The Innocents Club

“I know,” Mariah said. “Lindsay’s English class studied Cool Thunder this year. So, what did this Urquhart have to say for himself?”

“It’s a little complicated to go into over the phone, but he’s making some pretty serious allegations. That’s why I decided you’d better see his letter.”

“You’re making me a little uneasy here, Chap.”

“Did you really not go through these papers of Ben’s yourself, Mariah?”

“Not really. Skimmed a couple of chapters of the manuscript to see if it was something new or just an earlier draft of a book that had already been published. I told you, the only reason I even opened the box is that the rental locker where I’ve been storing my excess junk since I sold the house got flooded during the heavy rains this spring. I’ve been carting those papers around for years. When I realized they’d gotten damp, it was either chuck the whole lot or see if you thought anything should be done with them. I didn’t have time to do it myself.”

Or the inclination, she could have added. She’d looked just closely enough to see that there was some sort of work in progress there, as well as more personal papers. She hadn’t the competence to judge the fiction, she’d decided, and she certainly hadn’t the stomach to read Ben’s self-absorbed journal ramblings.

“I appreciate the trust it took for you to send these to me, Mariah,” Chap said quietly.

She felt her eyes tearing up, and hated herself for it. “I know you’ll do the right thing with them. Whatever you decide is fine with me.”

“Thank you, sweetie. But I’m afraid it’s not that simple. We may have a bit of a problem on our hands.”

“How so?”

“Look, maybe the best thing would be for us to get together with Louis Urquhart while you’re out here.”

“Oh, Chap, no. Lindsay and I are supposed to be on vacation. I don’t want to waste it hanging out with Ben’s adoring public.”

“I know how you feel, but this is not something we can ignore.”

There was something in his voice, graver than Mariah had ever heard. “Okay, now I am worried. What could possibly be so all-fired important that—”

“Urquhart thinks the manuscript of the novel was stolen from someone else, Mariah. And he thinks Ben was murdered.”

She answered with stunned silence.

“Now, I’m not saying I buy it,” Korman added quickly. “I admit, there were a few surprises in those journals of Ben’s, and the novel is unlike anything else he wrote. But it’s a big leap from there to what Urquhart is alleging. Bottom line, though? Urquhart could have blindsided us by taking his allegations public, but he didn’t. So I think it’s only fair to hear the guy out, and then we’ll decide together where to go from there. Okay?”

“But this is crazy, Chap! Murdered? We know how he died. At least, I always thought we did. Don’t we? Wasn’t my mother told that the French authorities did an autopsy when his body was found, and that he’d died of hepatitis?”

“She was, yes.”

“So how did we get from hepatitis to murder?”

“I’m not sure. That’s obviously one question we need to put to Urquhart—what evidence has he got to support his allegations?”

Mariah studied the nubbly, butter-colored wallpaper over the bed. “I don’t know. This sure smells like a muckraking publicity stunt to me. Like this Urquhart’s looking for a bestseller.”

“If it were anybody else, I’d agree. But Louis Urquhart’s one of the most respected literary academics in this country. His biography of Jack Kerouac won a Pulitzer Prize. I don’t think he’d be building this murder theory if he didn’t have some facts to back it up. Plus, he came to me first, remember, not the press.”

She exhaled heavily and glanced at her watch. “All right. If you think it’s really necessary, we’ll talk to him. I have to head off to the museum now. How about if I call you again when my work’s done? With any luck, I might have a free day tomorrow. Maybe we can get this out of the way before Lindsay arrives.”

“Sounds good. Meantime, I’ll let Urquhart know we’re willing to meet with him. And Mariah?”

“Mmm?”

“As far as Renata’s concerned? I know you and your mom and sister got a raw deal when Ben took off to Paris with her like he did. But Renata didn’t last long, did she? He tired of her pretty fast. People who know her say she never got over him, though.”

“Gee, that’s really tough.”

“Yeah, I don’t feel too much pity for her, either. Your mom always believed Ben was going to come back to you guys, only he died before he could make it. But whatever happened over there, one thing is sure: in the end, Renata lost. Remember that if you see her, honey.”

“No, Chap,” Mariah said wearily. “We all lost.”

Chapter Four

Frank Tucker sat in his windowless office, feet on his desk, reading files that were mildewed and yellow with age. He’d been at it three hours, and his eyes felt scoured. His nose had long since blocked in protest over the barrage of mold spores, and his head ached from lack of sleep and the concentrated effort of reading the musty Russian documents. But his brain was racing.

He set down the file in his hand. As he stretched, the worn, cloth-covered swivel chair under him shrieked in protest at the shift of his great frame. Hands clasped behind his head, he stared at the random punctures on the ceiling’s gray acoustic tiles, pondering again how it was that he, personally, had been selected to receive this carefully selected record of KGB mischief and misdeeds.

History is a moth-eaten fabric, full of holes—a vast tapestry of change whose underlying pattern is obscured by official secrecy and necessary lies. A thousand untimely ends and unaccountable triumphs are doomed to remain mysteries forever, their solutions locked away in the memories of shadowy operators who die unconfessed.

Some clues lie buried in the dusty files of the world’s great clandestine agencies, where the harsh light of public scrutiny never falls. But as each regime gives way to the next, furnaces are lit and burn bags are consumed by flame—incriminating evidence lost forever.

Most, but not all, Tucker thought, glancing at the tattered files around him.

Of all the secret agencies, none hid more mysteries than the yellow and gray stone walls of the KGB’s old Moscow headquarters. It was from behind the heavy steel doors of Lubyanka that a message had originated in late June, marked for delivery to one semi-burned-out official of the American CIA. It was that message, delivered late one night, a week earlier, that had sparked Tucker’s quick, clandestine trip to the Russian capital.

He’d been driving home by a circuitous route along quiet back roads. It was nearly midnight, but day and night tended to lose meaning in his underground office, where not much happened and few people dropped by. Tucker spent his time these days poring over old agency files, responding to Freedom of Information requests from historians, journalists and the generally curious. He culled cover names, sources and other sensitive data from the files, deciding which could safely be declassified and released, and which had to remain closed to protect ongoing operations.

He had no clock to punch, no strenuous deadlines to meet. He simply worked alone until his eyes grew too bleary to read any longer. Then he returned to his empty house and prayed for sleep. Taking the longest possible route was his way of decompressing, releasing tension like a ball of string unwinding on the road behind him.

On that particular cool, starlit June night, the suburban back roads of Virginia were deserted when Tucker brought his Ford Explorer to a stop at an intersection in McLean, just a couple of miles from the agency. As he waited for the light to change from red to green, a dark sedan materialized out of nowhere, pulling alongside him. The driver got out and knocked at his passenger-side window.

Instantly on alert, Tucker sized him up—medium height and build, sandy hair. Fit-looking under his dark wind-breaker. Young—thirty, tops, he decided.

Tucker pressed a button on his armrest to lower the opposite window. With his other hand, he reached down between the seats and came up with a nine-millimeter surprise. If the stranger was a cop or a fed, Tucker could produce a carry permit for the gun. If this was a hit, the guy might as well know right off Tucker wasn’t going down without a fight.

The blue eyes in the window widened. “I mean you no harm, Mr. Tucker,” he said. His tongue was tripping on the words in his rush to get them out. The vowels were clipped, the consonants weighted with a heavy Slavic burr.

“You know my name,” Tucker said. “I should know yours.”

“It is not important.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“I am only a courier.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I have a message for you. Please?” The man raised a brown manila envelope in his trembling hand.

“Who’s it from?”