Azrael (20 page)

Smolinski smiled half affectionately at her peasant loyalty and naïveté. He hung up his jacket, then returned to his desk, lifted the small vase, and smelled the flowers. They were yellow things, like daisies. Smolinski did not know much about flowers.

He checked the telephone machine for messages.

“Jersey,” a taped voice said, and even if he hadn’t recognized the voice itself, he would have known it was Mrs. Department Chairman. The woman was a Doctor of Philosophy, yet was unable to grasp that the name should be pronounced “Yairtsy.” No sounds alien to the American tongue. He wondered what Mrs. Szczeczko had suffered all these years.

He let Mrs. Department Chairman drone on. They were having a party. So soon? Smolinski thought. Oh. This time they would be getting drunk to benefit starving children in Ethiopia. It was amazing how Americans managed to feel guilty about that. The children in Ethiopia were starving because the revolutionary government wanted them dead—they would not fit ethnically in the Ethiopia the leaders envisioned. It was an effective and time-honored technique. Stalin used it in the Ukraine in the twenties. A man who must spend all day looking for a few grains of wheat for his family cannot spare the energy for insurrection.

He became tired of the woman’s voice and punched a button. A student from his seminar, with a complicated reason her paper could not be in on time. This voice was much pleasanter. He had allowed her in the seminar solely because of her voice. He used it now for background music as he prepared a sandwich.

Smolinski was much happier with himself than he’d been after the phone call from Trotter. Then, he had been distraught. His first real test in the field, and he had met it with panic, running (figuratively) to Borzov over nothing.

For what could Trotter do to him? Who would believe him if he said Jerzy Smolinski had tried to have him killed? No one. And if there were danger of retaliation, Borzov would learn about it, and Borzov would protect him.

So. The thing to do now was to forget about it, put it behind him. He would redeem himself at the next opportunity. Borzov would be proud of him.

Smolinski returned to the phone machine in time to cut off the next message, a recorded message designed to sell him life insurance. That was as good an example as any of the American culture—one machine talking to another, trying to sell it something.

“This is the laundry,” the next message said. “Your cleaning and pressing are done. They can be picked up immediately.”

Smolinski dropped his sandwich on the floor. A slice of too firm tomato rolled under the chair. His mouth shaped
no
five times before he had enough breath to say it.

It wasn’t fair. Not for one mistake. Or, he thought desperately,
perhaps
this
is the mistake. I must have heard it wrong.
Smolinski rolled back the tape and played it again.

“... laundry. Your cleaning and pressing are done. They can be picked up immediately.”

No mistake. He was being called back. They—Borzov—had given up on him as a field agent and were ordering him to return so that they could cash in his propaganda value at a press conference in Warsaw, announcing his disillusionment with the hypocrisy of Americ—

Even thinking about it made him sick. His new resolve would be all for nothing. He would have to leave now, make his way north, cross the border, and contact the cell in Montreal, who would take it from there.

If only he’d had more presence of mind when the damnable Trotter had called him. If only that fool had succeeded in
killing
him. Then he might never have gotten this message, the message that ended the dream and work of a lifetime.

Ten minutes ago, he was a man whose life was focused on a purpose—

Ten minutes ago he hadn’t heard the message. He
hadn’t been here.
What if he’d never come home tonight? More importantly, could he make it
seem
as if he’d never come home tonight?

He decided he could. Then he could carry his new plan forward, Trotter would be dead, and Borzov would see his worth. The plan was ready to go; his men were standing by. It would take one word in a telephone to set things in motion.

But not from this telephone. He hadn’t been home.

Smolinski dropped to his hands and knees and found the fragments of his sandwich on the floor, each of which he ate. He would leave no food in the garbage that would show someone checking up on him by its state of freshness that someone had been here this evening. With his napkin, he wiped traces of mustard from the floor. He put the napkin in his pocket. He returned the answering machine to the record position. He got his coat from the closet and left through the back door. He climbed over a neighbor’s fence and left on the other side of the block. He made his way to the nearest pay phone and put his plan in motion. Then he walked to a nearby shopping center where an automobile no one knew he had was parked, and drove toward Kirkester to see the plan unfold.

“T
HANK YOU FOR THIS
,” Regina said.

Trotter laughed. “You’re welcome. When I said I was going to stay close to you, that was all I meant. I had no intention of confining you to quarters.”

He waited at the shopping center exit while cars went by. Allan had a new car now, a maroon Mercedes. He didn’t tell her what had happened to the compact he’d been driving before. He was a very cautious driver. He let several openings go by that Regina would have scooted into. Heroically, she restrained herself from commenting about it. Instead, she said, “I really needed this.”

“You have been a little tense,” he said. He finally found enough space to suit him and pulled smoothly out into traffic.

“Of course I have. Nothing to compare with my mother, though.”

“Maybe we should bring her to the movies.”

“Not here,” she said. “Here” was the Gastonville Plaza, a huge shopping mall forty-five miles, two creeks and a river away from Kirkester. “It would take too much time away from the paper. I’m beginning to think she cares more about the Hudson Group than she does about Jimmy and me.”

Allan grunted noncommittally. “How did you like the movies?” They’d formed a resolution to take off and go to the pictures without deciding on a particular one. When they arrived, they learned that one of the mall’s six theaters was showing a double feature of the original version of
The Thing
and
The Day the Earth Stood Still.

“They were fun. How about you?”

“I loved
The Thing.”

“What about the other one?”

“Bullshit. Soviet propaganda.”

“How do you figure that? Every time I think you’re sane, deep down, you say something like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like calling that lovely picture Soviet propaganda.”

“Yeah, that lovely picture. Michael Rennie comes to Earth. We’re supposed to admire him. We’re supposed to admire him so much, they call him ‘Carpenter’ and have him die and rise again.”

“I never noticed that.”

“Ha. And then he brings this great message of peace. ‘Surrender your sovereignty to a bunch of robots who know what’s best for you, or die.’ I believe the exact phrase was ‘a burnt-out cinder.’”

“You realize you’ve ruined the movie for me.”

“My heart bleeds.”

She looked at him. “Not your heart.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Anyway, the other movie was propaganda, too—‘Don’t trust them, they’re monsters.’”

“Sure,” Allan conceded. He grinned. “It’s just propaganda I happen to agree with.”

It never occurred to Smolinski to fear that his underlings would know he was disobeying orders until it was already too late to do anything about it if they had known. He was in a car equipped with special radio equipment with two men who seemed American enough to be fathers on television situation comedies. They had been in America for years, and had excellent records. One of them had as a cover an important job at
Worldwatch
magazine. They could have killed Smolinski in a second or subdued him and bundled him back to Borzov if they were so inclined. They were, however, perfectly content to take his orders. In the meantime they talked about college basketball. One of them, he was a Hudson Group employee, whose name was Mel Famey, a balding blond with a V-neck sweater vest and a bow tie, went so far as to ask Smolinski what he thought of the Sparta University team’s chances for the coming season. Smolinski had favored him with a cold stare, and the man had subsided.

In between talks of “rejection” and “dribbling” and “steals” and “burns” and other unappealing topics, they managed to make their report.

Trotter and the girl had been followed to a mall some miles away. They had attended the cinema (Smolinski’s companions said “movies”) and were now heading back toward Kirkester. To reach home, they would have to pass the checkpoint where Smolinski waited—the Kirk River Bridge, a work of the early 1950s, a cantilevered construction in steel girders. Kirkester clung to the west bank of the Kirk River like a baby to its mother’s breast. There was no way to travel east of town
without
going over that bridge. Smolinski’s predecessor in this part of New York had known that and realized that the bridge could make a handy trap.

The trap had never been needed before now. Smolinski had found it ready-made and was delighted to use it to extend his usefulness to Borzov.

“How soon before they get here?” Smolinski asked.

The men had been talking about something called “reebs” and had to adjust their train of thought. The one with the mustache and the pipe, who was an English teacher at a regional secondary school, looked at his watch. “B unit just reported they’d crossed Hampton’s creek. Make it about eight or ten minutes.”

Smolinski tried to deny the excitement he felt as unprofessional but couldn’t. He decided at least not to show it. He looked at the bridge, dark gray where the road lights hit the girders, of a darker blackness than the sky where it didn’t. And if he put his forehead against the cold glass of the backseat window, below he could see the rippled surface of the Kirk River, like a shattered mirror, waiting to reflect a million images of the expression on Trotter’s face when he realized he was plunging to his death.

Trotter looked in the rearview mirror and said, “Uh-oh.”

“What’s the matter?”

“A car is following us. Has been for the last couple of miles.”

“So,” Regina said. “What does that mean?”

“It means I screwed up.”

“Oh, God. No. No. I’m going to be calm. How did you screw up?

“I had a little trouble with a guy. I told his boss I was on to him. That usually causes them to lay off for a while. They know that you know, and they have to figure you’ve passed it on. You become too hot to mess with, until they can think of something new.”

“But this time it didn’t work.”

“No, dammit. It didn’t. I wish I could figure out why. They must be nuts. Son of a
bitch!”

“Allan,” Regina said. “I’m being calm. I’m confused and afraid and I want very badly to scream. The
least
you could do is stay calm as well.”

“You’re right. I will.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Keep driving. Hope they’re just following us.”

“Just
following us! What if they jump us when we stop?”

“We drive onto your mother’s estate. The security people will keep them from following. We can have armed men guarding us when we get out of the car.”

Trotter had his eyes on the road, but he could feel tension coming off the young woman in drops, like rain.

“This really is what you do all the time,” she said.

“Not all the time. Every time you say that you sound surprised.”

“You act like it’s routine.”

“Keeping calm is important. You’re doing very well.”

“It isn’t easy.”

Trotter took a look at her. In a few seconds, he was going to have to tell her it didn’t look as if it would be getting any easier.

Professional or not, Smolinski was gloating. They had passed the last turnoff, his man was behind them blocking off retreat, and the rest was ready. They—especially Trotter—were as good as dead.

“There are no more turnoffs before the bridge, are there?”

“No, we’ll be able to see it—there it is now. Why?”

“Because I think they’re probably going to try to force us off the bridge. Stay calm.”

“Stay calm? Allan, what are you going to do?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Haven’t
decided?”
She grabbed his arm, ignoring him when he said, “Don’t do that.”

“Haven’t
decided?”
she said again. “Allan, are you fucking
crazy?
You have to pull over! You have to fight them!”

“I thought you were going to stay calm.”

“Not when you’re going to let me
drown!”

“I’m not going to let you drown. Anyway, I can’t fight them.”

“Why not? It looks like there’s only one or two people in that car.” She twisted around under her seat belt to look directly at it. He didn’t bother to tell her to stop. Not only did he doubt she’d listen, but he realized there was nothing to be gained by trying to make the men in the car believe they hadn’t been noticed.

“Yes,” Regina said. “There are only two of them.”

“They have guns.”

It took her a few seconds to find her tongue. “You don’t have a
gun?
What kind of spy are you? I’m going to die because—”

“You are not going to die for any reason. Now shut up and listen.”

She shut up. He wasn’t sure how much listening she was doing. She looked catatonic.

“You have to stay calm. No matter what they do, and especially no matter what
I
do, you have to
stay calm
or you’ll kill us both. If you stay calm, I promise, I’ll get you out of this.”

She looked at him. She wasn’t exactly calm, but at least she was quiet.

“Did you get that?”

“Stay calm,” she said numbly.

“No matter what. Besides, it might be nothing. Then we can all go home and laugh about this.”

“Laugh,” Regina said.

Then he had no more time to spare for her. They were at the Kirk River Bridge.