The Schoolboy (Agent Orange Book 2)

by Stephen Langford

  ***

  “You’re hardly ever on time, Harry,” the man at the café table said as he looked up at the new arrival.

  The two men were opposites in nearly every way, save that they were both spying against the West. Harry Haskins was dressed in a frumpy cabled cardigan with frayed sleeves and a button missing and of a purple hue that made him appear as a big fat grape. A gray T-shirt peeked out at Harry’s scruffy neck. His trousers and shoes were similarly worn and weathered. He sat down on the other side of the table already having procured a morning whiskey on his way in.

  By contrast, the man seated at the table with a cup of tea was the definition of dapper. His own cardigan was simple and black and form-fitting around his lean body. The white oxford shirt had been carefully pressed and thus matched his smooth shaved face and manicured nails. Harry might otherwise have thought of the man he knew as Jonathan as a dandy, except that he also knew of Jonathan’s reputation and proficiency as a killer.

  “It’s bloody early for me, that’s true,” Harry said. When the waiter stopped by, Harry ordered the full breakfast. “Might as well, seeing as you’re buying, ain’t you?

  Jonathan sipped his tea and looked hard at Harry. “Do try not to make a spectacle. The whole point is for us to remain hidden. Now, you called us together, and I hope for a good reason.”

  Harry tilted back the whiskey before answering. “Isn’t it always? Yes, sorry about that. It just made more sense this way since I have two items for you. Last evening I received a telegram from your friend in Poland—I know better than to ask any questions about that, but here is the message, but it looks like you might be headed to Italy very soon.”

  Jonathan accepted the slip of folded paper with a grimace. “It bloody well better not be before July third, or the fortnight ahead of it. And why didn’t you just put this in the newspaper, like you’ve been instructed?”

  “Although that’s an excellent question, the answer is simple. I kill two birds with one stone since the second item required us to meet here. I needed to report back how your man, the Romanian, had done at Mayfair. Now, between the two methods of our communication, the newspaper adverts and the in-person, I prefer the latter.”

  They were seated back in one corner of the downstairs café, away from most of the other patrons. Jonathan had his back to the wall and could survey anyone coming toward them. For the moment he was not concerned about being overheard.

  “Now, about your man, the Romanian.”

  “Yes?”

  “Cocked up, mainly,” Harry said with a bit of derision.

  “Meaning what?” Jonathan asked. He was more curious than worried that perhaps the Romanian had not completed his assignment at the Mayfair station. Doing so was not Jonathan’s assignment in the first place. And because it was not he wondered why Harry had even bothered to call them together. It had to happen occasionally, but every instance of it was another chance for the deadly odds of their profession to finally tip against him. He certainly hoped Harry had not begun to fantasize about being important, that he could change the rules and decide it was time to live more dangerously. Damn these English and their lack of precision.

  “Meaning, my friend, your man went and got himself killed,” Harry said. “I thought you said he was good, that he could do the job. So what’s it all about?”

  Jonathan’s steel-gray eyes flashed briefly at Harry’s insolence. Harry noticed the flinty glare and physically pulled back from the table but was then saved by the waiter stopping by to deliver a pot of tea and another cup. By the time he’d left, the dispassion had returned to Jonathan’s face.

  “First of all, he’s not ‘my man.’ I simply recommended him because he’d been good on a few jobs in the past. You’re the one who needed to ask for someone to do this. I didn’t even want to be involved. I was doing you the favor.”

  “Well, not me exactly—I’m only the happy cutout,” Harry said amiably. He understood his place in the pantheon of Soviet agents in Britain, that he was considered a bug next to Jonathan. He accepted his role as nothing more than a part-time courier. Even so, he did handle very important correspondence, including the recent messages from Poland. In fact, it was sort of a wonder that he even got to see Jonathan in person—or see him in person and live. Even part-time couriers had their place, he reckoned. Even bugs had a purpose.

  “What happened to the Romanian?” Jonathan asked.

  “As near as I can tell, he got into the Mayfair office just fine and then got into a fight with the target. Not sure why he didn’t simply shoot the bastard. Anyway, it must’ve been a knife fight or something because they both ended up stabbed. The Romanian died on the spot, and the target’s in a hospital bed—a secure floor by the way, in case you were interested in finishing the job.”

  “I have no inclination to get pulled into this,” Jonathan said. “None. Besides, wasn’t the whole thing a false flag, anyway? Kill the target to make it look like an outside attack instead of an inside job? My understanding is that our man could get into Mayfair anytime he wants.”

  “True,” Harry said. His breakfast arrived, and he made a happy production out of fashioning his napkin into a bib and pouring his tea. In the middle of chewing his first, substantial bite of food he continued. “I hear things, you know. And I hear maybe this kid—the Romanian’s target—is holding back material and working instead with the Americans. Oh, not a double or anything—he’s clean as a whistle in that respect. Maybe just protecting himself in the midst of all the rumors, you see.”

  “Well, the Romanian’s dead, so that’s that,” Jonathan declared. “Can’t be captured, can’t talk. And I know for a fact he can’t be tracked down—that’s why I used him myself.”

  Harry stabbed a thick sausage and took a bite almost up to the fork itself. “You ever think about what you’d do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, if you was caught. Would you talk?”

  Jonathan’s eyes flashed again at the uncouth man in front of him. He simply dabbed his mouth, stood, and dropped some pound notes on the table. “Just keep me informed about Poland.”

  “Of course,” Harry said. “Just so you know, I hear we might be rotating again. You might have to get used to somebody else.”

  “That would be a shame, Harry,” Jonathan said before he walked up and out of the restaurant.

  Harry watched through the café’s basement windows as Jonathan’s shoes stepped briskly along the street-level pavement and out of sight. Then he considered the breakfast—paid for already, no less—and smiled broadly down at it.

  This morning, life for Harry was good.

  ***

  “Luiza? Can you hear me?” Keeton pushed his finger against Luiza’s neck and felt that her pulse was still racing, despite the antidote having been administered with effect. She’d stopped moaning but in the meantime, soaked in perspiration, had passed out. They needed to get her moving quickly and leave the apartment, with its noisy gunshots and dead bodies.

  “Edgar’s little boyfriend brought a car,” Morel reported. He fished the keys from the dead man’s pocket. “Whenever you’re ready. I assume we’ll drop the girl off at her place—as discreetly as possible—and get the hell out of here. Poland, I mean. Busted operation.”

  “I already tried leaving once,” Keeton said. “After I realized Jakub was KGB. Said goodbye to her and thought that would be it. Then they grabbed me. Must’ve grabbed her just about the same time. Anyway, no. There are too many loose ends, starting with this.” He held up a sheet of paper that contained a scrambled message and the deciphered Russian version under it. They’d found it in Jakub’s coat pocket, in a yellow envelope. Keeton read it aloud.

  URGENT AND CAUTION. PASZEK DEFENDER NAME WALTER ZAN CONFIRMED, PICKED UP, INTERROGATED. WORKS AMERICAN EMBASSY. STUDENT UNIVERSITY WARSAW. ADMITS PASSING INFORMATION FROM CO-CONSPIRATOR KRAKOW. INVESTIGATE AND ACT AT WILL. PROFESSOR UNIVERSITY JAGIELLONIAN. NAME LUIZA ROLEK.

  �
�Yeah, OK,” Morel said. “We need to get the word to the embassy about this Walter kid, assuming he’s still alive.”

  “He is,” Keeton said. “The Russians have him under their thumb now and will use him as long as they can. But it won’t take too long for them to figure out Jakub’s off the board, at which point as a precaution they’ll cut Walter—hopefully that’s all they’ll do it him. Do Jakub’s bosses know about me or even Luiza? Could be. The best thing we can do for Walter is get him fired from the embassy job to show the Russians we know about him. They may keep watching him for a while, but at least he goes back to school, and it’s hands off for good.”

  “So we take care of Walter,” Morel said. “Fine, that works for something called the Cavalry. What else?”

  Keeton suddenly recognized the new layer of cynicism that Morel carried. He knew it was born of being surrounded by danger and death. The junior agent had just killed, an action that Keeton well knew left an indelible mark no matter the circumstance or justification. For a moment Keeton regretted ever bringing Morel into Cavalry fieldwork.

  “The biggest opportunity right now is to get over to Jakub’s place and take it apart, learn what we can about his mission here and how much progress he’s made.” He rummaged through Jakub’s coat and produced the apartment key. “He obviously got to Edgar and turned him. He’s running Kozlow, and that poor bastard doesn’t even know it. It looks to me like Jakub had convinced him that they were helping Paszek somehow or more likely that the bishop was bad for the country and eventually needed to be stopped. That last thing Jakub said has me worried that he’s got something cooking beyond just his Polish assets.”

  “Do we do anything else with Kozlow?” Morel asked.

  Keeton shook his head. “We won’t know until we get a look at Jakub’s place and see what he’s got there. Without Edgar, our support here seems nil, so for now we’re going to have to make do. What about Roy?”

  “Flew to Gdansk last night, looking for Tusk.”

  “Sending him was a stupid and vain mistake on my part,” Keeton said bitterly. “Can we get him back?”

  “He’s supposed to telegram me at the Serkowski today,” Morel answered. “Presumably we can answer and pull him back here.”

  Luiza mumbled something, and they turned their attention back to her. She came to and looked up at Keeton uncertainly. He knew she was wrestling with mixed emotions, what she had heard about him and his true identity and the reason for him being in Poland. At the moment he could not worry about that.

  “Let’s get her out to the car,” he told Morel. His watch read 7:10 a.m. The sun would be fully up by now. “Luiza, we need to get you out of here, for your own safety. Now listen, I’m going to help you up. For now, you’re coming with me.”

  “Who are you?” she asked softly.

  “I’ll explain later. We have to go.” With that he lifted her to her feet, and they followed Morel out of the room and down the narrow wooden stairs to a door that led to an alley. Morel went outside and returned with the car, the one driven by Rafal in Warsaw, pulling it carefully up to the door, so Keeton and Luiza could get quickly into the backseat. As they stepped into the alley, Keeton noticed the Mikrus parked nearby.

  “That’s Luiza’s car,” Keeton said. “They must’ve used it to get her over here. Check it.”

  “Keys are on the seat,” Morel called out. “I’ve got the map back to Jakub’s. Take the girl and follow me.”

  Keeton waved and helped Luiza into the backseat, then slid behind the wheel. Along the way he reassured her that it would be OK, that he would tell her what was going on and why they’d been kidnapped. By the time they pulled up to the curb at Jakub’s building, Luiza was lucid—and distant. Morel got in beside Keeton.

  “I’m not going in there,” she said defiantly. “Not until you tell me the truth.”

  “Luiza, please. I will explain but not out here.” Keeton tried to take her hand, but she pulled away. “I’m an American. I’m here to help the bishop; that’s my mission.”

  “Mission? So you’re some kind of soldier or spy.”

  “Yes, that’s right. So is he. So was Jakub but for the Russians, who are working to take down the bishop. The man who was torturing you was supposed to be on my side, but he turned out to be a traitor. Yesterday I left Jakub’s address for my partner here. Fortunately for us he was able to follow Jakub back to the apartment. If he hadn’t we’d be dead now—or more likely you’d be dead, and I would be on my way to Moscow to be questioned by the Russians, a lot harder than we were this morning.”

  “That about catches us up,” Morel said from his seat. “Can we get inside now?”

  Keeton looked at Luiza, who turned away for a few moments but then finally sighed and nodded. The men got out, and Keeton opened the back door for her. It was past seven o’clock, and pedestrians and traffic were beginning to pick up. Morel walked ahead and opened the building using a key they had recovered from Jakub’s coat. The second key would let them into his apartment. At the door, Morel stopped and checked the jamb and seams for any sign of a trap, then pulled his pistol before quietly turning open the bolt and walking in.

  The suite was small and spartan and reminded Keeton of the abandoned room they had just left. Spies were creatures of developed habits, and sometimes those routines kept one alive. He led Luiza to the couch, so she could continue to recover while Morel found the vodka and poured them both a drink.

  “We’re going to need some food soon, too,” Keeton said.

  Morel took a pull from the bottle, then a second one. “Yeah, but for now a liquid breakfast is good enough for me. Let’s get this started.” He began systematically turning over the room while Keeton continued to talk to Luiza.

  “So, you were using me?” she asked.

  “That’s more difficult to answer than you think,” Keeton answered. “My number one mission was to look after Bishop Paszek. But you’re letters to the embassy gave us valuable clues.”

  “Which is why you found me—in Warsaw.”

  Keeton nodded. “Yes. Edgar was working for the KGB; we don’t know for how long. It’s called a double agent. He helped me follow you from the hotel in Warsaw where you dropped off the latest letter. I pretended to be the guy it was for, and then I pretended that we met by chance.”

  “And the rest?” she asked bitterly.

  “That’s the difficult part. It started as nothing but the mission, but now…now it’s more than that.” Even Keeton himself didn’t know how true the statement really was. Luiza sighed again and shook her empty glass for a refill, then downed the drink and lay back on the couch with closed eyes.

  An hour later Keeton and Morel had uncovered the books that hid the onetime codes as well as some deciphered material from Jakub’s dead drops. They’d also assured themselves there were no bugs or recording devices secreted in the place. Apparently the yellow envelopes were used only to send codes through a dead drop to Jakub. A box of fresh blue envelopes indicated communication in the opposite direction. Keeton had read back through some of the previous notes, enough to see that Jakub had been in Poland for over a year. Morel had then found the book, disguised as a Polish travelogue, that held many pages of Russian, which Jakub had composed before scrambling them for a blue envelope back to Moscow. Soon they had arranged them all in chronological order. Morel held up a single sheet, the latest from Jakub.

  “Hey boss, this one is dated today—June 10. Must’ve been written up after the dinner.”

  “Tell me again about what happened when you got the note at the hotel,” Keeton said as he looked over the message, handwritten in Russian.

  “Right. We got back to the Serkowski, and the clerk gave us the addresses you’d left for us. So we worked on the code, and Roy left for Gdansk. I went back to your place looking for you. When you weren’t there I checked out Kozlow’s location, but it looked empty. Finally when I got to Jakub’s he was coming out for a walk, so I followed him. He did make two quick stops
along the way over to the horror show last night. By that time it was dark. Could’ve dropped this last message for an overnight or morning pickup. I marked the locations, and I think we could watch it easy enough and find out the drop points if we’re careful. Anyway, then Jakub went on to that empty building—the rest is—”

  “Yeah, I know. Thank you, by the way.”

  “I almost waited too long. I was just about to try to take down that big kid when the Russian came out to get him. The place was pretty easy to break into, and I listened at the door as best I could.”

  “Your timing was perfect,” Keeton said. He then translated the note, Jakub’s original communication before it had been coded using the cipher pad.

  06.06. URGENT NOTICE. CONTACT MADE WITH SUSPECTED PERSON ROLEK. ENTERED ANOTHER SUSPECTED WESTERN AGENT UNDER INVESTIGATION. DISRUPTION AND DELAY TO ECHO PLAN POSSIBLE. RECOMMEND ACTIVATE LONDON ASSET: RACKET. USE ORIGINAL DATE FOR ROME.

  “Rome. Second Vatican Council. Damn—this is exactly what the director and I talked about. OK, gather up all this material; we need to take it back to London. We also need to let the station chief in Warsaw know about Edgar. Maybe they can uncover some additional details from his files. Let’s hope Edgar is as far as it goes for now. If there are more Edgars in country we’re in trouble either way.”

  “What about the mess?” Morel asked. He meant the four dead bodies.

  “I’ve thought about it,” Keeton answered. “To hell with all of them. Here’s what I want you to do. Take Edgar’s car back, and park it in the alley like it was. Wipe down your gun, and put it in Edgar’s hand. Take the gun Edgar had—it was not a standard issue—and put it in Rafal’s hand. Make it all look like a scene that went bad. The police will figure out there must’ve been a fifth person involved, but by that time, with any luck, we’ll be long gone.

  “And the girl?”

  I’ll take care of her,” Keeton said. “When you’re done over there arranging the scene, leave by the alley’s east side and walk three blocks south. I remember seeing a little café on the corner called Tomaszewski’s. Drink coffee until I pick you up. In the meantime I’m going to write up a note for the dead drop, to get Luiza off the hook. I hope your idea about watching those locations pans out. We’ll do that part together. Got it all?”