The Mulberry Bush by Charles McCarry Page B

then working with the Honduran tutor. No one ever questioned my credentials, let alone tested my Spanish, and eventually I knew the language well enough to read
Don Quixote
and Lorca or answer the questions I was likely to be asked by passport inspectors.
    I never used disguises because they did not work for me, as they invariably did for Sherlock Holmes, and because I saw no benefit in having a false beard ripped off my face by a terrorist or a policeman. Stringfellow, also a skeptic about wigs and fake teeth, told me the story of a Headquarters type who surprised his wife, who had just arrived in the hotel room in a foreign city where they were meeting after a long separation, by walking out of the bathroom naked, with an erection, wearing a full disguise—wig, mustache, eyebrows, false nose, glasses. She shot him dead with the ladies model .32-caliber pistol, a present from her dotingfather, that she always carried in her purse. Luckily, her husband had a large life insurance policy.
    In the fifth year of our time together, Stringfellow was hit by a hit-and-run driver while bicycling in the predawn darkness on a country road a few miles from McLean. This news was delivered to me in a castle in Bavaria by Father’s enemy Amzi Strange, whom I had never met before and was the last man on Earth I would have chosen to bring me such tidings.
    â€œBroke damned near every bone in Bill’s body,” Amzi said, as if shouting this detail out the window. “Fractured skull, broken spine, broken legs. Died instantly, they said for the benefit of his wife and kids, but no one ever dies instantly. If you’ve ever broken a bone, you can imagine what having a dozen broken all at once must have felt like in his last moments.”
    After delivering this summary Amzi said, “I stand in need of orientation, so I’ve got some questions for you. Stringfellow kept you to himself and went around me to get the director to sign off on your many promotions and citations. What’s your rank now, three-star general?”
    I said, “Let me ask you a question. Who exactly are you?”
    He said, “My name is Amzi Strange. Does that help?”
    â€œIt provides a point of reference.”
    Amzi was the deputy director for operations. In other words, he ran the show. Yet he had come himself to give me the news. Why hadn’t he just sent a lackey? The answer to that question had to be Father. Amzi must have wanted to take a look at the imbecile’s kid.
    I said, “I’m flattered that you took the time to come all this way.”
    â€œGlad to do it. Let me flatter you some more. You’re a fucking legend. How much of your reputation is smoke and mirrors remains to be determined, but that glowing record is in the files for posterity to wonder over.”
    Watching my face intently, he waited for a reaction, a reply, and when he didn’t get one, rose from his chair, walked to the window, and lookedout at the manicured gardens. If I had been carrying a gun I could have shot him in the back of the neck, Lubyanka style.
    He said, “This joint sure is Stringfellow’s kind of place. Old Bill had aristocratic tastes.”
    Then, without taking another breath, he looked at his watch and said, “Get room service on the horn. Order lunch. Light. Tell them to deliver everything all at once.”
    Amzi was another very fast eater. While I was still working on the appetizer he chewed and gulped down everything before him as if he were a machine. He put down his cutlery with a clatter.
    When I looked up from my plate, he waved a hand and, as if I were asking his approval to finish my lunch, said, “Take your time. We’ve got all day.”
    Amzi Strange was a solid, muscular type with a flat belly rare in a large fifty-something man who worked all day at a desk and had no time to exercise beyond hurrying to the men’s room. This was not the only difference between him and Bill