CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see — every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.”—Graham Greene

         Now the only problem was getting a visa to enter Russia, then to make travel plans.   Katie called the Consular Section of the Embassy of the Russian Federation (left) in London for an appointment to obtain visas and was able to get a Monday morning slot, two days away.  The Embassy was on Kensington Palace Gardens, one of London’s most expensive streets--nicknamed “Billionaires’ Row”—and lined with other embassies, including Finland, Lebanon, Israel and the Czech Republic. Russia’s was at Number 5, a large white Neo-Renaissance building flying the red, white and blue flag and behind black iron gates.
         Katie and David arrived promptly and were efficiently shown how to apply for visas by a young woman in a bureaucratic navy blue suit who was straight faced but helpful in filling out the forms for a business visa. The Americans wrote down the purpose of their visit—researching an article on the city of Moscow for McClure’s magazine—handed over their passports to be photocopied, and were told the visas would be ready in about four to five days.
         “Is there any way to expedite our request?” asked Katie. “Is there perhaps a one-day service?”
         The woman looked at the Americans’ passports, then told them it would depend on how busy the consulate staff was that week and that it would cost 140 pounds Sterling, plus 45 more as a service charge.  Each.
         “Is there a reason you need to be in Russia this week?” she asked.
         Katie responded that she was on a deadline for her story and that she only had a few days to spend in Moscow on her research.
        The woman nodded and told them to wait.  Fifteen minutes went by before she returned to say, “Yes, you can get the visas on Wednesday, if you can bring cash here to the Embassy by noon today.”
         Katie said that shouldn’t be a problem and asked if there were an ATM machine near the Embassy. 
         “By the way,” Kate asked David on their way to the ATM, “how’s your Russian?
         “Limited to about six curse words used by Russian mobsters in New York,” he said. “And those, I’m sure, are highly colloquial.”
         “Guess we’ll need a translation book,” said Katie, who’d spotted a bookstore on the opposite side of the street.  “How about you go buy one and I’ll get the money for the visas?”
         “Okay, but like everybody else, I tend to linger in bookstores. Meet you there in a few minutes.”
         When Katie got to the bookstore minutes later, David had a paperback Russian translation dictionary under his arm and was in the cinema section of the store, looking at a book on British crime films.
         “Who knew the Brits made so many crime movies?” he said. “Thick book.” He thumbed through it, reeling off titles, including some early Hitchcock films made in England like the serial killer movie called The Lodger and another called Blackmail. 
         “It has about six Carol Reed films besides The Third Man,” he noted. “Night Train to Munich in 1940, Odd Man Out in 1947, The Key in 1958, Our Man in Havana in ’59, The Running Man in ’63.  I guess I’ve seen most of them, have you?”
         Katie said, “I don’t think so. Maybe The Running Man on TV.”
         “Pretty good movie,” said David. “Laurence Harvey fakes his own death to collect insurance money, then gets tracked down by an insurance investigator, played by Alan Bates.”
         Katie saw the irony right away: “Another Carol Reed movie where the bad guy fakes his own death, just like in The Third Man.”
         “Interesting, ain’t it? Well, it’s not the most unique idea in the world.”
         David bought both the dictionary and the crime film book with his own money. They returned to the embassy with the cash from the bank, handed it to a bureaucrat who counted it twice and put it in an envelope along with their applications.
         “The visas should be ready after 3 p.m. on Wednesday,” she said. “Have a nice trip.”
         “How do you say that in Russian?” asked David.
         “Zhelayu khoroshey poyezdki.”
         David wasn’t even going to attempt repeating it, and Katie didn’t bother because she knew they’d never need to use the phrase.
         The two Americans spent the next two days being typical tourists, visiting the requisite sights, the British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum, and walking all the way, never taking the tube.  They’d stop for a bite to eat and build up an appetite for dinner.  Katie would ask what kind of food David wanted to try and David would always answer, “Whatever you like.” 
         Having had pub fare, Indian curry and Italian food, Katie suggested Chinese or sushi—a branch of the high-end Nobu Japanese restaurant (left) had opened on Park Lane, where they went for a chef-chosen omakase dinner of exotica David mostly enjoyed, and if he didn’t he’d just shrug and say, “It’s okay.”
         During the day their project never came up in conversation, but at night over dinner they spoke mostly about their strategy for getting to see Philby. David advised against calling the number Lentov had given them, assuming that the phone was tapped. 
         “I think we should just go to Philby’s neighborhood,” he said, “look around, maybe ask some neighbors about him, and see what we can find out before knocking on his door.”
         “How much do you think we’re going to find out from Russians who probably don’t speak any English?” asked Katie.
         “You’ve got a point. From what Lentov said, Philby doesn’t live right in the center of modern-day Moscow. Christ, I wish we had a contact over there. Do you think we should call Southey, just tell him we’re going over for background material.”
         “Southey’s too smart to swallow that,” said Katie. “It would get his antennas up.”
         David wondered if that would be such a bad thing, saying, “I assume Southey would have been in touch with Lentov after our meeting in Southall, wanting to know what occurred and what we talked about.”
         “I don’t know,” said Katie. “Remember Southey called Lentov scum.”
         “I forgot that. But then maybe that was a dodge on Southey’s part. After all, why send us to someone he considers scum? What I’m thinking is that Southey might very well know Philby’s alive but didn’t want to tell us himself because he’s still old school MI6.  So he passed us off to Lentov, who no longer gives a rat’s ass what MI6 thinks.”
         “So, you’re saying we should tell Southey what we learned from Lentov?”
         “I don’t know,” said David. “I can’t make up my mind.”
         Katie sipped on a cup of sake while David finished his second beer.
         “How about if we asked Southey if he thought there was any chance Philby is still alive and go from there?” she said. “If he says yes, or even maybe, we can make a case for Southey helping us out with a contact in Moscow. If he says no, then we’re right back where we are now.”
         David rubbed his chin then said, “I suppose it’s worth a try. If Southey and Lentov both know Philby’s alive, and we hint that we know, too, he may open up a bit. Let’s call him first thing in the morning on the pretext of his taking a look at my archive list of names.”
         Katie and David were smiling now, looking a bit smug, but after a few minutes Katie’s demeanor changed.
         “What’s wrong?” asked David.
         Katie drank the last of her sake and said, “It just occurred to me—well, for about the hundredth time, actually—that we’ve been too intent upon nailing Philby as Harry Lime, when it may very well be someone else.”
         David shook his head and said, “But what does it really matter any more? The bigger story is finding Philby alive. Connecting him to Harry Lime would just be icing on the cake. You’d be killing two birds with one stone, but Philby is Big Bird in this story.”
         “I know, you’re right,” she said. “Maybe I’ve just been so involved from the beginning with finding Harry Lime—this completely fictitious character from a 1949 movie—that the bigger picture hasn’t yet emerged. And God forbid we don’t find or contact Kim Philby in Moscow. That will not go down well with Dobell.”
         David had long ago learned that Katie’s world was different from his in many ways, not least in their careers. While he was a detective David had seen so many cases go nowhere, so many leads evaporate, and not a few persons of interest dead before he had a chance to interview them.  And,  although he’d earned the respect of his colleagues and superiors, he’d hear from the chief of police when he thought David had squandered resources, money and time on an investigation that just didn’t pan out. 
         David had worked under Rudy Giuliani when he was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. As a prosecutor Giuliani always sought out high profile cases like Wall Street crooks Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken, along with drug lords and the heads of organized crime. Giuliani loved the spotlight and invented the “perp walk” as a way to get his arrests on TV. Then Giuliani became Mayor, soon proclaiming that he had  personally reduced crime in New York, at a time when crime was dropping in many major cities in America.
         David had been more than content to be on the streets getting the dirty work done on all his superiors’ behalf. And he knew Giuliani would come down hard on him if he botched a case the mayor had a special interest in.  When David saw he could rise no higher and the streets took their toll, he retired after 25 years on the force. 
         In Katie’s world, where the resources for investigative reporting were not unlimited, even at The New York Times and Washington Post, a story that did not work out would be costly. The irony was that at a union paper like the Times or Daily News, Katie’s job would be secure for as long as she wanted it; at a privately owned magazine like McClure’s, she could get demoted or her contract might not be renewed. Only her sterling reputation and solid reporting in the past, including the two cases David was involved with her on, gave her a longer leash than most magazine reporters. It also didn’t hurt that she’d almost gotten killed on her two most famous stories.  
        So, if the Philby story didn’t work out, Katie’s editor would probably rant and rave and put her in what he enjoyed calling the dog house for a while. Worse come to worst, she could always go back to the Harry Lime story on her own, if Dobell didn’t want any part of it.