"Darling, the whole blessed thing was my own idea and I confess I'm unforgivably proud of it."

"You've a right to be." The Austin was swinging up the verge of the runway toward him. "I hope the rest of us can live up to it."

"You will," she said, very soft. Sergei drew up and reached across the seat to push the pa.s.senger door open for him.

She stood watching while the Austin took him away toward the main gate.

They drove south and west along the chain of lochs through the dark green highlands. The sky was matted but they had no rain down the craggy length of Loch Ness. There was virtually no traffic. They ran on south at a steady forty and fifty miles per hour through the early hours of the afternoon. Maneuvering Scottish recruits were tenting on the banks of Loch Lomond and on a brighter day it would indeed have been bonnie-swards of rich gra.s.s dropping gently toward the cool deep water.

At four they picked up the smoke of Glasgow's furnaces above the hill summits. Alex navigated from the street map on his lap and Sergei did an expert job of threading the clotted traffic. The city was dreary, black with soot.

The approach to the railway station was jammed with traffic. Alex lifted his case over the back of the seat and pushed the door open. "You may as well drive straight back unless you want to stop for supper. Pick me up here on the Sunday evening express from London-you've got the timetable?"

"Yes sir. G.o.dspeed then."

"Take care driving, old friend." He hopped out and carried his case inside the thronged station. The scabs twinged now and then but he no longer had to make a conscious effort not to limp.

His priority pa.s.s got him a seat in a leather-upholstered compartment and he rode south into grey rain flipping through a newspaper and two news magazines he'd bought to catch up on what had been happening in the world since he'd left Washington ten days ago. In France the n.a.z.is were retaliating against acts of sabotage by executing innocent French hostages. In Tokyo there had been an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt against Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma, the Vice Premier of j.a.pan.

In Russia the Wehrmacht had now occupied four hundred thousand square miles of Soviet territory and the advance continued. There had been a terrible pitched battle for Smolensk. The Russian remnants had been forced to evacuate the city. Yet correspondents' dispatches from Moscow indicated that life in the capital went on nearly as usual. Ration cards were now required but the stocks of food and necessities seemed quite sufficient. The German invasion had divided into three p.r.o.ngs aimed at Leningrad, Moscow and the rich industrial basins of the south. Scattered Russian resistance and the length of their own supply lines had slowed the n.a.z.is' advance; but the blitzkrieg continued-apparently right on schedule. Hitler meant to make his Christmas speech from Moscow.

Well past midnight he left the train at Euston Station and was collected by a War Office lieutenant who had a Daimler staff car waiting. "It's a good thing you've got digs, sir. I didn't think there's a room to be had in all of London. I'm putting up in a bed-sitter in Paddington with an RN ensign and two Anzac lieutenants."

They drove north and east. The blacked-out streets were virtually empty except for the occasional helmeted bobby and fire-watchman. Twice they had to dodge craters in the streets but most of the buildings were intact.

When they made the turn into the Archway Road the driver said conversationally, "There's still a car behind us, Lieutenant."

They turned right into Shepherd's Hill with open ground falling away steeply to the left side of the road.

The Daimler slid to the curb and a car puttered past; Alex had a look at it but it told him nothing; there wasn't enough light to see the driver's face.

"Thanks for the lift."

When the other car had disappeared over the hill he took his valise up the steps and rang. The Daimler stayed at the curb until the door opened and he stepped inside.

Baron Ivanov answered the door himself. "Were you followed?"

"Yes. I expected it."

The tiny Baron wore an expensive smoking jacket; his bald head gleamed in the lamplight. Black velvet curtains hung heavily against all the windows; the house was rich and warm and elegant in the style of a century ago.

Ivanov showed him to a bedroom-upstairs in the rear. "I hope you will be comfortable."

"It's quite luxurious."

"Anatol has asked me to see to your needs."

"A good night's sleep at the moment. Is there a rear way out?"

"It is a terribly steep embankment-it is almost a cliff. There is an old railway line beneath the rear garden."

"Is there a tube station nearby?"

"At the intersection where you turned."

"I don't suppose there are any taxis."

"Not this far out, but you are welcome to the use of my Bentley at any time. My chauffeur lives on the premises."

"That's very kind."

"It is not kindness I a.s.sure you. According to Prince Leon you are our last hope."

"I'm a soldier, Baron, not a Messiah."

"Whatever I have is at your disposal. I suppose I should caution you that the last White Russian general who borrowed my Bentley was shot at for his pains. It took quite a bit of string-pulling to have the bulletproof gla.s.s replaced."

It wouldn't have been politic to ask why the Bentley was armored in the first place; obviously the job had been done long before Va.s.sily Devenko's ride in the car. The Baron had fingers in many schemes and-his enemies said-hands in many pockets; it was not unlikely his political and military alliances had impressed him with a need for prudence. The house itself was wired with a visible alarm system.

Alex expected the Baron to bid him good night and leave the room but the tiny aristocrat went to the dressing table and perched himself on the upholstered stool before it. "There is something you must do for us."

Somewhere across London the air-raid sirens began to wail. The distant keening distracted the Baron; he said, "They rarely bomb this far north in London but if you hear the alarms you will find our shelter in the cellar. The ladder is directly under the staircase we just used."

"Thank you."

He began to hear the distant banging of pom-poms. The Baron said, "I am told you have a contact inside the Kremlin-someone with Stalin's ear."

He looked up quickly but the Baron said, "I do not intend to press you for his ident.i.ty. But we need to make use of him."

"I'm afraid I can't-"

"Hear me out, General Danilov. As you know the bank with which I am connected has offices in many nations. I am in communication through our Zurich affiliate with the surviving German branches of our international financial structure. In theory the German offices have been nationalized but the organization still maintains its ties with our offices here in London. The financial transactions of the Grand Duke Mikhail and his people in Munich are supervised by White Russian officers of the same banks. It is through me that Count Anatol and Prince Leon and the rest of you receive information concerning the activities of the White Russian loyalists who live inside the borders of the German Reich.

"We have discovered that the German group threatens to jeopardize our own scheme. I have told Anatol Markov and he has taken the information back to Spain. It is possible you will receive instructions from Prince Leon but communications are uncertain and we haven't much time. I'm taking the liberty of telling you this myself in case Spain does not reach you in time."

"Go on."

"They are planning an a.s.sa.s.sination. The design is to kill Stalin, subst.i.tute a double for him and issue orders to the Red Army-through the double-to retreat before Moscow. Russia then will have lost the war and Hitler seems prepared to install the Grand Duke Mikhail on the throne of a Vichy-style occupation government. The double already exists-a creation of Lavrenti Beria's-a professional actor who has been transformed by plastic surgery into a remarkable likeness of Stalin."

The breath hung in Alex's throat. It was as if he had been kicked in the stomach.

The Baron went on in a relentless monotone: "The Germans have shifted Guderian temporarily to the Ukraine and Georgi Malenkov is being sent there next week to stiffen the resistance in Kiev. In the meantime the administrative headquarters of Beria's secret police have been moved to the Kuybyshev in case Moscow is occupied. Apparently Beria's next trip down there is scheduled for a week from today. That will put both Beria and Malenkov out of Moscow-they are the only two men in the top echelon who know of the existence of the Stalin double.

"We have no clue to the ident.i.ty of the a.s.sa.s.sins. One a.s.sumes there must be several because they have to take control of the double. It is possible they intend to make him docile by means of drugs or drug-induced hypnosis-the Germans have been doing experiments along those lines. Or perhaps it is a matter of bribery combined with coercion. I have no idea. But we do know the timetable. On the twenty-sixth-tomorrow week-both Beria and Malenkov will be absent from the weekly Kremlin command conference. That is when the a.s.sa.s.sination is scheduled. They intend to reach Stalin on his way into the meeting. The killing may be effected by means of cyanide gas in the ventilating system of his private lavatory in the underground command bunker. I cannot confirm that report. But the general plan and the timetable seem quite certain."

The pulse thudded in Alex's throat. The Baron went on: "Our German cousins have a d.a.m.nable advantage over us. Ever since the Bolshevik rising in nineteen seventeen they have maintained an active network of spies in the Soviet government. The irony is that it was Count Anatol who set it up for them-he was a partisan of Mikhail's in the early days. They have been waiting their chance for more than twenty years and now Hitler has given it to them. It is unfortunate that their timetable is ahead of ours."

"There's no way to get in ahead of them," Alex said. "We're weeks away from operational status."

"Of course. Their plan has the advantage of relying on a German military victory. Yours has to rely on a Russian one. Much more difficult to achieve in the circ.u.mstances. But you have the one thing that may save our cause-you have a man in the Kremlin."

Now Alex saw it. "To stop them."

"I think he must do more than that," the Baron murmured. "I think he must brief Stalin and Beria on the a.s.sa.s.sination plot. It is not enough to forestall one attempt-they could make another. The network of Mikhail's spies must be destroyed before we make our own move. Beria is the only man in a position to wipe out the entire network. He must be warned. We shall have to give your man a plausible way to have unearthed the plot. I should not think it would be dangerous for him. After all he will be saving Stalin's life-they can only construe that as the supreme loyalty. If anything this will cement your man in Stalin's favor."

That part wouldn't be difficult. Vlasov had his own G-2 staff; it would be a simple matter of selecting a wounded German prisoner-an officer would be best-and putting up the pretense of a private "interrogation." Afterward the prisoner would have to die to prevent Beria from checking back on Vlasov's story. Vlasov would attract no suspicion unless the plot failed to materialize; and even if it proved a false alarm it would do him no real harm-he could always claim the German officer must have been lying.

The Baron's small round face tipped up ingenuously. "I should not mention this to any of our allies if I were you. They would want to know where I got my information and of course I am not prepared to reveal that."

"I'll be in contact with our man Sunday night," Alex said. "Are there any other details?"

"None that I possess. Knowing the time and place of the attempt ought to be enough for them."

"There's one thing we can't correct," Alex said. "This is going to put Stalin on his guard. He'll be twice as suspicious as he ever was before. He'll be that much harder for us to reach when our turn comes."

"That cannot be helped, can it? Good night then, General. Sleep well."

The morning weather was in his favor-a dewy London fog. He left the house at nine by the rear door and blundered across three adjacent gardens and slipped out into the street past the side of the fourth house. If anyone had a watch on the front of the Baron's house they wouldn't see him at this distance. He walked at a good clip to the tube station and started down the stairs.

The Highgate station was incredibly deep and his leg was giving him trouble long before he reached the bottom. He took it slowly, favoring the leg; he looked back up the stairs several times. There were people in sight but he had no way to tell if any of them was following him.

He studied the map on the station wall. No one seemed to be taking an interest in him. He was a tall man in civilian dress with a slight limp-a war casualty, they'd a.s.sume. He dropped half-crowns in the Bomb Relief cup and boarded the clattering train.

He had to change at Camden Town and again at Leicester Square. There was quite a walk between platforms and he contrived to stop twice and survey the tunnels behind him without making it obvious what he was doing. A large number of people were following his route-making the same transfer he was making to get into the West End of London-and half a dozen of them were people who had boarded the train with him; but it meant nothing.

When the train arrived he acted as though he wasn't going to board it. Then just as the doors started to close he dived between them.

He walked up into Knightsbridge looking for the side street to which Cosgrove had directed him; he spotted the man following him when he was only a half block from the pub. There was nothing to do but keep walking. He went right past the pub and stopped outside a Chinese restaurant to decide what to do. Under his coat his hand reached the revolver and gripped it. Next door a three-story building had been partially knocked out, the walls broken right down to the street. Men in hard helmets climbed through the wreckage with picks and spades; the upstairs parlor was quite intact with its furniture nicely arranged like a stage set. A little girl-five, perhaps six-stood bawling at the base of the pile of rubble with her hand engulfed in the grip of a policeman who kept talking quietly to her. Finally an ambulance drew up and the bobby had a short conversation with the attendants. Alex saw the bobby shake his head and the attendants took the little girl into the ambulance and drove off. The bobby whacked his fist into a heap of plaster and stormed away up the road.

Cosgrove appeared on the curb opposite. Alex shook his head very slightly and turned his shoulder toward the brigadier, pretending to read the menu posted outside the restaurant door. But Cosgrove came straight across and touched his arm. "He's one of ours. I told him to make sure no one else had an interest in you. Rather clever of you to have spotted him-he's one of our best men. What gave him away?"

They walked along toward the pub. The shadow stood across the road not looking at them. Alex said, "He was too interested in the chinaware. And he's too young and healthy to be out of uniform."

"I'll bear that in mind-pa.s.s it on to his office. Here we are."

"Tell me something. The man who followed me last night in a car...."

"From Euston? That was one of ours as well."

Then evidently no one else was tracking him. He felt reprieved. Inside the pub he asked, "Where's the meeting?"

"Not at Downing Street, you can be sure of that. Every government in the world seems to have people watching that to see who goes in and who goes out of Number Ten." They paused to adjust their eyes to the gloom. Cosgrove said, "The meeting will be quite private, just as you requested." He sounded miffed about it.

The house was in a mews off Sloane Square: the official residence of the New Zealand minister. Alex waited in a small rear office into which Cosgrove had led him after wryly relieving him of his armament.

He sat alone in the room for nearly two hours until Cosgrove appeared. "The Prime Minister will see you now."

Alex got up to follow him but Churchill appeared in the doorway, put his pouched belligerent stare against Alex and said, "Thank you, Brigadier."

"I'll see that you're not disturbed, sir." Cosgrove shut himself out.

"Well then," the Prime Minister growled. He squinted at Alex and thrust the cigar in his teeth, and offered his hand. His grip was a politician's handshake-one quick squeeze, then withdrawn. The gruff voice was hoa.r.s.e and the eyes were bloodshot. "You're the man in whose hands the world rests, are you?"

"I shouldn't want to go nearly that far, sir."

"Nor should I. Some of your people would have it so." Churchill sat down with a weary grunt and folded his hands across his ample front; the cigar waggled between his graceful fingers and the hint of a smile appeared above his jowls-surprisingly gentle. "What I require of you is a revelation designed to rea.s.sure His Majesty's Government that you are something a bit more than a pack of lunatics." The cigar moved to the mouth and was dwarfed by the enormous head. The shrewd eyes studied Alex through the curling smoke and the voice was very deep-almost guttural. "I should think, from what Cosgrove has told me, that you have only one route open to you. A high-alt.i.tude run across the Baltic to Helsinki. Finland has got to be your jumping off point, hasn't it? You're within bomber range of Moscow there, and your people have friends highly placed in President Ryti's government-certainly you've been able to persuade them they owe you quid pro quo for your services there two years ago." Churchill's eyes wrinkled, sly and pleased with himself. "Am I at all warm?"

Alex had to smile. "White hot, Mr. Prime Minister."

"Under any other circ.u.mstances I should be inclined to caution you against such an arrangement. You've already got the Americans and those terribly meddlesome British in it-I shouldn't advise you to tangle yourselves in the additional flypaper of a Finland involvement, particularly as they're now in the war against our glorious Soviet allies." His humor was not without acid. "But under the present conditions your plan must, beyond question, include Helsinki. I know of no alternative refueling base within aeroplane range of your target."

A puff of smoke timed for punctuation; and the PM went on: "I'm given to understand you intend to draw the ruling junta out into the open and to attack them from the air with high explosives dropped in pinpoint concentration.'

"Yes."

"You must then, I presume, be prepared to infiltrate their centers of communication. Clearly it will be vital to have immediate contact with those units of the Red Army which are engaged in the defense of Moscow and the struggle against Chancellor Hitler's Army Group Center. In order to complete your mission with any sort of success at all, you must instantly be able to command the allegiance of those forces. Please contradict me if I'm incorrect."

"No contradiction is called for, Prime Minister."

"Very well then, Danilov, who's your man in the Kremlin? Zhukov or Vlasov?"

He managed-successfully he hoped-to mask his chagrin. "Neither of them, sir. It's intended that they both be blown up with Stalin."

"I see. Then it is one of their immediate subordinates. Zhukov's chief-of-staff, perhaps-or one of the army commanders."

"I'd prefer not to divulge that."

"You've got such a man, however?"

"Yes."

"Prepared to take over the Red Army instantly?"

"Yes-exactly."

Churchill grunted; once again the hint of a smile. "Then you've b.l.o.o.d.y well got a chance, haven't you?"

The Prime Minister chewed on the cigar and then removed it from his mouth. "I like the cut of you. You're decently cool under the sort of pressure I've been applying. Now I should like to hear your plan."

Alex gathered his thoughts. "They've got a new battle tank," he said. "They're rushing it through production-they hope to have several front-line armored units equipped with it by spring."

"The modified T-Thirty-six. I've seen the drawings and specifications."

"I thought you might have," Alex said; and both men smiled.

He went on: "The first field trials of the prototype will be held in eight weeks' time on a proving-ground about thirty miles east of Moscow. It's to be a thorough workout to demonstrate firepower and maneuverability. The new machine mounts a seventy-seven millimeter gun. It's a twenty-ton tank with more than five inches of armor. They plan to have six ready for the field trials-I'm told they plan to run them against unmanned captured panzers. If the trials prove what they hope to prove they'll make rubble of the Mark Fours."

"One rather hopes their expectations aren't in excess of the realities."