Never Look Back

by Ridley Pearson

  “The 1134 or the 1137. Yes. And we should have the XN—125 available to show him the saline effects, don’t you think?”

  “Excellent.” Stuhlberg pushed his stool away from the microscope and rubbed his eyes. “Would you mind wrapping up for me?”

  “Not at all,” Mellissa Sherman said genuinely, and began the work. The recombinant bacteria was held in small glass petri dishes. She wore thin plastic gloves, as did Stuhlberg.

  He asked, “Isn’t it remarkable that something so small may soon solve one of mankind’s largest problems?”

  “It’s exciting, is what it is.” She looked into Stuhlberg’s gray eyes and wondered what it was like inside that mind. “And you created it, Doctor. You should be very proud.”

  He smiled, his fillings glistening. “I wouldn’t go that far, dear. All I did—we did—was to alter it. He created it.” Stuhlberg grinned reverently. “He created everything. He guided us as we struggled along here.” Another assistant turned to listen. “There was a time in my life, Mellissa… when I was about your age… and I saw where the world was headed… that madman and his Third Reich. I fought those people. I fought with my heart, mind, and body. They had killed my two aunts, an uncle, my brother-in-law, and my father—God rest his soul. I vowed that someday, rather than fight, I would try to make a positive contribution to society….” He was unstoppable now. The remaining assistant turned to listen. Stuhlberg never rambled like this—had never mentioned his past. Curiosity hushed the room. “And I don’t mean teaching or writing books. Academia was fine for a while, but as I grew older I desperately wanted to honor that vow I had made so long ago. I wanted this….” He looked around the lab and now noticed he was the center of attention, which clearly embarrassed him. “Oh my,” he exclaimed, “it would seem I’ve made a spectacle of myself.”

  Mellissa Sherman said, “We’re all very proud, Doctor—proud to be working with you… to be part of it—”

  “Hear, hear,” agreed one of the assistants as he applauded Stuhlberg. The two others joined in the applause and Dr. Eric Stuhlberg looked to each of his three assistants, his smile wide and profound, thinking, I couldn’t have done it without all of you. He then hung his head, and Mellissa Sherman kissed his silver hair.

  Dr. Eric Stuhlberg was weeping.

  10:00 A.M.

  Montreal, Canada

  A small jet flew from Andrews Field to Mirabel airport in Montreal, and arrived at ten o’clock on an overcast Friday morning. From there Andy was driven into the city by a small man who wore a black chauffeur’s uniform and who seemed indefatigably satisfied with life. He struck Andy as the sort of man who would have made a good preacher, for his mouth moved incessantly and his words were filled with great expectation. The car’s radio played an instrumental version of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” and this made the passenger smile.

  From an underground garage, Andy rode an elevator to the sixth floor. He was greeted by a man wearing an aide’s aiguillette and shiny brown boots. After a polite welcome, he was led down several hallways, past two security checks, to General Gustav Molière’s office.

  It was a small museum: a collection of nineteenth-century firearms adorned the west wall, and on the east wall hung a stuffed Canada goose next to a mounted eighteen-pound steelhead trout. The room’s colors were masculine, and it smelled like sweet oil. A desk lamp with a jade-green glass shade cast a warm light across Molière’s face, which was creased with folds of skin and featured a large nose flanked by big round eyes. The General rose to greet his guest. Andy introduced himself as George Baker. They shook hands and then both sat down.

  After a few minutes of polite conversation, Molière handed Andy a maroon folder from his cluttered desk and settled back into the thickly cushioned throne. “You may read through this, non? But if you would prefer, I think, I can save for you the time.”

  Molière was of another era—both noble and full of a sense of history—his presence captivating. “After the incident at Dorval last night, we did the usual checking of ground transportation, et cetera, but with little luck. We know our subject traveled by taxi into midtown, to a Hotel St. Jacques, but from there he was on foot. He planted a false lead with the doorman.

  “This led to an investigation of the bus lines. One driver remembered him vaguely, but couldn’t be certain. We then searched Old Montreal—the end of the route, and a likely place for a person to try and hide—but I am afraid, made no contact. However, to my delight—though I must admit my subordinates view this skeptically—around three this morning, a Peugeot was reportedly stolen from an area only four blocks from where the bus line ends… and now has been discovered, only minutes ago, three blocks from the Central Station: our downtown rail station. So, you see, we may be closer than we think.”

  “He’s on the run. That’s good. He’ll need backup. Anything from your undercover people?”

  “We are full with the reports. Due to the papal visit our energies for the last two months have been aimed at avoiding any possible terrorist threat to the Pope. In that regard, we have, of course, collected a voluminous amount of undercover-reported activities. On the international view, I would say,” he explained, shuffling through some folders and finally examining the papers in one of them, “the only pertinent information would be the alleged arrival of two Bulgarian Aeroflot employees whom I am certain you have heard about.” Andy nodded and Molière took a moment to light another cigarette, sip some water, and continue. “Other than Dragonfly last night, well here, you take a look.” Molière leaned forward, grunting quietly, and handed Andy another thin maroon folder marked in a French code that Andy did not understand. Fifteen entries of known international criminals and suspected agents lined the page, none of whom had any legal right to be in Canada. Most were marked with detention periods and dates of extradition; five were marked as Present Whereabouts Unknown, an asterisk and reference number alongside each. One of these read, “Nicholas Testler aka Kubler aka Brine.” Andy read it twice and swallowed his urge to question Molière about the man. The report indicated Testler had been back and forth between Detroit and Montreal a number of times, but had yet to be apprehended. Although an odd son of a bitch, Testler had provided Andy with helpful information on more than one occasion. Testler had an uncanny knack of knowing everything about everyone. Andy feared that mentioning the man might draw attention to him, and thus lessen Andy’s chances of finding and using him. So he said nothing.

  “So, we wait,” Andy stated, leaning forward and handing Molière a photographic enlargement. “Maybe this will help. You could circulate it among your border stations. We are doing the same at ours.”

  “Qu’est-ce que c’est? Excuse me, wh—”

  Interrupting the translation, Andy said, “C’est son bag. Il y à une tache au coin,” with perfect inflection. It is his suitcase. It has a mark in the corner.

  Molière smiled. He studied the photograph—an enlargement of a computer enhancement.

  At first glance it looked no different than any other Samsonite; but two inked-in arrows pointed out the difference: a deep scratch bisected the upper corner of the bag, most likely the result of hasty baggage handlers. The rut created a perfect triangle with the bag’s top corner. It was as distinct as a fingerprint, as individual as a signature. And it marked Leonid Borikowski’s suitcase.

  Andy went first to the train station and then to where the Peugeot was parked. Two detectives still worked inside the small car. They were tearing it apart. When Andy first touched the car he could feel Borikowski; he knew the agent had been in the car.

  But he also felt strangely misplaced here, as if living someone else’s life, and wondered if the assignment was indeed well placed in his hands. He wondered about his own intentions and motivations, and questioned the validity of them, not knowing if he was here to please Terry Stone, himself, or his brother.

  Back at the hotel Andy tried to contain his impatience by playing chess against the computerized chessboard
he traveled with. But he couldn’t help thinking of Duncan, and of Duncan’s killer. In his contemplation, he had decided that, yes, he hated Leonid Borikowski. And he owed him—if lives and deaths can be counted on balance sheets like so much small change. He owed him—or so he had let himself believe for nearly two years.

  But who’s counting?

  He dressed for a run.

  11:28 A.M.

  Autoroute 40, Canada

  The winter storm hovered above the Montreal sky. Falling snow hid the spires of the Basilica of Mary, Queen of the World. A young couple strolled by. An icicle hung from a streetlamp. An Audi sedan pulled out of heavy traffic and came to a stop in a no-parking zone in front of the basilica, skis and poles in the roof rack. Behind the slapping wipers loomed an oval face, blurred by the running water of the snow melting against the glass. The headlights, dim in the afternoon light, blinked once.

  Borikowski appeared from nowhere.

  He glanced into the car through both side windows. The back seat was empty, as was the passenger seat in front. He opened the door and tossed in his suitcase, which she helped onto the back seat. A moment later he fastened his seat belt and looked over at her.

  She wore a lawn green jacket flecked with white wool, open against a loose cranberry blouse revealing an enticing bit of smooth-skin cleavage. Her pants were mauve cashmere. The fabric reminded Borikowski of the woman he had murdered at Dorval.

  His voice was ragged from the cold, his facial muscles taut. “Autoroute 40, south.”

  “Our good-bye didn’t last long.”

  “No,” he returned. I don’t like you already, he thought. I don’t like working with other people and I especially don’t like pretty young women who cause my imagination to run wild. I wish you’d go away.

  She drove the Audi through an intersection and turned right into lighter traffic.

  Lydia Czufin, for all her apparent calm, felt dizzy with excitement. She had been preparing for this assignment for a long time, yet had never expected the legendary Durzhauna Sigurnost agent to require her assistance. She had thought their meeting last night had been the end to it. But there he sat, less than two feet away.

  She fought back a grin of delight.

  She knew Montreal well. She merged the Audi into the traffic on the Decarie Expressway, entered a tangled cloverleaf, and accelerated onto Autoroute 40, listening to the soft stroke of the wipers and wondering what he might say next.

  She deposited a paper sack onto his lap.

  He peered inside without a word and removed a box of a special plaster-saturated gauze. “We’ll need a motel room,” he said in Vogel’s high German. “Stop as soon as possible.”

  “There are a dozen motels—”

  “No Russian!” he snapped. “I am Dr. Franz Vogel, you are my wife. We are German! We speak German, French, and English! No Russian!”

  Stunned by his outburst, Lydia struggled to maintain her composure. Her strength was self-control, and she used it conscientiously now to avoid an ugly encounter. She started again in perfect high German. “There are a dozen motels over the next fifteen kilometers, but if I may offer an opinion, I think we should wait until Brockville or one of the other outlying towns. The Mounties and Security Service have a stronghold on this area of Montreal—informants everywhere. By the time we reach Brockville—you see, it comes under the authority of the Provincial Police—it should be safer.”

  “Very well,” Borikowski said, unhappy with the delay, but acquiescing.

  They drove for ninety minutes with little conversation, only occasional glances. Inspections. Leonid Borikowski was not without reputation, even a degree of fame—something nearly unheard of in Soviet Bloc intelligence.

  Now realizing she had become a part of it, she expected the operation to help her career, maybe even lead to another promotion. So her attention fixed on doing everything right—the first time. She longed to shop the nicer Moscow stores reserved for officers of higher rank, to move into an apartment that had a full kitchen and no rats. This is special, she thought, not allowing her eyes to travel back onto him. A rare opportunity. I must take full advantage. But he is hard-edged and even more strict than I had expected. Treat him delicately, woman, she instructed herself. He liked you last night. Remember how important his first impression is.

  Lydia Czufin had always been made aware of her astounding beauty by her father and mother, both of whom were dedicated Party members. Her father had been an army officer—a policeman—in Moscow, her mother a clerical secretary in the Kremlin. She was 100 percent Russian.

  And yet, as much as she had tried, she could not deny her appreciation of cities like Montreal and Paris, where a woman was free to shop any store, where there were no rations on food.

  Her father died tragically in a Soviet prison, a convicted murderer. Lydia had been old enough to understand that her father’s temper had destroyed him. Jealousy. The same temper that had forced her to avoid boys, despite the arguments of her mother, to live away from life. And then, following his death, her mother had pulled the only strings left available to her and managed to place her daughter in the KGB, an organization that would allow travel, allow her daughter to see the people and places of the world, to leave the city that held memories of confinement and a father who tried too hard to be someone he wasn’t.

  Her first foreign assignment was Paris, where she had posed as a model. Six months ago, at the age of twenty-three, she had returned home to her mother with questions about men. She had confessed she had slept with one while on duty in Paris. What she did not mention was that there had been another. And another. Some chemical change had taken place, which she did not fully understand. Yes, something had changed dramatically. Down there. It was all she thought of anymore: down there. A constant desire had taken her, a physical desire, and she imagined that this was how drug addicts felt.

  Always wanting more.

  The two women had had a long talk together.

  Now, she remembered again the last bit of advice her mother had given her before she had left for Canada: “Lyditchka, most men want only one thing from a woman—especially a pretty woman—and they are willing to promise anything to get to it. Anything. Remember, promises are nothing but words.” Then she had looked even more deeply into her daughter’s eyes and had demanded, “If you give to them what they want, Lyditchka, make certain they keep their promises.”

  But her mother had been concerned with long-lasting love; and Lydia was not concerned with this at all, no, only with physical pleasure. Ohhh… the pleasure of it. Recently, what she called her “itch” had become greater. But that was fine. She had since learned of ways to please herself, and these felt almost as good. Sometimes better.

  She and Borikowski drove, through the storm clouds and into winter sunshine where the green-blue water of the St. Lawrence River was broken by the wakes of a few tugs and their barges. The two were impersonating the Vogels—a married couple on vacation in this rich and beautiful country—and for a short stretch of time it actually felt that way.

  But then she slowed the Audi down, a turn signal blinking.

  Brockville.

  The small motel was a glorified row of cinder block cubicles, identical but for the number on the door. Mrs. Vogel registered with the pale and balding man in the office, explaining casually—as was her forte—that her husband needed a nap, that they would not be staying the night but were happy to pay for a full day. The manager, stimulated by her unusual beauty, fantasized what her partner actually had in mind. Others had used these rooms for an hour or two: lovers who were unfaithful, travelers bored with the highway but not with each other, teenagers experimenting with newfound sensations. The balding man had his own sickness, and witnessed these encounters from unseen vantage points behind certain walls and curtains. He had watched them undress each other, fondle each other, sweat in each other’s arms. A sickness he lived with. And he could scarcely wait to devour this beautiful woman’s body. A sheen broke out
across his brow, and his groin throbbed with anticipation.

  As she pulled the Audi around to a parking space, Lydia asked, “Will we be driving all night?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “If you do not mind, I would like to change clothes. I am too warm. I will not take long.”

  “I don’t mind. Why should I mind?” Borikowski questioned in a perturbed voice. She’s controlling you already, he warned himself. Be careful.

  “Thank you. Room seven.”

  The room was a modest attempt at comfortable accommodations. A sole queen-size bed dominated the small space. Two quaint prints of the St. Lawrence hung on the wall. A television set, the name rubbed off by insistent fingers, sat atop a veneered chest of drawers.

  The door to the bathroom was between the bed and a row of curtained windows on the far wall. The room smelled of pine disinfectant. He placed his suitcase on the floor, drew the drapes shut, and removed the box of gauze.

  Lydia brought him a towel and an ice bucket partially filled with warm water.

  Borikowski had removed his pants. He soaped and shaved his right leg. He read the instructions on the box of plaster.

  “If I may?” she said, interrupting his concentration.

  “Yes. What is it?”

  “You seemed to take particular notice of the radio news when they ran the brief story on the woman killed at Dorval last night, and yet you hardly seemed concerned at all by the story on the two Bulgarians they are chasing.”

  He had no idea he had been so obvious. “Very well. The woman… she was a rover. I killed her.

  “As for the two Bulgarians.” He laughed. “It would be my guess they are my cover. You understand? After Rome, the Pope will not be dealt with again. In my opinion that shooting was a warning. If they had wanted him dead, that’s exactly how he would be. The two others… I believe… were merely created to draw attention from my entry.”

  “Yes. So sorry for asking.”