by James Grady
"You'll do fine, my boy," the old man had said as he shook Malcolm's hand good-bye. "Just keep your head and everything will work out splendidly."
Malcolm nodded numbly. A man he had never seen before drove him to Washington's National Airport. Neither he nor Malcolm spoke during the ride. At the airport Malcolm carefully avoided the men's room where over a year before he had ambushed and killed the agent Maronick. Malcolm's silent escort stayed until his charge boarded the plane. Malcolm turned at the bottom of the stairs and looked to where his escort stood. The sun was just coming up and the airport lights were still on. Few people moved through the terminal. For no reason, Malcolm waved good-bye to his escort. The escort didn't respond.
And now here I am, thought Malcolm, flying to Montana to play spy, a pistol packed in my bags, a cover story as a social data analyst for the Defense Mapping Agency, and no idea how to do whatever it is I am supposed to do besides be there.
Malcolm smiled. I'm there because I'm there to be there, he thought, and it's too late to change anything now. His smile stayed with him for several minutes while be thought of nothing in particular. Finally he raised his eyes and looked toward the serving galley. The same stewardess noticed his attention and returned his gaze questioningly. Some coffee might taste good, thought Malcolm, besides, I don't have to pay for it. He beckoned politely and the stewardess came to him.
While Malcolm ordered coffee from the stewardess, two other conversations in different places were taking place. The first conversation was between a night duty officer in the East Berlin office of the KGB and his superior. The superior rested his steaming cup of tea on the desk and leaned back in his swivel chair. With a very tired sigh he put his huge feet on top of the desk. "Oh, Myia," he said, his voice heavy and old, "life can be very hard."
The duty officer solicitously shifted in his hard wooden chair. Over the last, two years these evening tea breaks had grown into a valuable custom. He could tell his superior relished the opportunity to drop the heavy, chain-of-command authority and lighten his load of responsibilities by talking informally with a kindly underling. And ambitious Illyia prided himself on being a good listener.
"Yes," Illyia replied, hoping the conversation would be about more than family problems, "that it can be, that it can be."
"Would that we were back in Mother Russia, where we have competent men to help us, not bunglers like these Germans. Why we tolerated them and accepted them after the Great Patriotic War is beyond me. There is much to be said for solidarity of the working classes, but when these Germans-who make such a boast of their efficiency -bungle and flop about so, it can be trying to those of us who must clean up after them."
"That it can be, Comrade Captain," said Illyia. His interest mounted. Something definitely was or had happened. He decided to risk boldness. "And what have our friends done now?"
"Hmmph," grunted, the older Russian as he leaned farther back in his chair and closed his eyes. "'Friends?' What haven't they done? They've spoiled a perfectly good reconnaissance mission, that's what they've done. And put us in what our English counterparts would call 'a pickle.' I wonder who thought that up? An absurd euphemism if I ever heard one!"
"Ah, well," said Illyia, groping for the right words. He was afraid he would break the fragile chain of relaxed communication if he pressed too hard for details, yet he was also afraid to shift subjects and lose what might be a fantastic opportunity. "Even the English have their bunglers."
"Yes, but unfortunately for us, none of them appear to be agents as those the Germans employ for intelligence.
Nk Bahl Intelligence! It would make me laugh if it were not so horrible!"
"Surely things can't be that bad, Comrade.",
"They can't be?" shouted the commanding officer. He slammed his feet to the floor and leaned over the desk, his eyes blazing. "They can't be? Ha, that's what you think!"
"Well,’’
"Comrade Illyia," the commander interrupted in a reprimanding tone, "have you ever heard of anything so stupid as to hire a courier, a professional intelligence operative, mind you, not some idiot compromised off the street, but a professional intelligence operative ... who drinks? Yes, drinks! And not drinks Re a man, like a wise operative, no, no, no, but who drinks until he gets blind, stinking drunk like a common peasant, and who not only gets drunk but who rambles about the business when he is drunk?"
"You're right," Illyia quickly interjected, "what could be stupider than that?"
"What could be more stupid than that? I'll tell you! You not only hire that courier and send him places where he can babble, you tell him things to babble, and he does, and he gets caught, and there you are!"
"Where, Comrade?’’
"In trouble, that's where. Their stupid accounting department let the courier know some of the funds he was carrying were destined for a missile reconnaissance mission in the United States. They even let him make the drop himself at the London airport, and what is worse, they let him know what flight out our reconnaissance man was taking. Their stupid courier not only drinks, he's curious maybe he thought of going over someday, I don't know. He hangs around until he sees our man pick up the delivery." no backup. Moscow still hasn't learned of anything being done. So it's up to us to try to patch the whole mess together."
"To us, sir?"
"Well, we handle part of it. Day after tomorrow we're sending over another operative. The first one couldn’t complete the mission. Since we don't think the Americans know what is going on, Moscow decided to risk one more man. I don't know what could be worth that, but that is probably just as well. In any event, we're shipping the man out through the Berlin run on Tuesday."
"Underground?"
"No, he's taking the morning flight through to London, then Canada. From then on ifs someone elses worry. We just have to make sure he boards that plane."
"We can do that, sir," Illyia said confidently, very carefully keeping triumph out of his voice. Tuesday. He had plenty of time.
"I hope so, Myia," replied the commander slowly, "I hope so. I'm very tired. Could you fix me some more tea, please? Then perhaps we should get back to work." ,
"With pleasure, Comrade Captain, with pleasure." Illyia hummed softly while he prepared the tea. He had already done a fine night's work.
A fairly stable clientele frequents the small bar just off West Berlin's major business district. Soldiers from the four Allied nations rarely come, partly because few young, single frauleins patronize the establishment. The bar isn’t ritzy enough to attract numbers of successful businessmen or tacky enough to attract some of Berlin's less desirable people. The crowd is mostly middle class, clerical workers, traveling salesmen and commuters who seek a place to rest before catching a shuttle flight or a bus to one of the neighborhoods on the city's tightly patrolled fringe. In London the bar would be the neighborhood pub acclaimed in Sunday journals. In America it would be a roadside tavern in suburbia. In Berlin it is just another Stube. Berlin probably has more spies per square mile than any other city in the world, but neither American nor West German security services list this particular bar as a favorite hangout for espionage agents. While Malcolm flew to Montana and Myia pumped his superior -on the other side of the Berlin Wall, two spies met in that small Berlin bar.
The first spy was Kevin Powell. He had arrived in Berlin the day before, after spending two fruitldss days in London searching for a clue to Parkins' death. He found none. Parkins' case officer in London contacted an Air Force Intelligence operative stationed in Berlin who had once worked a great deal with the dead man. Parkins' former partner was the other spy in the Berlin bar, and he was the sole reason Kevin had come to Berlin.
"Shame about old Parky," said the other man -softly, a rotten shame. How did he die?"
Kevin looked at the small man seated opposite him. Kevin hadn't liked the man's choice for a meeting place, but he wanted to keep the operative as relaxed as possible so anything he knew would be easier to discover. Kevin swore soft
ly to himself. The man was another one of the general's, blundering heroes.
"You don't want to know," Kevin said firmly, "and, as you probably already know, security would keep me from telling you even if I know."
The man understood the rebuke. He stiffened noticeably. It wasn't every day a senior officer in AFI flew all the way to Germany to question him about a dead co-worker. "Sorry, just curious. You can't blame me. I mean, after all, I did work with the guy for six months one year and off and on since we've been in the European section."
Kevin smiled, deliberately emitting warmth. "I understand, I'm banking on you knowing a lot about him. I want you to tell me about him, everything and anything you can think of. Start with when you first met him, cover the missions you went on together, tell me about his homelife, what he did in his off-hours, his opinions---"pecially about work-what you know about the way he operated, everything. I especially need any information about things he was on in the last six months. His reports to his case officer were sketchy."
The other man laughed. "They would be. He didn't think much of our outfit, didn't like to ' work with the CO until he had pretty much finished everything himself. Then he'd giye them one of his ten-pound reports, complete with charts, notes, pictures, the whole schmeer, all of which justified the way he worked, even if the project wasn't worth a damn. Kept the Firm from coming down on him too hard. Parky always said the brass mucked things up if they got involved.
Kevin's companion took a small swig of beer before continuing. "You sure you want everything? It might take awhile."
Kevin looked around. They sat at a table in the far comer opposite the door. The booth behind them was empty, the crowd was light. The nearest person sat almost fifteen feet away. Kevin faced the door and the bar. He could see anyone who approached their table. He doubted the place was bugged, and the odds of an agent entering the bar and recognizing the two of them seemed slim. "We have all the time we need. I want everything you cangive me.
The other man shrugged and began. "I first met him at the introductory briefing the general gave our section, The old 'good luck team' speech. We didn't talk much, and I didn't really get to know him until we both turned up in the English section two months afterward. Then. . . ."
Two hours later Kevin stifled a yawn. He wasn't bored, he was tired. The eager, hopeful concentration his listening entailed was more difficult than physical labor. The little man talked almost steadily, with little prompting from Kevin. The little man liked to talk, and that plus some of the stories he told made Kevin very glad, the little man and he were not working together. The reminiscences left straight, chronological narrative and were now well into the impressions stage. With five beers under his belt, the general's man was also becoming less concise. Kevin was afraid to cut his ramblings too shot. One never knew what tidbit turned out to be important.
". . . and so that's why Parky kept the extra London flat, a nice place to go to ground. Actually, I think he never intended to use it for that. I think it was a nice little pad for Parky to play in, but he got the old general to foot the bill.
"Parky always liked England, though for the life of me I can't see why. Miserable weather. Duty pay there not so great. He said it was a good country to have as a backup too. Once he told me you could depend on them to hold things for you." Kevin’s mind clicked. "What? What do you mean, hold things for you?"
The little man shrugged. "I don't know. He never said. He just said you could depend on them to hold things for you.
Carefully trying not to frighten the slightly drunk man by showing too much eagerness, Kevin leaned forward and said, "Well, do you remember why he said it, what you were talking about?"
"Hmm." The little man swayed back in his chair, frowning, his eyes closed. "Let me think, let me think. Oh, that's right, I remember. It was in "seventy-three, right after one of our boys in Rome lost a bunch of stuff. We never figured out whether the opposition burgled him or he just lost it. Parky kind of thought somebody ripped him off. He said that would have been easy 'cause everybody, including the CO, was so careless and stupid. I remember I asked him if he meant me. It made me pretty mad, him saying we were all a little stupid. I don't figure I'm stupid."
Kevin swallowed, resisting an urge to contradict the man. "And what did he say?"
His companion opened his eyes. "Well, what do you think he said? That I was stupid?"
Kevin quickly held up a hand to hush the Air Force ace. "No, not about that, and watch your voice! What did he say about England holding things?"
"Oh, that. He after he told me I wasn’t stupid, you understand-he said you could always depend on England's government to hold things for you, that the guy in Rome should have sent the stuff to the English because their government wouldn't have lost it."
"Is that all? Did he explain himself?"
The man shook his head. "'No, I never asked. He didn't tell me anything else neither."
Kevin sighed.
"Do you have any more questions, anything more you would like me to tell you?"
Kevin looked at the bleary-eyed figure in front of him. Little more of value would come from him~ at least not in the next few hours. If there were weeks to work on a total-recall interrogation. But there weren't weeks, at least that's what the old man assumed, so it made no sense to spend any more time pursuing this angle. "No," Kevin said slowly, "I can't think of anything else, but if I do, I'll get in touch with you." He stood, gesturing for his companion to retain his seat. "I'll leave first, you follow in about ten minutes. No more beer and no drinking from now until you get the word this is over. I want you to take very good-care of yourself. Keep your eyes open. You're the only link we have to Parkins, and that's not much, but we don't want anything to happen to you."
The little man's eyes widened. "You mean you think I might be in---
Kevin cut him short. "I don’t think anything. I just want to be very, very careful. You do the same."
When he reached the door, Kevin looked back at the Air Force Intelligence officer. The small man sat staring after him. Kevin turned and walked into the open air. After he reached the street, he slowly shook his head in wonderment, then concentrated on making some sense from the rambling narrative.
The next morning Kevin flew back to London. A resident CIA agent who met him at the airport noticed circles under Kevin's eyes. When Kevin ordered him to take him to the local CIA headquarters, the agent knew better than to suggest that his superior should first get some sleep.
The CIA director for the British Isles doesn't like to work with L Group. It distorts perspective, he thinks, and makes a mockery of in-house proceedings. The director knew he had no choice, but that didn't stop him from grumbling when Kevin asked to use the special line.
Communications is the heart of espionage. It does an agent absolutely no good to know the opposition's most important secret if he can't communicate that secret to his superiors. Indeed, much of espionage basically boils down to intercepting and redirecting "secret' communications, whether the method is a bugged room, a tapped phone, a microfilmed dossier or a blackmailed diplomat. There are no uncommunicated secrets, for that would mean knowledge by one man. Such knowledge is not "secret," for it is not really known. It is part of the individual.
Kevin needed to communicate with the old man, and he needed to do so as quickly as possible. Kevin was fortunate, for in London he operated out of a basically friendly base. The British are extremely cooperative with American intelligence, as long as that cooperation does not encumber their own operations or damage their own interests. British intelligence, first organized in 1573, is very good-when it comes to defining and protecting its own interests, and its assistance to its allies is equally as good. For example, M15, the domestic security branch of British intelligence, paved the way through the appropriate private and government channels when the CIA strung a private telephone line between its London headquarters and the American embassy. MI5's assistance was of such a caliber that the
line's location is known to very few people indeed. The CIA shows its gratitude by allowing British intelligence to use the line whenever both parties deem it appropriate.
The private telephone line is no ordinary communications device. Specially made at the CIA Langley complex, the wire hooks into a security system which automatically scrambles all conversations and registers all but the most elaborate taps placed on the line. To guard against the more elaborate taps, M15 and the CIA run sporadic checks on the whole system. The private line ties in with a special transatlantic cable. On the American side of the Atlantic lines from the cable run directly to Langley. A call can be taken at Langley or redirected. through the normal phone system anywhere in the United States, providing, of course, the receiving unit can unscramble the call. Kevin's first call to the embassy alerted the night duty man, who in turn arranged with Washington for the old man to be ready for the special call. The procedure took less than half an hour.
Even the CIA's technical experts could not screen out all the crackling interference of the transatlantic phone call. The additional interference caused by the scrambling and unscrambling complicated matters considerably. Both parties had to strain to hear, but the Words were audible.
"Kevin," said the old man, "how are you? Are things going well?"
"I' m fine, sir, but things are not going well. I may have something, however, and I need a few things you can provide."