Read Someone Else's War: A Novel of Russia and America Page 81
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“Well, hon, is we is or is we ain’t?”
Rebecca Taylor fidgeted at her desk; her cubicle was making her claustrophobic. The man on the hard wooden chair beside her, the small man with the white hair and the fit physique, certainly understood the fine art of persistence. He was also not, she thought again, the man on the phone. That CC Cooper had made her feel like a Girl Scout standing before a field marshal. This man seemed a caricature of something off The Beverly Hillbillies. Except for the eyes. Except for the eyes.
“Colonel Cooper…”
“CC, Miss Rebecca. CC.”
“All right, if you insist. CC. You must understand that…”
“I understand that you made a promise to a friend. You gonna keep it?”
“Colonel Cooper…”
“OK, Miss Rebecca, ya don’t wanna call me CC? Fine by me. How about you just call me zakuska?”
“Zakuska?”
“Yep. That’s Russian. It means, appetizer.”
“I know what it means. Why would you want me to call you an appetizer?”
“Long story. I promise to tell ya soon as we get past this business. Let’s lookee down at what we know. Doctor Olivia told you about Vienna and you promised to help her out if it ever caught up. We don’t know if it has or hasn’t, but it’s like to have. We know she’s settin’ in a slammer where no American ought to be. If you don’t do something to let the world know about it, she’s good to vanish without a trace. Or worse. Miss Rebecca, friends don’t let friends go out that way. Not when they got the power of the press at their pretty little fingertips.”
“Colonel Cooper…”
“Zakuska!”
“CC….”
“That’s better. Now, let’s write ourselves a story.”
“With what? I can’t just say I made a promise and assume the rest. I need sources. I can’t just call the Lubyanka and ask for Doctor Tolchin, please. Oh, she’s being interrogated? I’ll call back later. The only credible source I have is General Suslov and he’s impossible to use or even reach.”
“Honey chile, you got me.”
“What do you know?”
CC Cooper cast his eyes upward. “Back when I was hangin’ at the Penty-gon, writin’ up all them lies to keep the contractors in barrels o’ cash, I got to know this reporter. Ever’ so often, he’d call me up and say, ‘Coop, I need a quote from an anonymous source.’ Then he’d read me the quote he’d written and ask, ‘Would you say that’? Bein’ a great believer in helpin’ out the honorable Fourth Estate, I’d go along.”
“That’s totally unethical!”
“He worked for the Washington Post.”
Rebecca Taylor put her forehead down on her desk top and began banging it. “Aw, don’t do that, hon.” He stood behind her, gently pulled her up, then put her hands on her computer keyboard. “Now, then, Miss Rebecca. What would ya like me to say?”
“CC, you’re impossible.”
“Nope. Just not standard-issue. How about we start with somethin’ along these lines? I’ll talk. You type.”