Undeceived (7 page)

Chapter 10

Several weeks later, Liam Reynolds cut across the Volkspark Friedrichshain in East Berlin, glancing behind him for telltale signs of being followed. The Stasi had been merciless when he first arrived, but now there were a few windows of time where he was truly alone, often in the mornings. He had received a message to meet Fitzwilliam here.

As he started to cross the bridge, he spied the MI6 operative, sitting on a park bench, elbows resting on his knees, a cigarette between his fingers. Liam started toward the bench when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He paused mid-stride and then stumbled when he saw who the interloper was. He stood, just watching, as
She
cantered over to the bench—with a little skip on the last two steps—and sat down beside Fitzwilliam. They talked in low voices, smiling, with the occasional chuckle. They had formed a friendship, and there was a rumor circulating about a romance—a rumor the three of them encouraged to put distance between Beth and Liam.

Tamping down his resentment, Liam continued toward the pair and saw his friend glancing up as he approached. “Mr. Reynolds!” Fitzwilliam leaned back, crossing one ankle over the other knee and spreading his arms wide to span the back of the rickety bench. “We were just discussing you.”

Beth had been facing Fitz but turned when she heard the man call Liam’s name.

“Oh, really? I’m sure it’s a fascinating subject.”
So she discusses me when I’m not around—interesting.
He picked up his pace.

Beth raised her eyebrows and looked at Fitzwilliam with an I-told-you-so expression.

He turned his attention from Fitz to Miss Fine Eyes. “And what could you possibly know about me, Ms. Steventon? We hardly know each other, after all.”

“My American friend said she knows you from the States, and I said I wanted to know how you behaved on your home turf.”

“It’s shocking, I tell you.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked at Liam the way a disapproving schoolmarm would dress down a misbehaving student.

He loved that look. “I’m not afraid of you.” Liam sat down, sandwiching her between himself and Fitz.

“All right then, you asked for it.” She turned to Fitzwilliam. “I was in this class of new…thespians. Reynolds here gave a pompous speech to the group, and none of us underlings could stand him. We talked about him for weeks afterward.”

Liam pondered while Fitzwilliam chuckled.
Is she making this up? I met her at the ambassador’s party in Budapest, right?
“I’m sure that’s not correct,” he replied cautiously, not sure what game she was playing.

“Heard him tell the professor he had better things to do than to wet-nurse a bunch of runny-nosed brats and greenhorns right off the farm.”

The farm? The Farm?
His eyes widened.
She was in that class? That group of recruits I’d been railroaded into instructing right after I returned from Prague?
“Well now, that’s hardly fair. Maybe I was having a bad day.”
More like a bad month, a bad year. If I recall, I left that talk to go straight to a twelve-hour debriefing.

“I couldn’t believe it when I walked in the door at that cast party the other night and saw him staring at everyone in the room with that awful scowl on his face, just like he did at our
theater
class.”

Fitzwilliam looked at her sideways, amused. “Liam and I have worked together before—Paris, London, West Berlin. He knows his stuff and can certainly be lively enough when he chooses. But maybe a throng of budding
thespians
is too much for him to handle all at once.”

“I’ve never had the gift that some have—of being at ease in a crowd, especially if the attention is on me.”

“Should we ask him why?” Beth asked Fitzwilliam.

“What do you mean?”

“Why should a man who has traveled the world, represented a well-established professional
theater
company, and met people in a dozen or more countries—why should that man be ill at ease in a room full of new people?”

Liam held Beth’s gaze long enough that her teasing smile began to fade.

“When I walk into a crowded room”—he paused—“I can’t screen anything out, not the emotions on people’s faces, the way their gazes move from place to place and person to person—not even the way they hold their damn wine glasses.”

“It’s your training, perhaps.”

“Perhaps. An
artist
is trained to be observant, of course. Sometimes, it takes me a minute to sort it all, to find my place in it, to decide how or who I will be. We’ll call it…an occupational hazard. Perhaps I’ve been living like that too long to behave any other way.”

“There are many tasks in my profession that I don’t perform as well as I should, but I’ve always assumed that I’m just as capable as anyone else but that the situation to use that skill hasn’t yet arisen. You’ve practiced your observational skills. Perhaps if you practice, you could also learn to live in the moment. In some cases, it’s less conspicuous than glaring at everyone from the side of the room and deciding who you should be today.”

“I believe I’m a lost cause.” Liam’s smile warmed with the realization she had hope for him yet. “But you’ve used your time and talents much better. No one who has seen your work could find anything wanting.”

***

Beth looked at her feet, uncomfortable with his praise.
It made it harder to investigate, harder to look for his transgressions, harder to keep him and his Bohemian persona out of her dreams at night. Why did those sad hazel eyes and that long dark hair tied up in a queue appeal to her?
Remember Jirina,
she castigated herself.
This is all an act. He’s not really eccentric or shy.
Like she’d told Johanna Bodnar, his priority was the mission—always. And anyone who’d been an operations officer and a station chief all those years knew how to immerse himself in any situation he chose, crowded room or not.

Beth glanced around the park before sliding a newspaper from underneath her thigh, brushing his hand with hers. She pitched her voice low. “The envelope inside is from our friend. Copies of border guard reports.”

Liam surreptitiously opened the envelope and scanned it, covering the report with the newspaper, lips held firmly together to keep them from moving.

Fitzwilliam rose and stepped behind Liam to read over his shoulder. “Looks like they’re watching one of our chaps. Damnation, I warned him not to flaunt his cigarettes and extra deutsche marks.”

“What do you expect from a twenty-year-old kid who’s never had a deutsche mark to his name?” Beth murmured.

“It’ll go bad for him if he’s caught.”

“Bad for him, and bad for us too,” Liam said.

“He doesn’t know any of our people by sight. That’s fortunate.”

Liam pulled out a lighter.

“Don’t—” Fitzwilliam interjected, but it was too late. The flash paper disappeared almost instantly.

“I was looking at that,” he complained. “Not everyone has your bloody photographic memory.”

“Spy Rule Number Eleven: A written intelligence report that is also an accurate intelligence report is not your friend.”

Beth glanced around the park. “I’ve got to get to rehearsal. And figure out how to shake off Karl.”

“Who’s Karl?” Liam narrowed his eyes at her.

“Stagehand who’s taken an interest in the new foreign girl.”

“If you need assistance…”

“Whoa, back down, Big Brother! I can deal with it. I’ve been using the ‘Fitzwilliam’s my new man’ cover.” She laughed and punched Fitz lightly in the arm. “Right, cutie-pie?”

“Happy to oblige.”

Liam tamped down his annoyance once again. “I’m stopping by the show tonight anyway. I—”

“Stop by the show if you want but not on my account. I can handle myself. See you around, Fitz.”

“Bye, love.”

The two men watched Beth disappear around a bend in the path.

“East Berlin isn’t a good assignment for her.”

“What do you mean?” Fitzwilliam struck a match on a tree and lit another cigarette.

“She looks worn out, frazzled. Don’t you think?”

“Hadn’t noticed.”

“Anneliese has been pursuing a friendship, running her around at all hours of the day and night.”

“Maybe our Beth can make some use of that connection.”

“You know, Fitz, I can’t figure out why ‘our Beth’ is here in East Berlin at all. Makes no sense. Her specialty is Slavic and Uralic languages.”

“Maybe so, but her German is first-rate.”

“The company sent Collins here originally, but then he was out, and she was in. Makes no sense.”

“Yeah, you said that. Maybe she asked for the transfer. Don’t rock the boat. I’d rather work with her than some bloke any day.”

“Yeah,” he said moodily. “Me too, I guess.”

A female voice sounded from around the bend.

“Liam!”

He recognized the harsh timbre, the Germanic turn of the vowels. She appeared over the rise, waving a paper in her hand.

“I have it. I told you I could get it.”

He waited until she was close to minimize how far her voice carried. How he despised a loud-mouthed asset! “What did you get, Anneliese?”

“Permission to travel to West Berlin this Saturday night to see
Universally Acknowledged
—and an overnight pass, courtesy of my mother. I can go with you now. I am supposed to stay with my great-aunt on my father’s side, but once we are over there, we can stay wherever we want.”

“I’ve already made other plans,” he said. “Fitzwilliam here is covering the play for the BBC. He’s along for the ride.”

“Oh.” She paused, frowning. “Then I’ll get Beth, that American girl in the chorus line to go. She has a pass once a month to visit a family member living in West Berlin. Cousin of some sort. She and Fitz are an item, and that leaves you free to escort me.”

“She may not want to—”

“Oh, she’ll go.” Anneliese gave him a steely smile. “She owes me a favor.”

My heart. My light and my life. This is almost more than I can bear. Who knows when she and I will be together again? I know that you will be seduced, as I was, by her beauty. You will lie with her, and I will hate you for it. I hate my love for it as well, but some things have to be. I’ve done my best to protect our interests in East Berlin, but damn it, I can’t protect what’s mine from you.

Chapter 11

West Berlin
October 1982

Beth curved her hands around the warm cup in front of her and sighed lustily. She took a sip and closed her eyes. “Mmm,” she purred. “God, I’ve missed this.”

“Stop it. You make it sound like drinking the coffee is better than sex.” Wickham laughed at her expression.

“Right now, it is. I’ve almost forgotten about sex.”

“Now, that’s a real shame.”

Beth shook her head and grinned. Wickham was the worst kind of flirt. “Occupational hazard.” She took another drink. “I do miss coffee something fierce though. We can’t get anything this good over the border.”

“How long is your travel pass?”

“I have to be back in East Berlin tonight by 2100 hours.”

“Where did you stay last night?”

“Hotel.”

“You could have stayed with Lidia and me.”

“No thanks. I’m sure your new German conquest would not want you to bring some random American girl home with you.”

“She’s hardly a conquest. We’ve been together four months now.”

“Does she know what you do for a living?”

“Absolutely not. She thinks I work for Polaroid.”

“Taking a slight chance there, aren’t you?”

“They’re making us all NOCs these days. Chances come with the territory.”

“But using a well-known company for your cover? Cuddling up with a local?”

His lips twitched as he tapped his cigarette against the side of the ashtray. “I can handle Lidia. Besides, I’m not good at foregoing female companionship.”

“A common trait among agency men, I’ve discovered.” Beth gazed outside the glass that fronted the upscale coffee shop in West Berlin. Early evening shadows were beginning to deepen, and the neon signs above the street level began to flicker on and shine into the gathering night. She pointed out the window. “This is one of the biggest differences between East and West.”

“What is?”

She nodded toward the street. “The lights. Going across the border is a little like a trip through a time portal. Some of the buildings have hardly been touched since the second world war bombings.”

“Is that so?”

“And there are other differences.”

“Such as?”

“It’s hard to get some things.” She lifted her cup again. “Like coffee. Fruit.”

“That explains your insistence on getting a banana split earlier.”

“Never cared much for bananas before I lived in East Germany, but now they’re the most delicious food on earth.”

“Sorry. I know it’s not the best of circumstances. But the director sent our man to East Berlin because he wanted to see him on the front lines of the Cold War without the protection and restriction of diplomatic immunity. See if the constant tug between East and West would draw him out—lead him to make a mistake.”

She shrugged. “I know. It’s not the worst situation by any means. I’m doing without things I’m used to, but that time portal I was talking about isn’t all bad. You know, East Germany still has some of the innocence of simpler times. There’s a sort of wholesome charm about the place—at least the part the government lets me see.”

“Wholesome? Not sure I’d see it that way. Seems kind of backward if you ask me.”

“Yeah, well, that’s an unfair generalization; it has its pleasant moments. However, I do realize they can’t get some technology items without a black market and can’t trust
all
their neighbors not to rat them out to the Stasi if they step out of line. I think the fact that they can’t go anywhere without permission is the biggest sticking point for many of them, even more than the lack of luxuries. Human beings weren’t made for that kind of confinement.”

Wickham blew out a stream of smoke. “God, how do they stand it?”

“It seems unbearable to us from the US, but perhaps it’s just different than what I’m used to. I have to admit though, even as Pollyanna as I am, I find it pretty bleak at times.” She glanced out at the cheerful hustle and bustle on the other side of the window. “I miss the West. It’s odd. I spent all that time studying Eastern Europe, couldn’t wait to get here, and now…”

“Now, you’re craving bananas.”

“Yeah.”

“And Darcy? What’s the latest development there?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Darcy, aka Liam Reynolds. Hmm. Let’s just say you’re not the only one with a new German girlfriend.”

“You don’t say?”

“He spent last night with that actress, Anneliese Vandenburg. They’re talking at the theater most nights after rehearsal, and he’s hanging around after performances. Many nights, he walks her home.”

“How do you know that?”

“My place is between hers and the theatre. They’re behind me five nights out of seven. It’s awkward: I’m supposed to be the cutout, and she’s leaving the coded information about which border guards their military is keeping an eye on. He doesn’t let on that I work with him. So he works with me, but his Liam Reynolds persona pretends he doesn’t really know me. He makes time with Anneliese but pretends he doesn’t really work with her. I can’t figure out if they’re comparing notes or not. I don’t think so.”

“Darcy’s never been one to fall for a honey trap if that’s what you’re thinking. But if he’s in with the KGB, Vandenburg’s the one in danger, and she’d never even know any better.”

“Crazy, isn’t it? So she’s feeding information to him through me, yet presumably, she doesn’t know her information is finding its way to his hands, even though she’s spending her nights with him. I don’t think she knows I’m the one running her because she originally set up the drop with Collins before he went back to DC. It all makes my head hurt.”

“Darcy hasn’t done anything suspicious at all? No extra expenditures, no clandestine meetings?”

“No.”

“Are you following him?”

“Geez, George. I don’t need to follow him! He’s always at the theater, waiting around outside until we’re finished rehearsing or performing, even if it’s midnight.”

“Come on, I’m sure he’s not
always
at the theater.”

“Okay, not always, but the times I’ve followed him, either he’s seen me and struck up a conversation, invited me to join him and his MI6 buddy, or he’s gone straight home. As an American, I’m not allowed to wander around all night following people, but then, neither is he.”

“The Stasi will begin to look askance at Anneliese, spending all that time with a Westerner.”

“Even more now as we all spent last evening here in West Berlin.”

“I still can’t believe they let her go.”

“Her mother’s convinced Reynolds can make her—and East German theater—famous, and the woman is a ranking military officer. I’m sure she can call the Stasi off her daughter at her whim.”

“To a point, yes, but…”

Beth set her cup down with a click. “You know, I can’t help wondering, how sure are you and the director about your suspicions? Are we on some kind of wild goose chase here? Because it’s been months now, and I’ve not seen one indication Darcy is any kind of double agent.”

Wickham gave her a frosty look, followed by a vaguely amused smile. “Interesting. Never thought I’d see
you
get all hot and bothered for Darcy.”

“Never thought I’d see
you
think a woman wants to bed every man she works with. I’m not hot and bothered!”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

“You’re wrong, completely wrong about that. I know to keep the target of an investigation at arm’s length. But I see what I see, and I know when I’m not seeing it. I’ve always been able to read people and their motives pretty well.”

“I’m sure that’s true, but in this case you’re just not looking hard enough. Something isn’t right with Darcy. You know, he was missing for about ten days before the company sent him to Budapest?”

“Missing?”

“Nobody knew where he went. Took a commercial airliner to Miami, but then he just disappeared off the grid.”

“That is odd.”

“He’s hiding something, and if you dig hard enough—”

“But—”

“Be the exceptional officer I know you are”—he laid his hand over hers—“and you’ll nail him.”

“Fitzwilliam thinks he’s top notch.”

“Fitz is a good guy, one of Six’s best, but even experienced officers can be duped. Don’t let that happen to you.” He blew out a sigh of frustration. “Jesus, everybody thinks Darcy’s the perfect spy. He’s got them all fooled. But then I suppose I’ve seen a side of him that few people ever see. All I can say is, thank goodness, the director sees it too.”

“I’m not discounting your experiences or the director’s hunch. Maybe I’ve been in the field too long, staring at one problem until I’m myopic, but this doesn’t make sense to me. True, he sent you to accompany Jirina at the Prague meeting instead of going himself, but that could have been a precaution or even a fluke. Then he’s identified by state security in Hungary, according to Collins, but if he’s a double agent, why would they ID him as CIA? Wouldn’t they want him to stay in Budapest? He was in the center of that network and cultivating new assets as well.”

“The KGB might not want to keep him in the midst of goulash Communism if there was another position that was more advantageous for them. If he’s the hunted, we’re less likely to think he’s the hunter. Or perhaps they think we’re too close to the truth. Or they might think he’ll be put in a higher-ranking position in another place. Personally, I think he’s being groomed for the Soviet station chief position by
both
sides.”

“The director would allow the agency to put a man in line for the Soviet station chief chair with this kind of suspicion hanging over his head?”

Wickham smirked. “He might allow Darcy to think that was a possibility, at least for a while.”

Beth sipped her coffee, thinking. It didn’t sit well with her. She understood the need to catch moles and double agents, but ruining a man’s career based on supposition and hearsay? “What evidence does the director have that started this ball rolling to begin with?” Maybe if she could trace it from the beginning, it would make more sense.

“Sorry, it’s…”

She snorted. “I know. It’s
eyes-only
information. I’m starting to really hate that phrase.”

“Sorry.” He stubbed out his cigarette and finished off his espresso. “Look a bit harder at his communications. Search his flat.”

“Yeah, okay.” She capitulated, but her heart wasn’t in it. Darcy was a womanizer and an arrogant ass, no doubt about it. She just wasn’t sure he was a traitor as well.