Liberation movements tyb-4

by Olen Steinhauer

  Father Janssen, whose real name was something entirely different, was eating an egg sandwich at the organ’s stool. He looked like he didn’t appreciate the interruption of his lunch.

  “Evet?”

  Peter glanced around, but they were alone. He said in clear English, “Are you Father Janssen?”

  The priest squinted and laid down his sandwich. “Again?”

  “Again what?”

  “I am called Father Janssen.”

  “Has the harvest come down from the mountains?”

  Father Janssen shook his head. “This isn’t an armory, you know.”

  “Of course. I just know that-”

  “Your people already have it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. Someone came this morning and picked it up. I haven’t had time to replace it.”

  “Who?”

  “How should I know? I don’t even know who you are.” He wagged a finger at Peter. “And I don’t want to know.”

  It was simple bad luck. Poor timing. As he made his way south again, back across the Galata toward his hotel, he almost found it amusing that even such a straightforward cleanup operation could always, in a city like this, unravel.

  He could still get hold of a pistol, but it would take time. He could walk to the Kapali Carsisi and search for the men who floated on the edge of the Grand Bazaar’s teeming crowds, their eyes attuned to extravagant tourists and undercover policemen. He’d find one who looked willing, then explain his need. A meeting would be arranged, somewhere discreet, and terms would be established. The price-that would require an hour of hateful but obligatory haggling. Then, and only then, would a final meeting be arranged. But by that point it would probably be too late; the queer would have made his way to another city.

  At least he’d had the foresight to bring along the old hunting knife he’d acquired seven years ago. He’d brought it for sentimental reasons, as he always did when leaving the country for work, but never thought that he’d have to depend on it to kill Adrian Martrich.

  Katja

  I didn’t plan it. Not really. It was something that had to be done. I needed an escape, and this man, this soldier-he was the opportunity. Do you know what I mean? This guy, you see, he had everything. He had an apartment and a girl he was going to marry. He had a life. What did I have? I didn’t have a thing. Do you think that’s fair? Do you think I was any less brave than him? I told you what I did, what I did to my own friends. Did Stanislav ever have the courage or the presence of mind to do what I did? No, because he never had to. This is what I couldn’t accept. Because of circumstances beyond our control, he was someone, and I was not. So I took that drunk bastard out of that bar, I went with him to the Charles Bridge, and I stabbed him. I took his papers, his keys, and his money.

  Don’t think I enjoyed it. I was only doing what was necessary. But at the same time I didn’t shy from it. I can admit to some confusion, yes. And at the border I was not as composed as I would have liked. But the border guards didn’t notice, nor did they stare too closely at the photo in his passport. That’s the funny thing. It wasn’t me in that picture, but they didn’t even realize. And I understood then that there are more things possible in this world than we realize. With a straight face and a bit of courage you can do anything.

  I dial with shaking fingers and listen to the monotone ring. Then he answers.

  “Aron?”

  “Katja? Is that you? Where the hell are you? I’ve been-”

  “I’m not in town. I just…how are you?”

  “What do you mean, how am I? I’ve been worried sick. No one in the Militia knows where you are, and that chief of yours, Emil, he called asking if you were at home-where are you?”

  “Listen, Aron, I can’t tell you about it now. But I’m okay. I’m fine.”

  “You’re having an affair, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  “That Ministry guy you always talk about. Gavra. He’s gone missing, too. I’m not a fool.”

  That gives me pause, because I can’t imagine how he could suspect such a thing-where is this coming from? I say, “Sometimes you are a fool, Aron,” but really, he’s not. Not at all. Had Gavra ever given me the slightest sign, I would have slept with him without a second thought.

  He tries to think through his words. “I know we have our problems, Kati. Hell, we have more than most. But this isn’t the way to deal with them.”

  “I’m not having an affair.”

  “Whatever you want to call it, I don’t care. Just come home, okay? We’ll work it out.”

  I even smile to myself then. Aron is wonderful at deluding himself and making things sound so easy. We’ve been trying for three years to work out our problems, and it’s the hardest thing in the world. “I just wanted you to know I was all right.”

  “Come home, Katja.”

  Despite the smile, I’m choking up. He can hear the soft sound that always precedes my tears, and it gives him hope. He thinks it’s a sign I’m weakening. But he’s never been able to read me because I’ve never taught him how.

  “It’s not a problem, Kati. Really. You come home and we’ll talk. We’ll take a vacation together. I’ll talk to my supervisor and arrange time off. But you have to come home first.”

  Aron will never understand. So I say, “I’ll see you in a few days. Okay?”

  “Now.”

  “A few days.” Then, almost as an afterthought: “And I love you.”

  “Christ, Kati.”

  I hang up and get off the bed and walk past the tape player out to the terrace, where the sun has set over minarets and domes and decomposing Ottoman rooftops. A hot, stinky breeze rises from the street, bringing with it the choked sound of automobiles and shouting vendors. I’m shaking. Maybe that’s only because I haven’t eaten a thing all day.

  The telephone rings. I look at it from the terrace for a while before coming back inside to get it.

  “Hello?”

  “Katja, it’s me.”

  “How did you get this number? I didn’t tell you where I was.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Katja. Did you see him today?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Just know that he’s changed hotels. He’s now in the Erboy. Ebusuud Caddesi, number 32. Under the name Ryzsard Knopek. Room 512.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  “Because he reported in, Comrade Drdova.”

  “I see.”

  Brano Sev hangs up.

  Gavra

  Once Katja had slammed the door on her way out, Adrian gave him a kiss on the cheek, took his beer-stained shirt from him, and soaked it in the bathroom sink. Gavra poured vodkas in the kitchen and brought them to the bathroom, where he sat on the toilet.

  “Not going to tell me either?” said Adrian, as he squeezed the shirt and plunged it back in the water.

  Gavra downed his vodka. “I’m sorry.”

  “State secrets and all that?”

  “And all that.” He left to refill his glass.

  In the kitchen, Gavra wondered again why he did this job. Unlike Brano Sev, he was a man without belief-in the promise of socialism, or even the maintenance of world peace. And no matter what he believed, the job was never about such grandiose ideals. It was always like this, like standing in an apartment waiting for a phone call asking you to kill a man you’ve made love to. While he’d never before been asked to do this particular thing, it wasn’t so different from the lies he’d been asked to hand out to enemies of the state, the gradual confidence tricks he’d used to ensnare political opponents-tasks that often left him with a hole in his stomach that could only be filled by shots of hard liquor.

  He had nothing else; that was true. He’d ostracized his family long ago and given himself up to the strange solitude of the Ministry for State Security, which had become the only world he knew. But was this reason enough to stay?

  Adrian laid the wet shirt on the radiator and placed his empty g
lass on the kitchen table for Gavra to refill. Then he pulled up a chair and sat with his legs crossed at the knee.

  “You’ve been lying to me,” said Gavra.

  “Have I?”

  “You know more than you’ve let on, and it’s going to have to end. Now.”

  Adrian looked into his glass, rotating it with his fingertips. “She called me.”

  “Who? Zrinka?”

  He nodded but didn’t speak. When he sniffed, Gavra understood.

  “She called you from the airport.”

  “Yes,” he said. “She called to say good-bye. And to give me instructions. To tell me things she said I didn’t need to understand but should only do.” He looked up at Gavra. “I trust my sister. My sister was a saint.”

  “Tell me what she said.”

  “Can I have another?”

  Gavra refilled his glass.

  He sipped. “She knew she wouldn’t survive that plane ride, and she knew what would follow. She said that I would meet a man-you-and that we would become very close. She even used the word ‘love.’”

  Gavra waited.

  “She told me that I should do two things, and she told me when to do them. Exactly when.”

  “To do what?”

  “The first thing I’ve done. I did it a few hours ago. I took Katja to where you went today. Tolar Street, number 16.”

  Gavra pressed his forehead with a palm. “What?”

  “I don’t know why. She told me to take Katja there at precisely three o’clock on Monday the twenty-eighth of April, and wait. Just wait. So I did. Katja didn’t want to go, but I told her it was important-important for her to understand things. We went and sat in the car. I didn’t know what to expect. And then the door opened and you left with Brano Sev. He drove you somewhere. That surprised her, but she still didn’t understand. She asked me again why we were there, but I didn’t know what to say. Then the door opened again, and we saw a small, tough-looking guy come out, followed by another man. He had a very thin mustache. That was it. You should have seen her face. It was-it was unbelievable. She almost wept. We watched them drive off. Then I brought her back here. That’s why she was so upset when you wouldn’t tell her anything. That’s why she got you wet.”

  The light in the apartment was failing, and Gavra had trouble seeing Adrian’s face clearly. “Your sister,” he said. “She told you this?”

  “Yes,” he said. “She has a knack for knowing things.”

  “Had.”

  Adrian nodded. “Had.”

  “How did she know Katja? Or me? Did she meet us?”

  “No,” said Adrian. “She just knew.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not asking you to believe anything, Gavra. I’m just telling you what happened.”

  “What’s the second thing?”

  “What second thing?”

  “The second thing she asked you to do.”

  “What time is it?”

  Gavra checked his watch. “Quarter after six.”

  Adrian frowned, considering this. “It’s not time yet.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Okay,” said Adrian. “But don’t go doing anything. Just wait. Can you promise me that?”

  “I can’t promise you anything.”

  Adrian looked at Gavra’s shoes, which were dirty. “At eight, you’re going to get a call here. From Brano Sev. Wait for him to call. He will. When he calls, tell him that the hijackers were not a surprise. Not to Zrinka, and not to Ludvik Mas. And it was no coincidence that he put her on that particular plane. It was a test.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to understand, dear. The message is for Brano Sev, not you.”

  “I should call him now.”

  “No,” said Adrian. “That’s not how she planned it.”

  Gavra rubbed his eyes. He could hardly see a thing. “This doesn’t make any sense. How could she know these things?”

  “I told you, Gavra. She had a knack for knowing things. She always did, even when she was a child.”

  “So she wasn’t delusional?”

  “Of course not. Unlike most saints, my sister was never delusional.”

  “I need to think about this.”

  “Go ahead. Lie in bed, and I’ll cook us something to eat.”

  Gavra wasn’t sure what to do. Ludvik Mas’s story of a complex ruse to snare foreign agents played and replayed in his head. Was it possible that the real ruse was Zrinka Martrich herself-that she was, in fact, the real thing? Doctor Arendt had talked of “thought broadcasting,” the ability to influence other people’s actions, which was plainly impossible. Yet even the Russians had invested millions of rubles into such research. If it were true, then was Zrinka put through a test to stop a group of Armenian terrorists from hijacking a plane?

  “If she had some kind of… powers…then why didn’t she stop the terrorists?”

  Adrian stood up. “I don’t know. She told me she wouldn’t survive the flight. Maybe she didn’t want to survive it. Come on,” he said, rubbing Gavra’s shoulders. “Take a rest.”

  Despite himself, Gavra did what Adrian asked. He took off his dirty shoes and climbed into Adrian’s bed, blinking in the darkness. He could hear his host going through pots and pans, the puff of the stove being lit, the refrigerator opening and closing.

  He remembered what Ludvik Mas had said to someone on the telephone in Ataturk International: It does appear she didn’t play along. Then the urgent, confused voice of the Armenian hijacker:

  She said it. She’s one of yours. Yes. Because she knows even more. She told me. How did she know?

  He sat up and rubbed his face again just as the telephone in the other room rang. The clock beside the bed said seven thirty.

  Adrian’s surprised voice drifted back to him: “He’s early. ”

  Gavra went into the living room and approached the phone. Adrian was cooking chicken breast in a pan. “Go ahead. It’s for you.”

  On the seventh ring, Gavra picked it up.

  “Hello.”

  “Gavra,” said Brano. “I thought I should be the one to call, rather than Mas.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m afraid the order has come down from the Comrade Lieutenant General. About Adrian Martrich. You are going to have to do it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Listen, it doesn’t have to be you. I’ll come over and take care of it myself. I know how hard it can be, particularly when you’ve spent so much time with the subject.”

  Gavra blinked toward the kitchen, where Adrian whistled as he cooked. The subject. Ministry terminology drove him crazy. “I have a message for you,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It’s originally from Zrinka Martrich, before she died.”

  “A letter?”

  “No,” said Gavra. “She called her brother from the airport and asked him to pass a message on to you.”

  “Me?” Brano paused. “She used my name?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “But I never met-”

  “She seemed to know a lot of people she never met. I can’t explain it.”

  He could hear Brano Sev breathing. “What’s the message?”

  “That Ludvik Mas knew about the hijacking before it happened. And that’s why Zrinka was on that plane. It was a test.”

  “A test? What kind of test?”

  Gavra bit his lip. He didn’t know how to say this. “It seems that what Ludvik Mas told us was only partly true. The research was real, and Zrinka Martrich was…She had abilities that they wanted to use.”

  Brano didn’t speak for a moment. Gavra waited for him to say that this changed everything, that there was no need for him to kill Adrian Martrich. But Brano only said, “Thank you for the message.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What you asked me to do.”

  Brano’s breaths were very heavy as he considered this. �
��I’m afraid that doesn’t change. The order comes from the Lieutenant General, who no doubt knows everything already.”

  “But-”

  “Do you want me to come over?”

  “No, comrade,” said Gavra. “I’ll take care of it.”

  It was possible that he knew what he’d do while he was speaking to Brano, but more likely, he didn’t know until afterward as they sat over plates of chicken and fried potatoes in silence. Adrian didn’t ask a thing, only ate quietly, waiting for Gavra to say something. Finally he did.

  “Adrian, I want you to pack a suitcase and get your passport.” He paused, reconsidering. “Do you have an external passport?”

  “Of course,” said Adrian. “She asked me that as well.”

  Peter

  His walk north from the Sultan Inn was long and overly strenuous, his suitcase catching knees and earning him quick, dark looks. So, despite his desire for anonymity, he flagged a taxi at a crowded intersection and settled into the hot backseat.

  “Alo,” said the driver.

  “The Hotel Erboy.”

  Peter had been in the Ministry since 1968, brought in by the moderately legendary Colonel Brano Oleksy Sev. Stories went around about the peculiar small man who usually chose not to speak but instead leveled his piercing gaze on you until the nervousness shook you to pieces. Colonel Sev had arrived at the apartment and mistaken him for the other man-Comrade Private Stanislav Klym? In his shock, Peter had said, Yes?

  After that first week of security interrogations and the final uncovering of his true identity, Peter-now Ludvik Mas-spent a year training in those barracks outside Dibrivka, the “secret school” where the techniques of intelligence and subterfuge were reduced to dry lesson plans.

  He left the school fit and clearheaded and bursting with the desire to please, so he worked hard for two years at the menial intelligence jobs handed out to the lower ranks. Pick up this man. Camp out in this room and keep the audiotape recording. Take this package to there. Destroy these documents.