Joseph Kanon - Defectors

Frank shook his head quickly. “Even if State gave her a new passport, which they won’t, the Soviets would never let her leave. She’s my wife. She knows too much—even if she doesn’t. They think that way. They’d lose face. So they’d—deal with her.”

“Sochi.”

“Somewhere. A rest. And she’d never get well.” He glanced toward the playground. “There’s Boris. So it turns out we are talking about Jo. If he asks, say you’ll mention the clinic to her. But he won’t ask. He listens.” He looked at Simon. “Jimbo, I know this is a lot all at once. But you’re smart, you get things right away. You’ll be a messenger, that’s all. It’s me. And Jo. I have to get her out. I won’t always be here to—”

“What do you mean?”

A quick glance up, caught. “Don’t react. Boris will see. I’m sick.”

“Sick? What do you mean, sick?”

“Well, Dr. Ziolkowski—who has a gift for words—calls me a walking time bomb. Not very precise, but vivid.”

“Jesus, Frank.” He lowered his voice, just conversation. “What is it? Cancer?”

“My heart. Don’t worry, I’m not going to peg out on the way home. But if anything happens, she’ll be here on her own. It’s one thing, both of us here. But if she’s alone— So if I have to sing for Pirie, I sing. The deal is for two of us. Two.”

“Are you sure? The doctor—”

Frank nodded, then looked up. “But Pirie doesn’t know about this, understood? He’s a prick. He’d just as soon let me rot if he thinks I’m damaged goods. Might die on him.”

“Frank—”

“I know. Don’t,” he said, looking at Simon’s face. “I only told you so you’d see why—I need to do this.” He stopped, letting his voice linger between them for a second before it drifted away. “I know you. How you worry. But I’ll take you step by step. I know how to do this.”

“Houdini.”

“Nobody’ll believe it. That we pulled it off,” he said, his voice eager, another Frank scheme, Simon trailing after, his accomplice. “Right under their noses. Even Boris’s.” He nodded toward him and Boris got up, opening the string bag. “I’ll have your back. All the way,” Frank said, in a hurry now. “Go to the embassy. Today. Tell whoever it is you want to get a message directly to Pirie. They’ll use a secure line that’s routed through Vienna. And it is secure. Today.”

Simon raised his eyebrows.

“I have to protect both of us now. But I can’t risk more than one day. Somebody’s bound to wonder. Tell Pirie you want a meeting. And tell him he’s right about Kelleher. Try an account at Potomac Trust under Goodman. Got that?”

“That’s the name. Kelleher,” Simon said, dismayed. Part of it now, one walk around the pond, Frank that sure of him.

Frank nodded. “That’s all you have to say. He’ll know. Then we wait.”

“I’ll have to tell them. About the secure line. Now that I know. If I don’t, I’ll be working for—your people. I won’t do that.”

Frank shrugged. “We’re not working for anybody now. Just us. But if it makes you feel better, fine. You’ll still need some way to get to the Agency, though. After tomorrow. Tell them to route a secure line through Stockholm. We don’t have anybody working the lines there right now.”

“And how would I know that?”

The sides of Frank’s mouth began to go up in a grin. “Don’t tell them anything. You like to play things close to the vest. Where you got your information. They’ll be grateful. People have gotten medals for less,” he said, almost jaunty. “Boris, still here? I thought you’d be off with the shlyukha. What’s the matter? Too expensive? She’s just your type. Blonde like that.”

“From a bottle,” Boris said. “A disgrace, in such a place. With children to see.” The family watchdog. Ready to send soldiers to a gulag for making a Stalin joke.

“Well, they won’t know what they’re looking at. Is that tea?” he said, pointing to a thermos.

“Tea only.”

“You see how he looks after me? No spiking the tea if you’re working. How’s the salami?” he said to Simon.

“Fine,” Simon said, taking a bite, wondering if he could do it too, slip into someone else, a quick-change artist, and then he was doing it, talking to Boris and munching on sandwiches as if nothing had been said on the walk, the secret there, his skin warm with it, but unseen. Every look now, every sentence a kind of lie. Without even saying yes, he had become Frank, being careful, hiding in plain sight.

It was Simon’s idea to ask Boris to walk him to the embassy, make it a KGB excursion. They left Frank at the pond and went out to the Garden Ring, curving down, not talking, Simon trying not to look over his shoulder, see a black car pulling up behind, the movie scene. And wouldn’t they be right? Not just an embassy visit, an act of espionage. Exposing an agent. A show trial, or just a quiet disappearance, Diana asking State to make inquiries. Don’t look back. His skin still warm, itchy. When they came to the pedestrian underpass, he felt he was crossing more than a street, Boris waiting behind, outside the range of the surveillance cameras.

The embassy was as ugly as Frank had promised, a custard pile with some graceless decorative brickwork, its roof bristling with antennas. Oddly enough, it reminded Simon of the Lubyanka, the same era and bureaucratic heft. There were Marine guards outside and a high gate blocking the driveway, which swooped around down in back. Not a building, a compound.

DiAngelis’s name worked, the indifferent clerk snapping to attention and immediately picking up the phone to call someone down, all the while staring with curiosity. Simon, still nervous, looked away, fixing instead on the framed picture of Kennedy behind the desk. In minutes, a man was coming toward them off the elevator.

“Weeks? Mike Novikov,” he said, presumably an immigrant son but as American as his crew cut. Simon thought of Boris, standing across the street, hair shorter but similar, another doubling effect, like the buildings.

“We’re on six,” Novikov said, pushing the elevator button. “Everything all right?”

“Fine. Just wanted to report in. Is the Vienna line open?” Breezy, confident, the way Frank would have played it.

Novikov nodded, a knowing military respect, Simon now a fellow cold warrior, DiAngelis’s man.

“Did you make contact? With your brother?”

Simon nodded. “We’ve already started. On the book. No problems.”

“Is he—? Excuse me. Just curious.”

“Is he what?”

“Still—active. We haven’t been able to get a bead on that. Whether he’s retired. He doesn’t go to the office.”

“Really?” Something Simon hadn’t known. “I think he keeps his hand in, though,” he said, covering. “Training agents, for one thing. He mentioned that. The ones going to the States. How to act.”

“Christ. We should have done something about him years ago.”

Simon looked over, startled.

“Sorry,” Novikov said, embarrassed.

“Not so easy in Moscow,” Simon said, letting it go.

“No. Not the way things are.”

Meaning what? The KGB presence or hands-off rules from Langley?

“Our new best friends,” Novikov said.

“And all ears,” Simon said, looking up. “We’ll need to send this in code. You have a—?” What was it called?

“All set up,” Novikov said, cutting him off. “This way.”

He led Simon past two desks crammed into a corridor-wide space, then into a windowless room.

“We can talk here. We sweep for bugs every other day, so it’s about as safe as you can get. You want to cable DiAngelis?”

“Pirie, actually. Eyes only. But I suppose that would have to go through DiAngelis anyway,” Simon said, guessing.