Free The Proxy Assassin by John Knoerle

river.”
    This was all terribly complicated. Me, hat in hand, attempting to win the co-operation of my adversary in order to derail a smear attempt against
myself
that my adversary
himself
had engineered. Would Guy Burgess recognize the irony, walk it back and glom that I was in on the joke and messing with him? Or would he simply bask in my humiliation?
    It didn’t much matter, he’d be fish food by tonight. But I wanted to know if Burgess was any good.
    It takes patience. Imagine looking at the reflection of a pleasant someone in a standing full-length mirror, in a long hall of standing mirrors that stretch to infinity. The pleasant someone appears identical in every diminishing reflection until, suddenly, at reflection number thirty-two, say, his appearance changes, his affable grin becomes a fanged snarl.
    GuyBurgess didn’t have the patience for it. He nodded smirking agreement to my pathetic plea, then looked at his watch and cursed.
    â€œYou have a car?”
    â€œGot a cab waiting,” I lied.
    â€œI need it.”
    â€œIt’s all yours.” Burgess started for the door.
    â€œShoes,” I said, drolly.
    Burgess looked down and busted out laughing.
    We spilled out of the flat, cackling merrily. My non-existent taxi wasn’t there. I cursed the wretched driver and stood on the corner to hail another. Now that Burgess and I were best pals I ventured a question.
    â€œFrank Wisner is after me to background his Romanian royals, King Michael and Princess Stela. You got anything?”
    This was supposed to be a standard mirror read. The Romanians were dirty in inverse proportion to the degree that double agent Burgess defended their honor. Only he didn’t. Not hers anyway.
    â€œStela Varadja?”
    I nodded. He snorted.
    â€œBetter watch yourself with her pretty boy. She’ll suck your blood down to the marrow and you’ll enjoy every delicious moment. Just ask Maurice Thorez.”
    I suppose I could have asked who Maurice Thorez was but I had humbled myself enough for one day.
    A taxi driver saw my raised hand and slid to the curb. Guy Burgess piled into the back seat. I waved him an affectionate farewell as the hackie sped south.
    If you listened hard you could just about hear the NKVD camera shutter clicking below the telephoto lens.

Chapter Thirteen
    Myinternal alarm clock failed me. I slept like the dead in the barn stall until my cold shower at the break of day – a bucket of water dumped on my head by one of the young soldiers. He was gone before I could thank him.
    It’s showtime, guv’nor, rise and shine now. No need to memorize your lines because that other Mr. Schroeder, the playwright, ‘e never got round to writing ‘em! ‘Fraid you’ll have to bail him out again, seat-o’-your-pants like
.
    I wasn’t sure why an imaginary cockney gentleman was giving me a pep talk just then but it did the trick. I knew what I had to do. When asked a specific question by my interrogators I would deny knowledge, suffer punishment, then cough up some nonsense that I would try to remember for next time.
    I was free to make shit up. They wouldn’t have any NKVD fact checkers up here in the hills.
    A few minutes later I was handcuffed in front and escorted to my customary seat at the table in the country kitchen and given a cup of coffee so strong I couldn’t blink for an hour. The old buzzard, the boss man’s boss, sat at the head of the table, his two heavyset armbreakers stood on either side of him.
    A tableau worthy of a Renaissance master. They looked at me and said nothing.
    Guess it was my turn. I wanted to establish my bona fides to make them more inclined to believe my disinformation so I volunteered intel they already knew, or would figure out.
    â€œMy name is Harold Schroeder. I am a special agent of the Office of Policy Co-ordination, which is a semi-independent covert operations arm of the CIA. I report to Frank