by Joseph Kanon
“Not like that. At a desk.” He sat on his bed, lighting his own cigarette, shaking his head no to the offered bottle.
“Hm,” Boris said, almost a grunt. “A desk.”
“Like Frank. Operations planning,” Simon said, as if that explained anything.
Boris looked up. “You worked together?”
“No. Frank got involved in the operations. I was strictly a desk man. An analyst.”
“He likes that. The operations. The risk.”
“Well, he didn’t actually go on any. He was a desk man too.”
“But think of the risk for him. Every day. At that desk.” He put out his cigarette. “Passing documents. You know there were so many they would pile up here? So many to read. But for him each one could have been a death warrant. If he had been caught. So a man who took risks.”
Simon said nothing for a minute, looking at him. “What’s wrong, Boris?”
Boris raised his eyes, meeting Simon’s.
“Why should anything be wrong?” Moving a man into place.
Simon shrugged his shoulders. “No reason.”
“No,” Boris said, lighting another cigarette. “No reason. A man who’s a hero of the Soviet Union. Now a book. Thanks to the good brother.” He dipped his head. “Soon famous everywhere. Such a man should retire. What’s the English? On his laurels.”
“I thought he had.”
“That’s what he tells you?”
“He doesn’t tell me anything. First of all, he’s not allowed. And second, I don’t ask. I don’t want to know. He’s not a hero to everybody.”
“But you’re his brother.”
“And?”
“You would want to protect him.”
“From what?”
Boris shrugged, out of specifics. “From risks.”
Simon waited. Another piece being moved.
“You know, the Service, it’s an office of secrets, but if you listen, sometimes you hear things.” He paused. “Something here, something there. An operation—there’s an excitement. People talk. Maybe just a little, but they talk.”
“What operation?”
Another shrug. “I asked myself, why Tallinn? Riga? Of course interesting, but the brother, he’s a man of books. Why not Yasnaya Polyana? So I listened. About Tallinn, Riga. Then no more Riga, so Tallinn. And the office approves, they want him to go. At such a time, when all the foreign—”
“You think he’s running an operation? Why not just ask him?”
“That’s not possible. So I ask you.”
“Me? He’d never tell me anything like that. Anyway, isn’t he getting a little long in the tooth for that?”
A puzzled look.
“Old. Frank doesn’t run operations anymore. Not according to the book anyway. That was years ago.”
“Unless there’s a special expertise he can bring. A familiarity.”
“Familiarity?”
“To know the enemy so well, it’s an advantage. To know the patterns, how they do things.”
“Who’s the enemy? Us?”
Boris smiled a little. “Always you. The Main Adversary. But this time closer to home. You remember in the book, the story of the Latvians? Like that, very similar. But now Estonians. It’s always the same there. Nationalists. Sentimentalists. Even a few can make trouble. So of course the Main Adversary encourages them. But if we can stop them before they—” He let the thought finish itself.
“And you think Frank’s involved with this?”
“I think he offers his expertise. But plans—that’s one thing. What happens is another. Not so predictable.” He looked over. “For a desk man.”
“So that’s why they sent you? To watch him?”
“No. They sent me to watch you.”
He had raised his eyes so that for a second they seemed to be looking over a handful of cards, and Simon saw that it wasn’t chess they were playing, but some elaborate game of poker, all of them playing, all of them cheating.
“Me,” he said, his tone flat.
“The Agency allows you to publish this book. Perhaps you do a favor for them.”
Simon shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. They don’t ‘allow’ me. Anyway, what kind of favor?”
“The usual kind. Make confusion. Misdirect. So the operation doesn’t succeed.”
“Work against Frank, you mean. Do you think I’d do that?” All of them cheating.
“The Service is careful.” He looked down. “Me? No.”
“Then why—?”
“I’d like your help.”
“What, watching Frank?” Rearranging the cards now, out of order.
“A shorter trip. Leningrad only. You can suggest it. He’s making this trip for you.”
“But I thought you said the Service wants him to go to Tallinn.”
“Not everyone in the Service is his friend.”
They looked at each other for a moment.
“You know that he won’t listen to me if the Service has asked him to do something. He can’t.”
“Suggest anyway. Then we know. Then I know how to help him.”
“What’s wrong, Boris?” Meaning it this time.
“An instinct. You learn that in the war too. You feel it. Get quiet. Don’t move. Why? Because something tells you.”
“All right. I’ll ask,” he said, getting up. “But you know he won’t.” Another minute. “You look after him, don’t you?”
“It’s my job.”
Later, when he lay in bed, nodding to the clicking of the wheels, he realized it was quiet enough to hear footsteps in the corridor, someone’s late night visit to the bathroom. So Boris didn’t snore after all. Unless he was lying awake too, listening.
7
A VOLGA WAS WAITING for them at Moskovsky Station, the driver holding an umbrella against the morning drizzle. They headed straight down Nevsky Prospekt, the city flashing by between sweeps of windshield wipers. Leningrad, at first glance, was a faded beauty that had stopped wearing makeup—all the buildings, the pastel façades, needed paint.
“Rain,” the driver said. “Very unusual this time of year. The afternoon will be better.”
More a hope than a forecast, Simon thought. The rain, the mist over the canals, seemed part of a deeper melancholy. The imperial scale of St. Petersburg, without the crowds, the old government ministries, made the city feel empty. Moscow, by contrast, hummed with purpose. This was more like a ballroom after a party, just streamers left, and half-filled glasses.
The Astoria, a grande dame hotel overlooking St. Isaac’s Square, was busy with an Intourist group of Chinese, some wearing Mao tunics, all of them looking weary, sitting on suitcases while they waited for the one interpreter to sort out their rooms. Simon glanced around the lobby. An ornate cage elevator, marble floors, a tea salon with potted palms. A man in a suit reading a newspaper. No one else. But it was early. He wouldn’t be here yet.
Boris jumped the line to get them checked in, the Chinese watching without expression.
“Are we bunking together again?” Simon asked.
“No, no, down the hall.” He handed Simon a key. “A corner room, on the square.” Then another to Frank. “This faces the cathedral.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” Frank said.
“It was already arranged.” He checked his watch. “The guide is here in one hour.”
“Oh, good,” Joanna said. “Time for a bath.”
They started for the elevator, bellboys following with the bags, and waited for the cab to descend behind the grille of lacy metalwork. French doors, opening out.
“Oh.” A woman’s voice, breathy, as if she’d been caught at something.
“Marzena,” Frank said, equally thrown.
“Oh, I wanted to surprise you at lunch.”
“You’ve surprised us now,” Joanna said, so drily that Frank flashed her a scolding look. “I mean, I thought you weren’t—”
“No, but then I said to myself, why not? It’s so hard to travel alone. But with friends— You don’t mind?”
“Of course not. How nice,” Frank said, a quick recovery, but still rattled, only Simon sensing the displeasure underneath. Club manners, like Pa’s, real feelings tamped down. “We were just going up. Then off to the Hermitage.”
“The guide comes in one hour,” Boris said, unruffled, the only one taking her presence in stride.
“Oh, Joanna, you don’t mind? I’m not a party crasher?”
“No party to crash,” Joanna said, smiling a little, watching Marzena maneuver. “Always room for you.”
“So. One hour. Here in the lobby?”
“Unless you’d rather—”
Marzena ignored this. “Now maybe a manicure,” she said, looking at her hands.
“What made you change your mind?” Joanna said.
“I don’t know. To see the art, I guess.”
In the elevator, everyone was quiet, preoccupied. The kind of turn that changed everything, rain at a picnic. Simon’s floor was first.
“One hour,” Joanna said, using Marzena’s voice. “In the lobby. Watch out for my nails.”
Simon smiled. “I will.”
“Well, I didn’t ask her,” Frank said.
“And yet here she is,” Joanna said. “For the art.”
Simon’s room looked down on the street, then catty corner across the giant square to the Mariinsky Palace. There were a few parked Intourist buses and official Zils, but otherwise it seemed another of those empty Soviet spaces, designed for parades. The room itself was bigger than his room at the National, but with the same period furniture. A fruit basket and mineral water were waiting on the writing desk and, at the foot of the bed, a wicker shirt basket with some folded laundry. Except he hadn’t sent out any laundry.
A pillowcase, ironed and folded. He reached underneath. The cool touch of metal. He pulled out the gun, then checked for bullets, a silent nod to DiAngelis. As ordered. But now what? You couldn’t just leave a gun lying around a Russian hotel room. Not in the briefcase. Not on top of the armoire. He glanced out the window at the drizzle. A break after all. His raincoat with deep pockets, where a bulge wouldn’t show. Still in his suitcase.
He jumped at the knock on the door, then put the gun back in the basket and covered it. The bellboy had trouble with the luggage rack, but finally opened it, then started to explain the room’s features in Russian, Simon nodding as the boy pantomimed the use of the drape chords, the light switches. Simon glanced at the laundry basket. Would he wonder why it was there? A newly arrived guest with laundry? What were the rules about tipping? Not in restaurants, but a bellhop? He took out a bill and handed it to the boy. A second’s hesitation, as if it might be some kind of test, then a quick blur as he slipped it into his pocket. A whispered spasibo. When he was gone, Simon sat on the bed with the gun again, his body still tense, and took a deep breath. No possible explanation for a gun, not here. Supplied by the CIA. He opened the suitcase to take out his raincoat. Maybe it would rain all day.
The guide, a serious young woman who wore her hair in a bun, was called Nina and had textbook English for which she kept apologizing. They walked down to the Admiralty in a huddle of umbrellas, then along the embankment of the Winter Palace, the broad Neva choppy and breezy, almost a seafront effect. Simon looked left. If you got in a boat here, the current would sweep you out to the Gulf of Finland, out of Russia. Get through the day.
At the Hermitage they were asked to check their coats. Simon had forgotten: a Russian fetish, no coats indoors. He draped it over his arm, but the woman insisted. He turned his back, making a pretense of shaking the wet out and switched the gun to his jacket, letting it hang open so the bulge wouldn’t show. He looked over at Boris. He must have one, out of sight in a holster. His job. The sort of thing he’d be trained to notice, bigger than a pack of cigarettes.
Nina was knowledgeable, leading them briskly through a maze of galleries, then lingering in the Raphael Loggias. “You see here where the papal coat of arms is replaced with the Romanov eagle.” More galleries of Italians, then Flemish and Dutch, Rubens and Rembrandts. After another hour even Nina began to flag and they stopped to rest on some strategically placed benches.
“But did they look at them?” Marzena said to no one in particular. “Did they enjoy them?”
“They enjoyed getting them,” Joanna said. “Having them. I don’t know that they ever looked at them.”
“I would have,” Marzena said, fanciful. “I’d come every night in a gown, like Catherine, and look at my pictures.”
“By candlelight. Squinting,” Joanna said, then stood up, out of sorts but trying to hide it, going over to look more closely at a small still life.
They were all on edge, in fact, Marzena’s presence an unexpected irritant. Frank was quiet, preoccupied, so she’d turned her attention to Simon, harmless remarks about the paintings which he barely heard, thinking about tomorrow, the weight in his pocket. Only Boris seemed to be enjoying himself, seeing the tour as a kind of patriotic act.
“It’s the greatest collection in the world.”
“Well, the Louvre,” Frank said.
“No. The greatest.”
When they left the gallery, Frank hung back with Simon, just far enough behind not to be heard.
“We have to get rid of her. She’ll ruin everything.”
“How?”
“It’s one thing here. But Tallinn—”
“How?” Simon said again.
“She has to go back. You’ll have to take her.”
“Me?”
“Make something up,” Frank said, thinking out loud. “You have to be back to fly home. You just wanted to see the Hermitage.” He looked at him. “Flirt with her. Make her think—”
“What? How far do you want me to go?” he said, sarcastic. “For the Service.”
“I don’t care. Just get her out of here. There’s always some hitch, isn’t there?”
“What about Jo? The ferry?” What he would logically say.
Frank shook his head. “I’ll have to take her with me on the boat. I’ll work it out.”
“And I’m sitting in Moscow when you go missing? They’ll think I—” Playing the story out.
“Fly back Thursday morning. The boat doesn’t leave until six. Get somebody at the embassy to put you on a plane out.” He looked over. “We said our good-byes here. I go to Tallinn, you go home. It’s not ideal, but it’s still plausible. The Service wants me to go to Tallinn. You’ll still have your trip to Leningrad. We’ve got today, the Peterhof tomorrow. That should give you enough time.”
“Time?”
“To talk her into going with you. Get her out of here.”
Simon looked down, as if he were thinking this through. “This still puts her in a hell of a position. After you disappear. Just having been here.”
“I didn’t ask her to come.” He touched Simon’s arm. “She’ll be all right.” Knowing she would be. Everybody cheating.
They headed into the Winter Palace, stopping at Rastrelli’s marble staircase, sweeping up on two sides.
“My God,” Marzena said, dazzled. “To live like this.”
Nina rattled off dates, some architectural history, while they stood gaping, then began moving them up to the state rooms. Simon saw him first, starting down the other side, a blond woman next to him. The wife. What was her name? Nancy. But why bring her? Another complication. It was then that Lehman noticed him, their eyes meeting across the open space between the staircase wings. Simon made an almost invisible nod, then looked away, turning to Marzena. But aware of him now, moving in the corner of his eye, the same rhythm, one going
down, the other up, like figures in a mechanical clock. So he was here.
After lunch they went to the Church on Spilled Blood and walked along the canals and finally balked at a plan to cross the Neva to see the Peter and Paul Fortress, pleading exhaustion. Disappointed, Nina led them back to the hotel, stopping to point out the building where Dostoevsky had lived. “Interesting for book publisher.”
Upstairs, finally rid of the weight of the gun, he lay on the bed with a sense of relief, his mind floating. Were they really listening through the chandelier, the phone? But there was nothing to hear. No slips. He wondered if this had been part of the attraction for Frank, to see if you could play the part perfectly, not just the words, the emotions, all the senses heightened, actually believing it. Hal had arrived on schedule. Marzena had been unexpected but didn’t matter, not after tomorrow. He went over the map in his head. How long it took would depend on the roads, probably two-lane with crumbling shoulders, Russian roads, stuck behind a tractor. Plan more time.
They should have been in a holiday mood at dinner, but instead the evening felt strained, all of them somehow scratchy, tired of one another. Marzena had dressed for a party, full makeup and flashy earrings, but the effort seemed wasted. Frank was distant, Joanna almost scowling with irritation. She had already had a few vodkas before dinner and had kept pouring more, ignoring Frank’s glances, and was now moody and thin-skinned. Boris had retreated into one of his watchful silences. Which left Simon, an audience of one.
Marzena was making the most of it, drawing him out with questions, leaning in, a kind of coquetry as dated as the hotel, something out of old St. Petersburg. Make a man talk about himself and he’s yours. She was impossible to ignore, or discourage, but the private asides had the effect of making Frank think Simon was flirting with her, his plan in action.
“Simon’s not a very good long-term investment,” Joanna said, looking at Marzena. “Are you? Back to the States and—poof.” She opened her hand. “Gone.”
No one knew how to respond, Marzena bewildered by the suddenness of it, like a slap.
“So let’s enjoy him while he’s here,” Frank said, bland as a greeting card.
“But you’ve hardly seen anything,” Marzena said. “You should stay longer.”
