Ocean Tides (Gemini part 4)
For Condeleeza Rice and John McWhorter
Rita had her own set of puzzles to consider as Chris worked things out in Vancouver. Two days after their McDonald’s meeting she deposited herself at a library in Cairns armed with a Cyrllic dictionary, a throaway laptop, and a boy’s picture book of 1950s- and 1960s-era Russian bombers.
An intercep had come through from Station in Cyrillic:
У обезьяны-человека были правильные дизайны, и он продаёт несколько экземпляров. Ему и американцу нужно выпить борщ.
[“The monkey man had the right designs and is selling multiple copies. He and the American need to drink the borsch.”]
Rita had no reason to doubt the veracity of the intercep. The bad news was that her and Chris’ mission seemed to have been compromised, likely by double dealing between Moscow and New Delhi.
Hovering over all of this was the death of Jonas. She’d used a deencryption software provided her to view the designs, a permission granted her lest she inadvertently sent across a Trojan. She’d found what appeared to be ordinary mid-Cold War designs with a variety of Russian specs. Her Russian was strong enough to confirm this but not to deduce likely enhancements. Agents wouldn’t be getting killed over decades’ old designs. She needed a few days of her own to things over.
A sullen heat had settled over the Australian tropics and she didn’t feel like a swim. Cairns is flat and scenic and she took a walk in the sticky heat near the boardwalk, stopping for a ginger ale and sandwich. Chris would be expecting an update on the supposed little league tournament and she composed a mental code that he would understand. It was best he stay in Canada for now. He hadn’t confirmed outright that he would fly through Vancouver but she suspected as much.
She watched the passerby on the boardwalk, noting the familiar mix of white families and Asians she was used to from cities across the West. As elsewhere, Chinese and Indian faces were the most common minorities she could spot.
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What could New Delhi possibly want through interference? Money, if the agent himself was rogue. But she suspected their own attempt at a blue water navy in the Indian Ocean was the real strategic stake: steal from the Cold War’s fading power and then distribute to the Australians and the Western powers, a tactic indépendantiste New Delhi was not above.
She sent a simple affirmative to station later that afternoon from another café and then returned to the Seashell Palms, a three-star up from the beach. Chris had left her a new, generic email. She sent a reply-to-self discussing the tournament: the games on the New York State side were cancelled and they would not be leaving Canada. Satisfied he’d understand, she attempted to sleep early as the ocean tides finally cooled the tropical air.
*
Rita awoke with a start to the beeping from a phone she thought she’d turned off. It was from an unknown sender with a Michigan area code. “Babushka served the monkey man bad borsch. Avoid the restaurants in Perth.” She stared at the message unbreathing for a few seconds and then out the window at the 5 am Queenslands starlight. It was clearly a favour from station; Chris’ New Delhi contact had likely been murdered in Perth while attempting to offload further copies of the plane designs.
She turned the hotel television to a generic classical music station then took a slow hour to get ready, thinking over her next moves. Unlike Chris, all of her homeward bound tickets were likely safe. Station would be protecting her but, as in so much else, a who-knows-about-who dilemma rolled around in her mind.
Had Chris told station that he was going to Vancouver? How certain could she be that he’d actually done so and would the Russians be able to deduce the same? She thought of a meal the two of them had shared with Jonas on the Brighton Beach pier, years and years ago, after university. There had been a grey drizzle and crashing waves rolling toward them from Calais. They talked politics over satisfying bites of Halibut and chips. Chris should never have been a spy, she thought, and not for the first time. He’d be better off raising a family in some seaside town like Brighton.
The thought of remaining in the motel was becoming uncomortable. She would carry the diskette back to her handler in Seattle — “aunt Eileen” — but attempting to bump her departure date might draw attention. She decided to wait it out at the Seashell Palms and perhaps visit Kuranda rainforest herself; Chris’ enthusiasm for the place had been genuine.
But after that? Seek out Chris directly? Watching the families stroll the boardwalk, she’d also wondered about the Australians themselves. They’d been apparently oblivious to the multi-party espionage taking place on their soil.
*
She decided to spend the next morning collecting business cards from shops she’d already frequented. It would be a suitably random assortment and acquaintances might become friends later. One woman she’d already met at the Tri-Sarah-Tops Bookshop traded a book for sandwich and conversation. They talked for an hour, watching planes depart over the Pacific and wishing on stars for future destinations of their own.
She had a real intelligence acquaintance in Sydney and opted to write him for a goodbye video meet. Station would never approve a file exchange at this point in the game but she could read him for knowledge of what was happening. The Australians ought to have some sort of heads up and she was best placed to provide one.
The town was growing lazy and hot again. She swam briefly in the above-ground pool, rested, and then checked her email strolling the boardwalk as night fell. Her friend Theo had confirmed a half-hour catch up and the timing worked well with her departure. It would be a good conclusion to the trip if she could get enough information to an ally to satisfy her conscience without directly disobeying station.
