When the Past Came Calling

by Larry S. Kaplan

  I sat quietly in the backseat—my hands clawing anxiously at the worn upholstery—and aimed a level stare at the ragged Slavic face reflected in the rearview mirror so as not to reveal my distress.

  “We have a long ride ahead of us, Mr. Miller,” he said, “long enough for me to tell you everything. Are you ready to listen?”

  “Go ahead,” I managed. What choice did I have?

  From the airport road, Kostay turned onto a two-lane highway whose potholes of varying size jolted us every twenty yards or so. Yet he made no effort to avert the ragged depressions.

  “I am sorry we do not have the kind of suspension system you are used to in American cars,” he said. “But the bumps will keep you awake while I tell you my story. I sometimes have a tendency to ramble.”

  The highway was not only ill-maintained, but it also had an air of desolation. We were the only car on the road to be seen in any direction. The terrain was bereft of trees—only clumps of sage-like scrub brush punctuated the otherwise barren landscape. This permitted an unbroken view for miles and miles, even in the darkening twilight, so I tried to distract myself by contemplating its vastness as Kostay commenced his tale.

  “I have known one of your CIA agents, Tristan Conrad, off and on for many years,” he began. “Believe it or not, your country and mine, we had common enemies back in the early fifties. I am not proud to say it, but I was a hired gun for the KGB, and sometimes they would loan me out to your people, when our interests overlapped.

  “By the late fifties, I had made enough money so that I could afford to take a break. I had been to Mexico City a few times—on business—and I liked it very much. So I asked to be transferred there in an unofficial capacity, as a form of semiretirement.

  “There weren’t many jobs for me to do for my government once I settled down in that glorious, warm climate, so I gravitated toward other things to make a little spending money…and to pass the time. They were mostly illegal activities, but the Mexican government didn’t seem to enforce their laws too strenuously, so that was never a problem. And I could always fall back on a claim of diplomatic immunity if I needed to, but I never did.

  “Mexico City possesses a tight-knit population of Jews; and although I am not Jewish myself, I discovered that many of them were Russian and had what I call a Russian sensibility. I was comfortable with that, so I became acquainted with many of them—not the religious Jews, of course; they would never want to be associated with someone like me. No, it was the Jews who enjoyed a little gambling, a little prostitution—that kind of thing.

  “Then one day, sometime in the summer of 1963, I received a call from my old friend Conrad. We had kept in touch through the years, and when I moved to Mexico City, I contacted him. I told him if he or his people needed any of my kind of work down there, that I was a free agent. I knew he had agents of his own…but if it was a job he needed someone else to perform, to keep me in mind.

  “Anyway, when Conrad called, he said he had a job for me and that it would be easy. I didn’t have to kill anyone, which was nice, because I had decided that I didn’t want to do any more killing. He said he needed me to find someone in Mexico City who speaks Russian.

  “‘Speaks Russian?’ I responded. ‘I speak Russian.’

  “He says, ‘I know that, Kostay. But I need someone who speaks Russian rather poorly since we want him to impersonate someone who speaks Russian poorly.’

  “So immediately, I think of my Russian Jewish friends. One in particular, Ivan Brodsky, had come to Mexico from the Soviet Union when he was just a boy, so his Russian was very poor. Just the guy, I thought. So I said, ‘And if I know of such a person, then what?’

  “‘All we want him to do is to make a telephone call,’ he tells me. ‘To the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. We want him to make this call saying he is someone else, a person whose name I will give you once he agrees to make the call. We want him to request a visit to the embassy, which of course they will refuse. And Kostay, he must mention your name when he calls.’

  “‘My name?’ I asked. ‘Why my name?’

  “‘Because we want him to appear to know you.’

  “‘My name will definitely not get him an invitation, you know,’ I said.

  “‘I know that, Kostay. But he must mention your name, nevertheless.’

  “‘Who is behind this, Conrad?’ I asked. ‘It seems like a strange request coming from your government.’

  “‘This is more of a private affair,’ he explained. ‘I do some freelance work too, you know. These people have money—they’re big-time Houston oilmen.’

  “‘Then they must be paying you handsomely for this assignment, Conrad—yes?’

  “‘Pretty well, and I can share some of it with you—if you find me the right man.’

  “So, Mr. Miller, I recruited my friend Ivan Brodsky to make the phone call. Conrad provided me with the script Ivan was to read from when he made the call…and the job was done. Easiest fifty thousand dollars I ever made.”

  “Fifty thousand?” I exclaimed before I could catch myself.

  “Ah, I know you have heard from your friend Benny, who spoke to Ivan. Yes, I told Ivan the fee was much less. I feel guilty about that part.”

  “About that part?” I shot back, knowing now that this man knew what I knew, and there was no use pretending I didn’t. “How about the part that resulted in the murder of President Kennedy?”

  “Please, Mr. Miller, don’t be so indignant. I didn’t know anything about the plan to kill your president. I was as surprised as anyone when the assassination happened and I recognized the name, Oswald, as the guy Conrad wanted Ivan to impersonate. Then I realized something else. Conrad wanted Ivan to mention my name because I was a KGB assassin, known to your government as such. Conrad knew the telephone call would be taped. He—or I should say the people who hired him—wanted it to look like Oswald had a connection with a Soviet assassin—so it would implicate my government in the killing of your president.”

  “So why didn’t you speak up when the assassination took place and you heard the killer was Oswald? Especially since if the tape surfaced, your name would have been front and center as having been in on it.”

  “True. And I did go to my government with this information. But they told me this was not a problem. They explained, ‘Our embassy didn’t let him visit, so we are in the clear. And the man, Oswald, was in Mexico City trying to get a visa to Cuba. The CIA knows that you, Kostay, work for the highest bidder. It will appear that this Oswald knew you, was preparing to go to Cuba, so maybe they will believe it was the Cubans who were involved.’

  “You see, Mr. Miller, at the time, our relations with Castro were not so good. My government would not have minded at all if the suspicion for the assassination fell on the Cubans.”

  “So that was the end of it?” I asked. “You did nothing. Your government did nothing. Even though you knew that there were people behind the scenes who had manipulated Oswald and were the real ones responsible for killing Kennedy?”

  “Who knows?” he responded. “Maybe if the tape had surfaced, we…or I…would have had to do something. But Conrad told me the tape was destroyed. So that indeed was the end of it. At least until I heard from Conrad again, just recently.”

  We were still traveling on the same pothole-filled highway, but by now I was accustomed to the random jolts. It seemed like the twilight had an interminable grip on the Siberian sky, probably because we were so far north and the summer equinox was only forty-some days away. There was a roadside building just ahead. It was the first man-made structure I’d seen in the landscape since we left the airport.

  “Are you getting hungry, Mr. Miller?” Kostay asked. “If you are, we can stop to get something to eat. That is a café just ahead. I understand their herring is very good—and we still have a long way to go.”

  I was hungry, but I didn’t feel like stopping—especially for herring.

  “I’m OK,” I said.

  “All r
ight then. We will keep driving until we reach our destination—”

  “Which is?” I interjected.

  “Ah, that part is a surprise,” he said. “But the rest of my story is not, so let me continue.

  “So I recently heard from my old friend Conrad. He tracked me down to my modest dacha just outside Moscow. He asks me if I’m still in the same line of work. I tell him that depends on who’s asking.

  “He says, ‘There is a guy I am sending to Omsk. An American. I need you to meet him at the airport and take care of him.’

  “‘You mean kill him?’ I asked, not wanting there to be any miscommunication between us.

  “‘Yes, Kostay. And could there be any better location than Siberia? If we took care of him in this country there would be too many questions. His destination is a lucky coincidence.’

  “‘Do you mind telling me why you need to kill this man—or is it something I don’t need to know?’

  “‘Actually, Kostay,’ he says, ‘it has something to do with you. Something you and I participated in a long time ago.’

  “‘Does it have to do with 1963?’ I asked. ‘Frankly, I always wondered when my limited role in that event would come back to haunt me.’

  “‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ Conrad tells me. ‘This person who will be visiting Omsk, he has a friend named Benny Friedman who has been asking a lot of questions…a lot of questions of your Oswald impersonator, Ivan Brodsky.’

  “‘How do you know this?’

  “‘Because this guy, Benny, he contacted a government official—a US Attorney—and told him the whole story. With names. With my name, Kostay. Why did you ever tell Brodsky my name?’

  “‘I don’t think I did, Tristan.’ At least I didn’t recall doing so.

  “‘Is it the US Attorney who is going to Omsk?’ I asked. ‘Is he the one you want me to take care of?’

  “‘No. He has already been taken care of. And this Benny—well, he is hiding out at the moment. But we will find him. Meanwhile, everybody thinks he’s crazy, so no one will believe anything he says. It’s Benny’s friend I’m concerned about. He has credibility. And if he believes what I fear Benny will tell him about us…well, you get the picture.’

  “‘When does he arrive in Omsk?’ I asked him.

  “‘On May 10, on the flight from Moscow that arrives at eight p.m.’

  “‘And how did you get this guy…what’s his name?’ I asked.

  “‘His name is Miller, David Miller.’

  “‘How did you get this guy to go to Omsk of all places?’

  “Well, Mr. Miller, it was at that point that Conrad told me the whole story—in detail. He told me how he convinced you that a religious group—Truce of God—captured one of your country’s most important scientists and that the group is now operating somewhere near Omsk.”

  “So everything was a setup?” I interrupted, also wondering about Sandra’s role—whether she had tried to seduce me as part of the ruse. “The Truce of God people didn’t capture one of our scientists?”

  “No, Mr. Miller. From what Conrad told me, when he was trying to find some dirt on your friend Benny to call his credibility into question, he discovered that he once lived next door to this religious leader. The whole story was fabricated to make the US Attorney, Michael Eisenberg, and then you believe that Benny was needed to find Montgomery. There never was a missing scientist. But when you couldn’t…or wouldn’t help Conrad find Benny…well, Conrad became suspicious of you too.”

  Much of what Kostay said seemed plausible. But in some ways it was so mind-boggling that I couldn’t help having strong doubts about his truthfulness. “Why didn’t Conrad ‘take care of me,’ as you say, when he first met me, like he did Michael?”

  “Because when you met him at the Argonne lab, you showed no sign of having recognized his name. He was positive Benny hadn’t shared what he knew with you…at least as of that point in time. So I asked him why he wanted me to kill you, if you didn’t know.

  “‘Because, Kostay, he knows where his friend Benny can be found, and he is not telling us. It is only a matter of time before he learns about us. Look at this assignment as a form of preventative medicine’

  “‘All right,’ I told him. But frankly, I wasn’t too thrilled about pulling the trigger on someone who only might one day learn our story. That’s a bit too hypothetical for my tastes.

  “‘How much?’ I asked.

  “‘Two hundred thousand.’ I think Conrad sensed my reticence and wanted to make the amount attractive.

  “‘Well, at least the price is right.’ I commended him.

  “So I came to Omsk several days before your scheduled arrival to contemplate what I would do. Siberia can be just the place to get one’s thoughts in order. As you can see,” he said, pointing out the car’s window to the limitless bleakness that surrounded us, “there is not much in the way of distractions here.

  “I provided Conrad with a telephone number to reach me in Omsk, in case he had any second thoughts. And sure enough, Conrad did call me again—several hours ago—but not to back out. No, he called to reinforce my resolve. He told me he now has proof that you know about the bogus Oswald phone call and our involvement, just in case I had any misgivings.”

  “Proof,” I asked the Russian, “what proof?”

  “Your friend’s journal.”

  “How did he know about that?”

  “Look, Mr. Miller, do you think you are dealing with stupid people? You were being watched at O’Hare. A man was seen—your uncle, I believe—rushing down the concourse to deliver a package to you. The passenger sitting next to you on the flight to Moscow—”

  “Wait a minute. You mean the guy with the Southern drawl—the guy who was meeting his Russian mail-order bride?”

  “He’s the one. Only his story was made up. The so-called mail-order bride works for Conrad. So does the passenger. He put something in your borscht that made you sleep like a baby for several hours. More than enough time for him to photograph every page of Benny’s journal.

  “After he landed in Moscow and staged the scene with his mail-order bride, he contacted Conrad and read him Benny’s journal, word for word.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered. “I thought the guy couldn’t possibly be a spy.”

  “That’s what makes guys like him so good,” Kostay said. “Anyway, now that he has this proof, Conrad contacted me immediately to make certain I did not go soft on him.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I told him his information was interesting but unnecessary for my purposes. That I was prepared to eliminate you in any event.”

  “But you didn’t do it. And you could have made all that money. Well…at least you haven’t done it yet. Why?” I asked with considerable trepidation.

  “Do you see that white building up ahead on the right, Mr. Miller? It has a small tower or what you in America would call a steeple. An unusual structure for the Soviet Union. It is a church, Mr. Miller—one of the few. That is where we are headed. I will be able to answer your questions better once we are inside.

  Chapter 34

  May 10, 1989

  It was indeed a church that Kostay had taken me to. It seemed hastily built and impermanent, as if it had been transported from someplace else and plopped down in the middle of the tundra. There was no paved area bordering the building so Kostay pulled onto a moss-covered spot twenty or thirty yards away and shut the Lada’s motor.

  By now, a sliver of moon was visible against the fully-darkened sky. It was joined by a vast array of disordered stars, awakened from their long day’s slumber, twinkling to shake the sleep off and pockmarking the heavens with their radiance. We were in the middle of nowhere—or rather in the middle of Siberia, which to me was the same thing—and the galaxy’s luminosity, even in the first throes of nightfall, was like something I imagined could only exist on a planet with no atmosphere.

  As we approached the white, wood-framed building, I noticed an inscri
ption on a stone tablet just above the front door. But the letters were in Cyrillic, so I was unable to decipher their meaning. One firm knock on the door by Kostay brought an immediate response. When it opened, I found myself staring directly into the face of a man of about sixty, with clean-cut features and soft blue eyes.

  “Mr. Miller, I’d like you to meet Philip Montgomery,” Kostay said as he stepped out of the way so I could shake the man’s hand. “By the way, he loaned me the car to pick you up—which is why it has the license plate number that so unnerved you.”

  “You must be David,” Montgomery said as he reached for my hand, which he shook heartily. “Please, come inside. Welcome to our church. There is someone I would like you to meet.”

  When we entered, we found ourselves in a small chapel with only three rows of pews. Standing in front of the altar, clad in a simple white garment, was the raven-haired princess I’d last seen twenty-three years ago in the midst of a summer storm. Lena looked just as angelic now as she had standing beneath the willow tree in Benny’s backyard. With her eyes fixed on mine, she stepped toward me now with her arms open wide, and we embraced. At first my hold on her was tentative, as was hers on me, as if each of us was feeling out the other, unsure whether this type of physical closeness was appropriate or even possible. But then, as the reality of the moment set in, our clutches became stronger…tighter, and we grasped on to each other as if no two people on earth were ever intended to be together more than us.

  When we broke apart, we stood there simply drinking each other in before she finally managed, “Oh, David, why did you never come back to see me? Why did you ignore my letter?”

  “Lena,” I said, “I did come back for you—the very next day like we planned. I asked for Mary, and your aunt said you were at a retreat and that you didn’t want to see me. She told me to go away and never come back.”

  “But why would you ask for Mary?”

  “Don’t you remember…the night of the storm? Your aunt was calling out from the house, ‘Mary, you need to come in from the rain.’ And then you told me you had to leave, to go home. You had never told me your name, so I thought you were Mary.”