Paul Vidich - The Mercenary

“He’ll be a problem going forward,” Garin said.

“He doesn’t know anything about you.”

“As it should be. What do you know?”

Mueller made sure the conference room door was closed. “I know you left the Agency. I know General Zyuganov was executed. I’ve heard the rumors. Ambitious men distance themselves from failures to protect their careers.”

“You get used to it.”

“You never get used to it. If you say you do, then you’re fooling yourself.”

Garin said nothing.

“How’s Sophie?”

“It’s over. We’re finished.”

“No one tells you that side of the work,” Mueller said. “Never having an ordinary life. There is nothing ordinary about this work. The best of us burn out, drink too much, or leave.”

“Don’t lecture me.”

Mueller looked at Garin. “Why did GAMBIT ask for you?”

“I said I don’t know. This job came out of nowhere. Three days ago I got a call at midnight and I was on a plane forty-eight hours later. I was handed my visa when I landed in Paris.” He looked at Mueller. “Things haven’t changed, have they?”

“When were you blown?”

“Carter’s term. Revolutionary Guards had taken the embassy in Tehran. Then General Zyuganov was lost. I was undercover with the Second Chief Directorate, gathering shit on Moscow Station. Then the leak happened.”

“Their side or ours?”

“We never knew.”

“Were there grudges? Is GAMBIT a lure to reel you in?”

“There are always grudges. They lost assets in Washington. Networks were rolled up. It was a bad time for them. Maybe they’re smarter now.”

“You’re a risk.” Mueller’s eyes drifted to the hallway, where Agency staff getting off the elevator pretended not to be aware of the two men sitting in the Bubble. “But you’re an outsider. That qualifies you.” Mueller leaned forward. “I was compromised by someone inside Moscow Station. Black lights showed a phosphorescent chemical on my hands when I was picked up. My guess—METKA. I was tagged, probably here in the embassy.” Mueller met Garin’s eyes. “And there’s another reason why you’re suitable for this assignment.” He slid a black-and-white photograph across the table. “Talinov.”

Garin studied the official portrait—the grim, unsmiling lieutenant colonel with his chest of medals and a high-crown cap with a single red star. Garin remembered the slightly ascetic face. Thinking eyes, thin lips, and a long, beaked nose that gave him a predatory visage. It was a face that was hard to forget.

“He interrogated me,” Mueller said. “He knows we’re working an asset, and he knows the asset is senior. His questions were vague and speculative, but he found the package I was carrying—money, camera, radio transmitter. He knows enough to make your job dangerous.”

Mueller paused. “GAMBIT will reach out. Check a postal box on your way here in the morning and look for his chalk mark. I’ve arranged a desk on the second floor. You’ll be working in the consular section as a temporary, non-diplomatic liaison to Helsinki Watch. You are on your own. This is the last time you come to the seventh floor, understand?”

“How many people know about GAMBIT?”

“Rositske. Me. Now, you.”

“Was he the leak?”

Mueller looked away. “John is a good case officer, but as you saw, he is a man shaped by his experiences, and he plays his chess game one move ahead. That’s not good enough.” Mueller wrote down two phone numbers in Washington, DC, and pushed the paper across to Garin. “Contact me by pouch or, if necessary, encrypted telephone. You’ll work for Helen Walsh, who is our MI6 liaison operating as commercial counselor with the State Department. She’s not in the loop—keep it that way. Ronnie will get you what you need.”

Mueller stood. The meeting was over. He gathered his files and stuffed them in his attaché case. “You will need to make Rositske your ally. He controls staffing and money. You may not like each other, but this operation won’t succeed unless you work together. He is subtler than he appears, and you, I suspect, are more violent than you make out.”

Mueller stuffed an arm into his big winter overcoat and hefted his garment bag. At the door, he turned to Garin. “Life rarely offers second chances. Don’t squander this one.”

Later, on the plane home, Mueller made a note in his diary, a random entry that he consulted when he wrote up his account of the whole episode: Meeting didn’t go well. I knew him in the past. Moody. Sullen. Drank too much. When his mood improved and his drinking slowed, he did good work. He was never good with authority or women. Let’s see what happens.

IT SURPRISED NO one when a memo announced that Aleksander Garin had joined the staff as Consular Officer, Human Rights. The news was largely ignored by harried staff, who struggled with the urgent political demands of the Soviet Union’s long war in Afghanistan. Great political significance accompanied America’s attack on the Soviet Union’s treatment of ethnic minorities, gypsies, artists, intellectuals, writers, and Jews, but he was met with mild indifference when he introduced himself as the new man. Garin was happy with their response. The best cover was to be visible . Men without purpose attracted attention. All he had to do was draw attention to a purpose that distracted the observer from his real work. Garin’s visit to the seventh floor on his first day was noted but ignored. Every newcomer to the embassy was required to visit Moscow Station and be lectured on KGB surveillance, life in Moscow, and the danger of Russians wanting to befriend Americans.

The process of establishing his cover could have been a protracted, but Garin had no time for that. In full view of his supervisor, Garin joined a fast crowd of junior staff. He put himself forward as the slightly older, amicable fellow who shook hands, remembered names, and could be counted on to tell a good story. People found it easy to like him and easy to dismiss him—another overqualified consular officer doing missionary work. They let off steam after work in bars friendly to the city’s diplomatic corps or in private apartments. He became a gregarious drinker, and he made sure to fit in, often going in the company of Ronnie Moffat, who became his sidekick. A few nights of loud, boisterous drinking quickly established a notoriety that got around. Smart, well-spoken, until he’d had too much to drink. Then he developed a kind of stupidity, the sort found in men who drank too much and, being unaware of themselves, began to speak loudly and make inappropriate advances. He was aware of the impression he was creating, and for a meticulous man who had those tendencies, he easily acquired the reputation of a dissolute malcontent.

It was that way in the embassy as well. He arrived late for meetings and told anyone willing to listen that he’d been taken off a distribution list or had not gotten a response to his memo. Helen Walsh’s secretary didn’t return his calls and admonished him when he arrived late. With time, even Helen, who covered for him and indulged his lapses, began to avoid him. He arrived with goodwill and quickly squandered it. Little by little he was politely laughed offstage and became a man in whom no one took much interest. He ate alone in the cafeteria. He became a solitary figure who belonged to the sad class of ambitious, middle-aged men politely excluded from the mainstream—an eager runner at tryouts banished from the team. That’s when the rumor started. Although he was newly arrived, he would be gone soon.

GARIN HAD BEEN in Moscow four weeks when he found GAMBIT’s signal: two vertical chalk marks on a postal box. He had left his apartment before nine, as he did every day, taking a route that passed by the tobacco kiosk outside Novokuznetskaya Metro Station. He was careful to avoid the neighborhood haunts of his previous Moscow life, and that morning he crunched across the rutted snowbanks into swirls of bus exhaust.