The Talbot Odyssey (7 page)

Colonel Randolph Carbury stroked his white mustache pensively as he regarded the attractive woman sitting at her desk. She was, he thought, a remarkable American specimen; nearly forty, as he knew, but looking closer to thirty. Her long hair was a light blond color, her pale skin slightly freckled with a spring tan. He was told she was a runner and he could believe it from the looks of her trim body and well-shaped legs.

She looked up from the letter and met the eyes of the Englishman sitting across from her.

He inclined his head toward the letter. “Please continue.”

Katherine stared down at the gold-embossed letterhead: Lady Eleanor Wingate, Brompton Hall, Tongate, Kent. The letter was handwritten with black ink in what Katherine thought was a script so perfect it could have been copperplate. She looked up at Carbury. His face was taut, almost grim, she thought. “Would you like a drink?” She indicated a sideboard and Carbury rose wordlessly and walked toward it. She continued to read.

We were as helpful as possible under the circumstances, but
Brompton Hall is rather a large house, and there was almost no
staff available to make a thorough search of the places where a
man in your father’s line of work might choose to secure sensi
tive documents.

You can see, perhaps, where this is leading. A few days ago
we were clearing out Brompton Hall in preparation for its
transfer to new owners. In one of the storage closets in the
muniment room—a sort of family archive room—was a parcel
wrapped in oilcloth which turned out to contain a U.S. Army
dispatch case. My nephew, Charles, who was supervising the
work, brought it to me straightaway.

Inside the case were well-preserved papers, mostly ciphers
and that sort of thing, of no importance by now, I should think
.
There were also letters bundled and tied. They appear to be a
few rather touching notes from your sister, Ann, who was then
about five years of age. There was also an item of immediate
concern: a locked diary.

After some deliberation, I decided to open the lock to be
certain it was your father’s diary and, if it was, to determine if
there was anything inside that might be painful for you to read.
As it turns out, there are references to me and to your mother.
But I’ve decided to delete none of them. You’re quite old
enough to understand love, loneliness, and war.

Most of the diary, however, is not of a personal nature. There
are pages of notes of which I believe you and your government
should be made aware
.

Katherine paused in her reading. This was really too much to assimilate, she thought. Yet, it was not entirely unexpected. Eleanor Wingate was a name dimly remembered from her childhood, though she couldn’t recall the context. Now the memory and the context were clearer. And Randolph Carbury’s visit was not unexpected either, though he had been totally unknown to her fifteen minutes ago. She had known that some day Carbury, or someone like him, would appear out of the blue. It was inevitable that the ghost of her father would reach out to her. She read on:

The circumstances involving your father’s death in Berlin
were, I think, quite mysterious, dying as he did some days after
the end of the war. I never had much faith in the official version
of what happened. Also, your father said to me once, “Eleanor
,
if I should die without at least a dozen reliable witnesses t
o
testify that it was from completely natural causes, you’ll know
the Russians finally got me.”

I replied, “Henry, you mean the Germans.” To which he
responded, “No, I mean our sneaking, cutthroat allies.”

And there was something else. The American officer who
came for Henry’s effects—I didn’t like his conduct or the looks
of him. Why did he come
alone
to search this big house and
recruit my small staff in this tiring business? Why did another
officer come the next day on the same mission? This second
officer seemed incredulous that someone had come before him.
He said the Army had learned of Henry’s death only hour
s
before.

At the time, I was too overcome with grief to make much
sense of any of this, but some weeks later I tried to make enqui
ries. Wartime security, however, was still in effect, and it was
quite hopeless.

Well, your father’s diary clears up a great many things.

Katherine looked at Carbury and said softly, “Talbot?”

Carbury’s eyes widened slightly. “Yes. Talbot and Wolfbane. I didn’t realize you knew. How much
do
you know?”

“Not enough.” She turned the page of the letter and continued.

Seeing Henry’s things in that dispatch case has brought back
many memories and rekindled an old sense of guilt—not of our
relationship, which was guiltless (my husband had died in
Malta early in the war, and your mother was in the process of
divorcing your father for some Washington bureaucrat), but
guilt at not having contacted you at some point and telling you
some of the good things about your father, who was a remark
able man.

Well, there’s little more to say. I’m going up to London to live
with my nephew, Charles Brook.

These last few weeks have been rather strange—rather sad,
too—closing up Brompton Hall, your father’s papers, the awak
ened memories of “the best of times and the worst of times.”

But the point of this letter is to advise you of the dispatch
case and, more specifically, the diary, which names people who
may still be with your government or who are highly placed in
American society, and names them in a way that forebodes, I’m
afraid, the gravest consequences for your country and for all of
us. At least one of those named is a well-known man who i
s
close to your President.

This letter is to be delivered by a trusted friend, Randolph
Carbury. He will, I hope, locate you at the law firm with which
he tells me you are associated. Colonel Carbury is an old mili
tary intelligence man and an excellent judge of situations and
people. If in his opinion you are the one who ought to receive th
e
diary, he will arrange with you for the delivery of same.

My first thought was to make these papers available to my
government or yours, or both simultaneously, in photostat form.
But Randolph seems to think, and I agree, that the material
might well fall into the very hands of those it exposes
.

O’Brien, Kimberly and Rose was, of course, your father’
s
firm, and many of the OSS intelligence officers who stayed at
Brompton Hall were also associated with the firm. If I’m not
being indiscreet, Colonel Carbury indicates that the firm still
has ties with the intelligence community here and in America.
Also, he mentioned that your sister, Ann, is somehow connected
with American intelligence. Perhaps you ought to show the di
ary to her—or to trusted people in your firm—for critical evalu
ation. I pray that it is not as grave and foreboding as it appears
to be—though I’m fairly certain and afraid that it is.

My best wishes

(signed) Eleanor Wingate

Katherine stayed silent for some time, then said, “Why didn’t you go directly to my sister?”

“She’s not easy to locate, is she?”

“No, she’s not.”

“Given the choice, I’d still prefer dealing with you.”

“Why?”

“Because, as Lady Wingate indicated, and as we both know, your firm takes more than a nostalgic interest in affairs such as this. It’s in your hands now. Distribute the information as you see fit. But please be cautious.”

“Should I ask Mr. O’Brien to join us?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Nearly all of us from that time and that profession are automatically suspect. Including myself, of course.”

Katherine stood and looked out from the forty-fourth-floor window of her office. Across Fifth Avenue, the intricate gray masonry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral spread out in the shape of a Latin cross. In the café below, the two dozen or so tables were empty. It was an unusually raw and overcast May afternoon, a day of gray vapor plumes and long gray shadows.

Colonel Carbury stood also and followed her gaze. “This view has changed considerably since these were the offices of British Security Coordination. I last stood at this very window in 1945. Yet, you know, the major landmarks are still standing—the Waldorf, Saks, St. Patrick’s, the St. Regis—and I fancy it is 1945 again, and I see myself down there, a younger man dashing across the avenue. . . .”

He turned from the window. “I see myself in this office again with my American associates—General Donovan, the Dulleses, Clare Boothe Luce, and your employer, Patrick O’Brien, who never arrived at a meeting without a few bottles of liberated spirits. Algerian wine in the beginning, then some Corvo from Sicily, and, finally, champagne. . . . I met your father here one Sunday. He had a little girl with him, but that must have been your sister, Ann. You would have been an infant.”

“Yes, my sister,” Katherine said.

Carbury nodded. His eyes passed over a wall where vintage black-and-white photographs hung. “What brave and pure lads and lasses we were. What a war it was. What a time it was.” He glanced at her. “It was, Miss Kimberly, perhaps the one moment in history when all the best and the brightest were within the government, unified in purpose, with no distinctions of class or politics . . . or so we thought.”

Katherine listened as Carbury reminisced, knowing he was not deviating from his point or his purpose, only taking the longer route to get there.

Carbury looked directly at her. “The past comes back to haunt us because it was an imperfect past, a shaky foundation upon which we’ve built so much.”

Katherine moved away from the window. “You have my father’s diary?”

Colonel Carbury walked to the center of the room. “Not with me. I only brought the letter for now.” He nodded toward the three sheets of cream-colored vellum stationery on Katherine’s desk. His eyes met hers and he seemed to appreciate her wariness. He spoke softly. “It is not pure chance, as you know, that the law firm of O’Brien, Kimberly and Rose occupies the same offices my people occupied during the war. It was Patrick O’Brien’s decision, I believe, to move his firm here. Nostalgia, continuity . . . karma, if you will.” He smiled. “I spent some time in India.”

Carbury seemed suddenly tired and sat back down in the chair beside her desk. “Do you mind?” He lit a cigarette and watched the smoke drift upward. “It’s difficult to explain to someone so young what a marvel these buildings were in 1940. Futuristic design, air conditioning, high-speed elevators, restaurants with decent food. We English treated ourselves rather well, I can tell you. But it was not much fun, really, for we were all painfully aware of what our island was going through.”

“I think I can appreciate what you’re saying.”

Carbury nodded absently. “Yet, we knew that our mission in America was the single most important contribution to the war effort. We came to New York, over a thousand strong, to fight a different kind of war.” He looked around the large office as though trying to recall how it looked then. “To get America into the war, actually. To raise money and arms, to collect intelligence, to lobby, to plead, to beg. . . . We were in a rather bad way. Whisky warriors, some called us. And I suppose we did drink a bit much. . . .” He shrugged.

Katherine said, “History has recorded your contribution.”

“Yes, only recently. I’ve lived long enough to see that. Most didn’t. That’s the nature of clandestine work.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “It is a lonely and frustrating way to serve one’s country. Don’t you find that so?”

“I’m a lawyer. My sister, Ann, is the one in intelligence.”

“Yes, of course.” Carbury stared off into space for some time, and Katherine could see that beneath the composed exterior was a man burning with emotion.

“When will I see the contents of the dispatch case?” she said.

“This evening.”

“I have an appointment this evening.”

“Yes, I know. The Seventh Regiment Armory. Table fourteen. I’m at table thirty-one with some compatriots of mine.”

She nodded.

“I’ll arrange the details of the transfer with you at that time.”

“Where are you staying, Colonel?”

“My old hotel—the Ritz-Carlton.”

“The Ritz-Carlton has been torn down.”

“Has it?” He rose. “I’ll have to find another place.” He extended his hand, and she took it. Carbury said, “I’ve read the diary, of course, and this is most serious. We’ll discuss how to proceed tonight.”

“Thank you for coming.”

“It was my pleasure. You’re as beautiful as your mother”—he nodded toward a picture on the wall—“and I suspect as intelligent as your father. Thank you for the drink, and again please forgive me for not making an appointment. I came from the airport straightaway.”

As she walked toward the door, Katherine wondered what he had done with his luggage. “How can I reach you between now and this evening?”

“I’m afraid you can’t. Sounds a bit paranoid, but I’m being rather cautious.”

“So am I.”

“Good.” He turned and stepped up to the window again, focusing on the scene below. He spoke quietly, almost to himself. “Things may not always be as they appear, but there is a logical explanation for everything. Not always a reassuring explanation, but always logical. We should keep that in mind over the coming days.”