Part 18 (2/2)
He gazed out the window at the pa.s.sing parade of Moroccans and tourists. His profile hardened. Finally he shrugged. ”All right ... I studied six months at our school for sabotage in Prague, and then I was sent back to Moscow to learn psychological warfare and media manipulation at Patrice Lumumba University. That's where Ilich Ramrez Snchez had studied on scholars.h.i.+p.”
”Carlos the Jackal.”
”Yes. He was a legend by then, but I heard he'd been a party boy in school-smart but lazy. When I graduated, Moscow was selling weapons to groups like the Red Brigades and the IRA and training them at camps across the Middle East. I was deep into it. I suppose you could say I was a troubleshooter.”
Their dinner arrived. Pyotr looked at it, but his initial enthusiasm seemed to have waned.
When the waiter left, she asked, ”Troubleshooter. What does that mean?”
He peered at her gravely. ”I'm gambling you'll be all right with what I'm about to say. I'm trying to make a full and honest disclosure, and ... it's not pretty.” His gla.s.s was empty. He offered her more wine. When she shook her head, he filled his gla.s.s and drank. ”We were dealing with violent people. Sometimes the only response was violence. Lubyanka brought me in to eliminate the worst ones.” Lubyanka was the KGB's headquarters, in Moscow.
For a moment she was taken aback. But what had she expected-the KGB was not a gentlemen's garden club. ”You were an a.s.sa.s.sin?”
”Yes.” He shook his head with disgust as he continued: ”First we treat allies like our friends, and we invite them to Moscow and feed them caviar. And then suddenly they're our enemies, and we liquidate them. I was risking my life for communism and the Motherland. Where did it get any of us? There was no change. We still helped anyone who'd sabotage the Middle East peace talks. We still funded both Iran and Iraq, first to keep their war alive, and then to keep their relations with the United States tense. We kept proxy wars going in Africa, and a million people died. We were on a treadmill to nowhere.” He sat back, radiating anger and frustration. ”It was stupid. I was stupid.”
”Lubyanka allowed you to retire?”
”I'd stashed plenty of money and several ident.i.ties, so I dropped out of sight and changed my appearance. I was good at that sort of thing.” He was silent, his head c.o.c.ked as he a.s.sessed her. ”You can call me names and leave now. Go ahead. I'll understand.”
She looked away. ”What happened after that?”
He hesitated. ”I went independent, like Carlos and Abu Nidal. I was skilled, experienced. My services were in demand from all sides. I was called Mole.”
”Krot,” she whispered, translating from the Russian.
”Yes. I am Krot.”
46.
It was past midnight when Katia and Pyotr left the French restaurant. The night was warm and soft. The traffic was quieting. Across the street, people were standing around an ice cream cart, eating and talking. Then Katia saw the woman with the bouncy gray hair and spidery-lined face. She was shooting pictures of hands, mouths, food.
Katia slowed. ”Do you know who that woman is, the one who's taking the photos?” She nodded across the street. ”I think she was following me last night. She may have photographed you and me when we were in the souk. Maybe before then, too-in the marketplace.”
He peered at the woman. ”I don't remember her. Does she worry you?”
Katia felt safe with Pyotr. Despite his violent past, or maybe because of it, there was something about him that made her feel taken care of.
”No,” she decided. ”She's probably just a tourist.”
A fortune-teller called out from an alley. ”Come. Find out how many years of happiness you will have together, love birds. Come, come.” Stooped, she beckoned with both hands. Gold rings covered her arthritic fingers, and tiny gold cymbals chimed from her ears. ”You will not be sorry. You will learn your good future!”
Pyotr gave her dirhams. ”You're much too young to be out so late.”
She laughed, and the money vanished into the red sash at her waist. ”I am much too old to care. Here, let me see, young miss. Your palm, please.”
But Katia put her hands behind her back and shook her head. ”Dreams are better than predictions, but thank you.”
As they walked on, Katia peered back over her shoulder. The ice cream cart was as busy as ever, but she no longer saw the photographer.
”Where do you live, Pyotr?” she asked curiously.
”In a wood chalet at the top of a high green valley in Switzerland. The views take your breath away. The bells of the dairy herd are my only alarm clock. My idea of heaven.”
Ten minutes later they arrived at their hotel. The outdoor cafe was closed, the little tables vanished. They strolled through the lamp-lit lobby and rode the elevator up to her floor. Even though they were not touching, she felt heat radiate from his body, calling her. She ached to have s.e.x with him, but it was not a good idea.
Soon they were at the door to her room. Unlocking it, she opened it onto darkness, emptiness. The loneliness of her life was almost palpable.
She turned. ”Thank you for two wonderful days.”
”That sounds like good-bye.”
”I didn't mean it to. I just meant it's been wonderful.”
”There you go again. That sounds like good-bye, too.” There was disappointment in his eyes. ”You're worried about me. Who I was. Whether I'm the same person today. A contract killer. Whether I could kill again.”
”You've given me a great gift,” she told him. ”You showed me the poverty of my life-and that I can change it. Love is what my dreams were telling me I could have. It's what I came to Marrakech to find out.”
There was a small smile on his lips. If he had changed the way he claimed, he was a remarkable man. He was also handsome, elegant, strong-looking, virile. She could not believe she was getting rid of him.
She stepped back and forced herself to say the words. ”I'm tired. I have to go in now. Again, thank you for everything. I'll never forget you.”
He gave a slow shake to his head, the small smile still on his lips. ”Let me ask you a question, although I'm sure of the answer. Did you love your father? Do you still love him?”
She frowned. What a weird question, especially now. ”Of course.”
”Do you still miss him?”
”What are you getting at?”
”I'll take that as a yes.” He looked both ways along the carpeted hall.
She looked, too. They were alone.
When he spoke again, it was quietly and in Russian. ”Let me educate you about who you are, Katia Levinchev, daughter of Roza and Grigori Ivanovich Levinchev. I asked you about your father because I was trying to find out whether you knew what Lubyanka had a.s.signed him to do after he left Bedford training village. He and I partnered occasionally. Lubyanka made him into a political a.s.sa.s.sin, too. He went independent a year before I did.”
She said nothing. Was there a corner of her mind that had suspected this? About a decade after his disappearance, her father and she had talked several times a year, especially on their birthdays. For her, each time was special. The clouds in her life would vanish, and the sun would warm her.
”I respected him,” he went on. ”If you loved and trusted your father, perhaps you can give me a chance. He and I are no different.”
For a moment she felt numb. What was left to her? Returning to her mother who was not really her mother, to a kindergarten cla.s.s to teach American children when she was not really American, to a few friends who had always known who they were and never questioned it.
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