44. UNBIRTHDAY
5 May 1994
“Jack Dugan was my partner. I even counted him as a good friend. But I hardly expected to be in his will.”
Raymond Ranjani, the short, well-dressed, Indian-American attorney handling Dugan’s estate motioned for Yuri to sit in the plush chair next to his desk.
“It is not money,” the attorney said, with staccato diction and a sing-song voice typical of the subcontinent. He unlocked a small wall safe with quick, rolling movements of the tumbler. “If it was money, I would have to use it for the estate. But maybe it is something he thought you would find valuable. Like the Buddha.”
“What Buddha?”
“The one he gave you for your birthday.”
“Jack never...” Yuri stopped for a moment, thinking back.
Ranjani opened the safe door and shuffled through papers. “It came in his mail. He had mailed it to himself, don’t you see, just before his death. He just divorced his wife. Did you know that? He had no other relatives. So I have to read his mail. That is all.”
The attorney pulled out a large, white envelope. “This is how it came, you see. It was inside another one. The yellow sticky note is still attached.” He handed it to Yuri. “I tell you, this man was crazy for sticky notes.”
The note read:To Yuri Sverdlov, FBI, telephone 202-324-3000. Thanks for giving me the Buddha on my birthday. Here’s my gift to you.
“The phone call,” Yuri said.
“What phone call?”
“He called me before... There was something he couldn’t discuss on the phone. Made up some talk about giving me a birthday present. Only it wasn’t my birthday. I assumed...” He opened the envelope.
“My Dearest Cousin Lewis,” he said, reading the greeting aloud. He quickly scanned the rest of the letter and put it back into the envelope.
“Thank you for giving this to me, Mr. Ranjani. I’m late for an appointment. Really have to run.”
Ranjani gave a weak salute, sticky note clinging to his hand.
Yuri rushed out the door.
* * *
In the parking lot behind the attorney’s office, Yuri dumped the contents of the envelope onto the seat of his car. Inside, there was another sticky note in Jack’s lazy handwriting:Found under the mattress in Weddell’s cell .
The letter itself was slightly more informative:
My Dearest Nephew Lewis,
When we began our cooperation years ago, the technology was there for the taking. There were risks, but I thought I could handle them. Now, I am not so sure.
Programs like the one we discussed have only a very small number of people who know anything. But in this smallness, there is a vulnerability. If you know one of the people, especially one of the top people, you can work your way through the organization. This is what I did to get you the contacts.
Now there is something you need to know. I used certain techniques for gathering the information. They were developed partially in Germany, partially in the US. The methods allowed me to tap the knowledge of an important individual while, at the same time, keeping him ignorant.
In my life, I have accumulated many enemies, both in Germany and the United States. And now, it seems, I have more. This man now works in a White House organization. He is very powerful.
He discovered what I was doing. He knows that I was manipulating his mind. Now he is paranoid about everything. I am afraid of what he will do. This letter is a warning that I cannot control the situation anymore.
This leakage of information is regrettable for another reason. There is an entity that I fear, perhaps even more than the one who has found me out. It was born in 1968. It has already killed. I believe It watches.
I am seventy four years old. When I go to bed at night, death nibbles at my dreams. I am not afraid, but you must be. This is the last communication I can send to you. Do not reply. Do not let them establish the link.
Your Uncle,
Fritz Gottlieb
* * *
“What are you saying?” Yuri asked, speaking into the phone, circling the telephone number of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on a doodling pad.
“Just that it’s very peculiar. That’s all,” the voice said. “Weddell’s official records say he has no living relatives.”
“What about outside the U.S.? Gottlieb is a German name.”
“That’s possible, I suppose. His mother was a naturalized U.S. citizen. Germany was the country of origin. I’m reading from the records now.”
“Let’s see if I understand the sequence,” Yuri said, rubbing his head. “Weddell dies of unknown causes...”
“No. The cause was a blow to the head. It’s the assailant that’s unknown.”
“Okay. So he’s killed. You call up Jack Dugan.”
“Why would we call Dugan? No. Dugan calledus a day after. He asked if Weddell was okay. We told him then what had happened.”
“Sounds like he had some special information.”
“Yeah, but he couldn’t tell us what it was.”
Yuri closed his eyes, trying to visualize how the pieces fit together. “If he couldn’t tell you, that means that it came from a classified source. Not the FBI. Maybe NSA.”
“Could be,” the voice said. But that will be difficult to trace. They’re compartmentalized, and any data would likely be secret, at a minimum. And if they did any illegal phone taps, it’d be blacker than black.”
“So how did Jack get the letter?”
“We fax’d him an inventory of what was in Weddell’s cell. Dugan wanted the letter. We kept the original.”
“I see. But Dugan had no jurisdiction—”
“He said it related to a foreign intelligence case. That’s NSA’s department.”
“Did he give you any specifics?”
“Why would he?”
“Right. Secrets.”
* * *
Yuri found the evening walk along Chesapeake Bay therapeutic. It gave him time to think.
There was a conspiracy, he thought.Weddell and Gottlieb were scamming someone high up, someone now in a White House organization. They were after high payoff technology. But the White House guy found out.
He picked up a stone and threw it, watching it skip across the water’s surface, disturbing the stillness, creating multiple, interacting ripples in a cove’s glassy mirror.
Maybe Weddell wanted help when he asked me to visit. The cover story was crazy—the work of a pathological liar—but he could have buried a grain of truth in it. A truth that might expose his enemies. A truth sandwiched between lies so that everyone could plausibly deny it. But why would a White House staffer retaliate by having people killed? Jeez! What was the name of the project he talked about? Could it be the one we heard about on the SIGINT intercept?
Yuri tossed another pebble.
And what about the Russians?Jack could legitimately use NSA resources to tap their communications. That was foreign intelligence. Fair game. Maybe he thought Fontanova was involved.
He shook his head.Doesn’t make sense. They tried to kill her, too. And why would she listen in on something she already knew about? He raked a callused hand through thick black hair, and sighed, looking at the confusing criss-cross of ripples on the water.Maybe, maybe, maybe .
Maybe there was a double scam. Weddell and Gottlieb were stealing from another thief—someone high up, someone who stole the technology from someone else, then tried to funnel it to the Russian Mafia. Fontanova suspected. They tried to get her.
He felt alone, isolated, no place to go.NSA won’t give me data. It’s too black. Fontanova won’t give me data. I’m FBI. I can’t nose around the White House, or I’ll turn up like Jack. Only one useful lead—Gottlieb. Could he still be alive? Did the original of the letter come in an envelope with a return address? He sighed.Dream on. But what about a postmark?
It was the sequence of events that disturbed Yuri the most:Weddell got the letter, then he died. Jack got the letter, then he died. Now I
have the letter .
The letter nagged at him, like a mental tune that refused to fade.Something was born in 1968. Something was killed. And something watches .
He walked back toward his father’s house, a distant light beyond the cove, tripping over hidden branches.
45. VANISHED
13 May 1994
“He was like an invisible man. I’m surprised you knew he was here.”
“A postmarked letter,” Yuri said with a smile. “And a few other pieces of information. Everybody leaves a trace. There’s always something.”
“Well, I never saw this Weddell person. Nobody ever came around.”
Yuri walked slowly beside the landlord, Ms. Manatateo, down a flagstone path toward a rickety wooden porch. The small, nondescript house, hidden behind a jungle of trees and bushes in a rural area near Williamsburg, Virginia, was almost undetectable from the dirt road. These were old stomping grounds for Yuri, near Camp Peary—a CIA training base.
“He was afraid,” the old woman said, scratching at a flower print dress with one hand while she climbed the porch steps. “Kept to himself, he did. Went away at odd hours. Sometimes stayed away for a long time. Last two weeks, he claimed he was a born-again Christian. But I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Yuri asked.
“He seemed religious about the wrong things. Why would he keep a loaded gun? Why would he keep Nazi mementos in a special, jeweled box, like a bunch of sacred icons? He talked about salvation, but I tell you, this man acted like he was damned.” She checked the mailbox. It was empty. “You never know,” she said, opening the door.
They stepped into the house’s spartan interior. She surveyed the place, scratching an armpit, tugging at a lock of white hair.
“This is all just rental furniture,” she said. “Except for that.” She pointed to a wall decorated by a single large picture. “His only piece of art. Albrecht Dürer. He called it ‘Knight Between Devil and Death.’ He listened to a lot of Mozart and Wagner. Said nothing compared with German culture, but didn’t like to talk about his roots. Guess that’s not surprising if he was a Nazi.”
“Show me the gun.”
“Kept it in this drawer,” she said, opening a bureau. “It’s still here. See?”
Yuri examined the World War Two vintage Luger, then put it back. “So when he vanished, maybe he didn’t feel threatened. Maybe he met up with somebody he knew. Or maybe he just wandered off.”
“Still don’t make sense,” she said. “Why would he pull the hinges out of the door—from the inside? Found ‘em lying on the floor. And the door was slammed down, like it was pushed in. Wide open. Breeze was just blowing in like crazy when I came along to get the rent. No signs of scuffle.”
“You called the police?”
“Yeah.”
“Did they investigate?”
“They came by and looked the place over. Other than the clothes in the closet and a few war mementos, there was nothin’. No address books, no scraps of paper with notes on ‘em. No wallet. Nothing. Like he had no identity. No links. Like this man who was nobody suddenly became nothing.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Hmph,” she said scornfully. “I think the Devil got him.”
46. PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM
6 May - 12 July 1994
“I’m winning,” Vladimir said. “That’s why he is so slow.”
Katrina Fontanova glanced at Dmitry and Vladimir, facing each other across a cluttered chess board, wrapped in thought, waiting for software to compile in the SIGINT Operations Center. She cautioned Dmitry. “It is your turn.”
“I am very careful when I play chess,” he said. “And besides, there is no time limit.”
“There should be,” she said, staring at her watch.
“Patience. The play is complex. Evolving.”
“Glacial.”
“It only seems so,” he said. “Things can appear static for a long period of time, then BANG! Rapid movement. Chaos.”
Katrina drummed her hand on the table, waiting.
“It is like the situation with the Operations Center, Dmitry said. “I continue to investigate in a slow, but methodical way. You collect more information on the FBI and on this Richard Chandra. The pieces will come together. You’ll see.”
Vladimir sighed. “Itis your move, Dmitry.”
“I appreciate your point,” he said, with the air of a teacher. “On the surface, things seem frozen. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, new information on several fronts can shift reality like the movement of some giant lever. Watch.”
He moved a pawn. There were many pieces on the board, many possible plays. The linkage between Dmitry’s pawn and Vladimir’s king was by no means direct. In fact, after considering it, Vladimir felt there was no relationship. Or if there was, it could only be a linkage determined by chance.
* * *
Quite by chance a transformer feeding electrical power to Rita Li’s lab went on the blink. There was no air conditioning. So—she stopped her experiments and waited, sweating in the unseasonable heat. Quite by chance, she picked up a recent issue ofScience Magazine to use as a fan. Normally she had little time to readScience , relying on Internet communications and electronic abstracts for news about research. The magazine cover story intrigued her: “Mind Meets Machine.” She stopped fanning and read about Peter Fromherz of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry near Munich, Germany.
It seems that Fromherz crafted a silicon chip with insulatedstimulationspots about 10-50 microns wide. He succeeded in interfacing this chip with nerve cells of a leech. The chip applied a voltage to the stimulation spots, causing a buildup of positive charge on the nerve cell, without any electricity actually flowing between the silicon and the cell. Above 4.9 volts, the neuron fired.
Pretty crude, she thought. Nevertheless—state-of-the-art bioengineering. But what about these artifacts in the rat brain that Anderson had given her? They were much smaller than even the stimulation spots on Fromherz’s chip. And yet—
Sitting on the lab stool, sweating in weather that—quite by chance—was unusually warm for the month of May, she planned a series of wide-ranging experiments that would give answers.
* * *
Anderson looked at a maze of textual statements joined by directional arrows. At the far left-hand side of the white board were the top-level objectives—the research questions he needed to answer. Another column, farther to the right, listed a range of possible answers to these research questions. This was the universe of possibilities. Another column, still further to the right, listed criteria for deciding among the various possibilities. These criteria implied measurements and data, listed further to the right. Directional arrows linked the various columns in a ‘flow down’ that would structure his research. All of this was very determinate. He knew what data to collect. Still—there were many unpredictable elements. Where would he collect the data? Would he be arrested for trespassing? Or—given his new relationship with the Russian Embassy—would he be arrested for espionage? He was a scientist, not James Bond.
He tried to plan the project in detail, but ran smack dab into chaos. He needed someone who knew about chaos—someone streetwise about Groom.
He picked up the phone and dialed Jafri’s number.
Jafri answered, “International UFO Research Center. How may I direct your call?”
“Zfar, this is John Anderson. I need you in Washington to help plan my project.”
“Well—I dunno.”
“I want to hire you as a consultant. I’ll pay your way. It’s good money.”
“I’ll be there.”
* * *
It was a small, quiet cafe with outdoor tables and a certain anonymity. And yet, Yuri felt watched.
She’s staring at me, he thought, trying not to look at the woman with big, goggle-like glasses and a scraggly mop of mouse-brown hair.Maybe I’ve spilled soup on my pants. Maybe my fly is open.
The woman patted her
mouth with a napkin, got up, and walked to his table, smiling, shaking her finger at him, inflecting her voice at the end of a long “Ahhhh!”
He returned the smile.
She nodded, privy to a cosmic secret, unwilling to share it without first inflicting torture. “It’s been a very long time, hasn’t it?”
He glanced at his watch, still smiling. “Yes, it certainly has. I’ve been waiting for my order now for—”
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
“Of course I do,” he gulped. You’re...”
She flicked an eyebrow upward, waiting.
It came to him—the CIA debriefer on the Poljarny incident. “Martha Grimsley! My God, you’re Martha Grimsley.”
“Ri-i-i-ght,” she said. “Good to see you again, Stan!”
“No. I’m Yuri. Sverdlov.”
She slapped her forehead. “The fish guy.”
He looked around, aware that other people had started to stare. He took a sip of water. “Yeah, the fish guy,” he said, quietly.
“You’re FBI now, right?” She whispered, leaning close to his ear,”Counterintelligence?”
Yuri nodded.
“Mind if I sit down?”
“No,” Yuri said. “I was just...waiting.”
“Some days are lucky,” she whispered.
“Yeah. Listen, it’s really good to see you again, Martha. After all these years, you look the same. Are you still...” He tilted his head.
“Yup. I’m still right where you left me. Interviewing travelers.”
Only very special travelers, Yuri thought. Debriefing people returning from communist countries with unique insights and special experiences was a routine feature of CIA operations. “You’ve got an interesting job, Martha.”
“Not really. I’m just a collector of memories.”
The Ganymede Project Page 25