Cold War Trilogy - A Three Book Boxed Set: of Historical Spy Versus Spy Action Adventure Thrillers

by William Brown

  “I would have loved to talk to him about that, Herr Reichsleiter.”

  “I’m sure, but all that fool would tell our people was that he was on a routine combat patrol in the Baltic when the Russians sank his submarine, nothing more, not even when the Navy questioned him. He claimed it was a Russian airplane, off the coast of Poland, near Danzig, not a day’s sailing west of Königsberg. Damn the man! Off Poland, under the noses of the Russian Navy, where we cannot touch it. He says he was the only one got out, and never budged from the story we gave him that he was carrying nothing unusual and there was nothing in the torpedo rooms except torpedoes.”

  “What would you expect him to say?” Kruger shrugged. “He could hardly admit what he was really carrying, could he? The Americans would have called him a war criminal, the Russians would have thrown him in the Lubyanka, and we would have put a bullet in him.”

  “Indeed, Heinz. Indeed. But we have a serious inconsistency here,” Bormann turned his malevolent gaze on Kruger. “Was he sunk off Poland or off Sweden? Whom are we to believe? Bruckner, the Russians, or this American provocateur? Even the good Admiral could not be in two places at once.”

  “As I said, Herr Reichsleiter, someone is toying with us.”

  “Yes,” Bormann’s eyes turned hard. “But who? Bruckner is a West German Admiral now, a very powerful one. You know how I abhor waste. A man in his position in NATO and Bonn could be of great value to us, so I don’t want him killed, not yet.” Bormann looked Kruger over as he would a champion hunting dog, critically, but fondly. “Send a message to our people in Washington. I want to know everything there is to know about this American, Randall. Everything. Then, I want you to take a trip to New York.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Reichsleiter,” Kruger made a slight bow, his eyes flashing in eager anticipation. “And then?”

  “Find him, and make him talk. Learn who he works for, what he knows, and why he is saying these things about Bruckner. After that, you are free to amuse yourself, Heinz. After, but not before.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  New York City

  Sneaking out of a big hotel without being noticed is not particularly difficult, especially if it’s a large hotel like the Plaza, with a half-dozen exits and little security. It is even easier if you’ve been trained to do things like that. Still, even the simplest of espionage tasks has risks. After the fiasco that morning, there were many more police and FBI agents in the lobby and down on the street; and his face had been all over the New York City newspapers, greatly increasing his risk of being recognized. The guards would be looking for people sneaking in, however, not out. Without the uniform and the gold braid, no one should notice a gray, stoop-shouldered old man shuffling out the back door; or so he hoped.

  This trip to America wasn’t something he wanted to make to begin with, and his nerves had been on edge ever since he left Germany. He was a coward and he hated to take risks, particularly unnecessary ones. When those reporters came at him in the lobby, it nearly destroyed what little confidence he had left. Moments later, when that American provocateur began shouting at him, asking about the U-boat and Sweden of all places, saying he was there, it pushed him over the edge. He panicked, and he couldn’t let that happen again. If he did, Varentsov would have him shot without a second thought.

  So, who was this American? CIA? FBI? Another damned Israeli? Whichever, it was clear that someone was watching him. They were out to trick him, to catch him in a false step, and to trip him up over his legend. That was why he had to go out. He couldn’t sit in his hotel room and simply hope for the best. No, he had to find Radetsky and talk to him. Radetsky was his case officer, his handler, and he would know what to do.

  All evening he sat alone in the hotel room with that damned American’s words ringing in his ears. He tried to ignore them, but it was no use. Over the past three years, the pressure had taken its toll. He was out of shape, out of practice, and too damned scared to hope to get it right anymore. Not that he was ever very good at it. From that very first day in 1933, he told them he had no stomach for fieldwork. He begged and pleaded, but they wouldn’t listen. His real name was Rudolph Friesemann, a simple bookkeeper and the son of a minor Communist official in Leipzig who fled to the Soviet Union before the war. All he wanted was a life of quiet anonymity, a simple staff job in Moscow where he could translate Nazi documents and make radio broadcasts. He was no spy, so how could those fools at the Center expect him to impersonate a dashing German U-boat captain? Bruckner had been a leader of men, a combat veteran with nerves of steel who had hunted the enemy on the high seas. Impersonate a man like that? The very idea was ludicrous.

  Unfortunately, the MVD spymasters in Moscow never asked his opinion about that, or about anything else; especially that bald-headed bastard Varentsov, Deputy Chief of Foreign Intelligence. Friesemann had always been a good Party member in Leipzig. He paid his Party dues every month. He attended all the rallies. He marched in the streets on the holidays and knew the words to all the songs. He had even been beaten up by the Brown Shirts when he was a teenager. Moreover, Friesemann was a true believer. His father had grabbed the family and fled to Moscow in 1933 with Ulbrecht and what was left of the German Communist Party Central Committee when the Nazis came to power. They made themselves useful in Moscow and the Russians should have been satisfied. He wasn’t cut out for field work. They should have left him at his desk job. When the war ended, Varentsov hatched a plan to flood Western Europe with agents, and he had other plans for even a mouse like Rudolph Friesemann.

  Varentsov had his choice of tens of thousands of sailors, airmen, and German infantry troops who had been lost at sea, in the ice and drifting snow of the Eastern Front, or in the bottomless pits of the Gulag. They had seized the German Navy records when Berlin fell, records of real men who did not need to be invented. Soon, Varentsov found precisely what he had been looking for — a German U-boat that had gone down with all hands in the Baltic. Hundreds of German submarines had been lost in the war and precisely where didn’t matter, since he had the only records and there was no one left to question them. The U-582 fit the bill perfectly. Its Kapitan had been apolitical and a highly decorated war hero. Few of his family had survived the war, and those who did were in the Eastern Zone, under the watchful eyes of the MVD. Friesemann was the right height and build. His head was the right size, and the plastic surgeons said his facial structure was almost a perfect match. So, on that day in 1948 when he stepped off the train in Vienna, Rudolph Friesemann, the mousey bookkeeper from Leipzig, ceased to exist, and Kapitan Eric Bruckner rose from the grave like the great god Neptune rising from the sea.

  Neptune! It was the name that fat pig Varentsov gave him when he was stupid enough to argue with him one too many times. Still, Friesemann was right. A house mouse like him masquerading as a great war hero? No one who knew him in Moscow would ever believe it. But he was only one small part of Varentsov’s grand plan to infiltrate dozens of agents into the military and governmental structure of West Germany, and the Russian could not be dissuaded. A few successes were well worth any price, and the failures would leave the West Germans and their American masters believing Bonn was riddled with spies. That was why Varentsov wouldn’t listen to Friesemann’s arguments. This was the opportunity of a lifetime for an ambitious Russian spymaster determined to make his mark, no matter whom he killed in the process. If he succeeded, anything was in reach for him — Director of the Division, Chairman of the Committee, even a seat on the Politburo. For a prize like that, he’d risk a bookkeeper like Friesemann and a hundred like him. To ensure that Friesemann fully appreciated his position, the Russian took him on a personal tour of the torture cells of the Lubyanka. They were on the bottom level of MVD Headquarters in Moscow and reserved for only the most “special” cases. Friesemann would never forget the man’s cruel laughter as it echoed through that cold, damp hell-hole.

  “It is very simple,” Varentsov told him. “You shall do exactly what I tell you and you s
hall keep doing it, or you will find yourself down here as my guest, Friesemann. When they have finally finished with you, it is off to a labor camp at Vorkuta, where you can die a slow, cold death chipping uranium ore from the permafrost with a dull pickaxe. Do you understand me, ‘Neptune’?”

  It was 10:00 PM. Night had finally fallen and Friesemann staggered to the sink to splash cold water on his face. “Oh, God,” he groaned when he saw the pale, haggard figure in the mirror before him. He had to grip the side of the sink to stop his hands from shaking. Not yet forty years old, he looked like an old man. Well, at least he wouldn’t need any makeup to complete his disguise, not tonight; but he had no choice. He had to talk to his case officer, Dimitri Radetsky. That sly old fox Dimitri, he would understand and pull him out. The spotlight was on him now, and the holes in his legend would soon begin to show, no thanks to that damned American. Friesemann felt a sense of relief wash over him. This trip to the United States had been a horrible miscalculation, but that was Varentsov’s fault. He would heap the blame on Friesemann, but it wasn’t anything the German did. The hole was in the background story. Still, as Radetsky once told him with that soft, bittersweet smile of his, “Shit flows downhill, my dear Neptune. See to it that you aren’t the only one at the bottom without a bucket.” But Friesemann didn’t care anymore; he was finished as an agent, and that was all that mattered. They’d be forced to pull him out and finally put an end to this hopeless charade. First, he had to find Radetsky.

  The MVD had spent years creating this elaborate deception, adding layer upon layer like the thin veneer on a delicate Russian lacquered box, only to see it shatter into a million pieces by one shrill voice calling out to him in the hotel lobby. In his plaid shirt and blue jeans, the American looked ridiculous, like a pig farmer with mud on his boots. Ridiculous! Who would ever dress an agent like that? But could his story be true? Sweden. What had Moscow Center overlooked? Was it that simple? Sloppy, arrogant staff work? Or, had he blundered into a very clever American trap?

  Friesemann stumbled around the hotel suite, knowing he had to keep moving. He slipped into an old pair of brown slacks, a cheap sweater, and the wrinkled civilian raincoat he carried in the bottom of his suitcase. They were his escape clothes. He hid them there for the unthinkable of unthinkables — in case he had to cut and run and needed an improvised disguise. “Keep moving!” his brain screamed. If he paused for even an instant, he’d have a complete breakdown. He stumbled to the door and listened for footsteps in the hallway. Nothing. Slowly, he turned the knob and pulled the door open, a crack, no more, to peek outside. Still nothing, so he took the plunge. He pulled the raincoat around him and went out, heading straight for the fire stairs without daring to glance left or right. In five seconds, he was through the fire door and out of sight.

  Friesemann flew down the stairs so fast he had to grab the banister with both hands to keep from falling. Flight after flight, he fought back waves of nausea until he ran headlong into a concrete wall. “My God!” he cried out. He had reached the bottom and he hadn’t even realized it. “Get control of yourself, man,” his brain screamed. “Stay calm!” But it did no good. Sweat rolled down his face as he yanked the fire door open and ran outside into the dark alley, fighting back the urge to bend over and throw up. No, that would be a dead giveaway, so he paused to take several deep breaths to clear his head. Finally, he began walking, one step at a time, until he reached the corner and turned up a side street. He quickened his pace and took a series of twists and turns, around one corner, then another, steadily heading south and west through the dark city streets. At each turn, he glanced back over his shoulder, terrified that he might actually see someone following him. If he had, Friesemann knew he’d fall over dead on the spot.

  Ten agonizing minutes later, he saw an empty telephone booth on a deserted side street. Stepping inside, he dropped a few coins in the slot and his trembling finger dialed the number Radetsky had given him only a week before; confident he would never, ever need to use it. He let the telephone ring the prescribed three times, then hung up. Sixty seconds later, he dialed the same number again. When someone picked up at the other end, Friesemann’s voice cracked as he asked, “Is this Seventh Avenue Appliances? When can I pick up the order for… ?” He paused as he read the sign on the dark storefront across the street. “Mid-State Imports,” he said slowly and clearly. “Yes, yes, the order for Mid-State Imports, the one over on Third Avenue.” He cringed, realizing how badly he had fumbled his way through the pick-up convention.

  “What?” a man’s confused, accented voice replied. “Seventh Avenue Appliances? This is no store. You have wrong number,” he said as he slammed the phone down.

  A sense of relief washed over him. He had done his part, lamely perhaps, but it was done and now he could wait for Radetsky to pick him up. Good old Dimitri! Safe, reliable, Dimitri, the father confessor of wayward spies. He’d make everything right, if he would only hurry. With Friesemann’s luck, a new Code Clerk Second Class was on duty, some clod who slept through his ciphers class and hadn’t even bothered to read the orders of the day. The vaunted MVD? The German knew better; he’d seen the slow-footed Soviet spy apparatus close-up and knew better. But as he glanced nervously up and down the street, he realized that in his haste he’d picked a bad spot. The street was too dark, too deserted; there was very little traffic; and there were no pedestrians. A car picking up a man on foot would stand out, and Radetsky would mark him down for that.

  “Oh, my God,” he began to tremble when he saw a large dark automobile turn the corner two blocks away and come slowly up the street with its headlights pointed straight at him. He held his breath as the car swung to the curb and stopped in front of the phone booth. It was a dark blue Buick, the right color and model. Its rear door opened and Friesemann darted out of the phone booth, leaped into the back seat, and burrowed into the corner where the seat met the door. The car quickly drove away, and a sense of physical relief washed over him in wave after calming wave. He closed his eyes, wishing he could melt into the leather seat cushions, forgetting even the most basic things. Quickly, he sat up and looked back through the rear window to see if he’d been followed.

  “Do not worry, Neptune. You weren’t,” he heard an all-too-familiar voice lash at him from the other side of the car. “No thanks to your monumental stupidity!”

  Friesemann’s heart stopped. It was Varentsov, not Radetsky, and the German’s sense of relief turned instantly to stark terror. Without looking, he saw the round face, the beady little eyes, and the sharp teeth that had taunted him since his first days of training. “I… I was supposed to be meeting Radetsky, where is he?” Friesemann whispered, his voice breaking. “Radetsky is my case officer, not you. I demand to see Radetsky.”

  “Demand? You ‘demand’?”

  “I… I mean, he’s my handler… he was supposed to come for me.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he was. But you would have a very one-sided conversation. You see, poor Dimitri’s ‘health’ took a sudden turn for the worse over the weekend. You know how that can happen in our line of work. Life is so unpredictable, so… unforgiving. That’s why I had to come here myself to wet nurse our daring Neptune through an operation once again.” The man was the devil himself and the German knew he could never match wits with Varentsov. The man could read minds. He could smell fear. He would pick Friesemann apart, one tiny lie and blunder at a time.

  “I’m confident you have a good reason for calling me out in the middle of the night, Neptune. In addition to ruining a fine dinner, you put yourself in the gravest of danger, begging the FBI to follow you. Is that what you wanted? To leave a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow, so they can catch you, then catch me and roll up our entire network here in New York. Is that what you wanted, to ruin me and bring me down?”

  “No, no, didn’t you hear what happened at the hotel this morning?”

  “Of course I heard; I heard how you mumbled and stumbled and fell to pieces.”

>   “That American, he said the U-boat was sunk off Sweden. Sweden! You realize what that means, don’t you, comrade Varentsov?”

  “No, tell me, Neptune. Tell me what it means,” the Russian said, sounding like a pedantic schoolteacher at the end of a long, hot day.

  “They are onto me. That business about Sweden? There must be a hole in the Neptune legend. You must pull me out. Can’t you see my cover is blown?”

  Varentsov stared at him. If Friesemann hoped to find any help there, he was sadly mistaken. “Neptune, Neptune,” he answered quietly. “You should be honored. Someone went to a great deal of trouble to stage that marvelous performance for you this morning. The whole thing was for your benefit, and such a clever twist. Total nonsense of course, but a very clever twist.”

  “The man saw right through me. He knew I wasn’t Bruckner,” Friesemann begged. “The way he looked at me. He knew; he knew!”

  “You still don’t get it, do you?” Varentsov shook his head. “It was the way you looked at him, you fool! You played right into his hands; you panicked, and you ran. If they really knew you weren’t Bruckner or if the Americans had the slightest shred of proof you are one of my agents, they would have grabbed you by the balls and hauled you away. You’d be in one of the FBI’s prison cells right now, singing your lungs out.”

  “No, I swear I wouldn’t!” the German pleaded.

  “Stop your blubbering. Even a fool like you can see that the Americans aren’t the ones behind this provocation. It is the Jews. They jabbed you with a sharp stick to see if your right arm would snap up with a loud ‘Sieg Heil,’ and you were stupid enough to fall right into their trap. The Zionists are incensed that any German would be given a top NATO post and they are out to destroy you. The Americans are nothing. It’s the Zionists you should be concerned about… and, of course, you should be concerned about me.”