by Tom Gabbay
“I hate it,” Hanna said quietly.
“It’s just bricks and barbed wire,” I said. “You should hate the men that put it there.”
“I don’t know the men,” she said. “I know only the wall.”
She reached into her pocket, removed a small black-and-white photograph from her wallet, and handed it to me. She watched my face closely as I turned it toward the light of a nearby street lamp and studied the picture. Hanna and a young man sat on a blanket laid out on the grass of some park, the remains of a picnic lunch scattered around them. They were sitting close to each other, but didn’t touch except for their hands, which overlapped inconspicuously on the ground between them. There was something relaxed and contented about the two of them. They looked happy.
“His name is Alfred Mann,” she said. “He’s a teacher, of mathematics. We were to be married last year, but now he’s behind this wall. Perhaps he’s found a wife already.”
“Not if he’s smart,” I said, handing the photo back to her.
She looked up and smiled at me. I’m not sure if she was crying or if it was the mist hanging in the air between us that made her eyes flash the way they did. Whatever it was, they cut through the darkness and nailed me.
“It’s not easy to leave the past behind,” she whispered.
I moved toward her, until I was close enough to feel her warmth. She held my look without flinching and I reached out to touch her cheek. She responded, closing her eyes and turning her head into my hand so that her mouth brushed against my palm. I wasn’t prepared for the shiver that ran up my arm and through my body.
I woke in the early hours as the predawn light filtered through the worn curtain that was pulled across the window of her bedroom. I was on my back, naked, and she lay on top of me, head nestled in my arm, more or less the way we’d finished. I felt the delicious softness of her breasts pressing against my chest and I thought I could easily wake her and start all over again, but I didn’t move.
Having my brother turn up out of the blue had thrown me into a tailspin. He knew what he was doing, too, had gone out of his way to throw me off balance, setting me up and stringing me along, then hitting me with it at the cemetery. It had been calculated for maximum impact. That didn’t matter, though. I knew where we stood now.
“History has put us on opposing sides,” he had said, breaking a twenty-minute silence as we reentered the Western sector. His eyes were closed, head pressed into the back of the soft leather seat. Light from the street lamps flashed on and off inside the car as we passed under them, creating a slow strobelike effect on his face. “There’s nothing we can do about that. But for the moment, even if our motivations are different, we share the same goal.” He turned his head and looked straight at me, underlining his point: “Kennedy must not be assassinated in Berlin.”
“I don’t know if anyone in Washington would be so concerned if the KGB was trying to knock off Khrushchev.”
“We’d do it quietly and call it a heart attack.” It was a good point.
“I need a starting place,” I said.
He sat there for a moment, very practiced, then leaned slowly forward and reached into the seat pocket in front of him. He removed a manila envelope and held it on his lap. “You’re not supposed to see this,” he said.
“I guess contempt for authority runs in the family,” I responded, not believing a word of it.
He sighed, removed an eight-by-ten glossy from the envelope and passed it to me. It was a black-and-white shot of a man standing in front of a white wall with a large Soviet flag pinned to it, the familiar hammer and sickle against a red background. The man held a rifle, a Russian-made Tokarev with a telescopic sight. A sniper’s weapon. He grasped it military style, with both hands, and wore a sidearm over combat fatigues. The guy himself was small, dark and kind of bony. Frail-looking. And deadly serious.
“He goes by the name Aleks Kovinski,” Josef explained. “A Polish national living in West Berlin. He’s been used by KGB in the past.”
“I don’t think much of his cover,” I said.
“He also works for your side.”
“Whatever side that is.”
“The Central Intelligence Agency,” Josef said drily.
“Is that my side?” I deadpanned. “I’m getting very confused.”
“You know,” he said, stone-faced, “I don’t find you nearly as amusing as you seem to find yourself.”
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “Nobody does.”
“Kovinski was recruited by CIA,” he continued. “About eighteen months ago. We found it useful to let him think we didn’t know. He was fed false information about our assets in the West, hoping to create some confusion. We obtained some information about how they handle their double agents. None of it was very important. He’s insignificant, really.”
“Then why are we talking about him?”
“After the assassination, this photograph will surface. It will be one of the pieces of evidence that will convict him in the court of public opinion. Posthumously, of course. He is, as you would say in Hollywood, the fall guy.”
“Where’d you get the photo?”
He hesitated. “A reliable source.”
“Look, Colonel, brother, whoever you are—if you’re serious about this, we don’t have a lot of time. I need to know what you know. Everything, no fucking around. Whoever gave you this photo knows something.”
“I can’t say anything about that.”
If he was right about the conspiracy, it had to be someone inside the Company. “Someone in Berlin?” I asked.
Josef was quiet.
“Washington?”
“No,” he said, a little too quickly. There had been speculation for some time that there was a double agent operating out of Company headquarters. Counterintelligence, run by the enigmatic spy catcher James Jesus Angleton, had set up a unit specifically to hunt for the theoretical traitor.
“The Langley mole,” I said. “You got this from him.” The Colonel’s look was confirmation enough.
“How high?” I asked.
“I didn’t say anything about a mole,” he said, looking pretty uncomfortable. If that was Josef’s “reliable source” it was no wonder he couldn’t tell me about it. The implication suddenly hit me.
“You’re on your own in this, aren’t you?” I said.
He didn’t answer, just looked out the window. Christ, I thought, he is alone. He’d been telling the truth about going against orders when he showed me the photo. The Soviets would rather let Kennedy be assassinated and take the blame for it, risking a world war, than compromise an asset operating at the highest levels of the CIA. It fit. Why would the Soviet Union assign a colonel in the East German secret police to enlist his long-lost, burnt-out brother of a spook to save the world? The answer was easy—they wouldn’t. The Kremlin knew about the conspiracy and knew they’d be blamed for it, but they chose to risk the extinction of the human race over compromising their most valuable asset. We were all as fucked up as each other. And Josef was as far out on a limb as I was.
“Speaking hypothetically,” I said softly, “if there was an individual, someone near the top, who provided this photograph to you … It means that the plot to get Kennedy—if it’s real—goes to the highest levels of the U.S. government.”
Josef nodded slightly, acknowledging what he already knew. “It might even be that—hypothetically—this highly placed individual was recruited into the conspiracy.” I knew where Josef and I stood now, anyway. He was for real. Not that it made me feel any better, because if he was for real then so was the conspiracy.
“Is Kovinski being run by Iceberg?” I asked.
“Probably, but he wouldn’t realize it.”
“Do you know who handles him?”
“No,” he answered. “But his code name is Lamb.”
“As in sacrificial…” I studied the face in the picture. It was defiant, unflinching, maybe even hostile. “There’s one thing I do
n’t understand,” I said.
“Only one thing?”
I smiled. My brother had made his first joke.
“Why would he pose for a photograph like this?”
“You can ask him when you find him.”
“I don’t suppose you happen to have an address?”
“He won’t be hard to locate,” Josef promised. “It’s the following stage that will be difficult.”
We pulled up in front of Hotel Europa. It was every bit as glorious on the outside as it was on the inside. A woman in a platinum-blond wig and fishnets came out of the shadows and eased toward the car. At least I thought it was a woman until she got closer, then I was stumped. I gave her a warning look through the window and she backed off, waited by the hotel entrance, ready to pounce.
“Okay if I keep this?” I said to Josef, meaning the photo.
He nodded, but I knew he would’ve preferred not to let it go. If it got into the wrong hands and was traced back to him, his future wouldn’t be too bright. But I needed one more piece of information.
“What’s the name of Kovinski’s KGB handler?” Josef gave me a look. “I know it’s asking a lot,” I said, “… but look where I’m sleeping tonight.”
“Kovinski knows him as ‘Sasha,’ “he said. “But that’s all I can give you. You’re on your own now. I’m sorry. I wish it could be otherwise.”
“So do I,” I said, opening the door and sliding out of my seat.
He leaned over and held out his palm. “I’m glad we met.”
“Me, too,” I said, and we clasped hands. As soon as the car pulled away it occurred to me that the last time Josef and I had held hands was on the night our mother died.
I heard what sounded like whispering coming from outside the door. It was faint, so I couldn’t be sure if the voice was in the living room or if it was coming through the wall from the next apartment. I looked down at Hanna, who was still asleep, her chest moving rhythmically up and down with each breath. I gently lifted my arm out from under her, replaced it with a pillow, then eased myself to the edge of the bed. She stirred when I sat up, burrowed her nose into the pillow, and turned over.
Our clothes were strewn across the floor in a trail from the door to the bed. I slipped into my boxer shorts, followed by socks and T-shirt. I was stepping into my pants when I saw that she was watching me.
“Are you leaving?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
“There’s something I have to do.”
“Another meeting?”
“Something like that,” I said, moving toward her and sitting on the bed. I stroked her cheek with the back of my hand and she felt every bit as good as the first time I’d touched her.
“Listen,” I said. “I’ll—”
“Shhh.” She touched my lip with the tips of her fingers. “Don’t say anything. … It’s all right. I don’t regret anything.” I leaned over and kissed her forehead, then left without looking back.
Horst was stretched out on the sofa, fully clothed and wide-awake, sipping a cup of coffee. “I see you and Hanna have become better acquainted,” he smiled, a bit too effortlessly. “Please don’t feel embarrassed. It’s quite natural.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” I said. “Are you?”
“No,” he answered with a shrug. “Would you like a coffee?”
I said sure and looked around the room while he went off to the kitchen. I noticed that the telephone had been moved to a table beside the sofa where Horst had been sitting. It could have been the whispering I’d heard, but maybe I was just being paranoid. Even if he had been on the phone, he could’ve been talking to some girlfriend—or a fellow car thief, for that matter.
I picked up my shoes, which were right inside the door, sat down to put them on, but stopped cold when I spotted my jacket. It lay in a crumpled pile on the floor behind the sofa, the manila envelope protruding halfway out of the inside pocket. Had it been removed and hastily put back? Possibly, but I couldn’t be sure. I tried to recall where the jacket had fallen the previous night, but it wasn’t something I’d been particularly aware of as Hanna was undressing me.
“I hope it’s not too sweet,” Horst said, balancing an overfilled cup as he entered the room. “I didn’t know how many sugars you like.”
“Actually, I’ll have to take a rain check,” I said, “I didn’t realize what time it was.” I scooped the jacket off the floor, allowing the envelope to fall out, and headed for the door.
“You’ve forgotten something,” he called after me. I turned around and he handed me the envelope. “It might be important.”
“Not really,” I said, but I was pretty sure by the way he avoided looking at it that he’d already seen its contents. Maybe it was just innocent thievery and he was disappointed that it hadn’t been filled with hundred-dollar bills.
Then again, maybe not.
THIRTEEN
My brother was right, Kovinski wasn’t hard to find. In fact, he turned out to be a listed spy. I came across a public phone a couple of blocks from where Horst and Hanna lived, decided to start there, see if I got lucky. And there he was—”Kovinski, A,” sandwiched between “Kosche, G” and “Krause, H.” I tore the page out, stuffed it in my pocket, and jumped into a taxi.
In the ride over, I took the photo out and studied his face, thought about how I should handle him. He was a weasel, the kind of clown who thinks he’s playing all the angles when in fact they’re playing him. He’d act tough at first, but fold under pressure. I had an idea about how to play him, but I wasn’t gonna fuck around if he didn’t go for it. There wasn’t time and I wasn’t in the mood.
Kovinski lived in a low-rent neighborhood, in a cluster of concrete high-rises built in the Josef Stalin style of architecture. The buildings were grouped around a sad-looking common that was probably planned as an urban oasis, where residents could get away from their drab, airless apartments, but ended up as an empty patch of dust and overgrown weeds. There wasn’t a soul in sight.
I paid Melik, my Turkish cabby, double the meter and told him to keep it running. A young immigrant with a twinkle in his eye and passable English, he nodded squarely when I told him to follow at a discreet distance if I went anywhere. I found my way to Kovinski’s building and rang the bell for apartment 5C.
“Wer ist es?” came a voice over the speaker.
“I’m looking for Aleks Kovinski,” I said. There was a beat of silence before he responded, this time in heavily accented English.
“Who is asking?”
“I’m looking for a lost lamb,” I said, knowing that would cut through a lot of bullshit. An even longer pause followed.
“I come down,” he finally said.
It was turning out to be a perfect June day, sunny and bright, but the stillness of the area was kind of spooky. I felt like I was being watched, but shook it off. Pregame jitters, I told myself. When Kovinski appeared he didn’t hang around, flew out the door and right past me. I caught up after a few yards.
“Who are you?” he asked, glancing over without slowing his pace.
“A friend.” He gave me a contemptuous look, with good reason.
“Do you have a name?”
“Not one you need to know.”
“Some friend,” he scoffed.
“Maybe the only one you have.”
“What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “Talk.”
“Can we slow down a little?”
He eased up a bit, looked me over more thoroughly. He was pretty much what I’d expected, only more so. I hadn’t even said “boo” yet and he was ready to panic.
“No one is suppose come here,” he said. “They don’t tell you?”
“Who are ‘they’?”
He stopped walking, looked at me, and frowned. He had said too much and realized it. “Who do you work for?” he demanded.
“Same as you,” I smiled.
“You make mistake,” he sputtered, taking a st
ep back. “Maybe you look for someone else.”
“You’re ‘lamb,’ aren’t you?”
“You find wrong person.” He turned around and started back toward his building.
“That’s a shame,” I called after him. “Because the Aleks Kovinski I’m looking for needs help.”
“Go to hell!” he yelled back.
“Ever had your picture in the paper?” He kept walking. I took the envelope out of my pocket, waved it in the air. “Because I thought you might wanna see the one that’s gonna go with your obituary! … You know what obituary means?” Apparently he did, because he stopped walking and turned around. I took the photograph out of the envelope and held it out to him.
“Take a look,” I said. “Should make tomorrow’s evening edition.” He hesitated, not sure what to make of it. “Because if you don’t talk to me now, tomorrow’s the day you die.”
“Show me,” he demanded, edging nearer. I complied, without handing it over. His whole body seemed to tense up when he saw himself standing in front of the flag with the rifle in his hands.
“It’s not the most flattering angle,” I said breezily. “But it makes a statement. The sidearm’s a nice touch.”
“Where you get this?” he said, voice shaking.
“Somebody you know gave it to me,” I said, and he looked at me sideways.
“Who?”
“How about I buy you a cup of coffee?”
He led us to a bar around the corner, where we ordered coffee and sat at a wobbly wooden table in the back, away from the window. The place wasn’t doing much business, just an old man and his lame dog who looked like they were settling in for the day. Kovinski pulled out a pack of nonfilters and started puffing away nervously. Bumming one was out of the question, so I convinced myself I wasn’t interested.
“Is not me,” he said.
“What’s not you?”
“This picture … Is not me.” His leg was bouncing up and down like a Mexican jumping bean.
“You’re a bit high-strung for this business, aren’t you?” I said.