Dmitri ordered the couple to begin picketing Italian embassies in European capitals, one after another. Posing as street photographers, they had to take pictures of all small-built employees of these embassies. Dmitri’s first impulse was to start with the larger European capitals and gradually move to smaller ones. But then he shortened the list after concluding that, considering the risk involved and the amount of money commanded, “Nosik” could hardly be attached to an embassy in a small country.13
Of course, it was still a long shot, and as his assistants had left, Dmitri began thinking further. It was also possible that “Nosik” was not an embassy employee at all; he might be the subject of embassy security surveillance. The man in question could just as well be a high-ranking official of the Italian Foreign Ministry Cipher Department.
The lack of progress made Dmitri restless, and he rushed to Rome himself. Once in the city, he passed by the ministry building a few times but couldn’t think of a way to find the cipher man working there. Here, he realized that his assumption that the walk-in belonged to the diplomatic corps could be wrong; he could be just a middleman and not necessarily an Italian. He could be just the agent of some Italian traitor, a go-between of some other nationality.
These questions unanswered, Dmitri returned to Geneva. Leppin and Erica came back from their assignment empty-handed. But a letter from the Center arrived with some more details about the ill-fated walk-in. First, it was reported that the man wore a red carnation in the buttonhole of his jacket and behaved with undue familiarity. Second, his face had a golden suntan.
The first detail confirmed Dmitri’s hunch that “Nosik” wasn’t a schooled diplomat. It also dawned on him that the man’s suntan resembled one that could be seen on many people’s faces in Geneva, where mountain skiing was a favorite pastime. Thus, the reddishness of the Paris walk-in’s nose could be explained not by an inordinate love of hard liquor, as he assumed initially, but by a sunburn. Thus, “Nosik” could either be Swiss or a foreigner living in Switzerland.
The next question to be answered was where an agent of a highly placed Italian traitor could possibly position himself in that country. By the nature of his business, he had to have contacts with intelligence agents of many countries. It was logical then to assume that the targeted man had to spend lots of time in Geneva, the home of the League of Nations, a town teeming with diplomats but also with knights of the cloak-and-dagger from all over the world.
If that were true, Dmitri asked himself further, where would all these foreigners entertain themselves in Geneva, in his assessment a “boring and prim Calvinistic town”? Sorting out Geneva bars and restaurants, he thought of two of the most popular places where people like “Nosik” spent time: an expensive “International Bar” and a cheaper “Brasserie Universal.” Staking out these two places promised good results.
But how do you keep such places under surveillance without arousing any suspicion? Among many autographed pictures of celebrity patrons that covered the walls of both places, Dmitri spotted sketch artists’ works. That gave him an idea. An avid artist himself, he solicited the help of his collaborator from the time of setting up the OGPU cover company in Amsterdam, a Soviet agent of Dutch origin code-named COOPER. His true name was Henri Christian (“Han”) Pieck, and he was also a talented artist.14
As soon as Pieck arrived in Geneva, both men sat down with their pads and pencils, Dmitri at the International Bar, COOPER at the Brasserie Universal. They sketched all of the patrons who resembled the physical description of “Nosik,” and rather quickly, in one day, both of them spotted him. The man was short but strongly built, handsome, and energetic.15
Before approaching the man, Dmitri followed his own rule of learning as much as possible about his target. Already an International Bar habitué, Dmitri knew that the barman, Emile, was in the business of selling bits of his bar patrons’ background information to many foreign intelligences. According to Dmitri, the barman’s true name was Emilio Spada. He had come from a Sicilian family, part of the local mafia. In Geneva, he ran a ring of waiters, maids, and shoeshine boys who served foreigners in big hotels. Every move of the unsuspecting guest was under close surveillance. The precise coordination of these servants’ actions made it possible to ransack suitcases, briefcases, pockets, and wallets without the danger of being caught.16
Later, when they began working together, Emile revealed to Dmitri that when he had just begun his spy business, at first he could not believe his luck: all those vaunted diplomats and professional intelligence agents were real dimwits. Here they would forget to destroy a document, there they would tear it so carelessly that the parts could easily be glued together. It would even come to sending a bellboy on a secret mission to drop a letter somewhere on the outskirts of the city. Before it reached that mailbox, the letter would manage to spend some time in Emile’s hands. On top of all this, as a barman, he knew quite well that alcohol was a bad guard of secrets. As a result, a great deal of information made its way to him. Each of the bits was just a speck, but together, the specks often gave the whole picture of a foreign agent’s interests and activities. (In time, while visiting Moscow, Dmitri would make the same mistake himself, apparently forgetting to be on guard even on his own soil.)17
Dmitri slipped a large tip to the barman and learned a few things from him about his target. “Nosik” was a habitué of the bar; everybody knew him as “Rossi.” (This name became the agent’s code name in OGPU files as well.) An Italian on his mother’s side, he was born in Switzerland, served in the Swiss Army, and retired with an officer’s rank. He had strong family connections in Rome: allegedly, his mother’s uncle was one of Rome’s cardinals. ROSSI claimed to be a representative of General Motors in a number of European countries—Switzerland, Italy, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Romania. However, his real surname was not established precisely. It sounded like “de Rue” or “de Ry.” Dmitri also learned that the man owned a house and lived in one of the southern Swiss cantons.18
To uncover ROSSI’s true identity, Dmitri sent his assistants to search for the man’s house. Judging by his Italian-sounding nickname and French-sounding surname, most likely he resided in a canton with either a predominately Italian or French population. Leppin took care of the Italian canton Ticino, and Erica headed for the French mountain cantons. They visited the landlord associations of these cantons and, under an innocent pretext, checked the list of house owners. They found no listing for “de Rue” but three for “de Ry.” One of them, Jan, age sixty-seven, was listed as a merchant whose house was located in Nyon. Age-wise, he could not possibly be ROSSI. Another one, Victor, age thirty-two, was a Swiss Army captain and had a house in Sion (in the canton of Valais).19
First, Dmitri decided that Victor was ROSSI. He immediately dispatched Leppin and Erica to Victor’s house to stake him out and take his picture. When the agents came back and developed their film, Dmitri was disappointed: the man did not resemble ROSSI in any way. The third “de Ry” turned out to be a woman named Valerie. She was married and had four children living with her in the resort town of “St. Alberto” (in his writings, to avoid disclosure of the real place of action, Bystrolyotov replaces the real name of the Swiss town with the invented one). This was the last chance. Dmitri sent Pieck to the town to find out all he could about Valerie de Ry.
To approach the target of his reconnaissance mission inconspicuously, Pieck traveled to the picturesque town, taking along his easel and brushes. He positioned himself in a corner of the town square and began painting, counting on arousing the curiosity of the locals. The plan worked. Soon, a group of the town’s children surrounded him. Pieck joked and fooled around with them. Once he got the children in a playful mood, he engaged them in a game that consisted of a child telling his or her name, first and last, in exchange for a piece of candy.
The ploy paid off: soon he got who he was looking for. One of the girls was “de Ry.” Expanding on the game, Pieck offered her another piece of candy in exchang
e for her parents’ names. “Valerie and Giovanni” was the child’s answer. As luck had it, the girl turned out to be talkative and told him more than Pieck expected, things she had learned around her family’s dinner table. She said that their house actually belonged to her mother, not her father, and that, from time to time, they took in boarders.
After a while, the artist wandered with his easel and palette around the town and, chatting with a local fruit seller, asked him to recommend a good boarding house for a few days’ stay. Among two others, the seller suggested Valerie de Ry’s house. He also passed to Pieck the town gossip confirming what he already knew: that the house belonged to Valerie de Ry herself, not to her husband. The fruit seller told the artist that this was a result of scheming on the part of Valerie’s husband, Giovanni. Ousted from the Swiss Army for some improprieties, to protect the house from the possibility of being confiscated in case of his trouble with the law, he had bought it in the name of his wife. That way, nobody could touch property that did not belong to him personally.
Back in Geneva, Dmitri ran the town rumors by barman Emile. The barman told him that he had also heard them and added that, as far as he knew, ROSSI managed to keep a connection with the Swiss Army Headquarters by watching over the diplomatic and intelligence crowd swarming around the League of Nations. The barman also warned Dmitri that ROSSI was a cheat and an insolent fellow and that he could be dangerous.
That did not stop Dmitri, who, by the time of this operation, had been through many life-threatening situations that made him a fearless and courageous man. Now, when he knew as much as he possibly could about his “Nosik,” there was no other way but for Dmitri, at his own risk, to approach the man. One day, while posing as a sketch artist at the entrance of the bar, Dmitri saw ROSSI enter. Putting away his drawings, Dmitri followed him all the way to the counter and sat down next to him. ROSSI ordered a double whiskey. To draw the man’s attention, Dmitri not only repeated his order word for word but also imitated the man’s mannerisms of speech and gestures. The maneuver worked. “Nosik” turned toward Dmitri and began scrutinizing him. To impress him, Dmitri opened his solid-gold cigarette case, took out a cigarette for himself, and offered one to the man. “Nosik” took a cigarette. Dmitri clicked his lighter. “Nosik” asked the stranger, “What’s next?”
“Next is a heart-to-heart conversation,” Dmitri replied. “We’ve known each other for a long time.”
“Really? I can’t recall your face,” “Nosik” shrugged. “Who introduced us?”
“Not who—but what!” Dmitri paused, blew several smoke rings, and then whispered into the man’s ear, “Italian ciphers!”
“Nosik” winced, but he got hold of himself right away. He paid for his and Dmitri’s drinks and, as soon as they walked out, grabbed his elbow in the manner of a policeman dragging a hobo to the precinct. “Well?”
Dmitri laughed. “By the way, would you mind letting go of my elbow? I’m quite good at karate. And I can get an ace from ten steps, shooting through my pocket.”20
Dmitri was not bluffing. Although as an agent recruiter he did not have to bear arms, he saw his work as a romantic endeavor. Carrying a gun made it more exciting for him. Soon after going underground, while on business in Lichtenstein, he had bought a revolver and in his spare time taught himself to shoot in the manner of American gangsters in Hollywood movies—through his jacket pocket. He wasted lots of old jackets but finally learned to do it well.21
Dmitri also informed ROSSI that he knew everything about him, including his home in “St. Alberto.” ROSSI let go of Dmitri’s elbow.
“Let’s assume,” he said, “that my name’s Johnny.”
Dmitri replied in the same tone, “Let’s assume my name’s Jackie.”
He knew that telling ROSSI the truth—admitting he was a Soviet intelligence officer—would be counterproductive. Most likely, it would only turn ROSSI off. It was logical to assume that, after the dirty trick played on him at the Soviet Embassy in Paris back in 1928, he would hardly be willing to have anything to do with the Soviets who had cheated and humiliated him.22
Therefore, Dmitri decided to work under a “false flag”—to pretend that he represented not Soviet intelligence but the intelligence of some other country. He recalled the character of an American gangster working for a Japanese spy agency he had created back in 1930 on the spur of the moment while visiting with Mr. Habert, the dean of diplomats in the free city of Danzig. The image had worked well for him then. It was worth using it again. And he told ROSSI that, since their complexion and other physical features of their race constrained them in their European operations, the Japanese hired him to procure Italian diplomatic ciphers.23
Dmitri rightly assumed that ROSSI would not ask how he knew that he was in the business of selling the ciphers. This information could come from many quarters other than the Soviet Embassy in Paris. A flourishing black market of international codes and ciphers in Geneva made such a question superfluous. Dmitri’s brash handling of the man paid off. ROSSI offered him some fresh goods that had come into his possession for a short time: reports of Mussolini’s advisers and ciphered Italian diplomatic dispatches.24
Soon, ROSSI began supplying the OGPU with Italian diplomatic codes on a permanent basis. He also sold contacts with informers and agents in Geneva for five hundred dollars apiece. But, as Emile the barman warned Dmitri, ROSSI turned out to be a shady character indeed, a cheat and a liar. Apparently, to cover up the fact that he was selling the same ciphers to many other foreign agents, he invented a story that Mussolini’s son-in-law, Count Ciano, was the organizer of underground trading of Italian diplomatic codes. Presumably on his instructions, ROSSI made the rounds of embassies of the great powers in European capitals and sold Italian diplomatic ciphers at the highest price. After taking the cream of the profit, he turned to mid-size countries, eventually selling the ciphers to the smallest possible bidders. When all possible profits had been taken in, Count Ciano changed the ciphers, and the whole business began anew.
Moreover, ROSSI insisted that the Duce himself was aware of the scheme and profited from it. To make his story believable, ROSSI also told Dmitri that after Bessedovsky’s defection and his publication of a book in which he revealed the offer of Italian ciphers, a scandal seemed imminent. To prevent it, on Ciano’s cue, his agent at the Italian Embassy in Berlin hid the cipher book in the cabinet in the embassy restroom and reported its disappearance. Ciano ordered an immediate search of the premises, “found” the cipher book, arrested the poor Italian cipher clerks, and sent them to the Italian equivalent of Alcatraz, on the “Devil’s Island” of Stromboli, one of the Eolie Islands (Lipari Islands), in the Tyrrhenian Sea near northeastern Sicily. They all perished there. Then, the scandal was successfully suppressed. Indoctrinated in Soviet ideological dogma, according to which the bourgeois West was thoroughly corrupt, Dmitri and the Center easily believed that tall tale.25
But when it came to money ROSSI had no scruples whatsoever. At their first trade interaction, he suggested that, instead of two hundred thousand genuine francs, he would accept a million counterfeit American dollars. More than once he tried to get advance payment for making contacts with information sources that were not there. He also tried to sell the same ciphers twice. If money were involved, he didn’t think twice, even though he could run into serious trouble. Once, traveling with Bystrolyotov, he was almost caught by customs guards smuggling a wad of Brussels lace into Great Britain.26
Later on, he even turned dangerous. When the Japanese intelligence in Tokyo bought some diplomatic ciphers from him and, soon after, Bystrolyotov purchased the very same ciphers from him, ROSSI realized that he had been duped twice by the Soviets. He decided to get even with them by murdering their slick agent. After one of their meetings in Geneva, ROSSI invited Dmitri to stop by his place for a cup of coffee to see how he lived. Though he knew that ROSSI’s home was in the provinces, Dmitri thought that the man might also have some city quarters and accep
ted the invitation. ROSSI brought Dmitri to a gated mansion in the depths of one of Geneva’s parks, where a servant in livery opened the gates.27
As he walked through the hall, Dmitri immediately suspected that he was trapped: antique furniture, sculptures, and expensive pictures on the walls were covered with dust. Dmitri had a feeling that nobody had lived in the house for a long time. ROSSI took Dmitri to a guestroom, offered him a seat, and sat down himself on a couch a few yards away. While Dmitri was marveling over the fancy interior, a gun appeared in ROSSI’s hand. The self-satisfied grin on his face made Dmitri realize that he had fallen into a trap. His first thought was that ROSSI would try to extort money from him. But things turned out to be much worse than that. “I brought you here,” ROSSI hissed, “to finish you off. I’ve suspected all along that you’re a Russian spy. And I hate Russians. Now, I’ll turn you into ground meat right this minute.”28
First Dmitri tried to reason with him. But when this didn’t work, trying not to lose self-control, he looked at his watch and said as calmly as possible, making sure that ROSSI heard him clearly, “My people are in cars all around this park. If I don’t leave this house in fifteen minutes, a dozen brutes will break in here. They’ll turn you and your pictures into such ground beef that all the butchers in Geneva will applaud in delight.”
This worked. ROSSI stopped grinning. “What cars? What?”
“Only thirteen minutes left before you’ll see for yourself,” Dmitri said, looking again at his watch. “Take away your stupid cannon and let’s talk business.”
“It was a joke,” ROSSI said, hiding his gun. “Can’t you take a joke? Sorry, old man.”
“I don’t like jokes of that kind,” Dmitri said firmly. “Try to refrain from them in the future.”29
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