THE PARKADE

That night in Paige's garage I was quite sincere - there were moments of bald truth-telling to my friend Stan Beeman - him holding us at gunpoint. The gun, though, had nothing to do with truth-telling, as limited as it was.

Me, even me, I could not tell, not really. Was I 'talking my way out'? Or was I in full confession mode to the friend who I was destroying with every word?

I swear, the reason why Elizabeth didn't rush at him, was that she could not tell either.

By the way, to set the scene properly for that late evening - after 22 years, we'd been made. We'd been sold out by the clumsy-amateurish Russian Orthodox priest, Father Andrei. He was the weakest link in KGB presence in America, and we paid the price.

I barely got out of the square - no sense going home. I needed to call Elizabeth - the go-bags were in our basement. If Elizabeth had not been there for the cash, passports and the license plates, we would have had far, far more difficulty.

We should have never related to the priest, except that he had married us - a proper Russian Orthodox marriage. That led to me calling home, saying to Elizabeth - "Hi, I was hoping to make it home for dinner. But things are very topsy-turvy at the office." She recited the response, 'I'm sorry to hear that,' then signaling me where we'd meet with, 'try not to wake me when you come in.'

That was, as they say, that.

After a panic about the kids, we decided to risk getting Paige. So it is the scene is now set.

Us, now on the run - and who should show up in Paige's apartment underground parkade? Yes, the man who in 1981 had filled me with terror, by moving in next door.

Stan asking us supposedly innocent questions, it being starkly apparent that he was actually shaking us down. He had never done that to us as neighbours, and why not? Until that night he'd not known a thing about The Jennings, not really.

My rare moment of truth-telling?

"Stan, what else could I do? You moved in next to me! I was terrified. And then we ended up as friends." Those four first statements, all true. Especially the 'terrified' part.

Stan's answer to that? After everything he'd rejected about EST, he spat out, "friends?" He swallowed his spit hard, then said acidly, "you made my life a joke."

I had not expected that. One never anticipates that their foe is an actual human being. Which of course Stan wasn't - a 'foe' I mean. He'd been my only friend. Ever.

We had told each other everything. Well, almost. This man who I'd spent 6 years being terrified of, not a week previous he had offered me money to save the failing Dupont Circle Travel. He was going to bail me out! He was the neighbour who always took our kids when Elizabeth and I had got in over our heads. When you're a Directorate S illegal, child-care is hopelessly complex.

So I told him another truth.

I said, "you were my only friend, the only friend in my whole shitty life." I did not embellish that with any of my childhood in Tobolsk - us kids there in the 40s and 50s, we didn't have friends. We had either competitors for food, or allies with whom we'd share our spoils. Friends? That would have been an EST-like, unimaginable American luxury when the whole of Tobolsk was starving.

There we were, in that echoey parkade, under Elizabeth's and Paige's wary gaze. I'd seen that tactical look on Elizabeth's face many times - I'd been saved by her abilities in those situations countless times. The woman was 162 cm (5 foot 4) tall, and had the uncanny ability to both distract the guy with the gun, as well as make herself even smaller as she rushed him.

Yet this time, she left it to me. Perplexed as to what I was doing. I was laying myself bare. Mostly. We later never talked about it, but I swear - this one she was going to respect the 'friendship tensions' Stan and I were having.

She'd only gone to EST once. That time in the parkade was perhaps the only time she tried to read the room, rather than cleanse it.

MALE FRIENDSHIP, THAT'S HARD

I thought that Stan would appreciate what the failure of Dupont Circle Travel meant for me. What business failure would mean to any American. No, not as a cover, The Centre couldn't care less about it as an enterprise, there'd be other covers.

As an American, Stan would know what business failure does to what we call the petite bourgeoisie. To a man and his ego. When Stan had come into my office and had offered me financial help, I refused. Out of simple American-style shame. For three years I had done little other than the travel industry - with the exception, perhaps of Kimmy Breland as well as the START Summit. Yes, little things like that.

So when Stan pointed that revolver at us, my feelings were principally ones of shame. Shame for having to let Stavos, Lacey and Steve go. Not only shame for my failures as an American male, not only shame for having to abandon my son, my shame for 'having got caught'….

…... the shame for what I knew I was about to do. To my friend. My only friend.

I knew I was being successful at the male-to-male version of honey trapping, because Elizabeth stayed rigid - and did not rush the guy with the gun. So I began, with something that was true and obviously true.

Philip: For all these years, my life was the joke, not yours.

There was now an uncomfortable, and new, distance between him and me. To Paige and particularly to Henry, he could have been Uncle Stan. Their buddy who'd been 100x the father to them that I ever was.

Stan: And Matthew? Was that part of this, my son?

Jesus, I'd not thought of Matthew. Matthew and Paige, they had briefly been 'involved'. Stan had even once jokingly offered his backyard for 'the wedding'! That seemed like 100 years and a dozen operational crises ago. Yet the way Stan looked, that must have been the way I'd looked to Pastor Tim that night at the church office.

Me, I tried to rescue Paige from answering, this was a first for her, me, my biggest shame was that our operations tended to destroy people. People like Paige. People, not marks, but human beings.

Philip: She didn't know, didn't know until…..

Paige: I knew. - pause, looked at her mom - They told me when I was sixteen. - pause - But Matthew, it had nothing to do with that. I just….. - pause - liked him.

Stan: Henry?

Philip and Paige: No, he doesn't know anything.

Stan: All this time. I would have done anything for you, Philip. For all of you.

(As friends, apparently, do.)

Philip: I know.

Stan: - stiffening, holding the revolver higher - Did you… Gennadi and Sofia…. - accusingly - that was you.

Philip: Who is that? We don't know who that is. - Elizabeth's face betrayed that we did -

Stan: Fucking liar. I saw it on your face when I told you about them.

So it was, the lies began in earnest. Lies to the only friend I'd ever had. Our training, it was eroding. All I had left were lies to erode what remained of my friend. The fact that Stan could see it in our faces, both me as well as Elizabeth, meant that our shelf life as illegals had expired. Obviously. Badly. The only question was one for the next few minutes.

Were the lies ahead going to buy us our freedom?

Stan: - to Paige - Do you know how many people have been killed in Washington by Soviet agents in the past year? Past five years? Ten?"

"We don't kill people, Stan!"

I'd done 22 years worth of stuff for some reason, probably a patriotic one. But with Stan now telling us to 'get down, on the ground', I didn't know why any more. In the end, it was our own people. It was just a bunch of fucking Russians.

ONE LAST MISSION

Now we had to get back to Moscow, to warn Gorbachev. To turn on our own handlers, the corrupt Centre that for years had been ordering us - had been eroding our own sense of what remaining humanity we had left.

Philip: I kept telling myself that what I was doing was important. - pause - until I couldn't, so I stopped. It was all just screwing people for…. - pause - I don't even know for what.

This was the conversation I had coveted having with Stan - not with him brandishing a weapon and threatening us with arrest, but over a beer. Like friends do.

My worst lie?

About Renee. I don't know why I said it. I can guess what Elizabeth would have said, that my last lie, that it was brilliant. It had completely overloaded Stan's mind, body and soul. Like we'd been trained to do.

We were calling Stan's bluff, counting on one last thread of friendship so that he would not shoot us. But I needed - we needed - insurance. Assurance that he wouldn't fire at us as we were driving away.

If he'd let us do that, then we did not need to worry. Stan himself would be implicated in our escape - our exfiltration. He'd have to remain silent about it.

We ended up having a chance to get back to Moscow in time to save Gorbachev.

Me, I ended my American tour with a brilliant, Directorate S maneuver.

To do it, all I'd needed to do was destroy the only friend I'd ever had.

THE LETTERS

Dear Philip

Or whatever the hell your Russian name is.

Please don't communicate with me. Okay, yes I did read it before burning it. My life, my profession, it has gone to hell as it is. Renee is gone, Matthew is getting on with his life - a life apart from me. But then you probably lied about Matthew too. How you people did it, it is a mystery. How can you be that low? But you were good at what you did, apparently.

So it is, leave me alone. Go fuck yourself. How does it feel to have wasted yourself for a country that no longer exists, that is now bought and sold by your oligarchs?

By the way, tell Elizabeth to fuck herself, too. Please don't tell me about 'shame' or 'regrets'. You were/are a murderous sociopath. I've shot Russians before. Why I didn't shoot the three of you, is my own personal shame.

Go to hell, Philip. Or go to whatever it is you atheistic bastards go when you die.

Your buddy,

Stan.

(to be continued)