Crooked by Austin Grossman Read Free Book Online Page B

investigations. I’d like to know.” His accent nagged at me; he sounded as if he’d lived in half a dozen countries before his teens. His pink skin didn’t sweat.
    “Just evidence,” I said. “Different kinds of evidence. Was found. Look, I don’t know who you are but you can’t hold me here.” I stepped away from the wall. The big man took his hands out of his pockets, and abruptly the room felt even smaller. Gregor stood well back, his gun out of my reach.
    “Seems very serious,” he said. “Are you a policeman, Nixon? Federal agent, maybe? Counterintelligence?” He sounded like he was maybe about finished with this conversation and what I’d thought was going to be a long interrogation was just pre-execution banter.
    “You don’t have to do this,” I said. It would be so lovely to be able to say I did something brave here. Laughed at their threats; spat in their faces. If I were that kind of person, post–World War II American history would have been a very different story. “Please…I’m a United States congressman, for Christ’s sake. I can tell you things. I’ll do anything.”
    “Really?” the Russian said. “You are Congress?” He seemed genuinely a little starstruck.
    “California,” I said. “The Twelfth District. Richard Milhous Nixon.”
    “Holy shit,” Gregor said.
    “Is not what I was told, Gregor,” said the taller man. “Private detective, you said. This is the big shit we are in now.”
    “Shut up. I’m trying to think.”
    “Congressman we can’t just dump in mudflat. Is not quite the same.”
    “Shut up, please,” Gregor said, then turned to me. “Nixon! Did you take an oath?”
    “A what?” I said.
    “An oath of office. You took one?”
    “Yes. Yes, of course.”
    “How did it run? Exact words, as much as you can remember.”
    “Well, it was…just a minute.” I’ve always been proud of my memory. “It was—‘I do solemnly swear…that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’ Let me think…I’ve forgotten the middle…the ending is ‘I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.’”
    “You hear it, Arkady? You understand?”
    “A little. What is it you are thinking?”
    “He’s federally sworn. A compact.”
    “I have theory background, yes, I get that far—”
    “This is the asset we’ve waited for. We’ve got the blood of the Elect here, and your field kit. From this we can stage a strategic incursion.”
    “Bullshit. How?”
    “You weren’t in the meetings. I’ll walk you through. You’re finally going to see what the Nth Directorate does,” he said. His lips were trembling a little.
    “I think I make a call to the embassy if you don’t mind.”
    “I am in authority here, Colonel, not you. You just do your part,” Gregor said. He tucked his gun into an armpit holster and stripped off his jacket. “And you just stay where you are, Mr. Nixon. We’re about to make history.”
    Gregor put the briefcase on the floor between us. It had a dull, scratched metal finish, a heavy industrial look, and two locks. Each man took out a key and set it in a lock, then paused. Gregor quietly counted, “One, two,” and they turned the keys simultaneously to open it.
    Arkady pawed through the contents and picked out two envelopes covered with emphatic Cyrillic script in various sizes, some of it in red. “We verify first. No mistakes,” Arkady said.
    “Very well.” They each tore open an envelope and shook out a pen and a thick piece of card stock. Each wrote out a long string of characters on the card, evidently working from memory, then they swapped cards and studied the results against what was on the backs.
    “Accepted,” Arkady said after a moment. “You?”
    “Yes. I will be primary, you will administer. Get us a proper seal, threefold. This will be one of the exarchs. Tolerances are here.” He