Percy Crow

Chapter Five: New Haven-1

Three days later, on the Tuesday morning, I was ushered through the military section of Stewart International Airport, near Newburgh, New York from the otherwise empty United States Air Force jet as soon as the flight from London touched down. The heat hit me hard as I walked across the blistering tarmac. I hated flying but had succeeded in managing to smoke, which had eased my aversion somewhat when I had requested an audience with Katherine. Jimmy Mercer was waiting inside an air-conditioned red Pontiac saloon.

“Hot enough for you, Harry? Got anything yet? You would tell me if you did, wouldn"t you? I sincerely hope you wouldn"t keep your best friend in the dark.”

“Hardly anything! That"s why I"m here, Jimmy. We need Katherine to open the door wider. Does she know I"m coming?”

“Officially, no, but I guess she knows you will one day.”

“You haven"t hinted that I was on my way?”

“Don"t do hints, Harry. The only thing that little Miss Russia knows is that if she behaves herself and tells all that she knows, she may be granted a new identity and be invited to become the all American star she wishes to be. You don"t figure in that scenario, Harry. The game you two have going is outside my remit. We have, at the moment, only a peripheral interest, strictly in case it affects our shores.” He was as immaculately dressed as before, with no sign of the oppressive heat having an effect, whereas I was uncomfortable as hell.

“How"s she getting on in that, Jimmy?”

“Nope, you still have it the wrong way round! I ask the questions, you tell me the answers. You don"t need to know anything about the investigations we are undertaking, but I need to know everything about Percy with the beak. You have got that, haven"t you, Harry?” As he sat slightly forward his head tilted towards me with that question.

“I understand you perfectly well, old chap, however, as this is my investigation I will conduct it my way, with no outside interference. Have you got that, old boy?” I laughed, but meant every word.

“Within reason and within certain parameters, which I will set if restrictions are necessary,” he returned the smile.

I nodded in agreement, but just how long that harmony would last was questionable. It was then that I told him most of what I had discovered, which amounted to next to nothing.

“Back in England, when we met, Jimmy, you said that you had not spoken to Katherine for days before the mention of Crow"s name. How was her attitude when you had last seen her? I don"t need a rundown on your line of trade questioning, just her state of mind, and did it change after the disclosure?”

“She was calm before and after. No perceptible change. What are you getting at, Harry? You got a lead?” Just as car had started off, so had Jimmy"s suspicions.

“Not getting at anything, it"s just that you"ve had her for, what is now, eighteen months, I was wondering why she chose that moment to bring it up?”

“Time is immaterial, Harry. We let her run free for a while. Played her along in some of the European Union meetings at Brussels and Frankfurt as well as various delegations around the world. Real debrief started in earnest about five months back. There"s an open chance of using her again. We have possibilities in several theatres, none of which I"m telling you.”

“Really? You aren"t concerned with her Russian affiliation?”

“We manage it, but that"s out of bounds for you, Lord Harry.”

* * *

The opening remark I made in Vancouver about other people at the gathering being ugly in Katherine"s beautiful presence was now so aptly applicable to the apartment in which she was housed. It was at the top of a seven-storeyed tenement block, that had not seen a lick of paint since its construction in the late 1800s when grime must have been the standard matt finish in this part of New Haven, Connecticut. Mercer nodded in recognition to the one burly man standing at the foot of five stairs leading to the entrance, then together we climbed the stark, dreary, uncovered staircase. The place was silent apart from our footsteps without a sight nor sound of another human being. A more slightly built agent with a cigar butt dangling from his mouth met us on the top floor. He unlocked room seventy-three.

There was nothing in the room to lift the squalid atmosphere of oppression. Four hard, white, foldaway plastic chairs stood in the centre around a matching white plastic round table on which was an overflowing glass ashtray. In one corner of the dismal room, on top of an upturned grey metal bin, was a battered television set with an attached aerial pointing in diametrically opposed directions looking like some alien creature with tentacles. In the opposite corner stood a lamp which matched the ceiling one; both were unshaded. A well-worn rug, of a reddish colour, covered half of the bare wooded floor. Those few things, along with a contemporary wire mesh waste bin, were the only pieces of furniture that detracted from the dinginess, that the aphid tone of green painted walls only emphasised. A transient place whose lack of permanency would have been ideal in Katherine"s previous persona, but I could not imagine the slightest degree of squalor featuring in any period of her personal life.

The cooking area, in this "open-plan" austere room, was as spartan as the poorest mouse"s larder in the poorest church could ever have been, but at least it was tidy. A bright blue kettle with a single pink cup was beside what once was a shiny stainless steel sink that now resembled the dull battleship grey colour of a naval ship, but apart from that there was nothing on display. The bars at the only two windows I could see, with the unwashed and grubby curtains hanging listlessly, only highlighted how beggarly her situation was. Facially she was more stunning than I remembered. The bedroom door was open and she was seated at the end of her single bed. She rose immediately on my entrance. Selfishly I believed that the sheer negligee she wore over a skimpy bra and briefs was for my benefit, but then I remembered Mercer"s words of her not knowing of my coming and put it down to the scorching heat.

“You"ve done well for yourself I see, Katherine,” sarcastically I said as she approached, and the smell of dry decaying concrete was replaced by the smell of cumin and lavender of her perfume. A cheap one, vastly different from what I remembered she had worn in Moscow.

“They move me from one place to another, Harry. Today I"m the poor girl in this game, tomorrow maybe the rich girl again.” She kissed me lightly on the cheek, holding my shoulders as she did.

“Tomorrow perhaps somewhere opulent with a maid and in-house agency cook. Usually they are piss poor at cooking, at least here they fetch me takeaways.” She tried to laugh but it went no further than a smile. I held her waist, but felt awkward.

“Then they play beggar man, give us what we ask for and all this will be yours. You will be looked after, your Highness. It changes, as does the weather.” She drew away, pausing to light a cigarette.

“The following week I"ll be the thief, hidden away in some roadhouse motel. "You stole our secrets and gave them to your wicked motherland. We want recompense, or we cut off your thieving hands, you b***h!" It"s boring, Harry. I"ve even learned the rules to American football!” Two puffs, then the cigarette was extinguished.

I don"t know why but I felt like an i***t, more timid and shy than I had experienced in my earliest, stumbling days around beautiful women. My ears were burning in embarrassment. I sat before I fell over, inviting Katherine to follow suit. With a shake of her head she declined, instead opening a refrigerator that I hadn"t seen, bringing two bottles of water to the table. I hoped she thought that the blush on my face was caused by the heat. If she had noticed she never mentioned it.

“Paulo hated the Americans with a vengeance, Harry, you know that as well as I do. He would say they had only two approaches to this life, one: where if you had oil they loved you. Showered you with gifts of fabricated devotion and false promises, then, when they had you, out came the truth. Taking all your treasure away carried in the arms of US Marines and bankers in suits. Two: if you were amongst the majority of this world in being poor, they"d wave as they passed by in their shiny brash cars throwing candy bars from the windows wrapped in leaflets offering dental care. They"d offer you money so you afford it, throw in a couple of free gold crowns, then sell your body tissue to a slaver for experimental use. Dreams and lies, Harry, that"s their trade. Their government and all their agencies are a scam. They play one gigantic deception after another on allies and foes alike, even on their own people. Business is the driver in the back seat and the devil lives in the dollar.” Another cigarette with another pause, this time for the drinking water.

“Good to see you by the way, Lord Harry. I thought they might tell you of my little secret. I hope you have brought some class to the party. I could do with it.” She leant down and kissed me squarely on the lips holding my head in her soft hands, then sat with her back to a window next to me, facing the door. Mercer looked on, unmoved, before taking a third chair.

“They pretend to trust me as well for a time. Then they take the trust away, despatching me back to the role of a w***e from Red Square. I don"t know what they want from me, and I"m not sure they do either.”

She was thirty-nine now, still beautifully proportioned with long blonde flowing hair, statuesque, dignified and imposing. Electric blue wide eyes, skin like unglazed porcelain, and although slightly heavier than I remembered, had a figure that could never be ignored by any red-blooded male. I now had a second woman in my cluttered life who hated Americans, albeit for different reasons.

“Where will you go when all this is finished, Katherine?” A stupid question, I knew, but I had nothing else with which to open our conversation.

“The only place there is to go, Harry. A long way from here! I just hope they know where the finishing line is.” Sadly she replied, pulling another cigarette from her packet. This time I offered a light, as I too lit one.

“You"re still smoking those Dunhill then, H, expensive aren"t they?” I hadn"t noticed her brand, being more occupied in the rest of her.

“I"ve come to speak about your secret, Katherine, so I"ll cut through the crap and get straight to it. What were you and Paulo speaking of when Percy Crow"s name cropped up?”

“Straight into it, no flattery this time, eh, Harry? No I missed you? Would have called you after our second meeting in Moscow but all telephone lines had been cut off from England, as we were expecting a flying saucer to land on Buckingham Palace? Just how inconvenient can Martians be? Or were the aliens more curvy ones from Venus? I wish you had called, Harry. I told Alexi of you. Told him we had slept together, but never had the need to tell father. He guessed. Would have been very strange had he not. He never disapproved, if that"s what you"re thinking. Where has your charm gone, H? Haven"t used it all up on another woman, have you? Did you marry, or has this distant Russia relative a chance of your heart?” This time there was a smile. But her father was good at deceit, how good was she?