Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [98]
“You met Benz only once and yet you remember him?”
“Under the circumstances, yeah.”
“Who else was there?”
As Tommy squirmed, his shirttail showed under his jacket. “Employees, customers. No one I’ve seen since. Maybe this isn’t a good time for an interview.”
“It’s the perfect time. Where did your encounter with Benz and Max take place?”
“Red Square.”
“In Moscow?”
“No.”
“Munich?”
“It’s a club.”
“Would it be open now?” “Sure.”
“Show me.” Arkady picked up a jacket. “I’ll tell you all about the war and you tell me about Benz and Max.”
Tommy gulped down a brave breath. “If Max was still with Liberty, you couldn’t get a word—”
“Have you got a car?”
“Sort of a car,” Tommy said.
Arkady had never ridden in an East German Trabant before. It was a fiberglass tub with tail fins. The sound of its two cylinders was a syncopated popping. Fumes flowed not only from the exhaust but from a kerosene heater that sat on the car floor between his feet. They drove with the front windows rolled down; the rear windows were glued shut. Every time an Audi or Mercedes passed, the Trabant bobbed in its wake.
“What do you think?” Tommy asked.
“It’s like being on the road in a wheelchair,” Arkady said.
“It’s more an investment than a car,” Tommy said. “The Trabi is a piece of history. Except for being slow and dangerous and polluting, it’s probably the most efficient piece of technology in the world today. It goes fifty miles an hour and it’ll run on methane or coal tar—probably even on hair tonic.”
“Sounds more Russian.”
In truth, however, the Trabant made Arkady’s Zhiguli look like luxury. It made a Polish Fiat look good.
“Ten years from now this will be a collector’s item,” Tommy promised.
They had reached the outer city, a black plane where stakes of light led to different autobahns. When Arkady twisted to see whether anyone was following, the seat almost snapped beneath him.
“The whole German-Russian thing is so incredible,” Tommy said. “Historically, with the Germans always moving east and the Russians always moving west, and then you add Nazi racial laws, making all Slavs into Untermenschen only good for slaves. Hitler on one side, Stalin on the other. Now, that was a war.”
His face was creased with a new grin of pride and camaraderie. He was a lonely man, Arkady realized. Who else would ride around late at night with a Russian investigator? When a tank truck approached in the passing lane, engulfed the air and roared by, the Trabi vibrated violently in the shock wave and Tommy glowed with pleasure.
“I got to know Max best before I came to the Red Archives, when I ran the Program Review section. I didn’t create programs; I had a separate staff that reviewed them for content. Radio Liberty has guidelines. Our strongest anti-Communists, for example, are monarchists. Of course we’re supposed to be pushing democracy, but sometimes a little anti-Semitism creeps in, sometimes a little Zionism. It’s a balancing act. We also translate programs so that the station president knows what we’re putting on the air. Anyway, my life was easier because Max was head of the Russian desk. He understood Americans.”
“Why do you think he went back to Moscow?”
“I don’t know. We were all amazed. Obviously he had to be in contact with the Sovs before he went back, and they played it as a feather in their cap when he showed up in Moscow. But nobody here suffered. He wouldn’t have been welcome at the party if anyone had.”
“How do the Americans at the station feel about him?”
“To begin with, President Gilmartin was upset. Max was always the favorite. It was a shock to think that the KGB had penetrated Liberty. You met Michael Healey at my party. He’s deputy director. He tore the station apart looking for moles. Now it looks like Max went back just to make money. Like a capitalist. You can’t blame him for that.”
“Did Michael talk to Benz about Max?”
“I don’t think Michael knew about Benz. You don’t want Michael messing with your life. Anyway, it all turned out okay. Max came back smelling like a rose.