Same Day

Jim Yates entered the lobby, giving a nod to his colleagues stationed around the room, ill disguised as hotel guests. He didn’t care if the Soviets knew they were being watched, their sensitivities were not his concern. He approached the reception and was handed an up-to-date log of movements by the Soviet delegation. According to their records the only person who’d left the premises was a woman called Raisa Demidova, a teacher who’d been taken to the United Nations. She’d returned only a matter of minutes ago. Yates left the log on the receptionist’s desk, heading to the elevator. The young FBI agent working as an operator gave him an embarrassed smile, acknowledging his ridiculous uniform. Yates asked:

—Do you remember a young woman using the elevator?

—Sure, she was just in here.

—No, young as in eighteen years, something like that.

—I’m not sure. I don’t think so. Maybe she used the other elevator.

The doors opened. Yates stepped out, frustrated with the lack of urgency in his colleagues. Their minds were dulled by the fact that they were dealing with cute kids, too angelic to be up to anything. Yates had been adamant fromthe momentthe trip was announced that the Soviets were going to find a way to exploit the opportunity. He approached the ornate double doors to the ballroom. They were closed, a sign claiming the room was undergoing extensive renovation. He took out his key, unlocking the heavy doors, stepping inside the cavernous ballroom.

Over thirty desks were set up, stretching the length of the room, scores of officers seated with headphones scribbling notes. Every room occupied by the Soviet delegation had been bugged with multiple devices in the ceilings of the bedroom and bathroom, the walk-in cupboards – ensuring no area where conversations could take place in private. The televisions had proved divisive. Yates had thought them a risk since the occupants could use the sound to mask their conversations. He didn’t see the value in exposing the students to cartoons, pop music and adverts. He’d been overruled. The televisions had been rigged, providing a bombardment of images projecting a lifestyle that Yates’s superiors wanted to trickle back to the Soviet Union, a message of abundance and comfort. As a concession Yates had managed to ensure that the sets were fixed with a volume control so that they could never be loud enough to hide a conversation.

Each room had been designated two translators working twelve-hour shifts. Dialogue was recorded but to provide immediate feedback the team would translate in real time, jotting in shorthand. Anything of importance was immediately flagged up. Otherwise the translator would type up their notes during the downtime, when the students and teachers were outside, or sleeping. The operation was so large that the FBI had drawn together the highest concentration of Russian linguists in the country.

Yates picked up the folder containing photographs of the Soviet students. He’d already studied them many times. He’d seen them step off the plane, watched them enter the hotel. He wasn’t entirely confident that the young woman he’d spotted on the streets in Harlem could be counted among their number. How did she manage to leave the hotel without being seen? In the bustle he’d only caught her face for a moment and then she’d passed him by before disappearing down another street, apparently not making contact with Jesse Austin, the best-known Communist sympathizer in the area. It had been such an unlikely appearance, and an improbable location for a young white girl. Yates had returned to his car, noting the waiting cab and deciding he was going to wait too. The young woman had not returned. In the end the taxi driver had left without a passenger. It was impossible to see into Jesse’s apartment from the street. After forty minutes Yates had given up too, impatient to check his suspicions back at the hotel.

Flicking through the photographs, he stopped. The woman’s photograph was in black and white. Her name was Elena. She was seventeen years old. She was sharing a room with her older sister. Yates walked to the table where the translator was stationed for that room.

—What are they doing?

The woman translating pulled down her headphones, speaking with a thick Russian accent. Yates hid his disapproval: he was dealing with an immigrant, the least reliable of the linguists.

—The older sister has been watching the television.

—And the younger sister? Elena?

—She went swimming.

—When did she go?

The translator checked the log.

—She left the room at ten a.m.

—Did you report this?

—She was followed to the pool.

—Has she returned?

—No.

—All those hours at a swimming pool? You don’t think it’s strange she hasn’t returned?

Jim picked up the translator’s empty coffee mug, banging it against the table – a startlingly loud noise in the otherwise hushed atmosphere of the room. Everyone looked at him.

—I want to know the location of one of the girls, Elena, eighteen years old. She was reported to be in the swimming-pool area.

An agent raised his hand, said nervously:

—The girl was followed into the swimming-pool area. We have an agent outside.

—Is she still there?

—She hasn’t left.

—The agent can see her? Right now – he can see what’s she doing?

There was silence, then a hesitant response.

—The agent isn’t in the pool area. He’s stationed outside. But she hasn’t passed him. She has to be in there.

—You’re willing to bet your career on that, are you?

The man’s confidence fell away. He began to stammer:

—That’s the only way into the pool. If she hasn’t passed him she’s got to be in there.

Yates didn’t bother to reply, hastening towards the doors, running past the elevator, and taking the steps up to the pool two at a time.