The Day Before Midnight (17 page)

Whoa, there, Gregor, old fool. You are slipping. With a start he realized he’d almost missed his exit, and he had to make a sudden dart across the lanes of the expressway, took the ramp too fast, felt the whirl of gravity fighting him for control of the car and at last—though only in this one thing—regained control. He circled over a bridge to arrive at Route 175 for another less swift but equally sleek road, and after a few minutes of zipping through rather attractive Howard County and the suburban city of Columbia, came to a glass-topped pavilion glinting in the sun.

The exuberance of the place did not faze him. He rather liked shopping malls; America at her glorious best, all glittery and shiny, all the people slick and sassy (the women, Lord, the thin, lovely, supple American women!).

Gregor was familiar with American shopping centers—White Flint was a favorite, White Marsh out beyond Baltimore, the Inner Harbor
in
Baltimore, Owings Mills west of Baltimore, the new Marley Station south of it, Tyson’s Corners in Virginia—because it was Pork Chop’s vanity to be serviced in them. Pork Chop—whoever he was—boasted exemplary trade craft. Pork Chop hated solitude and privacy, finding safety instead in mass, particularly in the crowded, bustling venue of the American shopping center. This suited Gregor perfectly. If he could no longer justify his existence on the paltry gleanings from his girls, then he could by his ability to please Pork Chop, whom he had never made anxious, whose signals he never missed, and whose wants and needs supplied the pretext for his survival.

Gregor never knew when Pork Chop would demand servicing. It all depended upon the
Washington Post
personal ads, which he checked each day. Most days there was nothing, sometimes weeks would pass: and then, as yesterday, it would be there.

Darling, I love you. Meet me at D-13-3. Your little Pork Chop.

The code was simple. Gregor simply referred to the previous Sunday’s
Post
, Section D, page 13. On that page would be an ad for some kind of chain bookstore well represented in the area, usually a B. Dalton’s or a Waldenbooks.
At the bottom of the ad would be listed the various locations. The third of them—in this case the Columbia Mall, in a B. Dalton’s advertisement—would be the site for the beginning of the ritual of the meet on the next day. It was clever and simple and impenetrable, unless of course one knew the key, and only Gregor knew the key, which he had received on a special Eyes Only document two years earlier.

Pork Chop had been quiet ever since a furious spurt of activity three months ago; therefore Gregor was somewhat astonished when he’d come across the message in yesterday’s paper. But it had made him happy, though it was his bad luck to draw the time-consuming and frequently exhausting job the same night he had communications duty in the Wine Cellar, and exactly when Klimov was so furious at him for so many other failings.

Well, that was more of his rotten luck. He journeyed through the parking lot like a lost traveler, experiencing one of the real drawbacks of capitalism: lack of adequate parking places. It was, after all, near Christmas. The Americans would be out in force today, loading up on goods for their favorite holiday. But eventually Gregor found a spot in the far environs, and began the long trek to the building proper.

Suddenly, there was a roar; involuntarily, he ducked, stunned at the noise. He looked up. Six jets whooshed overhead. So low! Incredible! They were a kind of thing Gregor had not seen before, like backward-headed flying crucifixes, their long prows so far ahead of their stubby straight wings. And they were green, not silver. Gregor shook his head.

Should I know this airplane?

But the jets were gone then, flashing over the trees.

“They’re sure in a hurry,” a lady a few feet ahead of him said.

“Must have a fire to go to,” Gregor joked.

“Maybe,” said the woman with a laugh. “Or girlfriends to show off for.”

Inside, it was like the spring, calm and pleasant, climate perfectly controlled. But Gregor immediately broke into one of his familiar shirt-drenching sweats, as if he were in the
jungle. As he sailed forward, all business, something caught his eye; and then another thing and then another! Capitalism! It was a festival! He loved America! He stopped to admire a particularly nice sweater in Woody’s men’s department and they had some nice colorful ties there too. Then, it was time to eat. He bought a chocolate chip cookie and a peach yogurt and a bag of popcorn and a chili dog. Only eventually did he find his way to the store of the ad, B. Dalton. He stepped into it, browsed for a while, noticing the piles of best sellers up front. The big book was a lurid thing about a dark KGB plot to subvert America by infiltrating a television network. Then, there was a book about a Hollywood actress with the sexual desire of a stevedore. There was an inspirational volume by a millionaire businessman. There were books about ways to make money on the stock market and to make yourself thin and happy forever, about how to be aggressive and how to be sensitive and how to get people to like you better. That’s what I need, he thought.

Gradually, he made his way to the back of the store, to the inevitable section marked Classics. Here, he dawdled a bit longer. He’d always wanted to study literature and still loved it, even if he’d actually been educated all those years back as a chemist. He examined Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
and Dostoevski’s
Crime and Punishment
and the great Tolstoi’s
War and Peace
and Hemingway’s
For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Now, this was more like it! Then his fingers found the inevitable copy of Margaret Mitchell’s
Gone with the Wind
, exactly the volume that every bookstore in America would be certain to keep on its shelves. His fingers touched the fat thing, rubbing it softly. He began to feel excited, and sent a quick nervous look around the store. It was full of shoppers, of course, but as an experienced watcher himself, he could see no visible signs of observation.

The ritual was exact: He would pick it up, turn to page 300 and there discover a very small piece of paper with one single number on it:
2
it might say, or perhaps
3.
That was all.

To anyone else it would be meaningless. Only Gregor knew that it indicated he must leave the store, turn to the
right—always the right—and begin to walk through the mall counting exits, and at the second or the third, leave the building.

Except that this time there was no slip.

Gregor stared in stupefaction. He felt the bell tolling for himself in his own head. His heart began to break. The air was suddenly hot and gassy. Pork Chop was such a pedant! Pork Chop never made mistakes! Pork Chop was slow, calm, steady, patient!

Gregor felt the panic come over him. Was he being set up? Was this some kind of ruse? A test? He swallowed harshly, feeling the book grow heavy in his hands. The damned thing weighed a ton.

“That’s a wonderful book,” a woman said to him. “I’ve read it six times.”

“Yes, it’s wonderful,” said Gregor, staring absurdly at her. Was she an FBI agent? He swallowed, waiting for her to speak again. He wished he could breathe, or charge his wan and twisted smile with some spontaneity. She looked at him with searching eyes, an attractive but unremarkable American. It was as if she were about to speak.

But she merely smiled enigmatically as his heart pounded in his chest, and then walked away.

He looked down at the book; it was shaking in his trembling hands. He began to flip through the pages while looting his memory for clues. Had he made some stupid mistake? Was it another bookstore, another mall, another day? The possibilities raced by like the rushing seconds on a digital clock. He grew confused. His head ached.

Think
, you idiot!

He knew he could not stand there holding the book until his beard grew and the world ended.

He rifled the pages as his mind imploded on him and … like the dart of a white bird, quick and furtive … a little piece of paper from somewhere in the five hundreds broke free from the volume and began to pirouette toward the earth. Gregor watched it flutter, dip, then land. He could read the message: it was a single integer—
4.

Thank God, Pork Chop! You
didn’t
let me down!

His relief was radiant with bliss. His knees shuddered in pleasure. He took a deep suck of air, felt it flood into his lungs. He put the book back on the shelf, and turned very adroitly and walked out.

Light as a dancer, Gregor turned to the right, as the absolute rule of the code demanded. He continued to walk until he found the fourth exit on the right, and stepped out into the bright sunlight, which made him blink after the interior of the mall. The bitter chill attacked him also. He struggled with his sunglasses, then began to walk up the row of cars that was immediately in front of him as he clung to the right-hand margin of the sidewalk out of the mall.

He walked on through the crisp air, examining the cars in the row to his right. At last he noticed a plaid scarf crumpled in a rear window well.

In the summer it might have been a madras jacket or a picnic tablecloth or even, as it was once, a Scotch cooler: but always it was something plaid. And always the automobile was different, presumably something rented under a pseudonym. Pork Chop was very careful with details like this.

Gregor looked at the vessel of his deliverance. It was a Ford. The bright sun burned down and the clouds of his own raw breath floated majestically before him. He could feel the sweat inside his collar begin to freeze.

Yet he did not move forward; he could not. Something rapped in his chest. He could not deny that he was still extremely upset.

But he could not just stand there either; nothing attracts attention in America more than a man standing still in a parking lot. Parking lots are a thing one goes through on the way to the other destinations; no one’s destination in America is ever just a parking lot. So Gregor continued his walk until he was out of acres of cars and headed into the woods, another extremely bad idea.

He headed back.

Do it, he commanded. Time is flying.

He was shaking horribly. He forced himself to go to the car and peeked in. He could see the briefcase on the floor of the backseat on his side, its top unzipped.

Just open the door, fool, and do it.

Gregor went to the car. The rear door was unlocked, as usual. He put his hand on the handle, pressed the button, and—

But then he tried to remember back, two years ago, when his services to Pork Chop started and that moment of explanation. Specifically, he pawed through his memory to recall if it was part of his official instructions that the exit code be placed between pages 300 and 301, or if that was merely Pork Chop’s own personal signature, something the spy had begun doing on his own. As a long-time agent-runner, Gregor knew that agents all had signatures, little things that worked into the ritual of communication subconsciously so they were unique, a part of the subverbal language between themselves and their cutouts.

Gregor’s sense of unease grew palpable. It felt like a brass egg jammed in his windpipe. The professional part of him, the deep-cover operative in an enemy country, came bristlingly alive. But so did the coward. He wanted to weep. He felt his knees begin to knock. Pork Chop, why are you doing this to me? Have you grown sloppy, Pork Chop? Have you grown cunning, or greedy? It happened to agents all the time. Pork Chop, what is going on? He realized his vanity had betrayed him again; he’d allowed himself to love Pork Chop as the only steady constellation in his whirling cosmos. He was a hopeless neurotic, always falling for lovers who were fated to betray him! It was a pattern, and now Pork Chop was repeating it. Suddenly, he hated Pork Chop! Pork Chop was slime, offal, defecation! Pork Chop was …

In a blast of desperation, almost more to escape his problems than to master them, Gregor walked to the other side of the car, where the doors were locked. He looked around. There was no one coming, though far off he could see people walking to and from parked cars. He reached in his pocket, took out a Swiss army knife, and with a swift plunge jammed it through the rubber seal of window and leaned against it with all his strength. Nothing happened. He looked around, almost catatonic with fear. But though he could see others moving in the lot and cars patrolling for empty spaces,
no one was near him and no car came his way. Once more he leaned heavily upon the handle of the knife, calling up all the strength that he had, pulling the strength from the well of his fear. Suddenly, he felt something give. He had managed somehow to jam the window down an inch. With a mighty shove he got it down another and another and … he realized now he could get his hand in.

He looked around again, nervously, stunned at what he had done. No, no one had yet seen him. Breathing hard—good Lord, he was going to have a heart attack!—he pushed his fat hand through the slot of the window, reached for the lock button, and with an—oof! almost, no, almost,
yes!
—got it open. Disengaging, he quickly opened the door. The smell of the new car rose to his nostrils, a rich American smell. He reached across the front seat and tugged at the briefcase and—it would not come! There seemed to be a bit of an impediment, as if he were pulling from the wrong angle, and Gregor gave a little tug and—

Gregor had a brief impression of an insect buzzing swiftly by his face, or perhaps it was more like the sudden swoop of a small, darting bird, an angry swallow or hummingbird flashing by, harmless but nevertheless confusing, disorienting, completely stunning, and then in the next second, even as these impressions accumulated, he heard the sound of a dense thunk, metallic and vivid with texture, and then the low hum of something shivering rapidly. Gregor stood back, stupefied, trying to make sense of it all. His heart began to thunder again. Quickly, he checked himself; he seemed all right and—

Then he saw, sunk into the car roof just a few inches beyond his eyes, something particularly bright and evil. It was the blade of a vicious fighting knife, smooth with oil and glinting in the light. Its top edge was savagely serrated, all the better for sawing through flesh, and, driven with enormous force, it had sunk nearly half its length into the car roof. What blade remained visible was a long, graceful shank of steel. At its base were two prongs; it appeared to have no grip at all.