The Infant of Prague

by Bill Granger

  “Anna is kidnapped. It is the way it is in your violent country. A woman is killed, and Anna is gone. What a mad place is your country. I meet Americans and they all look mad to me. Is it the madness you all share that is destroying you? Madness. One minute I can talk to rational people and the next minute.…”

  Devereaux saw tears. He did not expect tears. He felt suddenly shaken to see the tears. Why was this strong man crying?

  Devereaux saw the hand tighten around the trigger of the very good copy of an Uzi.

  “Let me ask you: Why were you assigned to this matter when you already were working to get Anna returned?”

  Cernan blinked, the tears stopped, the eyes were wet. He stared at Devereaux as though trying to understand the question. And then he realized it was the same question he had been asked by Gorkeho in Prague. Why was Cernan so important to the matter of getting Miki back? Twelve hours ago, he had made a secret contact with Gorkeho and told him everything and Gorkeho, who had not approved the trade in advance, said he could proceed for as long as it was “useful.” It was Gorkeho who told him how frantic Henkin was to make contact with him. It was Gorkeho who told him not to contact Henkin under any circumstances. Intrigue was haunting Prague as well as this farmhouse in wet, cold Belgium.

  “There is no connection.”

  “You have made the connection,” Devereaux said.

  “That is a way out for me. To get rid of you and get Anna returned.”

  “No, Cernan.”

  Cernan waited.

  Devereaux stared at him, saw it almost as a shape. “You’re a senior man in your service. Is this the job of a senior man?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To get Miki.”

  “It might be.”

  “Why was it you?”

  “Because it was me.”

  “Was this Anna Jelinak matter… was it ongoing?”

  “I do not understand.”

  “What were you doing about Anna when you were told to get Miki?”

  “I do not see any connection.”

  Devereaux felt sweat like fear on his lip. He wiped his hand across his mouth. He had to make Cernan see the same shape he saw.

  “Miki is in film, Anna is in film, I never heard of Anna until a moment ago,” Devereaux said. “But the connection is obvious, isn’t it?”

  “I ask Miki this about Anna Jelinak. Believe me, he does not understand this matter.”

  “There has to be a connection and you have to be the connection, otherwise there’s no sense in why you’re involved in both of these matters.”

  Cernan started. It was perfectly true and he did not understand it at all.

  “If a man sees an accident one morning and then sees another, very similar accident in the afternoon, would you believe he had any connection to both accidents? Other than merely seeing them?”

  “Yes,” Cernan agreed. “It is too much coincidence.”

  Devereaux nodded. “But perhaps the first accident was merely an accident and the witness saw it. But maybe then he planned the second accident.”

  And Cernan thought of Henkin. Cernan saw the shape of Henkin’s arrogant face and saw that everything had come from Henkin—the assignment to pick up Miki, the fact that Miki was for sale at all, the security arrangements for Anna, the urgent advice of Gorkeho twelve hours ago not to make contact with Henkin.… What was happening in Prague at this very moment?

  “But Miki and Anna, they are… defectors… at practically the same time.”

  “So they are accidents,” Devereaux said. “But at a late stage, you are called in to take part in both matters.”

  “I was assigned the matter of Anna from the first. It was my security that had failed.”

  “And Miki?”

  “I had nothing to do with Miki.”

  “Until when?”

  Cernan thought about it.

  “There is no connection.”

  “You are the connection, Cernan.” Almost gently. “Who is Anna Jelinak? Why is she important?”

  “She is important to the film of Czechoslo—”

  “Let me interrupt. She is no more important than a tennis star defecting. Perhaps less important. Why are you willing to offer an American agent for the return of a little girl?”

  “Because you are of no importance,” Cernan said.

  “Why did you cry?”

  Cernan did not deny it. He said nothing and thought of Henkin and thought of Anna kidnapped somewhere in the vast, hideous interior of the United States.

  “Who is Anna?”

  “A little girl.”

  “She is more than that.”

  Cernan looked at the American with heavy eyes. “It should be enough to be a child.”

  Devereaux frowned.

  Cernan stared at him and the gun felt heavy for the first time.

  Devereaux understood and it brought no pleasure to him to solve the riddle.

  “Anna is yours,” he said.

  Cernan said nothing.

  “Your child,” Devereaux said.

  The countryside still pervaded the room. Outside the window, the single oak tree shed its last leaf of autumn.

  “You guess this thing. You make a guess to everything.”

  “And no one knows,” Devereaux said.

  “Do you read hearts?”

  “I read your eyes. You sit in Belgium with a prisoner and a returning defector and you sit here for two days, making a private deal that falls through. Anna is not that important.”

  Cernan said, “Go to hell.”

  “She never was that important. You arranged her security and it broke down. Suddenly, you’re assigned like a junior officer to pick up baggage in Belgium. Come on, Cernan. If you’re going to kill me now, tell me the truth.”

  But Cernan pursed his lips like a child who would not speak, no matter how dire the threats made against him.

  “Your child,” Devereaux said. And saw it was true.

  Cernan stared at him without tears because he did not cry at all. Just for one moment and the American understood.

  “It does not matter,” Cernan said.

  “You make a trade for me and they accept. Then Anna is made to disappear. You know and I know that it wasn’t the same people in both cases. There is more here than Anna. And if it involves you, it must have to do with Miki.”

  Cernan slowly put the Uzi on his lap. He was staring at Devereaux but only seeing his own thoughts. It was Henkin, he saw. If he was the connection at one level, Henkin was the connection at another level.

  And Gorkeho understood. That’s what was going on in Prague. That’s why he was permitted to stay in the field a little longer. This was between Gorkeho and Henkin, and Anna was just a little puppet who didn’t understand anything at all.

  And Cernan’s eyes filled with tears again.

  20

  LIFE FOR A LIFE

  The merchants of Bruges built the money houses in a time when there were kings and when faithful people in other parts of Europe built cathedrals. The very first money exchange was in Bruges and was called The Bourse because that was the name of the owner of the house. He engraved his family coat of arms on his house and it is still there. His coat of arms consisted of three money purses. Bruges was made of commerce and the sea. When the sea retreated, it left Bruges the fine old buildings of the first merchants and the canals and the great public squares and the lingering holiness of commerce past.

  Rita Macklin registered at the Hotel Adornes in the oldest part of the city. The hotel huddled on one of the canals less than a mile from the central square of the town. The hotel was specified, the time of the meeting was specified. She scarcely had time to wash up before the meeting.

  The man came to see her in the lobby of the hotel at one. He nodded to her sitting on the couch in the little lobby and he went to the front desk and ordered a bottle of Jupiler beer from the woman behind the desk. She went into the kitchen and got the beer and a cold glass. It was
that kind of a place. He went to the couch and sat down next to her and poured the strong beer steadily in the glass.

  “You weren’t followed,” he said.

  “Not here. You know I was followed from Brussels, but I made him go to the Holiday Inn and I came here. I wasn’t followed here.”

  “We watched you. We saw him at the train station. Who is he?”

  “You know all about him,” she said. “If you don’t know about him, you don’t know anything about this business and I’m wasting my time.”

  The man, who wore a seaman’s outfit with pea coat and stocking cap, smiled at that. He had a red beard and merry eyes. “We know about him.”

  She sat with her hands on her jeans. She wore jeans and a sweater and she had no baggage with her, other than the inevitable raincoat. The lobby was small and plain and the furniture was comfortable on the wooden floors. The woman who owned the hotel was in the breakfast room, tending the fire.

  It was raining now but no one noticed. It rains in Belgium and then stops and then rains again and then stops and no one notices after a while.

  “The man had gray hair and gray eyes. He was hurt, I know that. His hand was swollen, this one, and he moved with a limp. He looked pretty banged up. I think he was hit by a car. That’s what I heard about it.”

  “But alive,” she said. Very small voice.

  “The last I heard.”

  “When was that?”

  “Three days ago. He left the house where they kept him. He went away in a big car, maybe a Mercedes-Benz.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “What about the money?”

  She gave him the money. He counted it. The woman who owned the hotel glanced at them from the breakfast room, but she could not leave it because she had the fire going strong. The good smell of the burning dried wood filled the hotel and made it seem very warm.

  “It might be harder,” the seaman said with a smile.

  “How hard?”

  “Two thousand dollars.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “That was easy. I should have asked for more.”

  She stared at him. “Don’t get cute.”

  “Tough girl, huh?”

  “Tough,” she said.

  “Well, he was pretty banged up, like I said.”

  “You said. He’s alive though.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You said it. You want two grand for it.”

  “Yes. Well. I’m not sure. But it’s a good bet. The problem is your keeper. How do we get rid of him?”

  “I told you I could shake him. I told you and I did it. Now leave that up to me.”

  “If he queers the deal, that’s it. No more contact. We’re in enough trouble now.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Me and my partners, you might say.”

  The voice was light, the accent was English learned the English way.

  “I can shake him.”

  “You have to. We don’t want any trouble and we don’t want nothing to do with agents.”

  “How do you come by all this information?”

  “Bruges is small, very small. You’re a sailor, you understand how small it is and any fiddle that goes on, you learn about it right off. Sailors talk to sailors and now and then they have something worth talking about.”

  “So you know where he is? You take me there.”

  “I don’t take nobody no place. You get your money and you go get yourself a bicycle over at the train station. You get a map and you go out of Bruges and you go out along the canal that goes down to Damme. It’s the old town. You do that about four this afternoon, when there’s still light.”

  “And what happens when I get there?”

  “You’ll see. See, if you shake your friend, it’ll show up when you go for your bicycle ride. I think—”

  “I haven’t ridden a bicycle since I was fourteen years old.”

  The merry eyes smiled even more. “Learn.” His voice was abrupt. “Two thousand dollars, girl. You bring it along and you learn to ride a bicycle.”

  The sailor put down his beer and got up and walked out of the front door without another word. He walked along the canal a way and past a Citroën parked at the curb. He walked along the canal until the Citroën came up and he got into the back without a word.

  “It’ll work. She’ll be alone.”

  “Good,” the other man in back said. And they both looked out their side windows at the rain as the car splashed along the cobblestones, out toward the edge of the old city.

  She remembered how to ride a bicycle almost right away.

  The baggage handler in the station had been surprised to have a customer for the rental bicycles in November but he didn’t say so. He had very good English and she was an American and pretty. He said she would get wet riding a bicycle. It was a poor little joke but he always used it. It meant he was friendly.

  She rode the circular route through the park that goes around the south end of the town and up to the west, where she could pick up the straight canal that goes right to the sea at Zeebrugge. The parkway along the canal outside the town was marked by a long straight bicycle path and a long straight road separated from the path by a row of trees. The branches were bare and the grass was turning brown. Farm fields fell away in straight dimensions to the flat horizon. She wore a red beret she’d bought in town and the rain came down on her face and made it shine. She pumped hard against the pedals and there was no one on the path. The gloaming light was almost gone.

  She had told David she was going back to Brussels and would meet him in the bar at the Amigo at seven. She called him from the train station, where she bought a ticket for Brussels and made a fuss about buying a copy of the Herald-Tribune and asking everyone where she could catch the train for Brussels. She went to the platform and got on the train at the last minute and got off the train just as the doors closed. She went back around the platform and over a small knoll into the grass and picked up her bicycle and rode through the parkway around the south end of Bruges to the canal path.

  The car lights picked her up on the path. The car was coming from Damme and parked about four hundred feet west of her and waited for her. She knew the car was for her.

  She slowed as she approached. She saw it was a gray Mercedes. She felt her body becoming very warm and her eyes were wide and a sense of fear replaced the tentative sense that it was all hopeless. She was really going to see him. The adrenaline surged in her. She was close. She was this close. She was terribly afraid and the fear made a sick knot in her belly but she knew she would go through with it, right to the bad final moment.

  She got off the bicycle and walked it up the grassy slope to the road and leaned it against a tree. She locked the rear wheel with the automatic lock from the seat.

  She got in the car without a word.

  The other man was dressed in black and the driver did not turn his head. They swung around in the empty roadway and headed west again, toward the sea. No one spoke. The second man in the backseat next to her lit a cigarette and blew the smoke against the side window. He seemed bored.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  She put her hands on her knees. The bottoms of her jeans were wet. The rain had lasted all day. The fields were matted by the constant rain and the black earth was opened here and there where a farmer had finally turned the field for spring to come.

  She held the knife open in the pocket of her raincoat. It was just a Swiss Army knife, the kind with a red handle that is not a real Army knife at all but the kind that all the tourists buy. The blade was two and a half inches. If she had planned it out, she would have bought a real knife in Brussels but it had only come to her at the last moment, when she talked to the seaman in the Hotel Adornes, when she knew what she had to do.

  So when Colonel Ready came to her, she would shove the knife into his throat.

  She was certain Colonel Ready w
as waiting for her at the other end of the ride. Devereaux was dead; Rita was dead; at least Colonel Ready would be dead as well and David Mason would get the note at the Hotel Adornes and understand what Rita knew and why she had to go alone and kill Colonel Ready.

  She had known it for certain from the moment in the Club Tres when the old man—Reiter—told her about the man with the interesting scar on his cheek that went from his ear to the corner of his mouth. The interesting man who had talked business with the two fag waiters.

  Colonel Ready had Devereaux and that meant he was dead. In a little while, Rita would be dead, too. It was stupid and pointless, but it was the way it had to be because she loved Devereaux more than her life. It was the only way she could love.

  The car pulled up at a little house at the end of a road in the middle of fields. There was a gray Citroën there as well, in a small shed behind the house. She got out of the car and let the second man lead her up the single stone step to the door. She felt the knife in her hand in the coat.

  The door opened.

  The light was small in the wooden kitchen.

  She had the knife and felt the blade and waited to see better. Then she saw the hulking shape at the door on the far side of the kitchen.

  She stared and dared not speak.

  “Rita,” he said.

  It was the voice she thought was dead. She thought she might be dreaming the voice.

  Devereaux said her name again.

  21

  LOOKING FOR ANNA

  She opened the red thermos and poured out a little chicken soup. Chicken soup. Mrs. Neumann smiled for the first time. Dear Leo. Leo had driven down to Fourteenth Street from Bethesda, where they lived in a house off the Old Georgetown Road near Wisconsin Avenue. Leo had delivered a thermos full of homemade chicken soup.

  “You’re not gonna never come home, home is gonna come to you,” he said to her in the visitors’ lobby, where he had to wait for her.

  “Leo, my love,” she rasped and hugged him and kissed him on the lips. They were married so long that no one believed they could still love each other. Chicken soup was like flowers.

  “You sound terrible.”