The Double Game (26 page)

No sooner had we moved back into the living room than we heard the downstairs door bang shut, followed by footsteps on the stairs, which rose in volume until they reached the third-floor landing. It was six-thirty.

“Quick, back in the kitchen.”

I pulled the kitchen door nearly shut, watching through the crack. It was even darker there than in the living room. A key rattled in the lock, and I heard him wiggle it several times before he slid back the deadbolt. I moved out of sight as the door swung open, and we listened to his footsteps crossing the room. There was a rustle of clothing, then a beeping sound as he punched in a number on a cell phone. He coughed as he waited, sounding a little nervous. I heard the chirp of an answering voice, then our contact spoke in English with a slight Czech accent.

“Jan here. I am in place. Good. Yes, as soon as it is completed. Okay.”

The phone beeped as he disconnected. I pushed open the door and stepped into the room as quietly as I could. Jan had his back to me. I spoke to get his attention, poised to move quickly if he reacted badly.

“Hello, Jan. We decided to arrive early.”

He started at the sound of my voice, then turned abruptly. We both reacted in surprise—he for obvious reasons, me because the man facing me was the so-called Russian whom I’d last seen watching us from across the park. Litzi gasped from her perch in the kitchen.

He recovered his composure first. When he spoke it was again in English, although this time the accent was Russian.

“I will not ask how you managed to arrive before me, but I am sure it must have involved illegal activity. The important thing is that you have come. Both of you, I see now.”

Litzi came through the door.

“How come you speak like a Russian but have a Czech name, Jan?”

“It is a cover name, of course.”

“I might have believed that if I hadn’t just heard you on the phone, sounding completely different.”

His face reddened, but he forged on after a slight pause.

“I speak that way on the phone also for cover, in case there is eavesdropping.”

“Nice try.”

“I have instructions for you.” He stuck to his accent, brazening it out.

“You need to answer some questions first. Who is K-Fresh 62, and how did you end up working for him?”

Now he looked despondent, and a little panicky. His eyes darted around the room until his gaze settled on the coffee table, where he seemingly noticed for the first time that his things were missing.

“I pocketed your extra keys for safekeeping,” I said. “Wouldn’t want you to have to forfeit your deposit.”

His cheeks turned a deeper red.

“So now if you could please answer those questions.”

He set his jaw and stood a little straighter. Then he shoved a hand into his jacket pocket.

“Maybe first I would rather blow off your head.”

I flinched involuntarily, which made him smile, but he kept his hand in his pocket, and I decided he was bluffing.

“You don’t have a gun, Jan.”

“Do you really want to find that out?”

“Yes, Jan. I do.”

“Stop saying my name!”

“I will if you take your hand out of your pocket.”

The fight went out of his eyes and he slowly withdrew his hand. Empty.

“I am supposed to tell you where to go next,” he said, this time in his normal Czech accent.

“I’m fine with that. But not until you’ve answered my question.”

“Look,” he said, “and I am telling the truth when I say this. I don’t know who this K-Fresh person is. I only know him through email. He’s paying me, and he assured me this would be harmless. For everyone.”

His capitulation was just pathetic enough to be believable.

“Including the part where you followed us?”

He frowned.

“Okay, yes. That also. I was supposed to make sure you saw me, and to carry the newspaper so you would think I was Russian. But there was never any question of doing you harm. I swear it.”

“Did you put the message in my hotel room?”

He nodded.

“I bribed the chambermaid. She stood outside to make sure I didn’t take anything.”

“Where did you get the paper you used, and the envelope?”

“By overnight delivery. International.”

“From where?”

“London. But there was no return address. Believe me, I was as interested to find out as you are.”

“What did you mean when you said in the email that someone else had taken an interest?”

“Another man. I saw him twice while following you. At first he seemed interested only in you. Now I think he is after me as well, and I do not like it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Someone was in my apartment, going through my things, opening my mail. It’s why I printed those emails, so I could erase them from my laptop. This was not supposed to turn out this way.”

“Who is this man? A real Russian?”

“No.”

“A German, then? An older fellow with a slouch hat and a cane?”

“No, no. He is American, I am sure of it.”

“Sure of it how?”

“His clothes. The way he moves. Even his hair. No one in Europe wears hair like that except for motorcycle thugs.”

Jan then proceeded to perfectly describe the haircut commonly known as a mullet. That, plus the rest of the description, perfectly fit Ron Curtin, Breece Preston’s muscle.

My stomach went a little fluttery, and Litzi squeezed my arm. I tried to keep my voice even as I spoke.

“When did you last see him?”

“This afternoon, when I left you in the park.”

“Did he follow you, or stay at the park, watching me?”

“He stayed.”

Oh, perfect. At least we’d climbed into a cab afterward. Maybe we’d actually lost him.

“So what is your message? What are my instructions?”

“The Cave. I am supposed to take you there. I was told you would know what I meant by that.”

“I do.”

“The Cave?” Litzi whispered.

“I’ll explain.”

“Then let’s go,” Jan said, turning toward the door. He seemed eager to get this over with, and who could blame him? But I wasn’t ready to let him off so easily.

“You’ll go first,” I said. “We’ll watch from up here to see if you’re followed.”

Jan emphatically shook his head.

“No! That isn’t how I was paid to do it!” He clearly realized now—if he hadn’t already—that he was in over his head. It was a feeling I could sympathize with. “In fact, there is no need for me to even go.” He frantically pulled a set of car keys from his trousers and thrust it toward me. “Here. I will give you these now and tell you where it is parked. The other instructions will be waiting for you.”

His eyes implored me.

“Jan?” I said it as calmly as possible.

“Yes?”

“Would you like your second set of house keys back, along with the lease agreement and the printed emails?”

“Yes.” Quietly, meekly.

“And I’m sure you wouldn’t be pleased if I emailed K-Fresh to tell him you were uncooperative and easily fooled, would you?”

He lowered his head, defeated.

“No.”

“Then you go first, Jan. We’ll watch from up here to make sure you’re okay. If anyone follows you, we’ll phone the police. All right?”

He nodded.

“Because we’re the ones he’s really after. Do you understand?”

Another nod.

“So get started. Then you can be paid, and that big ugly fellow with the American haircut will stop following you.”

Jan left without a further word. Litzi and I moved to the front window and waited for him to appear downstairs. Darkness was falling, and the wind bent back the trees. I looked over toward where the Cave was, knowing that by now it would have eased into its own deep night.

24

“Tell me what the Cave is,” Litzi said.

“See that dark area to the left of the park, over where the street dips below ground level and disappears, like it’s going to tunnel right beneath the river?”

“Yes.”

“There’s an old storage area there, sort of like a cavern. It’s usually locked up at night, but I presume Jan has a key. Karel and I used to play there. We’d jimmy the gate and run wild. It was always dark and damp, nothing much to see except empty beer kegs and a few parked cars, but we thought it was great and we called it the Cave. Winos always took dumps beneath the overhang just outside, so Jan better watch his step.”

Once Karel and I had taken a flashlight. The flitting beam and the shadows it created had made the Cave even eerier. The most remarkable sight was the dripping far wall, a mossy embankment of stones that held back the river. In the deep silence you could hear the throb of the passing current.

“There he is.”

Jan reached the sidewalk and glanced both ways. He looked vulnerable down there, an easy target, and for a moment I felt bad about sending him ahead of us.

“Who’s that?” Litzi said, pointing to the right.

A figure had just emerged from the shadows and then stopped. In the light of the streetlamp I saw a flash of metal, which made me flinch until I realized it was a leash.

“Somebody walking a dog,” I said. “A woman.”

Not that women walking dogs weren’t necessarily connected to this scheme, as I already knew firsthand. But this one soon took herself out of the picture.

Jan reached the end of the park, shoulders hunched against the wind. He turned the corner and headed down the sloping cobbles toward the mouth of the Cave. No one else was in sight. More fat raindrops began to fall.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Wait any longer and we’ll get soaked.”

We caught up to him without incident. He was trying to scrape something off the sole of his shoe, and the opening stank to high heaven. Piles of human shit were coiled outside the gate, just like in the old days. The rickety chain-link cover of my youth had been replaced by a sturdy aluminum grid, but otherwise little had changed. From what I could see in the gloom there were still only kegs and cars inside, although now the models were Mercedes and BMWs.

Jan shoved open the gate.

“Here,” he said, tossing me the car keys. “I’m not supposed to go in. The car is yours for one day only. Return it here.”

The key fob had a Mercedes logo. When I pressed a button, a horn beeped and a set of yellow parking lights flashed from deep inside.

Jan turned to go, presumably content to leave the gate open for the rest of the night.

“Where are we supposed to take it?” I called after him.

He kept walking, hands in pockets as he rose briskly up the incline and disappeared to the right. I looked back at Litzi, who shrugged. We picked our way to the car, the dome lights showing the way. It was a Mercedes S450 sedan with German tags from Hamburg. But, as I later discovered, there were no ownership papers. There was a folder on the driver’s seat along with a folded road map, a set of printed directions, and a hand-drawn diagram.

“For Mr. William Furse” was printed across the top of the directions.

“Furse?” Litzi said. “Is that a mistake?”

“Probably my code name for the evening. William Furse was a character in
The Double Game.
”

“And what became of him?”

“Nothing, thank goodness. He even showed up in a later book, still in one piece.”

“How refreshing.”

“Do you know anything about checking brakes?” I asked.

“To see if they’re working?”

“Or if they’ve been tampered with.”

She shook her head.

Neither did I. I got out anyway and crouched on the ground to peer beneath the car, hoping to see if anything looked cut, or leaky, or was dangling from the undercarriage. But it was too dark to see a thing, so I brushed off my knees and climbed back in.

“Well?”

“I’ll try them out once we’re under way. Maybe I’ll go a little slower for a while.”

“In Prague traffic that shouldn’t be a problem.”

I opened the folder.

The first thing I saw was a page from the Le Carré novel
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Written atop it in the familiar block lettering was a name, Valerie Humphries. Part of the novel was marked off below. The passage introduced one of my favorite of Le Carré’s minor characters—Connie Sachs, the crusty maven of records and research for British Intelligence. She was famous for her encyclopedic memory and attention to detail, especially with regard to anyone who had ever even winked at the KGB, or operated within their sphere of influence—especially those chosen few who she enjoyed referring to as “Moscow Centre hoods.” She drank heavily, played favorites, scorned the dolts who ran the Circus, and was thoroughly, girlishly devoted to the brilliant and beleaguered George Smiley.

Litzi read the paragraphs over my shoulder.

“She sounds like an alcoholic. Is that what this Humphries woman is like?”

“Maybe. Why don’t you Google her? While you’re at it, shoot a message to my father. See what he can find out about the email address for K-Fresh 62.”

Litzi pulled out her smartphone and got to work while I studied the map and the directions, which pointed us onto a tangle of highways that lead out of the city, then into the countryside before we were supposed to turn onto a dirt driveway from a rural road some forty miles northwest of Prague. Our destination was up in the hills where farmers grew hops for all that pilsner, and where their forebears had built castles like the one Kafka put in his novel.

The diagram depicted what seemed to be a farming estate, with a long, winding driveway that snaked past a barn and several outbuildings before reaching a rectangular house beside a pond. Presumably this was where we’d find Valerie Humphries. Whether she would be glad to see us was another matter.

“We’re going to have to leave this cave before I can get a signal,” Litzi said.

“At your service.”

I turned the key. A hundred thousand euros’ worth of German engineering hummed to life, answering the throb of the river.

“I hope old Valerie keeps late hours. The way I figure it, we won’t get there until almost ten. Maybe by then one of Dad’s buddies will have figured out who my handler is from that email address.”

“How do you knows she’s old?”