The firebird affair

I opened the Bordeaux, sat behind the ancient Compaq computer in my study, and devoted myself heart and soul to writing. I told the story in chronological order, including the painful tale of my infatuation with Amanda, omitting of course details of sexual delight and trying to make the affair seem like an average indiscretion. Almost two hours later, I was still at it, an empty bottle of wine in front of me. As I wrote, I sensed a new mix of emotions unfold inside me. Only after I had pressed the SEND button, I realized what that was: for the first time I could remember, I was telling my son how I felt about things.

I stood on the balcony in pre-dawn hours. The night was cooled off by a fragrant breeze coming up the river. I gazed at the flickering lights of Georgetown and the Washington skyline beyond and I thought there was beauty to behold in the world. Nothing moved in the imperial city and as I watched all this languor, I was suddenly frightened by the thought that Rick may find my report wanting. Have I included, I wondered, all the details damaging to my pride?
45
I woke up the next morning in my own bed in a silent apartment. My t-shirt was drenched in sweat. I recalled the end of a dream I was dreaming. I was on trial. The courtroom was filled with a deathly silent audience. I played all key roles—judge, jury, prosecutor, defense counsel. I heard the verdict pronounced: Todd Martin is sentenced to a lifetime of confinement in the solitude of his private mind.

I lifted my chin from a patch of drool on the light blue pillow and, suddenly confronted by spears of light slanting through the Venetian blinds, then quickly buried my face under the sheet. I dozed off, thinking about the interrupted dream.

When I woke again I looked at the clock and bolted upright. It was nine thirty. I must telephone Page, I reminded myself.

“Is Kevin in?”

“Mister Page is out of town,” an unknown voice replied. “He’ll be back in the office tomorrow.”

“Where’s Pam?”

“Pam’s off for a few days,” Pam’s temporary replacement said.

I felt relieved. I was in no mood to talk to Page right now. What I needed was a cup of strong coffee to kick-start the mind. My next priority was Bob Pittman.

I washed and shaved’ as I was putting on my clothes, the phone rang.

“Welcome home,” Holz said with bogus cheerfulness.

“Oh. Hi.”

“Hope you had a productive trip.”

“Well, yes and no. But I’m running late. I’ll give you a call when I get to the office.”

Holz said, “We could meet for lunch? Or dinner?”

“Sorry, Mac, I have to run. I’ll miss the 9:50 train.” I hung up.

On the train, I tried to read the morning Tribune, but could not concentrate and put the paper aside. In my mind, I reviewed the sequence of strange happenings, and felt a big lump of pressure behind my sternum. I knew I had to avoid Holz until I got a reading on whether he was behind the e-mail address. I had to know if he’d double-crossed me. I thought of Joseph as I tried to piece together the events of my last hours in Moscow. I had everything in my hands, but I couldn’t read it. What had I missed? How in hell was I supposed to react?

I disembarked at Farragut North. By the time I emerged from the L Street entrance, the questions gnawed at me as I walked to the office.

I stopped at Caribou Coffee at the corner of 17th Street, ordered coffee and a toasted bagel with cream cheese, then found a table that let me keep watch on the street and mid-morning rush hour scenes. Hundreds of people were hurrying by, jogging, drinking coffee, listening to iPods. Harry Boyd, who covered Justice for the paper, waved while passing by. Zbigniew Brzezinski purposefully walked by carrying a thin attaché case.

I finished breakfast and climbed down from the stool.

Mr. Dexter, the elderly black man in a blue uniform behind a small reception desk at the side entrance, greeted me warmly. “I’ve known you for twenty years, Mr. Martin, but I’ll still have to see your Tribune ID,” he said apologetically.

It was quiet on the sixth floor. When I rounded the corner, I saw Essie Levi sitting on her desk and talking on the phone, legs dangling, shoe tips brushing the carpet. She wore a maroon blouse and a short black pleated skirt that showed off her legs.

Essie gave me a welcome smile and waved.

“He just walked in,” she said into the phone she’d been about to put down as I came in. “It’s Alex for you.”

I rushed to my desk as she put the call through. “Pittman will see you at his office at twelve,” Alex said. “I’ll come along, if you want me to.”

“Cool,” I said. “We’ll talk on the way over.”

46
I phoned Rick.

“Hi.”

“You read my long email?”

I didn’t know what to say.“Unfortunately, no.”

“I saw it coming,” he said, so offhandedly, I thought, and I sensed he was trying to hide disappointment. “But you did alright, I guess.”

I’d found Hector’s handler, traveled all that way to the border of Afghanistan, walked right up to Rashidov, and found out nothing. Now I wanted absolution and Rick wasn’t giving any. I nearly laughed. The joke had been on me all the time.

“ I did my best.” You don’t get any brownie points from your children for almost doing it, I thought. “Hector vanished eleven years ago. I think he is no longer in the spy business, although one can’t be sure. The one man who knew refused to betray him, and that man is now dead, as you know. So I’m afraid we’ll never know.”

Funny, I thought, we talked of Hector not as a real person but as if he were a phantom.

Rick softened his tone. “What the hell, you gave it a good try, Dad. That’s what matters. Kate is just reading your missive and she says you did great.”

I tried to imagine what Rick was thinking; he was probably disappointed that his mom had not been avenged. I was tempted for a moment to tell him that I didn’t think Hector had anything to do with Emily’s death, but decided against it. It would have sounded as a weak excuse.

“I gave it my best shot, Rick,” I said uneasily. I don’t say something like this very often, so it must have had an effect.

He said, faintly, “I know.”

For a moment, both of us seemed to have lost control of our social skills and the silence persisted until Rick coughed, as if announcing his intent to lighten the atmosphere.

“Dad, I… we have news… good news…”

“Yes?”

“You’ll soon be a grandfather.”

“Yes.”

Rick laughed happily. “Hold on. I’ll get Kate on the intercom.”

“Kate, honey, congratulations! That’s great news. I’m so excited.”

“Yes, it’s exciting. The baby is due in March.”

“Oh, how wonderful. A boy or a girl?”

Kate said, “We don’t know. I’m dying to find out.”

“There’s no rush,” Rick said. “I’m pretty sure it’s a boy.”

“My mom and dad are over the moon,” Kate said. “They’re already setting up a college fund. The first grandchild!”

“I can only imagine,” I said. “I’ll have to think of something, too.”

Kate said, “Sounds like you’ve had an exciting trip. I read your long e-mail. I can see where Rick gets his writing facility. You know he wants to be a writer…”

Rick cut in. “Oh, c’mon Kate!”

She laughed. “He and another teacher at his school are writing a screenplay. But nothing as gripping as your emails…”

“I’m glad it’s over, Kate, honey.”

We talked for a while about the baby, a flowing discourse about new life that the baby meant for all of us. A new life for them, not encumbered by the past.

“Dad,” Rick said, “do you think Holz double-crossed you?”

“I don’t know, but I hope not.”

“I wondered about it after I finished. Somehow it doesn’t make sense, but you never know. Anyway let me know what you find out.”

“I’ll keep you posted, Rick, don’t worry.”

Kate said, “Todd, you must come visit with us. I hope you do it before next March.”

47

Before I turned on my computer, I dialed the CIA switchboard and asked to speak to Amanda Paul.

I spelled the last name.

“We don’t have anyone by that name working for the Central Intelligence Agency, sir.”

“I see. I’m sorry.” The stupid bitch, I swore inwardly. You dirty, rotten stupid bitch.

The computer showed the number of emails received was 388. I held down the DELETE button and the display flipped to zero. Most were news releases or invitations. I opened one of the several letters. A reader in Columbia, Maryland informed me he had figured out a quicker resolution of the third Spassky-Fischer game in Iceland.

“How’s Moscow,” I heard Essie’s voice.

I spun around and saw her approaching. “Interesting,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

She offered to get me coffee. I said no. Any more caffeine and I’d fly into orbit. She stood by my desk in silence, then, struggling to affect a casual tone, she eventually said, “Next Friday is my last day. I took the buyout.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I had no choice.” She smoothed her hair self-consciously.

“Oh, boy.” I gave her a long sad look, then got up and put my arm around her. “What are we going to do without you?”

She shrugged me off. “You’ll manage,” she said, laughing mirthlessly.

Both of us acted flustered.

“I keep wondering where it had all gone…” Essie shook her head and stared at the floor.

“I don’t follow.”

She blushed. “I mean, the years of excitement and fun and camaraderie we had. I kind of gave my heart to this job and now, suddenly… ah, well, nothing about this adds up.”

”Let’s have lunch next week,” I said, thinking I must say something and that was the only thing that came to mind.

She put on a frustrated smile as if to let me know she considered my suggestion perfunctory, something people say and don’t mean it.

I put my arm over her shoulder. “What are you going to do?”

“Take a long vacation, I guess. Travel the Trans-Siberian to China.”

“And then?”

“Then start looking for a job.”

48
WhiteWater Inc. was at the corner of Fairfax Boulevard in Ballston, in a brand new ten-story glass and concrete building with marble floors. The entrance lobby was walled with huge pink marble slabs. The security firm occupied the top two floors, and the rest of the building was leased to other tenants including an IT firm, law offices, the consular section of a Caribbean island state, Waterhouse brokerage firm, and a travel agency.

Incorporated in Cayman Islands, the firm could, given the right amount of money, undertake tasks ranging from worldwide surveillance operations and data checks to personal protection to computer security to “international consultations.” The last was a euphemism for providing security to customers operating in dangerous corners of the globe. WhiteWater had its own private army, which consisted of retired Navy Seals, ex-CIA and special-forces guys, ex-Foreign Legion and ex-Chicago goons. Its covert side was rumored to handle special assignments such as intimidation, blackmail, industrial espionage and assassinations.

“What exactly do you want from Pittman?” Alex asked on the way over to Ballston after I had told him about the main points of my mission, leaving nothing important out.

I said, “I need to know if Holz had played any role in some of the strange things I just told you about, like having me followed around and stuff.”

“You mean like he double-crossed you?”

“I couldn’t have put it as succinctly as that,” I said. “But yes, that’s the long and the short of it.”

“I see,” he nodded. But then, making an uncomfortable face, he said, “What I don’t understand is you paying the former KGB types for information. I can’t believe you paid for your information.”

“That’s how things are done over there,” I said. “Besides, I was doing my own thing—I was not working as a journalist.”

We took a shiny elevator to the ninth floor, where a receptionist in a white shirt and with teased blond hair asked us to sit down while she buzzed Pittman.

“I wonder what made Pittman leave the FBI,” I asked Alex to change the subject. “Apart from money?”

“He mentioned the benefits—an annual bonus that almost equals his annual salary, tickets to Redskins games, stuff like that.”

A procession of men passed through the reception area, all sporting the short hair and conservative dress that have come to mark the members of a burgeoning security industry along with firm handshakes, unblinking eyes, and strong deodorants.

Pittman, in blue gabardine slacks, saffron-colored button-down shirt and a herringbone blazer, came out to greet us. He smelled of Old Spice.

Using his hand on the biometric readers that opened various doors, Pittman led us to his office. It was big and airy, with views of cranes and untenanted office blocks. An original Jackson Pollock hung on the wall behind his desk and there was a Redskins helmet atop a bookcase. “The Pollock belongs to the firm,” he explained. “The helmet is mine.”

It was cool inside.

“We keep it at 68,” Pittman said, looking at me with a considerable amusement.

“They expect the veep,” Alex joked, referring to the vice president’s insistence on keeping thermostats at 68.

“You shouldn’t be surprised to see him around here,” Pittman said, his smile full of confidence. “We have the best anti-terrorism guys in the business, retired special forces, Navy seals, CIA, DIA. The government is our biggest customer.”

After we settled in, I outlined my problem. I talked him through the incident from the time Igor first noticed we were being followed until our encounter with the two thugs at the Starlite Café.

Pittman listened, still, without saying anything, only writing a few notes on his yellow pad and asking me when I had finished to repeat what the thugs said about the American client.

“So they were sending their reports to an email address,” Pittman tapped the address written on his pad. “And they were subcontractors for a London agency that was acting on behalf of a New York security firm.”

“Yes.”

“Probably.”

“They said they never actually sent their emails?”

“No.”

“Right. They said they thought their boss read the messages before sending them on.”

Pittman paused, looked at me as if checking me out, I felt, then glanced at Alex. “Let’s run through this sequence again,” Pittman said.

Later, he said, “Now who could have been so keenly interested in your Moscow doings? So interested to hire mobsters to rough you up?”

“No clue.”

Pittman held up his hand. “They were supposed to scare you off from whatever you were doing. What exactly were you doing?”

I had to think fast. I didn’t want to disclose that one of my objectives was to hunt down the mole. I focused on my inquiry into Emily’s death instead and told him about my interviews with Volkov and Churkin. How easily these lines slipped from my mouth, in perfect actorial cadence. I surprised myself.

I noticed Alex had a worried expression, but he remained silent.

Pittman shrugged his shoulders, then tugged at his bottom lip with thumb and finger. “Why would that upset anyone in the United States?”

“I’ve no idea.” I kept thinking about Holz and the way his mind worked. It was hard for me to imagine him hiring people to intimidate me to quit doing what he wanted me to do.

Pittman’s gaze gave me no comfort. “Who knew about your plans before you left on the trip?”

I waited, pretending to think hard. I said, with an air of mockery, “Alex here knew. My son in California knew. No one else.”

“Holz, of course,” said Pittman.

“Of course.” I had been wondering about Holz ever since I was told that Amanda was CIA, I said.

“There’s very little of consequence that goes on this town that Holz doesn’t know about,” Pittman said. “So the odds are good that he knows about our meeting, too.”

“There’s always a chance that someone else in the fudge factory may have gotten wind of it,” Alex said.

Pittman said, “As I see it, there’s only one thing I may be able to help you with: find out if the Agency was at the other end of that email address. I don’t see what else I could do.”

“That would be helpful,” I said.

“I’ll ask our computer geeks,” Pittman said. “One NSA guy just joined us recently and they say he can trace the untraceable. He was the guy who encrypted several ultra-secret Agency sites.” Pittman stared at the yellow pad for a while, then put it aside. “Honestly,” he said, scratching his scalp, “If he can’t detect whether Holz or some of his buddies were behind it, nobody can.”

Alex said, “You got the email address.”

Pittman laughed. “We’re obviously dealing with someone who knows how to cover his tracks. Remember, they wrote drafts and saved them. Now, if I ask you to write something as a draft and save it, I could go into your computer and read the contents of the saved mail without leaving any trace of electronic traffic between two points. This is one of the technological tricks for transferring data without leaving traces.”

Alex shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense.”

“Let’s see what the geeks say,” I said.

“Okay,” Pittman said. “I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

“Please call me on my cell,” I said and gave him the number.

In the elevator, Alex said with an annoying expression on his face, “Why didn’t you level with Pittman? It’s like asking a doctor for advice without telling him about all the symptoms.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t tell him about Hector.”

I must have misread the expression on Alex’s face, for I gave him an honest answer. “That’s something I’d rather not publicize. Otherwise I’d have to explain how I learned about the mole’s existence.”

Alex turned to me and grabbed hold of my arm. “Don’t you see, dude?” he said insistently. “The mole is someone who wouldn’t want you to meet his old case officer! Suppose the mole is still at Langley. Maybe someone close to the director? You said the director was vaguely aware of Holz’s plan. Who else knew about it?”

I caught myself reflecting on this troubling question. I could see what Alex was driving at. But I was sure, as sure as anyone could be, that no one else could have possibly known of my plans except Rick and Alex, and I could not imagine either of them spreading it around. “I told only you and Rick,” I said.

Alex went quiet. My thoughts must have been written on my face because he said, “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

48

I phoned Essie to say I’d not be in for the rest of the day. I bought sandwiches at the corner deli. There was no point returning to the office, I thought. I would avoid Holz by spending the afternoon at the pool.

I eased myself into a deck chair under an umbrella and thought about becoming a grandfather and about Kate and Rick. Then I followed a succession of silvery jetliners descending onto the National airport runway in the hazy distance. Then I flicked through the morning papers. The headlines spoke about America to Battle the Enemy/To Confront Threats. An editorial approved of the preemption idea. The New York Times featured a story on its front page, suggesting Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons posed a threat to the United States and its allies. The caption under the picture of a dour-looking Swedish weapons inspector named Hans Blix hinted that he was almost confirming—almost but not quite—the existence of Iraq weapons of mass destruction. Reading the story, it turned out Blix’s inspectors hadn’t found any WMD, but he couldn’t exclude the possibility that some were hidden somewhere in Iraq. Other headlines spoke of the arrests of suspected Al Qaeda supporters, Bin Laden tapes, Homeland Security counter-measures and its color-coded system of warnings. On the op-ed pages, neo-con columnists were making a case for war.

In late afternoon, I decided to take a stroll over to Roosevelt Island. I wanted to put on hold questions that lingered in the back of my mind, one of them being when to call Jennifer. But as I emerged from the building and bent down to adjust my shoelaces, a gleaming new blue Beamer pulled up. My neighbor Ian smiled through the open window. “Isn’t she a beauty?” His eyes were lit by the joy of possession. “Idles without vibrations, eh,” he added. “Come for a spin?”

The car had cream-colored leather upholstery and a dashboard that reminded me of a cockpit. “Sure,” I said and climbed in.

Ian Robertson, a stock-broker for Merrill Lynch, was married to Lisa, who watered my plants during my absence. Ian was rich and a crushing bore. The sole mystery about him in my mind was how could Harvard and Wharton produce someone so narrow-minded and uncurious. Lisa, on the other hand, was a delightful conversation partner, passionate about climate change, hunger, poverty, and fresh water shortages. She taught biology at George Mason University and was very attractive, reminding me a bit of Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge.

“Listen how quiet she is,” Ian said. “Accelerates something fantastic.”

He gunned the engine and we sped down George Washington Parkway. A push on a button of his cell phone brought Lisa’s voice to the speakers. “I’m bringing Todd to eat with us,” he said. “You can start the grill.”

I stopped by my apartment to take a gift for Lisa: a Russian papier mache box with a colorful painting depicting a scene from the Firebird folk tale that I had bought at the Moscow airport.

“My plants are saying thanks,” I said, putting the gift on the table.

Lisa took my hand in both of hers then gave me a big hug.

“I’ve called Jennifer and asked her to join us for dinner,” she said while pouring our Martinis. “Now tell us all about the trip.”

I was too late. For a brief moment, I considered going back to my apartment and calling Jennifer to tell her that our relationship was over. But that would have been too brutal.

“Oh, Moscow is no longer as mysterious as it used to be. It’s now like any other place.”

I offered a potted synopsis of changes; it was as if I had emerged from a dark cave after eleven years to suddenly confront the helter skelter of a modern city that had somehow come back to life after stifling decades of communism—the noise, the smell, the color of the streets, the fancy shops full of luxury goods, the expensive restaurants.

“What about Russian stocks?” Ian asked, sipping his drink.

“The guys who run the Russia Fund say they are making money.”

Ian said, “All that gas and oil, plus nickel, gold, iron and whatnot.” He proceeded to argue that this would be a raw materials decade.