Tapestry of Spies

by Stephen Hunter

  “You’ll make it. The bullet hasn’t been made that could bring down the brilliant Julian.”

  “No, no. And my feelings are never wrong about these things. You will. I won’t. Somehow this little gimcrack”—he held out his father’s wedding ring on its chain—“has lost its charm. I can feel it. I know it. ‘Pons’ shall go forever unfinished.”

  He smiled. His teeth were white and beautiful, his face grave and handsome. He had such high, fine cheekbones and glittery blue eyes. Julian, we mere mortals peep about your bloody ankles.

  “I wanted to tell you about Sylvia. I want it straight between us. Do you understand there’s nothing between us? She’s yours. I’d never touch her, is that understood? The two of you: it’s so right.”

  “Yes, Julian. Yes, I do understand.”

  And Florry did. For he knew that Julian could not betray him for love. But as for politics, that was something else. For Florry, over the long day’s drive, had finally reached the final implication of Julian’s treachery. The bridge attack would fail. And that meant Florry would die. Julian would kill him. Even now as he addresses me, he addresses me as the executioner talking to the victim, assuring him that the drop of the gallows trap is nothing personal, but purely in the best interests of the Party.

  “Good, chum,” said Julian. “And when I’m gone, you remember that.”

  “I will, Julian,” said Florry, “I will.”

  You bastard, he thought, surprised himself at the cold loathing he felt. You betrayed me at school. You betrayed me with Sylvia. Now you will betray me at the bridge. The difference is that I know it this time and I will stop you.

  “Sylvia deserves somebody dogged and solid with virtue. And that’s you and it’s grand. Be good to her.”

  “I’m sure in twenty years we’ll all get together at the Savoy over cocktails and laugh about this conversation.”

  “I’m sure we won’t, ” said Julian.

  They crouched in the forest. It was time. Florry found himself breathing heavily.

  “Comrades,” said Portela, who had blacked his face out under his black beret. He carried an American Thompson gun. “For you,” he said. “Salud.” He got a flask out from under his cape and handed it over. “From Comrade Steinbach. For the English dynamiters.”

  He handed it to Julian, who sniffed at the snout voluptuously. “God, lovely. Whiskey. Wonderful English whiskey. Bushmill’s, I believe. To the bloody future,” he toasted, taking a bolt, “that ugly whore.” He handed the flask to Florry.

  Florry threw down a swallow. It was like the brown smoke from a thousand English hearths.

  “Shall we go then, lads?” said Julian, and they were off.

  Portela led them down the slope and out into no-man’s-land. A mist had risen, and the three men seemed to wade through it. Oddly, up above, the stars were clear and sharp, shreds and flecks of far-off, remote light. Florry was last in the file. He had the Webley in his hand, and a four-five-five in each chamber. He was just behind Julian.

  Wait till you get beyond the lines. Wait till Portela leaves you. Wait till you get to the truck. Wait till you’ve changed into your fine English suit. Wait till you’re in the truck and setting off to Pamplona. Then lift and fire. Clean. Into the back of the head. It’ll be much easier than the boy in the trench.

  Then what? he wondered.

  Then you go on. To the bridge.

  That’s absurd.

  They waded through the mist. The silence fell upon them heavily. The mist nipped and bobbed at his knees. Portela halted suddenly, turning, and waved them down.

  Florry knelt, sinking into the mist. For a second, all was silent and still. Then there came the low slush of boots pushing their way through the wet, high grass, and Florry made out the shape of a soldier—no, another, three, four!—advancing toward them in the fog. They were Fascists on patrol, somber men in great coats with German helmets and long Mausers with bayonets. Florry tried to sink lower into the earth, but the men continued their advance, gripping their rifles tightly, their eyes peering about. Florry thought of Julian: had he somehow alerted the NKVD who had in turn alerted the Fascists?

  If they find us, Julian, I’ll kill you here, he thought, his hand tightening on the bulky revolver.

  It was ghastly, almost an apparition, like a post patrol in some Great War legend, the tall soldiers isolated in the rolling white fog. Florry suddenly saw that they were Moorish legionnaires, huge, handsomely formed men, with cheekbones like granite and eyes like obsidian. Savages. They’d just as soon cut your guts up as look at you. They preferred the bayonet. At Badajoz, they’d put thousands to the blade, or so the propaganda insisted.

  Florry gripped his Webley so tight he thought he’d smash it: what an opportunity for Julian, and so early on! A single noise, a cough, the smallest twitch, and the bloody thing was over. Florry brought the revolver to bear in the general direction of Julian. If Julian made a noise, he’d—

  He heard the footfalls growing louder.

  He could hear them talking in Arabic. They laughed among themselves only feet away, and Florry fancied he could smell the cheap red wine on their breath.

  They halted fifteen feet off.

  More laughter.

  More chatter.

  Florry could feel his heart beating like a cylinder in an engine block. The sweat ran hotly down his face, though the night was cool. He lay hunched on the mist, and its moisture soaked him; he could see the damned glow of the Webley barrel.

  The soldiers laughed again, and then began to move away. In minutes they had vanished altogether.

  Florry felt a stream of air whistle out of his mouth in pure animal relief. He thought he might begin to tremble so hard he couldn’t move. But before him first Portela with his Thompson and then Julian with his small .25 automatic rose. He came off his knees and creakily climbed to his feet. Julian flashed the old Great War high sign: thumbs up, chum.

  Portela began to move up the slope and the two Englishmen followed. In the fog they stayed closer together and Portela motioned for them to hurry. They seemed to be walking in milk and Florry had lost all contact with where they were. Had they reached the Fascist line yet? Shouldn’t they be crawling? What was going on?

  Suddenly there was a noise. They sank back into the fog again.

  There was the chink of something falling and some laughter. Then Florry heard the sound of running water—it was a man nearby pissing in the fog.

  Something tapped his shoulder: Portela, gesturing him to rise quietly. Florry stood and the three began to walk swiftly ahead. They were on flat ground, it seemed, and—

  They were in the yard of a small house.

  “¿Quién está?” came a call.

  “Perdón,” Portela answered. “Estamos perdidos. Somos de la Tenth Division.”

  “Ha!”

  A man leaned out the open window, a cigarette in his mouth.

  He yelled something Florry couldn’t follow.

  Portela yelled back. The two argued back and forth for some time.

  Suddenly another voice screamed out.

  “¡Hombres! Calláos, carrajo! ¿Qué pensáis, que es una fiesta?”

  The first man said something under his breath. Portela muttered a reply. The two conversed in low tones.

  “¿Jode Chingas las muchachas en Zaragoza por mí, ¿eh, amigo? Hay unas guapas allí.”

  “Tendré los ojos abiertos,” called back Portela. “Les diré su mensaje.”

  “Adiós, amigo.”

  “Sí. Adiós, amigo,” called back Portela, and began to walk smartly away. Florry and Julian hastened after.

  From inside the hut came the sound of raucous, dirty laughing.

  They walked on, climbing a low stone wall, until they found themselves in an orchard. Portela took them down its ghastly ranks, around some deserted buildings, and down at last a road. They halted in the lee of a wall.

  “¡Por Dios!” said Portela, crossing himself several times feverishly. “My pr
ayers were answered tonight.”

  “I didn’t think you were quite allowed to pray, old man,” said Julian. “That’s for the other side.”

  “I have been an atheist since 1927,” Portela said, “but on this night we needed the help of God, and so we got it.”

  “How extraordinary,” said Julian. “Do you mean there was actually danger involved in all that?”

  “I thought once we passed the patrol we were behind the lines. But then I took us straight to their company headquarters. ‘Hey, where you go?’ a fellow asks me. ‘To Zargossa,’ I tell him. ‘Many pretty girls there.’ ‘You lucky you got leave,’ he says. ‘Fuck one for me.’ ‘You men, shut your mouths,’ yelled the major. God in heaven.”

  “Good heavens,” said Julian. “I thought it was all arranged.”

  “Come, the trucks are this way.”

  Florry slid the revolver out of its holster. It was just a matter of time now. Surprisingly, what worried him most was explaining it all to Portela. He knew he could do the thing: raise the pistol, fire it into the back of the head. Once you have shot a man in the face, you can do most anything.

  They reached a farmyard.

  Florry saw two trucks.

  What—

  “Well, old man, looks like we won’t be able to tell school stories on the way into Pamplona. Ta-ta.” And with that, Julian scurried off.

  “It’s safer,” said Portela. “This way at least one man gets through, no?”

  “Y-yes,” Florry heard himself saying, as he watched Julian climbing into the rear of the first truck. “Much safer.”

  26

  THE CLUB CHICAGO

  IT TOOK LEVITSKY NEARLY A FULL DAY TO GET BACK TO Barcelona, and nearly five hours into the evening—it was the evening of the fifteenth—until he found the man that he needed.

  He began his search in the Barrio Chino, among the gaudy prostitutes and the cheap nightclubs that plied their trade regardless of the official revolutionary austerity imposed on the city. Levitsky was not interested in women, however, or in companionship of any sort. Bolodin would know he had just missed his quarry at Cabrillo del Mar; he would certainly deduce that the running man would seek safety in the one city he knew. Levitsky estimated that he had very little time left.

  The wolf is near, he thought.

  A girl came and sat at his table in the Club Chicago.

  “Salud, comrade,” she said.

  She asked him a question in Spanish.

  “Inglés, por favor,” he said.

  “Sure. Inglés. You wish a girl for the night? Me, maybe? Some good tricks I know.”

  “No. But I have some money for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes. Listen carefully. Now, in the time of the revolution, you have been liberated. You work for yourself, correct?”

  “I am a free worker.”

  “But it was not always so. It was not so before July. Once you worked for a man. A certain man controlled you and all the ladies.”

  “Before July.”

  “Yes. Before July.”

  “Suppose it were so?”

  “Suppose this man had a name.”

  “He was called only the Aegean.”

  “The Aegean is gone?”

  “Who knows?”

  “This man would leave all he had built up? He would leave it?”

  “Leave it or die. His kind was placed before walls in the early days of July and shot.”

  “You say he is gone. Yet oddly a ship full of illegal cigarettes attempted to reach Barcelona in January. It was sunk by the Italians. Yet clearly the owner of the ship hoped to make a great deal of money from the contraband. It sounds exactly like the sort of thing this Aegean chap might be interested in. So perhaps this fellow isn’t as far gone as you maintain.”

  “I know nothing of such things.”

  “And the man who owned that ship. It is said in some quarters that he owned this place—and other places in the barrio.”

  “Who is asking these questions?”

  “Perhaps this fifty-peseta note will convince of my friendship.”

  She took the bill and stuffed it down between her breasts.

  “So. A friend.”

  “I have something to sell him. But it must be tonight. If it’s not tonight, it has no value. It could make him a very important man in times to come. And it could make the girl who helps him very important in times to come.”

  “I’ll be back. I must talk to someone.”

  He took out a five-hundred-peseta note, tore it in half, and gave her one piece.

  “Show him this. And you get the other,” he said, “when I meet the Aegean comrade.”

  Levitsky then sat alone for a time. Two other tarts came by; he shooed them away and ordered another peppermint schnapps.

  At last the girl returned.

  “Upstairs,” she said. “And you better not be carrying no gun or knife or they’ll cut you open.”

  “Salud,” he said.

  “My money, comrade.”

  He tore the remaining half in half again, and gave it to her. “You get the last piece when I get there.”

  They went in the back and up the steps into a decrepit hall leading to a small room.

  “The man you seek is behind the door. My money.”

  He gave it to her and she left quickly.

  Levitsky opened the door and stepped into darkness. A light hit him in the eyes. He heard an automatic pistol cock.

  “Search him and check his wallet,” the voice commanded.

  A form approached, patted him down, and quickly relieved him of his money.

  “You are a very rich man in these revolutionary times,” said the voice. “Don’t you know that capital is against the spirit of the people?”

  “An astute man flourishes in any climate,” said Levitsky.

  “So he does. It’s said some weeks ago a certain bold man came to possess a great many identification documents obtained illegally from particular foreign visitors to this country. Some of these documents were sold on the black market for a considerable sum. But you would know nothing of this?”

  “How would a poor man such as I know anything of these criminal matters?”

  “Perhaps the purchaser of the documents marked the bills with which he paid the anonymous seller. And perhaps the first piece of the bill you gave the girl had the mark.”

  “What an amazing coincidence,” said Levitsky.

  “It’s said the man removed these documents from the headquarters of the head Russian stooge policeman. I would like to meet this man.”

  “He must be an amazing chap,” said Levitsky. “Imagine walking out of the main police station with twenty-eight confiscated passports under the names Krivitsky, Tchiterine, Ver Steeg, Malovna, Schramfelt, Steinberg, Ulasowicz—”

  “Very impressive memory.”

  “Thank you, comrade.”

  “You perhaps have more documents? A very lucrative market. The hills of Barcelona are loaded with aristocrats in hiding who desperately need new identities.”

  “Alas, I have no documents today. I have not paid a visit to the police station lately and have no plans to do so in the future. What I have, rather, is a scrap of information.”

  “For sale?”

  “You would not trust anything given as a present.”

  “Probably I would not.”

  “I am told that there is in Barcelona a sinister underground antirevolutionary organization called the White Cross. It’s said the White Cross may have ways of reaching Generalissimo Franco’s intelligence staff via a hidden wireless.”

  “I, too, have heard of such an organization. They would pay dearly for crucial military information that an astute man had gathered.”

  “Yes, they would. I have something to sell you for ten thousand pesetas that you may sell an hour hence to the White Cross for one hundred thousand pesetas, assuming, of course, you have ways of reaching the White Cross.”

  “There
are always ways, señor. But how can I trust you?”

  “Play my trick on me. Give me half the money. That is, literally, half. If you fail to make a sale to the White Cross, you can come take it from me and kill me. I’ll wait downstairs. If you can sell it, come to me with the money.”

  “And why should I not simply take your information and kill you without paying you?”

  “Because you would have to tear it from my heart. And you do not have time to do so this night.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Pedro,” the voice behind the light finally directed. “The money. As he says.”

  There was shuffling in the darkness, and the sound of bills being peeled out and torn. It took a few minutes. Then, with a slithering sound, the packet of bills slid across the floor to his feet. Levitsky bent, picked up the wad, made a quick show of counting it off.

  He smiled. “I’m sure your friends in the White Cross will be pleased to inform General Franco’s intelligence staff that at quarter to noon tomorrow, sixteen June, two English dynamiters traveling under stolen identity papers in the names of Uckley and Dyles will be present at the new tank bridge at kilometer 132 on the road between Pamplona and Huesca. The point of their presence is to sabotage the gun position for a guerilla attack on the bridge. And at one that same afternoon, the soldiers of the POUM and the UGT and the FAI militias will make another assault on the city of Huesca.”

  Julian had told him. And now Julian must die.

  Levitsky sat downstairs, having another peppermint schnapps. He felt exhausted. The goal glimpsed that evening in Moscow when his strange companion let slip the information of Lemontov’s defection had at last been achieved. What GRU wanted, GRU had gotten. What happened now—to anybody—did not matter. Levitsky, however, strangely took no pleasure in it. He didn’t feel anything except hollowness. He felt, if anything, only old.

  It’s getting to you, old man.

  Levitsky had not wept in years. Yet he found a last old tear in his dry bones for the dead: Julian and poor Florry. Igenko. The Anarchists in Trieste. Foolish old Witte. Tchiterine. Maybe worst of all his father, dead and gone these many years, slaughtered by Cossacks in the time before there was time.