Agent 6

Same Day

Yates had been handsome once, Leo thought, remembering the wedding photograph, with his thick dark hair and well-cut suit. But not any more: skin sagged underneath yellow-tinged eyes. Compensating for this slackness in his features, his lips were stretched tight, thin as a washing line. He used gel to smooth down his grey hair, as when he’d been young, though now it looked like a sickly imitation, a pastiche of youth. Likewise, his suit might have fashionable once but now it was dated and worn, the material threadbare and the cut loose around his limbs. He’d lost weight. From the contents of the refrigerator, Leo deduced that his body had been whittled down by drink. But the creeping frailties of old age did nothing to soften his appearance, physical vulnerabilities made no dent on the aggressive force of his presence. Whatever wrong he’d done, whatever part he’d played in the events of that night, this was an unrepentant man, staring at them with brazen confidence and not a hint of remorse. They’d come for him, broken into his house, and it was him who spoke first, assuming a position of power, smug that they had failed to take him by surprise.

– I’ve been expecting you.

Recovering his own omposure, Leo said to Nara, speaking in Dari:

– He knows who we are?

She didn’t have time to translate, Yates guessed the question and said:

– You are Mr Leo Demidov.

Leo had encountered many brilliant, ruthless agents in the KGB, minds that could calculate a person’s weakness in an instant and in another how to exploit it, uncluttered by moral scruples or ethical limitations. It was their absolute certainty that made them so valuable to organizations like the secret police, where doubt had never been considered an asset. Yates was one of those men. Elena had been right to be afraid.

Leo asked Nara:

– How did he know we were in the United States?

Yates descended the stairs, at ease, opening the refrigerator, taking out a beer while saying with his back to them:

– What language is that?

Nara answered, the tremor in her voice indicating to Leo that, like Elena, she too was afraid:

– It is Dari.

– That what they speak in Afghanistan?

– One of several languages.

– Maybe that’s why your country’s in such a mess. A country should have one language. That’s a problem we’ve got here: too many languages creeping in, confusing people. One country, one language – you’d be surprised at how upset people become when you suggest it. Seems pretty logical to me.

Yates clicked the top off the beer, allowing the cap to fall to the floor, landing silently on the thick patchwork of carpet. He took a sip, licking his beer-wet lips, listening as Nara belatedly translated Leo’s questions: how did he know who they were and how did he know they were in the United States? He gave off the impression that he was enjoying himself, the centre of attention and important in a way he hadn’t been for many years.

– How did I know you’d show up? The FBI informed me you’d been granted asylum, the husband of Raisa Demidova.

Leo’s emotions were stirred by the sound of his wife’s name being mispronounced. The clumsy attempt stung as surely as an insult. With remarkable sensitivity Yates picked up on his reaction and repeated the name:

– Raisa Demidova, she was your wife, am I right?

Leo replied in English:

– Raisa Demidova was my wife.

Leo could not control his tone or expression. He’d laid bare his intentions.

Yates took another long slug of beer, his thin lips sealed around the head of the bottle, his throat gulping as he swallowed – eyes on Leo throughout. Finally, Yates lowered the bottle, then said, his voice heavy with contempt:

– The FBI didn’t think it likely that you’d try to find me. That’s what they said. Me? I knew you’d come. I didn’t believe it was an accident that you ended up in the United States. They tried to tell me it was a coincidence, that therwas no planning, that it had come about by chance, that fate had conspired to bring you to the country where your wife died.

Yates slowly shook his head.

– Agents today are so fucking dumb I could cry. They’re soft. They have to go to charm school, learn how to eat with four different types of knife and fork. They have first-class degrees and run marathons but they don’t know anything about the real world. College kids with guns. They sacked me: did you know that?

He waited for the translation, wanting to judge Leo’s reaction. Leo nodded.

– You retired only a few months after my wife’s murder.

– I was one of the best agents who ever worked for the FBI. In my time, there were mavericks in the Bureau, people who got the job done by any means necessary and no questions were asked. We were given space to act, to make decisions. We were judged on results, not on process. We didn’t have restrictions, or rules. We did whatever we needed to do. Those times are over. The FBI has changed. They want people who do as they’re told, who think in a certain way, company men, no initiative, no guts, every decision needs four permission slips to be signed.

Wistful, he glanced into the near-distance, seeming to forget his guests. Then, abruptly, he turned back to Leo.

– You’re risking a lot coming here. With one phone call, I could have you kicked out the country.

Nara translated, looking at Leo, her eyes imploring him to leave. Yates immediately spotted the division of opinion between the two of them and added, hastily:

– Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to do that. I don’t get many visitors, certainly not ones I can talk with about interesting subjects.

He was lonely. He was vain. And he was proud. Like a professional interrogator, Leo weighed these characteristics, evaluating how likely it was that the man would talk and what pressure might be needed. The combination of vices was promising. Yates had remained silent for many years. He was bitter. The fact that the truth had been erased from historical records bothered him as much as it bothered Leo. He wanted to tell his story. He wanted to talk. Leo only needed to flatter him.

Yates sat down, sinking into his comfortable chair, as laid back as if there were a sporting event on television.

– They told me you’d defected? That seems normal for a Communist. In my experience, Communists generally end up betraying their country. You Reds can’t stay faithful for long. Loyalty is a virtue I prize. I’m certain the United States has the most loyal citizens in the world, which is one of the reasons why we’re going to win the Cold War. Take me, for example: I looked after my wife right up until the day she died, long after she stopped loving me. It didn’t matter that she didn’t love me. It didn’t matter that I didn’t love her. I never left her. I knew her every need. I designed this house around her needs. Hard as it might be for some people to accept but I knew my country’s needs too – she needed strength against her enemies. I gave her strength. I never compromised. I never pulled my punches. I did whatever it took and I’d do the same again.

Leo listened as Nara translated. Yates interrupted:

– You’re here to kill me?

Leo understood the English. Before he could reply, Yates laughed:

– Don’t be shy!

Leo used a phrase he’d practised.

– I wish to find out who killed my wife.

– And you wish to kill them? I see it in your eyes. You and me, we’re not so different – we do whatever it takes.

Yates slipped a hand into his pocket, taking out a small revolver and putting it on the arm of his chair. He studied Leo’s reaction to the gun carefully, then continued speaking as if the gun weren’t there.

– You’ve travelled a long way, so I want to be as helpful as I can. Who killed your wife? Who killed your pretty Russian wife? She was pretty, wasn’t she? She was a beauty. No wonder you’re sore about losing her. I bet you couldn’t believe your luck, marrying a pretty woman like that. Hard to understand why she was a teacher. Seems a waste to me. She could have had a real career in America – a model, an actress, her face in all the magazines.

Leo said:

– Who shot her?

Yates swirled the remains of his beer, as if mixing a potion.

– It wasn’t me.

Leo had heard thousands of denials in his career. To his disappointment he was certain that Yates was telling the truth.

Same Day

Yates raised three fingers.

– Three people died that night: Jesse Austin, Anna Austin and your wife. A lot of Negroes believed it was me that pulled the trigger on old Jesse. They think I’m the devil and I was the one who shot him even though I was standing on the other side of the street when Austin was killed, with my hands in my pockets surrounded by witnesses, real witnesses too, not the kind in line for a promotion, or trying to duck jail time. Over the years I’ve received hundreds of death threats.

Yates gestured towards the bookshelves and Leo turned, presuming there to be a bundle of these letters tied together. But there were none and no proof that any death threats had been sent. Yates continued without producing them.

– Negroes complain about lynching but what they’re really complaining about is that they don’t get to do it to white folks. That’s what equality means to most of them: the right to lynch us back. Lynching for all, regardless of colour.

Yates laughed while Nara translated. He was greatly amused by his own joke, which he seemed to consider profound wisdom. He didn’t wait for her to finish, keen to carry on with his story.

– The truth is that the idea of killing Austin never crossed my mind. The idea had never been proposed by the FBI, I swear to God, not once did we discuss it, not even when the old fool was telling the world how he’d rather fight for the Communists than for the United States.

Leo had no interest in this rhetorical performance, nor in hearing the many reasons why Yates hated Austin, and asked:

– Who shot him?

– Your people did. The Communists killed him. Jesse Austin was shot dead by a Soviet agent.

Leo nodded, he sighed.

– I believe you.

Yates lowered his beer, checking with Nara as she translated Leo’s statement. He had always believed Jesse Austin’s death was a Soviet plot, not an American one.

Leo said in Dari:

– My daughter Elena was in New York, on that same trip. She was working for a Soviet government agency. She believed that her mission was to rejuvenate the career of Jesse Austin. It is clear to me that this was a lie. She’d been tricked. However, I have never been able to find out why my country wanted Jesse Austin dead. My daughter obviously didn’t know.

Hearing the translation, Yates nodded.

– Elena? That girl couldn’t have explained it to you. She didn’t know anything. All she did when we arrested her was cry. She honestly believed she was giving Jesse’s career a boost. It was pitiful how stupid she was.

Leo felt tremendous fury at these words. His daughter had been exploited because she was a dreamer, a young girl who’d fallen in love. Hearing Yates mock her, the desire to kill him was so strong he was forced to shut his eyes briefly, controlling his anger, allowing Yates to speak without interruption.

– They needed someone like her to force Austin into the open. He was practically a hermit, never going out. That girl turns up, talks about changing the world, and he can’t say no. The only person who could’ve convinced Jesse Austin was someone like her.

Finally Leo understood that Elena’s naivety hadn’t merely made it easy for her to be manipulated, it was the key to unlocking Austin’s scepticism, the only way to make sure he turned up to the concert.

Yates toyed with the gun throughout the translation. Once Nara was finished, he carried on.

– I’m not surprised you couldn’t figure out what the point of the assassination was. It’s hard to imagine a scheme more twisted than the one they cooked up. The Kremlin had decided that Austin was no longer an asset. He wasn’t on the radio, no one knew who he was and no one was buying his records. He couldn’t get a gig in a bar, let alone a concert hall. I’d done my job well. I’d made the old man irrelevant. The Soviets took a long cold look at their biggest supporter and decided that he was more useful dead than alive. Your government was fixated on the idea that the Negro community was the most likely way to start a revolution in America. I suppose since they were downtrodden, the idea was that they’d rise up, rip off their chains and rebuild the State according to a Socialist model. All it needed was a spark and the whole racial tinderbox would go up in flames, bringing down the capitalist regime and turning the United States red. That was the plan.

Yates chuckled at the notion.

– I don’t know if they were deluded enough to believe that old man Austin would be the spark but they did believe his assassination would worsen racial tensions. If they shot him, no matter what the truth of the assassination, every black American would think it was the FBI lynching an outspoken Negro. No one would believe it was a Communist plot, they’d all think it was an FBI hit. The assassination would make the forgotten man famous again; more famous than he’d ever been before, a martyr for the Negro revolution. Malcolm X had been shot only a few months earlier, two Negro assassinations in a year, it looked suspicious, I’ll grant them that. They were hoping, after Austin’s death, that everyone would buy his music and listen to recordings of his speeches. They thought they could breathe life into his career by taking his life.

Yates smiled through much of Nara’s translation, amused by the ironies, fondly recollecting a time when he had power over life and death.

– For the plan to work, they needed him in a public place, with the world’s media present. That’s why they tagged this plan onto the concert.

Leo asked, in Russian:

– But the FBI would simply tell the public it was a Communist plot.

Nara struggled with the translation but Yates smiled, understanding what had been said.

– The more the FBI told the public it was a Communist plot, the more the public would believe it was an FBI plot. That’s how conspiracy theories are born. The official version has to sound like a lie even when it’s the truth, and the louder you say the truth, the more people look elsewhere. The Communists couldn’t frame the FBI directly: they didn’t have the means or the capability. They were going to frame your daughter, Elena, pretend that she’d slept with Jesse Austin. White Americans would believe the girl had shot him out of jealousy. Negroes wouldn’t. The plan relied upon innuendo and suggestion: they banked on the fact that the Negro community would automatically believe anything bad about the FBI.

Yates climbed out of his seat, pocketing the gun and walking to the fridge, fetching another beer. He pulled the top off, letting it land on the carpet. He took a gulp, impatiently waiting for Nara to finish. Hearing the translation, Leo asked:

– How did you find this out? Elena couldn’t have told you: she didn’t know.

– I had it all explained to me by a queer Jew Communist called Osip Feinstein. He’d gotten cold feet about his involvement. Like all Communists, he wanted to switch sides. He wanted me to save him, as if he were a damsel in distress.

– He didn’t want to be involved in the murder of Jesse Austin?

– Maybe he liked the old man’s music. I don’t know what the reasoning was. But he spilled his guts, ratted out his colleagues.

– Did he come to you before or after the assassination?

Yates considered lying then shrugged and said:

– What happened was Feinstein ran an agency based in New York that organized trips to Communist Europe for rich dumb Red Americans. He’d managed it for years. Suddenly he wanted to talk. So, I turned up and he asked me to stop the murder. He said I could save Jesse Austin. In exchange, he wanted to go into hiding, protective custody, scared that the Russians would kill him.

Leo said:

– You did nothing?

Yates nodded.

– I did nothing, well, almost nothing. First of all, I didn’t know if anything he said was true. He had switched sides more times than anyone in the history of spying. You couldn’t trust him even as your enemy. Second of all, I figured if the Communists wanted to kill one of their own then why should I get in the way? Why should I save old man Jesse, the guy who wanted to fight Americans? I didn’t want to hear Jesse Austin bad-mouthing this country any more. Why save a Communist who hated America? Why should the FBI save a traitor? In the end, Jesse picked the wrong side. The decision cost him his life.

– Why didn’t Feinstein tell another officer, if you didn’t respond?

Yates nodded, appreciating the point.

– I handcuffed him to a pipe, locked him in his office, to make sure he couldn’t interfere, so he couldn’t tell anyone else. I let Jesse Austin turn up at the demonstration. That was the extent of my involvement. I didn’t orchestrate anything. I didn’t kill him. And I didn’t kill your wife either. All I’m guilty of is letting the whole thing play out.

Yates leaned against the wall, becoming thoughtful, speaking almost to himself as much as Leo.

– Did I fail in my duty as an FBI officer? I’d argue that I did not. I’ll tell you why. I knew Austin’s murder wasn’t going to cause a revolution. Even if every Negro out there believed that the President Lyndon Johnson himself had personally ordered Austin’s assassination, there wasn’t going to be any revolution.

The notion of trying to save Austin because he was an American citizen, an innocent man, didn’t factor into his equation.

– Most blacks believe in God. They go to church. They pray. They sing. Communists don’t. Communists hate God. In the end, there were never enough Godless blacks – there were never enough Jesse Austins for the riots to ever become an uprising.

Yates had said most of what he’d wanted to say. But Leo had not yet received an answer to the question that had brought him here.

– Who murdered my wife?

Yates widened his eyes, as if he’d forgotten about this part of the story.

– You already know the answer to that! After Austin was shot we took your wife and daughter into custody. The precinct was mobbed. There was press in the street. There was a protest. When Anna Austin arrived, they didn’t think to search her, the grieving widow. She sat in the office and waited, claiming she had evidence. I’d been interviewing your wife. Soviet diplomats wanted to talk to her. We left the interview room together, walking into the main office. Anna Austin pulled out a gun. She’d always hated me. She must have figured I’d killed her husband. She fired four shots before another officer shot her dead. All four shots missed me. They hit the desk, the walls – one bullet whistled past my ear. It’s a miracle I’m alive. One of those bullets hit your wife by mistake – caught her in the stomach. That’s all there is to it. It was an accident, no mystery to solve. You’ve been waiting all these years but you’ve known the answer all along: the official version is the truth. Anna Austin killed your wife. She didn’t mean to, but she did.

Pre-empting his reaction, Yates said:

– There are lots of people that can say it’s so. They saw it happen. They saw Anna pull the trigger. They saw your wife go down.

Leo mulled over this explanation, asking:

– Anna Austin never intended to shoot my wife?

Yates moved closer.

– Her intention was to kill me. But she couldn’t manage it. She was a lousy shot, probably never fired a gun before. Afterwards we lied about the motives, not about the facts. Jesse Austin was dead. Anna Austin was dead, shot by a police officer. We were in trouble. Two dead Negroes in one night with one shot in the middle of a police precinct? We had to lie. Harlem was going to burn. We were left with no choice. We needed to create a story to confuse the public so that even if they didn’t believe us, they wouldn’t be able to agree among themselves what the truth was. We needed to tie the whole thing together. Powers far above me decided that the story about Austin taking a lover would work. We’d tell the world your wife had an affair with Austin and that she shot him dead out of jealousy. Anna came to the precinct and acted out of revenge. It squared with the facts. There were photos of your wife at the murder scene. We doctored some photos so that we had images of your wife meeting Austin in his apartment, cutting out Elena and replacing her with images of Raisa. Those photos were rushed. Take a look at them closely: the proportions are out of line. Osip Feinstein’s store was burnt down, with him inside it, the Soviet punishment for betraying them. There were small-scale riots. There were civil-rights marches but nothing of consequence and certainly no revolution. In the end, the majority believed the murders were the result of a tragic romance. Only the Negroes doubted it, and even then, most didn’t care. The whole thing worked out so well I couldn’t believe the FBI wanted me to quit. They claimed I should have acted to stop the murder of Jesse Austin.

Yates shook his head. It was clear that he was troubled not by the murder, nor by the death of three people, but by the fact that he’d lost his job. He was a villain convinced he was a hero.

As Nara finished the translation, Yates warned them:

– There’s nothing you can do. It’s history no one cares about. No one will believe you. No newspaper will publish it. There’s no evidence. If you try and cause problems my government will kick you both out the country. I’ve got nothing else to say. If you expected an apology, you’ve wasted your time. The affair cost me my job, a job I loved and a job I was good at, so I paid my dues too. Now, we’re done talking. If you don’t get out of my house right now I’ll make the phone call and have you both sent back to that hell-hole Afghanistan.

Leo gripped hold of one of the biographies on the table. As Yates moved within range he swung it, striking him across the jaw, knocking the former agent to the floor. Moving at speed, he took the gun from his pocket, kneeling on his chest, pinning him down and saying in Russian:

– I’ve done worse things than kill a man like you.

Leo looked up at a terrified Nara, saying in Dari:

– Translate for me.

– Leo!

– Translate!

He turned back to face Yates.

– My wife didn’t die instantly. It took twenty minutes. She died from loss of blood. Maybe Anna Austin did shoot her by mistake but you let her die, didn’t you? Maybe you were worried Raisa would tell the world Anna Austin tried to shoot you? My wife was lying on the floor, desperate for help – you saw an opportunity, didn’t you?

Leo struck Yates across the face with the gun, splitting his lip.

– Answer me!

Yates spat blood, listening to Nara as she translated. He was calm, saying:

– No matter what you do to me your wife will always be remembered as a whore.

Hearing the translation, Leo cocked the gun, saying in English:

– Tell me how she died.

Yates didn’t answer. Leo moved the gun to the exact position where Raisa had been shot, the barrel pressing against Yates’s stomach.

– Tell me.

Yates shook his head. Leo pulled the trigger.