Dan Fesperman - The Double Game

“Don’t you read the papers anymore? Look at who’s in charge. An ex-KGB man who generates half his power by telling outdated ghost stories about NATO and the United States. Those freewheeling days when Gorbachev and that drunk Yeltsin were opening all the old files are gone. No more fresh start.”

“So you’re saying the Cold War is back in vogue?” I was joking, but Dad didn’t crack a smile.

“I’m saying that for this crowd and all its henchmen, it never ended. And considering the ultrasensitive nature of the work Lemaster once did-”

“Mole hunting, you mean.”

“Yes. That sort of material retains its shelf life for as long as the principles survive.”

“Dad, you’re talking about things that happened thirty, forty years ago. And some of it probably wasn’t even that important then.”

“I once felt that way, too, just after the Wall came down. All those little chores I’d done suddenly seemed quaint and harmless, fun stories to tell my grandchildren.”

“Well, there you go.”

He shook his head.

“Somebody set me straight.”

“Who? When?”

“It was early ninety-one, during my final overseas posting. A rather pushy fellow with a crew cut visited me at the embassy office in Berlin. Bit of a knuckle dragger, but he had top clearance, and he took me back into a part of the building that was normally off-limits, even to the liaison chaps like me. He sat me down, and with no preamble whatsoever told me that in no way, shape or form, was I ever to breathe a word about my ‘Dewey’ errands.”

“Why?”

“People like that don’t give you a reason. I told him I had no intention of telling anyone, and that I’d always been very good at keeping secrets. Then he lectured me. ‘When I say you’re not to discuss these matters,’ he said, ‘I mean with anyone, up to and including congressional investigators, Agency security officers, and the president of the United States.’”

“Interesting choices.”

“I thought so. Of course, I couldn’t let that go without telling him that his brand of reticence might not conform to my sworn oath as a Foreign Service officer.”

“What did he say to that?”

“Honor is a wonderful thing, Mr. Cage. But do you really think an oath is worth destroying an entire career?”

“Jesus.”

“Yes. Although later I wondered if I’d been unduly impressed. Apparently some of my colleagues concluded he was a bit of a joke.”

“There were others?”

“At least one that I know of. Ted Barr, a liaison like me, with lots of European postings. Turned out he’d done a few Dewey errands as well, same general time period. Of course, I didn’t know this until years later. It was the mid-nineties when I ran into Ted at some Foreign Service gathering for old Iron Curtain hands. Ted had figured out I was involved because he’d eventually gotten curious enough to look into it further. He’d even managed to dig up the guy’s name, Ron Curtin, plus a code name for his boss, Thresher. Said he was preparing to file an official complaint, up through channels, and asked if I wanted to sign on.”

“Did you?”

Dad shook his head.

“Chickened out. Ted Barr was still in the field, practically a free agent. But I was working for the assistant secretary. He wouldn’t have appreciated his deputy getting into a scrap with the Agency. I politely declined but asked him to keep me posted.”

“And?”

“Two weeks later Ted Barr was dead. Car accident in Tuscany, one of those narrow roads with hairpin turns. He drove a little roadster. The police said his brakes failed.”

I swallowed hard and sipped more bourbon.

“Had someone cut the line?”

“No one ever said that. The report only said ‘failed.’ I checked. Quietly, of course.”

“So you don’t know it was related.”

“How can you ever know with something like that? But I’ve always wondered.”

I couldn’t help but notice the similarity to how my mother had died, although in her case there was never any mention of brake failure, and she was riding a bus in Greece, not a sports car in Italy.

“If you stay with this,” Dad said, “that’s what you’ll be up against. At some point, anyway.”

“But that was, what, fifteen years ago? This Ron Curtin guy probably isn’t even working anymore.”

“That’s what I thought until Nethercutt’s funeral. His hair is longer now-a mullet, isn’t that what you called it? — but I recognized his face right away. Same build, too.”

“Breece Preston’s bodyguard?”

He nodded.

“No wonder you suddenly needed some fresh air. So is Breece Preston ‘Thresher’?”

“I don’t know. Nineteen years ago Ron Curtin could’ve been working for anyone. For obvious reasons I haven’t felt inclined to check.”

“Why would Preston care about any of this?”

“Good question. From all I ever heard, he and Lemaster were only fleetingly connected, but apparently that contact goes way back, to Ed’s first years as a field man.”

“Sounds tenuous.”

“Maybe. But Preston always did have a mania for protecting ‘sources and methods,’ as the Agency calls them. And whoever Thresher is, or was, he seems hell-bent on keeping past matters under wraps. So you see?”

“Point taken. I’ll be extra careful.”

“Careful isn’t good enough, son.”

“I’m working for a magazine, Dad. Even if it is Breece Preston, he and Curtin aren’t with the Agency anymore. They won’t know what I’m up to until the story’s out.”

Dad shook his head, seemingly exasperated.

“You don’t understand how it works with these people. They stay connected forever. It’s the nature of their business. If you keep stirring things up, he’ll get wind of it. And when he does, he’ll set something in motion, God knows what. And by then it will be too late to get out. For all you know, it already is.”

“Then I might as well follow it to the end.”

“And I thought I was drunk. At the very least, give it some thought. Maybe in the morning you’ll feel differently. You’ll do that much, won’t you?”

“Sure, Dad. I can do that.”

He nodded, but looked spent, at least ten years older than when I’d come through the door. He scanned the bookshelves, and in following his gaze my eyes alighted on the long line of Lemasters. At the far left was Knee Knockers, the author’s debut, and I remembered Lemaster telling me how he’d first sketched out Richard Folly while riding a tram across the Danube. It must have happened around the time he and Dad became friends, which made me want to read it again, if only to search for traces of my father.

I stepped across the room and pulled down the copy in a rustle of plastic.

“Do you mind if-?”

“Not at all,” he said wearily. “Take it to bed if you want.”

I turned to the title page and saw the author’s signature. Considering what I knew now, I wondered why Lemaster hadn’t personalized it with a short note. But like most collectors, Dad was a purist about these things. I flipped through the opening chapter, and my mouth fell open. Page eleven was gone. When I went back to the front I saw that a square had been neatly sliced from the copyright page. This was the volume my handler had defaced for the message in Georgetown. Whoever had been in my house had been here as well, prowling among these shelves.

“What is it?” Dad asked. “What’s wrong, son?”

I laid the book open on the end table next to him and showed him the damage. He withdrew a pair of reading glasses, then gasped and coughed. He put a hand to his chest.

“Just what in the hell is happening?” Then, turning toward me: “Did you do this?”