Tapestry of Spies

rare resilience and will.

Yet Levitsky still did not talk.

One evening, they drove him by ambulance to the Barcelona airport well after midnight and took him to a special, isolated hangar on the far outskirts of the place, hundreds of meters from the terminal. He was amazed at the activity at the obscure locality; there were armed guards everywhere, Soviet Black Sea Marines with German machine pistols.

Inside the building, he sat ramrod stiff in a wheelchair, a blanket drawn about him, a pair of sunglasses shielding his damaged eye from the harsh light. He could hardly move, what with his shoulders locked in the plaster, but he could still make out the airplane. It was a giant Tupolev TB-3, a four-engine bomber whose fuselage had the odd appearance of having been mounted on its sturdy wings upside down and whose landing gear was so primitive it looked like gigantic bicycle tires.

“A big aircraft,” said Romanov, laughing. “To accommodate both our egos.”

Romanov felt loquacious.

“It’s a shame you can’t talk, old man. We could have had some wonderful conversations. I shall have to do the talking for both of us. Did you know this airplane has been specially modified, with fuel tanks added under the wings and through the fuselage. It’s our only bird that can make the straight flight from Barcelona to Sebastopol without refueling. It’s taken us a long time to get it ready for tonight.”

He looked into the old man’s eye for a hint of curiosity, and convinced himself that he found it.

“You’re wondering if you are so important a cargo?” he asked. “Well, it’s not quite all for you, old man.”

Listening exhausted Levitsky. He sat back and settled into his perpetual semidarkness and his silence. With an act of will, he restrained himself from his memories, which sometimes threatened to consume him these dark days. He had ordered himself not to think. To think was to yield to regret, to the infinite allure of what might have been, in another world. Be strong, old one, he told himself. It is almost over.

They seemed to be taking their time on the plane. One would think they could handle these arrangements with a good deal more precision. He was growing impatient. Perhaps the ground staff were all Spaniards, taken to moving slowly and without ?

It then occurred to him that the mechanics whose vague shapes he had been able to discern scurrying over the vaster shape of the grotesque airplane had vanished. It was strangely silent. Then he heard the arrival of a car, some far-off mutter, and with that, Pavel Romanov dipped behind him, pivoted him, and began to push him across the bumpy tarmac. He could smell petrol and oil as they moved through the hangar, but in time they arrived in a kind of smaller room off the larger one. Pavel opened the door, dropped back, and pushed him through. It was a small place, tight as a coffin, and pitch dark. Levitsky could sense the close press of the tin walls. Pavel did not turn on the light.

“You have fifteen minutes,” Pavel said. “And then we leave.”

Levitsky listened to his jaunty footsteps snapping away; the door closed, somehow damping down the air. Levitsky waited and after a bit made out the sound of breathing.

“Old man.” The whisper reached him from across the room and across the years. “God, what have they done to you? They’ve treated you so terribly.”

Levitsky could say nothing.

“I had to come. I had to see you. Once more … before?”

He let it lapse into silence, and just stared in wonder at the old man.

“You appear disappointed in me, old man. You sense my doubt.” He stared intently at the old mute. “I know what you’re thinking. I must remember I’m working for the future. I’ve been blessed enough, with that chance. It’s enough to live for. And to die for. One should not look twice at an offer of enrollment in an elite force. One should not hesitate.”

Levitsky could feel the young man’s gaze and adoration upon him: his ardor and his willingness to learn. He remembered him at Cambridge: young, bright, callow, but incredibly eager.

He felt the young man rise and come over in the darkness. He felt the warmth of his body, his closeness. The young man bent and touched his hand. “The sacrifices you made. For me.”

He swallowed.

“When they were so close … I knew you’d save me. You foresaw that one day they’d be close. You knew that rumors, suggestions, hints, leaks, always get out, even from Moscow, and there would come a time when even the British would begin to see through their illusions and begin to suspect an agent in their midst.

“And so you recruited two agents. Deep and shallow. Or no. No, I see it now.” He spoke more quickly, with the excitement of a mathematician suddenly understanding more subtlety of calculus that had been beyond him for years. “Julian was not your agent. He was your lover but never your agent. As I am your agent but never your lover. Because you knew that anyone who investigated Cambridge in the year 1931 would uncover you. And so you would have to lead them to Julian and not me.”

Levitsky stared passionately at the boy with his good eye.

The boy did not seem to be able to stop talking because he would never talk of it again: it was the pleasure of explaining that he had denied himself and would go on denying himself for years.

“And when you learned that Lemontov had gone and the British and the Americans knew, it was essential that you confirm for them their suspicion that Julian was the man you had recruited.”

“And they sent poor Florry. And you crossed hell to reach Julian in Florry’s presence. And Florry informed them of his guilt. Florry validated their own illusions for them. And then you made certain that Julian would die, forever sealed off from their interrogations, forever beyond their reach. The case is closed. Forever. The British have their spy and I have my future.”

The young man paused, as if to breathe.

“They are pleased now,” he said. “I’m due back in London shortly. I’m going into their service full time. It’s good, I think, to enter before the war with Hitler. The service will swell, and the ones on the inside will rise.”

The door opened.

“Almost time,” called Pavel Romanov.

The young man came closer and spoke in a whisper.

“I’ve been reporting to them from Spain. Through a special GRU link via Amsterdam. For the Suppression, the Arrests. It was my information that enabled them to?” But he halted, as if coming at last to the thing that troubled him most.

“It’s not only that. Do you know what else they’ve had me do? Do you know why I’m here in Spain? For gold, Ivanch. For simple gold.”

Levitsky stared at him.

“They had me rent a villa and one night a truck came by with a hundred crates. And then another one and another one. I’ve been the richest man in the world. Romanov said they were afraid to move it by sea with the submarines and afraid to guard it because the Spaniards might change their mind and want it back. So they hid it. In my villa. All these months, my real job has been to babysit gold, until an airplane could be modified. Now they can fly it out, nonstop, over a few nights.”

Levitsky said nothing.

“It’s just like the West, Ivanch. It’s for treasure, for loot. There’s no difference. I hate it.”

“Shhh!” Levitsky hissed, grabbing his hand tightly.

“I hate it,” the boy said. And then David Harold Allen Sampson began to weep.

“You must control yourself,” said Levitsky hoarsely. “You must pay the price. You must sacrifice. It is not enough to be willing to die for your beliefs. That’s a fool’s sacrifice. You must be willing to kill for them, too. To free the world of its Cossacks, you must be willing to spill blood now, do you understand? I sacrificed my brother. I sacrificed my lover. I sacrificed the man who saved my life. I sacrificed myself. It’s the process of history, comrade.”

He grabbed the boy and pulled his head close and kissed him on the lips.

“Time,” called Pavel Romanov.

“You must reach the back rank,” said Levitsky, “and give the innocent dead their due.”

The door opened and he could hear Pavel approach.