“It was in Washington at the old Willard, wasn’t it—that last time?” Ku said.
“You were Jimmy Lee then and you liked Gibsons.”
The Chinese nodded absently. “We’ll have to talk about the old days in the Oh, So Secret one of these times. I’ve been out of touch. I understand, though, that you’re still working.”
“Not really,” Padillo said. “Just an odd job now and then.”
“Like in Bucharest in 1959—March?”
“I don’t remember,” Padillo said politely.
Ku smiled. “They say it was you.”
“You must have had an interesting wait these last few days,” Padillo said. “But it’s pleasant along the Rhine this time of year.”
“A few anxious moments,” Ku said. “And it’s been a little rich. I’m going to have a hell of a time with the expense account.”
“But you’ve got what you came after,” Padillo said.
“You mean these two,” Ku said, jerking a thumb at Burchwood and Symmes.
Padillo nodded.
“It’s not every day that we turn up a couple of defectors from NSA.”
“Maybe it’s your Peiping climate.”
“You learn to like it,” Ku said. “After a while.”
“Don’t bother; I’ve got a place fixed up for you. It’s through that other door there.” Ku got up and walked over to a door next to the stairs. He unlocked it with a key and held it open. “It’s not big, but it’s quiet. You can get some rest.” One of the men with guns had come halfway down the stairs. He was sitting on a step, the gun pointed nowhere and everywhere. He waved it at the door that Ku held open. I led the way; the rest followed.
Ku reached into a cupboard and brought out a bottle and handed it to Padillo. “Dutch gin,” he said. “Have one for me.” We went through the door into a room with two bunks along the walls and heard the lock click behind us. A red light shielded by a metal network burned overhead. It didn’t give off a cheery glow.
“That horrid little fat man is here again,” Symmes said to nobody in particular. Maybe we were all speaking again.
“You are now on what may very well turn out to be a slow barge to China,” Padillo said. “Sorry,” he added; “I couldn’t resist.”
“I take it that the lad with the almond eyes is not of the Chancre Jack persuasion,” I said.
Padillo and I had taken the floor and Burchwood and Symmes were on the lower bunk. We had done it automatically, as if we somehow owed them a favor. Padillo held up the bottle to the red light and examined it critically. “No, he’s one of the mainland types and has probably mixed this gin with some strange new truth serum. In which case I’ll volunteer as chief guinea pig.” He unscrewed the top, took a long swallow, and handed the bottle to me. “No ill effects,” he said.
I took a drink and offered the bottle to Burchwood and Symmes. They looked at each other and Burchwood finally accepted it. He wiped off the neck with his sleeve and took a delicate sip. Symmes did the same and handed it back to Padillo.
“The wily oriental in there is a former classmate of mine from World War Two. We trained at the same funny factory in Maryland. I heard later somewhere that he was sent on some kind of do with Mao’s outfit and never came home. He’s probably the equivalent of a buck general in their intelligence setup.”
“Hard work and dedication to duty have often been known to pay off,” I said.
“He is also one bright cooky. He graduated from Stanford at nineteen. And you two,” he continued, looking at Symmes and Burchwood, “are probably curious why he happens to be on this Dutch barge on the Rhine.”
“Why?” Symmes asked.
Padillo took another swallow of the gin and lighted a cigarette. “Mr. Ku is the key piece in this week’s jigsaw. Everything else that’s happened falls into place around him. It’s been a very slick operation. And it’s cost somebody a packet.”
“Us, for example,” I said.
“We may not have to worry about that. But let’s take it from the first, when Maas met you on the plane from Berlin. He had you tagged and he was trying to get to me on the pretense of selling me the information on the trade: me for Burchwood and Symmes here. But he really wasn’t supposed to sell me the information. Ku just wanted him to tip me off. But Maas was greedy and he decided to sell it, and before he did he had another small piece of business to conduct with the dark little Coca-Cola drinker that got shot in our place.”
Padillo paused and drew on his cigarette. “Ku wanted Burchwood and Symmes. Somehow he had found out about the proposed swap between the Russians and us. He probably got the information from his Moscow source, but that’s not important. When he found out that I was part of the swap he got the great idea: Why not tip me off and let me worry about getting Burchwood and Symmes out of East Berlin and back to Bonn? And when we got to a convenient spot, like near Bonn, he could arrange a snatch-and-grab, load us onto a barge, and chug down the Rhine to Amsterdam. There it would be simple to load us onto a ship. Except for one thing.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“I don’t think that you and I are going to make the entire trip. Just Burchwood and Symmes.”
“We’re not Communists,” Burchwood said. “I’ve told you two men that again and again. We’re certainly not
“That’s what makes you such plums,” Padillo said. “The Chinese haven’t been able to get their hands on anyone good since the Korean thing, and most of the ones they got then have turned out to be stumblebums. They’ve been
