The Company: A Novel of the CIA (27 page)

"I speak English like an American," Eugene informed him. "But I am Russian." And he recited his motto in perfect Russian: "Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!"

The Englishman brightened considerably. "Don't speak Russian myself. Like the sound of it, though. Much prefer to deal with Starik's Russians than one of those antsy American Commies." He took four exposed Minox cartridges from his pocket and handed them to Eugene. "April Fool's present for Starik—do pass the stuff on as quickly as you can. Took some awfully good shots of some awfully secret documents spelling out which Soviet cities the Americans plan to A-bomb if war starts. Got some goodies for me in exchange?"

Eugene set the bottles of Lagavulin down on the floor and took out the other items that had been in the hollowed-out knitting book: a dozen cartridges of 50-exposure film for a Minox miniature camera, new one-time cipher pads printed in minuscule letters on the inside cover of ordinary matchbooks, a new microdot reader disguised as a wide-angle lens for a 35 millimeter camera and a personal letter from Starik enciphered on the last of the Englishman's old one-time pads and rolled up inside a hollowed-out bolt.

"Thanks awfully," the man said. "Will you be getting in touch with the rezident anytime soon?"

"I can."

"I should think you had b-b-better do that sooner rather than later. Tell him we have a bit of a headache looming. Angleton has been on to the fact that we have had a mole in the British Foreign Service, code-named HOMER, for donkey's years." The Englishman's stutter dissipated as he became caught up in his tale. "Yesterday he told me that his cryptoanalyst chaps have broken an additional detail out of some old intercepts: when HOMER was posted to Washington he'd meet twice a week in New York with your predecessor, his cutout. It won't take Angleton long to work out that this pattern corresponds' to Don Maclean—he used to go up to New York twice a week to see his wife Melinda, who was pregnant and living there with her American mother. Maclean's running the FO's American Department in London now. Someone has got to warn him the Americans are getting warmer; someone has got to set up an exfiltration if and when. Can you remember all that?"

Eugene had been briefed by Starik about Angleton and HOMER and Maclean. "Where is Burgess hanging his hat these days?" he asked, referring to Philby's old Trinity College sidekick, the long-time Soviet agent Guy Burgess, who originally recruited Philby into MI6 during the war.

"He's been using me as a B and B, which has come to mean bed and booze, since he was posted to the British embassy in Washington. Why do you ask'"

"Burgess is an old buddy of Maclean's, isn't he?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"Starik said that in an emergency you might want to think about sending Burgess back to warn Maclean."

Philby saw the advantages instantly. "Wizard idea! What could be more natural than the two of them going for a pub crawl? If things get cheesy I suppose Guy could tear himself away from his poofter DC friends long enough to head home and give Maclean a warning holler."

"Cover your trail—if Maclean runs for it someone might work backward from Maclean to Burgess, and from Burgess to you."

The Englishman's shoulders heaved in resignation. "Guy can bluff his way out of a tight corner," he guessed. "Besides which I have a sensible line of defense—last thing I'd do if I were really spying for the Russians would be to give bed and booze to another Russian spy."

Eugene had to smile at the Englishman's nerve. "You ought to pay me for the whiskey," he said, handing him the invoice.

Kim Philby counted out bills from a woman's change purse. "B-b-by all means keep the change," he suggested, his stutter back again and, along with it, the brooding filmy gaze of a tightrope artist trying to anticipate missteps on the high-wire stretched across his mind's eye.

8

HEIDELBERG, MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1951

FROM THE NARROW STREET, THE PROPYLAEN, AN INN NAMED AFTER THE periodical founded by the German poet Goethe, looked dark and deserted. A stone's throw from Heidelberg's austere time-warped university, its restaurant normally offered students a city-subsidized potato-and-cabbage menu. Now its metal shutters were closed, the naked electric bulb over its sign was extinguished and a hand-lettered notice tacked to the door read, in German, English and French, "Exceptionally Not Open Today." Ebby had rented out the inn's dining room for a farewell banquet for his Albanian commando unit and supplied the alcohol and canned meat from the Company's PX in Frankfurt. In a back room flickering with candlelight and warmed by a small coal-burning stove, he sat at the head of the long table, refilling brandy glasses and passing out filter-tipped cigarettes. The thin clean-shaven faces of the seven young Albanians and two female translators on both sides of the table glistened with perspiration and pride. At the other end of the table, Adil Azizi, the commando leader, a beautiful young man with smooth skin and long fine blond hair, was peeling an orange using a razor-sharp bayonet. The man next to him, who wore a black turtleneck sweater, made a comment and everyone laughed. The translator sitting at Ebby's elbow explained: "Mehmet tells Adil not to dull his blade on orange skin but save it for Communist skin."

A grandfather clock near the door struck midnight. One of the candles, burned down to its wick, sizzled and died. Kapo, at twenty-four the oldest member of the commando and the only one to speak even broken English, pushed himself to his feet and raised his brandy glass to Ebby. The second translator repeated his words in Albanian for the others. "I can tell you, Mr. Trabzon, that we will not fail you or our American sponsors or our people for sure," he vowed. Mehmet coached him in Albanian and Kapo rolled his head from side to side, which in the Balkans meant he agreed. "I can tell you again of my father—a member of the before-war regime who was trialed; decided culpable and locked in cage like wild animal and thrown from deck of ship at sea. All here tell alike stories."

Adil murmured to Kapo in Albanian. Kapo said, "Adil tells that his brother called Hsynitk was trialed for listening American music on radio and shot dead in parking lot of Tirane soccer stadium half of one hour later. Our blood enemy is Enver Hoxha, for sure."

Kapo pulled a small package wrapped in newspaper and string from th pocket of the leather jacket hanging over the back of his chair. He held it aloft. Everyone smiled. "Me and everyone, we want give you present so you remember us, remember time we spending together in great German city of Heidelberg."

The package was passed from hand to hand until it reached Ebby. He flushed with embarrassment. "I don't know what to say—"

"So don't say nothing, Mr. Trabzon. Only open it," Kapo called. The others laughed excitedly.

Ebby tore off the string and pulled away the paper. His face lit up when he saw the present; it was a British Webley Mark VI revolver with a date-1915—engraved in the polished wood of the grip. The weapon looked to be in mint condition. "I am very pleased to have this beautiful gun," Ebby said softly. He held the gun to his heart. "I thank you."

At the head of the table, Adil said something in Albanian. The translator said: "Adil tells that the next present they bring you will be the scalp of Enver Hoxha." Around the table everyone nodded gravely. Adil tossed back his glass of brandy. The others followed suit, then drummed their glasses on the table in unison. No one smiled.

Ebby stood up. The translator next to him rose to her feet. When she translated Ebby's words, she unconsciously imitated his gestures and even some of his facial expressions. "It has been an honor for me to work with you," Ebby began. He paused between sentences. "A great deal is riding on this commando raid. We are sure that the death of Hoxha will lead to an uprising of the democratic elements in Albania. The anti-Communist Balli Kombetar forces in the north can put thousands of armed partisans in the field. An uprising in Albania could ignite revolts elsewhere in the Balkans and the other countries of Eastern Europe and eventually—why not?—in the Ukraine and the Baltics and the Central Asian Republics. The Soviet states are like a set of dominoes—topple the first one and they will all come tumbling down " Ebby peered the length of the table at the eager faces. "You will have the honor and the danger of toppling the first domino." He added "For sure." The young Albanians roared with laughter. When they had quieted down, Ebby added solemnly: "Good luck and Godspeed to you all."

9

BERLIN, THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1951

ROCKING ON A PAINTED HOBBYHORSE THAT ONE OF THE BERLIN BASE officers had bought on the black market and parked in the hallway, the Fallen Angel was a-twitter over "Dennis the Menace," the new comic strip that had recently turned up in the pages of Die Neue Zeitung, an American newspaper written in German. Leaning against the water cooler filled with slivovitz across from the Sorcerer's partly open door, Miss Sipp and Jack were engrossed in the newspaper's front page that Silwan II had passed on to them; there was the usual box score of how many East German Volkespolizei had defected in the past twenty-four hours (an office pool was riding on the number), and banner-headlines above the lead story on Truman's decision to relieve Douglas MacArthur of his command in Korea after the General publicly called for air strikes on Chinese cities. Absorbed as they were in various pages of the newspaper, the Fallen Angel, the Sorcerers Apprentice and Torriti's Night Owl were oblivious to the bleating hullabaloo emanating from the Sorcerers office, clearly audible over an orchestral version of Bellini's Norma.

"Even the French come up with better intelligence than you," the Company's Chief of Station in Germany, General Lucian Truscott IV, was complaining in a raucous bellow.

The Sorcerer could be heard retorting with a lewd doggerel. "The French are a creative race—they talk with their hands and fuck with their face."

"Last week they came up with the Soviet order of battle in Poland."

"Their numbers are flaky."

"At least they have numbers."

"We have our triumphs."

"Name one recent one."

"I got my hands on a sample of Walter Ulbrecht's shit—we sent it back to Washington for analysis."

"Oh, cripes, next thing you'll tell me that the rumors about Ulbrecht being allergic to ragweed are true!"

In the hallway the Fallen Angel glanced up from "Dennis the Menace" and caught Miss Sipp's eye. She hiked her shoulders and curled out her lower lip. Since he'd come on board, General Truscott, a tough cookie who could turn abusive after three or four whiskeys, had cleaned up the Company's act in Germany: a lot of the dumber clandestine service ops (like the idea of bombarding Russia with extra-large condoms stamped "medium") had been permanently shelved, some of the more amateur officers had been sent to the boondocks. But despite the occasional verbal shootout, Truscott—a gruff soldier from the old school who had once spilled a pitcher of water over the head of a CIA officer to "cool him down"—seemed to have a healthy respect for the Sorcerer. Ulbrecht's excrement wasn't the only thing Torriti had come up with, and the General knew it.

" 'Nother thing," the General was shouting over the music, his words strung together with a slurred grumpiness. "Air Force people've been bellyaching 'bout having to identify bombing targets from old German World War II Abwehr files. Can't we supply them with some up-to-date targeting, Torriti?"

Miss Sipp thought she heard another empty bottle crash land in her boss's wastebasket. Jack must have heard it, too, because he asked, "How many today?"

"If you love," the Night Owl pointed out with a sheepish grin, "you don't count."

"I thought you hated him," Silwan II said from the hobbyhorse.

"I hate him but I don't dislike him."

Ah," he said, nodding as if he understood, which he didn't. He went back to the saner world of "Dennis the Menace."

"Not my fault if there's a demon cloud cover over East Europe," the Sorcerer was telling Truscott.

"Its because of the demon cloud cover that we need more agents on the ground, damn it."

The door to Torriti's office flew open and the two men, both clutching tumblers half-filled with whiskey, stumbled into the corridor. Truscott was bringing the Sorcerer up to date on the latest nightmare scenario from the Pentagon war gamers: the Russians would block off the 100-mile-long umbilical corridor between the Western sectors of Berlin and West Germany; French, British and American units drawn from the 400,000 allied troops in West Germany would start down the Autobahn to test Soviet mettle; local Russian commanders would panic and blow up a bridge in front of them and another behind; rattled, the West would send in a tank division to rescue the stranded units; someone, somewhere would lose his nerve and pull a trigger; the shot would be heard 'round the world.

Torriti closed one very red eye to sooth a twitching lid. "Bastards won't take me alive. General," he boasted, and he nicked a fingernail against the poison-coated pin he kept stuck in the whiskey-stained lapel of his shapeless sports jacket.

With his hand on the knob of the heavy fire door leading to the staircase, Truscott suddenly spun around. "What's this I hear about you walking back a cat?"

"Who told you that?"

"I keep my ear to the ground."

The Sorcerer suddenly got the hiccups. "Fact is... I had an exfiltration that turned... turned sour," he moaned.

"Spoonful of sugar—it works every time," the General suggested.

Torriti looked confused. "For an exfiltration?"

"For the hiccups, damn it."

Miss Sipp looked up from the newspaper. "Try drinking water out of a glass with a spoon in it," she called.

"Maybe slivovitz in a glass with a... spoon might work," Torriti called, pointing to the water cooler. He turned back to Truscott. "The Russians were... tipped off. If it's the last... thing I do, I'm gonna find... find out where the tip... tip came from."

"How?"

"Barium... meals."

"Barium meals?" Jack repeated to Miss Sipp. "What the hell is that?"