Agent in Place (18 page)

But Alexis could not resist raising an eyebrow. It wasn’t unnoticed. Oleg, switching off the ignition, said, “Less risk too, in not driving far afield. And to what purpose?”

True enough. The shorter the time they spent together, the safer. They had not been followed. No other car drew up within view. That was all that mattered. But Alexis was still nervous and unsettled. He searched for a cigarette.

“Ah, the microfilm. You had enough sense to bring it with—”

“I’ve already sent it to Moscow.” Alexis lit the cigarette, only remembered then to offer his pack to Oleg. It was impatiently brushed aside.

“There has been no report of its arrival,” Oleg said, eyes angry, face tense. “When did you send it?”

“As soon as I got back to Washington.”

“You were instructed—”

“I know. Mischa told me to give it to you on the Tuesday. But that was before he was injured. Which changed everything.”

“Who told you it changed anything?”

“You did not contact me. You could have been back in Moscow for all I knew.” And if Oleg wasn’t notified about the arrival there of the microfilm, Alexis thought, then he isn’t as important as he thinks he is. Encouraged, Alexis said in a cool crisp voice, “The NATO Memorandum went by the usual channels. It is in Moscow now—has been for the last seven or eight days.”

“Usual channels,” Oleg repeated, his eyes narrowing. “Which means it reached the desk of the wrong man.”

“Wrong? It would reach the usual office—”

“Where one man has sidetracked it, misfiled it, kept it hidden for as long as he dared.” Oleg’s cold anger mounted with his voice.

“But why?” Alexis was instantly alarmed.

“To let him make his escape. He is a traitor. And you gave him a week to perfect his plans. By this time he is well away from Moscow. And he’s laughing at you, Alexis. You were too clever by far. You played right into his hands.”

“I don’t believe it,” Alexis said, fighting back. “A traitor? In such an important job? He wouldn’t have lasted one hour.”

“He lasted twelve years.”

Alexis stared, aghast. “If you knew he was an enemy agent, why didn’t you—”

“Mischa had suspicions, that was all. The proof could be in the NATO Memorandum, Part III.” Oleg’s bitter face was accusing. “Which you sent, so obligingly, so kindly, straight to him.”

“His office always has received my reports. Mischa did not warn me, nor did you. I only followed—” Alexis broke off, his worry doubling as he saw a new and immediate danger. “All these years, he has known who I am.”

“No. We are not as stupid as that. He only knows that there is an Alexis, established in Washington, who sends weekly reports.”

“If he is as good an enemy agent as you say he is, he could analyse the material I sent him, and know what kind of job I have here, even trace—”

“At this moment, he is too busy saving his own skin. If he gets clear—
if
(and we’ll see about that)—then he may start tracking you down.” Oleg looked as though he might enjoy that idea. “In the long run you may have damaged yourself. And others too. Unless we find him.”

“He is CIA?”

“No. He’s an agent of NATO.”

“The same thing.”

“Only in our propaganda.” And that, thought Oleg, is at least one recent success. The slogans and chants against the NATO—CIA combination were growing stronger each week in Europe. “It even impressed you,” he said contemptuously. “You have become an American.”

The sneer reminded Alexis of Mischa. He had said something like that too, but jokingly. And then Alexis wondered why Oleg had given no news of Mischa. “How is—” he began, and was cut off by Oleg’s next question. It dealt with the problem of Chuck Kelso.

“I see no problem,” said Alexis. “He is reliable.”

“He may endanger you.”

“I don’t think so.” But Alexis frowned.

“How did you procure the memorandum?”

Alexis told him, keeping it brief, and waited for a word of praise.

Instead, “Kelso may tell his brother that you were with him on that evening.”

“Even so, would that matter?”

“The brother has several friends in NATO. That would matter.”

“Intelligence officers?”

“They could be. And they would certainly be interested in anyone who handled the full text of the NATO Memorandum.”

“Chuck doesn’t know I touched it. He has no way of guessing.”

“You had better find out. Exactly. What is he feeling? What is he thinking? Will he talk? Make your report next week.”

“Too soon. I can’t get away to New York until—”

“Next week. And direct it to me personally in Moscow. Make sure of that. It will be your last report for some time. Do nothing. Keep quiet. I shall let you know when you can be active again.”

So he is giving the orders now, thought Alexis. “Where is Mischa?” he asked. Had Mischa been demoted, blamed perhaps for the escape of a traitor?

“Mischa is dead.”

“Dead?” A moment of disbelief. “But how? Where?”

“In New York.”

Mischa is dead. Oleg is in command. The shock died away. “But how?” Alexis repeated. Oleg kept silent. “The result of the mugging, I suppose.”

“The result.” Oleg drew out something from his pocket. Three small photographs. “Have you ever seen this man with Chuck Kelso? The one in the tweed jacket?”

Alexis studied the snapshots of three men. There was no clear view of the face above the tweed jacket. The man had his hand up, coughing, in one picture. In the second, he held a large handkerchief at his nose. In the third, his head was bent as he looked at the ground. “No,” Alexis said slowly. “But these photographs don’t help much. Who is he?”

“An expert,” Oleg said.

“And the other two?” Their faces were clear enough.

“New York City detectives.”

“Arresting the expert?” It was the kind of small joke that would have amused Mischa. Oleg said nothing. Reproved, Alexis became serious again. “Where were the pictures taken? That could be a clue.”

Oleg came slowly back from his own far-ranging thoughts. Suspicions, always suspicions that couldn’t be pinned down... Anthony Lawton, wine-merchant... Or NATO Intelligence officer? On a tip from an informant, he had been followed from Brussels to New York. (Possible close connection with memorandum, the informant had said.) In New York he vanished. Reappeared in Washington. Reported to have entered Shandon House this Tuesday, the morning of the newspaper publication of the first part of the memorandum. What reason for this visit—Chuck Kelso and NATO security? Or had it been merely wine-business? The only detail the report had given was that Lawton was casually dressed in tweed jacket and sweater. Tweed jacket...yet many people in New York dressed casually, even wildly. Oleg stared down at the elusive figure in the photographs. Yes, Lawton—if he were a NATO agent—would certainly have an interest in Mischa. But how had he found out Mischa was dead? Oleg slipped the snapshots back into his pocket. “They were taken at the morgue,” he said.

Alexis looked uncomprehending. But there was no further explanation.

“I’ll be waiting for your report on Kelso,” Oleg said, and gestured to the door. “Give me five minutes before you take a cab.” He started the engine. Alexis got out. The Buick edged into the traffic and was soon part of a steady stream of cars.

Alexis walked into the bus terminal. Five minutes, Oleg had said. Alexis wondered where he could find a drink, a stiff Scotch. And then, remembering that cold look on Oleg’s face, he found a telephone-booth instead.
He would call Chuck now
.
At Shandon
. Catch him before he left for the day, keep the conversation generalised and innocuous, try to arrange a meeting, something. Something that would look adequate in his report to Oleg. Adequate? He would have to do better than that.

“Rick here,” Alexis began.

Chuck sounded surprised, then diffident. No, he wasn’t going to be in New York tomorrow. He had a pile of work to finish at Shandon. And Sunday too was impossible. Anything wrong?

“Of course not. Just thought I’d like to see you, chat about everything. What did you think of that item the
Times
published last Tuesday? About NATO. Caused quite a sensation.”

“Yes,” said Chuck. He didn’t sound enthusiastic.

“I thought you’d have liked it. It sent me. It’s good that we know what’s really going on, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Chuck said again.

“You seem—disappointed.”

“Oh, it’s just that—” Chuck hesitated. “I don’t know whether it was worth printing that kind of thing. Who listens?”

“Plenty. Here are you and I discussing it, for instance. It really was an attention-getter.”

“In the wrong direction.”

“What do you mean?”

“People are more interested in how it came to be printed than in what it said. The message itself got lost.”

“Far from it. It came over loud and clear. Say—aren’t you feeling well? You sound as though you were coming down with grippe.”

“That’s all I need,” Chuck said. “By the way, Katie is in real trouble.”

“Katie?” Alexis braced himself.

“She was arrested last night.”

Alexis was silent.

“Rick—are you still there?”

“Yes. Arrested for what? Hiding a marijuana joint in her pocket?”

“Arrested in a bomb-factory down in Greenwich Village. There was an explosion. Two of her friends were injured. Katie was found wandering in a daze.”

“That’s Katie all right.”

“It’s no joke, Rick.”

“No joke,” Alexis conceded.

“And Rick, I don’t think we should talk, either of us, about—about that Saturday night.”

“I agree. Button our lips.”

“About Katie, I meant.”

“And we’ll say nothing. About anything.
Anything
,” Alexis repeated with emphasis. “Got that?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“I am. Katie has complicated everything in her own sweet way. You see that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Chuck said reluctantly. “Yes, she certainly has,” he added, and now he sounded definite.

“Signing off, Chuck. This call is ending and I’ve no more loose change. See you some time.”

“Yes. Some time.”

He wants to see me as little as I want to see him, Alexis thought as he went to find a cab. And now he is really worried about admitting he handed over a copy of the memorandum to that reporter—what’s his name, Holzheimer?—in Katie’s apartment. If he was on the point of breaking down and confessing to big brother Tom, Katie and her friends have taken care of that noble impulse. My report next week about Chuck Kelso will be simple: Chuck is depressed and worrying, but holding fast. (He has to, now. Unless he wants Holzheimer breathing down his neck with questions about his connection with a mad bomber.)

He found a cab, but he didn’t take it to the garage where he had parked his car that day. Instead, he directed it over to the Mayflower, where he slipped into the bar for a much-needed drink. He didn’t think he was being followed, but it was just as well not to have his movements traceable.

And what about you? he asked himself after a second drink. Your report next week will deal with Chuck. It will also have to pass on this newest information about Katie. How does it affect you? (Oleg knows you’ve been shacking up with her. It’s on your file.) Lucky that you already stated you were going to keep clear of her: dangerous situation developing. So they can’t blame you for being blind. But there’s danger still around. Once the police start searching her apartment, inquiring about her associates—yes, that’s something to be really concerned about. Katie won’t talk. Not to the pigs. To her lawyer? Yes. He won’t talk either. And yet something can slip out, some damned investigative reporter can start digging...

He finished his drink. In his report he would ask to be transferred from Washington, from the United States for that matter. Oleg wouldn’t like that—all of Alexis’s expensive training had been geared to let him mix freely among Americans. Okay. He had done that. Now it was time to move: he was bored with all-things-to-all-men Pickering, anyway. How the hell could he have put up with that shoulder-thumper for nine long years? Time to move on—where? There were places, plenty of places outside the good old US of A, where he could work with Americans. Be one of them. No training lost. That was it: a brilliant idea. He’d suggest it to Oleg, and let Oleg take it over as his own bright solution. Yes, that was it. Alexis paid and left. A brilliant idea.

And now he was out on Connecticut Avenue, dark with sudden night. He felt safer in its shroud. This was the way he and Oleg should have met. It would have given him more confidence, caught him less off balance. Or perhaps Oleg had been trying to dent his self-assurance. Had Oleg been testing him? An unpleasant meeting, certainly: everything tight and strained. Why? Wasn’t Oleg sure of him?

He put that spiky question out of his mind by hailing a taxi and driving to the station. There he spent a couple of minutes buying a paper at the bookstall to see if anything had yet been printed about Katie; and, if so, how much. There was only a bare description of the explosion, no details about the girl. They would come later. Unless her family succeeded in clamping down on any information about her. They would certainly try. My unwitting allies, he thought, as he took another cab, this time to a street corner a block away from his garage. He’d be home by six, a normal enough routine. And now he’d no longer have to wait for any contact to telephone him. Lie low, stay inactive, Oleg had instructed him. So now he could call some of his friends, arrange some dates, enjoy himself. He might even go on that week-end with Sandra to Maryland. Why not?

His spirits lifted. White buildings, spacious and majestic, raised their lighted columns into the darkness. Trees and grass and stately monuments, broad avenues and streams of cars. Another working day was over. Speeches made, committees attended, letters dictated and signed; offices closing; and now the scurry through the giant mausoleum to neat houses in neat gardens where humans could come into their proper proportion again. Yes, he thought as he persuaded himself he would be glad to leave Washington, I have been too long here. It bathes you in dreams of glory, entices you with power and rewards, blinds you to the reality outside its magical radiance. These people, and he looked at the cars’ lights sweeping steadily in front of him, are doomed.