An Honorable Man (26 page)

“Is that what you call it, a good talk?” Mueller said. “There is a lot to explain.”

“You know the line, old boy, ‘Nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.'”

Altman's words were drowned by a screeching trolley far down the tunnel, and its headlamp's dazzling light put everything in stark relief. The men were caught in a petrified tableau, suddenly revealed to each other. Chernov had his gun out, Altman was pressed into a wall cavity, and Vasilenko was making an escape along the center of the tunnel following the tracks. He was startled by the light and momentarily confused. He looked one way then the other, seeking cover, the fox out of his hole.

Mueller yelled to distract Chernov from the fleeing Russian. “It's over. Finished. Don't do anything stupid.”

Vasilenko sprinted from one wall cavity to the next, trying the door in each but finding it locked, he moved to the next and the next, until he had exhausted all chances and broke in a run down the tunnel toward the trolley. His thick arms pumped as he presented himself in perfect silhouette.

“No!” Mueller yelled. Chernov had raised his pistol and sighted his 7.62mm Tokarev, one hand stretched out, cigarette dangling nonchalantly from his lips. The shot resounded in the confined space. The first shot seemed to throw Vasilenko forward, the second one made him crumple, and he lay motionless where he'd fallen.

Trolley passengers, who'd disembarked to see what was happening, scattered at the first gunshot. A woman screamed.

Chernov turned to Mueller. He was a dozen feet away. Angry. Livid. “Shithead. You had him sabotage it.” His eyes had a reptile's
beady glint. His pistol whipped around in his hand and he raised it at Coffin, then shifted a few degrees to Mueller.

Passengers who saw what was about to happen dropped to their knees, appalled and curious, the two sentiments existing at once in the bystanders. They pressed against the tunnel for cover. A second trolley car stopped behind the first and those passengers also became witnesses to the man lying facedown on the railroad tracks.

Another report of a gun. And in quick succession a fourth and a fifth. Brilliant strobe flashes from within the dark perimeter tunnels. It was impossible to see who was firing, or being fired at, or how many guns discharged. Stray bullets ricocheted against stone walls and one clanged on the trolley's iron brow.

Mueller saw Chernov. Heard him grunt. An animal sound that took the wind out of him and he too fell to the floor. Chernov had kept his gun and still, even wounded, he rose to one knee and aimed confidently.

Mueller had never killed a man. Metamorphosis is a painful process. He felt the excruciating agony of the caterpillar turning itself out of its skin, cracking open its hard carapace. Deep within him, in a process he was only dimly conscious of, he left behind the deep-thinking desk man who commanded death with the stroke of a pen. The gun in his hand was immediate and consequential. He lifted the pistol. Aimed. Fired. One shot.

Mueller was at Chernov's side. He saw crimson stains spread across the man's tan jacket. Eyes flickered and then became glassy and fixed. Mueller lifted his pistol and fired once more into the lifeless body.
Bastard.
Mueller confirmed the kill when he put
two fingers on the man's carotid artery and felt no pulse. Mueller looked at the dead man with respectful contempt.

Then quiet. There was a fragile eerie moment that waited to be shattered by another gunshot and for the violence to resume. But the moment didn't come. Mueller knew things were over, one danger removed. He came up off his knee. He looked at his watch: 9:17 p.m. For some reason that seemed to matter. It had been just a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity.

Mueller went over to Vasilenko and confirmed that the Russian was dead. He took the Russian's wallet. He wanted something for the man's son. He lay there bleeding out from a head wound and there was nothing Mueller could do, but the wallet seemed like a good gesture. Though they were adversaries, or because they were adversaries, he respected the man. Friends in a different life.

  •  •  •  

Opinions differed later as to what happened in those few minutes of chaos underground near Dupont Circle. An inconclusive investigation by the Metropolitan Police, FBI, and State Department concluded that two Russians killed each other in a spillover of the violent purges taking place in Moscow. A forensics investigation confirmed the chest wound came from an American-made pistol, but the ownership of the gun, indeed the presence of the CIA, never came to light.

It surprised no one in the Agency that Roger Altman was put on temporary medical leave. He was connected to the incident in the rumor mill in the office that always got things precisely
wrong but vaguely right. There was speculation that Altman had been working harder than he should on the Berlin crisis, and had been brought home. The process of burning out started with continuous late nights in the office and usually ended in a breakdown. Work pressure had broken other men and now it was breaking Roger Altman. Altman, people in the Agency were told, would be promoted after he returned from rest leave.

21

THE RECKONING

W
ILL YOU
need me more tonight?” the middle-aged black housekeeper asked.

Roger Altman smiled. “No. I'll do the dishes. You can go home.”

Altman looked at Mueller. The two men sat at the dining table in Altman's town house on P Street in Georgetown. They sat in the parlor floor's formal dining room with tall windows that looked onto the tree-lined street. The curtains were drawn, giving the room an intimate feeling. Warm light from a cut-glass chandelier illuminated a vibrant cubist painting on the wall. The mantel's clock's ticking punctuated the solemn quiet of two old acquaintances sharing reminiscences at a table set with china, crystal, and silver flatware.

“She's been with me four years,” Altman said. “A wonderful cook, don't you think? Her own recipes. She has two sons she raised alone. So—”

The unfinished thought floated in the air waiting for a conclusion.

Mueller had gone to the window, lifting the curtain, and watched the housekeeper go down the steps. Across the street he saw a couple alone at a tree.

“They're watching the house,” Altman said. “The director had them follow me after our talk.”

Mueller returned to his seat. “What did he say?”

Altman was slumped in his chair. “He gave me a little speech on how personal compulsions destroy careers. He talked about our work together in Bern and the trust we put in each other. He said it's his job to see that the Agency is not disgraced. He never confronted me—that's not his style—but he led me to believe there was no way out. He talked about honor as if it was a suit you take from the closet. It was a pleasant conversation, pleasant in tone, but he'd made up his mind. He's never really liked me. You're his favorite. I suppose if there is such a thing as a favorite spy. I think he's impressed by your indifference.”

Mueller fingered the stem of his wineglass filled with milk. “Is that his word?”

“No. Intelligence. That was his word. . . . I have disappointed him. I know that.”

Mueller looked up. “Disappointment is a polite way to put it. What forgiveness can there be?”

“I don't want to be forgiven, George. That implies I've wronged them. They've made up their minds about me because it conveniently fits the world they live in.” He looked at Mueller and leaned forward. “You stood up for me. I should be grateful,
although, given the circumstances, it's a little surreal, don't you think? You, of all people, standing up for me.”

Mueller slowly put down his glass. He felt the unerring stare of the man across the table and an awkward silence descended between them. Mueller's fingers went cold. Colors in the room washed out in the intensity of the moment.

“I didn't know how to bring it up, so if this is sudden and tactless, it's because it only came to me an hour ago, and I suppose, if I had any doubt, your expression now incriminates you. There's no manual for this. No guidebook you can read. My suspicions came in the tunnel. Chernov knew you. I could see that. His anger was intimate and familiar. So there it is. I'm right, aren't I? It's always been you?”

Mueller's mind was strangely calm. Never in his wildest imagination did he believe this moment would come, but it was happening now, in the present—Altman sloughing his treachery onto him. What makes a man without hope cling to the ledge? Is desperation a good quality or a bad quality? Mueller pondered.

“Yes, I wondered a long time about you,” Altman said, “but it was here earlier this evening that I thought, of course, it's you.” Altman sipped his wine. “You have always been such a virtuous sonofabitch. And so hard to read. I couldn't imagine what they had on you. Then I remembered your ex-wife. You said she was Austrian, but I knew she was Czech. Her father was an ex-Nazi and she was scared the Soviets would pick him up. Then there was what you said at dinner with Beth. Your love for your son. I put that together. Of course, Chernov was smart. Ruthless. He got to you through the boy. They have him, don't they?”

Mueller held off an urge to defend himself.

“You must love him more than life itself. You, of all people—” The word
traitor
slipped from Altman's lips.

Mueller met Altman's eyes fiercely. “You have no idea,” he snapped. He knew he was hearing a rehearsal of the doubts Altman would raise with their colleagues. The desperate man drags down those around him. He added angrily, “You can't sit there and judge if you haven't known, as I have known, the terrible burden of what it means for a boy to think that his father has abandoned him. Do you understand that? Can you understand that? Don't conflate my failures with yours.” Mueller stopped himself. He felt anger hijack the self-control he needed to get through their conversation. Mueller's exhale came at last. He leaned back in his chair and met Altman's eyes. He stifled an impulse to express his disappointment and his revulsion. No words could adequately account for all that had brought their long acquaintance to this wretched moment. Mueller closed his eyes to calm his swirling thoughts. When he opened them again he spoke calmly.

“We are both guilty men, but our failures are different, and the thing I have not done, that you did, is betrayal. I stood up for you. But you allowed your treachery to attach itself to me. I wanted out, and you said that made me the right candidate to approach the Russians. The envelope in Union Station implicated me and I became a person of interest, like the magician's hand that attracts the eye while the real action is happening elsewhere. The Soviets didn't want to lose their prize asset and you must have known I was being set up. You let me hang.”

Mueller paused. When he continued, his voice was confes
sional. “You have some things right. They have my son. She took him to protect her father and she believed their false promises, their greedy needs, the dirty game they play. You're right they are ruthless. I was important to Chernov. He found me in Vienna that night we saw each other coming from the Soviet sector. I'm not surprised that we never talked about that night. I didn't want to know what you were doing there. Perhaps, if I'm generous, you had the same reluctance. Whatever friendship we had was worn thin by then. You've filled in the mystery of that evening with convenient fabrications, but the truth is sadder than that.”

Mueller told a story. He said he'd seen Altman save the girl from the oncoming Soviet jeep, and then he saw Altman return to the dark alley where a handsome boy waited. He was curious about Altman's intentions, and afraid as well, and he believed he could intervene if the boy was being used to compromise Altman.

“I lost you,” Mueller said. “You moved from one alley to the next in that long black coat that made you blend into the night. It had rained. Cobblestones glistened in the street lights. It was dangerous with Soviet troop carriers moving fast down the broad avenues toward the rampaging protesters. And then suddenly you were gone. I looked around the park at smashed statues and trees cut for firewood. You were gone. I made an effort to find you—to save you. Yes, to save you. Can you imagine, I'd have that impulse? Well, I did. And I suspect that was the night they trapped you. But I lost you. I had my own appointment to make.”

Mueller explained that he had arranged to collect his son
from the Soviet sector, answering a plea for help. He'd arrived at a checkpoint where Soviet guards were distracted by the commotion on the far side of Schwarzenberg Square. Pushing up his collar, he walked purposely on the edge of the light cast by the arc lamp and slipped into the first alley. The call to get his son had come from the child's grandmother—who had a difficult relationship with her daughter—and the proud older woman was fond of Mueller. He'd encouraged her with cigarettes and chocolate, which became their way of communicating, since he spoke no Czech and her English was limited to a few phrases.

A Soviet command car was parked in front of the dark apartment house when Mueller arrived on foot. The grandmother followed her daughter down the front steps, fretting and pleading, but all the years of anger left no room for anything other than the obvious outcome. The grandmother was a former actress, vain, Mueller said, and she had no tolerance for her beautiful, rebellious daughter.

“Johana gave me an angry look when I joined the little group. ‘You're late,' she said. The boy in her arms was too young to know what was going on.
Late for what
? I said. Chernov came out of the vestibule accompanied by two soldiers. He'd already approached me twice with offers to work for him. I knew he was there before I saw him, announced by his foot. Funny, isn't it, a top spy so obviously exposed by his clubfoot. He looked at me and said, ‘You know what we want. Soon all this will be over and you'll have the boy back. No one has to know.'”