In the Company of Spies

by Stephen Barlay

  “You haven’t asked any questions,” said his father.

  “He’s a wise man,” she said and produced a bottle of Gorilka, some black bread, a knife and a cucumber from a box on the floor in the corner. It was unlikely that she or anybody else actually lived in the bare room, which flaunted heavy curtains on the windows as its only sign of luxury. She cut some bread, sliced the cucumber and put it all on a piece of cardboard she tore off the box.

  “No glasses. I’m sorry.” She smiled at Rust and gestured toward the bottle. He returned the gesture with a bit too theatrical “after you” bow. “You’re very polite,” she said in a solemn tone. Too solemn?

  “You mean I’m suspicious?”

  She laughed. The sound was free and easy. The sort that inspired trust. She picked up the bottle and drank heartily. It did not even make her face flush. Rust followed her example. He was sure the liquid would burn a hole in his throat, flow out freely and damage the floor, too. It was a Ukrainian pepper vodka.

  As they were about to sit down around the well-worn table, Rust positioned himself on the big man’s right: the goon was righthanded and would be at a momentary disadvantage if he tried to pull out the gun or deliver a punch. He had a feeling that Yelena was reading his thoughts. That annoyed him. “Okay, we’ve played the games, now let’s have it,” he said impatiently.

  His father was about to answer, but Yelena cut in: “Can I just ask a few questions first?”

  “Such as?”

  “When did you get the message?”

  “Let me see … it was the Thursday … er … yes, almost three weeks ago.”

  “The very end of August.” Yelena calculated. “It should have been earlier.”

  “Why?”

  She ignored the question. “What did Igor say to you?”

  “Igor?”

  “The sailor.”

  “He never got there. He’s dead.” There was no reaction. Just silence. So Rust told them how the message had been delivered by a young CIA agent. “It’s a miracle it reached me at all.”

  “What exactly was the message?”

  “Just what I agreed on with my father. Someone had been very ill but was better now.”

  “Who? What was the name?”

  Rust shrugged his shoulders. “Matvey? Timofey?”

  “It’s important.”

  “Didn’t seem so to me. So I forgot.”

  “Igor must have given your name and address to whoever he gave the message.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What name did he give?”

  “My name, of course.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Did he say Helm or Helmut?” Rust thought, then shook his head. “I’m not sure. It was so unexpected. I never really thought the message would ever come. I had a lot to think about. What I could do. How I’d go about it.”

  “Pity. The message might have contained a warning that he was in trouble.”

  “A warning to you, dear lady” — Rust’s voice grew sharp — “not to me. Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean I was expected to come here anyway, but only you’d be warned.”

  “Yes.” She sounded disarmingly sincere.

  He turned to his father. “And you, you’d be warned, too, no matter what risk I had to take.”

  “I’m sorry.” His father turned away and began to cough nervously.

  He must be thinking about the camps. Rust felt a little ashamed. He would have liked to put his arm around the old man’s shoulder. But he did not know how. He had no experience. Perhaps he could warp him. in his own coat. To keep him warm. He closed his eyes and tried to think of young O’Connor sitting in his armchair in the Upstairs. He tried to recall the mood, the agent’s voice. But his father’s monotonous droning disturbed him.

  “It’s difficult to explain, my son. When you’d found me and we met in 1956, it brought back memories. It changed me back to what I must have been before I came to Russia. I suddenly realized that I was beaten. We all were beaten around here, because we did not even think of doing anything about our fate. I can’t tell you exactly what happened next. It wouldn’t be fair to the others. And it’s best if you know only as much as you must. But the fact is that I became involved with a, well, a group who wanted to do something. We didn’t really do much, but we began to care.”

  “Okay, okay, I get the message,” Rust cut in impatiently. “But do I need to know all this?”

  “You must,” his father said.

  “Why?”

  “To understand why you’re here.”

  “You mean you … “ Rust checked himself and gestured toward the girl and the goon. “Do they know what our original arrangement was?”

  “Yes.”

  “That you want to get out of all this?” He watched the old man’s fast-shriveling face and the realization hit him that the old man’s waffling had not even begun to tell the truth about the situation. “I mean, you do want to get out, don’t you?”

  “I can’t.”

  “I thought it was for me to decide. Or at least to help.”

  “Things have changed. I’m sorry.”

  “Then why the hell am I here?”

  “To help us.”

  “Us? You mean them?” He grabbed the old man’s shoulders and shook him savagely. “You’ve cheated me. You’ve tricked me. You once told me how happy you were to rediscover me. Is that what your happiness was worth? Is that it? Is it?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Rust let him go. “And I’m sorry, too.” He reached for his raincoat and glanced at Yelena. “Thanks for the drink, sweetheart. It would have been nice to meet you in some other circumstances.”

  “Helmut.”

  “Yes?”

  “You … you can’t leave us, my son.”

  “Can’t I?” Rust kept his eyes on Florian. The big man might be armed, but the breadknife was still on the table within Rust’s easy reach. “Who says I can’t leave? You or them?”

  “I beg of you. Just listen before you make your decision.”

  “I think the more I listen the less chance I’ll have to make a decision and leave. And I’ve already heard plenty.”

  “Please, son. Please.”

  The old man was beaten. Rust could not help pitying him. It was easier now to put his arm around his shoulders. “What happened, Vati?” he whispered. “Did they beat you? Blackmail you?” When Pyotr Nikolayevich shook his head, Rust could not suppress the question that hurt most: “Don’t I matter to you?”

  “Of course you do. I love you. That’s just what proves how important this is. Would I have risked your life otherwise?”

  It was not enough to convince Rust. But he had no quick way to probe more deeply. If anybody had blackmailed the old man, it would be Yelena and the goon. Yet Rust did not feel much anger toward them. They wanted him there and they had him there. Love was not a consideration in their case. Was it in his father’s case?

  “We wanted to do something. We cared.” The old man droned on and on as if only trying to pick up the ends of the thread where Rust’s question had cut in. “Yes, we cared a lot, and there were some very influential people among us.”

  Rust caught his father looking at Yelena. “Like her?”

  “No, no.” But Yelena nodded, and the old man corrected himself. “I mean yes. So we began to hear things we were not supposed to know about. And then something terribly important came to some people’s attention. So important that even I wasn’t told.”

  “It’s best that way, Pyotr Nikolayevich. Forgive me,” she said softly. “That’s why, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to Helmut alone.”

  Helmut. The accent of pronouncing the German name sounded familiar. O’Connor. Didn’t he say it the same way?

  “Say my name again.”

  “Helmut.” Again she read the signs on his face correctly. “Was it Helmut, not Helm, in the mes
sage?”

  “Probably.”

  “Oh.” She offered Rust another gulp from the bottle; the third time around it tasted more agreeable. Perhaps it has already anesthetized my guts, he thought. While he drank, the two men stood up and moved toward the door.

  “We’ll be around,” said Florian.

  Rust grinned at him. He felt challenged and would have enjoyed making some alterations in the big man’s square face.

  As soon as the door had closed behind the men; she pulled her chair nearer to Rust. He liked that. Her body smelled good. The combination of her soap and skin appealed to him. The intimacy of her whisper made him think of the urgency of young love when you knew Mother might enter at any moment. But what she asked had a sobering and irritating effect on him. “Do you care about peace?”

  “Oh, for Chrissake.” He switched to English in self-defense. “You play dirty, you’re a cheat and perhaps a blackmailer, you trick me into risking my life, then you put on your angelic face and you have the nerve to croon about peace, goddam peace.”

  “I meant it. It’s important for me to know how you feel about peace. Because you’re here to get and take home some information that could save us all from global disaster.”

  “Cut out the big words, sweetheart, and let’s get down to it. What’s the joke?” Reacting to her sad expression, he said: “All right. I care about peace. This is my solemn and sincere testament. Satisfied?”

  “Yes. So here it is in a sentence. Nikita Sergeyevich is sending missiles to Cuba.”

  The simplicity of it stunned him. A wild rush of memories flooded his brain. Cohetes. Could be missiles as well as firecrackers. Coming from Odessa. He needed a few moments to think. To ask the right questions. He had to gain time. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m very serious.”

  “How would you know what Khrushchev does?”

  “I know.”

  “Okay, what sort of missiles?”

  “Medium- and intermediate-range.”

  “What’s that? I mean, what distance?”

  “Up to three thousand kilometers.”

  Rust did not know if this was correct or not. But the manner in which she answered without the slightest hesitation was convincing. “Where will they be set up?”

  “It’s better for you not to know the list.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “You wouldn’t know the place.”

  “Try me. I know a bit about Cuba.” She shook her head, and Rust stood up. “If not, not. I didn’t ask for it in the first place. You got me here, you wanted me to listen, you must convince me.”

  “Have you ever heard of San Cristóbal?”

  “Maybe.” Rust tried to keep his best poker face. San Cristóbal was one of the places where Russians were constructing soccer fields. “Now how about you? Who are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it does, sweetheart. You don’t think that I or anyone else will take you seriously without some evidence or an indication of source. Are you part of some resistance group?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Big group? Small group?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I want to know if you’re just the messenger.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You wouldn’t have firsthand information, would you?”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re too young. And too pretty.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “The prettier the face the less ambitious they are.”

  “You must have met the wrong sort of women. I pity you.” She appeared sharp and unshakable. He liked that. Not only because it made her more attractive but also because he felt he could trust her more. So he decided to probe more. “So where did you pick up all that invaluable information? I mean, in whose bed?”

  Her face reddened but her voice did not change. “Do you want names, places, dates and graphs of orgasms per hour?”

  “Names and positions will do. And I don’t mean sex positions.”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  “And I guess you knew that before you got me here. For some reason, I think, you need a bastard. An extraordinary bastard, not just a run-of-the-mill weekday bastard, someone dumb enough not to run away from risks, someone unimportant enough not to be a great loss if things go wrong, and someone vulnerable enough not to be able to say no to you, right?”

  “Almost. Because if things go wrong, I may be hurt, too, and I’m very important, at least to me. Next question.”

  “What missiles are we talking about? Nukes?” And when she looked puzzled, he spelled it out: “Missiles with nuclear warheads?”

  “Yes.”

  “You think Khrushchev wants to start a war?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What then?”

  “Several things. Castro is angry because his Communist Party tried to plot against him. He’s pressing for more and better arms to protect him from the probably enemy. I mean America. They say he’s flirting with the Chinese to blackmail us. Khrushchev must do something positive. And missiles over there are an answer to all his problems.”

  “America won’t tolerate it.”

  “No?” She smiled. “I believe that Nikita Sergeyevich has evidence that it will be tolerated. But the main thing is that he is playing strictly according to Leninist strategy. You choose maximum and minimum targets. You make maximum demands and predetermine the minimum you’ll settle for. His maximum is to have missiles that can hit New York and all the other major cities. At the moment we cannot do it from here, but can do it from Cuba. The minimum is to get an American guarantee of Cuban independence. That would retain Castro’s friendship, even obedience, and our foothold on America’s — how do you say it? — doorstep?”

  “And you don’t like that.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  That floored Rust momentarily. Both the swearword and the frankness were unexpected.

  “I really don’t.” She smiled. “I’ll be completely frank with you. What matters in the first place is that the missiles are a threat to peace, and I care about that.”

  “Okay, okay, cut it out. What’s the second?”

  “That’s if he succeeds, we’re going to be stuck with him forever. And he’s wrong for my country. All big words but no real leadership.”

  “Sure, sure, you must know best.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, sweetheart, you didn’t. All you said is that he’s so wrong you’re willing to turn traitor.”

  “Don’t use that word!”

  “I can think of others.”

  Without any warning sign, she suddenly began to cry. Something had just snapped in her. Perhaps weeks or months of incredible strain. Perhaps years. He thought of Charles, who had once said to him that Americans had no conception of what the pressures of living under a dictatorship might be like. And that if they tried to understand those pressures in combination with that big, big Russian soul, the fear of solitude, a morbid imagination, the hate of rules and the wailing by a nation of orphans each time a loathsome ruler died, then they’d really be in limbo.

  “Khrushchev killed my husband,” she whispered. “Not directly. But he did. In Kiev, when … “ Her tears were rolling down freely from widely open eyes, but there was no sobbing, no distortion of the face, no quivering of the full lips. Then the tears dried up just as suddenly as they had begun to flow.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Forget what I said about my husband. It’s been a long time. And I may be wrong. Sorry I mentioned it.”

  He touched her hair only with his fingertips to redirect an unruly wave.

  “Thank you,” she said in the same tone. “And now, if we’re to prevent what I’d regard as a disaster, you must get this information to your government.”

  “Sure.” Rust began to lau
gh. “I’m sorry.” He tried to stop laughing but could not. “I, I really am sorry. But what exactly do you have in mind? I mean, do you want me to go to Washington and telephone Kennedy, and say to him, ‘Hi, Mr. President, I’m just back from Moscow and I’ve got news for you,’ or — “

  “Stop it. The missiles will be operational by about mid-October. Then it’ll be too late to do anything. You must find a way.”

  “But why me? I’m not in government service, I’m not connected with anything or anyone who matters.”

  “You mean not anymore?”

  For a second he wondered how much she knew about his past. “If you mean that I’m not a journalist anymore, then yes, that’s what I meant.”

  “Good. That’s why we’re turning to you.”

  “Explain.”

  “Don’t think we’re fools. We’ve tried everything else we could. We’ve leaked information in several ways. We even supplied facts to someone who is working for the CIA, we think. But America’s doing nothing. As if they knew nothing. So probably they know nothing. All the information must have been prevented from reaching the highest level. Perhaps your own hawks have stopped it. They may hope that Cuba will be attacked and wiped out if there’re missiles there. Or perhaps our own spies, our KGB moles in your service, are stopping the information. Someone is. You’re the last chance. You, because you’re on the outside. Because you won’t use the usual channels. Because we know that you’ll find direct access to someone right at the top in Washington. It’s a long shot. But we’ve no choice.”

  “And you’re offering me some evidence.”

  She produced a plain sealed envelope. “Some of it is here. You must swear not to open it. You’ll get the rest in America.”

  “I want it now. I’ll talk to the embassy here tomorrow.”

  “No. You wouldn’t ever know who you’re talking to. Many people at your embassy are in the pocket of the KGB.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “I’m telling you.”

  He decided not to argue. The Russians’ inherent sense of secrecy and inclination to see plots and plotters everywhere irritated him with their naiveté. “What if I say no to it all?”

  “You won’t.”

  “I could ruin the whole lot of you.”