Defectors

by Joseph Kanon

  “There was no might have been. It was never me.”

  She looked at him, then rubbed out the cigarette. “And I made my bed. So to speak. And now I get to lie in it. Do something for me, though? For old times’ sake? Tell them we’re happy. Frank and me. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of—”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever you’re talking to at the embassy. Nobody goes to get his visa checked. That’s something the Russians do, not us. So you must be talking to somebody. What do they want to know? What we have for breakfast? How many drinks at night? I never thought it would be you doing that—” She shrugged. “Spying on us. But I suppose you didn’t have a choice. Imagine what you could pick up, all day in the flat. All the little details they like for the files. Although I can’t imagine what for. At this late date. But it’s what they do. So tell them we’re happy, would you? It can’t matter to anybody anymore. Except me.”

  “I’m not spying on you. I’m just here to get the book—”

  “Then why go to the embassy? It’s not a French hotel. They’re not checking passports.”

  Well, why?

  “Don’t lie to me. Please. Everybody lies to me. Not you. I couldn’t take that, not you too.”

  “All right. I promised I’d report in.” Trying it, keeping the balls in the air.

  “Report in.”

  “Not like that. Not about you. They just want to know if I get approached.”

  “Approached?”

  “By the KGB.”

  “They are the KGB. Boris and Frank.”

  “Anyone else.”

  “And were you? Approached?”

  “How? I was with Frank all day. They’re just suspicious, that’s all. They can’t figure out why the KGB is letting the book happen. Whether there’s something else going on. So they want to know who sees me. Who says what. Not you.” He paused. “Not you.” Said easily, almost second nature now.

  “But they’ve already seen the book. So what—?”

  “I didn’t say it made any sense. They just want to know if anyone makes contact.”

  “The usual way that happens is a lady in the bar at the Metropol.”

  “Yes? That’s something to look forward to, then.”

  “Mm. Those pictures you didn’t know they were taking. And the next thing you know, you’re—”

  “Working for Frank. Is that the way he plans to recruit me?”

  “It’s not funny, though. They do that.” She refilled her vodka glass. “Well, maybe a little bit funny,” she said, almost giggling. “I think it would be more ideological with Frank. Anyway, he doesn’t do that. I guess. Who would he meet? To recruit. We’re not allowed to see anybody. Except the others in the Service. Maybe they’re afraid somebody’ll try to recruit us.” She lifted her glass. “Smoke and mirrors. They think everybody’s like them. So I don’t think he’s in the recruiting business. I don’t know what he does exactly. He’s always home. Not that he ever went in much. It makes them nervous, foreigners at headquarters.”

  “Their foreigners.”

  “Still foreigners.” She looked down. “Frank said people were coming to take pictures.”

  Simon nodded. “From Look.”

  “To see how we live. Instead of a jail cell. I’d better get Ludmilla to tidy up. Put a good face on things. Cover that hole in the carpet. God. This wasn’t your doing, was it?”

  “It was part of the deal. First serial excerpt.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Magazine runs a piece of the book before it comes out. They like to run pictures with it. So—”

  “So open house on Yermolaevskiy Street. Smile for the camera.”

  “You don’t have to, if you’d rather not.”

  “You mean only Frank has to. They don’t care what’s happened to me.”

  “I just meant—”

  “I know. But I must have a certain curiosity value. We’d want to do right by Look. Just give me fair warning, will you? I’d have to get my hair done. After a certain age, it’s all about hair.” She picked up a spoon and turned it over, hesitant. “Simon, do people think I helped him? That I did it too?”

  “Some people.”

  “You?”

  “No.”

  “But you wondered. Everybody did. How could I not have known? His wife. Sometimes I wonder myself. But you weren’t supposed to ask. During the war. If things were secret. So I didn’t.”

  “We can put it in the book if you want. Clear it up once and for all.”

  “Who’d believe Frank? He’d lie to protect me.” She took a drink. “The least he could so. Considering. No. Keep Carrie Porter guessing. Who cares?” She glanced around the room. “They don’t care. They don’t even know who Frank is. See, here he comes and nobody even notices. Now what? He looks like the cat who swallowed the cream. What did Boris want?” she asked him, back at the table.

  “Something at the office,” he said, then looked at Simon, pleased with himself. “One of our people overseas.”

  Simon raised an eyebrow, another conversation without words.

  “What happened?” Jo said. “Do you have to go?”

  “No, no. Just a general APB for the Department. They could have waited until tomorrow but people like to know things. Makes them feel important.” His voice unconcerned, nothing to do with him.

  Simon stared at him, imagining the scurrying at the Lubyanka, cables landing on desks, worried phone calls, an agent betrayed, the balls moving faster in the air.

  “Shall we have some wine?” Frank said, looking at him again.

  They had two bottles, a rough Georgian red that went well with the lamb and made Simon’s face feel hot. They talked about Moscow, other restaurants, and the weekend, Boris’s office crisis put aside. Except by Simon, who kept calculating time zones, how many hours it had taken for Pirie to move, the surprising speed a kind of vote of confidence in Frank. Kelleher now in a room somewhere, wondering how much they knew. Put there by a few clicks of a keyboard. His. And for a moment he wondered how he should feel about that, which of his selves to ask. Something Frank had learned years ago.

  There was sticky phyllo pastry for dessert, then thick Turkish coffee, an endless meal. It was only after they ordered brandy and Jo excused herself to go to the ladies’ that Frank and Simon could use their real voices.

  “So he bit,” Simon said.

  “Right away too. I thought he’d sniff around for a while, but no, just snatched it off the line. Maybe Don’s getting decisive in his old age. So. Let’s see what it buys us.”

  “Jo doesn’t know,” Simon said.

  “Not yet. Nobody,” he said. “I told you, we have to do this right. Not even a hint.”

  “Was that all Boris wanted? You’d think the Service would want to keep it to themselves.”

  Frank looked over at him, appreciative. “You might have potential. No, that wasn’t all. In time-honored fashion, they’ve already begun an investigation. Desks upside down, all of it. Boris wanted me to know. No surprises.”

  “They suspect you?”

  “No, no. I had nothing to do with Kelleher. I knew who he was, but so did other people in the department. First you work on his control, then you move out from there. By the time they get to me I’ll be—well, that’s the plan anyway.”

  “But you’re the only one with a brother who sent a cable to the Agency.”

  “Did you? Boris doesn’t know that. And he was right there with you. Nobody knows. It was a secure line.” He picked up his brandy. “I’m beginning to get the feeling you don’t think I know what I’m doing.”

  “You’d better know.”

  “Jimbo,” he said, making a toasting gesture with his glass, “I’m famous for it. Look, stop worrying. Right now they’re hoping against hope he gave himself away, d
id something stupid. What usually happens. But what if? That would mean one of our people sold him. Which means somebody’s been turned. Here or in Washington. What’s the logic? It’s a lot easier to turn somebody there. And if they’ve got a rotten apple, the whole barrel— So they’ll start there.”

  “And what if they talk to Boris. About my little trip to the embassy?”

  “He was with you. It would never occur to him now that you— He thinks you’re here about the book.”

  “I am here about the book.”

  “You see? An innocent. And you stay that way. No intrigue. No double backing. Getting on and off buses. You never try to shake a tail because you never think anybody might be following. Why would they? Boris can read all the signs and you’re not flashing any. Besides, he likes you.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re my brother,” he said simply, looking across at Simon, another wordless conversation.

  “And any brother of yours—?”

  Frank took up his glass. “I saved his life.”

  “Saved it how?”

  “His name was on a list. I got it taken off. A while back. When things—” He downed the drink. “God, this stuff takes the lining off, doesn’t it? Armenians. They swill it down.” He paused, a grimace from the burning brandy. “How did Jo seem to you?”

  “All right. It wasn’t so bad tonight, the drink.”

  “You weren’t counting. See how her lipstick looks when she comes back.”

  Simon glanced over at him. Every detail. Watching without watching.

  “She said you don’t go to the office much anymore.”

  “Well, they mostly come to me. Nice in the winter. One of the privileges of age.”

  “Age.”

  “Seniority. And the book kept me home. All of which plays out nicely for us just now. My name won’t be on any cable traffic to Kelleher. No connection.”

  “Who is he anyway? American?”

  Frank nodded.

  “Why did—? A true believer?”

  “Too young. We were the last of those,” he said with a wry smile. “We turned him. Demon rum.” He held up the brandy glass. “It’s a hell of a weakness. Makes you sloppy about everything. He fell right into a classic honey trap. That usually goes with the booze. So we had him. Never a very happy situation, though. He couldn’t stay away from it,” Frank said, tapping his glass. “And like I say, he was getting sloppy.”

  “So throw him over? I thought you said the Service—”

  “The Service didn’t throw him over. We did.”

  Simon looked up, Frank’s eyes steady on him. “What’ll happen to him?” he said, a spasm in his stomach, not the brandy.

  “After the debriefing? Depends on whether they want to go public with it. A trial? Twenty years.”

  “For being bait.”

  “No, for betraying his country. Don’t look like that. He did, you know. For years. So don’t waste your sympathy. You should be glad he’s caught. America can sleep just that much safer tonight.”

  “And what does the Service do now?”

  “Deny it. It’s Washington. You don’t want people sent home. An incident. So we never heard of him.”

  “Or his bank account.”

  “The piece Don was looking for,” Frank said, pleased.

  “And if he talks?”

  “He will. He’s the type. But he won’t have enough to buy himself anything. Just his control. Who’s probably packing right now.”

  “So he’s on his own.”

  “With lots of time to contemplate his sins.” He looked over. “It was just a matter of time. Don may be an idiot, but once you start sniffing around like that—Kelleher’s days were numbered. We just hurried things along a little, that’s all. In a good cause.”

  “And now he’ll spend the rest of his life—”

  “He should have thought of that when he agreed to work for us.”

  “Agreed.”

  Frank brushed this aside. “There’s always a choice. He made it.” He looked at Simon. “It’s not publishing. It’s not a gentleman’s profession.”

  Simon said nothing, staring at him, hearing the sounds of the restaurant around them. How long did it take? To become like this?

  Frank glanced over, reading his face, then looked down, fingering the glass.

  “Would you mind not doing that? That look. You make a choice. He knew that. I knew it. And then you have to—do things. Then more. But I don’t want to anymore. Does that surprise you?”

  Simon said nothing.

  “It wouldn’t if you knew. You’ve just had a taste. Kelleher? Nothing. But after a while it gets harder to live with. The ends justify the means. You have to believe that, to be able to do it. And they do. I still think we’re on the right side of history. It’s just—in the beginning you don’t know about the means. Not all of them. Not until you’re in it.” He looked at him. “I said it was for Jo. It’s for me too. I want out. Don’t worry, I’ll pay. But I want out.” He put his hand on the table, a miming gesture, reaching. “Don’t go soft on me, Jimbo. I need you. To make it work.”

  Simon looked at the hand. Just get up and walk out. Past the Georgian waiters, Dolgoruky on his horse. Their lives, not his, dulled with regret and brandy. And if Frank was caught? On his own, like Kelleher. No, worse. Willing to risk that, a different floor in the Lubyanka. The first step already taken, irrevocable. And then the moment was over and Frank was moving his hand back, smoothing the tablecloth, as if he had just taken a trick.

  “You know why Don moved so fast on this?” he said. “I’ve been thinking. It’s because he trusts me. I know, after all the— But we used to work together. You put in years like that and— He hears the bank account and he knows he can trust it. No double-checking. He knows it’s right. That kind of trust—that’s coin of the realm. Coin of the realm.”

  “And now?”

  “Now they’ll want a meeting. They’ll want to hear it from me. Coin of the realm or no,” he said, a small smile. “I suppose I’d better be disillusioned. That always plays with them. They can’t imagine what you saw in it in the first place.” He glanced over at Simon. “They’ll contact you to set it up. Interesting to see who they send. And then we meet with them.”

  “We?” Simon said, feeling the spasm again. “I’m the messenger. I sent the message.”

  “I can’t just meet somebody in Gorky Park. You’re the cover. We’re all over the place, showing you Moscow, looking at this, looking at that. Boris is used to it. Nobody thinks twice. I’m with you.”

  “And we just happen to run into—?”

  Frank nodded. “The most natural thing in the world.”

  “And when does this happen?”

  “That depends on them. They have to send somebody out. To make the deal. But look how fast Don— Soon. So meanwhile we see some sights. Set up a pattern. Do what we’d be doing anyway. How about the Tretyakov tomorrow?”

  “You want the meeting there? The art museum?”

  Frank shook his head. “No, the Tretyakov wouldn’t work. With meetings, there’s a kind of—choreography. You have to work out where everybody needs to be. Entrances and exits. There’s a flow to it.”

  “So where?”

  “Let them make contact first,” Frank said calmly, reassuring. “I’m just being careful. Then nothing goes wrong. For either of us. I’ll pick the place. One guy, not a posse. Someone who has the authority. Pity they can’t send Don. But everybody in the Service knows that face by now. And I don’t see him showing up in a fake nose, do you? He’d never get out of the airport. So somebody else. One meeting. We need to be clear on that. One meeting. Otherwise, we start pushing our luck.”

  “And if they say no? They’re not interested?”

  Frank shook his head. “They’re not coming all this way t
o say no.”

  “Look who I found,” Jo said, suddenly next to the table, her voice brighter.

  “The bad penny,” Gareth said, next to her. “Imagine twice in two days. Even for me. You’ll think I’m stalking. But I promised, just one brandy and we’ll vanish.” He made a swooshing motion with his hands.

  “One,” Jo said. “I know you. One.”

  “Scout’s honor,” he said, raising his hand. “Guy, you hear that? We’re on our honor.”

  He stepped aside to make an opening for the man behind him. Simon looked up, surprised. “Guy Burgess,” he said. A man whose picture he’d seen for years, forgetting that it was the same picture, young Burgess down from Cambridge, not the bloated figure in front of them. If anything, he was even more slovenly than Gareth, clothes rumpled, his face puffy, the flesh pushing up to his eyes.

  He nodded his head, as if they’d been introduced, and unsteadily sank into the chair Gareth had pulled out for him.

  “We were out having a few drinks,” Gareth was saying. “And Guy wanted to go to the Praga, didn’t you, and I thought, I can’t face another dumpling, why not here? But imagine seeing you. You never go out.”

  “You say that, but we are out,” Jo said, a little insistent, and Simon saw that Frank had been right, the lipstick was slightly uneven, the eyes not quite focused.

  Frank signaled for more glasses, clearly annoyed. Gareth now pulled up another chair.

  “Very kind of you,” Burgess said to no one in particular.

  “I love this place,” Gareth said. “It reminds me of the Gay Hussar. Don’t you think, Guy?”

  “Don’t know it,” he said, sitting up as Frank poured out his drink.

  “Of course you do. Greek Street. Just down from Soho Square.”