Spy Who Read Latin: And Other Stories by Edward D. Hoch

Author:Edward D. Hoch [Hoch, Edward D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-5679-2
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2013-10-15T17:15:00+00:00

The Spy Who Collected Lapel Pins

HE WAS NOT AN old man, but the years had not dealt kindly with Comrade Taz. As he walked across the field toward the lights of the distant farmhouse, he could feel the ache in his right leg coming back again. It was a war injury from his youth, 30 years ago, when he’d shown a fleeting moment of courage in front of a German tank on the outskirts of Berlin.

During all those years in Moscow, heading up Section Six of the KGB, he had hardly thought of the old war injury. It gave him no trouble, and he walked without a noticeable limp. It was only now, in retirement to a collective farm an hour’s drive from Moscow, that the ache and the limp had reoccurred. It was the life, his sturdy wife Lara insisted. His legs were made for walking on paved sidewalks, not trudging across newly plowed fields.

As he neared the farmhouse, he was surprised to see a black government staff car pulled in off the road. In this collective, made up entirely of former government employees, one rarely was visited by the bureaucracy. He entered the kitchen door with just a bit of apprehension, to find Lara conversing with two men in overcoats who gave the impression of having just arrived.

Taz knew one of them—Colonel Tunic, a grizzled old man who’d been his immediate superior during the Cold War days. The other, a younger official who carried himself with an air of newly acquired authority, was a stranger to him.

“Comrade Taz!” Tunic greeted him, throwing out both arms in an affectionate bear hug. “You look well. Retirement must agree with you.”

“Lara says farm work is bad on my legs. How are things back in Moscow?”

“Good, good.” He gave a rueful smile, “Détente, you know.” Remembering the other man, he turned to introduce him. “Comrade Taz, this is Stepan Vronsky, a specialist in international matters.”

The two men shook hands, and Taz wondered what Vronsky’s true function was. He wondered especially what had brought these men out here to see him. “You look cold,” he told them. “Take off your coats and have some vodka.”

“I could never live in the country,” Stepan Vronsky said. “The wind is so cold!”

Taz smiled. “One becomes used to it. Lara, bring us some glasses, will you?”

When they were seated around the rough oak kitchen table, which Lara had thoughtfully covered with a piece of flowered oilcloth, Colonel Tunic said, “We miss you in Moscow. You retired too soon.”

Taz merely shrugged. “Cipher experts of my sort have been replaced by machines. Diplomats and machines.”

“Sometimes there is still need for one,” Vronsky said. Taz turned to study his face and saw only the pale reflection of the Russian winter with its sunless days.

“We miss you,” Colonel Tunic repeated. “And now we need you. The government wishes you to come out of retirement for one final assignment to the west.”

The words fell like thunder on Taz’s ears. He’d been expecting it, certainly, ever since he saw the long black car pulled up before his house.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.