The Mazovia Legacy (14 page)

“You all right?” Delaney asked.

“Yes. A bit tired.” Natalia stood awkwardly at the door.

“I'll let you be, then,” Delaney said. “No rush to do anything. We can see this Zbigniew tomorrow.”

“This is feeling a bit strange all of a sudden, Francis,” she said. “What, exactly?”

“Being in Paris. Why we're here. This hotel. Being here with you.”

“Just relax for a bit,” he said lamely.

“You're very used to this, aren't you?”

“What?”

“Plane flights, assignments, hotels, getting information, meeting strangers.”

“I guess I am.”

She looked at him even more directly than usual. “Who were those men downstairs?” she asked. Delaney had to decide in the space of a moment whether to explain about Hilferty, to add this variable to the equation just then. He decided against it. He was not sure why.

“I think they might be agents,” he said.

“What do you mean, agents?”

“Agents. Spies. Security Intelligence Service, the Canadian guy, and French Intelligence, probably, the other one.”

“You know them?”

“Hilferty I know. I worked in the Press Gallery in Ottawa for a long time. I knew a lot of External Affairs guys and CSIS guys in those days.”

“Is he here because of us?” she asked.

“I don't know. Maybe.”

Delaney knew that these lies could create a problem for him eventually but it was already too late, even if he had had second thoughts about the tack he was taking and that he had been taking for some time with her on this.
She's getting more frightened now,
Delaney thought.
She is afraid of her fear.

“What would they have to do with Stanislaw, Francis?”

“Maybe nothing. Most likely nothing,” he said quietly. “But that's sort of what we're here to find out, don't you think?”

“How would they know we were here?”

“That's not really that hard these days, Natalia.”

“Would they know what we're doing?”

“They don't. I can't see how they would. I think they might just like to know.”

“Should we tell them?”

“I don't think so, Natalia.”

“Why not?”

“Because it can get very complicated when people like that get pulled into something like this,” Delaney said. “Let's just have a look around ourselves and see what we can dig up. We'll just have to play it a little close, that's all. For a while anyway.”

Natalia looked neither more troubled, nor satisfied.

“Things are already very complicated, Francis,” she said.

This, he knew, was all too true. He knew that it would get even more complicated the more he allowed himself to become involved. And the more Natalia allowed herself to become obsessed with finding out the truth about her uncle's murder.

They decided they would rest for a while and then shower and meet for a late lunch in the lobby restaurant. After they had eaten, Delaney said they should get word to Zbigniew that they were in Paris and that they wanted to see him the next day. He felt that the phones were no longer wise, particularly if Hilferty and Company were staying at the Méridien too. So he had a quiet word with the concierge
,
asking, as he passed him a hundred-franc note, if he could recommend a courier service
très fiable, très discret.
This was arranged, while Natalia wrote Zbigniew a note on hotel letterhead at a table in the lobby.

The courier, a Parisian motorcycle cowboy dressed head to toe in black leather, also became unusually cooperative with an extra hundred-franc note and a word from Delaney in the lobby. The address on the envelope was for the 20th arrondissement, far from the tourist track, where North African Jews and Arabs and a dwindling community of vintage Parisians lived in somewhat rundown apartments in the northeast of the city.

Oui,
the courier said, he would be quick and,
non,
it did not bother him in the slightest if the address on the bill of lading was not exactly the same as on the envelope.
Ca fait absolument rien, monsieur
. Zbigniew was to send a note back by courier, collect.
Pas de problème
.

Delaney watched as the young man roared off into the afternoon Paris traffic faster than anyone could possibly have imagined a motorcycle could go in such streets. He saw no sign of anyone watching and no one appeared to have taken on the dangerous job of chasing the courier's bike. Hilferty, it appeared, had gone to ground. Or to a large expense account lunch with Stoufflet. But Delaney was not altogether reassured.

The evening was, again, just as dozens of evenings after long flights had been for Delaney over the years. He and Natalia took the requisite long stroll of the jet-lagged and the unhurried.They made small talk about Paris as they walked and they remarked on how little it ever changed.Teams of tall black Africans in lime-green overalls swept and sprayed gutters as they passed. Then a return to rooms, with no energy or desire or necessity to do anything at all until the next day. Each in their separate spaces to read newspapers, magazines, watch newscasts, eat light room service suppers, and sleep.

Delaney had been wrong about Hilferty going to ground. He called on the house phone at about eight o'clock.

“So, what about that drink?”

“Tied up tonight, John,” Delaney decided to say. “Sorry.”

“Seriously. We should talk. And I've got a
petit paquet
for you.”

Hilferty was in the bar when Delaney came down. Sports-jacketed this time and no Quai d'Orsay escort. He was drinking what looked like a double Scotch and eating pistachio nuts from a silver bowl on the bar. A small pile of shells was accumulating in the ashtray. Delaney ordered a beer and sat waiting for Hilferty to play spy.

“So, what's the plan?” Hilferty asked eventually.

“I have no plan, John.”

“Just over here to visit a family friend, are we? A pleasure trip?”

“Yeah. Like you, I would imagine. As CSIS does not indulge in intelligence-gathering operations overseas.”

“We are here simply to help our French colleagues. At their invitation, and so on and so forth.”

“I see.”

Delaney could see Hilferty was in a bit of a sour mood and would not stand for idle banter much longer.

“Look Francis, this thing is getting a bit more delicate than we thought. We don't want to fuck up on this one.”

“What have you got?”

“What have
you
got?”

“You're the civil servant, John. So serve.”

“Well, it looks like maybe UOP. Polish State Security.”

“We knew that, I thought.”

“Yeah, well the signals traffic is a bit unclear on this one, Francis. Their embassy in Ottawa is making a lot of weird sounds. We're not sure exactly who's who, who's working for whom anymore.”

“You better hope an investigative reporter doesn't get wind of the Communications Security Establishment guys listening in on supposedly friendly embassies again, my friend,” Delaney said.

He had often wanted to do up a long article about what exactly went on lately inside that fourstory CSE building in an Ottawa suburb, but had never gotten round to it. The Canadians had for years, ever since the war, dined out among friendly spy agencies on their signals-intelligence prowess. They had been able to trade important information with the Americans and the British for years thanks to their CSE intercepts and thereby avoid having to make the hard decision to set up a foreign intelligence capability of their own. But Delaney knew that couldn't last much longer. The world was changing too fast.

Hilferty ignored Delaney's reporter games. “My guys are getting a little edgy about the possibility of some of Walesa's people snuffing old pensioners on Canadian soil,” he said. “Is it Walesa's people?” Delaney said.

“Can't be sure. He probably doesn't even know anymore, the dumb fuck. But if it is his people, and it possibly is, my people want to know.”

“Communists, maybe? Maybe not Walesa's guys at all.”

“What would they want with an old guy in Montreal?” Hilferty said.

“What would Walesa's people want with him?” Delaney asked.

“Fucked if I know.”

“Was he murdered?”

“Yeah,” Hilferty said. “Looks like it now.”

“By Poles? You sure?”

“Yeah. Looks like it. Some faction or other.” Hilferty paused. “Of course, we're way off the record here, as you hacks like to say.”

Delaney was still reluctant to ask about the dead priest in Lachine, in case CSIS was by some incredible inefficiency or oversight still unaware of that death. But he had to think that one was murder too, and murder by the same people.

“What about Borowski?” Delaney asked.

“Nah,” Hilferty said. “Not involved. Doesn't wash anymore. He looks clean as a whistle. But it looks like he may have another try at the presidency in November, for what that's worth. He's trying to drum up nomination signatures on the fucking Internet from Toronto as we speak. Or so I'm told.”

They drank in silence for a while. Then Hilferty said: “Look Francis. We don't want to lose control of this thing, OK? Maybe it's not really the place for an amateur anymore. Never was, probably. But who would have figured.”

“This morning I'm a Maple Leaf spook. Tonight I'm an amateur.”

“Yeah well, I've been on the phone to Ottawa this afternoon. We don't want a fuck-up is all I'm saying. My people get nervous. So watch your ass and don't get us all into trouble at home. Or over here. Get my drift?”

Hilferty pushed a small
Boutiques de l'Aéroport de Paris
duty-free bag over Delaney's way.Through the clear plastic Delaney could see what looked like a box for a small appliance.

“Travel iron,” Hilferty said, smiling at his wit. “Presuming you didn't carry yours over on the plane with you.”

Delaney had thought very briefly in Montreal of packing the CSIS-issue Browning in his checked bags but had decided it was not worth the risk. He could not see himself using it in France, or anywhere else for that matter. Needing it maybe, but not using it.

“Another gun. From the gunless Canadian spy service,” Delaney said. “You seem to have a healthy supply.”

“Some of us, that way inclined,” Hilferty said. “Don't get caught with it over here. We don't know you over here.”

“Check.”

“Don't use it. Just wave it at someone if you get into a jam and get into a cab.
Comprenez?
”

“Check.”

“You're a pain in the ass tonight, Delaney, you know that?” Hilferty said. He pushed the bar tab over, before getting up to go. “Here. Your round.”

Delaney knocked lightly on Natalia's door when he got back to the fifteenth floor. He chose the hall door this time, not the one that separated their rooms. There was light shining through the peephole.

She let him in and went straight back over to the desk where she'd been writing in what looked like a ledger. She was in the Méridien bathrobe. It was very white and far too large. She did not ask him about his duty-free bag.

“You all right?” he said. The room smelled like bath oils and creams.

She finished what she was writing and closed the book before turning to him. In felt-tip pen across the leather cover was written “Commonplace.”

“I'm doing up my journal,” she said.

“Your diary?”

“More than that. It's a dream book and a place to record interior dialogues and some other things. It's called Intensive Journal Therapy. Or it is when it's used in therapy.”

“Is this your therapy?”

“No. Not really. For me, it's just my Commonplace book. I've had one for years.”

“Don't let it fall into the wrong hands,” Delaney said. “Now that it contains state secrets.”

“None of those so far.”

They looked quietly at each other for a moment in the still room and then said their good-nights. Now was still not the time.

Delaney fell asleep thinking, ever so slightly amused, of Natalia at her secret work next door, carefully recording dreams and interior dialogues and possibly some other things in a language he did not yet understand.

They indulged in a little cloak-and-dagger activity the next morning. Delaney knew it would infuriate Hilferty and would likely bring whatever relationship they had to a head, if not to an end, but he didn't want to lead the Canadians or the Poles or anyone else to Zbigniew if they didn't already know where he lived.