Dan Fesperman: The Double Game

“Will these go out today?” I asked the clerk. He looked at the wall clock.

“Noon ferry. Soon enough?”

“Perfect.”

Just before noon, with plenty of time to kill, I went to a short-order place by the dock to watch the cars load onto the ferry. I ordered a beer and a basket of fried clams just as the postal truck rolled aboard. The clams arrived as the horn sounded. I watched the crew cast off the lines, then toasted myself with the beer as the ferry eased away in a blast of diesel fumes and churning seawater. I bit into a clam. Crunchy-hot on the outside, cool and juicy in the middle, the taste of the sea. Life was sweet. I ordered a second beer and went back to the hotel to pack. Then I snoozed for an hour.

But by the time five o’clock rolled around I was anxious. One more job to do, and it was the riskiest. I got back on the bike, which by now had twigs in the spokes and dried mud on the frame, and pedaled to the nature preserve to take up my usual post. At six p.m. I watched Anderson leave for his coffee break. Then I pedaled toward the house, reaching the paved road just as the Jeep’s taillights disappeared toward town. I rolled up the driveway, stowed the bike out of sight, and knocked loudly at the front door. I checked my watch. I figured I had thirty-five minutes to finish my business and get the hell out of there.

Before long I heard the electric whine of Cabot’s wheelchair, then the bump of the tires against the door. A curtain stirred on the window atop the door. The old man’s eyes flashed in surprise. He backed up the chair and shouted, the voice raspy but stronger than I expected.

“Come in.”

When I opened up he was grinning crookedly, as if he’d been expecting me all along.

“My assistant is away at the moment, but I suppose you already knew that.” He frowned at my rucksack, and waved me back toward the porch. “Leave that outside, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind. I’ve brought you something special. One last contribution to the cause before I officially resign from your employment.”

He grinned again, but more uneasily this time. I followed him down a hallway toward the back of the house while he spoke over his shoulder.

“The microdot was much appreciated. You practically beat it back across the water. I’m just sorry you never found Lothar’s book.”

“Oh, but I did. An excellent read, too.”

He looked back at me as we reached the end of the hall, and gazed with new appreciation at the rucksack.

“Patience,” I said. “First you have to answer a few questions.”

“Of course.” Now that he thought he was about to get what he wanted, he had decided to be accommodating. We entered a study that was wall-to-wall books. At a glance I recognized many familiar titles, all from the genre that my father, Ed Lemaster, and I had once read and collected so passionately. Cabot watched me taking it in.

“More complete than even your father’s library,” he said. “Probably as good a place as any for us to wrap things up, don’t you think?”

I took a seat in what must have once been his favorite place to read, a big wing chair with crinkled brown leather and a floor lamp to its right. He pivoted the wheelchair to face me.

“You said you had questions?”

“Why me? And why Litzi and my father? Was I really a better choice than some ex-field man, or was pulling our strings half the thrill?”

“You make it sound unsavory.”

“Did you have some sort of score to settle with my dad?”

“Certainly not! Your dad’s a wonderful fellow. A little stuffy and overly deliberative, but that’s the way of diplomats. I meant no harm. The experience was good for you, was it not? You finally got to discover why the wheels of fate rolled over you so mercilessly back in Belgrade. And you learned a valuable lesson in human nature-that no one is trustworthy, no one is what he appears to be. Could I have simply hired some old hand to work in your stead? Perhaps. But I don’t command the resources I once did, especially considering the hefty transfer that was necessary to insure Vladimir’s cooperation. Although I’m pleased to note that all money earmarked for that purpose has been safely returned.”

“After you had him killed, you mean.”

“Not at all. I only made his whereabouts available to a known creditor, who, acting in the way that such people always act, carried out the deed quite on his own.”

“After leaving behind my copy of Petrovka 38. ”

“That was a favor they did for me. To keep you interested. I knew Litzi could take care of any complications.”

“What about poor old Bruzek in Prague?”

“Not my doing. You’ll have to ask the clumsy Russians, or that thug Curtin, what went wrong there. Although, for the prices Bruzek charged, I would have happily pushed those shelves myself.”

“Nice.”

“You met him. You saw what he was like. In fact, you’d already met him, when you were a boy. One of many reasons you were the perfect fit-the old girlfriend with the intelligence connection, the whole flap in Belgrade, both of them. But most important, of course, was your susceptibility to the power of all those books.” With great effort he raised his arms to encompass the walls. “I was sure you’d be attracted by the possibility of being able to walk across those pages one last time, not just as a reader but as a participant, a companion, even, to all those characters you grew up with.”

“How could you be sure?”

“Because at one time I would have been just as susceptible. I have only been in this wheelchair since retirement, yet with the Agency I was forever deskbound. I could only read the reports from those far-flung places, just as I could only read those novels.

“I also knew something else about you. Any careful reader of those books always suspects that at heart they’re not really fiction. It’s what made me first suspect Ed Lemaster. From the moment I finished The Double Game, I saw so much of Don Tolleson in him that I began to worry. Me and Angleton both. Dick Helms wouldn’t even read it, and you’d be shocked at how much Dick loathed Le Carre. ‘Too cynical,’ he said. ‘We’d never use our people that way.’ Poor naive Dick. And Ed got away with it, too. Until now. Thanks to us, the truth will finally come out. You’ll be the one to publish, of course. I’m happy to let you take the glory.”

“I’m afraid I have to tell you that I’ve signed a nondisclosure agreement.”

“With whom? You can’t possibly mean-?”

“The Agency had a little chat with me in Vienna just before I flew back to the States.”

Cabot’s expression went stony. Already winded from his speech, he now sagged with disappointment. I almost felt sorry for him. I checked my watch. Twenty more minutes at the most.

“But don’t let that stop you, ” I said. “And don’t worry, I didn’t come empty-handed.”

Cabot rallied, leaning forward in the wheelchair as I reached into the rucksack. I pulled out the yellow dry bag with the GC initials, then turned it upside down and shook it loudly to show him there was nothing inside.

“What have you done?” The gleam faded from his eyes. His breath began to rattle in his chest. “Where have you put everything?”

“Don’t worry. It’s all in a safer place now.”

“You don’t know the meaning of safe! I’ve seen what you’re like, blundering halfway across Europe.”

It felt like a fitting exit line, so I stood, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop me. I felt a stab of shame, taking advantage of him this way. The letdown of the hollow victory, exactly as Lemaster always described it. But he deserved it, if only on behalf of Litzi and Dad.

Yet I could also see now that he was a dying man. Even a twisted dream is still a dream, and a traitor is still a traitor. He continued his breathless rant as I picked up the rucksack to go.