Defectors: A Novel

1

MOSCOW, 1961

IT WAS STILL LIGHT when they landed at Vnukovo, the late northern light that in another month would last until midnight. There had been clouds over Poland but then just patches so you could see the endless flat country below, where the German tanks had rolled in, all the way to the outskirts of Moscow, nothing to stop them, the old fear come true, the landscape of paranoia. Even from the air it looked scrubby and neglected, dirt tracks and poor farmhouses, then factories belching brown lignite smoke. But what had he expected? White birch forests, troika races over the snow? It was the wrong season, the wrong century.

There was no seat belt sign. Simon felt the descent, then the bump and skid of wheels on the runway, and looked out the window. Any airport—a terminal and a tower, some outlying buildings, no signs.

Sheremetyevo? he asked his—what? handler? A human visa, someone the Russians had sent to Frankfurt to travel with him.

No, Vnukovo. VIP airport, he said, evidently meaning to impress.

But in the fading light it seemed dreary, empty runways with clumps of grass running along the edges, a lone signalman in overalls waving them away from the main terminal. They taxied to one of the other buildings.

No customs, his handler said, part of the VIP service.

Simon peered out, his face pressed against the plastic window. What would he look like now? Twelve years. In the one picture Simon had seen, the one the wire services had picked up and sent around the world, he’d been wearing a Russian fur hat, flaps up, and a double-breasted coat, the onion domes of St. Basil’s just over his shoulder, the kind of picture authors used on book jackets. But now it was spring, no heavy clothes to hide behind. He’d be Frank. If he was there. So far nobody, just the empty tarmac, away from the bother of customs. It occurred to Simon then that they didn’t want anyone to know he’d come, shuttling him off to an out building, whisking him away in some dark car like an exchanged prisoner, as if he’d been the spy, not Frank. Maybe they’d anticipated reporters and flashbulbs, the foreign press still fascinated by Frank. The man who betrayed a generation. Twelve years, a lifetime, ago. But nobody had told them. This end of the runway was empty, just two airport workers wheeling a staircase up to the plane. Someone was coming out of the building now, heading toward them, a soldier’s rigid shoulders. Not Frank.

Simon put on his coat and headed for the door, his handler following with the luggage. How could Frank not come to the airport? His brother. And now his publisher, the one Frank had asked for, arranging the visa to come work on the memoirs, an excuse to see him, maybe even explain things, all these years later. Things you couldn’t say in a book, not one that would have to pass his bosses’ vetting. Line by line in some office at the Lubyanka. Well, but hadn’t we done the same thing? Pete DiAngelis in the small conference room, making notes.

We have to be sure our people aren’t compromised, DiAngelis had said. You understand. His tone suggesting that Simon didn’t, that he was some kind of traitor himself, aiding and abetting. An opportunist too greedy to realize what was at stake.

He doesn’t mention any agents by name. Not active ones. He’s not trying to give anyone away.

No? That didn’t stop him before. He write about that? The people he set up? The ones who didn’t come back?

See for yourself, he said, gesturing to the manuscript. It’s about him. Why he did it.

Why did he? DiAngelis said, goading.

Simon shrugged. He believed in it. Communism.

"Believed in it. And now he’s going to say he’s sorry? Except he’s not. My Secret Life. Here’s my side. And screw you. For two cents I’d shut the whole thing down. Who gives a fuck what he believes?"

People. Let’s hope so anyway.

Or you’re out some cash, huh? He looked straight at Simon. Paying him. Making him rich. For fucking us over. Freedom of the press.

Simon nodded at him, a silent as you say.

Don’t think anybody’s happy about this. He wants to make the Agency look bad, all right. Who the fuck would believe him anyway? But if he names any of our guys, even hints—

We take it out. You think I’d want to endanger anyone in the field?

I don’t know what you’d want.

There’s nothing like that in there. Read it. The other side already has, don’t you think? So now it’s your turn. Just leave something for the rest of us, okay?

Another look. One thing. Satisfy my curiosity. How’d you twist the Agency’s arm? Get them to go along with this?

Are they going along? I thought that’s what you were here for. Throw red flags all over the field.

In fact, it was Look whose involvement had given the Agency the needed push, the promise of publicity, even a court fight, if they tried to stop publication. The Digest, the Post, wouldn’t even look at an excerpt, and though Luce was tempted, sensing a story big enough for a special issue, he finally fell back on principle too (we don’t publish Communist spies), which left Look and the serial sale that made the deal happen. Without that, Simon never could have raised the money the Russians were asking. More than M. Keating & Sons had paid for anything, a pile of chips all shoved now on red, for what had to be a best seller. Diana’s father, a Keating son, had reservations, but in the end went along with Simon. What choice did he have? After Frank’s defection, Simon had had to resign from the State Department, and it was Keating who’d come to the rescue, offering him a career in publishing. Now Simon was running the company, Keating just a genial presence at the Christmas party. Too late now to change succession plans.

You realize this is a first draft? Simon said to DiAngelis. You’re just going to have to go through it again when I get back. So leave something.

There’s more? You want him to put stuff in?

I want to know what he did. Actually did. Besides defect. That’s all anybody knows really. That he—

Ran, DiAngelis finished. He looked at Simon. You want him to be innocent. He wasn’t.

No, Simon said. He wasn’t.

But he had been once. You could see it in the old home movies, the boys like colts trying to stand on wobbly legs, making faces at the camera. In the end Simon became the taller, but when they were boys it was Frank who had the crucial extra inch, just as he had the extra year. The films, jerky and grainy, showed them opening Christmas presents, dodging waves at the beach, waving down from the tree at their grandmother’s house, and in all of them Simon was trailing after Frank, a kind of shadow, his partner in crime. Frank knew things. Where to find clams in the mud flats. How to get extra hot fudge sauce at Bailey’s. How to skim their father’s pocket change without his knowing or missing it. Years of this, in the old house on Mt. Vernon Street, bedrooms separated by a narrow hall, the model train running between, so that it really seemed like one room.

It was their mother who decided to separate them. Frank was sent to St. Mark’s, a Weeks tradition, but the following year, Simon’s turn, his mother decided on Milton instead.

It’ll be good for you, to be on your own. Think for yourself. Instead of listening to your brother all the time.

I don’t listen to him all the time.

A lot of the time then.

Frank tried to be reassuring. You’re the smart one. She wants you to concentrate on your studies.

You’re smart.

Not the way you are. Anyway, the headmaster’s a friend of Aunt Ruth, that’s how they know about the school, so he’ll be nice. Always good to have the top guy on your side.

Maybe she’ll change her mind.

But Emily Weeks wasn’t in the habit of changing her mind, and the separation was permanent. She had been right—Simon thrived on his own—but years later he still felt the loss, like some finger that had been snipped off in an accident and never replaced. During the holidays it seemed almost the same, talking late into the night up on the third floor, the Weeks boys again. But inevitably they grew apart. They had never resembled each other—except for the Weeks jaw—but now, unexpectedly, even their voices began to differ, Frank’s a rich baritone with a boarding school drawl, Simon still Mt. Vernon Street.

Then they were together again at college. School was one thing, but Weekses went to Harvard.

All this Weeks business, Frank said. Weekses do this, ­Weekses do that.

Well, Pa’s like that.

And getting worse. I thought, when he went to Washington—but no, now he’s back, it just gets smaller and smaller.

What does?

His world. You realize he can walk everywhere he goes? That’s how small it is. The office on State Street, the Athenaeum, the Somerset Club. He never has to drive. His whole world is in walking distance. Like a native or something.

There’s the Symphony, Simon said.

And he walks there. My point.

Once a week on matinee day, as he had for years, up Commonwealth and back on Marlborough, a full-length wool cape against the cold, a walk so fixed it had become a Boston sight, like the swan boats.

For a while it seemed they were closer than ever. Frank enjoyed showing him the ropes—which lecture course to avoid, which seminar virtually guaranteed you an A, where to get your hair cut. And Simon absorbed it all—the right book, the right portion of gin, everything but Frank’s effortless ease. There were parties in Frank’s large suite in Eliot House, facing the boathouse, everything Simon had always imagined Cambridge would be. But that was the year things turned political, Frank loitering around the edges, then taking his first steps. At first just small statements of class rebellion—a refusal to join the Porcellian after they’d punched him, a disdain, usually comic, for the parties his roommates still gave, and almost inevitably, the prickly dinner arguments with his father. Francis Weeks had served in the Treasury, a reluctant New Dealer, and he was concerned about the fascist threat overseas and social justice at home, but it simply wasn’t in him to walk a picket line or demonstrate in rallies, both of which Frank now did, provoking more arguments. Simon watched from the sidelines, ready to take Frank’s side but dismayed to see his father looking suddenly older, wounded and puzzled, his safe, small world upended. It’ll pass, his mother said.

And then, in the summer before his last year, Frank volunteered for Spain, surprising everyone and making Simon feel left behind, conventional and cautious while Frank went out to slay dragons.

How can he not finish his degree? his father said. Thank God you have more sense.

He’s right, though. To go. The fascists—

Oh, right. Watch he doesn’t get himself killed. You can’t get righter than that.

Francis, Emily said.

I know, I know. But it’s not a game. What’s Spain to him anyway?

It’s not just Spain. They’re using it as an exercise. A warm-up. If we don’t stop them there—

We’re not going to stop them there. Whatever Frank thinks. He’ll get himself killed for nothing. No longer blustering, his voice suddenly breaking.

But he didn’t get killed. Instead he took a bullet in the shoulder and managed to survive sepsis in the field hospital, which took him out of the war and out of politics, cynical now about both sides, embarrassed to have ever been naïve enough to think that Communists, anybody, could claim the moral high ground. He became, predictably, his parents, but not quite—Spain had left some itch for adventure. He finished his degree, played at law school, floundering, at loose ends until the war finally gave him what he was looking for. The army wouldn’t take him with his shoulder, but Francis knew Donovan and it was arranged—the night train to DC, a job at the OSS. The first thing he did was recruit Simon as an intelligence analyst, pushing paper on Navy Hill while Frank practiced parachute drops in the Maryland countryside. But they were together, Washington another Cambridge, their oyster.

When the war ended, and the OSS with it, Simon moved with the other analysts to State, probably where he should have been all along. Frank hung on in the War Department, convinced Truman would have to replace Donovan’s group with a new agency. His guess was right. The following year he landed at the Central Intelligence Group, Office of Policy Coordination, a euphemism for overseas ops, and their Washington life went on as before, official meetings and unofficial lunches at Harvey’s, nights on the town, double dating. A special joint committee with the Brits to liaise with Baltic refugee groups and Ukrainian nationalists, Simon representing State and Frank the OPC, the heady pleasure of being in on things, part of something important, on their way.

And then, like a screech of tires, the headlines appeared one morning and everything stopped. Frank was gone. Just two steps ahead of Hoover, two steps ahead of treason. The Soviets’ most successful agent, gossiping over lunch, picking Simon’s brain, not just a leak at State, a spigot Frank could turn whenever he liked. Smiling, just as he had in the home movies. You’re the smart one. But not about Frank.

At the bottom of the stairs the military Russian introduced himself as Colonel Vassilchikov and with a quick nod dismissed the handler. Simon turned to say good-bye, then realized he didn’t know his name, had never known it or forgotten, already failing DiAngelis’s instructions: Remember everything. Don’t write it down, remember it. Everything. Even if you think it’s nothing. Keep your eyes open.

Already failing. A name he should have remembered. A black car he should have seen, just over the colonel’s shoulder—had it always been there? But in the curious half-light nothing seemed to have definition, the whole country somehow out of focus, behind a scrim.

It is your first time in Moscow? the colonel was saying, a standard courtesy, now oddly surreal. Did they see many repeat visitors, here on the moon?

Yes, my first. That’s all right—I’ll keep that. His briefcase, the colonel reaching out for it.

Contraband? the colonel said smiling, an unexpected joke.

The manuscript. Frank’s book.

There are other copies, you know.

Not with my notes.

Ah. I will be curious to see that, the colonel said, an insider, part of the editorial process. What the CIA objects to.

They’re my notes.

They’d better be. Another voice, behind the colonel, stepping out of the car. The Simon touch. A laugh in the voice now. That’s what we’re paying for.

Simon stared. The hair was receding, but not gone. The face tighter, lines spreading out from his eyes, lived in. But voices never change, the same flip intimacy that drew everybody in, and for a second the face matched the voice, lines smoothing out, the way he’d looked before, before all the lies.

Simple Simon, Frank said, the old teasing name, his eyes suddenly soft.

Simon stood still. Simple Simon. As if nothing had happened. What did they do now? Shake hands?

Frank, he said, light-headed. The same crinkly smile, someone who’d just been away for the weekend.

Frank nodded. It’s me, he said, as if he were reading Simon’s mind.

Frank—

And suddenly there were arms around him, chest pressed against his, wrapping him in the past. Frank. Then he was being held by the shoulders, inspected. Frank tipped his head toward his glasses.

Specs? Since when? Or are they just to make people think you read the books you put out? He glanced at Simon’s clothes. You’re dressing better. Hart Schaffner?

Simon looked down at his suit, as if he’d just noticed he was wearing it. Altman’s.

Altman’s. And for only a few dollars more— Just like Pa. He dropped his hands. You’ve met Boris Borisevich? Boris Jr., literally. I call him that sometimes, don’t I, Boris?

The colonel nodded, smiling, apparently a joke between them.

Anything you need, he’s your man. Driver. Tickets to the Bolshoi. Anything. He likes pulling rabbits out of his hat.

Simon looked at him, disconcerted. The KGB as concierge.

Of course he’s really here to protect me. In the beginning, you know, we couldn’t be sure—if the Agency might try something. I told them that really wasn’t much in our line. But of course it is in their line, so naturally they’d think— Anyway, that was then. Now I just go about my business. But always nice to know somebody’s got your back. Right, Boris? Here we go, he said, starting to get in the car, then turning, putting his hand on Simon’s shoulder again. It’s good to see you. I never thought— He paused. Look at you. Gray. He touched Simon’s temple. And here I am writing memoirs. So when did that happen, all the years?

Colonel Vassilchikov put the luggage in the trunk then sat up front with the driver, leaving Frank and Simon together in the back.

In the beginning, Frank picked up again, wanting to talk, "before we knew we didn’t have to worry, the Service gave us new names. Maclean was Fraser. Like that. No addresses, of course. No Time correspondent turning up out of the blue for a drink. That wasn’t too hard. There’s no telephone book in Moscow and nobody to tell them where I was. So in a way, I wasn’t really here."

Now you’re Weeks again?

Mm. Whereabouts still unknown. I assume the Agency doesn’t know where the flat is or I’d have spotted someone lurking.

Actually thinking they’d tail him now, twelve years later, a footnote to history.

Like him? Simon said, nodding to Vassilchikov up front.

He doesn’t lurk. He comes right in.

He lives with you?

He visits.

"You know we’ve promised Look pictures. They’ll want you in the flat. At home. How you live. All that. Is that going to be a problem?"

No. In for a penny. My cover’s blown now anyway. About time, I suppose.

Blown how?

Well, you’ll have to tell them. When they debrief you. You supposed to make a note or just keep it up here? He put a finger to his temple.

Simon said nothing.

Ulitsa Zholtovskogo. 21. You can write it down later. Very comfortable. My own study. Well, you’ll see. He made a signal to the driver to start. I got them to put you up at the National. They had you down for the Ukraina and I said no no, too far away from the flat. And the rooms aren’t much to write home about. One of Stalin’s wedding cakes. Not as bad as the Pekin, but still.

What’s wrong with the Pekin? Simon said, playing along.

Frank smiled, enjoying himself. Well, they built it for us, the Service. New offices. But that didn’t work out for some reason. So, a hotel. Except the rooms can be a little—odd. Red light, green light over the door. To call a maid, they say now. But they were built as interrogation rooms. You know, red if someone was still being interrogated. He stopped, catching Simon’s expression. Anyway, the Chinese don’t seem to mind. Very popular with delegations. Not a bad restaurant either. If you’re in the mood for Chinese. We can go one night if you like.

I’m not here that long.

A week anyway. At least. And you have to come out to the dacha. Joanna’s looking forward to it.

Jo, Simon said quietly, another thing he seemed to have forgotten. Once all he thought about. How is she?

A little under the weather. She wanted to come tonight, but I said you’d be there bright and early, no need to rush things. I think she’s a little—nervous. Seeing someone from the States. What you’ll think. You’re the first. From before.

But she likes it? Somebody who’d been to El Morocco, her long hair swinging behind her when she danced. White shoulders, a broad lipstick smile. Don’t be so serious, she’d say, pulling him onto the dance floor, anyone can do it. Not like her.

"Well, like. She doesn’t like anything really, since Richie died, he said, almost mumbling, as if the words were being pulled out of him. It’s been hard for her."

I’m sorry. I should have said first thing—

Frank dismissed this. It’s all right. It’s a while ago now. You think it’ll never get better, but it does. Even something like this.

He was sick?

Meningitis. There wasn’t anything anybody could do. The best care. The hospital in Pekhotnaya. He looked over. It’s the Service hospital. The best care.

The Service hospital. The KGB has its own hospital?

Frank nodded. I know what you’re thinking. Maybe you’re right. But when it’s you—your son—who needs the privilege, you’re grateful. You have to understand how things are here. All that, he said, waving his hand at the window, you have to imagine what it’s going to be. How far we’ve come. But the Service was always something—apart. Professional. Out there you wonder sometimes, does anything work? But inside, in the Service, everything works.

You don’t write about it. Richie. In the book. Or Jo. You never mention her.

No. It’s my life in the Service, how I managed to do it, play against the house. Jo’s not part of that. She never knew. He looked at Simon. It’s not a soap opera. You haven’t come to make it one, have you? Because I’m not going to write that.

She never knew? But she came?

I didn’t force her, Frank said simply. It was her decision. But it’s understood about the book? She’s entitled to her privacy. He looked up at Simon. I don’t want to upset her. Not now.

All right, Simon said, retreating.

Anyway, there’ll be plenty of other things to work on, Frank said, abruptly cheerful, switching gears. Like old times. You whipping my papers into shape. What was the one we did for old Whiting? I left it to the last minute and—

The British Navy. In the seventeenth century.

Your memory. The British Navy. A whole semester. On old boats. He shook his head. Whiting. You had to have three people sign up or the course was canceled, so I figured he couldn’t afford to lose anybody. All you had to do was show up. And then he got serious about it, wanting papers. Ass. But we pulled it off. Well, you did. So now this. He indicated Simon’s bag. You made notes?

Lots.

Frank smiled. That bad?

No, just incomplete.

You understand, some things can’t be said. People still active. I’m not trying to get even with anybody.

Except Hoover.

Well, Hoover has it coming. He hasn’t done a damn thing since he was swinging his hatchet at whiskey barrels. Just stamp his feet to see how fast people run away. And some blackmail on the side. You think I’m too hard on him? I just say what happened. What I knew personally. Why? He threaten you?

Not yet. He hasn’t seen it yet.

You think so? Then he’s more incompetent than I thought. Anyway Pirie and the boys at the Agency will love it. They’ll back you up.

I’m not exactly popular there either. They think you want to make them look bad. Keystone Kops.

Is that what you think I want?

Simon looked at him. I don’t know. What do they want? Your people?

The Service?

They never talk. Never admit to anything. And now we’ve got Public Enemy No. 1 going on about the high old times he had in the war and how he fooled everybody, Hoover and Pirie and—

And?

Me.

You’re not in the book, Frank said quietly.

And the Brits. And State. Why leave anybody out? But why say anything in the first place, if you’re an organization that never says anything at all?

Why do you think?

I think they want to embarrass us. Maybe stir up a little interagency rivalry. That’s always worth doing. Make trouble. And now I’m part of it. Helping you do it. Again.

Jimbo. Simon James, another nickname, another hook from the past.

Simon turned and looked out the window. Nearly dark now, the beginning of the city, concrete apartment blocks and warehouses, an occasional church with onion domes. Anywhere. But not anywhere. Not even Europe. Signs in Cyrillic. Everything in shadow, enemy territory.

I never got much out of you, you know. If that’s what’s bothering you. The republic wasn’t in any danger because of you.

The republic didn’t think so. I got the heave-ho.

Yes, well, I’m sorry about that. You never know how people are going to react. Overreact.

Simon looked at him, speechless.

Anyway, this suits you better. A book man. Very distinguished. And now it turns out, just what the doctor ordered. A book like this needs—a certain amount of respectability. Which is one thing you can say for Keating. Just the place if you’re bringing a little notoriety to the party. Do they really think I’m that? Public Enemy No. 1? Like Dillinger? Amused, or pretending to be amused.

They used to. What did you think you were?

A soldier. That’s all I ever was. I was proud to be in the Service. I still am. An officer now. You understand that, don’t you? You must have seen that when you signed on for this. It’s not a mea culpa.

No, it’s a ‘see what a clever boy I am.’ Is that how you pitched it to—the Service. Get them to okay it?

"You’ve got it the wrong way around. It wasn’t my idea. It was theirs. I’m still not sure they were right. But they were looking for aktivnyye meropriyatiya," he said, his whole voice changing with the language, suddenly a Russian.

Simon glanced up front. But Vassilchikov hadn’t moved, just stared placidly out the window. Listening to both, English and Russian the same, so unobtrusive that after a while you forgot he was there, a human tape recorder, spools circling in his head.

Active measures, Frank translated. "Something to show people how effective we can be. I had a pretty