Stallings spoke immediately. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
“Like I said on the phone, my only priority is finding and finishing Piotr Speransky. I’m here because something has obviously changed between the last time I sat in this office and this morning. If that change won’t aid in my mission, I’ll be out of here so fast it will make your head spin. Sir.”
“Don’t beat around the bush, Tanner,” he said drily. “Tell me what you really think.”
“I just don’t want to waste your time. And in that vein, why am I here?”
“I told you a couple of days ago you would not be permitted to go after Speransky. I’ve changed my mind on that subject.”
Even though that was exactly what she’d expected to hear, a jolt of adrenaline blasted through Tracie’s body at Stallings’ words. She had serious doubts she would be able to locate Speransky without the assistance of the world’s preeminent intelligence agency, but had been committed to trying. If the CIA director was telling the truth now, though, it might mean the difference between success and failure.
She maintained her composure, not wanting to let her boss see the emotions playing out inside her. “Why?” she said.
“Because I put myself in your shoes,” he said simply.
“I don’t understand.”
“As I told your mother yesterday at the funeral service, you’ve completed some critical assignments in service to this country, usually operating alone or with only minimal backup and always in harm’s way. You’ve proven yourself to be tough and resourceful, as well as extremely reliable. You’ve earned the opportunity to track down your father’s killer.”
“You understand I won’t be bringing Speransky to justice, at least not of the official variety. The only justice he’s going to receive is the kind administered with a gun.”
Stallings stared at her for a moment, his face an unreadable mask. Then he said, “And you understand I cannot officially endorse or even respond to your words.”
“Of course I do,” Tracie said.
“Then I believe nothing more needs to be said on the subject.”
“No sir, it doesn’t.”
“Good.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You don’t need to thank me, and I still feel I may be making a mistake. You’re too close to this situation. I never do anything like this. I shouldn’t allow it. But I’m going to allow it.”
They held each other’s gaze for a moment and then Tracie said, “With that out of the way, why, specifically, am I here? You wouldn’t come home from work in the middle of the morning just to tell me I’m back on the team. You could have done that tonight, after spending a full day at Langley. Something’s happening. What is it?”
Stallings nodded. “I have a line on Speransky. In fact, I have more than just a lead. I know exactly where he can be found.”
A second lightning bolt ripped through Tracie. “How is that possible, so soon after he killed my father?”
Stallings regarded Tracie appraisingly. He looked away for a moment and then back into her eyes. For the first time since they’d begun working together, Tracie sensed a certain…reluctance to speak on his part. It wasn’t fear, not exactly. Tracie doubted the CIA director was capable of fear. But there was a definite hesitation in his manner that was utterly uncharacteristic of the Aaron Stallings she had come to know.
Stallings cleared his throat and said, “I’m sure you recall the discussion we had a couple of days ago regarding your claim following Winston Andrews’ suicide, where he told you there was one or more people high in the CIA’s chain of command who were collaborating with the Soviets?”
“I didn’t claim that was what he told me,” she said, speaking slowly. “That was what he told me just before killing himself. I made that as clear as I possibly could to you, and you—”
“We’ve already had this discussion,” Stallings interrupted.
“I know, so why are you bringing it back u—”
“I’ve identified the traitor.”
Time stopped as Tracie processed the director’s words. She realized her jaw was hanging open and she slammed it closed. “Excuse me?” she finally managed.
“You assumed at the time that I would ignore Andrews’ charge, and you accused me of doing exactly that just days ago. But I take the security of this agency—and this country—seriously. Of course I was going to pursue the possibility Winston was telling the truth.”
“What does this have to do with Piotr Speransky?” A cold fury was building inside Tracie as she asked the question.
“We were able to learn Speransky’s short-term future plans from a wiretap we placed on the agency traitor’s telephone.”
“I see.” Tracie swallowed heavily, the fury mushrooming in her gut, exploding with nuclear speed. “So you’ve been tapping a Soviet collaborator’s phone while plans were being discussed to murder my father, and you didn’t feel the need to, oh, I don’t know, take action to stop the murderer?”
She had risen to her feet as she was speaking without even realizing she was doing so. Her voice rose from a near-whisper to a shout, shaking and cracking, and she leaned over Stallings’ desk, her fists planted on it as she screamed into his fleshy face.
She breathed deeply and continued, Stallings gazing impassively up at her. “You say you care about the security of the agency and the country, and that’s wonderful. You should care about that. But you’re so concerned about the agency that you’ll allow an innocent man to be slaughtered without lifting a finger to help him? That’s monstrous!”
“Are you finished?” Stallings said quietly. “Because if you’re done disparaging my character—again—it’s my turn to speak, and I’ll thank you to listen quietly and without interruption, as I’ve done to you.”
Tracie realized her entire body was shaking from anger and regret. She blew out a breath and dropped slowly into her chair.
Then she nodded. “Talk to me. Please.”
“The very day last year that you told me about Andrews’ charge, I began investigating it.”
“But you told me the matter was closed. You made it seem like Andrews’ death was the end of the traitorous activity.”
“Of course I did. As I may have mentioned once or twice, no operative, not even you, is—or should be—privy to all that’s happening behind the scenes at an agency devoted to intelligence gathering and national security. To involve you or update you on my progress would have made no sense and, in fact, would have complicated matters immensely.”
Tracie nodded. Stallings’ words made sense and she was immediately angry with herself that she hadn’t considered that possibility on her own.
“I understand,” she said. “But the larger issue remains unchanged. How could you allow my father to be victimized if you were tapping the traitor’s phone?”
“We agreed it was my turn to speak, did we not?”
“Yes, we did. Sorry.”
“It takes a long time to identify a traitor with any degree of certainty. You might think it would be simple, given the relatively small number of people inside the CIA who held positions above Winston’s. But the opposite is actually true. I couldn’t involve any high-ranking agency members in my investigation for fear that I might unwittingly involve the traitor himself. And obviously, a man committing treason against this country is going to be extremely careful to cover his tracks, particularly given his standing within the agency.”
Stallings breathed deeply and continued. “It took almost a full year to identify the security leak. I narrowed the traitor down to the three most likely possibilities—my three deputy directors—and then fed false intelligence to each, information that would seem valuable enough to pass along to the Soviets, and that would eventually show up on our analysts’ desks after being intercepted. However, it also had to be essentially harmless.”
“So none of our secrets would be at risk or our assets exposed,” Tracie said, now beginning to
grasp the enormity of the problem Stallings had faced.
“Exactly,” the CIA director said. “And if I’ve learned anything from working so closely with you over the last year-plus, it’s that you would want anyone engaged in treason against this country’s welfare to suffer the full weight of legal consequences for his actions.”
“You’re damn right I would,” Tracie said softly. The fog of fury that had dropped over her was lifting, replaced by a dawning understanding. She thought she knew what was coming next but waited for her boss to spell it out.
“That being the case,” Stallings continued, “while it would have been a simple matter to tap the traitor’s phone internally, anything we uncovered using such a wiretap would have proven inadmissible in a legal proceeding. So I had to involve the FBI and wait for them to convince a federal judge to approve the wiretap. This was another step that took much longer than you might expect.”
“And the approval came through just recently.”
“The day of your father’s murder,” Stallings said gently. “I’m sorry.”
Tracie covered her face with her hands, almost unable to believe the awful, ironic timing. Had the wiretap been approved earlier, it might have given Stallings or the FBI time to prevent Speransky from executing her father.
The news was horrific, but even through the dull, throbbing pain Tracie realized something needed to be said. She removed her hands from her face and looked her boss straight in the eyes.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. “I was so far out of line in accusing you of somehow being complicit in my father’s murder that I wouldn’t blame you if you never spoke to me again.”
He waved his hands like a man shooing away a pesky mosquito. “Water under the bridge,” he said simply. “I’ve been there, so I understand.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m telling you all of this because the information gained from the wiretap not only identified a traitor who will never take another breath of air as a free man, but also served up Piotr Speransky on a silver platter. I assume you’re interested in this information?”
“You assume correctly.”
Stallings opened a drawer in his desk. He reached down and lifted out a reel-to-reel tape player and placed it squarely in the middle of the desk. A tape had already been loaded into the machine, and when he pushed a button the tape began to turn.
28
“I don’t believe for one second you are offering General Tanner’s killer to us as some kind of olive branch between our two agencies. That’s patently absurd.” The voice on the tape was male and clearly American. Based on the words coming out of his mouth, he was a CIA employee. Tracie was certain she’d never heard his voice before, though, and had no idea who was speaking.
“I do not care,” a second man said. This voice clearly belonged to someone to whom English was a second language. Tracie was unsurprised to hear a Russian accent but couldn’t place the voice. She didn’t think the speaker was someone she’d ever met.
The tape continued to turn. “Excuse me?”
“I said I do not care what you believe or do not believe. I am not soliciting your opinion, nor am I asking your permission for anything. You are merely to act as a messenger, nothing more. You will pass along the intelligence to your superiors, exactly as I give it to you. If you do not, you will find your name splashed across every newspaper in your country as the worst traitor in American history. Am I making myself clear, Comrade Thornton?”
“I hate you.”
“I know. Am I making myself clear?”
Tracie had lowered her head as she concentrated on deciphering every nuance of the taped conversation. Her eyes had narrowed to slits and her forehead furrowed. But now her head shot up in alarm and she discovered Stallings was staring at her steadily.
“Stop the tape,” she said, but he was already reaching for the button. She sat for a moment, frozen, almost but not quite unable to comprehend what she had just heard.
“Thornton?” she whispered, and Stallings nodded.
“Roger Thornton?” she repeated. “CIA Deputy Director Roger Thornton? Is that the Comrade Thornton this KGB officer is talking to?”
The pain of betrayal was clear in Stallings’ eyes as he answered. “The one and only. I’ve known Roger for nearly forty years. I would have trusted him with my life. I did, in fact, numerous times, although all of those times were decades ago, and clearly the man on that tape is not the man I thought I knew.”
Tracie shook her head slowly. One of the CIA’s three deputy directors is a traitor. The words felt foreign to her even as they rattled around inside her head. “Now I understand how difficult it must have been to identify the leaker. Who would ever have imagined the number two man in the entire agency was a Soviet collaborator?”
“Unfortunately, not me,” Stallings said. “Had I tumbled to it a little sooner, your father might still be alive.”
Tracie thought she now understood how Alice felt after she’d fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. The CIA’s deputy director. She’d been shocked last year when Winston Andrews admitted at least one highly placed agency member was collaborating with the Soviet Union against the interests of the United States, but now she realized he’d undersold the extent of the betrayal.
The deputy director of the CIA.
Stallings sighed deeply. “Are you ready to continue?” He was clearly troubled; Tracie had never seen him this shaken.
She nodded and he punched the button on the tape player and the discussion of murder and treachery resumed.
“I hate you.”
“I know. Am I making myself clear?”
The line fell silent for a moment, and then, “Yes.”
“Good,” the Russian voice said. “Here is what you will tell your superiors.”
“There’s only one.”
“I am sorry?”
“I have only one superior, and it is the CIA director himself.”
“I am well aware of that, my friend. Now, pay attention. It is important this information gets relayed exactly as it is given. There can be no mistakes.”
“Jesus Christ almighty, just get on with it. I know how to do my job.”
“I hope so,” the Russian said. “For your sake. Here is what you must pass along. Comrade Speransky maintains a small safe house in Leningrad. He has doubtless gone underground in your country, while he waits for the opportunity to complete his mission by eliminating Agent Tanner. Once he has done so, he will leave the United States and return to Leningrad.”
“How do you know that?” Thornton asked.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, how do you know Speransky will run to Leningrad? If he’s anything like most CIA operatives, he will have established multiple safe houses all over Russia and probably all of Eurasia, independent of the KGB and unknown to you.”
“I am sure he has.”
“Then how do you know he will choose Leningrad?”
“That is none of your business, my American comrade.”
“It is my business.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. I’m not passing any intel on to my people unless I know it’s accurate and is being provided to me for the stated purpose of eliminating your man.”
The tape fell silent again. Tracie watched the clear plastic reels spinning on the machine, the tiny brown magnetic strip churning between them through the heads as the KGB caller considered Thornton’s words.
“Fair enough,” the Russian finally said. “I know he will come to Leningrad because it is the only one of Comrade Speransky’s personal safe houses that still contains any cash or other items of value. My intelligence does not come cheaply. Comrade Speransky was forced to liquidate his other remaining assets in order to pay for the information he required to even the score with your Agent Tanner.”
“You extorted him.”
“My business dealings are none of your concern, Comrade Thornton. You asked how I knew Speransky
would be found in Leningrad after murdering Tracie Tanner, and I have told you. That is all you need to know.”
“I know this: if we’re certain Speransky is going after Tanner, we can save the trouble and risk of placing a team inside Russia. We can simply wait for him to make a move on Tanner here in the states and take him down when he does.”
“I would not recommend that, my friend.”
“Really? And why is that?”
“Piotr Speransky is the finest assassin in the KGB arsenal. His status as such is the sole reason he is not rotting in a shallow grave outside Moscow after causing Slava Marinov’s death. If you try to trap him using Tanner as bait you will never succeed. He is better than anyone you have. He will kill Tanner and slip through your fingers and you will never see him again.
“Your only chance is to wait until his guard is down and execute him then. Once Tanner is dead and Speransky has returned to the Soviet Union, he will assume he has completed his mission successfully and will not be expecting reprisal, at least not immediately. That is when your team will have its greatest—indeed, its only—chance of success.”
Again the tape fell silent and again Tracie found herself questioning reality. Could she really be listening to a high-ranking KGB officer discussing her murder and the murder of her father with the man who occupied the number two rung on the CIA’s organizational chart?
It was outlandish, beyond belief, and yet the evidence was there, spooling through the little tape machine on Stallings’ desk. The evidence was there, in the paleness on Stallings’ normally ruddy face, in his obvious shock at the betrayal of one of his most trusted associates.
The evidence was all there.
Finally the voices on the tape resumed and when they did Tracie was thankful. They enabled her to again concentrate on the operational aspects of the discussion, and not on her stunned disbelief that a man in Thornton’s position could turn against his country and the people fighting to keep it safe.
“Fine,” Thornton said. “Whatever you say. What is the address of Speransky’s unofficial safe house in Leningrad?”
The Soviet Assassin Page 15