The Company: A Novel of the CIA (81 page)

"There is the usual disillusionment with the Communist system—" Manny began.

Angleton snorted. "Sounds like someone sent over from central casting."

"There's more," Manny insisted. "He claimed that his wife suffers from a heart ailment—that she's had it for years. He wants to have her treated by American doctors. This is a detail that can be verified. She won't be able to fake a heart disorder."

Colby said, "The ultimate test will be the information he gives us."

Angleton was still shaking his head. "A dispatched agent will always give us a certain amount of true information in order to convince us he is not a dispatched agent."

"Let's move on to the get." Colby suggested.

Manny looked at the notes he had scribbled as soon as they had dropped the Russian a block from a downtown bus stop the night before. "I only had enough time with him to scratch the surface," he reminded everyone. "But Æ/PINNACLE gave me to understand that once we'd put in the plumbing for the defection, he'd come over with a briefcase filled with secrets. Here I take Mr. Angleton's point—some or all of these serials could be true even if the defector turns out to be a dispatched agent. All right. I'll start at the base camp and work my way up to the summit." Manny wished his division chief, Leo Kritzky, were sitting in on the session to lend him moral support; Angleton's bloodshot eyes, staring across the table through curlicues of cigarette smoke, were beginning to unnerve him.

"For openers he's offering the order of battle at the Soviet embassy in Washington—we can expect to get from him names, ranks, serial numbers. Plus particulars of local KGB tradecraft—locations of dead drops, for instance, along with the variety of signals, including classified ads in newspapers, indicating that the dead drops have been filled or emptied."

Angleton shrugged his bony shoulders in derision. "Chickenfeed," he said crabbily

"Æ/PINNACLE claimed that Moscow Centre has recently created a Special Disinformation Directorate, designated Department D, to coordinate a global disinformation campaign. He said it was staffed by fifty officers who were area or country specialists with field experience. He said he knew of the existence of the Disinformation Directorate, which is supposed to be closely held and highly secret, only because he himself had been recruited into its ranks due to his expertise on the American political mode? But Æ/PINNACLE was determined to remain abroad. Since he would've have had to return to Moscow if he was transferred to the Disinformation Directorate, he asked his wife's father to use his considerable influence to have the assignment cancelled."

Manny had finally come up with something that impressed Angleton. The chief of counterintelligence straightened in his chair. "Does your Russian have specifics on the Directorate's product? Did he mention the Sino-Soviet split? Did he talk about Dubcek or Ceaucescu or Tito?"

"We won't know whether Æ/PINNACLE has heard of specific projects associated with Department D until we arrange for additional debriefings," Manny said.

"What else is he offering, Manny?" Jack asked.

"He claims to have information on the current British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, but when I pressed him he became very vague—all he would say was that serials concerning Wilson had passed through the hands of a KGB officer who shared an office with him in Moscow."

"He's playing hard-to-get," Colby commented.

"He's negotiating his retirement package," Ebby said. "If he gives us everything at once he'll lose his leverage."

Manny looked again at his notes. "I'm halfway to the summit. Æ/PINNACLE claims that approximately a year ago he picked up office scuttlebutt that the rezidentura was running a walk-in from the National Security Agency with a habit—the walk-in apparently had a weakness for women and gambling and needed money badly. To avoid unnecessary risks, all of the face-to-face debriefings with the NSA walk-in were organized while he was vacationing abroad. The contacts in Washington were through dead drops. The KGB lieutenant colonel who ran the defector was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in a private embassy ceremony last December. Æ/PINNACLE took this as an indication of how important the NSA defector was. In mid-January—on January sixteenth, to be exact, which was a Wednesday—the KGB resident asked Kukushkin to stand in for this same lieutenant colonel, who had come down with the flu. He was instructed to service a dead drop , in the men's room of the Jefferson Hotel in downtown Washington. Because he was filling in for the lieutenant colonel who had won the Red Banner, Kukushkin concluded that the message he was delivering was intended for the mole inside NSA. The rezident gave Kukushkin an enciphered note rolled up inside the top of a fountain pen and, defying regulations, laughly told him what was in it. Once we know the contents of this note, so Kukushkin claims, we will be able to identify the traitor in the NSA. As the operation was tightly compartmented inside the Soviet rezidentura, AP/PINNACLE never heard anything more about it."

Colby whistled through his teeth. The National Security Agency, which, among other things, eavesdropped on Soviet communications and broke Russian codes, was so secret that few Americans were aware of its existence; an in-house joke held that the initials NSA stood for "No Such Agency." If the KGB actually had an agent inside the NSA it would mean that America's most closely held Cold War secrets were hemorrhaging. If Kukushkin's defection could lead to the unearthing of the NSA mole, it would be a major blow to the KGB.

Angleton sniffed at the air as if he had detected a foul odor. "Timeo Danaos et donna ferentis—I am wary of Greeks bearing gifts."

"I hate to think what you're saving for your last-but-not-least if your next-to-last is a Soviet mole inside the NSA," Jack commented.

"Time to take us up to the summit," Colby told Manny.

Manny caught his father's eye across the table. Ebby nodded once to encourage him; Manny could tell from his expression that the briefing was going well, that his father was pleased at the way he had handled himself. "The summit, Mr. Colby," Manny said. He flipped to the last page of his hand-written notes. "The last item on my list—" Manny stole a look at Angleton, who was preoccupied lighting another cigarette from the old one—"has to do with SASHA."

Angleton's drowsy eyes flicked open.

"Æ/PINNACLE claims that Moscow Centre—not the Washington rezidentura—directly runs an agent in place inside the Company code named SASHA. The mastermind behind this operation is someone known only by the nickname Starik, which means 'old man' in Russian. Word of mouth inside the rezidentura is that this Starik is supposed to be the same person who ran Philby. There is no direct contact between the rezidentura and SASHA—everything passes by a cutout who is living under deep cover in America."

"Pie in the sky," Angleton groused, but it was evident that Manny's story had hit a nerve.

'Kukushkin claims that the KGB rezident, the chief of the embassy's insular section named Kliment Yevgenevich Borisov, is an old chum from Lomonosov University. The two often drink together late at night in the rezident's office. Kukushkin says he decided to defect at this moment in time when he learned, during a casual conversation with the rezident, that both SASHA and his cutout were out of town. He claims that no defection is possible while SASHA is in Washington because he would be one of the first to get wind of it and alert the SK people at the Soviet embassy. Kukushkin says we must move rapidly because the window of opportunity, which is to say the period of time that SASHA will be absent from Washington, is very narrow—two weeks, to be precise. Once we have brought him and his wife and daughter to safety, Æ/PINNACLE is prepared to give us the first initial of SASHA's family name, along with an important biographical detail and another specific period when SASHA was away from Washington. With that information, so he says, we ought to be able to identify him."

Angleton swatted the cigarette smoke away from his eyes. It was an article of faith with him that all Soviet walk-ins worldwide were dispatched agents, since the Soviet mole inside the Company would have warned Moscow Centre the moment he got wind of a defection, and a genuine defector would be eliminated before he could organize the defection. Now he had finally heard a single plausible detail that intrigued him: it was possible for a walk-in to be genuine if SASHA were somehow absent from Washington and therefore couldn't immediately learn about the defection. Angleton's smoker's rasp drifted across the table. "Did your Russian provide details on the cutout?"

"I pressed him, Mr. Angleton. He said only that the cutout who serviced SASHA was away on home leave; the summons back to Russia had been passed on to the cutout by a woman who freelances for the rezidentura and serves as a circuit breaker between the rezidentura and the cutout. Æ/PINNACLE is not sure whether the cutout went away because SASHA was away, or vice versa. As for the biographical details and the date of SASHA's previous absence from the Washington area, all he would say was he came across that information when he was attached to Directorate S of the First Chief Directorate in Moscow Centre; SASHA's previous absence from Washington corresponded with a trip abroad by the handler known as Starik."

The men around the table were silent for some minutes, digesting Manny's report. Lost in thought, Ebby nodded to himself several times; he had been convinced there was a Soviet mole inside the Company since he was betrayed into the hands of the Hungarian secret police in 1956. Colby climbed to his feet and began circling the table. "Did you set up a second meeting with your Russian friend?" he asked.

Manny said, "No. I assumed I would need authorization to do that.

Ebby said, "How is he going to contact you?"

"I took my cue from something Mr. McAuliffe said when he authorized the initial contact—I told Æ/PINNACLE to telephone Agatha Ept on Thursday evening. I suggested that he tell his SK people that, following a chance meeting at the Smithsonian, he was trying to become her lover in the hope of gaining access to American patents. If she invites him over for dinner, then he'll know we are willing to continue the dialogue. If she gives him the cold shoulder it will mean we don't want to pursue the matter."

Angleton scraped back his chair but remained sitting in it. "Obviously, counterintelligence needs to take over from here," he announced.

Jack bristled. "It's obvious to you but not to me. The Soviet Division has the competence to deal with this."

Settling back into his seat, Colby pulled at an earlobe. "Let the battle for turf begin."

Angleton reached for an ashtray and corkscrewed his cigarette into it. "There's an outside chance that this could be a genuine defection," he said carefully. "But it's equally likely that the KGB—that Starik himself—is dangling some bait in front of our noses."

"Let's take the worst case," Colby said. "Kukushkin is bait. He's offering us some odds and ends about a Disinformation Directorate and God knows what about the British Prime Minister, and some juicy morsels—a mole inside NSA, SASHA inside the CIA. You've always said that a false defector would have to bring over true information to establish his bona fides, to make us swallow the false information. If we play our cards carefully we ought to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff."

"Almost impossible to do," Angleton replied, "without assigning an experienced counterintelligence team. There's a lot at stake here. If Æ/PINNACLE is genuine, we'll need to wade through a maze of serials. If he's a dispatched agent, it means the KGB is going to a great deal of trouble and we'll need to find out why." Angleton, suddenly short of breath, wheezed for a moment. Then he addressed Ebby directly. "Your boy did a good job, I'm not suggesting otherwise, Elliott. He didn't put a foot wrong as far as I can see. But he's too young, too inexperienced, to run with this. Debriefing a defector is an art in itself—it's not only a matter of asking the right questions but of not asking them too soon; questions bring answers and answers bring closure to the process of thinking, and that's not something you want to rush."

Jack said to Colby, "Manny wouldn't be alone, Bill. He'll have the considerable resources of the Soviet Division behind him."

Ebby turned to the DCI. "I'll remove myself from the decision, for obvious reasons."

Jack said, "Well, I won't. If Leo Kritzky were here he'd be saying the same thing as me. The Soviet Division, under the aegis of the DD/0, ought to be handling this. Counterintelligence has a long history of turning away defectors, some of whom—many of whom—could well be genuine."

"If Counterintelligence discourages defections," Angleton retorted hotly, "it's to protect the Company from dispatched agents—"

"All right," Colby said. "Jim, we both know that a familiar face is worth its weight in gold to a would-be defector. And you yourself said that Manny here didn't put a foot wrong." He turned to Ebby. "I want the DD/0 to form a task force to handle this defection. Keep it down to a happy few, which is to say the people in this room and their principal aides and secretaries. All paper is to be stamped NODIS. I don't want the fact that we're dealing with a walk-in to become known outside this small circle. I want the task force's recommendation in my hand within thirteen days, which not incidentally is the time frame that has SASHA away from Washington. Manny, you'll be the point man—you'll meet with Æ/PINNACLE and gain his confidence and bring home the bacon. Jim, you'll represent counterintelligence on the task force. If you have operational qualms that you can't iron out with the DD/0 or his deputy, you can bring them directly to me. Once we've milked the Russian you can file a dissenting opinion with me if you don't reach the same conclusions as the DD/0." Colby shot out a cuff and looked at his watch. "Jim, if you don't shake a leg, you're going to stand up the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board."

"Its all right. Really. Nooooo problem."

"I can tell from your voice it's a problem."

"Hey, it's not as if I can't scare up a date for Young Frankenstein. Afterwards we can meander back to my place, crack a bottle of California red, turn down the lights, put on some Paul Anka. You know from personal experience how one thing has a way of leading to another. Next thing you know we could be into what Erica Jong calls the Zipless Fuck."