Joseph Kanon - Defectors

“Jesus,” Hal said, looking down at Boris, blood and something else pooling beneath his head.

“Now we have to leave,” Frank said slowly. “Boris.” Looking at him, then up at the others, in charge, trained for it. “Get him out of the street. Before anyone sees.”

“They’ll come looking for him,” Simon said.

“But not right away. Help me get him into the car,” he said, lifting the body from underneath the shoulders. “Get his feet.”

Simon, still stunned, hesitated.

“Quick.”

Simon grabbed the feet, lifting the body, almost buckling under the weight, then staggering with it toward Boris’s car. Carrying Gareth out of the monastery grounds.

“We have to stash the car somewhere. That alley. You’d have to be really looking to spot it there.”

“The caretaker—”

“Don’t go as far as the loading area. He can’t see the driveway.”

A heavy thump as the body was dropped into the backseat.

“I’ll take Boris’s car,” Frank said to Hal. “You follow. Wait at the end of the driveway.”

Simon looked up, a flash of alarm. Frank, catching it, smiled a little. “Nobody’s going anywhere,” he said to Simon. “Not now. Come with me.” He handed him the gun. “Better? Here.” He took out a handkerchief. “Wipe your face. People notice blood. The eye goes right to it.”

They got into Boris’s car.

“Oh, my God, what are we going to do?” Nancy said.

“We’re okay. Come on,” Hal said, putting his arm around her.

“Have her ride up front with you,” Frank called over. “The way you usually would.”

A car appeared at the corner.

“Quick,” Frank said to the others. “Get in. Before they see your clothes.”

He backed the car away from the Volvo, but by now the other car had seen them and slowed down, the eternal fascination of an accident. Not the men from the station. Frank rolled down his window, speaking Russian. They hadn’t seen each other coming and now who was going to pay for it? The other car knew someone who could fix the scraped fender. An address. All of it so interesting that no one noticed the dark splotch on the road.

They drove around the block, both quiet, as if the body in the back had silenced them, a hush, Simon still shaky.

“Thank you,” he said finally.

Frank said nothing, leaning forward, checking the street at the corner.

“So you were wrong,” Frank said, still not looking at him. “They would have believed me. The Service. I’m an officer.”

“Boris would have, anyway.”

Frank nodded. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. I couldn’t let them hang you. Pa would blame me.”

“Is that what they do? Hang people? Still?”

Frank made a half shrug. “I don’t know. Shoot them, probably. But it’s what they do before. You don’t think I’d let them do that to you, do you? You don’t think that.”

Simon looked over at him. “Are you really sick?”

“Yes. It wasn’t a lie. None of it. Actual lies.”

“But you were never going to go.”

“No.”

“Jesus, Frank. All this, for what?”

“I can’t leave the Service. Everything I did was for them. They were—the best. I’d never seen anything like it, even in Spain where things were such a mess. They knew what they were doing. I wanted to be part of that. People who always knew what they were doing. The best.” He turned to Simon. “And I was. I was valuable to them. I don’t know how much time I have left, you can’t trust the doctors, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend it doing crosswords. I want to be buried at Kuntsevo. Full honors. An officer of the Service.” He stopped. “But now— You can’t argue with a corpse,” he said, cocking his head toward Boris. “Not when there are witnesses. So, lucky DiAngelis.”

Quiet again.

“You’re going to lie to him, aren’t you?”

“Let’s see how good he is. Jimbo, I’m going. That’s your pound of flesh. There isn’t any more.”

He turned into the alley. “Here we go. Let’s hope they don’t find him right away. Start calling the border. We need the head start. A little luck.”

He stopped the car before the driveway forked left, not yet visible from the loading ramp. He got out, then stood for a second, looking into the backseat. “Boris,” he said quietly. “You’re supposed to suspect everybody. Even me. Service rules.” He turned to Simon. “You realize they’ll never stop now. Until they find me. It’s bad enough, a defector, but to kill one of their—” He stopped, facing the end of the driveway. “Let’s go. They’re waiting.”

They drove out of town, past the castle in the harbor, without seeing anyone tailing behind. How long would they have? The hour they needed? Less?

“I’ve never seen that before,” Joanna said, between Frank and Simon but not really talking to either. “A man get killed.”

“His head,” Nancy said.

“We can’t go back now, can we?” Jo said to Frank.

“No.”

“So it’s over. Now what happens to us?”

“We live somewhere. New names. The Agency protects us.”

“New names. Like when we came here. Protection. So it’s the same. It’s always the same. I’m sorry,” she said to Frank, touching his hand.

“But you’ll be home,” Simon said.

“Like prisoners.” Moody, ready to snap.

“What were you here?”

“Yes, what? So it’s the same. That’s our choice.” She picked up Frank’s hand. “I’m sorry.” Her voice intimate, something between them.

“No, no,” Frank said.

“You should never have listened to me. I think about that all the time. What if we’d never started—”

“What if,” Frank said. “But we did.”

“And whose fault? Who said, yes, do it?”

“It’s nobody’s fault.”

“If I had stopped you—”

“Stopped him?” Simon said. “He said you never knew.”

“Where did he say that? In the book? That’s all lies anyway. What else could it be? And you believe him?”

“Jo—” Frank said.

“What difference does it make now? He wanted to protect me. From what, I don’t know. But now—are you listening, UPI? Such a scoop. The innocent wife talks.” She turned to Simon. “Of course I knew. It was me. I said, do it. When he came back from Spain, he told me they had approached him. He thought I would be impressed. Since I was a Communist. And I said, you have to do it if they ask you. We all believed then. Oh, look at your face. Did you think there was nothing up here?” She pointed to her temple. “Just silly clubs? Dancing? Of course we believed it. And then—well, things changed.”

“Changed how?”

“How can I explain it to you? Like alcoholics, maybe like that. We started drinking together. And then I stopped. But Frank couldn’t. He couldn’t stop. One more. One more. You know what’s in the drink? Secrets. And he’s the only one who knows. That’s what he likes,” she said, facing him, her voice sour, a look between them. “It doesn’t matter what it is, the secret. As long as he knows it. And you don’t. So he can smile while he does it—betray you. Then one more.” She turned back. “He couldn’t stop. So I started drinking something else.”

“We can fix that. When we get home,” Simon said.

“Fix it. You never understand anything. The knight to the rescue. I don’t want to be rescued.” She looked at Frank. “When I saw you shoot Boris, it all went through my head. What we are now.”

Nancy had twisted in her seat to listen, her eyes wide and shiny, like mirrors, and suddenly, looking at her dismayed expression, Simon could see Frank and Jo in them, finally see because she saw it, what they had done to each other.