17 Sept 90—SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
Denisov had never gone California in his ten years of enforced exile. He wore a suit most of the time, even on hot days. He expected himself to wear a tie. He dressed in a conservative, dark way that would not have attracted any attention except in California.
The other man was Kurt Heinemann and there was something peculiarly European about him as well, though he wore tan trousers and an open-neck shirt. He was too lean and too muscular and he was untanned. His black eyes were too intense in the laidback culture and his gaze was too direct.
This was their third meeting. The meetings had been full of circles. Denisov understood that. People did not trust each other on first meeting in this trade.
That was why Kurt had sent Ruth to spy on Denisov from the beginning. She was reliable; she gave him all her observations of the Russian living in Santa Barbara. What Kurt could not have expected was that the urge came on her again during her observation. It was not a disease in itself; the doctor had once explained that. This nymphomania was only a symptom of something else, something buried in her subconscious that she could not face but tried to flee from every now and then. That had been a long time ago in the GDR. And now there was no GDR, only the Republic of Germany united. Now there was nothing left at all of the homeland except misery and poverty and angry crowds of the unemployed and a collapse of order. It was hideous and only his self-control was able to see a way for them out of this, for Ruth and him, if only he could hold on a little longer.
“Do you know that Ruth wants to live with me?”
Denisov said this carefully.
The other man stared out at the sea. They sat on a bench at the edge of the beach. The beach was nearly empty because the day was so cool. There were oil derricks in the water that marred the skyline. Santa Barbara stretched behind them up the steep hills to the mountains. Denisov looked out to sea as well.
“Ja.” Silence. Ruth, Ruth. He shook his head. This was such a complication in something that was complicated enough to begin with. “Where is she now?”
“She went to Los Angeles today. She said she wanted to buy things and to look at the city,” Denisov said.
“So she already lives with you?”
“No. She lives in her own apartment. I did not expect this. She is a beautiful woman, Kurt. I cannot refuse her. I am… fond of her. She told me everything. She told me she was to spy on me and that she could not do it.”
“Ja. She falls in love.” He made a face. “She has fallen in love before, Herr Denisov. At times.”
And Denisov blinked but did not look at the other man. He had been a Soviet agent in KGB. He had even met Kurt once before, years ago, in Moscow. They were both exiles in this strange and wonderful country now and it was a bond of sadness between them, whatever business they had to transact.
“Would this be very serious?” Kurt Heinemann said.
“I am fond of her,” Denisov said. “I was married. In the old country. I don’t know what to say to you.”
“It doesn’t matter to me.” He picked up a stone on the sand and flung it toward the sea. The stone splashed in the water.
“Ruth is my sister. She told you everything, no doubt. She told you about our family history. So, you have the advantage to me. I only met you one time in Moscow a long time ago. So. You have something that I am willing to pay you for and that is that. What it is for Ruth is for Ruth to decide.”
“I think it might be better not to deal with you now. In this matter. This is too… personal now.”
“Ja. Too personal.” They both saw it, both saw Ruth flitting across their interior visions. It was a stupid complication the way most complications are.
“So I will make another arrangement.” The Russian wore rimless glasses and his mild blue eyes might have belonged to a saint in another age when there were still saints in the world. He was large and gentle in his movements unless he had to act in violence. And then he could still move with cruel certainty.
“I want that machine,” Kurt Heinemann said. His voice was very quiet.
“But I cannot trust you now,” Denisov said. “You are too… close.”
“Ja. Too close. So you trust me less than you trusted me a month ago, huh? I am in a difficult position, Herr Denisov. You can get something I want. I can pay you, which is something you want. But you and I… well, she is a girl and it doesn’t matter to me. I want to survive and this is part of my survival. I shouldn’t have used her but I trust her, the only person I trust to see the way clear for me. So I make you a bargain, Herr Denisov. I will take her away and lock her up for you so that you can trust me again.”
“No.”
Said too softly, too quickly.
Kurt stared at sea gulls circling.
“I live alone,” Denisov said.
“Ja, ja. We all live alone, even when we’re married. But you have some money, eh? A man with money chooses to live alone.”
“She is young. She can make me laugh.”
“She is a silly woman,” Kurt said. “You should not grow too fond of her.”
“When will you have the money?”
The change was so abrupt that Kurt nearly missed it. Speaking in English all the time was wearying; there was too much thought connected with it. He had been lost in thinking about Ruth, about how to sever this complication. He sometimes thought he might kill Ruth, just to finish the matter and put her at rest with herself. He might have been thinking about that now when Denisov changed the subject.
“The money is no problem. The problem is your package.”
“It’s very close now.”
Kurt glanced at him. But Denisov was looking out to sea.
“How close is it?”
“Close. A matter of weeks. Not many weeks. And when it comes, it must be done quickly so we can sweep up the trail. There will be people looking for that package.”
“The Japanese.”
“Da. Japanese, and there are others. The business is growing. You know that. Industrial designs. Secret patents. Papers. Plans. All the software and the hardware that follows.”
“We are talking about the plans for this computer?”
Denisov shook his head. “That cannot be done. It is easier to steal the finished product.”
“Where is it?”
“Still in Hokkaido, locked inside Masatata Heavy Industries. The security is very good. They have contracted with one of the largest gangs in Japan for security. Everyone is very jealous of the machine they are building.”
“Is it built?”
“I think so,” Denisov said. “Yes. I think it’s ready to be moved. That is my best thinking. It is ready to be moved.”
“To where?”
“Tokyo. The Japanese government wants to look at it and test it.”
“What kind of a code machine is it?”
“A computer. But it’s not a code machine, my friend. It is something more. I think it is much more now. I, too, thought it was a code machine.”
“What more?”
Denisov shook his head.
“I want one million dollars a week from today. That is for my necessary… arrangements.”
“That’s a lot of—”
Denisov waved his hand. “Stop. Don’t argue with me. I set the price on everything. The machine will cost you fifteen million dollars delivered. And one million beforehand for expenses and as a gesture of your faith.”
“Why would I trust to give you one million?”
Denisov looked at him with his mild eyes. “Because you do not trust me and I do not trust you. At some point, we must stop this circling around and around.” He gestured circles with his index finger. “I am not doing this for my exercise. I have a machine that you will pay fifteen million for. And one million in expense.”
“You don’t have anything at all. You said so.”
“But you have your spy on me,” Denisov said. “She watched me and watched me and whatever she could tell you, she’s told you. Four months. She sees me when I leave in the morning. She knows the license plates of people I meet. She knows the women I took home with me. You know everything she told you and yet you know nothing.”
It was completely, utterly true. Every thread was examined and, in the end, Denisov appeared to be nothing but a retired gentleman living in Santa Barbara with a small clique of acquaintances, who played chess once a week with another Russian crony, and who gambled on the stock market. Nothing at all. It was either true—Denisov was nothing and he wanted to con Kurt Heinemann’s company—or he was a clever spy and illegal trader in other people’s secrets. Consortium knew about Denisov from Kurt Heinemann; it was why they had accepted him as an operator, at least on a trial basis after examining his bona fides from the Stasi files and other sources in the illegal trade.
Sources planted by Pendleton.
And Pendleton said Denisov was in the trade and he would come up with a code machine that could be used to turn Consortium International into a supplier for R Section.
“I will try,” Kurt began.
“No. I do not expect a good effort. Just a good result.”
“You know how these things work.”
Denisov gave him a sharp look then. “Da, Herr Heinemann. I know how things work. And so do you. We are at the point where they say to cut your bait.”
Silence for a long moment. Then Heinemann nodded just once.
“All right.”
The two men rose as if on signal and started away from the bench going in opposite directions. Heinemann stopped after a few paces and looked back. Denisov was walking away without concern, an absurd dumpy man in a dark gray suit and white shirt and tie on a California beachfront. Kurt almost felt kindness toward him in that moment; what were they both but tools for others, set up in exile in a country of exiles?
The feeling of kinship passed.
He would kill Denisov in the end, of course. And take the machine and the money back to Germany. The one big Germany but still the Germany where there were many Stasi exiles wandering around, wondering what had happened to them and the state they had served. Fifteen million dollars for a new beginning for a new network of people who could be trusted to think the same things. It was a lot of money. And the machine. He had given that a lot of thought as well. All governments were the same, even the government at Bonn. Perhaps they could find a place, gratefully, for both the machine and the spy who brought it to them.