Understrike

by John Gardner

  A few hours, and six brandies, later, Boysie stood—still in a profound state of anxiety—on the games deck. He leaned moodily against the rail, crowded with passengers eager for their first glimpse of the Manhattan skyline. Away to the left, the Statue of Liberty raised a green hand, half-aggressive, half-pleading. Boysie smiled for the first time since the cablegram had arrived. “Please, miss, can I leave the sea?” he muttered to himself, watching the statue’s suppliant arm slide past.

  Downtown Manhattan came up, rusty and grey mixed with heat-haze. The dogmatic wail of a police siren floated over the water from the West Side Highway. Up river they could see the slim skyscrapers, climbing pock-marked fingers. A broad American with watery eyes and a purple checked jacket nudged Boysie hard in the ribs and pointed to the centre of the forest of concrete peaks:

  “There it is, bud. Biggest phallic symbol in the world. The good old Empire State.”

  Boysie could see the man’s point. Even at this distance, he thought, New York looked as sexy as he had always been led to believe.

  Forty-five minutes later he stood sweating in the queue which moved, almost imperceptibly, into the main lounge, where US immigration officials sat impassively scrutinising passports. In spite of his light linen suit, voile shirt and tropical underwear. Boysie felt as though he was sitting, wrapped round with rugs, in a Turkish bath. The heat seemed to claw into his skin, wrenching the drops of perspiration from the pores by force. By the time he reached the head of the queue, Boysie felt so tired—a by-product of emotional fatigue and the strength-sapping heat—that he had consciously ceased to worry about the immediate future. His imagination was brimful of ice cubes slowly melting in a tall drink, and the exquisite chill of a cold shower, followed by soft breezes fluttering over his body, emanating from fans—preferably wielded by silk-thighed Vargas-girls.

  An aquiline immigration man, with the name ‘Gozinsky’ stencilled on to a circular plastic disc pinned to the left side of his brown uniform shirt, quietly took Boysie’s passport and opened it.

  “Mr Oakes?” he asked without looking up.

  “Yes.”

  Gozinsky turned away, and with an almost invisible nod caught the eye of a squat, leather-faced little man who had been sprawling in one of the main lounge armchairs a few feet away. The man toddled over to the immigration table.

  “Yours, Joe,” said Gozinsky.

  “Oakes?” said Joe.

  Gozinsky cocked his head towards Boysie, at the same time going through the prestidigital exercise of stamping the passport, flicking it back into Boysie’s wilting palm and saying: “Welcome to New York. Welcome to the United States. Mr Siedler here has been waiting for you.”

  Mr Siedler came forward, his chubby face breaking into an outsize smile. Big welcoming smiles were Joe Siedler’s speciality. At one time—when he had worked as a CIA trigger man —they had been of great use to him. Those were the days when Joe Siedler’s friendly smile was often the last thing his clients ever saw. “I guess they rest easier if you give it ‘em kinda friendly like,” he used to say. “You just goes up, puts out your hand, turns on the pearlies and says, ‘Howdy’. They’re at ease. Relaxed. Like comfortable. Then whammy-whammy with the old thirty-two, and mutton. That’s the way it goes.” But Joe Siedler’s operational days were now long over, and his professionalism had been turned to escorting couriers and special VIP agents. This one was just routine, but Sielder still put everything he had into the act.

  “Brian Oakes? Gee, am I glad to see you.” He came round the table exuding a glow of good fellowship. Boysie’s reaction was standard. He began to feel wanted again. In contact. Among friends. Siedler’s hand was firm in his, and his arm was being pumped as though the American expected oil to gush out of his ears.

  “Geez, it’s hot, Mr Oakes, let’s get off this floating greenhouse, hunh? How much luggage you got?”

  “Only this case.” Boysie lugged up the heavy tan Revelation with which he always travelled, and allowed himself to be led out of the main lounge, into the lift that dropped them to A Deck, across the foyer and down the gangway—all to the accompaniment of a stream of friendly chatter:

  “My name’s Siedler, Mr Oakes, Joe Siedler—call me Joe, everyone does. Your first time in New York? Yeah? It is? Great. Well, you’re gonna like it here. Nowhere in the world like New York. We gotta dandy room fixed up for you at the New Weston over on Madison and 50th. You’ll like the New Weston: lots of Limeys stay there. They got a tea parlour and all. One of our boys’ll be over to see you in about an hour. Plenty o’ time for you to freshen up. You’ll be real comfortable. You sure I can’t carry that bag of yours, looks mighty heavy to me? No? Well, you know best, Mr Oakes—or can I call you Brian?

  “My friends call me Boysie.”

  “Boysie? Hey whaddya know? No kidding? What kinda funny name is that, hunh? Boysie? Great, hunh? Greata know you, Boysie. Look, we gotta get that bag cleared by customs. Sure is nice havin’ you here.”

  They reached the foot of the gangway and pushed their way through the chaos which thronged Pier 90. Boysie caught sight of Priscilla Braddock-Fairchild looking lost, surrounded by a hillock of cream luggage. Through the whole of the closed customs area of the pier, passengers were scavenging for their cases, trunks and hat boxes which were being expelled from the ship’s side—rolling off the conveyor belts like so much waste. The strange inferno-like scene was being superintended by a covey of bored-looking customs men, their disinterested manner belying that sharp awareness which could be detected, by the perceptive, at ten paces. Siedler elbowed his way past a frantic skinny and blue-rinsed lady who was yapping shrewishly at her distraught spouse: “Well, go and ask someone, you dumb cluck. The box must be somewhere.”

  Boysie, keeping as close as possible to Siedler, saw his escort approach a uniformed customs man who was passing the time by carrying out a carefully detailed inspection of the end of a much-chewed cigar. Siedler’s lips moved and his hand came up with an identity badge. The cigar-chewer nodded. By this time Boysie had reached them.

  “This is the guy,” said Siedler happily.

  “O.K. This the only bag you got, mister?’

  “Just the one.”

  “O.K.” The operation was painless.

  With a little pink customs label slapped tight to the Revelation they tramped the length of the pier—past a hundred tiny human dramas, each coming to its climax at the end of the Atlantic crossing—and out into the equally chaotic street where about fifty people seemed to be fighting to commandeer four taxis. Siedler led Boysie across the street, under the West Side Highway, to a long black Cadillac which stood purring sweetly by the kerb. A coloured chauffeur ambled pleasantly round to the rear door and took Boysie’s case.

  “This is her, Boysie buddy. Sweet job, hunh?” said the beaming Siedler. “Avallon will take your bag, then we’ll hit the road.”

  *

  Among the crowd watching the disembarkation from Pier 90 was a cadaverous youth, known to his intimates as Skull Face—for the obvious reason that he could, with ease, have played Yorick for the Royal, or any other, Shakespeare Company. For the best part of two hours Skull Face had stood, his deep-set eyes fixed on the exit gates. As the customs-cleared passengers began to filter out on to the steaming dockside, the lad started to made a careful examination of each face. Skull Face had a good eye when it came to spotting people. Boysie and the rosy Siedler were easily identifiable. There was no need for a second look. In a matter of seconds Skull Face was inside a telephone booth, dialling the number of a night club in the East 70s.

  “He got here,” said Skull Face when the familiar voice answered.

  “Good boy. Thank you. I won’t forget you, kid. See you around.”

  “Thanks,” said Skull Face. “See ya, boss.”

  *

  Chicory Triplehouse was naked and twenty-five years old. She lay, bored and very erotic, on the silk bedcover which enveloped the wide divan—central piece of furniture, and focal
point, of her bedroom high over Park Avenue. When dressed, Chicory Triplehouse was stunning; naked, she defied description. Her body was an overall deep gold—a smooth tan which indicated that she sunbathed only in the altogether; a tan which displayed none of the tell-tale white patches over the bra and pantie areas of her spectacular flesh. The only slight discolouration on the gorgeous body was an area of about four square inches a shade darker on the right thigh—a birthmark in the shape of a perfect heart.

  She shifted, languidly, on to her left side, reaching out for the pack of Kents on the bedside table. The movement altered her contours. From her right ankle the line swept up in a grand ellipse over her rising thigh and hip, then flattened to the firm half globe of her breast and curved to the slim long neck. Lazily she brushed away a lock of tawny hair which had fallen across her face, lit a cigarette, and lay back, opening her lips to expel the grey straggle of smoke.

  Chicory sighed, moving her shoulders and buttocks against the silk, feeling it soft on her skin. Quarter of an hour before, she had put a random pile of records on to the player. Now the music had started to penetrate her consciousness, where, before, it had been mere background. Les Swingle Singers were do-daddle-daing through their far-out rendition of the Sinfonia from Bach’s Partita No. 2. The sad, long solo of the female voice (the best moment of the record) was suddenly turned sour by the off-key trang of the white bedside telephone.

  “Hallo,” said Chicory Triplehouse, her voice husky against the music which still bopped on from the record player.

  “Chicky, my darling girl,” The accent was a shade too English, a morsel over-patronising. But Chicory, who was very susceptible to voices, could, by closing her eyes, immediately bring to mind the smell of the man far away at the other end of the wire—the clean tang of the healthy male, the odour of good grooming, helped on by a hint of Mark 11 after-shower lotion.

  “My favourite Englishman. Darling, where are you? Can’t you come over? I’m feeling lonesome.”

  “Actually, old girl, I was hoping you’d come over and see me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Are you as bored as ever?”

  “Naturally, honey.”

  “Well, we’ll soon change all that. How about a little trip to Cal-if-orn-aye-eh?”

  “You mean it? For real.”

  “Got a job for you. Helping a poor lonely Englishman across this great big dusty country of yours.”

  “Is it to do with your work?”

  “Yes. Always said that I’d find something interesting in it for you. All expenses paid.”

  “And who’s the poor lonely Englishman?”

  “’Fraid it’s not me, my love. But I assure you that he’s scrumptious.”

  “I’ll be right over. Just hold him for me.” She had put down the receiver and was rummaging among a froth of wispy nylon in the wardrobe drawer before her gentleman caller had time to reply.

  *

  In the back room which served as a manager’s office for the Club Fondante in the East 70s, two burly men, who both appeared to have given up the fight game a dozen bouts too late, stood looking down at a freshly developed photograph of Boysie Oakes. The third member of the party, a tall iron-grey man whose name was Cirio, leaned across the desk and spoke.

  “The orders aren’t as full or precise as I would have liked. But I guess they can only mean the guy has to be picked up and brought over here—quietly and efficiently. That means no blasting and no witnesses. I don’t want anything in the newspapers either. Got it?”

  “OK, we’ll fix it,” said the first hoodlum.

  “Yea, we’ll fix it good. Like so quiet he’ll think he’s been shuttled here on a magic carpet,” echoed the second.

  *

  Chicory Triplehouse, looking like a fashion plate, came out of the apartment building on Park Avenue. The doorman hailed a cab and she drove off to an address in Greenwich Village.

  *

  Comfortable in a big fan-jet on direct flight from New York to San Diego, Priscilla Braddock-Fairchild looked at the weathered profile of her father, Commander Braddock-Fairchild, RN, who was snoring away the cloud-scaped miles. Miss Braddock-Fairchild leaned back, closed her eyes and tightened her thigh muscles. A smile of pleasure flickered over her face. She was thinking about Boysie Oakes.

  *

  The TU104 may not be the most comfortable aircraft in the world, but, like most things Russian, it exudes a firm, if stark, utilitarian dependability. TUI04 USSR42400 had started its flight from Sheremetyevo Airport, Moscow. Now it turned on the downwind leg of its final approach—the dive brakes coming out with that unique and distinctive power-drill sound. Below, divided Berlin lay in twinkling silence. Vladimir Solev, the first part of his journey almost completed, tried to drag his mind away from the possibility of the airliner plunging out of control into the ground. Solev was finding it hard to resign himself to the inevitable consequences of fate. In less than two hours he would be boarding another aeroplane. This time a capitalist aeroplane bound for New York. Vladimir Solev felt miserable. He was thinking about Boysie Oakes.

  *

  James George Mostyn, Second-in-Command of British Special Security, woke in a cold sweat at five minutes past four in the morning. He reached across the bed and remembered that he was alone. The charming lady from the Royal Opera House chorus had apologised, but uttered a firm “No.”

  Mostyn’s intuition was playing tricks again. On the face of things there was nothing to worry about. But the situation into which he had plunged Boysie reeked uncomfortably of normality. James George Mostyn shivered. He was thinking about Boysie Oakes.

  *

  In the War Room of Soviet Counter-Espionage the orders were being transmitted. Khavichev himself had roughed out the amendments to the plan. They had been coded and sent off to New York, San Diego and London, with copies to all heads of departments.

  The operation had begun. Khavichev was lighthearted. An unexpected move by the British had placed a dazzling opportunity in his way. Khavichev smiled—the look of a wolf tasting blood. He was thinking about Boysie Oakes.

  *

  In New York and San Diego the pawns were being drawn together, invisibly moved into each other’s orbits by the cold, uncompromising hands of British Special Security and Soviet Counter-Espionage and Subversive Activities.

  2 – CHICORY

  Boysie was feeling considerably better. He stepped out of the shower and towelled himself vigorously—the external tingle supplemented by an internal glow and sense of well-being induced by two stiff Old Hickory Bourbons with which he had sluiced out his throat shortly after arriving at the hotel.

  The journey from Pier 90 had been a travelogue in miniature—Joe Siedler rattling off facts; acquainting Boysie with landmarks in a stream of Runyonese which was almost as baffling as the swirling racket of the city at high pitch. To Boysie, New York became, in the first few minutes, a noisy, terrifying, wild brake-slamming fairground—garish, with the harsh compelling beauty of luxury-stressed concrete, steel and glass thrown in.

  It was in the hotel lobby, while Siedler was doing his usual incomparable liaison job with the management, that Boysie committed his first transatlantic blunder. Realising that, in his state of mental deshabille on leaving the ship, he had forgotten to arm himself with a duty-free ration of cigarettes, he approached the booth—which, loaded with newspapers, magazines, gum and potential clouds of nicotine smoke, is standard equipment in hotels the world over—and looked among the choice selection for his favourite brand of Benson and Hedges King-size Filters. Not seeing them, he caught the eye of the vendor and automatically asked for “Twenty Players, please.”

  “Twenty what?” said the laconic booth-minder.

  “Players,” repeated Boysie, sounding like a television ad.

  “Sure, Mac. What kindya want? Football or baseball?”

  Boysie eventually settled for Chesterfields, plonked himself into one of the leather armchairs (which seemed to have been provided for
middle-aged gentlemen waiting for sleek young girls, and middle-aged ladies waiting for sleek young men), and lit a cigarette with the Windmaster which bore his unfortunate initials, B.O. The first lungful of smoke set him coughing, provoking shocked glances akin to those flung at people who talk in the reading rooms of public libraries.

  Snippets of conversation buzzed round like midsummer bees; “... and she had this rather delightful Mercedes Benz. Milton and I met her in Europe last Fall . .”

  “... You know, honey, he’s very anxious to leave his wife. Did you know that? ...”

  Then Siedler was back again, still beaming and bulging with fulsome bonhomie. During his negotiations he had collected an elderly bell-boy who now took Boysie’s case and led them to the elevator in a manner suggesting that he did not really have to offer this menial service but was doing it out of respect for Anglo-American relations. The elevator whipped them up to the sixth floor, leaving Boysie’s guts somewhere slightly below pavement level.

  The room was large, with furnishings to match. A chest-of-drawers—surmounted by two huge candlestick lamps—ranged over the length of one wall; the bed could have slept three assorted couples, with room to spare for acrobatics; and the television, elegantly slim, might have been built for Cinerama.

  Siedler produced the Old Hickory (“Little welcome gift from the boys”), and lounged on the bed while Boysie unpacked to the whisper of the air conditioning.

  A tap at the door announced the arrival of the CIA contact —a reserved young man in the uniform light grey suit of the American business executive, and the damp manner of one who has lost his sense of humour during the climb towards responsibility. He was introduced, rather soberly, as Mr Lofrese —Siedler’s bouncy attitude changing noticeably to distinct deference in the presence of a senior member of his firm. There was an uncomfortable pause, after which Joe Siedler quietly took his leave, priming Boysie with two telephone numbers written in vermilion ink on the back of an old envelope.