The Double Game

by Dan Fesperman

  “And what happened to his wife?”

  “Run over in the streets of Paris by the KGB.”

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “All right.”

  “How’s your father?”

  “Good question. I’ve upset him with all this snooping around. I have no idea how I’ll explain what happened today, or if I’ll even try. He’s worried enough already, and he’s pissed I’ve dragged you into it. I think he went to the embassy this morning to do some checking around of his own.”

  “I see him out on the town now and then. Always in very nice places. He’s a man of genuine style. I’ve thought about going over to say hello, but I didn’t want to embarrass him.”

  “You should definitely say hi. He’s always liked you. And I wouldn’t worry about embarrassing him. He’s probably just out with one of his mystery women, the ones he never dared bring back to the house when I was growing up. I guess he thought I’d think he was being disloyal to Mom.”

  She shrugged.

  “I wouldn’t know. It never seems to be any one person.”

  “He’s shy about all that, even now. It’s probably why I always have to give him a few days’ notice before a visit, although I doubt he’d admit it.”

  Litzi nodded, but didn’t reply.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You looked like you were about to say something.”

  She smiled uncomfortably.

  “I know better than to get into the middle of something between a father and his son.”

  I let it go. We had more enjoyable things to do than discuss Dad.

  We must’ve stayed up for another hour or so, and I woke up later nestled against Litzi’s back. The room was dark and still. I was immediately alert, but this time jet lag wasn’t to blame. I’d been startled by a noise from outside, a loud tapping from the street below. Now all was quiet.

  Then there was a voice. A shout, or more of a hoot, followed by a peal of laughter. Young voices, not Lothar’s or the Hammerhead’s, so I relaxed. Just kids. Although, at my age, “kids” now seems to cover almost anyone up through their early twenties. Because how could any contemporary of my son’s be anything but a kid?

  There was another hoot, more laughter. They’d obviously been drinking, but they sounded harmless, and were soon well down the block. Yet something about them had unsettled me. What?

  I realized they’d reminded me of the kids outside Burger King, the ones on skateboards who’d supposedly put the envelope into Litzi’s purse as they bumped past us. I saw them again, a mental snapshot that now had the clarity that is only possible at such an isolated hour. And in my mind’s eye I now saw clearly that they hadn’t passed within five feet of us.

  Then why had Litzi said they’d bumped into her? Was my memory faulty, or had she made it up? And if the latter was true, why? Unless she had been knowingly hired by my handler and had been in on this from the beginning. If that were true, she could’ve had the note with her all along, another item on her checklist of duties for the day.

  I tossed in bed, angry at my doubt. It was that time of night when your thoughts can stray into all sorts of troublesome corners, and I wanted nothing further to do with it. But at least an hour passed before I could get back to sleep. In the morning I wondered whether to say something about it, but Litzi beat me to the punch.

  “I’ve been thinking about those boys,” she said. “The ones outside the Burger King.”

  “What about them?”

  “Maybe that’s not how the envelope got there. I’m not even sure they bumped into me. It might have happened sooner, or maybe later. I don’t know what to think.”

  I was hugely relieved, although of course I couldn’t say so.

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Obviously someone found a way.”

  “Do you want coffee?”

  “I’d better get to my father’s before he leaves the house. And I want to check the laptop on the way.”

  “Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Back on the offensive!”

  I laughed along with her. In the full light of morning the idea of catching the Hammerhead on video now seemed preposterous.

  “What will you tell your father?”

  “I don’t know. As little as possible. The sooner I leave for Prague, the better.”

  “Should I start packing?”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Only if you want me to. We said we’d sleep on it, and I slept on it very well. What about you?”

  She caressed my cheek. I was happy she was coming, but the doubts of the night before hadn’t completely dissipated.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. You really sure you want to do this?”

  “Only if you are.”

  “Of course.”

  I said it brightly, but she tilted her head to scrutinize me for a moment, then leaned over to kiss me.

  “It’s all right if you change your mind, you know.”

  “No. Start packing. I’ll check the train schedule and call from my dad’s. We’ll do it right this time. No men in brown coats.”

  And with that her face fleetingly darkened, a cloud that passed and was gone.

  Out in the streets it was a gorgeous morning, leaves fluttering from the maples against a brilliant blue. Paperboys filled their news racks, and bakeries perfumed the air with the smell of warm bread and brewing coffee. Street sweepers tidied the last corners for the crowds yet to come, and the more ambitious café proprietors were already rolling down their awnings. My suspicions felt foolish. Maybe all of that “trust no one” gospel was getting to me, along with the residue of cynicism from my years at Ealing Wharton.

  The thunderhead on this sunny horizon, of course, was Vladimir. The thought of his bleeding body on the gurney made me check again over my shoulder before I entered the hotel across from Gasthaus Brinkmann.

  Seventeen video clips awaited me on the laptop. I was a little surprised there weren’t more, given how many people were already out in the streets. In the first sixteen, men and women of all shapes and sizes flashed by, none matching Gelev’s description of the Hammerhead.

  As soon as the last one began with a large man emerging from the gasthaus doorway, I knew it was him. The iron jaw, the large head, the meat-red slab of a face, the windswept pompadour of thick gray hair. Gelev hadn’t prepared me for his eyes. Brown, yes, but with an almost alarming intensity, probing and alert. When his gaze locked onto the webcam, I involuntarily flinched. He stopped and stared, tilting his head. Then he smiled sloppily, mouth agape, and he nodded slightly as if saying hello. He stepped forward, filling the screen, and reached toward me with a massive hand, its image distorted by its closeness to the lens just before the screen went dark. It was easy enough to imagine the rest, right up to the point when the camera’s fragile orb must have collapsed in his powerful fist like an eyeball beneath a sledgehammer.

  I checked the time signature on the video. Fifty minutes ago. If he’d been on his way to breakfast or a rendezvous, then he might be on his way back even now. I closed the laptop, a fluttery feeling in my chest like the one I used to get before big races against tough opponents.

  Then I shook myself into action, briskly walking downstairs to drop the key at the front desk. I turned the knob on the front door before thinking better of it and heading for the back. I exited into an alley that took me to the end of the block, where I turned in the opposite direction from the Gasthaus Brinkmann, glancing over my shoulder every few feet all the way to Dad’s.

  Gelev was right. The Hammerhead didn’t look like the sort of fellow you’d want to cross, and I told myself several times that he was almost certainly here on some other business than me.

  Try as I might, I remained unconvinced.

  17

  When I opened the door of the apartment, relieved to be back on safer ground, Dad was standing over the stove making breakfast for two.

  “Figured you were du
e to roll in soon. Hope you’re hungry. Bacon’s coming right up.” He flinched from a spatter of grease, then laughed. “I always eat like an American when you’re here.”

  “You don’t have to, you know. I usually get by on yogurt and granola these days.”

  “I know. But something about having you back always brings it out in me. Maybe I’m homesick.”

  “You still get homesick for the States?”

  “Almost any American does when he’s been abroad long enough.”

  “I never did.”

  “Well, you never knew any other life. You’d feel it now, I bet, if you stayed away long enough.”

  It was an interesting thought. If you were to ask me where home was, I’d say Georgetown, not because I’d been living in Washington for years, but because that’s where David was. Would it still feel like home if he moved away?

  Seeing Dad at the stove took me back to so many mornings from our past. Throughout our gypsy tour of Europe, this was the one view that had never changed. Some families make it a point to always gather for dinner. Our time was breakfast. Toast, eggs, bacon, and coffee. The ritual reading of the daily papers, with Dad’s running commentary and my persistent questions. Before we set out there was always a checklist for school—books? homework? lunch? Then he would see me to the schoolhouse door, even after I was old enough to get there on my own. Whether we walked, rode a tram, or, on rare occasions, took an embassy car, it gave us a chance to talk awhile longer. Nannies and sitters didn’t enter the picture until the afternoon, and they were movable furniture, Dad the only constant.

  So as I watched him now, spatula in motion—a far defter cook than Litzi, I thought with amusement—I experienced an overwhelming sense of landing at a safe harbor in a storm. Yet I couldn’t avoid a feeling of mild regret as I noted his pronounced stoop, the age spots on his hands, the wispy hair. At seventy-eight, he is fragile, fading, and I know his few remaining years will fly by. I should spend more time here, and more time with David. The three of us should spend a week together sometime soon.

  I carried the steaming platters of food to the table while he poured coffee. The paper was already folded next to the napkins. We tucked in.

  “So I take it you’ve come from Litzi’s?”

  “We spent the day together. Very pleasant. We’ve decided to go to Prague for a few days.”

  “Prague. Interesting choice.” He paused. “Have you enlisted her in your … investigation, for lack of a better word?”

  “My research? She thinks it’s fascinating. She has a few useful contacts.”

  “I’d be careful of those.”

  “Dad, she’s an archivist at the National Library.”

  He shook his head but didn’t reply. Then he opened his newspaper, his customary way of signaling for silence. It wasn’t rudeness, it was our old routine.

  “Goodness, the economy … Hmm … Looks like the U.S. midterms are going to be a disaster.”

  “More business for Marty Ealing, no matter what.”

  He peeped over the page.

  “You sound like you’re getting tired of him.”

  “I’ve been tired of him since day one. It’s my tolerance that’s running out.”

  He nodded, seemingly pleased, and turned the page.

  “Well, now.” Something had caught his eye. The pages shuffled as he pulled the story closer. After a few seconds, he lowered the paper and stared into space, concentrating. I bit into a slice of bacon.

  “Tell me something. In this research of yours, has the name of a Boris Trefimov come up?”

  “No.”

  He glanced back at the paper.

  “Living on … Köllnerhofgasse?”

  I swallowed. The bacon went down like a shard of tree bark.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, there’s this funny coincidence. Not ha-ha funny, but strange. I was at the embassy yesterday for a few odds and ends. Nothing important.”

  “No, of course not.”

  He noted my skepticism but didn’t rise to the bait.

  “Anyway, I was talking to Lewis Dean.”

  “And what does Lewis Dean do?”

  “Oh, he’s some sort of regional specialist.” Whatever that meant. I made a mental note to look up Lewis Dean later in Dad’s embassy directory. “While we were chatting, someone handed him a general information release that had just come in, a printout of an email alerting all hands to the presence in Vienna of this Boris Trefimov fellow, who apparently was wrapped up in some sort of smuggling ring that our people from Justice had an interest in. It gave his address and everything.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “Lew seemed to think so.” Lew now, not Lewis. “Said it was almost like someone upstairs was letting it be known that Trefimov was there for the taking, because this sort of cable traffic—excuse me, this sort of email traffic, old habits die hard—always leaks like a sieve. He said it was as if someone had declared open season on the fellow. And sure enough …”

  He showed me the story. Trefimov had been murdered at his apartment on Köllnerhofgasse. Beneath the headline was a mug shot of a younger, cleaner Vladimir.

  “Someone killed him?” I asked, trying to inject a note of innocence. My mouth was dry, so I sipped coffee. Dad watched closely.

  “You forgot to put milk in.”

  “So I did.” I knew my cheeks were reddening as I reached for the milk.

  “Not just killed him. Shot him in the face. The way the KGB used to do it.”

  “In Smiley’s People, anyway.” I couldn’t resist.

  “Yes. Poor old Vladimir Miller.”

  “Who sent the email?”

  “Lew’s people in Washington.”

  I wondered what to say next. I was wondering a lot of things, such as who “Lew’s people” were, and which of them had released the information. Did Lew’s people also know what Litzi and I were up to? Or the Hammerhead? Had one of them made the pickup at the dead drop? And was Dad privy to more than he was saying? Was he in fact baiting me? He seemed to have zeroed in on the story pretty quickly. Maybe he’d seen it before I arrived, and had been planning to spring it on me from the moment the bacon hit the skillet.

  God, but I was getting paranoid. Mistrusting Litzi, now my dad. Maybe David would be next. Except I’d already done that, however fleetingly, when I’d wondered at Martin’s if he had helped someone break into my town house.

  “What else does the story say?”

  “That Trefimov was believed to be a former KGB agent, stationed in Prague. Doesn’t say when.”

  Early seventies, I could have told him. Code name Leo, most likely, reporting to someone named Oleg. Had to be. And I now wondered what the relationship had been between Oleg and the Hammerhead, or if they might even be one and the same, since “the Hammerhead” was just an émigré nickname. I nodded but said nothing.

  “Lately he’s been associated with organized crime. Human trafficking, drugs, and—now, this is interesting—peddling old KGB secrets, it says. Probably his own, don’t you think?”

  “Probably.” My palms prickled with sweat.

  “Here’s something else. ‘Police are seeking the whereabouts of a man and woman who may have visited the victim a few hours before the murder. A spokesman described their appearance as white, slender, middle-aged, modestly dressed, and of average height.’ ”

  “That could be just about anybody.”

  “Not really.”

  My cell phone rang. I was so startled that I banged the table with a knee. I answered while Vladimir’s photo stared at me upside-down from across the table.

  “Yes?”

  “Dad?”

  “David! Good to hear from you. Isn’t it kind of early over there?”

  “Late, you mean? It’s almost two in the morning.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Actually, no. I’m at your place. And, well, I think someone’s broken in. But I’m not positive, so I’ve spent an
hour looking for other stuff that might be missing, and wondering if I should call the cops.”

  “Other stuff? What’s missing? What makes you think somebody’s been there?”

  “Well, I know this’ll sound, like, weird, but …”

  “Just say it, son.”

  “Books. Three whole shelves, it looks like. Unless you took them with you, or boxed them up somewhere.”

  “No. I didn’t. Which ones?”

  “The ones I came looking for. Your spy novels. I was going to borrow Lemaster’s A Spy for All Seasons, but they’re all gone.”

  “Were the doors locked?”

  “Every single one. Windows, too. And I don’t think they took anything else. I’ve checked pretty carefully.”

  “Is there … Is there any kind of message for me?”

  “On the answering machine?”

  “No. This would be written. On the floor with the mail, maybe.”

  “Hang on.”

  He put down the phone. I listened to his footsteps. Dad, following the gist of the conversation, looked concerned, brow creased. His spotty hands rested on the table as if he was poised to leap into action. David came back on the line.

  “No. Nothing. There was one thing earlier, but I’m not even sure it’s worth mentioning.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “One of the books, a Lemaster, was open facedown on the couch. I assumed they missed it because you left it there.”

  “Which one? Open to what page?”

  There was a brief pause as he stepped to the couch.

  “A Lesson in Tradecraft. Page one-nineteen. Did you mark it up like this?”

  “You know me. I don’t mark them, and I don’t bend the pages.”

  “It says ‘Find his work’ at the top of the page. Below, they’ve drawn lines around a paragraph.”

  “Black ink? Block letters?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Read me the paragraph.”

  “Now? It’s kind of long.”

  “Yes. Slowly, please.”

  “Okay. Here goes:

  “Folly looked across the tearoom and recognized his old agent right away. Heinz Klarmann was a wiry man who, to judge from his bloodshot eyes, might have just emerged from some all-night competition—seven-card stud, boozing, computing prime numbers on an abacus; any and all of them seemed plausible. A tired brown hat slouched on his head like a deflated balloon, lending him the air of a failed artist. He looked more Bohemian than German, although the moment he opened his mouth it was plain to everyone that Klarmann was Berlin to the core. An elaborately carved cane which he tapped as frenetically as an SOS from a sinking ship helped disguise a slight limp of unknown provenance. Barroom scuffle? Childhood illness? Drunken fall? No one knew, and Klarmann wasn’t saying. All that Folly cared about was that once you gave him an assignment you could consider it done, no matter how many shots of Schnapps or doses of dubious pharmaceuticals Klarmann consumed along the way. The man was a mercenary at heart, and would always finish the job, a professional to the core. This is why Folly was forever worried that someday, somehow, some other service would steal him away.