Safe Houses

by Dan Fesperman

  “He’d have had to forge a lot of signatures, fake all those letterheads, the UPS stuff, everything.”

  “You said the lock might have been forced on my mom’s files. Maybe that’s where he started.”

  “If all this is true, then we’re dealing with a professional.”

  “Which can only mean it’s got something to do with Mom. Or with what she used to be—the spy with the fake passport.”

  “Plus a nice severance package to keep her quiet.”

  “You’re right. The cops would have us committed. I’m almost ready to have us committed. Should we check with UPS?”

  “For what? We don’t even have a name. The uniform would be easy enough to fake, and you can pick up shipping waybills at all their storefronts.”

  Henry slapped the steering wheel.

  “Shit!” he said. “UPS!”

  “What?”

  “Your mom’s key. UPS has a mailbox service. What’s their closest location?”

  She checked on her phone. Five minutes later they pulled into the lot of a UPS Store only two miles away. There was a row of mailboxes along the left wall, and they marched straight to the one with a number corresponding to the one on the key.

  It didn’t fit.

  “What’s the next closest?” Henry asked.

  “Stevensville, just off Route 50, right after the Kent Narrows Bridge.”

  “We could make it by six-thirty if the traffic isn’t bad. What time do they close?”

  “Seven.”

  “Call them. Use your mom’s name, tell them you’re checking to see if your account is up to date.”

  “Sounds like fraud.”

  “It’s not the U.S. Postal Service, so we’re not breaking federal law.”

  Anna called the number, introduced herself as Helen Shoat, and asked the scripted question while Henry watched.

  “Okay,” she said, frowning. “Thank you.”

  She sighed and disconnected.

  “Strike two,” she said. “This is hopeless. We’re never going to figure out where this key goes.”

  “Unless…Hand me your phone.”

  He waited a few beats for the sake of decorum, and then punched in the same number.

  “Hi, my name is Henry Mattick, and I’m the executor for the estate of the late Elizabeth Waring Hart. I’m calling because my records show that she had a mailbox account with your store. Is that correct?” Then, a few seconds later. “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary, I have the key with me. Very good. See you soon.”

  He smiled.

  “Jackpot. Paid up through November in the name from her Canadian passport. For whatever reason, your mom must have decided she needed a cryptonym again.”

  27

  Berlin, 1979

  Helen reached behind the loosened brick and felt the edge of an envelope, the first new message in days.

  She had redoubled her counter-surveillance tactics since the night Schnapp saw Delacroix following her home. Every trip, no matter how small, was now a labyrinth of evasion. It was wearing her out, but it was the only way she felt secure. Even at home, she felt vulnerable. She no longer opened her window shades.

  For the same reason, stopping at the mail drop every evening was making her uneasy. She needed to set up another location, and soon. Nor was she at all keen on the idea that someone outside their immediate circle—the Sisterhood, as she had already begun thinking of their trio—was acting as courier, venturing to and fro with these explosive little parcels.

  Following her meeting with Kathrin, Helen had fretted for the better part of a day about how she might best protect the girl. She didn’t yet have an answer, apart from benign neglect. Trying to keep tabs on Kathrin might only draw unwanted attention to both of them, especially now that she knew Delacroix was on her tail.

  In the meantime, she had learned more about the Social Democrat whose keys Kathrin and Anneliese had copied for Kevin Gilley. His name was Werner Gerntholz—Kathrin’s memory had only been off by a single “t.” As with most reasonably prominent German political figures, East and West, Berlin station had a file on him. Eileen Walters had promptly let Helen view it. But the file was fairly thin, and most of the contents were newspaper clippings.

  Gerntholz ranked high in his party as a behind-the-scenes operative, not as a public face. He belonged to the party’s most leftist wing, and had written policy papers sharply critical of U.S. ambitions to deploy modernized nuclear weapons in Europe. In doing so he had drawn the ire of the State Department, which had triggered a brief round of scrutiny from the Agency. At least one senior analyst in Langley had questioned his loyalty, citing Gerntholz’s earlier ties to a government official later unmasked as a Stasi double agent.

  Not long after viewing the file, Helen spotted Gerntholz’s name in a story in Der Spiegel quoting him on economic policy, so he was apparently alive and well. Nor was there any hint of recent scandal. Perhaps the reports of Gilley’s dark powers were exaggerated.

  She had also tried to find out more about Kurt Delacroix, with little success. Erickson, besides meddling with Schnapp’s investigation, had also commandeered Delacroix’s Berlin file, and even Walters was powerless to reclaim it, although she did relay a request to Audra Vollmer to search for any records at Langley. But Langley had no personnel records for Delacroix, nor any information citing him as an intelligence source. If he was working for Gilley, then he was either off the books or, likelier still, Gilley’s paperwork was handled with a higher security clearance than even Vollmer commanded.

  Either reason would explain why Delacroix apparently felt no need for a cryptonym. The more Helen thought about it, the more she decided Gilley was smart to use him that way. No need for fake ID documents, which, if discovered, could attract unwanted attention from local authorities. By navigating deeper channels than anyone else, Gilley was apparently allowed to operate by his own rules.

  Not that Helen wasn’t doing the same thing, a realization that made her short of breath as she strolled away from the mailbox, turning left out of the playground with the envelope poking from the top of her purse. She wanted to find a secluded place where she could read the message, and she was so preoccupied that at first she didn’t notice the man coming up quickly from behind on her right. He pulled even just as she reached the dark midpoint between two street lamps, and she gasped in surprise as he grabbed her forearm.

  “Sloppy, Helen. Sloppy!”

  It was Baucom, looking very cloak-and-dagger in an outdated fedora and belted trench coat, a cliché from central casting, although there was nothing at all humorous or mannered about his behavior as he forcibly steered her forward. She tried to wrench free, but his grip was unyielding.

  “Let go of me!”

  “Fine,” he said, releasing her arm. “But you’re playing the fool.”

  It sank in that he must have watched her collect the envelope, which made her slow down even as her adrenaline surged.

  “How were you able to follow me?”

  “Follow you? Who the hell would need to follow you when you come here every night? As I said, sloppy. Although as far as I’ve been able to tell, I’m the only other person who knows about this place. Except for whoever’s servicing the mailbox, of course.”

  She didn’t dare tell him how relieved that made her feel. If Delacroix had been in the vicinity, then surely an old pro like Baucom would have spotted him, right?

  “Do new friendships always make you so reckless, my dear?”

  “How much do you know?”

  “Enough.”

  “You didn’t leave me any choice, did you? Thief. Did you destroy both reels, or just give them to Herrington?”

  “Herrington has nothing to do with this. And he knows nothing of the tapes.”

  “Does he know you’re here?”

 
Baucom again grabbed her forearm and pulled her to a halt. She bristled, and pried his hand off her arm, but did not resume walking. They faced each other like quarreling lovers. Maybe that’s what they still were.

  “Look at you,” she said, trying to sound disdainful. “That ridiculous hat.”

  Rather than answer he reached skyward and snapped his fingers. A taxi materialized from seemingly nowhere and rolled to the curb. Baucom opened the rear door.

  Helen hesitated. If he’d burned her once, he might burn her again.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Where else? To Lehmann’s, if only because his truth serum tastes better than mine, although by now someone might even be keeping an eye on my place. So there’s that to consider as well.”

  “Why would someone be watching your place?”

  “My reckless taste in women? Get in, for Chrissakes, the meter’s running.”

  He slid in behind her and gave the address for Lehmann’s little dive off Savignyplatz, which at least showed he wasn’t lying about their destination. She needed a calming drink, and she might as well drink it at Lehmann’s, their own little safe house.

  They were silent throughout the drive. Helen stared out the window, and when they got to the bar she pointedly took a different chair from the one he pulled out for her. She saw Lehmann noticing, and flashed him a smile as if to soften the rebuke. Reading their body language perfectly, the saloon keeper flipped an immaculate dish towel over his shoulder and headed for the cellar. The brandy was at the same level as where they’d left off before.

  Baucom didn’t speak until after his first swallow.

  “Are you going to let me read it?”

  “Of course not.”

  He nodded, as if it were the answer he’d expected.

  “Good. That’s a start. Change the goddamn mailbox. That would also be a start.”

  She swirled the brandy in her glass, angry with his belittling tone even though she agreed completely.

  “So, then, is that all for tonight? A free lesson in the obvious, plus a toot of Lehmann’s finest?”

  Baucom leaned forward, his voice practically a whisper.

  “Edward Stone. Cryptonym ‘Beetle.’ Spelled like the bug, not the group.”

  She waited for more. All he did was stare.

  “Am I supposed to guess the rest?”

  “You said that he wheezed, and that he went straight for the good stuff, the Macallan.”

  “How did you—?”

  He raised a hand.

  “That’s all I will say. Plus a word of advice. Use this information as judiciously as you would consume this wonderful elixir, because it is every bit as rare and valuable. And equally intoxicating. Do not share it with just anyone.”

  “But you do want me to use it, or why tell me?”

  He said nothing.

  “And you’re not telling me out of any sense of love or loyalty, are you? You’re just hoping to use me. Promoted to shadow operative for Clark Baucom, sly old hand of Budapest.”

  “Yes, I want to use you. As do your newest friends, so spare me the indignation. In this little business of ours, almost everyone finds ways to use his friends and connections, or haven’t you noticed? Cliques and factions and competing agendas, all of it beneath the big wonderful tent of the Company. Everyone with his own sideshow at one time or another, and if that counts as using your friends, then I plead guilty as charged. But I’m not betraying you, and haven’t, even though I know that’s what you believe.”

  “What else am I supposed to think after you stole the tapes?”

  “That depends on what I do with them.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Not your business at this point, nor do you want it to be. ‘Need to know’ isn’t just a means of thwarting curiosity. It keeps you safe. Or safer. Especially when you seem to be doing everything you can to ensure that safety is a foreign concept. Which is why I have one more item for you.”

  Baucom reached into his jacket and withdrew an envelope, which he slid across the table. There was no writing on the outside. Helen briefly considered sliding it right back. Then she picked it up.

  “May I look now? Here?”

  He shrugged but didn’t object, so she pulled back the flap. Peeping inside she saw a Canadian passport, plus a Eurail pass that would be good for a month from its first date of usage. It had been purchased only yesterday.

  “Who’s this for?”

  “Who do you think?”

  Nudging the rail ticket farther out, she saw a name printed along the side.

  “Elizabeth Waring Hart,” she read aloud. “Am I supposed to know her?”

  “Fairly well, I’d say. Although lately she hasn’t been herself, so maybe it’s an open question.”

  She thumbed open the passport and saw her own photo—as a blonde, no less.

  “Clark, what the hell?”

  “It’s not official, but it’s top-of-the-line. The cobbler is an old friend who owed me a favor. Hope you like the photo. He did that as well. You’ll need a wig, of course, or a dye job, if you ever plan to use it. But you’d probably want one, anyway, as part of the whole package.”

  “An escape and evasion kit?”

  “How about if you don’t say that aloud? And it’s not enough. You should also have a pair of sunglasses, a ready supply of currency. D-Marks, but also something for wherever you might want to go first. Francs, pesetas, whatever place you settle on.”

  “What, no rubles?”

  “This isn’t comedy, my dear. I’m deadly serious.”

  “I know. No need to act like I’m some G-7 from the steno pool.”

  “My worry is that you won’t bother to act on your knowledge until it’s too late.” He leaned closer. “So what I’m saying is do this now!”

  “Now you’re scaring me. You’ve developed a knack for that, you know.”

  “Good. You should be scared.” He swallowed some brandy, looking for the first time that he needed it as much as she did.

  “What do you know about all this that you’re not telling me?”

  “Not a fair question.”

  “It is among friends.”

  “Not a fair argument.”

  “Oh, for Chrissakes, Clark! What’s unfair if we’re talking about someone who operates beyond all the usual rules?”

  “Why do you think all my worries are only about Robert?”

  “Gilley. And here’s another name for you. Delacroix, who works for Gilley. Heard of him, too?”

  Baucom looked stumped for the first time that night, and for once she wasn’t happy about it. She’d been hoping he’d say that this Delacroix fellow was a minor matter, easily controlled.

  “Can’t say that I have,” Baucom muttered. “But you’re still missing the point.”

  “Well, Gilley is the scary one.”

  “What, exactly, about the wording of ‘Elimination, plain and simple’ doesn’t sound scary to you?”

  They were the words that the wheezing man—the one she now knew to be Edward Stone, cryptonym Beetle—had uttered at the close of his meeting at the safe house.

  “So you listened to the tapes.”

  “Of course I listened.”

  “And?”

  “These questions.” He shook his head in exasperation. “I told you. Enough.”

  “So that’s all the explanation you’re going to offer? A name and a warning, plus an escape kit?”

  “As I said. Cliques and factions, each with its own sideshow.”

  “This Beetle fellow, I take it you’re not fond of him.”

  He shrugged and picked up his glass.

  “Fuck you and your selective silence, Clark. I don’t know what’s worse, the stupid riddles or the whole ‘need to know�
� firewall you put up every time I have an important question.”

  “As I said, it’s for your protection. For everyone’s. And it’s my own way of saying that I have now done all I’m capable of doing on your behalf.”

  “And Herrington doesn’t know? About any of this?”

  “Not yet. And if he doesn’t, then the Central Europe desk in Langley doesn’t. So whoever your others friends are, they at least seem to be capable of more discretion than you’ve demonstrated to date.”

  “I thought you knew all about them?”

  “I have my theories. But I also have my limitations and blind spots.”

  “Cliques and factions and all that.”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. Then she knocked back a bracing shot, hoping that it would help clear things up. Instead, she experienced the first stirrings of a luxuriant slide into a mellow stupor, which, if unchecked, might lead straight to bed, a thought that took deeper root when Baucom took her hand and again leaned closer. But instead of offering a caress, or saying something suggestive, he squeezed her hand and said, “Carry yourself wisely, my dear. Whatever it is you’re doing, wrap it up soon. Because you won’t go unnoticed by the wrong people forever. And if and when you are caught, it won’t be my doing. Know that.”

  “All right.”

  “One further caution.”

  “Yes?”

  “In all these messages back and forth between you and God knows who else, you had best not bandy about any of those coded words that made you so curious when you overheard them at the safe house. Lakes and ponds. The bay. All that body of water stuff.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do as I say.”

  “Let me see if I have this straight. You’d like me to do a little nosing around on your behalf about this Edward Stone. But without mentioning his name, or anything that he said. That should be easy as pie.”

  “Since when is our work ever easy? It’s why I brought you the other little gift, in case the going gets so tough that you need to get away for a while. But that’s all I can do for you. Finis.”