Agent in Place (8 page)

“Could be.” Thank God, I’m out of all that, thought Brad; but he couldn’t bury his memories, or the latest headlines either. “I’m afraid for my country, Tony. These are bad days.”

“Head-rolling time,” Tony agreed. “I must say—when you Americans start swinging, you use a hatchet. Couldn’t a neat scalpel and some precision surgery do the job?”

“You get no big headlines with a scalpel.”

There was a brief silence.

“Look—I didn’t bring you here to depress you,” Tony said briskly. He rose and freshened their drinks. “All I want is a little help from you on the problem of Vladimir Konov.”

“How?” Brad was wary.

“Konov is arriving here on Tuesday. He’s with a grain-buying team meeting your agricultural experts in Washington.”

That was a shock. “Cool customer, isn’t he? After his exit from Canada—what is he doing here, d’you think? Gathering background for future Disinformation use?”

“He’ll sound out those who are soft and those who are tough, and no doubt he’ll go to work on the easy marks, and arrange some future approaches through his Illegals—they were his speciality during the sixties. He provided them with American passports and life-histories—sometimes belonging to real Americans, remember?”

Brad nodded.

“But Konov has another reason for coming here, just at this time. A reason he has been trying to keep to himself. So we’ve heard, from one of our agents in Moscow.”

“NATO Intelligence has an agent in place? Close enough to Konov to know his plans? Pretty good. In fact, damned good.”

“So far, yes. He and Konov are in the same Department of Disinformation. He’s actually senior to Konov, but they are rivals for the next big promotion. Tricky.”

“That’s one of your better understatements.”

“So here’s the set-up. Konov has suspicions—they are his meat and drink. Konov has ambitions. Konov is out gunning for our agent. And he will succeed if he can get his hands on a NATO memorandum that was sent to Washington. He knows it exists, but hasn’t the particulars so far. And that’s what he needs, to be right on target—a piece of evidence that would disclose our agent. Several others, too, but our man in Moscow would be the first casualty.”

“What evidence? Surely NATO didn’t mention names?”

“No, no. The evidence would be in the kind of specialised information that was sent to NATO. Konov could track the source down. At least, that’s what our agent feels. He’s jittery. No doubt about that. We had word from him yesterday.”

“So you took the night flight out of Brussels,” Brad said thoughtfully. “Washington next?”

Tony nodded. “I’m on convoy duty—making sure the NATO Memorandum gets safely back to Brussels, once the Pentagon releases it to me.”

“But what help do you need from me?” Brad’s sombre face was perplexed.

“Just sound the tocsin. Warn any of your old friends at State that Konov is in town. They’ll get in touch with the Justice Department and see that the message gets through to the right investigative agencies.”

“What about your own CIA contacts in Washington?”

“Paralysed at the moment. You’ve been reading the papers, haven’t you? How do you expect them to act—boldly, effectively?” Tony’s face was grim. “This is important, Brad. One good man’s life is at stake; and eight others too. And NATO
is
America’s business. Without it, you’d really go bust in Western Europe.”

“The FBI have a lot on Konov—they must have.”

“We hope,” Tony said, a trifle bitterly.

“You have no friends there?”

“Once upon a time. They resigned in Hoover’s latter-day period of sainthood. All communications with European Intelligence cut off. No more quiet interchange of information. Let’s wait until the dam breaks, and then we can all rush together. Hands across the sea, tra la la!”

Brad finished his drink. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Chuck rattled off a short line of connected dashes to mark the end of the text. The typewriter sounded triumphant, but he had no sense of exultation. No excitement: not even relief that the job was over. He pulled the last page out of the machine, separated it from its carbon copy.

“Twenty minutes past ten,” Rick said. “Not bad at all.” He placed the carbon copy with the others, studied the page for any errors. “Clean. Except for these damn letters.” The
m
and
n
were ink-blocked, the
t
thickened. “Pity you didn’t have any type-cleaner around. Still, it’s legible. Quite professional. I’d hire you as a secretary any day.”

Chuck said nothing at all. He gathered up the NATO Memorandum, Part I, and opened his desk drawer. Carefully, he placed all three parts together, and began fastening them into one complete document.

Rick spoke again. “Can’t I have a look at the two last sections?”

Chuck went on with his job, finished it, and replaced the NATO folder in the drawer. “I’d rather we didn’t handle it any more than necessary.”

And Rick, who had been congratulating himself on his display of complete innocence in that last question, looked suddenly startled. I didn’t wear gloves, he remembered, and his face went rigid.

“You’d better ’phone Holzheimer.”

Rick tried to recall whether he had really grasped the sheets of the Memorandum between thumb and forefinger: he had lifted them gingerly by the tips of his fingers, but there had been speed and pressure. No, he decided, he hadn’t left any identifiable traces of his work. But he ought to have gone downstairs to Katie and got the gloves he kept there: then he would have made sure that there were no fingerprints. He was almost certain now: what he was really nervous about was the expression on Mischa’s face if he ever heard of this carelessness. Mischa...

“Holzheimer,” Chuck repeated sharply. “You said he would be waiting until ten thirty. It’s almost that now.”

Rick nodded and reached for the telephone. And there went a perfectly natural excuse, he thought as he concealed his annoyance. Ten thirty had been a time that he had pulled out of the air: he hadn’t expected Chuck to finish the typing job until eleven o’clock at the earliest. Too late, he would have explained, to get in touch tonight; better leave it till tomorrow. And tomorrow could have another tomorrow...any pretence to let him delay and postpone and delay. But now he could feel Chuck’s eye on his fingers as he dialled the number, so he kept it accurate. When he got through, there was enough background noise in the news-room to give him a second chance at an excuse. “No go. I don’t think he’s at his desk. Gone home, perhaps. Or out on the town. There’s so much damned racket—”

“But someone answered you—”

“Sure. And left the ’phone off the hook.”

“Keep trying.”

“It’s the wrong time to call him. Obviously.”

Chuck reached out and seized the receiver as Rick was about to replace it.

“What the hell—” Rick began.

“We’ll wait this out.” And simultaneously, a voice was saying angrily into Chuck’s ear, “Who’s this? Do you want to talk with me—or not?”

“Martin Holzheimer?”

“Speaking.”

“Here’s Nealey. Hold the line.” Chuck handed the receiver back to Rick. “Tell him you’ll meet him in Katie’s apartment, as soon after eleven o’clock as possible.”

“What?”

“Downstairs. Apartment 5-A.”

“But—”

“Tell him.”

Rick did all that. He ended his call, and smothered his anger as he turned to face Chuck. “Just what do you think you are doing? This was my end of the business—to meet him some place where it would be safe and quiet—”

“Katie’s apartment will be very quiet. She’s out until dawn, isn’t she?”

“But why
her
place?”

“Because it’s handy. I’ll be there, too.”

Rick was nettled. “I thought you were going to keep clear of—”

“I want to see this man, get a kind of feeling about him,” Chuck said.

“Totally irrational behaviour.”

“Possibly. Just following my instincts, I guess. I’m going to make quite sure that he won’t publish the name of Shandon House.”

“And what about you?” Rick asked.

“You can introduce me as the man who has access to Shandon House. That’s all. We’ll keep the Kelso name out of it.”

Rick shook his head. “So that’s why you chose to bring him to Katie’s apartment? He will see her name on the door-plate. Not yours. And you can slip down—”

“Okay, okay. Let’s get ready. Lock up tight. Check the windows, will you, Rick?”

As he spoke, Chuck pulled the couch well to one side, and turned back the rug that lay underneath. Next, he was over at the desk again, lifting the folder with the precious memorandum. He laid it under the rug, which he then smoothed into place. Satisfied with the look of it, he began heaving the couch into its original position. “That should do. I won’t be gone for any length of time, but I don’t trust that desk lock; any nitwit could force it open. Windows okay? Put four records on the player. Leave a couple of lights on.” Chuck picked up Holzheimer’s copy of Part I to carry inside his jacket. His duplicate copy was shoved inside a magazine, a folded newspaper flung carelessly on top.

“See this?” he asked as he opened the front door. “It’s said to be burglar-proof.”

Rick stared at the new lock on the door. “When did you have that put in?”

“A couple of days ago. The old one was too easy.”

And so, thought Rick, if I had slipped downstairs for a pair of gloves, I’d have been locked out. My key for this door would have been useless. He began to laugh.

“It’s no joke,” Chuck said. “That damned lock set me back thirty-six dollars.”

So it’s this way, Rick was arguing with Mischa (or with Oleg, if it came to that): we got the second and third parts. Wasn’t that worth the disclosures in the first part? And Mischa (or Oleg) would have to agree. Neither of them would pin a medal on him, but they couldn’t say he had botched the assignment either. He looked at Chuck as they reached Katie’s door. “You really are full of surprises,” he said, and shook his head.

“As soon as you identify me to Holzheimer as his source—”

“I still can’t imagine why you are taking the risk of letting him see you.”

“Insurance.”

“Against what?”

“Against a delay in publication. He’ll carry more weight with his editor if he can say he has actually met me. And also—” Chuck paused.

Rick braced himself. He had underestimated Chuck tonight. “Also what?”

“I’ll be able to identify him again, if necessary.”

“Suspicious, aren’t you?” Rick unlocked Katie’s door and they stepped into the disordered hall.

“Yes,” Chuck said frankly. “That’s the hell of this kind of business,” he added with distaste. “You have to think twice about every move you make, judge it from all angles.” There was another pause. “I wish to God I had never—” He broke off.

“Backing out?” Rick concealed a rising hope.

“No.” Chuck looked straight ahead, and was depressed by the view. The living-room was dark except for one light somewhere round the corner but he could feel, if not see, the combined clutter of objects inside. It was one unholy mess, he thought: no expense spared on the furnishings and pictures, and yet everything—like Katie’s own styles of dressing (they varied each month according to whim)—looked as though it came from some attic or flea-market. “How can you stand this?”

“Stand what?” asked Katie’s voice. Rick and Chuck looked at each other, stepped into the living-room and got a full view of the dining alcove at its lighted end Rising from its marble-topped table were four startled people: Katie, dressed in her current style of satin blouse, turquoise jewellery and Indian headband; a squat blond man, with shaggy hair and full beard, his eyes glaring at the two intruders; a tall thin black man with a rounded Afro and large dark glasses; a woman with Alice-in-Wonderland hair, sweeping its long locks round a middle-aged face, and a good pair of breasts (but beginning to sag) showing bra-less under a tight cotton shirt, pulled over patched blue jeans.

“Pigs,” the woman said, gathering up a map and some scraps of paper from the table, her head knocking lightly against the shade of the overhead Tiffany lamp to send it swinging. The men’s faces went blank and watchful. Katie was trying to laugh. “They’re all right,” she kept saying. “Just friends.”

“Get them out!” said the woman. The two men, impassive, sullen, kept staring.

Rick recovered. “Katie, why the hell aren’t you at Bo Browning’s?”

“What the frigging hell are you doing here?” Katie replied in her Philadelphia Main-line accent.

“We’re raiding your refrigerator for a late supper,” Rick told her, moving towards the kitchen. “And then I was going to pick you up at Bo’s party. That was our arrangement, wasn’t it?”

“It was not,” Katie flashed back. Normally she was an extremely pretty girl, dark-haired and slender, with a face that smiled gently. At this moment she looked almost ugly with fear, her large blue eyes watching her companions’ faces, her mouth taut with anxiety.

The tall thin man moved first, straight for the hall, measuring Chuck as he passed him with bitter contempt. The middle-aged woman followed, silent now and angry as she stuffed the map and the scraps of paper into her large shoulder-bag. So did the short bearded man, his face averted, his hands tucked into the pockets of an old army jacket. Katie paused only to snatch up the woman’s cardigan and her own coat. “I’ll get them to leave—” she was pleading as she ran after them—“Don’t go.”

“Come on!” the woman told her. “Or stay behind with your pet pigs.” Permanently, the angry eyes seemed to say. Katie didn’t even hesitate. She closed the front door behind her, leaving Chuck to stare at its elaborately painted panels.

In the living-room, his amazement grew. Rick was selecting two books and some small personal objects, throwing them into his bag on top of clothing and shaving-kit. He moved briskly, checking the overpiled bookcase again, then the bathroom shelves. “That’s it,” he said, closing the bag.

“You’re leaving?”

“As soon as you meet Holzheimer.”

“Why? If ever there was a time to stay and argue Katie out of all this—” Chuck looked over at the table where four heads had huddled in a tight little conspiracy. “I mean, she’s way into something that’s too deep for her.”