“The success of a traitor, for example, is built on never having his treachery discovered,” Danforth said. He leaned forward slightly “Do you know who the greatest spy of all time was, Paul?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t,” I confessed.
He leaned back again. “Neither does anyone else.”
“I see your point,” I said, then attempted my own circling back to earlier references. “But what does a nightingale floor have to do with cyanide?”
“The fact that Anna’s cyanide didn’t work, and that Bannion’s did,” Danforth said. “That’s what kept sounding in my mind on the Channel crossing. It was like a creeping footfall on a nightingale floor. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. All the way to London.”
~ * ~
London, England, 1939
Clayton’s face had never looked more deeply troubled; Danforth would later wonder, from the depths of his own steadily building suspicion, if his friend had already known what he had come to tell him.
It was raining, and Danforth had walked quickly to the tavern near Whitehall where they were to meet. He’d expected to find Clayton already waiting, but it was some minutes before he arrived. From his place at the rear of the tavern, Danforth had watched Clayton strip off his very English raincoat and close and fasten his very English black umbrella. Even so, he’d looked distinctively American, though in a way Danforth could not exactly describe save by the observation that his movements, quick and decisive, gave off a certain New-World energy.
“Good to see you, Tom,” Clayton said when he reached the rear table.
“Hello, Robert.”
Clayton’s tone was grave. “Clearly something’s happened,” he said.
“There was no attempt,” Danforth told him flatly. “Anna was arrested outside her hotel yesterday morning. I saw it myself. By the time I got to Bannion’s place, he’d been arrested too. As they were taking him out, I saw him put something in his mouth. The cyanide. He collapsed in a few seconds.”
Clayton appeared genuinely stricken by this news. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I don’t know where Anna is,” Danforth said. He kept his voice even, and years later, he would recall that at that moment he’d managed to be no less an actor than Anna, merging with his role as a failed conspirator, cool in the wake of failure, giving no hint of the storm inside him.
“This was always a very dangerous action,” Clayton said wearily.
“Then why did you approve it?” Danforth asked.
Even as he spoke, Danforth was mindful of his own failure to stop the plot, but he remained too uncertain of his own footing to reveal that he had wanted to do exactly that. Still, he wondered why Clayton hadn’t put a halt to so reckless a scheme early on.
“Because I’m as susceptible to the grand action as anyone else, I suppose,” Clayton answered. “And Bannion was sure that Rache could supply the sort of inside information that might make it possible.”
“The security system around Hitler, that all came from Rache?” Danforth asked.
“Yes,” Clayton answered. He glanced toward the front of the room, where a gust of wind had suddenly sent a sheet of rain loudly against the window. “Rache had saved Bannion’s life in Spain.” He looked at Danforth. “You trust a man who saves your life.” He shrugged. “But maybe Bannion shouldn’t have trusted Rache with his life this time.”
“You think Rache may have betrayed us?” Danforth asked.
“Well, he’s the last one standing, isn’t he?” Clayton answered. “Except for me, of course.” He gave Danforth a curiously distant glance. “And you.”
“Me?”
Clayton nodded. “I was just wondering why you were released.”
“Because they said my father was a friend of Germany,” Danforth told him.
Clayton leaned forward. “Did your father ever know anything about the Project?”
“Absolutely not.”
Clayton seemed to take this at face value. “Then it’s Rache we have to suspect, because he was the only one outside our circle.”
“And as far as you know, he hasn’t been arrested?”
“As far as I know,” Clayton answered. “But they could fake an arrest. And if they thought we suspected him, they probably would, and with that he’d disappear.” He shrugged. “There’s nothing you can do, Tom. The Project is over.” He touched Danforth’s hand, as if offering condolence to a mourner. “You should go back to New York.”
Danforth drew back his hand. “I can’t,” he said firmly. “Not until I know what happened to Anna.”
That was the moment he betrayed himself, as he understood immediately. He could see clearly what Clayton saw when he looked at him: it was not his failure to make a mark or to change history that gripped him but his desperate need to find out what had happened to Anna.
“My God,” Clayton said. “You fell in love with her.”
Danforth nodded. “Yes,” he admitted. “Was that your plan?”
“No,” Clayton said. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t think you were capable of that kind of feeling.”
Danforth peered at Clayton intently. “The cyanide Anna was supposed to take if she was captured,” he said.
