Once A Spy Part 11

'It's them, definitely,' she told the guard.

The guard looked from her to Charlie and back again. Probably the resemblance alone convinced him. He lowered his rifle, allowing Charlie and Drummond onto the terrace.

Crossing the flagstones to meet her, Charlie felt an otherworldly weightlessness. He considered that the guard had in fact shot him against the stone wall, and this was some sort of afterlife.

'Never in the thousands of times I dreamed of this were you so handsome, Charlie,' she said. 'And this can't be a dream, because Drummond's here.'

Drummond didn't react.

She turned to him with the mischievous grin Charlie remembered. 'Of course I'm just joking, Drummond. It's wonderful to see you.'

'Same,' Drummond said vaguely.

She reached up to Charlie. He leaned into a courteous if tentative embrace. Then she wheeled to Drummond, presumably for the same.

Stepping sharply out of the way, Drummond asked, 'Where's the dog?'

She looked to Charlie.

'Bit of a story there,' he said.

'Well, I'm in the mood for a story.' She turned to the guard. 'Lieutenant, you can leave them with me.'

He dropped an eyebrow. 'Ma'am?'

'My son and I need to chat.' Son Son left a glow on her. left a glow on her.

'Yes, ma'am.' The lieutenant withdrew to the portico.

'Alone,' she added.

He yes, ma'amed yes, ma'amed again and departed. Or gave the appearance of having departed; Charlie had a p.r.i.c.kly feeling that the guard was hiding somewhere, finger on a trigger. again and departed. Or gave the appearance of having departed; Charlie had a p.r.i.c.kly feeling that the guard was hiding somewhere, finger on a trigger.

Drummond wandered across the terrace. He fidgeted with a loose rock in the bal.u.s.trade, seemingly disturbed by the way it spoiled the symmetry. The far tennis court caught his attention and riveted him.

n.o.body was playing.

Watching him, Isadora shook her head. To Charlie, she said, 'After you showed up at the main gate, the good folks in the office did a little digging. I was shocked to hear about his condition. It's awful*I don't know what else to say. We also learned about the trumped-up FBI charges. If you can bring me up to speed on a few things, we ought to be able at least to solve that.' She waved him toward the nearest of several sets of cast iron chairs.

'I wouldn't complain,' Charlie said, mustering delight. His reserve lingered. Sure, she was like the long-lost mother of fairy tales, and it seemed safe here, but *

'But first you probably want to know why I'm not in a box underneath six feet of dirt?'

He took a chair. 'It did cross my mind.'

She rolled up opposite him. 'I hadn't expected it would be today, but I always knew that someday we would meet again, and that you would want to know why*' She looked away, fighting tears.

He found it heartening. 'It's okay. This is already a way better explanation than It was just business, nothing personal.' It was just business, nothing personal.' Which was how the conversation had played out in his imagination. Which was how the conversation had played out in his imagination.

She smiled. 'Most of what you already know is true. My parents*your grandparents*spent their entire lives in Billings. I was their only child. I used to be a swimmer and would have been an Olympic swimmer if I'd been three hundredths of a second faster. Other than my occupation, I kept nothing from you, until*' The tears got the better of her.

She didn't move to stem them, not even when they cut into her blush. She rummaged through her purse, producing a cigarette case and a gold lighter. Charlie knew the lighter's signature flask shape; vintage Zippos occasionally made it into Broadway Phil's, the p.a.w.nshop he visited more often than he cared to. She snapped open the lid, spun a flame from the spark wheel, sucked it into her cigarette, then took a long drag. Her eyes dried and her composure matched the cloudless sky.

Either she had extraordinary resilience, Charlie thought, or he needed to find out her brand of smokes.

'I always imagined that when this day came, I would be much older, or at least more mature, and prepared,' she said. 'Also, I would have had my hair done.'

He smiled. 'Your hair looks nice now.'

'You're sweet. So tell me then: How much do you know about the spy game?'

'Bond movies,' he said sheepishly.

'Actually, that's a fine place to start. You see, in reality, James Bond wouldn't last a week on the job. An egomaniac with weaknesses for cars, girls, and booze? An enemy could exploit any of those to get him to give up the crown jewels. That said, I enjoy Bond movies. If only covert operations took place at the Casino de Monte Carlo. In reality, the job is mostly paperwork. The action, what there is of it, rarely gets more glamorous than bad coffee with a frightened local in a place with lousy ventilation*and that's if you're lucky enough that your man remembers the appointment. But the brief moments when we do learn something*product' that actually advances our position*make it worth it.' She nodded at Drummond, who remained fixated on the tennis court. 'You might be interested to know that he likened the job to playing long shots at the track.'

Self-consciousness shrank Charlie. 'I'd imagine the men and women in the clandestine service have slightly loftier motives than us guys at the track.'

'It's about patriotism less often than people think,' she said, putting him at ease. 'I do care about our country, but my reason for getting into the game was the thrill, or perceived thrill. As a girl, I'd read too many of the Bond books books. Once on the job, I had my share of bad coffee and some successful operations. You need to know about two of them. The first commenced August 27, 1977: I met your father at a lunch in conference room Seven C at Langley. One week later, we were in Peshawar, Pakistan, as honeymooners.'

'Pakistan in August? Was Death Valley booked up?'

She grinned. 'By honeymooners,' I mean husband-and-wife cover. He posed as a mortuary supplies salesman*if ever you're trying to keep a low profile and a chatty neighbor asks your line of work, that one's a great conversation ender. I was Suzy Homemaker, utterly obsessed with American soap operas*again, to ward off neighbors. Really we went to Peshawar for bridge.'

'And by bridge' you mean *?'

'The card game.' She laughed. 'Our prime a.s.set was a Pakistani tea magnate. His home in Peshawar was the top floor of the charmingly old-world Dean's Hotel. He and one of his mistresses hosted couples' bridge nights there. Pakistan's nuclear program was then in full swing, and among the bridge players were many of the swingers.'

'So you and Dad were never married? It was only your cover?'

'The agency is known as the world's most expensive matrimonial service' because of all the men and women who work so closely together in deep cover and then wind up that way in real life. Your father and I always had maintained a professional relationship, but near the end of our tour, something happened*'

'I happened?' happened?'

'Please know, dear, that once the shock wore off, we were delighted. And by the third trimester, we could hardly contain ourselves.'

Charlie was almost touched. He decided it best to keep his sentiments in check until the part where she faked her own flattening by bus.

'We came around to the idea of getting married for real,' she said. 'We wed in Las Vegas, at a chapel called Uncle Sam's, fittingly. Then we went back east and gave settling down a go*bought the house on Prospect Place, a six-piece living room set, even chose a china pattern.'

'But?'

'Yes, the but'*' She took another long pull at her cigarette and glanced at Drummond. He continued to watch the tennis, or lack thereof. 'Your father and I had the difficulties in adjustment most new couples do. Also, a legitimate domestic situation is a quantum leap from the life to which we were accustomed. Emba.s.sy soirees notwithstanding, spying is a state of war. What made your father a good spy*and he's a natural*is what made him a poor husband. He had what the Buddhists call right mindfulness,' an eternal and unflagging attentiveness to what's going on. The problem with that was, to him, outside work, nothing nothing goes on. So what I got at home was the dullest guy on the block, who viewed being the dullest guy on the block as fantastic cover. I'd complain, and he'd quote from scientific studies that showed that people are conditioned to ignore their environment, that if something is mundane, they tune it out. So, he maintained, it would be in our interest to be even more mundane.' goes on. So what I got at home was the dullest guy on the block, who viewed being the dullest guy on the block as fantastic cover. I'd complain, and he'd quote from scientific studies that showed that people are conditioned to ignore their environment, that if something is mundane, they tune it out. So, he maintained, it would be in our interest to be even more mundane.'

'Well, he mastered it,' Charlie said.

His mother laughed, and he couldn't help joining her.

'And, though I can't think of any,' she said, 'I may have had a failing or two of my own. Surely he wasn't entirely to blame for our discord. In any case, I'd decided that you and I would leave, but I hadn't worked out the precise escape route. Then Moscow Station called with what sounded like a good initial phase *'

She was forced to halt as a distant whine turned into raucous thumps. Over the treetops appeared a helicopter, its fuselage emblazoned with NEWS RADIO.

'Gracious, this is the fourth medevac this week,' she said against the ruckus. 'We'd best get inside while we still have our hearing.'

She started toward the portico. Charlie went to fetch Drummond. The helicopter aimed for the far tennis court, the one Drummond had been watching. Charlie noticed for the first time that it had no net. Unease coated him.

'You think it's them?' them?' he had to shout. he had to shout.

'No,' Drummond said. He stared with childlike fascination at the swirl of gra.s.s and leaves caused by the helicopter's descent.

Charlie wasn't at all a.s.sured.

The helicopter's skids touched the court, and two paramedics jumped from the cabin. Shimmering with each rotation of the main rotor, they slid out a gurney bearing an unresponsive patient. The first paramedic was a diminutive brunette, no more than twenty-five. The other was a weary-eyed Hispanic man in his early fifties. They unfolded the legs and wheels from beneath the gurney with a synchronization and fluidity of thousands of repet.i.tions, which comforted Charlie.

But how about the patient? Probably around fifty, he had gray hair and an athletic build. His face was largely veiled by an oxygen mask, dark gla.s.ses, and the brim of his fishing hat.

The tumult now made it impossible even to shout to Drummond. Charlie tugged at his elbow and gestured with urgency toward the portico.

13.

With Drummond in tow, Charlie followed Isadora through a monolithic bronze door into the clubhouse's cathedral-sized entry hall. Cloaked in elegant gray velvet curtains, three-story windows admitted only stray particles of daylight. The floor was a pool of black marble. As Charlie's eyes acclimated, trophies sprang from the dark mahogany walls*a lion, a boar, a herd of antlered animals, and an elephant with tusks big enough to bracket a car. Breathing in the bouquet of cigars and old leather, Charlie reflected that at least the Bond movies got the locations right. in tow, Charlie followed Isadora through a monolithic bronze door into the clubhouse's cathedral-sized entry hall. Cloaked in elegant gray velvet curtains, three-story windows admitted only stray particles of daylight. The floor was a pool of black marble. As Charlie's eyes acclimated, trophies sprang from the dark mahogany walls*a lion, a boar, a herd of antlered animals, and an elephant with tusks big enough to bracket a car. Breathing in the bouquet of cigars and old leather, Charlie reflected that at least the Bond movies got the locations right.

As large as the entry hall was, it was hushed. The hiss of Isadora's rubber wheels reverberated into a shriek. 'Let's go to the tea parlor, it's a bit cozier,' she whispered*any louder, it seemed, and the echo might loosen bits of ceiling.

The tea parlor was indeed cozy compared to the entry hall; still it was as large a room as Charlie ever had been in that wasn't public. Fluted columns sustained a high ceiling and framed ten bays, each adorned with hand-painted battle scenes. Friezes repeated in half-moons over the doors and over a stone fireplace almost as big as his bedroom. A waiter wheeled an antique silver trolley, laden with tea and pastries, to 'club members,' as Isadora referred to the casually dressed men and women, all in their gray years. The members occupied about ten of the fifty or so tapestry-upholstered sofas and chairs. The quant.i.ty of m.u.f.fled reports from the other end of the clubhouse suggested that pistols and trap shooting were much more popular at the 'club' than tea.

'Charles, I may have rushed to judge a.s.sisted-living facilities,' Drummond said. 'Is this this Holiday Ranch?' Holiday Ranch?'

'This is the Monroeville club, Drummond,' Isadora said. 'You've visited several times before.' He looked at her as if she were a mile away. 'It's a residence for injured and retired intelligence officers, and it serves as a medical facility in a pinch, when an injury treated at Bethesda Naval or Hopkins might make unwanted headlines or, worse, enemy intelligence.'

'Yes, yes, of course,' he said.

But he appeared confused. He even walked with uncertainty, as if a misstep might trip a mine.

'Why don't you sit, dear?' She pointed him to a sofa.

He let himself fall into it. At once, his head toppled to his shoulder and he began to snore lightly. She seemed relieved.

Charlie noticed that Drummond's fly was halfway down. 'Any chance there's a room for him here?' he asked Isadora.

'I'm sure he'd say that this place isn't big enough for the two of us. But hopefully he can be a.s.signed to another club once we get to the bottom of our inquiry.' She waved Charlie into the adjacent chair and pulled up beside him. 'Now, where was I?'

'About to die.'

'Right.' She laughed. 'Officially, I was the second a.s.sistant secretary at the emba.s.sy. Really, I went to Moscow to run Nikolay Trepashkin, a Federal a.s.sembly member notorious for chasing American skirts. The idea was he'd point me to a mole we suspected the KGB had in Washington, then I'd come home to you. But trouble arose with what should have been the simplest part. Usually when Trepashkin had a message for me, he wedged it behind the sink in the men's room of a drab little bar off Pushkin Square.'

'You went into the men's room to get it?'

'Actually, he signaled it was there by moving a flowerpot to one side of his windowsill. At that point a male cutout*that's a messenger who knows as little as possible about the works*retrieved the doc.u.ment and loaded it into another dead drop, a slot behind a loose brick in a playground wall. Then another cutout took it to the desk of a busy hotel on the Donskaya and sent it to the emba.s.sy in the guise of junk mail.'

'It wouldn't have been easier to send it straight to you?'

'The short answer is no; the other team was too resourceful. On my last day in Moscow, Trepashkin had a doc.u.ment important enough that he signaled for a face-to-face. I procured a bland Zhiguli and parked on a busy block*cars are good for meetings on short notice because the s.p.a.ce is small, controllable, and two people in a car don't arouse suspicion. But he didn't conduct adequate countersurveillance, and the other team ordered a discontinuation of his existence,' as they liked to call it. Their gunmen drove by and obliterated my car while he was getting in. He died while saying, Hi.' When they doubled back to get his attache case, they took me for dead too. As you've probably surmised, they were wrong. The director decided to make it appear I had had died, though. I was exfiltrated in a casket; the agency even dug a grave and put up a tombstone beside my parents' in Billings. The reason is, in the time between the shooting and the gunmen's return, I'd peeked into Trepashkin's attache case and learned who the mole was. But the director wanted the Ivans to think we'd learned nothing, so that they would leave their man in place and we could play him. For years, we succeeded, with one enormous exception: I couldn't see you. I did keep tabs on you, and I longed to see you. Probably that's why, when the Social Security Administration exposed a facet of my cover that the agency had failed to take into account, I went against my better judgment and had the checks forwarded to you. My rationale was the money might come in handy, and perhaps, in some infinitesimal way, allow you to feel your mother's love.' died, though. I was exfiltrated in a casket; the agency even dug a grave and put up a tombstone beside my parents' in Billings. The reason is, in the time between the shooting and the gunmen's return, I'd peeked into Trepashkin's attache case and learned who the mole was. But the director wanted the Ivans to think we'd learned nothing, so that they would leave their man in place and we could play him. For years, we succeeded, with one enormous exception: I couldn't see you. I did keep tabs on you, and I longed to see you. Probably that's why, when the Social Security Administration exposed a facet of my cover that the agency had failed to take into account, I went against my better judgment and had the checks forwarded to you. My rationale was the money might come in handy, and perhaps, in some infinitesimal way, allow you to feel your mother's love.'

Charlie wanted to feel it. But her story wasn't quite adding up. 'The mole must be collecting Social Security himself by now,' he said.

'He died four years ago. Natural causes, of all things.'

So why, Charlie wondered, had she remained out of touch?

As if having read his thoughts, she said, 'Unfortunately my resurfacing still opens the national security equivalent of Pandora's box. All that I'm allowed to say in that regard is, I'm working on it. When I was notified that you were here, I pleaded for the opportunity to tell you the little I've told you. I'm glad we had this time. Unfortunately it came at a cost.'

She peeled the woolen blanket from her lap, revealing a pistol. She took it up by its bulky grip, aiming in the general area of Charlie and Drummond.

Two or three of the other members looked over. They regarded the weapon no differently than if it were a teacup.

Charlie felt as if a veneer had just been stripped away, revealing the world as dark and cold and cruel beyond his most cynical appraisals. 'With parents like the two of you, it's amazing I didn't end up really f.u.c.ked up,' he said. 'Oh, wait, I did.'

Isadora's eyes showed nothing of her feelings now. Drummond remained contorted on the sofa. A bit of light bounced off her stainless steel barrel and hit his eyes. It had the effect of a splash of cold water. He sat up.

'I just remembered something,' he said.

'What?' asked both Charlie and Isadora, curiosity trumping all.

'Izzy, I was glad when you left.'

14.

It was a storybook sunny morning in the Caribbean, or so Alice surmised when her bedroom door opened, allowing her a glimpse of the daylight-flooded hallway. Not only had Hector and Alberto locked her in last night, they'd bolted the window shutters closed to prevent her from jumping three stories to the sea. a storybook sunny morning in the Caribbean, or so Alice surmised when her bedroom door opened, allowing her a glimpse of the daylight-flooded hallway. Not only had Hector and Alberto locked her in last night, they'd bolted the window shutters closed to prevent her from jumping three stories to the sea.

Hector admitted a small man wearing a neatly pressed white lab coat. 'This is Dr. Cranch,' the servant said, then returned to the hall, locking the door behind him.

Cranch lowered himself onto one of the two plastic benches fused to a molded plastic picnic table, the bedroom's only furnishing other than the air mattress on which Alice had slept*or was meant to have slept. Hector and Alberto had taken everything she conceivably could use as a weapon, including her sandals and underwear, leaving her only the c.o.c.ktail dress she still wore.

'I'm afraid we won't be having much fun with you, Alice, given that you've already confessed,' Cranch said. He was an American, with a cherubic face and big, soft blue eyes that had surely drawn no end of coos when he was a baby but played as creepy on a wan fifty-year-old. Like his lab coat, his grooming and attire were meticulous*too meticulous. The laces on his shiny black wingtips were tied into loops so perfectly symmetrical, he might have used a ruler. 'For this morning, I'd like to get through the formalities, like your real ident.i.ty, your rank within MI6, the code name and details of your operation, and so forth*you know the drill.'

'No, as it happens, I don't know any drill,' she said. She sat down across from him and looked him in the eyes. 'You need to understand: I only confessed' so Nick wouldn't have Jane butchered further by*'

'Mr. Fielding bet me a very expensive bottle of rum that you'd say as much,' Cranch cut in. 'I've lost. I expected more from you than one-oh-one-level denial.'

He was a professional inquisitor if she'd ever known one; she'd known many in eight years in the business.

'So obviously you're stalling,' he said. 'Why? If your backup team doesn't receive your happy signal by such and such an hour, they chopper in an extraction team? You'd be wise to let me know. All of it.'

Indeed, docked three miles away at Martinique's Pointe du Bout was a yacht purported to belong to a pair of retirees from Suss.e.x, and if Alice failed to signal them by seven tonight, via either phone or*the usual*Facebook post, her backup team would storm Fielding's island in the guise of drug enforcement authority agents with a warrant for Alberto's arrest. They would 'happen on' her in the process.

She hoped it wouldn't come to that. She'd known from day one of rehearsal that Fielding subjected everyone in his close circle to these trials, often taking pages from Torquemada's book. She was prepared. Unless Fielding or Cranch had a source within her group (highly unlikely, given the paucity of evidence against her), she could maintain her innocence, then resume her investigation of Fielding with relative impunity.

'This is a nightmare,' she said, dabbing tears. 'What can I do to convince you?'