"Do without zalivnaya riba?" said Kolodny with a shudder that set him to jiggling. He raised a pudgy hand. "I surrender, Comrade Colonel. You have convinced me."
"With all respect," said Radichek softly. "All covert agents operate under such conditions. All of us here have done it at one time or another. With a sleeper, the difference is only one of time."
"Only one of time? But Boris Ivanovich, that's the whole point. That man has been out there for thirty-five years without a word from us, never knowing when he would be activated."
"That is the standard procedure," Radichek pointed out.
"But thirty-five years?"
"Thirty-five good years," said Kolodny, laughing. "And little Yuri has done well for himself. How much money does an American commissar make at his level?"
"Not a fortune, not to them," said Radichek. "But he was a successful lawyer for years, and he made good investments. He's comfortable, very comfortable indeed. A big house, a good wife, a fine daughter. No, I can't feel sorry for Yuri. He's made himself into the typical American success story."
"Which was exactly what he was supposed to do," said Petrovich. From the bottom drawer of his desk he took a bottle of purple Georgian wine and three glasses. He filled them and passed them around.
"He is like a flower in full bloom," said Radichek. "A long time blooming."
"And ready to be plucked." Kolodny raised his glass. "Well, here's to our Yuri."
"And to an absent comrade," Radichek added. "To Anya Ignatiev."
"And to the operation," said Petrovich. "Most important of all, to Homefire."
They drank.
CHAPTER FOUR
On this same morning before the American Day of Independence, the man who called himself Eddie Angelotti was engaged in the ancient and dangerous game of trying to awaken a sleeping woman without having his head handed to him. Eddie wiggled cautiously, then wiggled again, moving himself slowly across the oversized bed that occupied most of one wall of the studio apartment. On the other side of the bed, Ginger Emerson slept soundly, her auburn hair, a shade or two darker than her mother's, a beckoning beacon on the pillow slip. She slept on her side with her back to him, covers thrown off in the night, and the sight of that back sloping down to well-turned buttocks and thighs was as much a beacon as her flaming hair. He wiggled again, gained six inches, and stopped. She did not move, and he wiggled again. The object of the exercise was to tuck himself next to her, spoon-fashion, without waking her, thereby finding a resting place between her thighs for the usual early-morning-just-woke-up-with-it-how-the-hell- did-it-get-so-big erection that was presently causing him a moderate amount of discomfort. One of two things would then happen. She would either come swimming up lazily from slumber, a complacent carp bent on bending the pole; or she would come up like a flash, a furious shark striking out at whatever had dragged her up from the comfortable depths. The result was never predictable, and the uncertainty gave piquancy to each morning's fishing expedition.
On this particular morning the patience of the angler was rewarded. Moving in close, tucking himself in, casting his bait, so to speak, upon the waters, he was rewarded first by a gentle tug, then a definite connection as flesh responded, followed by a long and languorous murmur that signaled the catch swimming up in lazy circles to break the surface with a sigh as Ginger awoke and rolled over, pressing herself close to him.
"Got me," she said, her eyes still closed. "You did it again."
"It's all in the touch. Takes years to learn."
"Mmmm. The advantages of an older man. One of these days you're going to catch a whale with that thing, and then what will you do?"
"Run like hell, I guess."
"Better not." She nuzzled his shoulder. "Some brave fisherman you are."
"Nobody's brave at seven in the morning."
"I like that. It sounds like something from Hemingway." Her eyes popped open. "Is it really seven?"
"More like seven thirty."
"God, I've got a nine o'clock class." She sat up suddenly and started to swing her legs over the edge of the bed. He caught her at the hips before she could complete the motion. He flipped her over on her back and rolled on top of her. She squealed in protest. "Hey, whatever happened to fore- play?"
"You've got an early class."
"Look, be a nice guy and throw me back. I'm just a little fish."
"Plenty big enough for me."
"Really, I'll grow up and taste better later."
"You taste just fine," he said, tasting her. "After all, a fish in the net is worth two in the . . . what?"
"Bush," she sighed, surrendering happily.
Afterwards, she preempted the tiny shower while he lay on his back and studied the ceiling, cuddling his contentment. You are one lucky son of a bitch, he told himself. He had always thought of himself as being lucky. Indeed, in his occupation ... his former occupation, he reminded himself . . . luck had always been a necessary factor for success, a basic ingredient, not an added bonus. He had once been considered the best in his field, and he was honest enough to admit that luck had played its part. And now he was lucky again with a different kind of luck. The girl was a prize, the kind of treasure he had won and lost in the past, the kind he had thought he would never have again. He knew exactly how lucky he was to have her, and he meant to keep her.
Even if it means driving down to Washington for the old man's birthday, he thought, sighing inwardly at the predictable pattern that he knew the visit would follow. Five hours driving down there in the camper, get there just in time for a big dinner with too much rich food and fancy wine, and then the old man beats me two games out of three in backgammon while the mother tries to pump Ginger about what's going on up here. Happy birthday, Jimbo; open up the presents, ooh and aah, have a nightcap, and then everybody up to bed, Ginger in her old room like a teenage kid and me in the guest room with dragons on guard outside just like they have no idea we've been living together for six months.
Still, he knew it was worth it as he watched her standing in front of the mirror smoothing her skirt. She ran a comb through her hair, then reached for her handbag and the large portfolio of sketches on the table. He jumped out of bed and wrapped himself in his robe.
"No breakfast?" he asked.
"No time, thanks to you." She put up her face to be kissed. "I'll get a container of coffee on the way."
"Hell of a way to start the day."
"It was a lovely way to start the day, much better than breakfast." They walked together to the door, and he helped her to undo the two cylinder locks, the deadbolt, and the Fox Police Bar jammed into a plate in the floor. With the door open, she kissed him again and said lightly, "Got any plans for today?"
"Plans?"
"You know. What are you doing today?"
"The same thing I do every day," he said in an even tone. "Nothing. A little jogging, that's all. Maybe buy some books. Why?"
"Just asking." Her voice was still light. "I don't know how you do it."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"It's easy. I'll show you the trick sometime."
"No thanks," she said, shaking her head. There was no frown on her face, but there might have been one in her voice. "I don't think I'd be very good at it."
"You could learn. Like I said, it's easy."
"Not for me. It's a knack you have to be born with."
"Ginger, get off it. All the way off. I'm not your father, and I'm not the kind of guv you grew up with. I never will be."
"I'm not trying to . . ."
"Sure you are, and this isn't the first time. Just remember. I don't have any fucking work ethic jammed up my ass. Where I come from a work ethic was something my father brought home in an envelope and gave to mv mother to pay the rent."
"I know that, darling."
"Where you come from," he said, "they don't have pay envelopes stuffed with dollar bills and nickels and dimes. They have government checks and bank accounts, and people work har
d because that's the Christian thing to do. Work ethic, shit. In my old neighborhood the people would laugh themselves silly if a guy worked when he didn't have to. He'd be a freak, a pazzo. Do I look like a pazzo?'
"Eddie. I don't even know what a pazzo is," she said quietly.
"Exactly. So don't say you know how it is, because you don't. The way it is. right now I'm doing nothing. Maybe someday I'll do something again, but not now. So get off it."
"All right, I'm off it," she said, and this time she was.
"Until the next time."
"There won't be any next time. I'm sorry."
"You always are," he said, but she looked so desolate that he gave her a smile to take the edge of it away. "Go ahead, get going; you'll be late."
When she was gone he closed and bolted the door, standing still and staring at it for a moment. Doing nothing, he thought. Almost a year now of doing nothing, and she thinks I en joy it. Christ, if she knew what I used to do she'd want me to keep on doing nothing for the rest of my life. Nothing at all.
And then, as it had every once in a while for the past year, the sadness came. It was a gentle sadness now, toned down by the months he had lived with it. At first the sadness had been raging and raw, an active grief which had come close to tearing him apart. But meeting Ginger had changed all that, for the sadness was nothing he could share with her, ever, and so he had buried it far from her sight. Perhaps being buried had muted the grief, but now whenever he was alone he was able to live with it, to bring it out of hiding on occasion and let it shape his mood. And there was still a sadness. He still grieved for the loss of the two people who once had been closest to him.
Loss? He allowed himself a mental chuckle at the euphemism. You didn't lose them, Eddie. You lose car keys and a ball game. You lose time and you lose your way. But you don't lose people. You don't just lose the woman you love and the man who was your closest friend. You kill them, Eddie, you don't lose them. You killed Vasily, and you let Chalice kill herself. You lost a lot last year, but you didn't lose those people; you killed them.
It was a measure of his sadness that he did not stop to think that at the same time the two of them had also been trying to kill him. The sadness was still too strong for logic.
Still brooding, he checked out the refrigerator for something to eat. There was a container of milk, a carton of eggs, half a pizza covered with desiccated anchovies, a shelf full of beer, and two bags of fudge, one light and one dark, that he kept in the fridge because of the roaches. He poured a glass of milk and took it to the table with two pieces of fudge. A cockroach scurried away at his approach.
"Bloody roaches," he muttered. His hatred of the insects had been branded into him in childhood. "I've got a quarter of a million in the bank in Geneva, the same in the Bahamas, the house in Mexico, and I still have to live in a goddamn cockroach factory."
The sight of the cockroach forced thoughts of Mexico to his mind. The Mexican decision was one that he had faced daily for months, ever since he had met Ginger, and every day he postponed making the decision just one more time. The thought of the house in Atotonilco - the cool patios, the flowers, and the fountains - tugged at him. Mexico was security, Mexico was safety, Mexico was anonymity. That was where he belonged, he knew, not putting his ass on the line every time he walked the streets of New York.
I've gotten away with it so far, he thought. But how much longer? I keep this up and I have to get hit. All it takes is one slob from the old days, standing in a saloon when I walk in, and he thinks, Hey that's Eddie Mancuso! Where's the telephone, who's got a dime? And I'm dead. Shit, I've got to get out of here, and Mexico is the only place to go.
That was his daily argument, and the rebuttal came back in its usual form.
You split for Mexico and you lose the girl. She'd never go with you, and even if she would, how do you explain it? How do you tell her the danger you're in? How do you tell her about Vasily and Chalice? How do you tell her about being on the run? You tell her that, or any part of it, and you lose her, anyway. So how do you win?
As always, the argument refused to be resolved. It was Mexico or the girl, as simple as that, and he was not prepared to walk away from her. Then, as always, the argument entered its third - and final - stage.
I'll just cool it for a while, he thought, slipping gratefully into the familiar compromise. Maybe after a while the heat will ease up. Maybe after a while I'll be able to tell her about things. Maybe after a while we'll be able to head down to Mexico together. Maybe.
He knew that he was kidding himself, that he would never tell her because the people who wanted his ass were not the kind who would ease up after a while. They were bureaucrats, gray and faceless and well accustomed to waiting.
Thoughts of Mexico still in his mind, he finished his breakfast and dressed for his morning run. As he dressed, he checked each item of clothing carefully before putting it on. There were running shoes and socks, a support, a sweat shirt, and a pair of shorts, all brand-name items bought in local shops, but he had spent many hours working on them in his makeshift lab in the camper. The work had been a foolish pandering to his pride, but after a year of enforced idleness, asking him not to use his hands that way would have been like asking an out-of-work musician to throw away his fiddle.
He put on the support first. The metal cup of the jock was made of a high-intensity aluminum that could withstand the blow of a sledgehammer.
He pulled on his running shorts. The rear pocket could be torn away, squeezed, and thrown to explode like a hand grenade.
He slipped on the sweat shirt. The left cuff contained a whiplike length of serrated steel that could cut to the bone.
He sat down to pull on his socks and his running shoes. The right shoe was quite ordinary. The toe cap of the left shoe contained an explosive device which, when the heel was stamped sharply, would fire a charge heavy enough to take off someone's leg ten feet away.
He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. He didn't much like what he saw. He saw a man who now called himself Eddie Angelotti, a man who looked like an average New Yorker ready to go for a run but who was, in fact, a jogging arsenal of death and destruction. He also saw a man called Eddie Mancuso, who, until a year ago, had been recognized by the intelligence agencies of the world as the most inventive and prolific creator of the sophisticated weaponry known in the trade as UKDs, Unusual Killing Devices. And, in the end, he saw a man whose ass was up for grabs, whose body was wanted dead or alive by every major American intelligence organization. There was, he knew, an Open Warrant out on him. He had seen such things before, and he knew what his own must look like.
FOR EYES OF: Closed list only
SUBJECT: Edward Mancuso
AGE: 39
LAST KNOWN ADDRESS: 410 E. 82 St. New York, N. Y.
DESCRIPTION: Height: 5'8". Weight: 145-150 lbs. Eyes: Brown. Hair: Black. Skin: Olive. Distinguishing marks: Puckered scar right forearm; transverse furrow left thigh operation homefirf.
WARRANT: Clandestine apprehension or total extraction required
EXPENSE AUTHORIZATION: $50,000
BACKGROUND: Until recently Mancuso was a specialist in the manufacture of Unusual Killing Devices (UKDs) and was under continuous contract to the Agency for twenty years. During those years he was considered the leading expert in this field, his reputation being rivaled only by that of Soviet scientist Vasily Borgneff of the KGB (Ref. #U/7924). While employed by the Agency, Mancuso supplied UKDs to the Special Operations Section IV, Technical Services Division (TSD), then known intra-Agency as the Colonial Squad, now defunct. He is noted primarily for his development of the Mancuso Effect (quick-release neurotoxin heart-attack simulator) and the Mancuso antidote (tablet size and compress inhaler both). He has also been responsible for many other UKDs. Principal but partial list follows:
Mancuso barium chromate and boron fuse.
"Little Devil" blowback silencer for various types of pistols (self-destruct model).
Mod
el R-84 anaphylactic-shock cartridge.
Mancuso felt-tip pen. Flair or Bic model containing tiger-snake venom.
Model R-24 miniature detonators.
Mancuso Blow-off Wheel Remover (for all model U.S. cars manufactured after 1967).
Mancuso's association with the Agency was terminated when he conspired with Soviet agent Vasily Borgneff (see above) to eliminate the entire Colonial Squad and its KGB counterpart, the Zhukovka O Group. The apparent motivation on the part of both Mancuso and Borgneff was a desire for nonprejudicial retirement from active service (nongrantable), but in Mancuso's case the most recent series-J psychoprofiles also indicate a deep-seated revulsion against any further involvement with death- dealing devices.
The Mancuso-Borgneff coup, which was almost entirely successful, resulted in the total elimination of the Colonial Squad, including its commanding officer. Colonel the sleeping spy Frederick W. Parker, and his wife. Catherine (Chalice) Parker, known to have been Mancuso's mistress. The attempt fell short of total success only because of a falling-out between Mancuso and Borgneff. Mancuso then disappeared and has not been seen since.
SUMMARY: Mancuso may be described as being street-wise rather than well educated, with an intuitive rather than an empirical mind. Naturally brilliant in his own and closely related fields, he is indifferent to most others, a weakness which allows for various avenues of approach. Despite this, and despite his apparent distaste for his former specialty, he is certain to have maintained his expertise in the field.
He should be considered highly dangerous. Approach only with extreme caution.
While James Emerson was consulting the lost-and-found column, and Eddie Mancuso was fishing between Ginger's legs, and the KGB, time zones away, was toasting itself with Georgian wine, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Harvey Christianson, was presiding over the weekly breakfast meeting of his deputy directors in the seventh-floor executive offices at Langley, Virginia. Sitting at the end of a long boardroom table that was dotted with coffee cups and the crusts of half-eaten pastries, Christianson buried a sigh as he listened to the babble of voices around him discussing the Soviet operation known only by its code name, Homefire.
The Sleeping Spy Page 5
