by Jamie Smith
“Yes, sir,” said the secretary, himself standing and walking back to the door.
“Oh and, Harry,” said the president.
“Mr President?”
“Would it not make more sense to code name him the White Russian?”
Bernstein smiled. “Of course, sir, I’ll see to it,” he said and closed the door.
Once the door was closed, the president put down his pen and sighed. Rubbing his eyes again, he pressed the intercom on his desk. “Peggy?”
“Yes, Mr President?” responded the New York accent of his personal assistant.
“Could you have them send me in a White Russian? I have a sudden craving for a cocktail.”
“It is only eleven a.m., sir.”
“Yes, but it’s nine p.m. in Moscow,” he responded and put down the phone.
***
Nine miles away in Langley, Nikita stood by the water cooler in his office at the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters and surveyed the scene in front of him. The open plan office spread out before him, yellow in the glow of fluorescent lights. There were few windows and the cloudy midwinter provided little lighting for the room anyway.
Small Atari computer screens flickered at desks across the room, with analysts tapping away with a furious intensity. The walls were plastered with papers, post-its, maps and photographs in an organised chaos of investigations, suspects and persons of interest.
A giant map of the Soviet Union was pinned to a wall on his right next to a television which showed the news on a loop at all times.
Nikita sighed. He felt so far away from the Kamenka shanty from which he’d been plucked all those years ago, but no more satisfied for it. He couldn’t deny that the last six months had been the best of his life. Being part of a team that accepted him, living an ordinary life, aside from the occasional mission at weekends or evenings, had felt fantastic. The reality that he was living a lie to all of his co-workers and also actively working against them did not sit entirely comfortably, but rarely consciously fazed him.
He walked back to his desk, lost deep in thought. Sitting down in his swivel chair, he then leant back and turned to his desk mate.
“Hey Blaine, bar tonight?”
The blond New Yorker Blaine Lahart looked up from the notepad he was scribbling in. He had the sort of face that only suited a smile. “Jeez, isn’t that your third night running, Jake?”
“What can I say; this job makes me drink.”
Blaine laughed. “More than my old man who was every inch the Irish stereotype. Sure, it is nearly Friday after all. Let’s get the rest of the gang together.”
“Cool.” Nikita nodded at Blaine’s notes. “Any progress?”
“Not much. Trying to get Russians to play ball on nuclear site visits is hard work.”
Nikita laughed now. “You thought the commies would make it easy?”
“They’re too busy trying to make the war in Afghanistan look like a success.”
“How’s that going for them?”
“About as smoothly as us in Vietnam.”
Nikita grimaced. “You’d think these people would learn by this point.”
“Well let’s hope they don’t learn too quick otherwise we’ll be out of a job,” Blaine replied with a chuckle. “How’re you getting on with the KGB?”
“Slowly. Yerin’s movements are almost too routine. I just need to figure out what he’s covering up.”
“Maybe this Black Russian holds the key.”
Nikita laughed. “To the chairman of the KGB’s movements? And maybe Yerin is hanging out with him and Peter Pan in Never Never Land.”
At that moment the department chief Gordon Sykes walked in and clapped his hands. “Listen in everyone. I’ve just had a directive from the president himself that will change the face of the investigation into the Black Russian completely.”
Nikita showed no outward sign of interest, but did notice his heart rate increase slightly.
“Lahart, note this down,” Sykes said to Blaine, “because this is going to blow it wide open.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Now, the president has requested that investigations be fully turned over to us on this. He has also asked that the code name for the FBI’s phantom assassin be changed from the Black Russian to… you guessed it. The White Russian.”
There was a smattering of half-hearted laughs from people at Sykes’ joke, but they stopped when they saw that his face was serious.
“You’re not serious!” exclaimed a woman sitting a few desks back from Nikita, with a mixture of mirth and incredulity on her face.
The rest of the office laughed, even Sykes allowing himself a rare smile. It made the laughter lines crinkle around his eyes beneath his bushy eyebrows, giving him a much softer look than the strained one he usually sported. “I’m afraid I am, Chang. Direct orders,” he said as he pulled out a pack of Marlboros from the pocket of his shirt, tapped out a cigarette and lit it up, closing his eyes momentarily. Nikita had noticed that when the chief was smoking was the only time the vein in his temple stopped throbbing.
“But… but… sir… you… they… can’t name the world’s most secret agent after a cocktail,” she stuttered, her slender eyebrows lifted in an arch of what was now purely incredulity.
“A Black Russian is a cocktail too, Chang, you moron,” shouted Rodney, an overweight man with pale brown hair and a patchy beard, sitting near the front of the room.
“Since when?”
“Since always!”
Chang flushed and crossed her arms.
“The Black Russian does sound cooler though,” Nikita said kindly, winking at Chang.
She smiled at him, and he felt the blood rush to his face making him grateful for one of the first times in his life that he had dark skin.
“Well of course you’re going to say that,” said Rodney, smiling. A shocked silence descended upon the room, as everyone stared at the obese man with his shirt half untucked.
Suddenly he widened his eyes. “No, that isn’t what I meant! Honestly,” he looked pleadingly around. “I meant because it’s Jake… and Chang…” he floundered, as Nikita and Chang hastily looked down at the floor, a low blush perceptible on her honey-coloured skin. Rodney tried to sit up and leant too heavily on the arm of his chair which gave way under his considerable weight and the chair toppled over sideways.
Everybody laughed, and Sykes said, “Looks like Steinberg just volunteered to buy everyone cocktails tonight; I’ll leave it to you to decide if you want White Russians or Black Russians, whatever the hell one of those is.”
“Sorry, Jake, man,” said Rodney, red and sweaty in the face. His face full of apology; it was easy to see why he had never been made a field agent. No emotion could be hidden from his round face.
“No problem, man. I’ll see you at the bar for that drink you’re buying me,” he replied with a wink.
Sykes took another draw on his cigarette, and while exhaling signalled to Nikita and Blaine. “Sarah, Jacob, Blaine, in my office now.”
Blaine and Nikita looked at each other perplexed. Nikita and Chang avoided each other’s gaze as the trio made their way to the office. “This cannot be good,” said Blaine.
“Why not?” said Chang.
“Dude, he never uses our first names. And nobody calls you Sarah.”
“Good point.”
They entered the glass-fronted office. “Close the blinds, Lahart,” said Sykes as he closed the door behind them.
Blaine and Chang took the two seats in front of his desk and Nikita stood just behind them.
Sykes stubbed out his cigarette in a marble ashtray on his desk, and immediately pulled out the Marlboros again. “Smoke, anyone?”
“Thank you, sir,” said Sarah Chang, pulling one delicately from the squashed red and white packet. Nikita and Blaine held up their hands in refusal.
As the two smokers lit up, the room filled with gentle clouds of smoke snaking their way towards the ceiling. It
had taken some time for Nikita to adjust to being in smoky rooms all the time; it had been strictly prohibited during his training. Although many of his fellow agents had found ways to sneak them through Denisov’s routine security checks, he had never felt any urge to partake, and felt even less now. The smell of cigarettes clung to clothes, and could give targets a heads up of his approach if the wind was moving against him. Already he had to clean thoroughly before any mission to ensure the stench of tobacco had been washed away.
Sykes leant back in his chair. “Where are we at?” he asked.
The trio looks nonplussed. “With what?” said Chang in her usual direct fashion.
“With making a connection between your three cases.”
“You never said nothing about a connection between our three cases, Gordon,” said Blaine nonchalantly.
“Call me Gordon again and see what happens, Lahart,” said Sykes coldly. “You’re all working in the goddam Soviet Counter-intelligence Branch; there’s a fairly obvious connection right there. For Chrissake you’re meant to be the best of the best.”
There was silence.
“Lahart, you’re looking into whether the Russians are meeting their disarmament requirements. Marshall, you’re investigating Yerin and the KGB’s movements, and Chang you are trying to find out if this White Russian exists, and now have the full weight of the CIA behind you. The connection between the last two should be plainly obvious at the least. You have to all start working together if we are ever going to get anywhere.”
“Sorry, Gor… Chief, but I don’t see how the INF Treaty has anything to do with other two,” said Blaine. “The treaty was signed months ago and there’s no indication at this point that they’re not doing everything they are supposed to. My eyes on the ground there tell me they’ve been following the protocol outlined in the treaty so far.”
“Take a step back from it for a minute. After years of back and forth, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty finally gets signed just weeks after Secretary Conlan, the one key vocal opponent to it, dies. No matter how natural it seems to be, that alone should have set our alarm bells ringing and it didn’t at the time because we all wanted the treaty signed so badly.”
“I do see what you’re saying but I’ve looked into it and there was no hint of foul play in the coroner’s report,” said Chang. “I’ve found absolutely nothing so far to suggest that the Bl— the White Russian even exists,” she said with an arched eyebrow.
“The same on my front with the KGB,” added Nikita. “No unusual activity to report from any of my investigations on the movements of all key officials.”
Sykes slammed his liver-spotted hand down on the table. “Come on, guys! Are we the CIA or some two-bit private investigator? Tell me that you can’t see how what you’re all working on is connected? If there is even a hint that the Soviet Union is not keeping to the disarming requirements of the treaty then it’s a major and direct threat to our national security. For some reason, the FBI wanted to tell the president about this at a point when we have no proof, and now the pressure is on all of us. If we don’t get answers it’ll be all of our asses on the line.”
“What do you want us to do, boss?” asked Nikita.
“Go and do your goddam jobs!” said Sykes, the vein now bulging again at his temple, and his neck corded. He opened the door and beckoned them out. “Get me some sort of a lead by the end of the week.”
The other two walked back to their desks but Nikita excused himself and went to the bathroom. Locking the cubicle door behind him, he pushed the toilet seat lid down and sat down on it. He put his head in his hands and rubbed his weary eyes. It was what he had feared. They were asking for too many assassinations, and no matter how natural he made them look, it no longer took a genius to make the connection.
He got up, left the bathroom, headed back to his desk and spent the remainder of the afternoon deep in thought for how to salvage the situation while it was still based on suspicions and nothing more concrete.
He was still distracted and gazing blindly at his computer screen when home time loomed and Blaine gave him a nudge. “Jake! Anybody home?”
Nikita started slightly. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Home time man, are we bound for the bar? Rodney’s buying, remember!”
“Yeah, sure. I’m gonna have to catch you up though, just got a couple of things I need to wrap up here.”
“Well don’t take too long, it’s hard enough getting Rodney to prize his wallet open at the best of times. I’m not even sure he has a wallet,” said Blaine with a grin.
“No chance I’m missing that, buddy, be right behind you.”
He waited as they all filtered out before gathering up his belongings, slinging his bag over his back and heading out through security. He walked swiftly through the car park to his grey Ford Sierra. It was in gear before the door had even closed. He drove into town and stopped at the first payphone he saw. He put a nickel into the slot and began dialling the number he had memorised. Just before he hit the final number he hesitated, and then put down the receiver.
Never deviate from procedure.
He took a deep breath. He was allowing himself to get spooked and that was not something he could afford to do. That is when mistakes were made, like calling his handler from the first payphone available on the route into town from the CIA headquarters.
“Yoptel-mopsel,” he cursed himself in Russian under his breath, and went back to the car. He drove further into town before turning down a side street and pulling over. Feeling under the driver seat, he pulled out a short stick of chalk. He left the car and walked back to the main road, and bent down next to a low blue mailbox at a busy crossroads to tie his shoelace. On his way back up he drew his hand across the side of the mailbox and left a wide chalk stripe diagonally across it above the USPS logo. Sometimes the old ways were the safest. Now he must be patient.
Leaving his car where it was, he walked the three blocks to the bar where his colleagues awaited him. A sign outside read ‘Happy Hour’, which explained why the bar was so crowded when he entered. He spotted his friends packed into a booth at the rear of the bar, but avoided catching their eye and aimed instead for the bar. He needed a drink before he spoke to anyone this evening.
He pushed his way through the throng at the bar until he found a small space at the front.
He caught the eye of a mixed-race barmaid in figure hugging jeans and a black vest top, with whom he had been gently flirting for the past few months. She smiled warmly at him and mouthed ‘one minute’ as she fetched a couple of Budweisers out of the fridge for a girl further down the bar. He smiled and nodded back at her.
He felt so tightly wound and irritable; the noise of the bar was making his head throb and people were pushing and shoving behind and either side of him to get space at the bar. Squeezed and constricted, his heart rate increased; he felt ready to snap.
Closing his eyes, he forced himself to breathe and zone out. Control the emotions, he whispered in his mind. Be the water, not the wave.
“Jake… Jake?” The voice felt distant but loomed louder and his eyes snapped open. The roaring of the bar came back and he saw the barmaid standing in front of him.
“Everything OK, honey?” she asked with concern.
He blinked and smiled. “Sorry, Jess, I was a million miles away there. Tough day.”
“Anything I can do to make it better?” she asked with a wink, placing a soft hand on top of his.
“If happy hour includes bourbon, then you might just be my hero,” he said, laughing.
“I think I can manage that,” she said, turning to the optics behind her, before placing two double whiskeys in front of him.
He picked one up and threw it straight down. He exhaled and felt an immediate feeling of relaxation fall over him, right through to his fingertips.
Smiling at Jess again, he said, “Like I said, my hero,” as he handed her twenty dollars. “Keep the change.”
“Ho
w about I don’t keep the change and you take me out sometime,” she said, trying and failing to look nonchalant.
Now Nikita put his hand on hers, and pushed the twenty-dollar bill into her hand before tenderly closing it. “Trust me when I tell you that taking the money is by far the better choice for you,” he said, looking earnestly into her eyes and noticing that his American accent slipped slightly as he said her name.
“Maybe I’m a big girl who can make my own decisions,” she said with a mocking smile. “One day you’ll give in and go out with me!”
“I hope you’re right,” he said with a smile, before picking up his remaining whiskey and moving away through the crowds, eventually extricating himself and arriving at the booth where his colleagues were sitting.
“Was beginning to think you weren’t coming, man,” said Blaine, clapping him on the back, “Matthew, scootch over there,” he said to the short black man with baleful eyes next to him, as they moved along to create space for Nikita, and pushed a White Russian in front of him.
“Look who’s finally dragged himself away from the barmaid,” said Chang archly, sitting directly across from him, next to Rodney.
“Why do you care if he’s talking to the barmaid?” said a thin girl with long blond hair.
“Yes, Sarah, as Zara said, why do you care?” Nikita asked with a smile playing at the edge of his lips.
“I don’t care a bit,” replied Chang. “I just thought he preferred a better class of girl is all.”
Zara snorted and said, “Like you, you mean,” causing everyone to laugh and Chang to flush. Suddenly, Rodney started choking on an ice cube from his White Russian, providing a timely distraction for Nikita and Chang. Matthew started pounding on his back with all his might and the ice cube was eventually dislodged, shooting across the table and onto the floor.
“Dude, you aren’t supposed to try and eat a White Russian,” said Matthew as Rodney leant on his arms gasping for breath, White Russian dribbling right down the front of his shirt.