Spy Runner

by Eugene Yelchin

  “I was cleared for security by then,” the major continued, “and could, so to speak, let that Russian friend of his peek at some … well, nothing important, naturally, a new radar, a couple of manuals. Are you paying attention, McCauley?”

  Jake nodded slowly.

  “It’s important that you’re paying attention,” the major added sternly. “’Cause you ain’t going to hear this again.”

  “I think I am paying attention, sir.”

  The Cadillac seemed to be going a lot faster now, but faster still were Jake’s thoughts rushing through his head. Jake’s ears were listening to the major’s voice, but his thoughts were coming at him all at once, stumbling, tumbling, crashing into one another, making his head feel very big and full of flashing lights. What the major was telling him about was treason. He had been handing American secrets over to the Russians, and the person who had been helping him was Jake’s father. Only Jake’s father was more than the major knew. He was not just the major’s best bud at the base lending him a hand in spying for the Russians, he was also an undercover FBI agent working to beat the Russians at spying. All of it was terribly confusing and scary, but Jake knew that there was no turning back for him now, and so he said, “Did they pay you for that, sir? The Russians, I mean.”

  The major shook his head in disgust. “I had always wished you were my kid, McCauley, but I’m beginning to be disappointed in you. Talking about benefits! Yes, there was cash money from the Russians, but did I do it for cash? No, son. I did it for respect. Your old man respected me, and that can be verified. The United States Air Force failed to appreciate Armbruster, but your old man, he came through.”

  The western sky, bloodred from the setting sun just a moment ago, faded to blue then to inky blue, and the vehicles coming toward them on the highway were switching on their lights. The major removed his Ray-Bans, carefully folded and slipped them into his front shirt pocket, then clicked on the headlamps.

  “The Russian cash, McCauley, paid for the American dream. A comfortable home with a pool? Check. A luxury automobile? Check. A television set, kitchen appliances, a top-notch fallout shelter? Check. Check. Check. This is what every American wants, McCauley.”

  Jake took a deep breath, held the air in his chest for a moment, exhaled, and said quickly, as if he was afraid to lose courage before he had finished saying it, “So you are a traitor, then, sir? You sold our secrets to the Russians so you could have a house with a pool?”

  “Pool has nothing to do with it!” the major shouted so loud that Jake ducked, afraid that he might punch him. “I don’t even know how to swim! I’m talking about respect. Your old man was gone, what? Ten years? Eleven? My life was miserable, McCauley. Contemplated suicide. Gave it serious consideration. I’m not talking about the morons at the AFB, McCauley, not a single promotion since the war. I’m talking no respect at home, the man’s castle. The wife and Junior are disappointments. They fear me, yes, but where’s their respect?”

  Jake almost began arguing with him, almost said that the major was wrong, that Duane had so much respect for his father, he could not stop bragging about him. But he did not say anything, worried that the major might get angry again.

  “Sure, they kept sending the Russians my way. Each one was dumber than the one before, all morons. Once a fellow showed up with gold teeth, imagine that? Not to be trusted. But when they got wind of the Stratojet, I told them straight out, I’d only deal with my old partner on that one, no one else. And sure enough, they brought your old man back.”

  “You saw my father?” Jake said, and for the first time, looked openly at the major.

  “Saw him? I don’t need to see him. Not in person. But we do have a nice little arrangement how and when the transaction takes place, McCauley, as you had the misfortune to find out.”

  Jake’s thoughts rushed through his head again, flashing like lightning and making bright all that was murky before. Jake’s dad was behind this whole operation. He was the one who had arranged the dead drop location, which was inside this very Cadillac. It was not by accident that the major did not lock his car; it was all planned in advance. Jake’s dad had told the major to leave the top secret folder in the briefcase and he told Shubin how to find it and when. But it was only a trick to fool the major and Shubin because Jake’s dad was a double agent. Shubin found that out somehow and that was why he wanted to kill him. At last, Jake understood what he had gotten himself into. By trying to expose Shubin, he had exposed Major Armbruster instead. Everything became clear to Jake now save for two things. Number one: Where was his dad? Number two … Number two was not even that important, but it seemed important enough for Jake to find out.

  “Sir?” he said. “I have another question.”

  “Speak now, son, or forever hold your peace.” The major chuckled. “And I mean it literally.”

  “Well, sir. When you came to our classroom to talk about fighting the threat of Communism, sir? Remember?”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, it’s this, sir. You said that Communism means destruction of the American way of life, sir. But you yourself, sir, you were helping the Russians. Were you lying to us, sir?”

  Without warning, the major lunged forward and smashed his fist into the dashboard in a fit of such fury that Jake jumped in his seat.

  “What’s wrong with you, McCauley?” the major shouted. “Do you have to be so dumb? I’m an American! I love my country! Liberty and justice for all and so forth. The question is how much does my country love me back? I ought to have been a colonel by now. A general. A chief of staff.”

  The major slammed his foot onto the gas pedal, and the Cadillac growled and leapt forward.

  “No, son, don’t you confuse me with your old man,” the major went on, trying to control his anger. “He’s a Russian. Well, sort of. His mom and dad ran away from Russia when the Communists started all that mess over there, but he was born around here. Arizona, I think, New Mexico maybe. Still, to me he’s a Russian. He’s my best bud and all, but can you trust a Russian completely? No, McCauley, you can’t. And that is why you and I will be solving our little problem without him being aware.”

  “What problem, sir?”

  “The problem is you, son.” The major turned to Jake, smiling his beautiful smile, and his teeth, even and white, flashed for an instant in the brights of the oncoming car. “The problem is you,” he repeated, and reached over toward the glove compartment.

  It was a long way to reach from the Cadillac’s steering wheel to its glove compartment, and when the major leaned across Jake’s knees, he scooted away and flattened himself against the door. The major flipped the lid of the glove compartment open, took out his handgun, and eased back behind the steering wheel. “Shut the latch, son, will you?”

  At the sight of the gun, Jake’s whole body went numb, and when he shut the glove compartment as the major told him, he could not feel his fingers touching it, as if his hand did not belong to him.

  “This here weapon, McCauley, .45 Colt M1911,” Major Armbruster said, thumbing back the hammer, “has been in the US Army service since before the First World War. Ain’t nothing, son, more reliable to take care of our little problem. You sit tight now. We’re just about to hit the boneyard.”

  Jake could not see the major clearly in the darkened interior, but he could see the gun in his hand, resting over the steering wheel. It shone brightly, almost merrily, in the beams of the passing vehicles.

  So that was it, then. The end of the line, as the major called the boneyard. It would be Jake’s boneyard, too. His end of the line. Jake imagined his bones bleached by the sun and scattered among the rusted bombers, and he imagined how one day, someone, Duane maybe, or Mr. Vargas with his whole class on a field trip, would come upon Jake’s bones, but would not know they were his. How short his life had turned out to be! Jake was in his twelfth year, but he was never to become a teenager. He was never to see his mom again and he was never to meet his dad, the only thin
g he had ever really wanted.

  Jake shoved his hand into the front pocket of his jeans, dug around there for a while, then pulled out two things: the tooth that he had lost when he had fallen into the ditch and the stick from the ice cream bar that the old man had given him for free in the alley. He set both objects on the bench in between the major and himself and said, “Can I ask you a favor, sir?”

  “What is it, son?”

  “Could you please give these to my mom when you see her?”

  “Give her what, McCauley?” Major Armbruster glanced at the darkened bench. “I can’t see a darn thing.”

  When the major leaned in to take a better look, Jake darted away from him, unlocked his door, and leapt out. A gust of wind swiped Jake in the face and the blacktop rushed at him, but it did not have a chance to hit him. The major caught Jake by the waistband of his jeans and yanked him back inside the vehicle. The door slammed behind Jake, knocking him sideways into the major’s lap. Cussing, the major shoved him aside and turned to fumble with the wildly spinning wheel.

  The Cadillac careened across the center lane. The headlights of the oncoming vehicle flooded the interior. A shudder rocked the car. The windshield buckled, sagged inward, and exploded into a million sparkling fragments. Another vehicle smashed into the Cadillac from the rear. The Cadillac spun in place, flinging shards of glass in all directions. All sounds ceased. The car was spinning. A moment passed in utter silence and in utter darkness.

  How long that moment lasted, Jake could not tell, but then there was a jolt, a whoosh, and something whacked hard at his back. Miraculously, he saw the Cadillac from a considerable distance. The vehicle was on its side in the ditch, smoking from under the crumpled hood. Jake looked around in confusion. He was lying on the sunbaked clay about fifty feet away from the ditch. The impact must have pitched him out of the car through the missing windshield. He did not feel any pain, but he could not hear a thing.

  He slapped at his ears and shook his head. Tiny fragments of glass fell out of his hair. He tried to get up, but his bad leg gave out from under him, and he sat down hard. He rested for a while, panting, watching the lights of the vehicles lining up along the highway shoulder. Smoke billowed from the wrecked Cadillac. He saw shadows descending into the ditch through the beams of light. He saw people huddle around the Cadillac, force one door open, and then pass the major’s body through the gaping windshield.

  Jake staggered to his feet and stood, uncertain. His head knew that he should go back to the highway and ask those people for help, but his heart decided otherwise. Mistrustful and suspicious after what he had been through, his heart made him turn away from the highway and limp into the pitch-black desert.

  50

  When Jake came upon the boneyard, the full moon stood high in the glittering sky. Below it, the retired United States Air Force aircrafts lined wing to wing gleamed in the endless formations. The place was at once beautiful and spooky, and as Jake hobbled in the silence of the ghostly planes, the only sound was that of his breathing and of his beating heart.

  He halted below the cockpit of a Superfortress, peering at its dark shape, which loomed above him like an enormous cross. The missing landing gear on one side gave the bomber a sharp tilt so that even with his injured leg, he had little trouble scaling its slanted wing. On hands and knees, he inched along the riveted aluminum still cooling after the day in the merciless sun, reached the fuselage, pulled himself on top of it, crawled toward the sloping nose, and then, feet first, slipped through the glassless windscreen inside the cockpit.

  He climbed into the pilot’s seat and looked around, awed by the myriad of gleaming knobs and switches. His whole life he had been dreaming of piloting a plane like this to Russia to save his dad. He thought of the pledge he used to whisper to himself at school during the Pledge of Allegiance: I pledge to save my dad from the Russians and to bring him home so my dad and mom and I can be a regular family like we’re supposed to be in America.

  He began reciting the pledge again, but the sound of his own voice in the eerie silence of the decrepit cockpit spooked him, and he stopped. Besides, the pledge seemed silly to him now. At long last, he was in the pilot’s seat of the real Superfortress, but it did not matter that he knew neither how to fly it nor how to lift this rusted machine off the ground. What was the use of flying to Russia if his father was back in America?

  He glimpsed a radio headset hooked around the throttle beside the pilot’s chair, unhooked it, and set it in his lap. He turned the headset over, gazing at the loose mesh threads where the cable had been cut and at the petrified bone-colored foam inside the headphones. Slipping the headset over his ears, he leaned forward and flipped a few random switches.

  “Come in, Delta Alpha Delta One,” he whispered, calling for his father as he had always done pretending to fly his B-29 model at home. “Off the ground at…” He paused, not knowing what time it was, and said again instead, “Come in, Delta Alpha Delta One. Please come in.”

  He strained his ears, hoping for some faraway voice inside the headphones to reveal his father’s secret whereabouts. But there was no faraway voice. There was nothing. He felt tears pooling behind his lower eyelids and lifted his chin up to keep them from spilling. The tears swelled, burst forth, and, plunging down, made two clear channels through the dry dirt caking his face. The channel on the left swerved toward his lips, and he stuck his tongue out to taste the salt.

  And while he sat there wearing the useless headset and sobbing his heart out from pain and fear and despair, the darkness that engulfed him made him think of Shubin’s darkroom and the look of disappointment on his face when Jake refused to learn how to develop pictures. I thought this was something we could do together, Shubin said. His words made Jake feel weird then, but he felt almost guilty now. Do you ever think about your dad? Shubin asked him, and when caught by surprise, Jake answered, Why? Shubin winced as if he was hurt.

  Next, Jake thought of Shubin’s cracked spectacles on the counter of Ruby’s diner and the wad of dirty tape unraveling off their frame. What Jake saw then in Shubin’s unguarded eyes and what he had refused to see was neither anger nor menace nor threat but anguish and worry.

  Then Jake thought of the pearly gray moth tapping against the lampshade in his mother’s bedroom. He saw again two shadows swaying together in a strange and pretty dance, and tried to understand why watching his mother and Shubin smile at each other made him so furious then but it did not now.

  And as Jake thought of his mother’s and Shubin’s shadows, some other shadows slid from under the cockpit of the bomber. A family of coyotes trotted silently in between the anchored aircrafts. Silvery and transparent under the moonlight, a young pup loped in between two adults. The last in line, the largest of the three, probably a father, paused to look back in Jake’s direction. His eyes flared green for one brief moment, then all three vanished into the night.

  Jake’s heart grew in his chest, expanding to where it could burst. All things he had believed in life, all things he had heard on the radio, and read about in the comics, and seen in the movies—all things about Communists and foreigners and spies—had made him blind to what was so easy to see. After Shubin had moved into their house, Jake had kept looking for his father while he was right beside him. It was Shubin, of course. Shubin was his father.

  51

  Later, when Jake tried to recall what happened after the air force base guards found him in the cockpit of the B-29, his memory became hazy and confused. The discovery that Shubin was his father had had an extraordinary effect on him. He felt peaceful and content, and for a long time, he sat back in the pilot’s seat with his hands folded behind his head, smiling at the stars in the brilliant sky. The stars swarmed and shimmered and fell in long golden arcs until, inexplicably, they began to converge upon him from all directions, drawing nearer and nearer, swaddling him in their soft, luminous glow.

  What happened next he could not quite remember. He must have fainted when the stars c
ircling the cockpit turned out to be the flashlights of the guards combing the boneyard searching for him. But later, much later, when he finally came to his senses, he found himself rocking gently to the low hum of a moving vehicle, with his face buried in someone’s lap. A thick wad of something, some cotton maybe and some gauze, was taped to the left side of his face. The bandage reeked of medicine, yet he could still smell the faint scent of his mother’s favorite soap on the person who held his head in her lap. His skin felt itchy below the bandage, but he fought the urge to scratch it and kept his eyes tightly closed, not wanting his mother to know he was awake.

  “Can we swap?” a raspy voice complained. “His sneakers stink.”

  That was Shubin’s voice. His father’s voice. Jake knew now that he was stretched along the rear bench of the moving vehicle, his face in his mother’s lap, his feet across his father’s. Jake smiled.

  “Don’t wake him,” his mother whispered over him.

  “But his—”

  “Shush!”

  During a brief silence that followed, he wondered what his father’s real name was and also what was his. Was he still McCauley, or was he now Shubin, or was he now Jake McCauley-Shubin, which was even better, because then neither his father nor his mother would feel cheated.

  “You mean stink kind of like rubber burning?” another voice piped from the direction of the steering wheel. “It’s not sneakers, bud. It’s us.”

  This was either Bambach or Bader speaking. The G-men’s voices were about the same.

  “We had to sift through a mountain of ash and burned rubber,” Bader or Bambach said. “Your kid had the bright idea to drop the Stratojet manual onto a burning tire.”

  “A tubeless Coker number forty-eight, to be exact,” another voice chimed in. That was definitely Bambach.

  “You should’ve kept your boy out of the operation,” Bader said.

  “That was your job, Bader,” said Jake’s mother. “Your assignment was to keep him safe.”