The Double Game

14

The New Moscow Cultural Center looked like a shoestring operation. Its ground-floor offices were tucked behind a pharmacy and a kitschy souvenir shop with a window full of chocolate Mozart statuettes.

They’d been preparing to lock up when Litzi phoned, but the young man who answered grudgingly agreed to wait after she explained it was urgent. We decided to use fake names and pay in cash.

A buzzer opened the door. A few paintings, none to my liking, were propped on easels in the foyer. A man in his early twenties waited impatiently at a cluttered reception desk.

“You must be Feliks,” Litzi said. “I am Mrs. Brunner. This is my friend from America, Mr. Norris. Thank you for waiting.”

Feliks nodded gloomily.

“You have payment?”

“Certainly. How much?”

“Twenty euros per page.”

Steep. Feliks had probably built in a gratuity for himself. I handed him the prints, but he refused to even glance at them until Litzi put four tens on the desk. He slipped the bills into his trousers and picked up the prints.

His eyes widened immediately, and he dropped the photos.

“Is this joke?”

“No,” I answered. “No joke.”

“Then you are crazy. Or maybe you are police.”

“Neither.”

He retrieved the bills from his pocket and handed them to Litzi along with the prints. She tried to give everything back, but he let the bills fall on the desk and shoved away the photos. As they oscillated to the floor he stood abruptly and disappeared down a hallway.

We looked at each other, wondering what to do next, and we were on the verge of giving up when a benevolent old face crowned with a snowy shock of hair poked from the end of the hall. The little man who emerged looked like a forest gnome who had just crawled out from under a toadstool. As he drew closer he even smelled a little woodsy, like wet leaves on a trail.

“Please,” he said, gesturing down the hallway. “Why don’t we step into my office where there is greater privacy. Bring the documents with you.”

He turned before we could answer, so we followed. His office was small but pleasant, with flowers in terra-cotta pots. A window overlooked an alley through the iron steps of a fire escape.

“I am Director Gelev. You seem to have upset young Feliks. May I get you some tea? I am afraid the coffeepot has already been cleaned for the day.”

“No, thank you.” Litzi said.

“None for me, either.”

“May I see those papers, if you would be so kind?”

I handed them over.

“Mm-hmm.” He flipped to the second one. “Yes, I see.”

He had the bearing of a doctor confirming a dire diagnosis.

“If it is not too much trouble, may I also see your identity papers?”

Litzi and I exchanged glances, then she reached for her ID card. I did the same with my passport. So much for fake names. He looked them over, then handed them back with a slight smile.

“You must excuse my precautions. Even with photographs of very old papers like these, the name of the KGB still carries a great deal of power, as you saw with young Feliks.”

“These are from the KGB?” I asked.

“Did you truly not know this?”

“No. Although maybe I should’ve guessed from Feliks’s reaction.”

“May I ask how you acquired these documents?”

“I, uh…”

Litzi deftly cut in.

“I am an archivist at the National Library.” She presented her business card. “People bring me all sorts of strange old items, thinking that I might have a use for them. Mr. Cage is an old friend who happens to be here on vacation. He brought them from the States.”

Better than what I would’ve come up with, but Gelev immediately shot it full of holes.

“I know the National Library has budget strains, Miss Strauss, but does it no longer employ translators of Cyrillic?”

“I didn’t want to use official resources on a friend’s behalf. This seemed like a more… informal way to handle it.”

“Of course. KGB documents. Very informal.”

He turned to me.

“And you brought these from the States?”

“Yes.”

“Did some emigre give them to you?”

“A friend of one, yes.”

He raised an eyebrow and studied me further. Sweat prickled in my palms as if I’d been hooked up to a polygraph. He almost certainly knew I was lying.

“Very well. I will have them translated and return them tomorrow. I don’t know what sort of price Feliks quoted you, but our standard rate is ten euros per page.”

“I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable leaving them overnight. They’re so old and everything.”

He raised his eyebrows again. The photos, of course, were brand-new. My inclination was to snatch up the prints and leave. Maybe Gelev sensed that, judging from what he said next.

“Well, they do appear to be fairly brief. Perhaps I could go through them with you myself right now and tell you roughly what they say.”

“Yes. That would work.”

He motioned for us to pull up our chairs beside the desk. Then he took a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket, cleared his throat, and went to work.

“This first one is some sort of field report, from a man named Leo to another named Oleg. No last names are mentioned.”

“Code names, probably,” I said.

He eyed me over the tops of his specs.

“You are familiar with the working tactics of the KGB?”

“Well, no. But…”

“It is probably a safe assumption, all the same. The subject of Leo’s memo is Source Dewey.”

“Dewey? You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

So the KGB knew about Dewey. Were they using him, or stalking him?

“Go ahead.”

“Apparently Oleg was in Moscow. Leo was not.” He paused, running a finger along the lines of text. “‘Dewey’s movements proceed as expected. Mailbox delivery on nineteen seven.’ He means the date, the nineteenth of July.”

“Is there a year?”

Gelev scanned the page.

“Not in the report, but there is a filing stamp. Fourth of September, 1971.”

“Thanks. Go ahead.”

“‘Mailbox delivery,’ which you already heard. ‘Pickup completed. Box empty on twentieth. As requested, contacts made at the following addresses on the following dates.’ He lists them, there are several.”

“How many?”

Gelev counted down the page with his forefinger, muttering in Russian beneath his breath.

“Three. Three names and three addresses. And they are not Vienna addresses, nor are they Moscow. Knowing both cities, I can say that with reasonable certainty. Would you like me to read them?”

We nodded. The contacts were first names only, meaning they, too, were probably code names. Karloff, Woodman, Fishwife. None was familiar. He then read the names of the streets, which I recognized right away, and I suspected Litzi did as well.

“The addresses are followed by more of the same. A reference to a mailbox delivery on the twentieth of August. Then someone checked to see that it was empty on the twenty-first. Then another delivery in early September, the first. Details such as that.”

He paused, scanning toward the bottom.

“Ah, here is something different in the final paragraph. I will quote it as precisely as I can: ‘Dewey has employed a new courier. I suggest we approach. On twenty-second of August I also detected possible surveillance of Dewey’s network. Tactics are not those of our usual adversaries. Await your instructions on both matters.’ And that is the end of the document.”

“He doesn’t mention a name for the new courier?”

Gelev checked again, then shook his head.

“No.”

“Could I write down those translated names and addresses?”

“Certainly. Here.”

He handed me a pen, then grabbed a sheet of paper from the feed tray of a printer. I wrote down the addresses as he read them back. One in particular stood out, and my reaction must have been noticeable.

“Have I said something to upset you?” Gelev asked.

Gelev would have made a great cop.

“No. I’m just a little keyed up.”

“The KGB has been known to have that effect. Are you ready for the second document?”

“Please.”

“It was also filed in September 1971, on the sixth of the month. This one is from Oleg to Leo. There is no subject label, but it seems to address several points. I will take them in order.”

“Sure.”

“His expense report for August is approved with one amendment. Payment to Source Nina not authorized.”

“Nina?”

“There is no other explanation. Knowing what I do of Russians abroad, I suspect Leo was trying to get his boss to pay for some woman that he was…” Gelev glanced toward Litzi. “That he was seeing.”

“Don’t mince words on my account,” she said.

“It is not my way to be coarse around ladies. I will continue.”

He slid his forefinger to the next paragraph.

“There is discussion of what sort of car he should drive to the border the following week. Oleg suggests a Skoda that does not come from the embassy motor pool. Ah, here we go. ‘Surveillance of Dewey to which you refer is possibly on behalf of source Glinka, separate from your activities. Do not approach. Integrity of source Dewey could be compromised.”

“Glinka?”

“Yes.”

“Any mention of Dewey’s new courier?”

“That is the next and final item. ‘Proceed with identification of Dewey courier. Full vetting, but Dewey must not know. Report results immediately upon completion.’ “

“So Oleg was concerned.”

“It sounds that way. But, of course, this was forty-one years ago. Perhaps not enough concern for it to still matter.”

“You’re probably right.”

Gelev put the paper down and took a deep breath. He seemed relieved, as if he had expected tales of torture, murder, or some other terrible secret.

I, on the other hand, was disconcerted. In the second memo, Oleg’s reference to Dewey sounded downright cozy, as if they were allies, not adversaries. Although it was still ambiguous. And who were all these other parties spying on Dewey?

“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been a great help. Ten euros a page, you said?”

Gelev waved away the proffered bills and took a bottle of vodka from a desk drawer. He stood and fetched three tumblers from a shelf.

“There is no need for payment. It is just as well if there is no record of this transaction. But we must all have a drink, to wash away the memories of those old and bad times.”

Litzi waved away the glass but he poured her a shot anyway. The two of us sipped. Gelev knocked his back with a single swallow, then poured himself a second, which he finished before we were done. He set down his empty glass with a great sigh.

“You may count on my complete discretion, Mr. Cage. But as someone whose father spent seven years in the Gulag, I hope I may count on yours as well.”

“Of course.”

“Young Feliks, however, is another matter. When he becomes excited he tends to peep like a hungry nestling. So if you will pardon my rudeness, I must find out which cafe he has fled to before he tells half of Vienna about your visit. May I escort you out?”

Gelev frowned as he led us to the door, as if still working something over in his head. He paused after taking out his keys, then spoke again.

“I moved here many years ago, Mr. Cage, long before the difficulties of the Cold War were settled business. If indeed such things are ever settled. When I was younger I used to make a game out of spotting the KGB men who came and went from this city. For Russians this was not difficult, partly because so many of them stayed at the same hotel, Gasthaus Brinkmann. As it happens, I was walking by it only yesterday, and recognized a man coming out the door whose face I had not seen in years.”

He paused to let it sink in.

“KGB?”

Gelev nodded. The vodka was just beginning to bloom in rosy marks on his cheeks.

“Do you know his name?”

“Only what the emigres used to call him-the Hammerhead-because of his massive jawbone, the great size of his skull. My older contacts say he is now pursuing business opportunities, so to speak. The words ‘security consultant’ have been bandied about. But even if he is employed by some Oligarch, it is only cover, if you ask me. Men like the Hammerhead know only one trade. And I find the coincidence of his reappearance with the arrival of these documents to be interesting, perhaps even disturbing.”

“I agree.”

“Yes, I can see that you do.”

“Can you describe him a little more?”

“About your size, but thicker in the middle, maybe fifteen, twenty years older. Brown eyes. A full head of wavy hair, mostly gray now. But as I said, it is his jaw, the size of his head, that stands out. And a great slab of a face, red from vodka, with a wide mouth that never smiles but is often open, as if he were a landed fish gasping for air. It makes him look quite stupid, but I assure you he isn’t.”

“I believe you. We’ll watch out for him.”

“That is advisable, especially if you plan to keep those photographed documents in your possession.”

Gelev locked the door behind us. We headed back onto the street, where he turned in the opposite direction without saying good-bye, as if eager to demonstrate to any onlookers that he didn’t know us.

“Sounds like we’re not the only ones in Vienna following old trails,” Litzi said. “Maybe this Hammerhead is who Vladimir was watching for out his window.”

We continued a few more steps in silence.

“Those street names in the documents,” Litzi said. “I suppose you recognized them.”

“They’re all in Prague. I even knew one of the numbers, the address for source Fishwife. It’s an apartment building.”

“The exact number?”

“I once knew it by heart. My best friend lived there. Karel Vitova.”

“Do you think that he…?”

I shook my head.

“At least a dozen families lived there. Not that the Russians would’ve thought twice about using a thirteen-year-old informant. But Karel never gave a shit about politics, and he hated the Party youth clubs. Even when the tanks rolled in, all he cared about was girls, cigarettes, and Jimi Hendrix.”

“Do you think he’d know who it was?”

“If I could find him. He has to be in Prague. I could never imagine Karel living anywhere else.”

“Prague. Like Vladimir’s message.”

“Maybe now we know why.”

“The city where you stole my virtue.”

“In spite of our nosy innkeeper.”

“I never told you then, but she was really on our side. She confided to me one morning before you came downstairs that she was completely in favor of our trysts. It was the authorities she worried about. That’s why she kept her books so carefully, especially where Westerners were concerned.” Then, after a pause. “I could go with you again, if you wanted. If you didn’t think I’d be in the way.”

“In the way? Without you I’d still be waiting on prints from a drugstore. It’s just that, well…”

“Yes, I know. Too dangerous for a girl.”

“You know what I mean.”

“If it’s danger you’re worried about, I’d be an extra set of eyes.”

Her offer was appealing on many levels, but I could already imagine how disapproving my father would be.

“Why don’t I sleep on it? We can decide in the morning. For now, we’ve got a mail drop to take care of.”

Litzi slipped her arm through mine. We were about to set out for the Burggarten when an ambulance screamed past us up the street. Two blocks ahead a crowd was gathering, with everyone craning their necks from behind a police barricade on the corner. An officer pulled back the barricade to let the ambulance through.

“What’s going on?” Litzi said.

“That’s Kollnerhofgasse. You don’t think…?”

We hurried toward the corner, where the gawkers were staring up at the top floors of a building across the street-number 11. On the fourth floor the curtains of Vladimir’s apartment were open to a view of a uniformed policeman with his back to the window. The ambulance was parked on the street below.

“What’s happening?” Litzi asked someone up front.

“The cops came running in ten minutes ago. They pushed everyone back.”

The policeman in the window turned to gaze down at us, then closed the curtains just as Vladimir had. A few moments later a murmur went through the crowd as two orderlies burst through the front door pushing a rattling gurney with a body beneath a sheet.

“Maybe it was an overdose,” Litzi whispered.

“You think they’d call in all these cops for an overdose? And look at the sheet.”

The top was bloody, up where the head would be.

“Shot in the face, ten to one.”

“Shhh. People are listening. And look, just down the block, above the sign for the laundry.”

I immediately saw what she meant. A security camera was trained on the doorway of Vladimir’s building. If it was in working order, then our visit was on tape. As deserted as the building was, we might even be the only ones to have visited, especially if Vladimir’s killer had been savvy enough to enter from the alley in the back. Assuming the victim was Vladimir, of course.

We waited a few minutes more on the off-chance that Vladimir might appear, perhaps in handcuffs. Then the ambulance pulled away. An officer came over to move the barricade. People began spilling onto the sidewalk as the crowd broke apart.

“We’d better take care of our delivery,” I whispered. “The sooner the better under these circumstances.”

We were just getting under way when my attention was diverted by a tapping sound from behind, an insistent rhythmic beat barely audible above the buzz of the dispersing crowd. I spun around, looking for Lothar, but saw only a shopkeeper who had just finished rolling up his awning. Maybe that was the source of the noise.

“What’s wrong?”

“Did you hear it? That tapping?”

“What tapping?”

“Never mind. Let’s get this over with.”

“Then a drink, something stronger than wine. And tonight you’re coming upstairs. Being alone in the dark isn’t something I care to think about right now.”

An hour earlier, that remark would have been thrilling. Right then it sounded more like the voice of necessity, and I could only agree.