The Peregrine Spy (20 page)

“He’d like to meet you,” said Frank.

Lermontov glared at him. His massive right fist clenched, and his features hardened. “Is he here?”

“Let me get him.” Frank moved toward the kitchen, opened the door, and nodded. Rocky pushed himself up from the table and followed Frank into the front room. Lermontov was stuffing his black scanning device back into his leather briefcase.

“Mr. Novak, I presume.”

Rocky responded in Russian.

“Your accent is quite good,” said Lermontov. “Your recruiting techniques, like your listening devices, quite poor.”

Rocky touched his hearing aid. “What devices?”

“Your technicians forgot to activate your eavesdropping devices. No batteries.”

“Fuck me,” said Rocky with real anger.

“They did,” said Lermontov. He turned to Frank. “And you, my good friend, fucked me. You betrayed me, you bastard. And sentenced me to death.” He secured the straps on his briefcase and shrugged into his heavy coat. “I will need you, or at least your key, to open the garage door.” He scooped up his hat, turned his back, and moved toward the door.

“Wait,” said Rocky. “You want Frank to handle you?”

Lermontov stopped. He turned to face them. His broad shoulders filled the doorway. “I want no one to handle me. I would work with someone I can trust. Not with this bastard who betrayed me. And certainly not with you.” He angled his shoulders to get through the door. His steps thudded heavily on the stairs.

“Gimme the fucking key,” snapped Rocky. Frank tossed it to him, and Rocky followed Lermontov down to the garage. Frank stood at the top of the stairs and could hear Rocky speaking evenly in Russian.

“Open the door, please,” Lermontov responded with an edge in his voice.

Frank heard the garage door ratcheting up and the roar of the Peugeot turning over. Now what? he wondered.

Rocky summoned a car from the embassy by cranking up his walkie-talkie and uttering a single word: “Now.” He and Frank waited, facing each other across the walnut-stained top of the dinning room table.

“You set that up?”

“How could I set that up?” said Frank.

“You want to handle him, right? So you set it up he walks out ’cause I’m here.”

“You said he’s yours.”

“Doesn’t look that way, does it?”

“No,” said Frank. “It doesn’t look that way.”

“You holdin’ out on me?”

Frank thought of the envelope Lermontov had given him. He nodded and reached into his jacket pocket. He glanced at the envelope and handed it to Rocky.

“It says you’re supposed to read it alone.”

“I feel pretty alone,” said Frank.

Rocky ripped open the envelope, unfolded the single sheet, and read. “Says, ‘I will contact you.’ He’s playin’ us.”

“He’s been playing us,” said Frank. “It started with Nazih.”

“Shit, he’s been playing you for years, you dumb fuck.” Rocky leaned back in his chair, studying Frank. “Think we can get him back?”

Frank shrugged. “He says he’ll contact us.”

“Uh-uh. He says he’ll contact you.”

Frank sensed the resentment in Rocky’s words. “I wonder how,” he said. “There’s no Nazih. I doubt the Shah.”

“He’ll find a way,” said Rocky. “He knew enough to prepare this note in advance.”

“He might’ve suspected something.”

“Fuck yes,” said Rocky. “He’s a good spy. Good spy always suspects something. You brung nothing but trouble since you got here, Sullivan. Brought, not brung. You bring out the street in me.”

“What now?” said Frank quickly. “We just wait?”

“All we can do. Except get a cable off. Tell the home front this thing blew up in our face. Only problem, since we blew it, Near East and fucking Soviet Division have even more of a reason to send over some pooh-bahs to sit on us. Show the field idiots how it should be done. And I thought I was lookin’ at a promotion.” He drummed the table with his stubby fingers. “Even a medal.”

He’ll blame me for that, thought Frank. Rocky caught his eye.

“And it’ll give all the good folks back home who don’t much like you anyway even more of a reason to pull your ass outta here.”

I knew that was coming, thought Frank. For years he had wondered if Lermontov could be recruited. Then, in an unlikely setting, Lermontov had seized the initiative. Frank knew he had not made it happen. Lermontov had made it happen. But now Rocky, proud chief of station and vain Soviet Division veteran, had undone all that. His blundering had propelled their target out of their safe house and into the Russian Embassy’s sanctuary in Iran. Despite Lermontov’s three-word note, Frank believed any effort to recruit him would now prove difficult. He envisioned the watch strapped to Lermontov’s massive wrist and could hear the ticking of a clock, time running out. If it were going to happen, Frank knew he would have to make it happen. And soon.

“Look,” he said. “If we do get another crack at him, I’ve got an idea.”

PART II

CHAPTER SEVEN

NOVEMBER 11, 1978

For nearly a month, Frank would wait, worry, wonder, and work at what he considered his day job with Jayface. Lermontov sent signals, most notably through what Frank would have considered an unlikely source, the British ambassador. The final signal came from an even more unlikely source, Hamid, the waiter recruited by Gus.

He realized he’d focused so hard on his Russian target, he lost sight of Iran. Gus brought him back down to earth.

“Forget about your friend from that cold country up north. You read his note. He’ll contact you. When he’s ready. Time for us to get back to work.”

“You’re right,” said Frank. Time to get back to work, but he feared time was running out.

“So we didn’t recruit Lermontov. But we did sign up Hamid,” said Gus.

“Not ‘we,’” said Frank. “You signed up Hamid. I have to admit, I didn’t see the potential.”

“Sometimes a dinky little hit to the opposite field is worth more than swingin’ for the fences and comin’ up short.”

“You missed your calling,” said Frank. “You should’ve been a hitting coach.”

“You could use one,” said Gus, peering at Frank over the wire rims of his glasses. “You want some of that Russian poison you drink?”

“It’s Swedish,” said Frank.

“Absolutely,” said Gus.

Frank had discovered that both he and Gus did not believe in ice cubes. Gus kept his Dewar’s in the refrigerator. Frank kept his Absolut in the freezer, where they also kept their glasses. Gus poured them each two fingers.

“Salut.”

“Salut,”
echoed Frank. “We better be careful. Tomorrow may be Sunday in Christendom, but it’s just another workday here.”

“Sunday,” said Gus. “I want to be home. Home in Rome with Joan.”

“You really love that lady, don’t you?”

“Damned if I don’t. And I wanna be home.”

“I know how you feel,” said Frank.

Gus pushed himself away from the sink and sat down opposite Frank at the table. “No. No, I don’t think you do. It’s not like I love that lady like I did, well, maybe like I did before I went to Nam. But Joan and I, to tell you the truth, ol’ buddy, we don’t give very much of a hump about humpin’ anymore. We haven’t done much of what’s called making love in five, six years. Part of it’s knowin’ at this stage we aren’t gonna have any kids. Not at her … our age. We did a lot, I mean a lot, of humpin’ when I first got back from Vietnam, but when we were goin’ at it I kept seeing one or another or all of those lovely little Vietnamese hookers who’ll suck your cock better or fuck you better or even cook for you better than any woman in the world, and then I knew sex with Joan would never be as good, and I started to love her even more than ever I did, and I swear to God, I want to be home.”

*   *   *

Sleep eluded him as he thought of the sad story of Gus’s happy marriage. He thought of his brief encounter with Gus and Joan at the airport in Rome, en route to Tehran. Through descriptions they had been given, he and Gus recognized each other in the uncrowded boarding area. Years before, the same body shop had hired each for agency assignments in different parts of Africa. Now, for the first time, they met. They nodded, and Frank walked over to Gus and the woman who stood by him.

“We must be on the same flight,” said Frank.

“I guess.” Gus looked older than Frank had expected, more ravaged by the life of the field man. The slender woman with him wore no makeup and made no effort to hide her anger or her tears.

“Glad to meet you, Mrs. Simpson,” said Frank.

“Sorry,” said Gus. “Frank Sullivan, my wife, Joan.”

She glanced at him coldly and with a firm, dry grip shook the hand he offered. She looked at her husband and said, “You shouldn’t be doing this.” Only then did she drop Frank’s hand.

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

“They shouldn’t even be asking.”

Frank guessed her to be a decade younger than Gus, still attractive, but showing her years in the hard, tight lines of her mouth and the spiked crow’s feet branching from her cold, gray eyes.

“Good to meet you,” said Frank. Again, she ignored him. He nodded toward Gus. “See you on board.” He walked away, leaving them to their private war.

*   *   *

In Tehran the weather turned colder, and the war continued. As he and Gus picked their way across the ice-spangled walk to the waiting Nova, Frank noticed the exhaust had melted a hole in the frozen-over
jube
.

“All peaceful?” asked Gus as he climbed into what had become his usual seat in the back.

“Peaceful, yes,” said Ali, “Peaceful, but not peace. Bad news in Isfahan.” Ali started to move the big Nova forward, slowly. “Students, religious students, some armed, yesterday they attack Bell Helicopter. The army drove the students back. Many were killed.”

Frank remembered Ali’s oldest son was in the army and based in Isfahan. “And your son?”

“Shot.”

Gus leaned forward. “Bad?”

“He was my oldest. Only seventeen, but he was my oldest.”

Seventeen, thought Frank. His own son, Jake, was only eleven, and New York’s mean streets at their worst couldn’t compare with a nation at war with itself. But if something did happen, I couldn’t protect him, he thought. Half a world away.

Gus pulled off his stocking cap. His sparse hair stood on end. “Will you go down there?” he asked.

The car rolled past the guardhouse, and Ali turned left, heading toward Supreme Commander’s Headquarters.

Ali shook his head. “My wife has already gone. I cannot. I am on duty here.”

*   *   *

Their morning Jayface sessions had developed their own rhythm. At their Saturday meeting they reviewed and amended the latest installment of Frank’s civic action proposal. This one dealt with military involvement in the distribution of cooking oil. The plan called for military action to curtail the strikes that had severely limited production.

“That you can count on,” said General Merid, making eye contact with Frank. “I have it on good authority.” He fell silent. His eyes lost their focus, as though some element of doubt had taken hold. His olive skin and smooth features seemed paler and more clouded. He straightened his shoulders and resumed with a more confident but hollow tone. “The oil workers will allow enough production of both cooking oil and benzene to meet domestic demand and pay for essential imports. A million barrels a day.”

“Really?” said Gus. “When do you think that will start happening?”

“Within four or five days,” said the general. “You can count on it.”

Frank’s tape recorder spun, but he also took notes, heading the page 11/11/78. What we used to call Armistice Day back home, he thought, but no armistice here. The revolution had slowed but not stopped. That morning, Anwar told him, the government had arrested several leaders of the major opposition parties, including Karim Sanjabi and Mahdi Bazargan.

“Just like you told me a week ago,” said Frank.

“Your embassy should be pleased that you were a week ahead with the news.”

“Yes. They should be,” said Frank. But he had his doubts.

He wanted to find a way to get someone to listen. With Jayface as their sole base of operations, he had begun to fear they might run out of time, but the partial resumption of oil production offered some hope. At Gus’s suggestion, Frank planned to delay completing the civic action proposal until Fred Bunker arrived and had a chance to review and approve it.

“He’s a bureaucrat to the bone,” Gus had said. “And if he thinks you tried to slip in a finished product to the locals before he got here, he’ll work on finding ways to crucify you—slowly—till the day he dies.”

With a mixture of appreciation and resentment, Frank realized, again, how much he had to learn from Gus. They now expected Bunker to arrive on the fifteenth, just four days away. The civic action proposal could wait.

“We should have our proposal ready for you within a week,” said Gus. “Maybe just about the time oil production starts up.”

“That would be most excellent,” said the general, nodding and bouncing the tip of a sharpened pencil on the tabletop. “The deputy prime minister is most anxious to have a look at it.”

Frank had hoped for an even more lethargic pace. He feared that once they presented a finished proposal to General Merid, the military government might review it and reject it, which would leave Jayface—and its American advisers—with little reason to go on functioning. He knew he needed Jayface to provide the cover for what he considered his real but forbidden missions in Iran: intelligence gathering with the Shah and recruiting Lermontov.

*   *   *

Gus sat at the typewriter in Stan Rushmore’s office, drafting a cable on the day’s Jayface meeting. He pecked with two fingers, but faster than Frank could type with ten. Frank realized how much he’d come to rely on Gus’s pragmatic gift. From the mechanics of cable drafting to dealing with various levels of Iranian and American bureaucracy, Gus had become his on-the-ground guide.

“You promised your King of All Kings some ideas for Jayface that would lock you in as a long-term adviser.”

“I wish I hadn’t.”

“But you did. And it’s a bum idea to make promises to an emperor and not deliver.”