by William Hood
Duff Whyte picked up the phone. “Yes, indeed, he’s here with me now … ”
Trosper glanced at Castle, well settled into his preferred chair. To avoid appearing to eavesdrop on the Controller’s conversation, Trosper turned to the pictures along the wall at the side of Whyte’s desk. As he studied the print of Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown which attested to Whyte’s membership in the Yorktown Phyle, he recalled that the noble lord had pleaded indisposition, and remained in his tent, leaving his troops and second in command to accept defeat on their own.
“As far as I can see,” Whyte said into the phone, “and with the help of everyone concerned — our French friends, the Pentagon, and the Bureau — things are pretty well in hand.” After mumbling “Yes … of course … that’s right … yes … yes,” Whyte said, “I’ll do my best … thank you … yes … ” and hung up. He turned to Castle and said, “Today’s call from the White House.” He glanced at Trosper. “Where were we, Alan?”
“There’s really not much more I can tell you,” Trosper said. “Of course we should have searched Pickett the moment we got into the apartment. In truth, it simply didn’t occur to me. Even if it had, I might not have patted him down. Once we’d lifted him, the objective was to get him talking, not to convince him that he was on the way to the gallows.”
“I suppose I’ve known my share of suicides,” Whyte said. “Except for a couple of cases, I’ve never been sure that I knew the real reason for any of them. Am I right in assuming that this one is as obvious as it seems?”
Trosper nodded. “I think it is … ”
“Pickett never should have had any of the assignments he was given,” Castle said. “He was in over his head from the day he was cleared for codeword material.”
“He was right about one thing,” Trosper added. “By killing himself, he closed the door on any possible media frenzy.”
“Right now, I’m more interested in where we go from here,” said Whyte.
Castle, rarely one to lead the charge, looked up from his notepad and nodded in Trosper’s direction.
“First, although there’s obvious reason to assume that Sinon, as he calls himself, is none other than our old acquaintance Volin, there’s also reason to think that if he is involved, he’s not alone … ”
Castle glanced up. “Agreed.”
“The basic scam — an illegal being recalled and anxious to establish himself in the West — could come straight from Volin,” Trosper said. “After that, everything we know about Volin and what Sinon has told us about himself are almost an exact match — illegals training, service in Prague, involvement in Pickett’s recruitment, a deft hand with women. Sinon’s glib reference to Troika would seem to confirm that he is Volin, or that he’s been told about Troika by Volin. The fact that Zitkin couldn’t locate Sinon might mean he went to ground with a woman in Prague.”
Castle nodded agreement.
“But what doesn’t fit either Volin as we know him, or Sinon as he has presented himself to us, is Sinon’s precise knowledge of the Tomahawk letter drop and pseudonym, his identification of Winesap as our agent, and the allegation that Winesap has been doubled against us.” Whyte glanced at Castle. “Agreed?”
Castle nodded. “On form, there’s no plausible reason for either Volin and/or Sinon to have known those facts.”
“In Prague, no one was close enough to identify the shabby watcher apparently keeping an eye on us when I emptied the drop,” Trosper said. “There’s no proof, but logic suggests it was Volin.”
“Does logic also suggest that Sinon is identical with ‘Sam,’ the most fluent English speaker among the Russians who jumped Pickett?” Castle asked.
“It does, indeed,” Trosper said. “The impression he made on Pickett, his command of American, his attention to the girl, Milada. It all adds up.”
“But it doesn’t account for Sinon’s referring to Pickett as a colonel,” said Whyte.
“He probably gave Pickett the promotion just to hype our interest,” Trosper said. “Sinon isn’t half as bright an operator as he seems to think he is. First, he lands us in the soup with the stupid letter he left at the hotel.” Trosper laughed. “The message in the drop was worse — addressed to me, with Pickett’s name, and Moscow affiliation for good measure.”
“So, where does this leave us?” Whyte’s glance drifted uneasily toward the cables piled in his in-tray.
“It’s up to Sinon to get back in contact with us,” Trosper said. “At this point, he won’t take any such roundabout as the Blood ’N Guts route, but will go back to the Womack drop in Baltimore.” Trosper turned to Castle.
“I’ve arranged to keep it open,” Castle said. “Anything that comes in will be in our hands in two or three hours.”
“Good.” Whyte reached for his in-tray.
“Sinon will expect to meet us in Europe,” Trosper said. “There’s no reason to think he’ll risk a contact in this country where we might persuade him to continue our chat in a safe house.”
Castle began to smile. “It may come as a surprise, Alan, but you’ll need an honest-to-God warrant and a policeman to lift him in this country.”
“I doubt Volin thinks we need any authority but a gun,” Trosper said.
“Once more, where do we go from here?” Whyte asked.
“I’ve got to get back to London before Emily files for divorce,” Trosper said. “But I’ll be able to respond much more quickly to any meeting Sinon may propose.” Trosper got up to leave. “While we’re waiting,” he said, “I’ll have time to stop by Salzburg. There are still a couple of odds and ends that Lotte Friesler should be able to help me with.”
“What?” Whyte lost interest in the cables. “Until Freddie Tuttle has sorted out her pension problems, I don’t want either of you riling her up.” He scribbled a note on a pad and stuck it on his intercom.
As he moved toward the door, Trosper hesitated before saying, “Actually, Duff, I think things may be a bit more complicated than I first thought.”
Five minutes later, Duff Whyte said, “All right, Alan. Have your chat with Lotte, and try to arrange your next session with Sinon on more familiar ground.” He reached for the note he had stuck on the intercom. “I want this wrapped up, but I expect you to keep your activity a country mile away from our advisors at the White House and helpers at the Pentagon.”
“You know you can count on me,” Trosper said solemnly.
Castle snapped his leather folder shut.
Trosper hurried along the corridor from the Controller’s office. For security reasons only Jake Green was authorized to handle the expense accounting for the few operations run directly out of the Controller’s suite. Green’s office, officially cloaked as Project Management, was more informally known as the Mont de Piété. The two small booths in which operations officers struggled to document their accounts had reminded some early operative of a cross between a confessional and an upscale pawn shop.
It took Trosper more than an hour to work his way through his accounting, and, as usual, he left convinced that he had failed to record at least twenty percent of his out-of-pocket expenses. As he stepped out of Green’s shop, he was hailed.
“Hello, Alan, old hoss, I heard you were back here for a while.”
As always, Squint Foley looked as if he had just dismounted from a cow pony and was on his way to the bunkhouse behind the corral. The leather patches on the elbows of his faded corduroy jacket were almost as worn as the cloth they covered. His tightly fitted blue jeans were stuffed into the tops of dusty, but extravagantly detailed cowboy boots, with pointed toes and high heels. The scalloped breast pockets of his shirt were trimmed with bright red cord which matched his knit necktie.
“Howdy, stranger.” Trosper wondered if all of Foley’s interlocutors lapsed into their own versions of cowpoke.
Foley glanced along the corridor, stepped closer to Trosper, and whispered, “Did you hear what happened in Paris?”
“Nope,” said Trospe
r, shaking his head. Foley was recognized as one of the most inventive audio technicians in Washington. Security notwithstanding, he was also known for his genius at ferreting out the classiest gossip in the rumor-ridden city. He never discussed his own activity, or anything he might have learned through it, but despite repeated warnings from the Controller, he continued to regard the activity of others as fair game.
Foley moved closer. “Our old friend Dave Hutton and some Bureau big shot were working over an army officer in one of Hutton’s million-dollar apartments when the guy up and blew out his brains.”
“Good grief,” said Trosper.
“There’s one hell of a flap, everybody from the Joint Chiefs to the White House busybodies have got their tonsils in a wringer.”
“Golly, Squint, that doesn’t sound much like the Dave Hutton I used to know … ”
32
Salzburg
“Really, Alan, I thought I’d seen the last of you for a while.” Lotte Friesler hung the dripping trench coat and hat on a wooden peg in the hall beside the door.
“It’s the weather, Lotte, I simply can’t get enough of it. What is it they call it — Schnurlregen?” He handed her a tightly wrapped package. “A wee gift.”
Lotte executed an abbreviated curtsey, and affected to simper, “Thank you, kind visitor.” As they stepped toward the chairs by the fireplace, she began to unwrap the package. “Yikes! Johnnie Walker Black, no less.” She examined the label for a moment and glanced quizzically at Trosper. “You really are here on business … ” It was almost, but not quite, a question.
Trosper dropped into the chintz chair near the fireplace. She called from the kitchen, “With soda, as I remember it?”
“A splash, if it’s there.”
Lotte put her drink on a table beside the sling chair and sank to her knees in front of the fire. She rummaged in the bin beside the fireplace, selected a slim log, and placed it gently on the fire. With a long poker, she adjusted the log’s position as carefully as if she were adding to a house of cards. Still crouched beside the fireplace, Lotte turned to face Trosper. “Is this business?” There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and her face seemed drawn, as if she had been drinking.
“Yes, this is business.” He lifted his glass in a faint suggestion of a salute to the business at hand, or an ambiguous toast to Lotte.
She rose as effortlessly as a dancer, and stepped back to the sling chair. Her black turtleneck sweater and sleek black trousers, drawn tight by their stirrups, emphasized her thin, wiry body. As she sat down, she tucked her legs beneath her and picked up her glass. After a long, speculative glance at Trosper, she took a deep swallow of the straight whiskey and said, “All right, enough of all this rapport building, what is it you want?”
“I think it’s up to you, Lotte, to tell me what is going on.”
She held her glass at arm’s length and peered through it at the flames in the fireplace. “Why me? Letting bygones be bygones, I’d help you any way I could, but you baffle me. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
He took a sip of his drink and said, “I think you do.”
She turned away from the fire. “No, Alan, I don’t. And what’s more, I’ve no intention of playing charades with you.”
“It’s not a game … ”
“Call it what you want … ”
“It’s dead serious,” Trosper said. “And that’s the simple truth. There’s already been a suicide.”
“It’s me you’re talking to, not some suspect source you’re sweating.”
“We’ve rounded up one agent,” Trosper said. “An army officer, very well placed, a source that Moscow will be sorry to lose.”
“It’s got nothing to do with me, no matter what the game is.” She kept her eyes on the fire, mesmerized.
“Maybe two dead, it depends how you’re counting,” he said. “As of now, I’m not even sure what the stakes are.”
“I’m impressed, but I’m afraid that I can’t be helpful,” she said. “You seem to forget that I’m a security risk and that I’ve been fired.”
“I want you to tell me what you know.”
Lotte took another deep swallow and, as if for reassurance, reached to touch the bottle at her side. “You’re really more of a bastard than I thought you were. I knew that was a gimcrack cover story you had the first time you were here, and I knew you’d be back. I remember your reputation from the old days: never satisfied, always mousing around, looking for another bit of data, one more fact. Now you come all the way here, fronting for Duff and his pal — the majestic, the mysterious Thomas Augustus Castle.” She finished the drink and poured herself another. “You know what my niece said last summer?” Trosper shook his head.
“‘Get real, Auntie Lot, get a life.’ She’s thirteen years old, Alan, but her advice applies to you just as much as to me.”
“This is business, Lotte … ”
“And you’re here representing Duff Whyte and ‘Tommy’ Castle, as Duff delights to call him,” she said, her eyes locked on Trosper. “If it has never occurred to you, they’re just Rover Boys, bonded like preppies in some silly secret society. Except now they’re all grown up, and call it ‘The Firm — diplomatic and military secrets stolen to order.’ Like the Knights Templars, women need not apply.”
Trosper took a sip of his drink. Lotte had been around long enough to understand the uses of silence, but he would remain quiet as long as possible.
Lotte offered the bottle to Trosper. “I mustn’t forget my duty as a hostess, no matter that the guest invited himself, or that he hasn’t even got the face to tell me a cover story like, ‘I was just passing through Salzburg and wanted to see my pal from our working days, good old laid-off Lotte … ’” She stopped as though amused, then smiled faintly and added water to her drink. “Erase ‘pal,’” she said, “and make it, ‘my old acquaintance, Lotte.’ Trosper the magnificent, handmade shoes, fancy threads, and real tight-ass self-discipline, doesn’t fraternize with everybody — just the real brass, from the old days, Duff Whyte, Odium, the good old boys, but no women allowed.”
Trosper poured himself a tot more whiskey and reached for the soda bottle.
“Can’t the army officer you mentioned tell you what you want to know?” Lotte asked impatiently.
“Unfortunately, he’s joined the great majority.”
“He’s what?”
“He’s dead, the suicide I mentioned.”
“I’m sorry … ”
“Tell that to his wife and children … ”
“I know nothing about it.”
Trosper put his glass down and began to fumble with the hinged top of the soda bottle. It opened, spraying his tie and shirt front. He brushed the soda from his jacket and pulled a foulard handkerchief from his breast pocket and began to blot the remaining water from his tie.
“Are you going to say something, or just sit there, fussing with that stupid bottle, waiting me out?” Lotte demanded.
“What more is there to say, Lotte? What would you like me to say?”
“I’d like you to tell me exactly why you’re back here, with expensive whiskey, and even stuffier than usual … ” Tears welled in Lotte’s eyes, and rolled down her cheeks. She twisted in the chair, and tugged a handkerchief from her trouser pocket. “Damn you to hell anyway, you and Castle … ” She put the handkerchief over her face and turned away, her thin body twisting as she tried to control her weeping.
“Easy does it, Lotte,” he said. “It’s going to be all right.”
“I’m sorry, Alan, sorry, sorry, sorry … ” She looked up, her drawn face blotched with tears.
“It will be all right … ”
“It’s not fair,” she said, “your just sitting there, all the time beating on me but not saying anything … ” Her voice, muffled in the handkerchief, rose and choked and fell with each spasm of sobbing.
He got up, stepped to her chair, and pulled her gently to her feet. He wrapped his a
rms around her and said, “Here, here’s a shoulder, I think you can use one.” In his arms Lotte seemed smaller, fragile and throbbing like the injured bird he had once picked up, its eyes darting in terror, too frightened to struggle. He had had enough bad cop for a long while.
Still sobbing, she pushed herself away. “I feel like a perfect fool — mixing good scotch with the vodka I’d braced myself with.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Mustn’t drink alone. A writer said it’s opening bottles when you’re alone that makes drunkards.”
“It was Hemingway,” Trosper said. “And now it’s coffee time. If you’ve got a machine, tell me where it is, and I’ll show you some fancy coping.”
“I’ll do it,” Lotte said. She wiped her eyes. “Just let me make some repairs.” As she turned and headed for the hallway to the bathroom, Trosper leaped after her. “Just a minute!” he shouted.
Lotte whirled around, staring at Trosper in surprise. “All I want is a cold towel for my eyes, and a little lipstick … ” Still bewildered by his cry, she asked, “Who have you been hanging out with? I’m not about to crawl out the bathroom window and make my escape.” Her surprise faded, and she began to smile. “Or even take the easy way out, if that’s what bothered you.”
*
Lotte looked up from her plate of scrambled eggs. “I’m not supposed to eat this stuff, but these aren’t bad.”
“God created eggs, a perfect food — the Devil filled them with cholesterol.” They sat at the heavy peasant table at the side of Lotte’s living room.
She pushed the empty plate aside. “Will you tell me one thing?”
“I can’t promise,” Trosper said with a slight smile.
“I like that,” she said. “It’s the kind of answer that sorts the professionals from the plebes.” She took a final sip of coffee. “What made you come back here?”
“I want you to explain a few things.” It was showtime, but Trosper had no enthusiasm for the struggle.
“Like what?”
He took a deep breath. “A few weeks ago an anonymous letter came through the Tomahawk letter drop, addressed to the Controller by name. The author allegedly got his information while he was on the old Moscow Center payroll.” He waited to see if there was any reaction from Lotte. None.