The Double Game

26

Valerie Humphries rose from her chair, signaling that our interview was over.

“I’d better page your friend in from the barn.”

She moved stiffly after all that time sitting down, and led me to an alcove near the entrance where there was an intercom with buttons for each outbuilding. She pressed one and leaned toward the panel.

“This is the all-clear, my dear. He’s yours again.”

We waited a few seconds for Litzi’s response. She sounded out of breath.

“Someone just walked past the window out here.”

“Oh, dear. How long ago?”

“A minute, maybe two.”

Humphries seemed unnaturally calm. Both of them did, judging from Litzi’s even tone. Hardly what you’d expect from a pair of glorified librarians with a stalker in their midst, out in the dark and the rain. I pushed the button to speak.

“I’m coming out there.”

“Relax, dear.” Humphries said. “We’ll both go. I have a twelve-gauge, already loaded.”

She opened a closet and indeed hauled out a shotgun.

“Grab that rain slicker. It was my husband’s. A little short, but it will have to do. I’ll take this old trench coat. Now how damn cliche is that?”

“You, uh, trained at the Farm, too?”

“Of course. Just because I ended up in records doesn’t mean I wasn’t properly prepared for anything.”

She pressed the intercom button.

“Help is on its way, dear. Stay with the horses.”

“Okay.”

Humphries handed me a flashlight the size of a large salami.

“If anything moves, put the beam right in his face. I’ll take care of the rest.”

The rain hit us like a stiff wind, pelting our faces. Humphries locked the door behind us and kept the gun under the folds of her coat, leaning into the storm along the beam of light. Our footsteps slurped in the mud. Fallen leaves blew wildly across our path.

The barn loomed ahead on a slight rise, like a shipwreck on a reef. I was jumpy, looking everywhere, straining my eyes through the dark and the blowing debris for any sign of an intruder, especially a big American in a mullet.

“He’s probably gone by now,” Humphries said, sounding almost disappointed.

Litzi threw open the barn door as we approached. The flashlight lit her face. Considering the circumstances she looked pretty calm, although she was clearly glad to see us.

“Let’s go ’round to that window where you saw him pass,” Humphries said.

We slogged into high grass.

“Give us some light,” Humphries said.

You could see a rough path near the barn window where someone had tramped down the grass. It led back toward the house, crossing the mud and then reaching a window that peeped in through the blinds toward the two chairs where Humphries and I had been chatting moments ago.

“Damned snoop,” she said. She pointed to a large set of footprints in the mud at the base of the wall. She looked up at me and smiled crookedly.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say he might be your babysitter.”

“Babysitter?”

She eyed me closely.

“They must think you’re worth quite a lot if they’re going to that much trouble, don’t you think?”

“Unless he’s here because he’s after me. Or after you.”

She laughed.

“Heavens,” she said. “If that were the case, then we’d all be dead or tied up in someone’s trunk by now.”

She stooped. The footprints were beneath the eaves, so they were fairly well sheltered from the downpour.

“Well, the shoes aren’t of a Russian make, I can tell you that,” she said. “Although I suppose half the Oligarchs and their henchmen wear nothing but Italian loafers these days. All the same, he’ll be gone by now.”

“How can you be sure?” Litzi asked.

“I heard a car pulling away earlier, just before we buzzed you on the intercom.”

I looked inquiringly at Litzi, who shook her head. I hadn’t heard anything, either.

“Even with my old ears, when you live alone out in a place like this you learn to notice just about everything.”

“Would you like us to stay the night with you?” I asked.

Humphries made a face.

“The cook is here. I can wake him in a pinch. Besides, I’m not prepared for company. There aren’t even sheets on the guest beds.”

“We can manage without them,” Litzi said.

“No. No. Whoever it was didn’t come for me. And when the quarry leaves, the problem will leave with it.”

She smiled, but I said nothing as the rain dripped off my jacket.

“The two of you should be getting on. That bridge you crossed on the way in, five clicks from here? It often floods in rain like this. Getting washed into a creek would be a pretty unsatisfactory way to shake surveillance, don’t you think?”

We went back inside just long enough to drop off the rain gear. As we said good-bye I couldn’t help but notice that Humphries looked thoroughly invigorated. Even if she had to stay up half the night with the shotgun propped against the bed, she was enjoying herself.

“Watch yourself,” she said before shutting the door. “If not for your own sake, then because you’re doing this for all the rest of us who are no longer in the game.”

We ran to the car, cranked the engine, and began rolling back through the muck toward Prague.

We were silent all the way up the narrow drive, keeping an eye out for anything that might jump out at us from the darkness. I was shivering from the cold and wet as we turned onto the smooth track of the rural highway, but the heater and the thrum of the tires on the blacktop soon calmed us. The creek was high, as Humphries had warned, but it wasn’t yet flooding. Litzi smelled of hay, manure, and warm horseflesh, a comforting combination.

“How were the horses?”

“Beautiful. She has a good eye for them.”

“Well, I knew the Viennese loved horses, but I never knew that applied to you.”

“It happened after I knew you.”

“You told her it was when you were a girl.”

“It’s complicated.”

I let it go.

“Who do you think was snooping around?” she asked.

“The mullet, maybe? Or maybe someone checking up on us. Like she said, if he’d wanted to harm us he probably would’ve done it. It certainly would have been a convenient place to finish us off.”

“Are we being fools?”

“Probably. Maybe that’s part of what makes it interesting. Humphries obviously thought it was a blast.”

“She does have spirit, even if she’s a bitch. I hope she had useful information.”

I briefed her on the basics but didn’t mention my dad’s involvement with the polygraph in Belgrade. I wasn’t even sure how to ask him about it. Considering the timing, I was already uneasy about all the possibilities.

“What’s wrong?” Litzi asked.

“I’m tired.”

A midget-sized Opel with the dimmest of taillights was just ahead, barely visible in the rain. I braked and began looking for a way to pass, but we had reached a curvy section through a forest. A quarter mile later a big truck lumbered up on our rear, headlights blazing, horn sounding.

“What the fuck?”

I had to flip down the mirror to get the glare out of my face. I beeped at the car ahead of us, but it beetled onward. The truck lurched up within inches of our bumper.

“What’s he doing!” Litzi shouted. “Do you think-?”

“I don’t know! But there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

The Opel’s brake lights winked as we approached another curve, and I nearly rear-ended it. The truck responded with a groan and shudder, air brakes snorting as the damn thing actually tapped us, which nearly sent us sprawling, like a Chihuahua getting a love tap from a buffalo. I held tightly to the wheel as the Mercedes shimmied, then stabilized. The truck’s headlights flooded the car.

“Who do you think it is?” I asked.

“Just drive,” Litzi said. She looked pale and haggard in the glow of the dashboard light. We were too old for this. The truck bore down with another burst of acceleration, its engine throbbing in our ears. Just ahead on the right I spotted a gap in the trees-a small turnout, big enough for us but not the truck-and at the last second I wrenched the wheel right, hooking the tires off the shoulder into a slurry of wet gravel.

The truck blasted its horn in passing, heading off into the night after the hapless Opel. The Mercedes ground to a halt. I was exhausted. Litzi hugged herself and exhaled slowly.

“So maybe he was just an asshole,” she said. “Your average lorry driver.”

“Plenty of them to go around.”

After a few seconds I tried turning back onto the road, but could only spin the front wheels in the mush.

“Shit!”

“We’re stuck?”

I tried rocking the car back and forth between first gear and reverse, the way you do in the snow, but the tires only dug deeper. I shut off the engine and slumped in my seat in the sudden quiet.

“I’ll have to dig us out. Right now I’m too tired to try.”

“Why don’t we rest awhile.” She put a hand to my cheek. “It’s probably the safest spot for miles.”

The road was empty and quiet, and the rain had slackened to a drizzle. Drops from overhanging pines pinged on the roof like a distant drumroll, a martial lullaby. Litzi lowered her seat and curled up facing me. I opened the windows a fraction for fresh air, and instantly smelled the resin of the pines. Then I lowered my own seat and stretched out as best I could. I was almost instantly asleep.

An hour or so later I awakened to voices and the steady tapping of water on the roof. A flashlight beam veered into the car, and I sat up with a start, stiff and disoriented. Voices were speaking Czech, but the windows were fogged. I rubbed a hand on the windshield and saw a police car canted in front of us, blocking our way, not that we were capable of moving. Looking over my shoulder I saw a second police car wedged behind us. A cop was training his flashlight on our German tags. There was a sharp knock on the driver’s side window, which awakened Litzi.

“What’s happening?” she said groggily.

“Cops.” I rolled down the window.

The policeman leaned down, smelling strongly of aftershave. He said something in Czech that I couldn’t understand, so I answered in English.

“Sorry, I don’t speak your language.”

He sighed, then consulted with the other one, who took his place at the window.

“Your documents, please.”

I fished out my passport and D.C. driver’s license, hoping that was all he’d want. He inspected them carefully, then leaned down again.

“Auto registration papers, please.”

Shit.

I made a show of searching the glove compartment and rifling through the map, then spread my hands in a plaintive shrug.

“I seem to have misplaced them.”

He turned and spoke to his partner, which set off a flurry of activity. The flashlight beam went back to the tags, and the cops nodded as they spoke. One went to his car and got on the radio while the other one stood by my door, backing away a step and eyeing me closely. We were in trouble.

Litzi unlatched her door, and the cop on my side perked up like a soldier on alert. He dropped his right hand to the holster of his sidearm and shouted to his colleague.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“Let me handle this.”

She slowly opened the door and stepped carefully into the night. Now both cops had their hands on their guns.

“Litzi, what are you doing?”

“Stay in the car.” Her tone conveyed absolute authority and poise. Impressive, if unnerving.

The policemen approached from either side. They looked calmer now. She turned away me from me and began speaking to them in a tone too low for me even to tell what language she was using. Within a few seconds the three of them were conferring with hand gestures and nods, like a committee meeting with Litzi presiding. The cop from the rear car returned to his vehicle and again got on the radio. I saw him speak into his handset, wait awhile, and then nod as he spoke again. He came back up front and took the other cop aside.

Their body language was interesting. A few shrugs, a sag of the shoulders, and a burst of animated movement. The cop who made the radio call seemed to be trying to calm the other one. All the while, Litzi watched patiently from a few feet away, arms folded. The first policemen then got into his car, slammed the door, and drove away in a spray of gravel.

The second one spoke briefly to Litzi and turned to go. He was about to get in his car when Litzi barked something that made him sigh and nod. He walked behind the Mercedes and, like a suspect under arrest, spread his legs wide and placed his hands against the trunk.

“He’s going to push,” Litzi shouted. “Start the engine and see if you can get us out.”

Amazing. I did as she asked-why not, everything she was doing seemed to be working-and after a few seconds of heaving and rocking, the Mercedes gained just enough traction to crawl onto the shoulder.

Litzi shouted her thanks and hopped in. The cop wiped his hands on his trousers, got back into his cruiser, and drove away.

“That was miraculous. How did you manage?”

“I told them I was German, that it was my husband’s car and you were my boyfriend, and that, well, it was a long story. But they believed me.”

“German? What if they’d asked for your passport?”

“I told them I left it at the hotel.”

“What if they’d phoned the hotel?”

“Do you have any more questions, officer? It worked, didn’t it?”

I wanted to believe her, but it didn’t sound like the sort of half-baked story that would have passed muster with cops. But if I gave voice to those doubts, where would we be then?

“Okay. No more stops, though. Not until Prague.”

Within fifteen minutes the rain stopped. Within half an hour the moon peeped through torn clouds as leaves blew across the highway. Litzi had hardly said a word.

“You don’t trust me, do you?” she finally said.

“Why do you say that?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know what to think anymore. Even Valerie Humphries noticed something. She said you were jealous of what I knew, and that you must know something, too.”

“That woman spent forty years being paid to be suspicious. What would you expect her to say? But as long as you’re being suspicious about everyone, try starting with your friend Karel.”

“Why, because his dad spied on me?”

“How did your handler know about the Cave, that place where the two of you used to play?”

I squeezed the steering wheel, not wanting to admit that the question had already crossed my mind.

“I don’t know what to think about anybody anymore.”

Even my father, I almost added, and Litzi seemed to realize I’d held something back. She lowered her seat and again curled up on her side, this time facing away from me.

I drove on toward Prague, alone with my worries.