The Sunday Spy
Page 32
“So why are you — of all people — here?”
“Koltsov sent me, he’s at the top now, one of the last of the old crowd still on duty.”
Broom freed herself and pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. “He knows as well as you do that your work — the work of your section — was just a leftover from the old days, when everything was an extension of the war. Even then it was a lunatic defense of the motherland that no one was going to attack. Your work was just an echo of the preposterous battle groups that old Sudoplatov was ordered to get together in the fifties.”
“So … ”
“The whole activity was closed down when the committee was briefed on your last task. Everything like that is officially forbidden.”
“Officially forbidden?” Broom said. “But you’re here … ”
“You know how it is, always one more thing to be done.”
“If it’s over, if it’s forbidden, that’s good enough for me,” Broom said. “There can’t be one more thing.”
“Koltsov is in trouble,” Navrov said. “He has no choice but to cauterize what can become a serious leak and maybe a scandal Broom shook her head. “You do yourself no credit, parroting talk like that.”
“Koltsov’s my friend,” Navrov said. “He’s a decent man, he does what he thinks best for the work, for the good of the country. I accepted his request in good faith, and before I had any idea you would be involved. He’s always been fair with me. The least I can do is present his views.”
“You’ve done that … ”
“The only way it can be done … ” Navrov paused, it was important to get this right. “It must be done, as my American business friends say, ‘off the books’ — behind the back of our administration. It will be done on Koltsov’s own authority … ”
“I won’t help, and don’t you try to involve me … ”
“I have the plan and all the materials with me,” he said. “Like you, the man’s a sailor, every weekend. You can approach his boat pretending distress … ”
“No … never again.”
They talked until dark, when Navrov said, “Since learning you were here, I’ve thought of nothing else. Come to dinner, like old times.”
While Broom changed, Navrov studied the paintings. “These are great,” he called to her in the bedroom. “I had no idea … it’s really good work. You have talent and must have worked like hell to produce all this.”
In the morning as Broom made breakfast, Navrov said, “I’ve left the package on the table by the bed. The plan is clear, excellent photographs, good background on the area — everything you’ll need, and money as well.”
Broom turned away. “What will you do, stay in Moscow and get even richer?”
“I’m not rich,” he said, “and I’m not going to stay in Russia. In a few more months I should have money enough to get out and to settle in a decent climate, as far away as I can get.”
“So very much money?” she said.
“Enough to resettle, and keep me until I can start something new, something different from anything I’ve done before.”
“In a decent climate?”
“Maybe Mexico,” he said softly. “I’m told the light is very good there.”
Broom smiled, and turned abruptly away.
“I’ll not leave us like this,” he said. “Where can I write?”
“You don’t understand anything, you can’t even know how I’ve changed … ”
“Yes, I do … ”
“I’m not the same … ”
“Can I telephone?”
“Absolutely not … ”
“Where can I write?”
Broom scribbled an address on a scrap of paper. “My gallery in New York. They will always know.”
“Should I say, ‘be careful’?”
Broom shook her head, kissed him quickly, and pushed the door open.
50
Moscow
“Well, Mr. Big Business, I see that you’ve been on an expensive holiday … ” The chief of operations shoved his friend’s expense accounting to the side of his desk. “You enjoyed yourself? Airplanes, hotels, expensive rented motorcar from Miami to Key West?”
“My travel had all the aspect of a business trip,” Navrov said with a smile. “I remember the days when you talked about cover, called it mixing with the herd.”
“But not for tossing funds like confetti … ” He scribbled his signature on the accounts. “You’ve heard what happened with your friend Slocombe?”
“Maisky showed me the press clips.”
“Ragulin used our private channel from New York to tell me your report was inconclusive … ”
“I told him that I found Broom, briefed her, and gave her the materials … ”
“But Ragulin said you weren’t sure?”
“Broom s older now, she’s been outside for a long time,” Navrov said. “After a while some of the discipline weakens, the intensity fails, you know that.”
Koltsov leaned back, his fingers laced behind his head. “I know all about discipline and what you call intensity. Do you know what’s happening to some of my people?”
“Do you really want me to guess?”
Koltsov frowned and shook his head “I’ll tell you what’s happening,” he said softly. “Too many of them are disappearing, dropping contact, refusing to accept meetings. Some move away from the only address we have for them.” He leaned forward, elbows on the desk.
“They read the press,” Navrov said. “They know what’s going on here and how the life is.”
“They’re Russian — most of them anyway — and they should damned well help.”
“Cling to that,” Navrov said.
Koltsov peered intently across his desk. “A week ago I saw old Petrov — Pyotr Ivanovich, your boss in Vienna when you were still a puppy.”
“I liked him … ”
“It was a big dinner, vodka like rain, but he asked about you.”
“I’m surprised … ”
“He even asked about an agent you had handled for him in Vienna. He said he always suspected that you’d gone beyond your responsibility for her welfare … ”
“I was young then … ”
“You might have told me when I briefed you on the Key West assignment,” Koltsov said.
“I should have, but I wasn’t sure it was the same person, and I really wanted to make the trip.”
“Did she tell you what she was going to do?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Ragulin has tried the alternate and emergency contact arrangements, so far nothing,” Koltsov said.
“I’m not surprised,” Navrov said. “She’s been outside so long that she sees us and the homeland through foreign eyes. She’s loyal, but perhaps no longer quite as useful.”
“I’ve got an entire apparat to reposition, even rebuild, and I sit here with an old friend who deals with me like a merchant in Ukraine.”
“There was no cheating, my cover was perfect, your instructions were followed to the letter.”
“I have to report to the committee,” Koltsov said. “What am I to say?” Koltsov’s voice had lowered to a growl.
“I don’t know,” Navrov said.
“And that’s what you think I should report?”
“If I were you that’s exactly what I would say,” Navrov said. “And then I’d recommend that since the beast is dead, we should stop kicking it.”
“And get on with new business?”
“That’s what I plan to do,” Navrov said.
51
London
Trosper motioned Widgery to help himself to a drink and stepped across the study to pick up the telephone.
“Did I wake you up?”
“Mike Grogan!” Trosper exclaimed. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“Why such a surprise?”
“When people call from the States the first question is always, what time is it.”
“What time is it?”
>
“The next question is about the weather … ”
“I assume it’s raining,” Grogan said.
“Have you heard the news?”
“Nothing interesting enough to make you pop for a phone call … ”
“It’s about your friend, the recently retired minister counselor … ”
“Widge is here, taking a couple of weeks to catch his breath. He’s told me about our friend’s stonewalling the panel and retiring.” Grogan laughed. “As usual, you guys are a few days behind the press. My news is fresh, three paragraphs in yesterday’s Washington Post and one in the New York Times,” Grogan said. “Your friend Slocombe is dead … ”
“I’ll be damned.” Trosper exclaimed.
“He was alone on his boat, and left his mooring Saturday morning,” Grogan said. “When he wasn’t back by Monday, the marina called the Coast Guard. They found the boat, but it was another thirty-six hours before they spotted the body.”
“That really is news,” Trosper said. He paused before saying, “Was he in a life jacket?”
“No, just one of those yellow rain things you guys wear … ”
“What about the weather?”
“A late afternoon squall Saturday, but he might have croaked before that.”
“He’d done a lot of sailing,” Trosper said, “but in heavy weather one misstep can put you over the side.” Trosper passed the news to Widgery before saying, “What was the actual cause of death?”
“According to the local medical examiner, it was natural causes,” Grogan said.
“What natural causes?”
“Probably a heart attack,” Grogan said. “But even with an immediate autopsy it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between a heart attack and stroke. It was three days before the autopsy was done.”
“Any medical history?”
“It should sound familiar to you,” Grogan said. “He’d been told to cut down cholesterol, get more exercise, and cheer up.”
“Thanks … ”
“It seems he was under some stress, retirement, wife problems, depression.”
“Have the … er … experts been consulted?”
“The medical examiner thought it was open and shut,” Grogan said. “But as soon as we heard about it, our guys tested the data against everything in the book. As of now, there’s not a scrap of evidence that shows anything but natural causes.”
“Is that your opinion?”
“I dunno.” Grogan’s sigh was clearly audible. “I’ve been here all night going over the files. We’re having a meeting this morning — your people, State, and my crowd. As far as I can see, there’s almost a consensus — a heart attack brought on by stress of the past few weeks, the effort of handling the boat alone, maybe intensified by the shock of falling overboard.”
“Almost a consensus?”
“As of yesterday, your friend Castle had abstained … ”
Widgery waited until Trosper had put the phone down before taking a sip of his drink. “Well, was it a hit?”
“Mike said there’s no evidence of anything but a heart attack, and the boat was found offshore.”
“If it was a hit, it would be rigged to look like a heart attack, and there is a motive,” Widgery said. “Don’t you think Moscow will find the death quite timely?”
Trosper shook his head. “On the face of it, it’s hard to see what Slocombe might have known that would justify the very high risk of hitting him.”
Widgery waited before saying, “Not so long ago you told me that any time I caught myself saying ‘on the face of it’ I should check the evidence again and dig deeper.”
“Thou art sharper than a serpent’s tooth,” Trosper murmured. “Won’t Castle say the motive could only be to protect something worth the risk?”
“I suppose he has said that, and for all I know he may be right,” Trosper said.
“Mills murdered, Pickett a suicide, and now Slocombe deep-sixed — we can’t let them get away with that.”
Trosper pushed himself back in the chair. “You know, Widge, we’ve been in a war. It’s taken almost fifty years, but the war is over. If we had anything to work on, I’d agree that we should run it to the ground, punish the guilty. As it is, we’ve destroyed two sources Moscow can scarcely afford to lose.”
“Until they trapped her, Mills was innocent … ”
“If she’d played by the rules and asked for help, she’d be alive … ”
“It’s not good enough … ” Widgery shook his head in frustration. Trosper finished his drink. “If it’s revenge you want, I can’t help.”
“It’s not right,” Widgery said.
“The war is over,” Trosper said. “We’ve got to move ahead. We can let this dog sleep.”
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