Tool of the Trade (23 page)

They wouldn’t have to stay there long, though. This was April 29. The back streets of Leningrad were filling up with provincial marching bands practicing, athletic teams going through routines, and elaborate floats decorated in themes of
mir
, which in Russian means both “peace” and “world.”

If things go well with Vardanyan and Fitzpatrick tomorrow, they’ll have something to
mir
about.

I took a nap after the debugging session, knowing that Fitzpatrick would be coming in around seven. The dream came back again. I think.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me. I appear to be having the same dream, or a dream about the same things, every time I get into REM sleep—and then I strongly suppress the dream upon awakening, or before. It must be a memory of Leningrad, but a bloody arm? I would remember it if it were significant. There are a hundred memories from that time I would suppress if I could. Plenty of disembodied arms and legs, sometimes heads, sometimes worse. I learned what the female genitalia look like from the immodesties of two frozen, shattered bodies, entwined. That is a memory that comes back unwonted.

The cliché truism that people who gravitate toward the study of psychology do so because they are profoundly hurt in their own minds….I know from observing my colleagues that there is more than a grain of truth in that, and of course they know it from observing me. What if they found out I was a murderer, a spy, and a megalomaniac out to change the world? Some would shrug and say, “What did I tell you?”

I was with the party that met the president at the airport, but we only exchanged a cursory greeting as I introduced Menenkov. He then drove to the hotel with a limp full of advisers, having no need for a translator. I went back with Menenkov.

We drove for a while in companionable silence. “It is frustrating,” Menenkov said. “When I began training for this job—as a child, really, just after the war—many people were saying that the United States was going to emerge a huge and powerful empire. Having suffered no damage in the war, having all of its industrial capability intact.”

“That’s about what happened.”

“Well… it’s not ‘empire’ the way I mean. Some of our people do talk about the American empire, meaning your country plus all the client states embraced by NATO, SEATO, ANZNAT, the OAS—”

“Not the most loyal clients.”

“I know. That’s what I mean. The American hegemony that we were going to face, it’s not really there. It’s as if you took aim at a target, and as it drew near, it broke up into many targets of various sizes. Still one largest piece, but the others can’t be ignored.” He laughed. “I should not indulge in metaphor in a foreign language. I don’t mean shooting at you.”

“I think I understand. But should you be saying this to an ex-CIA agent?”

“You’re right, it hardly seems fair. Since I have myself never had anything to do with the KGB.” We both laughed. “What I mean is that, in a curious way, it would be easier for us to negotiate if it had come about that way. America a monolithic power, with no complicating alliances.”

“Some country has a proverb saying you should choose your enemy well, because you’re fated to become him. Is that Russian?”

“Probably. I could never keep them all straight.” He tapped on the steering wheel with a ring. “That can be taken two ways. Do you want to become like us?”

“I don’t know Russia well enough to say,” I said, and the truth startled me.

“Perhaps we can compromise and each wind up with the best of both worlds. No McDonald’s.”

“Okay, and no so-called champagne.” We laughed together. I turned on the watch at its highest setting.

“Can I see Vardanyan tonight, with you along, and nobody else?”

“That shouldn’t be any problem.”

“Can we set it up so that it’s in a ‘safe’ room, where we won’t be overheard?”

“I can’t speak for the CIA. No KGB will be listening.”

“You are a KGB officer yourself.”

“Of course.”

“What rank?”

“Major general. I am the highest-ranking KGB officer in Leningrad, currently, I believe.”

“Wonderful. You will arrange this meeting tonight under some reasonable pretext. Then come get me.”

“All right.”

“You will follow these orders but forget that I gave them to you. You will not recall any of this conversation since I said, ‘Can I see Vardanyan tonight?’” “All right.”

I turned off the watch. “Looks like rain.” He peered up through the top of the windshield. “We should just make it.”

There was no way the State Department could officially get us to Russia the day before May Day, short of stuffing us into a diplomatic pouch. But the CIA does have resources.

A Lion’s Club tour group was delayed by engine trouble in Los Angeles long enough for me to fly to Seattle and intercept them, bearing passport and visa that had been routinely processed “just in case.” I was a Lion from Marlow, Oklahoma. I hoped nobody would question me about that. Do they still have cowboys and Indians down there? Are they rich with oil money? I’d have to make up answers.

By way of cover, they gave me a handful of Southwest Equity Insurance Company business cards and a fake-leather Traveling Presentation Kit. If anybody got too curious, I would start selling him a policy.

There was no trouble from my fellow passengers, though. The airline had provided free drinks during
the delay in Los Angeles, and there had been a party. When the plane picked up our small contingent at Sea-Tac airport at midnight, only the crew were conscious. When the Lions woke up the next day, flying over the Arctic, they were subdued. There was an inflight movie where the main character was a car. During it I memorized large parts of
Fodor’s Russia
, especially the street map of Leningrad, since I would have to break away from the tour group and rendezvous with Harriet. (Actually, we should have wound up in the same hotel.)

We spent a couple of hours in Helsinki, waiting in lines, and then there was a short flight to Leningrad, and the fun began.

Six lines through Passports; I chose the shortest one, which turned out to be the longest. After an hour I finally got to the glass booth. A nineteen-year-old KGB private said, “Pazz board,” and I gave it to him. For a good two minutes he didn’t look at it, just stared at me, unsmiling, directly at my face. I assumed he did that with everyone, and returned his stare with a pleasant smile.

“—You speak Russian, don’t you?” he said in a sudden loud, staccato voice, accusing. I tried not to change expression.

“I’m sorry. I don’t speak Russian.”

“—You aren’t fooling anybody.” I guessed this was also part of his routine. He went through my passport page by page, though it was newly issued; blank except for the small stamp on the fourth page, from Helsinki. Suddenly he glared up at me. “Ah!”

He pulled a hand mike from the wall. “—Please, Captain, there is an irregularity, Kiosk Four.” He hung the mike back up and redoubled the intensity of his stare.

After a minute the captain showed up. They exchanged whispers while he stared at me from his loftier rank. He also scrutinized my passport and then put it in his shirt pocket.

He stepped out of the booth. “Follow me,” he said with an accent good enough for Hollywood. “Bring your luggage.”

We walked away from the luggage-inspection tables and down a corridor that smelled of mildew and vinegar. “In here.” He opened a door. “Wait.”

A table and two wooden chairs under a bare hanging light bulb. A toilet and wash basin in a dingy alcove. No windows. The door closed behind me, and he locked it with a key. I leaned against the table and waited uneasily. What could they do to a CIA agent entering Russia illegally? I knew what they could do. They could make me disappear, and the Agency wouldn’t peep. Wind up working on a hydroelectric project in Khatanga until I froze solid, which would be sometime in early June. Or they might try to trade me for a couple of real spies.

Interesting thought: I could finger Shilkov for them. All I want is my freedom and a Hero of the Soviet Union medal.

After some rattling and muttering the door creaked open and the KGB captain returned, followed by a skinny man in a dark suit. “Sit down.” I did, and the captain sat across from me. He leafed through the passport and stared at the first two pages.

“Who is the mayor of Oklahoma City?”

“How should I—”

“Your passport was issued there, was it not? It is the capital of your state.”

“But I’ve only—”

“You were born there.” To the man in the suit he
said “—He lives outside the biggest city in his state, the city where he was born, but he cannot name the mayor.”

“My parents moved away from Oklahoma when I was two,” I said rapidly. “I hadn’t set foot in the state until I moved back there last year.”

“—He says that…”

“—I understood. Ask him why he joined the flight in Seattle. Los Angeles is closer to Oklahoma.” The captain translated the question.

“I have friends there. It didn’t cost much extra. What is all this about, anyhow? Do you take one person every hour and give him the third—”

“Not at all,” said the civilian in thick English. “Show him.”

He opened the passport to the picture on the second page. “Look at this.” He ran his fingernail under one edge, and it came loose. “I have seen many thousands of American passports. All had pictures very firmly glued down.”

Oh, shit. Superspy. “I—I wouldn’t know anything about that. I thought they came that way; I’ve never had a passport before.”

“Yes, of course. But you must see that if this truly was not your passport, it could be the case that…” he paused to retrieve the subordinate clause—“You have taken the original picture off and glued yours on, but… without enough glue, or the wrong glue. You see why we are suspicious?”

“Look, though.” I grabbed the passport and ran my finger along the embossed stamp that covered both the photograph and part of the page. “How could I fake this? It says… ‘Department of State, United States of America’—how could I fake that?”

“I’m sure there are ways.” He looked up at the “civilian.”

“—It’s probably nothing. You’d better have the forensic people look at the passport, though. And search his luggage very thoroughly, and his person.” That sounded like hours. Not to mention Siberia.

“I’m afraid we will have to detain you for a little while,” the captain said, putting my passport back into his pocket. “I will send somebody with a cup of coffee and a roll.” He stood up.

“Hold it.” I stood up, too. “I’m with a tour group. Are you going to hold all of them up too?”

He picked up my suitcase. “Arrangements will be made.”

After about an hour, my coffee and roll appeared. They looked an awful lot like lukewarm tea and a piece of black bread. Better than nothing. I worried for another hour about being searched, which I was sure would include a colonoscopy with a dimestore flashlight, but when it happened, I wasn’t even made to undress. An unsmiling lieutenant patted me down in a desultory way and left without a word.

I’d first gotten in line at eleven; at four, an Intourist lady showed up with my luggage and passport and no apologies. She led me to the moneychangers, where I got a hundred dollars’ worth of good, soft Russian currency, and then I was given my very own tour bus, evidently the one that had taken the other Lions into town earlier.

She said our hotel had been taken over by American government people here for the summit, but we were going to have a much nicer hotel in the center of the city, the Astoria. Full of history and Old World charm. That was nice, but I was supposed to meet Harriet at the ninth-floor tearoom of the Leningrad Hotel, at four, six, or eight. Maybe I should argue, hey,
I’m
an American government person… no.

It was a long drive through cold, gray rain. No Russian road signs, no billboards to break the birch-and-pine-forest monotony. Decades after conjugating my first Slavic verb, I finally get to Russia, and it looks just like upstate Michigan.

The dream was especially bad last night. I woke up three times, always with the bloody arm fading from memory. In the last two, there was somebody with the arm, brandishing a knife. I had hoped to get plenty of sleep for today’s challenge. Not to be. But I had a long soak, and Valerie gave me a good rubdown. We talked about where we might be next week. If we don’t wind up in custody by this afternoon.

Through Menenkov and Vardanyan, I had made certain arrangements with the Soviet press, and their American and European counterparts knew that something was up. I spent most of the morning strolling from room to room with my watch, making sure the fourth estate of the Free World would not be scooped by the likes of
Pravda
and
Izvestia
. By noon, everybody knew that something big was coming down, but nobody who was constrained by the truth
could claim any details or reliable attributions. I assumed that by the time of the meeting, two o’clock, people’s imaginations would have taken care of that.

The Americans got together at noon in a small banquet room for roast beef sandwiches and potato salad, courtesy of the White House cooks, which seemed strangely exotic after all the caviar and pickled vegetables. Valerie and I were not seated with Fitzpatrick, who was going over last-minute details with his aides. In a few hours they were going to wonder why he’d withheld his blockbuster. But that was consistent with his personality. He has a liking for grand, dramatic gestures.

There was only one small detail to take care of before the meeting. After lunch there was a punch bowl and a semblance of relaxed mingling. I kept my eye on the Secret Service men, waiting for one to isolate himself. Finally Jerry Kepperman, the second in command, drifted over to stare out the window. I sidled up next to him and turned on the watch.

“Do you have a second, Jerry?”

“Sure, Dr. Rafferty. What’s up?”

“I want you to find me a small pistol. Something I can stick in my belt or pocket without being obvious.”

“No problem. Little revolver in my ankle holster.” He started to reach for it.