“True. But can you think of any other way?”
“No. I can’t.”
They sat in silence, sipping their coffee.
“Speaking of sins,” Helen said. “If I include your report, won’t they know exactly where it came from?”
“I’ve covered my tracks pretty well. I made sure it got into the hands of at least half a dozen people before they quashed it, so they’ll be under as much suspicion as me. Will they question me? Sure. I’m fine with that.”
“What if they flutter you?”
Claire laughed.
“Let them try. In our training against Soviet interrogation techniques, I beat the polygraph three out of four.”
“Nerves of steel!”
“Or the world’s greatest liar. It’ll certainly come in handy if I ever get married.”
Helen laughed, a welcome release. She’d rarely met anyone whose company made her feel so invigorated, so vital. The circumstances certainly had something to do with it, but she had a feeling that they would have hit it off no matter what.
“It’s too bad we can’t pal around a bit more.”
“Agree completely. But I’m afraid that, for both our sakes, you’re going to be mostly on your own from here on out. I can help a little after-hours, but I can’t afford any more prolonged absences without arousing suspicion. The COS apparently noticed my lengthy lunch today, and was asking around. All of this is my way of telling you that we may not see each other again, so we should agree on a daily contact time, by phone if necessary, and late enough in the day for me to relay any further news from Audra.”
“Sixteen hundred hours?”
“That works. For tomorrow I’ll call you at your hotel. If we need to change the arrangement we can do it on the fly.”
“Okay. Any parting advice on how I should pass my time tomorrow? I doubt it would be a good idea to just stay in my room all day.”
“You should get out and about and play your role, even if it means mixing back into the Instamatic crowd. Remember, you’re a frugal Canadian with birdsongs on the brain, vacationing out of season to cut costs, and maybe a little overwhelmed by the City of Light. In fact, it would probably be a good idea to let a few shopkeepers take terrible advantage of you, so definitely do some shopping. Buy something gloriously tacky.”
“All right. I will.”
“And when the time comes to set something up, I’ll know where to find you, so maybe you could check in at your room a few times along the way. Otherwise, be as carefree as possible, even though you’ll always be one false step away from being found. Either by the Company or by Gilley.”
Helen swallowed hard.
“How cheerful.”
“Intentionally so. For every precaution you’ve taken up to now you’ll need twice as many in the next day or two. All of it while keeping a dopey, touristy smile on your face.”
Helen shook her head.
“I really don’t know half of what you do. Or how you do it.”
“Sure you do. You’re just out of practice.”
“I’ve never gotten into practice.”
“You’ve managed to survive, and you’re halfway home to what you hoped to accomplish. You’re nimble and smart and you’re not what they’re accustomed to. So do us proud, all right?”
“All right.” Claire squeezed her hand. “I will. Then, if they ever let me out of prison, I’ll—”
“Seriously? Prison? Is that what you think they’ll do?”
“Well, won’t they?”
“After what you’ll be giving them, it will be all they can do to buy your silence. Same thing the Brits do with all of their wayward sons. The last place they’ll want you to end up in is a court of law, where you’ll be free to say whatever you please—under oath, no less, while you tell the American public what its government servants have been up to. No, no. Make it back to Berlin and they’ll have to deal with you on your terms. It’s the in-between that’s the tricky part.”
“What’s the worst they’d do? I mean, assuming it isn’t Gilley.”
“I think they’d kill you, dear girl. As quickly and cleanly as circumstances allow.”
“Then I suppose I’d better get moving.”
Claire nodded and looked around. A glance out the back door, and another over her shoulder toward the front entrance. A woman whose radar, as far as Helen could tell, was never switched off.
“It’s probably better if we don’t leave together,” Claire said.
“Of course.”
Helen stood, tried to muster a smile even as she began to feel weak in the knees.
“Goodbye, then. And thank you.”
“I’ll keep doing what I can. With regard to logistics, anyway. And while I’m not the least bit religious, I’ll say this, anyway. Godspeed.”
Helen walked briskly away, and did not look back.
40
August 2014
Henry woke up at four in the morning. The moon was gone, and so was Anna. He sat up, listening. The night bugs were no longer singing, and the oppressive silence made the house feel deserted, a little spooky. Had she walked home? Henry stood and stepped across the room, nearly tripping on a pile of his clothes that Anna had tossed to the floor. All that passion seemed remote now, like something that had happened in another life. Stupid him. Words that he couldn’t take back. He groped for his boxers, pulled on his trousers, buttoned his shirt. Pausing, he listened again, and thought he heard a rustle of paper, the dull knock of a glass being set down on a tabletop.
Moving into the hallway, he noticed that a light was on in the living room, and when he rounded the corner he saw Anna, fully dressed and seated on the couch in an amber glow of lamplight. He smelled coffee, and saw a steaming mug on the table in front of her. She was reading her mother’s letters.
Henry, not wanting to startle her, cleared his throat, but she didn’t look up as he approached. He walked past, taking care not to touch her, but she bristled away from him, anyway.
“You made coffee?”
“In the kitchen.”
He returned with a mug, and took up a position at what he hoped was a suitable distance.
“Making progress?”
“Just getting started.” She still hadn’t looked up, and her voice was a monotone. “It’s clear that all of the letters are from just two people.”
He watched for a few seconds as she pulled folded pages from another envelope and flattened them on the table. Then she finally looked him in the eye.
“I’ve still got some questions. About what you told me last night.”
It had happened during the languid aftermath, as they lay side by side in the moonlit bedroom. That’s when Henry had experienced the ill-advised urge to come clean about his hidden role in this affair. Full disclosure, he decided. It was the only way forward with a clear conscience. Anna’s eyes had a lot to do with his decision. Her gaze was so deep and longing that it worked on his mind like a truth serum. Guilty thoughts of his duplicity simmered to the surface, demanding to be skimmed. And the conditions for confession could not have been more amenable. A breeze stirred the curtains, wafting in honeysuckle. Anna reached forward to stroke his cheek.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she’d whispered. “This whole night.”
“It is. All of it.”
“You don’t think this was a mistake, I hope?”
“Not at all.”
“It’s just that, well, you’ve got this look in your eye, like you’re kind of uncertain.”
So she’d seen it, then, reading him perfectly, even if drawing the wrong conclusion.
“No regrets at all. Not about this.”
“About what, then?” Her eyes again, for the final decisive push.
“There’s something you should know about me. About my work.�
�
“Oh, God. You’re not CIA, are you?” She smiled, still not attuned to the import of what he was about to reveal. It gave him one last opening to exit. Instead, he plunged forward.
“No. But I didn’t come to Poston just to hang out between jobs. It was part of a new job.”
“For the U.S. Attorney?”
“It grew out of the same connections, but a different employer. Somebody in the national security apparatus, if I had to guess. Although that part has always been a little hazy.”
“I see.” Anna went very still, like she feared what was coming next.
“They put me here to keep an eye on your house. Or, more to the point, your mom.”
“My mom?” Her voice barely a whisper. “You were spying on my mom?”
“Not spying. Observing. What they mostly wanted to know about was visitors, everyone who came and went.”
“Oh, observing, big difference! So when she left the house, you followed her?”
“No. I never followed. I stayed here.”
“Well that makes it much better. Fuck. And what did you do with all this…information you collected?”
“Phoned it in to a guy in Washington.”
“Who?”
That was when Henry realized he couldn’t tell the whole truth. Not without wrecking things. It might even put them in danger. He had done enough damage by revealing half. But, for now, half was all that was manageable.
“I don’t know. I didn’t even have a name.” His first lie, although Henry doubted that Mitch was a real name, so it wasn’t much of a lie. “All I had was a phone number.”
“Then call it and ask.”
“It’s no longer working. They were as freaked by what happened as me, and they cut off all contact.” Two more lies. Deeper and deeper. “I was about to skip town when you came knocking.”
“Which is when you should have told me all this.”
“Yes. I should have. And now I am.”
“Goddamn it, Henry! For all we know, your boss was Merle’s boss!”
“No!” He shook his head, relieved to be back on solid ground. “If they were behind this, do you really think they would’ve hired somebody to keep track of all the comings and goings? And then left me here, like some loose end?”
“Then why did you hang around?”
“I told you. Because of you. I’m working for you, now.”
“Then use your goddamn skills and find out who it was!”
“I will. Or I’ll try. But first don’t you think we should deal with the letters?”
She watched him closely for a moment. Then she slapped him, hard, across the jaw. He barely flinched and never looked away. Her shoulders sagged and she began to sob, quietly but with her body shaking. He moved closer and held her. Somewhat miraculously, she let him, but only briefly. Then she pulled free, sighed loudly, and climbed out of bed.
“I need to sleep on this. I’m too tired to walk to the B&B, so I’ll crash on your couch. Lay another hand on me and I’ll press charges.”
“I really am on your side.”
“So be on my side. But not on top of me, and not in bed with me. I’ll decide in the morning what I want to do next. In the meantime, leave me the fuck alone.”
And, now, here they were—a few hours later, again face-to-face, but still awkward and uncomfortable.
“How long did you do it?” she asked. “Spy on my mom, I mean.”
“Six weeks and a day.”
“Jesus! Six weeks? And hasn’t it occurred to you, even once, that whatever your employers were looking for might somehow be related to what we’re looking for?”
“Of course. Especially once we found out your mom was ex-CIA, and started digging up all this weird crap about Merle. It’s one reason I knew I had to tell you. Although the sum total of everything I observed in those six weeks was so run-of-the-mill that I’d be amazed if any of it had the slightest bearing on what we’re looking for now.”
“You saw nothing out of the ordinary?”
“Nothing. And I never saw Merle, or even anyone who might have been Merle in disguise. I did see your brother walking around on his own a few times, heading off toward the fields. But he was never carrying a gun. Maybe he got it from the barn, or around back where I couldn’t see him. He went off with your mom to the store a few times, or I’m assuming it was the store because they always came back with groceries. With your dad, too, once or twice, in the pickup. But nothing ever felt strange or suspicious, about him or anybody else. Like I said, it was the visitors my employer mostly wanted to know about.”
“Why?”
“They never said. And I wouldn’t have expected them to.”
“Well, what visitors did you see?”
“Practically none. For your mom, anyway.”
“None at all?”
“Unless you count Mrs. Furr, from around the corner. Or the mailman, and a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was so uneventful I started wondering why they’d hired me at all. There were a few guys from Washam Poultry, but they were always for your father. He also got a visit from three buddies probably to play poker or something. Plus some older guy who picked him up one morning to go fishing.”
“Everett Anson?”
“That’s the guy.”
“So you reported that, too?”
“It was part of the job. Anyone who came and went. You can see the log book if you want.”
“No thanks.” Then, after a pause. “Or, yes. I will take a look, if you’ve still got it.”
He nodded and retrieved it from a dresser drawer. She flipped the pages, scanning the daily notations of names and tag numbers, the times of day, his brief notes in the margins. She shook her head when she put it down, and sagged a bit on the couch.
“An hour ago I’d made up my mind to fire you. Maybe even to turn you over to the cops, for God knows what. Peeping Tom? Massive fraud? Then I started thinking, well, maybe it’s a plus if you’re more of a pro than I thought. Not that I didn’t suspect it. But if you can help me figure out what happened, great. Just don’t expect any further unqualified trust. From here on out, we’re strictly employer and employee, and even that’s looking shaky.”
“Got it.”
She gestured toward the letters.
“Back to work, then. Provided you don’t have to report in to your masters first.”
“I told you, that’s over,” the words almost sticking in his throat. Last time he’d checked his phone he’d found three angry texts from Mitch, asking why he’d gone silent. He didn’t dare turn on his phone now.
“Okay, then.” She looked wrung out, but resigned to moving forward. She stood and crossed the room. “First, let’s get some more light in this mausoleum of yours.”
She pulled open the curtains to let in the day’s first pale light. Henry couldn’t help but stare, because there before his eyes was the incriminating view again—the Shoat house, on display like the darkened screen of a drive-in movie. He knew then that he never should have said a word. By trying to split the difference on the truth he had only deepened the deception.
She was right about one thing. Work was the only way forward.
41
“I’ve only read the first two letters, but I’ve checked the names and postmarks on all the others,” Anna said, glancing at some notes. “There are twenty-nine in all. Thirteen from someone called IAD, sixteen from CDG. They refer to my Mom as TXL. Most of IAD’s letters were postmarked in McLean. CDG’s came from Paris until the last four, which are from York, Pennsylvania. And three of those arrived during the last four months, beginning in April.”
“Including the one your mother never opened.”
“Yes. And neither have I. Not yet. I think I’m almost afraid of what I’ll find.”
“That’s a lot
of recent activity.”
“I thought so, too. IAD’s last letter came in April, but there’s been nothing since then.”
“Wonder if something’s happened to her?”
“Jesus, what a thought!”
“Well, it’s something we have to consider. And hers were the ones from McLean, down near Langley?”
“Yes, until 2006, when her postmark changed to Currituck, that town in North Carolina. She wrote the first of the letters, in August of 2002. Here. Read it and tell me what you think.”
Henry unfolded the pages.
TXL,
I completely understand and fully share your concern, and suggest that in response we reactivate secure Sisterhood communications for as long as it takes to allay further worry. Toward that end, I am copying this message to CDG. As for your inquiry, I can report only that “Robert” is now officially inactive, although several of his assets remain in the field. His most recent assignments (unverified) were:
—Muhammad al Farooq, Amman, November 2000
—Dragan Jovovic, Novi Sad, July 1998
My only thought as to why he has chosen to reappear now is that he needs to be reassured of your continued compliance with past agreements as he prepares to enter a more public phase of employment.
I remain ever at your disposal,
IAD
Henry put the pages aside while Anna awaited his reaction.
“Looks like this was all about the scary guy you saw at the mall. And it’s clear your mom initiated the correspondence.”
“Robert, they call him. Although I guess the quote marks mean it’s not his real name.”
“Probably not, when they weren’t even using their own names. Any idea why your mom would use TXL?”
“No. But something about the initials for all three of them looks familiar.”
She was right, but Henry couldn’t put his finger on why. Maybe another jolt of caffeine would do the trick. His hangover and all the turmoil had left him feeling the way he used to after a transatlantic flight. Then it hit him.
“Airports.”
“What?”
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