'If you're looking for official responses, I can probably get you an interview with a member of the Czech government.'
'I am - it's what officials don't say that's usually so revealing.'
They walked back down through the gardens and in through the back door of the Legation. Kenyon's office was on the first floor, overlooking the street. He picked up the phone, tried a few words of Czech and quickly reverted to English. 'Two o'clock?' he asked Russell, who nodded. 'In the Cabinet Room. He'll be there.' He hung up. 'Karel Mares - he's the Acting Prime Minister - will give you ten minutes. Do you know where the Cabinet Room is?'
'In the Castle? I'll find it.'
Kenyon nodded. 'Now, your other business here.' He took a small folder from a desk drawer, extracted a single sheet of paper, and passed it across. There were three names, two with telephone numbers, one with an address. 'These are all supplied by a Czech exile in the States, Gregor Blazek.'
Russell copied the names and numbers into used pages of his reporter's notebook, adding letters to the former and scrambling the order of the latter to a prearranged pattern. The address he memorized. 'What was Blazek's political affiliation when he was here?' he asked.
'Social Democrat. He only left in February, so the information should be up to date. I haven't done any checking, I'm afraid. I'm not supposed to know anything, or do anything.'
'Do you know where Blazek is living now?'
'Chicago, I think,' Kenyon said, checking the file. 'Yes, Chicago. I assume you've been given some guidance as to how to approach these people.'
'Oh yes.' Russell slipped the notebook into his inside pocket and got to his feet. 'Thanks for the help,' he said, extending a hand. 'And for the analysis.'
'Remember,' Kenyon told him, 'this building is still American territory. If you should find yourself in sudden need of a bolthole,' he explained, somewhat unnecessarily.
'Thanks,' Russell said. He could just see himself toiling up the hill with the Gestapo in close pursuit.
He walked back down to the Little Quarter Square and sat at an outdoor restaurant table opposite the St Nicholas church. The plate of pancakes on the adjoining table smelled as good as they looked, so he ordered an early lunch to go with the glass of wine. The pancake-eater, a middle-aged Czech man of prodigious size, gave him a congratulatory beam. Russell took Kenyon's piece of paper out to study the names, seeking some arcane clue as to which might prove the safest one to start with. When a shadow crossed the paper he looked up to find two German officers taking the adjoining table. He put it away.
The pancakes were delicious, and the Germans were still waiting for the waiter when he finished. From little acorns...
He took a tram back to the New Town, alighting on Na Poikopi at the bottom of Wenceslas Square. He walked on to the post office intending to use one of the public telephones there but had second thoughts when he noticed German uniforms in a room behind the counters. Masaryk Station, he decided. Secret agents always used stations.
The booths in the corner of the concourse seemed ideal. He took the last in the line because it offered the widest angle of vision, and rummaged through his pockets for the right coins. After dropping and recovering the piece of paper, he spent several seconds deciding which of the two numbers to call, in the end plumping for the second - the name that went with it was easier to pronounce.
A woman answered.
'Oto Nemec?' he asked.
A garbled burst of incomprehensible Czech.
'Oto Nemec,' he said again. 'Is he there?' he asked, first in English and then in German.
There was a loud click as the woman hung up.
Russell did the same, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. The Americans hadn't mentioned the possibility of language difficulties, and he'd foolishly assumed that they knew the contacts spoke English or German. He had committed the cardinal sin - expecting intelligence from Intelligence.
He dialled the second number. It rang a long time, and he was about to hang up when a hesitant male voice mumbled an answer.
'Pavel Bejbl?' Russell asked.
'Bejbl,' the man answered, correcting his pronunciation. 'I am Bejbl.'
'Do you speak English?' Russell asked. 'Sprechen zie deutsch?'
'I speak German.'
'I'm an American. Gregor in Chicago gave me your name.'
'Gregor Blazek?'
'Yes.'
There was a pause. 'Have you a message for me?'
'Yes, but I need to deliver it in person. Could we meet?'
Another pause, longer this time. Russell could hear a whirring noise in the background - a fan, probably. 'Today?' Bejbl asked. He didn't sound enthusiastic.
'Around six? You pick the place,' Russell said, in an instantly regretted attempt at reassurance.
'Do you know Strelecky Island?' Bejbl asked, suddenly sounding more decisive.
'No.'
'If you're looking from the Charles Bridge, it's just upstream. The Legii Bridge goes over it - there are steps on the southern side. There are benches at the northern end of the island. I'll be there at six-thirty.'
Russell could picture the spot. 'How...' he began, but the line had gone dead. He hung up the earpiece and re-examined the piece of paper. The third potential contact - Stanislav Pruzinec - lived in Vysoeany. Wherever that might be. Russell went back out onto the concourse and read through the platform departure boards, finding what he wanted above the entrance to Platform 2. Vysoeany was the fifth stop out on the line to Hradec Kralove.
A train was waiting, but so was the Acting Prime Minister. Tomorrow, he told himself. If he had the time. And sufficient inclination.
It was almost half-past twelve. He took a tram back to Wenceslas Square and walked up to the Europa. He felt depressed by the future that Kenyon had unrolled for him, the sheer unrelenting predictability of it all. Wars between classes might just replace one set of pigs with another, but they had some underlying point to them. Wars between nations, as far as Russell could see, had absolutely none.
The receptionist was reading Kafka's Metamorphosis.
'Enjoying it?' Russell asked in English as he took his key.
The man shook his head in wonderment. 'What a writer!'
'He used to work near here, didn't he?'
'You do not know?' The man scurried out from behind his desk, gesturing for Russell to follow. He crossed the road, still wildly waving an arm, and when Russell joined him in the wide central reservation pointed down towards the next intersection. 'That building on corner. He work there. See window on corner, third floor. Our greatest writer! Europe greatest writer! And he wrote about America too!'
Russell imagined Kafka hunched behind the glass, racoon eyes staring out. The man had been writing about Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia before they even existed. Small wonder he got depressed. 'A great writer,' he agreed with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. 'Thank you for showing me.'
Up in his room, he took out the piece of paper and set about memorising the various names and numbers. Once he had done so he tore the sheet up and flushed the pieces down the lavatory in the adjoining bathroom. Studying his appearance in the mirror, he decided a tie would probably go down well with the Acting Prime Minister and whichever noxious flunky the Nazis had waiting for him.
One tram took him back across the river, another carried him up and round the Castle hill. The Cabinet Room took some finding, as if the Czechs had deliberately hidden it from the Germans, and Karel Mares was waiting for him, checking through a box of papers on a corner sofa. He looked bone-weary, but there was a twinkle in his eyes. Many of his answers to Russell's questions showed a well-honed appreciation of how quickly conquered peoples learn to read between the lines.