The Last Supper

by Charles McCarry

  “They think you should go outside, under deep cover,” Patchen said.

  “What deep cover?”

  “Your book of poems again. Maybe you could write for that magazine.”

  “What would I do under this impenetrable deep cover?”

  “You’d be a singleton. You’d work alone. You could go anywhere, do anything, become a legend in your own time. If you can escape from Wolkowicz. He doesn’t want to give you up.”

  Christopher had lost none of his affection for Wolkowicz, but he could not work with him again. He knew too much about him.

  “Who would I be working for, under deep cover?” he asked.

  “You’d report to me,” Patchen replied. “But as I said, you’d be working alone.”

  “All right,” Christopher said.

  “Good.” Patchen coughed, then petted his Doberman when it bounded back to him in sympathy. “I think working alone will suit your temperament better,” he said.

  Seven

  — 1 —

  Years afterward, in an expensive Washington restaurant, Rosalind Wilmot put the last forkful of food into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. She drank some wine and touched her lips with a napkin.

  “I think it’s marvelous, the way one can now just ask for a bottle of wine in America and have actual Algerian Beaujolais brought to one’s table,” she said. “The last time I was in Washington my brother took me to a little place that had been recommended by someone in your State Department. ‘Wine list?’ Clive said. ‘I’ll ask the bartender,’ said the waitress. She came back with two great mugs of something Americans call Muscatel. We drank it down. Clive thought that it tasted like Algerian mead. He called for more. ‘This is absolutely delicious!’ he said. ‘Do you make it right here in America from the fermented honey of American bees?’ The waitress said, ‘I’ll ask the bartender.’ ”

  Rosalind smiled across the table at Christopher.

  “You don’t look so very much older,” she said. “But then, you haven’t been working with Wolkowicz, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Lucky chap. For me, there’s been no escape from Robin. You know, of course, that he’s in Washington?”

  Darby was now the head of British intelligence in the United States.

  “I’d heard that,” Christopher said.

  “What else had you heard about Robin?” Rosalind asked.

  “Nothing much.”

  Rosalind gave Christopher a measured look. “That hardly seems possible,” she said. “Robin is the talk of the town. He drinks like a fish and makes the most awful scenes.”

  “Darby drinks and makes scenes?”

  “You find that odd, do you? Robin is taking this posting badly. His duties consist of going to lunch with someone from the Outfit a couple of times a week. He’s expected also to be charming at parties. He’s not very charming, I’m afraid.”

  “I thought there was more to his job than that.”

  “Ordinarily there is. But Robin’s been shut off by the Americans. They refuse to put him in the picture. On important things, they deal direct with London through your chief of station there. Robin thinks there’s a plot against him.”

  “If he’s behaving as you say, maybe they just think he’s a drunk.”

  “If drunks were mistrusted by either side there’d be jolly little Anglo-American collaboration,” Rosalind said. “No, he thinks it’s Wolkowicz.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Wolkowicz is a vengeful bastard, isn’t he? And now he’s such a figure of mystery and power.”

  It was true that Wolkowicz had come up in the world. Dennis Foley, Wolkowicz’s old friend from the congressional investigations committee, had become the President’s assistant for intelligence matters. Foley had borrowed Wolkowicz from the Outfit for special duties. No one knew the exact nature of these duties.

  “Is Barney a figure of mystery and power?” Christopher asked.

  Rosalind’s violet eyes glittered with mistrust. “You know he is. Aren’t you part of his team?”

  “Hardly. I’ve been abroad.”

  “But now you’re back. One would suppose that you’d join up with your old chief again.”

  “Would one?” Christopher said.

  Christopher called for the check. When it came, Rosalind paid it with a new fifty-dollar bill.

  They went outside and got into Rosalind’s car, an inconspicuous gray Chevrolet. The paint gleamed with wax and the upholstery had been vigorously brushed: it could only be a vehicle from the motor pool of the British Embassy. Rosalind was giving Christopher every possible signal—the blurted questions about his reasons for being in Washington, the crisp new fifty out of the petty cash drawer, the car—that she was on duty and he was her target.

  Now, as she drove him through the darkened streets of Georgetown, she began to talk again in the same rude tone she had used in the restaurant. It occurred to Christopher that, in two hours of conversation, Rosalind had made only one joke, the story about the Muscatel.

  “Robin has suggested that I should resume my friendship with you; he thinks I can get you to whisper secrets in bed,” she said. “That should tell you that he’s not quite the man you knew in Vienna.”

  “You mean he wouldn’t have suggested such a thing in Vienna?”

  Rosalind gave a little grunt, as if the car had hit a hole in the pavement.

  “No,” she said. “That was true lust. Besides, Robin wasn’t quite so desperate in those days. His current case of nerves must have something to do with that business with Ilse. One wouldn’t think that a bit of warmed-over sex could mean all that much, but Americans do brood so about such things. It must be because you never seem to know the people you marry, they’re strangers you meet at the office. And of course Ilse was a bloody romantic German, which adds to the lunacy. Remember how Wolkowicz looked, pounding Robin’s face to a bloody pulp in the snow in the Vienna Woods. Quite mad.”

  Rosalind, when she spoke of Americans to Christopher, implied that they were foreigners to him, too. In a way, they were. She stopped the car in front of Christopher’s hotel. “I’m quite desperate myself,” she said. “I’ve asked to be posted away from here. They’re going to let me join my brother in Baghdad.”

  “Do you get along well with your brother?”

  “Madly. It was Robin who suggested it, before he knew you were coming back to assist Wolkowicz.”

  “Why do you have this fixation about my assisting Wolkowicz, Rosalind? In what way am I going to assist him, do you think?”

  “In this vendetta Robin believes is going on against him.”

  “Robin is having alcoholic delusions.”

  Rosalind sat with both hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead. However her manner had changed, she looked the same. It was raining and her white face, framed by its dark hair, was reflected in the windshield. She turned her luminous eyes on Christopher.

  “Delusions, are they?” she said. “Robin will be happy to know that. I’ll tell him. It will give me something to report. It ought to comfort him.”

  She took Christopher’s face between her hands and kissed him on the lips. It was a sisterly kiss, dry and cool.

  “On the other hand, Robin always said of you that you never told unnecessary lies,” she said. “When he remembers that, he may not be so comforted.”

  Both she and Christopher knew that they had been lying to each other all evening. It was part of the work. In Vienna it had been a joke, their professional secrets had been no more important to them as they lay in bed than secrets about old lovers were to an ordinary couple who decided to have an affair.

  Rosalind drove away, weaving a bit as she maneuvered the clumsy American car. She had gone to a lot of trouble to warn Christopher that this business with Darby was no joke. He wondered what her reasons could be.

  — 2 —

  Next day, Wolkowicz and Christopher met by the elephant cage in the zoo. Wolkowicz had made elaborate meeting arrangem
ents, as if they were running an operation in a city behind the Iron Curtain. Christopher had been instructed to approach on foot, through the park, in order to be able to spot surveillance. There were other signs of excessive tradecraft, not typical of Wolkowicz: a figure eight had been drawn in chalk on the sidewalk at a designated place to signify that the meeting was on, and there were to be elaborate signals between Wolkowicz and Christopher before they approached each other. Christopher had been warned not to discuss the meeting with anyone, not even Patchen.

  When Wolkowicz saw Christopher, he took a sack of peanuts out of his pocket and began to feed the elephants; Christopher slapped the folded newspaper he was carrying against his thigh. These were the all-clear signals.

  The formalities over, Wolkowicz seized Christopher by both biceps and gave him a shake. His rubicund face with its button nose and its fat cheeks glowed with pleasure.

  “You seem happy,” Christopher said.

  “I must be glad to see you. I didn’t think Patchen would be smart enough to let me have you.”

  “He knows about this?”

  “Sure he knows. That’s the whole idea.”

  Wolkowicz fed more peanuts to the elephants, who thrust their trunks through the bars of their enclosure; it was obvious that the animals knew Wolkowicz; he must come here often. Christopher grinned. Wolkowicz frowned.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “The elephants like you.”

  “I like elephants,” Wolkowicz said. “Do you know what I’m doing?”

  “No.”

  “I’m running a counterintelligence op.”

  “Who are you running this op for, Barney?”

  “I report to a guy in the White House named Foley. It’s the goddamndest setup. I’m not supposed to tell the Outfit a fucking thing, and so far I haven’t. Patchen is having a fit. That’s why I asked for you. I figured Patchen would try to penetrate this operation. I wanted it to be penetrated. The Outfit has to know what’s going on. I’m under orders from above not to tell the Outfit what I’m doing. How do we handle a situation like that? We use you, the one man who will not screw either me or the Outfit.”

  “You want me to report to Patchen?”

  “Somebody has to.”

  Wolkowicz placed his last peanut in the pink nostril of the nearest elephant and crumpled the empty bag.

  “What about your orders from the White House?” Christopher asked.

  “Fuck the White House,” Wolkowicz said. “Let me give you the scenario.”

  Wolkowicz told Christopher who their target was, and why. When he was finished, he looked into Christopher’s cold, guarded face.

  “You don’t believe it, do you?” Wolkowicz said.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  Wolkowicz’s perfect false teeth appeared, briefly. Over the years, he had grown steadily more corpulent. His flesh had taken on a kind of gloss, like a sausage casing. Now, sprawled on the bench with his legs spread and his hands thrust into his pants pockets, he stared belligerently into Christopher’s eyes.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You think I’m out for revenge.”

  “That’s what Rosalind Wilmot thinks.”

  “Is that so? Did you enjoy your dinner with her last night?”

  “Not especially.”

  “I heard you made an early night of it. Darby knows we’re on him, right?”

  “According to Rosalind, he knows you have him under surveillance. I don’t think he knows what you suspect him of.”

  “He knows, all right,” Wolkowicz said. “I wouldn’t go to all this trouble over what’s-her-name, my ex-wife.” His dentures gleamed again, white in his pink face. “Not that I mind a little bonus.”

  — 3 —

  Later, walking the Doberman, Patchen philosophized. It was early in September and the night was mild, but Patchen wore his scarf and his cap.

  “I sometimes think there is some sort of psychic link between Wolkowicz and me,” Patchen said. “I can’t stand the man and he can’t stand me, but we seem to be overcome by the same suspicions at the same time.”

  “You suspect Darby, too?”

  “Oh, yes. I would have gone after him myself if the White House hadn’t preempted the investigation.”

  “You must be glad they did. It saves the Outfit the necessity of embarrassing the British service.”

  “That, or it saves the British service from being as embarrassed as it ought to be. Us, too.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Patchen hurried along, dragging his leg. It had rained that day and in the washed air his breath smelled faintly of the Bordeaux he had drunk with dinner.

  “The first thing I did when I got this new job, which theoretically gives me access to everything,” Patchen said, “was to look into the history of operations against the Soviets.”

  A month or two earlier, Patchen had been made chief of operations; he ran the entire espionage service.

  “It’s a strange history. In nearly twenty years of trying, the Outfit, on its own, has never initiated a single successful operation within Russia or against a Russian target outside of the Soviet Union. Does that surprise you?”

  “What about the Sewer?”

  “What about it, indeed? Perhaps this merry little jape you and Wolkowicz are putting on will answer that question. But there are so many other questions. You can’t imagine how many.”

  “You think Darby can answer these questions?”

  Patchen cleared his throat. “I think,” he said, “that nearly everyone will be satisfied with his answers. ‘My God,’ they’ll say when Wolkowicz is done, ‘now we know the worst!’”

  It was time to turn back. Patchen called his dog.

  “But will they know the worst?” he said. “I wonder.”

  — 4 —

  Christopher had not imagined that he would see Rosalind again, but within a week he was invited to a British party, and she was among the guests. It was a buffet dinner. Christopher arrived late and after he had filled his plate the hostess led him to the last empty place, a chair that formed part of a circle in front of the fireplace.

  “Do you know all these dreadful foreigners?” she asked. “My niece Charlotte Grestain and Robin Darby, Rosalind Wilmot and—”

  “My dear Paul,” Darby said in a slurred voice, “what a magnificent surprise.” He gave Christopher an elaborate wink. The hostess gave Darby a worried look.

  “You do know one another,” the hostess said. “Marvelous. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  “Tell me the rest of your name, Paul,” Charlotte Grestain said, patting the chair beside her. She was a lean girl, no more than eighteen, with the face of a huntress and a fresh English complexion. She sipped what seemed to be a glass of milk.

  “Christopher.”

  “Really? I think it’s very matey the way you Americans have Christian names for surnames. Do you like milk?”

  “Not especially.”

  “I drink nothing else when in America. It’s your national drink. I wonder if I can have another?”

  She gestured to a waiter. He took her glass. “Milk and whisky, Lady Charlotte?”

  “Yes, please. The whisky improves it enormously.”

  Robin Darby plucked a drink off the waiter’s tray as he passed. He ran his eyes over the long legs of Charlotte Grestain.

  “Whisky and milk is my idea of bridging the Atlantic,” Charlotte said, “mixing the best of the Old World with the best of the New.”

  Darby drained his glass. “You’re a silly little brat, Charlotte,” he said.

  “Famous for it,” Charlotte replied.

  Darby kneaded his empty whisky glass and looked around in naked desperation for another drink, gesticulating to waiters. They passed by, their trays out of reach.

  “They’ve been told not to come near me, that much is plain,” Darby said.

  He uttered a sepulchral laugh. If Wolkowicz had grown meatier in the years sin
ce the fight in the snow over Ilse, Darby, who had always been thin, had become emaciated. His elongated body appeared to have been dropped into its chair like a doll, limbs askew, eyes glassy.

  Darby breathed noisily through his nose. His beard was wet with dribbled whisky. When the waiter returned with Charlotte’s whisky and milk, Darby helped himself to another drink.

  Darby took no part in the small talk that ran around the circle of chairs except to laugh loudly, in a humorless voice, at the witticisms. He employed a different laugh for every member of the party, greeting Charlotte’s sallies with a snort, Rosalind’s with a phlegmy giggle. Only Christopher was spared this treatment; instead of laughing at his remarks, Darby fixed him with a demented wild-eyed stare, hand clapped over his mouth.

  They were joined by two other latecomers, a U.S. senator called Oliver Brooks and his wife. Senator Brooks was in his sixties, but he looked much younger; he had the smooth face of a man of thirty and a magnificent head of coal-black hair. It was suspected that he had undergone hair transplants. His wife was an extremely pretty girl of twenty-two who had been a beauty queen, a final runner-up in the Miss U.S.A. contest, before she married the senator.

  Mrs. Brooks sat down, her shapely knees primly together, and gave everyone in the circle a bright smile. Darby straightened his sprawled body and smiled back just as brilliantly. So long as Darby smiled, Mrs. Brooks continued to smile. She was a responsive girl, eager to be polite. For long moments the beauty queen and the Englishman faced each other, teeth bared. When she gave signs of relaxing her smile, Darby intensified his; she would then smile more brightly. At last she realized that Darby was mocking her. Her smile faded.

  “God,” Darby said, “that was lovely. Put up a card in Soho Square and you could get ten pounds for it—Miss Sourire, Charm School, one flight up. What do you think, chaps?”

  Senator Brooks, who had been talking to Charlotte Grestain, saw nothing amiss. He glanced at his young wife, to see if she perceived the humor in this obscure English joke, but she was poking listlessly at the food on her plate and he couldn’t catch her eye.

  The senator began to tell political anecdotes. Darby, eyes goggling with exaggerated attention, greeted the end of each story with a basso buffo explosion of guffaws that caused heads to turn all the way across the room.