by Arno Baker
“Ok I have the stuff for you but I have to get it ready. Can you come back say in one hour?”
“Fine.”
Gold put his hat on, nodded and went out into the relentless heat. He walked to a local business area and found a luncheonette where he had some coffee and read the paper as he made sure no one was following him. Exactly one hour later he was ringing the doorbell once more.
David opened and this time he was in full uniform. He pointed to the dining room table and chairs,
“Why don‘t you have a seat for a minute, I’ll be right back.”
Gold kept his hat on his lap and didn’t look too comfortable as he sat in the chair. Greenglass returned almost immediately with a thick pile of papers and placed them in front of Gold saying,
“Here, this is what I’ve got so far.”
Gold flipped through a few pages nodding as he saw the various drawings and formulas. He immediately tidied up the pages and said as he took an envelope out of his coat pocket and handed it to David,
“Ok, we’re done. This is for you: count it and give me a signature on the back of the envelope. There should be five hundred.”
Ruth who was also dressed to go out was hovering in the background but once the envelope appeared she jumped in and snatched it right out of her husband’s hands.
She began counting the twenty-dollar bills. Then still talking with that cigarette stuck in her mouth she rasped out:
“Yeah, it looks like it’s all there. Go ahead and sign it Davy.”
David signed the white envelope right underneath the spot where Gold had written,
“Received $500-. David Greenglass...”
Harry stuffed the papers into the empty briefcase he was carrying, the cheap kind used by traveling salesmen.
“Good. Ok, we’re done.”
The Greenglasses were about to go out as well. They opened the door and walked out without saying another word. The entire exchange lasted less than ten minutes. They walked into town where Raymond continued on straight to the railroad station. He was relieved to part with those two, because for some reason they gave him the creeps.
But David and Ruth quickly rushed back to their apartment and carefully counted the contents of the envelope all over again. Ruth then disappeared with the money, hiding it in her favorite secret cache that Davy wasn’t supposed to know about then she returned to the dining room. Her husband was just sitting there with a beer in his hand and a puzzled look on his face.
“Now Ruthie, you’ll have to agree with me that the guy was one strange bird.”
“Yeah, he sure is, why if you hadn’t shown up he wouldn’t have stayed. But listen, who gives a shit, he paid us right? And we can sure use the money.”
David nodded and always thought that Ruthie saw things in her own practical and shrewd way, but deep down he was worried. At some point he‘d be back in New York and Julie would be pressing him to produce more stuff. He knew how driven Julie was, to maniacal excitement to do more and go beyond the call of duty to please his bosses. The Russians, that‘s all Julie talked about: the Russians, the war, how the Jews would be better off under Communism and how the Depression was bound to return once Hitler was beaten and the GIs would start coming home desperately looking for jobs.
Twelve million men in uniform and quite a few women! That‘s when the revolution would begin. On one level David thought Julie‘s analysis was geometrically and logically correct. On the other he felt it was filled with wishful thinking, as usual. Julie was constantly reading about world events and then twisting them to fit his brand of reality. Sometimes David secretly thought Julie was nuts but he didn’t dare tell Ruthie who worshipped him as a money producing genius, and even less to Ethel who loved her man to death and yet bossed him around mercilessly. She would have clawed her brother’s eyes out. He was also worried that Ruthie having tasted the cash windfall would also demand that he do more. But he wasn’t at all convinced that he should.
One morning in late December 1944, as Fomin while performing his “overt” duties at the passport and resident alien section in the consulate, Kvasnikov whispered that they needed to take a walk. Once they reached the monkey cages in the children’s zoo where there was a constant chatter of very excited animals, Kvasnikov ordered another thorough security check of the top floor: phones, bugs, hidden devices had to be located and disabled. An important operative was coming and needed to have a serious discussion in an absolutely secure environment as quickly as possible. There was reason to believe that the FBI had placed a number of new bugs. Decisions had to be made and they had to be able to speak normally and not have to resort to written messages. When Fomin asked about the time frame for the job the answer was that it must be completed late that afternoon and that he should already be at work.
He bolted back to the top floor of the consulate leaving Kvasnikov with the monkeys as a decoy so the FBI would tie up a few agents to keep an eye on him. Kvasnikov walked across the park to the West Side and enjoyed a solitary lunch at the May-flower Hotel cafeteria. He returned at a leisurely pace around three without having exchanged a single word with anyone as the FBI agent later wrote in its report.
On the top floor of the building Fomin had swept every possible phone and electric line, opened every power switch and plug before he began examining the external telephone lines. Sure enough he found several new bugs recently placed by Bell telephone technicians ... The operation took over two hours for the entire floor and he was reasonably confident that there were no listening devices left on the lines or in the fixtures. Minutes later Kvasnikov arrived and cleared the main table of any papers then came a knock at the door and Fomin recognized Yakovlev‘s voice followed by another man whom he was seeing for the first time. They introduced him as the “Professor” and everyone was very deferential toward him. Kvasnikov opened the proceedings,
“The first items produced by CALIBER were of high quality and very valuable. They were brought in by GOOSE months ago. Then a new batch was conveyed by ASP. This is where we have a problem. The second batch is far inferior compared to the first, this discrepancy is leading the Center to question CALIBER’s bona fides. You see our problem Professor?”
The man was short, built like a prize fighter with unruly graying hair, a clipped mustache and thick eyeglasses. He certainly looked every bit the part.
“This source must be vetted more closely. He is a simple machine shop tool and die maker, I see. Fine, no problem with that job, but he must be very good at what he does to be selected for such highly sensitive duty. What would the deception be in suddenly giving us low grade intelligence? Unless...”
He fell silent as if he were testing his new theory but his silence was lasting longer than expected and Yakovlev asked,
“Unless…?”
“He‘s simply a very messy, unmotivated dumbbell whose only loyalty is to his own digestive tract. That’s also a possibility, I would say...”
Yakovlev looked at Kvasnikov as if that last explanation was probably the correct one.
“So you’re not convinced that the FBI could be playing him back to us?”
The professor shook his head,
“My sense is that he is in good faith but fundamentally unreliable because of his young age and lack of political commitment. That may be the deeper area where we may have problems. But this doesn’t mean he wouldn’t still be a very valuable agent.”
XVI
On Wednesday evenings that winter, Fomin followed a strange routine. He’d appear a few minutes before 7 p.m. under the marquee of the Paramount theater at 45th Street and Broadway and stand around until a few minutes before 8. The first such attempt at a rendezvous began one week after the reelection of Franklin D. Roosevelt in November 1944. Fomin was wearing a well tailored overcoat and he carried a copy of the New York Times dated November 8th with banner headlines of the election results folded and visible from his coat pocket. This regular appearance continued well into March 1945.
&nb
sp; Those long months had crept slowly by and even though he was certain that no one was following him at that time when FBI surveillance seemed to have practically disappeared, Fomin was becoming increasingly nervous about those long, conspicuous stops under the marquee. But week after week there was no sign of the man he knew only by his code name “Link.” He told Kvasnikov that for him to be waiting for months on end was dangerous even though the personnel working at the theater who could easily recognize him changed often and didn’t seem to pay any attention. All it would take was one curious employee and questions would start flying in every direction. Kvasnikov agreed but insisted that this agent was so important that the order to continue came directly from Viktor. Alex was therefore compelled to play the waiting game for a few more weeks before Kvasnikov sent in another report asking for instructions.
Finally on a freezing evening in mid-March a tall officer in an army major‘s overcoat lingered near the photo stills of the main feature showcased in the entrance. Fomin only glanced at the major at first, there were so many men in uniform around the Times Square area on their way to the nearby USO Club, this one didn’t stand out in a crowd. Suddenly he approached Fomin.
“I was in Lima, Peru for three months.” He said.
For a few seconds Alex fumbled with his set reply and finally answered.
“No, I was told you never left Alaska.”
They shook hands as if they knew each other well. Fomin remained expressionless and cool even though he would have liked to give this fellow a piece of his mind.
“Let‘s go to the bar on the corner.”
They went to a booth in the back and ordered two bottles of Schlitz. Before they began any serious exchange of information Fomin carefully checked the location and once he was satisfied with the security aspect he spoke in a very low voice.
“Well, what the hell took you so long? You simply skipped three months of rendezvous? I wanted to cancel altogether and if my boss hadn’t insisted that I keep coming to this damn theater every Wednesday, we wouldn‘t have met!”
“Link” was not at all embarrassed and just smiled as the waiter brought the beers and two tall glasses.
“I know my friend, I know only too well. But I got shipped out on the dime without notice to an island in the Pacific. The damn place is so secret I never even knew its exact name or location. All I can tell you is that it must be very close to Hawaii. I was ferried over there in a B-17 bomber with two other language specialists in Chinese and Japanese. The island is completely deserted and I guess the fishermen were shipped out elsewhere; there‘s just an air base and a few barracks where a top secret intercept and decoding operation is working on Japanese naval and diplomatic codes. We are so good at it we are reading them within minutes. An amazing success!”
“So the Americans are reading all the Japanese traffic? Since when exactly?”
Link was a big, broad shouldered man, slightly balding with handsome features and the long tapered hands of a pianist.
“Two weeks after I arrived in September they cracked the codes. After the naval code came the most secret and difficult part: the diplomatic codes. Now we’re reading everything as if it were a newspaper. But it won’t last, the Japs will soon slap on a new set of layers and one time pads and throw a monkey wrench into our system.”
Link nodded as he downed his beer and promptly ordered a second bottle.
“How many linguists?”
“Forty, fifty maybe, they keep coming and going in many languages. It‘s a G-2 operation but there’s also a second operation, just as top secret located in Washington itself. A mixed group, mostly made up of civilians.”
Fomin was taking mental notes of what “Link” was saying very quickly under his breath as he kept on drinking ice cold beer.
“What about the Washington group?”
“The most important thing for you guys to know is what I first found out from another linguist while I was on the island. He was working on the Japanese naval code at the desk next to mine. He told me that according to a buddy of his we are also beginning to read all Soviet diplomatic cables, at least in bits and pieces. The basic code has been cracked, but the one time pads are still a problem.”
Fomin showed no emotion but his heartbeat suddenly quickened as he listened to “Link” and imagined the immediate implications.
“When did this take place exactly?”
“The Russian codes?”
“Yes.”
“About October would be my best guess. The guy said there was a warehouse stacked up to rafters with sacks filled with copies of outgoing Western Union cablegrams from every city in the United States and even from other countries. They are now reading stuff from 1938-39.”
Fomin nodded, but didn‘t show any reaction. He knew that such information would act as a detonator at Moscow Center and reverberate into Stalin‘s Kremlin office. He would probably be informed within hours once the message was sent by radio from the roof of the consulate. Suddenly Alex knew that this would be his only meeting with Link and that there would be no time to go back to the well for more intelligence. Feklisov gambled with security and said,
“How about grabbing something to eat so you can tell me everything quietly, from the beginning? A few blocks from here, there‘s a quiet Hungarian place ---that is if you like goulash?”
Link looked at his watch as if he had another appointment and thought for a while. Then he said,
“Ok, let’s do it but I have to leave before ten.”
“Perfect.”
They walked further west until they reached a small place with the unlikely name “The White Orchid” and a sign saying “authentic gypsy music.” Fomin liked it because the damn musicians in their gypsy garb strolled around playing the fiddle and strumming their guitars and made such a racket that no one could possibly overhear you. Once they went through the formalities and ordered a bottle of rich Tokay wine, Link kept talking.
“Less than three weeks ago, just before I flew back to Washington there was another amazing coincidence. They handed me my orders for a posting at another top secret facility in Maryland just outside the district city limits. I figured this could be the place my buddy was talking about when we were working side by side on the island. Actually it’s a college or a private school campus. I saw hundreds of cryptographers working around the clock in five shifts to make sure everyone is always rested and fresh.
Because of my fluency in Russian I was handed several cables from 1942-43 to work on. They gave me a complicated grid that I figured could only have been an authentic one time pad. With that I quickly managed to crack the key to more than half of the text. Then I learned from a cute girl in the cafeteria, she was a mathematical genius from Boston, that they had just pieced the grid together only a few weeks before through a fluke in the Soviet coding system.
She was responsible for discovering that at some point Moscow Center had neglected to destroy and replace the one time pads used in October-November 1941! At that time it looked as if the Nazis were about to take Moscow. Some operatives in the U.S. were instructed to keep on using the same one-time pads since new ones couldn’t be provided quickly enough. That was such a gross breach in security procedures that it made the tracing of repetitious phrases and punctuation like child’s play. From there she was able to reconstruct sentence breaks and whole words so now two dozen analysts are reading over sixty percent of the traffic at high speed. My guess is that by June they will be reading almost everything, without any problems.”
Fomin was barely able to contain himself but procedures called for a tidy end to the meeting and he followed them to the letter. Link was cutting a hefty piece of chicken with paprika and guzzling red wine. He seemed famished and yet remained calm.
“Major, this is truly momentous information. I must get back immediately. Just one last item of business. I need your signature please.”
“What are my orders?”
“Same procedure every first Wednesday un
til further notice, someone else will replace me next time.”
On a tiny scrap of torn newspaper Fomin wrote “Received $1,000 this day 3/16/45 New York City.” The signature read Wm Weisband. Alex paid the restaurant bill and quickly put on his coat as Link also got ready to depart. As they walked out, just before opening the door, Fomin slipped a thick envelope full of twenty dollar bills into Link’s pocket and without a word quickly walked across Eighth Avenue to catch a bus uptown. He was careful to not look back at his agent.
“You attach great importance to this single meeting with Link?” asked Irina.
“Yes, absolutely, because it fits perfectly into the whole pattern of the slow unraveling of our efforts: it was a key moment. We finally knew in the early spring of 1945 that the Americans were reading our old traffic and had a copy of our code books from the early war years. From those and other very clever cryptographic efforts that Link had witnessed they had uncovered many of our networks including the one headed by Rosenberg, which remained one of the most productive. A few months later came Elizabeth Bentley and Igor Gouzenko and things began to change dramatically for our operations. Moscow understood this immediately and shut everything down for six months. I was then routinely ordered back home as it clearly became imperative that I be extracted as quickly as possible along with the entire XY Line that had been active during the war years. We had all been there far too long!”
XVII
Four hours later the long coded radio message sent by Kalistrat was received and decrypted at the Lubyanka, and delivered to Stalin’s desk. He read it over several times before he asked his assistant and personal secretary Alexander Poskrebyshev to usher in the group of top NKVD and GRU officials who were in the adjoining waiting room for an emergency conference. One by one they entered as the supreme leader took his seat at the head of the long conference table under Lenin‘s portrait. He placed his ash tray to his left and looking down began fiddling with his pipe.