Legends

“There’s one more item on our agenda. We held a meeting to decide whether to terminate your life or your career. Career won, two to one. Within one week we want to read in the newspapers that the legendary Crystal Quest, the first woman Deputy Director of Operations, a veteran of thirty-two years of loyal and masterful service to the Central Intelligence Agency, has been put out to pasture.”

Sucked against her will into Dante’s trinity, Quest asked, “Who was the one who voted to terminate my life?”

“Why, Martin, of course, though being the more squeamish of the three, he wanted me or Lincoln to make the hit.” Dante smiled pleasantly. “Some people forgive but don’t forget. Martin’s the opposite—he forgets but doesn’t forgive.”

“What does he forget?”

“Whether Martin Odum is a legend or the real him.”

“It’s the original him, the first legend. You worked for Army Intelligence—”

“You mean, Martin worked for Army Intelligence.”

Quest nodded carefully. “Martin’s specialty was East European dissidents. I stumbled across a paper he published in the Army Intelligence Quarterly identifying two veins of dissidence: the anticommunists, who wanted to do away with communism altogether, and the pro-communists, who wanted to purge communism of Stalinism and reform the system. His article, which turned out to be far sighted, predicted that in the end the pro-communists were more likely to have an impact on East Europe and, ultimately, the Soviet Union itself, than the anticommunists. I remember … Martin citing the trial of Pavel Slansky in Prague, claiming he was the precursor of the reformers who came after him, Dubcek in Czechoslovakia, eventually Gorbachev in the Soviet Union.”

“And you lured him away from Army Intelligence into the CIA?”

“The Legend Committee worked up a cover for him using his real name and as much of his actual background as they could. He’d lived in Pennsylvania until his father moved the family to Brooklyn. Martin was something like eight at the time. He was raised on Eastern Parkway, he went to PS 167, Crown Heights was his stamping ground, he even had a school chum whose father owned a Chinese restaurant on Albany Avenue. When we discovered he could handle explosives, for a while we had him making letter bombs or rigging portable phones to explode from a distance. Martin was the last agent I personally ran before they kicked me upstairs to run the officers who run the agents. The Odum we concocted wasn’t a detective. That’s something you … that’s something Martin added to the cover story when his Company career came to an end.” Quest, shaken, began gnawing on a chip of ice.

Dante tucked a ten dollar bill under the ashtray and stood up. “I’ll pass all this on to Martin if I see him. I suspect he’ll be relieved.”

Quest looked up at Dante. “It was you who shot the Oligarkh.”

“Christsake, Fred.”

“I know it was you, Dante. The kill had your M.O. on it.”

Dante laughed lightly, his shoulders shuddering with pleasure. “You’re losing your touch, Fred. I have nothing to gain by lying to you—it was Lincoln who made the hit on the Oligarkh. Newspaper accounts said the police couldn’t identify the bullet or the murder weapon, which means Lincoln must have used that old Civil War sniper rifle you found for him when you were working up the Dittmann legend. Jesus, that’s really humorous. Martin or I wouldn’t know how to load the damn thing.”

Snickering in satisfaction, Dante headed for the front of the restaurant. The weight lifter came off the kitchen doors and started after him. The prize-fighter edged around the bar to block his path. Tsou Xing called in a high pitched voice, “No violence inside, all-light.”

Dante’s Irish temper flared. Glancing over his shoulder at Quest, he said, very softly, “Am I to understand that you’ll be calling our bluff, Fred?”

Quest locked eyes with Dante, then looked away and took a deep breath and wagged a forefinger once. The two flunkies from the Office of Security stopped in their tracks. Dante nodded as if he were digesting a momentous piece of information, something that could transform his legend and add to its longevity. Humming under his breath one of Lincoln’s favorite tunes, Don’t Worry, Be Happy, he pushed through the door into the blinding sunlight.