Defectors Read online

  “Houdini.”

  “Nobody’ll believe it. That we pulled it off,” he said, his voice eager, another Frank scheme, Simon trailing after, his accomplice. “Right under their noses. Even Boris’s.” He nodded toward him and Boris got up, opening the string bag. “I’ll have your back. All the way,” Frank said, in a hurry now. “Go to the embassy. Today. Tell whoever it is you want to get a message directly to Pirie. They’ll use a secure line that’s routed through Vienna. And it is secure. Today.”

  Simon raised his eyebrows.

  “I have to protect both of us now. But I can’t risk more than one day. Somebody’s bound to wonder. Tell Pirie you want a meeting. And tell him he’s right about Kelleher. Try an account at Potomac Trust under Goodman. Got that?”

  “That’s the name. Kelleher,” Simon said, dismayed. Part of it now, one walk around the pond, Frank that sure of him.

  Frank nodded. “That’s all you have to say. He’ll know. Then we wait.”

  “I’ll have to tell them. About the secure line. Now that I know. If I don’t, I’ll be working for—your people. I won’t do that.”

  Frank shrugged. “We’re not working for anybody now. Just us. But if it makes you feel better, fine. You’ll still need some way to get to the Agency, though. After tomorrow. Tell them to route a secure line through Stockholm. We don’t have anybody working the lines there right now.”

  “And how would I know that?”

  The sides of Frank’s mouth began to go up in a grin. “Don’t tell them anything. You like to play things close to the vest. Where you got your information. They’ll be grateful. People have gotten medals for less,” he said, almost jaunty. “Boris, still here? I thought you’d be off with the shlyukha. What’s the matter? Too expensive? She’s just your type. Blonde like that.”

  “From a bottle,” Boris said. “A disgrace, in such a place. With children to see.” The family watchdog. Ready to send soldiers to a gulag for making a Stalin joke.

  “Well, they won’t know what they’re looking at. Is that tea?” he said, pointing to a thermos.

  “Tea only.”

  “You see how he looks after me? No spiking the tea if you’re working. How’s the salami?” he said to Simon.

  “Fine,” Simon said, taking a bite, wondering if he could do it too, slip into someone else, a quick-change artist, and then he was doing it, talking to Boris and munching on sandwiches as if nothing had been said on the walk, the secret there, his skin warm with it, but unseen. Every look now, every sentence a kind of lie. Without even saying yes, he had become Frank, being careful, hiding in plain sight.

  * * *

  It was Simon’s idea to ask Boris to walk him to the embassy, make it a KGB excursion. They left Frank at the pond and went out to the Garden Ring, curving down, not talking, Simon trying not to look over his shoulder, see a black car pulling up behind, the movie scene. And wouldn’t they be right? Not just an embassy visit, an act of espionage. Exposing an agent. A show trial, or just a quiet disappearance, Diana asking State to make inquiries. Don’t look back. His skin still warm, itchy. When they came to the pedestrian underpass, he felt he was crossing more than a street, Boris waiting behind, outside the range of the surveillance cameras.

  The embassy was as ugly as Frank had promised, a custard pile with some graceless decorative brickwork, its roof bristling with antennas. Oddly enough, it reminded Simon of the Lubyanka, the same era and bureaucratic heft. There were Marine guards outside and a high gate blocking the driveway, which swooped around down in back. Not a building, a compound.

  DiAngelis’s name worked, the indifferent clerk snapping to attention and immediately picking up the phone to call someone down, all the while staring with curiosity. Simon, still nervous, looked away, fixing instead on the framed picture of Kennedy behind the desk. In minutes, a man was coming toward them off the elevator.

  “Weeks? Mike Novikov,” he said, presumably an immigrant son but as American as his crew cut. Simon thought of Boris, standing across the street, hair shorter but similar, another doubling effect, like the buildings.

  “We’re on six,” Novikov said, pushing the elevator button. “Everything all right?”

  “Fine. Just wanted to report in. Is the Vienna line open?” Breezy, confident, the way Frank would have played it.

  Novikov nodded, a knowing military respect, Simon now a fellow cold warrior, DiAngelis’s man.

  “Did you make contact? With your brother?”

  Simon nodded. “We’ve already started. On the book. No problems.”

  “Is he—? Excuse me. Just curious.”

  “Is he what?”

  “Still—active. We haven’t been able to get a bead on that. Whether he’s retired. He doesn’t go to the office.”

  “Really?” Something Simon hadn’t known. “I think he keeps his hand in, though,” he said, covering. “Training agents, for one thing. He mentioned that. The ones going to the States. How to act.”

  “Christ. We should have done something about him years ago.”

  Simon looked over, startled.

  “Sorry,” Novikov said, embarrassed.

  “Not so easy in Moscow,” Simon said, letting it go.

  “No. Not the way things are.”

  Meaning what? The KGB presence or hands-off rules from Langley?

  “Our new best friends,” Novikov said.

  “And all ears,” Simon said, looking up. “We’ll need to send this in code. You have a—?” What was it called?

  “All set up,” Novikov said, cutting him off. “This way.”

  He led Simon past two desks crammed into a corridor-wide space, then into a windowless room.

  “We can talk here. We sweep for bugs every other day, so it’s about as safe as you can get. You want to cable DiAngelis?”

  “Pirie, actually. Eyes only. But I suppose that would have to go through DiAngelis anyway,” Simon said, guessing.

  “From here, yes. I can set you up. Not much traffic today. I assume you want to send it yourself.”

  “Please,” Simon said. “Pirie’s orders. Not my idea.”

  “No, that’s right. If you learn anything at this station, it’s ‘be careful.’ Even in the building.” He looked round at the bunker-like room. “Except here. This way. I’ll just put in the routing codes for you, then leave you to it.”

  “Thanks,” Simon said, following him into a small room with what looked like a jerry-built Teletype machine, its keyboard connected by wires to a big console behind. “By the way, have somebody check this line tomorrow. At the Vienna end. You might think about routing an alternative line through Stockholm.”

  Novikov looked at him, suddenly conspiratorial. “This information good?”

  Was it? He imagined Frank having puckish fun snarling the Agency’s communications, pulling connector plugs out of an old switchboard. What if none of it was true, another feint to confuse the enemy? Except they weren’t the enemy anymore, or wouldn’t be.

  “Check it and see,” Simon said, in the part now. “Tomorrow. We’re all right today.”

  “That’s pretty precise,” Novikov said, fishing.

  “Or the next day. Keep checking.”

  Novikov dipped his head, backing off, a kind of salute. “I’ll just set you up.”

  And in minutes it was done, everything Frank had asked him to do, Kelleher’s name typed into the machine like a judge’s sentence. And why not? If Frank had the name, he was one of theirs, burrowing in. But Simon’s fingers stopped for a second anyway. Not just judge, executioner. One click. Now the bank account name, the evidence. A few more clicks. And Kelleher was gone, a game piece wiped off the board. Wondering if he’d given himself away or—

  “All done?”

  “That’ll do it. Thanks. I’d better run. I’m just supposed to be checking in with the visa se
ction.”

  “You have an exit date yet?” Agencyspeak.

  “Not yet.”

  “You don’t want to overstay the visa. That’s always trouble,” Novikov said, walking him to the elevator.

  “Even when the KGB’s sponsoring you?”

  “Officially you’re a guest of the Writers’ Union. KGB have a funny way of disappearing when you need them. Who me? So I’d keep the visa date. Be on the safe side. Here we are,” he said, opening the elevator door. “Thank you, by the way. For the information. Appreciate it.”

  “One for our side,” Simon said, nodding a good-bye, then heading past the Marine guard to the broad street, where Boris waited, on the other side.

  3

  THE ARAGVI WAS IN THE HOTEL DRESDEN, just a few blocks up from the National, but Boris had sent a car anyway, part of the Service cocoon.

  “Dolgoruky,” the driver said, pointing to the equestrian statue in the square fronting the hotel.

  Simon just bobbed his head, something everybody knew, and stepped out into the soft spring air, the sky still light. After the hulking apartment buildings on Gorky Street, the Dresden seemed as sensuous and baroque as its namesake city, topped with an elaborate cornice of carved fruits. Frank and Jo were already at the table, pouring vodka.

  “Who’s Dolgoruky? Outside, on the horse,” Simon said.

  “Founder of Moscow,” Frank said.

  “That’s who it is? I always wondered,” Jo said. “I must have passed it a thousand times. Don’t I get a hello?”

  Simon bent down. “Still the prettiest girl in the room,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

  “This room,” she said.

  She had dressed for an evening out, lipstick and earrings, a brooch, cheeks pink with blush.

  “We’ve already started,” Frank said, “so better catch up.”

  He poured out a glass for Simon, then took a drink from his own, his eyes shiny, and Simon realized, something he hadn’t seen last night, that they drank together. He had somehow imagined Jo off by herself, melancholy, not clinking glasses as she was now, both of them loose, the way it must have started.

  “Catch up and overtake,” Frank said. “That used to be the slogan, remember? Catch up and overtake. The West. In industry. Production.”

  “Oh, don’t start,” Jo said, but pleasantly. “Another five-year plan. How about five years of gossip? Tell,” she said to Simon. “Don’t be discreet. Nobody here gives a damn anyway. So busy catching up.”

  “But not yet overtaking,” Simon said and smiled. “Who do you want to know about?”

  “You. Tell me about you. All the gossip.”

  He shook his head. “No gossip. That I know of. I’m boring. Editorial meetings on Mondays. Lunch at the Century. Book parties. Canapés passed twice. No shrimp. California wine. The author usually makes a pass at somebody. I make a toast. Then we all go somewhere like this,” he said, looking around. “Except French.”

  “I think it sounds wonderful,” Jo said.

  “You wouldn’t if you had one every week.”

  “So why do it?” Frank said.

  “To get something in the columns. Sullivan. Lyons. One of them. Put the book out there somehow.”

  “My Secret Life?”

  “Well, probably not. No party without the author. And you have to feed them if you want a mention.”

  “Winchell will mention you,” Jo said. “Winchell hates Frank,” she said to Simon. “Hates him.”

  “I know.”

  “Course you do. I forgot. You were there. ” She looked down at her glass, then brightened, determined to enjoy the evening. “Anyway it doesn’t sound boring to me. It sounds—distinguished.” She reached up and touched his glasses. “Who would have thought? A man of letters. Do you meet people? You know, Hemingway, people like that?”

  “Yes, but not the way you think. Business. Not table hopping at the Stork.”

  “So how do you do it?” Frank said. “Put the book out there?”

  “In your case? You’re a news story. Everybody will want to take a swing at it. Reviews. Off-the-book-page pieces. Editorials. We don’t have to worry about coverage with you.”

  “Just what they’ll say,” Jo said.

  “They’ve already said it,” Frank said, touching her hand. “We’re used to all that.”

  She moved her hand, not making a point, but moving it. “You are.”

  “Anyway, we won’t see any of it. Not unless Jimbo sends the clippings. Will you do that? I’d be curious, what people say now. Whether anything’s changed.”

  Simon looked at him. But he’d be there.

  “Sure. If you’d like,” he said, feeling back at lunch with Boris, playing a part. What it must have been like for Frank all those years. Every meal a performance. Saying one thing, knowing another. Something no one else knew. The meetings with the Brits, the only one at the table who knew. Enjoying himself, the sheer technical skill of it, the way a juggler takes pleasure just keeping things in the air.

  “I don’t want to see them,” Jo said. “Go through all that again. How terrible you are. And what does that make me? Ah, finally,” she said, seeing the waiter. “If I keep filling up with cheese bread, I won’t have room for anything else.”

  “Cheese bread?”

  “A Georgian specialty. Very good here,” Frank said, taking a menu from the waiter.

  Simon looked at his. Cyrillic. Across the room, waiters in Georgian clothes were carrying kebabs and platters of rice, trays of vodka glasses for the long, full tables. Who were they all? Intourist groups? Party officials? Who went to restaurants in Moscow? He’d imagined them all like workers’ canteens, with surly resentful waiters. But here at the Aragvi, men in white shirts and tunics slipped like dancers between the tables, popping corks and sliding meat off skewers. He looked at the Cyrillic again. Like an eye chart he couldn’t make out.

  “You order,” he said to Frank. “You know what I like.”

  Frank said something in Russian to the waiter, who nodded and started collecting the menus. “How did it go at the embassy?” he said smoothly, the other Frank now.

  “Fine. They saw me right away.”

  “What did they want?” Jo said.

  “Nothing. They like you to check in, that’s all.” The other Simon.

  “Maybe they’re afraid you’ll go over the fence. Once you see how wonderful it is.” She took another drink.

  “More like a French hotel, I think,” he said lightly. “Keep track of the passports.”

  “A French hotel,” Jo said, smiling at the idea. “Remember those keys, with the tassels? It’s true, they were always asking for your passport.”

  “The police keep a record.”

  “I wonder if I’m still on an index card somewhere. Still suspect.”

  “A dangerous character.”

  “And you’d never think it to look at her, would you?” she said.

  “No. You never would.”

  “Hoover would. A file this high, I’ll bet,” she said, raising her hand. “Well, never mind. Tell me about Diana. It’s so good to see you,” she said, taking his hand, sentimental. “Do you know what I miss? When we all used to go out. Remember? When we went dancing. I used to love that.”

  “Yes. You did,” Simon said. Her hair swinging behind her.

  “The last time—well, I suppose we were still in the States. Nobody dances here. Remember Natasha in War and Peace? When she dances to that Russian song? It’s supposed to be a symbol of Russia. According to Professor Davis. Turns out she was the last one. I don’t think anyone’s danced since.”

  “And the Bolshoi?” Frank said.

  “Oh, the Bolshoi.”

  “Is that Boris?” Simon said, spotting him at the door. “I thought he had the night off.”

  “
He does,” Frank said, putting his napkin down, ready to get up.

  “What do you think he does? Off duty?” Jo said. “I can’t imagine. Actually, I like Boris. He’s all right. In his very peculiar way.”

  “I’d better go see,” Frank said, leaving.

  “He puts in a full day,” Simon said.

  “He’s devoted to Frank.” She smiled to herself. “That’s one way of putting it. But I think he is, really. I used to think he was just a—I don’t know, guard. But it’s not that. He looks out for Frank.”

  “And you?”

  “Me? I look out for myself. Doing a wonderful job too.” She turned to him. “Tell me something. I’d like to know. Are you happy?”

  “Happy?” he said, surprised, thrown by the question. “I don’t know. I never thought about it. Not like that. I suppose so.”

  “You must be, if you never think about it.” She took out a cigarette. “I notice you don’t ask me if I am. Too late,” she said quickly, stopping him before he could speak. “Besides, what could I say? No? Yes? Would it make any difference?”

  “I’d like to think you were,” he said, lighting the cigarette for her. “Think of you that way.”

  “I was. For a while. Even here. It’s funny, you don’t know it when you are. Just when you’re not. I never blamed Frank. I came because—I was his wife. We had a child. And things were the way they were then. In the States. How horrible people were. Calling you names. In front of your child. To tell you the truth, I thought Frank was half-right. Not the spying half. I’m not making excuses for him. But I thought his reasons— Well, it was another time. The thing is, I was in love with him. You know.”

  “Yes.”

  “Think how easy if it had been someone else.” She smiled faintly at him.

  “But it wasn’t.”

  “No. So here we are. It was nice, though. You were nice. And what a thing you had for me,” she said, playing.

  “Jo—”

  “I know. Asking my old beaux to flatter me, tell me I’m still—God, how embarrassing. Who’s the fairest in the land? You are.” She looked at her drink. “You know, when I heard you were coming, I thought, he’s coming to rescue me. I actually thought that. Then I saw your face last night. When you saw me. It’s different for men, isn’t it? You get older and nobody thinks anything of it. But the ladies— So no rescue this time. Anyway, it’s a little late. Not too many candidates. You were it. But sometimes you like to think—how it might have been.”