Zarko agreed. He said good-bye to Jack with a squeeze of the hands, and gave Hewitt a disparaging look. Then he left the room and disappeared with his nephew. The industrialist waited to be filled in. “He’ll get us the passports. It’ll cost you six thousand dollars.”
“Six thousand? That’s daylight robbery!”
“Three thousand is for Zarko. In advance. The rest is what I’ve estimated we’ll need for bribes, lodging, transportation, and unforeseen expenses.”
Hewitt looked at Jack with a tinge of distrust. Nonetheless, he put his hand in his pocket. “Six thousand!” He handed the money to the young man. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Jack wandered around the warehouse, feeling six thousand dollars more obligated and six thousand dollars less safe. He wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing. He knew he had to escape, but the image of Natasha in his mind was holding him back. As he served himself a shot of vodka, he felt as if all the guests had suddenly stopped dancing and fixed their eyes on him. Flustered, he made his way through the crowd to the corner where Viktor and Elizabeth were standing near the phonograph to better hear the music. He was surprised not to find Hewitt with them. Viktor seemed to have drunk too much and was struggling to remain steady. Jack filled his glass and drank a toast with the couple to hide his nerves. “To the American party!”
“The American party!” they replied in unison.
Viktor chinked his glass so hard that he splashed vodka on his uniform. When he moved away, he backed into the phonograph and made it fall on the floor.
Jack picked up the contraption and put it back in its place, but when he tried to make it work again, he found that it was broken.
“I’m sorry, I . . . ,” Viktor sputtered.
“Don’t worry. Let’s hear the fiddle!” Jack yelled at the musicians.
“You’ve got it all over you, too,” Elizabeth noted.
“Huh? Oh yeah.” Jack gave his lapels a shake. “What a mess! I’ll go home to change, and while I’m there, I’ll try to fix the phonograph.”
Viktor agreed without caring much where the device ended up, and he turned toward Elizabeth to kiss her. Her lips were unresponsive.
“Have fun. I’ll be right back,” said Jack.
Jack told Harry Daniels to take care of the guests and remind them that, in the new store, as well as potatoes and pork ribs, they would have a shoe repair service, and offer credit. He asked Jim to help him transport the phonograph. When they reached his house, Jack thanked the youngster for his help.
“Leave the gadget there and get back to the party. I can manage on my own.” He closed the door and went to look for a clean suit.
In his bedroom, he took the six thousand dollars from his jacket pocket and separated the wet bills. While they dried in the heat from the stove, he went to the wardrobe to change his suit. However, when he opened the door, he remembered that Yuri had stored his evening jacket in McMillan’s trunk.
He looked up at the top of the wardrobe. The trunk was still there, too high to reach with his hand. He dragged a chair over and positioned it beside the wardrobe. Then he put his left foot on the seat and lifted himself until he could reach the trunk’s handle. However, as he tried to pull it, he wobbled, and the trunk crashed to the floor.
Jack swore to himself. As much as he tried to ignore it, he was infuriated by his hip injury. He got down from the chair and opened the lock, but as he did so, he saw that, with the impact, a panel inside the trunk had become detached, revealing what looked like a false bottom. Amazed, he used a coat hanger as a lever to tear out the panel, and saw that, sure enough, the trunk contained a hidden compartment. He quickly emptied it and tipped it over. The items concealed there included a notebook full of jottings, accounting documents, and plans of the Avtozavod. However, they were not the finds that made his heart stop.
Almost reluctantly, he set aside the plans and picked up the red booklet marked with the gold letterhead of the United States.
Jack looked at it openmouthed, unable to believe what he was reading. It was George McMillan’s passport. According to Wilbur Hewitt, McMillan, the engineer, had remained in New York due to a sudden attack of appendicitis. So why would his passport be in his trunk, ahead of his arrival in the Soviet Union? Incredulous, Jack carefully flicked through the booklet. When he read the last page, he let it drop as if he’d been shot. His heart pounded.
On the last page, stamped in black ink, was an entry visa for the Soviet Union dated December 26, 1932, a week before the SS Cliffwood disembarked in Helsinki. And if George McMillan had entered the Soviet Union, Wilbur Hewitt had been lying to Jack since day one.
30
Though the evidence implicated Hewitt, Jack wanted to believe that there was a simple, innocent explanation.
Certainly, the date stamped on the passport proved irrefutably that McMillan had entered the Soviet Union. However, he couldn’t understand why, after crossing the border, McMillan had hidden his passport. And even more of a mystery, where was the engineer now?
Jack examined the face in the passport photograph: scholarly spectacles, wide-set eyes, a curly mustache—a distinguished countenance that, given the uniqueness of its features, he was certain he’d never seen before.
Then he remembered Sergei’s suspicions. The OGPU boss claimed that the nature of the sabotage proved beyond a doubt that the perpetrator must have experience working with complex machinery, a description McMillan fit to a tee. Perhaps he was the man whom Sergei was looking for, and Wilbur Hewitt was the person hiding him.
One fact was clear: Hewitt had lied to Jack when he told him that McMillan hadn’t left New York. However, there was one piece that didn’t fit. If Hewitt knew that McMillan had entered the Soviet Union, why would he have allowed Jack to keep his trunk and belongings? It made no sense, unless Hewitt was certain that McMillan would never reclaim it.
He couldn’t find a logical explanation for Hewitt’s lies. He held the papers under a lamp and examined them minutely. His hands trembled as he leafed through each page of notes and read each transaction, unable to make any sense of it. He set them aside, angry with himself. Had his vanity and ambition blinded him? Could he really have been so stupid as to think that someone like Hewitt could hire and pay outrageous sums of money to a complete stranger? Unless, as it seemed, Hewitt needed a total imbecile for his plans.