by Dan Pollock
According to the police files, Hofstatter had been having frequent arguments with his grandparents. He’d hocked some family heirlooms, used their car without permission to joyride with an older crowd from the local Chanute Air Force Base. After the devastating fire, apparently caused by the kiln explosion, the boy had moved in with schoolmates, collected some insurance money. But when suspicion had gradually turned toward him, he had simply vanished.
The circumstances of the real Marcus Jolly’s disappearance were just as Kelleher had synopsized, and as Taras himself had read in the official dossier at KGB headquarters—the dossier of an American defector turned Spetsnaz assassin. Whoever he was, by whatever name, he had worked out well for them. The covering fax, from the FBI to Kelleher and his bosses back at Langley, commented that the KGB First Directorate would have thoroughly researched the past of any American defector, and thus would have been well aware of “Marcus’” real identity as Eric Hofstatter, and the fact that he was wanted in Illinois for questioning in connection with a possible arson and homicide. Apparently, the FBI speculated, the KGB had decided for its own reasons to accept the impersonation.
Taras had another theory as he recalled the KGB case officer’s notation on Marcus’ dossier for further information—a request that seemed to have been ignored. Perhaps the First Directorate had been overruled by the GRU—in the formidable person of General Marchenko, who had taken such a liking to the arrogant young American.
Taras struggled to confront the specter of this strange new “Marcus”—he still couldn’t think of him as Eric Hofstatter; the name simply didn’t conjure up the Cowboy. Marcus’ defection had always seemed capricious, but the younger Taras had simply accepted it, glad of the friendship. But was the happy-go-lucky vagabond Taras had known the kind of person who could have killed his grandparents, and perhaps a fellow drifter?
Or had he been a grinning sociopath all along?
Taras ransacked his memories of their time together, from Khabarovsk to Moscow, from Wrangel and Ryazan to Kabul and Peshawar. It was quite an assignment, sifting for evidences of sensitivity during years in which they were being turned into efficient killing machines and then sent off to exercise those hard-won lethal talents. Where did you look? The Cowboy had a pet rat for a while in Kabul, used to carry him around Bagram Airbase in his beret. And, of course, he had been Taras’ truest friend in all the world, in battle and out. Not exactly the sort you could picture setting fire to his loved ones and running off into the night.
On the other hand, the Cowboy hadn’t cared much about the plight of the wretched Afghans—the hundreds of thousands killed or crippled, the millions made homeless—but how many Soviet soldiers had? Their business was to kill, and stay alive doing it. Marcus was supremely good at both.
What else? The Cowboy had quickly acquired the Slavic knack of waxing sentimental—spiritual, if you will—over quantities of shared vodka. But probably so had Stalin, and he wasn’t even a Slav.
Only one incident shone forth with any kind of special refulgence from the general murk of memory. That icy, leaden day in Khabarovsk when Taras had stood beside the Cowboy as they watched snow and fresh-thawed earth being shoveled onto the descending casket of Eva Sorokina, and both had wept uncontrollably in spite of mutual resolves.
It had been the tragic event that brought them together.
*
Two days later, after a final Embassy debriefing in Moscow, Taras was on a plane back over the Atlantic—not Air Force One this time, but a British Airways 747 connecting from London to Washington.
He hadn’t phoned ahead. He wanted to walk in on her, make his appeal face to face. But in his thoughts he beseeched Charlotte to be there, willing to listen and judge and finally be persuaded. Surely that was not too much to ask.
*
As Taras was crossing the Atlantic, “Marcus Jolly”—once again disguised and credentialed as Canadian journalist Byron Landy—was disembarking the M/S Liapunov, a Soviet Morflot steamer docked at the Karaköy Maritime Terminal in Istanbul.
Getting out of Yalta had been far more strenuous than getting in. He had slipped out of the compound, stripped off his KGB disguise, and descended the cliff without incident. But once in the water, having failed to get himself either killed or captured as Captain Chapayev had so confidently assured him would be the case, Marcus faced the further dilemma of having no getaway vehicle.
It had been a long, dark swim. He’d headed east, crawling and sidestroking a half kilometer offshore, and diving several times to avoid searchlight sweeps from a patrolling Grisha. By the time he was abreast of Yalta harbor—at least three klicks from Oreanda—he was exhausted, but struggled on, wary of the berms and beaches along the lamplighted embankment. A kilometer or two beyond in Massandra, having reached his last ebb and with dawn only a couple hours off, Marcus angled toward a dark, deserted Intourist beach, dragging himself ashore along with his waterproof warbag—which also contained clothing, makeup kit and identity papers, including faked entry visa into the Soviet Union.
He had spent the morning lounging in cafes along the Yalta waterfront, clad in blue jeans and sport shirt, and further concealed behind a shaggy mustache and a newspaper. The KGB Guards Directorate had undoubtedly been combing the area, but either they’d been damn inconspicuous or Marcus was just too fatigued to spot them. In fact, he was almost beyond caring whether he was caught or not, if they’d just show him to a comfy cell with a decent mattress.
In the afternoon he walked the gangway to the Liapunov and experienced vast relief as it churned away from the quayside and, with a basso profundo blast, nosed into the Black Sea. As the hills of Yalta faded astern, Marcus stumbled down a long alleyway to his private cabin, toppled fully clothed onto his bunk and slept nineteen hours straight, not waking until they left Odessa at nine the next morning. In fact, he slumbered through much of the next day and their stay at Varna the following night. By the time they entered the Bosphorus the afternoon of the third day, he was feeling fairly decent.
He’d escaped to fight another day.
He checked into a seedy hotel near Sirkeci Station. Not exactly his style, but the past weeks’ adventurings had made serious inroads in his operational funds—and the GRU would not be funneling any more his way. He recalled with slight chagrin the fifteen-thousand Schillings won on the hang-gliding bet from Orlando, only to be blithely discarded on the table at Hopfgarten. Marcus would have to curtail those kinds of extravagant gestures for a while. And with the old pipeline sealed, he’d have to give some thought to the future.
Plenty of ex-SAS and Delta types, he knew, hired out as security experts to multinationals, or military consultants to third world nations. Some ex-KGB agents had even opened their own private detective bureau in Leningrad. Many special forces people, of course, went the straight mercenary route—out of idealism, or greed, or sheer ennui. A few got involved in low-level bodyguarding. Others turned their expertise to lucrative illegalities, like the smuggling of weapons or drugs.
But Marcus had his own daydream, something he’d thought about for several years, ever since the successful Geneva hit on Raza. He would hang out his own shingle, become a sort of traveling virtuoso—only his instrument of choice would be a Snayperskaya Vintovka Dragunova, an SVD sniper rifle, deadly in his hands from as far away as thirteen hundred meters. Like any new businessman, of course, he’d have to get the word out, attract the right sort of clients—powerful men who could both use and afford his services. But it could be done; he had contacts. The more he turned it over in his mind, the more he liked it. He could do very well as a Dragunov soloist.
But there was unfinished business.
Rybkin.
The Soviet President had to die. No longer because Marchenko had decreed it. But because Marcus had bungled his first attempt. Been beaten by Taras.
And that didn’t sit very well.
He hadn’t liked the ease with which he’d been outguessed, the cold, contemptuous touch of
the gun against his head. And then let off, thrown back into the Black Sea like a small fish.
Taras had not been friendly. On reflection, that final look of loathing on the Cossack’s face might not have been self-loathing, but meant for Marcus.
It was as if, all these years later, Taras had scored the final winning touch in their deadlocked and interrupted fencing match. Proved himself better than Marcus.
Question: What would it avail to take out Rybkin at the Potsdam Conference, if Taras wasn’t there to oppose him?
Answer: With apologies to Marchenko, it would avail absolutely nothing. It would be an empty victory.
No, he needed to get Taras back into the game, for one more showdown. They would never be friends again, that was finished. But they could remain rivals, deadly ones. And if that was all there was, so be it. Marcus wanted it.
He had to get him back. And he thought of a way to do it.
But did he dare?
Yes.
Before he could change his mind, he put down his sweet, tepid coffee, got up from the table in the dingy sitting room of the Otel Ali Pasha, and procured several sheets of hotel stationery. Then he settled himself again in the late afternoon light filtering through threadbare lace and no longer iridescent peacock feathers, and began to compose a letter.
*
Taras took a cab from Dulles International through five o’clock nightmare traffic to a Holiday Inn on Connecticut Avenue, checked in, shaved, showered and changed, then took another cab to Cleveland Park and Charlie’s condo. It was dark when he pushed the doorbell. He’d rehearsed what he would say a thousand times, till the words were grooved into his brain and leeched of meaning. And yet the apprehension still churned in his gut. Apprehension? No, call it what it was. Plain fear. More than he’d experienced before actual combat.
He pushed the bell again.
Why was he torturing himself over this one woman? He could find another—others by the dozen. There was no shortage; the District and environs boasted an embarrassment of available, attractive females. But of course Taras didn’t want another woman. He wanted the one he’d walked out on. He wanted her back fiercely, more than he could remember wanting anything in his life.
She wasn’t home.
He had willed her to be, but she wasn’t. Jealousy swept over him. She was with another man. He imagined a tangle of sheets and bodies in the apricot glow of a bedside lamp, her elegant forefinger twining in his matted chest hair, whispered dinner plans. The vision left him eviscerated, his hand clutching the iron porch railing for support.
Somewhere in his suitcase he still had his key. But he had forfeited the right to use it.
He turned around. The cab was gone.
Maybe she was working late. Or off on sudden assignment. There were people he could call—including Charlie herself, if he had the courage. She would have left a message on her machine.
He walked a block, flagged a cab, went back to his hotel, dialed the paper.
The foreign editor had gone home hours ago. One of the night guys on the desk said Charlie was in Europe. Taking a week of R & R before the runup to Potsdam.
“Do you know where?” Taras asked. “I’m an old friend, and it’s absolutely critical. I have to talk to her.”
“Sorry, I don’t have it. Even if I did, you’d have to clear it with John.” John Tully was the foreign editor.
“Can you give me his home number? He knows me.”
“Hold on. The operator will patch you through if he’s home.”
Tully was home. He knew about the breakup. He commis-erated with Taras, said it was a hell of a thing and that he’d be happy to help, but claimed he himself didn’t know where Charlie was. “She’s being secretive, Taras. I expect she’ll let me know when she’s ready. She’s not planning to file till next week, a scene-setter for Potsdam. Any messages if she calls sooner?”
“Yeah. Tell her... Christ. Tell her I want her back. Tell her I have to talk to her. Ask her if you can give me her number.”
“Can’t she call you at the Agency?”
“No, don’t even mention the damn Agency, John. If she asks, tell her I’ve quit. Tell her I sounded desperate.”
Tully chuckled. “That won’t be hard—you do. Look, Taras, I’ll do what I can. Good luck.”
Taras hung up, stared at the phone. Dialed her condo. Her breezy voice startled him:
“This is Charlotte Walsh. Sorry, my dears, I’m off on temporary assignment, working undercover as a B-girl... in Punta Negra, I think it is, though I could be wrong. But I do call in regularly for messages. And I’d especially like to hear yours, right after the tone.”
Taras hung up. God, she sounded wonderful! Funny and happy. It was as if he had never existed in her life, or been completely erased from it. He slumped in the hotel chair, then slowly straightened himself, took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to pursue that pointless, self-pitying line of thought. He’d get her back.
He called mutual friends. Two sympathetic wives knew about the breakup, and knew Charlie had gone to the Continent. Both claimed she had been deliberately blithe about her destination, wanting to prowl about, so hadn’t left a number. Were they holding out on him, perhaps under Charlie’s direct orders? Taras couldn’t tell.
Finally he phoned Brock Chalmers, who still sounded eager to have Taras join his Institute, maybe as early as September, six weeks off. Chalmers proposed a luncheon later in the week. Taras told him he might be leaving town, promised to get back to him.
It was too late for any more calls, and Taras was undone. He watched an old war movie to escape flagellating thoughts, slept and dreamed badly, awoke around five with a feeling of hopelessness.
At eight-thirty he dialed Langley and was told a letter had come this morning. Federal Express. From Istanbul. From somebody called Hickock, William Hickock. Odd name, just like the famous cowboy, Wild Bill.
Taras went silent. It had to be the Cowboy.
“I’ll be right over.”
Twenty-Five
Taras sat behind his old desk at Langley, his attention riveted on the envelope before him. The FedEx return address was William Hickock, Otel Ali Pasha, Demirkapi Caddesi, Sirkeci, Istanbul. Of course, the Cowboy would now be long gone. One step ahead of the KGB, and still playing games. What had he sent this time, another finger? But there were no bulges in the envelope, no odor of decomposing flesh. And a date stamp indicated it had been checked for explosive content. It was, then, just a letter. He slit it, read in English:
Dear Cossack,
Dare I say it? I’ve missed you. And our recent meeting was hardly the reunion our long friendship deserves, was it? I don’t want it to be our final encounter. Do you?
Let’s do something about it.
Let’s finish off our old duel, the one interrupted in Kirovograd so long ago. I’m willing to count the point you scored against me in Yalta, but it’s my turn to riposte, or whatever you call it.
I’m going after Rybkin again at Potsdam. Why don’t you try to stop me? What do you say? For old time’s sake. Don’t you like the historical settings, Yalta and Potsdam, for our private little showdown?
Oh, I know, Cossack. You beat me, and now you don’t want any part of the Game anymore, do you? You’re quitting a winner.
But I’m going to change your mind.
Remember the drunken oaths we swore on the Rossiya Express, somewhere around Sverdlovsk? Eternal friendship, Cossack, and we kept that pledge—until you walked out on me in Pakistan. The other pledge was eternal vengeance—on the murderer of Eva Sorokina.
But neither of us ever found old Kostya, did we?
Maybe you no longer care about the first oath, but what about the second one? I’m going to give you a chance to keep it. A second chance. Because, Cossack, only a few days ago you missed your first chance. You had Eva’s murderer at your mercy, and you let him go.
Calm yourself. I feel your Slavic blood rising. Can it be true, you wonder? Yes, Cossack, it was
n’t crazy Kostya. I’m the one who killed Eva. You won’t believe me if I tell you how sorry I was then, and still am. It was an accident. I was blind drunk on Siberian White Dynamite, drunker than all of you, I think, though everybody but Eva and I passed out. I was out of my mind, but that doesn’t bring her back, does it?
Why am I telling you this after all these years? Because it seems like the only way to get you back.
As an enemy, if not a friend.
You want the sordid details? I bet not. But maybe you can remember what happened when you were alone with her earlier? You attacked her, Cossack. When Kostya and I came back from pissing in the snow, she was on the floor screaming and you were on top of her, shaking her. I almost killed you myself.
Christ, she was lovely that night! And you saw the way she started hanging around me after what happened with you. Suddenly we were alone. What was I supposed to do? I did exactly what you tried to do.
But she fought me too. I wasn’t expecting that. And she started screaming again. How she was engaged to you. All about her sacred virtue. She was hysterical. I was afraid she’d rouse you and Kostya.
I only wanted to stop her screaming, like you did. But she wouldn’t stop. Until it was too late. I couldn’t believe she was gone, Cossack. But she was. I think being betrayed by both of us was too much for Eva. She couldn’t handle it. She preferred to die, that’s what I really think.
I had no choice after that. You and Kostya would never have believed it was an accident. I had to strip all our clothes off and make it look like Kostya did it and then ran off with our stuff. I could barely get that fucking giant over my shoulder, but I did it. I managed to carry him through the snowstorm clear down to the river and chop open one of the holes left by some ice fishermen and stuff him in, along with most of our clothes and money.