Dead Men Living

“She’d be disappointed. He makes love by number, too. Hup, one two three, hup, one two three ….”

Charlie laughed, because he was expected to, curious just the same. Genuine free spirit? Or something else? He shouldn’t kid himself it was anything else.

“It’s a man.”

“Maybe that’s his real interest. He tried to explore.”

Time to call a halt, Charlie decided. “I’ll check Sasha. Say good night.”

“She’s okay.”

“I’ll still check.” Sasha was asleep, the Donald Duck string around her wrist. Charlie gently disentangled it and put it on the bedside table. Sasha snuffled but didn’t wake up. When he returned to the smaller sitting room, Irena had moved from the chair to the couch upon which Charlie had earlier sat. He momentarily considered the chair but went back to his original seat, although wedging himself in the corner farthest from the woman and half turning toward her.

Irena swiveled toward him, one leg crooked onto the seat, smilingover the separating gap. “I won’t bite. Not unless I’m asked.”

“Good.” What the hell was this all about? Careful against misinterpretation, he warned himself.

“What’s Natalia told you about me?” demanded Irena.

“Very little.”

“She hasn’t told me anything about you, either. So why don’t you?”

“Ask Natalia.”

“Why so shy?”

“I don’t want to bore you, like Saul seems to have done.”

“I don’t think you would.”

He lifted the bottle. Irena nodded. Once, thought Charlie, this might even have been fun. “How do you know I don’t keep an account book?”

“I’m usually good at judging men. Saul was a mistake.”

So what was Irena? A prick teaser or a pubic scalp collector? One was potentially as dangerous as the other, quite apart from the embassy connection. That wasn’t a danger, now that it was over. And he wasn’t interested in-didn’t want to answer-either of the other questions. “Maybe this is a mistake.”

“What?” The smile was quite open now.

“I think you are a very exciting woman. Beautiful,” said Charlie, who believed, without conceit, that he’d perfected sincere-sounding dishonesty into an art form. “At any other time I would have liked to have played these word games-every other sort of game-for a very long time. But I’m with your sister, whom I love. As I love Sasha. We’re wrongly met: wrong time, wrong circumstances. Lost opportunities ….” Jesus! thought Charlie. There should have been violin music for that last bit. “So it’s got to be just friends. Okay?”

Before Irena could answer, the telephone jarred into the room and Charlie thought, saved by the bell, and was right. He replaced the receiver and said, “Natalia’s on her way home.”

“No,” said Irena.

“No what?” frowned Charlie, momentarily lost.

“No, it’s not okay.”

Fuck you, thought Charlie. At once he corrected himself. No, I won’t, despite the obvious offer.

There is an elite group of men who observe with what can best be described as tolerance the comings and goings of political parties in what are described as democratic elections in the countries of the West. Invariably the word secretary appears somewhere in their title, which conveys totally the wrong impression of their absolute power and unparalleled influence, a misconception they foster because these are men who, if it were possible, would choose physically to be as invisible as they metaphorically are. It is they who, irrespective of briefly passing governments and electorally promised policies, ensure the stable passage of their respective countries through life’s stormy seas. Each is known personally to and operates with the other in a structure without name or written rules or constitution. It is enough that they know, which they do instinctively, without the need to explain to one another. They discuss.

Such a man was Kenton Peters, an urbane, cultured American aristocrat of such independent means that his salary always went automatically to charity, a man who joined the American State Department during the Nixon administration, which he felt never would have ended as it did had he been in control, and who was the first person an incoming secretary of state asked to see, upon arrival at Foggy Bottom, unaware that Peters had approved his appointment before it had been offered.

Another was James Boyce, whose family was traceable to the restoration of the English monarchy, which one or other of its members had loyally served ever since. Boyce himself had entered the British Foreign Office, of which he was now permanent secretary, during the late premiership of Edward Heath. Of all this special elite, throughout Europe and North America, Kenton Peters was the one with whom James Boyce preferred to operate- work would have been quite the wrong word-when the occasion demanded. It was Boyce who decided the Yakutsk murders were such a demanding occasion and made contact with Peters within an hour of the Russian message arriving at the Foreign Office.

“This is something we never expected,” opened Boyce. “Bit of a damned nuisance, all ’round.”

“Nothing we can’t handle.”

“Of course not.”

“How do you intend handling it, from your end?” asked the American.

“Involve every intelligence department we’ve got, to create the maximum confusion. And insist I have access to everything, so I know at all times what’s going on and how to misguide, if necessary.”

“You think we might have to stage a diversion?”

“Such as?” questioned Boyce.

“If anyone were to get too close and have to die, it could be blamed on the Russians or people in Yakutsk, couldn’t it?”

“I don’t think there’s the remotest chance of anyone getting close, but it’s certainly something we should consider.”

“Your person in Moscow disposable?”

“They’re all disposable.”

“I could move someone in from here to do it-someone nobody knows, with no provable attachment to an agency or government,” offered Peters.

“Let’s make contingency plans,” agreed Boyce.

“And keep in touch?”

“Absolutely.”

“How?” shouted Natalia, knowing she was taking out on Charlie all the fears and frustrations of the meeting she’d just left but unable to separate them from the shock of finding Irena calmly sipping whiskey with him when she’d gotten home. And then having to sit through an hour of frigid conversation before it had been possible to get rid of the woman.

“You gave her the bloody number. And the address!” Charlie shouted back. “She rang and said she had something for Sasha and I told her to bring it around sometime. I didn’t expect her to come right away.”

She had given Irena the number, Natalia remembered. “Did you tell her you were attached to the embassy?”

“Not directly. I let her think it was something to do with joint venture trading.” He wouldn’t tell Natalia that Irena knew Saul Freeman.

“I’m sorry,” apologized Natalia. “I’m …” She stopped. “I’m not being a very nice person at the moment, am I?”

“No,” answered Charlie, honestly. “But you’re allowed. The adjustment is bigger for you than it is for me. And obviously you’ve got a lot of work pressure.” He waited hopefully but she didn’t respond.