A Matter of Honor Read online

  Once again he stared down at the inside of the open icon, which was now laid flat on the table in front of him. The true irony was that the woman pressing his trousers was able to understand every word on the parchment while at the same time unable to explain its full significance to him. The complete surface of the inside of the icon was covered by a parchment, which was glued to the wood and fell only a centimeter short of the four edges. Adam swiveled it round so that he could study it more clearly. The scrawled signatures in black ink at the bottom and the seals gave it the look of a legal document. On each reading he learned something new. Adam had been surprised originally to discover it was written in French until he came to the date on the bottom—20 June 1867—and then he remembered from his military history lectures at Sandhurst that long after Napoleonic times most international agreements remained conducted in French. Adam began to reread the script again slowly.

  His French was not good enough to translate more than a few odd words from the finely handwritten scroll. Under Etats-Unis William Seward’s bold hand was scrawled across a crest of a two-headed eagle. Next to it was the signature of Alexsander Gorchakov below a crown that mirrored the silver ornament embedded in the back of the icon. Adam double-checked. It had to be some form of agreement executed between the Russians and the Americans in 1867.

  He then searched for other words that would help to explain the significance of the document. On one line he identified the words “sept million, deux cent mille dollars en or (7,2 million)” and on another “sept cent douze million, huit cent mille dollars en or (712,8 million), le 20 juin 1966.”

  His eyes rested on a calendar hanging by a nail from the wall. It was Saturday, June 18, 1966. If the date in the agreement was to be believed, then in only three days the document would no longer have any legal validity. No wonder the two most powerful nations on earth seemed desperate to get their hands on it, thought Adam.

  Adam read through the document line by line, searching for any further clues, pondering over each word slowly.

  His eyes came to a halt on the one word that would remain the same in both languages and required no translation.

  The one word he had not told Lawrence.

  Adam wondered how the icon had ever fallen into the hands of Goering in the first place. He must have bequeathed it to his father unknowingly—for had he realized the true importance of what was hidden inside the icon, he would surely have been able to bargain for his own freedom with either side.

  “Voilà, voilà,” said the farmer’s wife, waving her hands as she placed warm socks, pants, and trousers in front of Adam. How long had he spent engrossed in his fateful discovery? She looked across at the upside-down parchment and smiled. Adam quickly snapped the icon closed and then studied the masterpiece carefully. So skillfully had the wood been cut that he could no longer see the join. He thought of the words of the letter left to him in his father’s will: “But if you open it only to discover its purpose is to involve you in some dishonorable enterprise, be rid of it without a second thought.” He did not need to give a second thought to how his father would have reacted in the same circumstances. The farmer’s wife was now standing hands on hips, staring at him with a puzzled look.

  Adam quickly replaced the icon in his jacket pocket and pulled his trousers back on.

  He could think of no adequate way of thanking her for her hospitality, her lack of suspicion or inquisitiveness, so he simply walked over to her, took her gently by the shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek. She blushed and handed him a small plastic bag. He looked inside to find three apples, some bread, and a large piece of cheese. She removed a crumb from his lip with the edge of her apron and led him to the open door.

  Adam smiled at her and then walked outside into his other world.

  PART III

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  June 18, 1966

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  JUNE 18, 1966

  “I DON’T WANT to be the first Goddamn President in the history of the United States to hand back an American state rather than found one.”

  “I appreciate your position, sir,” said the Secretary of State. “But …”

  “Where do we stand on this legally, Dean?”

  “We don’t, Mr. President. Abraham Brunweld, who was my tutor at St. John’s, has confirmed that the terms of the ninety-nine-year lease are binding on both sides. The lease was signed on behalf of the Russians by their foreign minister, Alexsander Gorchakov, and for the Americans by the then Secretary of State, William Seward.”

  “Can such an agreement still be valid today?” asked the President, turning to his chief legal officer, Nicholas Katzenbach.

  “It certainly can, sir,” said the Attorney General. “But only if they can produce their original. Both the UN and the International Court at The Hague would be left with no choice but to support the Russian claim. Otherwise no international agreement signed by us in the past or in the future would carry any credibility.”

  “What you’re asking me to do is lie down and wag my tail like a prize Labrador while the Russians shit all over us,” said the President.

  “I understand how you feel, Mr. President,” said the Attorney General, “but it remains my responsibility to make you aware of the legal position.”

  “God dammit, is there any precedent for such stupidity by a head of state?”

  “The British,” chipped in Dean Rusk, “will be facing a similar problem with the Chinese in 1999 over the New Territories of Hong Kong. They have already accepted the reality of the situation and indeed have made it clear to the Chinese government that they are willing to come to an agreement with them.”

  “That’s just one example,” said the President, “and we all know about the British and their ‘fair play’ diplomacy.”

  “Also, in 1898,” continued Rusk, “the Russians obtained a ninety-nine-year lease on Port Arthur, in northern China. The port was vital to them because, unlike Vladivostok, it is ice-free all year round.”

  “I had no idea the Russians had a port in China.”

  “They don’t any longer, Mr. President. They returned it to Mao in 1955 as an act of goodwill between fellow Communists.”

  “You can be damn sure the Russians won’t want to return this piece of land to us as an act of goodwill between fellow capitalists,” said the President. “Am I left with any alternative?”

  “Short of military action to prevent the Soviets claiming what they will rightfully see as theirs, no, sir,” replied the Secretary of State.

  “So one Johnson buys the land from the Russians in 1867 while another is forced to sell it back in 1966. Why did Seward and the President ever agree to such a damn cockamamy idea in the first place?”

  “At the time,” said the Attorney General, removing his spectacles, “the purchase price of the land in question was seven-point-two million dollars, and inflation was then virtually unheard of. Andrew Johnson could never have envisaged the Russians wanting to purchase it back at ninety-nine times its original value, or in real terms, seven hundred and twelve-point-eight million dollars in gold bullion. In reality, years of inflation have made the asking price cheap. And the Russians have already lodged the full amount in a New York bank to prove it.”

  “So we can’t even hope that they won’t pay up in time,” said the President.

  “It would seem not, sir.”

  “But why did Czar Alexander ever want to lease the damn land in the first place? That’s what beats me.”

  “He was having trouble with some of his senior ministers at the time over the selling off of land belonging to Russia in eastern Asia. The Czar thought this transaction would be more palatable to his inner circle if he presented it as nothing more than a long lease, with a buy-back clause rather than an outright sale.”

  “Then why didn’t Congress object to his little plan?”

  “After Congress had ratified the main treaty,