The Folks at Fifty-Eight (46 page)

“Not according to Stanislav Paslov. He did some more checking, and now believes Schmidt is alive. He asked me to tell you. He also told me that you rescued Schmidt’s young daughter.”

Hammond sat open-mouthed, his mind racing.

“Yes I did, but is Paslov sure? I mean about Schmidt being alive?”

“I believe so, yes, but none of us can be certain of anything these days.” The old man carefully studied Hammond’s features “Mr Hammond, it is clear to me that you are either an exceptional liar or you know nothing of any of this, unlike your friend Mr Carpenter. Either way, I can see that I am wasting my time in questioning you, and so I will thank you for your time and the coffee, and apologize for having inconvenienced you.”

The old man finished his coffee and gingerly climbed to his feet. Hammond viewed the relative frailty with concern.

“It was no problem, I assure you, and it was good to meet you, Mr Schulman. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you in your search, but you must take care of yourself.” The look of puzzlement demanded explanation. Hammond continued to lie. “I don’t personally know these people, Mr Schulman, but I do know them by reputation. These are dangerous men, and many of them face the death penalty if caught. They have nothing to lose in killing you, or anybody else who tries to expose them or hand them over to the authorities. You must be careful.”

Puzzlement suddenly broke into a smile.

“Oh, I see. You think me too old and weak for the fight.” The old man massaged his knee. “It is nothing of importance, Mr Hammond, only weary bones, and in this battle I have God on my side and the odds in my favour.” It was Hammond’s turn to look puzzled. The old man saw and nodded. “Odds, yes, I believe that is what you call it.”

“I’m sorry. . . odds?”

“Yes, Mr Hammond. Six million to one. I believe these are exceptional odds.”

The old man chuckled at the blackness of his own humour as he shuffled out of the coffee shop, leaving Hammond to consider a wealth of possibilities, and two in particular.

After years spent hunting through a city better known for its wide variety of coffee shops, Davis Carpenter had finally found a tea room where he could not only try and buy his favourite tea, but also have it prepared to his precise specification. He had demanded, and the proprietor agreed, that the brew presented would be no less than the third and no more than the fourth steeping, be precisely controlled in terms of brew temperature and quantities of leaf to water, and served in a spotlessly clean two-ounce tasting cup.

Where Oolong tea was concerned, as with so much in Davis Carpenter’s ordered life, when not travelling, he adhered to a strict routine. Each Saturday morning, at eight-thirty precisely, he would begin the journey from Woodley Park to the Silver Samovar tea-rooms on an otherwise largely-residential section of 13
^th
Street. Upon arrival, he would sit at an especially-reserved table in the front window before ordering up his regular weekly tipple.

When an inquisitive waitress had once asked why he always reserved that particular table, he haughtily explained that Oolong’s beauty lay not only in the nuance of each brew’s delicate aroma and flavour, but also in its colour and clarity. The appreciation of such a thing of beauty demanded controlled storage, strict adherence to the agreed brewing process, and the natural light of day.

With tasting complete, and assuming that week’s offering had met with his approval, the purchase of a precious four ounces of the black-dragon leaf would then be made.

But there was more to Carpenter’s weekly pilgrimage to the Silver Samovar than met the casual eye, and more to its proprietor than a simple man looking to eke a living by educating Washington’s coffee-drinking philistines in the ways of the cultured leaf.

Victor Sokolov was a White Russian émigré who had fled to the United States with his parents following the Bolshevik revolution. After spells in New York and Philadelphia, the Sokolov family had finally settled in Ivy City, one of the poorer parts of Washington D.C., where they kept themselves to themselves and scratched a modest living. His father taught cello, part time, to the precocious children of Washington’s wealthy. His mother worked evenings as a dishwasher in a local restaurant.

When his elderly parents died within six months of each other, Viktor Sokolov moved out of the family’s rented apartment, and bought both the tea shop on 13
^th
and the apartment above. Both properties were paid for with proceeds from the sale of three pieces of original Gustav Fabergė jewellery, which his mother had kept hidden through all those years of struggle and deprivation.

Why she hadn’t sold the pieces during all those years of hardship, nobody knew, but that didn’t stop the rumours from growing and spreading. Some suggested she had stolen them from the late Tsarina Alexandra some months before the Bolsheviks took over and the Sokolovs fled Russia. Others claimed the Sokolovs had themselves been Russian aristocracy, hiding away from Bolshevik vengeance in underprivileged Ivy City.

But, with the notable exceptions of Davis Carpenter and a section of the staff at the Soviet Embassy on 16
^th
Street, nobody knew the truth, and if they had they probably wouldn’t have believed it, because Viktor Sokolov was in fact a deep-cover Soviet agent.

While his premises had indeed been paid for with items of Fabergė, claimed as family heirlooms, the pieces in question, and their forged bills of sale, had actually been shipped to the Embassy on 16
^th
Street via diplomatic pouch. From there they had been passed to Sokolov, who had ‘washed’ them through a specialist auction house, with the successful bidder being a member of staff from that exact same building on 16
^th
Street.

Apart from their initial meeting, when Carpenter had specified his precise requirements for the tea, Sokolov rarely spoke to Carpenter and Carpenter rarely acknowledged Sokolov. That morning, however, Viktor Sokolov personally dealt with the purchase, and that had worried Davis Carpenter.

Back in Woodley Park, Clara Carpenter hadn’t greeted him when he returned from his Saturday morning pilgrimage. As he hurried to the kitchen, to check his purchase, he saw her sitting and reading in the lounge. When he walked in she looked up.

“What is it? No, don’t tell me: they short-changed you by half-an-ounce of tea?”

Ashen-faced, Davis Carpenter shook his head and held a finger to his lips as he passed her the scrap of paper, retrieved from inside his bag of tea. Scrawled across the paper, the words ‘
They
are
watching
you
’
brought a look of alarm to disrupt the more usual contempt.

“No, darling; it’s just that I gave him a hundred. He only gave me change for fifty.”

The message to his wife was clear. Someone, somewhere, was listening to every word of their conversation. Clara got to her feet, pointed to the telephone handset and whispered,

“They fixed a fault on the line yesterday.”

Carpenter’s heart was racing, but he kept his self-control.

“I’ll have to have a word with him,” he said, “but let’s not spoil the day. When all’s said and done, it’s only money. Look, it’s lovely out. Why don’t you get your hat and coat and we’ll take a stroll over to Lamont. I have a book to return and we could both do with the fresh air.”

While his wife hurried away to change into a pair of flat shoes, Carpenter ran through the instructions. Whenever a situation became critical, or too dangerous for the use of possibly-compromised dead-letterboxes, he would be contacted through the tea shop.

When contacted in this way, he and Clara were to immediately visit the public library on Lamont Street. Once there, they should separate. She was to peruse the drama section, on the ground floor by the stairs, and, if she saw anyone she knew, intercept and engage them in small talk for as long as possible. He was to make his way upstairs, to biographies, and look at the shelves from P to R, until a librarian appeared with the second volume of Hendrick’s account of
The
Life
and
Letters
of
Walter
H.
Page
.

He would find his instructions slipped into section sixteen. To the great amusement of his contact at the Soviet embassy, section sixteen was entitled ‘Dark Days For The Allies’. To that same official’s increased amusement, it began with a letter sent by Page to the founder of the Council on Foreign Relations: ‘Colonel’ Edward Mandel House.

Following a twenty-minute stroll, laden with tension but devoid of incident, they arrived at the library. She made her way to the busy drama shelves. He returned his unread copy of
Strange
Interlude
, and then headed upstairs to the all but deserted section on biographies.

Only one other person stood studying the biographies and seemed glued to section P to R. He was a short man, in his late thirties, wearing a lightweight tweed jacket and carrying a brown trilby hat that he constantly fed through his fingers as he browsed. When the man finally wearied of section P to R and moved across the walkway to an adjacent section, Carpenter breathed a sigh of relief and took his place.

He scanned the shelves, looking for the space where Page’s life and letters would soon be returned, then gave an involuntary start. It was already there.

He suspiciously eyed the stranger before picking up the book and thumbing through.

There was no section sixteen, with its ‘Dark Days for the Allies’ and letter to Edward M. House. Davis Carpenter began to panic.

From across the walkway, the man with the trilby hat had obviously seen Carpenter’s feverish search and look of concern. He smirked, and nodded to the book as he called across.

“That is Volume One. I think you will find Volume Two more interesting.” When Carpenter realised his mistake, the man wandered back. “You were followed.”

“Who by?”

The smile was back as he mischievously corrected Carpenter’s grammar. In direct contrast to Carpenter’s panic-stricken state, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

“By whom. . . By your old friend Gerald Hammond. No, do not look, you will not see him, and do not worry. If we remain here, people in other areas of the library cannot see us, and if we keep our voices low they cannot hear us. We chose this location with great care.

“As for your friend Hammond. . . I need to know if he is working alone, and on his own initiative, or as part of a team. You are going to have to find out, my friend.”

“How do I do that?”

“I think perhaps you should invite him for tea.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Tea, at the café on 13
^th
Street, tomorrow morning. It is all in the instructions. If he is working alone, tell Sokolov that you do not like your tea, and want to try a different brew. Oh, and make sure you sit at your usual table.”

Carpenter’s mind was a jumble of concern.

“They only keep that table for me on Saturday mornings. What if it’s not free?”

“It will be.”

“What if he is? Working alone, I mean?”

“That will be unfortunate for him.”

“And if he is working with the FBI, or with other people?”

“I am told that Leningrad is very beautiful at this time of year.”

Carpenter’s jaw dropped. He had been about to babble a string of questions when a librarian appeared, a tall, thin, and austere-looking man, wearing horn-rimmed glasses. He was pushing a trolley filled with books. The missing Volume Two was perched on top of the pile. Carpenter assumed the librarian was working for the Soviets, but said nothing and stepped aside when he arrived.

The librarian replaced the volume and moved on without comment. The man with the trilby had taken the opportunity to disappear. Carpenter nervously scanned his surroundings, then snatched up the book and thumbed through until he found section sixteen.

There it was, a single leaf of lined notepaper, pressed between the pages. He slipped the unread instructions into his pocket, replaced the book and hurried downstairs to find Clara.

Hammond received the call late that evening. Carpenter used a public telephone. He kept the conversation brief. He needed to talk privately to Hammond, and would be at the Silver Samovar tea rooms on 13
^th
Street at 9.00 the next morning. Hammond should come alone. It concerned Carlisle’s death. It was important that Hammond spoke to no one else.

Hammond tried a question, but the line went dead. He hung up the phone and then sat quietly assessing Carpenter’s words.

Until the phone call, he had been certain that Carpenter was Beria’s mole. He had been on the verge of telling Zalesie, but hesitated because of a tiny nagging doubt at the back of his mind. It was the thought that he could be mistaken, the worry that he had come to the wrong conclusion, or been misled in some way. This latest development only increased that uncertainty. It didn’t make sense, or did it?

Had he been duped all along, just as he had been duped by Gabriel and Allum, and so many others? Was Carpenter the mole, or had Hammond been guided to that conclusion by the real mole? Was all this just another Lavrenti Beria conjuring trick?

Carpenter claimed to have information on the death of Carlisle. Maybe he also had information on the Los Alamos spies. Maybe he had discovered something about the real mole. Maybe Carpenter was innocent. Maybe he had somehow been set up. Or maybe he was as guilty as sin, and just wanted to trade.