The Kremlin Letter (14 page)

“I saw Berry's hands and I saw what the girl can do. I felt it was worth the risk bringing her. Have you seen what she can do?”

“We've seen.”

“Well?”

“She's impressive, but you've put us in a rather awkward position, Nephew. First off, you brought her here, so she knows who and where we are. Secondly, you more or less forced her on us. I have a hunch your motives weren't necessarily charitable.”

“Don't fool yourself, I have no interest in her.”

“I didn't say you did. I just wonder how much interest you have in us—or
against
us.”

“You'd better watch it or they'll be coding you out as Mr. Freud.”

Rone hardly saw Ward's arm move, but he felt the stiffened fingers drive into his stomach. Pain surged through his body. His knees weakened, he doubled over and dropped to the floor. Ward sat down in a large overstuffed chair and waited.

It took Rone longer than he had expected to regain his strength.

“Stand up,” ordered Ward. Rone got unsteadily to his feet. Ward reached into his pocket and threw him a switchblade. “There comes a time, Nephew, when every smart-assed little boy must get his comeuppance. You're seventeen years my junior, and according to that record of yours you're a pretty good street brawler. Now I haven't had any high-priced training in all those fancy Oriental styles you got such good grades in, but I'm going to take you. I may even kill you in the bargain. So when I come at you, just use that shiv well.”

Rone shook his head in disgust and tossed the knife on the couch.

“You still sound like a third-rate movie,” were the last words Rone got out before Ward threw a left.

Rone ducked the punch and reached up for Ward's arm only to have his feet kicked out from under him. As he fell forward Ward's knee crashed into his face and the side of his hand slammed into the back of his neck. He remembered nothing else. Charles Rone had never been knocked unconscious before. When he came to, Ward was sitting in the overstuffed chair tenting his fingers.

“Let me know when you're ready again.”

Rone tried to rise to one knee. It took two attempts.

“While we're waiting for the rematch,” said Ward, “I think it's your turn to answer some questions.”

“You've earned the right to ask,” said Rone, easing himself onto the couch.

“Something's bugging you, Nephew, and it's certainly not that old man in there. Let's get it out in the open.”

Rone spoke before he could edit himself. “This is easily the most disorganized, archaic, inefficient operation I've ever seen.”

“Is that all that's upsetting you?”

“It's enough. Look at the people involved. The Whore. The Highwayman. The Professor, who begins examining the wrong man. And now that drag queen at the desk. They're like a bunch of comic-book characters.”

“Is that why you brought in the girl? To get even with my bad casting?”

“No. I brought her because she was good and I had no other choice. I was under the impression that I could do some thinking for myself.”

“No one said you couldn't.”

“Well, at this mad tea party, eccentricity seems to have priority over intellect.”

“Now look here, Nephew. I don't know what they taught you in the classroom about intelligence and espionage. I learned what I know on the street, and I can tell you one thing for certain: It has no form or size or rules. At best it turns out to be what you least expect. So you learn to expect anything. You don't put your own private rules and evaluation on people, places or events. If you want order in the universe take up mathematics. Where we're going the world will most likely be upside down and sideways.”

“I know where we're going,” said Rone, “but I don't know why.”

“You'll find out when the time comes, but I can assure you one thing: You'll crawl before you walk. If that girl and you wanta be in on the fun you better shag right downstairs and get ready for your first steps.”

“Then you're keeping her?”

“She might suit our purposes, but we're going to make her prove it pronto.”

11

Eleven Men

It had not been one of Potkin's good days. It began badly before breakfast, with the persistent ringing of the doorbell. Potkin was waiting for a phone call in the office on the first floor of his New York town house. The staff was not awake, so he answered the door himself. A deliveryman handed him a package. It was the new portable stereophonic record player he had bought for his daughters two days before. When they had first asked for it he had refused, not so much on ideological grounds as out of fundamental parsimony. He submitted, but rather than buy the model his daughters had suggested, he scanned the newspapers for bargains and finally found a sale in the Bronx that offered sets at fifty percent off. He and his daughters took the uptown trip only to find that the models were reconditioned rejects of little-known brands. The girls objected to their father's meanness. Potkin held firm. It was either one of these or nothing. Holding back the tears in their eyes, his daughters reluctantly agreed.

If Potkin had believed in deities he might have felt the delivery at seven in the morning was an evil omen. When the girls awoke at seven-thirty they found the unopened carton sitting inside their door. Ignoring calls to breakfast, they tore apart the cardboard, unwrapped the set, plugged the cord into the socket, placed their favorite record on the turntable and switched the machine on. Not only did all the fuses blow, but the wiring caught fire. Before anyone could reach an extinguisher, smoke began pouring from their room. Potkin could not avoid calling the Fire Department. The burning wires were soon put out, but the house was left without electricity. The power failure cut off the automatic furnace and somehow caused the basement to flood.

Potkin's staff spent most of the morning watching electricians and plumbers meander about the house repairing the damage. The workmen resented the close scrutiny. Furniture was accidentally tipped over, and several odds and ends were broken, which better hospitality might have preserved. When the workmen left, Potkin's staff methodically checked the house for damage and most of all for bugging. This took most of the day.

While the staff secured the house, Potkin took refuge in an upstairs bedroom, working through his files. He examined the final report on potential American agents. At first he breathed a sigh of relief. After almost three months of work the whereabouts of only eleven men were unknown. As he read, however, he changed his mind. Photographs and biographies had been obtained on ten men, but for the eleventh there
were
no records—just a name.

Potkin knew that in the bureaucracy of the United States it was almost impossible for a citizen not to be recorded on paper in some easily accessible file. From birth to the grave the life of an American was one long series of city, state, federal, institutional and industrial documentation.

Potkin had always scoffed at America's obsessive condemnation of totalitarian governments' police systems. No country in the history of the modern world kept more recorded material on more of its population than the United States of America. In the land of the free more was written down than anywhere else. Telephone books alone located almost a fifth of the populace. Women were sometimes difficult to find because of marital name changes, but the average American male was easy to locate and investigate, and government employees were even easier.

For Potkin, the simplest, by far were members of the armed services. They were bound to show up sooner or later on income-tax returns, social-security lists, FBI fingerprint files, Armed Forces Insurance records or Veterans Administration classifications. These were the areas that Potkin's agents had infiltrated. Once you had the name of a current member of the armed forces or a veteran, the rest was usually automatic.

Potkin rocked back in his chair and bit the eraser of his pencil. This time it was different. He had the name of the eleventh man and that was all. As exceptional as it seemed, there was absolutely no additional information anywhere.

He took out a pad of paper and rapidly began writing a report to Kosnov. He would send a copy to Bresnavitch first. When he finished he buzzed for his secretary.

“Have this typed and sent out by diplomatic courier tonight,” he ordered.

Rone sat at the monitor typewriter in the Tillinger mansion and read Potkin's report as it was being typed.

He watched as the last paragraph began:

Lt. Commander Charles Rone, USN, ONI, discharged October 10, 1964.

Name appears on discharge order, but nowhere else. Travel orders, veterans' files show negative information. File not to be found. Deem situation “unusual.” It appears that all written information concerning Charles Rone has intentionally been removed. Major question is why discharge order was left to be found.

Summation: Situation concerning Charles Rone evaluated as “potential.” Thorough investigation will be undertaken.

12

Preparation

Rone had been scheduled to take another trip to bring back two more agents, but he had twisted his knee in the fight with Ward. The joint had swollen and he walked with a decided limp. His assignment was exchanged with the Warlock, the man with the pompadour who had first greeted him at the front desk.

For the first three days he acted as receptionist and guide for the Tillinger display of South American sarcophagi on the first floor. The public was admitted fron ten
A
.
M
. to two-thirty
P
.
M
. There were not many visitors, but there were endless deliveries. A constant stream of trunks pulled up before the mansion. Crates, boxes and cartons of all sizes and descriptions were unloaded. All were stenciled with the same words: Tillinger Fund—Tasmanian Exhibition. Each one was earmarked for a specific member of the operation. Professor Buley and Dr. Set were the most often named.

From two-thirty until eight, Rone, along with Buley and the beardless Janis, who had arrived the day after Rone and B.A., distributed the cargo throughout the house. Most of the deliveries were taken right through to the house behind the Tillinger mansion. The Puppet Maker had requisitioned the basement, subbasement and kitchen areas of this house. The two-story high ballroom was assigned to the Erector Set. The third floor was divided between communications and printing. The fourth and fifth floors were living accommodations and classrooms. Briefing rooms were established on the fourth floor. The dining room adjoined the ballroom.

The Tillinger mansion itself was to be used for living accommodations and offices. It had its own kitchen and dining area.

In the evenings Professor Buley and Rone worked together. The first two evenings they unpacked Russian foodstuffs. The canned goods were meticulously sorted and put onto shelves according to the regions they came from. The same geographic classifications were used in the large walk-in refrigerator for the imported fresh vegetables and the frozen Russian meats.

On the third night Rone was fascinated as they unpacked specimens of Russian water. Buley gave them his undivided attention. There were some twenty-five quart bottles in all. Each had a chemical analysis attached to it. Rone followed Buley into the basement, where a complete chemical laboratory had been built and outfitted. In an adjoining room stood half a dozen five-hundred-gallon aluminum water tanks. They spent several hours cleaning them. It was well past midnight on the third night when Buley turned to Rone.

“And now we'll start manufacturing Russian water,” he announced.

“Why?” asked Rone.

“Why would you think?” countered the professor.

Rone thought. “The chemical composition of Russian water must be different. Therefore if we drink it and are captured we could pass a chemical analysis test. No, that doesn't sound right.”

“It's partially true. You will be drinking this water and you will be washing and bathing in it. If you are captured and the Russians take the time to analyze your chemical components, they will undoubtedly be convinced that you have been using Russian water. This would be done at an autopsy, of course.

“But there is another reason: Americans are used to much purer water than any other people in the world. Therefore our systems have become rather weak. We have a very low tolerance for impurity in liquid as well as in food. Americans abroad have always had difficulty adjusting to the drinking water of foreign countries, and rightly so. In some places it's half poison. We're highly susceptible to dysentery and other diseases contracted from impure water. This is almost always the way to spot an American in poor water areas. Perhaps this is why the majority of the world doesn't bother to drink water at all.

“What we will be doing is starting each of you on the poorest-grade water from the area you supposedly came from. Slowly we will build up your resistance. Then we will move you on to the areas you will be traveling through to reach Moscow. Some will come from the east, others from the west, north, south. Once your resistance has been established, we will switch you onto Moscow water. If you adjust to the worst then you can easily take the best.”

“Why don't you do it the other way around?” asked Rone. “Why not start with a high-grade water which in itself might be hard to drink and then slowly work down the grades?”

“That would of course make more sense—if we had the time. But we don't. Most of you will get alone fine, I would guess. However, one or two are in for a few bad days. Shall we begin?”

Buley put the two large water distillers into operation. When he had about fifty gallons of pure water he poured them into ten five-gallon containers.

“Let's begin with you,” directed the professor. He went through his specimen bottles and took out two. He read the charts and went back into the chemical lab. He returned with a trayful of apothecary jars filled with different chemicals. Meticulously he added the formula ingredients to one can. He waited until the elements dissolved and then poured Rone a large tumbler.