George Bartram - Under the Freeze

“I know many men. None of them infatuate me.”

“But you think I do.”

“I know it.”

“That is the result of stress.”

“Why do you keep turning me off? I would think it would be a great sign of success, to have your victim infatuated with you.”

“You are not my victim.”

“Oh, yes! From the very first. I thought you were my victim. And all the time you were waiting to bring me here! I’m quite a fool, hey? Well, so what do you do? Turn me over to the DGI? Inform on me? Send me back to Moscow?”

“Sit down, Juana.” He closed the notebook and laid the pen on top of it as if that part of the interrogation were over. She sat in the chair rather primly. Her shoulders were rounded forward. One brassiere strap showed beyond the edge of the sleeveless blouse.

“When you first met me on the beach, you were suspicious of me. You thought I might be an American spy. Only a small suspicion, you say, so you arranged to meet me again. We went to the ballet, we danced, we went back to your apartment. You found my gun and my green card; then you thought I just might be a DGI agent who was trying to penetrate the anti-Castro cell of which you are a member for the KGB. So you checked the card and found it was not really mine, and then you thought again that I might be an American — except you had seen me bow to the troublemaker from Moscow. So here we are now, and now you know that I, too, am a troublemaker from Moscow who is trying to solve a problem inside the KGB. So you ask me what I am going to do with you. Why should I do anything with you? You have not betrayed the service. You have not behaved badly. In fact, I think you have done very well.”

“Should I be grateful to you for that?”

He stood up. “There is a traitor in the upper echelon of the service. We think he has corrupted part of the service here in Cuba. Now, if you found out that one of the people you work with had been corrupted, what would you do?”

“I would need proof.”

“If you had the proof.”

“Have you got proof?”

“That is not the point. This is hypothetical.”

She managed to make herself look ugly. “Oh, well, hypothetically — if it were proven, I would go to Kepel, I suppose.”

“Suppose Kepel could not be trusted.”

“I would go over Kepel’s head.”

“To whom?”

“To…” She bit her lip. She dragged her teeth over her lower lip as if she were pulling fruit from a tough rind. “My God.”

“An expression that has survived despite socialism. Yes, my God. You are far down in the levels of the service; you are insulated from Moscow by a bureaucracy that may be corrupt. You may yourself have been used by the corrupt ones without knowing it.”

“ Have I?”

“This is only hypothetical.”

“Well, what is real? I don’t like hypothetical; I like reality! What is real?”

He stood with his hands on the back of his own chair, looking down at her. “What is real is that atomic materials have been stolen in the Soviet Union and sent to Cuba by submarine. Stolen — not sent because of any authorized plan. Stolen .”

“ Why ?”

“I wish I knew.”

“My God! If the Americans ever found atomic weapons here they would bomb us off the face of the earth! They’re only waiting for the opportunity! Jesus God! What sort of lunatic would expose us to a danger like that?” She looked fiercely protective. “It isn’t Fidel.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“It’s an American trick, that’s what it is. Have you looked into that? Are you sure this isn’t a CIA trick?”

“That is a very interesting possibility. Yes, I intend to look into it, as a matter of fact. But — you see why I am in Cuba.”

She hesitated. “If this is the truth, yes. Of course.”

“You see why I have to work outside regular channels.”

“If—” She put her face in her hands for a moment, then raised her head. Her eyes were wide. “It’s like being crazy! How do I know now what the truth is?”

“Isn’t that always a problem?”

“No!” She stood up. “No! That is the one thing I have always had — certainty. I trust the one above me and the one below me and… You know how it is. If you take that away from us…” Her nostrils widened. “Everything becomes hypothetical.”

“I want you to work for me.”

“I am forgiven, then?” She said it with a sneer.

“I will try to get some authentication from Moscow, so you will feel a little less insane. It will mean your staying as you are, doing your usual work, but reporting to me through a direct line. I will give you codes, a point of contact. You will have two missions: to find out what you can about atomic materials here; and to test the service above and below you for corruption. Will you do it?”

“I can love you?” She said that with a sneer, too.

“I cannot order your feelings.”

She moved away from the tables, hugging herself with her arms and protecting the bare upper arms with her long brown hands. She walked the length of the room and looked at the iron cot again and then came back, paused, and walked the two steps to him and rested her forehead on his shoulder, her arms still folded, as somebody who was too hot might have rested her forehead on a cool wall. “Come home with me,” she said. “I can’t. It’s too dangerous now.”

“Where will you stay?”

He dodged the question. She was right: it was like insanity, when nobody could be trusted. “I have a place.”

“For how long?”

“As long as I need.”

“Let me come with you.”

“No.”

They kissed. It was a bleak sort of kiss.

He took her to the door, where Repin’s KGB crony was waiting with a car to take her back.

“When will I see you?” she said.

“Tomorrow. I’ll tell you where and what time. I’ll use the name mariposa .”

“A flower?” She laughed, for the First time. “My steel flower.”

After she was gone, Repin came from an upper floor. “Well, how did it go?” he said in Russian.

“I think it’s all right. She’ll need some verification. Maybe you can go through her father — find somebody he trusts and we trust and have him send her the word. Can you get messages back to Moscow?”

“So far.”

“Get on it, will you?”

“And who would you like me to contact? Andropov?”

“If he’s the only one who qualifies.”

Repin was not amused. He went to an ugly credenza and took out a bottle and glasses. “She did not report you to her KGB officer here, at any rate. She took the green card to a friend at her local police station; we traced that an hour ago. The friend did the comparison for her as a favor — she had your thumbprint on a cigarette package — so that never went any further. Still, she was seen with you at the ballet, and if her anti-Castro friends are picked up for some reason, they can identify you from her apartment. So, I think she ought to report to her case officer that she met you and went out with you once and then lost sight of you. That way she is covered if something comes back.”

“It means that they’ll identify me.”

“Not for a while. But it is inevitable, yes.”

“I suppose.” Tarp accepted a glass. “It makes me an instant target, unfortunately.”

In the morning, Repin came to see him before breakfast. He was wearing a natty blazer and two-tone shoes, but he looked dyspeptic.

“What’s the matter?” Tarp said as soon as he saw him.

“Matter? What could be the matter?” He put the packet of identification papers on the table and Tarp picked them up. He had brought them from the Scipio and Repin had had a visa and an entry stamp put into the passport.