Derek Lambert - The Red House

But Mikhail Brodsky was not quite finished. ‘The safest place to talk,’ he confided, ‘is in a crowded street.’

They cut down Madison Avenue, turning right down 53rd. Zhukov looked with pleasure at the legs of the mini-skirted girls and surmised that they must have very cold arses.

Brodsky walked very carefully, despite his rubber overshoes, leaping like a ballet dancer over the street-corner swamps.

After a while Zhukov asked him what was on his mind.

‘I believe certain approaches were made to you in Moscow.’

‘Such as?’

‘About your responsibilities in Washington. Above and beyond the call of duty.’

‘They told me to keep my eyes and ears open for any information that might be useful to the Soviet Union.’

‘A delightfully euphemistic way of putting it.’ Brodsky leaped a small lake on the corner of Lexington. ‘Mr Hoover has estimated that eighty per cent of all personnel at the Soviet Embassy in Washington are spies.’ His gold glasses slipped and he pushed them back with his woolly-mittened hand. ‘Who would have thought that the great Mr Hoover would have indulged in such understatement?’

While he was waiting for Valentina to powder her nose Zhukov flipped through the Manhattan phone book. One number printed prominently at the beginning startled him. U.S. Secret Service 264–7204. It didn’t seem to Vladimir Zhukov to be very secret.

3

THE Red House in Washington is a greyish building on 16th Street a few blocks—two-fifths of a mile maybe—from the White House. It is fairly ornate having been built for a good capitalist, Mrs George M. Pullman, whose husband designed and built Pullman cars for America’s railroads; and one of its first tenants was the Embassy of Czarist Russia. But the building, four storeys high including the ground floor, is a poor place compared with the great mansions of other countries ranged along Embassy Row, Massachusetts Avenue, where many expansive architectural styles vie with each other. (Here Britain seems to score with a statue of Sir Winston Churchill, who looks as if he might be hailing a bus, outside their elegant manor.) The Russians are perpetually aggrieved at the faded modesty of their home, but the Americans decline to do anything about it until they are given a better Embassy in Moscow. Likewise the Russians refuse the Americans more resplendent accommodation until they are given more prestigious premises in Washington; this childish intractability is often said to be symbolic of the two powers’ attitudes towards settling larger issues such as wars.

A small driveway leads up to the door, only twenty feet from the sidewalk. The windows have balconies; there is an undistinguished tree, pleading to be struck by lightning, in the small front garden, wire netting around the hedge, some interesting aerials on the roof arranged in the sort of art forms that normally outrage the Kremlin. Outside a West German Volkswagen or two, with diplomatic plates, which seems to indicate that ideological differences need not stand in the way of commercial economy.

Among the Embassy’s neighbours are the National Geographic Magazine and the University Club. The Washington Post lies around the corner.

A little way down 16th from the Embassy C.I.A. agent Joseph Costello sat at the wheel of his Thunderbird chewing on a dead cigar butt and privately expressing his opinion on what Mother Russia could do to herself. Snow mixed with freezing rain bounded along the street encasing the car in ice. And what’s more he wouldn’t put it past the stupid bastard to walk: he wouldn’t put it past a Russian to break the ice on the Potomac and go for a swim.

But I know my limitations, Joe Costello, Vietnam veteran and hero, acknowledged. Not for me the cocktail parties with The Beautiful People. I am strictly for surveillance and I am eternally grateful for the opportunities afforded me by my heroism (refusing to act stupid in front of my buddies) under enemy fire. Costello, hairy, squat and honest, further confided to himself: I wish to hell I’d made the grade as a professional football player for the Redskins. Still, I’m lucky to have a job like this, a cut above the F.B.I., two cuts above the precinct.

But surveillance on a shitty night like this! And for what? All he knew was that he had to follow the Russian and make sure that the meet with the State Department clerk took place as scheduled and that the Soviets didn’t try and hi-jack the clerk or anything. As far as he, Joe Costello was concerned, he would be very happy if they put a bullet in the State Department guy’s guts if he was a traitor. But who was he to express an opinion? Just surveillance.

Tardovsky, tall and thin and unmistakable, emerged from the embassy. Please get in your nice comfy little Volks, old buddy. But the Russian bent his thin neck into the rain and snow and walked quickly down 16th.

You sonofabitch! Costello got out of the car quietly and spat the cigar butt on to the sidewalk.

The meet was supposed to be in a bar on 14th, where pornography and bare flesh prospered alongside the palatial seats of national and world power. Very dark, probably, with a dirty movie grunting along in the background.

Tardovsky was heading in the right direction. But hadn’t anyone told him that Washington was the worst city in the States for getting mugged? And what the hell did he do if the Russian was jumped? On 14th anything could happen. On this sad street the orifice-filled bookshops and the girlie clip-joints were doing fair trade. A few bums, junkies and sharply-dressed blacks hung around the doorways. Jesus, Costello thought, right on the President’s doorstep.

Then he became aware that he was maybe not the only tail on Tardovsky. Behind the two of them he sensed another shadow. They were about to play games. But who the hell was the playmate?

Tardovsky entered the bar just off 14th and sat down at a table. On the screen a long way down the tunnel of the bar a couple stripped and simulated copulation; the girl showed her genitals with abandonment, her lover was more coy—maybe he was ashamed of them, Costello thought.

Tardovsky ordered a beer and took his hat off. Right, Costello thought—you should take off your hat in the presence of a lady. He sat way behind Tardovsky and glanced at his watch: five minutes till the meet. He ordered a Scotch from the girl in the crotch-high black skirt.

The second shadow sat down to the left of Costello, three tables away. Costello took a look at him. Very wet, like himself, very cold. Powerful looking, impossible to distinguish his features behind the turned-up collar of his bulky topcoat.

Why hadn’t they told him more? ‘Just keep your eye on them to make sure nothing goes wrong. Keep in touch.’ But they hadn’t mentioned a third party who could be Russian, American, British, Czech (they were pretty high in the espionage stakes these days). Three minutes to go.

Tardovsky, who looked bored with the repetitive sex looked at his watch and went to the toilet. The man in the bulky topcoat followed. Which means I have to follow too, Costello decided.

But the toilet wasn’t designed for espionage or the prevention thereof. With two big men bulging in the confined space behind him, Tardovsky didn’t bother to finish what he was doing at the stall. He zipped up, ducked between them with giraffe agility and was gone.

‘Shit,’ said Costello. He turned to follow.

‘Not so fast,’ said the other man, his face blond and fierce behind the collar.

‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Who the hell are you, buddy?’

‘It doesn’t matter now.’ Costello heaved towards the door.

‘Oh yes it does. Sure it does.’ The stranger chopped at Costello’s neck but hit his elbow on the wall. Costello got him in the stomach with two karate fingers; although the topcoat blunted the impact.