This generous offer-sometimes known as a honey trap-was serious and needed a reply, so I said, 'Thank you for your offer, but I don't want to take advantage of your hospitality.'
'No trouble.' He added, 'Let me know if you change your mind.'
It occurred to me that Boris actually had another good reason for all this security, beyond personal safety and works of art: Mrs. Korsakov's unannounced visits.
Boris finally broached the subject of my attire and said to me, 'You look very prosperous.'
'I just dressed for the occasion.'
'Yes?' He commented, 'That watch is… I think ten thousand dollars.'
'It didn't cost me anything. I took it off a dead man.'
He lit another cigarette, then very coolly said, 'Yes, I have some souvenirs as well.'
It was time, I thought, to move the ball down the field, so I asked him, 'Did the government give you a loan for this business?'
'Why do you ask? And why don't you know?'
I didn't answer either question, but asked him another: 'Have you heard from your friends in Langley recently?'
He asked me, 'Are you now here on official business?'
'I am.'
'Then I should ask you to leave, and I should call my attorney.'
'You can do that anytime you want.' I reassured him, 'This isn't the Soviet Union.'
He ignored that and said, 'Tell me why I should speak to you.'
'Because it's your civic duty to assist in the investigation of a crime.'
'What crime?'
'Murder.'
He inquired, 'What murder?'
'Well, maybe yours.'
That called for a drink, and he poured himself one.
I said to him, unnecessarily, 'Asad Khalil is back.'
He nodded.
'Are you surprised?'
'Not at all.'
'Me neither.'
A few musical notes sounded-Tchaikovsky? — and Boris stood, went to the door, and looked through the peephole. I wondered where the monitor for the security camera was located.
Boris opened the door, and a waiter entered pushing a cart, with Viktor bringing up the rear.
Viktor closed and bolted the door, and the waiter unloaded three tiered trays of food onto a black lacquered table. Boris seemed to have forgotten about my bad news and busied himself with directing the waiter.
The table was now heaped with food and bottled mineral water, and the waiter was setting the table with linens, silverware, and crystal from a sideboard.
Boris said to me, 'Sit. Here.'
I sat, and Boris followed the waiter and Viktor to the door and bolted it after them, then sat opposite me.
He asked me, 'Do you enjoy Russian food?'
'Who doesn't?'
'Here,' he said, 'this is smoked blackfish, this is pickled herring, and this is smoked eel.' He named everything for me and I was losing my appetite. He concluded with, 'The piece de resistance-pigs-in-a- blanket.'
The pigs-in-a-blanket were actually chunks of fat sausage-kolbasa-wrapped in some kind of fried dumpling dough, and I put a few of them on my plate along with some other things that looked safe.
Boris poured us some mineral water and we dug into the chow.
The kolbasa and dough were actually very good-fat and starch are good-but the jury was out on the pickled tomatoes.
As we dined, Boris asked me, 'How do you know he is back?'
I replied, 'He's killed some people.'
'Who?'
'I'm not at liberty to tell you, but I will say he completed his mission from last time.'
Boris stopped eating, then said, 'I want you to know that when I trained him, I did not train him for a specific mission-I simply trained him to operate in the West.'
'And to kill.'
He hesitated, then said, 'Well… yes, to kill, but these are skills that any operative needs to know… in the event it becomes necessary.'
'Actually,' I pointed out, 'Khalil was not an intelligence operative who might have to kill. He was, in fact, a killer. Trained by you. That's why he was here.'
Boris tried another approach to the subject. 'Understand that I had no knowledge of Khalil's mission in America. The Libyans certainly were not going to tell me about that.' He added, 'I explained this to the CIA, and they believed me because it was logical and it was the truth. And I am certain they passed this on to you before we met.'
I didn't reply.
He asked, rhetorically, 'If the CIA believed I knew that Khalil was going to kill American pilots, would they have gotten me out of Libya? Would they have let me live?'
That was a good question, and I had no good answer. What I did know for sure was that the CIA and Boris Korsakov had struck a devil's deal: they saved his life, and he spilled his guts. There may have been more to the deal, but neither Boris nor the CIA was going to tell John Corey what it was. Officially, Boris Korsakov, former KGB operative, and quite possibly an assassin himself, had sold his services to a rogue nation and trained one, or perhaps more, of their jihadists in the art of killing. But Boris himself had no blood on his hands-according to Boris- and he was welcome in America as a legitimate defector. Aside from the moral ambiguities here, Boris was doing well financially-not to mention having a great life-and the rest of us who were still in this business were not eating caviar, surrounded by wine, women, and song. Hey, life is not fair, but neither is it supposed to reward treachery or pay a lousy salary for loyalty.
On the other hand, we all make our choices and we live-or die-with the consequences of those choices.
In any case, Boris was trying to rehabilitate his reputation, such as it was, and I should have moved on, but I said to him, 'I assume the CIA fully briefed you on what Khalil did here three years ago.'
'Not fully.' He added, 'I had no need-to-know.'
'But you said you knew he murdered American pilots.'
'Yes… they did tell me that.'
I suggested, 'Boris, the bullshit is getting a little old.'
'For you, perhaps. Not for me.'
'Right.' I wasn't trying to get at any truth with these questions-I just wanted to put him on the defensive, which I'd done, so I said, 'All right. Let's move on. You eat, I talk.' I pushed my food aside and said, 'Khalil has been in this country for maybe a week. He killed the last pilot who had been on the Libyan raid-a nice man, named Chip-then he killed a few more people, and he didn't go out of his way to hide his identity. So, yeah, we know he's here. In fact, right here in the city.'
Boris didn't look over his shoulder or anything, but he did stop chewing. I mean, this is a tough guy, but (a) he trained the killer in question so he knew how good he was, and (b) Boris had undoubtedly gone a little soft- mentally and physically-in the last three years. Meanwhile, Asad Khalil had undoubtedly gotten a little tougher and better at his job.
I continued, 'It has occurred to me that Khalil has some scores to settle with you. If I'm wrong, tell me, and I will get up and leave.'
Boris poured me more mineral water.
So I went on, 'Quite frankly, I didn't expect to see you alive.'
