A Matter of Honor Read online

  Jacques Pontin, the manager of the hotel, was stationed at the door waiting to greet the new arrivals; he introduced himself immediately, and as soon as he had checked them in he banged a little bell with the palm of his hand to summon a porter to assist the guests with their bags. A moment later a young man in his early twenties, dressed in green livery, appeared.

  “Suite seventy-three and room seventy-four,” Jacques instructed before turning back to Romanov. “I do hope your stay will prove to be worthwhile, Hen Romanov,” he said. “Please do not hesitate to call upon me if there is anything you need.”

  “Thank you,” said Romanov as he turned to join the porter, who stood sentinel-like by the door of an open lift. Romanov stood to one side to allow Anna to go in first. The lift stopped at the seventh floor, and the porter led the way down a long corridor to a corner suite. He turned the key in the lock and invited the two guests to go in ahead of him. The suite was as Romanov had expected, in a different league from the finest hotels he had ever experienced in either Moscow or Leningrad. When he saw the array of gadgets in the marble bathroom he reflected that even prosperous travelers to Russia, if seasoned visitors, brought their own bath drains with them.

  “Your room is through here, madame,” the porter informed the researcher and unlocked an adjoining door. Although smaller in size, it maintained the same unassuming elegance. The porter returned to Romanov, handed him his key, and asked if there would be anything else he would require. Romanov assured him there was nothing and passed over a five-franc note.

  Once again the porter gave a slight bow and, closing the door behind him, left Romanov to unpack while Anna Petrova went to her room.

  Romanov started to undress and then disappeared into the bathroom. He studied himself in the mirror. Although he was vain about his looks, he was even vainer about the state of his physique. At twenty-nine, despite being six feet, he still only weighed 165 pounds on western scales, and his muscles remained hard and taut.

  By the time Romanov had returned to the bedroom, he could hear the shower beating down in the adjoining bathroom. He crept over to the door and edged it open. He could see quite clearly the outline of Anna standing in the shower. He smiled and noiselessly moved back across the thick carpet, slipped under the sheets and into the researcher’s bed. He waited for her to turn off the steaming shower.

  Adam stepped out of the freezing shower. Within minutes he was dressed and joined Lawrence in the kitchen for breakfast.

  “Still unable to charge you for hot water, am I?” Lawrence said as Adam peered over his flatmate’s shoulder, “Sorry, can’t stay and chatter with the unemployed,” he said, picking up his briefcase. “The Shah of Iran wants to discuss his financial problems with me. Sorry to rush off before you’ve had your comflakes, but I can’t afford to keep His Imperial Majesty waiting.”

  Left on his own, Adam boiled himself an egg and burned some toast before he turned to the newspaper to team of the latest casualties in Vietnam and President Johnson’s proposed tour of the Far East. At this rate he decided he wasn’t going to win the Daily Mail’s “Housewife of the Year” competition. He eventually cleared away in the kitchen, made his bed, and tidied up behind Lawrence—nine years of self-discipline wasn’t going to change old habits that quickly—then he settled down to plan another day.

  He realized he could no longer avoid making a decision. He sat once again at his desk and began to consider how to get the official document translated without arousing further suspicion.

  Almost absentmindedly he removed the Bible from the bookshelf and extracted the letter he had read the night before. The final paragraph still puzzled him. He considered Heidi’s translation once again.

  All that will be required of you is to present yourself at the address printed on the top right-hand corner of the enclosed document, with some proof that you are Colonel Gerald Scott. A passport should prove sufficient. You will then be given a bequest that I have left to you in the name of Emmanuel Rosenbaum.

  I hope it will bring you good fortune.

  Adam turned his attention back to the document. He was still quite unable to discern what the bequest could possibly be, let alone whether it was of any value. Adam mused over the fact that such an evil man could involve himself in an act of kindness hours before he knew he was going to die.

  An act that now left him with no choice about his own involvement.

  Romanov gathered the blankets together and in one movement hurled them on to the floor to expose Anna curled up like a child, knees almost touching her exposed breasts. Anna’s hand groped for a corner of the sheet to cover her naked body.

  “Breakfast in bed?” she murmured hopefully.

  “Dressed in ten minutes, or no breakfast at all,” came back the reply. Anna lowered her feet gingerly on to the thick carpet and waited for the room to stop going round in circles before heading off toward the bathroom. Romanov heard the shower burst forth its jets. “Ahhh,” came the pitiful cry. Romanov smiled when he remembered that he had left the indicator locked on dark blue.

  During breakfast in the dining room they mulled over the approach he intended to take with the bank if Petrova were able to confirm that the icon was in fact Rublev’s original masterpiece. He kept looking up from the table and then suddenly, without warning, said, “Let’s go.”

  “Why?” Anna asked, as she bit into another slice of toast. Romanov rose from the table and without bothering to offer an explanation strode out of the room and headed straight for the lift. Petrova caught up with her boss only moments before the lift gate closed. “why?” she asked again, but Romanov did not speak until they were both back in his suite. He then threw open the large window that overlooked the railway station.

  “Ah, it’s outside your room,” he said, looking to his right, and quickly walked through to the adjoining bedroom. He marched past the disheveled double bed, jerkedopen the nearest window, and climbed outside. Petrova stared down from the seventh floor and felt giddy. Once Romanov had reached the bottom rung of the fire escape, he ran to a passing streetcar. Petrova would never have made it if she hadn’t been lifted bodily onto the tram by Romanov’s sheer strength.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, still puzzled.

  “I can’t be sure,” said Romanov, looking out of the back of the streetcar. “All I do know for certain is what the local CIA agent looks like.”

  The researcher looked back in the direction of the hotel, but all she could see was a mass of anonymous people walking up and down the pavement.

  Romanov remained on the streetcar for about a mile before he jumped off and hailed a passing taxi going in the opposite direction.

  “Bischoff et Cie,” he said as he waited for his puffing assistant to join him.

  The cab headed back in the direction of the hotel, winding in and out of the morning traffic, until it came to a halt in front of a large brown granite building that filled the entire block. Romanov paid off the driver and stood in front of imposing double doors made of thick glass and covered in wrought iron welded to look like the branches on a tree. By the side of the door, carved inconspicuously into the stone and inlaid with gilt, were the words “Bischoff et Cie.” There was no other clue as to what kind of establishment lay within.

  Romanov turned the heavy wrought-iron knob, and the two Russians stepped into a spacious hall. On the left-hand side of the hall stood a solitary desk behind which a smartly dressed young man was seated.

  “Guten morgen, mein Herr,” he said.

  “Good morning,” said Romanov in German. “We have an appointment with Herr Dieter Bischoff.”

  “Yes, Herr Romanov,” said the receptionist, checking the list of names in front of him. “Will you please take the lift to the fifth floor, where you will be met by Herr Bischoff’s secretary.” When the two of them stepped out of the lift they were greeted by a lady in a neat plain suit. “Will you please follow me,” she said, without any trace of accent. The two Russians were escorted alon