Undeceived

by Cox, Karen M.

  Liz laughed. “Right you are. You know, I’ve never been sailing.”

  Darby perked up. “Never?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then we must teach you.” His enthusiasm for the outing picked up suddenly. “You need to learn.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. When would I need to sail anything?”

  He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Spy Rule Number Twelve: Never turn down the opportunity to learn a new skill.”

  Liz shivered.

  He rubbed the goose bumps on her arm, a shadow of a grin moving across his face. “Don’t be a scaredy-cat.”

  “I’m not.”

  “What’s the matter? Can’t you swim?”

  “Yes, I can swim! Very well, thank you.”

  “You seem nervous,” he goaded her.

  “Am not.”

  “Are so.”

  “Am—”

  “Cut it out, you two. Let’s go.” Charles held out his arm to Johanna and led the way. Liz and Darby had no choice but to fall in behind.

  ***

  Liz slowed her steps when Johanna became winded. The waves of the lake lapped up against the rocks to their left. To their right, a ring of trees and a battered park bench beckoned. Just behind them, Darby and Charles worked on readying the boat. Liz took Johanna’s elbow and pointed, and they stopped for a rest. Johanna sat down, breathing in deeply—without coughing, Liz noted, which was an improvement.

  Johanna looked down at her hands, resting in her lap. “Cara’s brother, he is so…” She fished for the word in English before giving up and reverting back to Hungarian. “…lovagias.”

  “Gallant? Yes, I suppose he is. And handsome, which a man should be if at all possible.”

  Johanna blushed. “America must be full of handsome men.”

  “If only it were so.”

  “They are all handsome in movies.”

  “That’s movies, though, not real life.”

  “I guess you are right.”

  “You haven’t met my annoying colleague at the embassy yet, have you?”

  A laugh bubbled out, and Johanna covered it with her hand. “No, but I hear you speak enough to understand that it is no matter how he looks; he makes you…annoyed. Is that how you say it?”

  “That’s how I’d say it.”

  “Can you explain something?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I think about what you say this morning. Cara, she is married, yes?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “I hear that all Americans are…hmm…most have open marriage. They do not honor a marriage vow. Now, I am adult. I do not believe such things, but if Cara and Mr. Kent are…then perhaps…”

  “No, of course not. I mean adultery happens, but it’s not at all respectable. You know how that goes. I’m sure those things happen in Hungary too.”

  Johanna shrugged. “I know nothing about it. I am a sheltered girl. My father made it so.”

  Charles approached them. “Are you ready for an adventure?”

  “Yes, definitely!” Popping up from her bench, Johanna took a step toward him and tripped over a tree root.

  “Easy there.” Charles caught her arm and steadied her, and they shared a moment intimate enough to compel Liz to look away. She bit her lip to hide a smile, one that truly disappeared when she saw Darby frowning at them.

  “Stick in the mud. Hypocrite,” she muttered under her breath.

  ***

  “I wish I spent more time on the lake when I was a child,” Johanna commented. “See, my mother died. I was four, and after, Apa and I spend most of our time in Budapest. I think it is lonely for him to be here without her. My mother was from the Balaton, but we never come back—not even for holidays.”

  “It must have been rough.” Charles put a guiding hand on hers. She was standing next to him in the stern pulpit, her hands on the wheel. He called out, “Ready, Liz?”

  Liz looked back from her station by the winch. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  “Hoist the main sail.”

  She began turning the crank, raising the sail. At first, it went quickly, but as the sail rose and caught the wind, the crank became harder and harder to turn.

  “Give her a hand, Darby.”

  Darby appeared right behind her, his eyes unreadable behind sunglasses, a small smile playing about his lips. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  “I can do it.”

  “Not before we get blown off course. I don’t mind helping. It’s the first time you’ve been sailing, and the fact that men have better upper body strength is just a result of biomechanics, not an evil plot to disempower you.”

  “I have plenty of upper body strength. I swim, and I’ve trained in self-defense techniques. I’ve even been known to lift weights when I was back home.”

  “A woman of many accomplishments.” Darby’s eyes raked over her, his chin tilting up and down to draw attention to his notice of her. “Nothing wanting in your upper body, Liz.”

  “Say any kind of stupid misogynistic remark you like. My courage rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”

  “No doubt.” He nudged her aside and cranked the sail up the last couple of feet. “You did a fine job—for a girl.” He tossed a grin back at Charles while Liz bumped him with her hip and took her station back.

  “Women today are so much more accomplished than they were even just a few years ago.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Charles?” Darby moved over to the winch and began to hoist the jib.

  “They’ve entered the workforce in droves since the Sixties, become more interested in politics, more involved in athletics, and yet…” He glanced at Johanna. “They retain their goodness in a way men don’t.”

  “You have a distorted definition of ‘accomplishment.’ Accomplished women should be intelligent and capable, no doubt. In addition, I personally appreciate it when they’re pleasing to look at…” His eyes darted to Liz, staring at the horizon with her hand shielding her eyes from the sun.

  Darby continued. “But a bigger accomplishment is the development of intellect through education and lifelong learning. And still, adding to all of that, an accomplished woman has to have a strong character. In other words, she has to have guts. In their recent attempts to grab the spotlight, I think many modern women have lost sight of those qualities.”

  “Your ideal woman is a fantasy,” Liz replied. “She doesn’t exist.”

  “Then, it’s a good thing I can still enjoy less than ideal.”

  Liz pursed her lips in annoyance. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Grab the spotlight? What does that even mean? A woman isn’t grabbing the spotlight if she’s naturally gifted at her job and receives her due for it. The way things are, even now in the 1980s, a woman has to toot her own horn to get noticed. How would people know if she were accomplished or not if she were tucked away where no one saw her capabilities, if she had to stay in some low-level position all her life? The glass ceiling is real, Darby Kent. And I, for one, plan to break through it.”

  “I would never question your determination.” He swept his hand forward in a gallant bow, accompanied by a smile, but Liz had turned away in annoyance and missed it.

  “I think,” Johanna interrupted quietly, “that many women have qualities you speak of, Mr. Kent. Only most people do not notice them yet.”

  “Exactly. What she said.” Charles gave Johanna a brilliant smile.

  When I first met you, I thought, perhaps I’d made a mistake, taking this road of double agent. You seemed so together, so free of doubt, so unencumbered. So damned moral. I envied you that. But it doesn’t bear considering now. That crossroads, between spy par excellence and double-dealing traitor happened for me a lo
ng time ago. You seem to have it all, but I realize no one is without burdens. No one—not even you.

  Chapter 8

  June 1982

  Liz and Johanna stood at the sink rinsing vegetables. Darby had offered to make his famous Hungarian goulash soup for dinner, and Johanna, being the polite creature she was, had expressed enough interest for him to go out for additional ingredients.

  Liz took some tomatoes out of a bowl to wash them. “And there I was, stranded in a bar, the only female in the place who wasn’t covered in leather, saying to the bartender, ‘Excuse me, sir, can I use the phone?’”

  Johanna laughed and pulled open a drawer. “Knives are in here? I can never remember.”

  “You should let Chef Darby do his own chopping.”

  “I do not mind. He does much for me. It is the least I can do.”

  “Johanna, all these things he’s doing for you, he’s not doing them out of the goodness of his heart. It’s his job—nothing more and nothing less. Lucky for you, his job is the most important thing to him. Don’t forget that.”

  “Oh, I think there is more to him.”

  “You tell yourself that enough times, and you’re liable to get in serious trouble.”

  The door slammed, and Darby walked through, a cloth sack in one hand and a troubled expression on his face. He walked over to the counter, emptied his sack, and took out a battered envelope with dirt in the creases.

  “Where have you been all day?” Liz teased him. “It doesn’t take four hours to buy a few vegetables. Is Cara in town?”

  He stared at her, and then walked over to the stereo, and turned on the music.

  Liz stilled, her face instantly sober. The music was his way of conveying that someone might be listening in. It was so idyllic here at Lake Balaton, she’d almost forgotten she was still at cross-purposes with the Hungarian government—an unwanted stranger in a strange land. “What is it?”

  In response, he opened the envelope and handed it to her. She read, and looked up at him, eyes wide. “How did they—?”

  “I don’t know. I met Collins this morning in Székesfehérvár. He told me he’s heard from two sources inside state security that American intelligence officers are planning to help a female informant escape to the West. They are sending orders to checkpoints and border patrols to be on the lookout for a Hungarian woman with an American man exiting the country.”

  “But I am not informant!” Johanna’s face was white with fear.

  “It doesn’t matter, Johanna. If you’re arrested, we can’t protect you; you’re a Hungarian citizen. They will interrogate you, and if they are successful, your father is in danger…”

  “Apa!”

  “…as well as any of us you’ve learned about.”

  “Charles…” She gasped in distress.

  “He’s in Vienna. I telephoned him a coded message this morning telling him not to come back to Hungary. Cara and Louis have diplomatic immunity, and that covers Liz, Bill, and me to a certain extent. But, I don’t think Liz and I could make it back to the embassy now, so even that protection is iffy.”

  Out of habit, Liz translated this information into Hungarian.

  Johanna sat heavily in the chair. “So I am not going anywhere? Except maybe prison.”

  Liz hurried over to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll find another way out, won’t we, Darby?”

  “We’ll have to. Since he showed up here unexpectedly, we considered having Charles be the one to escort you out, using our usual channels. But that can’t happen now. One source told Collins the government believes the escape will be through Bratislava to Prague, but the other source indicates they are also suspecting alternate routes.”

  “And you can’t take Johanna with you, Darby, because you can’t pass for Hungarian.”

  Darby’s lips twisted in a sarcastic smile. “Yep, the agency screwed me royally there, didn’t they? If we’d been in the USSR or Czechoslovakia, I could blend in without a hitch.”

  “Perhaps I could take her?”

  He shook his head. “My guess is they’ll look hard at any American leaving the country now.” He gestured outside to the garden. “You’ll forgive me, Johanna, but I need to speak to Liz alone. The less you know about all of this, the better, in case…”

  Johanna looked up, her eyes shiny with tears, and nodded.

  Darby led Liz out to the gazebo in the center of the Alsómező property. He gestured for her to sit, but she declined.

  “You know, you might not be able to pass for Hungarian, but maybe German…?”

  “There’s more.”

  “More?”

  “I believe we may be dealing not only with a one-time information leak, but perhaps with a double agent.”

  Her eyes narrowed. Was he trying to throw suspicion on someone in order to deflect it from himself? “What do you mean?”

  “Darby Kent’s picture is circulating as the case officer to look for at the border. That’s much more specific information than a run-of-the-mill lapse in security.”

  “I see.” Liz wondered if he had leaked his own identity. It would be an easy way to get back to the Soviets—but why? Why would he compromise himself to the Americans when he was placed to learn so much more information with his Darby Kent cover intact? It made little sense.

  “So like Johanna, I can’t get back to the embassy. Can’t leave through Prague. Can’t stay here—as state security could easily learn my whereabouts. This place isn’t commonly known as the ambassador’s vacation spot, but it isn’t a closely guarded secret either. Lake Balaton would be an obvious choice if they were to come looking for me.”

  “Even more so because Cara flaunted her relationship with you.”

  He squirmed a little. “Her flirtatious behavior definitely made a bad situation worse.”

  Liz laughed without humor. “For all of us. What makes you suspect a double agent rather than just good surveillance on the part of the secret police?”

  “I’m much better at covering my tracks than the Hungarian government is at discovering them, for one thing.”

  “So, it couldn’t be that you messed up, could it?”

  “Highly unlikely.”

  Typical arrogance, according to George Wickham.

  “Plus, there was a…” He paused, looking uncomfortable, reluctant.

  “Yes?” Would he tell her about George and Jirina? Spin it in his favor to garner her sympathy?

  “A situation during my last assignment. A sloppy officer who made a mistake that cost us an…asset.” He looked away. “At least, I thought it was only a mistake—until this happened. Perhaps we had a double agent even then.”

  Liz couldn’t believe he was going to try to pin this situation on George Wickham. George wasn’t even in country! “So you think the person who leaked our mission here is the same person who botched your job in Prague.”

  “Could be. I wouldn’t put it out of the realm of possibility, but it could be a dozen others or maybe someone I don’t even know.”

  He gestured with his hand as if to waive that idea away. “But we’ve got bigger fish to fry at the moment. I have an idea.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “There is a new vintner near Sopron.” He looked at her with wry amusement. “Part of my job is to find and encourage Western-style commerce, within the letter of communist law, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Anyway, there’s a grape grower in the lake region near here. He’s an agency asset—has been for years—long before I came to Hungary. Part of his crop goes to the state, but he makes his own wine, too, and sells to the place in Sopron for a little cash on the side. He’s also trying to break into Austrian wine country and trade with them, either his own wine or his grapes. So he has a r
eason to go both to the border and beyond it—and most importantly, the papers to do so. I think he can drive us out, but he needs some plausible deniability about why he’s going and what’s in his truck. So we’d go hidden in his cargo. That’s where you come in.”

  “I’m the one escorting you and Johanna?”

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, but the truck isn’t big enough to hide three of us, and you’re the only one not being sought by state security at the moment.”

  “If I try to pass myself off as Hungarian, they’ll want to check me at the border, thinking I might be Johanna.”

  “But you’ll be with my asset, the grape grower. That should diminish suspicion. Plus, your Hungarian is impeccable.” He gestured toward the house. “I forged you a passport in case of an emergency. It’s in my desk drawer.”

  Liz nibbled on the end of her thumb as she paced back and forth.

  Darby put out a hand to stop her but drew it back before he could touch her. “Look, I completely understand your nerves. Perhaps you don’t believe you’re ready to run an op like this. Frankly, I have some doubts myself, but our options are limited.”

  “Your faith in me is overwhelming.”

  “It isn’t a matter of faith, Liz. I’m sure this is the most precarious situation you’ve faced since joining the agency. I need to get out of Hungary before there’s enough suspicion for them to call me in for questioning. I know too much to be arrested. It would ruin my career, but even more important, if they could get the information out of me, I could compromise many of the officers in Central Europe. This escape plan is dicey and it’s dangerous, and I would be hard put to successfully run this op myself. I’m reluctant to hand it over to a rookie, but I don’t have any choice.”

  Perhaps she could see his point. But still…

  “I can do it.”

  He smiled at her. “Atta girl. Now, here’s what I’m thinking…”

  ***

  They couldn’t take the farm truck across the border at night. Nighttime would give them the cover of darkness, but nothing would arouse more suspicion than to take wine and produce to Austria after dark.