Chapter Twenty-Three

Catches an early evening flight with Alaska Airlines nonstop out of Reagan National Airport. Stuck again with a middle seat, all that’s available on short notice.

No manspreader neighbors this time. Instead, it’s the battle of the armrests with an attractive and very petite woman of a certain age who apparently makes up for her diminutive size by her mental estimation of her territory. Instead of going mano-a-mano, he gives up at the first salvo, relinquishing his left armrest. Meanwhile, neighbor to the left makes himself invisible: sleeps the whole flight, arms crossed in his lap.

Jake paints a mental portrait of his female seatmate to keep his mind off more intractable topics: suburban mom whose last child is just finishing up college; drives an SUV of imposing dimensions; sits on the board of a local public access tv station. Notices her naked left ring finger. Divorced? Never married? Got it wrong about a kid at college?

Gives it up and pulls out his novel instead.

“Hardy?” She says, her voice lilting and pleasant. “My lord, I didn’t think anyone but me read him anymore.”

Looks sheepish now, misjudged her. Can’t be all bad if you read Thomas Hardy. “He’s like an old friend,” Jake says.

“Just how I feel about him. Jude or Tess?”

“Tess by a mile.”

“Exactly! Though I’m also partial to Bathsheba and Gabriel.”

They manage to spin out book talk through dinner of dry chicken and overcooked, sage-colored broccoli. After which she focuses on Downton Abbey reruns. “Better than opium,” she remarks before a deep dive into fantasy land.

But a proper seat mate, he thinks, as he finally, finally settles in to read about the misadventures of Michael Henshard. It’s the countryside Jake loves more than the tragic fuckups of the characters. The quiet, eternal Hardy countryside.

So quiet, indeed, that he is jarred awake only by the urging of a stewardess to put on his seat belt for landing. Best sleep he’s had in years. And now he discovers that he has been manspreading all over his nameless seat mate.

“Sorry,” he mutters, sitting up properly in his seat now.

“Not at all,” she says. “You were obviously exhausted. What better way to spend the travel time?”

Which makes him feel like a complete schmuck re the battle of the armrests.

“A pleasure talking with you,” she says brightly, as the plane makes a bit of a bumpy landing, slowly coming to a stop.

Passengers up and grabbing carry-on bags out of the overhead compartments. Jake helps her with a bag, earns a smile and a nod. It’s a plod out of the plane and into the terminal. He’s about to ask her for her name. Why not?

But then a teenage girl comes running up to her, followed by a wiry man with salt-and-pepper hair, both hugging her.

Could just be relatives, Jake thinks.

The guy plants a very non-relative kiss on her lips to disabuse Jake of this.

Always was a great judge of character he thinks, as he makes it out into a drizzle of rain to track down an Uber to take him home. He pretty much ignores the driver’s attempts at feel-good conversation. He’s going to tip regardless. Doesn’t feel obliged to get all social. Light traffic and he’s at his condo by 10:30.

Home looks pretty good, he thinks, as he takes out keys for the front door. Freezes for a second, though, noticing there’s no tell at the bottom of the door. Body goes rigid.

Then his mind finally catches up with adrenalin and he remembers that he pointedly did not leave a tell on the door. That he was coming home clean or not at all.

Unlocks the door and inside everything suddenly seems smaller. Tawdry, almost. Hasn’t been away like this in years. But he still knows where he stowed the single malt.

Wakes up with an elephant-sized headache and a yawning pit of remorse. Not going to get in that drinking rut again, he promises himself. But a celebration was in order. Both Huber and Armitage dead. He should celebrate, right?

After a quick walk around the neighborhood to clear his mind, he gives Anne a call.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me,” he says.

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t recognize the number.”

“Right, yeah. Got a new cell phone.” Not saying when. Covering his tracks. “Hey a favor.”

“Sure.”

“I’d like to trace some emails if possible. Find out who sent them.”

“Other than the name on the header?”

“Right. Just double-checking.”

“This about the Vienna stuff?”

“Yup.”

“What’s the email service?”

“Gmail.”

“Yeah, good luck then.”

“How so?”

“Hard to track back to the server, especially if its overseas. Usually, you end up with the last server in line, the one closest to the destination. Also, if it’s from an app, it’s pretty hard to track the sender’s ISP, the service provider.”

“Give it a try. I can forward a few.”

Forwards five of them from widely different dates. Hopes to get something that tracks back to the East Coast, even better, Virginia. Best, Roanoke.

Gets a call in ten minutes.

“Yeah?”

“Like I said. Hard to trace. All listed Vienna as the last server location. That help?”

“No, but thanks for the try.”

“I thought that was all over. That guy who was killed…”

“Right. But I’ve got his phone and a big batch of emails all from the same person. The shooter, Huber, he was being controlled by somebody else.”

“By this Carlo in the emails?”

“Yup.”

“So now you’re trying to track Carlo? Christ, Dad. Just give it to the cops to solve now. You’ve done your part.”

“Good advice,” he says. Reminds him of Chief Wagner’s parting shot.

“But you’re not taking it, right?”

“Good to be home.”

“That’s not an answer.” A pause, then, “I’d like to come for a visit this weekend. That okay?”

He hesitates but finally allows himself to say yes. “That’d be great. We haven’t seen each other in way too long.”

They end the call and not thirty seconds later the landline rings. Comes close to just letting it ring. Then decides, what the hell? Gets to it before the caller grows bored.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Jacobs?” A gravelly voice. Got the sound of authority to it.

“Right. Who’s this?”

“Bob Maxwell here.” He lets it dangle like Jake should recognize the name. A pause. “Executive editor at Cawthorn Books.”

Jake’s not overly bookish, but he—like most of the rest of America—has heard of the publisher. In the news the way a publisher doesn’t want to be. Broo-hah over one of their authors with multiple accusations of sexual abuse.

He can’t think of what to say at first, then comes up with, “Okay.”

“I’m a fan,” Maxwell says. “Read the news accounts from Austria. Lived there for a time. Like to stay in touch with the happenings. Plus, I edited the memoirs of Rodenko.”

Old KGB spymaster, Jake knows. Tell-all. Movie made of it. “And?”

“And I think you have a story to tell, and we’d like to publish it.”

“Wait. Who’ve you been talking to?”

“Nobody, actually. Going on instinct here. I think you could serve up a great memoir, especially with what’s happened recently.”

“Seriously. Is this a crank call?”

“Seriously. No. Call me back if you want. Go through our main number, ask for me. I’m not a crank, Mr. Jacobs.”

Lets out a laugh. “Well, hell of a good coincidence then, Mr. Maxwell…”

“Bob. Call me Bob.”

“Yeah, Bob. Good timing, because I’ve been at work on a book about all this for the past year. Working title, The Fourth Mole.”

Now a pause from New York. Finally, “Kizmet, I guess. Look, send me some samples. Doesn’t have to be great literature at this point. We can clean things up in house. But we want to take advantage of the news angle. I think the American reading public is hungry for this kind of story. And Cawthorn wants to get in first. But if we like it, there could be very favorable terms.”

Jake has never really thought about monetizing his research. Likes the sound of this, though. “Such as?”

“Let’s leave the exact number to the bobble heads in sales. But it could easy be six figures.”

Jake takes a deep breath. Well hallelujah.

“So, look, Jake, if I may.”

“You may.”

“Put together some pages that you like of the story you’ve got so far. Crank out a few more pages of outline for the entire thing and send them off to me at this email address. Got something to write with?”

“Hold on.” Jake goes to his study, finds pen and paper. “Okay.”

Maxwell rattles off his address, and Jake copies it down. “And be sure to write ‘requested manuscript’ in the subject line. Give me a call if you’ve got any questions.” Then gives his number at the 212 code. “I’m looking forward to working with you, Jake. Let’s set the world on fire.”

Which leaves Jake pretty much speechless, manages a good-bye and sits at this desk for the next ten minutes shaking his head. “An author. Me and good old Thomas Hardy.”

He spends the rest of the morning going through the pages of manuscript he already has. He’s made a shotgun approach at it. A bit from the beginning, rehashing the espionage debacles of the 1980s, throwing out names not only of Americans who were caught spying for the Sovs, the Israelis, whoever was paying highest, but also the number of Soviets working as American assets who were compromised, blown, summoned back to Moscow for a meeting with a bullet in the back of the head. Scores of them. And the anomalous ones who could not be credited to the major traitors of the era: Howard, Hanssen, Ames. The ones whose deaths were not the result of direct trade craft by the Sovs themselves. Ergo, there had to be a fourth mole in the CIA or FBI.

Has a good fifty pages on this early stuff. And then comes the later work, looking at the anomalies, one by one. Major among these is GRU General Alexeyev, their man on weapons in the GDR. Rezident in Denmark, got a couple years of data from him before he got the Moscow call. Had family in Moscow, held hostage. He knew what was waiting for him at the Lubyanka. And damned if Jake has been able to find a thread to pull on that one. No idea how Moscow found out about him, but plenty of chances for a fuck up there, as he was run in a joint CIA/MI6 venture. Lots of room for leaks.

He’s got about thirty pages on Alexeyev—bio, recruitment, handlers. Speculation, only, on how Moscow got a line on him.

Nothing written yet, of course, on the fact that Armitage was the fourth mole. Include that in the overview, he figures. As well as all the Austria stuff which would make up the last third of the book.

Man! He still has to pinch himself. The book. And here he sits pasting it together in his head.

“You’ll never amount to a pile of shit.” The prediction of his own stinking idiot dad, the Colonel, they had to call him. Served his Army time in Korea, and like a high school football player who scored a touchdown in the state championship game, that became the high point in his life ever after, the measuring stick for all other experiences, including fatherhood.

Swore that Jake would never amount to puke on a shovel. Not like his older brother, Ben. The golden boy. The destined one. Ben, who was blown to bits at Khe Sanh, while Jake was still in grade school.

How he would love to confront the old bastard with his string of achievements in the past week.

And worse, his father never forgave him for outliving his brother. Jake should have been the one to die. His mother already dead of cancer, Jake had to live with the old man’s scorn and anger until he won a scholarship to Stanford and got the hell out of Idaho. Joined the CIA instead of completing graduate school, partly to win praise from the Colonel. But the old man was true to form.

When Jake called to impart the good news, the Colonel said, “So you’re gonna play Nancy games in a trenchcoat? Grow a pair, boy. Get in uniform if you want to show me you’re a patriot.”

Jake never returned to Idaho. Never wanted to revisit the crushing isolation of their small town nestled in the Boise Mountains. Except for high school track, there was an aching, boring sameness of guys up at five each morning to eke out a life in logging. A dominant image remains: the round, faded circle in the back pocket of their Ben Davis work pants from their cans of chew. A big, faded zero.

So, never a nostalgic homecoming back in Idaho. Not even for the old man’s funeral. After which Jake learned from the government that the old fraudster’s highest rank was Captain. Lived a lie most of his life.

He replaced the ‘Colonel’ with Baxter Streat at Stanford, a man who had faith in Jake, who took him under his wing and into his home for dinners, for consultations. Professor Streat, who Jake still thought of as his father figure.

But his own father? Shit. Jake wipes at his face, as if wiping away the evil memory of that man. Managed to compartmentalize that one over the years.

So, screw the past. A book. The book.

He works non-stop the rest of the day, cobbling together a package for Maxwell. Thought crosses his mind at one point maybe he should contact an agent. Get a pro in for bargaining power. Cawthorn wants the book that bad, maybe others would want it even more. But there was something about Maxwell’s voice he liked. Solid. Not a bullshitter.

Jesus boy, he counsels himself. Let’s not get all literary about this. Just do your work.

But later that afternoon, he does Google Robert Maxwell. Rugged looking sort with a creased mug that belongs on a prize fighter. The time he spent in Austria? Turns out he was fibbing a bit there. More like in the old Habsburg Empire. Guy had a life before publishing, served with the 1995–96 peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. Helped track down a wanted war criminal.

Yeah, probably a guy I can work with, Jake figures.