“Is it that important?”
“It could be. Nobody outside the project knows. They probably don’t even know inside.”
“You know all these physicists personally?”
“Sure. There’s others I know too from other universities.”
“It’s obviously one of these people they want to have as a contact.”
“So why don’t we ignore the poplars bit and I’ll give you a possible contact.”
Aarons shook his head. “No. That thing about the poplars is some kind of bench-mark, a clue of some kind. Or maybe a test of what you know.”
“They know what I know, for Christ’s sake. I’ve already passed the basic material to you.”
“Yes but maybe it’s the contact that matters.” He said softly, “Tell me the name of the setup.”
Cohen looked at his beer and then at Aarons. “It’s called the Manhattan Project.”
“Any reason why it should be based at Santa Fe?”
“Security I guess. It’s surrounded by desert.”
“What’s Santa Fe mean in English?”
“Fe means faith so I suppose it’s holy faith—something like that.” He looked up quickly at Aarons. “What’s ‘the poplars’ in Spanish?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“You got anyone who speaks Spanish?”
Aarons smiled. “The bartender’s an Hispanic, I’ll ask him.” He stood up, walked over to the bar, paid for the beers and ordered two more. When he’d paid for those he said, “Do you speak Spanish?”
The man shrugged. “Of course. Is my language.”
“How do you say ‘the poplars’ in Spanish?”
The man frowned. “What is poplars? I don’t know it.”
“They’re trees. Tall trees.”
The man shrugged. “I ask my daughter maybe she know.”
He wiped a cloth over the counter and went into the office behind the bar. He was gone several minutes and when he came back he said, “She not know. She look in dictionary. Here she write it out for you.”
On the piece of paper it said—“Poplars in Spanish is ‘Los Alamos.’ Also place in New Mexico near Santa Fe.”
Aarons folded the paper, passed the man a dollar and smiled. “Thanks for your help, señor.”
The man laughed and stuck the dollar in his shirt pocket. As he sat down at the table Aarons pushed across the paper to Cohen. “It was both. Checking on what you knew. Did you know that was where it was?”
Cohen nodded. “It’s one of the places I heard mentioned. But I’d no idea where it was. There were several others.”
“Can you help with the contact?”
“Yes. But not until they do something about Manya.”
“Tell me about the contact.”
“He’s a scientist. Young. Not an American. I’ve heard that he’s a communist sympathiser. A bit of a loner.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s at the site at Los Alamos.”
“What’s his name?”
Cohen smiled and shook his head. “Manya first. Then the name.”
“They’re in a hurry, Lev. Why not trust them just this once?”
Cohen laughed softly. “Not in a million years, my friend.”
“Would you trust me?”
“Oddly enough—I would. But this doesn’t lie in your hands. They don’t have to do what you ask.” He paused. “As a matter of interest have you thought of how you’d get her over here?”
Aarons nodded. “Yes, as a matter of fact I have.”
“Tell me.”
“Plane to Stockholm. Swedish airlines to Toronto and after that there’s no problem.”
“How long?”
“Allow two weeks.”
“I mean when does she leave?”
“I’ll have to come back to you. If she phoned you from Stockholm that she was OK, would you accept that and give me the contact name?”
Cohen nodded. “Yeah. I almost believe you mean it.”
“I’ll have to phone you at the university or home at short notice. I’ll say my name’s Hart, OK?”
“Yeah. Any time.”
It had taken longer than Aarons had estimated. It was two weeks before she landed at an airstrip at Malmö. She made the phone-call to Cohen who passed him the envelope as they walked in Bryant Park.
Aarons coded the name and it went to Moscow via a radio in a farmhouse by the lake-side near Kingston, Ontario. It was just the name. Klaus Fuchs.
CHAPTER 16
Ivan reached up and slid the bolt across at the top of the door, put the catch on the lock and bent down to push home the bottom bolt. Anna was counting the takings for the day. He turned to watch her. There was no denying that she was very beautiful. Long black hair, big, dark, heavy-lidded eyes and that wide, full mouth that gave a calmness to her face that made her still seem like a young girl. But she was thirty-three years old and she had no life until she had met the man she called Sam. She had met him when he came in for a book on Chopin. That was four years ago and she’d seen him twice a week after that. Sam wanted to marry her and they would have made a good pair. But she wouldn’t marry him because of Andrei. Andrei knew nothing about Sam. It never seemed to enter his mind that Anna might want a life apart from the bookshop. Anna said that Andrei needed her and that what Andrei did was more important than anything else. Andrei and Chantal had agreed right from the start not to have children because of Andrei’s work. So Anna still went on with her secret love affair. Only he and Anna and Chantal knew about Sam.
They all liked Sam. He was thirty, gentle and easy-going. He played piano in night-clubs and had had offers of good money to go to Chicago and Los Angeles but he loved Anna too much to leave New York.
He saw her close the exercise book where she kept the accounts and look over at him.
“What are you dreaming about, my boy?”
“I was thinking about you and Sam.”
“And what were you thinking?”
“That it was a shame that you two aren’t married.”
“Why a shame?”
“Because you’re a pair. Nice people. You belong together.”
“You don’t have to be married to be together. Being married is just a formality.”
“You love him, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“And he loves you. It’s crazy. Why don’t you let me talk to Andrei about it for
