by Bill Granger
Once he had been an agent from Moscow; then, again, he had been made a reluctant defector to America. He was certainly a killer; he was certainly ruthless; he certainly broke laws as part of his new trade in the world of supplying those things to the world that the world wants but does not want to allow to be traded.
Denisov had once battled a nemesis named November, an American agent who had embarrassed him, nearly killed him, used him twice, and who had also given him a complete set of Gilbert and Sullivan recordings to while away his days in American exile. Gilbert and Sullivan was the only thing that had kept Denisov’s sanity in those terrible first days when the American questioned him over and over and he felt the deep sense of loss: He would never be in Russia again, nor walk Moscow streets, nor smell the home smells, nor sleep with his wife, nor hear his son and sister argue for the privilege of the morning bathroom. They were things he thought he would never miss and then, on a beach in Florida, an agent named November had arranged to deprive him of everything that defined his life.
It had happened a long time ago.
Now, out of the grayness, came the hideous roar of the beast that crosses the Channel. The hovercraft was in the waters, propellers turning and the whoosh of air pounding the waters flat beneath it, the hull like a rubber inner tube inflated and absurd. The roaring of the beast grew and the hovercraft seemed to lumber sideways toward the landing apron.
“Time,” Denisov said aloud, in Russian. He had a pistol, as always, and he felt for it in the pocket of his large overcoat. He turned and walked back along the seawall and down the road to the terminal where the hovercraft would crawl ashore, resembling some link in the chain of being turning from sea monster to creature of the land.
The hovercraft was late, delayed on the French side as usual. Now they were going to build a railroad tunnel between France and England and the day of the ferries would soon be over. Denisov thought he would not miss it. He hated the hovercraft and detested the slow ferries with their cafeterias full of dreadful English food. He made the crossing twenty times a year. He could afford to fly, naturally, but there were reasons to take the land-and-sea route.
He saw the other man enter the green customs line marked Nothing to Declare. The man had only a small suitcase and he was stopped and told to open it. He did so. Denisov watched this and smiled. They never could find a thing. It was the first thing you learned, no matter what side you were on. If clumsy assassins like the Palestinians could do it, how much better the professionals could be.
Like us, Denisov thought with something like affection. Of course, he would just as gladly have killed the other man if it had been to his advantage.
At the moment, he was curious.
Devereaux crossed into the glittering and cheaply modern terminal which was typical of so many bad buildings put up by the British in the 1960s and 1970s.
He fell in beside Denisov without a word and then passed him as though they were strangers. Everyone is careful in the trade. Was Denisov watched? Devereaux became a second set of eyes behind his back, to see who the watchers might be.
Denisov waited in the terminal, puzzled, looking for a face of a friend.
Disappointed, Denisov turned and walked out in the gray day full of spray and the cry of sea gulls. Devereaux was nowhere to be seen. Devereaux had gone around the building, waiting for Denisov’s retreat.
The other passengers pushed to get on buses that would deliver them to the train station in Dover and the tedious ride up the tracks to London. The pushers were French, of course; the English can tell the rude continentals from their own people.
The green buses belched black smoke and rattled away from the curbing.
Denisov was halfway up the road to the public house with the sign of the flying fish.
No one behind; no one before. No unaccounted plain cars full of intent men who seem to be waiting for someone. No careless men in trench coats pretending to light cigarettes into the face of the channel winds.
And Devereaux followed. They both knew the way to play this particular game.
Denisov sat in a corner of the dark, dirty, and quite somber public house with a pint of Bass ale before him and a copy of the Wall Street Journal’s European edition. There was a little time to kill before Devereaux joined him. He was a large, lethargic man, accustomed to waiting.
His eyes followed the lists of the stocks, up and down, searching for the acronyms of his holdings.
Devereaux sat down with a large glass of vodka, chilled with ice. The English had grown more relaxed about ice in the last few years; they had given it away in public houses with less reluctance and less sense that they were surrendering the Crown Jewels.
Denisov did not look up from the paper. “You seem unchanged by the years,” he said in the voice that still contained a stubborn, thick accent. He spoke English very well because he loved the language (which is why he had loved the merry cynicism of Gilbert); but accent cannot always be lost, perhaps as a reminder to the speaker that he is still a stranger in a strange world.
“It’s old home week talk now?” Devereaux said.
Denisov sighed. Tribune stock—listed Trbn—was up 1½. He folded the paper shut. “You have no time for sentiment. For cheers? For l’chaim?” Denisov smiled, lifted his glass, nodded, and sipped.
Devereaux watched him. He was the careful agent now, not the careless man who had wandered through his days in Lausanne. He had been so careless because he had believed in his own myth, that he could shake the traces of the old trade.
He thought now all the time about that unfinished (perhaps unspoken) conversation he would have with Rita Macklin someday, if he survived this time.
“You are too serious,” Denisov said. “Lighten yourself.”
“Lighten up,” Devereaux corrected.
“Yes,” Denisov said. “Your message was insistent.”
“I would not have interfered with your life unless I had to,” Devereaux said. Denisov did not understand that this was going to be a serious matter after all.
“Of course.” He said it with irony. “I thought you wanted my company.”
“Two men are killed in Lausanne. The day before they are killed, they go to a place—a brasserie—and they terrorize a young Swiss girl with a stupid dialogue about how they are looking for me.”
“I see. The girl—is she pretty?”
“She’s young, which is better,” Devereaux said.
Denisov stared at him without expression for a moment and then put a smile on his face. On purpose. He was an amiable bear, like the trained bear in the Soviet circus; and yet, a bear is a bear, with teeth and claws and strength and the instincts to kill when killing is necessary.
“So. These men.” Denisov stared at his beer. “Do you owe them money? Perhaps they are brothers of the young girl and they wish her to stop seeing you. I think that you must be careful about who you go to bed with when you are in a foreign country.” He smiled. “There are different customs.”
“Yes. You’d know about that. The widow in California.”
“I have so much to thank you for,” Denisov said. The edge was bared. It was steel and cold and it killed. Denisov stared at Devereaux.
They had been spies against each other. And one day, when there was no other way, Devereaux had “defected” Denisov. Denisov had been trapped in America because Devereaux had made it so. He had lived on his hatred of Devereaux for three years—before Devereaux came to him in his hidden lair in California and decided to use him. Devereaux had let him free because it suited him to do so after Denisov had been used.
Once, in a car in Zurich, he had the chance to kill Devereaux. And he had hesitated. Why had he hesitated? He still hated him but he saw there was no hatred on the other side. Devereaux did not hate; therefore, Denisov thought, he could only use. Denisov was in the arms trade now and he was a rich man and he pitied Devereaux, who could only use. And who had scruples, in an odd way.
“So tell me about these men if
you have to,” Denisov said, shaking out of his thoughts.
“They go to my apartment the following day. They are killed there.”
“By you.”
“By a woman. A woman who kills in the professional way. There is a picture of her.”
Captain Boll of the Swiss army had commissioned a drawing of the woman based on the description by the unfortunate young thug who had been hired to break a window in a building and lure the concierge out of it. He had been arraigned on various charges and he would go to prison for at least two years and he said the likeness was very good.
Denisov stared at the drawing for a moment.
There are some faces—even captured in an imprecise drawing—that are unforgettable.
He felt a strange stirring. He looked up. His face betrayed nothing. His hand framed the drawing on the table. Alexa.
“She might be beautiful,” Denisov said.
“Yes.”
“It is she who killed those men?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I think she came to kill me instead.”
“I don’t understand this.”
Devereaux stared at the Russian in silence. Denisov was very good. The eyes hid everything. Denisov glanced again at the drawing. For a moment. But it was too long a time, Devereaux thought. And the hand on the table still framed the picture.
“Who is she?” Devereaux said.
“I don’t know.”
The silence shared the space between them.
“How are things?” Devereaux said.
“Well.”
“Business is booming.”
“Perhaps,” Denisov said.
“Perhaps you are too busy.”
“No.” Carefully. “Not too busy.” And his hand on the table around the drawing was still.
“I want to know about her—”
“You are the agent, not I.”
“You’re close to the trade,” Devereaux said. “To old sources and new ones.”
“Perhaps.”
“I set you up. With Krueger.”
“I am so grateful.”
“I don’t expect to pay in gratitude,” Devereaux said.
“You have your sources, comrade,” Denisov said. “Why do I become involved?”
Devereaux said, “I defected you in Florida because there was no choice. And I sprung you from your golden prison in California because I had to use you. You’re free, Denisov, freer than you ever were in the old trade.” He paused, the eyes gray and level and even mocking: “I need to know about her. About two other men. And I need to know about a nutcracker.”
This was too much. Denisov started. His eyes widened. He knew too much to hide it this time. It was the last word he had expected the other man to utter.
And then Denisov smiled, a strange and dominating smile that broke in waves across the cold harsh presence of the other man.
“Nutcracker involves you?”
Devereaux stared at Denisov for a long time. “A man I once knew called me twice in Lausanne. Before these things happened. He babbled to me and I have been trying to remember the things he said. He talked about old spies and fictional spies and he sounded deranged.”
“And he told you something about Nutcracker.”
“He said he had a nutcracker when he was a child. It was such a strange thing to say. Even in the context. I thought about it then and now. I wanted to see what you knew. And you know, don’t you, Russian?”
“I heard a rumor. In London three weeks ago. You know we have our gossips in the arms trade. Something is up. But no one knows what it is.”
“But Nutcracker. It means something?”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“What moves you, Russian?”
But Denisov saw. He smiled and it was genuine. “You are outside, are you not? That is what this is about. You are outside and you cannot go back to R Section and ask them for help. Is that it? I feel so terrible for you, my friend. It is bad for you, is it not?” The smile was very good and wide and open. “Is someone to kill you and you cannot save yourself?” The syntax was breaking down. “I think it would be terrible to make your woman weep for you. But then, these things must happen.”
“How much money?” Devereaux said.
“Let me enjoy myself for a minute,” Denisov said. “It gives me pleasure to think you must need me. I owe you so much.”
“Fifty thousand dollars,” Devereaux said.
The smile faded. The blank face of the careful agent replaced it.
“There is an aerospace company in California. They are to award the contract. I mean, they will receive the contract for a certain plane. I think no one knows this now except your government. So for four thousand shares of stock, perhaps I will become even more a capitalist.”
“That’s insider trading, Denisov. It’s against the law.”
Denisov did not smile.
“You can’t fix Wall Street,” Devereaux said.
“There is no free dinner.”
“Free lunch.”
“Agreed,” Denisov said.
“It will be done,” Devereaux said. “Now tell me about Nutcracker.”
“I know nothing. It was a phrase. A subcontractor in London who must think he knows everything but he knows nothing. He said there was chatter out of Cheltenham, the Americans were working on something called Nutcracker. That was all. Realignment of networks in Berlin. But it was chatter, even gossip, and you know that Cheltenham is a sieve. You cannot believe anything that comes from there.”
Cheltenham was the mole-ridden listening post shared by the Americans and British in the English west country. Cheltenham eavesdropped on the radio “chatter” of the world and tried to make sense of all that it heard. Nutcracker was a name, something that had been dropped by computer or transatlantic phone or radio transmitter—it was an odd name of some odd thing that had struck Denisov in memory and now, in this damp and dirty public house in Dover, had been retrieved by a retired American agent.
“And you know this one,” Devereaux said. He was pointing at the picture.
“I do not think so.”
“When will you tell me who she is?”
“Perhaps I must understand what this is. What this is about. So there is no danger for me,” Denisov said. “I do not trust you too far.”
“This does not concern you.”
“I will see if that is true.”
“She came to kill me. Who is she?”
“Perhaps I do not know yet. Perhaps in a little time, I will know.”
“KGB,” Devereaux said.
“Perhaps.”
“And these are photographs of the men she killed.”
They were morgue shots, obtained from Boll along with the drawing of the woman. One of the faces had been obliterated.
“I do not know them.”
“I do. They were KGB. Resolutions Committee.”
“They wore cards? Did they tell you before they died?”
“They were identified.”
“And KGB kills KGB?”
Devereaux stared into the eyes of the saint. “Yes. Think about it: KGB kills KGB.”
“And R Section?” Denisov tried a shy smile. “Does R Section kill its own?”
“Perhaps.”
“Someone called you. In Lausanne. And then these things happen. Do you kill R Section, my friend? Is R Section to kill you?”
Devereaux said nothing.
“You speak madness,” Denisov said. “You say nothing to me but your quiet is madness. You want me to say that KGB kills its own and that R Section kills its own? Speak, my friend, and tell me why I should play this mad game for you.”
“For four thousand shares of stock,” Devereaux said.
Denisov sighed. “My weakness. It is my only weakness.”
“It’s greed.”
“I am a careful man.”
“You stole from KGB when you worked the Resolutions Committee. You
steal now. I don’t care. I want to know about this woman. And about Nutcracker—”
“Four thousand shares. Must I trust you?”
“I will call Krueger and make the purchase through him. Is that satisfactory?”
Krueger was a man in Zurich who kept all the accounts and knew all the numbers and was an honest broker for every side because he was on no side but his own. Denisov nodded.
“He holds them until you deliver,” Devereaux said.
“Good. Be careful. Always be careful and do not trust too much,” Denisov said.
17
FAMILY
Leo said he didn’t mind. Leo was an easygoing sort of man, which suited Lydia Neumann to a T. They always drove in spring. Sometimes to Florida, sometimes to Canada for the last of the winter carnivals in places like Montreal and Quebec City. They brought their own weather with them, their mutual comforts, their sense of each other. It was hard to believe that after seventeen years of marriage they still wanted to be alone with each other. They had no children and yet they still expected children in the vague and rosy future.
They went to the Midwest this time because Lydia had to see the woman in Chicago.
“Besides,” Leo had said, “I haven’t been in Chicago since the navy. Took boot camp at Great Lakes. We went down to Chicago on Saturday and used to hang around the Walgreen drugstore in the Loop, right on State Street. Wait for the girls to come down and look for us. We had a lot of fun.”
“Did you meet many girls, Leo?”
“Oh, some. I guess. I don’t remember.”
He did remember, of course. Lydia smiled fondly at her husband.
And yet she was not relaxed. She had to do this one thing. She probably should not even do this.
Leo was to spend the morning in the Loop, staring up at the tall buildings as though he had never seen such wonders. The day was bright, crisp, full of crowds on the wide walks of Michigan Avenue. The old elevated trains rattled around the screeching curves of the Loop. Leo had a Polaroid camera and took lots of pictures of buildings, monuments, the Picasso statue and the Chagall Wall, and of pretty girls on Dearborn Street who reminded him of all the pretty girls he had known as a sailor a long time before.
