The prodigal spy

“Nick,” she said softly, “if you don’t do this, it’ll never stop.”

“Just name a few names.”

“That’s their politics. I’m tired of being them. He’s selling us out now. Us. I can’t be that neutral. Is this how we’re going to live, like them? They made a mess of their lives.”

“But we won’t,” he said ironically.

“Well, we can do it our own way. At least then we won’t know how it comes out.” She took out the envelope and handed it to him. “Here. It’s yours. You decide.”

Nick looked down at the envelope. “I can’t be his executioner, Molly.”

“Somebody’d better be. He’ll do it to you too.”

“He’s not going to kill me.”

“Yes, he is. Every time you look at him.” She hesitated. “It’s a lousy deal, Nick.”

He watched her turn away.

“Where are you going?”

“Over to the rally. If you want to join the living, meet me by the monument.” She stopped. “Then I’m going back to New York. I hate this place.” She looked up at him. “Come with me?”

“I’m not finished here.”

“I am,” she said, and walked away.

He went toward the Justice Department and stared up at the balcony, the envelope like a weight in his pocket. A lousy deal. But would this one be any better? Could you really buy freedom in a pact with the devil?

The lobby was busy, full of men in suits and short-cropped hair, Bureau style. A bank of phones. Guards, armed. Where Hoover had started the phony war that had finally circled them on 2nd Street and now-beyond an irony, something grotesque-Nick would hand him, so many years later, the unexpected paper to win it. The pragmatic deal.

But as he walked toward the reception desk, surrounded by Hoover’s foot soldiers, he knew he couldn’t do it. Not here. The old enemy. He saw Hoover snatching the prize, vindicated, unassailable at last. Which was worse, Larry for a few months or Hoover tape-recording for the rest of his life? How did you measure the damage? Molly had to see that. He’d be one of them. He turned, pretending he’d forgotten something, and walked out past the indifferent guards.

The rally was noisy and crowded. He walked past the line of police and portable toilets and parked ambulances-were they expecting trouble? — and into the mass swarming over the Mall. He felt a million miles from the somber candle vigil for Jan Palach. Bubbles and painted faces and scraggly hair. Shirts off in the sun. The defiant smell of dope. In the distance was a concert stage with loudspeakers, a group at its base yelling “Out now!”, the chant rippling back through the crowd in a wave. Homemade posters and peace buttons.

Where was she? Everyone looked young. Nick realized with a start that no one in the huge eager crowd had ever heard of the hearings, that the old war was not even a distant memory to them. Like Welles, the survivors had moved on to the next thing. An embarrassing moment in the republic, not even worth teaching in school, so the children, absorbed in their own war, would not even know it had happened. And Larry would survive this one too, betraying them all. A lousy deal. Molly was right. They needed to breathe their own air.

He’d never find her in this. He scanned the broad slope by the monument. A scuffle had broken out near the transverse road, and policemen were wading in to contain it. A kid next to him was watching it through binoculars.

“Pigs,” he said. “There go the pigs again.”

“Could I borrow these for a sec?”

“Look at the pigs, man,” he said, handing the glasses to Nick.

It wasn’t yet an incident. People stood watching without getting involved, like a highway accident. The police were leading two men away, but no one was protesting. Probably a fight someone had to break up, not a bust. People stepped back to clear a path, then started up the road again. Nick moved the binoculars across the young faces, then stopped, jarred by something out of place.

The woman was looking away, a little farther up the hill, annoyed she’d had to stop, anxious. In the carnival of the rally her determined face stood out like a warning. Not just any face. Ruth Silberstein. Nick followed her, hypnotized. What was she doing here? And when she turned to speak to the man with her, Nick felt the fear begin. Ponytail and acne: the guy from the adult store. Then Ruth pointed and Nick followed her finger to Molly, standing on the curb, looking around. Waiting for him.

“Hey, man,” said the kid, reaching for the binoculars.

“Just a minute. Please.”