Tangier Read Online Free PDF Page B

the same as the place he lived, a dark night city of killers and spies, espionage, blackmail, double agents, dirty tricks. Now, at night, when he couldn't sleep, he'd leave his bed, shave and bathe, then steal across the garden to his office to immerse himself till dawn in tales of deceit.
    There was much in these stories to entertain him—they were better than thrillers, though not so neat. And, slowly, they began to alter his perception of Tangier. Now this city of crumbling facades, so sleazy in its decline, became the backdrop for exotic dramas once played out on its shabby streets. He loved the tale of the defecting East German scientist, and the one about the Vichy agent whose body had been dumped in the Forêt Diplomatique. Then unexpectedly (by chance or fate?) he stumbled on the file on Z.
    He'd almost missed it. He'd been prowling through a disordered drawer of gossip. He remembered a thin folder on Camilla Weltonwhist containing photos (clipped from an old issue of Country Life) of her recently sold Bermuda estate, and a fascinating report from Jakarta in which an informant ("usually reliable," it said) fingered Jimmy Sohario as a heroin racketeer, and his chain of laundries as a front. But Z's file was different, a special case. Over the next few weeks Lake would read and reread it, but he would never forget the exhilaration that seized him that first night.
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ZVEGINTZOV, PETER PETROVITCH
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This long-time resident of Tangier is believed to be a low-grade Soviet agent who has operated in northern Morocco for nearly twenty years. He emerged from deep cover in the early 1960s, at the time of the French Saharan nuclear tests. He was observed in contact with Col. Igor Prozov, coordinator of KGB activities in the Maghreb. Subject is now believed inactive. Personal contact by consular officials not advised.
Z was born in Hanoi in early 1920s. Parents were White Russian. Education not known. Believed recruited by Soviets near end of World War II.
After service in the French army, Z returned to Hanoi, where he opened and operated a shop for five years. In the late 1940s he was put under surveillance by French colonial authorities who suspected that his shop was an intelligence drop, and that he was a Soviet agent working with the Viet Minh. Later, on the basis of captured enemy documents, he was accused of being a Soviet field officer responsible for the delivery of arms to caches along the coast. Subject denied accusations, but was expelled in 1952. Made his way from Hong Kong to Vladivostok, where he disappeared. In 1955 he resurfaced in Tangier on a Polish passport. Worked here in several banks and import-export houses. Founded La Colombe in 1959.
Z has regular habits and is considered highly reliable by his clientele. He is an accomplished linguist who reads and writes Russian, Polish, English, French, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
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    Thinking back to that night when he'd read the file for the first time, Lake tried to analyze its compelling effect. Why, he wondered, removing it from his desk, had he almost immediately begun to shake? What was it that had gripped him and started all those notions swirling through his brain?
    He opened up the file, read it through again. There was much more than the covering summary, all sorts of things that belied the words "inactive" and "low-grade." He labored furiously with the documents provided by the Deuxi è me Bureau, trying hard to understand all the nuances in French. Red pencil in hand, he underlined his way through a maze of cold war intrigue. Z's life was filled with twists and turns. Why, Lake wondered, hadn't the case been closed?
    Fantasies began to flood him as he let the papers slip back upon his desk. All his readings in the other files gave him material for a thousand dreams. His scenarios were rich pastiches of borrowed vignettes. He had a vision of himself following Z down narrow Tangier streets, observing meetings from dark archways in the Casbah,