crows of strasbourg

9.

The Consul wanted his handkerchief, but his coat hung outside the door and the handkerchief was tucked in the left pocket.He could feel the sweat gathering around his neck, seeping into his collar.It was cold in the room, "like a subterranean cold room," he would describe many days later, when it was all over, to Vice Consul Parker, "Look, David, I'm sitting with the Ambassador and Mitchell Pulley Opposite Scott, Hammer and Whip, couldn't have been a more fitting nickname. Do you remember Mitchell? Regional Dispatcher for the CIA, listen to the title, David, 'Dispatcher'! Like a copy of the bus Work. Mitchell stared at me, not distracted at all."

Mitchell Prescott smiled at the consul. Contrary to his moniker, he looked very kind, with a sincere, missionary face, from his eyes to his smile, encouraging people to keep all their secrets to him feet, and then he himself will take you by the hand and send you to heaven.The Consul wiped his sweaty palms under the table, sat up straighter, "I've already said everything I know."

"Of course it is, Sam, never doubted for a second," Mitchell reassured, and the consul shifted in his chair. Only his wife would call him Sam, and heard the name from "Whip" There was an unreal feeling, as if there should be another Sam in this cold room. "Let me do a summary, okay? Make sure we're all saying the same thing?" He clapped his hands together. "In the first act, field agent Paul Nelson, codenamed 'The Raven,' was shot in Belgrade and died instantly. The Belgrade liaison officer, a Mrs. Marquez, was arrested that night and her whereabouts are unknown. Turning point, the dispatcher of the consulate who was supposed to respond to the 'crow' fled Yugoslavia with the 'cargo', and the last known location was Istanbul. In the second act, our good Sam introduces a new character," he glanced at the Consul, who shifted restlessly in his chair again, "an old character, to be precise, an actor who was removed."

The consul looked at the ambassador, who folded his arms and stared at the glass coffee pot in the center of the table.

"I didn't know then," the consul cleared his throat, "and the time—"

Mitchell waved his hand to drive away his feeble justification, "Sam, good man, I don't question your judgment, but from the current point of view, don't you want us to help you take this matter off your back? come down?"

In no mood.The consul did not dare to answer that.

"The funny thing is, you don't hate him," the Consul went on to Parker in his later statement, "and even if Mitchell were tearing you to pieces in the boardroom, you'd tell yourself, poor fellow, He was just trying to do his job. The ambassador said he needed to talk to everyone, and 'everyone' didn't include me, obviously. The secretary took me to a wing where I waited, two hours, And then five hours."

"Around nine o'clock, the ambassador invited me to dinner."

"We went by car, the kind of diplomatic vehicle with no obvious signs. The first left turn intersection was being renovated. We took a detour and drove to the river. I thought we were going near the theater, but after the car crossed the bridge Just stopped, there were two smashed streetlights, and there was nothing to see in the shadows. The driver and the bodyguard got out, and the ambassador and I stayed in the back seat. You know what I was thinking, David? I'm thinking to hell with no dinner, I'm fucking starving."

"'I'm telling the truth, Sam, you screwed up,' were his first words. 'Prescott is going to take over this,' put your people on hold."

"That's not my person, I clarified with him, I can't even get in touch with them."

"'Do you know why Hines is a bad idea, Sam?' he asked, and I doubt he heard what I just said. Of course I said I didn't know."

"Then he asked me if I'd heard of Luke McCarron and I said no."

"'Luke McCarron was Hines' working name in Poland, you must know what Anton Sokolov did to him,' said the ambassador, and I couldn't even see his face, the lights across the river bank It's all lit up, but it's pitch black in that damn car."

-

Hines called him a "bad guest" because Anton always came after midnight and left before dawn.Hines finds it funny that it doesn't really matter when the door knocks if there are malicious eyes on them.His Soviet friends always woke up before him and fumbled for clothes on the floor in the dark.

He got up, wrapped in a blanket, and opened the window. The cold wind blew all the way from the mountain peaks engulfed in night, and the moisture of the river was picked up on the way.Too cold for September.He wanted to smoke, but the match was lost somewhere in the dark, and he didn't want to find it.Another hour and the weary sun would rise from the mist.It was going to be a gray and cold morning, in other words, it was business as usual in Bonn.

He didn't even notice when the door closed.

Anton disappeared from Bonn for more than two weeks, during which time three things happened, only one accidental.Roger's black Volkswagen pulled up just after nine o'clock on a Friday morning.The CIA liaison post in Bonn was hiding in a butcher shop, walked around the counter, went right into the storage room, passed between the frozen beef cattle carcasses hanging from the ceiling, and pushed open the second door.Doctors were there waiting for him, two of them, one taking his blood pressure and temperature, the other checking for bullet holes in his mind—or at least he tried.The document was stamped where it should be, signed what it was supposed to be, announcing he could continue to serve, the doctor congratulating him, Hines thought he had chosen the wrong verb.

The dog was an accident, they all agreed on that.When Hines rushed into the living room with the gun, the puppy was still hunched over, baring its teeth at Anton.He put away his gun, grabbed the collar, and tried to pull the stubborn animal away.Not my dog, he explained, picked up by Roger's son, who and his parents have different ideas about pets.Do you want whiskey?You look needy.

Anton, who had refused alcohol, had an ugly gash on his neck that ran almost from his chin to his collarbone.Hines looked away, pretending not to notice that this wasn't part of their relationship, whatever it was.

does she have a nameAnton asked, the little black and brown mongrel sniffing his hand carefully.

Hynes sank into the couch, admitting he hadn't even noticed it was a "she" before, no name, and dogs wouldn't be here for long, he didn't like dogs.

I had one like that, Anton touched the puppies with a tuft of light brown hair above the right eye, she hunted rabbits and voles, she was ten years old when I could walk, Uncle Nicholas when she was tending the horses Will take this dog too, we'll call her Anika.

"later?"

"She died in the stable. There were no signs. She was just old. It was a very cold winter. A pyre was built and she was burned. There was no way to dig out the frozen ground."

The puppy curled up and fell asleep.The ticking of the wall clock made the silence even bigger.Anton threw the coat on the sofa, which was stained with tiny drops of water, shining brightly under the only lamp.It was raining outside, maybe the last before the snow came.

Hines asked him if he would like to go upstairs now.

Yes, he would love to.

And the third thing, in the form of regional dispatcher Mitchell Prescott."Whip" drowned at least three sugar cubes in the coffee at the café opposite the town hall.Connor, good man, he smiles at the glass, can you go to Warsaw?

-

"Luke McCarron arrived in Warsaw on December 1969, 12," the ambassador said slowly, as if weighing every detail, "to assist the defection of a Soviet intelligence officer and escort him to the embassy. What's wrong, Prescott and the people at the Eastern European Station spent a whole year planning this matter. The target's identity is a trade representative, and the Ukrainian business group came to negotiate with the French. The reason is harder than cement. Besides, this matter On the surface, it has nothing to do with us.”

The consul wiped his chin with a handkerchief, "But?"

"Moscow sent a sniper."

"Sokolov?"

"Sokolov."

He must have been waiting on the roof, and later ballistic analysis confirmed this.Someone leaked the whereabouts of McAllen and the target.Snipers should be a last resort, the ambassador explained, because three KGB agents first tried to capture the target alive, but McCarron shot one and knocked out the other two.They started running towards the embassy, ​​the snipers were supposed to have seen them, but for some reason didn't make any move until they were almost at the gate.

"The target died instantly. Hynes was lucky. The embassy guards claimed that he was able to continue running after the second shot, but," the ambassador made a vague gesture, "Prescott didn't wait for him to be in the hospital. Woke up and signed his application for retirement, and asked to set up a task force to review him."

"why?"

"The most common theory is that he may or may not have been in frequent contact with a KGB agent while in Bonn, but the task force never found evidence and therefore never convicted. We were too busy in early 1970 with Roger Kempel Dizzy, I'm sure you've heard the name? The unlucky guy who got shot down by the Soviets. 'Whip' gave up on the pursuit and transferred Hynes to Turkey, can you guess what he offered to take from Bonn, Sa Hum?"

"Do not."

"A dog, can you imagine? If you ask me, the field is full of ridiculous people."

Yes, the Consul cautiously agreed, and they seemed to be.