Agent 6 ld-3

by Tom Rob Smith

  – Am I the only student to be locked in their room? For no reason? While all the other students perform? I’m going to sit here? My real mother would never have behaved like this. A real mother would understand the humiliation…

  Zoya reached out and touched her sister’s arm, in a reversal of their usual roles, trying to rein her anger back.

  – Elena…

  Elena pulled her arm free, staring at Raisa.

  – No, I will not be told how I should feel. I will not be told how to behave. I’m not a child any more! You can stop me from going to the concert. You have that power. If you do, I will never forgive Leo.

  Same Day

  Yates struggled to understand the translator’s thick Russian accent. She’d lived in this country for over forty years, was employed in an Ivy League university as a professor of linguistics, yet she couldn’t even speak English properly. He asked:

  – The mother gave in?

  – The daughter is coming to the concert. She’s been allowed to attend.

  – Did the girl mention any plans? Say anything else?

  – She denied there was anything sinister about to happen.

  – You’re sure?

  – I am sure.

  – No mention of any plot?

  – I’ve been speaking Russian all my life.

  This translator didn’t like him and wasn’t afraid to show it, peering over her thick-framed glasses as if Yates were beneath contempt. She’d been the only linguist who’d objected to helping with this operation, stating that she was an academic not a spy.

  – Speaking Russian all your life? That is a long time: maybe you still have feelings for the country? Sentimental feelings that might make you omit an important detail or two?

  The woman’s face tightened with anger.

  – Have someone check the transcript, someone you trust, if there is such a person.

  Yates sunk his hands into his pockets.

  – How about you just answer my questions? Right now I’m not interested in you. I’m interested in what that family was talking about. Was there any mention of Jesse Austin?

  – No.

  Yates addressed the entire room, clutching the rushed, handwritten transcript of Raisa’s phone conversation with Leo.

  – The Russian woman is a better detective than all of you. She knows something is going on. She can feel it in her gut. I agree with her. I need you to do your jobs!

  He picked up the file they had on Raisa Demidova and her daughters. It contained nothing more than the official information provided by the Soviet authorities, statistics such weight and academic grades. He threw it down again.

  An officer called out:

  – The students are boarding the coach. Do you want to go with them?

  Yates considered.

  – Have our agents keep contact with that family. I want them watched every step of the way from the coach to the United Nations building. Don’t let them out of your sight, even for a moment.

  As the agents busied themselves with the movement of the students to the coach, Yates paced the line of translators’ tables, frustrated that he couldn’t even approximate an answer to the question of why the Soviets were so keen to arrange for Jesse Austin to attend the concert. They’d sent this girl: they’d risked her slipping out of the hotel. Jesse Austin’s presence wouldn’t even make the news. He called out:

  – I want to know if we’ve had any activity in Harlem recently.

  A field agent approached.

  – The team watching a suspected Soviet operative reported that he was in Harlem this morning. Normally he’s pretty good at giving us the slip on the subway. Not today, they followed him.

  – Where did he go?

  – West 145th Street.

  – Who was he?

  – His name is Osip Feinstein.

  Manhattan Global Travel Company 926 Broadway

  Same day

  In the storeroom behind his office, Osip Feinstein developed the photographs he’d taken of Jesse Austin towering over the Russian girl, the rumpled bed sheets in the background appearing to carry the fossilized impression of their sexual encounter. It would’ve been preferable for Jesse’s hand to be clasping her arm rather than the other way round. No matter, the sordid implications were striking. What couldn’t be seen in the photograph was Austin’s wife. She was out of shot. Nor would anyone know that the bed had been unmade before the girl had arrived. Those passing judgement were unlikely to spend time analysing it: the snap response would be outrage. The roles of the villain and victim were clear. Though the meeting had been entirely innocent, the photograph produced showed striking guilt and moral compromise – an exploited, fragile white girl pathetically bidding farewell after a squalid escapade with a lecherous old Negro.

  Osip dropped his head in shame, staring at his wrinkled hands clasped around the photographs. He noted with interest that he still had the capacity to feel shame. He wasn’t entirely dead inside, numbed with opium but not yet oblivious to his failings. This was not the life he’d sought when he’d come to America, to frame a man he admired, a man of great integrity.

  A long time ago Osip had been a man of integrity too. Though he was now a spy, the truth was that he had no love for the Soviet Union and plenty of affection for the country he was betraying. He reconciled the contradiction, to some degree, by smoking opium – which helped a lot – and rationalizing – which helped a little. When he’d arrived in New York as a young man, he’d felt certain that success of some kind was inside him. He’d achieved success but not the kind he’d expected. At the age of fifty-nine, Osip had become one of the longest-serving Soviet spies to work in ‘the main adversary’, spy slang for the United States of America.

  As a young man, forty years ago, Osip had been an ambitious nineteen-year-old living in the Ukraine, attending Kyiv University, with aspirations to spend his life in academia. Feeling the grip of prejudice around the neck of his fledgling career – the door to his room defaced, the Star of David scratched into it, the contempt of his tutors – it was evident that he would never achieve a professorship. Sitting in his cold room, looking over a snow-covered street, he could no longer imagine a future in Kyiv. Without close family to root him in the city, he made the decision to leave, motivated less by a sense of fear than a determination to fulfil his potential. He’d originally intended to travel to France. However, leaving Kyiv was akin to stepping off a cliff and falling into the ocean, buffeted by the waves, with no control over his direction. He eventually washed up on the shores of the American consulate at Riga, Latvia, where he’d remained in the State Emigrant House for two days, suffering the indignity of being examined and disinfected. He’d paid his entire worldly fortune to the Sovtorgflor Company, which specialized in arranging travel for emigrants. Clutching his transit papers and doctor’s certificate, six months after he’d made the decision to leave, he’d boarded a boat. For the first time he could imagine a future again: his future was New York.

  He arrived in 1934 – the worst period in living memory to look for work. To make matters worse, his gifts were intellectual. Even so, he’d failed to complete his degree, meaning that the only work open to him was as an unskilled labourer, yet he lacked the physical strength to compete within the vast and desperate labour pool. Frm the window of his run-down room, shared with five other men, he’d watch the Unemployed Union marching through the streets, slow-moving lines of jobless workers that filed south on Broadway. He’d scratched together a meagre, desperate existence for a couple of years, living hand to mouth, before chancing across Communist activists trying to tap into the disenchantment of the unemployed. His survival instincts had taken over and sensing an opportunity he approached them, explaining his history. Since he was Jewish and fluent in Russian, they presumed he had an predisposition to Communism. He’d lied about the reasons he’d left the Soviet Union, explaining that he’d come to the USA in the depths of the Great Depression certain that the capitalist society wa
s in crisis and wishing to ferment a revolution. Familiar with the jargon, the slogans, aphorisms and theory, he’d dazzled his audience. Though the Communist Party of the USA didn’t know it, they were at the apogee of their success. The Communist presidential candidate William Foster and his Negro running mate James Ford had received over a hundred thousand votes in the 1932 election – claiming to be at the forefront of change: progressive socially and offering a radical alternative to the broken capitalist system that had driven workers to jump from office windows and families to live in shanty towns in Central Park. Almost everyone involved with the CPUSA hoped the Depression was the beginning of the end for capitalism, everyone, that is, except for their newest recruit, Osip.

  Osip was starving, sick and unemployed. He didn’t care about the party. He cared that they had money. They could pay him – the CPUSA received substantial illegal subsidies from the Soviet Union, transferred via a system of mail drops. They could feed and clothe him. For the first time since arriving in New York he ate well, without counting the cost of each mouthful. His strength returned. After several months of leafleting and performing rudimentary services for the party, it was decided he would set up a legitimate business called the Global Travel Company, selling tourist packages for Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Under this cover, Osip was tasked with importing potential spies from the Soviet Union, academics and scientists who could infiltrate key military and scientific operations in the United States. The American authorities would accept the applicants because they would be too brilliant to pass over. He’d run this tourist agency, which lost thousands of dollars, ever since.

  The store bell was ringing. He had a customer. There were very few legitimate customers: rarely more than four or five a week. Osip wiped his hands and stepped into the store regarding the customer, a man in his forties. He was wearing a crumpled suit. The cut was poor and his shoes were cheap and scuffed but he wore his clothes with a swagger and bravado that concealed many of their faults. He was an FBI agent and Osip was sure it was the man he’d seen outside Jesse Austin’s apartment. The agent had yet to look at him, flicking through one of the brochures. Osip said:

  – Can I help you?

  The agent turned, answering with mock formality:

  – I was wondering how much it would cost for a one-way ticket to the Soviet Union? First class, of course, I only want to see Communism if I can travel in luxury.

  He switched into his regular way of speaking.

  – Isn’t that how it works in rackets like this, people with lots of money paying to see how people live with none?

  – The point is for the traveller to experience a different way of life. What they make of that society is entirely up to them. We merely make the arrangements.

  Osip offered his hand to shake.

  – My name is Osip Feinstein. I’m the owner of this agency.

  – Agent Yates.

  Yates produced his credentials but didn’t shake Osip’s hand. Instead, he sat on a chair, slumped, as though he were at home in front of his television. He lit a cigarette, inhaled, exhaled and said nothing more. Osip stood, waiting.

  – I take it you’re not here for the travel.

  – Correct.

  – How can I help you?

  – You tell me.

  – Tell you what?

  – Listen, Mr Feinstein, we can bounce this back and forth all day long. Why don’t I lay my cards on the table? You’ve been under surveillance for many years. We know you’re a Communist. You’re described as a cautious man and a canny operator. Yet today my men are able to follow you to Harlem. You go into an apartment building not too far from a man called Jesse Austin. After several hours you left, returning to the store with a camera slung over your arm. We saw it all. That’s what troubles me. It’s not your style to be this careless. It feels like you’re flirting with us, Mr Feinstein. If I’m wrong, if I have insulted you in some way, that’s fine: I’ll walk out of here right now and say sorry for taking up so much of your time, I’m sure you’re busy selling these tours.

  Yates stood up, walked towards the door. Osip called out:

  – Wait!

  He had not intended to sound so pitiful. Yates turned around, slowly, a toxic smile on his face.

  Osip tried to ascertain quickly what kind of man he was dealing with. He’d hoped for someone businesslike. This agent seemed emotional and angry.

  – You queer, Mr Feinstein? In my experience most Communists are either queer, Negro or Jew. I know you’re a Jew. I can see you’re no Negro. I’m not all that expert at guessing queers, though. Sure, there might be other kinds of Communists, but the ones who aren’t ashamed to stand up and say ‘I’m proud to be a Communist’ are always queer, Negro or Jew.

  Yates sucked on his cigarette and exhaled, jabbing it at Osip’s chest.

  – I’ve been following your career with interest, Mr Feinstein. We’ve known for some time that this tourist agency is a cover. Did you think we were stupid? Those spies you sent us? We let them in. Why? Because we were confident as soon as they arrive in this country and start living in a nice house, and driving a nice car and eating nice food, they’re going to forget about that god-awful Communist hole they left behind. They’re going to be loyal to us because our lives are better than yours. And you know what? We were right. You’ve arranged for what, maybe three hundred people and their families to come over?

  The exact number was three hundred and twenty-five. Yates sneered:

  – How many have given you anything confidential? How many have given you even a scrap of information or a single blueprint?

  Despite his doubts about Yates, there was no way back. Osip had to proceed with his plan.

  – Agent Yates, I left the Soviet Union fearing for my life. I have no love for that regime. I began working as a spy for the Soviet Union only because I couldn’t get any other work in New York. I was hungry. It was during the Great Depression. The CPUSA had money. I had none. That is the truth. After I joined them, there was no going back. My card was marked as a Communist. I had to behave as one. The men and women whose visas I arranged were never likely spies. They were people in danger, scientists and engineers. They feared for their lives and the lives of their children. I never expected them to become spies. I never expected them to provide a scrap of information, as you say. I used Soviet resources to get them to safety under the guise of infiltrating American universities or factories or even the military. That is the truth. The measure of my success was not how many spies I created, but how many lives I saved.

  Yates stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

  – Mr Feinstein, that’s an interesting story. Makes you sound like an American hero, is that what you’re saying? I should be patting you on the back?

  – Agent Yates, I no longer wish to work as a Soviet agent. I wish to work for the United States government. In saying this, my life is now in terrible danger, so you should have no reason to doubt my word.

  Yates moved close to Feinstein.

  – You wish to work for the United States government?

  – Please, Agent Yates, follow me. I can prove my sincerity.

  Osip escorted him through to the temporary darkroom, showing him the photographs of Jesse Austin. Only now did Osip notice that Yates had drawn his gun, fearing a trap. Keeping the gun by his side, Yates asked:

  – Why did you take the photographs?

  – They’re part of a plan drawn up by a Soviet department called SERVICE.A. The Soviet authorities intend to exploit these concerts for their own benefit. They have asked Jesse Austin to speak outside the UN tonight.

  – They’ve been trying to get him to attend for months now. So what?

  – He turned down every request, so they sent this girl, a Russian girl, an admirer of Jesse Austin. They want him to address the crowd. The world’s media will be present.

  – The world’s media will be inside the hall, not on the sidewalk. You’re telling me their plan is to persuade
a washed-up singer to shout about his Communist brothers to a rabble on the sidewalk? Let him speak! I don’t give a shit.

  Yates began to laugh, shaking his head.

  – Feinstein, is this really what you brought me over for?

  – Agent Yates, after tonight, Jesse Austin will be more famous than ever, more famous than you can possibly imagine.

  Yates stopped laughing.

  Bradhurst Harlem West 145th Street

  Same Day

  The night was as hot as the day. Red-brick walls baked in the full glare of the sun leached the heat back out, slow-cooking the residents. For about an hour either side of sunrise there was some respite, when the bricks were cool and the sun wasn’t yet beating down, the only time of day that was fresh and human. Jesse sat on the window ledge with no expectations of a breeze. Outside the sound of children playing ball or skipping ropes no longer cut the air. Having sold its day’s stock the clam wagon was pushed off, arthritic, rusty wheels creaking into the distance. Beggars, who’d set up position next to it in the hope of catching loose change, were moving off, breaking into different directions, looking for somewhere to sleep or for new places to beg. The card players took their games from the shade onto the sidewalk, on fold-out flimsy tables. Those who’d slept during the day came alive with the night. There was drink and dope and laughter – the light side of the night, the first drink, the first smoke and it was always a good time. Later the fights would start, the arguments and shouting, the women crying and the men crying too.

  Jesse watched the street evolve into darkness as the last of the sunlight seeped away. This was his entertainment now, for they no longer owned a television set, sold it years ago. They didn’t miss it. They didn’t want to watch the programmes it showed, the music that was aired, suspicious of the powers that controlled it, powers that would block him being on television in a heartbeat. Jesse wondered about the other men and women he might have known and loved if their careers hadn’t been swallowed up by a disapproving state. How many artists, musicians, writers, painters, had been lost to fear? He wished he could bring them together, these lost souls, sit them round his table, pour them a drink, hear their stories, listen to their troubles and delight in their talents.