Free Death of a Spy by Dan Mayland Page A

birth of his first child? He and Katerina didn’t know each other anymore. But had she somehow connected with Larry? Mark couldn’t fathom how or why they would have, but that painting…what was equally unfathomable was that such a painting could have wound up in that hotel room if there hadn’t been some sort of link between Larry and Katerina.
    Mark checked his watch. He still had a half hour before his plane was due to board, so he flagged down the waiter, ordered another vodka on the rocks, and tried to remember as much as he could about Katerina and that spring of 1991. Mostly what he remembered now, though, was how quickly everything had spiraled out of control.
    In retrospect, Mark could see that agreeing to help Larry funnel money to the Press Club hadn’t been one of his smartest moves. And ignoring the warning lights that started flashing in his mind after Larry intimated that other types of aid might become available if things in Georgia really started to heat up, maybe even weapons—ignoring that danger…well, he’d been young.
    Mark recalled that it was shortly after the mention of weapons that Larry had said he wanted to make sure that the Soviets hadn’t planted a mole in the Press Club. Money was one thing, but before any weapons were transferred, he needed to be sure the Press Club was clean. Larry had said he’d come up with a plan. Meanwhile, Mark had started paying closer attention to all the members of the club.
    Mark had known he was playing with fire. He’d known Larry wasn’t just some businessman. He’d known too that he was being watched—the old woman who pottered about in the street in red sandals, sneaking nips of apricot moonshine, who was always full of questions; the same black Volga sedan with a dented fender he’d see several times over the course of a normal day. But he’d wanted to do it, he’d wanted to help fight the communists who had wronged his mother, to be a part of history, to help make history.
    Then, Mark found a pill-sized listening device affixed to the underside of the rough pine headboard attached to his bed frame. That was when things really had started to go downhill.
    Mark thought again of Katerina, tried to bring himself back to that time, to search for clues in the past that might help him understand what was happening to him in the present. Would she have any cause to harbor lingering anger, because of the way things had turned out between them? Was that what this was all about? Mark didn’t think so, but the honest answer was that he didn’t know. He tried to recall the last time they’d seen each other, when everything had gone to hell...

15
    Tbilisi, Georgia
June 1991, six months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union

    Marko was on his way to the Rustaveli metro stop late one afternoon when a white van that looked like a bread loaf on wheels pulled up next to him; before he could react, someone shoved him into the cargo bay.
    A figure appeared as the cargo door slammed shut. Marko scrambled to his knees and raised his fist, intending to strike.
    “Easy there, cowboy. This ain’t my first rodeo. Don’t make it hard on yourself. Or me.”
    Larry was sitting on a creaky bench seat that had been repaired with clear packing tape. He took a swig of some brown liquid in a clear bottle—Marko suspected it was kvass , a local concoction made from fermented rye bread.
    “What the hell, Larry?”
    “Hey, Saveljic, you ever hear of a honey trap?”
    “What am I doing here?”
    “It’s when a foreign intelligence service employs someone who possesses means of persuasion beyond what, say, I would possess. See, I’m old, and I smell.” The van hit a pothole, jolting both Marko and Larry up in the air. “So even if you were a switch hitter, you probably wouldn’t want to screw me. No honey in that trap. But a nice young lady? Potentially very effective against a young guy like you.”
    “What are you getting at?”
    “Your girlfriend’s a