Hopscotch (Otto Penzler Presents...)

Hopscotch (Otto Penzler Presents...)

Language: English

Pages: 272

ISBN: B006ZE64KK

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Edgar Award winner: Bored with retirement, an ex-spy challenges his old agency to a game
 
Miles Kendig is one of the CIA’s top deep-cover agents, until an injury ruins him for active duty. Rather than take a desk job, he retires. But the tawdry thrills of civilian life—gambling, drinking, sex—offer none of the pleasures of the intelligence game. Even a Russian agent’s offer to go to work against his old employers seems dull. Without the thrill of unpredictable conflict, Kendig skulks through Paris like the walking dead.
 
To revive himself, he begins writing a tell-all memoir, divulging every secret he accumulated in his long career. Neither CIA nor KGB can afford to have it in print, and so he challenges them both: Until they catch him, a chapter will go to the publisher every week. Kendig’s life is fun again, with survival on the line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

television programs.” “I’m suggesting to you the possibility that Kendig is merely trying to do Clifford Irving one better, Mr. Ives. You’ve got to admit it’s possible.” “Anything’s possible. But I notice you’ve made no effort to refute any of Kendig’s charges.” “Would you believe me if I did?” Ross smiled again in an effort to be disarming. “I’m only asking you to grant us the benefit of the doubt.” Ives’s shoulders lifted slightly, and dropped. “In any case I’ve told you what my

a self-history (however brief) to establish his boná-fides—not his credentials or sources but his motives. The book had become more than a gambit; it had been born of him and now claimed its own existence. In no way did that negate the game itself; but he saw that in order to maintain the illusion of freedom he had to complete the book not as a means but as an end. Otherwise it was only a sham—toy money, counters on a game board. It had earned for itself the right to be much more than that; and

his hand palm up. “Remarkable,” she said. “Is it.” “You find it an effort merely to grunt a word or two, don’t you, Miles Kendig. Yet like the ashes of Alexander you were once Alexander. An exciting reputation precedes you, you know.” He looked at her. “What the hell.” It was said of her that in her bedroom in Neuilly there was a statuette of a Punjabi idol clutching his distended giant member. “I’ll go to your place.” “You needn’t have made it such a bloody concession,” she said angrily;

polished brass fittings. Beyond it Kendig found the game, six players around a table that accommodated eight chairs. A houseman stood in the shadows. There was one woman in the game; he knew who she was but they’d never met. He knew the American, Paul Jaynes; the others were strangers. Jaynes gave him a debonair greeting and the others glanced at him but Kendig hung back until they had finished the hand. They were playing seven stud—unusual for a room like this. And the house wasn’t dealing.

making you this offer?” “Because you can’t face obsolescence—you won’t acknowledge it the way I’ve done. You’re as redundant as I am—you just don’t know it yet.” Kendig smiled meaninglessly. “We’ve seven’d out. All of us.” “I don’t know the expression but you make it clear enough.” “It’s to do with a dice game.” “Yes, of course. You’re beginning to annoy me. You’re not merely disenchanted; you’re condescending. I don’t need to be patronized. I suspect behind your smokescreen of boredom you’re

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