An Honorable Man (21 page)

“You were like that too?”

“In my own way. I didn't have his passion.”

Beth gazed at Mueller. “I never saw that side of him. I was twelve when he left home. He was the tall, handsome older brother who always had a group of friends around. A girl at his side, or a man. The men were all funny and clever, and the women were funny and clever too, but sexless. I remember thinking that he inhabited a totally different planet than the one I was on. I tagged along when I could, the kid sister who got in the car with these terribly smart people. I was in awe, really. I would look in
their faces and give them imaginary lives, just like I gave lives to the people in front of Saint Patrick's who dropped a coin in my Salvation Army bucket.” Beth's eyes had drifted off, but they returned to look at Mueller. “You know him pretty well.”

“We've known each other. But I don't think you can say I've ever really
known
him.”

“I'm not asking for an existential answer, George. No, that's not my point here. Of course, no one knows anyone really. You think you do until there is that one thing that surprises, and you reconsider their entire life in light of that new fact. Well, I know that, but that is not what I was asking. I was simply asking how close the two of you are. You
do
work together.”

Mueller saw that Beth had taken her paper napkin and was tearing it in halves, quarters, and eighths. She tossed the shreds into the air. “Puff,” she said. “The past isn't what it used to be.”

They were quiet for a very long time. She stood and tossed her apron on her chair. “Let me get him. The food must be ready. Are you chilly? Shall we move inside?”

“No. This is fine. Thank you.”

“How's the leg?”

Mueller couldn't help himself. He lowered his trousers and displayed the angry scar. “You could practice medicine.”

  •  •  •  

Mueller watched a sturdy little motorboat plow through the bay's choppy water, waves splashing over the bow. The boat churned along without a signal light, and Mueller wouldn't have seen it except that the man at the wheel smoked. Even at that distance
the lit end of his cigarette glowed like a tiny beacon. The boat made its way along the shore and then turned sharply to the jutting dock of the Soviet compound.

Mueller heard a creaking floorboard and turned just as Roger Altman and Beth came out to the porch. Altman carried a pot roast garnished with baked potatoes and she held a plate of steamed vegetables. Brother and sister placed dinner on the table.

There was quiet except for bustling dinner preparations and scraping chairs, and when that ended there was just silence. Mueller had gotten over his anger, but he made no effort to engage Altman in conversation. The two men sat opposite each other. Their eyes met.

“Good to see you, George,” Altman said. “We wondered where you'd gone off to. Nobody in the office had a clue. They called the morgue. Can you believe that? Then Beth said you were out here.”

“I hope it wasn't a secret,” Beth said, suddenly concerned.

“No.” Mueller nodded at Altman's forehead where a flesh-colored Band-Aid was stretched over an eyebrow. To Beth, “Did he tell you that I tried to kill him with an oar?”

She laughed, but Altman was only mildly amused.

“Three stitches,” Altman said. “I was lucky.”

Beth leapt from her seat. “I've forgotten the butter. We can't start without butter for the potatoes. Don't start. I want to say grace.”

Mueller and Altman sat in silence after Beth ran off to the kitchen. Mueller had no reason to continue to talk about the incident—things like that were best forgotten, confined to memory.

“Bad luck with the FBI,” Altman said. “Everything okay?”

“Bad week. I needed time by myself.”

“Of course. We all do. Don't fret about the test. I flunked once. There's a pill, you know. Every one of us who is good enough to be worth the trust they place in us does something that doesn't fit into the new regime of rules.” Altman nodded toward the cove and the small boat, which was now docked.

“Keeping track of the Russians?” Altman poured himself a generous glass of wine, which he swigged like water. “Something is up over there. Cars coming and going all day. I've got a telescope in the den. After dinner we can take a look.”

Dinner was at turns pleasant and quiet, and loud and boisterous. Quiet prevailed when the conversation stuck to the books they'd each read and when they shared their common taste for the grainy black-and-white movies that were coming out of postwar Italy, but it turned raucous and argumentative when they debated the future of democracy. Altman denounced the spectacle of Senate hearings that were marching through its list of witnesses before his father was brought before the television lights again. “Once they get you on the stand,” Altman said in defiant complaint, “they ask what they want, and smear you if you refuse to answer. It's bad soap opera. Everyone will be eager to hear what I know about Father.”

“You can't let them do that,” Beth said, leaning forward.

“Of course I can't, but they'll ask. They'll go on the attack.”

Altman opened a second bottle of burgundy, which he drank by himself when Beth covered her glass with her hand. Beth became troubled with the conversation when it lurched to politics,
and started to clear the table. She took the stacked dishes into the kitchen, leaving the two men alone. Mueller was sober and Altman not. The breeze off the bay was cool and brought with it the sound of laughter and voices from homes along the cove.

“This too is a question I've considered,” Altman said.

Mueller turned his attention away from the bay and the voices. Mueller's thoughts had drifted, but “this too” got his attention and he was curious what he had missed. “This what? Did I miss something?”

“The whole question of—” Altman stopped himself from saying more when Beth returned. She plunked down in her chair.

“Are you still talking politics?”

Altman looked at his sister. “Would you excuse us? We have something we have to discuss. We'll be in for dessert in a moment.”

Altman lit a cigar. Two men alone again under a starry night, cicadas all around. Altman blew a smoke ring and then a second ring inside the first. “Coffin isn't handling this well,” he said. He looked at Mueller. “He's caught up in the theory of counterintelligence and he looks for proof with logic and analysis, but what he doesn't do, and this is why he will fail, is he doesn't look at the human factor. This is why he is wrong about you. You don't fit the profile of someone who would turn.”

Altman enjoyed another draw on his cigar. “If you wanted to turn, how would you make the first contact? Have you thought about that? Would you walk in to the Soviet embassy? Here? Overseas? Would you identify yourself with your real name?”

“Are you asking me?” Mueller looked at Altman.

“Yes. I'm curious. How would this have started? Real name to provide your bona fides? Or a fake name to protect yourself?”

Mueller found it an odd conversation. “Real name.”

“Why?”

“You need to establish trust.”

“I would never use my real name. That puts you in jeopardy. Trust is worthless in this business. Every one of our losses in Europe trusted Protocol.” Altman paused. “How do you think it began?”

“Where?”

“How? What started him down the path? It's usually money. We're all craven in our own way. The director's rule. Remember? He wanted a small cadre of good men with a passion for anonymity. That's what he called it. His rule was that only men with money were worth recruiting because they didn't have to rely on a salary for living expenses, and therefore they were incorruptible. This job doesn't pay well enough to put up with the crap we take. You, by the way, fail that profile. I, on the other hand, fit the profile. For what it's worth.”

“I have an advantage,” Mueller said. “You have money, yes, but I don't care. About any of it.”

Altman smiled. “You failed the polygraph. They care.”

Mueller gave a short choking laugh. He thought of Beth, whom he saw silhouetted in the window, looking out at them. He looked at Altman. “My indifference is a life preserver against a tide of joyless disappointments.”

Altman clapped twice. “Well said. You always could turn a phrase. A little cloak. A little gown.” Altman leaned forward and looked directly at Mueller. “You're not indifferent about your
son. That's your weakness.” Altman looked over his shoulder at his sister, and then continued in a quiet voice. “The first lie is always easy. The difficulty with an untruth is to continue it and to reinforce the lie with more lies to protect the original mendacity, but then the compounding lies become this ungainly artifice that draws attention to itself. Secrecy is about what you don't say, what you say wrongly, what you say too much of, so words become a coil in the listener's mind. The man I trust, George, is the man who remembers his own lies, and it so happens, the man I
distrust
is also that man who remembers his own lies.”

Mueller and Altman looked at each other. There was a moment of understanding. Two men sharing something known to them and hidden from others.

“It can get very lonely,” Altman said. “People don't understand this life unless they're in it. You understand. You have to have two stories for everything to keep it all in your head. It's exhausting. You can't do it for long. It burns out the best of us.”

“They”—and Altman waved at the house—“never know what it costs, the deceiving, the tricks, the isolation. You need another thing to get you out of bed in the morning—a faith, adrenaline, fear. It's hard on a marriage.” Altman looked at Mueller. “Yours didn't last long.”

Mueller had nothing to add.

“Sometimes the loneliness is intolerable.”

The comment didn't surprise Mueller and he waited for it to be followed, but nothing more was said by Altman for a long time. Darkness had fallen completely and the evening surrounded the perimeter of light that came from the table's flickering candle.

“How does it end for Protocol?” Altman asked.

“He's caught or he defects.”

A choked release of laughter came from Altman. “Live in a dacha outside of Moscow? Get trotted out as a hero of the Communist state? Parked for life? Me . . . I couldn't bear that, or the consequence of the shame heaped on family. Of course, it's only a matter of time before Protocol is caught. I suspect he has already felt the noose tightening and he's begun to pull away from them, give less. But secrets are like heroin. It's their fix.”

Altman paused. “I don't know how this started pointing to you. If I were you I'd take the polygraph again. Clear your name.”

The night was late. A chill settled on the two men at the table.

Altman looked at Mueller. “Dessert? I made a pie.”

“I'll pass.”

“Ride home?”

“I canoed. I'll take it home. It's a nice evening to paddle. Another race tomorrow?”

Altman touched his forehead. “And give you another shot at me?” He laughed. “I don't think so.”

17

SHOTS IN THE DARK

W
ATER HAS
two states. It divides effortlessly between rocks disappearing into the tiniest cracks, but its mass resists the hard pull of a paddle. Mueller stroked against the dark bay, and then let his canoe glide silently on the calm water under the tall trees that erupted from the shore. He worked out the tight muscle of his right shoulder that had cramped crossing the cove. Through the trees he could see the Soviet mansion on the bluff.

A full moon hung in the sky. Silvery light danced on the cove's black lacquered surface. Mueller dipped his paddle and pointed the bow to a cluster of pine trees on a spit of land. He pulled the boat ashore in a protected spot. He ran across the beach and quickly gained the cover of the woods, where he dropped to one knee. He listened. Soft sounds loud in his ears. A voice somewhere off in the distance, or perhaps at the mansion. He became aware of the things immediately around him—leaves on
the ground, a breeze rustling through high branches, air scented with fresh resin from a nearby pine. He pushed a bush aside and looked for Vasilenko's green Buick. There had been no contact for a week, and Mueller was concerned.

Suddenly light burst from the mansion's front door. Mueller heard men's voices speaking Russian. They spoke quickly, in short grunted commands. These men walked down the mansion's wide steps, dark shapes illuminated from behind by light pouring from the open door. Mueller counted three men in single file. The glow of their flashlights bounced along the path. Mueller made out the vague shape of a fourth man, hands tied behind his back. The group moved along the driveway for twenty yards, but then turned and made its way toward shore.

The restrained man stumbled, but he was supported by his two escorts, who held his arms and marched him forward. One swore under his breath and snapped a command. They walked a little way and stopped in a small clearing. Moonlight gave Mueller a good view of the little entourage. One thinner man who moved with a limp stood apart from the husky shapes. His flashlight pointed to a spot in the clearing. This was the leader. Mueller saw the red glow of his cigarette, and his face, jaw set. He had a dog that strained on a leash. It barked once. At the same moment a gurgling cry cracked like a whip in the quiet night. Startled, Mueller looked closer. The man in the middle had slumped to his knees, hands pulling madly at his neck. Another unhuman moan and the man doubled over like a rag doll. The dog barked loudly twice.

The grave dug by the men was only a temporary place to hide the body. Mueller came to this conclusion when he scraped away
the sandy top soil. He worked quickly with bare hands digging in the earth, careful to place what he removed so he could return it to hide the disturbance. The soil was wet, cold, and as he dug deeper he felt winter's bones. The first evidence was the damp cotton of a man's shirt. He pushed dirt away from the dead man's mouth, eyes, forehead, and neck. Mueller struck a match. A necklace of blood ringed the throat. Mueller had not expected to know the man, so he was startled to discover the corpse belonged to the driver who'd run him off the road.