Sustenance (41 page)

“Excellent,” Channing approved. “I was right to rely on you.”

“I’m honored to be worthy of your trust,” said Broadstreet, hoping he was not fawning too obviously. “But what about this Grof Szent-Germain? Have you any more information about him?”

“Scotland Yard has a file on him: he has a shipping company and a publishing house in England, much as he has in France and Italy, and Amsterdam and Copenhagen for that matter, and probably in other places as well. His father or grandfather had a factory and a school in Russia, but he vanishes from the record before 1918; I can’t tell you for certain if he got out ahead of the Cossacks, but I doubt it, which wouldn’t incline Szent-Germain to help the Soviets, but might provide a means to contact anti-Soviet factions in the present government,” said Channing, hoping he had covered all the bases on this case. “I was hoping the Soviets might be willing to pass on information on the fellow, if only because he has hereditary estates in Romania, but they’re no longer willing to share information with us. If we can tie this Szent-Germain to Atkins, then we may have a valuable chip to play.”

“That’s an interesting response,” said Broadstreet. “I’ll have Rothcoe put one of his men on it and see if any of it dovetails with Atkins.” The recent addition to being able to post no more than two spies to a case had caused Broadstreet his first sign of making progress in the Agency, though he was reluctant to discuss it for fear that someone as ambitious as he was himself might find a way to throw a monkey-wrench in everything he sought.

“Playing both ends against the middle?” Channing suggested. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

Broadstreet was suddenly distracted by the first spangle of heat lightning—not the kind of omen he wanted on this occasion, he told himself. “It might all come to nothing,” he said and coughed once.

“Leave your options open, Dell, that’s the idea. Get as much confirmation as you can, from the most reliable sources.” Channing made a grimace that passed for a smile. “I’ll see if I can get you a couple more agents to pursue your case on-site.” He blinked at the second squirt of heat lightning. “I believe it would make more sense for us to adjourn for now. You don’t want to drive home in a summer storm.”

“No, I don’t,” Broadstreet said with conviction. “I’ll have more information for you by next Monday.”

“That’s excellent. Once you get the dice thrown, it’s best to act quickly. Send a wire, don’t bother with the evening courier.”

“I’ll provide you with a copy of what I put in motion before I leave tonight: nothing will get done tomorrow. I’ll put the message to Rothcoe in an Agency bag no later than twelve, which should reach here by midnight.” He tried to smile but got it wrong, and stopped still.

“That would be fine.” He indicated the door. “Would you ask Pierce to come in as you go out?”

“Of course,” said Broadstreet, encouraged by Channing’s best efforts at geniality. Drinking the last of his lemonade, he set the glass down; he made a gesture that was half-wave, half-salute, and picked up his briefcase. He nodded to Channing and held out his hand. When they had shaken, Broadstreet picked up his briefcase. “If anything changes, I’ll call you with a report as soon as I learn of it.”

“Thank you,” said Channing, and settled back in his wheelchair and watched Broadstreet depart. Then he rolled around his desk to go to the window, where three minutes later, he saw Broadstreet rush from the building, racing toward the crosswalk to catch the light, and honked at by a light-blue Nash for his pains.

A few minutes later, Opal Pierce knocked on the door and without being summoned, came in. “You sent for me?”

“Broadstreet took the bait,” said Channing, rolling back toward his desk.

“Just like that? Hook, line, and sinker?” she asked, startled, and came up behind his chair, bending over to kiss Channing’s ear.

“Not a quibble or a hesitation,” Channing said, smiling in spite of his somber mood. “He’d fall on his sword in the Lincoln Memorial if we asked it.”

“He may have to do that if this plan of yours doesn’t work,” Pierce told him, concern in her expertly shadowed eyes. “This is a big risk.”

“I don’t want to have to work for a glory-hog like Hoover; it would turn all of CIA into a tool for political sabotage—of this country,” said Channing distantly. “The man would be Inquisitor General if we didn’t have separation of Church and State.”

“No; nor would I. Still, you will allow he’s good at showing his Bureau to advantage,” said Pierce.

“Give the devil his due, you mean?” Channing said, but not very generously. “So long as what is good for the Bureau also enhances the reputation of Hoover himself, yes, he does a great deal to reinforce the public understanding of G-men, especially those in the FBI. He and the Bureau are one in the same, I’d imagine, at least in his mind.”

“I’ll give you that, and at least Hoover is making himself an obvious target, if it all goes to hell in a handbasket,” Pierce remarked. “Wild Bill told me Hoover was riding for a fall.”

“It hasn’t happened yet,” said Channing morosely.

“Wild Bill had a pretty clear take on the man, and he said that Hoover is more like Stalin than FDR; that would be enough to make him fall.”

“Eventually,” Channing grumbled.

“It may take time,” she conceded, “but—”

“We can but hope,” said Channing.

Knowing this speculation would only upset him, Pierce changed the subject. “How much longer is this going to take, this investigation you’ve foisted on Broadstreet?” She sounded slightly amused, but Channing knew it was more complicated than that.

“That depends on him. He still has options, and a couple of them would advance him if he keeps his wits about him. I’ll see to whom he assigns the next level of the case, and then I’ll have a better idea. The good thing is that he may actually turn up something worthwhile if he goes about it right.” He rolled his chair out from under the desk. “Either way, neither of us is in danger.”

“And Alice? She’s taking a risk signing on with you,” Pierce reminded him.

“When we’re done here, you can let Alice know what’s been happening,” he promised her as he unzipped his fly.

TEXT OF A LETTER FROM HAPGOOD NUGENT, BETWEEN UPPSALA AND PARIS, TO CHRISTOPHER “KIT” MORGENSTERN IN PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY, USA, AN AIR-LETTER DELIVERED THREE DAYS AFTER IT WAS SENT.

July 18
th
, 1950

Dear Kit;

God! I can’t understand how those Scandinavians can stand it. It’s light all day and most of the night. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat, you can’t get any chance to sit and think. I know it’s the opposite in winter, which I wouldn’t like any better. Horrible things they do with fish, too, and present them as pate or something equally inedible.

All right, I’ve finished my ghastly bit and will try not to carry on too much more vociferously. I saw the head of Math here, and I’ll say he has an ambitious program. There’s plenty of opportunity to do new work without creating worries about Communists. He—the head of the Math Department—says he would be willing to take any flack that may come from having me teaching there—something new for a change—and could, in fact, turn my present problems to advantage: “Hounded out of his own country, this young mathematician,… etc. etc. etc.” You know the drill. He’s promised me a tutor so I can learn Swedish, and a translator so I can lecture until I do learn Swedish. I’ve accepted, of course, and I’ll arrange to move before the new semester starts. At least that’s my plan; I didn’t actually ask what day they begin classes. As soon as I have a new address, I’ll send it along to you, and you may pass it on—discreetly. Nothing specific said on any trans-Atlantic telephone calls, nothing spread too openly. I don’t want the CIA appearing on my doorstep if I can avoid it.

Bethune has been saying that he’s of the opinion that we have another mole in the Coven. I really hope Bethune is wrong. McCall has made an effort to find out, but there’s nothing conclusive. McCall would like it to be Win Pomeroy—it would make a good movie that way—but there’s nothing to point that way, and a lot of evidence against it, including that we might not have a mole at all. The whole thing is ridiculous. Wash Young is one of the few no one thinks is the mole, being colored and in the trades. Probably there are Negro Communists, but who knows if Wash is one of them? He seems content to keep up the work that Szent-Germain has offered him at his Paris printing plant. He does
The Grimoire,
as you might recall.

Boris King sends his regards to your father. He and Wilhelmina may be moving on to Tel Aviv as soon as things settle down there. His offer is a good one, not as remunerative as the old situation, but much more rewarding. There is a group of people in Israel who are eager to keep all things Russian out of that coutnry, and Boris is not inclined to go where he isn’t wanted. If all goes well, he’ll be in charge of their Russian music archives, which will be as close to heaven as he’s ever likely to come. He and Wilhelmina are planning to spend a month there in the autumn, looking for places to live, signing contracts, the whole kaboodle. He’s had a raw deal all around if you ask me. I’ve promised to visit them in the winter, when everything is sere and dark—not this year, next year, we hope. Wilhelmina is being careful, in case something interferes in this encouraging development. I think she’s being overcautious, but I can’t dispute her concerns.

By the way, have you heard anything from George? I haven’t, not even while Mimi was with me, in the south of France. That’s puzzled me, it seeming to be unlike him. But how many of us are as we used to be? If you happen to get a line on him, pass on the new contact information; I’ll thank you now. You’re a good egg, Kit, and I hope Princeton knows it. They need more men like you working on their Maths programs.

We’re going through some rough weather, and writing isn’t easy. I’ll try to send you another note in the next week, and catch you up with as much as I can. I hope our irregular correspondence doesn’t get you into hot water.

Happy

4

T
HEY HAD
tumbled into his bed more than an hour ago, and now her face was rosy, alight with her fading orgasm, and her lips still slightly swollen as she languorously half-sat-up in bed and turned her puzzled eyes on him. She disliked the sense that she was losing his total attention, a realization which caused her some embarrassment since she was the one committing adultery, not he. “Why do you do that?” she asked without any emotion beyond curiosity; she had not known there were so many ways to climax, nor had she felt so wholly content with herself as she was now—contented, and for the first time in four years, safe.

“Do what?” he asked, looking up at her from a mound of pillows.

“You know,” she said, a dreamy note in her voice. “Everything short of … you know. Inside.” She could feel the blush in her neck and face; she chided herself for prissiness, reminding herself that she was no child, not even a young maiden, but a woman with two sons, and a divorced woman at that. She knew about sex, she knew the words to use, and there was no reason not to use them. Yet she could not bring herself to say them. Her blush intensified and she remained tongue-tied.

He was enjoying the growing strength of night—in summer, they were all too brief—the return to full capabilities now that the sun was below the horizon, and he let himself smile as he answered, “What troubles you, Charis? That I am impotent? That you cannot change it? Or is it that my impotence does not restrict me from anything but the obvious?” The first time he had made such a direct admission, he had been in Egypt, a slave at the Temple of Imhotep; then, he had felt ashamed and abashed, but those emotions had faded over the centuries and now there was no distress left to color his statement. “I have discussed this with you. You assured me you understood.”

“And I do,” she said, trying not to be flustered. “It doesn’t trouble me, actually, but”—she struggled to find the right word—“perplexes me.”

“Why are you perplexed?” His faint smile had no suggestion of mockery in it. Touching her hand gently, he smoothed the sheet with the other and angled a large, overstuffed pillow against the headboard. “Lie back, and tell me what you want to know. I’ll explain to the limits of my abilities.”

She tossed the duvet back and stretched out beside him, her skin burnished by the last afterglow of sunset. What had been a sultry day was giving way to a warm, delightful night; Paris was beginning to sparkle, the City of Light showing off in grand style. “Why won’t you…” She knew this was dangerous territory, and chose her words as carefully as her still-rapturous perceptions would bear “… undress for me? I do for you. Or let me undress you. What would be wrong in that, if you have undressed me? You say you want intimacy, and so leaving on your clothes is a … an apparent contradiction.”

“The precision of the academic mind,” he murmured, stroking her shoulder affectionately.

She would not allow his remark or his expert ministrations to distract her purpose. “It’s … weird for me to be naked and you to be almost completely dressed.” Now that the difficult part was over, she said the rest more quickly. “I mean, a silk shirt and summer-weight wool slacks! You see me naked. I haven’t seen you naked. We could have more together if you—”

“We could,” he agreed amiably, “but it brings us back to the four contacts again, and the fifth and sixth; you have said you think what little I’ve told you is illusion and lies. There is more to consider than this wonderful pleasure.”

“I didn’t use those words,” she protested, her face going a bit pale.

“No, you didn’t,” he said, his gaze steady and affectionate. “But I know when someone is calling me a liar even when I do not speak their language. You are being most polite, and I appreciate that, but it means that I haven’t your full trust, which saddens me for both our sakes.” Szent-Germain ran his hand down from her shoulder to her hip, a light touch that made her skin tingle. “I do what I do within the restriction of my condition, so that you may cross the threshold of your fulfillment, and both of us be filled with gratification; yours is the only gratification I can have, and so I am joyous when you are willing to accept me. If we are very fortunate, there is a touching that goes beyond skin, a delicious transport that nourishes the soul,” he went on gently, leaning over and kissing her shoulder where his fingers had been seconds ago. “Because you like your body so well, and that in itself is satisfying to me, though there is more—” His smile was quick and authentic. “Your satisfaction fulfills me as it does you.”