The Sleeping Spy

by Clifford Irving

  "And then what?"

  "We cut the cables and get out of here."

  "Against orders. We're supposed to wait for the signal."

  "I warned him that we'd cut them if anything went wrong. Every minute that he wastes down there increases the risk. Five minutes, that's all."

  "He could be hit by the cables," Van pointed out. "He won't know that they're coming."

  "What difference would that make?" Chuc asked.

  "True." Van nodded thoughtfully. "What difference?"

  Below them in the pool, staring up at them through space, Emerson now knew what he had to do. The details were not clear to him, but he knew that sometime soon death would come swooping down from that tower, and he also knew that he could not stay still and wait for it passively. A move had to be made, any kind of a move that would give his wife and daughter some kind of a chance. He decided on a loud and splashy diversion that would draw the intruder's attention away from the women. He hoped only that they would have the sense to clear the pool as soon as he made his move.

  He was gathering himself for that move when he heard Eddie's voice say quietly, "Don't do it, Jimbo, it won't work. Stay cool and stay exactly where you are."

  "Excellent advice," Vasily told Eddie. "It's a lovely day, just right for a dip in the pool. Why don't you join your (Friends in the water?"

  "Only if you'll go with me. You used to enjoy this pool."

  "Indeed, I did. Many good times we had here." He made an apologetic gesture with his free hand. "But you see, I'm not dressed for the occasion."

  Eddie shook his head. "And, I've already had my swim for today."

  "I'm afraid I must insist."

  "And if I don't?"

  Vasily's lips twisted in more of a grimace than a smile. As an answer, the tip of his pistol described a tiny circle, a zero, a cancellation.

  Eddie's chin came up and his lower lip came out. He looked exactly like what he once had been, and in many ways still was: as he would have put it, a kid from the streets of the Lower East Side who had been taking shit long enough and wasn't taking any more, not from anyone.

  "Go ahead," he said hoarsely. "If you're gonna do it, then do it now. I'll take it right here."

  "Still the tough little monkey." Vasily raised his free hand slowly into the air until it was above his head. "When my hand comes down, those cables get cut."

  "So what am I supposed to do? Crawl on my belly? Beg for my life?"

  "I was rather hoping for something like that."

  "Keep on hoping."

  Vasily looked at him thoughtfully. "I suppose I was also hoping for some words of regret."

  "You mean for Chalice?"

  "For Chalice, and for me."

  Eddie said angrily, "You can take your regret and shove it. Chalice did it to herself. She was trying to kill me and she pressed the wrong button, literally. The same with you. You were OK as long as we were fighting just to stay alive, but then you went kill-crazy that day in Williamsburg and you had to be stopped."

  "You almost stopped me permanently."

  "Nobody's perfect," Eddie said.

  Vasily frowned. "Easy, old friend. You're walking a thin line. I've had a year to think what I'd do to you if I had the chance."

  Eddie nodded. "You've had a year, and so have I. A year of thinking I'd killed my best pal. A lot of sweat in the night, if you know what I mean. A bad year. But now I know something I didn't know before. Standing here, right now, I know."

  "And what is it that you know?" Vasily asked curiously.

  "I'm glad you're not dead. I never hated you. I always thought you were a pretty good guy. But when I clobbered you with that rock, in case it's slipped your mind, you were trying to blow up half the CIA . . . and that included secretaries who didn't know an extraction order from a toothache. I was trying to stop you, and you were trying to kill me. If it happened again, I'd do it again. Except this time I'd use a machine gun instead of a rock." He shook his head disgustedly. "Now pull the goddamn plug if that's all you can think of. Pull it and get it over with."

  Vasily nodded. His arm came down in a broad gesture, as if he were hauling down a flag. Several things happened at once.

  Emerson's arms and legs began to flail in an attempt to reach the side of the pool.

  Rusty, at the shallow end, tried to run through the knee- high water but tripped and fell, pitching forward.

  Ginger, one foot on the lowest rung of the ladder, reached for the second rung, barked her shin, and fell backward.

  Eddie and Vasily stood still, looking upward.

  Chuc and Van each laid the sharp edge of his cutter onto a cable and applied pressure. The grip of that pressure was never completed. The instant that the metal of the cutters touched bare cable, twenty thousand volts of electricity shot through each of them, killing them instantly. The force of the jolt bounced them back against the steel tower, and then, hair aflame and their clothing smoldering, they pitched forward and fell, their bodies performing two slow rotations before hitting the ground.

  The thud of the bodies hitting was followed by silence. Emerson reached the side of the pool and hung there, gasping. Rusty picked herself up and stared. Ginger surfaced, looked around, and started again for the ladder.

  Vasily smiled and slipped the pistol into his pocket. Eddie looked at him inquiringly.

  "The insulation on the cutters," Vasily explained. "I pulled it all out this morning and replaced it with steel wool."

  "Naughty," Eddie observed. "And nasty."

  "But necessary," Vasily said. "They were going to kill me after this job. Swan's orders."

  "That sounds like his style."

  "And so I decided that it was time to come home. I was never very happy on the other side of the fence."

  Eddie stood stiffly. There was a weakness in his legs that he was determined not to show. He made a vague motion toward the tower and the two bodies crumpled at its base.

  "That was one hell of a homecoming present you brought with you."

  Vasily made a modest bow. "I didn't have a chance to do any shopping, and I thought it might amuse you."

  "Amuse me? I nearly died laughing." Eddie's eyes were still on the tower, narrowed and reflective. He tore his gaze away and looked at Vasily. He grinned and put out his hand. "You are one crazy son of a bitch. OK, I'm amused. Welcome home."

  "That bastard Swan has to die," roared Vasily. He slammed his fist on the table and wine bottles jumped. "There's no honor left in this business anymore."

  "None," Eddie agreed glumly. He refilled his glass.

  "I had a contract with the man and he ordered me killed. He has to be extracted, and quickly."

  Eddie said, "So stop talking and kill the prick."

  "He tried to kill me, too." Emerson's thick, sad voice confirmed Swan's infamy.

  "That's different." Vasily emptied his glass. "It made sense for him to kill you. But I was working for him. There was a point of honor involved." He put his hand over his heart and declaimed, "My honor is dearer to me than life. Who said that?"

  "Mick Jagger?"

  "Cervantes, my illiterate Italian chum. Don Quixote, part one."

  "Which page?"

  Vasily ignored him. "For a man such as me, honor is everything. After all, what is left when honor is lost? Who said that?"

  "Richard Nixon? A1 Capone?"

  "You're close," Vasily conceded. "Actually, it was Publilius Syrus, a very noble Roman."

  "Another Italian illiterate," Eddie said.

  "My most sincere apologies." Vasily tried to bow. Being seated, all he did was bump his forehead on the table. He recovered quickly and said, "Please don't misunderstand. My respect for Italians goes all the way back to the Borgias."

  The bottle of wine in his hand, Eddie looked around the table for takers. Emerson held out his glass. Ginger smiled but shook her head. Rusty was not drinking at all.

  They sat at the round table in the sala on the first floor of the house. The room was
dimly lit, the heavy oak and walnut furniture looming in the shadows. The table was burdened with plates of cold meats and cheeses, slabs of bread, and over a dozen bottles of wine, most of them empty. It was after midnight, and, aside from Rusty, everyone was drunk in varying stages. Ginger was tipsy, Emerson was high, Eddie was owlish, and Vasily was roaring.

  It was a strange celebration. Part of the gaiety around the table came from the near-hysterical relief that follows a close escape from death, part of it from the desperate humor of people who face an uncertain future, and part of it from the quiet understanding that passed between Vasily and Eddie at the resumption of their old relationship. It was the nature of this relationship, and Vasily's sudden switch from enemy to ally, that confused the Emersons and made the celebration less than perfect. Rusty kept her eyes fixed on Vasily at all times, as if convinced that he was about to produce a weapon and assassinate them all. Ginger was suspicious as well, but her suspicions centered on the obvious bond between this intruder and her man, and womanwise. she was on guard against it. Only Emerson, as a onetime soldier, seemed to understand the comradeship involved, but he, too, had his reservations.

  "The bottle, please." Vasily raised his glass to eye level and inspected the straw-colored wine. "Here's to Swan, that swine. A devious man with a devious plan. He hires me to take out all you lovely people, and after I've done my job his two little Oriental thugs eliminate me. All very neat and tidy." He belched. "A contract on me. You have no idea how shocked I was to hear it. Betrayed! By a so-called gentleman. 'Keep honor, like your saber, bright.' Now. who said that? Never mind. Don't try to guess. George Washington Patten, a minor poet, but a gentleman." Vasily looked curiously at Rusty. "Do we offend you with our levity, madam?"

  Rusty ignored the question. Her face was set in hard lines. She asked, "When did you find this out about Swan?"

  "This morning." He belched again. "I regret to admit it, but I was eavesdropping."

  "And if you hadn't been eavesdropping we'd be dead by now. Isn't that right?"

  The question cut through the alcoholic haze in the room. There was an embarrassed silence. Eddie started to say, "Rusty, I don't think you understand ..."

  Vasily cut him off. His voice, for the moment, was steady. "I don't owe you this explanation, madam, but I'll give it to you anyway. The answer is no, you would not be dead. Not if it would have involved any harm to my curly-headed little buddy over there. You see, I had a year's worth of hate built up in me when I came to Mexico, but..." He paused, looked at Emerson, and said something in Russian. Emerson smiled understandingly. "I just said to your husband in our native tongue that, like all Russians, I am a sentimentalist. A weakness, perhaps, but part of my Slavic soul. All it took was the sight of this house, the sight of my old friend with your lovely daughter, and memories came flooding back to me, memories . . ."

  "Come on, cut the bullshit," muttered Eddie.

  ". . .of happier times, tender memories that washed away all the anger and hate. I decided several days ago that I could not possibly harm him, although I had not yet decided on a course of action. And since harming you would have meant harming him, ergo, you were not going to die."

  He pointed a long and bony finger at her. "But barring his presence? If you had been on your own? Yes, madam, you would have been dead, all three of you. I can assure you of that."

  Rusty gasped, and Emerson looked unhappy.

  "Why are you surprised?" asked Vasily. "Five days ago you people meant nothing to me. Why should I have spared you?"

  "No reason, I suppose," said Emerson. "And now?"

  "A different situation." Vasily speared a morsel of Chihuahua cheese and took a delicate bite. "Now I've crossed over. My connection with Swan, as you might imagine, is irrevocably broken. You have nothing to fear from me anymore." He looked down at his wine glass pensively. "Not that it makes any difference at this point. You don't have a . . ."

  He stopped when he saw Eddie making small signals for silence, but Emerson wanted to hear more.

  "What were you going to say? What don't we have?"

  "Let it go. The wine was in and the wit was out."

  "No, I want to hear it."

  Vasily chewed cheese without relish. Reluctantly, he said, "You don't have a chance in the world. Do you think I'm the only one he'll send after you?"

  Which was exactly what he had said to Eddie earlier that day, after the two of them had buried Chuc and Van. The burial came before anything else, of course, in the same fashion that a fussy housewife will insist on doing the dishes after dinner despite the temptation to linger at the table and savor the aftertaste of the meal. As soon as the danger was over, the three Emersons were hustled out of the pool and into the house to dry themselves off, dress themselves up, and calm themselves down, while Eddie and Vasily found tools and sacks and made the trek across the barren countryside to the base of the tower.

  After a brief inspection of the remains, Vasily asked, "The cave?"

  "Good a spot as any," Eddie agreed.

  It was the work of half an hour to lug the laden sacks down to the split in the rocks that concealed the mouth of a cave cut deep into the hillside, and another fifteen minutes to maneuver them into the back of the dark cave where the rock floor dropped away sharply to form a pit. They rolled the sacks over the lip of the pit and waited. They did not hear the sound of them striking bottom, but they had not expected to.

  They went back out into the sunlight to sit on the rocks and rest. They both lit cigarettes, drew deeply, and looked at each other and grinned.

  "Steel wool," said Eddie, shaking his head in admiration. "What a beautifully wicked mind you have."

  "Don't think it was easy. It took me over an hour to get the insulation out of the handles, repack them with the steel, and then work enough points of the metal up to the surface to ensure contact." He looked up at the sun and down at his watch. "Perhaps you'd best fill me in on the situation here. After that, I'll give you my side of it."

  The exchange of information was quick and concise. It was made on a professional level and without emotion. When Vasily came to the part about Elena Castelnuevo, Eddie interrupted him.

  "She was reporting to Swan?"

  "She was the link between my two scheming sidekicks and the DD5. She was passing information back and forth, positions reports to Swan and instructions from Swan to Chuc and Van. I heard it all this morning, including the son of a bitch's final instruction to get rid of me." He stared out over the treeless terrain. "You realize that you're backing a lame horse, don't you? Emerson doesn't have a chance, now that Swan knows where he is."

  "I wonder." Eddie thought for a moment. "The woman reported in this morning, right? When would her next check-in be due?"

  "From what I could hear, it sounded like she was on a three-day schedule with a one-day fallback."

  "Standard."

  "So Swan will expect to hear from her again in four days, five at the outside."

  "Shit, that means we're on the run again."

  "Eddie, face it. Your man is dead. He can't run forever, and Swan will never stop trying."

  "Maybe so," said Eddie, not convinced. With obvious reluctance, he added, "I hate to say this, but you'll have to do something about Senora Castelnuevo."

  Vasily looked surprised. "I took care of that this morning at breakfast. Their bodies were probably found a couple of hours ago."

  "Both of them?"

  "Certainly." This time Vasily looked irritated, rather than surprised. "What choice did I have? Besides, they were both professionals. The girl was no more her daughter than Lenin was my grandfather."

  Eddie laughed. "And I was worried about you getting sentimental about them."

  "Fear not, I had my moment of sentiment this afternoon. It should last me quite a while."

  Professionally curious, Eddie could not help asking, "What did you use?"

  "Clostridium botulinum."

  Eddie stared at him, unbelieving.

&nbs
p; "I picked up some of the active bacillus in Washington, a handy little ampule sewn into a trouser cuff. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Everybody knows how dangerous it is to eat canned sausage in Mexico."

  "Botulism?" Eddie jumped up and stamped on his cigarette. "Jesus, if I didn't know you better I'd think you were losing your touch. That stuff takes forty-eight hours to kill."

  "Not when you use a one-milligram dose."

  "One milligram?" Eddie almost screamed. "Just for the two of them?"

  "One milligram apiece."

  "My God," said Eddie in awe. He did some rapid calculations. "That's enough to take out a small town, maybe forty thousand people."

  "I've never believed in half-measures," Vasily said primly, "any more than I've ever believed in eating canned sausage."

  They started walking back to the house then, Vasily adjusting his long strides to Eddie's short ones. It was a silent walk for the most part, each man occupied with his thoughts. They were almost home when Vasily said, "This may be so obvious that it doesn't need stating, but there's a way out for Emerson. An easy way."

  "The Russians?"

  Vasily nodded. "They'd still welcome him as a hero. It's the only sensible choice. A hero's life on one hand, certain death on the other."

  "You don't know him. Jimbo probably recites the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in front of the bathroom mirror-and means it."

  "Patriots! I loathe them. They're like adolescents in love."

  "Yeah, but Jimbo is different. He doesn't make a lot of noise about it, but he really means it. Once he made up his mind that he wasn't going to Moscow, that was it. There's no changing the stubborn bastard."

  "A man of principle. I can't say that I adore that type either."

  Eddie shrugged. "He's an old-fashioned kind of a guy. that's all. You know the kind I mean."

  "Indeed, I do. He's a patriot, and a walking anachronism to boot."

  "Actually," said Eddie, "I think he's some kind of Methodist."

  Vasily stopped short and looked down happily. "Delightful, now I know I'm home. Come on, I'm dry enough to drink a barrel of wine by myself."

  He did not drink a barrel, but he tried. They all tried, except Rusty, and the four of them managed to put a considerable dent in the supply of Chablis and Rioja laid down the year before. They drank with a frenzied gaiety, the conversation galloping wildly as the wine whipped the words, with only Rusty sitting solemn and silent, a ghost at the feast. They might have gone on that way all night, but then Emerson asked the question and Vasily, reluctantly, answered it.