Agent in Place (2 page)

But Chuck—now that was something else again. There was urgency in his message. Could Chuck really be delivering? Last week-end he had been arguing himself into and out of a final decision. Better not count on anything, Alexis warned himself, and tried to repress a surge of hope, a flush of triumph. But his sudden euphoria stayed with him as he set off for Fifth Avenue and an hour or so in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

By four o’clock he began to worry about his timing, and came hurrying away from the Greek gods’ department, down the Museum’s giant flight of steps, his arm signalling to a loitering taxi. It would take him south, well past Sixty-ninth Street, all the way to the Central Park Zoo. He would use that entrance, wander around the zoo itself to put in fifteen minutes (he was going to be too early for Mischa after all). Now he was thinking only of the meeting ahead of him. The initial excitement was gone, replaced by nervousness, even a touch of fear. It was a special encounter, no doubt about that: there was something vital at stake. Had he made some error, was his judgment being distrusted? Had his growing boredom with those quiet nine years shown in his steady reports? But they were good reports, succinct, exact, giving the foibles and weaknesses of the hundreds of acquaintances and friends he had made in government and newspaper circles. As a member of Representative Pickering’s personal staff, with nine years of promotions all the way from secretarial adviser to office-manager controlling an office swollen to forty-seven employees, and now to the top job of communications director, he had contacts in every major office in government. He was invited around, kept an ear open for all rumours and indiscreet talk. There was plenty of that in Washington, some of it so careless that it baffled him. Americans
were
smart—a considerable enemy and one that posed a constant danger—that was what had been dinned into him in his long months of training; but after nine years in Washington, he had his doubts. What made clever Americans so damned stupid once they got into places of power?

The fifteen minutes were up, leaving him seven to walk northward through the Park to its Sixty-ninth Street area. Had he cut the time too short, after all? He increased his pace as he left the desolate zoo with its empty cages—animals were now kept mostly inside—and its trees bare-branched with first frosts. The Saturday crowd was leaving too, moving away from the gathering shadows. So he wasn’t noticeable. And he hadn’t been followed. He never was. But he was suddenly surprised out of his self-preoccupation by the dimming sky. The bright clear blue of the afternoon had faded. It would soon be dusk. The street lights were already on; so were the lamps posted along the paths, little bursts of brightness surrounded by darkening meadows, by bushes and trees that formed black blots over falling and rising ground. Fifth Avenue lay to his right beyond the wall that edged the Park. Traffic was brisk, audible but not visible; only the high-rising apartment buildings, lining the other side of the avenue, could be seen. Their windows—expensive curtains undrawn, shades left unpulled—were ablaze with light. What was this about an energy crisis?

Strange, he thought as he came through a small underpass, how isolated this park can make you feel; almost as if you were on a lonely country road. The crowd had thinned, easing off in other directions. He was alone, and approaching a second underpass as the path sloped downward, edging away from the Fifth Avenue wall. Now it was almost dusk, the sky washed into the colour of faded ink tinged with a band of apricot above the far-off black silhouettes of Central Park West.

The underpass looked as grim as a tunnel—a short one, fortunately. Near its entrance, on the small hillside of bushes and rocks that lay on his right, he saw a group of four men. No, just boys: two leaning against a crag, nonchalant, thin; two squatting on the slope of grass, knees up to their black chins: all of them watching. He noticed the sneakers on their feet. Keep walking and get ready to sprint, he told himself. And then his fear doubled as he heard lightly-running footsteps behind him. He swung round to face the new threat. But it was only a couple of joggers, dressed in track suits, having their evening run. “Hi!” he said in relief as the joggers neared him rapidly.

“Hi!” one said, pink-faced and frowning. He glanced at the hill. Both he and his friend slowed their pace but didn’t stop. “Like to join us?” the other one asked, thin-faced and smiling.

And he did, breaking into their rhythm as he unbuttoned his topcoat, jogging in unison. Through the underpass, then up the path as it rose in a long steady stretch. “Race you to the top,” the thin-faced man said. But up there, where the outcrop of Manhattan rocks rose into a cluster of crags, he would be almost in sight of the Sixty-ninth Street entrance. Now was the time to break off, although he could have given them a good run for their money.

He smiled, pretended to have lost his wind, stopped half-way up the path, gave them a wave of thanks. With an answering wave they left him, and without a word increased their pace to a steady run. Amazing how quickly they could streak up that long stretch of hill; but they had earned this demonstration of their superiority, and he was too thankful to begrudge them their small triumph. He was willing to bet, though, that once they were out of sight, they’d slacken their pace back to a very easy jog. What were they, he wondered—a lawyer, an accountant? Illustrators or advertising men? They looked the type, lived near by, and exercised in the evening before they went home to their double vodka Martinis.

He finished the climb at a brisk pace. Far behind him, the four thin loose-limbed figures had come through the underpass and halted, as if admitting that even their sneakers couldn’t catch up on the distance between him and them. Ahead of him, there were a man walking two large dogs; another jogger; and the small flagpole that marked the convergence of four paths—the one he was following, the one that continued to the north, the one that led west across rolling meadows, the one that came in from the Sixty-ninth Street entrance. Thanks to his run, he was arriving in good time after all, with one minute to spare. He was a little too warm, a little dishevelled, but outwardly calm, and ready to face Mischa. He straightened his tie, smoothed his hair, decided to button his topcoat even if it was stifling him.

He might not have appeared so calm if he could have heard his lawyer-accountant-illustrator-advertising types. Once they had passed the flagpole on its little island of grass, they had dropped behind some bushes to cool off. It had been a hard pull up that hill.

“Strange guy. What the hell does he think he’s doing, walking alone at this time of day?” The red face faded back to its natural pink.

“Stranger in town.”

“Well dressed. In good training, I thought. Better than he pretended.”

“Wouldn’t have had much chance against four, though. What now, Jim? Continue patrol, or double back? See what that wolf-pack is up to?”

“Looking for some other lone idiot,” Jim said.

“Don’t complain. Think of the nice open-air job they give us.”

Jim stood up, flexed his legs. “On your feet, Burt. Better finish our rounds. Seems quiet enough here.” There were three other joggers—bona fide ones, these—plodding in from the west towards Sixty-ninth Street and home; a man walking two Great Danes; a tattered drunk slumped on the cold hard grass, clutching the usual brown paper bag; two sauntering women, with peroxide curls, tight coats over short skirts (chilly work, thought Jim, on a cool November night), high heels, swinging handbags. “Nothing but honest citizens,” Jim said with a grin. The wolf-pack had vanished, prowling for better prospects.

“Here’s another idiot,” said Burt in disgust as he and Jim resumed their patrol northward. The lone figure walking towards them, down the path that led from the Seventy-second Street entrance, was heavily dressed and solidly built, but he moved nimbly, swinging his cane, his snap-brim tilted to one side. He paid no attention to them, apparently more interested in the Fifth Avenue skyline, so that the droop of his hat and the turned head gave only a limited view of his profile. He seemed confident enough. “At least he carries a hefty stick. He’ll be out of the park in no time, anyway.”

“If he doesn’t go winging his way down to the zoo,” Jim said. He frowned, suddenly veered away to his left, halting briefly by a tree, just far enough to give him a view of the flagpole where the four paths met. Almost at once he came streaking back, the grass silencing his running-shoes, the grey of his tracksuit blending into the spreading shadows. “He won’t be alone,” he reported as he rejoined Burt. “So he’ll be safe enough.” Two idiots were safer than one.

“So that’s their hang-up, is it? We’ll leave them to the Vice boys. They’ll be around soon.” Dusk would end in another half-hour, and darkness would be complete. The two men jogged on in silence, steps in unison, rhythm steady, eyes alert.

They arrived at the flagpole almost simultaneously. “Well timed,” said Mischa and nodded his welcome. There was no handclasp, no outward sign of recognition. “You look well. Bourgeois life agrees with you. Shall we walk a little?” His eyes had already swept over the drunk lolling on the grass near the Sixty-ninth Street entrance. He glanced back, for a second look at the two women with the over-made-up faces and ridiculous clothes, who were now sitting on a bench beside the lamp-post. One saw him, rose expectantly, adjusted her hair. Mischa turned away, now sizing up a group of five people—young, thin, long-haired, two of them possibly girls, all wearing tight jeans and faded army jackets—who had come pouring in from Fifth Avenue. But they saw no one, heard nothing; they headed purposefully for the near-by clusters of rocks and crags and their own private spot. Mischa’s eyes continued their assessment and chose the empty path that led westward across the park. His cane gestured. “Less interruption here, I think. And if no one is already occupying those trees just ahead, we should have a nice place to talk.”

And a good view of anyone approaching, Alexis thought as they reached two trees, just off the road, and stepped close to them. The bushes around them had been cleared, so even a rear attack could be seen in time. Suddenly he realised that Mischa wasn’t even thinking about an ambush by muggers at four forty-five in the evening—he probably assumed that ten o’clock or midnight were the criminal hours. All Mischa’s caution was being directed against his old adversaries. “Central Park has changed a lot since you were last here,” Alexis said tactfully. This was a hell of a place to have a meeting, but how was he to suggest that? “In summer, of course, it’s different. More normal people around. Concerts, plays—”

“A lot has changed,” Mischa cut him off. “But not in our work.” His face broke into a wide grin, showing a splendid set of teeth. His clever grey eyes crinkled as he studied the younger man, his hat thumbed back to show a wide brow and a bristle of greying hair. With rounded chin and snub nose, he had looked nine years ago—although it would be scarcely diplomatic now to mention the name of a non-person—very much like a younger version of Nikita Khrushchev. But nine years ago Mischa had had slight gaps between his front teeth. The grin vanished. “There is no détente in Intelligence. And don’t you ever forget that.” A forefinger jabbed against Alexis’s chest to emphasise the last five words. Then a strong hand slapped three affectionate blows on Alexis’s shoulders, and the voice was back to normal. “You look like an American, you talk like an American, but you must never think like an American.” The smile was in place again.

Mischa broke into Russian, perhaps to speak faster and make sure of his meaning. “You’ve done very well. I congratulate you. I take it, by the way you walked up so confidently to meet me, that no one was following you?”

The small reprimand had been administered deftly. In that, Mischa hadn’t changed at all. But in other ways, yes. Mischa’s old sense of humour, for instance. Tonight he was grimly serious even when he smiled. He’s a worried man, thought Alexis. “No, no one tailed me.” Alexis’s lips were tight. “But what about you?” He nodded to a solitary figure, husky and fairly tall, who had walked along the path on the heels of two men with a Doberman, and now was retracing his steps. Again he didn’t glance in their direction, just kept walking at a steady pace.

“You are nervous tonight, Alexis. Why? That is only my driver. Did you expect me to cope with New York traffic on a Saturday night? Relax, relax. He will patrol this area very efficiently.”

“Then you are expecting some interest—” Alexis began.

“Hardly. I am not here yet.”

Alexis stared.

“Officially I arrive next Tuesday, attached to a visiting delegation concerned with agricultural problems. We shall be in Washington for ten days. You are bound to hear of us, probably even meet us at one of those parties you attend so zealously. Of course I shall have more hair, and it will be darker.”

“I won’t flicker an eyelash.” As I might have done, Alexis admitted to himself: you did not live in a Moscow apartment for six months, completely isolated from other trainees, with only Mischa as your visitor and tutor, and not recognise him when you met him face to face in some Senator’s house. But Mischa had not slipped into America ahead of his delegation, and planned a secret meeting in Central Park, merely to warn Alexis about a Washington encounter. What was so important that it could bring them together like this? “So now you are an expert on food-grains,” Alexis probed.

“Now, now,” Mischa chided. “You may have been one of my best pupils, but you don’t have to try my own tricks on me.” He was amused. Briefly. “I’ve been following your progress. I have seen your reports, those that are of special interest. You have not mentioned Thomas Kelso in the last three months. No progress there? What about his brother, Charles Kelso—you are still his friend?”

“Yes.”

“Then why?”

“Because Chuck Kelso now lives in New York. Tom Kelso lives mostly in Washington.”

“But Charles Kelso did introduce you to his brother?”

“Yes.”

“Four years ago?”

“Yes.”

“And you have not established yourself with Thomas Kelso by this time?”