Never Look Back

by Ridley Pearson

  Lyell put his faith in body language and habits of speech, and as a result, knew some things about Ms. Kwang before either opened their mouths. She was a very closed person, ladling on charm or vinegar depending on who you were and what she needed. She was untrusting yet compassionate, self-conscious but bold. When she sat, her legs were crossed tightly; she chose to keep the pencil between her fingers at all times, and—he thought—she’ll wave it around. Her eyes were little black vials of venom.

  Although she lived in a sea of them, Karen Kwang was not enamored of occidentals. She assumed that most saw her first as a Chinese-American; second as a woman; third as a person; and last as a journalist. That didn’t please her.

  Lyell decided that Karen Kwang had the most sensual mouth he had ever seen in person. Bar none.

  “Welcome to Washington, Ms. Kwang. I trust your flight was comfortable?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  He had no intention of saying, “You are even more lovely than you appear on television.” But it tumbled out of his mouth, ungracefully, and then shaded his cheeks scarlet.

  “Thank you,” she said, unmoved by his flattery, and very accustomed to these openings. You want to be on my good side? she wondered. Then get to the point.

  “To get started, Miss Kwang—”

  “You don’t like what I’m saying about all this spy business, yes, I know, but let me tell you something, Mr. Lyell. If you expect to try and sweet-talk me out of this, you can pick your old-fashioned butt up and haul it out of here. This story happens to be hot, Mr. Lyell. And, I might add, this story is accurate! Anything else you may wish to say might be better said through counsel. Now, I don’t know about government men, but this Chinese bitch is in a big hurry, and she doesn’t particularly care for her itinerary to be interrupted for an Old Glory pep talk. Clear?” She removed her tape recorder from her purse. “Choose your words carefully, sir.” She depressed the two buttons and the red light sparkled. “Because you, Mr. Lyell, will be on this evening’s news.”

  “Now really, Miss Kwang, there’s no need—”

  “Anything else, Mr. Lyell?”

  He reached for the tape recorder, but she snatched it away. “Damn it, Miss Kwang,” Lyell exploded, “there are people’s lives at stake here; there is national security; and you and this network are compromising our effectiveness.”

  “First Amen—”

  “—dment, yes, yes, yes. The familiar war cry of the oppressed correspondent, and I have no intention, we have no intention, of limiting anyone’s Constitutional rights. I come here as a liaison between your government and you, not telling you to stop… I’m asking, don’t you see that? I need your help!” He was red in the face now and much too surprised by his own outlandish behavior to look at her, or say any more. He hoped she would just storm out and leave him be, but to his surprise, she did not.

  She preached: “The People—with a capital P—have a right to know what’s going on, Mr. Lyell. And until they put barbed wire all along coasts and close every airport and form a government press agency—which, believe me, sometimes looks not too far away—some of us are going to keep trying to maintain an objective inside view of you. Period. Exclamation point! Sold by the column inch or edited onto magnetic tape, that’s what we do, and until you shut down the presses and pull the plug, we’re going to keep on doing it! You think we’re the only ones running with this story? You think we’re hitting with low blows? Not true! Not true! This story was picked up by the wire services”—she drummed her long, hard nails against the table—“and ran in a few hundred newspapers. Talk to them. I’ll tell you what you can tell your bosses… you can tell them that if they don’t want espionage in the news, then they should either do less of it, or do it better.” That said, she stood abruptly and shoved out her hand, grabbed for his, gave one brief shake to it, and offered sarcastically, “Good day,” along with a ten-cent smile in million-dollar lips. She fled quickly, pulling the door closed behind.

  “Fuck off!” Lyell barked, knowing no one could hear. On his pad were two words written in thick block printing: NO WAY.

  1:06 P.M.

  Montreal, Canada

  Andy jogged down the sidewalk, dodging people who did not move out of his way. He finally saw the park he had been searching for, crossed with the light, and kicked out. Within minutes he felt the first tingling sensation of his pores opening and he smiled, happy to be out, happy to be away from Chevy Chase, happy for the first time in ages.

  He had tired of writing. And rewriting. And rewriting. It had been a terrible life—the last seventeen months.

  He thought, Next time they try that, I’ll quit altogether. They’ll give me a new name, a new home, and a new life. And although I fear even the thought of retirement—of a new identity and new friends, and worse yet, saying a silent farewell to all those I have known and allowing them to believe I’m dead—I know now it is far better than the nonexistent life I have just left.

  His concentration was not on his running but instead on the computerized chessboard back in his room. He had left it to make up its mind—for this particular model took as much as thirty minutes to make a move in the advanced mode—in what could be the final moments of the game. Although he would have preferred a match with Parker Lyell, the machine would keep his senses sharp and make him all the more difficult to beat upon his return. So now, he considered the four or five moves available to the electronic board, and tried to establish his own response given the different possibilities….

  Molière, concerned with other possibilities, had sent over a video recorder and tape by special messenger only an hour ago. Andy had sat in his luxurious hotel suite and had viewed a five-minute tape of Karen Kwang’s “Hot Spot” several times.

  Try as he might to keep his mind on the imagined chess scenario, Andy kept seeing Kwang standing on a bridge that overlooked the city and kept hearing her report, and became disturbed at the idea of a single reporter compromising an assignment. The woman needed silencing, and as far as he was concerned, the sooner the better.

  “Federal agent” indeed! She could have at least called me an “intelligence expert.” Baah! She must be stopped before she gets in the way.

  He rounded a turn and saw the lighted cross above the city, and lengthened his strides.

  Anticipation is cruel, he thought, as cruel as fulfillment sometimes is. He hummed the words to a popular rock song, singing the melody silently inside his head:

  And if you wanna learn to swim

  You’ve got to jump in the water.

  It’s the only way you ever learn.

  Then he thought, But what if the water’s too deep? What if you drown? That’s a hell of way to learn a lesson!

  He finished the nine miles, still singing the song, and returned to the hotel.

  2:45 P.M.

  As Andy was coming out of the shower the phone rang. He answered it, “Here.”

  The voice of Terry Stone said, “Renegotiate.” The line went dead.

  Andy dressed and found a pay phone in the lobby and made the necessary call, complete with an introductory code. The room phones patched through a switchboard, and thus were considered unsafe. A pay phone was much more difficult to tap. He reached a United States 800 number and was put on hold. Then he dialed another six-digit number—while still on hold—and the line crackled. Andy heard the familiar buzz in the background. Stone’s voice said, “Scrambled. Maintain ‘soft code.’ Anything to report?”

  “We don’t have much.” Andy felt his damp back. He had not had time to towel off. People mingled in the lobby of the hotel.

  “We do now. The top dam broke.” The Executive Code has been broken. “A flower has been intercepted. Our friends have your cargo.” A woman is involved. KGB Canada—Rhinestone—knows about the scratch on the suitcase.

  “Impossible. I delivered the cargo only this morning.”

  “We’re bailing.” There is a leak somewhere. We are trying to seal it. Then Stone repea
ted, “A flower, eh?”

  “I don’t believe that—”

  “Hear me out.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s aborted and gone to a contingency—”

  “—Yes—”

  “—Which may include a flower. The flower may be delivered, eh?”

  Stone was implying that a woman was traveling with Borikowski—flowers—and that she might be checking in on a regular basis to a headquarters—delivered.

  Andy was unsure why Stone insisted on being so cryptic. Scrambled calls were usually extremely safe. There was something or someone Stone did not trust.

  “Your end?” Stone asked.

  “Not much to report. I may pay a visit this afternoon to someone who may have seen our friend. Transportation is being arranged.”

  “We used tracing paper to draw a W.” Andy knew the W meant WEST, and assumed the oblique reference to tracing paper had something to do with phone traces.

  To Andy, WEST meant Detroit, a city known in intelligence circles as the Passageway.

  And Detroit meant Mari Dansforth.

  “Soft is not easy,” Andy said, implying he wasn’t absolutely certain of the message.

  “A W.”

  “Yes, I got that.”

  “I see. Good. By the way… I hit the jackpot. Do you copy?”

  “Jackpot.”

  “Yes.”

  The line went dead.

  Jackpot: The mole wanted a meeting.

  But he was not concerned with moles, or broken codes. Andy was thinking about Detroit. About Mari. Why did just the mention of her name bother him? Why had it ended the way it had ended, full of pain and distrust?

  Now he saw Mari’s face in his mind’s eye, her funny little ears, her speckled eye. He could feel her heartbeat against his chest. He could taste her….

  Why didn’t I give her a chance to explain? Even though she hurt me, I should have been more kind. I threw her to the dogs. I was wrong. She was wrong. And I blamed her without hearing the reason. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. But perhaps that’s why I still have the hook set in my lip; why I’m still dragged along by the monofilament of memory and the reel of desire.

  Damn you, Mari. I think I still love you.

  3:00 P.M.

  Andy followed Stone’s orders to the letter, and at exactly three o’clock the pay phone began ringing. He counted off the four rings, picked it up and hung up. At half-past the hour, a private taxi pulled up next to the booth and a chilled Andy Clayton climbed in. The driver wore a blue knit cap. Andy talked to the back of a head.

  “New Holland, please.”

  The cabbie nodded and the car sped off into light traffic and slush, spraying several parked cars and one very annoyed pedestrian.

  Andy, accustomed to dealing with informants—moles—sat back and waited until the man felt like talking. To Andy, moles were a strange breed of human, who for some reason found the high risk of playing a traitor a fun game. A few had personal reasons for their double dealing, a justification that usually came in the excuse of a dead friend or relative, and, of course, on this level Andy could empathize.

  His heart still hurt for Duncan.

  Each of us has our own contrived reasons for being here, thought Andy. Each a story to hold onto, an anchor to give us roots upon unstable ground, a created importance that is no more real than anything else. And we live in this world of make-believe, of self-importance, where each and every act is given significance and a special, tiny space in our brain so that we may retrieve it someday and study it, as if this too held some real importance.

  The driver spoke English, slowly and in a low voice. His head remained immobile and his shoulders only moved when he turned the wheel, and then the whole car would move too, and both men would lean to one side; and when the car straightened out, they straightened out. “The woman at Dorval last night was killed by Dragonfly. You know of this agent?”

  “Yes.”

  “He is traveling with a woman. Her name, I don’t know. Yet. I do have a description. She is young and quite beautiful. She is in possession of many passports and all the right papers and she will be quite difficult to trace. Still, her beauty sets her apart from others. She has almond eyes. Beautiful eyes. Chocolate. Shaped like Sophia Loren’s. You can’t miss her. If you can find her.”

  “Anything else?” Andy asked, somewhat amazed Borikowski would travel with a partner.

  “Yes. Let me speak.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “He is on orders. If his cover is blown, if he encounters a problem like the one last night, he is to use this woman. She is a cosmetologist. She’s responsible for altering his identities and will travel as his partner for as long as he deems necessary. Understand? The DS is well aware that in your files he is listed as a ‘solo.’ She is there to help hide him. You won’t be looking for two of them, for a couple. At least, that is what they think.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Shut up and let me talk. I don’t have much time.”

  Now Andy was angry.

  “He will leave her in Detroit, if all goes smoothly. He will be on his own again—”

  “Detroit? You’re certain it’s Detroit?”

  “Absolutely. Now listen! You won’t find him, if he does this. He has at least five separate identities that he can travel under, and you know how good an actor he is—if you know anything at all. I think I may be able to obtain a few of his fictitious names, but it will take some time. Meanwhile, you must find a way to blow his cover, or at least, make him believe his cover is blown. This will force him to stay with this woman. He is on orders to do so. This much I know! She is your only hope of finding him. You understand?”

  “Yes.” And Andy knew this man was right. Alone, Borikowski would be next to impossible to locate. Unknowingly, by trying to hide him, the DS had set their own trap with a pretty woman—an almond-eyed woman.

  “She has dark hair. But of course, they could always change her looks. I don’t know all that much. I’m working on it. She has brown eyes, like I said. Medium height. But listen, they have ears in Washington. Many. I would advise you not to tell anyone about her just yet. They are bound to overhear it—especially at Central—and that would blow her, and they’d go to another contingency, and I have no idea what this might mean.” He turned onto a busy street and stopped at a light and said nothing, as if someone might read his lips through the glass. Andy sat back and waited for the light to change. The gray clouds overhead swirled and twisted and wrestled with the cold air. The driver’s hair was dark brown and trimmed short. A car pulled alongside with the radio up loud. The driver of this car was rocking his head to the apparent beat of the music, silently keeping time and mouthing the words as the pulse of the bass guitar could be felt inside the cab. Then the light changed and the taxi moved on. “So, you see, it is better if you give me some time and you stick to trying to blow Dragonfly’s cover. I don’t know his operation yet. I may be able to get something. I can’t tell how much others know, and unless they know, there is no way I can know. We will have to wait. What I have heard is that he is headed west. I don’t know that. Only words. It could be wrong. But this woman. I’m quite sure that is right. Give me time. I’ll be back in contact as soon as I learn anything. Now get out, and pay me something. Tell me to keep the change. But don’t look at my face. You look at me, and you’ll never meet me again.”

  It was then that Andy noticed that the rearview mirror was angled down to show the front seat, not the man’s face, and he realized he knew only the back of this man’s head.

  The taxi jerked to a stop and Andy climbed back out and followed the man’s instructions.

  When the cab pulled away, it splashed his pants with brown muck. To play the part, he hollered at the cab, only to realize he was not playing a part at all. “Go to hell, asshole!”

  4:13 P.M.

  “Scrambled,” Stone finally said.

  Andy was back at the same pay phone in the lobby of the hotel. “
Are we ‘soft’?”

  “No, we’re fine.”

  Andy relaxed. He didn’t like speaking in code. Still he kept an eye on the lobby and other pay phones nearby. “We must blow his cover as a solo. He’s on orders to keep her along if we do. I have a description of her, but request to keep it to myself. The word is that you are full of leaks down there.”

  “Mail the description to me in an overnight letter. I’ll lock it up and won’t open it unless I have to.”

  “I understand. No problem.”

  Stone then asked, “Any ideas?”

  “If he’s blown to the press, he’ll keep her along.”

  “Yes, we’ll give it a try.”

  “Say hello to Karen for me,” Andy said.

  “Ah, yes! A wonderful thought.”

  The line went dead.

  6:05 P.M.

  Detroit, Michigan

  The Buick pulled up behind a long line of cars, with Borikowski behind the wheel. The traffic was bottlenecked by the Customs checkpoints, and many drivers seemed unduly annoyed with the delay. On the dashboard, Borikowski had both passports; and Lydia, next to him, leaned against the door, head slumped as if asleep.

  Borikowski could finally see that the delay was being caused by trunks being opened and luggage being checked. But when Lydia had called in to Rhinestone, four hours ago, she had been warned that the border patrols might be looking for Borikowski’s scratched bag. Thus alerted, Borikowski had dropped the Audi off at a garage in Dunport, leaving it for “repairs.” Lydia had rented a shiny new Buick, and at a highway rest stop had given Borikowski a new face. His papers now identified him as Peter Trover of Westinghouse Corporation, Detroit. The cut in his suitcase had been repaired using an epoxy purchased at a Sears in Dunport. The color had been changed by red spray paint. Lydia had done a perfect job with the paint, and Borikowski had no concern that the suitcase might identify him. He mentally reviewed Peter Trover’s history, so that he might not slip up, and felt confident in his preparations.