Love in the Time of Spies - 6
He parked in his usual place, a parking lot around the corner from the office. �Little late today, Se�or Hacks?� the attendant commented.
�Time is relative, Pedro. I could be early.� Pedro frowned at that. Then, as Jacks was walking out, he said, �Mr. Hacks, a question.�
�What is it, Pedro?�
�You have a moment?� Jacks looked at his watch. He had more than a moment. �Sure.�����
�Well, you know the Banco de la Naci�n he is paying almost fifty percent interest on what you call them�time deposits?�
�Yes, so?�
�I have some money saved, and I was thinking maybe�maybe I should put it in the Banco and then I have a lot more. What do you think?�
�I think it�s a big risk, Pedro.�
�Risk? Why? It�s in dollars.�
�They�re paying such high interest rates because no one wants to put their money there at normal rates. Fifty percent is for three months, the yearly rate is a hundred and eighty percent.� Pedro frowned harder. He didn�t understand.
�But that is the Banco de la Naci�n, Se�or Hacks.�
�Uh, huh, and who is the president of the Naci�n? Never mind. Look, you might make some money on it, all I�m saying is that it�s a risk. Entiende?�
�S� se�or, muchas gracias.�
Thousands of people are putting their miserable little hoards in the bank, Jacks thought as he walked down Florida Street towards Retiro, the central train terminal. The big money is already out, moved to Miami or Zurich. If the Argentine treasury doesn�t go broke in thirty days and Pedro takes his double or nothing out then, he wins. If not he loses big, not much money, but all he has.
Retiro terminal is located directly across from the ex-Plaza de los Ingleses, now the Plaza de las Fuerzas Armadas, on the other side of which is the imposing steel and glass slab known as the Buenos Aires Sheraton. Why did she choose the Sheraton of all places? Jacks wondered. Maybe because of its proximity to Retiro. If she took the train to town she�d have only to cross the plaza and enter the hotel. Less chance of meeting people she knows. Could be that simple. It�s also where an IATA person would go. Would she know that? He walked into the terminal, a huge European style structure. It reminded him of the Milan terminal, the same people running about like ants. He shrugged, lit his pipe and went to the terminal�s caf�. He sat by a large window facing the bustling exhaust-filled street with a direct view across the plaza to the Sheraton. It was too far away to identify anyone entering, but he would certainly recognize her leaving the terminal and crossing the plaza.
Jacks� mind had wandered back to Frankfurt and their room on Hamburger Allee, where they made love every day for a month before she disappeared, simply didn�t show up, and neither he, the German police, nor M.I. had been able to find her or her husband. He finished his breakfast of croissants � called medialunas, half-moons, in Argentina � juice and coffee, and concentrated more on the stream of people coming from the terminal and passing by his window. Because of the dirty-blond wig and sunglasses, he almost missed her. But he recognized her walk, something lopsided about it. He remembered her mentioning that one leg was a little shorter than the other. She didn�t cross to the park, but kept on the street parallel to it, waited with the crowd at the red light, crossed and headed up the hill towards Avenida Santa Fe, Buenos Aires�s main shopping street. Must be going on a roundabout route through the crowds in order to double back to the hotel, Jacks thought. Jesus, is she being careful, wig and all. He looked at the large clock on the opposite wall, and checked it with his watch: eleven o�clock. She said noonish, okay he�d give her an hour, then go to the Sheraton to see if she�d checked in yet. A perfectly normal question for him to ask about his colleague. She had no baggage though. How would she explain that? Well, she�s not dumb, that�s for sure. Of course, she couldn�t just walk in, she�d have to come by taxi, so she probably went to pick up a suitcase somewhere, then take a taxi back to the hotel.
Jacks paid for his breakfast and went into the terminal proper and walked through it slowly against the flow of arriving passengers. The flow would begin to move in the opposite direction after seven o�clock in the evening. It occurred to him that it was remarkable how one could walk through a crowd of moving bodies without bumping into any of them. Some kind of inner radar must be functioning. He had the sensation that he was inside his body instead of being a unity of outside-inside. �He�, Jacks, was like a pilot in the cockpit of his head and his body was on automatic, threading itself through darting obstacles, avoiding crashes. He, his �I�, was merely an observer. He felt he could have risen to the high arched terminal ceiling and continue watching from there if he willed it enough. But he didn�t try; he stayed inside his head. Then Anneliese re-entered his thoughts, not Frau Marie, but the younger Anneliese from the Frankfurt time, and his state of self-awareness popped. He looked up at the huge terminal clock which, however, wasn�t working, as usual. His watch read twelve o�clock. He had been wandering back and forth in the terminal for almost an hour.
It struck him as he was leaving the terminal that he didn�t have his attach�-case. Damn, he was supposed to be bringing some papers. Was it important? Only if his phone was tapped and he was being followed. Cursing himself for paranoid, he decided to go to the office and pick up his attach�-case and play the role to the hilt. It would only take fifteen minutes.
�Mr. Armstrong called again, Marvin,� Amalia said when he walked in. �I told him you were in Montevideo.�
Jacks opened the file cabinet in Amalia�s office and took out the file marked �Admin-expenses�, knowing that she would check on which file he took and that one was as good as any. �Be back later.�
�Mrs. Albrecht also called � about ten minutes ago.� Jacks turned and stared at her. �She said she was in the Sheraton, room�� she looked at a note paper on her desk ��712, and that she�s expecting you.�
Jacks left without acknowledging the message. He walked across the Plaza San Martin without looking at the huge iron statue of the Great Liberator pointing west on its pedestal. He walked through the hotel�s lobby, which could have been in any country in the world, to the elevators and pressed the button for the seventh floor.
He had it all rehearsed, what he was going to say to her, and how. All right, Anneliese, what�s this all about? For starters. He�d just stand there with his hands in his pockets, one hand anyway, the other holding the file. Cold, cool, the offended party. But it didn�t work out that way. She opened the door to room 712 and stepped back. The blond wig was off and her black hair fell to her shoulders. One hand was on her right hip. At first she looked as though she�d rehearsed the same attitude he had. Her hand dropped from her hip, his hand left his pocket and the other dropped the file. They stepped forward and fell into each other�s arms. He couldn�t help himself and he guessed she couldn�t either, although he wasn�t so sure of that. They stood that way for at least a minute, then he reached under the back of her legs and carried her to the bed. She had gained some weight but was still slight.� He laid her on the bed and lay down alongside her. After a while she got up and went into the bathroom. He could hear the water running in the sink. When she came out she was naked. Jacks stood up and started to undress, she helped, unbuttoning his shirt carefully, smiling now, then she pulled down the bed cover and climbed under the sheet. They both remembered that little room years ago on Hamburger Allee in Frankfurt.
Afterwards they fell asleep, exhausted not only from the love-making, but also from the events of the past two days. The telephone woke them. Jacks looked at his watch, it was five o�clock. �Don�t answer it,� he told her. �It must be my secretary.� She went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, came out again and took his hand. They used to shower together in Frankfurt. It was like returning to a previous life, the water pouring down on them as they soaped each other with caressing hands. She giggled when an erection arose as she soaped his penis, then she mumbled something in German that he didn�t get, shook her head and let cold water run on it till it subsided.
They were dressed again, sitting across from each other in armchairs, sipping from a bottle of excellent Argentine wine from the minibar, both waiting for the other to begin the conversation they dreaded.
Jacks sighed: �Okay, Anneliese, or Frau Marie, what�s going on?� He tried to smile so it wouldn�t seem too much like an interrogation, but interrogators smile, too.
�Where do you want me to start, Marvin?�
�From the beginning, I guess.� The revelation that she and her husband were East German spies posing as refugees when they first met in Frankfurt didn�t surprise him. She also said that during their short lived affair both her husband and their handler knew about it and her mission was to get information from him and, if possible, to turn him, that is to recruit him as a double agent. She fell in love with him though � an occupational hazard, it seems � and didn�t know what to do until the situation resolved itself through instructions from Berlin to go to Hamburg with a new identity, identities that is, for her husband and herself. Jacks interrupted to ask if her marriage was real or part of her cover. She said both, that it was cover, but had to be real in order to be convincing. But that she hadn�t even known Cornelius until they were ordered to marry. Her daughter was the fruit of the marriage but, she insisted, she still loved Jacks and even the child had originally been part of the cover. She was in tears now, so Jacks waited for her to recover, or seem to, before asking how Argentina came into the picture.����������������
�It was 1973, when Per�n returned to Argentina,� she said. �It was chaos here and they � Wolfe, the Stasi chief, I mean � wanted us to come and help the leftist groups, you know, the revolution. In Berlin, and Moscow too probably, they thought Argentina might be ripe, probably because Che Guevara was Argentine � I don�t know.�
�Seems vague,� Jacks said.
�Isn't it always? We were also to establish an identity here and eventually emigrate to the United States.�
�Ah, and it didn�t work?�
�It worked, but they wanted us back in Germany for something else, so we went and then returned to Argentina three years ago.�
Jacks was wary, not sure why she was telling him all this, or even if it was the truth; but he wanted to believe her. If you can�t believe the one you love, you can�t believe anyone. �With the same identity?� he asked.
�Yes, we still had our National Identity Cards, which never expire.�
�And the same mission?�
�Essentially yes, but now I know that the revolution cannot succeed here, so I at least help people who are wanted by the police and armed forces escape, get out of the country.�
She foraged in her handbag and came up with a crumpled package of local cigarettes, black tobacco. Jacks checked his pocket for a lighter, but couldn�t find it. She found a box of matches in the bag, offered him a cigarette, which he declined, and lit up. She held the cigarette as she always had, between her thumb and index finger, like a dubious insect.
�You mean the ERP people?� ERP meant Ej�rcito Revolucionario del Pueblo, a Marxist group which had started by hijacking trucks carrying food and clothing, and distributing it to the poor. Then they decided they needed money, so robbed banks and kidnapped people for ransom. They also killed some generals, which was definitely a no-no. After the military coup the generals began a campaign to wipe out all resistance. They didn�t bother with concentration camps, they just murdered everyone even suspected of having a connection with the insurgents. This finally caused a reverse migration to Europe, mostly to Spain and Italy, not only of insurgents and their friends, but also journalists, scientists, teachers, psychologists, even some Catholic priests after six of their colleagues were murdered and they realized that the Church hierarchy not only would do nothing to defend them, but acquiesced in the state terror. As Anneliese and Jacks sat talking in the Sheraton, that cleansing �proceso�, as they called it, was in full swing.
�For example, yes,� she said, �the ERP people.�
�That�s very dangerous, Anne�er..what is your name, by the way?�
�Call me Marie so you won�t slip when someone is around. And I know it�s dangerous, yes, I know.�
�But your real name?�
�Rachel. Rachel Baumgartner.�
�Oh.� A long pause while Jacks searched in his pocket for his pipe and tobacco and tried to think of what to say next. She beat him too it.
�What about you, Marvin? You are Marvin, aren�t you?��
�Yes, yes I am.�
�Really not married?�
�Well, legally yes, still, but it�s over, she�s in Switzerland.�
�Swiss?�
�No, Argentine, it�s a long story.�
�Any children?�
�No.����������
She sighed as if relieved by one complication less. Then: �We�re quite safe though. My husband�s name is Clement now, a native Argentine who emigrated to Germany as a very young child, and has now returned with his German bride. Very romantic, but all in order, papers and everything � and it explains his accent. He even learned to be a cook.
�You�re not as safe as you think, Rachel.� He used her name consciously; he had to have something real. She didn�t object.
�What do you mean?�
�Yesterday�no, back in Frankfurt I was also spying on you. They suspected you, at least one sergeant did, so I was assigned to accidentally meet you off duty and try to find out.� He thought she�d be shocked, but she only blew a smoke ring and said, smiling, �I knew.�
�You mean you guessed.�
�In this game guessing is as good as knowing, darling. You were very obvious.�
�But I really fell in love with you,� he protested.
�I knew that, too. Give me your hand.� she held it in both of hers and kissed it. �I fell in love with you, too, Marvin, and I�ve never loved anyone else.� Their knees were touching and she kissed his hand again. Tears came to his eyes, but he held them back. He didn�t know what to do, or even to believe her, that was the worst part.
�I didn�t tell them about the room on Hamburger Allee though�but then you disappeared.�
�Yes, we were ordered to Hamburg to support the Rote Armee Fraktion, but I don�t want to talk about that. I couldn�t tell you I was a spy, it was impossible, but I was so sorry.� At that moment Jacks made up his mind to believe her, a leap of faith.
�Okay, anyway a guy from the CIA contacted me yesterday.� Her eyes opened wider, very attentive now. �They suspect you, Rachel.�
�But how?�
�Freddy Hussein, they seem to know a lot about him and they�ve been following him. They saw me go with him to your restaurant the other day and they know he�s been there often.�
�Verdammt Mal, I knew that guy was trouble, a complete idiot.�
�Yeah, well, that�s why they talked to me, want me to find out what he � and you � are up to. It�s dangerous, Rachel, all they have to do is tip off the Argentine S.I.D.E., who know how to get everything you know from you, and then �disappear� you afterwards.�
She sat there staring at her hands which rested between her legs. Finally, �I know,� she said, �but I don�t know what to do.�
�I�ve been thinking about it,� Jacks said, �and I see two possibilities.�
Her eyes asked him what they were.
�Go over to the CIA, ask for protection in exchange for information. I could arrange that.� She didn�t say anything, waiting for the second choice.
�Or,� he said, �leave the country, escape.�
She smiled. �They both sound so easy, Marvin, but I don�t think they are.��
�I didn�t say they�d be easy, but let�s examine them anyway. First, the CIA��
�They would certainly want more than information,� she said, without the smile. �They�d want me to be a double agent, and I�m not prepared to do that � or do you think I should? Never mind. And I wouldn�t want to give them information either. I�m not a traitor, Marvin.�
�This is different, Rachel. You must know by now that the German Democratic Republic is a corrupt satellite of the Soviet Union, and sooner or later it�s going down the drain. Thousands have defected to the west. Why not you?�
�I�I don�t know. I�m not just someone, one of the thousands, I�m a professional spy for God�s sake, Marvin.�
�Okay, let�s just look at the second alternative for a moment.�
�Escape? Where would I go? And Micaela?�
�Micaela?�
�My daughter.�
�Oh, well, she�d go with you of course, to Mexico and finally across the border to the States � for example. There are other possibilities I�m sure.�
�They�d find me, Marvin. I know too much.�
�Not if the CIA gives you a new identity and takes care of you there. I can talk to them, Rachel, say you definitely won�t be a double agent, but you�ll tell them all you know in exchange for getting out, new identity and protection. I can at least ask.�
She smiled at his naivet�, which wasn�t really that, just grasping at straws. �That would be telling them what I am. They may suspect now, but they don�t know.�
He took one of her cigarettes, started to light it, threw it down and tried to relight his pipe. She leaned forward and took his hand. �Let me think, Liebling, I need to think. Now I must go. Don�t call or come to the restaurant. I�ll contact you. She stood up. Ich liebe Dich, Marvin.�
�I love you too, Rachel, and�� She held her hand up, palm out like a policeman directing traffic, and said, �Don�t get up.�
�The room is still available,� he said. �Can you come back?� She shook her head, turned and walked out the door.
He waited until the next morning to pay the hotel bill, pretending that Ms. Albrecht of IATA had stayed the night.
