Paramour

by Gerald Petievich

  At Camp Darby, he pulled up to the guard gate and showed his passport to the military policeman on duty. After the MP on duty had issued him a visitor's pass, he phoned the camp's G-2 office and determined that Sergeant Fuller had just left for lunch at the post exchange cafeteria.

  Powers parked his car in the large parking lot in front of the supermarket-sized post exchange and went in. The cafeteria was inside the front door to the right. The place was filled with clusters of enlisted men in camouflage fatigue uniforms and homely, overweight women with young children and babies sitting at Formica-topped tables. The tables were set with plastic flowers, plastic ashtrays, and plastic salt and peppershakers. And, probably because an army special order had been issued stating the walls of all post exchange food facilities would be decorated, framed photographs of out-of-date Indianapolis racecars were hanging here and there. The place was a bedlam of mixed conversations, crying babies, and the rattle of dishes and trays. Entering, Powers wondered for a moment why soldiers would prefer to eat in such a place, as opposed to getting a free meal in a quiet company mess hall. But, as an army veteran, he knew that to soldiers any change in routine was better than an established practice.

  Fuller, wearing slacks and a cheap-looking brown corduroy sport coat with an open-collar shirt, was sitting alone at a corner table smoking a filter-tipped cigarette and reading a copy of Overseas Weekly.

  As Powers approached, Fuller came to his feet to shake hands. "What brings you back here?" he said amiably, raising his voice to be heard over the din.

  "A couple of loose ends concerning that missing government employee." Powers and Fuller sat down at the table.

  "Must be a flap of major proportions," Fuller said.

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Because you're not the first to do a follow-up," he said with a wry grin. "A few days after I helped you, I was called into the C.O.'s office. He introduces me to Mr. Green and Mr. Jones from Berlin Station, a coupla guys who looked like they just came from a sale at Brooks Brothers," Fuller said facetiously.

  "CIA."

  "You got that one right, Kemo Sabe," Fuller said.

  "What did they want?"

  "They questioned me about helping you. At first I thought it was just a routine follow-up, but they were too cagey for it to be routine. If I asked them a question, they would turn it back to me-as if they didn't want to let some big friggin' cat out of the bag. They were particularly interested in your executive order authority and all that. It was definitely unusual."

  "Most CIA people are unusual."

  "I hear you," Fuller said. He took a big drag to finish his smoke, then snubbed it in the plastic ashtray. "A bunch of goddam eggheads. What the hell is going on?"

  "I'm not sure, but I need your help."

  "You name it."

  "You mentioned something about German intelligence keeping an eye on the Syrian trade mission building. Can you tell me more about that?"

  "I've heard the German LfV-that's Landesamt für Verfassungschutz, the German equivalent of our FBI-has a permanent observation post near the trade mission. They film everybody going in or out and keep the members of the mission under surveillance, all four of them, twenty-four hours a day. We share information about what the ragheads are up to."

  "Did they report any of them helping a woman-"

  "They told me three of the four were out of town at the time she would have parked her car there. The fourth was home with the flu."

  "Thanks, Charlie," Powers said, coming to his feet.

  "This is more than just a routine White House security investigation, isn't it?"

  Powers nodded and walked out to his car.

  On the way to Frankfurt, Powers listened to a manic army disk jockey play popular music on the American Armed Forces Network. At the northern edge of Frankfurt, he pulled off the highway and wound through the city's eclectic mixture of wide and narrow streets, modern and ancient buildings.

  The Frankfurt Einwohnermeldeamt was situated in the top three floors of a modern five-story building near the train station. As Powers had learned from working with the German security forces during presidential visits, every city in Germany had an Einwohnermeldeamt-a resident registration office. Every person in the country was required by law to register at the office, and unlike the United States, where some people even balk at answering questions for the national census, virtually everyone complied. There was such an office in each city, and the records contained limited information on every person living in every city residence.

  Inside the polished first-floor lobby, Powers crossed a hallway and entered through glass doors. A line of clerks stood behind a long counter. There were short lines at each of the counter stations. Powers made a few inquiries in broken German and was referred to the clerk at the end of the counter. Powers approached the rotund woman. She was wearing a gray skirt and sweater and her dishwater-blond hair was wrapped tightly in a bun. Powers used his broken high school German to ask about obtaining information.

  "I speak English," she said officiously. There was a computer screen to her right.

  "Is it possible to obtain a list of all Americans living in Frankfurt with the first name Susan?"

  "Is it possible? Yes. This information it is possible to come from the computer. There will be too many names, but it is possible."

  "May I-"

  "Are you German?"

  "No."

  "It is not allowed for you."

  "Do you have the information available?" Powers asked.

  "Such information is available in the computer. But you are not a policeman. And you are not German. You are an Auslädnder. This information is restricted to you."

  "I'm just trying to determine if such information is available in your computer. If it is, I will go through the proper police channels to request it."

  She turned and punched up the name SUSAN and, if he was right, the letters ADK and a control key. Straining his neck slightly, Powers could see the computer screen. It was filled with columns of the name SUSAN.

  "Yes. There are many Susans."

  "Thank you." Powers moved away, and the next person in line moved to the counter. Loitering at the other end of the lobby, he watched the other clerks as they used their computers, trying to decipher the keys that activated the print function. When he thought he had the procedure down, he left through the glass doors.

  Outside, he repositioned his car three blocks away at the edge of a small park, then walked back to the Einwohnermeldeamt and went inside. In a hallway just outside the office itself, he sat down on a bench facing glass doors leading into the service lobby.

  An hour and twenty minutes later, the woman he'd spoken with left her position. Powers stood up and went back inside. Without hesitation, he walked across the lobby to the end of the counter, stepped over the wooden gate, and punched keys on the computer. The name SUSAN appeared on the screen, then columns of full names with addresses. He punched the print key. The printer activated and began to print. Employees were staring at him. A young man with thick glasses asked what he was doing in German. Powers just stared at the man as the printed paper reached the floor.

  The man picked up a telephone and made a call. Finally, the machine stopped printing. The man grabbed him by the arm as if to usher him out of the work area. Powers resisted. The woman clerk hurried from across the lobby. She screamed something in German and shouted, "You go away!" over and over again, as if Powers was deaf.

  Powers shoved the man aside and tore the long page from the printer. The woman and the man both tried to grab the paper out of his hands as Powers backed away. Then he turned and ran out the door. Outside, he ran around the corner and down an alley. Coming to the next street, he stopped running and walked briskly to avoid calling attention to himself on his way to the park. There, he looked around carefully to make sure no one was following him and climbed into the car.

  Powers drove a few blocks and parked near a sidewalk café. He took out t
he list. There were more than two hundred names, each listed with a date of birth, occupation, and physical description including height, weight, and color of eyes, and a Frankfurt address.

  Checking the dates-of-birth column, Powers drew lines through more than three fourths of the names. Of the remaining ones, he was able to eliminate about half by height and weight, omitting color of hair and eyes because he knew women often changed the color of their hair and that eye color was often wrong on official documents.

  Finally, there were thirty-seven names remaining. For the rest of the day, using a map he purchased at a bookstore, he made his way from one location to another. He was able to eliminate the first ten locations he went to. Either the Susan was home and he would politely tell her he had the wrong address and excuse himself or, if she wasn't, he'd show the Polaroid photograph of Marilyn Kasindorf to a neighbor.

  No one recognized her.

  By 9 P.M., his feet and back hurt and he was starting to have doubts about the entire endeavor. After all, he was following up a bit of information that could be totally meaningless. The name Susan was probably just a cover name Marilyn had given Winona Alberts. Or maybe Susan was a second name ... or God only knows.

  One of the last fifteen names on the list, Susan Brewster, was listed as living in apartment 403 at 8 Kohlengasse, a side street joining the wide Mainzer Landstrasse. Kohlengasse 8 was a modern, ten-story graystone building, each apartment having its own sliding glass door leading onto a narrow balcony.

  The front door of the building was open, and he entered a large lobby whose brown utilitarian carpeting he imagined was chosen because it would easily hide winter mud stains. The walls were undecorated and there was the strong odor of fresh paint. It was a busy place, and a steady stream of people were entering the building: a young German man, an older couple, a couple of East Indians whom Powers guessed to be university students, a tanned young German army lieutenant in dress uniform.

  On the fourth floor, Powers stepped out of the elevator and moved down the hallway. At apartment 403, he touched his ear to the door. There was the sound of music coming from inside-vocalist Matt Monro singing "My Kind of Girl"-and someone was moving about, perhaps in the kitchen.

  He knocked. There was the sound of footsteps.

  "Wer ist da?" a woman said.

  "Susan Brewster?"

  The lock turned and a young woman wearing a loose-fitting purple Adidas jogging suit opened the chain-locked door a few inches. Her platinum-blond hair was in a pixie cut and she was wearing eyeglasses with European designer frames. There was something familiar about her.

  "Are you Susan Brewster?"

  Because of the chain, the door was only open a few inches and she remained half hidden. "Yes," she said.

  "I'm Jack Powers. I'd like to ask you a few questions. May I come in?"

  "No."

  "I've come here from Washington, DC, and I need to speak with you."

  "I don't allow strangers in my apartment," she said. There was a thick nervousness in her voice. Was it Marilyn's voice? Powers's breathing quickened and he had a sudden unexplainable sense of anxiety, an excitement he felt deep in his loins. Was it the smell of Marilyn's perfume?

  "Do you know Marilyn Kasindorf?"

  "No," she said quietly. "Is there anything else?" It was Marilyn's voice.

  "Marilyn?" he said, studying her features closely.

  "There is no Marilyn here." She slammed the door.

  Powers, feeling heat rush to his face and limbs, stepped back and kicked the door handle powerfully. The door flew open. He stepped inside.

  She was standing in the middle of the living room, her hands covering her mouth.

  The facial structure, the complexion-"I know it's you, Marilyn."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "You made a fool of me. You played me for a sucker."

  "I don't know who you think I am, but you're wrong. Please go away."

  The living room was furnished with a white Danish-modern sofa with overstuffed pillows, a lounge chair, and a wide glass coffee table. On a tile-topped island separating the kitchen from the living room was a large bowl of papier-mâché fruit in garish, almost fluorescent colors. On the wall was a large abstract tapestry: a rectangle of black and green splashes surrounded by a thick border of iridescent red.

  She backed away from him fearfully. At the coffee table, she turned and grabbed a telephone receiver. "I'm going to call the police."

  "Go ahead. Tell 'em you're an American CIA agent who staged her own defection and is living here under an assumed name."

  "I have no idea what you're talking about. Please leave me alone. You have the wrong person."

  "Do you actually think that because you've cut and dyed your hair I wouldn't know it was you?"

  "Who do you think I am?"

  "Marilyn Kasindorf."

  "My name is Susan Brewster."

  "Why aren't you dialing the police?"

  She set the receiver down. "You've made a mistake. If you leave right now I won't call the police."

  He grabbed her and tore open her blouse. The scar was there on her shoulder. "A scar is a bad thing for a spy to have."

  Covering herself, she pulled away from him. There was a long silence.

  "What do you want from me?" she said finally, her voice cracking.

  "An explanation."

  "There's nothing to say."

  "I fell for you and you humiliated me."

  "Please go away."

  "I was forced to resign from my job."

  "I'm sorry about everything," she said stiffly.

  "I'm not leaving until you give it to me by the numbers," Powers said. "The whole story from beginning to end."

  She cleared her throat. "Anything I say is only going to get me in trouble."

  "Now, tell me right now. I want to know exactly what the hell is going on."

  "Everything I did was authorized-"

  "What's that supposed to mean?" he interrupted. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "By the ... U.S. government. What I did was official business. That's all I'm going to say."

  "Are you telling me someone ordered you to stage your own defection?"

  "Yes. I'm sorry you-got caught up in all this. I mean that." There were tears in her eyes.

  "Bullshit."

  "Look, I don't know. All I was told was that I was to go to Kassel and you would be following me."

  "Why?"

  She pulled away from him, and he involuntarily drew back his fist.

  "I don't know why!" she cried.

  "Then who the hell put you up to it?"

  "I can't answer that question either. You worked for the government. You should know why I can't answer."

  He released her. His temples were throbbing. "Do you actually think I'm going to accept that and walk out of here?"

  "No, I guess not," she said, after a long silence.

  They stood there staring at each other. Finally, she sat down warily on the sofa. Powers, regretting having torn her blouse, closed the apartment door. After a while she got to her feet and headed toward the bedroom.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To change my blouse."

  Though his first instinct was to follow proper arrest procedure and follow her into the bedroom to ensure she didn't arm herself, he just sat there. Perhaps he didn't really care if she came back with a gun and killed him.

  She came back a few minutes later-without a gun but with a new blouse on-and sat down in an upholstered chair across from him.

  "I was told you were suspected of being a spy," she said, without looking him in the eye. "That there was a leak in the White House Secret Service Detail and they were testing you by having you follow me-to see if you reported the details of your mission to the other side. Now you know what happened."

  He studied her. She appeared to be telling the truth. However, he'd believed she was telling the truth in Kassel, too.

 
For the first time, she looked directly at him. "Would you like a glass of wine?"

  He nodded.

  She moved into the kitchen, opened a small refrigerator, and took out a bottle of German white wine. He watched as she pulled open a drawer and took out a corkscrew. Holding the neck of the bottle in her right hand, she turned the corkscrew into the cork and removed it from the bottle. She took two wineglasses from a cupboard and filled them. She set the bottle down on the counter and carried the glasses into the living room.

  "You mean they thought I was a mole," he said.

  "Yes."

  "It doesn't make any sense."

  "I can't help that," she said. "I just do as I'm told."

  As well as the thrill of having found her, Powers felt a sense of dizzying confusion as his mind whirled with the possibilities. Then, almost as an involuntary reflex, he reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out the baseball team photograph James Chilcott had given him. He stared at it for a moment without saying anything.

  "What's that?"

  "Your stepbrother gave it to me."

  Her brow furrowed.

  "Your stepbrother Jim Chilcott, who lives in San Francisco." Powers leaned across the coffee table and handed her the photo.

  Her expression didn't change as she examined it.

  "There was something about it that's been bothering me," he continued. "And now I realize what it is. In the picture you're ready to throw the baseball with your right hand ... but you're left-handed. You're not Marilyn Kasindorf!"

  She set the photograph down on the coffee table. Then she removed her eyeglasses and wiped her eyes.

  "You resemble her, and when your hair is dyed and you're made up like her it's hard to tell the difference, but you're not her."

  She turned away.

  "Who are you?"

  "Susan Brewster is my real name."

  "Where is Marilyn Kasindorf?"

  "I have no idea."

  ****

  TWENTY-THREE

  Powers's heart was pounding heavily.

  "You've never met her?"

  "Never."

  Powers let out his breath, "Well, I'll be goddamned."

  "I thought there was something wrong with the mission from the beginning," Susan said. "It sounded too complicated."