Chapter Text
Chapter 1:
Prologue: Incipit
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Washington, D.C.
Early August, 1969
In the murky shadows gathering around the National Mall, a man sits on a bench, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, waiting. He is of indeterminate age, unremarkable features, and impenetrable expression. Though the heat of the day has passed, the air is still heavy with humidity, and mosquitos buzz around the long pool of still water nearby. Few tourists stroll at this time of day and those that do will not remember him.
He finishes his cigarette, stubbing it out on the side of the bench with a languid gesture before reaching into his jacket pocket. He leisurely rolls another, smokes. And then another. He is patient. Finally, as the cicadas are beginning to sing, another man, in suit and tie, his face shaded by the rim of a fedora, approaches out of the twilight.
‘I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,’ says the man on the bench, not looking up.
‘I didn’t want to. You know how busy I am these days.’
The first man smiles, picking stray tobacco off his lip. ‘Oh, yes, I know.’
‘Why am I here?’ The man in the hat doesn’t sit, and instead shoves his hands into his pockets, scanning his surroundings.
‘I assume you heard about the old man’s death?’
A pause; this is not what he had expected. ‘Of course.’
‘It’s raised some . . . complications.’ He rubs his jaw with stained fingertips.
‘I would have thought it solved all your complications.’
A rueful smile. ‘You know what he was like. We have a problem.’
‘You mean you have a problem.’
‘Alright, yes, I have a problem,’ he says, fresh cigarette dangling from his lips. ‘And you can help me solve it.’ He lights up.
‘It’s not my concern anymore.’ Nevertheless, after a moment, the man in the hat sits down. ‘What problem?’
‘I had a visitor in recent days,’ says his companion, suddenly adopting a casual, cheerful tone more appropriate to a cocktail party than a clandestine assignation. He slips his lighter back into his jacket.
Sighing, the other man plays along, with a roll of his eyes. ‘Oh, yes? Who?’
‘Actually I wasn’t there, so it hardly matters. But I received a gift .’ He says the word with an uncustomary sneer, flicking ash from his cigarette.
The other man pauses, frowns. ‘ Timeo Danaos.’
A soft chuckle. ‘Indeed. More than you know. An unwelcome message in unseemly trappings.’
‘Message? What message?’
He takes a long drag on his cigarette and exhales slowly before answering, staring into the distance. ‘Pravda vyydet,’ he intones in perfect Russian. He has always been good with languages.
His companion, however, struggles, and after a moment rolls his eyes. ‘Goddammit,’ he finally says, hissing through his teeth. ‘Just tell me.’
He inhales again, exhales smoke-filled words: ‘Truth—will—out.’
The man in the hat’s eyes narrow. ‘The old man?’
The smoker nods. ‘He couldn’t let it go. Dis obedient, even unto death,’ he says with a grimace.
‘Well, what does it mean? What are you going to do?’
‘What are we going to do?, you mean.’
‘No.’ The man in the hat gestures decisively. ‘You know I can’t be involved anymore.’
His companion ignores the objection. ‘I believe you can expect a similar visit in the near future. A similar message.’ He draws on his cigarette again.
‘So what?’
‘So you’re still very much involved in this.’
The man in the hat shakes his head in disgust. ‘In what? What do you mean?’
‘I mean, that in dying, I think the old man intends to bring down the whole operation.’ He stubs out his cigarette with more force than is necessary.
‘How? Even if he spills the beans, so what? No one’s going to believe it. Where’s the proof? You’ve still got it, right? Squirreled away someplace safe, I assume.’ He rolls his eyes, then shakes his head sadly. ‘Nobody cares anymore anyway.’
A long pause as the smoker rolls another cigarette. ‘There was a copy,’ he finally says.
‘What?’ The other man’s head snaps to attention.
‘He made a copy. Mayhew told me.’ He coolly lights his cigarette, as though he hadn’t a care in the world, snaps the lighter closed.
‘Christ!’ his companion hisses. ‘Where is it?’
‘Don’t know. Not in the house—I checked.’ He slips the lighter back into his pocket.
‘Dammit.’ The suited man blows out his breath in frustration. ‘Are you sure?’
The smoker glares sideways, the answer obvious.
‘Well, where the hell is it, then?’ The sudden bluster startles a nearby pigeon into flight.
The first man inhales lazily, waiting for his companion’s anger to dissipate. His calm demeanor, born from years of practiced nonchalance, irritates the other man. ‘I’m not sure, to be honest,’ he answers at last, blowing a stream of smoke into the stagnant air. ‘But now he’s leaving a trail of breadcrumbs leading right to it.’
‘Fuck.’ The man in the hat runs his hand over his mouth and chin with increasing agitation.
‘We have to cut that trail off before the message gets through,’ the smoker states calmly. His direct manner betrays nothing of his own anxiety.
‘How?’
He hesitates before answering, rolling his cigarette between his fingers thoughtfully. ‘The messenger.’
The man in the hat narrows his eyes. ‘Does he have it? The messenger?’
A small smile. ‘Don’t know.’ He knits his brows. ‘Like I said, I wasn’t there,’ he says regretfully.
‘Well, can’t you intercept the message?’
‘Tried.’ He inhales.
‘And?’
A tiny shrug, almost imperceptible, as he exhales through his nose.
The man in the hat huffs in annoyance. ‘Well, what do you want me to do about it?’
A pause. ‘When do you go back?’
‘I’m sure you know very well when I go back, dammit, but you better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking. This is your fucking problem, not mine.’
‘You have the means, don’t you? The personnel?’ He is coolly examining his fingernails.
‘It’s not a question of means,’ he hisses, ‘I can’t be involved in this anymore and you know it.’
A silence descends. The smoker turns to face him for the first time. ‘I can either ask you,’ he draws out the words, ‘or I can ask . . . someone else. Of course, I’d fear for the messenger should I have to do that.’
‘Chanticleer?’ Another silence. ‘Shit, does he know?’
‘He’s not stupid. I daresay he’s worked it out. Might even take steps of his own, so we need to act fast.’
Around them, night has fallen, and the electric lamps buzz and pop on. The first man stubs out his cigarette, begins to roll another, his movements slow and smooth.
‘God dammit—why didn’t you get a hold of it while he was still alive?’
For the first time, the smoker falters, frowns. ‘I really thought he understood.’ He shakes his head sadly. ‘The last time I saw him . . .’ A brief flicker of emotion crosses his normally impassive face. Disappointment. Betrayal. ‘Oh, well.’ He sniffs, recovers, reaches into his jacket for his lighter. ‘We need that copy. You’re well-placed.’
The man in the hat shakes his head, speaks through his teeth. ‘I was against this from the very beginning, if you recall. And now you want me to risk my career—more—to tie up your loose ends? No, I won’t do it—to hell with it, to hell with him. I say we let the chips fall—he's had his time, served his purpose—it's over.’
‘Over?’ the other man almost laughs. ‘Over?’ He turns aside, masters himself again. ‘You think now we’ve been to the Moon the Soviets will just up and quit? Give in?’ He pauses to light his new cigarette. ‘It’s never over and you know it. We need him—now more than ever— in situ and uncompromised.’
They sit in silence for several minutes, the first man steadily smoking with unhurried ease. He can wait. His companion stares across the Mall towards the Capitol, remembering things he’s tried hard to leave in the past. He rubs damp palms on the knees of his trousers, turns them over to look at them. ‘Out, out, damned spot,’ he mutters.
The other man drags on his cigarette, slowly exhales a stream of smoke into the night before responding, ‘We all have blood on our hands, Len.’
‘Some more than others,’ he snaps, the bitterness cutting through the gathering darkness.
Another pause. ‘It’s too late for regrets.’
The man in the hat snorts derisively.
‘You’ll do it?’ It is barely a question.
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘There is always a choice.’ He drags on the cigarette again, the end glowing red in the deepening gloom. ‘We make our own destinies in this line of work.’
‘We destroy destinies in this line of work,’ the man in the hat responds, his mouth tight.
A charged silence before he responds. ‘That, too.’ He drops his half-finished cigarette to the ground and rises from the bench. Stepping gently on the lit end with his shoe, he says, ‘There’s an envelope under the bench.’ Then, hands in his pockets, he casually strolls away into the burgeoning night, a figure as unobtrusive as the shadows themselves.
Behind him, the other man takes off his hat to run a hand over his face and through his thinning hair. ‘Shit,’ he says out loud, his shoulders slumping, before reaching beneath him to retrieve what’s waiting there.
♦