Hopscotch

— 19 -

The office was less than two blocks from the Champs Elysees; autumn leaves rattled against the high old windows. Ross was sorting the signals from Washington-the courier still waited beyond the desk with the briefcase chained to his wrist-when Cutter came in. Obviously he had left his emotions in his hotel room. “Anything we can use?”

“A stringer for the SDECE spotted him in Madrid. Recognized him but didn’t tail him-didn’t know he was on the wanted list until he mentioned he’d seen Kendig, back in the office.”

Cutter said, “That’s hardly newsworthy, Ross. We already know he was in Madrid. Anything else?”

“No. Did Desrosiers-”

Cutter waved him off; his eyes went beyond Ross to the courier. “We don’t need to keep you. I’m sure you’ve got important things to do.”

The courier took the hint and left. Cutter asked, “Where’s Follett?”

“I don’t know.”

“He was supposed to be here.”

“Was he? He didn’t tell me that. He went out about an hour ago.”

Cutter picked up the phone. “Is Follett in the building?”

Ross heard the reply-the caustic voice of the dried-up woman at the front desk. “Do you think this is a hotel? I don’t keep a register.”

“This is Joseph Cutter.”

“Oh-I’m very sorry, sir.”

“When he shows up tell him to get his ass in here. And find out where he is and call me back.” He cradled the receiver very gently and said to Ross, “It occurs to me that this office is making a deliberate effort to corner the market on stupid blunderers.” He snapped a look at his watch and shot his cuff and sat down. Cutter was a little rattled; it was unusual and Ross marked it. Cutter was always so coolly controlled. But he didn’t seem to have lost his uncanny talent for being punctual without hurry, for carrying a thousand things in his head without ever losing the balance of them, for always knowing the exact time-it was nearly the first time Ross had ever seen him look at his watch.

Then the phone rang. It was the wasp-faced woman; Cutter had dubbed her The Lemon Taster two days ago. Ross picked it up. “Mr. Follett is on his way up, sir.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Was everything she said sarcastic or did it just sound that way?

Ross hung up. Cutter said, “Trying to work with this guy is like trying to mate a chimpanzee with a porcupine. I wonder where he finds the five coats of whitewash he must be using on this operation.”

“You shouldn’t underestimate him just because you don’t like him.” Ross was surprised by his own temerity; but it only elicited a brief smile from Cutter, cool with insincerity. Nevertheless Ross felt he had been reproved. He kept shifting the letter opener and pencils on the blotter, lining them up along various parallels.

Follett came in, hearty and beaming; Cutter deflated him before he’d had a chance to speak: “I’d better hang a bell on you so I’ll know where you are.”

Follett reared back. “You sound like you’re a little peeved, Joe.”

“Uh-huh. You can put that in the bank.”

Conciliatory but not really giving an inch, Follett said slowly, “Joe, you won’t have any trouble with me.”

“You bet your ass I won’t.” The smile, again, was a forced sliver. “Seat thyself, Glenn, and let’s program this thing.”

Follett threw off his topcoat and lunged into a chair. His freckled face was ruddy from the October wind. “I had a vague conversation with my opposite number in French security just now. That’s why I’m a little late. He’s willing to-”

The phone rang again. Ross was at the desk; he answered it.

“Mr. Cutter? There’s a-”

“This is Ross. Can it wait?”

“The caller says it’s urgent, sir.”

“Who is he?”

“He claims to be Mikhail Yaskov.”

Cutter took the call and held it flat against his ear so that Ross couldn’t overhear anything; Cutter’s end of the conversation was monosyllabic and after less than two minutes he said, “Agreed,” and hung it up and went back to his chair but didn’t seat himself; he stood with one hand on the back of the chair and scowled.

Follett said, “Well?”

“He wants a meet.”

“About Kendig?”

“Apparently.”

Ross said, “Maybe they want to make a deal.”

Follett said, “What kind of deal? Do you mean they’ve got Kendig?”

Cutter said, “No.”

Follett began to bluster but Cutter, maddeningly, had lost interest and turned away. Follett flapped his arms. “Are you sure that was really Yaskov?”

“It’s my business to be sure.”

Follett began shaking his head back and forth. “I just don’t understand any of this, I’ll be the first to admit it. I don’t understand Kendig most of all.”

“Of course you don’t. You couldn’t in a hundred years understand a man like Kendig.”

Ross said, “I don’t see where any of us does. So far he hasn’t made any mistakes at all.”

“He’s made one,” Cutter said. “He’s made me mad at him.”

Follett tugged his earlobe. “You may be making a rash assumption, Joe. You’re not brighter than he is-you’re just younger.”

Ross considered that in surprise; it had come out of the blue. But Follett was grinning slyly, knowing he’d scored a point; he’d been waiting for the chance. He got to his feet. “I presume you’ll want to handle Yaskov without me.”

“Correct.”

“Then we’d better hold off the strategy conference until you’ve had your meet with him. How soon’s it to be?”

“This afternoon.”

“He’s in Paris? He must think it’s damned important.”

“Of course he does,” Cutter said in disgust. “All right, be back here at six tonight-we’ll go over it then.”

“Six? I was planning to-”

“I really don’t much care what you were planning, Glenn.”

Ross was happy to see Follett’s back. He didn’t dislike the man with Cutter’s intensity but Follett’s departure lowered the room temperature to something bearable.

Cutter had straight hair that wouldn’t stick down; another man would have been continuously raking it back from his forehead. Cutter never paid it any attention. He said, “We’re meeting him in the Louvre gardens in forty-five minutes.”

“We?”

“I’ll want a witness. So will he. Neither of us wants some third party accusing us of double-agenting.”

“Cozy,” Ross observed.

“The question is, what’s the best way to approach it?”

“What do you think he wants?”

“I expect he wants a pooling of resources. Kendig’s a threat to all of us-it makes a kind of sense. But it’s more attractive to him than it is to me. I know Kendig better than he does-that gives us the edge. So what’s he going to bargain with? We’ll be better armed if we can figure that out before he springs it on us.”

Ross ran it through his mind and shook his head. “Beats hell out of me what it might be.”

“You’re a big help, you are.”

“Well I haven’t been much of a help anywhere along the line that I can see. I let him make an ass of me down in Georgia-that phony gun stunt. I was convinced you’d tie a can to my tail after that. Why didn’t you?”

“He made asses of all of us, Ross. I don’t go in for scapegoating.”

“That’s mighty kind of you but it still doesn’t explain why you’ve kept me on.”

“I’ve been running a string of agents out of Beirut and Ankara.”

“So?”

“You get used to having somebody to yell at,” Cutter said.

“Sure-sure.”

“You’re green, Ross, You make mistakes-but you haven’t made excuses. I like that. You’re also flexible, you’ve got a good brain, you’re a good learner and you’ve got something that seems to pass for a conscience, which is all but unique around here. I like that too.”

“And?”

“I guess what it boils down to,” Cutter said, “maybe I’ve been seeing intimations of my own mortality. A man wants a protege.”

Ross nodded slowly but he couldn’t resist the riposte: “Like Kendig had you.”

“Yes.” Cutter was neither surprised nor angered. “Like that.”

“Well I guess I ought to be flattered.”

“But you aren’t.”

“Maybe I am. I can’t tell yet. I’m not sure I like this business much.”

“That’s what makes you so valuable in it,” Cutter said. “Come on, we might as well walk-it’s a nice day for it.”

Ross had worked for the Agency for quite a few years but it was the first time he’d seen an enemy agent in the flesh.

Yaskov had got there first and was standing in the path studying a linden tree as if he had a genuine interest in it. He appeared to be alone; Cutter pointed him out to Ross when they were still a hundred feet away. Ross said, “I must say he doesn’t look the part. He looks more like he should have been a czarist spy.”

“He would have been.”

Yaskov was elegant, no other word for him.

They were fifty feet short of touching Yaskov when a little man bumped into Ross. It could have been an accident but the little man’s feminine mouth smiled coyly and he fell in step with them. “My name is Ivanovitch.”

“I’m Cutter. This is Mr. Smith.”

Ivanovitch, whatever his name was, had the air of a man perpetually in a hurry. His manner was peremptory, his mannerisms impatient. The jostling he’d given Ross had been designed to find out whether Ross had a gun under his coat; he realized that now. Ivanovitch had cruel black little eyes-a glance intended to be silken, calculated to inspire fear. He was too ferrety to bring it off.

Ivanovitch walked along with choppy little strides but Cutter wasn’t going to be hurried and Ivanovitch reached Yaskov ten paces ahead of them and turned. Cutter happened to be reaching into his shirt pocket at the moment and Ivanovitch moved abruptly, changing stance and bearing, and it was evident he knew the responses of unarmed combat. How expert he was was open to question in Ross’s mind but it was not the time for adolescent contest with the Russian; Ross only shook his head and refrained from ambiguous motion and after a moment Yaskov laughed and Ivanovitch straightened up.

It was a toothpick Cutter produced. Now Ross saw what its purpose had been. If Ivanovitch had gone inside his coat it would have indicated he was armed.

Cutter stopped six feet distant and said immediately, “Either let’s move out of sight of those windows or let’s meet somewhere else.”

Yaskov glanced up. Two of the museum’s windows overlooked the path. Anyone could be there-zoom lens, lip-reader, parabolic microphone, anything.

Yaskov bowed his head and turned; they walked back between the trees of the arbor. “Will this satisfy?”

“It’ll do.”

“We haven’t met but of course we know each other.”

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a long time.”

“Yes,” Yaskov said. He ignored both Ivanovitch and Ross; so did Cutter.

“Our mutual friend Kendig”-Cutter seemed to savor the phrase with sardonic relish-“always had great admiration for you.”

“Kendig and I are among the last of the old wolves,” Yaskov said, “but perhaps there’s still hope. I’m told you conform to the breed more than most of our colleagues.”

They were under a tree; Cutter reached out one hand at shoulder height, put his palm against the trunk and leaned against it. “Can that suffice for the amenities, Yaskov?”

“Certainly, if you like.”

Cutter’s face turned slightly, half of it going into shadow. “Well? You’re the one who asked for this meeting.”

“Yesterday morning he telephoned me in Berlin.”

“He was in Berlin?” Cutter straightened.

“No. It was a trunk call. I’m prepared to tell you where he called from, and where I think he may have gone from there.”

Ross was sensitive to the pound of his own pulse. He glanced at Ivanovitch but the little Russian was looking away as if bored.

“And in exchange?” Cutter asked.

Yaskov smiled very slowly in private amusement; it came to Ross that behind his lofty pretense of man-of-the-world professionalism Yaskov was taking pleasure in Cutter’s discomfiture. A far cry, this man, from the technocrats the KGB was known ordinarily to spawn.

“You know his haunts far better than I do,” Yaskov replied.

“That doesn’t mean anything. He’d avoid the old places.”

“If you knew him to be in a certain city, you’d be more likely to know where to look for him in that city, n’est-ce pas?”

“It’s possible,” Cutter conceded. “It might depend on the city.”

“I am suggesting we search together for him.”

“It’s an interesting thought.”

“Yes, isn’t it. A new high in detente.”

“I’d have to clear it with my superiors of course,”

“Naturally. So would I.”

“How’d you expect to handle it?”

“Joint teams, Mr. Cutter.”

“Like Vienna and Berlin in the old days.”

Yaskov nodded slightly. “It is important to us all that he be-discouraged from carrying on. I rather suspect it is a bit more important to your side than to mine, but let’s grant he’s capable of embarrassing all of us, even if the embarrassment is in varying degrees.”

Cutter said, “Before we go on with this I’d like to have Ivanovitch’s camera.”

Ivanovitch jerked as if stricken by an electrode; Ross stood up straight; Yaskov only shrugged and held out his hand, palm up, and a little camera came out of Ivanovitch’s pocket. Yaskov gave it to Cutter. Cutter opened it, removed the film and gave it back, and it disappeared back into Ivanovitch’s pocket.

“Thank you.”

“May we be assured Mr. Smith is not similarly equipped?”

Ross pulled his hands out of his pockets, empty. Cutter said, “We didn’t bring a camera. Or a microphone.”

“Then none of us is wired for sound,” Yaskov said.

Ross murmured, “Are we just going to take his word for that?”

“Why not?” Cutter said offhandedly; then he went back to Yaskov: “You weren’t in earshot when I introduced Smith to Ivanovitch.”

“It might have been Jones, mightn’t it.”

Both of them laughed a little and then Cutter said, “There’s a little problem about all this.”

“I wish you Americans didn’t always think of things in terms of problems and solutions.”

“I’d call this a problem, quite specifically. It’s got more than one solution. That’s where you and I have trouble. You want him alive-you want to milk him. We don’t particularly want that to happen.”

“As a matter of policy it is more important to my government that Kendig be neutralized than that he be brought home for questioning. I hope that clarifies my position?”

“You’d rather have half a loaf than none?”

“Precisely.”

“My, you folks are getting flexible this year.”

“I’m happy you appreciate that. Do we have a basis for cooperation, Mr. Cutter?”

“I’ll put it to my superiors.”

“And your own recommendation to them will be?”

“It will be negative.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I hope you are,” Cutter said.

Yaskov inspected a fingernail. “I do hope nothing’s happened to him.”

“Yes. You’d be embarrassed if some third-rate power reached him ahead of you.”

“So would you, Mr. Cutter.”

“I don’t think you need worry that anything’s happened to him. Things don’t happen to Miles Kendig. He happens to them.”

Yaskov nodded as if on consideration he agreed. Then he said, “I fear your superiors will honor your negative recommendation.”

“I imagine they will.”

Yaskov’s sigh was gentle. “A word in private, then.” He took Cutter away a little distance. Ross saw him lean forward, intending Cutter to listen to him, staring straight into Cutter’s face. The icy ruthlessness of the eyes unnerved Ross; it was a point-blank stare that destroyed the barriers of ordinary defense and pretense. Yaskov spoke, Cutter nodded; then Yaskov crooked his finger and Ivanovitch stirred. Yaskov bobbed his cane toward Ross and went away, Ivanovitch hurrying after.

Ross said, “What did he say?”

“Kendig called him from Stockholm. Yaskov believes he went on to Helsinki from there.”

“A lot of this is going by too fast for me,” Ross said as they turned off the Champs. “Why’d he give it to us for free?”

“Because it’s true he’d prefer half a loaf to none. He’d rather we nail Kendig than not see him nailed at all. He tried to bargain, we called his bluff and he had no choice but to give in to us for nothing.”

“You’ve got to be a Machiavelli in this business.”

“You’ll pick it up as you go along, Ross.”

“What was all that about Ivanovitch’s camera?”

“They haven’t got you taped. They don’t know who you are. I didn’t see any point making it easy for them-we might want to use you in the field after this. Ivanovitch didn’t matter, he’s on tape everywhere west of Warsaw-his name’s Kirovoi, he’s an errand boy. One look at him and you know what he is and what he does.”

“But you brought me along instead of somebody like him.”

“I wanted you to meet Yaskov,” Cutter said.

“I’m glad you did. It was an education.”

“There aren’t many left like him,” Cutter told him. They turned in at the door and The Lemon Taster gave them an acidulous glance. Cutter said to her, “I’ll want six field men upstairs at half-past six. The best you’ve got. Clear it through Follett. And book us eight seats on the first flight to Helsinki after nine tonight.”

“Yes sir. This came for you.”

It was a postcard from Stockholm. Cutter let Ross read it over his shoulder.

Having wonderful time. Wish you were here. M.K.

Cutter’s bark of laughter startled The Lemon Taster.