Glen Allen - The shadow war

He laughed, shook his head, picked up his wineglass. "But that's all very much guesswork, Mr. Wainwright. Like trying to read ancient Egyptian without a Rosetta Stone." He looked at Benjamin with a very steady gaze. "And where have you seen such a symbol, Mr. Wainwright?"

Now Benjamin was in a quandary. He couldn't possibly explain the entire story to Nabil, but to tell him only the part about the mural would seem insane. He decided again to be half honest.

"In my research at the Library of Congress," he said. "I saw it among the details of a sketch…" And then he stopped. He wasn't sure he even wanted to share the information about Horatio Gates with a total stranger. "A sketch made during the Revolutionary War."

"Well," said Nabil, "perhaps it meant there was another war going on. One less visible to the public." He smiled. "A 'fight behind the veil,' as we say."

Benjamin was about to respond, but then the waiters came with the dessert: blintzes with fruit served in red wine. Even as they turned to their desserts, the lights in the dining room were dimmed, and then lights at the front of the room were turned on to illuminate the stage area. And it was at that moment Benjamin felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned.

Natalya stood over him. But before she said anything, she turned to Nabil.

"Good evening, Mr. Hassan," she said.

"Masa'a AlKair," replied Nabil, making to rise.

"Please, do not get up," Natalya said. "I would like to borrow Mr. Wainwright for a moment. Do you mind?"

Nabil smiled. "Of course not," he said. "How could I object to another man's good fortune?"

"You are a true diplomat, Mr. Hassan. Spasiba. "

Benjamin stood up, extended his hand to Nabil. "Thank you, Mr. Hassan. You were very helpful. I hope we meet again."

"Ahlan wa shalan," said Nabil. "You are welcome. And inshaalha, Mr. Wainwright. If it is God's will."

Benjamin wasn't sure what to say to that, so he merely nodded.

Natalya led him into the foyer, turned to him. Once again, Benjamin felt intimidated in her presence. She was smiling at him, but he sensed the strong will behind that smile… and something else-that trace of hostility he couldn't explain. And as before, her striking beauty made him feel like a high school boy too nervous to speak.

"Now, Mr. Wainwright, you said you brought a CD?"

"Yes." He fumbled in his pocket, brought out the disc. "Here." He handed it to her.

"There's a computer upstairs, in my office. Please, follow me."

As they climbed the staircase to the second floor, Natalya held her dress up just a little, so it didn't drag on the carpet.

Benjamin looked again at the elaborate decorations-red-and-gold trimming on the stairway, red roses everywhere.

"Isn't this all a little grand for the former Soviet Union?" he said-but it sounded peevish and he regretted the words immediately.

Natalya replied over her shoulder as she continued walking ahead of him.

"It is ironic, really," she replied, sounding slightly condescending. "This house was built in 1895 for Evalyn Walsh McLean, a very wealthy capitalist who owned, among many other things, the Hope Diamond. The Soviets bought the house in the 1950s, used it as a school for children of the embassy staff. They did not trust American schools. Then it was renovated and reopened as the Russian Cultural Center in 1999. We host all sorts of events, from poetry readings to film premiers. Just last week there was the Tsvetaeva Bonfire."

"Bonfire?" asked Benjamin.

"Not really a bonfire." They'd reached the end of a hallway on the second floor, and Natalya entered an area of small offices. She stopped in front of one with stenciled on the door. "It is a celebration of the poet Marina Tsvetaeva's birthday. And then the week before that we premiered a new Russian film, one of those ridiculous spy thrillers Americans like so much, something called, in English, Chasing Piranha. Something about agents and secret weapons. I do not care for such stories myself."

She gathered up her gown and sat down at her desk, turned on her computer.

" That's a little ironic, isn't it?" Benjamin asked.

Natalya watched the system start up, inserted the CD into its slot.

"Why is that?" she said, not looking at him.

"Well, with all this," he waved at the CD, the building, the general situation, "it just seems like perhaps you're in such a story."

Now she turned and looked at him. Her blue-green eyes were bright spots in the dim light. Again he sensed the strong will behind her beautiful face.

"I hope not, Mr. Wainwright," she said. "For both our sakes, I truly hope not."

Benjamin and Natalya sat staring at the computer screen. Upon it was displayed the same list of files that he and Wolfe had read that night so long ago-and only forty-eight hours earlier.

"The only thing I see here I understand," Natalya said, pointing to the list of file names, "is Stzenariy 55. I spent several frustrating hours yesterday searching for some mention of such a name in our archives."

"Did you find anything?" Benjamin asked eagerly.

"Well." She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. He could tell she was hesitating about being completely honest with him. But then he realized he hadn't told her the whole truth about what had happened since he'd arrived at the Foundation.

"Look," he said, "I understand. You don't know anything about me. I'm simply someone who called this morning asking about Dr. Fletcher. And I think you'd agree, I don't know anything about you, either."

"You know I am a Russian cultural attache," she said. She looked at him with those bright blue-green eyes, but there was caution rather than hostility in them now. "And that is more than I really know about you, Mr. Wainwright."

"Benjamin," he said. "Benjamin Franklin Wainwright." He smiled. "Now you know the most embarrassing thing there is to know about me." She laughed, and he hurried on. "I have a degree in Colonial American history from Georgetown University, and, until last Friday, I was doomed to spend my life in the basement of the Library of Congress, cross-checking two-hundred-year-old birth and death certificates."

"Well," she said. "So you are indeed an academician, and not some sort of adventurer?"

"Ms. Orlova-," he began.

"Natalya," she corrected.

This made Benjamin feel her hostility toward him was finally fading.

"Until last Friday," he said, trying to respond to the honesty he felt in her eyes, "when I arrived at the American Heritage Foundation, the biggest adventure in my life was when I spent a week in Paris, as a student, and stayed in a fifteen-franc-a-night hotel."

She laughed again. The effect was immediate. He decided to tell her what had happened to Jeremy Fletcher.

"I have to tell you first," he began. "Dr. Fletcher is… when I got to the Foundation, last Friday… he'd had a heart attack the day before. He was dead."

"Dead?" She looked closely at him. "He was a friend of yours."

"Yes. But there's more," he said. And then it all came out in a torrent, as though he'd been waiting for someone to simply let go with-someone he could trust.

He went on to tell her about Samuel Wolfe, about their discovery of Fletcher's computer program. He told her of their interview with Edith Gadenhower, and their visit to the Morris Estate. When he came to the part about Edith's death, the look on her face changed from serious to alarmed.

He told her about what he'd discovered in the mural at the Foundation, about the fire and Wolfe's disappearance, about his discussion that day with Anton Sikorsky. Finally, he finished by telling her about his visit to the Library of Congress and what he'd discovered there.

Benjamin stopped, afraid that, in his need to finally share all that had happened with someone, he had overwhelmed Natalya. But instead, she seemed to accept it all, to immediately grasp the most significant points. And it was then she began asking questions.