Without Honor

by David Hagberg

  “The question is, what has he won?” McGarvey drew deeply on his cigarette. He stepped a few feet down the road so that he could better see the house above. “He must really impress the Kremlin. Do you know that the Russians have apparently constructed missile bases just south of our border? Mexico has come a long way since the sixties.” Someone laughed from above and the music started again; this time the tune was a rumba. “He likes people. Have you any idea what he’s up to?”

  “He wants to take over the world,” Evita said from just behind him.

  McGarvey didn’t bother to turn around. But he knew she had gotten out of the car. He heard the door close softly.

  “He was afraid that the moderates would someday take control of the Soviet Union and give away everything they had gained since the war,” she said.

  “He wanted to speed things up.”

  “He wanted to be first secretary and premier.”

  “Maybe he will be.” McGarvey flipped his cigarette off the side of the road and walked back to the car. Evita stood, one hand on the roof, her hip leaning against the door as if she needed support, which in a way she certainly did.

  “I could go up there now and he would welcome me with open arms.”

  “Do you want to take the car, or walk?”

  She looked up toward the house. “Who’s to say he isn’t right?”

  “And I’m wrong?”

  She looked at him. “Yes.”

  “Depends upon the geography. If we were standing below his dacha outside Moscow, I’d have to concede that he was right. But we’re not.”

  She thought about this for a moment, then shook her head. “Can it be that simple?”

  “Probably not. But I’ve run out of answers. Two good people have been murdered in the last few days because of him. One of them was my friend. He left a wife and children.” He started for the other side of the car.

  “No, don’t,” Evita said.

  “Whatever you do or don’t do, I can’t leave it,” McGarvey said. He thought again about Kathleen and about Marta. Both were strong women. And yet he couldn’t get over the feeling that Evita was vulnerable, that she needed someone to hold her close, that that was all she had ever needed.

  “Then go up and kill him!”

  “I need the answers first.”

  “They won’t do anyone any good.”

  “I think they will.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, Evita,” he said softly. “I want your help. I need your help.”

  “I can’t,” she cried in anguish.

  “Then go to him,” McGarvey said harshly. “I’ll do it myself.”

  He got in the car, started the engine, and switched on the headlights. Evita stood at the side of the road for another moment or two, then turned, opened the door, and got in. She hunched down in the seat, silent and pale, a little leaf of Autumn caught against her will in the ocean currents, totally without hope or control.

  29

  It was after two in the morning by the time they got back into the city. Traffic was still heavy. Fires could be seen here and there. Big crowds had gathered on many of the street corners, in some of the plazas and squares, and in front of American business establishments and offices. Banners seemed to be everywhere, proclaiming “Liberty from North American Aggressors,” “Freedom From American Colonialism,” and “True Independence At Last.” Ordinary traffic was still barred from a wide area around the U.S. embassy so they couldn’t get close enough to see what was happening. They returned to the hotel instead.

  “What happened between you and that desk clerk earlier this evening?” McGarvey asked as they rode up in the elevator.

  “Nothing,” Evita said woodenly.

  “Did he say something to you? I couldn’t hear it.”

  She looked up. “Nothing. It was in his eyes.” She looked away again. “He thought I was your whore.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said. “You know the funny thing about it is that I’ve been nearly everyone’s whore except yours.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  She actually smiled a little. “I told him that if he couldn’t keep his dirty little thoughts to himself I would cut off his balls and stuff them down his throat.”

  McGarvey sat in a chair by the open window smoking a cigarette and watching the dawn break over the city as Evita slept on the bed. She was keyed up. She had wanted to talk, to be comforted by him, but he had made her take a bath and crawl in between the clean sheets. “You’re going to need your strength when Basulto shows up,” he told her. She wore one of his shirts as a nightgown. He had tucked her in and had kissed her on the forehead as he might a young child. She was asleep within a minute or two.

  The demonstrations across the park had broken up sometime in the early morning hours, and from here the only traces of unrest he could detect were the lingering odors of smoke from the fires. Blue and white police cars continued to cruise past at regular intervals, each time a different car. Most of Mexico City’s police force seemed to be on duty this morning. At four o’clock a convoy of army trucks rumbled past. At four-thirty a big automatic street washer lumbered by. At five the morning delivery vans and trucks began coming, bringing milk and bread and laundry and fresh meat and vegetables to the hotels and restaurants. At five-thirty the eastern sky began to lighten perceptibly.

  His mood darkened with the morning. It was exhaustion, he knew, yet he could not help himself from sliding toward the edge of despair, where he began to doubt his abilities as well as his sanity. He was frightened that he no longer had anyone to trust and just a little intimidated by a sudden inability to envision Marta’s face in his mind’s eye. When he tried to think of her, he could only see Evita’s face and eyes framed by her long dark hair. Thinking that way was nonsense because in truth she had been everyone’s whore except his. And he felt more pity for her, he thought, than lust.

  He turned around. Evita was sitting up in bed, the covers gathered in her lap. She was watching him, her eyes wide, her face almost serene, guileless in this light.

  “I want you,” he said, surprised by his own words.

  “I don’t want charity.”

  “It’s not charity.”

  “The spoils of war, then.” Her voice was flat, dull.

  “Not that either. I don’t think I give a damn about any of it now. If Baranov wants Mexico he can have it. It’s not up to me to decide, or to change the world. I don’t care if there is a traitor in the CIA. That’s not up to me to fix, either. And I don’t know if I really care about you. I don’t know if I’m still capable of caring, if I was ever capable of it. I only know that I want you.”

  She pushed the covers back. Without taking her eyes off his, she took off his shirt and let it fall to the floor. Her chest was heaving, her nipples were erect, there was a faint flush to her forehead and cheeks, and her lips shimmered. She lay back on the pillow and reached out a hand for him.

  “Come,” she said. “I will be your whore as well.”

  He got up and took off his clothes. She watched him. When he came across the room she spread her legs and reached up to him, pulling him down. He entered her immediately, gathering her in his arms, kissing her deeply, her tongue darting against his. Her hips rose to meet his, and she wrapped her long dancer’s legs around his waist, drawing him even more deeply inside of her.

  “It will never be all right between us,” she said softly. A low moan escaped her lips as he thrust against her, trying to bury himself in her.

  “Only now matters,” he said.

  “We may be dead tomorrow.”

  He wanted to say they were dead already, but he was losing himself with her, and nothing truly mattered except for this moment.

  “I don’t love you,” she cried.

  “No.”

  “I’ve never loved anyone.”

  They lay in each other’s arms watching the sun rise, listening to the sounds of the city coming ali
ve beneath their open window.

  “As a young girl I studied to become a classical guitarist.” She touched a scar on his chest with a long, delicate finger. “I used to wonder how my life would have turned out had I never met Darby or Valentin.”

  A car horn beeped outside and in the distance they could hear a siren. But it was much quieter than it had been last night. He reached over and kissed her breast. She lay back and held his head in her hands.

  “I don’t know what you want me to do,” she said. “I don’t know what you expect of me with this Cubano coming, but I’ll do it. I think from the moment you showed up at the club I knew that I would do something for you.”

  McGarvey looked into her eyes. “I’m returning to Washington this afternoon.”

  “Leaving me here with Basulto?”

  He nodded. Her eyes were very dark and very deep. He felt as if he might fall into them. If that happened he knew he would never get back out.

  “You didn’t mean what you said before, about not caring any longer.”

  He shrugged.

  She smiled sadly. “I understand how it is with your kind. It’s the Holy Grail you’re all after. Only most of the time you never get it. You never even come close.”

  “I have to see it to the end.”

  “Naturally,” she said. “Who will I call for you?”

  “Your husband.”

  She closed her eyes and opened them. “And tell him what?”

  “That you’re down here with a Cuban who knew him from the Bay of Pigs. That it was I who brought you both down here, and that I know everything about him and about Baranov and about the other one in the CIA.”

  “He’ll run.”

  “Tell him that I want to make a deal. It’s no longer safe for him up there and he’d better get out while he can still save himself. Tell him Baranov is here waiting for him, too. That you’ll all be together again like in the old days.”

  “When? What time?”

  “Eleven in the evening; nine local time. This evening.” Mexico City time was two hours behind U.S. eastern daylight time.

  “And you’ll be there. Watching him. Waiting to see who he runs to.”

  McGarvey touched her hip. She shivered.

  “Maybe he won’t run after all,” she said, covering his hand with hers.

  “He will.”

  “And then you’ll know who else has been corrupted. And it’ll be finished for you.”

  “Hopefully,” McGarvey said. He wondered though if he truly cared, or if he had just been going through the motions. Except for poor Janos Plónski and the old man, Owens, he might not have come this far. Might not have pushed as hard as he had. Might have backed down when Day ordered him to.

  “Valentin will know that I am here,” she said softly.

  “He doesn’t want you any longer. You’ve served his purpose.”

  “He’ll warn Darby. Maybe he’s already warned him.”

  “No,” McGarvey said. He reached over and lit a cigarette. “He wants Darby to fall.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  She sat up, her eyes suddenly bright. “He knew you’d find out. He wanted you to find out. Which means there’s something else happening. He never does anything without a purpose.”

  “It looks like it.”

  “Is Basulto working for Valentin?”

  McGarvey had thought about it, of course. Now he weighed the possibilities again. On the surface it seemed likely that the Cuban had been working for the Russians in the old days, and that he had set up his case officer, Roger Harris, to be killed at the Bay of Pigs. But it was just as possible that Basulto wanted out now. He had watched Harris fall, and he was at least in part the reason why Yarnell would fall. Maybe he saw his own future in the same terms. The game had gotten too rough for him, so he was trading Yarnell’s life for his own. The coincidental timing was hard to accept, unless of course Baranov’s sources had told him about Basulto’s defection and he had worked up his own program to take advantage of Yarnell’s fall.

  “I don’t know that either,” he said quietly.

  “I see.”

  Where did it fit? he asked himself, watching how the light made Evita’s skin take on a golden glow. He had felt the Russian’s presence almost from the beginning, and he supposed he had behaved badly in not protecting the people who had helped him.

  “You want me to stay here with him, is that it?”

  “Not in the same room.”

  She laughed.

  “I’ll leave you my gun.”

  “Maybe I’ll save us all a lot of trouble.”

  “How?”

  “By shooting him and then myself.”

  The clerk was clearly hostile when McGarvey went down to the desk to arrange and pay for Basulto’s room. Evita had promised not to leave the hotel, but it was clear that she was barely hanging onto her nerves. He promised that it would be over by morning, but she didn’t believe it, and he wondered if he did.

  “I’ll be leaving tomorrow,” McGarvey told the clerk. He would be out and back before anyone knew that he was gone.

  “Perhaps it would be wiser, senor, if you left Mexico today.” He was young, with an olive complexion and a pencil-thin mustache. His manner was oily. “The hotel, of course, cannot guarantee your safety under the circumstances.”

  “What circumstances?” McGarvey asked stepping a little closer.

  “There is unrest here, senor.” The man’s eyes strayed to a pile of newspapers at the end of the counter. One of them, the Mexico City News, was in English. Its headlines blared: AMERICAN SPY PLANE SHOT DOWN OVER MEXICO.

  McGarvey quickly scanned the article. An SR-71 spy plane had been shot down sometime yesterday thirty miles inside Mexican territory. The information was scant; the story obviously censored by the government. But the plane was definitely American. The pilot’s body had been recovered and identified.

  McGarvey looked up. The clerk was staring at him.

  “Have my bill prepared. I’ll be leaving before noon.”

  “And Miss Perez?”

  “Her brother-in-law is coming this morning. He will stay with her.”

  “He is cubano.”

  “Are you at war with Cuba as well?”

  The clerk reared back. “Your bill will be waiting for you.”

  “When Senor Basulto arrives, tell him to meet me at Roger Harris’s. He knows the place.”

  “Yes, senor.”

  The clerk went back into his office. McGarvey crossed the lobby and went outside, conscious of the pressure of the gun in his belt at the small of his back.

  He found a public telephone three blocks away, across the street from the national lottery building. The international lines, especially to the States, were jammed, and it took more than ten minutes to get through to the number Trotter had given him.

  It was answered, as before, on the first ring by the same man. “Yes?”

  “Basulto is on his way to Mexico City. What time does he arrive?”

  “Pan Am, 9:05 local.”

  “Tell Trotter to meet me at the safe house tonight at ten-thirty.”

  “He wants to talk to you …”

  McGarvey hung up. It was already nine o’clock. If Basulto’s plane was on time and there were no delays with customs, he would be at the hotel sometime between 9:30 and 10:00. His own flight left at 1:25, getting him in at Washington’s National Airport at 9:40. The timing was tight, but it was coming to a head finally. By tonight it would be over, with only the repercussions to deal with. This time when he thought about Marta he could see her face. Switzerland was out, but perhaps she wouldn’t mind living in France or Greece. Or was it simply wishful thinking; another product of his exhausted state?

  By ten McGarvey, waiting across from the hotel in the park, was becoming impatient. Something might have gone wrong in Miami. Baranov certainly knew by now that Basulto was there. Perhaps he had ordered the man assassinated. It wasn’t unth
inkable considering everything else that had gone on. The Cuban had outlived his usefulness, hadn’t he? Or was there a flaw in that thinking? Baranov had been celebrating last night, or at least he had put up a damned good show of it. Which meant, as far as Baranov was concerned, this business was as good as done. As it had last night on the mountain road below the Russian’s villa, the thought raised the hair at the back of McGarvey’s neck. Circles within circles. Lies within lies. Plots within plots. Baranov was the master.

  Sitting on a bench watching the busy traffic he turned his thoughts to Evita; poor, frightened, abused little Evita waiting upstairs in the hotel room. He was astonished at his own behavior, and all the more guilty because he knew with certainty that Marta would understand. Or at least she would pretend to understand though he suspected she would secretly be hurt. But even more astonishing to him were his feelings toward Marta which had surfaced in the morning. He was allowing himself to think for the first time in a very long time that he was actually in love with someone.

  In Lausanne the apartment would have been cleared out by now and Marta would be in her own place. He wondered what her real home was like and if she went back there when he was away at work, only returning to their apartment when he was coming back. It made him sad to think how he had treated her during their last years, especially the last weeks.

  He had taught her how to ski after she had cheerfully admitted she was probably the only Swiss in history who didn’t know how. It was in the early days of their relationship. He had learned to ski as a boy in Colorado and Montana. They spent a week in Zermatt working every morning on the lower slopes, making love in their room all afternoon, and dancing in the evening in the lodge. On the first day he had spent a frustrating two hours trying to teach her the basic snowplow turn. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen an older man in knickers, a bright red and blue sweater and a Tyrollean hat leaning against his ski poles watching them. Each time Marta would lean into the turn she would fall until at last she got it right, and he had hugged her, lifting her right out of her skis. The man watching them executed a perfect jump turn and schussed off down the hill yodeling in the best Swiss tradition. Marta had noticed him from the beginning. She laughed.