Free The Folks at Fifty-Eight by Michael Patrick Clark Page A

move.
    Posing as Wall Street lawyers, State Department officials, and government advisers, these grey-suited men began building espionage networks in Europe with neither approval nor knowledge of President or Congress. They met and plotted in New York City, at the Council on Foreign Relations, in a building on the corner of East Sixty-Eighth Street and Park Avenue: a building numbered fifty-eight.
    This day, however, two of those same grey-suited individuals could be seen strolling together in the unusually public arena of Washington’s National Arboretum. With collars turned high and hats pulled low, Marcus Allum and Daniel Chambers walked as they talked, stopping only occasionally to allow passers-by to move out of earshot before resuming both stroll and conversation.
    “So where are we on this Magdeburg business?”
    The pretentious and sombre Daniel Chambers was the more senior and sinister of the two. Thin of face and narrow of mind, Chambers was a grey man in every sense of the term. From the charcoal-grey suit and silver-grey hair to the sombre thoughts that inhibited his being, Chambers was colourless. A graduate of Harvard Law and a name partner at the Wall Street firm of Cartwright Chambers and Kent, Daniel Chambers treated those around him, and particularly his State Department counterparts, as intellectually inferior. It was a trait that sometimes amused, but more often infuriated, his current companion and co-conspirator, the manic-depressive Marcus Allum.
    Loathed by some and mistrusted by many, two distinct Marcus Allums ruled the Office of Occupied Territories. One was a taciturn and uninspiring Deputy Assistant Secretary, who’d sit alone in his office with a look of thunder on his face while the grey clouds gathered and the grey schemes hatched. The other was a charismatic and charming Princeton graduate and Ivy League athlete, the life and soul of any party, and the lifeblood of Occupied Territories.
    On good days Allum was the State Department’s political chameleon: tall, slim, fair-haired and sharp as a whip, flattering and seducing the ladies who lunch with a ready smile and an instant quip, and blending into any scenario from the sleaziest bar to the Oval Office.
    On bad days he was best avoided, and today was fast becoming a bad day.
    “It all went pear-shaped; someone talked.”
    “Someone?”
    “It’s the only explanation. We had her well hidden. They found her too easily.”
    “Someone in Germany?”
    “Had to be. Everything here’s watertight.”
    “You’re sure about that, Marcus?”
    Allum wasn’t at all sure. He was privately worried about his own department, and the distinct possibility that it had somehow been infiltrated by a Soviet mole. For all of that, he wasn’t going to allow the arrogant and pretentious Daniel Chambers any reason to initiate a purge of his office, or to see just how worried he was.
    “I have to believe it.”
    “So where does that leave us?”
    “We still haven’t heard from Hammond, but there’s still time.”
    Marcus Allum held the confident façade. Chambers frowned.
    “Well, you recommended him, Marcus. This goes south, and you’ll go with it.”
    “Yeah, well, don’t worry about me. What was it Twain said? Reports of my death, and all that exaggerated shit. Anyway, I don’t see a problem; or at least, not yet. Hammond’s one of the best. He may even be the best. I know I never saw anyone better. He’s been in tough spots before. He’ll pull this one out. I’m certain of it.”
    “I hope so, Marcus. I hope so for your sake. I spoke to Conrad yesterday. He’s not happy. If we lose this girl, he just might blame me, and then guess who I’m gonna blame?”
    Allum gave a humourless grin. He knew the game as well as anyone could, and he knew how ruthless Chambers could be. Chambers wouldn’t hesitate to feed him to the lions, if it meant saving himself. Allum was under no illusion about that.
    “So tell me something I don’t already