Benson found this latest wrinkle of Maclean’s somewhat off-key and perhaps a reflection of the Brits’ current political agenda vis-à-vis the Soviet Union — or his own.
“But he is out of power. In our last conversation, you dismissed his having any real impact for that very reason. Have you changed your mind?”
Maclean smiled and took another quick sip of his tea and put the cup and saucer on the table.
Benson detected a sudden change in the man’s expression. His face seemed ruddier than usual as if some internal mechanism was heating his blood.
“Does it sound so? I’m not sure. With old Winnie, there’s no telling. There seems to be a groundswell of interest in the old man’s prognostications. Perhaps it comes from some pity over his political defeat. But with Truman introducing him, he will be in the spotlight of the world stage. When he addressed the American Congress in ’41, he brought the house down. His weapons are quite formidable.”
“Weapons?”
“Words, my dear Benson. Although being turned out of office may have diminished his power, Winston is a master of words. And words — as we have heard ad infinitum — are mightier than the sword. ‘We will fight them on the beaches,’ et cetera, et cetera. Who knows what would have happened to our tight little island if we Brits had not heard those words?”
Maclean reached for another cucumber sandwich and popped it into his mouth.
“His words could be a fatal stab into the heart of our plans for the postwar world. We need harmony, Spencer, not divisiveness.”
“You think his words can be that influential?”
“Without the shadow of a doubt, my journalist friend. Without the shadow of a doubt.”
Chapter 8
By the time Benson had left, the February light had faded into early high-winter darkness. Maclean had confirmed his own gloomy premonition, which he had shared at lunch that day with Alger Hiss. He opened the calendar on his desk and noted the date that Churchill was to arrive in Washington, some three weeks hence. Then he picked up the phone and dialed a number, hanging up after two rings. The phones he knew were allegedly secure, but he had long ago learned the value of overdoing caution. Two rings were quite useful and safe as a signal, and he used the method often.
Then he called his home. He and his wife, Melinda, had moved into a rented house on Thirty-Fifth Street a month before. Up until then, she had lived with her mother at her farm in Western Massachusetts.
But Donald had needed an excuse to leave Washington for New York, where Soviet control was maintained, usually staying at Melinda’s stepfather’s apartment on Park Avenue. His cover had been his need to visit his wife during her pregnancy. Although he rarely saw her on his frequent visits, he was never questioned by anyone about his visits.
With the impending switch of Soviet control to its embassy in Washington, his trips to New York would end. This had meant moving Melinda and their children to Washington and slowly varying his routine, establishing his relationship with new handlers at the Russian embassy in Washington. At that point in time, the transfer had not been completed, and he was still reporting to his handler in New York.
“Darling, I’ll be going up to New York tomorrow early,” he told Melinda. “Could you pack an overnighter like a dear?”
“Now that I’m here, Donald, why the need to go up to New York?” she had asked. “Besides, we’re expected at the Stimsons tomorrow.”
It was an important dinner, he reflected. Stimson was secretary of war, and the chitchat would be valuable. He weighed the alternatives. New York, he decided, was more pressing.
“Dear Stimmie. Surely, you can find a suitable replacement in twenty-four hours?”
“Can’t be helped, darling. Important state business.”
He looked into the mouthpiece and smiled. He had to meet Volkov, his handler. Maclean’s information was, in his judgment, important enough to send along. There were too many crucial matters at stake.
In his role as first secretary, he was privy to all decoded messages. Arriving early each morning, he was able to read all the overnights, which gave him the clearest possible picture of what was transpiring on this side of the Atlantic from both a British and an American perspective. On his frequent trips to New York, his efficient Soviet handlers were able to get the news back to Moscow quickly.
He was quite proud of his achievements. Earlier in the year, he had managed to get his hands on sensitive Churchill communiqués to Truman that were useful to the Soviets in their strategy vis-à-vis Poland. The Americans truly believed that Poland would regain her freedom as an independent state. When the Americans would one day learn the truth, it would be too late. Poland would be well within the Soviet sphere.
He loved the excitement of it, the sheer exhilaration of deceit. Others were involved as well, some of them quite high up and in the know, like Alger Hiss, now involved with the creation of the United Nations and a man with whom he met frequently. Both men were convinced that the Soviet strategy and its socialist underpinnings would carry the day in the postwar world and that their mutual countries were doomed to eventual collapse. Risks had to be taken to further the Soviet advance, and he was not averse to risk, including those of a sexual nature.
He had been committed to these ideas since a student at Cambridge and had been both lucky and clever enough to make his special contribution. So far, he had totally escaped detection. He supposed that someday the string might run out, but he kept that possibility at bay. Besides, there was a heroic component to these peregrinations, and he reveled in his role as a queen bee in the honeycomb of the Allied hive.
Victoria came into his office. He watched her parade across the room, deliberately exaggerating the movement of her hips, very aware of his observation. She had locked the door after her and drew the blinds. Most of his colleagues had gone. The ambassador always left early. Indeed, he spent more time riding horses than in the embassy and was often the honored guest at embassy dinners and private homes. She opened the liquor cabinet and poured them each a couple of fingers of scotch.
“Cheers, darling,” she whispered, kissing him on the lips.
He opened his mouth, and they tipped tongues. The seduction of his gorgeous secretary had been both useful and pleasurable. Her affable socializing with the staff, particularly the secretaries of Lord Halifax and those who served the intelligence officers, had been remarkably helpful.
Of course, she knew nothing of his real intent or his role as a Soviet spy. He had explained that she was, in effect, the first secretary’s eyes and ears, not that she knew the implications of what she transmitted. Aside from secretarial school, her liberal education was minimal, and her interest in world politics indifferent. Her working-class accent was jarring but added to her sex appeal.
His intrigues, he assured her, were for his own advancement and, of course, for His Majesty’s benefit. To do his job expeditiously as first secretary, he needed to know as much as he could learn about the motives and agendas of his colleagues.
In these sensitive times, he told her, he needed the extra dimension of human intelligence to enhance his job, and she had eagerly provided it. Most of it, he understood, was merely raw gossip. Some of it was useful. Some not. She hadn’t a clue which was which. Indeed, she loved doing anything if it pleased him and inured to his benefit.
“Anything, darling. I’ll do anything,” she had assured him.
And that included especially sex. Besides, her discretion was impeccable and her sexual appetite extraordinary.
“I’m off to New York tomorrow,” he told her, after they had taken their first sips of the scotch and begun to stoke up the sexual fires.