The Sunday Spy

by William Hood

  “I’m not sure that money entered into it … ”

  “I never believed much of it anyway,” Slocombe said. “The Russians I’ve come to know would scarcely need any advice from une telle dévergondée.”

  “Quite true, Harry. They’ve never been much interested in advice, but they do like to read our documents — top-secret cables, dispatches, position papers.”

  “That’s not true at all — they do appreciate advice, it’s just that they’re particular about who they get it from.”

  “Perhaps, Harry, but along with everything else the SVR has in common with the old Moscow Center outfit, it’s an absolute fact that they’d rather have a fistful of documents than some self-styled pundit whispering in their ear.”

  “Each to his own,” Slocombe said with another, more portentous, glance at his watch.

  “Had you known Charlotte Mills very long before the unpleasantness?”

  Slocombe leaned back in his chair and formed a cathedral with his long fingers. “Good Lord, it’s difficult to remember, one gets around so much in this work. Speaking bluntly, she was one of those drab little people one gets so accustomed to seeing in the background that one forgets specifics. But we must have rubbed shoulders — so to speak, Alan, so to speak — somewhere or other before her unhappy excursion to Moscow.”

  “She was your secretary in Moscow?”

  “Certainly not. She was pool property, available to anyone who needed secretarial help. In practice, that meant that Ambassador Hardwick — Ting — made the most use of her services.”

  “The security people and the FBI got detailed statements from the ambassador at the time, but none of it was very useful or particularly perceptive.”

  Slocombe shrugged. “What can I say?”

  “But you were her supervisor?”

  Slocombe thought for a moment. “As I recall it, there were ten or twelve people, including two or three clericals, in our delegation. I was second to Ting. On form, he would have been Mills’s chief. Actually, Ting must have known her a lot better than I ever did, he’s always been a great one for keeping in touch with the troops, bucking up their morale and such.”

  “From what the defector told us,” Trosper said, “Mills met their agent, a man she knew as Yuri Krotov, a few days after arriving in Moscow. He also reported that she was confronted and recruited four or five weeks after their affair began.”

  “I really have no idea,” Slocombe said. “I suppose the security files would have the details.”

  “I’ve read the file, but I’m not sure how Mills might have met a Russian quite so early in her assignment in Moscow.”

  “I’m afraid I still can’t help you,” Slocombe said impatiently.

  “Were there any receptions, big parties to which the clerical staff might have been invited?”

  “I suppose so, the Russians are rather good about that sort of thing when they put their mind to it, although they usually make a very intelligent distinction between proper diplomats and the functionaries, as they call them.” Slocombe pursed his lips. “That, alas, is more than I can say for our service. These days, it’s almost impossible to distinguish between our clerical and administrative staffs and the high table, so to speak.”

  “Would your hosts have done something special for your delegation?”

  Slocombe paused. “Now that you mention it, I think we may well have been invited to an informal reception the day after Ting arrived. I got to Moscow with the advance party, and seem to remember suggesting that to get things off on the right foot, our hosts might want to do something for Ting when he got there. As I remember it now, we were invited to a reception for some Soviet film people who had won awards of some kind.”

  “Would Mills have gone?”

  “I’m sure little Miss Hot Pants would have leaped at the opportunity. The clerical staff have very little social life, and most of them are quite incapable of organizing anything at their own level.” He paused reflectively. “I suppose if she did go, she might even have been in Ting’s car. The embassy was so damned chintzy with its transport we often had to share cars and drivers. That’s the sort of economy that makes us look like a bunch of yokels to our foreign colleagues.”

  “It’s too much to suppose you might have known who she met, or talked with, there?”

  “I’m afraid I still remember the woman as an old maid, and rather a wallflower, but this may be an assumption on my part. The film and theater set in Moscow are pretty much the cream — perhaps I should say champagne — of their society, and always add a bit of zip to any gathering. Some of them are damned attractive, socially and intellectually. I remember that even Ting — because of his ability in the language, he never was stuck in that cold-war time warp that your crowd still inhabits — was delighted by the reception we got. My guess is that if any of the Russians talked to Mills, she’d have been damned impressed.”

  “Did you ever hear of a Yuri Krotov?”

  Slocombe shook his head. “Afraid not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Slocombe smiled. “Look, through the years I’ve got to know a lot of Russians, and quite a few Yuris. But out of context I can’t recall any Yuri Krotkin.”

  “Yuri Krotov” Trosper said patiently. “He’s allegedly an actor, associated with one of their film organizations.”

  “Why would I have known him?”

  “Judging from what the defector said, Krotov was the man who drugged and seduced her … ”

  “Sorry,” Slocombe said, shaking his head.

  “Would you know if Miss Mills had hung out with the marines, the embassy guards at all?”

  “Really, Alan, I’ve no idea, but I’m sure our security people questioned them at the time.” Slocombe leaned forward across the desk. “Isn’t all this fuss about Miss Mills getting to be rather old hat? I mean Gorbachev is history, the tramp is dead, and the Department has probably already published the documents she sold. Nowadays, we can scarcely close a negotiation before the Department publishes our papers as fodder for the current Ph.D. crop and their illiterate theses.”

  A light flashed on Slocombe’s telephone. “The meeting will be in the ambassador’s office at five-thirty,” Slocombe said crisply as he dropped the phone into its cradle. “Let’s face it, Alan, the cold war’s been dead for years, and even your bunch has had to admit that your meal ticket, the dread Moscow Center, wasn’t half so fearsome as you’ve been telling the congressional wise men all these years. What’s your sudden interest in this?”

  “It touches, or may do, on something that’s just come alive,” Trosper said. “As you know, we’ve cleared my speaking to you with your people in Washington.”

  “Exactly, old boy,” Slocombe said. “These days you couldn’t have got past the guard downstairs without clearance from on high.” Slocombe got up and stepped around the desk. “Are you still sailing at all? I heard you were representing Poshcraft — really, Alan?”

  “That was a brief episode, but I’ve not been sailing much either. How about you?”

  “I’ve just picked up my new Cheoy Lee — thirty-eight feet, absolutely gorgeous, and I’m out on Chesapeake Bay every weekend that I’m not working — summer and winter.”

  “Cripes, that’s a bloody ship,” Trosper said.

  “It’s as much as I can handle — most weekends I’m all alone. I find a few hours’ solitude on the water helps to clear the mind.”

  “I always find that you diplomats take good care of yourselves … ”

  “And the best of us take care to marry a woman who can afford to indulge us,” Slocombe said with a tight smile.

  As they shook hands, Slocombe asked, “Is there some sudden urgency about all this interest in history?”

  “I’m beginning to think so,” Trosper said.

  13

  Savannah

  The trim two-story building sat fifty feet back from the brick sidewalk that ran along the quiet street. A freshly painted, waist-high picket fence
framed the neatly cut lawn, and a thick bank of rose bushes ranged in front of the tall, six-over-six windows that faced the street. From the sidewalk, the building looked more like a discreet medical center, occupied by a group of successful suburban doctors, than the office of ONAN Publications.

  Trosper lifted the latch and closed the gate carefully behind him. As he approached the varnished door, the late afternoon sun caught the small brass numerals at the side. There was no indication of who or what might occupy the premises, and no response when Trosper tried the heavy door. He drew back to check the number again. Six hundred seventeen — at least the address was correct. He found the bell and pressed three brief rings. The door latch released and Trosper stepped across a small hallway and into the reception room.

  Two comfortable wicker chairs, a chintz-covered sofa, and a coffee table were the only furnishings in the softly lighted room. Copies of Time, the Economist, and the Wall Street Journal were neatly arranged on the coffee table. A small grated window opened onto what appeared to be a receptionist’s room, but the desk was unoccupied.

  The only address listed for the editorial and advertising departments of Blood ’N Guts was a letter box in the Savannah, Georgia, area. No telephone numbers were given, and Trosper’s efforts to call showed clearly that if ONAN Publications or its flagship magazine Blood ’N Guts had telephones, the numbers were unlisted. When his express letter to the magazine stating that Mr. Paul Doughty would be in Savannah and had urgent business to discuss with the advertising department was not answered, Trosper asked Castle to have one of his operatives uncover the telephone number and whereabouts of the magazine’s editorial offices.

  “Mr. Doughty? Is it Mr. Paul Doughty?” The inner door of the reception room had swung open. “I’m Abigail Slotter, Mr. O’Hara’s assistant.”

  She was short, plump, and past sixty. Her gray hair was in a pompadour and her gray-blue dress fit too subtly to have been bought in any women’s department.

  Trosper dropped the Economist on the coffee table. “Paul Doughty,” he said as they shook hands. “I’m glad to have found you at last.”

  “Mr. O’Hara is out of town, but y’all come right on in with me.” She led Trosper along a carpeted hallway, and through a cluttered editorial room, with three computer stations. “You’ve caught us just at the moment we’ve put our upcoming issue to bed,” she said. “We’ve only got a caretaker staff today. If you’d been here yesterday, you’d have found all three of us with our sleeves rolled up and in our usual closing frenzy. No matter how hard Mr. O’Hara tries to do things in advance, the twelve hours before closing is always Chaos Castle.” She stopped at a half-glass door marked Terrence O’Hara, Publisher/Editor. Beneath this, but in equally large print, was inscribed Abigail Slotter, Assistant. She held the door open for Trosper. “That’s why Terry — Mr. O’Hara always insists that we call him Terry, so we’re all on a first-name basis hereabouts — always gives the staff two days off, just to catch our breath once an issue is locked in.”

  She motioned Trosper to a chair and took her place behind one of the two desks that, placed side by side, dominated the office. On the wall to the left of the desk were framed blowups of what Trosper assumed were the more lurid Blood ’N Guts covers. A poster-size photograph of Terry O’Hara dominated the opposing wall, his epauletted, khaki shirt open wide enough to show a hint of chest hair, and the sleeves carefully rolled to expose well-developed biceps.

  “Now, Mr. Doughty, perhaps some tea while you tell me what we can do for you?” Without waiting for an answer Abigail Slotter turned to an intercom, flipped a button, and said, “Kathy-Jo, it will be tea for two this afternoon, dear.”

  Trosper poured a few drops of milk into his cup. “I’ve had quite a time finding you people. Are all of your phones unlisted?”

  Abigail Slotter smiled. “We used to be in the phone book, and listed in the business directory, but we found that too many of our subscribers liked to drop in for a chat with Terry. He always made himself available — some of them had driven hundreds of miles — but the visits turned out to be very time-consuming.” She took a sip of tea. “It was a little dangerous too, they were forever bringing along their guns and survival gear — canisters of nausea gas, fragmentation grenades, miniature chain saws and such — for Terry to admire.” Her smile broadened. “It’s rather a relief to see that you’re not armed.” She pushed her glasses up onto her forehead. “You aren’t armed, are you?”

  Trosper opened his jacket. “Clean as a whistle, what you see is what I am.”

  “And what brings you here?”

  “It’s nothing of any great importance. If I could have found your advertising department I’d have handled things by telephone. All I want is to place a notice in the personals column of Blood ’N Guts.”

  Abigail Slotter peered more closely at Trosper. “That shouldn’t be much of a problem,” she said slowly, “though we do have to insist that our content rules be complied with. I’m afraid we get rather more than our share of what you might call the fantasy fruitcakes … ”

  Trosper could not help laughing. “Fantasy fruitcakes?”

  “You’d be surprised, Mr. Doughty, how many people want to advertise themselves as available for really odd jobs — the sort of thing that involves putting a hit on someone’s inconvenient but rich old auntie, or perhaps taking out an overinsured helpmeet … ”

  “I see … ”

  “Then there’s the nut trade, the weirdos who’ve bought so much mail-order commando equipment that they think they’re ready to hire out as freelance warriors, instantly available for any little old guerrilla movement or militia that might like to have them.” Abigail paused to drop a slice of lemon into her teacup. “That sort of advertising is against the rules.” She studied Trosper more closely. “You’re not on the lam from some bin, are you, Mr. Doughty?”

  “Bin?”

  “As in a loony bin?”

  Trosper laughed again. “It’s the first time anyone ever asked, but the answer is no.”

  “I didn’t think so, you’re not the type,” she said. ‘The real nutters either run to fat, or are bone thin, with the complexion of a maggot.” She adjusted her glasses. “But you look fit. Six feet, and a dab more. Fifty years and maybe a few months. Pushing two hundred pounds I’d guess, but you’d better keep an eye on it.” She smiled brightly. “What I can’t figure is your getup. I haven’t seen shoes like yours since my husband died. He used to have them made in some little shop in Boston that he started with while he was still in Cambridge.”

  Trosper put down his teacup and took a bite of cucumber sandwich. “I realize it’s very late, but I really need to place this notice in the personals column of your next issue.” He pushed a typewritten paper across the desk.

  Abigail picked up the paper and began to read aloud. “Sinon, please call Mr. Peach soonest at … ” She stopped before reading the telephone number. “Is this a legitimate telephone number? I might want to call it.”

  Trosper nodded. “Go right ahead, call now if you wish.” He didn’t like the cover name Peach and had meant to have the support staff use a more common name, but there hadn’t been time.

  “Sinon?”

  “That’s what the fellow I’m trying to reach calls himself.” Trosper thought for a moment and added, “He’s offering some unusual military memorabilia … Mr. Peach is a collector … museum-quality pieces.”

  Abigail pushed the notice to one side and picked out a thick volume from the bookcase behind her desk. She flipped through the pages, pushed her glasses up, and read for a moment. She smiled, and slipped the book back into the bookcase. “We have to check these things — obscene anagrams, bad puns, scatology, codewords for kiddie porn. There’s no end to what some of Terry’s readers try to put over on us.”

  “Then you’ll accept our notice?”

  Abigail smiled. “Yes, of course. I’ve enjoyed meeting you, but you really might have done all this by mail.”

 
“Which brings me to my second problem,” Trosper said softly. “It is essential that this notice appear in your upcoming issue.” Abigail shook her head. “Oh, Lordy, I’m afraid that’s just not going to be possible. We’ve just closed and we print tomorrow.”

  “This is really important … ”

  “I’m just as sorry as I can be, but there’s nothing I can do — even our printer is up north in Dayton.”

  “It’s such a small notice — couldn’t it just be squeezed in, boldface?”

  “I do wish I could help you, but for the life of me, I can’t see … ”

  “In the circumstances, I’m sure Mr. Peach would be willing to make some special arrangement,” Trosper said.

  Abigail pushed her glasses up and leaned forward. “What sort of arrangement?”

  “He might authorize my picking up the cost of any replating, or whatever might be involved … ”

  “Like about how much?”

  “Will two hundred cover it?”

  “No, but five hundred should do the trick … ”

  Trosper nodded agreement.

  “Now just sit still for a moment, Mr … your name is Paul, isn’t it? Do you mind if I call you Paul? I’m Abigail. Terry prefers first names, and I’ve come to think he’s right.” She picked up the telephone and began to dial.

  Trosper got up, stretched his legs, and walked around examining the framed magazine covers on the wall. As he returned to his seat, he glanced over Terry’s desk. Aside from a telephone, desk calendar, a leather-cornered, spotless rose-colored blotter, and an expensive pen set, Terry O’Hara’s desk was clear. Abigail’s desk was cluttered with manuscripts, galleys, photographs, and news clippings. As he lowered himself into a chair, Trosper picked up his empty teacup and leaned across to put it on O’Hara’s desk. He was close enough to glimpse the leather-bound desk calendar. Chaos Castle indeed.

  Abigail slid the phone back onto its cradle. “It’s done. The printer fussed some, but your notice will run in the current issue. We’re such a small customer they slip us in any slot they can find. So we never know exactly when they will wrap and mail.”