The Double Game

by Dan Fesperman

  Wilkinson was a wonderful raconteur, with great material. He’d been a schoolboy classmate of spymaster Richard Helms, and a Cambridge contemporary of Kim Philby’s. Later in Paris he knew Hemingway, Waugh, and Gertrude Stein. In addition to his novels, he’d written a biography of the spy novelist Erskine Childers. It was from Wilkinson that I learned the extraordinary news that Childers, a late convert to Irish nationalism, had himself been hanged as a spy.

  That long-ago evening had made quite an impression on me, and as I read the marked passages, Wilkinson’s words rose to me in the gentlemanly cadences of his dinner table conversation. It felt as if he was sitting next to me, dressed in pinstripes and holding a glass of Dubonnet, which helped turn his prose into a personal warning of clear and present danger:

  In novels about spies everyone watches everyone else all of the time. The man lighting a cigarette at the next table is always something more than he appears to be. No luggage ever remains unsearched. The car behind the car knows its distance and keeps it. Thus the dangerous moment is the time when nobody is watching, for that means the other side knows exactly what you are doing and doesn’t need to search and follow. Then is the time to beware.

  I paused to again look around the café. No one was paying me the least bit of attention, which of course I now took as a bad sign. I wondered if my handler was also beginning to feel the heat, wherever he was.

  The page for the next passage was marked by a business card for a local laundry on Kiraly Street, with the words “3 p.m. today” written at the top. The marked paragraphs of the book described an operative walking into a laundry to ask the attendant if a shirt could be cleaned and pressed within two days. The attendant said yes, then gave the operative a yellow slip of paper, which carried the operative’s marching orders.

  So there was my schedule for the afternoon—a trip to the laundry at three, followed by a visit to the Szondis’ house on Corvin Square. From what László had told me, I was now expecting Béla Szondi to blow me off, no matter how faithful a customer my father had once been. I couldn’t say that I’d blame him, seeing as how the last bookseller I’d sought help from now lay dead in Prague.

  With those thoughts in mind, I surveyed the café’s customers a final time before leaving. None was a likely suspect for a tail, and none left the café when I did.

  According to Mr. J. Burke Wilkinson, it was time to beware.

  30

  By shortly after three o’clock I had the leverage I needed to confront Béla Szondi, thanks to my transaction at the laundry. The attendant, a man in his sixties with the droopy eyes of a bloodhound, took my request in stride, which made me suspect he had done this before. I handed him a dirty shirt, figuring I’d never see it again, then asked pointedly—bad tradecraft, probably—if it could be cleaned and pressed within two days.

  “Of course,” he replied, not batting an eye. “The shirt you brought last week is ready.” He handed me a shirt box, which I carried away like a satisfied customer. I didn’t open it until I was back at my room.

  Inside were three pages of a CIA report from December 1983, written by the Vienna chief of station, Stu Henson, yet another figure from the Nethercutt funeral. The first page, the report’s cover sheet, explained that this was an assessment of top-level government collaborators and informants in Budapest. Also included were the report’s seventh and eighth pages, which described the activities of Ferenc and Béla Szondi over a twenty-year span. To me the info was trivial—unfamiliar contacts, small-bore episodes. But to the Szondis and their victims it would be explosive reading. With Hungary’s security archives sanitized, this was the last available proof of their duplicity.

  To my surprise, the pages were originals, not copies. This suggested that some sort of deal had been arranged between my handler and the Szondis, with me as the middleman. Presumably my handler wanted information in return. The question was how to get what I wanted without running up against their enforcers.

  To clear my head for the task at hand, I set out on a good, hard run for only the second time since I’d arrived overseas, which reacquainted me with the city without having to worry about surveillance. Runners could blow through stoplights, veer into parks, and go the wrong way on one-way streets. It would take a team of dozens to keep track, and if my pursuers employed that many people, then I was doomed anyway.

  I stiffly jogged a few blocks before hitting my stride on Váci Street, the city’s most touristy boulevard. Then I wound my way toward the Basilica of St. Stephen, dodging photographers’ tripods and a trio of drunken young toughs waving wine bottles like batons. The streets began to feel familiar, and when I cut west toward the Danube I spotted the apartment building where Dad and I had lived with other embassy families.

  It was a hulking place, seven stories high. As in Prague, we had a balcony with a riverfront view. Next door, in a small park that buffered the apartments from the fortresslike Parliament, I saw the spindly statue of the stooped national hero, Károlyi Mihály. My American friends and I had thrown snowballs at him with impunity, even when the police were watching. Trotting along the Danube, I remembered how we’d also mocked the lyrics to the Strauss waltz. “So clear and blue, we sing to you” became “So cloudy and brown, you stink so we frown.” Embassy brats, drunk on immunity.

  I was winded after a mile, but by the time I was working my way back to the hotel I was loose and warm, lungs wide open, so I finished with a head of steam. Now I was ready. To hell with damned Wilkinson and his warnings. Filled with endorphin bliss, I showered, picked a location for a later rendezvous, then set out for the Szondi house in Corvin Square on the number 2 tram to the Chain Bridge. The crenellated walls of the castle loomed above, but my destination was below it, along the face of the hill. I reached the yellow brick lanes of Corvin Square, easily found the house with blue trim, and knocked at the door.

  The rumble of plodding footsteps sounded from deep within the house, followed by the clank and lurch of an elevator. The door opened on the jowly face of a man with swept-back black hair, almost certainly dyed. His aftershave smelled like mint. Smug. That was my first impression.

  “Ye-esss?” he asked slowly in English, in a manner that reminded me of the shady Dr. Winkel in The Third Man.

  “I am Bill Cage, the son of Warfield Cage. Are you Béla Szondi?”

  “Ye-esss. What is your business?” He showed no sign of having recognized my father’s name.

  “I’m hoping you can tell me a few things about some very old transactions, all of them involving a customer named Dewey. I don’t wish to intrude on your privacy, so naturally I’d keep anything you told me confidential.”

  “I am sorry you have come such a long way for such little satisfaction, Mr.…”

  “Cage.”

  “Ye-esss. Cage.” He was already inching backward and pushing the door forward. “But for me the past is a closed book. My memories are too vague to be of any possible use to anyone. So I will bid you good day, sir, and wish you health.”

  The door whined on its hinges. I pulled the pages of the report from my lapel pocket and thrust them into the shrinking opening, hoping that the CIA letterhead would catch his eye.

  “This might help refresh your memory.”

  I yanked back the papers to keep him from slamming my arm in the door.

  The door stopped, inches from shutting. I spoke into the gap.

  “It’s a report detailing your work for the Communist regime.”

  The door slowly reopened. Szondi eyed me disdainfully, then looked to either side, as if checking for eavesdropping neighbors.

  “This kind of baseless gossip has been raised before, but if you claim to have some sort of forged proof, then it is probably preferable to discuss it in private. Why don’t you step inside.” He stepped back to let me through.

  “I’d prefer to meet somewhere out in the open. Just the two of us. I’d also prefer if you could offer something of value in return.”

  “By value, do y
ou mean—?”

  “Information. I’m not interested in money.” His posture relaxed a bit, now that he knew I was within his price range.

  “Then we might be able to reach an accommodation, even though, as I said, I don’t believe those documents of yours can possibly be authentic. Still, a nuisance is a nuisance. May I see them again, please?”

  “Later. When you have something for me to inspect.”

  He paused, the wheels turning, then nodded.

  “Now that you mention it, I might have something with regard to those Dewey transactions that could be of very great value. I might be willing to part with it in exchange for your materials. Only so that I may further investigate their provenance, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then let us meet, just as you wish. There is a small café, very private, where—”

  “I already have a location in mind. And you have to come alone.”

  He frowned.

  “I must protest such conditions. The item I propose to bring is of such intrinsic value for collectors that I would not feel secure carrying it without my usual escort. Many people in Budapest are aware that I am a wealthy man, and as I have become old and frail I have made it my habit to always be accompanied.”

  He didn’t look frail to me, and I wasn’t interested in meeting his thugs.

  “Your choice,” I said. “If you’d rather not, I’m sure there will be other interested parties.”

  He sighed, not pleased.

  “Very well. Name your location.”

  “The Panorama Café, at the top of the hill. One hour from now.” I didn’t want to give him too much time to plan. “Bring the item you mentioned, and be prepared to talk about what you remember.”

  He didn’t look happy with my choice, but after a second or two he nodded.

  “Who are you working for, Mr. Cage?”

  “Myself.” A mistake. I realized it as soon as Szondi smiled warmly in response.

  “Good. I prefer to deal with people one on one. I will arrive alone, as you ask, and will trust you to do the same. The Panorama. One hour.”

  He smoothly shut the door. A moment later I heard voices, then subdued laughter, followed by the clank and whine of the elevator.

  I wasn’t happy about the laughter.

  31

  The Panorama Café was directly uphill from Corvin Square, at the south end of a turreted stone fortress known as the Fisherman’s Bastion. It offered spectacular views across the Danube, back toward Pest. I walked directly there up a switchback of stone stairways through the trees, then settled in with an overpriced pot of tea delivered by a gloomy waiter. Three musicians dressed as nineteenth-century peasants were playing traditional music on a violin, string bass, and hammer dulcimer, the perfect soundtrack for what I hoped would be a sinuous tale with Ed Lemaster at its center.

  Szondi arrived twelve minutes late. He came from the other direction, approaching across a small plaza with a statue of St. Stephen. He already looked impatient, then had to pause at the entrance to wait for some Italians to shoot a family photo. Two children bumped him as they ran squealing toward the statue. Szondi brushed away their essence from his right sleeve. A coat was slung over his left arm, and he appeared to be carrying something beneath it. I gestured toward the other chair. He glanced toward the musicians in apparent disdain.

  “I hate this sort of kitschy screeching. A bigger cliché than a bowl of goulash. If I could, I would shove them from the parapet.”

  “I kind of like it. What did you bring for me?”

  “Do you have the papers?”

  I flashed open my jacket, showing the folded documents in the lapel pocket. He nodded, then pulled the edge of an old book from underneath the folded coat. He let me see it just long enough for the title to register—The Great Impersonation, one of the better novels of Edward Phillips Oppenheim, a prolific British novelist from the early twentieth century. Dad had five of his books.

  “My father has a similar copy,” I said. “I never thought it was all that rare.”

  “Rarity is not the reason for its value. Why don’t I inspect the papers you brought? Then, if I am convinced they are of sufficient quality as forgeries, I will consider exchanging this book.”

  “You still haven’t told me its significance.”

  “This copy was meant to be exchanged by one of Ed Lemaster’s couriers as part of a Dewey transaction. Long ago it came to me wrapped in butcher paper, and I was prepared to follow the usual routine: the phone call, the drop-off, and so on. I am sure you know. But it was never delivered.”

  If he was telling the truth, the book was indeed valuable.

  “Why do you still have it?”

  “I was never comfortable with the arrangement. I came to feel I was being taken advantage of.”

  “Weren’t you being paid?”

  “Not sufficiently. I made that known.”

  “To Ed Lemaster?”

  “To the usual contacts. I did not know their names, or even their nationalities. I only knew from an earlier visit, when the arrangement was first conceived, that Mr. Lemaster was part of it. My participation began as a favor to him, as a valued customer of mine. Later, I learned enough about the network to make me uneasy.”

  “So you tried to jack up the price?”

  “You mischaracterize it, of course. I asked for fair compensation.”

  “And?”

  “My request was refused. But by then a new parcel—this one—had just arrived through the usual channels.”

  “So you opened it, hoping to find out what all the fuss was about.”

  “Yes.”

  “And found the Oppenheim book inside.”

  “This very copy.”

  The ends of my fingers tingled. I’d reached the end of a vitally important thread. If I swapped the papers for the book, I might get out of here in time for the evening train to Vienna.

  “So I take it Lemaster didn’t agree to your asking price.”

  “Regrettably, no. So I decided to keep the book. As insurance.”

  “Against what?”

  “Against this very sort of day. Of course, in those times I always expected that any trouble would come from someone threatening to expose my dealings with the West.”

  “You were convinced this network was for the West?”

  “Of course. Why would I have thought otherwise? Say what you will about those forged documents, I was a good patriot for the resistance, and this proves it.”

  “Or maybe you were just willing to take money from anyone, no matter whose side they were on.”

  “You embassy people.” His words dripped with disgust. “You lived in such a bubble. Your secrets made you feel safe, but they also made you fall in love with the idea that you were virtuous. All secrets are dirty, Mr. Cage. No one who handles them remains clean.”

  “How come Lemaster never demanded the book back?”

  “He did. I told him I had destroyed it, that I had thrown it into the Danube.”

  “He believed you?”

  “What choice did he have?”

  “What did you find inside the book?”

  “If I answered that question, then the book would lose much of its value.”

  “Then let’s trade. Yours for mine, right here.”

  He smiled, which told me I’d proffered too quickly. Béla Szondi was an old hand at manipulating overly eager customers.

  “It is not that simple. And I certainly would not make the exchange here. For all I know you’ve alerted the police, or the newspapers. That Italian shooting snaps of his family might be some hack for Magyar Hírlap, ready to put me on the front page: Respected Antiquities Dealer Caught Covering Up His Past.”

  “I doubt it would say ‘Respected.’ But I could probably arrange for a story like that if you don’t want to go through with this.”

  “I am not opposed to doing business with you. But I must first be able to examine the documents, and I will only do t
hat where there is more privacy.”

  I was wary, figuring he meant to maneuver me into a car or a house.

  “Where?”

  “Not to worry. Only a few feet from here. Just below, on the very stairs you probably climbed to come here.”

  The stairway was out in the open. I tried to remember if there had been anything iffy about the switchbacks and terraces along the way, and came up empty.

  “Shall we complete this transaction or not?” he said. “If not, I can always throw the book into the Danube for real this time.”

  “Let’s trade.”

  “You are a shrewd bargainer, Mr. Cage. One of the better ones I have dealt with.”

  Meaning I’d probably been a chump, but right then I didn’t care.

  “Let us retire to the stairway, then.”

  He stood. I reached for my wallet to pay for the tea, but Szondi stayed my hand.

  “Please. You are my guest.” He laid a pair of bills on the table. “After you.”

  “No. After you.”

  He smiled a bit too broadly, then nodded.

  “I take no issue with a man who wishes to be careful. I admire it, even.”

  We left the café and walked to the stairs. Szondi flinched as a tourist camera flashed in passing. I lagged back a few feet, which he didn’t seem to mind. Two flights down, Szondi came to a stop just as the beefy fellow whose photo László had shown me loomed into view one flight below. He poked a gun barrel from inside his black jacket and smiled crookedly. I stopped, ready to beat a retreat, but when I turned I saw that a second armed thug was trotting down the steps toward us in Szondi’s wake.

  “Keep going, Mr. Cage,” Szondi said. “Just awhile longer now and it will all be over.”

  I wasn’t thrilled with his wording. I looked around for help but the stairs were deserted. Soon they would kill me, perhaps within seconds. I felt certain of that. On the next flight down the first thug stepped off the stairs toward the stone wall that buttressed the hillside.

  “Keep following him, Mr. Cage.”

  He disappeared beneath the stairway into an alcove built into the wall. My heart was beating way too fast, and I was trying not to show fear in my face or gestures. It was time to make a move, or just run, but there seemed to be no opportunity for either. The thug behind me grabbed my right arm and led me up into the alcove, which stank of urine and damp trash, and as soon as we were inside I belatedly realized that any hope of escape was now gone. The two thugs moved to block the exit, with Szondi between them. This was where they would do it.