Krysalis: Krysalis (36 page)
“Are you available for a long trip?”
A pair of suspicious eyes materialized in the driver’s mirror. “How long is long?”
“Baltimore?”
“Baltimore? Shit, man, d’you know how far that is?”
“No. How far is it?”
“Two hunnud dollars from here.”
“A hundred, says my map.”
“Well, I dunno … you got the cash?”
“Yes.”
“Lemme see it.”
David held up a clutch of bills.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay.”
The driver became taciturn after that, much to David’s relief. He was hungry, he wanted to sleep, but he dared not relax until he was in Baltimore, on the Amtrak train, heading for New York. Then he could rest.
Is this how Anna did it when she fled, he wondered, as the landscape unwound across his tired vision? Was she alone then? Now? Or was she with Kleist?
How did he measure up against his wife’s, his apparently
frigid
(God, how he hated Eddy!) wife’s performance, when it came to deception? To flight?
No, she hadn’t fled. She would not have gone willingly. Unless perhaps …
He realized he didn’t know what he believed anymore. He simply didn’t know anything … except that he loved her and had to find her.
Nothing else mattered a damn.
28
On Saturday afternoon Anna visited the church again, only this time she went alone. She passed through the kitchen, where Barzel and Gerhard were still at lunch. “I’m going for a walk,” she said offhandedly. After she had gone about a hundred yards she looked back and to her surprise found that no one was following her. Anna frowned. What did that mean?
This time she did not pause at the tombs, but straightaway entered the church. Dried leaves, stirred by the breeze, drifted around the floor with a desiccated scratching sound. At the far end stood the altar, a simple cross, and two candlesticks; above them she could just make out traces of once-colorful paintings of Jesus and his apostles, done directly onto the wall. The only face she felt confident about identifying was John, reasoning that as Jesus loved him, and he was seated next to the central figure in the main fresco, he must be John.
There was a box of votary candles, and a brass stand
to receive them. But the faithful stayed away, so no flame enlivened the interior, apart from a red spark in the lantern suspended from the ceiling, which, she supposed, was God.
Anna placed a candle in the holder before realizing she had no means of lighting it. To one side hung a curtain, which half concealed a hole in the wall leading to the vestry. Inside this cubicle she found a rickety cupboard containing nothing save, oh miracle of miracles, a box of matches.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, watching her candle dissolve into the firmament, with only the red, red eye of God for company. Be vigilant, she warned herself. Use the time to think, before
he
comes….
Barzel replaced the phone on its rest and turned to Gerhard, who was watching him anxiously. “Well?” the latter said at last. “What does Huper say?”
Barzel kept him in suspense a moment longer. “He says yes.”
“We’re going to Berlin—the three of us?”
“That’s right. Your orders are to keep her under control until Monday night, when the submarine will come.”
“A submarine …” Gerhard was taken aback. “It’ll be a terrible strain for her.”
“That’s your problem.” Barzel stood up. “We haven’t got anything in these waters, but the Soviets have agreed to help.”
He was worried about that. What if the Russian commander had orders to take them to a Black Sea port and then forward them not to Berlin but to Moscow? Barzel had a backup now, a man called Stange, but the two of them couldn’t hope to overpower an entire crew and—
he eyed his companion contemptuously—it was no use looking to
him
for help.
Kleist had turned traitor, that much Barzel knew, but he couldn’t afford to let on, not yet. The woman still responded to her former therapist, making life easy for the HVA men whose job it was to take her to Berlin, sane and in one piece. Kleist had been a wonderful agent, once. He still might be capable of engineering an escape if he discovered that he’d been rumbled. So, for the moment, Kleist was safe. But that didn’t mean he could be trusted.
“The woman …” Barzel said casually.
“Mm?” Gerhard made an attempt to focus. “What about her?”
“She felt something for you?”
“Once.”
“And you fell in love with her.”
“That’s past history.”
No, Barzel thought to himself, it isn’t. And this will require very careful handling. “Berlin said something else. Anna’s husband is starting to make a nuisance of himself.”
“What? Even after you threatened him that day in Cornwall?”
“He doesn’t scare easily. Now he’s on his way to America. Can you guess why?”
Gerhard’s face twitched. “No,” he snapped. “And you worry too much. He’ll never trace me here.”
Barzel thought it over. Kleist was plainly scared out of his wits by the reference to America. HVA files showed that he’d had a brief affair with a United States citizen called Melkiovicz, in 1987, and that Melkiovicz was a close friend of Anna Lescombe’s. Which meant … what?
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “He won’t trace us. It can be taken care of.”
“What does that mean?”
“We have an excellent organization across the Atlantic. Whatever Lescombe’s after, our people will ensure he doesn’t find it. And if by some chance he
does …”
Gerhard swallowed. “Yes?”
“He won’t be allowed to use it.” Barzel studied him from under lowered eyelids. “You’re losing control of the Lescombe woman. This isn’t a secure place. I’m worried.”
“No one ever comes here.”
“So
you
say.”
Barzel went across to the bedroom window, first collecting a pair of binoculars from the top of the chest of drawers. Suddenly he paused in midsweep and cursed under his breath. “So no one ever comes, eh?” he grated. “Look at
that!”
Gerhard came to stare over his shoulder and Barzel handed him the glasses. A small sailboat had anchored on the far side of the bay. People were lounging on the sundeck, the sound of happy voices drifted faintly across the water.
“They come and go,” Gerhard said with a shrug, lowering the binoculars. “In the holiday season. They’re early, it’s still only April; there won’t be any more between now and Monday night.”
“What if Anna were to see them?” Barzel suddenly remembered how she’d left the house. “She might try to escape! For God’s sake, go and see where she’s got to.”
Gerhard looked at his watch, chewing his lip. Barzel understood. It was late in the afternoon, Iannis should
be making his call soon, and how embanassing it might be if he, Barzel, were to answer the phone….
“Go!” he commanded urgently.
After Gerhard had left the room, Barzel padded across to the door to make sure it was shut before again sitting down on the bed. He’d visited Moscow once and hadn’t liked it. The time had come to run up Kleist’s phone bill a little, talk to friends in Berlin, make sure that this damned Soviet sub didn’t turn left when it ought to turn right.
Barzel also needed the reassurance of a chat with Colonel Huper concerning his collection of books. He trusted Huper to keep his word, but there were other colonels in the HVA, illiterate men …
Before Barzel could pick up the phone, however, his mind again diverted to David Lescombe. Anna’s husband was playing a game too deep to fathom. An amateur, said the HVA official line, someone blundering about in a daze. But he seemed to be a remarkably gifted amateur.
Time Lescombe was
stopped …
Barzel arranged himself on the bed in such a way that he could continue to keep an eye on the boat. Berlin would have to wait. He picked up the phone and asked for a New York number.
In the church, Anna, like Barzel, was busily devising a plan of campaign. She needed to uncover Gerhard’s weaknesses. Unfortunately, the only one she could remember was sex.
Her feelings of bittersweetness comprised memories of their lovemaking and resentment at being unable to shake those memories off. When his hands touched her, that day on the beach, it was as if someone had
turned on a long-dormant switch, flooding her with power. He still lusted after Anna, the old Anna; and she couldn’t pretend to be indifferent.
During the golden time, they had consumed each other’s bodies like starving shipwrecked mariners, gorging themselves to fulfillment and beyond. Their appetite grew by what it fed on, the more they made love, the deeper their desire intensified. He could open a moist channel down to the neck of her womb with a single look, making her forget to breathe.
Sitting here in the empty church, she told herself that the affair was all over long ago. Anna the lawyer yearned to believe this rational voice testifying inside her head … and was skeptical.
Somehow she had to find a weakness in him that did not overlap with hers.
When the door crashed open she spun around to find Gerhard framed against the hot brightness outside.
“I’m sorry if I startled you.”
She nodded token remission. But when he tried to touch her, she stood up, pushing his hands away, and went to close the door. As she reached it, something made her raise her eyes above the level of the path. A man she had never seen before stood a dozen or so paces up the hill, one hand resting on the bole of a eucalyptus tree, the other in his pocket. Now she understood why they had let her leave the house: a guard was already in position, waiting. She slammed the door shut and leaned against it.
“Another Barzel?” she inquired.
“Anna.” Ignoring the two or three rickety chairs scattered around, he sat on the floor, inviting her with a gesture to do the same. “We have to talk.”
“I’m listening.” But she did not sit
down
“It’s time you heard the truth. About me.”
“I think so,” she agreed.
“You’ve had the bad luck to fall in with someone who isn’t what he appears to be.” He paused. “Anna, this is very difficult to say.”
“Go on.”
“I work for an organization called Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung. HVA. It is the East German secret service.”
“They ordered you to steal David’s file. Using me.”
“Anna, listen—”
“Just tell me one thing,” she said, ignoring him, and the resolution in her voice surprised her. “Why did you do it, Gerhard?”
“Why?”
“Is that such a difficult question? Sixteen years we’ve known each other, we’ve been lovers, and now suddenly you’re a spy.”
He hesitated. “I have a sister. Her name is Ilsa.”
Whatever Anna had been expecting, it wasn’t this. First a spy, now a spy with a hitherto unsuspected sister. “You never mentioned that. Not once.”
“There are lots of things I never mentioned.”
People were shut off. Anna thought she knew Gerhard, just as she thought she knew David and Juliet; she had lived her life in a certain way on the strength of such assumed knowledge. But she did not know them.
“For instance,” Gerhard went on, “I told you I was born in Germany, and you believed I meant West Germany, but it wasn’t so. My father was a high-up in the Communist party. He got me out, to the West.”
“Why should he want to do that?”
“I was his … favorite. I could do no wrong in his
eyes. Ilsa, you see … our mother died in labor, when she was born. Father couldn’t forgive Ilsa. He spoiled me.” Gerhard laughed, without humor. “I longed to study in the West, have a good time as well. And although I didn’t know it then, that suited some important people who wanted a tame therapist in London, or maybe Paris or New York.”
“These HVA people?”
“Yes. But when they stitch together such deals, there’s always an insurance. Someone has to stay behind, to act as a magnet. A guarantee that you will come home, and a security for good behavior while you are away.”
“And Ilsa was your magnet?”
He nodded again. “She’s younger than I am. We were always as close as blood to the vein. When father died, it left just the two of us. She’s a pediatrician. A good doctor. Dedicated.”