Free Death of a Spy by Dan Mayland Page B

honey trap. You’re trading sex for secrets and you don’t even know it. I’m sorry, I should have considered it earlier. Stupid that I didn’t.”
    Marko laughed. The thought was absurd. “No she’s not.”
    Larry spoke slowly and definitively. “Yes, she is. She’s using you.”
    “She’s a painter. And a student.”
    “And a KGB agent who was sent to spy on both you and the Press Club.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “You told her about me. You told her that you were being watched. You told her you were helping me help the Press Club.”
    That much was true, Marko admitted.
    “Why in God’s name would you tell her all that! Why? Even if she wasn’t a KGB plant—didn’t I tell you I suspected there’d be one somewhere?—even if she wasn’t, why would you share that with anyone?”
    “Last night Katerina went to visit her mother. I had trouble falling asleep, I was thinking about what you’d said about my apartment probably being bugged. Even though I’d checked all over for bugs weeks ago—”
    “You found one.”
    “Yeah. Underneath the bed. So when I saw her this morning, I told her about the bug, and yeah, I mentioned that I was helping get money to the Press Club, and that maybe that had something to do with what I found.”
    Larry shook his head, disgusted.
    “I didn’t mention your name, or describe you or anything. I mean, what did you expect me to do? You were the one who told me that if I ever found any bugs to just leave them in place, so we don’t tip people off that we’re onto them.”
    What, was he supposed to continue to make love to Katerina while the KGB was listening? The breach of trust would have been unforgivable. He’d had to tell her something. They couldn’t continue to sleep together in that bed.
    “And Katerina. What was her reaction when you told her about all this?”
    “Well, she wasn’t happy about the bed thing—I mean, that’s a pretty sleazy asshole move, even for the Soviets.”
    “This is a sleazy business, Marko. Did she seem worried?”
    “More disgusted than worried.”
    Katerina had known that the Soviets viewed the Press Club as an irritant; given that Marko was both an American and regularly attended Press Club meetings, she’d already assumed there would be a certain level of surveillance on him. He suspected she would have been more worried if she’d known the amount of money he was funneling to the Press Club, but he’d been intentionally circumspect on that front.
    “It’s possible she didn’t know about the listening device. But that doesn’t mean she’s clean, Marko.”
    “You’re so full of it. Really, Larry. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “The KGB already knows about the conversation you had with her this morning, kid. A conversation that, if I’m not mistaken, occurred outside of your apartment. On the street. Where no one should have been able to hear you.”
    “You were watching me.”
    “No, Marko. But someone was watching…” Larry pointed a finger at him. “And listening. And I was watching and listening to the people who were watching and listening to you. I believe I may have intimated that we have ways of intercepting certain types of…let’s call them communications.” When Marko didn’t respond, Larry added, “They know about your conversation with Katerina this morning. They know you’ve been helping me funnel money to the Press Club. I know this for a fact. She must have told them about it. There’s no other explanation. You’re completely blown. You fucked up, Saveljic.”
    “She doesn’t care about politics. I got her to go to one Press Club meeting a few weeks ago, and then she never went back.”
    “Maybe she doesn’t care about politics. Maybe she even really likes you. Who knows what they have on her, why she’s helping them. They play an ugly game, Marko. But she is helping them, believe it. She’s selling you out.”
    Marko recalled how Katerina had taught him how to speak