Hollis wanted to go back to the embassy now, but the gentlemen of the KGB’s Seventh Directorate — the embassy watchers — having lost him in Red Square, would at least note his time of return to the embassy compound. Somehow Hollis felt that the longer he was gone — like some errant spouse (like his errant spouse) — the more annoyed the watchers would become. So he decided to kill an hour in the State Polytechnical Museum. Maybe it was worth a visit. He was a sucker for redheads anyway. Hollis stood, removed his Lenin pin, and threw it to the ground. He picked up his briefcase and turned toward the museum.
He thought of his wife Katherine in London. Running Surikov was one reason he couldn’t take leave to go settle things with her there. Now Surikov might get to London before him. The ironies on this job were endless. “Endless,” he said aloud.
Lisa Rhodes popped into his mind though he’d tried to push her out of it all day. He realized he felt responsible for her safety, which might be one of the reasons he hadn’t called her. He wanted the involvement, but since he always felt like a moving target, he didn’t know if he wanted her near him. These dilemmas hadn’t bothered Alevy, apparently, as Hollis had discovered in the Arbat antique store.
In this business, Hollis had observed, men’s relationships with women often fell into two categories: professional/sexual or sexual/professional. Alevy, he knew, preferred the former. Hollis was comfortable with neither.
Hollis decided that maybe he ought to ask Lisa Rhodes what she thought.
15
Sam Hollis entered the bowling alley in the basement of the eight-story embassy chancery building. There were three games in progress. The place was stuffy, and Hollis bought a Heineken at the bar, then took a seat at an empty lane. He noticed four female FSPs — Foreign Service Personnel — on the adjoining alley laughing and drinking. He recognized three as secretaries and one as a nurse. They all wore jeans and T-shirts. The nurse, a petite blonde, looked at him. Her T-shirt read: Gee, Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.
Hollis smiled. The woman winked at him and turned back to her game. Hollis sipped on his beer. He watched them bowl. There was something oddly frenetic in the way they bowled, drank, and laughed, he thought, as though their mainsprings were wound too tight. He half expected them to fall to the floor in five minutes.
On the lane to his right were a married couple, Bill and Joan Horgan. He was in the FAS — Foreign Agricultural Service; she taught at the Anglo-American School. With them were their two teenaged daughters. Bill and Joan gave him a cheery wave. The girls looked bored senseless. One of them, Hollis recalled, was prone to hysteria and weeping.
Two lanes farther down, four Marines in civilian clothing were rolling balls. The Marine watchstanders, as they were called, numbered about twenty. They were handpicked for their height, bearing, intelligence, and quite possibly their looks, Hollis thought. As per Marine regulations, they were unmarried. These facts had caused some problems, most notably the sex-for-secrets scandal at the old embassy.
Russia, Hollis thought, more than any country he’d ever served in, changed you. You went in as one person and came out another. An American, whether a tourist, business person, or embassy staffer, was the center of attention and under constant scrutiny, from the locals and from the state. You woke up with tension, lived with tension, and went to bed with tension. Some people, such as Katherine, fled. Some cracked up, some became mildly idiosyncratic, some betrayed their country, and some, such as Lisa, embraced the Russian bear and danced with it, which, Hollis reflected, might be the only way to get out with most of your marbles.
The bowling lanes and the adjoining spaces doubled as a bomb shelter, and Hollis sometimes wondered if the day would ever come when he would be watching the automatic pinsetters while waiting for an American nuclear strike to obliterate central Moscow above.
Seth Alevy walked over and sat on the bench beside Hollis. Alevy swirled his scotch and ice cubes as he regarded the four women. “Right,” Alevy said at last, “we are not in Kansas. We are below the Emerald City.”
One of the secretaries threw a strike, did a little victory jig, and slapped palms with her teammate. Hollis said to Alevy, “You want to roll a few sets?”
“‘Frames.’ No.”
The ambient noise cover down here was good, Hollis knew, and any bugs planted during construction were ineffective, as were the KGB directional microphones in the surrounding buildings. Which was one reason, Hollis understood, that Alevy liked to meet here. But the other reason that Alevy had not requisitioned one of the safe rooms in the chancery was that Alevy suspected those rooms were bugged by State Department Intelligence. As the CIA station chief in Moscow, responsible ultimately for all American intelligence in the Soviet Union, Seth Alevy had no intention of being bugged by a minor league bunch such as State Department Intelligence. Alevy was only slightly less disdainful of Hollis’ Defense Intelligence Agency. Alevy had a better psychic relationship with the KGB, Hollis thought, because they didn’t pretend to be his friends.
Alevy asked, “Did Ace show?”
“Yes.”
“Can he help us with this?”
“I think so.”
Alevy nodded. “Why did you think he could, Sam?”
“Just a hunch.”
“You didn’t expose one of our best assets in the Soviet Union to a personal meeting with you on a hunch.”
“Ace is Red Air Force. Dodson is — or was — U.S. Air Force. I went with that.”
“That’s pretty thin. Now that we’re alone, why don’t you tell me everything the French couple told you, then tell me what you did and saw on the way to Mozhaisk. Then tell me what Ace told you tonight. And while you’re at it, tell me things I haven’t even thought to ask you about this case.”
“I’m really into interservice rivalry, Seth. I’m protecting my own petty little fiefdom. It gives me a sense of worth and importance.”
“I think we’re being sarcastic.” Alevy added, “All right, we can pursue this along separate lines for a while. All I ask of you is to be careful what you tell the Pentagon, and I’ll do the same with Langley.”
“Why?”
“You know why. This thing is so big they’ll try to run it from there. Then State and the White House will get involved, and we’ll be getting micromanagement from one of those bozos in the basement of the White House. We’re the ones who risk our lives out here, Sam.”
Hollis didn’t reply.
Alevy added, “You risked your life once in a war that had enough bombing limitation rules to make sure you didn’t hurt anyone but yourself. Are you still pissed about that? Would you like to even the score with Washington on that? Do you want to maybe bring a few fliers home? You know they’re out there, Sam. I know it too.”
Hollis stared Alevy in the eye and said softly, “I’ll listen to reason and logic, Seth. But don’t you ever—ever try to manipulate me with that argument. Stay out of my past. I’ll deal with that.”
Alevy maintained eye contact, then nodded and turned away. “Okay. Cheap shot.”
Hollis finished his beer.
Alevy stood and went to the bar, coming back with two more drinks. He handed Hollis a beer. Alevy said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about Ace. I don’t know if he rings. Do you?”
Hollis recognized the format: Prove to me your man is not a double. “He’s always had the goods,” Hollis reminded him.