strength, propelled the man forward, sliding him head-first into the fast, night air.
James remained there, kneeling on the floor of the train, buffeted by the wind coming in from doors open on both sides. He was panting. And, as the adrenalin faded, he became aware of the acute pain in his wrists, his legs and especially his left shoulder. At last he staggered to his feet, closed both doors and slumped onto a seat. His head hurt and he reached up to touch his forehead. When his hand came away there was blood on it. Even in a year of combat in Spain, even when he had seen his friend Harry’s brain shattered before him, he did not believe he had ever come so close to death.
He spent the rest of the journey pacing, like a captive animal that had been dangerously provoked. McAndrew had sent this man, there was no doubt in James’s mind. How had he known where to find him? He considered the possibility that Dorothy had betrayed him yet again, considered it and dismissed it. Her help for him, her feelings for him, had been genuine, he was certain of it. No, McAndrew had relied on more direct means. James remembered the Buick with the white-rimmed tyres. He might have shaken off his watchers for a few hours after Riley released him from jail, but they had clearly caught up with him. The gunman must have been at the station, watching from the shadows, seeing what train James took, then quietly climbing aboard.
And even though he felt no pity for the dead man, even though James believed he had every justification — in law and in morality — for what he had done, he could not shake the image of the man sliding off the train to a painful death. Back in Spain, James had shot at the enemy many times. Statistical probability alone meant he had surely killed at least one man, if not several. And yet he had never done it like this: he had never seen the face of a man he had killed. James thought of his parents and their lifelong vow of non-violence. What prayer would they utter after committing such an act?
To dispel the thought, he checked his watch. It would be hours before he reached Washington. He still had no clear plan how he was going to find McAndrew once he got there. He desperately needed help.
Twenty minutes passed and at last he saw lights in the distance, not just a few but whole constellations of them. The train was approaching New York.
Slowly, the suburbs gave way to busier, city streets. Billboards began to appear: for Dairy Queen ice cream, for Time magazine, for Peter Pan Peanut Butter. James watched them go by, clasping his aching shoulder.
Suddenly an image floated before James’s eyes: Time magazine, the edition he had read while watching and waiting outside the Wolf’s Head tomb, the page opposite the article on Lord Beaverbrook. He had scarcely registered it at the time, but now the whole double-page spread appeared to him — including the name, middle initial and all, waiting to be found. The only man James knew in Washington; probably the only man he knew in the whole of America.
He jumped onto the platform while the train was still moving, not wanting to waste a second. The station was deserted except for two men with brooms and an older man with a nest of a beard, peering into the dustbins looking for food. Remembering their location from his first visit here, he sprinted over to the phone booths, entering the first and nearest one.
He lifted the handset and was glad to hear the dial tone. He waited for the voice of the operator, nasal and metallic, yet still female: ‘Local or long distance?’
‘Long distance, please.’
‘What city?’
‘Washington, DC.’
‘What name?’
‘The name is Edward P Harrison.’
There was a long delay. James pictured a woman, middle-aged and bespectacled, leafing through a fat directory of thin pages, listing name after name. H for Hammond, Hanson, Harris…
‘There are two Harrisons, Edward P in the DC area, sir. I have a Dr Edward P Harrison?’
James wanted to smile. ‘No, the man I’m looking for is not a doctor.’
‘Connecting you now, sir.’
He heard a series of clicks, then a long ringing tone and then another. Damn it all, he wasn’t there. Damn, damn, da ‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice, sleepy.
‘Hello. I’m sorry to call so late. I need to speak-’
A man’s voice now, taking the phone. ‘Who the hell is this? What’s the idea, calling after midnight?’
‘Ed, is that you? It’s James, James Zennor. From Barcelona. I mean, we were in Spain together, remember, when you were covering the People’s Olympiad?’
There was a pause, into which James spoke again. ‘You took a letter for me, do you remember? When you went back home, through London?’
‘OK, now I remember. Zennor. You were writing your girl who’d left you for Hitler, wasn’t that it?’
‘She’d gone to Berlin, that’s right. You’ve got a good memory.’
‘Jeez, you sound terrible. You OK?’
‘Just ran into a spot of… bother, that’s all.’ He could feel the ache in his jaw, where he had slammed into the train door.
‘The thing is, I don’t know what time it is where you are, James, but it’s real late here. So if-’
‘My train’s just made a stop in New York, Ed. And I need your help.’
‘Call me in the morning and I’ll arrange for Western Union-’
‘I don’t need your money!’ The words came out faster and angrier than James intended. He cursed himself. He had only a minute or two before he had to get back on the train. ‘I mean, that is very kind of you, but I’m not asking for that sort of help.’ He was getting this all wrong. He thought of Dorothy Lake and the ambitious young staff of the Yale Daily News and hoped the same urges drove seasoned reporters as motivated new ones. He took a different tack: ‘I may have a very important story for you.’
An instant change in tone, sharper and more alert. ‘What kind of story?’
James had to think quickly. ‘One that could affect whether or not America enters the war.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘It involves the Dean of Yale University. He’s in Washington. I have reason to believe he is involved in a secret campaign to keep the United States out of the war. He told his niece that he was about to have the most important meeting of his life.’ James heard himself. He sounded like a lunatic. In a moment, Edward Harrison, Time journalist and James’s only hope in Washington, would surely hang up, explaining to his wife that it had been ‘some British guy’ he knew back in Spain who had clearly lost his marbles during the war.
But Harrison said something else. ‘A meeting? I’ve been hearing rumblings about this. I thought it was all happening in Chicago. They’re calling it the America First movement. Or America First Committee. Committee, I think. So what’s the secret plan?’
James heard a whistle, coming from his platform. ‘There’s more I can tell you. I’m on the slow train to Washington, it gets in at seven fifteen. Meet me at the station.’
‘But-’
‘Please, Ed. I promise you, it’ll be worth it.’
Ed Harrison acknowledged James not with a wave, but by holding up a brown paper bag, as he greeted the train that had just pulled under the shelter of the vast, arced roof of Union Station. The bag was soon revealed to contain two doughnuts, both for James.
‘I figured you’d be hungry,’ he said, looking hardly a day older than when the pair had met amid the sunshine, high hopes and infinite bottles of Sangre de Toro in Barcelona in 1936. Even unshaven, ten years older than James and with a head of unruly hair, he was still craggily handsome.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d be here,’ James said between mouthfuls.
‘What, and have you call again first thing in the morning? No thanks.’
‘I’m sorry about that. Will you apologize to your wife for me, for ringing so late?’
‘Who said anything about a wife?’
James saw the familiar wicked sparkle in Ed’s eye and remembered how women had flocked around Harrison the famous reporter, playing in the jazz band, drinking the men under the table and still staying sober. That type didn’t tend to get married.
‘So,’ Harrison said. ‘It’s been a long time. Four years, almost to the day, I’d say. What you been up to, James?’
The words that comprised the question were inoffensive enough, but in between them James detected a
