Read Online Tool of the Trade by Joe Haldeman - Free Book Online

biologically reasonable length of time, then flushed the toilet.
    They looked odd, standing there in trench coats with their water glasses of wine, their serious expressions. “—Did you search my room earlier?” I asked.
    Jeff, the tall one, shook his head slowly. “—Search room?”
    “—Guess I was mistaken.” I turned off the watch. “—Shall we go?”
    The room they’d rented was obviously the cheapest available, a one-bed closet with bathroom down the hall. They evidently hadn’t seen it before; Mutt grumbled something in Bulgarian about the expense for how small it was. We had to do a kind of dance while they took off their trench coats.
    “—Please sit.” There was only the bed and a hard chair. Jeff sat in the chair, after reversing it so he could prop his forearms on the back. The bed made a rusty squeak when I eased myself onto it. Mutt leaned against the door, looking lethal with an obvious shoulder-holster bulge. They both had an almost neutral, vaguely hostile stare. Probably part of the Bulgarian KGB uniform. Neither of them said anything for a long moment.
    “—Who are you?” I said as a sort of icebreaker.
    “—That is none of your concern.” He waited a long time, stroking his chin in a stylized gesture of thinking, then almost shouted. “—You are here with an agent of the American CIA.”
    “—Yes, of course. This has been reported to my KGB section chief in America.”
    Mutt addressed me for the first time. “—We know nothing of this.”
    “—Is that true?” Jeff didn’t answer. He just stared. He was starting to annoy me. “—Then I suggest we go no further until you have had a chance to confer with your superiors.” I started to get up.
    “—Sit!” they both said. “—We have no superiors here,” Jeff said. “—Does this CIA man know of your connection with the KGB?”
    “—He does. He’s trying to recruit me as a double agent. I’m supposed to go along with it, to a point.”
    “—So he takes you to Paris with him,” Mutt said.
    “—It’s the other way around. I’m here on legitimate business, academic business. He’s tagging along to make sure I don’t defect.” Mutt nodded wisely at that, as if I couldn’t “defect” from the United States by buying a plane ticket out, but Jeff frowned.
    “—Please do not joke with us. You claim that this man knows you are a KGB agent and yet he allows you to go to a foreign country, to be alone in a foreign country?”
    “—That’s correct.”
    “—It seems fantastic.”
    “—I don’t believe him,” Mutt said. “—There is more to this. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been alerted.”
    “—So go to the people who alerted you and ask for more information. I’m not going anywhere.”
    “—Indeed you are not.” Mutt opened his briefcase and brought out a coil of about five yards of clothesline. “—Get in the chair.”
    “—That’s not necessary,” I said.
    Jeff stood up. “—I think perhaps it is. At least for now. We’ll be back by evening.”
    “—I refuse.”
    “—You may not,” Mutt said, smiling as he unbuttoned his jacket to expose the automatic pistol.
    That was enough. I turned on the watch. “—Do you have a gun, too?” I asked Jeff.
    “—No. Dobri’s is enough.”
    “—Put on your coats. We’re going for a walk.” I got my own coat, and we walked to the nearest Metro stop. I escorted them to Gare Nord and put them on the first train out to nowhere—to Hautmont, actually, that being as far as their money would carry them, while staying within the French borders. I gave them specific instructions as to what to do when they got there and then returned to the hotel. Jacob was waiting in the room.
    “I was worried about you. Where have you been?”
    “Met a couple of friends.” I turned on the watch. “Let’s go down and get a drink.” We went to the noisy bar downstairs, and I told him what to do: first, let me have that nice diplomatic passport. Now,