THIRTEEN
My brother was right, Kovinski wasn’t hard to find. In fact, he turned out to be a listed spy. I came across a public phone a couple of blocks from where Horst and Hanna lived, decided to start there, see if I got lucky. And there he was—”Kovinski, A,” sandwiched between “Kosche, G” and “Krause, H.” I tore the page out, stuffed it in my pocket, and jumped into a taxi.
In the ride over, I took the photo out and studied his face, thought about how I should handle him. He was a weasel, the kind of clown who thinks he’s playing all the angles when in fact they’re playing him. He’d act tough at first, but fold under pressure. I had an idea about how to play him, but I wasn’t gonna f*ck around if he didn’t go for it. There wasn’t time and I wasn’t in the mood.
Kovinski lived in a low-rent neighborhood, in a cluster of concrete high-rises built in the Josef Stalin style of architecture. The buildings were grouped around a sad-looking common that was probably planned as an urban oasis, where residents could get away from their drab, airless apartments, but ended up as an empty patch of dust and overgrown weeds. There wasn’t a soul in sight.
I paid Melik, my Turkish cabby, double the meter and told him to keep it running. A young immigrant with a twinkle in his eye and passable English, he nodded squarely when I told him to follow at a discreet distance if I went anywhere. I found my way to Kovinski’s building and rang the bell for apartment 5C.
“Wer ist es?” came a voice over the speaker.
“I’m looking for Aleks Kovinski,” I said. There was a beat of silence before he responded, this time in heavily accented English.
“Who is asking?”
“I’m looking for a lost lamb,” I said, knowing that would cut through a lot of bullshit. An even longer pause followed.
“I come down,” he finally said.
It was turning out to be a perfect June day, sunny and bright, but the stillness of the area was kind of spooky. I felt like I was being watched, but shook it off. Pregame jitters, I told myself. When Kovinski appeared he didn’t hang around, flew out the door and right past me. I caught up after a few yards.
“Who are you?” he asked, glancing over without slowing his pace.
“A friend.” He gave me a contemptuous look, with good reason.
“Do you have a name?”
“Not one you need to know.”
“Some friend,” he scoffed.
“Maybe the only one you have.”
“What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “Talk.”
“Can we slow down a little?”
He eased up a bit, looked me over more thoroughly. He was pretty much what I’d expected, only more so. I hadn’t even said “boo” yet and he was ready to panic.
“No one is suppose come here,” he said. “They don’t tell you?”
“Who are ‘they’?”
He stopped walking, looked at me, and frowned. He had said too much and realized it. “Who do you work for?” he demanded.
“Same as you,” I smiled.
“You make mistake,” he sputtered, taking a step back. “Maybe you look for someone else.”
“You’re ‘lamb,’ aren’t you?”
“You find wrong person.” He turned around and started back toward his building.
“That’s a shame,” I called after him. “Because the Aleks Kovinski I’m looking for needs help.”
“Go to hell!” he yelled back.
“Ever had your picture in the paper?” He kept walking. I took the envelope out of my pocket, waved it in the air. “Because I thought you might wanna see the one that’s gonna go with your obituary! … You know what obituary means?” Apparently he did, because he stopped walking and turned around. I took the photograph out of the envelope and held it out to him.
“Take a look,” I said. “Should make tomorrow’s evening edition.” He hesitated, not sure what to make of it. “Because if you don’t talk to me now, tomorrow’s the day you die.”
“Show me,” he demanded, edging nearer. I complied, without handing it over. His whole body seemed to tense up when he saw himself standing in front of the flag with the rifle in his hands.
“It’s not the most flattering angle,” I said breezily. “But it makes a statement. The sidearm’s a nice touch.”
“Where you get this?” he said, voice shaking.
“Somebody you know gave it to me,” I said, and he looked at me sideways.
“Who?”
“How about I buy you a cup of coffee?”
He led us to a bar around the corner, where we ordered coffee and sat at a wobbly wooden table in the back, away from the window. The place wasn’t doing much business, just an old man and his lame dog who looked like they were settling in for the day. Kovinski pulled out a pack of nonfilters and started puffing away nervously. Bumming one was out of the question, so I convinced myself I wasn’t interested.
“Is not me,” he said.
“What’s not you?”
“This picture … Is not me.” His leg was bouncing up and down like a Mexican jumping bean.
“You’re a bit high-strung for this business, aren’t you?” I said.
“What business?”
“The playing-both-sides-of-the-fence business. You don’t exactly have nerves of steel.”
“Go to hell,” he said, leaning back in his chair and blowing smoke rings, proving that he was as cool as a cucumber.
“Yeah, you said that before.”
“I dunno this picture. Is not me.”
“You said that, too.”
“Is truth,” he shrugged. I pulled the photo out again, made a big show of looking back and forth between it and his face.
“It sure as hell looks like you,” I said.
“Is fake,” he said, trying to look bored. “My head maybe, not the rest.” He glanced nervously toward the old man and his dog. He was looking everywhere except in my eye.
I took another look at the photo. It looked real enough to me, but what did I know? If it was a fake, it was a damned good one. It did strike me that Kovinski’s shock when he saw it had been genuine. Then again, Kovinski was a natural-born liar. In the end, it didn’t make much difference. Bogus or not, its purpose was the same.
“You’re being set up, Aleks,” I said. “If the picture’s really a phony, it should be all the more obvious to you.”
“I dunno nothing.”
“I can help you, if you cooperate.”
He blew smoke in my face, which was stupid beyond belief. It was hard to believe the guy could have survived this long in the game he was playing. Of course, his future prospects weren’t looking too bright.
“If I get out of this chair, you’re dead tomorrow,” I said. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
“This is bullshit,” he said, stubbing out his cigarette, leg still going a mile a minute.
“You saw the picture.”
“So what? A picture! Maybe you make it!”
“Come on, Aleks, I hope you’re smarter than that. You already know who made it. Shall I tell you why they made it?”
He tipped his head back and looked at me out of the bottom of his eyes. I waited. “Okay …” he finally said. “You tell.”
“The CIA is planning the assassination of a senior official in the West German government,” I said. “It will take place tomorrow, while Kennedy is in Berlin. The picture’s part of a plan to frame you. It looks like you’re being set up to take the fall.”
He froze. Even his leg stopped moving. He leaned forward. “American CIA to kill West German official?”
“That’s right,” I said. It was out of the question to tell him that the target was Kennedy, so I’d come up with this story in the taxi on the way over. And if he already had an inkling that he was being set up for something, it would ring true.
“I don’t believe….” Kovinski shook his head. “Why they do this? CIA is ally with West Germany.”
“The Americans think the West Germans are getting a little too cozy with the Russians. The idea is to make it look like the official was hit by a KGB agent. And you’re it.”
“Bullshit,” he said, leaning forward.
“How much do you wanna bet that you’re holding the murder weapon in that picture?”
“I never saw this gun!”
“Sure, I believe you, but you won’t be around to clear that up after tomorrow. Killed while trying to get away, probably by some cop who’s working with them.”
The poor jerk sat there with a look of bewilderment on his face. He was trying to fit the pieces together, but his head was spinning. I leaned in and landed the knockout punch.
“Sasha knows you double-crossed us,” I whispered. “He knows you’ve been working for the Americans.” Kovinski went chalk white.
“But you—? How do you—?” He looked helpless, truly lost.
“I work for him,” I said, sipping black coffee.
“Sasha sent you?” he said, almost breathless. “What does he think—?”
“He doesn’t think, Aleks. He knows. How do you suppose I got your CIA code name? Sasha has people everywhere, you ought to know that. I’m one of them.”
“I never told anything important. … I swear! Never!” He said it with desperate sincerity. Watching him squirm was turning my stomach, so I put an end to his misery.
“Sasha is willing to give you a second chance,” I said. “A chance to clean the slate.”
“Anything …” he said, suddenly eager to please. “You tell me what and I do!”
At this point, of course, I could have told him to give me the name of his CIA controller. Chances are, though, he would’ve bullshitted or stalled me, even as frightened as he was. It was his nature. Even if he had played it straight, he wouldn’t have the guy’s real name, so I had to take a chance.
“I want you to make contact,” I said. “Arrange a meeting as soon as possible. This morning. Say it’s an emergency. Can you do that?”
“I think so. Yes.”
“Tell him your cover is blown, that the Russians are on to you but they’re giving you one last chance. Say you’ve been sent back to get information about an assassination plot, that the KGB knows someone’s gonna be hit—they don’t know who or when, but they’re sure it’s somebody important. Don’t say anything about me or the photograph. Tell them if you don’t get some information to bring back, you’ll be killed. Have you got that?”
He nodded.
“Tell me.”
“Sasha found out I’m double agent, but he gives another chance if I get information … about plot to kill important man, but he don’t know who.”
“What about the photograph?”
“I say nothing.”
“And what happens if you don’t come back with some information?”
“I get killed.”
“That’s right, very good.”
He swallowed hard.
“They’ll probably send you back with some bullshit,” I said, knowing it was just as likely that they’d bump him off and find another patsy, but he didn’t need to hear that. Maybe he knew it already and was trying to figure out which side he stood a better chance with, not realizing that whatever he did, he was finished. It was just a question of how long he could delay the inevitable.
“We’ll meet back here today, at four o’clock,” I said. “Okay?”
“Yes. Four o’clock,” he repeated.
“Good.” I stood up. “That’s it, then.” He grabbed my sleeve as I turned to leave.
“Tell Sasha I do good work for him,” he said pitifully. I gave him a look and he let go.
Melik was parked down the street. I got in and gave him a pat on the back. “Nice going,” I said. We didn’t have to wait long because Kovinski was out like a shot and scurrying like a rat up the sidewalk toward the car. I scrunched down in the back until he passed.
“We follow?” said Melik.
“We follow,” I confirmed, and he pulled the car around, nice and slow, easing it up the street, staying well behind our man. I wondered if all taxi drivers in Berlin were as practiced in the art of surveillance.
Kovinski didn’t disappoint me, went straight for a phone. My only concern had been that I’d overcooked him and he’d run scared. I’d counted on him being smart enough to know that he didn’t have anywhere to run and I seemed to be right. It had worked out well, I thought. Kovinski’s story would shake things up, maybe even cause a misstep. At the very least, he would lead me into the circle. What I’d do after that, I had no idea. Play it by ear, like always, I guess. I had to admit, though, I was enjoying my comeback.
About an hour later we pulled up in front of a small “art cinema” strangely situated in the middle of a leafy residential block of what would otherwise be a typical middle-class neighborhood. There was no marquee, just some steps leading down from the sidewalk, where a discreet billboard listed the feature attraction as Schmutziger Engel (rough translation: “Smutty Angels”). It was a perfect meeting spot for the clandestinely inclined—the picture played around the clock and the customers would be intent on their own business, so to speak. Kovinski had taken three buses to get there and, as far as I could tell, hadn’t spotted us. He looked at his watch, hurried down the steps, and disappeared inside.
I sat in the taxi with a dilemma. Whatever the public demand for a film about angels having sex, the place was bound to be empty at this hour, so there was a good chance that if I went in I’d be made, which would blow everything. On the other hand, anyone with half a brain would realize that Kovinski was a security risk and arrange an alternate exit in case someone like me had followed him and was watching the door. If I hung around I might lose him out the rear exit and be back to square one.
“Have you got a hat?” I asked Melik, and he produced a black fisherman’s cap, which would have to do. I took it and told him to wait, even though I knew he wouldn’t be going anywhere with the meter pushing seventy marks.
I went down the steps and inside the building. The lobby, if you could call it that, was dark, the only significant light coming from the ticket counter, which was a converted cloakroom inhabited by a young lady with bright pink fingernails who was reading a copy of Der Spiegel under a bronze table lamp in the shape of a reclining nude.
“Zwei Mark fünfzig,” she said, looking up without moving her head. I gave her the money and she pushed a ticket across. I noticed the magazine was open to a story on the election of a new pope, following John XXIII’s death earlier in the month. I remembered reading at the time that Kennedy’s European tour, which included a stop in Rome for an audience with the Holy Father, had been delayed by his untimely demise. The president, unwilling to miss out on the chance to be blessed by—and photographed with—His Holiness, simply rescheduled the trip for the following week and announced to the world that he would look forward to meeting the new pontiff, putting a fair amount of pressure on the College of Cardinals to make a quick decision. It looked from the article like they’d come through, sending up the white smoke in a record-shattering two days.
The girl misinterpreted my interest, gave me a “don’t even think of talking to me” look, and turned the page. She wasn’t much older than sixteen, I thought. Back in the States, she’d be listening to Ricky Nelson records and dreaming about the junior prom.
I made my way into the basement screening room. It was small—maybe a dozen rows, ten seats across, with an aisle down the middle. I pulled the cap down over my forehead, slipped into a seat close to the door, and glanced around. I had underestimated the film’s drawing power. There were twenty or so avid angel fans scattered around the room, in various states of consciousness. At least one of them was snoring. At least I hoped it was snoring.
Kovinski and his controller weren’t hard to spot, the only twosome in a room full of solos. They were tucked away against the wall about halfway down the opposite side, Kovinski leaning over, talking animatedly to the guy, blocking my view of him.
I turned my attention to the screen. It was night, lit by moonlight, in black and white, very grainy. Two blondes with cardboard wings strapped to their backs were stretched out in the garden of some stately home performing heavenly acts on each other. Every once in a while the picture would cut to a reaction shot of the various marble statues overlooking the scene, which I guess allowed everyone to pretend they were watching art.
Kovinski was getting loud. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it didn’t sound good. He was agitated, making demands. He’d probably blown it, talked about the photograph. I thought he might, and even though I wished he hadn’t, I knew it was worse for him than it was for me. In fact, it might work out fine for me. There was no way this guy, whoever he was, would let Kovinski walk away after he mentioned the photo. He’d have to put him on ice and it would be interesting to see where.
They started to attract attention. A guy in front kept looking over and finally shushed Kovinski. I pushed myself down into the seat, kept my eyes fixed on the moaning angels. I could sense Kovinski’s companion getting agitated, looking around the theater, checking things out. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him lean over and whisper something, presumably along the lines of “Let’s get the hell out of here.” As the two men got up and headed for the exit, I got my first look at the control agent’s face—my old friend Baby Bear Andy Johnson, the Green Beret from West Texas, was heading up the aisle behind Kovinski.
He’d walk right by me, just inches away. Damn! Why the hell hadn’t I waited outside? And why had I taken an aisle seat? The angels seemed to be reaching a climax and I prayed that the scene wouldn’t end with them going up in a blaze of orgasmic light. I needed dark right now.
I tilted my head down slightly so the cap would cover most of my face. If I was too obvious I’d just draw attention, but my heart was pounding away so loudly that I thought they might hear it. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought Kovinski spotted me then quickly looked away. He was such a klutz I was afraid Johnson might pick it up, but nothing came. They walked right by and out the door. I exhaled, counted to thirty, pulled myself out of the chair, and followed.
The lobby was empty except for the girl.
“The two men …” I said urgently. “Where did they go!”
“Out,” she said, with studied boredom.
“Which way!” She lifted her head and showed me a smirk that shouldn’t have been in her repertoire yet.
“Is there a back door?” I said urgently, realizing if Johnson had parked a car out there I was screwed. I hadn’t thought it through, was playing it a bit too much by ear.
“The back door isn’t allowed for the public,” she shrugged lethargically.
I dug into my pocket, pulled out a few crumpled bills, threw them on the counter. She looked at them, then at me, wanting more.
“I think you’d better tell me,” I said, taking a step toward her. She smiled, a little nervously, and pointed at a velvet curtain hanging on the opposite wall.
“There,” she said, stuffing my money into her bra. “It’s open.”
I pulled the curtain aside, pushed the door open, and stepped into a narrow alleyway between two buildings.
Then the world went dark.