Joe Haldeman - Tool of the Trade

VIP免费

2024-12-23 0 0 445.63KB 182 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

TOOL OF THE TRADE

Joe Haldeman

[12 dec 2001-scanned, proofed and released by #bookz]

PROLOGUE-NICK

THEY WOULD BE watching the airport. Couldn't go back there.

Try Amtrak? The bus depots? I stepped out of the grubby phone

booth and tried to collect my thoughts.

They had Valerie. The man who picked up the phone told me so,

in Russian. That was fast work. A good thing I'd had the cab let me off

here, several blocks from home.

They won't hurt her. Not until they can get some mileage out of it.

The air was crisp and smelled clean for Boston, traffic staying

home with November's first snowfall waiting heavy in the starless sky.

Using my hand to occult a streetlamp, I could just see a few flakes

darting in the light breeze.

Driving would be hazardous. They say the first snowfall's a bitch

even if it's just a flurry. And me not having driven in snow since Iowa,

twenty years ago.

Maybe I should take the T up to South Station and get on the first

train to anywhere. No. They might have had time to cover it. They

might have had time to figure things out. So they could be frightened

enough to kill me on sight. Which might be best for all concerned.

Might might might. I would find a car.

I could just flag down the next cab and have him take me a few

hundred miles. Too conspicuous, though, a hired cab on the interstate

at this hour. The KGB couldn't mobilize the Massachusetts Highway

Patrol, but it wasn't just the KGB I was worried about. A nice

anonymous car would be best. I remembered there was a large parking

lot behind the grocery store here on Central Square, and headed

toward it.

There was a bar slouching next to the parking lot, not the kind of

place I normally frequent, but the broken flickering eats sign made my

stomach growl. I'd only picked at the excellent meal on the Concorde,

jetlagged and nervous, and had been running hard since it landed at

Dulles. Nobody would be looking for me here, not yet. I could spare a

few minutes for a beer and a snack.

The air in the bar was hot and rich with cooking smells-Greek

smells, onion and garlic fried in olive oil. The bar had seen better days,

probably when Hoover was president. The only remaining sign of

elegance past was the long bar of dark oak, expensive detailing slowly

eroding under the bartender's cloth. Otherwise the place was all aged

Formica and linoleum, dull under the muted glow of plastic

pseudo-Tiffany lamps advertising cheap beer. I sat down on the end

stool. The brass footrail had holes worn in it from a half century of

scuffing.

The woman behind the bar shuffled, over and leaned heavily

toward me. "What'll it be, honey?" she asked, instantly endearing

herself to me. I ordered some pretzels and a beer and, on impulse, a

shot of ouzo. There were several brands behind the bar, Greek

neighborhood; I picked the one whose name was hardest to

pronounce. I said it with a perfect accent and she nodded, unimpressed.

I watched thirty seconds of Gilligan and his island while she drew

the beer and selected the proper package of pretzels. She poured a

generous shot of ouzo and slid it over. "You're a pr'fessor, right?"

"It's that obvious?"

"Educated guess." She laughed.

I touched the watch and stared at her. "Tell me why."

"You, uh, you said 'please' and, well, you look like the kind of guy

who don't go to places like this. You know, tie and all. Like you're, like

you're slumming?" She looked confused and moved to the other end of

the bar.

I knocked back the shot of ouzo in one hard stab of licorice fire,

and shuddered. One brandy after dinner doesn't train you for this sort

of thing.

"Stuff'll grow hair on your throat," the other man at the bar said.

Late twenties, unshaven, swarthy, wearing a rumpled army-surplus field

jacket and incongruous sunglasses.

"Celebrate the first snow," I said, shrugging off my overcoat.

"Teach at Harvard?"

"MIT," I said.

"Engineer?"

"No, psychology. Mechanics of language acquisition. Through

semiotics." That should encourage conversation.

"Sem-me-autics," he said, sounding it out "What's so dangerous

about semiotics?"

"What do you mean?" I said, knowing what he meant.

"How come a psychology professor carries a gun?" He had the

sort of "directed whisper" that British men cultivate, though his accent

was coastal South Carolina. I could hear him clearly from eight feet

away, but I was sure no one else could.

"That's annoying," I said softly. "The tailor charged me a great

deal. He claimed that only a real pro could spot it."

"There you go," he said with a small proud smirk. "Come on.

What's your real racket?"

"Psychology," I said. 'Teaching and writing, some consultant

work." I actually did publish a paper or two every year on language

acquisition and semiotics, but that was a smoke screen, or protective

coloration. The Institute would not approve of my most important

work, since they have a policy against conducting secret research in

defense matters-even if the country you are defending is the United

States. In my case, it was not.

"Sure, psychology. If you say so, Doc." He carefully poured beer

right up to the rim of his glass.

I stared at him. "And what line of work would you be in? To know

about such matters?" He laughed sardonically. "No, really," I said, and

kept staring.

He laughed again, nervously this time. "I-this is crazy."

"Yes," I said, and didn't blink.

"I... I do lots of things." Dots of sweat appeared on his forehead

and upper lip. "I deal dope. Heroin and coke, mostly. Got three girls

down in the Zone. Used to do some wet work there. You know."

"I don't know. Tell me about it."

"I-I messed up some people for the, for the local, you know. The

Family. Killed one, piece a cake. Piece a fuckin' cake. Back a the

head, one shot, pow. From across the room, one shot."

"That's good," I whispered. "Do you have a gun with you now?"

"Sure. In this business-"

"Give it to me."

"Hey. I couldn't."

"Walk over here and slip it to me under the bar, where no one can

see." He shook his head hard, then eased off the barstool, sidled over,

and passed me a small bright-blue automatic. I never took my eyes off

him. It works better that way. "Now. Do you have any heroin?"

"Yeah, five bags primo."

"Do you have the means for injecting it?"

"The works, yeah."

"Good. I want you to go into the men's room and inject all of it

into yourself."

"Hey. I couldn't take that much even when I was on it. Kill a fuckin'

horse."

"Nevertheless, you will do it. Inject it into a vein. In the men's

room. Now."

He shook his head but his eyes returned to mine. Then he went

back to where his beer was and looked at it, but didn't get back on the

stool. "Now!" I whispered sharply. He shuffled back toward the men's

room.

An unusual degree of resistance. Probably an approach-retreat

confusion due to being an ex-addict. Like I feel about cigarettes.

I gave him a few minutes, finishing my beer. A man stood up and

headed for the john; I quickly followed him. I got there just in time to

block the entrance as he came backing out. He touched me and spun

around, agitated. "Hey-there's a guy-"

I put a finger to my lips. "Shh, I know. There's a man throwing up

in the toilet. That's what you saw. Disgusting, isn't it?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Guys oughta learn how much they can

handle."

"You are going to leave and never come back to this place."

"Yeah. Right."

"Don't forget your coat. Don't forget to pay." You have to cover

details like that.

"Sure." I watched him retrieve his coat and reach for his wallet and

then turned my attention to the men's room. It was an ugly place, thick

purple paint rolled over walls and partitions, the porcelain appliances

yellowed and cracked. Smell of old piss and too little cheap

disinfectant. I used the urinal from a safe distance.

He was slumped on the toilet with his head between his knees,

knuckles on the grimy floor. The hypodermic was still stuck in his

forearm, its reservoir full of blood, and a thin trickle of blood ran down

to pool in his palm. I put a finger to his carotid artery. The pulse was

shallow and irregular.

It stopped. I shoved the body back into a more upright posture,

so it wouldn't be discovered right away. Like hauling on a bag of grain,

hard work for a man my age. There was some blood on the floor but I

scuffed it into amalgamation with the background dirt. A wad of paper

served to jam the stall door closed.

I went back to the bar and signaled the bartender. She came over,

and I leaned close. "What do I look like?" I asked softly.

"What?"

I stared at her. "Describe me, please."

"Tall guy. White, bushy white beard, well dressed-"

"No. I am black, short, bald, and wearing work clothes. Greasy

jeans and an Exxon shirt that says Freddy on the pocket. Right?"

"Exxon shirt with Freddy on the pocket."

"Good." I looked down the row of booths and found a likely

prospect, a young man with a parking-lot ticket sticking out of his shirt

pocket. He was sitting next to a pretty girl who was drinking diet soda

from a can; he had a draft beer. They were talking quietly.

I sat down across from them. "Hey," he said. "What-"

I turned it up. "How much have you had to drink?"

"Just this one beer."

"Good. Come on, we're going for a drive."

He scratched his head. "Okay. Where to?" Good question. They'd

expect me to go to New York; especially the KGB. They seem to

think all the rest of the country is a suburb of Manhattan.

"North. Up to Maine."

"What part?"

"I don't know. I've never been there."

"What about me?" the girl said. "Can I come along?"

I hesitated. It might be slightly safer for me that way, if not for her.

Willing hostage. "If we left you here, could you get home all right?"

"Sure. My father's the cook."

"You go home with your father. Tell him-what's your name?"

"Richard."

"Tell him Richard had to leave early, to pick up some medicine for

a sick friend. He'll be out of town for a few days. And you never saw m

e. Never at all."

She looked vaguely through me, focusing on the TV set at the end

of the bar. "Uh-huh. Bye, Rich."

I left a couple of dollars on the table. Then we put on our coats

and walked out into the swirling night.

CHAPTER ONE

THE MAN WHO calls himself Nicholas Foley-Dr. Nicholas

Foley, a full professor in MIT's psychology department-was born

Nikola Ulinov, in Leningrad, in 1935. It was not the best time to grow

up there.

Leningrad is the most European of Soviet cities, partly from

cultural tradition and partly from simple propinquity to Europe. Finland

is not too long a drive away, and today, people who are allowed to can

cross over into Helsinki and buy computers and jazz records and play

roulette for Finnish chanties. Finns seem to like Russians now, or at

least tolerate them.

But they were not fond of the Russians after Stalin's 1939

invasion, and so it was Finnish soldiers who reinforced Hitler's

battalions, converging on Leningrad on the eve of Nikola Ulinov's sixth

birthday. Leningrad was ready for them. There weren't many Soviet

soldiers there-Stalin, having no love for the European city, had drawn

most of the troops toward Moscow for the coming winter-but the

civilians had been trained in street-fighting techniques. Molotov

cocktails were mass-produced and distributed. Weapons oiled and

ammunition portioned out. The people were ready to defend their city

street by street against the implacable enemy. If the Nazis wanted

Leningrad badly enough, they would no doubt have it. But they would

first pay a terrible price.

Hitler, or his advisers, outmaneuvered the Soviets. They saw there

was no need to go into the city and fight. All you had to do was cut off

all avenues of supply, and let the natives try to live through a Russian

winter without food or fuel. Throw in some artillery. At least a third of

the city's three million would die. And then when spring came, simply

lift the siege, and push the survivors out to disrupt the rest of the Soviet

Union.

The strategy did take Leningrad by surprise, but it didn't work out

quite as neatly as Hitler had hoped. More than a million did die, but the

others didn't cave in. They lived on moldy grain and shoe leather and

hope and hate-until three Russian winters finally did to Hitler what one

had done to Napoleon. Leningrad and Russia won, even if the price

they paid would warp the city and the country with grief and fear for

the rest of the century.

(Leningrad's reward for heroism was to become a noncity

populated by nonpersons. Malenkov and Beria implemented Stalin's

distaste for the Western city by destroying, or hiding in inaccessible

archives, all written records of the Siege.)

Five-year-old Nikola knew mere was a war going on, and like

most boy children, he vaguely approved of the idea. Even when the

artillery and bombs began dropping into the city, when sleep was

pinched off by air-raid sirens-even then, it provoked excitement more

man fear. An interesting game with obscure rules.

Then one day at noon an artillery round or a bomb fell across the

street, and Nikola ran outside breathless with excitement, and saw his

best friend's father stumbling bloodsoaked out of the wreckage of their

flat, carrying cradled in his arms what was left of his son, blown to

bloody rags and dying there in front of Nikola with a last bubbling

moan. From then on he would remember the war as quite real, and

terrible. And some parts would be too terrible to remember.

The Leningraders tried to get their children out of the city before

the fighting started in earnest. Nikola loaded a suitcase almost as big as

he was aboard a boxcar headed for the relative safety of Novgorod.

They never made it. Nazi Messerschmitts, perhaps thinking it was a

freight train, bombed and strafed the children unmercifully. Nikola's

suitcase may have saved him; at any rate, the clothes and foodstuffs

inside absorbed two bullets while he cowered behind it in the screaming

dark. (Forty years later Nick Foley would still have trouble facing a

locker room, or any such crowded sweaty place. The source of the

small anxiety attacks was a mystery to him, which he accepted along

with other small mysteries.)

The Messerschmitts finally ran out of ammunition. A nearby

farming community took care of Nikola and the other surviving children

for a couple of weeks, and then a night convoy of blacked-out trucks

and ambulances took them back to Leningrad. The children were to be

rerouted east to Kirov and Sverdlovsk, and most of them did make it.

Nikola didn't. He found himself suddenly without a family, and while

that problem was being straightened out, the last train left.

His mother and father might have been alive at that time, but

Nikola would never know. They had been arrested by the NKVD,

imprisoned as spies for Nazi Germany.

It was not impossible. His father was a German citizen who had

immigrated to Russia in the twenties, declaring great sympathy for the

Revolution and even changing his name from Feldstein to Ulinov. He

had been a philology professor at Heidelberg; in due course he joined

the philology department at Leningrad State University.

So to a certain cast of mind, he was triply not to be trusted: an

intellectual, a German, a Jew. Why would a German Jew, however

lapsed in his religion, want to spy for Hitler? This was not the kind of

question that much bothered that cast of mind. Ulinov and his wife were

locked up pending transfer to Lubyanka, the forbidding prison in

Moscow, but they never made the trip. Sometime during the siege, they

either starved to death or were executed. The records claimed

execution but, perversely, that status was sometimes conferred after the

fact. An informal quota system.

It would be many years before Nikola would know any of this.

The authorities explained that his parents had been taken from him by

the Nazis, and he had no reason to question that.

Having missed the exodus, Nikola wound up living with Arkady

Vavilov, who had been his father's elderly boss, and the old man's wife.

He could hardly have found better surrogate parents man the Vavilovs.

Missing their own grown children, they showered love and attention on

him. What was more important to Nikola's tortuous future, though, was

the fact that Vavilov was a linguist and a language teacher. And both

the Vavilovs spoke English-American English, having spent years in

New York.

Foreign languages were nothing new to the boy. Nikola's parents

had brought him up to be equally fluent in German and Russian, and

found that he was a thirsty sponge for languages. Professor Ulinov had

amused himself by teaching the boy basic vocabularies in French,

Japanese, and Finnish. His surrogate father added a little to two of thos

e, but concentrated on the language of those strange folks who would

eventually bring the Soviet Union the Lend-Lease Act and other

problems.

Vavilov had lots of time, since his part of the university had been

shut down. They made a game, if a rather grim one, out of the English

lessons. When Arkady or his wife finally came home from the long

ration line, they would take Nikola's portion of the bread (and much of

their own, which he would never know) and carefully divide it into

sixteen equal portions. Each piece would be a reward for a lesson

properly recited. Hunger turned out to be an effective aid to what

would later be called "the acquisition of languages"-especially during the

hardest times, when an individual's bread ration was down to four

ounces a day. When the siege lifted after nine hundred days, Nikola

was not quite nine years old, but his English was better than that of

most Americans a couple of years older. This did not escape the

government's attention for long.

During the course of the war, for reasons that were important at

the time, the NKVD that had presided over Nikola's parents' deaths

changed its initials to NKGB. In March of 1946, it became the MGB,

and it was the MGB who came looking for young citizens fluent in

English. In 1949 it latched on to fourteen-year-old Nikola Ulinov, with

his huge vocabulary, impeccable grammar, and pronounced Bronx

accent.

They would have to work on the accent, but otherwise he was

perfect. A leader in the local Komsomol, he was an almost fanatic

patriot. (In the jargon of his ultimate profession, you might say that he

was fixated on Soviet Communism as an outlet for the militant

enthusiasm that was the external manifestation of the tensions

generated by his frustrated adolescent sexuality and ambiguous

self-image.) Other factors: He didn't look at all Russian, with his

mother's Aryan features and blond hair. He had no living relatives. He

had been toughened by war and privation; like all Leningraders he had

seen a thousand faces of death, and you either learned to live with that

terrible knowledge or went mad. Nikola seemed to be bleakly sane.

He would make a magnificent spy.

The MGB had gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to

build an ersatz American small town in the middle of an Azerbaijan

wheat field. It was called Rivertown and was supposed to be in Kansas.

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

TOOLOFTHETRADEJoeHaldeman[12dec2001-scanned,proofedandreleasedby#bookz]PROLOGUE-NICKTHEYWOULDBEwatchingtheairport.Couldn'tgobackthere.TryAmtrak?Thebusdepots?Isteppedoutofthegrubbyphoneboothandtriedtocollectmythoughts.TheyhadValerie.Themanwhopickedupthephonetoldmeso,inRussian.Thatwasfastwork.Agoodthi...

展开>> 收起<<

Joe Haldeman - Tool of the Trade.pdf

共182页,预览37页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Joe Haldeman - Tool of the Trade

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: