Murder on Embassy Row (2 page)

Marsha James stood at the east end of the ballroom beneath a Gainsborough portrait of Sir Francis Gregg. With her were President Reagan’s special adviser, Dr. Werner Gibronski, and Elgin Harris, the Canadian ambassador. Gibronski had been the only member of Jimmy Carter’s inner circle to have been retained by President Reagan, and his influence over foreign policy was even greater than it had been before. He was a small man, thin to the point of delicacy, with an arrowhead nose upon which sat wire spectacles. His eyes were dark and marbled, and his threadlike mouth seemed to lack lips. He spoke with a Slavic accent.

“Enjoying yourself, dear?” Marsha asked her husband.

“Yes, quite. It’s all very congenial.”

“One year,” said the Canadian. “Do you feel American yet?”

“I daresay not,” James replied, his sarcastic tone not lost on Gibronski, who wrinkled his aquiline nose and touched his temple.

“The president is well?” James asked as his eyes darted over the crowd.

“Very well, Mr. Ambassador. He sends his personal regards. Pardon me, please.” Gibronski drifted away and disappeared into a knot of guests.

“Strange little man,” the Canadian ambassador said conspiratorially.

“Fairly obvious, I would say,” said James. He touched
his wife’s arm. “I’d like a word with you, Marsha. Excuse us, please.”

They found a relatively unoccupied corner of the room. “What was he saying?” James asked.

“Dr. Gibronski?”

“Harris.”

“Small talk.”

“Hmmmmm.”

“Only that.”

There had been open tension between the British and Canadian ambassadors ever since the release of the American hostages in Teheran. James had emerged the media hero, but Canada’s role in preserving American lives was well documented.

The controversy had heated up when one of the released hostages, Richard Washburn, told an American underground newspaper that Geoffrey James had profited from his close association with the Ayatollah. He attributed it to unnamed sources, and the accusation died a quick death, but the shadow lingered—“The jury will ignore what the witness has said.”

“What did you want to talk to me about, Geoffrey?” Marsha James asked.

“Morris and Sylvia. I’m afraid I’ll have to beg off on the plans for later.” Morris and Sylvia Palington were old friends from London who happened to be visiting Washington and had been invited to the party. Marsha had suggested the four of them go downtown after the party to catch a performance by British singer and actress Robyn Archer, who was touring the United States with her one-woman show,
A Star Is Torn
. James had reluctantly agreed to the plans.

“Why?” Marsha James asked angrily.

“I’m not feeling up to it.”

“You’re sick?”

“No, but it’s been a filthy week. We’ll get together another time.”

“I’ve made reservations, Geoffrey. I was looking forward to it.”

“Then go yourself.”

“I resent this, Geoffrey. There are times when…”

“We should see to our guests.” He walked away, unmoved by her cold stare following him across the large and tastefully furnished ballroom that had been the scene of countless receptions and ceremonial functions. A forty-foot-long Tabriz carpet dominated the center of the room. Three antique Austrian chandeliers cast a flattering light over the two hundred guests, some of whom sat on chairs upholstered in the same specially woven blue floral brocade that had been used in Westminster Abbey for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Other chairs in rose and gold and side tables and chests in Louis XVI style from the late eighteenth century graced the room beneath carved plaster friezes of Grinling Gibbons motifs.

Some guests, particularly smokers, had spilled out of the French doors to a patio and rose garden. It was a surprisingly mild night for November and a gentle, cool breeze through the doors added freshness to the air inside. A black pianist and bass player in tuxedoes played show tunes in a corner of the room.

The embassy’s head of chancery, Nigel Barnsworth, intercepted James. “What is it?” James snapped.

“You have a telephone call.”

“Who is it?”

Barnsworth whispered in his ear.

“I’ll call back later.”

Barnsworth watched his superior negotiate the crowd with detached ease, stopping to chat with Sir Edwin Ferguson, a Scottish member of British Parliament and
a business associate of James’s back in Great Britain, then to a cluster of guests that included the Irish minister of commerce to the United States and a rotund, exiled Iranian journalist, Sami Abdu, who’d been a Shah loyalist and who’d escaped Iran only hours before his head was to go on the Ayatollah’s chopping block.

The ambassador’s personal secretary, Melanie Callender, came up to Nigel Barnsworth and said, “Good show, heh?”

Barnsworth ignored her.

They were a contrasting pair. Barnsworth, whey-faced and frail, a tick in his left eye and a perpetual sneer upon his lips, was grudgingly admitted to be the best administrator in Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but had been denied an ambassadorship throughout his career because of his foul disposition.

Callender, on the other hand, was tall and robust, a thirty-year-old from Liverpool, with cheeks the color of cherries, large, sparkling opalescent green eyes, and an irrepressible personality that could erupt into raucous laughter with minimal provocation. Because she was privy to many of James’s personal contacts and phone calls, she was constantly pressed by the household staff to provide juicy gossip about the ambassador. She steadfastly refused, although there were moments when she would comment upon his dour nature. She was more vocal about Nigel Barnsworth, often referring to him as “the git” or “a nasty little snail.” Never to his face, of course.

“I said, ‘Good show,’” she repeated.

“Codswallop,” Barnsworth said.

“’Tis not,” said Callender. “I think it’s lively and lovely, just what the ambassador needs. Do him some good.” When Barnsworth said nothing, Callender asked, “Why do you hate him so?”

Barnsworth cocked his head, looked up his nose, and said, “Be careful, Callender. You’re not liked here.” He left her and went to the main kitchen off the ballroom, where a dozen men and women were in a frenzy of activity. The head chef, who’d once created the acclaimed cuisine for London’s Savoy Hotel, was busy slicing salmon so thin it was diaphanous. A young woman created flowers out of raw carrots and radishes, another peeled jumbo shrimp to replenish a dwindling supply.

The chef’s wife, Eleanor, a plump woman who managed the kitchen while her husband concocted the embassy’s daily bill of fare, leaned over to an assistant chef they’d brought with them from London and said, “Look who’s ’ere,” referring to Barnsworth. “Let’s cut ’im up and plop ’im in the soup.” They laughed. She turned to where a young woman was buttering thin, crustless slices of bread and said, “Get on with it, now. You know ’e hates it when the bread runs out for his caviar.” The girl finished buttering, arranged the slices on a tray that also contained unbuttered toast and a fresh supply of chopped egg yolks and onions, bustled past Barnsworth, and pushed through swinging doors.

Barnsworth skirted a large butcher block cutting table and went to where Nuri Hafez leaned against a floor-to-ceiling wall of stainless steel refrigerator doors, some of which were padlocked. “What are his plans tonight?” Barnsworth asked the young Iranian.

Hafez wore a white butler’s jacket over a blue shirt and maroon tie. He touched the genesis of a black mustache and shrugged.

“Oh, come on, Hafez, you know. He tells you everything.”

“I think they plan to be with their friends from London.”

“The Palingtons?”

“I am busy, Mr. Barnsworth. Excuse me.” Hafez slid along the refrigerator doors, picked up a tray heaped with orange and red vegetable flowers, and left.

“Snotty bastard,” Barnsworth muttered.

“Pardon?” said Eleanor, who’d come up behind him carrying a large, gleaming kitchen knife.

“Nothing.” His eyebrows went up at the sight of the knife.

“You wish something, Mr. Barnsworth?”

“No. Make certain we don’t run out of anything out there.”

“Yes,
sir
.” She smiled and turned away.

Marsha James was standing with the Palingtons in front of a 1930s sixfold leather screen on which scenes of the Spanish Armada’s attempted invasion of England during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign were portrayed. “Of course we understand,” Sylvia Palington was saying. “The strain,” added Morris Palington. “He should have stayed in banking instead of all this diplomatic nonsense. We miss him at the club.”

“We’ll just leave the old stick-in-the-mud home and go ourselves,” Marsha James said. “I’m not about to miss Robyn Archer.”

The Argentinian ambassador to the United States, who was surprised he’d been invited, considering the Falklands tête-à-tête, fumbled with a long, thin black cigarette in a holder as James approached. The Argentinian clicked his heels, extended his hand, and said, “Congratulations, Mr. Ambassador.”

“For what, for heaven’s sake?”

“For one year in this country.”

“How long have you been here, Mr. Ambassador?”

“Three years.”

“Then congratulations are entirely more appropriate
for you.” James heartily shook his hand and went to where Nuri Hafez was collecting empty glasses from a table. Although Hafez’s only official duty at the embassy was to serve the ambassador, he’d offered to help during the evening’s festivities. “I intend to leave soon, Nuri,” James said. “I’m not feeling well. Mrs. James and the Palingtons are going off to catch a show after the party, I’m told. Please drive them.”

“All right,” Hafez said, continuing to put glasses on a tray.

“After you’ve dropped them at the theater, come back here. I’ll be in my study. I might want to go out, although my plans are not firm. You needn’t mention that to Mrs. James.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. James.”

James narrowed his eyes at the form of address used by Hafez, looked over his shoulder, then said, “I plan to retire to my study in a few minutes after I’ve said good-bye to those who matter. I’d like a fire, caviar from the special stock, toast, lemon, and vodka, thoroughly chilled.”

“All right.”

“I’ll tell you when.”

The musicians launched into “A Foggy Day.” A young woman who’d had too much to drink shrieked with laughter, lost her balance, and fell into her date’s arms. Werner Gibronski winced and moved away.

“Ah, Mr. Ambassador,” said a corpulent man in a doublebreasted tan plaid suit. He had a long, thick mustache that swooped down low, flared out, and was waxed to precise points. His name was Berge Nordkild and he was Washington’s most successful and famous purveyor of fancy imported foods. Most of the food for the party had been supplied by Nordkild, Ltd. He spoke
with a Scandinavian accent. “Everything is to your satisfaction?”

“Yes, quite.”

“A fine party befitting a fine man,” said Nordkild.

“And from the looks of things, it’s about to end,” James said, patting him on the shoulder and moving on. He found Marsha enjoying a joke being told by a young man from the State Department’s British liaison office. James waited patiently for the conclusion of the joke, which had a mildly risqué punch line. Everyone laughed except James. When the young man looked at him for a reaction, James smiled and said, “Quite good.”

“Dear,” James said to Marsha, indicating with his finger that he wanted her to follow him. They moved away from the group and he said, “I’m going to my study for the evening. There are cables I must go over.”

“Really?” A sardonic smile crossed her lips.

“Yes, really. I’ll say good night and take my leave. Nuri will drive you and the Palingtons to the show and pick you up. And please, I don’t wish to be disturbed.”

The smile never left her face as she said, “You really are a bastard, Geoffrey, and you become more of one every day.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yes, in the morning.”

The ambassador went to the kitchen, where he found Nuri Hafez. “I’m going upstairs now,” he told his valet. “Please bring me what I requested.”

James left the kitchen. Hafez took a brass key fob from his jacket pocket, unlocked a padlock on one of the refrigerators, opened its door, and found what he was looking for, a dented tin with a lid secured by rubber bands. He removed the tin and a bottle of vodka, placed a silver bowl on a serving tray, filled the bowl
with crushed ice, and carefully nestled the vodka bottle in it. Next to the bottle went a small cut-glass cup. He spooned caviar from the tin into the cup and added four lemon wedges. “I need toast,” he told Eleanor as he replaced the tin of caviar in the refrigerator, secured the lock, returned the key to his pocket. “I’ll be back,” he said. He returned five minutes later. The toast was wrapped in a white linen napkin and was on the tray.

Hafez crossed the ballroom and almost reached the twin limestone staircases leading to the upper floors when Marsha James intercepted him. “Nuri,” she said, “please bring the limousine around to the front. The Palingtons and I will be going to…”

“I know,” he said sullenly.

She started to comment on his tone of voice, but was suddenly surrounded by a group of guests, including Werner Gibronski. “I must leave immediately,” Gibronski said. He turned and bumped into Hafez, who nearly lost his grip on the serving tray. He placed it on a walnut Queen Anne table. Marsha James looked down. A lemon wedge had fallen to the floor. Hafez bent over and picked it up, looked for somewhere to put it, then walked to the kitchen, where he angrily tossed it in a trash can. Gibronski was gone by the time Hafez returned and Marsha James was saying good-bye to lingering guests. Standing next to her were the Palingtons. As Hafez picked up the tray, she said to him, “Please hurry. I don’t want to be late.”

Hafez went to the main hallway, a long, wide corridor with red walls and a checkerboard floor of white Vermont marble and black Pennsylvania slate. The official coronation portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II peered down at him as he slowly climbed the stairs to the next level, where the ambassador’s study was located. He paused at the door as he heard James’s voice
say, “Not tonight… I am not in the habit of being asked to apologize to anyone. Good night!” The phone was returned to its cradle with considerable force. Hafez waited a few seconds, then knocked. “Come in,” James said loudly.