ALL AMERICAN

ALL AMERICAN

Chase Malone was the quintessential American hero: tall, strong, blonde and handsome. He was fun around the guys and chivalrous around women. He drove an enviable Porsche Boxster to work and a Jeep Wrangler to the beach in summer. He rose at 5am each morning to go work out at the Y and had the kind of buff body that would not be out of place in a pro-sport locker room. Additionally, he played racquet ball competitively, swam lengths twice per week and, on weekends, was the best player in his team’s softball league. In summer, he tanned perfectly, highlighting his physique and pearly white smile and, even in winter, he, somehow, maintained that healthy glow. Not that fitness and sport was the be all and end all for Chase. He enjoyed his regular Friday night poker game with the guys and would indulge in a few beers and a stogie. When he and Gladys, his wife, hosted a barbecue, he would perform manfully at the grill, cooking plenty of free range chicken and vegetables for the women while ensuring that there were plenty of juicy steaks and burgers for the men. In short, Chase was the perfect American…except he wasn’t. 

Chase Robert Malone was not really American. Born, Sergei Nikolai Abramovich, good old homeboy, Chase, was Russian; a Soviet agent. To be more precise, Chase was a deep cover agent aka a sleeper.

His “wife”, Gladys, too, was a sleeper. As beautiful as Chase was handsome, Gladys was lusted after by most of their coterie of male friends and had even been propositioned by one of her female friends. Unlike Chase, Gladys projected the image, however, of the loving, faithful wife and maintained a low profile. Chase’s profile, on the other hand, was anything but low for internal low confidence issues drove him to excel at everything and he simply hated to lose. Even playing poker, his game was reckless, dangerous. He would wager large bets on poor hands in a desperate effort at ending the night ahead of the pack. Though the rumours were unconfirmed, Chase’s male friends knew that he was sleeping with one of their wives. They argued among themselves as to a) which of them was being cuckolded and b) how Chase could possibly cheat on his gorgeous wife.

What none of them could possibly know was that, each night, as the couple retired, often having spent the evening with friends and appearing to be in perfect harmony, the husband and wife would part at the top of the staircase and each adjourn to their own, separate bedrooms. Usually, Gladys having berated her husband for the way he had behaved that particular night, the centre of everybody's attention, but, she knew, her words fell on deaf ears. 

Chase worked for, ironically, the Chase Manhattan Bank where he was a mid-level executive and did a moderate job. He earned a decent salary and, usually, an end of year bonus, but it was no more than would be expected for anybody at the same level. His job bored him but was bearable and it was the one area of his life where he felt no impulse to excel.

Once per week, Chase would deviate from his usual healthy lunch routine and would visit the local Westfield Southcenter shopping mall, partake of junk food in one of the fast food outlets in the food court and be discreetly joined by his handler, Alexei Pavlovich, an employee from the Russian Embassy on Wisconsin Avenue. Few words would pass between them for Chase was not a spy. Usually, Pavlovich would calmly admonish his agent for being so high profile. It had become a constant refrain and the handler knew that his words would not change Chase’s behaviour; the man simply could not help himself and was, without question, the least reliable of the agents under Pavlovich's personal wing. 

For his part, Chase felt only scorn for his handler dressed, as he was, in his usual dowdy, ill-fitting Moscow suit, cheap haircut, permanent Soviet scowl, he exuded greyness. With nothing in common, their meetings rarely lasted more than ten minutes before Chase got to go back to his pleasurable, bright American life. He was intelligent enough to know that, at any time, he could be recalled from the field, that his perfect existence was tenuous at best and, for that reason, he did make the effort to lower his profile…for a week or two. Eventually, however, his hidden insecurities would, once again, rise to the fore and drive him to excel. 

When Admiral Halsey and his wife, Virginia, moved into Chase’s Woodley Park neighbourhood, they were welcomed warmly by their neighbours. The Admiral, in his sixties, had been posted to a desk job at the Pentagon after a successful career spent, mostly, overseas. Virginia Halsey, a decade younger, eschewed fake beauty, rarely wore makeup and allowed her naturally greying locks to flow. This did nothing to take away from her ethereal beauty and, despite their difference in age, Chase was attracted to her from the first moment he saw her. He pursued her and, for a woman, more used to hosting boring dinner parties for her husband’s important but elderly acquaintances and swapping recipes with their old before their time wives, Virginia could not help but be seduced by the attentions of this handsome jock. Soon, they became lovers.

“Are you crazy?”

Gladys was furious when she found out about her husband’s latest shenanigans.

“You are placing me in danger, you fool. An Admiral’s wife? How could you be so stupid?”

Shamefaced, Chase could only stand and take his admonishment. He knew that he was playing with fire but…

When he met with Pavlovich that week, he expected to receive another scolding but, instead, he found his handler in sanguine mood. He was more open to Chase continuing the relationship for who knew what secrets might be divulged in a bedroom setting? Unknown to both, on a level above the food court, their meeting was being secretly photographed.

“I think my husband suspects something”, Virginia Halsey told Chase as she lay in his arms after their latest liaison. Alarmed, Chase sat up.

“What do you mean?’

“He’s been a bit distant, distracted but, this morning, out of the blue, he spoke about you”.

“What did he say?”

“He just said that you’re not what you say you are”.

The blood chilled in Chase’s veins.

That weekend, Chase and Gladys were invited to a 4th of July barbecue at the Halsey’s. Most of their usual friends would be in attendance and, despite his apprehension, the gathering would have been difficult for Chase to wriggle out of. All afternoon, he went out of his way to maintain his distance from Virginia and she did likewise. Everything seemed to be going well and Chase had started to relax and be his normal, boisterous self when he found himself alone in the kitchen as he hunted for a beer. As he turned from the refrigerator, he was confronted by the Admiral who was staring at him with pure malice.

“I know!”

“That was all he said?”

“It’s enough, isn’t it? He knows who I really am”.

Since the barbecue, Chase had been a nervous wreck. Believing that the Admiral, with his high level Pentagon contacts, had, somehow, discovered that he was a sleeper, had made all of his, hitherto hidden, insecurities rise to the surface. Convinced that, at any minute, he would be arrested, he did what he had never had reason to do previously; he called the secure, emergency number at the Embassy.

“He could have been referring to your screwing his wife. Stop panicking”.

Pavlovich’s words did nothing to placate Chase.

“I’m telling you. He fucking knows. You’ve got to pull me out”.

“We would have heard something if they even suspected. You’re being paranoid. Get a grip of yourself. Go lift weights or swim or whatever it is you do. Don’t ring that fucking number again unless you have a real emergency”.

That afternoon, Admiral Halsey received a visitor in his office. The man showed him a collection of photos. Some showed Chase meeting with a stranger at the Westfield Southcenter Mall. He cast these aside. Others showed Chase working out at the Y. These were cast aside also. The ones that he did not discard were those showing his wife, his beautiful Virginia, entering the Conrad Washington Hotel on New York Avenue, followed within minutes by Chase Malone, the ones showing them leaving, two hours later, together, and, in particular, the ones of the two lovers, naked and unsuspecting, snapped from a building across from the hotel. The Admiral, any last hopes that he might have been mistaken, shattered, thanked the private investigator, watched as he left his office then, taking his Sig Sauer M17 from his desk, blew his brains out.

The news travelled fast. This time it was Pavlovich who decreed the emergency and summoned Chase to meet him, not, as per usual, at the shopping mall but at the Potomac Overlook Regional Park, far away from any possible observers. As Chase hiked the trail to the meeting spot, he looked all around him, his paranoia causing his facial muscles to twitch, expecting FBI agents to emerge from the trees at any moment. If convicted of being a sleeper agent, he could face decades of imprisonment or he could be part of a swap for any US agents being held in Russia. In that case, he would be returned to Moscow in disgrace. His best option was to be simply recalled before any possible repercussions from the Admiral’s suicide. At the peak of the trail overlooking the Potomac far below, Chase found Pavlovich sitting precariously near the edge. He gestured for Chase to join him.

“All we asked was that you keep a low profile. Nothing more. No danger. A good life in return. But you couldn’t do it, could you?”

“You wanted me to continue the relationship. You encouraged it…”

“A fucking Admiral’s wife, Sergei. From the fucking Pentagon, no less”.

Chase shocked at Pavolich’s use of his real name, could not answer.

“Yes, I called you Sergei. There’s no more Chase Malone. No more pretence, my friend. You have blown it. No more deep cover. You have exposed our operation, me, Gladys, everybody. I hope you’re proud of yourself”.

“I’m sorry but what was the point of it all? I’m not a spy. I don’t do any espionage. What was my purpose?’

“Your purpose? Your purpose was just to be! To show that we could achieve it; to have agents in every aspect of American life. There are hundreds more just like you. Just to be! In return, for serving your country, you got to live the fucking American dream; the perfect life. But that wasn’t good enough for you, was it?”

Pavlovich stood and started to walk away. Chase turned and called after him.

“What happens now? Do I get recalled?”

“You know, Sergei, I just don’t understand you. Even now, after the trouble you have caused, you expect me to get you out of it. What? You don’t fancy spending twenty years in a penitentiary? You had it all, my friend. Anybody with half a brain would have swapped places with you without a second’s thought. You had the perfect life. Compare that to my situation. What do I get for serving my country? Shitty food, shitty clothes, a bleak, grey, sterile, mind numbing existence, dealing with morons like you. You have the life that should, naturally, be mine. You think I don’t wish, every single day of my shitty life, that my country would call me back? You think only Russia has sleepers?”

Chase stared incredulously at his handler, realising that Pavlovich's accent had changed completely, no longer that of a born Muscovite.  Standing, flabbergasted, he asked:

“You’re American?”

Without answering, Pavlovich stepped forward, raised his right leg and thrust it with full force into the chest of the Russian sleeper. He watched as Chase’s body plunged to its death in the water below.

“As apple pie, buddy!”.