“You know perfectly well!” She stood up and began dressing. “I’m talking about that American whore! The one you’re hiding in your house! The niece of that corrupt capitalist!”
“I’m not hiding any—”
“Oh no?” She picked up Jack’s pants and threw them in his face. “Then let’s go there now. Let’s go there and see whether I’m right!”
Jack looked at her, incredulous. He sputtered again. “You don’t understand . . . ,” he finally managed to say.
“It’s true, isn’t it? You lousy bastard!” she sobbed.
“For heaven’s sake! Don’t be hysterical. Elizabeth is sleeping at my house, but not for the reason you think. I . . .” He held her to try to stop her from leaving.
“Let go of me! Ugh! I don’t know what I saw in you that made me . . . What an idiot I’ve been!”
“Will you do me a favor, Natasha, and please calm down?” beseeched Jack. “I took Elizabeth in because she had nowhere to go. They’ve arrested her uncle. She came to me, desperate, in the middle of the night, and I didn’t have the heart to leave her on the street.”
“And that’s why you didn’t tell me anything? That’s why you lied, saying you were doing work on the house?”
“What the hell did you expect me to do? Tell you I’m protecting the niece of the man your father considers to be a counterrevolutionary criminal? I’ll be damned! You’re all crazy! Your father, you, Hewitt, Elizabeth . . . Tell me, what should I have done?”
“What you should have done is trust me! Why is that so difficult?” She freed her arm from his grip.
“Look who’s talking! The perfect Soviet, lover of honesty, but capable of deceiving her own father to avoid the shame of admitting that she’s sleeping with an American—”
A slap in the face cut him off. Jack fell silent. He’d never expected Natasha to react in this way.
“Get out of here!” he said.
Natasha didn’t reply. She finished getting dressed, picked up her case, and left the warehouse, giving the door such a slam that every shelf shook.
While he waited for the passports that Zarko was going to supply, Jack spent the next few nights going over the documents he had found in McMillan’s trunk.
There were reports on the most skilled workers, detailing their education, experience, and specializations. The list comprised the names of 150 American citizens, along with another twenty Russian nationals who’d received training in the United States. He studied the Americans’ names one by one and compared them to his own reports. The list confirmed what he’d previously concluded: there was no link between the American workers and the sabotage. Though all the Soviet names were unknown to him, a little dot over one of them caught his attention. It was so tiny that he thought at first that it was a speck of dust, but when he tried to brush it away, he realized that it was a pencil mark. He read the marked name: Vladimir Mamayev. He hoped it would have some special significance, but without Sergei Loban’s cooperation, it would be impossible to find out.
There were also accounting documents listing money transfers made by the Soviets that corresponded to shipments of machinery from Berlin and Dearborn. Only one entry drew his attention, a payment from a different source from the rest, which all seemed to come from a single organization.
He hid the documents and slumped onto the sofa.
Vladimir Mamayev.
Why had McMillan marked that name with an almost imperceptible dot? He might never know. At any rate, he didn’t much care. According to Walter, Hewitt’s trial would take place at the end of May, and by that time, Jack would have fled to England, the country he’d chosen as his next destination.
Elizabeth was little trouble. She stayed shut away in his room waiting for news, passing the time choosing issues of the old American newspapers for her uncle Wilbur to read. Until he fled, he would feign an interest in the industrialist’s case and try to keep the earnings he’d saved up safe.
That night, he dreamed of Natasha. He woke in the early hours, longing for her. He regretted hiding Elizabeth’s presence from her. He tried to sleep, but it was impossible.
The thunder of the engines of the vehicles speeding through central Gorky made Jack leap to the window. Elizabeth came down the stairs in her nightgown, looking shaken. They weren’t the only ones unsettled. All the neighbors seemed to be doing the same thing.
“What’s going on?” she asked. She observed the constant stream of trucks packed with soldiers. Jack had never seen so many armed men in one place.
“I don’t know, but judging by the size of the entourage, nothing good. Get dressed and be ready! I’m going to the kremlin to speak to Walter.”
Despite introducing himself as a friend of Walter Scott, he was stopped at the entrance to the OGPU offices, and he had to wait outside until he was able to persuade a soldier to take a message through. Before long, his friend appeared, looking concerned.
“What’s happening, Walter? They’re saying reinforcements have arrived to contain some riots, and everyone’s running around like crazy.”
“Sorry, Jack. We’re very busy, and I can’t see you now.”
“And so am I. For God’s sake! Is it so difficult just to tell me what’s happening?”
Walter couldn’t hold Jack’s insistent gaze. “Look, I can’t say much, but I’ll tell you one thing.” He lowered his voice so nobody would hear him. “Hewitt’s trial’s been brought forward, so I doubt the letter I sent to the embassy will be of any use.”
“Brought forward? To when?” He thought of Elizabeth.
“I’m not sure. Tomorrow, or the next day.”
“But you said it would be held in May.”
“That was the plan. But that was before Stalin showed up out of the blue to find out in person what’s happening with the sabotage incidents. You can’t imagine the fear that man instills in people, Jack. Everyone in the office is running about like frightened rabbits.”
“But you’re the cops.”
“Stalin doesn’t spare anyone. Last time he was in Gorky, he ordered a hundred counterrevolutionaries to be shot, along with ten members of the OGPU who had been accused of counterrevolutionary tendencies by their own comrades. Look, they’ve given us a little reminder of it.” From his jacket, he took a clipping displaying photographs of the executed policemen and showed it to Jack. “I guess there are black sheep in every flock.”
After hearing the news, Jack tried unsuccessfully to see Sergei Loban. According to a subordinate, the head of the secret police was in a meeting with Stalin, and he would remain by his side for as long as the Father of Nations was in Gorky.