“Patience,” I said. “First you have to answer a few questions.”
“Of course.” Now that he thought he was about to get what he wanted, he had decided to be accommodating. We entered a study that was wall-to-wall books. At a glance I recognized many familiar titles, all from the genre that my father, Ed Lemaster, and I had once read and collected so passionately. Cabot watched me taking it in.
“More complete than even your father’s library,” he said. “Probably as good a place as any for us to wrap things up, don’t you think?”
I took a seat in what must have once been his favorite place to read, a big wing chair with crinkled brown leather and a floor lamp to its right. He pivoted the wheelchair to face me.
“You said you had questions?”
“Why me? And why Litzi and my father? Was I really a better choice than some ex-field man, or was pulling our strings half the thrill?”
“You make it sound unsavory.”
“Did you have some sort of score to settle with my dad?”
“Certainly not! Your dad’s a wonderful fellow. A little stuffy and overly deliberative, but that’s the way of diplomats. I meant no harm. The experience was good for you, was it not? You finally got to discover why the wheels of fate rolled over you so mercilessly back in Belgrade. And you learned a valuable lesson in human nature- that no one is trustworthy, no one is what he appears to be. Could I have simply hired some old hand to work in your stead? Perhaps. But I don’t command the resources I once did, especially considering the hefty transfer that was necessary to insure Vladimir’s cooperation. Although I’m pleased to note that all money earmarked for that purpose has been safely returned.”
“After you had him killed, you mean.”
“Not at all. I only made his whereabouts available to a known creditor, who, acting in the way that such people always act, carried out the deed quite on his own.”
“After leaving behind my copy of Petrovka 38. ”
“That was a favor they did for me. To keep you interested. I knew Litzi could take care of any complications.”
“What about poor old Bruzek in Prague?”
“Not my doing. You’ll have to ask the clumsy Russians, or that thug Curtin, what went wrong there. Although, for the prices Bruzek charged, I would have happily pushed those shelves myself.”
“Nice.”
“You met him. You saw what he was like. In fact, you’d already met him, when you were a boy. One of many reasons you were the perfect fit-the old girlfriend with the intelligence connection, the whole flap in Belgrade, both of them. But most important, of course, was your susceptibility to the power of all those books.” With great effort he raised his arms to encompass the walls. “I was sure you’d be attracted by the possibility of being able to walk across those pages one last time, not just as a reader but as a participant, a companion, even, to all those characters you grew up with.”
“How could you be sure?”
“Because at one time I would have been just as susceptible. I have only been in this wheelchair since retirement, yet with the Agency I was forever deskbound. I could only read the reports from those far-flung places, just as I could only read those novels.
“I also knew something else about you. Any careful reader of those books always suspects that at heart they’re not really fiction. It’s what made me first suspect Ed Lemaster. From the moment I finished The Double Game, I saw so much of Don Tolleson in him that I began to worry. Me and Angleton both. Dick Helms wouldn’t even read it, and you’d be shocked at how much Dick loathed Le Carre. ‘Too cynical,’ he said. ‘We’d never use our people that way.’ Poor naive Dick. And Ed got away with it, too. Until now. Thanks to us, the truth will finally come out. You’ll be the one to publish, of course. I’m happy to let you take the glory.”
“I’m afraid I have to tell you that I’ve signed a nondisclosure agreement.”
“With whom? You can’t possibly mean-?”
“The Agency had a little chat with me in Vienna just before I flew back to the States.”
Cabot’s expression went stony. Already winded from his speech, he now sagged with disappointment. I almost felt sorry for him. I checked my watch. Twenty more minutes at the most.
“But don’t let that stop you, ” I said. “And don’t worry, I didn’t come empty-handed.”
Cabot rallied, leaning forward in the wheelchair as I reached into the rucksack. I pulled out the yellow dry bag with the GC initials, then turned it upside down and shook it loudly to show him there was nothing inside.
“What have you done?” The gleam faded from his eyes. His breath began to rattle in his chest. “Where have you put everything?”
“Don’t worry. It’s all in a safer place now.”
“You don’t know the meaning of safe! I’ve seen what you’re like, blundering halfway across Europe.”
It felt like a fitting exit line, so I stood, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop me. I felt a stab of shame, taking advantage of him this way. The letdown of the hollow victory, exactly as Lemaster always described it. But he deserved it, if only on behalf of Litzi and Dad.
Yet I could also see now that he was a dying man. Even a twisted dream is still a dream, and a traitor is still a traitor. He continued his breathless rant as I picked up the rucksack to go.
“The only good you did was by default! You never even delivered the one item I wanted most!”
Then, oddly, disconcertingly, his face lit in triumph, which puzzled me until I turned and saw Kyle Anderson in the doorway. The big man had arrived without a sound, at least fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. His left hand was on his hip. In his right hand was a menacing-looking sidearm, pointed at my chest.
“What’s the rush?” Anderson said. “We get so few visitors that we always like them to stay awhile.”
He frisked me quickly with one hand, then gestured toward the chair. I obliged him by sitting back down.
“Hands on your head before I blow it off.”
He moved up behind me and put the barrel behind my ear lobe, chilly to the touch. Then he pressed it uncomfortably against the base of my skull.
“The funniest thing happened down at the market,” he said. “I bumped into old Ben and Abigail, and they told me they’d seen a bird-watcher up at the preserve just the other day. Damn strange for this time of year, they thought. So did I. So I hurried on back, just in case. Lucky for all of us, huh?”
He spoke to Cabot.
“If you want I can shoot him now, then take his body out in the skiff. There are enough weights in the shed to have him submerged and forgotten by morning. There will be some serious cleanup, but nothing I can’t handle.”
The hopeful, rational side of me expected Cabot to immediately veto the idea. Instead he sat there drawing shallow breaths, pondering every possibility.
“It’s not that easy,” he finally said. “If the Agency arranged for his visit, then he’s part of something larger. I won’t live long enough to pay any consequences, but you will.”
“Let me worry about that.”
Cabot shook his head.
“The whole point of this was to end up on the right side of history, to crack the case of the Great Mole Hunt, our very own Philby. I won’t get there by rubbing out the son of a diplomat.”
“This can’t be a real op,” Anderson said. “For one thing, there’s no backup.”
“You checked?”
“No. But we’d know by now. He’d be miked and somebody would have dropped me by now. But he’s clean. No mike, no weapons, no GPS beacons. Clean as a virgin and just as stupid. And if he’s the one they sent, then you know it’s off the books, meaning they won’t even bother to come ’round for the cleanup.”
There was a long and disconcerting silence as Cabot reconsidered.
“But we no longer have the material,” Cabot said. “The location might die with him, and it’s too late for that kind of setback. And you’re wrong. There will be follow-up. Someone upstairs will want to know what happened.”
“You said it yourself, this guy’s not good enough. If he’s stashed our things, we’ll find them. But no one will
