The Heart's Eye

Climb

"I need your help," I tell him.

He gets up and squats in front of the cast iron stove, facing away from me. He opens the stove door and pokes at the embers with a metal poke.

"Let's lay it on the table," he says without turning. "A few months ago, you stopped an act of treason about to be committed by an American citizen. In the process, you discovered that someone with abilities similar to yours almost succeeded in convincing you to abort your mission. You followed through, discovering the identity of the scientist who trained the enemy counterparts."

Curt. To the point. Rob does not waste words.

Yes, what I got was a name. In our line of business, that means a starting point.

"Doctor Klein," I confirm.

He is silent, rummaging for something in the kindling box, which contains wood shavings, wood slivers, and yellowed old newspapers. He picks up several pages of paper and places one in front of me.

It appears to be from the Washington Post. He points to an article.

Tourist Dies in Apparent Suicide

A vacationing bodybuilder, visiting the nation's capital, jumped to his death from the seventh floor of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington DC...

In my mind, I had referred to him as "athletic man."

His name had been Dillon Knowles. He had been a rogue field operative, hired to seduce my former lover, Marion Rosenthal, so he could use her as leverage against me. He had been successful. Masculine, fit and handsome, he had engaged Marion, using her predilection to seek thrilling escapes from the loneliness of her loveless marriage.

But he had also gone a step further. He had relished her in ways that fell outside of his job description.

He had been easy to track down, precisely because of his illicit, unscrupulous appetites. Confident, cocky, and drawn to the unexpected pleasures of Marion's willing adultery, he had, unwisely, arranged for one last date with her after his mission was over.

I had watched them walk together into a New York hotel, and then seen Marion leave in the early morning hours, ravaged, swaying, her hair tousled in post-coital disarray.

I had waited for him in the hotel lobby and watched him check out, careless in his self-satisfied confidence. He was easy to follow all the way to DC, where, I found out, he was planning to meet with a Russian Intelligence contact.

One heart-to-heart conversation with him in a dim hotel bar, and he had headed up to his room on the seventh floor of the Ritz to write a brief suicide note and plunge to his death from the balcony.

Rob seems to be following my thought process, his face expressionless. He places a second page in front of me, pointing to another article.

Murder-Suicide in Suburban DC

Bodies of two elderly gentlemen, killed by the same apparent murder weapon, were found in the living room of a small suburban DC home...

These had been the two "picnic buddies", who had performed the operation on my mind in Washington, convincing me that Marion is in mortal danger.

Before heading out to jump to his death, Dillon Knowles had divulged their identity: Archibald Durang and Elijah O'Brien, both British, both on Russian payroll. Durang had been the one who had operated on me in an attempt to thwart my counter-intelligence mission. O'Brian had been his sidekick, an apprentice, learning the art, but still a beginner.