Spy Who Read Latin: And Other Stories (7 page)

“I think it’s damned important,” Rand barked, leaning forward until his face was only inches from Taz’s. “There’s nothing in these messages about the SUM and you know it!”

“Do I?”

“Because if there was you wouldn’t be so free in showing them to me. I could have them memorized already, for all you know. It’s not too difficult a feat.”

“All right.” Taz leaned back, breaking the contact of their eyes. “The messages did not mention SUM. They seemed to be about aircraft reconnaissance. They did not, admittedly, make a great deal of sense.”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

Taz frowned at him now. “Why not?”

“Because the SYKO cipher was a widely used Allied air-ground system during World War II. It hasn’t been used since then. Gordon Belgrave was an Air Corps Intelligence officer during the war. He was confessing to acts of espionage committed twenty-five years ago.”

Taz turned from the desk and walked over to the high broad window that reached almost to the ceiling. He stood for a moment gazing out at the lights of the Moscow evening; then at last he turned to face Rand.

“You can prove what you say?”

“Belgrave had a nervous breakdown last year. He received shock treatments. Your medical men will tell you that such shock treatments sometimes cause age regression. Belgrave came here to meet with Russian publishers, but suddenly imagined himself in the world of twenty-five years ago. He tried to send messages in the old SYKO cipher, and when you arrested him he confessed to espionage.”

“It’s possible,” Taz admitted somewhat reluctantly. “It would explain the oddness of the message.”

“It’s more than possible—it happened. I want the man released at once, Taz.”

“That is beyond my authority.”

“Like hell it is! What do you hope to gain by holding him?”

Taz motioned him to the window. “Forget about the American for a moment and look down on all this. We are in one of Moscow’s tallest buildings—not tall by American standards, but it compares favorably with London, no?”

“Get to the point, Taz. The American is innocent. What do you want in exchange for him?”

The blue eyes blinked. “What do I want? Why, I want you, my friend. And it appears that I have you.”

“What new game is this?” Rand felt his blood run cold. Had he been outwitted somehow?

“I could press that button on the desk and have you arrested for murder, Mr. Rand.”

“Murder!”

“The murder of one Shoju Etan on a Japanese airliner over Russian territory.”

“You’re crazy, my friend.”

“I could produce three witnesses who would swear they saw you shoot him.”

“You had Shoju killed just to frame me for his murder?”

“Hardly. But it
is
convenient, is it not? I could keep you here, remove you forever from the Department of Concealed Communications.”

“If that’s what you want you could have me killed back in London any day of the week. I’m really quite vulnerable, as I told you once before.”

Taz shook his head. “I do not want you dead, my friend. I want only to make you an offer.”

“In return for my freedom?”

“In return for the freedom of Gordon Belgrave.”

“He means nothing to me.”

Taz shrugged. “Very well, then. Who else must I seize? The American CIA man—Lanning?”

“Leave him out of it.” Rand realized that his palms were sweating. He’d come here as the cat and now suddenly he felt like the mouse. “What is your offer?”

Taz smiled, motioning toward the walls with their proletarian adornment. “I can assure you there are no listening devices in this room.”

“I accept your assurance.”

“Very well. Let us get to business. My offer is simply this—that we, you and I, join forces for our own betterment. That we, shall I say, exchange certain key pieces of information regarding our codes and ciphers.”

Rand leaned forward, not certain that he’d heard correctly. “You can’t be serious!”

“I’m deadly serious, my friend. Neither of us grows younger. The espionage business is a dying one, replaced by satellites in the sky and old men around a conference table. Would it not be to our advantage to work together, to try and gather a—what is it called?—yes, a nest egg for the days of our enforced retirement. What I am suggesting, after all, is no more than Major Batjuschin suggested to Captain Redl in 1902.”

This brought a smile from Rand. “You mean Captain Redl, the archtraitor?”

“Yes or no, my friend?”

“I suppose, Taz, that what you’re suggesting is the only sensible course for practical men to follow. And I suppose I’m both foolish and old-fashioned in turning you down.”

“What is it—patriotism?”

“Nothing so nebulous as that. I suppose, quite simply, it’s just that I don’t quite trust you, my friend.”

The Russian’s face froze. “Very well. Then Gordon Belgrave remains with us.”

Rand held up a hand. “Not so fast. Now it’s my turn to propose a deal. Do I have your word that the Russians are not responsible for Shoju Etan’s murder?”

“You have it.”

“What about a man named Sivas?”

“A hired killer, employed by the Albanians, and sometimes by their friends the Chinese.”

“I suspected as much.”

“Is Sivas here, in Moscow?” asked Taz curiously.

“If you’ll release Belgrave, I’ll deliver Sivas—and more besides.”

“More?”

“Now it’s your turn to trust me.”

Taz nodded slowly. “Show me Sivas. Where is he?”

“Let’s look for him together. At the Moscow zoo.”

Dr. Yota Nobea glanced up as they entered, neglecting for a moment the languid crocodile in its shallow pool of water. “The zoo is closed till morning,” she said automatically. “It’s almost eleven o’clock.”

“You’ve forgotten me already?” Rand asked. “After only ten hours?”

“Mr. Rand! What brings you to the zoo at night? And who is that with you?”

“My name is Taz,” the Russian said softly.

“You really must excuse me. I’m getting my crocodile settled in his new quarters.”

“We don’t want the crocodile,” Rand said. “We want the coffin he came in.”

“The coffin! It’s out on the truck. But why do you want it?”

“Because, Dr. Nobea, six big men had to struggle to get that coffin on board. A full-grown Philippine crocodile weighs less than an average person, and you said this one wasn’t yet fullgrown. I want what’s hidden in the bottom of that coffin.”

“There’s nothing,” she said, but her eyes darted with fright.

“No Customs man would search further after you showed him the crocodile, would he? And no Customs man would question the total weight of the coffin, at least not when it arrived in the care of Professor Nobea of Tokyo University. Which brings us to the question: what happened to the real Professor Nobea?”

Yota’s mouth twisted. “I am Nobea.”

Rand shook his head. “Shoju Etan was doing a series of articles on the Tokyo zoo, which included research in Moscow. He must have known about the crocodile-mating project. He must have met the real Nobea. That was why Shoju Etan had to die, wasn’t it? Not because of Gordon Belgrave’s confession, but because of Shoju’s zoo articles. Not because the newspaperman might recognize you on the plane, but because he
wouldn’t
recognize you! When that coffin was opened at Customs and you identified yourself as Dr. Nobea, Shoju would have been there to call you a liar.”

“The first attempt on Shoju was made at his office,” Taz objected. “How would they know that soon whether he would be on the same flight?”

“Shoju wrote in his Belgrave story that he’d be returning to Moscow this week, and there’s only one flight from Tokyo to Moscow each week. Yota knew he’d be on that plane, and so he had to die. When they failed to kill him earlier, they had to do it before the plane landed. I had a tip when Yota admitted using a false name early in the flight. There was no reason for it—except to keep her assumed identity a secret from Shoju till he was dead.”

There was a sound behind them, and Rand saw Dr. Hardan in the doorway. He was wearing a black raincoat and he held a Llama automatic in his hand. A spare in his baggage, of course. All experienced assassins carry two.

Yota screamed something in Chinese and leaped to the side of the crocodile pond. Taz turned, his reactions just a bit too slow, and saw the assassin’s gun trained on him. Rand had only a second to consider the alternatives. Then he fired through the pocket of his jacket and caught Hardan in the chest.

“You were armed,” Taz muttered, recovering himself enough to get a firm grip on the woman.

“No one searched me,” Rand replied with a smile. “I always visit Russians with a gun in my pocket.” He walked over and nudged the body on the concrete floor. “This is Dr. Hardan, or if you prefer, Sivas, late Turkish assassin. Funny, Lanning said he even looked like one. The CIA can’t be all bad.”

“What is in the bottom of the coffin?” Taz asked.

“Something Chinese agents were anxious to smuggle into Moscow. You take it from there.”

“I will, my friend,” Taz said.

The following morning a Russian military transport was waiting at Moscow airport. Rand and Taz watched while Mrs. Belgrave led her husband to the plane, and then Rand said, “Thanks for the transportation. It saves us a wait.”

“Thank
you
, Mr. Rand.” The Russian seemed in good spirits.

“The coffin?”

“It’s not my department, but I understand it’s very critical. Pieces of metal, and much wiring. The more melodramatic of our people suspect they may be components of a small Chinese atomic bomb.”

Rand whistled. “You’d better watch out for the rest of it.”

“We will.” Taz paused. “And Rand, if you ever decide to accept my offer—”

“Don’t count on it. In this business we all end up poor. There’s no beating the system, Taz.” He remembered Lanning’s complaint about his low pay, and saw the CIA man walking toward them. “I’d better go now.”

The Russian nodded and waved as they parted. Then Rand fell into step with Lanning and they walked to the waiting jet. “You did a good job, Rand,” the American observed. “We just heard from Tokyo that they’ve located the real Dr. Nobea. She was drugged but unharmed.”

“It was a good job,” Rand agreed. “I helped Taz and I freed Belgrave. Sorry you couldn’t get the plan for the SUM missile while we were at it.”

Lanning started up the steps of the plane, then turned back toward Rand with a little smile. “What makes you think we didn’t get it?” he whispered.

H
E WAS NOT AN
old man, but the years had not dealt kindly with Comrade Taz. As he walked across the field toward the lights of the distant farmhouse, he could feel the ache in his right leg coming back again. It was a war injury from his youth, 30 years ago, when he’d shown a fleeting moment of courage in front of a German tank on the outskirts of Berlin.

During all those years in Moscow, heading up Section Six of the KGB, he had hardly thought of the old war injury. It gave him no trouble, and he walked without a noticeable limp. It was only now, in retirement to a collective farm an hour’s drive from Moscow, that the ache and the limp had reoccurred. It was the life, his sturdy wife Lara insisted. His legs were made for walking on paved sidewalks, not trudging across newly plowed fields.

As he neared the farmhouse, he was surprised to see a black government staff car pulled in off the road. In this collective, made up entirely of former government employees, one rarely was visited by the bureaucracy. He entered the kitchen door with just a bit of apprehension, to find Lara conversing with two men in overcoats who gave the impression of having just arrived.

Taz knew one of them—Colonel Tunic, a grizzled old man who’d been his immediate superior during the Cold War days. The other, a younger official who carried himself with an air of newly acquired authority, was a stranger to him.

“Comrade Taz!” Tunic greeted him, throwing out both arms in an affectionate bear hug. “You look well. Retirement must agree with you.”

“Lara says farm work is bad on my legs. How are things back in Moscow?”

“Good, good.” He gave a rueful smile, “Détente, you know.” Remembering the other man, he turned to introduce him. “Comrade Taz, this is Stepan Vronsky, a specialist in international matters.”

The two men shook hands, and Taz wondered what Vronsky’s true function was. He wondered especially what had brought these men out here to see him. “You look cold,” he told them. “Take off your coats and have some vodka.”

“I could never live in the country,” Stepan Vronsky said. “The wind is so cold!”

Taz smiled. “One becomes used to it. Lara, bring us some glasses, will you?”

When they were seated around the rough oak kitchen table, which Lara had thoughtfully covered with a piece of flowered oilcloth, Colonel Tunic said, “We miss you in Moscow. You retired too soon.”

Taz merely shrugged. “Cipher experts of my sort have been replaced by machines. Diplomats and machines.”

“Sometimes there is still need for one,” Vronsky said. Taz turned to study his face and saw only the pale reflection of the Russian winter with its sunless days.

“We miss you,” Colonel Tunic repeated. “And now we need you. The government wishes you to come out of retirement for one final assignment to the west.”

The words fell like thunder on Taz’s ears. He’d been expecting it, certainly, ever since he saw the long black car pulled up before his house. But to hear it now was still a shock. “What sort of assignment?” he asked quietly.

“Some material must be taken to Switzerland. It’s in your line—microdots.”

Taz snorted. “A diplomatic courier could get it through for you, as you well know.”

“That’s only part of it. There’s something else.” Tunic shifted in his chair. “An old friend of yours is involved.”

“Who would that be?”

“Remember Jeffery Rand, the head of Britain’s Double-C?”

“Of course.”

Vronsky spoke again. “You should welcome an opportunity to confront an old enemy one more time.”

“Rand is not my enemy,” Taz replied. “We were two professional men doing our jobs.”

“Nevertheless, he is on the other side.”