THE REAGAN YEARS
Special Agent Stan Beeman was the new kid on the block, his first day in FBI Counterintelligence early 1981, right there in the big building. The Hoover building.
As it was, his first act while on the payroll was to attend a command performance, a top-secret meeting. One ordered by the US Deputy Attorney General, now that the new president, Ronald Reagan, was sworn in and finding his way around the Oval Office.
He hadn't said it yet, but Reagan was soon to declare the USSR to be 'an evil empire'. Reagan's intelligence services, therefore, were to be given aggressive marching orders.
Back at the Hoover Building, FBI Special Agent Chris Amador met Beeman as he entered the otherwise secure room, filled with suits. Both signed in - both having pledged in writing total secrecy and acknowledging criminal action if they breathed a word about what they were about to hear.
Both Amador as well as Beeman were thinking the same thing - even though this was effectively Beeman's first day. The now defunct Carter administration, it had been soft on national security. Rumours of Soviet agents running free on American soil had been ignored for years.
That was about to change.
Beeman'd spent the previous five years in St. Louis with the FBI working undercover, infiltrating white nationalist groups. He'd sent a majority of their leaders to prison. His work had not gone unnoticed. The current director of counter-intelligence in The District had asked for him personally, and had got him.
In marched the Deputy AG to the secure room, with two assistants behind him. Beckoning everyone to sit he got right to the point.
"The president has signed top secret executive order 2579, authorizing the Federal Bureau of Investigation Counterintelligence office - which means you - to take all necessary measures to neutralize Soviet Directorate S, sleeper-cell agents in the continental United States."
Being a stickler for detail, Beeman wondered why neither Hawaii nor Alaska were included in that. Yet, being his first day, he was not going to be 'one of those picky guys', not today anyway.
The DAG continued while every eye was glued on him, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to war."
One of the Deputy's assistants stepped forward with folders marked 'Top Secret'. He said, "I have one for everyone in this room, your name is on it. You'll have fifteen minutes to go through it, then they will be returned."
The DAG reiterated in a sterner voice, "they will be returned."
Agent Chris Amador was the first to ask a question - that was Amador's style as one of the only minorities in the room. It was clear that the DAG had not asked for questions, but grunted and pointed at Amador anyway….
"Nikolai Timoshev. When do we talk about the sweetheart deal that Timoshev is getting from the Department of Justice? With all due respect, sir," Amador risked, "there's no real evidence that Directorate S even exists. Of course Timoshev will say it does, you could be wasting tax-payers money on him."
As annoying as Amador continued to be to the FBI's powers-that-be, Beeman took notice. He liked a guy who would not follow the crowd, nor any sort of group-think - the FBI had infuriated him in St. Louis about all that, while he took the risks with white supremacists.
Instead of answering Amador, the DAG simply announced, "I'm due back. My assistant will collect the files. That is all."
Beeman and Amador met at the coffee urn as the members of Counter-intel lingered, producing a low buzz of conversation in the room at this new direction for them.
Amador said sarcastically, "hey Beeman, you're my ride! You and me, we'll be chasing these phantoms through the streets of the District, if not further!"
Stan remained serious, having first met his partner Amador the previous day. "I don't know, Chris, in St. Louis I saw the length our home-grown subversives would go. The Soviets, they're ideologs. You get a real Bolshevik believer, they'd do anything for Comrade Brezhnev."
"Well, you have it your way, Stan," Amador offered lightly. "We get paid either way." Then Amador noted the ring on Beeman's finger.
"You married, Stan? Is there a Mrs. Beeman?"
"There is. She's still in St. Louis with our son, there was a fuck up with the movers."
Amador smiled, "well there goes our off-hour time, you and me. You don't look the type to play the bar scene anyway."
Beeman smiled, but said, "no I am not. We got a nice house out in Falls Church, away from the city. Mrs. Beeman, she's looking forward to as boring a life as we didn't have in St. Louis." Beeman said he now had to head out to Falls Church, because the truck was arriving, "the one that had not screwed up."
Stan had to supervise. Mrs. Beeman had insisted that he be there.
MS. JENNINGS
He and his wife had done missions like the Timoshev one before. They'd even had missions go sideways before, badly. With Timoshev, they'd missed the Polish freighter leaving Baltimore - so the Jennings, they were stuck with their KGB turncoat with no place to put him.
This one had been a clusterfuck on another level, they'd lost fellow illegal, Rob McKenzie - right there on the street, despite his age Timoshev had proved formidable. Philip had been right to call Rob in from Boston. Yet with obviously fatal stab wounds, Philip and his wife had had one of their rare arguments. Drop him at a hospital or not…..
She wanted Rob just dumped, saying he was going to bleed out anyway. The other body in the car was simply too important - 'Rob would understand,' she'd said. It was the living, breathing traitor Nikolai Timoshev, who had trained them back in the 1960s.
Philip had spat back about Rob, "that's bloody cold! I'm taking him to a hospital, we can at least leave him there."
So it was their house in Falls Church had a pall thrown over it, what with a defector in their garage. In their Olds Cutlass trunk was a tied up and gagged, traitor to the Soviet Union. KGB Directorate S veteran, Nikolai Timoshev.
Even though Philip had seen his wife frustrated and depressed before over blown missions, this one, it was different. Next morning, like he did when he was trying to be charming, he reverted to her married name. After the kids had gone to school, Philip said over breakfast, "Look, Mrs Jennings…."
She blurted out, "Look, Mr. Jennings, I've told you. I've asked nicely. I am 'Ms.' Jennings. Don't screw with me about that, not today. The kids have made the school bus, this is the first moment I've had…."
'Right', Philip thought. 'Ms.' A modern American woman, to which he added in his mind, 'well, two out of three ain't bad.'
"Okay, Ms. Jennings. I know something is eating at you." He thought carefully about his next words, because they were about the overlap of their private and professional lives.
"You've asked me to tell you. The bedroom, it's never been a problem. Not since we both were accepted into the Commissariat in '59…"
"Philip!" she barked. "Stop it, I'm going to have to report your slip! No talking about home!….."
"It's not a slip. Report it if you like…. what I'm saying is that in the bedroom… I mean, you'd laughed about it once. That the best times for us together were after a mission gone wrong. You said that's where our kids had come from!" He had half a mind to quip that he'd often purposely spoiled a mission because of what would be to come later that night!
"It's Timoshev, Philip. You don't know," she offered, suddenly subdued.
"I know the man's a pig, Ms. Jennings. Everyone back home knew it. But we had jobs to do. He called it an 'extra bit of training' for you women. I mean, we did some deviant stuff, and that was just training…."
"It wasn't that, Philip, and you know it."
At that, the Jennings heard a far off crash of boxes and sundry. Philip said jumping up, "Jesus, that better not be the garage….."
"Relax," she said, "it's from across the street. That new family is moving in." She got up went to the fridge, pulled out a tray of fudge, "I was going to take this over. Good neighbours and all that."
STAN BEEMAN
"My wife?" Beeman continued with his answer, "well, Mrs. Beeman, she's seeing to a mover's screw up back in St. Louis. She's with our son, Matthew. As you can see with the mess here, we screwed up when we contracted with these idiots…."
Philip reached over to the tray of fudge that his wife was carrying, only to be swatted away by her.
"We're your neighbours," she said, "the Jennings. We have a daughter 13 and a son 10. And these…" she said shielding them from Philip, but offering the neighbour one from the tray, "these are to help you deal with the annoyance of movers!"
Philip extended his hand, which Stan took, "Hi, I'm Philip Jennings. We've been in the neighbourhood since it opened up about a decade ago. I think you'll find it friendly enough."
"Well, it has to be friendlier than St. Louis. Me and the missus out there, we really didn't fit in. Also my work, I was away a lot. I took a job in D.C. mainly to restore some sanity at home!"
Philip asked, "what is it you do?"
"I'm sorry, I'm rude. My name is Stan, Stan Beeman. Me, I work for the FBI. I'm in counterintelligence."
Philip was practised in not showing his cards, but this one, it was a shock.
"Really?" Philip inquired, trying to hide the sudden dryness in his throat. "Counterintelligence? Isn't that spies and stuff? I thought that was CIA?"
Stan said, "don't get me started on the CIA. Those guys are a law unto themselves. We in the Bureau, we enforce laws, we don't break them." Then Stan stood silent for a second waiting for Philip to fill in his own blanks.
It was the look on Stan's face which caused him to clue in, he said, "oh, I'm sorry, like I said I'm Philip, from across the street. This lady here, the one with that gorgeous fudge, she's my wife. She goes by 'Ms. Jennings'!"
She finally spoke for herself, she held the tray with one hand and extended the other for Stan to shake, "what my husband is so sexist-ly trying to say, Stan, is that me, I'm my own person."
She then gave Philip a dirty look, obvious to both men. Then when she let it linger a while, she then smiled. She'd made her point, and couldn't let him stew in the doghouse, not in front of a new neighbour.
"Me," she continued, "my name is Irina. I'm this doofus's wife. Me," she continued with an even more wicked smile, "I control access to all the fudge that he will not be getting for the remainder of the week!"
MRS. BEEMAN
Irina came into the bedroom after both kids were in bed and settled. She slid in beside Philip, but to him it was obvious that the things on her mind, meant that tonight was a rare one with no intimacy. He'd often told her that she had the capacity to wear him out! But tonight, there was just too much going on.
"What the hell do we do with Timoshev?" she finally said. "I mean, Philip, we now have FBI across the street!"
They lay there, both uncharacteristically looking at the ceiling.
At once he threw his legs over the side of the bed, and reached for his pistol. "The kids are asleep?" he asked.
Irina answered, "they won't be if you put a bullet in Timoshev. And for God's sake, that's an Olds Cutlass, Philip. If this goes south, you don't want bullet forensics combing through the trunk…."
At that, Philip reached for his silencer and screwed it on. He pulled on his pants and his slippers, opened the bedroom door - the upstairs hall was clear of kids.
Reaching the inside door to the garage, Philip was startled when opposite just then, he saw the garage door itself slowly being lifted, apparently from the outside. He darted silently behind a cupboard which would afford some protection.
In the darkness, all he could see was a small frame, obviously a woman. As expertly as he would have done, she went straight to the car's trunk and sans key, she opened it like a pro.
Empty. Timoshev, Philip had moved him. He was presently passed out, standing tied upright in the very cupboard Philip was leaning against.
The woman carefully closed the trunk, then left as silently as she came, lowering the big door without so much as a sound.
Philip opened the cupboard door, and Timoshev was still there, passed out - held up by a cord under his arms tied to a hook above him.
Satisfying himself that the house was now secure, Philip returned to the upstairs bedroom.
Irina - she was standing in the dark at their window, the one facing the street.
"Jesus Christ, Philip," Irina said as urgently and as silently as she could. "Are you okay?"
He answered, "we had a visitor in the garage, and it wasn't Mr. FBI next door. It was….."
".… a woman?" Irina completed his sentence. "For fuck-sakes, Philip," Irina continued…
….. "your visitor downstairs, that was Mrs. Beeman. I just saw her go back into their house….."