He enters his office to find a message on his desk. “Mr. Freud called. Call back ASAP,” and Fried’s telephone number. He shakes his head—“Freud.” That’s about the size of it. He finds himself looking forward to hearing old Oskar’s reedy voice, it’s that nice a day, and as he picks up the phone he wonders to what he owes the honour of a call. Freud would say it was all Fried’s mother’s fault. He dials. Pictures what Fried’s mother must have looked like — like Fried in a bonnet.
The phone is answered on the first ring. The cautious voice. “Hello?”
“Hi Oskar, it’s Jack.”
He enjoys annoying Fried by calling him Oskar. Not only has Fried never invited him onto a first-name basis; Oskar, being an alias, is bound to be a double irritant.
“I have been recognized,” says Fried.
“What?” says Jack. “Recognized? By whom?”
“I do not know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Search me,” he says earnestly.
Jack almost laughs aloud — Fried has been watching too much television.
“Where, when?”
“I was to the market on Saturday and I call you immediately and all throughout the Wochenende—how says one—?”
“Weekend.”
“Ja, but you are not at home.”
“Just tell me what happened, Oskar.”
“I get away, I do not hesitate.”
“So someone saw you and you have no idea who he is or where he’s from?”
“I know where is he from.”
“Where?”
“I don’t tell you this.”
“Oskar, how am I going to help you if—”
“Tell Simon I am recognized.”
“Did this man call you by name?”
“He calls me by a name.”
“What name?”
“I recognize this name, this is how I know—”
“Is it your name, or not?”
Silence.
“Sir,” says Jack, “I don’t care what your real name is and you don’t have to tell me, just tell me if this fella called you by your real name.”
“No,” says Oskar, and Jack can almost see him licking his dry lower lip. “He does not say my name.”
Jack can feel the fear through the phone. He speaks gently. “Good, that’s good, now tell me, what was the name by which he called you?”
Silence again.
Jack is worried, but he is also weary. Oskar Fried does not understand the chain of command; the fact that, in the absence of Simon, Jack for all intents and purposes is Simon. Not merely the delivery boy.
Fried hesitates, then says, “Dora.”
“‘Dora?’ Why would he call you that?”
“He is from Dora.”
“Dora sent him? Who is Dora?” His wife? A KGB agent? Jack waits for Fried to answer. “Oskar? Who is Dora?”
“You are not qualified me to — you are not qualified to interrogate me.”
Jack bites his tongue and squints. Stay cool. Fried is frightened. Terrified of being taken back to the Soviet Union.
Fried says, “Tell Simon, ‘Dora’. He understands this. You tell him to call me on the telephone.”
“Fine. Meantime, just sit tight, Oskar—”
“Sit—?”
“Don’t leave your apartment. No drives.”
“I do not drive, he sees the car.”
“The car?”
“I am running to my car, he follows, he sees.”
The licence plate. Whoever saw it may see it again. May go looking for it. May find it on Morrow Street, in front of Fried’s apartment building…. “Where’s the car now, Oskar?”
“I park behind the building.”
“Good. Now don’t worry. You were spotted — you were recognized on Saturday. That’s two days ago. If anything were going to happen it would’ve happened by now—”
Jack speaks with more certainty than he feels, but it is not an unreasonable deduction. He feels a stab of guilt — he should not have allowed himself to be lulled by the silence of the past few months. He ought to have stayed sharp. On alert. He ought to have given Fried the phone number of the honeymoon suite at the Holiday Inn in Niagara Falls.
Jack is about to hang up, he has to call Simon—
“I need food,” says Fried.
Jack drops his head to his hand. “Weren’t you just at the market on Saturday, sir?”
“Yes, I am recognized before I buy.”
Jack sighs, reaches for his pencil and a pad of government foolscap, reflecting as he does that Simon will probably instruct him to move Fried immediately, straight over the bridge to Buffalo — there may be no time for groceries. He is already thinking of excuses for Mimi as to why he has to drive to London tonight as he says, “Fire away.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What groceries would you like me to bring?”
On the other hand, Jack may not have to do another thing but brief McCarroll. It’s typical, he thinks ruefully; the American gets to ride in at the last second and take the credit. McCarroll will spirit Fried away to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and receive a hero’s welcome. No matter. The main thing now is to keep Fried safe. And calm. He listens and writes. “Butter, yup … mustard, yup I know, hot….”
The list is lengthy and detailed — Fried’s encounter with “Dora” seems to have done nothing to blunt his appetite. Jack scribbles. “Slow down, now…. Camembert and … what? Where am I going to find cherries? They’ll cost a fortune this time of — okay, what else?”
He glances up to see Vic Boucher standing in the doorway with a grin on his face, how long has he been there?
Jack winks at Vic and says into the phone, “Yeah I’ll make sure they’re fresh….” Vic wanders in, a sheaf of papers under his arm, and idly glances at Jack’s grocery list upside down. Jack writes “celery” instead of the brand of pipe tobacco Fried has asked for, and wishes he had closed his door.
On the other end of the line, Fried says, “Caviar.”
Jack reacts in spite of himself. “Caviar?”
Vic looks to the ceiling and mimes a whistle. Jack grins and shakes his head in response.
“That is all,” says Fried, and hangs up.
Jack maintains his smile, and says into the phone, “Me too. Bye-bye sweetheart,” and hangs up.
“Gotta hand it to Mimi,” says Vic. “That girl’s got champagne taste.”
“Goes with my beer-bottle budget.”
Vic asks Jack’s opinion on the best case study to wrap up the semester, and Jack regrets his annoyance — this, after all, is his real job. Fried is the intrusion, not Vic. When Vic leaves, he takes the list from his pocket. Celery? He doesn’t recall Fried asking for — oh yes, celery was code for pipe tobacco, but what was the brand again?
He pockets the list, grabs his uniform jacket and leaves his office, going over the situation methodically in his mind so that he will be able to communicate it clearly and simply to Simon. He can think of a number of reasons not to be unduly alarmed. If the unknown man at the marketplace was KGB and the Soviets have had Fried under surveillance, why call out to him in public? And, having done so, how likely is it that a KGB agent would lose Fried so easily in the market crowd? As he trots down the steps, he takes a deep breath of April air and looks up past the treetops into the blue puffed with white that might still turn to snow. Likely it wasn’t KGB. Unless the grocery delivery is a trap. The poplars rustle the way they do, making the most of the slightest breeze. Jack’s face has become hot but he assesses the situation coolly. “Dora” could be anybody. Or anything. What does Jack know about this operation? Very little that’s concrete. Simon has told him that Fried is a Soviet scientist, and Jack has surmised that his specialty is rockets. He realizes that he has likewise assumed that Simon is MI6, but it dawns on him now that Simon has never been specific: subtly fostering those assumptions while neither confirming nor denying them. The only thing he has spelled out is the necessity of keeping Blair McCarroll in the dark.