Brian Haig - The Kingmaker

But then, Katrina and I were business associates. We consummate professionals don’t look at each other in naughty ways. The trick, in case you’re wondering, is to compartmentalize-clean thoughts go into a frontal lobe compartment; naughty thoughts get squeezed into the back.

In fact, I was preoccupied at that moment with weighty concerns about nuclear proliferation and global warming. “Come on,” I asked. “What’s with the makeover?”

She leaned against the wardrobe that served for a closet in this fleabag. “I took this job because I thought it would be a lark.”

“A lark?”

“Spies, espionage, the military angle-that’s heady stuff… very intriguing.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve moved past the intrigued stage.”

“Which puts you where?”

“This is a very important case. You realize that, don’t you?”

“That’s what everybody keeps saying.”

“And I keep asking myself, what if Morrison didn’t do it?”

“Yes, but probably he did. Inconvenient, I know, but that’s how it looks.”

She shrugged. “But what if he didn’t? Wouldn’t that be mind-blowing?”

“If turtles could fly, there’d be turtle crap all over your car roof. But we’re losing the thread on your transformation.”

“I’m getting to it.”

“Slowly,” I couldn’t help noting.

“I’ve entered a paradigm shift.”

“A new kind of karma?” I suggested.

“Up yours.” She sipped her beer. “The way I dress works for me. Walk into the Fourteenth Street precinct after midnight dressed like a legal tightass and see where it gets you.”

“Harmful for business, huh?”

“People from the street don’t see thousand-dollar suits in a friendly way. Some of the best-dressed street lawyers are the hungriest.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But yours is a more tight-assed world. I didn’t care for a while. Actually, I got a kick out of the reactions. I’m now committed, though. I don’t want to be a detraction for our client.”

“Well, I’m happy with your new look. It wears well on you.”

“Happy my ass. You’re relieved.”

“A matter of semantics. Could I have another beer? Maybe the second one starts to taste better.”

She put down her beer and studied me. “What if he is innocent?”

“Innocent or too hard to convict?”

“Innocent.”

“You’re getting too theoretical. I’ll settle for making it too hard to convict him.”

She polished off her can, crumpled it, then tossed it in the wastepaper basket. “I’m going to take a nap. Feel free to watch that dirty movie again. Just keep the sound down.”

I was sputtering something as the door closed.

The moment she left I called Imelda back in Washington. I updated her on our progress, which was a brief report, obviously, then asked, “How’s it going on your end?”

“Makin’ headway,” she replied in her typically cryptic manner. Had she been the more verbal type, she would no doubt have said that all the boxes were unpacked already and she was busily digging through the files.

I asked, “Anything interesting turn up yet?”

“Nothin’. There’s a bunch of things written in Russian, and since you two over there, I asked a friend in the Pentagon to get ’em translated.”

“Good thinking.”

“Golden’s office been callin’ nearly every hour. He wants a meeting. Wants it quick, too.”

Obviously, the sand had run out in the hourglass. I told Imelda to stall him, promised to check in soon, and then hung up. Eddie’s Chinese water torture was finally wrapping up. The game of public releases and dribbled evidence was nearly over, which was a relief, in a backhanded sort of way-unless I came back from Moscow empty-handed, in which case the relief was going to give way to sheer panic.

I had set my alarm for 4:00 A.M. and as soon as it went off I leaped out of bed and dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a warm jacket. I rushed down to the lobby and outside to the Kierskaya station, the subway stop three blocks down. Unlike in American stations, there were no escalators, just long, dark, spooky stairs that carry you deep underground. The entrance to hell probably looks something like this.

In fact, Moscow’s subways were once considered among the world’s greatest architectural achievements. There has to be something Freudian about how Stalin decided that of all things to compete in, it would be subways. While nearly everything the Communists constructed above ground is drably ugly, Moscow’s subway stations are massive caverns filled with fabulous wall carvings and statues strewn here and about so you could swear you were in some surreal art gallery instead of an underground train station. Of course, you have to be deeply into Communist relics to really revel in it.

I strolled past two or three statues till I found one of a striking Amazon with a scarf on her head wielding a scythe, carved, I suppose, to display what a properly virtuous Soviet woman should look like. I could see immediately why the Soviet birthrate had dropped so precipitously.

I peeked around to be sure nobody was looking, then pulled out a piece of chalk and made three two-inch stripes on the marble base, right beside her left foot. I swiftly wandered back down the tunnel and upstairs. I had forty minutes to kill, and therefore wandered the streets and observed the local fauna.

What Moscow’s local fauna consists of is herds of wretchedly poor and homeless people. It was cold as hell, and still they were everywhere, huddled in doorways, standing around subway entrances, stomping their feet to keep their blood flowing, and trying to peddle everything you can imagine, from scrawny-looking sausages to used combat boots to dented-up skillets and frying pans. A fair number were old women, mostly though, they were veterans, and most of those were missing arms or legs.

I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to give a limb in Afghanistan or Chechnya and come home to this kind of bitter welcome. The state can no longer afford to pay your disability, or what payments it makes can barely buy a pair of socks, and you’re reduced to spending the rest of your life on freezing street corners, hoping passersby will take pity on the legless guy in the raggedy old army dress coat with his hand held out. Crashed empires leave ugly wreckage.

I meandered up to an outdoor magazine and cigarette stall two blocks down from the subway stop, where I stared at the selection of reading materials, which wasn’t all that stimulating because they were all in Cyrillic letters. Finally the guy I was waiting for walked over and began perusing the rack. I recognized him from his photo.

I sidled up next to him and mumbled, “Bill says hi.”

He ignored me.

“Okay, how’s this? Three coins in the fountain? No, no, that’s all wrong… abracadabra? No, crap, that’s not it, either… April showers bring May flowers?”

He was grinning as though I was really very funny. Well, I am very funny. Sometimes. But without saying anything he wandered away, and unsure of what else to do, I followed. He walked down the street and into a small bakery, got into line, and ordered something, while I stood inside the doorway and awkwardly wondered what to do next. Well, the smart thing would be to flee back to my hotel and forget my crazy scheme, but I had already crossed the Rubicon, so to speak, and had to see this through.

He accepted two cups of coffee and two rolls, and then walked over to a table and I took the hint.

Alexi Arbatov smiled when I got to the table and asked, “How is my very good friend Bill?”

“Not a happy guy. Miserable actually.”

“Yes, I hear this. I am most sorry. Bill is my good friend.”