Snow Wolf (56 page)

"What?"

"Our Paris desk monitored an
unscheduled Soviet diplomatic flight leaving from Le Bourget airport with a
flight plan for Moscow, not long after Lebel was dropped off on the boulevard
Montmartre by his chauffeur. There's a club near the boulevard, the Club
Malakoff, used by known French Communist Party members. We also know from our
contacts in French counterintelligence that Lebel has been observed
occasionally visiting the club. Lebel's chauffeur says his boss took a phone
call earlier in the evening and claimed he had a private meeting to attend but
didn't say where, only that he wanted to be driven to the boulevard Montmartre.

"But there's something much more
worrying to consider. There were several passengers bundled on board the Soviet
flight just before takeoff, one of them on a stretcher and accompanied by a
doctor. According to the French, the Soviets claimed he was a member of their
Paris embassy staff being taken to Moscow for urgent medical treatment.
However, from talking with the French authorities who checked the Soviet
passenger manifest and getting their descriptions of the people who went on
board, we suspect now the man on the stretcher may have been Lebel."

"Jesus.

"Which leads me to believe Moscow
has figured out Lebel's connection to Massey and they want to interrogate
him."

Eisenhower put a hand to his face and
rubbed his eyes. "It gets worse by the hour."

"Mr. President, taking Lebel to
Moscow would suggest he hasn't already cooperated. But in my opinion, no matter
what we had ordered Stanski to do at this stage, I'm convinced he'd ignore our
command."

Eisenhower looked up. "Even a direct
command from me?"

"Even a direct command from you,
Sir, if it were possible to relay one to him."

Eisenhower sighed again and turned in his
chair. "Mr. Massey, do you want to say anything?"

Massey looked up. There were dark rings
under his eyes and his face looked troubled. He had hardly slept for the last
forty-eight hours, the long flight from Helsinki to Washington swiftly followed
by a grueling four-hour debriefing by Branigan, the Assistant Director, and
Allen Dulles, every detail of the operation gone over. There was a gnawing
feeling of doom and a sickness in the pit of his stomach that hadn't left him
in all that time. The news about Lebel only added to it, and there was an
atmosphere of hopelessness in the room.

He looked over at Eisenhower, who was
staring at him. "I don't know what to say, Mr. President."

Eisenhower flushed angrily.
"Considering you're partly responsible I think you had better contribute
something to this conversation. You've been sitting there for the past ten
minutes like a man who's lost his way home. Don't you have any
suggestions?"

"if Lebel's been abducted and taken
to Moscow, then we've no way of stopping Stanski, short of sending someone in
there to reason with him. As for Lebel's abduction there's no answer, unless
you consider shooting down the aircraft he's on,"

"Impossible, even if I considered
it," Eisenhower answered Sharply. "By now it'll be inside Soviet
territory. And in answer to your first suggestion you heard what Branigan said.
Stanski would never listen. What's your opinion about this Lebel? Do you think
he'll break easily under interrogation?"

"Lebel was in a concentration camp
after being caught: and tortured by the Gestapo, so he's been through the
ordeal before. He may refuse to talk and deny his involvement, depending on
what evidence Moscow has to implicate him. But they must have some, and they
must be in a hurry, otherwise why abduct him, especially when he was to arrive
there in two days' time?

Or Lebel may just as easily tell Moscow
everything. I've no way of knowing."

"But you know the man, right? Give
me your honest opinion. Will he talk?"

Massey thought for a moment. "I'd
say Lebel will hold out as long as he can. He's no fool, and he'll probably try
to deny everything at first. But considering the way the KGB have refined the
art of torture, I wouldn't expect that to be for more than a couple of days,
maybe a little more."

Alfred Dulles was wiping his glasses when
he looked up slowly. "It strikes me that if Lebel can be counted on to
hold Out, that gives us time, and maybe a way out of this mess."

"How?" asked Eisenhower.

"We kill Stanski and Khorev. Callous
as it sounds, it's about the only solution I can think of."

There was silence in the room. Massey
looked over at Dulles and said with feeling, "We're talking about two
people risking their lives for us. Two people who had the guts to carry out
this operation, and you want to kill them?"

Dulles fixed Massey with a stare.
"This isn't a perfect world, Massey. But it's the only solution I can
think of.-and maybe the only shot we've got left." He looked back at the
President' "Branigan and I have been doing a little homework, trying to
figure this thing out."

He plucked a file from the briefcase
beside him. "Right now we've got four agents in Moscow. To each we send a
brief encoded message usually every four weeks to keep in touch and let them
know we haven't forgotten about them. The transmissions are made on regular
radio programs on The Voice of America at prearranged times. To any ordinary
listener the transmission sounds harmless, but our agents, once they decode a
certain passage transmitted at a certain time, have got a message from
us."

He leaned over and handed the file to
Eisenhower. "These are two agents of ours in Moscow we think could
help."

As the President picked it up, Dulles
added, "They're freebooters. Former Ukrainian SS. In fact, Massey himself
had them parachuted into the Ukraine six weeks ago. They arrived in Moscow a
week later."

Eisenhower quickly read the file and
replaced it on the desk.

"So what are you proposing?"

"We're due to send a routine message
to these men on schedule tomorrow night. But instead we tell them about the man
and woman we want located. Massey here has told us about Lebel's ladyffiend
whom Stanski is to meet in Moscow. She's got a dacha he's going to use as a
safe house. If we can confirm that Stanski and the woman will show up there,
wel then, I think you can guess the rest. But I figure we'll need someone in
place in Moscow to make sure the plan is carried out. There's no room for
error. And it's got to be done fast. Like Massey says, our friend Lebel is
eventually going to be made to talk and then the KGB will know about the
dacha."

"Is there Any chance Moscow could
decode your radio message?"

Dulles shook his head. "Highly
unlikely, Mr. President. The message is decoded on one-time pads, and
impossible to break.

"There's something vital you're
leaving out. How in the hell do we get someone to Moscow?" Dulles said,
"We're working on it, Mr. President. Mossad seems the most likely bet.
They've got contacts through their Jewish League in Russia and Eastern Europe,
and we know they have a number of agents and highly placed informers in Moscow,
in the KGB and the Soviet military. If you give us the clearance, we ask
Mossad's assistance without divulging our reasons. I think they'll agree. As
you know, we've got a formal agreement with them on mutual security
matters."

"You really think it could
work?" Dulles said, "It's going to be risky and difficult, sir. And
it needs to be done with great speed but also with great care. There's no room
for error. Me, I think it's a chance we've got to take. But I believe Massey's
the one to answer that question. He sent each of these people in."

All faces turned to Massey, and finally
Eisenhower said, "Well, Mr. Massey, tell me if it's possible? Can it work?"
Massey thought for a moment, then said flatly, "I don't know."

Eisenhower's face turned red.
"Answer the goddamned question."

Massey looked over at him, and the
President heard the anger in his voice. "Me, I don't want any part of
this." Eisenhower flared. "The question I asked was can it work?

And let's not forget why we're here,
Massey. You're partly responsible for what's happened. Answer the
question."

Massey went to get up angrily and
Eisenhower said, "Stay right where you are!"

He looked at Dulles and Branigan.
"Take a walk, gentlemen. Leave us."

Dulles and Branigan stood and both of
them left the Oval Office.

As Massey sat there, Eisenhower lit a
cigarette with shaking hands, still angry, as he stood and walked over to the
French windows. He opened them and stepped out onto a porch. There was a rush
of cool air and the sound of pelting rain beyond the patio and Eisenhower said
over his shoulder, "Step out here, Jake.

Massey went out to the patio. Rain came
down in sheets beyond the porch, and as Eisenhower stared out he said,
"Have you got family?"

"A son."

"What about your wife?"

"We're divorced."

Eisenhower looked back. "Would you
consider yourself a patriot, Jake?"

" Mr. President, I love my country.
I wouldn't be doing this job if I didn't. But I can't go along with this. Alex
Stanski's a brave man, a man who's doing what no one else would dare do. As for
Anna Khorev, she only agreed to go along to get her child back. But she's still
a courageous woman, nonetheless. And maybe we've used her. But we can't kill
her. It isn't moral and it isn't right."

Eisenhower sighed and flicked his
cigarette away. "I want to tell you a story I haven't told to anyone in a
long time. When I was a young officer I served in Panama. There was a boy I
knew from my home town served with me. A nice redhaired kid, a good pal to get
drunk with and always quick with a song. Had a sweetheart back home he was
crazy about.

"One night our company got sent into
the jungle where some guerrillas had artillery that was giving our battalion
hell. Our objective was to silence those guns. Halfway through we got pinned
down in the darkness by machine-gun fire. The kid I knew went ahead to silence
one of the guns and took a hit in the belly. He crawled back through the jungle
toward us with his guts hanging out, screaming his head off for someone to help
him. The trouble was, he was giving our position away.

"I was maybe the best rifle shot in
the company. My commander ordered me to shoot the kid. I couldn't bring myself
to do it, so I fired wide. Someone else tried and failed. Five minutes later
the guerrillas stormed our position and killed ten of our men."

There was a look like remorse on
Eisenhower's face. "if I had had the guts to shoot that kid, maybe those
men wouldn't have died. And there was worse. After we retreated the guns went
on firing and decimated our battalion. I let my commander and my fellow men
down. I let my country down."

He looked out grimly at the rain.
"This ain't no jungle in Panama with the lives of ten men in the balance,
or even the lives of a battalion. This is a war we're talking about. Not twenty
lives or more at stake, but maybe twenty million. If I learned one thing that
night in the jungle it's that you cut your losses when you have to and you take
your pain. Hard decisions, sure, but we're talking about hard facts-two lives
for a whole lot of others. Including maybe your son's. Because, make no
mistake, if we fail to stop this thing there will be a war. If Stanski and the
woman are caught alive, Moscow will have evidence and reason enough to start
one. A war America's not ready for. A war we can't win. They're six months
ahead of us with the hydrogen bomb and Stalin's just itching to use it if he
has an excuse to. And with that kind of power he can blow us off the face of
the earth."

Massey studied the President's face.
There was a hard, determined look in the man's blue eyes and a grimness around
his mouth he had never seen before in any of his photographs.

Eisenhower stared back. "The
question I asked you was can the plan Dulles suggested work? I'd like your
answer to that."

Massey sighed. "Maybe. But it's only
an outside chance. Stanski's no fool and he's the best man we ever trained.
Killing him won't be easy."

"Then even if there's just a slim
chance we've got to take it. There's only one man I can think of who can
identify Stanski and the woman and stop them. And that's you. I know you don't
want to kill them, but you and I both know why you have to. Don't make the
mistake I did all those years ago. Don't save two lives when you may lose
millions."

Eisenhower looked into Massey's eyes.
"I'm asking you, Jake, don't let your country or me down on this
one."

Dzerzhinsky Square, Moscow.

A scream echoed somewhere in the distance
and Anna came awake, her body drenched in sweat.

A single lightbulb shone overhead and it
almost blinded her.

She was lying on a hard wooden bed in a
tiny windowless cell. Water seeped down the shiny granite walls and the place
smelled of damp and urine. There was a metal door in the far wall and beyond it
she could hear the faint clanking of doors being opened and closed.

She guessed she was in a prison somewhere,
but she had no idea where, or if it was day or night, or how she had got there.