These reflections so occupied my mind that when I reached the Windham Hill Inn and saw Rarig and Sammie waiting for me, it felt like I’d just hung up on them.
That impression was not shared by John Rarig. “You took long enough,” he barked at me, pulling open my door.
I didn’t bother responding. Grabbing a small canvas bag from the backseat, I asked, “Which one’s your car?”
Sammie was watching me nervously. “You think this through?”
I gave her a half smile, following Rarig’s pointed finger toward a dark green Ford Explorer. “The point is not to think-surprise the opposition into reacting.”
She fell into step beside me. “You’ll need backup.”
“Maybe, but you won’t be it. I don’t need your busted career on my conscience-if it isn’t too late already.”
She jerked a thumb at Rarig, who was circling the car to get behind the wheel. “If he clears you, I’ll be cleared, too.”
I opened the back door and threw my bag inside. “Nice try, Sam. You already told me you thought he was full of shit.”
She opened her mouth to say more, but I held up my hand. “Don’t. Besides, I need you to stick your neck out in another way. If they find my car here, it won’t take ’em long to start looking for Rarig.”
“Right,” she agreed, caught off guard.
“So ditch it somewhere and cross your fingers. Okay?”
The logic spoke for itself, but her voice was tinged with both sadness and longing. “Okay. Good luck.”
I swung into the seat next to Rarig. “You, too. And promise me you and Willy will work together to cover your asses. I want you both employed when I get back.”
I looked through the rear window as Rarig headed down the driveway. Sammie was standing in the parking lot, her hands by her sides, looking as vulnerable as a lost child in a bus station. I knew it was both momentary and misleading-that cool and decisive action would soon reassert itself-but in that brief moment, I was struck by the loyalty of the friendship between us and hoped to hell I hadn’t burned her by proximity.
I waited until we’d gotten onto Route 30, heading north toward Middlebury, before I asked my still visibly tense driver, “Not that you’ll tell me the truth, but who is it we’re trying to save?”
He gave me a startled look. “You don’t believe me? Then why are you here?”
“Personal reasons. Who is it?”
“His name’s Lewis Corbin-Teich-at least that’s what he goes by now. His old name’s not important.”
“Who made that one up? A committee?”
Rarig actually laughed. “No. He did. Like you said, personal reasons. He’s a sentimental man. I just asked him to come up with something that couldn’t be traced back to him or members of his family. That’s what he chose.”
“And he works at the college?” I was watching Rarig’s hands on the wheel, the blanching of his knuckles. A field operative once, and obviously used to tension, he’d apparently lost the instinct over time. I hoped a little conversation would calm him down, for both our sakes.
“Yes. The language department. Russian’s very big at Middlebury. There’s a huge immigrant population there, a Russian/U.S. think tank, a refugee housing complex for Bosnians, lots of conferences and meetings throughout the year. That’s why he fit in from the start.”
“Weren’t you worried someone would recognize him?”
“His own mother probably wouldn’t. He wears a full beard, and he’s had plastic surgery. He’s just another guy with an accent now.”
“You said Angleton locked him up and dismissed everything he had to offer. What happened after that?”
He paused to pass a slower driver on an inside curve, thankfully with no ill effects. “Two years later, other sources confirmed what he’d told us. Angleton never admitted being wrong, but he let him out-it was as close to an apology as you could get. Unfortunately, it also meant Lew was useless to us. I’m the one who came up with the teaching idea, set up the contacts, established the cover, and got him tucked away. The way we’d treated him was no different from what the Soviets did, but no one seemed to pick up on that. They were all hot to move on to the next item on the list.”
He slid off the road slightly, spitting gravel up into the wheel wells. “Lew was so calm about the whole thing it almost made me suspicious. I would’ve hired a lawyer and sued their pants off, but he didn’t care. Said he was just as happy he hadn’t had to sell out his native land for his adopted one, and that the two years had given him lots of time to learn the language and love the region.”
“He was locked up around here?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah. In Vermont. We had a mountaintop radar installation back then-this was in the late fifties. It was very secluded, well guarded, manned by U.S. service people. Perfect safe house for us. Lew was free to roam sometimes, always with a guard, and he got to know the woods and animals and seasons like a native, even though Angleton would push a button in Washington now and then and have him confined to solitary.”
“Why?”
“No reason. Something would happen on the other side of the world-like maybe one of our agents would get caught and tortured-and revenge would be taken out on Lew.”
It’s been said that police officers-in a world where the most mundane traffic stop may lead to a gun battle-have to be slightly paranoid to survive. I wondered how much worse that must be for those inhabiting the smoke-and-mirrors world of intelligence gathering. It had to elevate paranoia to a whole new level and stamp those in its clutches with a permanent imprint.
I tried getting my thoughts back on course. “If Lew meant so little to you people, why kill him now?”
“I don’t know. There was a connection between Padzhev, Antonov, Lew Corbin-Teich, and me, but it’s ancient history, and I can’t see why it’s resurfaced.”
“Did Snowden play into it?”
“No. This was before his time.” Rarig had come up onto another slower driver and was hanging back about two feet from his bumper. I could see the driver’s silhouette as he repeatedly checked his rearview mirror.
“If we are entering a tactical situation,” I said mildly, “you might want to start thinking about being alive when we get there.”
He completely surprised me by suddenly applying the brakes and pulling over. “You’re right. You drive.”
Back on the road, I looked over at his profile as he stared out straight ahead. “You feeling all right?” I asked.
“Fine. I don’t like to drive.”
“I don’t guess anyone else likes your doing it, either.”
I didn’t get a response, aside from a slight tightening of his jaw.
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” I then said.
He didn’t answer at first but turned away to look out the side window. We were on Route 100 by now, having abandoned 30 to cut up through Londonderry and Rutland to reach Middlebury more directly. I didn’t press him, sensing my last words were still being digested.
Eventually, he said softly, “Yeah-long time.”
“What’s going on inside you, John?” I asked. “I’d kind of like to know before things get hot.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “I’m not going to fall apart, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Wouldn’t you be, in my shoes?”
He gave me a rueful smile. “Okay. I thought I was free of this kind of thing, that’s all. It’s been a little strange-first Antonov, now Corbin-Teich. Whoever said you can’t go home again was out of his mind.”
“Lew must mean something special to you.”