Death of a Spy (6 page)

10

Tbilisi, Georgia
May 1991, seven months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union

“Jesus, you couldn’t even spring for a place with seats? What the hell is wrong with you, son?”

A man of around fifty, with salt-and-pepper hair and eyes that looked a little rheumy, plopped down a mug of beer next to Marko’s red lentil soup and freshly baked torpedo-shaped rolls.

It was true, there were no seats at his favorite lunch spot. Just chest-high tables at which stood men who were eating and smoking; many wore the brown, short-sleeved uniform of Tbilisi’s road repair crews.

As Marko eased his soup bowl down the table, trying to give himself a little room, the rheumy-eyed man said, “Your monthly stipend is, what—$1,475 dollars a month? For that Fulbright thing?”

Marko’s eyes narrowed. “Do we know each other?”

“Hey, that’s peanuts in New York, but over here a buck goes a long way. Hell, you could afford the Daryal once a week.” The Daryal was considered the best restaurant in town, meaning it was just OK. “At least there they got chairs. You can call me Larry, by the way. Can I get you a beer?”

Although it was only noon, most of the men in the buffet were drinking beer with their soup.

“No.” Marko dipped a piece of his bread into the soup and took a bite, torn between telling the guy to get lost and curiosity. “How do you know what my monthly stipend is?”

“Oh, I know lots about you, Marko.”

Marko took another bite of bread. “Like?”

“Like you bolted from home at seventeen when your mom died, managed a shithole gas station in Piscataway, New Jersey, to put yourself through Rutgers—crummy school, by the way; I went to Yale—but you did manage to score pretty well in math—”

“Who are you?”

“—you figured you’d be an engineer, but instead wound up studying Russian history. Yeah, that’s practical. Made no sense to me at first, until I learned that when your mom was a little girl she and her family got run out of Georgia by the Soviets. I’m no shrink, but I’ll bet that after she killed herself, you went looking for her in the past, looking for her here in—”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I already told you—Larry.”

“Larry who?”

“We’ll stick with just Larry. You got balls, I’ll give you that. And smarts—the ’78 protests…ha! That was good. The commies actually bought your BS. At first, that is.”

Marko frowned.

In 1978, when the Soviets had tried to make Russian an official language of Georgia, massive protests had erupted. In the end, the Soviets had shown uncharacteristic restraint and allowed the Georgians to keep their language; it was a sliver of history that the Soviets wanted Americans to know more about, because they thought it painted them in a forgiving light. To ensure that he would be granted a visa, Marko had emphasized that he would be studying that history.

Larry added, “Of course, you’re not fooling me. These interviews you’re doing, you’re not just focusing on some old protests. You’re here to make a list of all the shit the Soviets have pulled in Georgia over the past seventy years, listen to sob stories, maybe weave in your mom’s own sob story, and then write all about it when you get back home. Stab the commies in the back. Not that your little project will make a damn bit of difference, but at least your heart’s in the right place. But I’m here to tell you that now the Soviets also know what you’re up to. There’s only a handful of Americans in Tbilisi. They try to keep tabs on all of us—they think we’re all spies. Haven’t you ever noticed you’re being followed?”

Marko didn’t respond. He was trying not to appear as unsettled as he felt. Everything Larry had said was true.

Larry said, “They’re keeping at least four guys on you. One’s your neighbor from across the street. The fat schmuck who never tucks in his shirt and is always so friendly? Here’s a news flash, Saveljic—he ain’t really that friendly. He just wants to know where you’re going.”

Marko had been wondering about the weird, aggressively congenial guy across the street. He’d thought it was just a cultural thing.

“Was I followed here?”

“Yeah. By me.”

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant. You come here so often they don’t bother following you here anymore. Which, come to think of it, is something to remember—if someone’s trying to follow you, and you’ve got the time, boring them into complacency is never a bad option. Here’s another news flash. All those notes you’ve been taking? They’ll get around to stealing them eventually. Right around the time you’re gearing up to leave. Also, assume your phone and apartment is bugged.”

“Are you—”

“I’m a businessman. I buy Georgian cheese and export it to the States—there’s a big market for that, you’d be surprised. I’m also in contact with the American government a lot—you know, import licenses and such. So I hear things.”

“You heard all that about me because you buy and sell cheese? Gimme a break.”

Larry made a little slurping sound as he took a big slug off his beer. “You sure you don’t want one?”

Marko was thinking maybe he did. “No. Why do you care about me? Why bother digging up all that?”

“Anyway, so the, ah, we’ll call them local authorities, they’re onto you. They know you’re not doing what you said you came here to do. But if it was just that, I wouldn’t alarm you like this.”

“I’m not alarmed,” lied Marko.

“That little Press Club group you’re a part of—between you and me, it’s stuff like that that really gets them wound up...especially since you lied to them about what you planned to study while you were here.”

The Press Club was an informal organization made up of a ragtag bunch of student journalists, student journalist wannabees, and random anticommunist groupies. Its purpose was to support anticommunist journalism, arrange for student protests, and generally be a thorn in the side of the Soviet bureaucracy. Marko had been attending Press Club meetings for the past month.

He dipped one of the torpedo-shaped pieces of bread into his soup. “I’m not sure what your point is.”

“You know how animals that are scared are the most dangerous? Well, God knows these bastard Russians are animals and I’m telling you they’re running scared, they can feel the revolution coming. You might think just because that Press Club of yours is made up of a bunch of idiot kids that they don’t care, but you’d be wrong about that. They’re skittish, they see danger all around them. So you gotta be careful. That’s my point.” Larry finished his beer and wiped his mouth. “Also, if you think the Press Club could use some financial help, well, I might be in a position to provide it.”

At that, Larry got up and walked away as quickly as he had come, leaving Marko, deep in thought, staring blankly at the exit.

11

Tbilisi, Georgia
The present day

His real name had been Lawrence Prentis Bowlan. Fluent in Russian and a handful of other Slavic languages. He’d even picked up some Georgian, and knew a little Arabic. Old-school white-bread CIA elite, a Yale graduate—Larry had lied about a lot back then, but not about that—recruited to spy for the CIA at the height of the Cold War. He’d been able to pull off a pretty good impression of a boozy and brash American, though. As Larry had gotten older, that persona had become less and less of a fiction.

Mark focused on the corpse in the bag again.

After noting that it was indeed Larry, he pressed his index finger down on his old boss’s cheek—it felt like rubber; Larry had been embalmed.

“What happened to transporting him in a cold storage unit?” Mark asked in Russian.

A man from the Georgian customs department observed, clipboard in hand, as a hospital orderly began to seal up the zinc casket.

“Oh, but that was not a possibility,” replied the hospital administrator, in Georgian. She was dark-haired, maybe fifty, and wore an unobtrusive gold cross necklace. She smiled at Mark with a practiced sympathy reminiscent of an undertaker.

“It was a possibility yesterday.” When Mark had spoken with Kaufman, they’d agreed that Bowlan’s body should be preserved as it was at the time of death, so that an effective forensic autopsy could be performed back in the States.

“The body cannot be transported internationally if it has not been embalmed. If you were told otherwise, I apologize.”

“I was told otherwise.” Mark turned to Keal. “Did you know anything about this?”

“Yeah. When I spoke to the coroner yesterday we talked about the cold storage option. He said he’d look into it.”

“He must be packed in such a way that the airlines and receiving country will ship him as cargo. Now if you please, I have some forms you’ll need to sign.”

“What did you do with his blood?” demanded Mark, still in Russian.

“Sir?”

“The blood you took out of his body.”

Mark was no expert, but thought it was safe to assume that pumping Larry full of toxic chemicals would shoot to hell any chance of the CIA being able to perform accurate toxicology tests back in the States.

“I took nothing out of his body.”

“The coroner, then.”

“I’m sure it was properly and respectfully disposed of, sir.” The administrator produced a sheet of paper that certified the body had been embalmed, and then a Georgian death certificate, and then something she called a sanitary epidemic certificate. She handed the papers to Keal. “The customs authorities at the airport will need to view these before they will issue an exit permit.” Gesturing to the customs official who was now watching the hospital orderly seal up the outer wooden casket, she said, “And he should be able to give you his report shortly, which you will also need.”

“May I?” Mark took the forms and read that the official cause of death was a heart attack. “I was told some tests were performed. Before he was embalmed. May I see the lab results?”

“Certainly you may request a copy of the physician’s report of death.”

“Meaning the autopsy results.”

“Yes, but if you are not the next of kin…”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Keal.

“I’d rather see them now.”

Keal asked the administrator if that was possible. It wasn’t.

“I also have received police authorization to release the body,” said the administrator. She produced three pieces of paper that had been stapled together and marked up with a multitude of official-looking stamps and signatures.

“What police?”

“The regional police here in Tbilisi. They reviewed the autopsy report and lab tests. To insure that the cause of death was a natural one.”

“And they are satisfied that it was?”

“They would not have provided the clearance necessary to release the body had they not been.”

Keal and Mark were met at Tbilisi International Airport by a perky first-year employee of the State Department who was on her way to Madison, Wisconsin, to attend her brother’s wedding. She’d reluctantly agreed to accompany Larry on a Turkish Airlines cargo flight to Chicago. There, she was to transfer him to a funeral director who would bring him to Cleveland, Ohio, and stick him in cold storage until the CIA arranged for an autopsy. Eventually the body would be cremated and the remains delivered to Larry’s mother.

Mark had spoken to Larry’s mother the night before. The call hadn’t been the emotional disaster that he’d been afraid of, but only because it turned out that his mom, who was confined to a nursing home in Ohio, was senile.

I’m a friend of Larry’s, Mrs. Bowlan. And I’m so sorry, so very sorry, to have to tell you that your son has died.

Larry? How is Larry?

After the handover at the cargo terminal, Keal dropped Mark off at the main passenger terminal.

“No word yet on that name I gave you?” Mark asked.

“No. I can look into it when I get back if you like.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“What’s your number?”

Mark gave Keal a Bishkek number for an automated answering service that would digitize the message and forward it to an e-mail account. “If I don’t pick up, just leave a message.”

“Got it.”

They shook hands. As Keal walked away, Mark reflected that even in a nation like Georgia—which had never fully embraced Soviet-style inefficiency and had only been too happy to get rid of it at the first opportunity—navigating the bureaucracy usually took some doing. It was true, the Georgians had recently done a fine job of ridding many of their institutions of corruption, particularly the police, but even so, the bum’s-rush speed with which Larry’s death had been investigated, the body embalmed, and then released—in the hospital parking lot!—only served to reinforce Mark’s belief that Larry had been murdered.

And probably by the Russians. They were the only players, other than the Georgians themselves, who had the resources to manipulate so many layers of Georgian bureaucracy so quickly.

The only question now was what, if anything, he was going to do about it.