“No, comrade major, it wasn’t a stolen passport. It was a good fake. I used the best materials. The U.S. State Department has just recently introduced them to prevent forgeries.” He chuckled. “The cover is original Lexide, a simulated plastic produced by Payne-Jones and Co. in Lowville, New York. It’s made by a secret process and at the moment we cannot duplicate it satisfactorily. The pages with the antiforgery sunburst pattern are supposed to come from the American Writing Paper Corporation, somewhere in Massachusetts. I’ve brought you some samples, comrade major.” He held up a sheet to the light. “Here — that’s the otherwise invisible Great Seal watermark which appears on every page. You’d never tell the difference between this — which is the original — and this, which was made in Poland, would you? Our comrades in Lodz do a truly outstanding job. But for some reason, they’re still having problems with the first four and rather crucial pages where the American eagle is superimposed. Here, that’s the one.”
“You mean immigration officials could spot it if your passport is used for entry?”
“Never. For I’ve used originals. And I took great care with the prefix to the numbers which are perforated into each passport. I didn’t want to give him an X series, for that’s diplomatic, or a Z, which is only issued abroad and could be suspect, and I took care not to make it too old, because of the recent changes in coding which show the year of issue. So I chose to make it a B, which dates it 1961.”
“Yes, thanks, that’ll do.” The cobbler seemed disappointed, but Boychenko had run out of patience. “What was the name?”
“Arthur Foster.”
“Who’d be using it?”
“I never know.”
“Did you fix the photograph yourself?”
“Yes, of course, because the stamp — ”
“Have you got a copy?”
“I’m not allowed to keep one.”
Boychenko nodded. He took half a dozen photographs from a folder and dropped them on the desk. “Recognize any of these?”
“Yes, comrade major.” The cobbler picked out Rust’s picture without any hesitation. “That’s the man whose picture was in the Foster papers.”
“Papers? You mean there was a full set?”
“Of course. Credit cards, driving license, the lot. I work strictly according to specifications.”
“Whose specifications?”
“Whoever issues the orders.”
“So who was that in this case?”
“I wouldn’t know. I only received the usual requisition chit.”
“I see.” Boychenko made a note to try to follow up the origin of that chit. It would require General Yemelin’s permission. That pleased him. Any contact with the general would probably strengthen his position. “Then what? I mean, what happens when you’ve completed a job?”
“Normally, it’s picked up by a security messenger, but in this case, I had to take it myself to Leningrad.”
“To whom?” Boychenko pounced.
“Just to drop it in a taynik. But there was a mix-up and so I met the comrade who came to collect it, and he was very satisfied.”
“Was he really?”
“Oh yes. And quite obviously he knew what to look for when he examined the passport.”
“And what’s your fucking excuse for not mentioning this before?”
“Nobody’s asked me before.”
“Don’t give me vranyo!”
“Honestly — it, it just never came up.”
“All right. It’ll be in my report. You said” — he was writing it slowly — “that I was the first to ask that question. Correct?”
“Yes, comrade major.”
“Good. Very good. Now tell me the man’s name.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know or you don’t remember?”
“I don’t know.”
“Describe him.”
“Very tall, about that much taller than me. Age about thirty-five, forty. Dark hair, heavy build, with big hands.”
“What eyes?”
“Dark, I think.”
“Good.” The description matched the details Boychenko already knew about the second corpse in the Leningrad morgue. “Was he alone?”
“Yes.”
“Did he mention a woman?”
“What do you mean?”
“Something like ‘She’ll be pleased,’ anything like that?”
“No.”
“Did you see him leave?”
“Yes.”
“On foot? By car?”
“Yes, now that you mention it, I think a cab was waiting for him.”
“Driven by a woman?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Are you sure?”
“It didn’t seem important.”
“You wouldn’t have seen the interior of the cab, would you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, the usual things. Perhaps a few pictures from the papers. Some footballers. Moscow Dynamo colors.”
“What? In a cab driven by a woman? No.”
“Pity. But you’d recognize the man if you saw him again, right?”
“I think so.”
Boychenko called the Leningrad morgue. The KGB officer in charge had good news for him. The bearded man had been positively identified as Andrew McGregor. The other corpse with its extensive head injuries caused many problems, but the serial number on the Tokarev, with which the man had killed himself, helped to solve them. As it was a standard-issue 7.15mm service revolver, it was on record showing its current user, a Captain Viktor Antonovich Khomenko of GRU security.
It took Boychenko another hour to obtain a photograph of Khomenko. The cobbler identified him as the recipient of the forged Foster passport. Boychenko requested an immediate and full investigation of Khomenko’s background and life-style, female companions, friends, known associates both at work and in private. One fact was already known: Khomenko had been on official leave for ten days. That was no help to the investigation. But it made it imperative to identify Khomenko’s potential group of traitors and catch the ringleader. General Yemelin agreed to see Boychenko right away, and authorized the major to proceed.
Accordingly, further orders were telexed in code to the London Resident. If the assassination squad could capture and interrogate Rust without undue risk of escape (the word “undue” was Boychenko’s insurance policy), every effort must be made to extract a confession concerning the identity of a woman who might have been or posed as a doctor or someone connected with the ambulance service or a cab driver and Dynamo supporter. As it was a “wet affairs” assignment leading to the target’s elimination anyway, no limitation was to be imposed on the interrogation technique.
The KGB Resident in New York, a member of the Soviet UN delegation, was also altered. He must arrange surveillance at Idlewild airport in readiness of an Arthur Foster’s possible arrival from London. Moscow would dispatch a two-man “wet affairs” squad to New York to stand by in case the London squad had failed in some way or needed backup.
Then Boychenko had an idea. Rust might try to contact his brother in Washington. Would it not be possible to watch Elliott Repson? It was not an unreasonable chance to catch Rust that way. But the general vetoed it without any explanation.
Friday, September 28
Mississippi State University continues to disallow Negro student J. Meredith’s enrollment; Bobby Kennedy threatens to enforce government order. London Economist scorns U.S. obsession with Castro and Cuba; the fuss over some twenty missiles with a thirty-five-mile range is deemed to be semi-hysterical.
*
THE MOMENT CHARLES ENTERED THE CELL HE KNEW THAT Rust’s patience had been stretched to the limit or beyond. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come earlier.”
“That’s all right. I spent a quiet Wednesday evening, relaxed all day Thursday, and had a nice stroll from wall to wall this morning. What else coul
d I ask for?”
“I’m sorry. But we’ll have an excellent lunch sent in.” Charles threw his trench coat and gray Homburg on the bed. “I’m trying to help, believe me. If only you’d let me, I could provide security and help you contact whomever you want to.”
“I’m sure you could.” Rust pulled a bottle of pepper vodka out of the plastic bag. “We’ll drink to that.” He poured a large shot into his tooth glass, which he handed to Charles. He raised the bottle to his lips. “To friendship.” Charles tasted the liquid, and it made him cough. Rust drank and clumsily hit the edge of the stone washbasin. The vodka bottle shattered. He was left holding the neck of it like a dagger. Charles looked up startled and was about to step back, but Rust gave him no time. He rushed at the older man, spun him around, grabbed his hair from behind with his left hand and held the jagged glass to his throat.
“Now you’re unreasonable, even stupid, dear boy.”
“I know, sweetheart, but you gave me no choice.”
“You can’t get away. A guard is right outside the door.”
“I know. I want you to call him in.”
“I won’t. Not unless I shout for help. So put that stupid thing down, and we’ll forget about it, right?”
“You’re underestimating my problems, Charles. I’ll never forgive myself for it, but I’ll cut your throat if I have to.” Just as he pressed the sharp edge closer, Charles tried to turn and face him. The result was no more than a scratch. But it drew blood. “I’ve warned you. Now call the guard.” He dragged Charles to the corner, where they would be unseen when the door was opened. “No cries for help, just a call — you only want him to take us to the little office.”
Charles reached out to knock on the door. “Sergeant!”
An unarmed policeman ambled in. Rust had never had a very high opinion of British security. Now he saw no reason to change his view. The sergeant turned and was about to say something. “Shut up. You tell him, Charles.”
“Keep quiet — please.”
“Tell him to shut the door, then face the wall and put his hands up.”
Charles tried to nod, but that brought him into contact with the crude weapon. “Please,” he whispered.
The policeman hesitated, then turned and raised his hands. That was the crucial moment. Rust knew he had to move fast. He let go of Charles, picked up a chair with his left hand and hit the sergeant on the head. The man went down without a sound. Charles was too slow to take advantage of his few seconds of freedom. By the time he could have reacted, Rust was holding him once again. “Car keys.” Charles fished them out of his pocket and dropped them on the floor. Rust stepped back and hit him hard on the chin. The older man collapsed. “I’m sorry,” Rust whispered involuntarily. He bent down to check his condition. Charles seemed unconscious. Rust hoped he would not be too bad off. He picked up the keys, his briefcase and the plastic bag, put on Charles’s trench coat and Homburg, and hurried out. The key was in the lock on the outside. Rust turned it, then slipped it behind a radiator. He restrained himself from running down the corridor and through the deserted reception room.
The modified cab was parked right outside the self-closing door. He drove through the narrow passage to the street without anybody trying to stop him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he noted that it had been easy. Surprisingly easy. But he had no time to reflect on it.
*
On the third floor of the CIA headquarters at Langley, a photo analyst waited impatiently. For more than two weeks since the suspension of U-2 flights over Cuba, he had been studying earlier photographs of the missile sites, and the results began to worry him. The positioning of the surface-to-air missiles near San Cristóbal appeared to show a geometric pattern. A trapezoid. He checked the photographs taken near other Cuban towns for comparison. He connected the dots representing the SAMs and found more trapezoids. The worst of it all was that he knew that pattern only too well. Gary Powers and other U-2 pilots had photographed it over and over again around ballistic-missile silos in Soviet territory. To him the implication was that the SAMs in Cuba might be ready to defend eventually some intermediate or long-range nukes.
His chief agreed with his reasoning and saw a good case for the urgent resumption of reconnaissance flights. The meeting that was to consider the proposal had now been in session for almost three hours. The analyst was waiting to be called in. He would explain his theory and illustrate his argument. At last the door opened. It was his chief.
“Negative.”
“What happened?”
“They’ve blocked it. The suspension of flights was the decision of COMOR itself. It’s for them or USIB to reconsider your interesting though somewhat farfetched hypothesis.”
*
The police sergeant was taken to the hospital for a checkup. Charles Stoker stood among broken glass and washed his face.
“You okay?”
“Quite. It’s just that I haven’t caught one on the chin since my schooldays.” He picked up a towel and turned to Jake Schramm. Every time he met the sandy-haired, avuncular man with the big white hands, he admired whoever might have made the inspired choice of earth-moving-machinery salesman to be Schramm’s cover.
“He’s a hard hitter, my boy Rust. I trained him myself in the old days.”
“He’s still a credit to you,” said Charles and massaged his chin. “How did it go?”
“No hitch at all. He drove toward the airport and kept checking if he was followed, but of course we watched him from the traffic police chopper. He dumped your cab at Heathrow and took the bus to town. Now it’s your Special Branch squad on his tail with cars, motorbikes, station wagons, what-have-you. But I still think you’re gambling.”
“I had no choice.”
“And I’d suggest that — ”
“I know, Jake, I appreciate your help and concern. But it’s my show, and you know it.”
“Sure, sure, no argument at all, except that because it’s your show, if anything goes wrong, it’s you who may have to shoot the boy, and shoot him dead before you can be sure of his guilt.”
“Lucky you. It’s me who’ll have to live with that decision ever after.” He looked for his hat and coat.
“Oh yes,” said Schramm, leering at him, “he took the Homburg.”
“I’ll kill him twice if he loses it. Let’s go.”
In the unmarked police car, Schramm sat back and tried to think of a gentle way to declare that sooner rather than later he would have to report the situation to Langley. At the moment, Schramm was on official leave, visiting Europe as a tourist, but that couldn’t be kept up for long. Only three days ago, he came over, paying his own fare, worrying about Rust, hoping that Charles might know something about why the Upstairs had been raided by two men posing as CIA and why Jus’-juice had been shot. Now he knew only a little more and had every reason to be worried much more about his friend.
Charles sensed his mood. He put his hand on Schramm’s arm. “Let’s hope he’ll turn out to be clean.”
“Hope. That’s not good enough. He’s my friend. And I’m inclined to trust friends.”
“And I’ve always treated him as a son. But I’d shoot my own son without any compunction if he did what Helm might have done.”
“Okay, okay, I know.”
“But you still refuse to go over the facts logically. Remember 1956? I knew that something was very fishy when quite out of the blue, his old man was found alive and well and living in sunny Moscow. I told you then, right?”
“Right.”
“Then what happens next? Rust resigns. With a father in Russia, he’d have been hounded out of the agency anyway, he claims. I argue that his is a special case. He’s not interested. Had enough, he says. Enough of what? He was just about starting two careers with every promise of turning out to be brilliant both as a journalist and as an agent. But no, he’d had enough. He wanted the simple life. But we both know that he’s led anything but a simple
life. The Upstairs and the smuggling might have been lucrative fun. But he kept turning up information, channeling it through you and me and who knows who else. Why? You tell me, Jake.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps just couldn’t keep his hands out of the till. It’s habit-forming.”
“Agreed. It’s hard to give it up. Once a spy always a spy and all that. Granted. But whose spy?” Schramm moved, and Charles squeezed his arm. “Sorry. But that’s exactly what I meant. Questions must be asked, and if possible, answers must be found. So okay, he was helping us with tidbits. But then one day, a mysterious message via a defector and an alleged CIA agent, neither of whom we can trace. And then this little escapade to Moscow. What could I do? Out came my old list of questions. Did he really find his father? How? With whose help? What happened between the two when they met? Was his father the victim, the poor ex-prisoner, he claimed to be? Or was he KGB? Did he squeeze Rust? How? With what? Was it a forced resignation? If yes, why? If not, did he tell us the real reason?”
“We’ve been through that before.”
“Right. But what do I do? I help our friend with the visa and ask him to supply a few answers about camps if he can. He couldn’t be more obliging. He doesn’t forget. He returns with all the answers. Except that it’s all false. In BV 523 there’s never been a foundry. VS 389 has never had a mined outer perimeter, and its satellite camp 2-5 had been closed down before the years of the old man’s alleged imprisonment. So now I have proof. Someone’s trying to fool me. Helm? Daddy? Who? Why? Which leaves me with my original suspicion that Rusty boy’s involved in a major operation. He may be guilty or not guilty. He may have to die for nothing. That’s the gamble. But if we let him run and we see where he runs, he may, just may, take us to the hidden goodies on Treasure Island. Now you tell me where I’ve gone wrong and I call off the whole operation.”
“Well, I can’t really fault your logic.”
“But?”
“I didn’t say ‘but’.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“All right. I think you haven’t explored all your options before letting him run.”
“What options? Beating the fillings out of his teeth, or what?”
In the Company of Spies Page 22