The Once and Future Spy

by Robert Littell

  “He’ll croak before we can question him,” Mildred called in panic. Pushing her chest into his face, she reached behind him and undid the gag, then sat back on her haunches. She dangled the gag in his face. “Promise me you’ll be a good boy and not dazzle us with witticisms,” she said breathlessly, “and I won’t put it on again.”

  The Weeder managed to nod. He looked around. He was in some sort of cabin, sitting on the floor with his back to one wall. His wrists were handcuffed behind his back and the handcuffs were attached to something metallic embedded in the wall that stabbed into his spine. He shifted his position, rolling onto a haunch, to ease the pain. There were double doors at one end of the cabin and a little round window at the other end. Mildred, wearing the 1930s feathered hat with the veil that masked half her face, settled onto a bunk bed built into the wall opposite him, her legs spread, her skirt hiked, revealing garter belts with clasps attached to the folds of dark transparent stockings. Huxstep’s face appeared in the round window. He pushed it open on its hinge and aimed an enormous pistol with a silencer fitted on the barrel at the Weeder.

  The Weeder gasped. Mildred whined, “What about the interrogation?” as if she were afraid of being cheated.

  Smiling cruelly, Huxstep thumbed back the hammer. “We’ll invent it,” he said, and he pulled the trigger. The sharp click of the firing mechanism struck the Weeder with the force of a bullet. He sank back into the piece of embedded metal and cried out in pain.

  Huxstep laughed under his breath. “It was a joke,” he growled at Mildred.

  Sparks of admiration kindled in her eyes. “You could have fooled me.”

  “History,” the Weeder remarked weakly, “needs a giggle now and then.”

  “Uh-uh,” warned Mildred, leaning forward to wiggle a finger in the Weeder’s face. “Remember what I told you about dazzling us with witticisms.”

  Huxstep closed the porthole. The Weeder could see his back-he seemed to be manipulating controls. A motor started up with a roar. The floorboards under the Weeder vibrated. Diesel fumes invaded the cabin. Mildred produced a handkerchief and held it over her nose. Huxstep shifted into gear and accelerated. Rolling gently from side to side, the cabin started to move. The sound of water washing up against its sides reached the Weeder.

  “We’re on a boat!” he exclaimed.

  “The Admiral said you were a bright boy,” Mildred commented through her handkerchief.

  “Where are you taking me?” the Weeder asked.

  Mildred stared at him with the unblinking eyes of a turtledove. “To see the sea.”

  The Weeder shifted onto a haunch again and tried to ride the gentle rise and fall of the floorboards under him. The diesel fumes gradually disappeared. He could hear over the motor the bark of sea gulls, the tinkle of a buoy passing close aboard, the distant moan of a foghorn. Presently the sounds faded and there was only the drone of the motor and the lapping of water against the hull, and the snoring of Mildred, who had been lulled to sleep by the motion of the boat. The Weeder grew stiff, shifted his weight onto his other haunch. In her sleep Mildred rolled onto her side, continued snoring. After what seemed to the Weeder to be an eternity the pitch of the motor changed. It was being throttled back, left to idle. Mildred stirred, looked at her wristwatch, sat up so abruptly she banged her head against the side of the bunk. “Fuck,” she exclaimed. Rubbing her head, she opened one of the double doors and called out, “Are we there?”

  “I think I hear it,” Huxstep called back excitedly.

  Mildred cocked an ear, flashed a toothy smile as she caught the put-put-put of rotors. The whine of a motor grew louder. To the Weeder it sounded as if a giant eggbeater was hovering directly over the boat. Someone landed with a thud on the roof of the cabin. The put-put-put of the rotors receded, then faded altogether. The Weeder could hear shoes scuffing the planks over his head. Someone was working his way aft. Mildred threw open the second door and stood aside.

  Dressed in a Navy windbreaker with a blue baseball cap set on his mane of chalk-white hair, Admiral Toothacher appeared at the doors. He stooped and ducked into the cabin. “Well, well,” he exclaimed, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, “what do we have here?”

  “What we have here,” Mildred said, “is trouble.”

  Still looking at the Weeder, the Admiral told Mildred, “Be so kind as to close the doors on your way out.”

  Mildred’s feelings were obviously hurt. “Aye, aye, sir,” she said with a scowl. She slipped out of the cabin, banging the doors shut behind her.

  Hunched over like a parenthesis to avoid hitting his head, Toothacher settled onto the bunk facing the Weeder and unzipped his wind-breaker. He ran a forefinger under the turtleneck of the black skintight sweater he was wearing to alleviate the chafing. “I trust you won’t object to Mildred’s absence,” the Admiral remarked. “I myself prefer the company of men to that of women. Don’t get me wrong. Women can be good company, but only when they are reasonably sure of their ability to seduce. Mildred, you will have concluded from her readiness, her eagerness even, to expose a length of thigh, to rub a breast against your elbow, is not at all sure of her ability to seduce. But then only the very beautiful or the very rich or the very ugly are. So, Silas-I hope you will not be offended if I call you by your given name-on top of everything else you’ve been doing, you have been spying for our Russian friends.”

  The Weeder tried to register surprise, innocence. The letter he had planted behind the museum radiator had fallen into the right hands after all. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

  From the inside pocket of his windbreaker the Admiral pulled a wad of photocopies. “My Latin is not what it once was,” he told the Weeder, “but with the aid of a dictionary it was child’s play to translate. ‘Haemorrhoidane tibi etiam molesta est?‘ That means, ‘Are your hemorrhoids still bothering you?’ How did you know Savinkov had hemorrhoids, Silas?”

  The Weeder glanced around in desperation.

  “There is no way out,” Toothacher said coldly. “Attempt to be rational. For your own good, for your peace of mind, answer my question.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “What will happen to you happens to everyone eventually. You will die. The question is whether you will die painlessly and with dignity, or …” He let the sentence trail off suggestively.

  An image of Snow came to the Weeder-he remembered the photograph of her, nude, seen through a partly open door, a candle next to her bare feet. She had invaded her own space, then she had invaded the Weeder’s space; she had not believed him, had betrayed him. He would have to steel himself to pay the price of that betrayal. He hoped he had the courage. He would take his cue from Nate. … “I am ready to die,” he told the Admiral.

  Toothacher snorted. “You only regret that you have but one life, et cetera, et cetera. The fact is that nobody is ever ready to die, although everyone is actually in the process of dying-Mildred with her ridiculous hat, the young girls with their obscenely thin skirts clinging to their obscenely thin thighs, the hookers Huxstep unearths, God knows where he finds them, with their insolent smiles. What is there to smile about? The only people who smile are those who don’t know enough, who don’t know they’re dying.” The Admiral realized he had been carried away, smirked in embarrassment, repeated his question. “Savinkov? Hemorrhoids? If you please?”

  “During one of our meetings I noticed he was sitting on an inflated rubber tube. I assumed he had hemorrhoids. I remembered an advertisement about a medicine and brought him some the next time I saw him.”

  “We all seem to be good at diagnosing other people’s symptoms,” the Admiral remarked. “How long have you been working for Savinkov?”

  “I don’t work for him. I collaborate. Two, two and a half years.”

  “How did you first get in touch with him?”

  “He got in touch with me. He struck up a conversation while we were waiting in line for a movie. We had a drink together afterwar
d. He told me he was a Hungarian refugee. We met occasionally for lunch or dinner. We became friendly. One day he came right out and told me who he was and what he wanted.”

  “And what exactly did he want?”

  “He wanted information that would help him, help the Russians, rein in the Agency’s global schemes of domination. Savinkov understood I was a patriot, that I would only give him information when I believed my side had lost its moral compass-trying to overthrow elected governments because they were socialist, organizing the assassination of officials who were anti-American, that kind of thing.”

  The Admiral unfolded a photocopy of the computer printouts that had been retrieved from the pawn shop. “When you found out about Stufftingle you naturally passed this information on to him.”

  “Not in the beginning. I tried to head off the operation by letting Wanamaker think there had been a leak. When I realized that you had been called in to walk back the cat, that Wanamaker still seemed to be going ahead with Stufftingle, I began to feed some of the printouts into dead drops. In the back of my head I suppose I hoped that the Agency would get wind that Savinkov knew about Stufftingle and call it off.”

  The Weeder, Toothacher realized, still considered Stufftingle to be an Agency operation. It had never occurred to him that Wanamaker was freelancing.

  “How often did you meet with Savinkov?”

  “Once he started running me we met only occasionally. When I wanted to pass something to him I usually put it in a dead drop. I’d alert him by dialing a number he gave me and letting the phone ring three times before hanging up.”

  “How did Savinkov pay you?”

  The Weeder feigned outrage. “I never took a penny from him. I told you, I had the interests of my country at heart. I am a patriot, even if you don’t see it that way.”

  The Weeder shifted positions again. Whichever way he turned now, sharp pains stabbed through his back. Toothacher, comfortably installed on the bunk, was indefatigable. He doubled back over the ground he had covered, probing for contradictions, inconsistencies, outright lies. “How many times do I have to tell you I wasn’t in it for the money!” the Weeder burst out at one point. “Savinkov offered me cash payments-he said if I didn’t want cash he could open a secret account in Switzerland-but I flatly refused.”

  “You are following in the footsteps of your illustrious ancestor, if I read you correctly,” the Admiral said.

  “I hope to God I am,” the Weeder replied with emotion.

  The interrogation dragged on as the Admiral tried to tie up loose ends. “I don’t remember the telephone number,” the Weeder said, carefully steering clear of details that the Admiral could check. “Behind a toilet in the Smithsonian, under one of those wire wastepaper baskets behind the Lincoln Memorial-there were so many dead drops I can’t remember them all.” “Of course I told him about my eavesdropping program,” the Weeder admitted in reply to still another question. “I had an assistant who worked with me. I had to be sure Savinkov never referred to me, never mentioned his penetration of the Agency near a phone.”

  By midafternoon even the Admiral was beginning to tire. “There is one last item I’d like to take up with you,” he told the Weeder. “Some years back I was invited down to the Farm to lecture to a class of new recruits. While I was there you spent two nights following me, then wrote up a report on my … activities. The report, signed by you, was shown to me when I was obliged to take early retirement-”

  “Oh, God, you’re not going to dredge up something that happened fifteen years ago. We were instructed to follow someone as part of a course on surveillance. I picked you at random. There was nothing personal.”

  “You ended my career at random,” the Admiral said, barely moving his lips as he spoke. “You ruined my life at random.” He collected his papers and zippered up his windbreaker. It occurred to him that waiting all those years was what made it so sweet. Revenge was a meal that tasted best cold.

  The Weeder started to ask, “When … how long …”

  Toothacher understood the question, waved a comforting hand. “That bridge won’t be crossed for two or three days yet,” he said. “What are we today? Ides minus three. I will have to report back to Washington before the final decision can be taken on you, on Stuff tingle. The worst case must be examined. Alternatives must be explored. But I will tell you, in all honesty, that there is little doubt what your fate must be, given the situation we all find ourselves in. There can be no question of your being brought to trial. Surely someone with your intelligence can empathize with this point of view even if you are not inclined to agree with it.”

  “I am in great pain,” the Weeder said as the Admiral got up to leave. “There is a piece of metal digging into my back.”

  The Admiral looked down at the Weeder, took in the awkwardness of his position, clucked his tongue in sympathy. He ducked out of the cabin, returned soon afterward trailed by Huxstep, who was struggling with a large block of cement, the kind used to weigh down temporary traffic signs. The stump of a metal pole, with a hole drilled neatly through it, protruded from the cement. Seeing the block of cement the Weeder’s heart started beating wildly. Huxstep wrestled the block to the cabin floor, reached behind the Weeder and unlocked one of the handcuffs, freeing the Weeder from the piece of metal sticking out of the bulkhead. Then Huxstep locked the open cuff through the hole in the metal pole jutting from the cement block, attaching the Weeder to the block by one wrist.

  “In case you was wondering,” Huxstep said, “that’s to make sure you sink to the bottom so nobody finds your corpse.”

  The Weeder turned on the Admiral, who was watching behind Huxstep. His words became gasps for air. “You promised … you gave your word … the end would be painless … dignified.”

  The Admiral looked offended. “What do you take us for? Throwing someone to the sharks while he is still alive is the kind of thing our adversaries would do. In liberal circles it is popular to suggest that two enemies warring for any length of time tend to resemble each other, but this is not at all true. At least not in our case. Our manners distinguish us from our enemies. Huxstep here has strict instructions to shoot you before throwing you overboard.”

  The Weeder sat up, massaged the welts on the wrist that had been freed. He caught Huxstep sizing him up with eyes the color, the coldness of pewter. He had seen toughness before but Huxstep represented a different order of things. He had a toughness that was more than skin deep, that was indistinguishable from viciousness. It had to do with the way he looked out at the world and obviously didn’t give a damn about it. “I hope he remembers,” the Weeder remarked morbidly.

  Mildred stuck her head through the double doors. “I think I hear the helicopter,” she announced in a grating voice that somehow always managed to get on the Admiral’s nerves.

  “I don’t think it is likely that we will meet again,” Toothacher told the Weeder, “but I want you to know I won’t soon forget you. You will be another secret that will go to the grave with me.” He raised his baseball cap in salute and threaded his bony fingers through his tangle of hair. “You will be another of my white hairs.”

  22

  And here, finally, is Nate’s reunion with his Tory cousin, Samuel:

  AT FIRST LIGHT NATE ESCORTED Molly to the Manhattan island ferry point. She was loath to leave him but he reminded her of her vow to obey. “I am not violating principles you hold dearly but acting on them,” he insisted.

  The ferryman called for those who were crossing to Brookland to come on board. Several merchants carrying haversacks filled with wares walked onto the ferry. Molly clung to Nate’s coat. “Your patriotism is as strong as my hate,” she whispered, “but I will not let you go.”

  Nate gently pried loose her fingers. “I am not asking you for permission.”

  He stepped back. Molly raised her eyes to the heavens, as if there were something there that could change the course of history. Her gaze fell on a sliver of a moon pale with first ligh
t. “How the moon requires night,” she said absently. Then she added urgently, “Me also, I require night.” And she backed onto the flat ferry and stood with her eyes riveted to Nate’s as it eased away from the dock. She stared at him until he was lost in darkness.

  Carrying his wooden kit slung over one shoulder, Nate quickly made his way to Wall Street, to the alleyway across from Haym Salomon’s house. In the street in front of the house an orderly was holding the reins of half a dozen horses. There was a commotion at the front door. Two cavalrymen dragged Salomon down the steps into the street. His wife stood on the top step stifling her tears in an apron. A cavalryman tied Salomon’s hands in front of him, then passed the end of the cord up to another cavalryman who had mounted his horse. Taking a good grip on the cord, he dug his spurs into the flanks of his mount. The horse started forward at a brisk pace. Salomon, a man in his middle thirties, was almost jerked off his feet as he stumbled after the cavalryman holding the leash. Laughing, the other cavalrymen swung into their saddles and followed. They turned a corner and disappeared from view.

  Nate sprinted across the street and up the steps. Salomon’s wife was still standing at the open door staring at the empty street, at the dust from the cavalrymen’s horses settling back onto it.

  “What happened?” Nate asked breathlessly.

  “They had a warrant accusing him of being a colonial spy,” Salomon’s wife said miserably. She added, “Haym scribbled a note for you when he heard them coming.” She reached into an apron pocket and handed Nate a folded slip of paper. “God keep you, young man,” she said hastily, and retreated into the house.

  Nate unfolded the note. On it Salomon had scrawled: “Your cousin breaks fast daily around the hour of nine at Fraunces’ Tavern.”

  A housewright delivering sidings to a building site directed Nate to Fraunces’ Tavern, the old De Lancey mansion at the corner of Pearl and Broad. The sun was up by the time he got there, the street in front of the tavern crowded with wagons and horses being held by stable boys provided by “Black Sam” Fraunces, the enterprising proprietor. Nate turned around the tavern several times, then decided he might as well break fast himself while he was waiting. The tavern was crowded and noisy. He eventually found a place at a corner table next to a beefy constable who eyed him and his wooden kit with curiosity when he sat down. A waitress with her bosom swelling over the top of her bodice brought a steaming cup of mocha coffee, half a loaf of bread and a small wooden tub of butter. The constable finished his meal, leaned back, lit a cigar and dispatched a dense cloud of vile-smelling smoke into the air. Coughing, Nate waved a hand to clear it away-and found himself staring straight into the eyes of his cousin Samuel, standing with his back to the bar not three yards away.