The Assassins (22 page)

Francesca could hardly swallow. Her mind was in turmoil. She busied herself with her food.

“Our families were living in a little city called Bedford,” he went on. “As it turns out, almost every state in the United States has a town called Bedford. Anyway, this Bedford was in the southern part of the old Soviet Union, near the Baltic. It was never on any map. Probably still isn’t. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

She widened her eyes. “No. That doesn’t make sense. Why would a Soviet city be named Bedford?”

He set down his fork. “We bought our groceries at Safeway, got ice cream cones at Dairy Queen, and ate quarter-pounders at McDonald’s. I was a bachelor so I lived at home. My mother watched
As the World Turns
on TV. My father and I read
The New York Times
and the
Financial Times—
they were on our doorstep every morning. We spoke America’s version of English. Our teachers taught us American history, American music, American literature.” He looked around for eavesdroppers. “Bedford was a first-class school for Soviet spies, sleepers, and moles.”

It was her turn to set down her fork. “Who are you?” She stared at his handsome face, at his lying Cossack eyes. The shit had been wooing not her, but her past.

“I think you’re Roza’s daughter—Katia. You don’t remember me at all, do you? Well, it’s no surprise. You must’ve been eight or ten then. It was a long time ago, and I’ve had several cosmetic surgeries. Your mother was a star student, but you probably know that. As I recall, you and your mother got assigned to Washington, D.C. Later I heard she was in Marrakech, working in the duty-free store, but what she was really doing was helping to move arms, ammo, and explosives with the PLO. The PLO did a lot of dirty work for us in those days.” He gave her a compassionate look. “It must’ve been terrible for you to lose her. It sounds as if she set up some kind of situation in Maine to take care of you while she was gone. I heard her remains were found in her car at the bottom of a cliff in the Atlas Mountains. If it’s any comfort, we were sure she didn’t kill herself. She must’ve been burned, and the CIA took her out.”

Katia leaned forward. Her voice was low and hard. “I don’t know who in hell you are or what you want. I do know you’ve just made up a story so far-fetched that the only solution is for you to see a therapist. See one often.”

She started to push back her chair, but he reached across the table with both hands and grabbed her forearms. A little thrill started up her spine, but she stopped it cold.

He spoke in a rush. “I assume you’re a sleeper, but I’m not here to activate you. I’ve told you things about myself I haven’t told anyone in decades. See what you brought out of me? Please, give me a chance. I mean it. I want to retire.
I’m not activating you.
”

She shook free and stood. “You’re a lunatic. Stay away from me.”

*   *   *

Francesca—Katia—needed to walk, to think, to clear her head. She strode past the marketplace’s stalls, hardly hearing the blare of Arabic music, ignoring the whirling dancers. There was a tourist, a woman, with gray fluffy hair, a softly lined face, and a digital camera who seemed always behind her, sometimes close, sometimes distant. It was a coincidence, she told herself. But because of Pyotr, she was feeling paranoid.

A veiled woman held out a flat basket, her bracelets jingling. “Moroccan dates,” she crooned in French-accented English. “Moroccan dates. The finest you will find anywhere—”

Katia rushed past and into the souk. She was moving so fast she broke into a sweat.

The older woman with the digital camera bumped into her.
“Pardonnez-moi!”

“C’est pas grave.”
Katia hurried on. There were some two miles of convoluted passageways. She was getting confused.

Then Pyotr was at her side, walking with her and leaning over to speak in her ear. “Stop. Please, Katia. I’m sorry. I’m really not here to pull you back into the business. Will you give a fellow Russian, an old compatriot, a chance? I know this must be very hard on you—”

A dark wave of loneliness swept through her. She turned. Somehow Pyotr’s arms were around her.

He held her tight, and she sank into him and wept into his white shirt. She could smell his aftershave, feel the prickles of his vacation beard on her forehead. She could hear her mother’s voice calling long-distance from Marrakech. “I love you, Francesca. I’ll see you soon. Be a good girl.” Always in English. Never in Russian.

“It’s all right,” Pyotr murmured in Russian. “There, there.” He gave her a gentle squeeze. “There, there.”

When she finally pushed away, Pyotr handed her a big white handkerchief. She glanced around, realized people were staring. There was that gray-haired woman again, the one with the camera who had bumped into her. Had she been photographing them? She was shooting a tall clay pot now.

Katia wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Pyotr took her arm and led her back. As they walked through the souk, he slid his arm around her waist. There was something more protective about the gesture than sexual.

She had been thinking. “You didn’t just recognize me, did you, Pyotr? You must’ve known I’d be here in Marrakech. It’s no coincidence we’re staying in the same hotel.”

Guilt flashed across his face. “You’re right. I was standing on the corner, trying to figure out how to introduce myself to you, when the donkey bolted, and you stumbled and I caught you. I wanted to meet you—Roza’s daughter. I always admired Roza, and I wanted to touch base with my past. I had a small hope you’d remember me.”

“I’m not a sleeper,” she told him, “I was too young to be trained to be one.” But then in Russian:
“Kharash
ó
h, Pyotr. Shto vam n
ú
zhna?”
All right, Pyotr. What do you really need from me?

“Your friendship,” he said solemnly. “Will you be my friend? With you, I thought I could talk about the old times.” His black eyes were tender. “I could use a friend, and I thought maybe you could, too.”

She was falling in love with Pyotr. This was crazy, she told herself.
Crazy.
He had pretended they were meeting accidentally. In other words, he had lied to her. But now that he had explained, it made sense. Or maybe she just wanted to believe him. She was excited and giddy and … crazy. Falling in love was making her nuts.

He was telling her again he was out of the spy business and not in Marrakech to activate her.
“Vi panim
á
yitye miny
á
?”
he asked finally.

“
Da. Da.
Yes, Pyotr. Of course I understand what you’re saying.” And then she heard herself say, “I believe you. Really I do. And I’m relieved.” She meant it.

Back in the hotel, he accompanied her up to her room on the third floor. His room was below, on the second floor. She unlocked the door, opened it, and turned to face him. Her heart was pounding so loudly she was afraid he could hear it.

“You’ll be okay?” His black Cossack eyes devoured her.

It was hard for her to speak, so she nodded. Her chin lifted, she studied him. She wanted to stroke the bristles of his beard, move her fingers down his throat, slide them under his shirt. She wondered what his skin tasted like.

As he leaned toward her, she reached into her room, fumbled across the wall until she found the switch, and turned on the light. She grabbed the door jamb for support. “I’ve got to go in. I need to … go to bed.”

His lips were so close she could almost feel them on her mouth.

“May I see you tomorrow?” he said. “Will you spend the day with me again? I have to leave early the next morning. I would really like more time with you.”

She felt her cheeks flush. “Yes. Breakfast in the caf
é
again. Nine o’clock.” And then before she could change her mind, she stepped back into her room. “Good night.”

Closing the door, she could see the smile on his face fade. He was disappointed she had not invited him in. She could not believe he was leaving Marrakech so soon.

45

The next morning, Katia and Pyotr met again at the little caf
é
for lattes and hot croissants. Sitting beside newspaper racks, she saw headlines about the terrible bombings, kidnappings, and murders in Baghdad. She closed her eyes, willing away memories. When she opened them, she saw Pyotr’s happy smile.

The traffic roared, and the sun climbed the sky. They caught a taxi to a grand old Berber palace, now the Museum of Moroccan Arts. She found herself glancing around, wondering whether she would see the older woman with the camera who might have been following her last night.

The air was cool inside the museum. The art, furnishings, and architecture were a stunning mix of Spanish and Moorish.

“How long have you lived in the States?” Pyotr asked curiously.

“Since I was fifteen. I wanted to move to Marrakech with Mother, but she insisted I finish my education in the States. A widow who’d been like a grandmother to me had left Washington and gone to Maine, so Mother sent me to live with her. That’s where I grew up. I love teaching kindergartners. And I love the woman I came to call Mom. But now that I look back, I realize I’ve been terrified someone would find out who I really was. It was better to never let anyone get close.”

He stopped her beneath a tiled archway. Turning her to face him, he put his hands on her shoulders and looked gravely down at her. “I know exactly who you are, Katia Levinchev. It’s an honor to have met you again after all these years.”

At twilight they caught another taxi. Riding through the streets, they passed old Moroccan architecture standing side by side with modern buildings. For Katia, it was like an omen—the old and the new interwoven seamlessly.

There was a closed glass window between the driver and them, so they had privacy. “What about you?” she asked. “Tell me about your family.”

“The ones in Bedford were trainers. My true family was back in the Ukraine. I envied you because your Bedford parents were real.” He shook his head, then brightened: “Perhaps you can clear up a mystery. What about your father? As I recall, his name was Grigori. I’d been in Bedford a year when he vanished.”

Her lungs tightened. “He left during the night. I kept asking Mother where he was, when I’d see him again. She said she didn’t know.” Her father, Grigori Levinchev, had been a great undercover agent.

“Didn’t he get in touch with you when your mother died?” Pyotr asked.

“I never heard from him again.” It was a lie. She turned her face away.

The taxi stopped, Pyotr paid, and they left the chaotic traffic for the serenity of Caf
é
France, where Pyotr had made a reservation. White linen covered the tables. The silver and crystal sparkled. They ordered roasted salmon caught that morning in the North Atlantic. The sommelier poured a Pinot Gris from Alsace.

“What did you do after you left the training village?” she asked.

“I can’t tell you. You know that. It was a long time ago. Who cares? Ancient history. You don’t mind, do you?”

She did mind. “You know about my life. I know almost nothing about yours.”

He gazed out the window at the passing parade of Moroccans and tourists. His profile hardened. Finally he shrugged. “All right … I studied six months at our school for sabotage in Prague, and then I was sent back to Moscow to learn psychological warfare and media manipulation at Patrice Lumumba University. That’s where Ilich Ram
í
rez S
á
nchez had studied on scholarship.”

“Carlos the Jackal.”

“Yes. He was a legend by then, but I heard he’d been a party boy in school—smart but lazy. When I graduated, Moscow was selling weapons to groups like the Red Brigades and the IRA and training them at camps across the Middle East. I was deep into it. I suppose you could say I was a troubleshooter.”

Their dinner arrived. Pyotr looked at it, but his initial enthusiasm seemed to have waned.

When the waiter left, she asked, “Troubleshooter. What does that mean?”

He peered at her gravely. “I’m gambling you’ll be all right with what I’m about to say. I’m trying to make a full and honest disclosure, and … it’s not pretty.” His glass was empty. He offered her more wine. When she shook her head, he filled his glass and drank. “We were dealing with violent people. Sometimes the only response was violence. Lubyanka brought me in to eliminate the worst ones.” Lubyanka was the KGB’s headquarters, in Moscow.

For a moment she was taken aback. But what had she expected—the KGB was not a gentlemen’s garden club. “You were an assassin?”

“Yes.” He shook his head with disgust as he continued: “First we treat allies like our friends, and we invite them to Moscow and feed them caviar. And then suddenly they’re our enemies, and we liquidate them. I was risking my life for communism and the Motherland. Where did it get any of us? There was no change. We still helped anyone who’d sabotage the Middle East peace talks. We still funded both Iran and Iraq, first to keep their war alive, and then to keep their relations with the United States tense. We kept proxy wars going in Africa, and a million people died. We were on a treadmill to nowhere.” He sat back, radiating anger and frustration. “It was stupid.
I
was stupid.”

“Lubyanka allowed you to retire?”

“I’d stashed plenty of money and several identities, so I dropped out of sight and changed my appearance. I was good at that sort of thing.” He was silent, his head cocked as he assessed her. “You can call me names and leave now. Go ahead. I’ll understand.”

She looked away. “What happened after that?”

He hesitated. “I went independent, like Carlos and Abu Nidal. I was skilled, experienced. My services were in demand from all sides. I was called Mole.”

“Krot,” she whispered, translating from the Russian.

“Yes. I am Krot.”

46

It was past midnight when Katia and Pyotr left the French restaurant. The night was warm and soft. The traffic was quieting. Across the street, people were standing around an ice cream cart, eating and talking. Then Katia saw the woman with the bouncy gray hair and spidery-lined face. She was shooting pictures of hands, mouths, food.