don't have the money to pay us for all the munitions they've ordered, which they need desperately to stave off the Nazis. Congress will never go along with loaning them the money. And we've got all these rabid America Firsters accusing me of trying to drag us into the conflict." He sucked at the cigarette holder; the end of his cigarette flared like a dying sun.
"We're in no shape to go to war," Corcoran put in.
Roosevelt nodded gravely. "Lord knows that's the truth. We haven't begun to rearm. But the plain fact is, without our help, Great Britain is finished in a matter of months. And if Hitler defeats Britain, we'll all be living at gunpoint. And there's something else." The President lifted a folder from the end table next to him and held it out.
Corcoran got up and took it from him, opening it as he sat back down. He nodded as he scanned it.
"Directive Number Sixteen," the President said. "Signed by Hitler. The Nazis call it Operation Sea Lion their top-secret plans for the invasion of Britain by two hundred fifty thousand German soldiers. Paratroop assaults, then an amphibious landing, the infantry, the panzers ... I don't think Britain can survive it. If the Germans go through with it, all of Europe will become the Third Reich. We cannot allow this to happen. Do you understand, Corky, that if your young agent doesn't pull this thing off, we're all doomed? I ask you again, does your man have what it takes?"
Corcoran narrowed his eyes as he inhaled a lungful of Chesterfield smoke. "It's a huge risk, I admit," he said, his voice muzzy, "but not as risky as doing nothing. Whenever mortals undertake to shift the course of history, things can go horribly wrong."
"Corky ... if a single word of this plan gets out, it could backfire so badly that it'll be worse than our never having attempted it at all."
Corcoran snubbed out his cigarette butt and gave a hacking cough. "The time will likely come when the young man no longer serves a purpose. Sometimes when your vessel starts taking on water, you must throw the ballast overboard."
"You always were a bloody-minded soul."
"I take it you mean that in the best sense."
The President gave a chilly smile.
Corcoran shrugged. "In fact, I assume he won't survive the expedition. If he does, and he has to be sacrificed, so be it."
"Christ, Corky, is that blood or ice water in those veins of yours?"
"At my age, Mr. President, who can tell the difference?"
Chapter Thirteen
Metcalfe slept badly, tossing and turning throughout the night. It wasn't merely that the bed was uncomfortable, the sheets stiff and coarse, or the hotel room unfamiliar, though all of that contributed. It was the anxiety that flooded his body, made his thoughts race, his heart beat too fast. The anxiety caused by seeing Lana again, realizing how deeply he had loved the woman, though he had pretended for years that she meant nothing more to him than any of the dozens of other women he had had in the years since then. The anxiety caused by her reaction last night a certain flirtatious ness a coyness, the scorn and contempt. Did she hate him now? So it seemed, yet she also seemed to be attracted to him still, as he was to her. How much was he imagining, pretending? Metcalfe prided himself on being clear-eyed, never delusional, but when it came to Svetlana Mikhailovna Baranova, he lost the gift of objectivity. He saw her through a distorted lens.
What he was sure of, however, was that she had changed in ways that at once excited him and alarmed him. She was no longer a vulnerable, flighty young girl; she had developed into a woman, self-assured and poised, a diva who seemed fully aware of the effect she had on others, who understood the power of her beauty and her celebrity. She was more beautiful than ever, and she was in some ways harder. The softness, the vulnerability he thought of the hollow at the base of her neck, that soft porcelain flesh he loved to kiss was gone. She had developed a toughness, a hard surface. It protected her, no doubt, but it also made her more remote, more unattainable. Where had this hardness come from? From the nightmare of living in Stalin's Russia? Simply from growing up?
And he wondered: How much of this seeming hardness was an act? For Svetlana was not just an extraordinary dancer