He wasn’t as talkative as he’d been at dinner the night before, so I didn’t ask questions, spit shined my dress browns, and hoofed it to the street.
“Follow my lead,” Cosgrove said when I got into the car. It was a short ride. The driver let us off at the rear of the Foreign Office, and we entered a sandbagged bunker at the side of the white steps that led up to the government buildings, set along the Thames. Royal Marine sentries snapped a salute to Cosgrove, who showed his papers and was escorted in, with me tagging along.
“He’ll be down this way,” Cosgrove said, navigating the narrow corridors and cramped rooms as if he knew them well.
“Who?” I said. “What’s going on?”
“The prime minister called, Boyle. That’s what’s going on. Look sharp, you’re about to meet Winston. Guaranteed to be an experience.”
“Charles, good of you to come!” boomed a voice as we entered a room made small by desks, ventilation ducts, support beams, a wall-sized map of the world, and the unmistakable figure of Winston Churchill.
“At your service, Prime Minister,” Cosgrove said.
“No need to be so formal, Charles. I just asked an old friend over for a chat. Come, let’s go into the Cabinet Room, much quieter there.” The Cabinet Room was empty except for a square table that took up most of the space. At one corner sat a tray of bottles and glasses. Whiskey, brandy, water. Until now, Churchill had ignored me, and I stood back, uncertain of what to expect.
“Winston,” Cosgrove said with an easy familiarity that surprised me, in spite of the stories he’d told last night. “This is Lieutenant Boyle, the fellow you asked about.”
“Lieutenant,” Churchill said, “I hope you’ll join two old warhorses in a drink. Whiskey and water, I should think. Never liked whiskey as a young man, until I went abroad. When I was a subaltern in India and there was a choice between dirty water and dirty water with some whiskey in it, I chose the latter. I have always, since that time, made a point of keeping in practice.”
“Yes, sir” was all I could get out.
“Oh dear,” said Churchill, “we’ve made you nervous, Lieutenant Boyle. I should have remembered. Charles and I were lieutenants together in South Africa, during the Second Boer War. We wouldn’t have enjoyed being dragged in to drink with two old men, would we?”
“Depends on their liquor,” Cosgrove said. Churchill laughed and passed the glasses around.
“Sit, gentlemen,” Churchill said. He settled in and produced a cigar from his jacket pocket. He wore the familiar three-piece pin-striped suit, with a gold watch chain decorating the vest, and a polka-dot bow tie. He worked at lighting the cigar, took a drink, and smacked his lips. For a moment, he reminded me of Archie Chapman, the bon vivant gangster in his underground lair.
“I understand, Lieutenant Boyle, that you’ve solved the puzzle of these dead Russians. One of their own, I take it?”
“Yes, sir, in league with a woman. An Englishwoman. Apparently he recruited her as an informant, and they fell in love. Their plan was to get some money, new identities, and disappear.”
“Leaving a corpse behind we’d think was Captain Sidorov,” Cosgrove added. “Apparently he was decent enough to want to spare his family retribution.”
“Stalin is cold and ruthless,” Churchill said. “As is their entire system of government. This Sidorov then is not entirely without scruples?”
“He killed when his plan was threatened,” I said. “But much of it centered around protecting his wife and daughter from Article 58, if you’re familiar with that, sir.”
“The law that would make his wife and child enemies of the people,”Churchill said. “I wonder if it will still apply.”
“I don’t know, this is a criminal matter, not political,” I said.
“It is all politics, Lieutenant. It was politics when he dressed up the first murder to be blamed on the Poles. It has been political, with ambassadors hounding me; Stalin-Stalin himself-demanding that our man in Moscow explain what is happening. You’re aware of the Polish situation?”
“You mean the massacre at Katyn? Yes.”
“The less said about that, the better. There’s more to this than Katyn, Lieutenant. The Poles are agitating for their prewar borders after the fighting is over. But they took their eastern lands from the Russians in the 1920 war, so who can say which is right? Now the Poles in London want us to take sides, and the Americans, too. And at what danger to this grand alliance? Do the Poles ever think of that?”
“I imagine they think of freedom, sir.”
“Sadly, Poland is occupied by the Nazis. Freedom cannot be thought of until we rid Europe of Hitler and his regime. That can only be done in conjunction with the Soviet Union. Stalin may be a beast, but he’s a beast at war with the beast at our door.”
Why I was here began to sink in. I drank my whiskey and water and kept my mouth shut.
“I’ve spoken with the commissioner,” Churchill said. I knew who he meant: Sir Philip Game, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
“Sidorov is going free,” I said.
“He will go home to the Soviet Union,” Churchill said. “Hardly free. At this juncture, we cannot allow any potential for rupture in our relations with Stalin. He could see this as a sign of our taking sides between the Moscow Poles and the London Poles. Too much of this affair has been wrapped up with the Katyn matter. The murder of Egorov, the informants at the Rubens Hotel, the attempted murder of that poor Polish boy. The arrest of Lieutenant Kazimierz.”
“You’re very well informed, Prime Minister,” I said. I knew it was hopeless to say anything else. In Churchill’s mind, the release of one Russian killer was a small price to pay for insuring all those other Russians kept killing Germans.
“I’d like to be informed as to your attitude, young man. Charles tells me you have a sharp mind, but that you can be unorthodox. I need to know this matter will be settled. Prosecuting Sidorov and creating a breach with Stalin will not help the Poles, or us. Only the Nazis will benefit.”
I told him he had nothing to worry about. After all, I was drinking his whiskey.
“ So what’s the plan?” I asked Cosgrove as we got back into his staff car. I really wanted to ask him about my sharp mind, but I kept my curiosity to myself.
“Sidorov is going home with the story he told. Attacked by a downed German flier while assisting the Home Guard. Found wandering days later, severe concussion. No reference to Sheila Carlson. It’s been worked out privately with Ambassador Ivan Maisky.”
“The Russian ambassador and you worked this out?”
“Sometimes it pays to find common ground. Ivan likes it here in London. The more smoothly things run, the longer before he’s called home to Moscow.”
“When is Sidorov going?”
“Today. Ivan has sent Sidorov’s uniform and personal effects to me. The captain will wash, shave, and dress. Then on to the RAF field at Digby for a flight to Gibraltar, then Lisbon, where he will be met by representatives from the Soviet Embassy, and thence to Moscow. Where he will be greeted as a hero, most likely.”
“What about Sheila?”
“Miss Carlson will face a lesser charge, in exchange for keeping quiet.”
“How much lesser?”
“Possession of forged ration cards. She will serve time in prison until the end of the war.”
“They’re getting away with murder.”
“Yes. I don’t suppose it will help to tell you I don’t like it either,” Cosgrove said.
“It does, actually. Could I ask two more favors?”
“That one with Brown wasn’t difficult. What are they?”
“I’d like to ride with Sidorov to Digby. No funny business, I promise you. Then, whenever you have one of those MI5 and MI6 powwows, I’d like to drop by. As soon as it can be arranged.”
“No sidearm, and you may escort Sidorov to Digby. Along with my men, of course,” Cosgrove said.
“Of course. And the meeting?”
“As you well know, Lieutenant Boyle, such meetings do not exist, since MI6 operates only outside of Great
