“Not that. Some other ‘testament.’ It came up at the McCarthy hearings, didn’t it? Didn’t McCarthy mention something about it?”
Alfred Stone spread his hands, palms up, a dismissive gesture that said, I don’t remember. He replaced his glasses, got up, and went over to the bar. “I got a card from your wife,” he said, pouring some Scotch, straight, into a crystal tumbler.
“Dad …”
“She said she’s coming back to the States on leave, sometime around now.”
He was transparently avoiding the subject, but Charlie knew that his father had always liked Charlotte, that they had always been close, and he replied: “I don’t think she likes Moscow too much, Dad.”
“I trust she’s having a better time of it than I did there.” He spoke gently now: “You want her back, don’t you? But you’re too much of a man to admit it, is that right?”
“I can’t be very specific about why I want to know, but it’s important. Please.”
“Charlie, I’m not interested,” Alfred Stone said, his voice betraying his alarm.
“There was some state secret involved, wasn’t there?”
Alfred Stone shook his head, his eyes wide and glistening. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said angrily.
“Would you mind if I asked Winthrop?”
“Don’t, Charlie,” Alfred said too sharply. Peary, startled, looked up and barked once, warningly.
“Why not?”
“Please, just do me a favor. I don’t want you reminding him of that whole nightmare.”
“I very much doubt he’d mind. He and I’ve talked plenty of times about his role in history, his meeting with Lenin, that kind of thing. I doubt he’d–”
“Charlie, I don’t know how much he stuck his neck out for me in those days. More than anyone knows, I suspect. I don’t know what he had to lie about to save my skin. Please, don’t ask him.” He leaned over and began massaging the loose skin at Peary’s nape. Peary uttered a low, throaty growl of contentment. “There’s a lot I’ve never told you about – this whole thing. About Winthrop, and my situation.” He looked up. Charlie had never seen him so shaken. “I realize you want to … I suppose ‘vindicate’ is the apt word … vindicate me, but I really don’t want you opening that can of worms again. I mean, it – means a lot to me. Genuinely.”
“What do you mean by ‘can of worms’? You’ve seen a reference to this testament, haven’t you?”
After a long pause, Alfred Stone replied, “Yes. Yes, I have.” He didn’t look up as he continued to speak. “Winthrop asked me to go through his personal files at the White House one day for some reason, I forget what. We all had central files and personal files, and these were the personal ones, the ones you can take with you when your White House service is over.”
“You saw something.”
“A mention of it, yes. I remember it catching my eye, because it seemed so peculiar. Something to do with Stalin.”
“With Stalin? Did you ever ask Winthrop?”
“No, and I wish you wouldn’t, either.”
“But for you–”
“Don’t,” he said. His face was even more flushed now; he was visibly disconcerted.
Charlie hesitated a moment. “All right.” No, he thought: he wouldn’t have to ask Lehman a thing. There were the famous Lehman archives, in the subbasement of Lehman’s New York townhouse. Surely the answers would be there.
“You never would have gotten a security clearance without Winthrop, you know that. Because of me–”
“I know.”
“Charlie, did you come to see me expressly to ask about this thing?”
“And to see you.”
“What’s past is past, Charlie.”
Stone nodded contemplatively, not replying, knowing his father was wrong. The past had become the present.
The sun was setting now, and the room had grown suddenly dark. Charlie thought of the young Alfred Stone in the photo with Truman, the excited smile, and then he looked at his father now, and he thought: Whatever’s happening in the Kremlin, I’m in this for you. You’ve always deserved the truth.
Later, even just a few days later, he would desperately wish he had dropped the matter then and there.
5
Washington
Since there weren’t any significant parties in Washington that conflicted that night, Roger Bayliss decided to put in an appearance at the Italian Embassy’s gala. Bayliss, the chief Soviet expert on the National Security Council and an aide to the assistant to the President for national-security affairs, secretly enjoyed donning his white tie and tails and attending these affairs, bantering with the other Washington powers. Publicly he bemoaned having to drag himself there.
Bayliss had reason to be pleased with himself. Not yet forty, he had already carved out an enviable position in the government. He’d been selected by the NSC directly from the prestigious Soviet section of the National Security Agency, the group of one thousand analysts privy to the highest-quality intelligence from the Soviet Union and around the world. A handsome, jut-jawed man, he radiated a gladiatorial self-confidence that turned a lot of people off (but turned a lot of not very bright but very ambitious Washington women on). In the last few years, he had formed alliances with some extraordinarily powerful people, from the director of the CIA to the director of his own alma mater, the NSA – alliances that, he felt sure, would soon push him to the very top.
It was during cocktails that the peculiar incident took place. He had been chatting up a prominent Washington hostess when he happened to collide with a man he recognized as Aleksandr Malarek, the first secretary of the Soviet Embassy, who was talking with the French ambassador.
Although they’d never met, he knew who Malarek was, just as Malarek no doubt knew who he was. Malarek was not a handsome man, but something about his manner – the fluidity of his movements, the well-tailored American suits – made him seem elegant, and disguised the fact that his legs were somewhat too short for his body. He was slender, with a swarthy complexion. Unlike quite a number of Soviet diplomats, Malarek had good teeth. His eyes were brown and, as more than one writer for The Washington Post Style section had observed, seemed sincere. His hair was prematurely gray, actually silver. He was smooth, a witty conversationalist, a charmer, and a favorite at Washington parties.
“Pardon me,” Malarek said, grinning and shaking his head self-deprecatingly. “You’re Roger Bayliss, aren’t you?”
“Aleksandr Malarek,” Bayliss returned, just as jovially, and added wryly: “Nice to bump into you.”
There was the customary minute or two of mindless small talk, and then Malarek said something that disturbed Bayliss for the remainder of the evening.
“I hear you bought a new car,” the Russian said.
He was right – Bayliss had recently invested in a turbo Saab, obsidian-black – but how did Malarek know? Later Bayliss understood.
He left the party an hour and a half later, still faintly puzzled by the strange encounter with Aleksandr Malarek, and walked the two blocks to where his new Saab was parked. He unlocked the driver’s seat and got in, and then he saw it.
Wedged between the passenger seat and the car door was some kind of card. It looked as if it had been slipped into the car from the top of the window.
Bayliss reached over to retrieve it. The card was a postcard of the tacky variety you often see for sale on spinning racks at tourist sites. This one was of Miami Beach, Florida, and it bore no message on it at all, just an address in Washington, D.C.