Angel slept, a deep, dreamless sleep.
London’s Heathrow Airport was crowded with summer tourists, and the taxi ride into Mayfair took more than an hour. The lobby of the Churchill was busy with guests checking in and out.
A bellboy took charge of Angel’s three pieces of luggage.
“Take these up to my room. I have some errands to do.”
The tip was modest, nothing that the bellboy would remember later. Angel walked over to the bank of hotel elevators, waited until a car was empty, then stepped inside.
When the elevator was on its way, Angel pressed the fifth, seventh, ninth, and tenth floors, and got off at the fifth floor. Anyone who might be watching from the lobby would be confused.
A rear-service staircase led to an alley, and five minutes after checking into the Churchill, Angel was in a taxi and on the way back to Heathrow.
The passport read H. R. de Mendoza. The ticket was on Tarom Airlines to Bucharest. Angel sent a telegram from the airport:
ARRIVING WEDNESDAY.
H. R. DE MENDOZA
It was addressed to Eddie Maltz.
Early the following morning, Dorothy Stone said, “Stanton Rogers’s office is on the line.”
“I’ll take it,” Mary said eagerly. She snatched up the phone. “Stan?”
She heard his secretary’s voice, and wanted to weep in frustration. “Mr. Rogers asked me to call you, Madam Ambassador. He’s with the President and unable to get to a telephone, but he asked me to see that you get anything you need. If you’ll tell me what the problem is—?”
“No,” Mary said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “I—I have to speak to him myself.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be until tomorrow. He said he would call you as soon as he was able to.”
“Thank you. I’ll be waiting for his call.” She replaced the receiver. There was nothing to do but wait.
Mary kept trying to telephone Louis at his home. No answer. She tried the French embassy. They had no idea where he was.
“Please have him call me as soon as you hear from him.”
Dorothy Stone said, “There’s a call for you, but she refuses to give her name.”
“I’ll take it.” Mary picked up the phone. “Hello, this is Ambassador Ashley.”
A soft female voice with a Romanian accent said, “This is Corina Socoli.”
The name registered instantly. She was a beautiful young girl in her early twenties, Romania’s prima ballerina.
“I need your help,” the girl said. “I have decided to defect.”
I can’t handle this today, Mary thought. Not now. She said, “I—I don’t know if I can help you.” Her mind was racing. She tried to remember what she had been told about defectors.
“Many of them are Soviet plants. We bring them over, they feed us a few innocuous bits of information or misinformation. Some of them become moles. The real catches are the high-level intelligence officers or scientists. We can always use those. But otherwise, we don’t grant political asylum unless there’s a damned good reason.”
Corina Socoli was sobbing now. “Please, I am not safe staying where I am. You must send someone to get me.”
“Communist governments set some cute traps. Someone posing as a defector asks for help. You bring them into the embassy, and then they scream that they’ve been kidnapped. It gives them an excuse to take measures against targets in the United States.”
“Where are you?” Mary asked.
There was a pause. Then, “I suppose I must trust you. I am at the Roscow Inn in Moldavia. Will you come for me?”
“I can’t,” Mary said. “But I’ll send someone to get you. Don’t call on this phone again. Just wait where you are. I—”
The door opened, and Mike Slade walked in. Mary looked up in shock. He was moving toward her.
The voice at the other end of the phone was saying, “Hello? Hello?”
“Who are you talking to?” Mike asked.
“To—to Dr. Desforges.” It was the first name that came to her mind. She replaced the receiver, terrified.
Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. You’re in the embassy. He wouldn’t dare do anything to you here.