The Once and Future Spy

by Robert Littell

  The Admiral sighed inwardly. If he could wind up this last assignment on a positive note, he vowed never to allow himself to be lured out of retirement again.

  “What day are we today?” the Admiral asked Wanamaker.

  “The seventh.”

  “That still leaves eight days to the Ides,” Toothacher noted without much enthusiasm.

  14

  Biting on a cuticle, Snow flipped to the next page in the Weeder’s manuscript. She was up to the part that described Molly and Nate exchanging vows. Her eyes became moist. She pulled a handkerchief from her jeans pocket, noisily blew her nose, continued reading.

  The Weeder noticed Snow’s shoulders trembling. “Where are you?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m in the boardinghouse,” Snow replied. “Molly has just asked Nate to renounce all pride, ostentation and vanity in apparel and behavior.” She bent back to the page, gasped softly, turned impatiently to the next page, read it, lifted her head, closed her eyes, breathed through her nostrils. When she felt calmer she read the entry a second time. “Oh,” she murmured. “It’s an incredible story. And the way you tell it-what’s amazing is she doesn’t try to hide. She makes me feel as if-”

  The Weeder finished the thought for her. “As if you were invading her privacy. As if you were photographing her naked through a slightly open door.”

  Snow nodded carefully. “I’ve always thought of my photographs as wounds, and the language you would use to describe the photographs to a blind person as a kind of bandage over those wounds. Molly was ambushed by grief-that’s her wound. And she is treating the wound with language. Describing a wound is one way of treating it. When she tells Nate she has appetites, she’s talking about more than sexual appetites, I think. She’s talking about an appetite for life in general; she’s talking about the absolute necessity to relate to people, which is incredibly difficult to do once you’ve been ambushed by grief.”

  The Weeder said, “You’re speaking from experience, obviously.”

  Snow nodded slowly. “I was driving the car when my husband … when Jeb was killed. If I had been more alert … if I had been quicker.” She shrugged tiredly. “If, if, if, if.” The smile that kept the tears at arm’s length installed itself on her lips as she turned back to finish reading what the Weeder had written.

  Across the room he watched her devour the manuscript. The unrelated fragments he had collected over the years were falling neatly into place: General Howe’s cryptic reference, in a note to his brother, about how the Colonial spy being an officer in Colonel Knowlton’s regiment made all the difference; Montresor’s account, in a letter to his wife, of being summoned to translate some Latin documents into the King’s English; the story, contained in a diary, of Provost Marshal Cunningham’s refusal to let a condemned man write last letters or give him access to a clergyman; A. Hamilton’s story of having worked out coded sentences with Nate; the description of an execution in John Jack’s oral history.

  Snow finished reading the manuscript, looked up at the Weeder. “My great-aunt Esther told you all these things?” she asked.

  “She let me have a look at Molly’s diary. I filled in the gaps.”

  “How do you know so much about Nate?”

  The Weeder grinned sheepishly. “It’s me, Nate.”

  Snow studied his face, not sure how to take this piece of information. “You’re Nate?”

  He could see the idea startled her and backed off. “In a manner of speaking.”

  The Weeder walked over to stare out the window. The night was filled with the low hum of traffic from the turnpike, which cut through the neighborhood two blocks away. Across the alleyway, in a boxlike apartment building, a young woman in jeans could be seen through a first-floor window with its shade half-drawn. She was leaning with her back against a wall, talking into a telephone. At one point she held the phone at arm’s length and stared at it, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, then brought it back to her ear and resumed the conversation. Snow came up behind the Weeder-he could feel her breath on his neck-and looked at the woman. The Weeder shook his head. “I’ve lost my appetite for invasions,” he muttered. “One way or another I’m getting out of that line of work.”

  “For me,” Snow said, “invasions can still be instructive.” She studied the Weeder’s reflection in the window, noticed that he looked preoccupied. “Where are you?” she asked.

  “I was thinking about my man Nate. I was thinking about how he got the lobsters to change their plans. Howe never did land at Throg’s Neck and strap Washington in Manhattan.” The Weeder’s eyes appeared to lose their ability to focus. Thinking out loud, he said, “In the end Nate’s scheme was brilliantly simple. He set out to convince Howe that his enemy knew what he was up to. If I could convince Wanamaker that his enemy knows what he’s up to …” His voice trailed off.

  Snow asked, “Who is Wanamaker’s enemy?”

  “It’s the Russians who are Wanamaker’s enemy. It’s Savinkov who is”-the Weeder spun around; his eyes focused on Snow –”Wanamaker’s enemy.”

  “Savinkov?”

  “He’s the KGB station chief in Washington. One of the things I did for the Company was eavesdrop on Savinkov. If I could somehow convince Wanamaker that the Russians know about the bomb, that Savinkov is only waiting for it to explode to leak the story to the world, the Company will have to abandon Stufftingle the way Howe had to abandon the amphibious operation against Throg’s Neck.”

  Snow wasn’t sure she followed him. “How could this Savinkov know about the bomb unless he had a spy in Wanamaker’s office?”

  “That’s just it,” the Weeder said. “What if I were Savinkov’s spy? What if I had been spying for him all along?”

  “But you’re not. You weren’t.”

  “I could pretend. It shouldn’t be too difficult to drop a clue in the right place.” Suddenly the Weeder’s eyes widened in discovery. “I could use the dead drop in Boston!”

  “Now you’re losing me,” Snow admitted. “What’s a dead drop?”

  The Weeder grasped her wrists. “It could work! A dead drop is an out-of-the-way hiding place agents use to pass messages and money and film back and forth with their handlers. When I was eavesdropping on Savinkov I found out he knows that the FBI is servicing his dead drop behind the radiator in the men’s room of a museum here in Boston. Which means that if I were to deposit something in this particular drop Savinkov wouldn’t get it, but the FBI would.”

  “What could you put in the drop?”

  The Weeder beamed. “What Nate put between the soles of his shoe-evidence. I could start with the pawn ticket, which would lead the FBI to the printouts on Stufftingle. The FBI wouldn’t know what they were and would turn to the Company for help. The Company would never tell the FBI what it meant-but my bosses would draw the appropriate conclusion. Stufftingle had been compromised. I could add a personal note to Savinkov-in Latin, why not? because he speaks Latin, and how would I know that unless I worked for him? I could say here’s the final batch of printout on Stufftingle. I could inquire about something personal-something that only someone who knew Savinkov intimately would be familiar with. His hemorrhoids! I could ask him if the medicine I recommended for his hemorrhoids had helped him!”

  Snow took the Weeder’s hands in hers and turned them so that his palms were facing up. She touched the scabs that had formed over the rope burns. “Your life lines have been erased,” she noted worriedly.

  The Weeder pulled his hands free and turned to stare out the window. He went over the whole thing again in his mind looking for flaws, but couldn’t find any. “The beauty of it,” he said, “is that they won’t be able to reschedule another Stufftingle after the Ides of March deadline passes. Once they think the Russians know about it they’ll have to cancel Stufftingle permanently.”

  Snow asked, “What will they do to you if they think you’re a Russian spy?”

  The Weeder shrugged; the answer seemed evident. “They ca
n’t very well put me on trial. I know too much. About Operations Subgroup Charlie of the Special Interagency Antiterrorist Working Group. About Stufftingle.”

  Snow let this sink in for a moment. “Did you ever think of bypassing the CIA? Of going to the Justice Department, for instance? Or the President?”

  “What do I do? Waltz into the Oval Office and say, ‘Mr. President, there are things going on out there you should know about.’ Consider the possibility that he already knows about it, that he may have authorized Stufftingle. The President and the CIA’s late lamented director were thick as thieves. It would have been entirely in character for the director to mention, in an offhand way, that he was going to explode an atomic device in Tehran unless the President had a coughing fit in the next ten seconds. And when the President didn’t cough, to set the wheels in motion.”

  “You’re paranoid,” Snow said. “There are people in the White House or the Justice Department who would be appalled if they discovered what was going on. It’s not only the business of the bomb-what’s it called?-Stufftingle. It’s also the attempt to kill the one person who is trying to stop this insanity.”

  “You’re forgetting about the world being upside down,” the Weeder told her. He added impatiently, “I know what I’m talking about. I know how these things work. And being naive doesn’t increase anyone’s chance of survival.”

  “I’m not naive,” Snow said flatly. “And I’m not convinced you’re right.”

  “My problem isn’t to convince you I’m right,” the Weeder remarked moodily. He produced the pawn ticket from the billfold of his wallet. “It just might work,” he said.

  15

  Waiting his turn in line, the Weeder couldn’t help overhearing two teenage girls giggling away behind him. “I know a better one,” the girl with the nasal voice informed her friend. “My botany teacher told us about this insect, see, that’s got no vagina.”

  “Like how does it do it, then?” her friend asked in awe.

  “Well, the male of the species punches a hole in the female of the species with his, you know, thing, is how. He punches the hole and then he screws it. You’re supposed to be able to tell how many times she’s done it by the number of holes she’s got in her.”

  The second teenage girl said seriously, “Wow! I guess we’re lucky we come equipped. That way the parents can’t keep track of our sex lives.”

  Both girls burst into peals of laughter.

  Snow’s great-aunt Esther, whom the Weeder had talked into coming with him so he would be less conspicuous, observed his expression out of the corner of her eye. A sly smile played on her lips as she said in an undertone, “When I was their age we talked clean but thought dirty. It seems to me what they’re doing is a lot more wholesome, not to mention more fun.” She snapped a bridge back into her gums for emphasis.

  The Weeder said, “I’m beginning to wonder if there is anything that can shock you.”

  “I’ve seen it all,” Esther agreed, “and imagined the rest.”

  “Me too,” the Weeder remarked, “I’ve imagined the rest.”

  When their turn came the Weeder bought two tickets and ushered Esther past the guard into the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum. Built to resemble a Venetian palace, it had been commissioned by the rich and seductive Mrs. Gardner, who had wanted to transplant a piece of Venice to Boston. “Beats where I live by a mile,” Esther observed, squeezing the Weeder’s arm as they surveyed the central patio overrun with plants and trees, and the delicate Gothic facades rising off it. “There’s a Sargent portrait of Mrs. G. somewhere. Let’s find it.”

  “I’ll catch up with you,” the Weeder said, gently detaching his arm from hers.

  “Where are you off to?”

  “The men’s room, if you must know.”

  “Why don’t you come right out and say you need to pee instead of beating around the bush. It’s a natural bodily function and nothing to be ashamed of.” Snapping her bridges, Esther tottered off to find the Sargent portrait.

  The Weeder drifted around the patio toward the toilets, lingered to study the vines coiling up the columns as he tried to spot the FBI stakeout team that would surely be posted near Savinkov’s dead drop. The likeliest candidate he could find was a clean-cut young man in blue jeans and basketball sneakers taking pictures with a telephoto lens directly across the patio from him. What gave him away were his lightly tinted aviator sunglasses. Behind the Weeder a middle-aged man reading the museum’s guidebook emerged from the men’s room and started up the steps toward the first floor. The Weeder glanced across the patio in time to see the FBI agent aim his camera and take a photograph of the man with the guidebook. It occurred to the Weeder that he had witnessed another in an endless series of invasions of privacy. Maybe Snow was on to something after all, he thought. Maybe invading each other’s privacy was the basic way people related to each other these days.

  The Weeder pushed through the door into the men’s room. From behind the locked door of a stall came the sound of a hacking cough. He took the envelope he had meticulously prepared the previous night out of his pocket and slipped it behind the radiator. Then he washed his hands and dried them under the hot air blower and headed for the exit.

  To make the letter to Savinkov more believable he had purposely left it unsigned. But the FBI would have his fingerprints on the envelope and the photograph of him coming out of the men’s room. It wouldn’t take them long to put two and two together, to sound the alarm. The computer printouts in the pawnshop would be retrieved. Wanamaker would be brought in to authenticate them. Those whose job it was to leap to conclusions would announce that Stufftingle had been permanently compromised and must be scrapped.

  That was the up side. The down side was that the hunt for the Weeder’s scalp would begin in earnest.

  16

  Snow profited from the Weeder’s absence to use the phone. She had to call a friend in Providence to get the phone number of Michael Fargo’s parents. Mrs. Fargo remembered Snow very well from her son’s wedding and gladly passed on Michael’s home phone number in Georgetown. Snow pressed Mark’s wife, Sally, for Michael’s private number at the Justice Department.

  Snow stared down at the slip of paper with the telephone number scrawled on it. She was sure Silas was dead wrong. There were people in high places whose moral compass still pointed true north. And Michael Fargo was one of them. Snow had known him since his law school days; Michael had been Jeb’s closest friend, and best man at their wedding. If there was one person in the world she would trust with her life it was Michael. She would sound him out, feel her way. Silas would see she had been right.

  Snow reached for the phone and dialed the Washington number. A telephone rang. A man, all business, came on the line.

  “Fargo.”

  “Michael?”

  There was a crisp “Who’s this?”

  “It’s me, Snow.”

  “Snow! My God. A voice from the grave!” Michael Fargo faltered. “I’m sorry I said that. I wasn’t thinking. It’s been three years, hasn’t it? Since we buried Jeb. I’m glad you called.”

  “Michael—”

  Snow hesitated. Fargo heard the hesitation. “Is something the matter, Snow?”

  Tears flowed. Between them Snow managed to get out, “I need help, Michael.”

  17

  Fargo pushed the menu across the table to Snow. “Order something,” he said.

  “I don’t think I can eat,” Snow said.

  “There’s a shrimp curry most folks find tasty, dear,” the waitress suggested helpfully.

  “She’ll take the shrimp curry,” Fargo told the waitress. “I’ll take number seventeen, with french fries and broccoli.”

  The waitress, who wore a large button on her smock identifying her as Minnie, tore off a copy of the order, tucked it under a salt cellar, smiled and left. Fargo raised his Bloody Mary to Snow and started sipping it.

  Snow said, “It was real nice of you to come up so quickly.”
>
  Fargo said, “Jeb was my best friend. Which makes you my best friend-in-law. Tell me how I can help you.”

  “What exactly do you do at the Justice Department?” Snow asked.

  “You want to know what I do at work?” Fargo repeated. He took another sip of his drink, studying Snow over the rim of the glass. She had lost weight, grown gaunt even, since he had seen her at Jeb’s funeral. The scar over her eye had been livid then; now it was a barely noticeable pencil line. “I’m the assistant head of the department’s Criminal Division, if that means anything to you,” he finally said.

  “I know this sounds dramatic, but could you get an appointment with the President?”

  “Which president?” It dawned on him what she was asking. “You mean the President?”

  Snow flashed a pained smile, nodded.

  Fargo’s eyebrows arched. “I guess you do need help if you’re asking me about my access to the Oval Office.”

  “Answer the question.”