by Brian Meeks
Lawrence nodded.
“What was his name?”
“Steve.”
“You got it.”
The expression on Lawrence’s face looked as if he had just discovered a mysterious secret. He stood up and said he would learn their names. He left, just as Celine was walking in with a box. Lawrence looked in the box as he walked past. “Hello Buttons.”
Celine asked, “How’d you know his name?”
“Henry is teaching me how to remember stuff.”
Celine decided it wasn’t worth figuring out. She set the box on the desk and pulled Buttons out and set him on the floor. He walked into Henry’s office and said, “Meooow.”
Celine said, “I'm sorry, he seems drawn to you.” Buttons was now curled up in the corner near Henry’s desk.
“Buttons is welcome here anytime.” Henry reached down and rubbed the cat’s ears. He was rewarded with some light purring.
“How is Lawrence doing at his new job?”
Henry filled her in and then she gave a lengthy recount of her adventures at the vet. Buttons took a nap.
CHAPTER 32
Celine added the final touch, a spritz of perfume and a bracelet. She assessed herself in the mirror and approved. Buttons hopped up on the bed and meowed though not in his usual way. She looked at him suspiciously but decided to rub his ears. A strange sound came from her cat. Could it be purring?
“Are you feeling better?” She asked. Buttons didn’t answer but pushed the top of his head into her hand. She thought he was trying to lull her into a false sense of security. It was nice, so she let him.
She left Buttons on the bed when she heard the knocking. “Coming…”
“Are you ready?” Carol yelled through the door. Carol was two years older than Celine and had known her since high school.
Celine opened the door and smiled. Carol walked in and said, “Oh, I like your dress. You look wonderful. The boys will be buying us drinks all night.”
“A girl’s gotta eat, well, drink, heck, let’s make them buy us food. You're looking sexy, too.” Celine gave her a hug.
Celine put out a dish of food for Buttons and they headed out.
The taxi let them off in front of the bar, and a couple of sailors whistled. Carol blushed while Celine wiggled her hips and said, “Hey, boys.”
Carol was about twenty pounds heavier than Celine with a nice face and a sweet smile. She was generally quiet and hid in the background noise at parties except when she was with Celine. Celine would nudge her into the fun...something she couldn’t do on her own.
Just after 9:00 pm the crowd was packed in like sardines. This was their favorite place and full of friends. They settled into their chairs and had a couple of beers. There was a lot of laughter. Celine had them all in stitches, as she could tell a story with the best of them. She noticed the handsome guy at the bar, but didn’t let him know she saw him. He would have to come to her.
* * *
Jack stood at the bar. He was on his game having just gotten up from a solid six hours of sleep. This was the favorite part of his job, getting beautiful women to trust him, and Henry’s secretary was better than most. He liked her hair and confidence. He would throw her a look, let her see him watching her, and, in a while, buy her a drink. He knew she would play hard to get. They all did. It wouldn’t be fun if she didn’t. Hard to get wasn’t too tough to crack, he would usually give a shrug and smile. A brief conversation with a lesser woman would usually seal the deal. Celine would take more gamesmanship. Jack knew his good looks and charm would win the day. He could tell that the guys at her table were just "friends" with delusions of suitor.
Celine said, “So the little furry demon let me pet him, and he purred. I know he is up to something. Buttons will likely kill me in my sleep.” Her friends laughed. Two of the guys laughed a bit too loudly, but she was used to it. Carol got up, and she and Celine went to the ladies room.
Jack lit a cigarette. He blew out the smoke and maneuvered himself to a spot where he could see his prey returning from the back. He checked his tie in the mirror. It was perfect. Carol and Celine were giggling when they walked by Jack. “What is so funny?”
Carol said, “Oh, nothing.”
Celine said, “We were just laughing at a really bad pick up line we heard.”
“I guess it comes with the job. You're both probably used to it,” he said and blew a ring of smoke.
Carol asked, “Job? What do you think we do?”
“I haven’t been in town long, but I know a couple of models when I see them. Is it fun?”
Carol blushed and said, “We're not models.”
Celine added, “We have brains.”
“I'm sure you do. May I buy you ladies a drink? You can tell me what a better ‘line’ would have been.”
* * *
Celine sensed she was being challenged. Carol didn’t care if it was a line; she liked him and said, ”I’d like another beer, thank you.”
Celine could tell that Carol was enamored with him, and she liked the idea of trying to come up with better lines. She ordered a beer, too.
An hour later, Jack was sitting with Celine, Carol, and her friends. He had flashed his smile and bought a few rounds. Even the guys liked him. He was able to skip the playing "hard to get" step. When Celine and Carol decided it was time to go, Jack had already gotten Celine's number. She acted tough, but put up little resistance.
* * *
Jack returned to the office and filled out his expense report and got caught up on the status of the agents being tracked. Nothing interesting there, so he decided to listen to the tapes from the bugs he placed the night before. It was grunt work, and the analysts would go through them again, but he always liked to make sure they were working well. Nothing interesting there, though he did like hearing Celine’s voice, and he looked forward to getting her to trust him. He loved his job.
CHAPTER 33
Dewey came in early. The stack of file folders on his desk was daunting, but he hoped there were answers inside. The first folder gave a detailed description of the previous day's wire taps. He scanned for anything that might have come from the detective's office. The highlight of the report was an account of the arrival of a cat named Buttons. He was confident that Buttons couldn't be considered a reliable prospect as a mole. He smiled when the analyst included details of Buttons return from the vet saying he was going to be okay.
The detailed report from Jack was a little more entertaining to read. He liked to brag and spared no ink explaining how he had cleverly won the detective's secretary over. He had her number and was confident he could get her to have drinks with him and much more. Dewey wished that, just once, Jack would be wrong about a woman being powerless against his charms. Though Jack’s bragging annoyed him a little, he took some small measure of comfort in knowing that it would really get under Gilbert's skin. He could almost hear the scoffing now.
An analyst knocked on the door and said, “Sir, another report. Shall I put it on top of the stack?”
“What’s it about?”
“Daily movements for one of the KGB agents you wanted.”
“Anything out of the ordinary in there?”
“No, sir.”
“Here, hand it to me.” Dewey put it to the side and said, “How many of these reports have you read?”
“I reviewed them all before putting them on your desk.”
“Did any of them give an indication as to who might be replacing Oleg Kiselev or Pytor Chistyakov?”
“You were looking for anyone who might be recalled to Moscow, correct?”
“Yes, but if you found anything, it would be helpful.”
“Nothing, sorry.”
“Thanks.”
The analyst left and Dewey got up and looked out the window.
Gilbert knocked, walked in, and headed straight for the coffee. “Are those the agent status reports?”
“They're a pile of nothing. Not a single agent has been
recalled. We must have missed something. Are you sure you found everyone who could be in line for a promotion?”
Gilbert added some sugar and said, “Yes, everyone. Maybe they will recall someone today?”
“Have you ever known the Russians to take a day off?”
Gilbert couldn’t argue with this logic. He hated not knowing what was going on, and he was starting to have doubts about the whole mission. He was about to voice his concerns, but Dewey beat him too it.
“I'm starting to wonder if I got this whole thing wrong.”
Gilbert appreciated how he took responsibility but wasn’t about to let him fall on his sword. “It is we, not you, who saw the patterns and sold this to Langley. I just can’t believe we could be so far off. You don’t suppose the Russians bluffed us?”
The idea had occurred to Dewey, too. Both sides did it. “If they planted everything just to get us to chase our tails, well, I guess they won. Still, some of our moves were brilliant. Like how you found that agent in Prague. His notes alone seemed enough. We weren’t even supposed to be there that weekend. How could they have planned for it?”
“I don’t know, but in this business, deception is the name of the game. It's like a magic trick; you get people looking at one hand while the prize is in the other. If all this time has been a set-up, well, we are through.”
“They will definitely take our decoder rings back.” Dewey joked. Neither man laughed.
“It will go down as one of the greatest deceptions in spy history. I'm sure Oleg and Pytor are laughing loud enough to wake the dead.”
Dewey looked at him and started pacing behind his desk. He began flipping a pencil between his fingers. Gilbert went quiet. The wheels were turning and Gilbert wasn’t about to get in his way. They both knew each other well enough to let the other finish his thought. “Gilbert, what if we were right all along? What if they were planning a major theft of our technology, one that could alter the balance of power on the seas? What if Agent Robert Lohman’s death really was the first shot?”
“Those have been our theories. Where are you going with this?”
“What would be the second shot?”
Gilbert sat down and looked at Dewey. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. It was a very good question. “They would need to get either Oleg or Pytor into the U.S. to make it happen.”
Dewey knew he didn’t need to say it, but he did anyway. “They might send them both. They might fake their deaths.”
“Those clever bastards. Of course they would. The KGB got a whiff of what we have been doing, and they killed Robert. Then to cover their tracks, Moscow crashes a plane and says it's Chistyakov and Kiselev . And viola, the world believes them dead, and Moscow sends their two best men on their way. I think you're right. This plan would be too important. They would build in redundancy, which is why they're using both of them.”
A meeting was called. They needed to find the two dead Russians.
CHAPTER 34
Oleg and Pytor had crossed seven time zones and were resting at Niagara Falls, waiting for the cars which would take them to their new homes in New York City. The trip had worn away the years of animosity brought about by ambition. Now, they were comrades who had one thing in common - their families thought they were dead. Pytor had a son and daughter who were in college. He looked at the falls and thought about how much they would enjoy it, but not as they were now, for he saw their faces as the young kids who used to give their mother fits. Oleg had listened to Pytor mourn for his children losing their father as Pytor had done the same for him. Oleg had abandoned, as he put it, his lovely bride. They had only been married for four years. He had met Oxana on a mission in Berlin. She had been stationed there for six months. The drop had been flawless, and they had enough time to fall in love before returning to Moscow. She would be strong after hearing of his death. It was her training.
Pytor said, “They would have enjoyed seeing the falls, especially when they were young.”
The mist and pounding water was spectacular. “I've seen this before.”
“You have been to Niagara falls?”
“No, but I've been to DC. I spent six months, in ‘51, setting up safe houses for our agents. Oxana was with me. When we weren’t working, we went to galleries and shows. They have a lot of good art in DC. Not like the Hermitage, of course, but The Corcoran Gallery and Renwick are nice. Not to mention being right across from the White House.”
“I know these two galleries. I was in DC in ‘48 for a while; they are excellent.”
“I remember a painting by Frederic Edwin Church who was part of the Hudson River School. It is called Niagara. I believe it was painted from where we stand now. It was Oxana’s favorite. We went three or four times and always spent a few minutes sitting on the bench, holding hands and watching the water flow.” He didn’t worry about how it sounded; Oleg knew Pytor understood.
“I remember it now. Yes, you are right, my friend. This is the place.”
They stood there in silence for a while. When the cars pulled up, two couples emerged. They looked like all the other tourists. The women yelled, “Uncle Peter, Uncle John, we are so glad you made it.”
Their American accents are perfect, thought Pytor as he turned around to hug his niece and to shake her husband’s hand. While they talked about prepared family trivialities, he thought about how important the mission was and wondered how all of this had been put together ‘off the books’. It was an impressive trip with at least a dozen people involved, and none of them could be considered official agents. Yet, they all seemed to be as professional as anyone he had worked with before. The espionage community was small yet he hadn’t known a single person on their journey, except for Oleg. Pytor was impressed and ready to get moving.
They talked and pointed at the falls for an appropriate amount of time. Both men said goodbye, closed the doors, and the cars headed off on different routes to Manhattan.
* * *
Henry hadn't slept well. He was not looking forward to Celine glancing at her watch when he opened the door, but it was too late to run away. She had heard his footsteps, he was sure. “Good morning, Celine,” Henry said as casually as he could muster.
“Good Morning, Henry, I hope you don’t mind, but, well…”
Buttons said “Meow,” as he hopped up on the desk. Buttons looked to be fully recovered.
“Hello, Buttons.”
“As I was saying before I was interrupted,” she glared at Buttons who didn’t seem at all sorry. “I hope you don’t mind. This morning I was getting ready for work. Buttons usually does his own thing, but today he was very chatty. It’s nice not having him stalking me. I made some breakfast and filled up his food bowl, but he didn’t eat; he just kept meowing. When I put my coat on, he got in the box. I tried to explain that I would be back after work, but he kept arguing his point. Then he threw in a healthy dose of cute, and I crumbled.”
Henry laughed, “I suspect you know how I feel now…boss.”
She gave him a dirty look.
Henry picked up Buttons. “So, how did it feel?”
“I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.” She scrunched her nose and made a face at Buttons. Then she petted him, too. He purred some more. “I forgot to ask how your lunch with the client went yesterday.”
“It was fine. We didn’t have a lot of time, but she gave me this.” Henry handed the folded-up piece of paper to Celine. “It’s a list of names, obviously. She went through his appointment book for the last six months and put it together.”
“Who are these men?”
“She said he would have her set up appointments but never tell her why they were meeting, which was odd. Amy said she knew all of the suppliers, clients, and people he normally met with, but these gentlemen were new. The only thing he would say is that they were investors.”
“So are you going to check them out?”
“I need to get out to the widow’s place today.”
“Shou
ld I give her a call?”
“That would be great. Thanks. Buttons and I'll make the coffee.”
Celine rolled her eyes and gave Buttons one more pat on the head.
Henry opened the newspaper to the sports section. He read Buttons the box score from the Dodger game at the NY Giants. Henry explained that though we don’t like the Giants, we really hate the Yankees. Dodgers won 10-8. Buttons didn’t seem to be very knowledgeable about baseball, but he was a good listener.
CHAPTER 35
Henry’s mind was sharp. A couple solid days of wondering what was going on had given him zero concrete ideas, but it had gotten him to push the boundaries of what might be possible. The traffic moved slowly, stopping at times, as he drove out to Long Island. He had an appointment to speak with the widow, Kupton. The car radio was off; he had Billy Joel’s "The Stranger" running through his head. The odd clue from the future, via his basement closet, hadn’t gotten him anywhere yet.
In the past, the little nudges in the right direction had become clear when he least expected it. Henry decided it best to just keep listening to the songs so that he would be ready. He liked the music from the '70s. It was vastly different than his usual fair. His record player could generally be found with Harry James, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, or Tommy Dorsey under the needle. But there it was, that song about the stranger, playing in his head. He didn’t think it could be the clue because the song was about the other people inside us and how we hide from our lovers, even from ourselves.
Luna had listened to most of the songs with him, and she liked them, too. He wasn’t sure how closely she paid attention to the words. Now that he had heard the song a few more times, he wondered if she would like it as much. Henry knew he was, by nature, guarded. Luna brought out the best in him and he let her in a little but not too much. They kept it light.
