A
lexa adjusted her length in the car. The car was large, larger even than a Ziv, but she had been waiting for four hours.
Her muscles ached across her back beneath the silken shirt. She wore very dark slacks stuffed into the tall leather boots she had purchased in Stockholm. The day that she had gone to kill November; it seemed a million days ago.
The night had stars.
She stared at the stars and felt pity for the child from Moscow who had wanted to count the stars and contain heaven.
She felt pity for herself. As she had been, as she was.
She felt pity for her own fear. She was bereft, alone in the West, adrift in a foreign place she would never escape from.
Even after she killed the target tonight.
He was contained in this suburban house that was grander than Gorki’s dacha outside Moscow. The Americans lived like such profligates. Every home was an
estate. Yet she saw the people in Washington, in the city, at night: They came with cardboard for warmth and also newspapers and they bedded down under the bridges and in alcoves of doorways, in alleys where there was some warmth. She had contempt for Americans and their ways.
And fear for herself.
The target was at hand and there was nothing more to be done. She had delayed the inevitable too long. She had not wanted to decide her own fate while deciding the life of another. Gorki had abandoned her and done it cruelly. He had not transferred her, not posted her abroad to another assignment, not banished her from Moscow. He had decided she would die. She was sure of it and could not understand the wrath of the man who had been God to her.
She had danced for him.
She had been naked for him.
Not for any favor from him. Because he had so much power in him and she had been attracted to the power in him. It was a palpable thing to her.
Four times in two days—four times in forty-eight hours exactly—she had seen Devereaux. He was the target; the second November that came once in a blue moon. And when she killed him, as she would do tonight, she would have killed herself. Somehow, this was implied in the assignment. There would be no escape or there would be a botched escape; in any case, she would die when November died.
Once every six hours, she contacted the source at a phone with a New York City area code. The voice assured her this last time that the target was in this suburban house in Bethesda, Maryland. The voice was always right. He knew everything, Alexa realized: He really knew.
Which made it so sinister.
This was a script, she thought. This was a play with Alexa as an actress in a role assigned long before to her. It was all made easy for her. Which meant that it was all a trap—a death for November, a death for Alexa.
Gorki had ruled her passions but not her mind. Gorki thought he could pat her hand at a table in a restaurant in Prague and tell her that everything was all right. That she would believe him.
She was not a fool. Not even when she had danced naked on the Afghan rug that night, before the crackling fire, the fire lighting up her loins and her breasts and making her skin a tawny color. Not a fool when she had heard music that was unplayed and danced to it, intoxicated by drugs shared and the wine and all the making of love that had gone before. Danced in bare feet on the Afghan rug and showed him her power to arouse him. But in that mad moment, she had not been a fool. Not that.
Gorki treated her so. But what choice did she have now. To perform the assignment, she would die; to not do the job, she would betray her commission. And die as well.
She was strong; she had power because she was beautiful and men desired her. Also, because she controlled herself and those around her. She was aware of everything around her and she was cunning and intelligent.
And Gorki was so much more.
Power was the aphrodisiac.
He had commanded her as easily as a child commands its doll.
Now he commanded her death.
The moment she killed November, she was dead.
His death carried her own inside him.
She blinked. Her eyes had made tears and that had made her eyes irresistible.
She sat in the darkness, under bare trees, beneath stars. She sat in a rented car with a borrowed pistol on her lap. She sat very alone and still. Her shoulders ached. Beyond those yellow-lighted windows were homes of strangers where strangers were warm, familiar with each other, at some sort of peace, even for a moment. Alexa let tears fall on her perfect, taut cheeks because she was so cold and alone.
And then he was there.
On the steps of the house she had watched.
She put her hand on the pistol. Her long fingers crept over case, housing, trigger guard, trigger—they were like snakes creeping over stones. She held her breath—not that he could hear her.
November.
He was bright against the darkness because of the street lamp. His jacket was light blue, his sweater was black. He wore tan trousers.
He was a large man and he paused at the curb to look around him. He stared right into the darkness where she was hidden. It didn’t matter; he didn’t see her.
It was important to take care of him away from the house of spies where he had spent Sunday afternoon.
His image flashed beneath the street lamp.
Tall, long legs, a certain strength in the way he walked. It was the way a lion stalks in the veld.
She blinked her eyes to blink away the tears. She was aware her life was coming to an end very soon, even as his life was ending.
She pushed the car into “drive” and let it slide forward
into the street. She turned toward Wisconsin Avenue at the end of the street.
She came abreast of him.
Was he a hundred feet away? It would not be difficult.
She rolled down the window.
Because Alexa was careful, she wanted all the advantages. Let him step toward her on this quiet street.
“Can you help me?”
So small a voice. Her mother said she was given the gift of a small voice in a beautiful face. A strong woman’s deception.
“Can you help me, please? I am lost, I think.”
He stopped. Turned.
Stared at her.
She brought the pistol up beneath the window.
And he smiled at her.
What man would not smile at a beautiful woman in distress?
From that moment, doubt ceased. There was no thought of Gorki. She must obey because obedience was the way taught to a courier in the Resolutions Committee.
Take a step toward me.
And another.
She spoke to the target without words.
It will be very easy for you, dear one. She crooned to the target in her mind.
She had once stroked poor Tony’s hair. His face was between her thighs and he pleased her and she thought to blow his head off in that moment. Poor Tony.
But he did not move, the one on the sidewalk.
She brought the pistol up and rested it on the sill of the window.
He was half turned toward her now, almost in profile.
“Be careful, Alexa,” he said. In very soft English. “They want to kill you as well. When you kill me.”
The English words had no emotion but a sort of wonder to them.
Her hand trembled. The pistol shook.
“Please,” she said. In English.
What did she want to say?
She had to kill him.
“Please.”
But he was gone, between the buildings opposite, into absolute darkness beneath the stars. The street was empty.
She was crying.
He knew. He knew her, knew the danger she had felt. It was like another man knowing your secret belief that you were going to die soon. It confirmed everything.
And all her courage was gone.
D
evereaux grinned when he saw the sign on the door.
But he removed the pistol from his belt anyway. He unlocked the safety—he detested automatics but it was the only reliable piece he could acquire quickly on the hot market—and he went to the door.
On the knob, a
Do Not Disturb
sign printed in four languages—presumably for the benefit of the staff, rather than the room resident—hung like a signal flag.
It was Devereaux’s room.
He had not hung out any sign at all.
He turned the key and opened the door with a slight kick from his right foot. It is exactly the way it is taught in all the training classes. The pistol surveys the room from right to left as the door swings inward.
Except it was on a chain and the chain held.
“Who is it?”
Devereaux did not put the pistol away but he held it loosely at his side. “Come on,” he said.
Denisov opened the door. His shirt was open, revealing
an expanse of chest and curly black hairs. A bottle of vodka and a small ice bucket sat on the sideboard.
“Make yourself at home,” Devereaux said. He entered the room.
“I didn’t want you to shoot me if I fell asleep,” Denisov said in his heavy accent. He was in good humor.
“I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”
“The work was satisfactory.” He frowned. “As far as it went. You were right about a few things. Do you know the woman is here? Is waiting to kill you?”
Devereaux took off his corduroy jacket and threw it on one of the double beds. He went to the window and looked out at the winking red lights set in the obelisk of the Washington Monument. The lights looked like eyes and the Monument resembled—at night—a hooded Klansman.
He had his back to Denisov and he replaced his pistol in his belt.
Denisov smiled. “But you can see me in the glass, is that it?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Do not trust too much.”
“No. That wouldn’t do for either of us.”
“The woman is here.”
“I know.”
“You know this? You have seen her?”
“At least three times. I saw her tonight. I think she was finally going to kill me. She’s very confused.” He said it mildly. “I told her to be careful; I said they wanted her dead.”
“Then you did nothing?”
“She caught me the first time. In the morning. Yesterday morning. She was in a car and I was careless. I guess
I have learned to retire from the old trade too well.” He turned back to face Denisov. “Smirnoff vodka?”
“Actually, I had great trouble. I ask for Russian vodka. I ask for Polish vodka even. The man in the store said he refused to carry Communist vodka. As though vodka had a political party. He says I have an accent and he accused me of being a goddamn Russian spy.”
“But you are.”
“Not anymore. Thanks to you.” He paused again. “I was in Berlin.”
“You saw Griegel. How is Griegel?”
“As boring as ever. He said there is a control inside Moscow Center who wants to defect. Do you know who it is?”
“Gorki,” Devereaux said.
Denisov frowned. He didn’t like this at all. He was tired as well. The Concorde from London had utterly exhausted him. “Perhaps I should not ask you questions. Perhaps you know all the answers.”
“Perhaps,” Devereaux said.
Denisov poured some vodka into a water glass. Devereaux removed the Saran Wrap seal over a second glass, sniffed it, and dropped in some ice. He took the bottle from Denisov. They sat down. The hotel room was like a thousand others strung around the world and they were like the thousand others who hung their trousers on hangers and washed their shirts in the basin and set chairs against the door at night and always left a light burning and kept the television set on to an empty channel to produce a certain, soothing amount of “white noise.” The white noise protected against eavesdropping and the chair on the door against surprises.
“She surprised me in the morning,” Devereaux said. “She could have taken me out then. I was an open target, the street was empty.”
“She is cautious,” Denisov said.
“I don’t know. But she’s thinking about the setup. She was set up in Lausanne. And I just wanted to tip her a little. If I know her name and what the business is about, it will scare her. I think it will. Maybe you can stay on her and find out who she’s dealing with.”
“Yes. That would not be so unpleasant. She is beautiful. But what do I do when I discover… her associates?”
“I don’t know.”
“You fail at the end, comrade. You fail when I ask you for the last answer. Why do you always fail at the end?”
“Because I don’t know.”
“Take her in,” Denisov said. “It is not so bad.”
“Yes. You read the
Wall Street Journal
now.”
“It is not so bad,” Denisov said. “But even freedom cannot replace memory. An exile is an exile, no matter how great the freedom of the exile.” He said, “Perhaps you will survive this matter. I think you will. You have lives like cats.” He drank his vodka neat and harsh in the Russian manner.
“She’s afraid of us as well,” Devereaux agreed.
“Yes. We have proof positive in KGB that CIA agents eat defectors and flush their remains away in sewers.”
“We have such proof as well,” Devereaux said. They had automatically assumed their old sides for the sake of speech. It was easy to be against; it was familiar, like friendship. But it was easier than friendship.
“I knew Alexa,” Denisov said.
“I thought you did.”
“I betrayed nothing.”
“Yes. That’s why I thought you knew her. You saw her picture and you weren’t even struck by her. By how she looked. You’re not so much of a saint as that.”
Denisov blinked behind the saintly rimless glasses. “I think of how to save her.”
“For yourself.”
“I knew her. In Finland. There was a business there and we worked together.”
Devereaux said nothing. To say anything would be wrong. He wanted Denisov to think about the business at hand.
“I came to settle with Hanley. And Hanley is the key to this thing. If he’s alive.”
“You have killed him?”
Devereaux told him about Hanley then, as though there were no secrets between them. The spy withholds; it is part of training. He withholds from control, from his friends, from his co-workers, from his network. A spy’s reserve is knowledge that is not shared. And yet there was so much they did not know that everything Devereaux had learned seemed no more than two or three interlocking pieces of a puzzle.
The two men talked into the middle of the night and the words opened into other words.
At three in the morning, Devereaux got up suddenly and went to the window again and looked down at the utterly silent, utterly empty streets of the city.
“Why do we know all this?”
Denisov stared at the back of the other man. He considered the question. He stared at the empty bottle of vodka they had shared.
“Because we are professionals,” Denisov said.
Devereaux did not turn to look at him. “Because it doesn’t matter. This is a scenario. A long and involved scenario and the answers are all written down long before it started.”
“Yes.” Slowly. “I thought about that, too. But this Hanley, this man is in an insane asylum which—”
“—which is where we put our actors who refuse to play their parts,” Devereaux said. “What is Nutcracker?”
And Denisov started so violently that Devereaux thought he would fall off the straight chair.
“The word was used. By Herr Griegel in Berlin when I saw him. An operation. But it seemed to connect to nothing at all, I nearly forgot it. What is it?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. Except that I think Hanley knows. Or he knew. Somehow, Hanley had to be taken care of and it was the easiest way to do it. He had to be put in a secure place where he could be examined to see what he knew, whom he had told—”
“You, my friend,” Denisov said.
They both saw it in that moment.
“He called me. He was raving or drunk but he called me twice and his telephone was tapped and someone was afraid that I shared Hanley’s secret. Whatever the secret was…”
“Except that you didn’t. When you came back, when you started searching Hanley’s rooms—they knew you didn’t know a thing about—”
“About the only thing worth knowing, Russian,” Devereaux said. “We are caught up in words and secrets and agents dancing around one another and it doesn’t mean a thing, none of it. The only thing worth knowing
is what Hanley knows. Or what he guessed. And they’ve kept him alive long enough to find out what that was and to find out if I knew any more than Hanley did.”
For the first time, Devereaux’s face clouded.
He closed his eyes, heard Hanley’s words, heard his responses.
Yes. There was enough. To make someone think that he and Hanley knew more about something than they did. He had been involved because of a mistake; because someone misinterpreted the raving conversation recorded on tape on a tapped phone line.
“You can go back to sleep now, my friend,” Denisov said.
“But it doesn’t explain Alexa—”
“There was a man killed on the
Finlandia
who has not been identified. He was November.”
Devereaux waited.
“Was there a second November?” Denisov asked.
“You didn’t tell me this before—”
“Alexa took care of him. Two Novembers. Once in a blue moon, that is what Alexei said. It was the only unfortunate part of my journey. You see, it was necessary to retrace her steps and they led back to Helsinki and I had to see our stationmaster there. His name was Viktor. I had known him from days in the chess union, in Moscow, after I came out of Madrid embassy. His code name was Alexei.”
“Tell me about the other November.”
“On a boat in the Baltic. You know it, the
Finlandia
. A November with a scar on his face and gray hair who was to defect. Do you understand this?”
Devereaux betrayed nothing. He thought of Colonel
Ready. So they had caught him at last. He had tagged Ready with the code name and his own identity so that the wet contract on him would be shifted to the other man. Somehow, the Opposition had finally understood that Ready was not Devereaux. And that meant that someone in Section had told the Opposition. Only Section knew the truth—and only the top people in Section. So there was a mole and he was in Section. Or she. And he thought very suddenly and painfully of Mrs. Neumann and of Alexa waiting outside Mrs. Neumann’s house.
Denisov frowned at the silence. But if Devereaux would not talk, the silence would last forever. Denisov frowned again, like a misunderstood child. “I had to finish Alexei.”
“Don’t you ever call it by what it is?” Devereaux said.
“No. It’s only business. Killing is not business, it is some mad act. When you finish something, you are only taking care of business. Alexei must not know about me, not enough to tell anyone again.” Denisov frowned a third time, then erased the thought from memory. “But I learned about Gorki. Why does he know so much about you? Why can he follow your movements so easily? I tell you, we don’t have that capability. Not in the U.S.A.”
“No,” Devereaux said. “I wish we had another bottle.”
“So do I. But the night is not so long from here now, is it?”
Devereaux was struck by that. Denisov had become entangled again in intricate English construction but it was appropriate.
The night is not so long from here now.
Whatever was going to happen, whatever had been set up, would happen quickly.
“You don’t have the capability and neither would we.
No one predicts everything so easily except in spy novels. All the satellites and agents in the world only give us a clue, not the whole story. But someone has the whole story. About me. About Alexa.”
“Who is it?”
“The man who tapped the phones. The man who listened to Hanley’s conversation with me and decided I was dangerous.”
Denisov did not speak. His hands were flat on the creases of his trousers. When he breathed again, his breath came in a whiney rush. “You have a mole in Section.”
“More than that,” Devereaux said.
“What is more?”
“Hanley knew. Somehow, Hanley had it figured out. Not all of it but parts of it. There is something called Nutcracker and it worried Hanley. Maybe it sent him off the deep end. I don’t know.”
“But Hanley. You know what you will do?”
“Yes. Part of it. No one knows everything.”
“Except God,” Denisov said. It was the voice of icons and incense; even a rational man, even a man such as Denisov, had these moments of automatic piety, gained from childhood.
“Except God,” Devereaux said. “So let us pray tomorrow for guidance.”
And Denisov was shocked to see that the other man was smiling.