victim.

Perhaps then, souls might sleep. His, at least.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

T
HE EVENTS DESCRIBED
in this novel regarding the Katyn Forest Massacre are true. Based on written orders issued by NKVD head Lavrentiy Beria, and co-signed by Joseph Stalin and other members of the Soviet Politburo, approximately twenty-two thousand Polish officers, policemen, and other professionals held by the Soviets were executed at Katyn as well as at other locations in the Soviet Union. Since the first graves were uncovered at Katyn, the entire murderous affair became known by that name.

When evidence of the massacres emerged, the western response was focused on maintaining the alliance with the Soviets, whose offensives were grinding down the Germans in advance of the D-Day invasion of Europe. Winston Churchill privately agreed that the Soviets were responsible, but his public statements pointed to German guilt.
The Katyn Manifesto
, published in England in 1943, placed the blame for the massacre on the Soviets, based on information obtained from Poles who had been released from Russian prisons. The author, Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk, was arrested by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch for his writings and imprisoned for the duration of the war.

The American government also participated in the Katyn cover-up. Navy Lieutenant Commander George Howard Earle III, President Roosevelt’s special emissary to the Balkans in 1943, was ordered by FDR to compile information on the Katyn Massacre. Earle’s conclusion in 1944 was that the Soviet Union was responsible. FDR rejected the report, stating that he was convinced Nazi Germany had committed the atrocities. When
he ordered Earle’s report suppressed, a frustrated Earle formally requested permission to publish his findings. FDR issued a written order to desist. To ensure his silence, Earle was reassigned and spent the rest of World War II in the Pacific on the island of American Samoa.

In 1990, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation admitted Soviet responsibility for the killings, but declined to categorize them as war crimes or genocide, thereby sidestepping the possibility of charges being filed against surviving perpetrators.

When Billy arrives in London in January 1944, he witnesses the start of an actual German air offensive that became known as the Baby Blitz. The Luftwaffe had assembled a force of over five hundred aircraft and in January ’44 began a series of mass attacks, the largest since 1941. The raids continued for three months, and although they came as a surprise to the British, they were not a success. The Luftwaffe loss of bombers was high, which contributed to their ineffectual response to D-Day in June 1944.

The Liverpool Underground shelter, minus Archie Chapman, was a well-organized shelter, with the facilities described. Many Londoners did continue to sleep in the Tube stations long after the original Blitz was over, and it is easy to imagine them snug in their bunks with satisfied smiles, as their neighbors made do with a cold floor.

Operation Frantic, a series of shuttle bombing raids, commenced in June 1944 to support Soviet offensives that coincided with the D-Day invasion of Normandy. It was originally conceived on a grand scale, but the Soviets resisted the idea of large American bases within their borders. The raids did complicate German defenses, but only a small contingent of U.S. personnel was ever stationed in the USSR.

The beautiful and haunted Dalenka is fictional, but the Three Kings was an underground Czechoslovakian anti-Nazi organization. Its members were all killed in action or executed.

Kim Philby was the true-life head of MI6 Section 6, responsible for all intelligence matters in the Mediterranean. He was also a Soviet agent, originally recruited by his Cambridge tutor, and operated successfully until his defection to the Soviet Union in 1963. During his senior tenure at MI6 during the Second World War and the Cold War, Philby betrayed numerous secrets to the Soviets, including the names of British and American agents who subsequently were tortured and executed. Philby believed he held the rank of colonel in the NKVD, and would be received as such when he ultimately was forced to defect to the Soviet Union. Instead, the NKVD ignored him for ten years, during which he descended into alcoholism. He betrayed even his loyal English wife, who had remained with him, as he seduced the wife of another British traitor, Donald Maclean. He died in 1988.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

W
HILE IT IS
true that writing is a solitary endeavor, the end result can be improved through the thoughtful efforts of others. Two people stand out for special acknowledgment of their contributions.

Laura Hruska, Soho Press publisher and editor, has taught me more than I thought there was to know about the fine art of editing. Like a master mechanic who tunes an engine before a race, the work of a superb editor such as Laura works imperceptibly to smoothly speed the story along.

Deborah Mandel, my wife and now fellow writer, has willingly endured many readings of each manuscript, giving me valuable suggestions for improvements and clarity along the way. Her loving and constant support is a blessing.

Copy of the NKVD memo from Beria, ordering the execution of Polish officers. Signed by Stalin and other members of the Soviet Politburo.

O
THER
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ITLES IN THE
S
OHO
C
RIME
S
ERIES

Quentin Bates
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Frozen Assets
Cold Comfort

Cheryl Benard
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Moghul Buffet

James R. Benn
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Billy Boyle
The First Wave
Blood Alone
Evil for Evil
Rag & Bone
A Mortal Terror

Cara Black
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Murder in the Marais
Murder in Belleville
Murder in the Sentier
Murder in the Bastille
Murder in Clichy
Murder in Montmarte
Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis
Murder in the Rue de Paradis
Murder in the Latin Quarter
Murder in the Palais Royale
Murder in Passy
Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

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The Last Enemy
A Deadly Paradise
Henry Chang
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Chinatown Beat
Year of the Dog
Red Jade

Colin Cotterill
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The Coroner’s Lunch
Thirty-Three Teeth
Disco for the Departed
Anarchy and Old Dogs
Curse of the Pogo Stick
The Merry Misogynist
Love Songs from a Shallow Grave
Slash and Burn

Garry Disher
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The Dragon Man
Kittyhawk Down
Snapshot
Chain of Evidence
Blood Moon
Wyatt

David Downing
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Zoo Station
Silesian Station
Stettin Station
Potsdam Station
Lehrter Station

Leighton Gage
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Blood of the Wicked
Buried Strangers
Dying Gasp
Every Bitter Thing
A Vine in the Blood
Michael Genelin
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Siren of the Waters
Dark Dreams
The Magician’s Accomplice
Requiem for a Gypsy

Adrian Hyland
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Moonlight Downs
Gunshot Road

Stan Jones
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White Sky, Black Ice
Shaman Pass
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Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis
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