The firebird affair

Jennifer turned up at seven-thirty, wearing a black trouser suit with patch pockets, dark eye shadow, and pink lipstick. “Sorry I’m late,” she said.

I kissed her on the cheek. She squeezed my upper arm. We all sat down to eat, and Jennifer stretched her leg under the table to rub my calf. In the past, this always quickened my sexual arousal; this time it annoyed me.

We ate spare ribs and sausages, roasted small potatoes, and creamed spinach. Mercifully no one inquired about Emily’s death or anything else. We were chatting about the stock market, Alan Greenspan, the approaching mid-term elections, the Redskins, and about Mrs. Dean, a dark-eyed women with refined featured, full lips and a strong lithe figure who lived on the fifth floor. She and her developer husband, who seemed extravagantly healthy for his age as Ian often commented, spent most of their time flying around the globe. The latest twist, Lisa said, was that they were planning to buy a winter home in the Bahamas. And what about Graham, the six-term congressman from Illinois who lived two doors down from the Deans? The paper said his seat is up for grabs this November, Ian said.

“National politics is broken,” Lisa said. “This is no longer a democracy, this is a duopoly. What’s needed is a third party to break the present ideological impasse, but the Republicans and the Democrats would never allow it.” Ian laughed derisively and called his wife a “liberal wuss.” Suddenly, the discussion seemed to be deteriorating when Lisa accused the Republican administration of fear mongering to scare the voters before the congressional elections. “Not at all,” Ian insisted. “The Islamic fundamentalists will be stopped once they feel the full power of righteous American fury.” Jennifer chimed in to support Ian. I cast around for something to say that would lighten the atmosphere. “Ian and Lisa remind me of James Carville and his wife on Crossfire.” This started a discussion about the inadequacies of the media.

The dreaded moment came later when Jennifer and I found ourselves alone in the elevator going down. I had proposed a nightcap at my place during the dinner, but now my confidence had slipped alarmingly low.

“I missed you,” she said, taking my arm.

I said, “I have to tell you something.” I felt like an awkward teenager about to break up with a girlfriend. My heart was racing. I tried to formulate a sentence in my mind, but words seemed wrong. Finally I said, “I met someone in Moscow.”

She withdrew her arm. The elevator stopped on my floor.

“By met someone you mean you were screwing another woman?” She was suddenly calm and cold.

I nodded—yes.

She gave me a quick glance and went on with false cheerfulness, “And you want out? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” She pressed the LOBBY button. “Who is she?”

“You don’t know her name?” Jennifer laughed with a hollow gaiety.

We were now down in the lobby.

“No,” I said.

“Right.”

“I want us to stay friends,” I said. “You know, of course, that I’ll always be there for you.”

She kept silent. “Whew,” she said after a while. “And where’s there?”

I cast around for something to say to lighten the atmosphere when she turned around and said, “Goodbye,” then marched out of the building.

Later in my bed, I felt deflated. Would I have broken up with Jennifer, I asked myself, if I had not met Amanda? Or more accurately, if I was not besotted with her? I didn’t press myself too vigorously on this point, didn’t demand an answer. It was sufficient, I thought, that I acted properly.

49

“Can we meet at eleven?” Pittman asked.

“The Starbucks on Pennsylvania near 17th. I have business downtown.”

“I’ll be there.”

The phone rang twice while I was eating breakfast. I ignored it. I was certain it was Holz. After a couple of minutes, I considered calling him back. But the more I thought about how the conversation might go, the more determined I became not to initiate it. What exactly could I say? We’ll talk when I figure out whether you’ve double-crossed me? No. What I ought to do, I thought, was wait for Pittman.

I washed the cup and plate under the faucet, then put them in the dishwasher. This was what my mother used to do, and I used to laugh at her saying what was the point of having a dishwasher.

I took a shower, shaved quickly, and put on khaki pants and a long-sleeved shirt. I drove across the Roosevelt Bridge and took the E Street exit, past the Department of State and the Federal Reserve and the Interior Department to Seventeenth Street. Ahead was the tall iron fence of the White House compound. I swung left and by the Old Executive Office Building, turned left again onto H Street.

It was a good omen that I immediately found a parking space outside the bookstore. I fed the meter and checked my watch.

Inside the bookstore, I browsed through new bestsellers. After a while, I walked to Pennsylvania. The bollards blocking access to the White House reminded me of the time not so long ago when I had been able to drive visitors past the presidential mansion and the Treasury Department onward to Capitol Hill.

At Starbuck’s, I ordered coffee. While waiting, I looked around at other customers: young men and women in suits with cell phones and pieces of paper, a young mother with a pram. Then I took a seat by the window with a great view of people walking up and down Pennsylvania. All the while in the back of my mind, I kept mulling over the question of what to do if Pittman’s fabulous hackers concluded that Holz had double-crossed me. The question nagged at me like the proverbial pebble in a shoe. If double-crossed, I’d retaliate. But I told myself I should not rush to any conclusions. One thing I could do was walk away—refuse to talk to him or give him any information I had collected.

For distraction, I went to the newspaper rack and selected that morning’s Washington Times. There was continued fighting at Mazar-e-Shariff; only last week, I had been in the vicinity of that place, only on the other side of the border. In the paper’s editorial opinion, there was no doubt that Iraq had WMDs. Then, in a column featuring short items of world news, there was a following item:

I re-read the story several times and found myself repressing a misgiving or two. Joseph’s approach to the world had always been somewhat skewed. That was his charming eccentricity way back. Even his high class brothel story, however naughty, was not felonious. But he all but admitted involvement in money laundering. Not only drugs. I suspected him of trading armaments, too; Third World countries were always looking for firearms, and one could pick these up cheap in Russia. And yet I had solicited his help and he had graciously obliged. Certainly he was not a fair-weather friend. I began to squirm, made uneasy by the memory of his final warning on the corner of Old Arbat. How anxious he’d looked.

I felt a wave of depression as I ran in my mind over the events of the past six weeks. It appeared to me as though I was somehow at fault. It was not the gentleman in me who solicited his help but rather the cunning newshound, who knew the score all along. Had I told him about Hector, Joseph probably would not have helped me, ergo he’d be alive. On the other hand, car bombings were common in Moscow. It was the fifth such bombing this year, the story said. In any case, the Roman Catholics had it right, with their sacrificial confession and their guarantee of forgiveness to the right of heart! People like me had recourse to the palliative transactions of psychoanalysis.

These questions kept circulating in my mind until I saw a taxi drop Pittman off outside the shop.

I gestured to him to join me.

“Sorry,” Pittman said, sitting down opposite. “I’m running late.”

“You want coffee? Something else?”

“Nothing,” Pittman said.

“Nothing?”

Pittman nodded and fixed his gaze on me. “The email address is a decoy. Means nothing.”

“What do you mean means nothing?”

“The boys traced it to a firm located just outside Luton airport in England. The guy distributes flowers that come by air, mainly from South Africa. It’s an unsecured site and certainly not something the Agency would ever use.”

“So it’s not Holz?”

“Definitely not. The boys suspect whoever is behind it must have used steganography. They mentioned a few New York security firms that use steganography. They suspect the Russians mafia also uses this method.”

I said, “What exactly is steganography?”

“A coded message is embedded in ordinary looking stuff posted on the Internet. Stuff like photographs, articles, ads. You don’t know a message is being passed at all.”

I felt an inexplicable flutter of alarm. “So they have no idea who the client is?”

“No.”

“We have special software for it, but we don’t know where to look. Only the NSA could know.”

I said, “So this is undetectable? Is there a way to get NSA help?”

“Look, the boys have done us a favor. You wanted to know if Holz had spied on you, right? The answer is no.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

Pittman interrupted. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, pal. This kind of service costs a lot of money.”

I stared out of the window. “Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate it.”

Pittman stood up. “Well, I’ve got to run.”

“Me too. Anyway, thanks very much.”

We walked together out of the coffee shop. Pittman dashed off to hail a cab. I walked slowly around the corner to my car, unlocked it, and sat for a while behind the steering wheel.

The moment I emerged from the elevator, I saw Essie waving in my direction. “Kevin is looking for you,” Essie said.

50
“Phil was very happy,” Kevin Page said. “Very,” he added for emphasis. Page held his hand out. “You’ve done it, Martin,” he said. “Well done.”

I shrugged uncomfortably.

“Tell me all about your Russian professor.”

I recalled the wording of my last message to Page.

“Well?” Page prodded.

I had no choice but to spin a dramatic yarn. The sleuthing pursuit of the professor was fiction, of course, but I did my best to make it sound real. The rest—starting with my arrival at the dacha in Podmoskovye—was more or less straight reporting.

Page interrupted. “So the old fellow’s gaga!”

“He has his lucid moments. We had a very good conversation about arms control.”

I realized that Page was no longer interested. “Yes, arms control,” he signed. “I know you’ve done a lot of leg work, but save it for another occasion.”

“It’s a good story,” I said, reminding him that it was his idea. “Just as you said it would be.”

He seemed distinctly cool at the recollection.“Let’s forget it, for the time being.”

“You mean I shouldn’t do a story at all?”

“We’d be compromising means and methods. That’s what I’ve been told. Besides, it’s always the same story. Let’s talk about it later.”

I checked my disappointment.

Settling back into his swivel chair, Page went on. “Now, take a couple of weeks off. We’re going to pull the chess column. I don’t expect anyone to notice. You’ll be our new Ombudsman.”

“Oh?”

“It’s Phil’s idea. Comes with a raise.”

“Not in this case. You’d better go upstairs: Phil’s expecting you. By the way, just to give you heads up. Phil mentioned something about the White House’s looking for a new director of the Voice of America. It’s a presidential appointment. Good pay and benefits. It’s yours if you want it.”

I was stunned. “Wow! I’m being rewarded?”

“They’re happy you found the professor. That’s their way of showing appreciation…”

“What exactly does an ombudsman do?” I enunciated the title carefully, as if testing whether there was a real job behind it.

“It’s a dream job,” Page said earnestly. “You’ll be the conscience of the paper. Once a week, you do a column about the news business, the paper, whatever you feel like. You’re your own boss.”

“Well, it does sound good.” I hesitated. “There’s talk the entire book section is going,” I added cautiously.

Page nodded. “We’ll have to make cuts.”

For a brief moment, I saw a deeply worried man not sure he could cope and I thought, why seek pinnacles only to find yourself drenched in fires. Then, before my eyes, Page changed back to his normal, confident self—body erect, jaw jutting forward, a gleam in his eyes. “We’ll have to find a way to monetize our content—a new business model.”

“It all sounds depressing.”

“It is,” Page sighed. “I feel like an accountant.” He smiled, his tone lightening. “Let’s have lunch in the next few days. There’s a terrific new seafood place on K Street.”

51

In the afternoon, I drove to a new safe house in Oakton.

I returned down to the sidewalk café and ordered Caribbean chicken and mango salad and a glass of chardonnay. Looking west I was reminded that the next door Café Rondo, where I had first met Emily ages ago, had gone out of business. It was now an Asian noodle shop. A couple of attractive young women settled at a table nearby and smiled at me. Something about their dress suggested they worked for one of the think tanks in the area. I had a hard time smiling back. Amanda, it seemed to me, had wiped out all my erotic inquisitiveness. Besides, I needed time to take stock of the new situation.

I glanced at the headlines in the Tribune: US Warns Saddam on WMD. Cab Driver Slain in Alexandria. District Plagued by HIV. Iraq Able to Launch WMD Attack on Britain At Short Notice, Blair Says. When I caught sight of the shiny, bald head and frowningly thoughtful face of Hank Busby of Brookings, I quickly gave my full attention to the paper to make sure I’d be left alone.

I tried to picture myself as director—was that the official title? —of the VOA. I couldn’t.

I can’t cut my ties to the Tribune, I thought. That would amount to leaving my old self behind and reinventing myself completely, into someone pompous and important and flashy. Someone else. The Tribune had defined my identity and given shape to my life. In spite of illnesses, deaths, natural calamities, and technical breakdowns, the Tribune had come out every morning, 365 days a year, year after year, keeping the illusion of direction and purpose in our lives, and serving as my anchor—an anchor, I believed, as solid as the republic itself. An anchor that also kept me tied to my past, what I had been.

My mind drifted. So much had happened. The main thing was that I had finally sorted out all the misplaced pieces of my life. True, I had failed to ferret out the mole, but I had tried. I was beyond the fear of failure.

“I’m done,” I muttered to myself.

And that made me feel older in a way that I didn’t care for. But then, I thought, I would soon to be a grandfather. I had seen in a shop on Wilson Boulevard a mobile similar to the one I had bought for Rick in Hong Kong years ago—it had crystal animals dangling from it and it played music—I made a mental note to buy it. Helps develop the baby’s cognitive skills. Then I was suddenly daydreaming. I imagined myself on the narrow bridge holding the hand of a young girl—for some reason I was absolutely sure I’d get a granddaughter—and showing her different birds on Roosevelt Island.

I moved to the edge of my chair and adjusted one of my socks.

How long is one second of introspection, I wondered. I had reviewed my entire life before finishing the Caribbean salad. I still felt hungry, perhaps because spicy food aggravates one’s hunger.

I had walked three blocks west on 19th Street when my cell phone vibrated, nearly making me jump out of my skin. It was Alex.

“I’m going to be a grandfather,” I almost shouted, drawing scrutiny from several pedestrians. “I’m not kidding.”

“Congratulations,” Alex said. “Now your problem with Rick will be sorted out in no time.”

“Yes. We had a normal conversation. Kate asked me to come visit them.” I felt I had re-established a relationship with Rick; the subtext and hints about our conversation that morning were most encouraging.

“Wonderful!”

“Bob Pittman says Holz was not behind that email address, which is at least something.”

“Yeah.”

“And listen, Kevin Page offered me the job of ombudsman.”

“To top it all,” I said, “the publisher said that if I wanted to be head of the VOA, the job is mine…”

“Boy, they’re buying you off,” Alex said acidly. “You’re being paid a bribe…”

“It’s not a bribe,” I protested. “Besides, I don’t want it. I don’t want to be the director of the VOA.”

“Did Page mention anything about promotions before you left?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“You’ve done them a favor, so they are offering you plum jobs,” Alex said. “In Washington, we call this corruption. Or do you want me to resort to some more unflattering terms?”

“Fuck off, Alex.”

“So you’re not going to do chess anymore?”

“That’s not an option! They’ll drop the column.”

“There’s a rumor about it.”

“Isn’t it bizarre? I’m appointed ombudsman after breaking every fucking rule in the fucking journalism book.”

”Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” said Alex.

“That’s what Bob Pittman said earlier today.”

The Cherokee was parked behind the Hilton near the old Imperial Chinese embassy, which had been converted into luxury condos. It was baking hot from the sun. I turned on the air-conditioning and waited outside for the car to cool off before climbing in. I turned right by the Hilton, drove up Connecticut, then down to Rock Creek Parkway by the Shoreham. Because of roadwork I had to slow down entering Whitehurst Freeway but then quickly moved to Canal Street and Clara Barton Parkway, my eyes feasting on the lush vegetation along the old C&O canal and the Potomac beyond, listening to Bizet’s Symphony in C major on WGMS-FM.

The tide was out and the Potomac was shallow near the shore. The afternoon sun shimmered in the brown waters. I thought of Amanda. She had got under my skin, I had to admit. Who was she? That was going to be my first question for Holz.

Thinking about Amanda evoked erotic fantasies more detailed than any I remembered experiencing in years. She was there in the very light of my eyes when I nearly rear-ended a red Camaro on the ramp up to 495 South.

I got off at the Chain Bridge Road exit, and drove west to Oakton, passing through Tysons Corner and Vienna. Before reaching Oakton shopping center, as Holz had said, I turned into what at first sight appeared to be a corporate campus with primly landscaped grounds, ample parking and overgrown trees.

52
The safe house was one in a group of low, California-style homes that looked odd in a sea of Colonials, speed bumps, and swing sets. It had a glossy floor and smelled of wax polish. There was an uninhabited air about it.

Holz closed the front door behind us.

“Too bad about your friend Joseph,” he said. “Looks like a mafia hit.”

“I feel awful,” I said.

“That was bound to happen, sooner or later. He had some very nasty colleagues, I must say. You must have realized it while you were there.”

“Well, yes. He was awfully kind to me. I wish I knew who was behind the hit.”

“We’ll probably know something in a few weeks,” Holz said. “Anyway, good to see you,” he added, switching the subject.

I waited for a while.

“I’m afraid I never got to Hector,” I said, feeling guilty even though I had done nothing wrong. “I found Bogumilov, though. Talked to him.”

“Hold on,” Holz said, looking slightly troubled as if overcome by the sudden assault of information. “Let’s get some coffee first.”

He went to the kitchen, which doubled up as the east wall of the dining room, which in turned opened onto a large living room. A large plasma screen covered one third of one wall.

He had seen a specialist in Baltimore, I heard him saying, and now had a new sequence of pills to take three times a day.

I snooped: looked at the magazines on the table, at a madly eclectic assortment of books on the shelves.

“Black, if I remember correctly?”

“Yes, thanks.”

He returned with two brown coffee mugs, placed them on the table, and sat down. “Was he Hector’s case officer?”

“Yes, he was running Hector all right,” I said. “But before we go any further, tell me who’s Amanda Paul?”

“Should I know her?” If Holz was affecting surprise, he was doing a superb job.

“I’m told she works for you.”

“For me?” Holz gave me a look of severe irritation. “Amanda Paul? Romantic interest?”

The surprising stress he put on the last two words made me feel embarrassed. I nodded and went on to explain, downplaying our affair, that Volkov claimed she was CIA. I had seen, I said, a photograph of Amanda and Eric in Brussels in 1999, taken by a Russian agent. “I saw her talking to that same Eric fellow at a party in Moscow,” I said.

“Eric? He’s at the embassy?”

“Yes. Five eleven, maybe six, close-cropped blond hair, the picture of health and physical fitness. In his thirties. Sound familiar?”

“Hmm…” Holz turned up the palms of his hands in a gesture that said not necessarily, his cunning expression now fastened on me. Then he picked up a special phone from the attaché case and stood up. “I’ve got to make a call.”

He walked out into the garden.

When he returned, Holz said, “We’ll have some answers soon. Okay?”

I nodded, without much enthusiasm. Then, rotating my index finger, I said, “Is this place wired.”

“Everything’s turned off.” He pulled a small tape recorder and placed it on the coffee table in front of us.

“Feels like an official debriefing.”

“No,” Holz said, making sure that it was on. “Strictly for my use.”

“Ye-es?” I made it a two-syllable word to indicate I thought that was fishy.

Holz said, frowning, “I play the tapes over and over again. Each time, I hear different things. Occasionally, I have Jane listen in. Women often hear different things, and they are more intuitive, I think.”

“At night as I lie in my bed, I rerun parts of it. That’s when I sometimes have that lightbulb moment. In the middle of the night. I sneak out of bed, you know, not to disturb Jane, because I must write it down,” he started chuckling. “Otherwise I don’t remember a thing in the morning. Short term memory problems, eh.”

He went on: “It’s so easy to miss the most important phrase, the key idea, the revealing nuance. Our minds lock on the mundane, the predictable. We shun the counter-intuitive, the apparently implausible.” He paused. “Let’s get back to Bogumilov.”