by Joseph Kanon
“Now you’re Weeks again?”
“Mm. Whereabouts still unknown. I assume the Agency doesn’t know where the flat is or I’d have spotted someone lurking.”
Actually thinking they’d tail him now, twelve years later, a footnote to history.
“Like him?” Simon said, nodding to Vassilchikov up front.
“He doesn’t lurk. He comes right in.”
“He lives with you?”
“He visits.”
“You know we’ve promised Look pictures. They’ll want you in the flat. At home. How you live. All that. Is that going to be a problem?”
“No. In for a penny. My cover’s blown now anyway. About time, I suppose.”
“Blown how?”
“Well, you’ll have to tell them. When they debrief you. You supposed to make a note or just keep it up here?” He put a finger to his temple.
Simon said nothing.
“Yermolaevskiy Pereulok. 21. You can write it down later. Very comfortable. My own study. Well, you’ll see.” He made a signal to the driver to start. “I got them to put you up at the National. They had you down for the Ukraina and I said no no, too far away from the flat. And the rooms aren’t much to write home about. One of Stalin’s wedding cakes. Not as bad as the Pekin, but still.”
“What’s wrong with the Pekin?” Simon said, playing along.
Frank smiled, enjoying himself. “Well, they built it for us, the Service. New offices. But that didn’t work out for some reason. So, a hotel. Except the rooms can be a little—odd. Red light, green light over the door. To call a maid, they say now. But they were built as interrogation rooms. You know, red if someone was still being interrogated.” He stopped, catching Simon’s expression. “Anyway, the Chinese don’t seem to mind. Very popular with delegations. Not a bad restaurant either. If you’re in the mood for Chinese. We can go one night if you like.”
“I’m not here that long.”
“A week anyway. At least. And you have to come out to the dacha. Joanna’s looking forward to it.”
“Jo,” Simon said quietly, another thing he seemed to have forgotten. Once all he thought about. “How is she?”
“A little under the weather. She wanted to come tonight, but I said you’d be there bright and early, no need to rush things. I think she’s a little—nervous. Seeing someone from the States. What you’ll think. You’re the first. From before.”
“But she likes it?” Somebody who’d been to El Morocco, her long hair swinging behind her when she danced. White shoulders, a broad lipstick smile. Don’t be so serious, she’d say, pulling him onto the dance floor, anyone can do it. Not like her.
“Well, like. She doesn’t like anything really, since Richie died,” he said, almost mumbling, as if the words were being pulled out of him. “It’s been hard for her.”
“I’m sorry. I should have said first thing—”
Frank dismissed this. “It’s all right. It’s a while ago now. You think it’ll never get better, but it does. Even something like this.”
“He was sick?”
“Meningitis. There wasn’t anything anybody could do. The best care. The hospital in Pekhotnaya.” He looked over. “It’s the Service hospital. The best care.”
“The Service hospital. The KGB has its own hospital?”
Frank nodded. “I know what you’re thinking. Maybe you’re right. But when it’s you—your son—who needs the privilege, you’re grateful. You have to understand how things are here. All that,” he said, waving his hand at the window, “you have to imagine what it’s going to be. How far we’ve come. But the Service was always something—apart. Professional. Out there you wonder sometimes, does anything work? But inside, in the Service, everything works.”
“You don’t write about it. Richie. In the book. Or Jo. You never mention her.”
“No. It’s my life in the Service, how I managed to do it, play against the house. Jo’s not part of that. She never knew.” He looked at Simon. “It’s not a soap opera. You haven’t come to make it one, have you? Because I’m not going to write that.”
“She never knew? But she came?”
“I didn’t force her,” Frank said simply. “It was her decision. But it’s understood about the book? She’s entitled to her privacy.” He looked up at Simon. “I don’t want to upset her. Not now.”
“All right,” Simon said, retreating.
“Anyway, there’ll be plenty of other things to work on,” Frank said, abruptly cheerful, switching gears. “Like old times. You whipping my papers into shape. What was the one we did for old Whiting? I left it to the last minute and—”
“The British Navy. In the seventeenth century.”
“Your memory. The British Navy. A whole semester. On old boats.” He shook his head. “Whiting. You had to have three people sign up or the course was canceled, so I figured he couldn’t afford to lose anybody. All you had to do was show up. And then he got serious about it, wanting papers. Ass. But we pulled it off. Well, you did. So now this.” He indicated Simon’s bag. “You made notes?”
“Lots.”
Frank smiled. “That bad?”
“No, just incomplete.”
“You understand, some things can’t be said. People still active. I’m not trying to get even with anybody. ”
“Except Hoover.”
“Well, Hoover has it coming. He hasn’t done a damn thing since he was swinging his hatchet at whiskey barrels. Just stamp his feet to see how fast people run away. And some blackmail on the side. You think I’m too hard on him? I just say what happened. What I knew personally. Why? He threaten you?”
“Not yet. He hasn’t seen it yet.”
“You think so? Then he’s more incompetent than I thought. Anyway Pirie and the boys at the Agency will love it. They’ll back you up.”
“I’m not exactly popular there either. They think you want to make them look bad. Keystone Kops.”
“Is that what you think I want?”
Simon looked at him. “I don’t know. What do they want? Your people?”
“The Service?”
“They never talk. Never admit to anything. And now we’ve got Public Enemy No. 1 going on about the high old times he had in the war and how he fooled everybody, Hoover and Pirie and—”
“And?”
“Me.”
“You’re not in the book,” Frank said quietly.
“And the Brits. And State. Why leave anybody out? But why say anything in the first place, if you’re an organization that never says anything at all?”
“Why do you think?”
“I think they want to embarrass us. Maybe stir up a little interagency rivalry. That’s always worth doing. Make trouble. And now I’m part of it. Helping you do it. Again.”
“Jimbo.” Simon James, another nickname, another hook from the past.
Simon turned and looked out the window. Nearly dark now, the beginning of the city, concrete apartment blocks and warehouses, an occasional church with onion domes. Anywhere. But not anywhere. Not even Europe. Signs in Cyrillic. Everything in shadow, enemy territory.
“I never got much out of you, you know. If that’s what’s bothering you. The republic wasn’t in any danger because of you.”
“The republic didn’t think so. I got the heave-ho.”
“Yes, well, I’m sorry about that. You never know how people are going to react. Overreact.”
Simon looked at him, speechless.
“Anyway, this suits you better. A book man. Very distinguished. And now it turns out, just what the doctor ordered. A book like this needs—a certain amount of respectability. Which is one thing you can say for Keating. Just the place if you’re bringing a little notoriety to the party. Do they really think I’m that? Public Enemy No. 1? Like Dillinger?” Amused, or pretending to be amu
sed.
“They used to. What did you think you were?”
“A soldier. That’s all I ever was. I was proud to be in the Service. I still am. An officer now. You understand that, don’t you? You must have seen that when you signed on for this. It’s not a mea culpa.”
“No, it’s a ‘see what a clever boy I am.’ Is that how you pitched it to—the Service. Get them to okay it?”
“You’ve got it the wrong way around. It wasn’t my idea. It was theirs. I’m still not sure they were right. But they were looking for aktivnyye meropriyatiya,” he said, his whole voice changing with the language, suddenly a Russian.
Simon glanced up front. But Vassilchikov hadn’t moved, just stared placidly out the window. Listening to both, English and Russian the same, so unobtrusive that after a while you forgot he was there, a human tape recorder, spools circling in his head.
“Active measures,” Frank translated. “Something to show people how effective we can be. I had a pretty good run, you know. Nobody had a clue—Donovan, Pirie, any of them. If Malenko hadn’t defected and brought his little CARE package of names with him, I might still be there. Who knows? I’m a hero in the Service. So why not tell my story?”
“Parts of it.”
“Well, yes. And I suppose nobody’s saying no to a little collateral damage. Some friction with MI6. Give Hoover’s blood pressure a nudge. All that. But that wasn’t the reason. It’s an active measure. To show the Service—in a good light.”
“Like a recruiting poster.”
Frank shook his head. “These old stories? A lot of water over the dam since I was leading Pirie around in circles. Different world now. Not so many idealists these days. People here still want to be in the Service. It’s a good job. But in the West— Now you have to buy them. They never had to pay me a dime. Any of us.” He smiled. “Maybe that’s why they think it was a golden age. We did it for nothing. Because it was the right thing to do.”
“All of it?”
“I thought so. At the time.” He paused. “Jimbo, if you’re having cold feet about this, just say. It’s not some piece of disinformation. The Service doesn’t need to make things up. It’s all true.”
“But you need Keating to make it respectable.”
“That’s right.” He looked over at Simon. “I want you to make me look good again. An A from Whiting. A B, anyway.” He looked down. “And maybe I thought it was a little payback too. For all the trouble I caused you. The book’s going to sell—that’s what everybody tells me. So why not sell for you? Last year’s figures—you could use the cash. Keating, I mean.”
“How do you know?”
“Jimbo.”
“You looked at our books?”
“Not me personally, no.” He took out a cigarette and tapped Vassilchikov on the shoulder for a light. “So I thought, good for you, good for me.”
“You could have got more money from someone else.”
Frank waved this away with the smoke. “I don’t need the money. I get eight hundred a month. That doesn’t mean anything to you, but it’s a generous pension here. I have everything I need. Anyway, Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga takes 70 percent, so how much more could there be?”
“Who?”
“The agency your people dealt with. That sells the book abroad.”
“70 percent?”
Frank smiled. “The Soviets are very good capitalists when foreign currency’s involved.” He lowered his voice, serious again. “It’s not the money. I trust you. I don’t want this to be something for the tabloids. It’s my life. I want to explain what I did. So it makes sense to people. To you. Maybe even to Pa.”
Simon was quiet for a minute. “Have you been in touch?”
Frank shook his head. “I thought he’d write when Mother died. But he didn’t.” He paused. “How is he?”
“He still goes to the office.”
“And the Symphony?”
“No. He doesn’t go out much. You remember once you said his world was small? Now it’s smaller. He dropped the Somerset.”
“Because of me?”
Simon said nothing.
“Rotten food anyway.” He looked away. “I’ll bet nobody had to say a word. Just look. Christ. Boston.” He drew on the cigarette. “I suppose you get the house now.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, he’s not going to leave it to me. A little impractical under the circumstances.”
“What would I do with it?”
“Live in it. No one else has ever lived there. Just Weekses. So now, you.”
“I’m in New York, Frank.” He looked at him. “I thought you hated the house.”
“I hated what it stood for. The house— It’s funny the things you remember. That leather pig by the fireplace. Nobody even knew whose it was originally, how it got there. The whole place was like that. Things nobody could explain. They’d just always been there.” His voice trailed off. “I hate him thinking he’s the last. It must kill him, to think that.” He paused. “Does he ever talk about it? What happened.”
“No.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He has the PO number here. I thought he might—but he never has. Mother did. Before she died. A good-bye letter, but she didn’t say it—not a word about the cancer—so I didn’t know. She said she never thought she’d be writing to a box number. There was a five-dollar bill for Richie. That’s the last I heard.”
Simon turned to the window again. Dark now, an occasional window light from the side of the road. “What a fucking mess,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“All of it.”
Frank was quiet for a minute. “I don’t see it that way,” he said finally. “Spain was a mess. The war was a mess. Pirie sending those Latvians in on some cockamamie suicide mission, that was a mess. I think things are getting better. I think we’re building something here. And I helped.” He turned. “I’m not asking you to agree with me. Just let the book speak for itself. That’s all. Fair enough?” Closing the sale, everything but a handshake. “Here, try one of these,” he said, offering the cigarette pack.
Simon inhaled. Russian smoke, so rough it clawed at his throat.
“It wasn’t a suicide mission. Someone betrayed them. As long as we’re telling the truth.”
Frank looked at him. “Not all of it. Then we’d have to say what they were planning to do. An assassination was involved, as I recall. Reprisal. In hopes that would lead to more trouble. All the old grudges. ‘Destabilize’ was the word Pirie used, wasn’t it? But we knew what it meant. More people killed. Luckily they didn’t get to start anything. Somebody stopped them.”
“Somebody might have stopped them sooner. Before they left. Since the op was doomed anyway.”
“Somebody might have. But that would have been revealing, wouldn’t it? And who’s to say they wouldn’t have tried again? Not exactly angels, that bunch.” He rubbed out his cigarette. “Look, you don’t really want to pick at old scabs, do you? We had no business sending those goons in. What the hell did Pirie think was going to happen? An uprising? Pick up your pitchforks and march on Riga? This wasn’t some client state. It was the Soviet Union. Russian soil. And we were sending in armed fighters.”
“Who didn’t think it was Russian soil. Who thought it was their country.”
“Their country,” Frank said. “So take on the Soviets. With us cheerleading in the background. Not to mention supplying the guns. You really want me to put this in the book? Hard to say who comes out worse. Pirie and his merry band of invaders or me, doing my job.”
Simon said nothing for a minute. “I think it’s important for the reader to know what you did. It wasn’t just passing papers. Who said what at a meeting. It wasn’t harmless. People got hurt. The reader wants to know how you felt about that.”
Frank turned to him. “You mean you do.”<
br />
“All right. I do.”
“Which version would you prefer? How all this dirty business tied me up in knots? All those sleepless nights? Or the truth? I never gave it a second thought. What were the Latvians thinking? What were we thinking to let them think it? They wanted to make war. The Soviets had a right to defend themselves. All pretty clear-cut, as far as I could see. No trouble sleeping. Not over them.” He took out another cigarette and toyed with it. “Still, I don’t know that one actually wants to say that. In a book. Hard to get the tone right.” He paused. “Christ. You’re only here an hour and we’re already doing this. Let’s not fight. Tonight, I just wanted—to see you. Catch up.”
“Like alums. A reunion.”
“That’s right. How’s business?” A mock slap on the back in his voice. “How’s the wife and kids?”
“Well, you know about the business. You’ve seen the books.”
“They were just protecting their interests,” Frank said, a little embarrassed.
“Did they actually break into the office to do it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Frank said. “Let’s hope things pick up next year. With My Secret Life. You like the title, by the way? You never said.”
“I just got here.”
“It doesn’t feel that way, though. It feels like old times.”
Simon looked at him. The easy grin, like turning on a light.
“Anyway, how are the wife and kids?”
“Diana’s fine. No kids. She didn’t want them.” Just lovers, the ones Simon wasn’t supposed to know about.
“I have to say, I’m surprised. That you’re still together. You don’t mind my saying that?”
“You’ve said it. Why surprised?”
“I never thought she was your type, that’s all. But obviously I was wrong. Not the first time,” he said, a kind of apology for the argument before. “And lucky for me. The boss’s daughter. Just when I need you there. Making me respectable. Unless that’s just a front. Is that it? Still working for Don Pirie?”