Chapter Fourteen

Saturday morning
September 1, 1945
Ottawa

Before daybreak, Grierson rang again. This time he asked me to join him at Pink Lake, explaining that Ellery requested to speak with me in person and that it was urgent. Ellery offered to send his chauffeur in one hour and I agreed. Vine didn’t try to stop me, but he did ask if Grierson knew about the missing cryptograms from the safe at the Soviet Embassy.

“If he doesn’t, he will before long.”

Vine shook his head in dismay. “Zabotin should warn Moscow so the politburo has time to react.”

“Let Zabotin be the judge of that,” I said firmly.

“He knows how serious the breach is,” he urged. “He should not delay. It will only make things worse for us.”

“Give Zabotin a chance to recover the cables before he alerts Moscow.”

Vine didn’t agree. “What if there’s no time?” he asked. “Maybe we should pack our bags.”

“Where will we go?” I asked Vine. “Who will take us in?”

“What if we return to Nesvicz?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Sit tight,” I cautioned him. “Wait until I’m back from Ellery’s lake house. Zabotin will attend the Labour Day celebration at the Gouzenko’s. Svetlana Gouzenko prepares the best potato perogies in town. We don’t want to miss that.” I was surprised at how practical I was becoming.

I wanted to hold my own at Ellery’s, so I quickly curled my hair, applied my brightest lipstick and placed a double row of pearls around my neck. The ones Zabotin had presented to me for my birthday.

The drive into the Gatineau Hills gave me courage. Across the Ottawa River and into the sultry hills of Quebec, where the trees grew tall in a thousand shades of green and the lakes were cold and mysterious. How could anything go wrong amidst this delicate beauty?

I prepared what I should say while revealing as little as possible. I couldn’t tell Grierson or Ellery that Zabotin hadn’t sent Fuchs’ drawings to Moscow. I didn’t want this information to get back to Homer via Ellery and risk Zabotin being betrayed to the Centre. I took it for granted that by this time Zabotin would have reviewed my notes from the Laurier Club as well as debriefed Oleg. He would know everything of importance and would be planning his next move.

Ellery greeted me at the door and ushered me into the front room of the house where Grierson sat beside an open window that overlooked Pink Lake. He rose when I entered.

It wasn’t a grand parlour, not the least bit ostentatious. For a second, I remembered my first conquest, Klopot the haberdasher, and his red-and-black bedroom, decorated in the taste of Odessa. Here the dimensions were shapely, the colours muted. It was expensive, filled with paintings of the Canadian landscape, accented by buttery-tan leather and maple wood furniture. The walls and floor were polished pine; the rugs Turkish and the lamps made of brass. Although it was warm, a delicate fire burned in the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace. Shards of burned paper were disintegrating in the glow. A red telephone sat on the end table beside Ellery’s rocking chair.

Since I was wearing three-inch heels, Ellery did not ask me to climb down to the lake with him. Patsy, his wife, was still asleep and “under the weather,” according to Grierson.

He took my hand. He was too polite to mention my shoes, but I could see that he was amused by my attempt to overdress. I realized that I looked like a version of Klopot’s bedroom to these men.

Before speaking again, Ellery closed the door to the kitchen and the window beside Grierson. “The situation is dire, my dear. Homer tells us that there is a mole at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa and he’s contacted British intelligence. The mole has been trying to persuade MI6 to get him out of Canada.”

I felt the ground moving below my feet. The same sensation I had when Zabotin first told me about Gouzenko’s recall to Moscow. What Zabotin didn’t know was that the cryptographer had already made plans to defect before he was recalled by the GRU.

Ellery continued. “Apparently Homer’s handler in London reports that the mole wants out of Canada on a diplomatic passport. He’s looking for a safe haven in England, but neither Homer nor MI6 can promise that. We’re fucked. Excuse me, my dear,” Ellery said clearing his throat.

“I’ve heard worse,” I admitted.

Ellery began to pace. “There’s this clever young woman at the State Department in D.C. She’s working with the Nazi who originally decoded the Soviet cyphers during the war. The Norwegian, I spoke about yesterday. The operation is labelled Venona and I suspect Washington already knows more than we could have imagined. For now they aren’t letting on. Homer believes the mole here wants to expose you, your entire group in Ottawa. He can prove that atomic secrets have gone between the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa and Moscow.” Ellery stopped when we heard Patsy calling to him from the bedroom.

“Put her down to sleep,” Ellery ordered the cook, who came into the parlour looking for instructions.

“Homer will be exposed. I’m sure of it,” said Ellery as he continued to pace the room. “The role he’s played with the Manhattan Project, with Fuchs and Nunn May. He’s the go-between for all that and Zabotin—and, ultimately, the Director in Moscow. Miss Linton, you must tell Zabotin to get Nunn May back to Britain, where he’ll by protected by our friends.”

“I can do that,” I said immediately. “The mole must be Igor Gouzenko,” I added. “He’s in charge of the cipher room at the embassy. He’s been recalled to Moscow.”

Grierson’s hands began to shake. “And you know this how?”

“Zabotin told me,” I said.

“We can’t be kept in the dark about this. Does Zabotin realize what danger we’re in?”

“I don’t know what Zabotin realizes,” I replied. “How could I?”

Grierson and Ellery looked at each other. Grierson guessed that I’d spent the night before last with Zabotin. I suppose he’d told Ellery about my roaming affections.

“Do you understand how serious this is, Freda?” Grierson asked me. “And for Vine. What did he conclude from his visit to Los Alamos? Did he have information for Zabotin?

“I wouldn’t know,” I lied. “Why don’t you ask Zabotin yourself, or Homer? You’re such good friends.” At that moment, I looked at Grierson with contempt.

“You can help us,” Ellery stated.

“How? The two of you will be protected. Possibly Homer will be saved by his English friends. Like him, your lives will continue, perhaps with less grandeur, but they will continue. Particularly you, Mr. Ellery. The prime minister championed you. He’d have egg on his face if you were seen aiding the Communists. And John, how would the government appear if the head of the Wartime Information Bureau turned out to be a Soviet operative? I bet the Canadians will try to cover up their mistakes in your case.”

The two men were silent.

“Have you thought about the rest of us? Vine, Sybil Romanescu, Fred Rose. Even Zabotin. And me. What will happen to us? Do you believe that Moscow will rescue us? They will blame us for being sloppy. Gouzenko, of all people. He’s the clown who will bring us down.” As an afterthought, I admitted that the code the Soviet Embassy used was, indeed, the same one as the wartime encryptions. “This mess will be over soon.”

“Now, now,” Ellery chimed in. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. So far it is all conjecture. Homer doesn’t know for certain how far the Americans have gotten decrypting the Soviet code. Perhaps Venona is something of a ruse. Homer seems to be having a bit of a break down. Perhaps he’s over-playing the danger.”

With that he tried to ignore his wife’s calls from the bedroom. “Let’s wait and see what Zabotin says. Let’s make prudent decisions,” Ellery continued. “If you would contact Zabotin today, Miss Linton, I’d be grateful. Warn him. Find out how much information he’s garnered about the bomb. Possibly he can commandeer this defector, this man Gouzenko in the embassy, before anything critical leaks out. Defectors are the worst kind of people.”

“I have contacted him and I’m waiting for his response, but you must mean send Gouzenko back to Moscow before he can do any harm? He’ll be executed first thing,” I reminded them.

Ellery and Grierson exchanged glances, but they did not dispute my claim. Stalin’s enemies, the disappeared, were dragged from their slumber in the middle of the night and charged with treason—if only they could talk. I wondered if Grierson and Ellery knew about the show trials where every prisoner was found guilty. They must. Siberia became an enormous prison camp dotted with thousands upon thousands of graveyards, a nowhere land where the falsely accused were sent to perish. “If Zabotin returns to Russia, he’ll be held accountable as well.”

Ellery nodded in agreement. He clenched his fists and looked down to avoid my gaze. He invited his wife to join us as we moved into the dining room. Patsy became subdued once she was allowed to speak with her husband. She wore a ruffled, champagne-tinted peignoir with the top three buttons of the gown undone. I could see her breasts popping through the ruffles. After a meal of vichyssoise, and smoked ham and cheddar cheese quiche, I was escorted back to Ottawa.

There was no sign of Vine when I arrived at the flat. This time I wondered if he’d fled without me. He’d have escaped through Quebec, up the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City, where he’d book passage on a ship that would carry him across the ocean to the Baltic Sea, and then home. This time he would be travelling alone.