Red Rag Blues (39 page)

As they drove home, he said: “What's in this for Mikhail?”

“You heard him. The collapse of Western capitalism.”

“That's absurd. He obviously enjoys living here.”

“Well, work can be fun too. This is America. A man has to do what a man has to do. Randolph Scott said it.”

“Bollocks. Anyhow, we can't afford to pay him more than five hundred dollars.”

“Forget it, Luis. You never did understand money.”

Mikhail was in the apartment, waiting for them. He and Stevie were drinking chilled beer in frosted goblets while they watched TV coverage of the hearing.

“Joe ain't happy,” Stevie said. “Got a face like a bad clam.”

“Let's go on the roof,” Mikhail said. “Lousy acoustics up there.”

Luis got beers from the fridge, and they went upstairs. A girl in a leotard was practicing dance steps in one corner. In the other an old man was squeezing gentle melodies out of an accordion.

“McCarthy's a very bad loser,” Luis said.

“One day we give him Russian documents,” Julie said, “and next day Fantoni gives him Russian documents. He's gonna wonder, did they all come out of the same hat?”

“Fantoni told him the FBI has copies,” Luis said. “Does it?”

“Some,” Mikhail said. “Not all.”

“McCarthy demands J. Edgar Hoover checks the FBI files,” she said. “Then what?” She didn't wait. “I know what. Hoover hates the bum, hates helping him.
But
if he
does
check, then he'll know
some
stuff is phony. What next?”

“Hoover tells McCarthy he's been conned,” Luis said. “He'd get a big kick out of that.”

“But not for a week, maybe two,” Mikhail said. “Millions of files in the FBI. Still time to do new business with the senator.”

“Talking of business,” Luis said. “One thing we might as well get settled now—”

“How much do you plan to pay us?” Julie asked.

“One thousand dollars a week,” Mikhail said.

“Done.” They shook hands.

“Well,” Luis said. “That's reasonable, I suppose.”

*

Later that evening, Stevie announced she was going to live in Paris. “Frenchmen got
panache”
she said. “You see any
panache
in DC?” They asked when she wanted to go. “Now,” she said. They drove her to the airport. Last seen, she was talking to an Air France flight engineer. Looked like love at first sight.

Fantoni and Fisk flew back to Idlewild. A summer storm boiled above Philadelphia and the seatbelt sign was never off. Fisk observed that his man's right foot twitched like a metronome; and when the plane landed, touched down, Fantoni kept his right hand clamped on his thigh so hard that the fingernails lost their color. The engines stopped. Fisk undid his man's seatbelt. “After that,” Fantoni said, “purgatory should be a piece of cake.”

A car was waiting for Fantoni. Fisk took a cab to 58th Street and checked in with Prendergast.

“Officially, nobody's saying anything,” Prendergast told him. “But everybody's got an opinion. What's yours?”

“Fantoni put on one hell of a show. And if his documents aren't kosher, why hasn't McCarthy said so? Either way, we can forget the senator. Mr. Hoover has the facts. All the Bureau need do is look in the files.”

Prendergast didn't like the sound of that. He screwed his face up. “The files,” he said. “The files … FBI HQ in DC has million of files. Plain files. Confidential files, available only to assistant directors. And then there's the ‘Do Not File' files. They contain all the items that are so sensitive they must not be filed. Only the Director has access to the ‘Do Not File' files. Maybe that's where Mr. Hoover keeps the Fantoni papers. If they exist.”

“He hasn't denied it,” Fisk said, “so maybe it's true.”

“He can't deny it,” Prendergast said. “Any denial would only confirm Fantoni's claim that the FBI will deny everything.”

Fisk threw up his hands, walked away, leaned against a wall. “Maybe he really was a double agent. We know he contacted Cabrillo before the hearing, and Cabrillo was a double agent once. He could be Fantoni's minder.”

“Sure. And the butler shot Sammy in the library. What happened to Fantoni's arm?”

“Shoulder. Old football injury. Princeton.”

“Dumb game,” Prendergast said. “He should have stuck to tossing the beanbag.”

They were having breakfast in a coffee shop when Luis said, “You know, we've developed a really beautiful relationship here.”

“I'm not going to marry you.”

“I didn't mean you and me. I meant us and Mikhail… And I didn't ask you to marry me.”

“So we've got total agreement on that, then.”

He watched her eat toast. “Not necessarily.”

“Then why don't you ask me?” She seemed quite serious.

“You've just given me the answer.”

“I might have been lying. You lie all the time.”

True, he thought. Also untrue. “My poor head is spinning. Can we get back to the beautiful relationship? Everyone is getting what he wants. Metal Exchange is making money coming and going. Mikhail pays us at one end and McCarthy at the other. The Red perils we expose are authentic. Mikhail's documents say so. McCarthy's experts test them until their fingers bleed, and they're all as Russian as Dostoyevsky's underpants. Isn't that beautiful? Pure harmony. Like Mozart.”

“Speaking of underpants, your fly's open.”

“Today I shall focus on the Chicago Department of Sanitation. Subversion in the garbage collecting.”

“After the Mafia stuff?” She made a face. “Anticlimax.”

He thought about it. “Possibly.”

They went to the office, and Luis shut himself in the conference room. He came out at lunchtime, emptyhanded. “The well is dry,” he said. “The Communists have already infiltrated government, church, education, atomic energy, the unions, the Mafia, Hollywood, the Idaho potato crop and the San Andreas Fault. I can't find anything they've missed.”

“Roy Cohn phoned,” she said. “The senator is hot for those major projects we have in the pipeline.”

“Food. I can't create without lunch.”

“Mozart was the same.”

*

“Give him time, Mikhail,” Kim said. “I know this man. He's at his best when under pressure.”

“His well is dry. What sort of feeble excuse is that?”

They were strolling in the garden. Kim had not left the embassy since the night of Wagner's death, and he was startling to feel restless. “Artists exaggerate,” he said. “They're not to be taken literally.”

“Momentum is everything with McCarthy. He needs impetus. Otherwise people forget.” Mikhail snatched at a passing butterfly and missed. Some days nothing went right.

*

At 2:53 p.m. Luis had a brilliant idea. Sport. The US missed out on a gold medal at the last Olympics when the best man in the pole vault wasn't even selected because he had been subverted by his girl friend, a Commy agent. She subverted him between the sheets, twice a day and all night long. Yes! Mikhail would find a photograph of her. Stunning. Naked. Shameless.

No. This wasn't an Olympics year, so who cares? Most American men would sooner be subverted silly by the lovely Olga than go home with a medal. No. Forget sport. Lousy idea.

By 4 p.m. Luis's backside was numb and his eyes weary from looking at nothing. He quit. The well really was dry. He went into the next room.

“Cohn phoned again.” Julie said.

“Well, fuck him.”

“That won't solve his problem.”

Luis got a Dr. Pepper out of the office refrigerator and flicked through the magazines Stevie had bought for their non-existent clients to read.

Brainwashing.

It was in an article in
Time,
about the Korean War. Chinese propaganda. Captured American pilots confess to germ warfare and urge the US military to leave Asia, so the Chinese claim. Followed by stuff about hypnotism and magic mushrooms. “Hey!” he said. “Got it! Brainwashing drugs.”

“All drugs scrub your brain. Heroin, coke, grass. So what?”

“These are new. These drugs change the face of battle. Now you can spray the enemy and make him friendly. The Chinese have started doing it in Korea! Read all about it.” He tossed her the copy of
Time.
“No more gunfire! No more bloodshed!”

She read. “Nothing about that here. This is about prisoners-of-war, allegedly drugged.”

“Of course they were brainwashed. The Chinese have them on film, saying terrible things about America. Why else would a redblooded patriotic US Navy pilot say China is the future and he wants to settle there and grow rice?”

Julie scanned the article. “I don't see that.”

“You will when I finish my report.”

“So … no more war. Is that it?”

“No more
violent
war. The Chinese will defeat us in the laboratory. The US Marines will advance into a chemical fog and come out laughing and skipping and eager to embrace their Chinese foe. Not a shot will be fired.”

“Cute. Does the Pentagon know?”

“That's the whole point.” Luis was so pleased with himself that he was walking in circles. “The Pentagon has been so slow in recognizing the threat of brainwashing that it has tested only one antidote. You'll never guess what.”

“Astonish me.”

“Anadin,” Luis said. “Three times a day. Or as prescribed.”

*

Kim Philby took off the headphones, picked up his notes, and went along the corridor. “The well is wet again,” he said.

The more he read, the more Mikhail liked it. “China is a raw spot for the Americans,” he said. “They sent flocks of missionaries for decades and how did the Chinese show their gratitude? Went Red, the whole inscrutable lot of them.”

“Clever devils. Invented gunpowder.”

“And now they've got anti-gunpowder.” Mikhail stuffed the notes into his pocket. “No time to waste.”

Julie read the first draft, corrected the spelling, and had some questions. The senator was always the guy in the white hat, the straight-shooter, riding to save America. He always had the answer: boot out the Reds. But that wouldn't beat Chinese brainwashing, would it? Luis waved the problem away. Leave that to the Pentagon. The CIA. Meanwhile, scare every taxpayer who expects the US cavalry to come riding to his rescue. But this is America, Julie argued. Americans like guns. Love 'em. Exactly, Luis said. That was when Mikhail arrived.

“I hear you have struck gold,” he said.

“How…” Luis began.

“The same old way,” Julie told him.

Mikhail took a seat and read the draft. “Very interesting,” he said, and re-read it. “Hugely interesting. Congratulations.”

“Julie thinks it might be too scary.”

“For McCarthy? Nothing is too excessive for him. No, this is pure wind in his sails. May I keep this copy? I'd like to start work straight away.”

“Music to my ears, dear chap.” Luis was as blithe as a bluebird. He escorted Mikhail to the door, then stopped. “One tiny fraction of a second,” he said. He strode to his desk, pulled a page out of the typewriter, separated the carbon copy and handed it to Mikhail. “A mere afterthought,” he said. “A footnote to a footnote. But you might as well have it.”

*

Kim had a nose for trouble; it had helped him survive for all these years. When Mikhail returned, said nothing, disappeared into the upper floor where the KGB heavyweights had their offices, Kim smelled bad news. He did the London
Times
crossword to settle his nerves. In a treacherous world, the
Times
compilers never cheated.

When Mikhail came down he had a bottle of pepper vodka and two glasses. “I suppose it was bound to happen,” he said. “Your Mr. Arabel-Cabrillo has stumbled on the truth.” He poured the vodka. “To Lady Luck,” he said, “who has just abandoned us.” They drank. “Arabel's got to go, too.”

“Words of doom and gloom.”

Mikhail took three pages from his inside pocket. “Pages one and two describe the mythical Chinese brainwashing drug, which reduces whole armies to a state of inoffensive serenity. Read page three. He calls it a footnote.”

Kim read it in twenty seconds. “Bloody hell,” he said.

“That's not what they said upstairs. They burned the air to a crisp upstairs.”

“The concept is brilliant. A brainwashing drug that actually
recruits
enemy troops, reverses their loyalty, and makes them attack their comrades! Such ambition! And the Soviet military has it?”

“I wasn't sure. Nothing's impossible. That's why I took it upstairs, a long way upstairs. They nearly had multiple heart attacks.”

“The little sod guessed right.”

“Near enough.” Mikhail topped up their glasses. “Have we got this damn drug? Does it work as described? Nobody's going to tell
me.”
He knocked back his vodka. “But we've got scientists working on it, or something like it. He nearly guessed the codename. He calls it Operation Boomerang. We've been calling it Project Rebound. Yet this thing is extreme ultra top five-star secret. Imagine how Moscow will react if McCarthy tells the world about it.”

Kim stared. He could feel the vodka burning his gut but it didn't seem to have done him any good. “We'll be blamed,” he said. “You and I.”

“We'll be shot.”

“Then let's kill Cabrillo, now, fast. Before he can cause any more chaos.”

“That's what I said Upstairs. They rejected the idea, flat. No killing.”

“For God's sake, why?”