The Double Game (17 page)

“Perfect.”

We entered the empty lobby and climbed the stairs. Everyone on her hall had gone home. Lutz had indeed left his door ajar. We settled behind his desk, I downloaded the necessary software, then clicked a few commands and watched the image come up on the laptop screen. Perfect. I switched off the image to preserve the camera battery, then turned on the motion sensor function to activate the cam the moment anyone showed up.

“Now we wait.”

“And if no one shows?”

“We go have dinner, then check the laptop in the morning. Any video will be recorded on the hard drive. We just have to make it back before Lutz does.”

“No problem. He’s a late riser.”

“You sound like you know firsthand.”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

“No.”

We waited an hour just in case, making small talk and avoiding the subject of Vladimir while I tried to assess Lutz from the stuff in his office. A photo showed him with a pair of teens, probably his kids, with no wife in sight. He was one of those ruggedly handsome Prussians with blue eyes and close-cropped hair. Probably younger than me. Far too early to feel this jealous, but there you go.

The camera switched on twice during the first half hour, triggered by passersby. It was getting almost too dark to see. After ten more minutes an image flashed onto the screen. Someone had stopped at the statue.

His back was to the camera, but he wore a dark overcoat and one of those loden alpine walking hats with the feather in the brim. The video was a little stuttery, and the lighting was terrible, but now the fellow was bending over, which meant he was probably lifting up the rock. Surely he would turn around at some point to check his flanks? But no, he only rose and continued on his way, leaving the picture without once turning his head.

“Shit!”

I scrambled down the hallway toward the back stairs, footsteps echoing in the empty building, then tripped an alarm as I shoved through a fire door at ground level. With 50 meters to go before I reached the Burggarten, and another 250 to cross the park, I peered into the gloom for any sign of movement, just in time to see someone in a long coat climbing into a idling sedan on Goethegasse, on the far side of the park. The door slammed, and the car accelerated smoothly toward the Opernring, where it turned left and disappeared.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”

The only noise now apart from the traffic was the clanging of the alarm.

“Well, that was professionally done!”

It was Litzi, hustling up in my wake. She glanced back over her shoulder toward the National Library.

“Did you at least get a good look at him?”

“Didn’t even get the make of the car, much less the tags.”

“So much for your handler being too low-tech for his own good!”

“I better get the cam from the bench.”

“Scheise!”
Litzi exclaimed.

“What?”

“The laptop. We have to get it. Security will be all over the place by now.”

“Should I come with you, take the blame?”

She shook her head.

“That would only make it more complicated. Fortunately I know the night supervisor. I’ll think of something. Wait here.”

I walked sheepishly back to the statue, untaped the cam, and stuffed it into my coat pocket, feeling like a chump. My pulse rate was finally beginning to slow down about the time the alarm shut off. I hoped Litzi wasn’t in trouble, and I again questioned the wisdom of getting her involved. She approached a few minutes later, carrying the laptop. There was a puzzled look on her face.

“What’s wrong?”

“Everything went fine. I made up something about hearing someone in the stairwell and trying to follow them outside. Let’s just hope you don’t show up on
their
cameras. But there’s something new on the laptop.”

“Probably me, from when I took down the camera.”

“No. Before then. The prompt said
two
more videos had been saved.”

We sat on a bench and I powered up. The most recent video showed my ghostly face looming right up into the camera, then the screen went blank. I clicked on the other video, which had been shot a few minutes earlier. A man moved into faint view from the right. He stopped in front of the statue and bent down by the rock with his back to the camera. Then he suddenly looked up, as if startled by a noise—probably either my running footsteps or the slamming door of the getaway car. His face came into profile. The poor lighting blurred his features, but the slouching wool hat was unmistakable, and when he stood I saw the cane in his right hand.

“I don’t believe it. Lothar Heinemann.”

He turned and went back in the direction he’d come from, vanishing from the screen.

The video stopped.

“You said he’s a book scout?”

“That’s what Dad called him. But from the look of things he knows more about my handler’s movements than I do.”

“This hunt is getting crowded. Maybe we should all meet for drinks at Gasthaus Brinkmann.”

“Yes,” I said, wondering if everyone was after the same thing.

“This only makes you want to find out more, doesn’t it?”

I nodded. And it wasn’t just the thrill of the chase, or even the frission of danger. Danger is overrated, and I could do without it completely. The deeper appeal, I think, was that I felt as if I had fallen through a trapdoor and landed four decades in the past, and was now moving among the very figures that had once populated my Cold War dreams. Manning Coles was right. Spying was addictive.

Then I looked at Litzi, and sensed without saying a word that she was reading my every emotion. She shook her head.

“I’d like that drink now,” she said.

16

Neither of us had the energy or inclination to deal with a maître d’, a waiter, or even a menu, nor were we thrilled by the idea of sitting among strangers in a crowded restaurant, exposed and vulnerable.

“Why don’t I make us an omelet?” Litzi said. “We’ve got wine, thanks to you.”

“I thought you needed something stronger?”

“Wine’s enough as long as we’re under my roof, with all the doors locked.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her how useless a lock was with this crowd, but I did see the value of being somewhere without a camera watching our every move. And that thought in turn gave me a new idea.

“Lead the way,” I said. “But I need to make a detour.”

“Nothing to do with ‘the best defense is a good offense,’ I hope.”

“Shouldn’t we use this webcam for
something
? It will only take a second.”

She shook her head but didn’t resist until a few blocks later, when she realized we were heading for the Gasthaus Brinkmann.

“The old KGB man?
He’s
the one you want to spy on?”

“I need to see what he looks like, so we’ll be able to spot him if he’s following us.”

“Oh, smart idea. Baiting the bear on his doorstep.”

“Not his doorstep. The inn’s. I’ll mount the cam outside the Gasthaus, then check the videos in the morning.”

“Where will you put the laptop?”

I pointed up the block.

“There’s a hotel across the street. I’ll rent a room with a clear line of sight. Then I’ll come by in the morning to see what turned up.”

She again shook her head, but kept going. It was a quiet street, and there was a trash bin next to a sign for a bus stop only a few feet from the gasthaus entrance, which provided a perfect vantage point. I taped the camera into place within seconds without anyone observing us, and there was a front room available on the third floor of the hotel across the street, which I paid for with the Ealing Wharton Amex. Thanks, Marty.

“What happens when the trash man collects the webcam, or the chambermaid takes the laptop?”

“Maybe I’ll beat them back here. Either way, nothing ventured, nothing gained. C’mon, I’m hungry.”

Litzi’s apartment looked pretty much how I’d imagined it. Tasteful, comfortable furniture with clean lines and vibrant colors. And books, of course. Loads of them—on shelves, in cabinets, stacked on end tables. The walls were hung with photos rather than paintings—not iconic scenes of Vienna, but out-of-the-way places I couldn’t easily identify. In one, a much younger Litzi posed among friends at a political demonstration.

“Where was this demo?” I asked, while she whisked eggs in a glass bowl. “Do I know any of these people?”

“Oh, that old thing.” She looked back toward the skillet. “Just some election rally.”

Maybe her former husband was in it, because she was quiet for the next few minutes. It made me a little gloomy for us. We’d come through the years psychologically intact, yet we were still fending for ourselves. It made me think of my father, another sole survivor.

“I’d better text Dad, tell him I’ll be late.”

Pulling out my phone, I paused and watched the movement of Litzi’s hips as she swirled the eggs in the pan.

“How late will I be, do you think?”

She picked up right away on the significance of the question, and looked at me over her shoulder. Her eyes were no longer weary. The pan remained still above the flame, and she smiled, the same way she had when the innkeeper in Prague had first handed us our keys.

“The omelet’s burning.” I nodded toward the pan.

“Yes. Everything is.”

I crossed the room and wrapped her up from behind. She slid the pan to the cool side of the stove and arched her back against me as I pulled back her hair to kiss her neck. I moved my lips to the skin beneath her ear, the nape of her neck. When she spoke her voice was husky.

“Tell him you’ll be home for breakfast. I’m too lazy to cook for you twice.”

She turned into my arms. Then she unbuttoned my shirt and pressed her lips to my chest.

“Those eggs will be cold by the time we eat,” I said.

“Cold and burned. My new favorite way to eat an omelet.”

We made our way to the bedroom, discarding items of clothing along the way, as if leaving a trail to find our way back. We finished undressing each other slowly, comfortably, eager but not in a hurry.

When you are single at a later age and are sometimes sexually inactive for long stretches of time, each reentry to the arena isn’t always smooth, particularly when the women are several years younger. In my recent past there have been occasions when I’ve felt fumbling and unsure, like when I’m assembling one of those bookcases from IKEA, with their strange little parts that roll across the floor and the baffling instructions telling me to press male dowel A into female opening B, then twist until snug.

With Litzi, there was immediate comfort and familiarity, even though our bodies obviously weren’t the same as they’d been at seventeen. We navigated our new topographies with confidence, with passion, and with the joy of our former selves. I remembered the taste of her skin.

Afterward she lit a candle and fetched the wine, along with the cold omelet, which was glorious, even the burned part. I was enchanted, content.

“So, which one of your book spies was the best lover?” she asked.

“Not counting James Bond?”

“He wasn’t a lover, he was a cad.”

“You sound like Dad. Oh, I don’t know. Bernie Samson, maybe, from Deighton’s books? He was pretty virile, or at least his wife thought so.”

“His wife? So he was monogamous, too? Sounds too good to be true. Maybe Bernie could be your code name.”

“Maybe not. His wife was working for the Russians. Although not really. It was very complicated.”

She frowned, not caring for that, so I tried another one.

“There’s Paul Christopher, from McCarry’s books. Also monogamous. A poet, even. Top notch lover.”

“And what happened to his wife?”

“Run over in the streets of Paris by the KGB.”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

“All right.”

“How’s your father?”

“Good question. I’ve upset him with all this snooping around. I have no idea how I’ll explain what happened today, or if I’ll even try. He’s worried enough already, and he’s pissed I’ve dragged you into it. I think he went to the embassy this morning to do some checking around of his own.”

“I see him out on the town now and then. Always in very nice places. He’s a man of genuine style. I’ve thought about going over to say hello, but I didn’t want to embarrass him.”

“You should definitely say hi. He’s always liked you. And I wouldn’t worry about embarrassing him. He’s probably just out with one of his mystery women, the ones he never dared bring back to the house when I was growing up. I guess he thought I’d think he was being disloyal to Mom.”

She shrugged.

“I wouldn’t know. It never seems to be any one person.”

“He’s shy about all that, even now. It’s probably why I always have to give him a few days’ notice before a visit, although I doubt he’d admit it.”

Litzi nodded, but didn’t reply.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You looked like you were about to say something.”

She smiled uncomfortably.

“I know better than to get into the middle of something between a father and his son.”

I let it go. We had more enjoyable things to do than discuss Dad.

We must’ve stayed up for another hour or so, and I woke up later nestled against Litzi’s back. The room was dark and still. I was immediately alert, but this time jet lag wasn’t to blame. I’d been startled by a noise from outside, a loud tapping from the street below. Now all was quiet.

Then there was a voice. A shout, or more of a hoot, followed by a peal of laughter. Young voices, not Lothar’s or the Hammerhead’s, so I relaxed. Just kids. Although, at my age, “kids” now seems to cover almost anyone up through their early twenties. Because how could any contemporary of my son’s be anything but a kid?

There was another hoot, more laughter. They’d obviously been drinking, but they sounded harmless, and were soon well down the block. Yet something about them had unsettled me. What?

I realized they’d reminded me of the kids outside Burger King, the ones on skateboards who’d supposedly put the envelope into Litzi’s purse as they bumped past us. I saw them again, a mental snapshot that now had the clarity that is only possible at such an isolated hour. And in my mind’s eye I now saw clearly that they hadn’t passed within five feet of us.