Fidelity by Jan Fedarcyk

friendly questions, excuse himself and tell you with virtual assurance about drink, drugs, gambling debts, a pretty girl that his wife did not know about, perhaps a pretty boy.
    Tom scratched at the garbled fat of his buttocks through his jeans, took a nip of vodka against the cold, wedged himself into his car seat. His size was the only thing that had ever kept him from being an absolutely first-class surveillance man. He had everything else required: cold, discerning eyes, a memory like asteel trap, the ability to ignore boredom, to concentrate for endless hours narrowly on one particular point or individual. But he could do nothing about his size, and people tended to remember a six-foot-three completely bald man sitting on a bench across from their apartment. On the other hand, his size had been an advantage on those rare though not unheard-of occasions when he was called upon to do more than watch. He was over forty now, and some of his muscle had turned to fat—but not all of it. There had been a time when he had a reputation as a bruiser, and he still suspected, if it was necessary, he could remember which end of the gun to point.
    His real name was Lev Telstei, although it had been a very long time since anyone had called him that. Sometimes late at night, alone in his bedroom as the clock face turned round its usual path, he would say it softly to himself—“Lev Telstei, Lev Telstei, Lev Telstei”—but never very loudly, never above a whisper. It had a strange ring to it these days, like a lyric from an all-but-forgotten song.
    Most of Tom’s life was no different from that of any other American citizen. He owned a small store near Brighton Beach, a step up from a bodega, his pride insisted, although grim-eyed honesty admitted it was not a very large one. Still, it did not run itself, and at any given moment most of Tom’s time was dedicated to all the many tasks required to keep his cover business operating: payroll and inventory, that sort of thing. Over the years he had acquired a trustworthy enough staff, but still, it was a rare day that did not see him behind the counter for at least a few hours, making sure things were running properly. His wife had died some years back, an Illegal like himself, the two of them set up with each other shortly before being shipped out to New York. It was more of a business arrangement than a love affair, but it was an amicable one, at least. He had been in astate of modest despair for some six months after her death, and still missed her sometimes, though faintly and without any great passion. Tom was an unsentimental sort, as much a part of his personality as it was a skill developed over long years working at his real job.
    There were innumerable nuances and subtleties to the spy business, but most nations used the same rough structure. Within their embassies were embedded legal resident spies. These individuals were entitled to the same protection as other diplomats, and could not be prosecuted but only expelled back to their country. Although the FBI worked diligently to ascertain the identities of these individuals, and generally succeeded, they were still useful in coordinating or assisting in operations.
    Beneath this network were a select group called, simply, “Illegals.” Unknown, or at least undeclared, to their host country, they went about their business creating fictitious lives, as bartenders and cabdrivers, as businessmen and oil magnates, as housewives and hookers. For years and sometimes decades they burrowed into their cover stories, appearing to any outside observer to be no different from your next-door neighbor. All the while, of course, they were intimately involved in intelligence operations, trying to recruit potential targets or running surveillance. In practice, every side had an incentive to keep their people alive, and these days should an Illegal get arrested he was most likely to be swapped for a counterpart, the