The Summer Soldier (14 page)

“Sure. I keep forgetting you’re just a
harmless professor of poetry who wouldn’t step on an ant.” Tuttle
smiled and got up to fix himself another drink. “Can I freshen
yours?”

Guinness surrendered his glass and watched it
being filled to about halfway. Then he watched Tuttle sit back down
and take a long pull on his own glass before setting them both back
down on the table between them.

“Okay then, have it your way. This for the
moment unspecified gentleman was supposed to be an American, just
like you and me. Anyway, he wasn’t British.

“We kept getting worried memos, all the time.
Why weren’t we getting a fix on this guy? That sort of thing. It
made a lot of very respectable people very nervous that he might be
a citizen; the thinking was that if he ever got caught, everyone
would be only too eager to assume that he worked for us and there
would be a big stink about how the nasty Yankee imperialists were
sending out squads of murderers to prey upon the innocent
commissars; that sort of thing.

“Also, it was voiced here and there that
maybe we could steal him. Good assassins are hard to come by.

“So there was a plan developed. We would
borrow him from MI-6, or at least get them to send him out after a
target of our choosing—nobody really believed our trusted allies
would just hand him over—and we could sort of keep an eye on
things. We would know who he was after. We would even set things up
so that the touch would be made under controlled conditions. Some
nice little country like Greece or Portugal, where they were
already paranoid about the Red Menace and we own the local
intelligence service.

“We arranged a trade. I don’t remember the
details, but we were going to give them something we thought
perhaps might amuse them, some new circuit design or something, and
they were going to let us use their new secret weapon, this human
meat grinder of theirs that had every spook in Europe crapping in
his drawers.

“Everything was all set, and then Down says
he won’t allow his man off the leash. It made a lot of second
secretaries very mad, but apparently Down had enough clout with his
own service to get away with it. Or maybe the British really never
had it in mind to trade and were just using Down as a graceful
reason for saying no. Who’s to say? They have a peculiar sense of
tact over there.

“Say, I’m getting kind of hungry.” By way of
emphasis, Tuttle put his hand over his stomach. The contact seemed
to remind him that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, so he got up out of
his chair and fished one out of the suitcase on the bed. “There’s a
hamburger place about a block down on El Camino. It isn’t too bad.
You want to go there?” Guinness smiled tensely and shook his
head.

“Not unless you want me picked up. I imagine
Creon is a little curious by now about just where I took off to.
This is his town, you know.”

Within a minute Tuttle had put on his jacket
and was on his way, with orders for a double cheeseburger, fries,
and a strawberry shake. And within a minute and a half Guinness was
busy turning over Tuttle’s motel room. That, of course, had been
the whole idea.

From Tuttle’s point of view it made perfect
sense. He knew that if Guinness had wanted him dead, he would have
left him in the john of that gas station with a pill in his brain,
and he wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave anything behind that he
would really mind having found. Everyone in The Business was always
patting down everyone else’s motel rooms, and the practice had
developed a decorum of its own. So long as you didn’t break the
furniture and remembered to put everything back, nobody really
minded.

After riffling through the suitcase and
discovering Tuttle’s deplorable taste in pajamas, Guinness turned
his attention to the briefcase that was lying on the desk.
Considerate chap, Tuttle hadn’t even locked it. Inside was a well
thumbed passport with visa stamps that suggested Central Europe,
from Switzerland to Hungary, as his main theater of operations.
There was also a hard leather case containing a syringe and three
little numbered tubes of colorless liquid—a drug kit; Guinness
wondered which number would put you away for keeps—and, in the
organizer clipped to the inside of the briefcase lid, a folder with
a red “SECRET” stamp across its face and the words “SUMMER SOLDIER”
typed in capitals on the file tab.

It was his very own dossier—his professional
biography, or as much of it as the Americans had been able to piece
together.

Summer Soldier. Just the sort of priggish
witticism you might expect from the boys in Planning and Analysis,
chubby little nerds who liked to play god from behind a memo pad
and wouldn’t dream of risking their own necks.

Summer Soldier. A pattern observation or a
moral judgment? Probably both. Most of his work had been in the
summer months, the flood tide of espionage all over Europe, when
you could scoot in and out unnoticed on the annual tourist
inundation. Hell, in the winter the security police might arrest
you just to fill up their quotas. Besides, Down had always been as
obliging on that score as he could. He tried to keep his hands off
in the middle of the term, although once Guinness had nearly
flunked a seminar on the Anglo-Saxon lyric because of a rush job in
the middle of April. Somebody needed killing, and it couldn’t
wait.

But there was no getting around it: all those
patriotic career boys in their short hair and their three piece
suits kind of looked down their noses at you when they knew you did
it for money. One should only commit murder for the most high
minded reasons.

It was all such bullshit—they were all in it
for the same thing. The only thing that mattered was the action.
After the first time, money never really had had much of a role.
More than anything, it provided an excuse, a motive that made some
sense. You did the work and the work was your living through
school, but it wasn’t a matter of cause and effect. You did it
because doing it filled some need that had nothing to do with
paying the bills.

And then one day the need wasn’t there
anymore—or it got in the way of something you needed even more—and
you quit. You packed it up and paid the bills some other way.

The Summer Soldier. What a name. What a pile
of horseshit.

The file contained a lot of loose papers, not
many of which seemed to have much to say, and there was a list of
names and dates and places, with references to other files, pasted
to the inside front cover:

Collins, Eugene; 23/7/63; Berlin; see
465943-C

Genik, Vasili; 1/9/63; Prague; see
759247-G

Kleutgen, Georg; 30/ S/64; Liege; see
557523-K

Shevliskin, Janik; 15/7/65; Belgrade; see
968434-S

There were twenty-eight names in all. Some of
them he recognized, some of them not. They had missed a few—more
than a few—of his early clients and there were some that must have
been the handiwork of someone else.

The only other item of interest was a
photocopied page of typescript—a translation, it seemed, from the
KGB’s Bluebook, the list they kept of all the standing orders for
execution: “The person or persons, not yet identified, responsible
for the deaths of the following Soviet citizens.” And then there
was a list of about seven names, all of which appeared again on the
American list. The date at the top of the page was November 1969. A
quick check of the other sheets in the file didn’t turn up any
later Bluebook extracts.

Guinness wondered who else had made the
connection between Byron Down’s Number One mechanic and a certain
associate professor of literature now living in California. Byron
had always been so careful, so meticulous. He had never used
Guinness’s real name, not even in internal correspondence, never
allowed him to be photographed or fingerprinted. There had never
been anyone else present when Guinness had received his
instructions.

When Byron died, there had been a prearranged
exchange of announcements in the personal column of the Times, and
Guinness got a new handler: a tall, reedy Scotsman with a sandy
mustache. His name was McKendrick. He had been Down’s second in
command for eleven years and continued his methods. He and Guinness
had never hit it off.

Down had worked out a detailed escape route
should Guinness ever decide he had to disappear. It involved four
changes of identity and a circuitous series of journeys by plane
and train that ended with entry into the United States via Canada.
It was a secret not even McKendrick had been in on.

“It’s very good, of course,” Byron had said
once, holding a cigar to his ear to see if it had the right
crackle. “But don’t ever think you can stay in this branch of trade
for as long as you have and then disappear without a trace.” With
the little silver knife he carried on his watch chain, he made a
delicate slit in the blunt end of his Havana. He had always
contended that the Americans were little short of barbarians for
having allowed a trifle like Castro’s communism to hypnotize them
into cutting off trade relations with Cuba. “If someone with the
proper connections wants to look hard enough, he’ll find you.” A
puff or two and Byron had broken out into a smoky smile. “But
there’s no getting around it—it is a very good plan.”

Yes, it had been a good plan; it had worked
for seven years. But somebody with the proper connections had
decided to find him. The KGB? Did the KGB want to look that hard?
Had they finally found him? They never forgot, those guys. They
might wait for decades, but they never forgot.

Guinness dropped the file back into its slot
in the organizer of Tuttle’s briefcase, and his lips compressed
into a hard, joyless little smile. Well, if after all these years
they suddenly wanted to start playing rough, that was just fine
with him. All comers welcome.

9

“Vlasov. Misha Fedorovich Vlasov. You weren’t
far off, though; until about ten months ago he was a member in good
standing, but I wouldn’t be the least surprised if right now the
KGB would like to kill him even more than they would you. Recognize
the name?”

Guinness set down his little waxed paper bag
of French fries, which looked and tasted as if they had been carved
out of bamboo, and nodded.

Game time was over, he had decided. Tuttle
wouldn’t be any more dangerous for having confirmed what he knew
already; the room didn’t show any signs of having been bugged and
nothing he might say here could legally be construed as a
confession anyway, and, besides, it isn’t a very hot idea
needlessly to antagonize a potential ally.

“Sure, I know him. I also know you’re just
begging for a coronary if you keep on eating like that—chili
burgers and Scotch, for the love of God.”

Tuttle cracked a grin and wiped his upper lip
with the hand still holding a last fragment of chiliburger. “You’re
trying to tell me that that strawberry gook of yours is any
better?”

“How do you know it’s Vlasov?” Guinness
asked, opening up his cheeseburger and peering inside like a Roman
augur examining the entrails of some sacrificial animal. “It’s
possible, you know, that he might not be the only one who thinks he
has a bone to pick with me.”

Licking chili sauce from his fingers, Tuttle
finished his dinner and stepped into the bathroom to wash up. “You
mean because you’re such a popular fella?” He laughed over the
running water. “Anyway, for the time being you can just take my
word for it. It’s Vlasov, and he’s very interested in seeing you
dead.”

Tuttle sat down again, snagging the bottle of
Teacher’s off the dresser on the way in and pouring himself another
three fingers. He was just reaching that point of drunkenness at
which every movement appears to be the product of a separate act of
will. The creases in his face seemed damp and thoughtful, as if he
were laboring to keep his mind orderly and his sentences
consecutive.

“He wants you dead, old man. He means to kill
you, and he’s a clever bastard. I can’t say I envy you much.” He
shook his head slowly and smiled, and Guinness decided he could do
without the compassionate side of Tuttle’s nature.

“So he wants me dead. So what? If it’s
strictly a private matter, why should the government bother about
involving itself?”

“That’s a long story,” Tuttle said quietly,
setting his glass back down on the table. Having apparently
realized that Guinness was no longer drinking along with him, he
had barely touched it. “It’s a long story, so bear with me. I can’t
guarantee a happy ending.

“Vlasov began to make a name for himself in
the middle sixties; at least that was when he first came to our
attention. What he did before then or what his background might be
is anybody’s guess. Anyway, at about that time he started running a
very tidy little shop out of Italy. He lived in Florence with his
wife, pretending to be an Aeroflot agent, although his office
wasn’t open but for two hours every Tuesday. Better than banker’s
hours.

“And he held the strings, so the story goes,
on a man in every major British consulate in Europe. He was a real
star.

“The story might even have been true, because
it seems that in nineteen seventy somebody tried to do a job on
him. The Russians put a lid on the whole affair, so our information
is pretty sketchy, but we do know that his wife was killed and that
he very nearly was. As a matter of fact, we did think that he was
dead, since he had disappeared from Italy. At least we thought that
for a while.

“Then a year or two later he turns up again
working as a strategist for Department V. They seem to like his
work—he gets promoted to lieutenant colonel in seventy-three and
then to full in seventy-six. He’s a very bright boy, a real comer.
We hear that the great Andropov himself has taken a personal
interest in his career. Then guess what happens.”