The Sniper's Kiss

Chapter Two

Washington, DC, October 1943 (fourteen months later)

Mia glanced at the wall clock. Four thirty. Technically, she was supposed to be working, but she had nothing in her in-box, so she slid the new job application from her drawer and finished filling it out.

Her gentle mother had been gone too long to be more than a vague memory. But her father… well… her recollection of him was a mix of disappointment and fear, ending in disgust. He’d never really beaten her, the way he had Ivan, but his orders—that she dress like a drudge, that she give up her fun-loving American friends, that she be housekeeper in their tenement apartment—were absolute and tinged with threat. Her protestations simply elicited a slap from him. “Never question my authority,” he’d say. “A father knows what’s best for his children.” It was her first small victory to be allowed to take an accounting course at the local college, though he agreed only because he knew the dreary accounting job that followed would add to the family finances. And she’d had to fight hard to be allowed out of the house to volunteer for the Roosevelt campaign.

Well, the old tyrant had been dead over a year now, and the police investigation had gone nowhere. That was a relief, though she felt a slight shame for leaving the burial in Van’s hands. Well, Van, or Ivan, as his father had persisted in calling him, had inherited Fyodor’s bank account and possessions, of which the only things of value were a copper samovar and some gold-painted icons. As an atheist and a cynic, Van must have found that amusing.

She did think occasionally of Grushenka, but always with embarrassment. Since that unfortunate involvement, she’d been celibate. Men had paid court to her, but she wasn’t interested. And women weren’t exactly beating a path to her door. Even if they were, the risk of losing her job was too great.

Sally, sitting at the desk across from her, glanced over. “You’re going to leave us, aren’t you? I saw the application.”

“I’d like to. When I took this job last year, I didn’t think it would be so dreary. It’s only slightly better than the one I had before.”

Sally turned the platen and yanked out her finished page. “Yeah, numbers are numbers. Nothing jazzy about them. But didn’t you work for the FDR campaign in New York during the last election? Maybe something good might come from that.”

“That’s what I thought. Mrs. Roosevelt even thanked me for the bookkeeping I’d done for the committee. I gave my resume to the campaign headman, hoping for a little secretarial job in the administration. But everything went to the men. It’s maddening.”

“Hey, Mia!” The office boy stuck his head through the opening in the doorway. “Boss wants to see you.”

Mia winced with vague anxiety, then followed the boy down the corridor to the door at the end. After a timid knock and a muffled “Come in,” she opened the door.

Mr. Steinman sat at his desk puffing on a cigar. Another man sitting on his left stood up as she entered.

“Mia, this is Mr. Harry Hopkins. He’s looking for an assistant and insisted on talking to you.”

Still bewildered, she turned to face the stranger. He was tall, angular, and gaunt, and his too-large suit jacket drooped over both shoulders. His head, which jutted forward slightly, was almost cadaverous and had a receding hairline. The hand he held out to her was all bone, as if it should have held a scythe. She took it cautiously.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Kramer. I’m afraid I’m in a hurry and don’t have time for an official interview. I need an assistant who’s good at taking notes and dictation.”

“I told you, Harry. George Osborne is good at that.” Steinman tapped his cigar ash into an enormous glass ashtray.

Hopkins ignored him. “It also involves the sort of Lend-Lease accounting you’ve been doing, but on a larger scale.”

“I’m telling you, George is the best accountant we’ve got.” Steinman was standing now. “And he’s a senator’s son.”

“…and Russian.”

“I know Russian,” Mia said quietly.

Steinman sat down again, obviously defeated, and puffed on his cigar.

“Yes. That’s why I’ve come. The First Lady gave me a copy of your resume. So, do you want the job or not?”

“Yes, of course.” That was all she could manage. “When can I start?”

“Monday would be good. That will give you time to move in over the weekend.”

“Move in? Where? I already have a room in town.”

“No. I’ll need you close at hand. For meetings, and I’ve got a pile of calculations already on my desk. Your office will be down the hall from me, and they’ll give you a room upstairs.”

Mia was flustered. This strange, cadaverous man wanted her to live in the same house as him? Suddenly she had doubts.

“Upstairs? Where exactly is your office?”

“Sorry. Didn’t I mention that? In the White House. Come around to the Rose Garden entrance at eight o’clock on Monday, and someone will take you up.”

Mia checked her watch as she lugged her suitcase along the path that curved around the White House South Lawn. Seven thirty. She was on time.

“Can I help you, miss?”

Startled, she turned to see a uniformed policeman.

“Um, I’m supposed to report to Mr. Hopkins. I have an appointment at ten o’clock.”

“Well, the public ain’t supposed to be wandering around the Rose Garden, but I’ll take you to the door.” He swung toward the left and began walking.

“Thank you.” She grabbed her suitcase and scurried after him. The officer led her up a low flight of steps and along an arcade to the end. A door opened as they approached.

“I got a woman here says she has an appointment with Mr. Hopkins,” her guide announced. His job done, he hooked his thumbs on his belt and stepped back.

Nodding, the second officer dialed something on his phone and passed the message along. Mia glanced at her watch again. Quarter till eight.

Some two minutes later, a civilian in a dark suit appeared. “Good morning, Miss Kramer. I’m George Allen, the White House butler. Mr. Hopkins is expecting you.” He took her suitcase out of her hand.

Pleased to finally be acknowledged and relieved of the cumbersome baggage, she followed him without glancing back. He led her along a corridor that took them back into the main building, and they climbed a flight of stairs to the second floor. They passed closed doors, and she wondered what majestic staterooms lay behind them. He halted at the far end of the corridor where a plaque near the door read Lincoln Suite. The butler knocked and set her suitcase down against the wall.

The door opened to the same cadaverous man who’d hired her. “Ah, right on time. Thank you, Mr. Allen.” He waved away the butler and opened the door wider to admit her.

Inside, a desk, cabinet, and side table were covered with papers, and a jacket hung over the back of a chair. “Sorry about the mess. The paperwork just overflows, which is why I’ve hired you.”

She nodded, waiting for more explanation of her job. Would it start with housekeeping?

“I’m sure you’re familiar with President Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program. I’m in charge of it, more or less. In short, I work for him, and you’ll work for me. Let me show you to your office.” He stepped toward the door and held it open for her. “How’s your shorthand, by the way?”

“Tolerable. I can read it myself,” she said, passing him.

They strode along the corridor together. “That’s fine. The supply orders are constantly changing, and while the federal budget office will do the final accounting, I’ll need early estimates to present to them. So you’ll be my accountant, too.”

They stepped through a door into another hallway and then into an elegantly furnished room.

“And the Russian?” she asked. “You said that was a requirement.”

“The Russian. Yes. For the correspondence from the Soviets. The president has his official translators, of course, but I want to have my own resources.”

Her mind was buzzing with the amount of responsibility he seemed to be handing her, but it was a good buzz.

“Ah, here we are.” He opened the final door to a cubicle with a tiny desk, typewriter, and a gooseneck lamp. “This is your work space. On the other side of this wall is the First Lady’s office. It’s small, I know, but half the time, you’ll be at conferences with me taking notes.”

He glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting now with the president in the West Sitting Hall, so Mr. Allen will show you to your quarters. You can settle in and then meet me back at my room at ten.”

Escorting her to the door, Hopkins started off down the corridor on his long legs.

The butler still waited outside the office with her suitcase, and she rejoined him, stifling a grin.

So that’s it. I work for the president of the United States.

“Here you are, Miss Kramer.” The butler opened the door to her room and set her suitcase down just inside. “The bathroom is down the hall on the left, and you’ll be taking your meals downstairs in the White House kitchen. Supper is at seven.”

“Who else is up here?” she asked, noting the other doors.

“At the moment, just the housemaids and the occasional non-state guests. So, I’ll leave you to your unpacking now.” With the slightest hint of a bow, he backed away and closed the door gently.

She glanced around at her new quarters, in a part of the White House she hadn’t even known existed. The narrow room with a sloped ceiling was sparsely furnished, with fewer amenities than her rooming-house accommodations had offered.

She laid out her few belongings: her comb and brush, toothbrush, three changes of clothing, several sets of underwear. Nervously, she checked her watch. Almost ten.

After running her brush quickly over her hair and checking that her slip didn’t show, she hurried down to the main floor to the Lincoln Suite. No one replied to her knock.

Hopkins was undoubtedly still with the president, so she strolled toward the room where they were meeting. She’d only just arrived when the door opened. Hopkins stood in the doorway, his back turned, making some final remark. Curious, she looked past him to catch a glimpse of the president and caught her breath.

The president of the United States was in a wheelchair.