“I think it’s time,” she said, nodding toward it. I’d placed it on the table. The waiter had put the bill on top of it, but I knew she wasn’t referring to paying.
“I think so, too. Drum roll, please.”
“No drum roll. It would sound too much like a firing squad.”
“Oh, I doubt it will be that grim.”
But when I slipped the paper free I saw right away that the tone of this message was more somber and urgent than that of the ones before it. My handler was raising the stakes.
“TAKE HEED!” was handwritten in block letters atop a book page that had been sliced neatly from a copy of le Carré’s Smiley’s People. Not another first edition, I hoped. There were two pages from the book, and a third from another novel. On the Smiley pages, three brief passages were marked in black ink. Taken as one item, they read like this:
“Moscow Rules. I insist Moscow Rules.”
“And what were the contact procedures exactly?” Smiley asked.
“The safety signal was one new drawing-pin shoved high in the first wood support on the left as you entered.”
“And the counter-signal?” Smiley asked.
But he knew the answer already.
“A yellow chalk line,” said Mostyn.
Handwritten afterward, again in block letters, was a street name, “Köllnerhofgasse,” but no number, and no date or time.
“Does this mean you’re supposed to meet someone?” Litzi asked.
“Looks like it. And by Moscow Rules. I guess they want me to make sure I’m not being followed.”
The third page came from a copy of the novel Spy Wednesday, by William Hood, an ex-spy who began his CIA career in Vienna, where he helped run a Soviet double agent in the 1950s. He had ended it as one of James Angleton’s top deputies—so there was Angleton’s ghost yet again. After retiring, Hood had helped former CIA director Richard Helms write his memoirs. When he wrote about spy tradecraft, you could bank on its authenticity, and a tidy example of that was staring up at me from the excised page, in two marked passages:
Earlier that week, Roger Kyle had seen the numerals 3-4-7 jotted boldly across the top of page 222 of volume two of the phone books arranged alongside the bank of pay telephones in the Vienna Central Post Office. Kyle fished a pen from his pocket and drew a line through the numerals. The emergency meeting would be on the third day of the week, Wednesday. At four, the next digit, in the afternoon. The safe house was at Frankgasse 7, the third number.
“So now you’re supposed to go look at some phone book at the Post Office?” Litzi asked.
“Does the Central Post Office even have pay phones anymore?”
“I don’t know. But the doors are unlocked till ten. If we leave now we’ll just make it.”
I’d once known the old post office well, and remembered it fondly. Christmas packages had arrived there every December from my grandparents. Dad always took me on the twenty-third to pick everything up, then we’d stop for a wurst and fries on the way home, dripping grease and sweet mustard onto the packages.
Litzi and I got there eight minutes before closing time. Only three other people were inside—a woman mailing a letter, a sweeper half in the bag, and a security man preparing to lock up. Lo and behold, there were still pay phones, with a handy supply of Vienna directories. When I flipped to page 222 of the second volume, three numbers were scrawled across the top in the same block handwriting that had been used in the message.
2-4-11
“Well, there you go,” I said, feeling the same satisfaction I did whenever I completed the New York Times Saturday crossword. “Two, the second day of the week, means Tuesday, tomorrow. The four means four p.m., at number eleven, presumably on Köllnerhofgasse. Once I get there, all I have to do is look for the safety signal to make sure the coast is clear.”
“That’s the same time as the rendezvous in Spy Wednesday,” Litzi pointed out. “How did that one go?”
“The agent never showed. He’d been kidnapped to Moscow to be executed.”
“Well, that’s promising. What about the contact in Smiley’s People?”
“An Estonian named Vladimir. The KGB shot him in the face.”
Litzi shook her head but couldn’t help laughing.
“Moscow Rules don’t sound very reliable.”
“I’m sure the third time’s the charm.”
“Maybe someone should come with you.”
She said it with a smile, but also an unmistakable note of caution. That, plus Lothar’s earlier warning, reminded me that to some people this sort of information never lost its potency.
“I’ll be all right,” I said. “Vladimir was old and arthritic and walked with a cane.” Fleetingly, unavoidably, I thought again of Lothar, who also walked with a cane. “I can still outrun most people as long as they’re over forty.”
“Don’t joke about it.” Her smile was gone. “Those other messages sounded kind of fun. Not this one.”
True enough. Yet I found myself almost enjoying the aura of incipient danger, especially if it provided a handy pretext for seeing Litzi again.
“You’re as curious about this as I am, aren’t you?”
A shrug, an enigmatic smile.
“I suppose I wouldn’t mind getting to the bottom of things.”
I suppressed a laugh.
“What?” she asked.
“ ‘Getting to the bottom of things.’ Those are the words Holly Martins said to Major Callaway in The Third Man. Do you remember what Major Callaway said?”
I quoted it to her in English, trying for my best impersonation of Trevor Howard in the role of Callaway.
“Death’s at the bottom of this, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.”
This time she didn’t smile. With good reason, as it turned out. Major Callaway was right.
10
I’d texted my father to tell him I’d be late, but I hadn’t told him why. I felt guilty about that because I knew he was eager to find out what had happened at Kurzmann’s, and by the time I kissed Litzi goodnight it was nearly eleven. True to her word, she didn’t invite me upstairs, but we were meeting again tomorrow.
Dad and I had muddled through the balance of the previous evening with the help of food and lager. Figlmüller lived up to its end of the bargain by serving schnitzels the size of catcher’s mitts, but even that old comfort hadn’t eased things between us. I still had lots of questions, and I’m sure he had a few.
As I approached his apartment I saw that the lights were on. I was counting on the news of Litzi to serve as an icebreaker. He had always been fond of her, although I couldn’t help but remember his strange reaction the first time I’d mentioned her.
“What’s that name again, son?”
“Litzi Strauss.”
“Litzi. How unusual. Is she a Jew?”
“What? Does that matter?”
“Certainly not. It’s just that Kim Philby’s first wife was a Litzi from Vienna. Litzi Friedmann, a Jew. That’s why I asked. But your Litzi’s a Strauss. Doesn’t sound Jewish.”
“She’s not my Litzi.”
“Well, not yet, anyway.”
My blush told him all he needed to know about my ambitions on that front, and he nodded in approval.
“I’m happy for you, son. Love keeps us on our toes.”
“I never said I was in love.” Redder still.
Another knowing nod, then he said smugly, “No, I suppose you didn’t.”
Stung, I struck back below the belt.
“Being in love with Mom didn’t seem to keep you on your toes.”
The light went out in his eyes, and his subsequent surrender made me miserable.
“You’re right about that, son. Good luck with her all the same.”
He never asked about her in any meaningful way again. Small talk only where Litzi was concerned, and I was the poorer for it.
I found him waiting up for me in the living room with only Johnnie Walker Black for company. Ju
dging by the level in the bottle, they’d gotten comfortable. I was tipsy from the wine, putting us on an equal footing.
“Long day?” he asked from his easy chair, a hint of concern in his tone. “Hope it wasn’t Christoph keeping you out so late, filling your head full of nonsense?”
“Christoph couldn’t get me out of Kurzmann’s fast enough. I ran into an old friend. Litzi Strauss.”
He brightened instantly.
“Wonderful! How is she?”
“Currently unmarried, looking well, and I’m seeing her again tomorrow. Those are the three things you really wanted to know, right?”
“I suppose so.” He smiled at my peace offering. “But tell me about Kurzmann’s. I’ve been wondering all day.”
“It was pretty strange. He hardly told me anything, except that he hadn’t taken a special order like that since the year we moved to Berlin. He did mention the whole routine you used to have. The Sunday phone calls at two on the dot. The plain brown wrappers tied in string.”
“Your delivery was wrapped that way?”
“Same price, too, except in euros. Or so he claimed.” Dad shook his head in amazement. “But he wouldn’t say what the transactions meant, or who they were for.”
“Probably because he didn’t know, and he never would’ve jeopardized the arrangement by asking. That price looked even higher back in the seventies. Christoph made a pretty penny off those little visits, but I suppose they were his fee as middleman.”
“Middleman for what? And what was your role?”
“I was a courier, plain and simple. It was my job to make the pickup, then drop off the item later in the day at another address, which was also relayed by phone, some voice telling me that my shirts were ready. There was a code. The name of the cleaner’s was always the street, and the stated price was the address.”
“Not very sophisticated.”
“Not if the line was bugged. But the embassy checked pretty regularly in those days.”
“Who was the ‘they’ in all this?”
“You can probably guess.”
“The Agency?”
“That was always my assumption.”
“Then tell me one thing. A truthful answer, straight up yes or no.”
“If I can.”
“Were you CIA?”
“No.”
He said it immediately and without wavering, his eyes looking straight into mine. His face and hands were calm, no gestures to betray either nerves or uncertainty. Then why did I still not believe him? He must have sensed my doubt, because he then opened up in a way he never had before.
“Look. When I say no, I mean absolutely, unequivocally no. But at various postings I was State’s liaison to the Agency. It’s unofficial. You’ll damn well never find it in Foreign Service job listings, but every embassy has one, and when you and I were living in Europe, I was usually the guy. So I did a few chores for them. It came with the job.”
“Like those meetings we used to go to, with those men who never gave their names?”
“What?”
“C’mon. You don’t remember dragging me to all those bars and cafés?”
He seemed annoyed.
“I met lots of old friend in cafés and bars. No doubt I sometimes took you along. But I wasn’t meeting spies for the Agency. Other than those few courier assignments, I never knowingly did anything for the Agency beyond a little consular paperwork—cleaning up a few passports, doling out visas for some of their émigrés, that sort of thing.”
Well, that was one youthful illusion shattered, provided he was telling the truth. Then he had a question for me.
“This package Christoph gave you—did you open it? Because that’s certainly something I never did.”
“Never?”
“Why risk finding out something that could get me in trouble? What if I’d been hauled in for questioning by some foreign government? I might’ve lost my job, or worse. Was I curious? Sure, but never tempted. And I believe I asked you a question.”
“Yes, I opened it. I took it down the street to a little Konditorei and sat in the back. It was nothing special. A German translation of London’s Own. Fourth printing of the paperback edition, unsigned.”
I withheld the part about “Dewey” and the enclosed message. If he offered more maybe I’d reciprocate.
“Right after I opened it I was accosted by this strange old troll who must have followed me from Kurzmann’s. His name was Lothar, and he sent you his regards.”
Dad surprised me by smiling broadly.
“The one and only? German fellow, looked like he might have just pulled an all-nighter with Mick and the Stones?”
“With a cane that he taps like a telegraph.”
“Complete affectation, but he’s entitled. Lothar Heinemann is a legend. Book scout extraordinaire.”
“Book scout?”
“How do you think I tracked down half my collection?” He waved an arm toward his shelves. “Some of the choicest finds were his. Ask Lothar to find a needle in a haystack and he’ll be back inside a week with five to choose from, plus a sewing box. He’s a genius. The problem is finding him. And, frankly, keeping him sober.”
“Booze?”
“Worse. Although I hear he’s been clean for years. Used to be very popular with Agency people. Ran off the rails for a while in the early seventies, but by then he was out of my price range. Too many other people wanted the same kind of stuff.”
“Agency people collect spy novels?”
“God, yes. At least half a dozen, to hear Lothar tell it, but I could never get him to spill any names. Lothar was always pretty cagey about who he was scouting for. But I do know one collector who never hired him. Edwin Lemaster.”
“He was a collector?”
Dad gave me a smug look that suggested I should’ve known all along.
“That’s how we became friends, since you’ve always wanted to know. Talking about books. I was a little surprised he didn’t bring it up back in eighty-four.”
Finally.
“So where did you meet? And what year?”
“Oh, it must have been the late fifties. But I didn’t get to know him all that well until later, around sixty-seven. He’d just started writing Knee Knockers when we ran into each other at a bookstore in Budapest. He wasn’t comfortable telling the Agency about his little writing project, understandably, so I became a sounding board for his ideas—the plot, the characters. He loved the genre as much as I did, and wanted to be a part of it. I remember the day well. It was at Ferenc Szondi’s old store on Corvin Square.”
“Didn’t you send me there once to pick up a package? Wrapped in butcher paper, even?”
“I’m sure it was more than once.”
So I was right.
“Those were Agency errands?”
“Lord, no. Do you really think I’d have dispatched my ten-year-old on a mission for the CIA?”
A second illusion now lay in ruins, albeit one I’d concocted only that morning. Obviously my childhood hadn’t been as exciting as I thought, and I could only smile at my overactive imagination. It was the fault of those books on his shelves. Gazing up at them now, I easily recalled the way they’d once fired my youthful fantasies.
I knew the vital statistics of his collection by heart: 222 novels by 48 authors. Eighteen had worked for intelligence agencies, six more for a foreign ministry or a war office, so you knew the pages were spiked with disguised secrets.
By now you may have concluded it was mostly a Cold War library. While that aptly describes the ones I read as a teen, his holdings were far broader and deeper. More than a quarter of his first editions were published before 1950, and even The Riddle of the Sands, from 1903, wasn’t nearly the oldest.
There was Rudyard Kipling’s Kim from 1901, with its Great Game intrigues of British India, and William Le Queux’s Strange Tales of a Nihilist from 1892. The oldest was James Fenimore Cooper’s The Spy from 1821, a tale of a double agent for George Wa
shington. Dad’s two-volume copy was so fragile that he’d placed it off-limits, which made me curious enough at the age of fifteen to track down a reprint in an embassy library. I realized by the second sentence, which ran to a breathtaking eighty-five words, that I’d never finish. Yet it was Cooper’s first best seller, and he showed surprising prescience about the future of spying by having Washington tell the hero, “You must descend into the grave with the reputation of a foe to your native land. Remember that the veil which conceals your true character cannot be raised in years—perhaps never.”
You’ve probably never heard of most of the earliest authors, but some were hugely popular. Le Queux, for one, although to me he was a hack. Manning Coles, of the Tommy Hambledon books, took the quality up a notch, as did John Buchan, and then Ambler. And of course there was Joseph Conrad, who not only produced The Secret Agent in 1907, but a 1911 sequel, Under Western Eyes.
It was only in the mid-fifties that Cold War tales came into vogue, and even those were dominated for years by a pair of rakish Brits—Ian Fleming’s James Bond and Desmond Cory’s Johnny Fedora. Fedora is largely forgotten now, but he was in print two years before Bond. JFK made all the difference for Fleming when the dashing young president revealed he was a Bond fan. Sales took off, and Hollywood took notice. Fleming also had the better pedigree, having worked in British intelligence with everyone from Kim Philby to Graham Greene.
Dad harrumphed that Fedora and Bond were “cartoons for the drunk and oversexed,” yet he collected all sixteen Fedoras, and all fourteen Bonds with their beautiful jacket illustrations by Richard Chopping. He also grabbed up the first five books in Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm series—another man of action, and far worthier than the spoofy film portrayal by Dean Martin—and all four books in Adam Diment’s series featuring Philip McAlpine, a groovy Austin Powers prototype.
The more cerebral spies whom we now think of as the genre’s exemplars didn’t start showing up until ’61, with le Carré’s Smiley, and at first even he was more concerned with solving murders than digging out moles. Then, in ’62, Len Deighton gave us something darker and more genuine to chew on with The Ipcress File, with its anonymous hero (a spy who didn’t acquire the Harry Palmer name until the books went to Hollywood). The following year le Carré published The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, which made even Graham Greene gush, and afterward things were never the same.
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