The Double Game (29 page)

“Are you all right?” Humphries was peering at me in apparent concern.

“I’m fine. Just trying to keep everything straight. So, this flap with Thresher?”

“Yes. It made us more cautious than ever. Even if we’d been able to build a better case, I’m not sure how aggressively we could have pushed it.”

“So the whole thing just went away?”

“You have to realize that by then Jim was on the verge of self-destruction, and Lemaster was starting to publish his books. In seventy-four they forced Jim out. A month later Lemaster quit. Just as well, because as soon as Jim left the division quietly began calling in our field men. Blinker, then Taillight. Even if we’d been inclined to open things back up, there was no longer a pressing operational reason to do so.”

She seemed almost ready to conclude, so I asked about some of the particulars of Vladimir’s old memos while I still had the chance.

“What did you know about source Leo, or code name Oleg?”

“KGB men. Leo was one of Oleg’s travelers. Prague, mostly. A waste of time, usually. When he wasn’t whoring he was usually drunk. Oleg sat back on his throne in Moscow and moved pieces across the board. Some people thought he was their Jim Angleton, hunting moles. Others were convinced he was running them.”

“Did you ever come across the names Karloff, Fishwife, or Woodman?”

She furrowed her brow.

“No. Never.”

“What about a source Glinka?”

“That rings a bell.” She paused, gazing off into the corner again. “Yes. From the early seventies. His name showed up in a single report, an intercept out of Leipzig. He was after someone named Pericles, who some of the boys on the Soviet desk were convinced for a while was a possible American mole.”

“Pericles?”

“Jim dismissed it as rubbish. Not that it was much to begin with.”

“Why did he dismiss it?”

“Why do you think? Because the only one of our own sources who ever mentioned the name was Nosenko. If there was anything more to it, then I never heard.”

“So, after Angleton was gone, no more civil war?”

“Peaceful coexistence. And that’s probably how things would have remained if not for that damned interview Lemaster gave in eighty-four. Some scribbler in Washington with an ax to grind.”

This certainly explained at least one reason my handler hadn’t told her my real name. That plus Dad’s possible role. She obviously had nothing but disdain for the Fourth Estate, and for William Cage in particular.

“I’ve seen that piece,” I said. “The one where Lemaster said he’d considered working for the other side?”

She nodded.

“It was like he was teasing us, telling us we’d missed our chance and would never catch him now. I always wondered what Jim made of it, but by then his health was failing, and by all accounts he still believed deeply that Nosenko was a plant. Then he died, of course. May of eighty-seven. I did hear something strange at his funeral. When the Agency went to clean out his house they found a signed copy of Lemaster’s mole novel,
The Double Game.
”

“Is that really so surprising?”

“That’s not the odd part. Apparently Jim had scribbled all through it. Page after page, marked and annotated, with tabs and Post-its. Just like he would have done with a field report. Nutty, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Unless he knew how to read between the lines better than the rest of us.”

“So you think he was guilty. Headlight, I mean.”

“I used to. Now? Some nights when I go back over everything in my head it never seems quite as damning. A few points of intersection on a map. Some unexplained coincidence. A source who was probably too good to true. There was always something missing, and I could never decide what. And even if Nijinsky was a bad egg, I suppose Headlight could have been played as much as the rest of us.”

“A victim of his own ambition?”

“Something like that. What finally prompted the reopening of this case, can you tell me? I have my own theory, of course. That damn funeral had to be part of it. An ill wind from start to finish, and a ghost in every corner.” The Nethercutt funeral, no doubt, although I didn’t dare mention that I’d been there. “But beyond that, what can you tell me?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid.”

“Yes. Thought you’d say that.”

Then she nodded as if I’d passed a security test, little suspecting that I wanted to know the answer more than she did.

26

Valerie Humphries rose from her chair, signaling that our interview was over.

“I’d better page your friend in from the barn.”

She moved stiffly after all that time sitting down, and led me to an alcove near the entrance where there was an intercom with buttons for each outbuilding. She pressed one and leaned toward the panel.

“This is the all-clear, my dear. He’s yours again.”

We waited a few seconds for Litzi’s response. She sounded out of breath.

“Someone just walked past the window out here.”

“Oh, dear. How long ago?”

“A minute, maybe two.”

Humphries seemed unnaturally calm. Both of them did, judging from Litzi’s even tone. Hardly what you’d expect from a pair of glorified librarians with a stalker in their midst, out in the dark and the rain. I pushed the button to speak.

“I’m coming out there.”

“Relax, dear.” Humphries said. “We’ll both go. I have a twelve-gauge, already loaded.”

She opened a closet and indeed hauled out a shotgun.

“Grab that rain slicker. It was my husband’s. A little short, but it will have to do. I’ll take this old trench coat. Now how damn cliché is that?”

“You, uh, trained at the Farm, too?”

“Of course. Just because I ended up in records doesn’t mean I wasn’t properly prepared for anything.”

She pressed the intercom button.

“Help is on its way, dear. Stay with the horses.”

“Okay.”

Humphries handed me a flashlight the size of a large salami.

“If anything moves, put the beam right in his face. I’ll take care of the rest.”

The rain hit us like a stiff wind, pelting our faces. Humphries locked the door behind us and kept the gun under the folds of her coat, leaning into the storm along the beam of light. Our footsteps slurped in the mud. Fallen leaves blew wildly across our path.

The barn loomed ahead on a slight rise, like a shipwreck on a reef. I was jumpy, looking everywhere, straining my eyes through the dark and the blowing debris for any sign of an intruder, especially a big American in a mullet.

“He’s probably gone by now,” Humphries said, sounding almost disappointed.

Litzi threw open the barn door as we approached. The flashlight lit her face. Considering the circumstances she looked pretty calm, although she was clearly glad to see us.

“Let’s go ’round to that window where you saw him pass,” Humphries said.

We slogged into high grass.

“Give us some light,” Humphries said.

You could see a rough path near the barn window where someone had tramped down the grass. It led back toward the house, crossing the mud and then reaching a window that peeped in through the blinds toward the two chairs where Humphries and I had been chatting moments ago.

“Damned snoop,” she said. She pointed to a large set of footprints in the mud at the base of the wall. She looked up at me and smiled crookedly.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say he might be your babysitter.”

“Babysitter?”

She eyed me closely.

“They must think you’re worth quite a lot if they’re going to that much trouble, don’t you think?”

“Unless he’s here because he’s after me. Or after you.”

She laughed.

“Heavens,” she said. “If that were the case, then we’d all be dead or tied up in someone’s trunk by now.”

She stooped. The footprints were beneath the eaves, so they were fairly well sheltered from the downpour.

“Well, the shoes aren’t of a Russian make, I can tell you that,” she said. “Although I suppose half the Oligarchs and their henchmen wear nothing but Italian loafers these days. All the same, he’ll be gone by now.”

“How can you be sure?” Litzi asked.

“I heard a car pulling away earlier, just before we buzzed you on the intercom.”

I looked inquiringly at Litzi, who shook her head. I hadn’t heard anything, either.

“Even with my old ears, when you live alone out in a place like this you learn to notice just about everything.”

“Would you like us to stay the night with you?” I asked.

Humphries made a face.

“The cook is here. I can wake him in a pinch. Besides, I’m not prepared for company. There aren’t even sheets on the guest beds.”

“We can manage without them,” Litzi said.

“No. No. Whoever it was didn’t come for me. And when the quarry leaves, the problem will leave with it.”

She smiled, but I said nothing as the rain dripped off my jacket.

“The two of you should be getting on. That bridge you crossed on the way in, five clicks from here? It often floods in rain like this. Getting washed into a creek would be a pretty unsatisfactory way to shake surveillance, don’t you think?”

We went back inside just long enough to drop off the rain gear. As we said good-bye I couldn’t help but notice that Humphries looked thoroughly invigorated. Even if she had to stay up half the night with the shotgun propped against the bed, she was enjoying herself.

“Watch yourself,” she said before shutting the door. “If not for your own sake, then because you’re doing this for all the rest of us who are no longer in the game.”

We ran to the car, cranked the engine, and began rolling back through the muck toward Prague.

We were silent all the way up the narrow drive, keeping an eye out for anything that might jump out at us from the darkness. I was shivering from the cold and wet as we turned onto the smooth track of the rural highway, but the heater and the thrum of the tires on the blacktop soon calmed us. The creek was high, as Humphries had warned, but it wasn’t yet flooding. Litzi smelled of hay, manure, and warm horseflesh, a comforting combination.

“How were the horses?”

“Beautiful. She has a good eye for them.”

“Well, I knew the Viennese loved horses, but I never knew that applied to you.”

“It happened after I knew you.”

“You told her it was when you were a girl.”

“It’s complicated.”

I let it go.

“Who do you think was snooping around?” she asked.

“The mullet, maybe? Or maybe someone checking up on us. Like she said, if he’d wanted to harm us he probably would’ve done it. It certainly would have been a convenient place to finish us off.”

“Are we being fools?”

“Probably. Maybe that’s part of what makes it interesting. Humphries obviously thought it was a blast.”

“She does have spirit, even if she’s a bitch. I hope she had useful information.”

I briefed her on the basics but didn’t mention my dad’s involvement with the polygraph in Belgrade. I wasn’t even sure how to ask him about it. Considering the timing, I was already uneasy about all the possibilities.

“What’s wrong?” Litzi asked.

“I’m tired.”

A midget-sized Opel with the dimmest of taillights was just ahead, barely visible in the rain. I braked and began looking for a way to pass, but we had reached a curvy section through a forest. A quarter mile later a big truck lumbered up on our rear, headlights blazing, horn sounding.

“What the fuck?”

I had to flip down the mirror to get the glare out of my face. I beeped at the car ahead of us, but it beetled onward. The truck lurched up within inches of our bumper.

“What’s he doing!” Litzi shouted. “Do you think—?”

“I don’t know! But there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

The Opel’s brake lights winked as we approached another curve, and I nearly rear-ended it. The truck responded with a groan and shudder, air brakes snorting as the damn thing actually tapped us, which nearly sent us sprawling, like a Chihuahua getting a love tap from a buffalo. I held tightly to the wheel as the Mercedes shimmied, then stabilized. The truck’s headlights flooded the car.

“Who do you think it is?” I asked.

“Just drive,” Litzi said. She looked pale and haggard in the glow of the dashboard light. We were too old for this. The truck bore down with another burst of acceleration, its engine throbbing in our ears. Just ahead on the right I spotted a gap in the trees—a small turnout, big enough for us but not the truck—and at the last second I wrenched the wheel right, hooking the tires off the shoulder into a slurry of wet gravel.

The truck blasted its horn in passing, heading off into the night after the hapless Opel. The Mercedes ground to a halt. I was exhausted. Litzi hugged herself and exhaled slowly.

“So maybe he was just an asshole,” she said. “Your average lorry driver.”

“Plenty of them to go around.”

After a few seconds I tried turning back onto the road, but could only spin the front wheels in the mush.

“Shit!”

“We’re stuck?”

I tried rocking the car back and forth between first gear and reverse, the way you do in the snow, but the tires only dug deeper. I shut off the engine and slumped in my seat in the sudden quiet.

“I’ll have to dig us out. Right now I’m too tired to try.”

“Why don’t we rest awhile.” She put a hand to my cheek. “It’s probably the safest spot for miles.”

The road was empty and quiet, and the rain had slackened to a drizzle. Drops from overhanging pines pinged on the roof like a distant drumroll, a martial lullaby. Litzi lowered her seat and curled up facing me. I opened the windows a fraction for fresh air, and instantly smelled the resin of the pines. Then I lowered my own seat and stretched out as best I could. I was almost instantly asleep.

An hour or so later I awakened to voices and the steady tapping of water on the roof. A flashlight beam veered into the car, and I sat up with a start, stiff and disoriented. Voices were speaking Czech, but the windows were fogged. I rubbed a hand on the windshield and saw a police car canted in front of us, blocking our way, not that we were capable of moving. Looking over my shoulder I saw a second police car wedged behind us. A cop was training his flashlight on our German tags. There was a sharp knock on the driver’s side window, which awakened Litzi.