“Right you are! I’d forgotten all about it.”
Richard crossed the room to one of the bookcases. Standing on his tiptoes, he reached to the uppermost shelf and removed what looked like a large book—but which turned out to be a package wrapped in brown paper. Richard set it down on his desk with a thud.
In turn, Sofia began to reach into her knapsack.
“Before giving anything to me,” Richard cautioned, “you should probably make sure that this is what it’s supposed to be. . . .”
“Oh, yes. I see.”
“Besides,” he added, “I’ve been dying of curiosity.”
Joining Richard at his desk, Sofia untied the strings and pulled back the folds of paper. Inside was an old edition of Montaigne’s Essays.
“Well,” said Richard a little bemused, “you’ve got to give that old Frenchman credit. He’s substantially heavier than Adam Smith or Plato. I really had no idea.”
But then Sofia opened the book, revealing a rectangular cavity cut into the pages, in which there were eight small stacks of gold coins.
“Naturally,” said Richard.
Sofia closed the book and retied the strings. Then taking off her knapsack, she emptied its contents onto a chair and handed the empty bag to Richard.
“Father said you should cut the seam at the top of the straps.”
There was a knock at the door and Mrs. Vanderwhile poked in her head.
“I’ve got some clothes to show you, Sofia. Are you ready?”
“Perfect timing,” said Richard while giving a nod to Sofia. “I’ll follow you in a minute.”
Left alone, Richard took a penknife from his pocket. He switched out the blade and carefully cut the seam that had been expertly sewn along the top of the shoulder straps. In the narrow gap that ran behind the length of one of the straps had been slipped a tightly rolled piece of paper.
Easing the roll from its hiding place, Richard sat down and spread it across his desk. On the top side there was a diagram entitled “Combined Dinner of Council of Ministers and Presidium, June 11, 1954.” The diagram itself depicted a long U with forty-six names inscribed around its periphery. Under the name of each person was their title and a summation of their personality in three words. On the verso was a detailed description of the evening in question.
Certainly, the Count described the announcement concerning the Obninsk nuclear power plant and the theatric display of its connection to the Moscow grid. But what he emphasized in the course of his report were the evening’s social nuances.
First, the Count observed that when the guests appeared at the dinner, virtually all were surprised by the venue. They had obviously arrived at the hotel expecting they would be dining in one of the Boyarsky’s formal rooms, only to be directed instead to suite 417. The one exception was Khrushchev—who entered the room with the cool satisfaction of one who not only knew where the dinner would be held, but was pleased to see that everything was perfectly in order. The General Secretary erased any doubt as to his personal involvement in the planning of the evening when, having been unusually quiet, he stood at ten minutes to eleven to make a toast that referenced the history of the suite two floors below.
But for the Count, the genius of the evening was in Khrushchev’s casual display of his alignment with Malyshev. In recent months, Malenkov had made no secret of his disagreement with Khrushchev regarding nuclear armament. Malenkov foresaw that a nuclear arms race with the West could only have devastating results, referring to it as an “apocalyptic policy.” But with this little event of political theater, Khrushchev had performed the perfect sleight of hand—switching out the threat of nuclear Armageddon for the uplifting sight of a city sparkling with nuclear power. In a stroke, the conservative hawk had cast himself as a man of the future and his progressive opponent as a reactionary.
Sure enough, with the lights of the city shining brightly and freshly chilled bottles of vodka on the table, Malyshev crossed the room to confer with the General Secretary. As most of the others were still milling about with smiles on their faces, Malyshev quite naturally took the empty chair at Khrushchev’s side. So, when everyone began to resume their places, Malenkov found himself stranded behind Khrushchev and Malyshev; and as the Premier of the Communist Party waited awkwardly for them to finish their conversation so that he could reclaim his seat, no one at the table even batted an eye.
As Richard finished reading the Count’s description, he leaned back in his chair and smiled, thinking he could use a hundred men like Alexander Rostov. And that’s when he noticed the small, slightly curled piece of paper lying on his desk. Picking it up, Richard immediately recognized the Count’s cursive. The note, which had presumably been rolled up in the report, included a straightforward instruction of how to confirm that Sofia had arrived at the embassy safely, followed by a long sequence of seven-digit numbers.
Richard jumped to his feet.
“Billy!”
After a moment the door swung open and the attaché stuck in his head.
“Sir?”
“If it is almost ten in Paris, what time is it almost in Moscow?”
“Midnight.”
“How many girls are on the switchboard?”
“I’m not certain,” admitted the lieutenant, a little flustered. “At this hour, two; maybe three?”
“That’s not enough! Go to the typing pool, the decoding room, the kitchen. Round up everyone with a finger on their hand!”
When the Count arrived in the lobby with his rucksack on his shoulder and sat in his chair between the potted palms, he didn’t fidget. He didn’t get up and walk about, or read the evening edition. Nor did he check the time on the Bishop’s watch.
If asked in advance to imagine what sitting there under these circumstances would feel like, the Count would have predicted a definite sense of anxiety. But as the minutes ticked away, the Count didn’t find the wait distressing at all; he found it surprisingly peaceful. With a patience that was almost otherworldly, he watched the guests of the hotel come and go. He saw the elevator doors open and close. He heard the sound of music and laughter emanating from the Shalyapin Bar.
At that moment, it somehow seemed to the Count that no one was out of place; that every little thing happening was part of some master plan; and that within the context of that plan, he was meant to sit in the chair between the potted palms and wait. And almost exactly at midnight, the Count’s patience was rewarded. For in accordance with the instructions he’d written to Richard, every telephone on the first floor of the Metropol began to ring.
All four telephones at the main desk rang. The two house phones that were on a side table by the elevator rang. The telephones at Vasily’s desk and the bell captain’s station rang. As did the four telephones in the Piazza, the three in the coffeehouse, the eight in the executive offices, and the two on the Bishop’s desk. All told, there must have been thirty phones ringing at once.
What a simple thing in concept, the simultaneous ringing of thirty phones. And yet, it immediately created a sense of pandemonium. Those who were in the lobby began looking from corner to corner. What could bring about the ringing of thirty phones at twelve o’clock at night? Had the Metropol been struck by lightning? Was Russia under attack? Or were the spirits of the past exacting their toll on the present?