“For many years, back when I was younger and more useful …” He paused. Then he made the leap. “I was engaged in helping my country through covert means. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was a spy. For CIA.” Rook sniffed and shifted, crossing his feet at the ankles where he leaned. Wynn tilted his head to him and said, “You had that figured out, of course. Another reason not to maintain the fiction. That’s what spying is all about, you know, fiction. It’s more cloak than dagger. We made up stories and lived them. And you’re right, sending me to Europe as an investment banker for my legend provided me excellent camouflage. More than that, it gave me access to places I needed to gather intel. There’s nothing like making people rich to open a few doors and not have anybody ask too many questions about you.”
He turned back to Nikki. “I ran what headquarters in Langley nicknamed my Nanny Network. They called it that because I began with an ingenious idea. With so many influential contacts I had developed through my cover business, I began to recruit and place nannies in the homes of diplomats and other select subjects of interest, to spy on them and report back to me. The simplicity of the notion was exceeded only by the results. These nannies had incredible access to the home lives of my subjects. Once they penetrated, they not only listened, they planted bugs and, occasionally, took photographs, either for intelligence gathering or, yes, leverage. Blackmail.” He smiled at Nikki. “I can see you are ahead of me. You’re there, already, aren’t you?”
She could feel light beads of perspiration on her chest and where the small of her back met the molded plastic chair. “I think so.” Her voice sounded like someone else’s.
“The director himself was so pleased by the secrets I was mining, my orders were to generate more. Remember, we’re talking the seventies. The Cold War was still on. You had Vietnam. The IRA. The Berlin Wall. Carlos the Jackal was kidnapping OPEC ministers in Vienna. SALT treaty talks were on in Moscow. The Greek monarchy got overthrown. Red Chinese sleeper cells started assimilating into the U.S. And most of the players, sooner or later, came through Paris.
“The genius of the Nanny Network was that I could expand it by plugging in more than just nannies and au pairs. I added a butler, then some cooks, and then English tutors, and, yes, Nikki Heat—music tutors. One of your mother’s classmates, Nicole Bernardin, had worked out very well spying for me, and she helped me to recruit Cynthia on a summer visit.”
Heat and Rook made a slow turn to each other. Neither wanted to break the thread by speaking, and they both brought their attention back to the old man. Nikki heard voices passing in the hall and hoped to learn more before the French version of Nurse Ratched came in and gave them the toss.
“Your mother’s first assignment was an important one, and she excelled. In the summer of 1971 movement began behind the scenes to negotiate an end to the Vietnam conflict.”
“The Paris Peace Talks,” Rook said, unable to contain himself.
“That’s right. I learned that the ambassador to a certain Soviet Bloc nation, a fair-weather Communist I had secretly invested some cash for, was going to host the family of one of the North Vietnamese negotiators in his home. The North Viets had a young son who wanted to keep up his piano studies.” Nikki’s memory raced back to the toile keepsake box and the photo of her mother with the Asian family outside the Bolshoi. “I placed Cindy in the ambassador’s home as the boy’s summer tutor. The kid had a great recital, and your mom passed along vital information that helped Kissinger keep a leg up at the negotiating table. You should be proud.”
“I am,” said, Nikki. “And it helps me understand the change that came over her when she visited here.”
“You mean giving up her concert career? After a few placements there was no stopping her. She not only took tutor-in-residence assignments here in Paris, she traveled all over Europe for years, listening and reporting, listening and reporting,” he repeated. “Whether it was pure patriotism or just the thrill of the work, she was one hell of a spy. She told me the sense of mission it gave her fulfilled her like nothing else could. Not even her music.”
After processing that, Nikki said, “She had to be in danger a lot.”