by William Hood
Had the postman been more determined, he would have reported that although the magazines, advertising mail, and the weekly personal letter were addressed to Mrs. Jane Womack, the occasional personal letters mailed from abroad were invariably addressed to “Mrs. Jane Noldy Womack.” The postman would not have known, and could not have learned, that when he delivered a letter addressed to Mrs. Jane Noldy Womack, retired Sergeant Noldy would telephone an unlisted number in Washington and drive immediately to a safe apartment on Connecticut Avenue. There she would deliver the unopened letter to an affable young man she knew as Bert Johnson.
Like a book collector whose eye is drawn to a shabby but vaguely promising volume on the bottom shelf in a thrift shop, Trosper never opened a case file without a rush of anticipation. Although he had read hundreds of such files, he had never shaken the feeling of discovery as, page by page, he studied the development, and sometimes the unraveling, of operations.
He shoved aside the stiff plastic folders labeled Support and Production. This necessary but static material would be studied later. It was the operations section of the file that he wanted, the jumble of dispatches, cables, meeting reports, tri-annual summaries, and memoranda that pieced together a narrative of the operation, day by day, meeting by meeting, crisis by crisis. This was the real stuff of espionage, and no matter how hurriedly, brilliantly, badly, pretentiously, or dimly written they might be, these files would forever fascinate Trosper.
The first cable requested a name search on “Subject,” and gave the skimpy biographical data that “Treadwell,” a case man assigned to the Firm’s Vienna cover office, had elicited during a chess game in a Vienna coffee house. “Subject” was an Iranian, employed as a clerk in the Iranian embassy in Vienna. About thirty years old, he described himself as married, and a career functionary of the Iranian foreign office. Subject had apparently welcomed Treadwell’s hospitality, and, as he wished to practice his English, would be pleased to meet him again. He presented himself as a staunch democrat and freely stated his deep dislike of certain fundamentalist members of the Iranian staff.
As a further security safeguard, the subject’s name was transmitted in a separate cable which was not included in the case file.
At this point Trosper picked up the two sealed envelopes that Castle’s administrative assistant had delivered to his desk. He broke one of the seals, glanced at the enclosed card, “James Russell Widgery,” signed the card, scrawled his name along the envelope flap, and used a wide strip of cellophane tape to cover his signature and seal the envelope as well. The card in the second envelope read “Gholam Alizadeh, born 6 May 1964, Tabriz, Iran.” Trosper sniffed as he repeated the sealing process. “Treadwell and Winesap” sounded more like a Boston law firm than a case man and his Iranian agent.
After cables giving additional biographical data, and brief sketches of the personnel in the Iranian embassy, the Vienna office chief asked headquarters authorization for Treadwell to recruit the Iranian. The approach was approved and a few weeks later, the codename WINESAP was enciphered and buried in the Firm’s active sources register.
Trosper flipped through the pages of the tri-annual progress reports. But these polished documents were not what interested him. It was the informal MRs, the meeting reports on which the summaries were based, that he sought out. However many hundreds of case files Trosper had read, the number of MRs he had studied would amplify the total by a factor of at least ten. It was the unvarnished aspect of these informal accounts, written immediately after each contact with an agent, when the case men were flushed with achievement, irritated by failure, or bored with routine, that gave Trosper the necessary, intimate, and grassroots picture of the operation. Or should have done.
But Widgery’s MRs were as crisp and impersonal as a wad of traffic tickets. Aside from a fitful carelessness with infinitives, the style was conventional, graduate-student prose. There were no apt descriptions, no flashes of emotion, and none of the casual insights that sometimes illuminated even the dreariest case files. At times Widgery seemed to be holding Winesap at arms’ length, handling him as if he were a nominally competent servant who warranted no more intimacy than to be called by his given name.
The meetings with Winesap produced a scant minimum of routine information, but revealed a pattern of suspicion that one after another of the Iranian staff were important figures, clandestinely servicing terrorists transiting Vienna. After weeks of investigation, interest in each of these potential targets appeared to trail off as Winesap focused on a different person.
Trosper reached for another cookie. The stale oatmeal confections were giving him heartburn, but he continued to read. If the Winesap operation had not been tied to Sinon’s offer of cooperation, he would have dismissed it as marginal, more useful for providing a young operative his first experience in handling an agent than it might ever be for any of the scraps of intelligence it produced. Perhaps at that time in Vienna, Walt Hamel had been willing to let Widgery cut his teeth on this tame activity before taking on something more productive.
He turned to a Top Secret, Limited Access précis of the Tomahawk operation. Trosper remembered Tomahawk, a Soviet general with important diplomatic and political assignments, as one of the most significant of the Firm’s agent operations to have been uncovered by Moscow Center in a decade or more. Unless, as seemed most unlikely, Sinon had learned the precise details of Tomahawk’s communication arrangements by a fluke, he must be presumed to have had access to some of the most highly classified counterintelligence data in Moscow. But if Sinon was in a senior enough position to learn of, and then actually address a letter to Duff Whyte through Tomahawk’s Top Secret letter drop, why would he have troubled to cite Winesap’s humdrum activity as an earnest of his access to Moscow Center secrets? And why would such an allegedly senior officer have knowledge, any knowledge, of an Iranian double agent as insignificant as Winesap seemed to be?
Nor was there any explanation for Tomahawk’s compromised codename. In internal correspondence, agents were referred to by codename — most often nouns picked in rota from a random list held at headquarters, with care taken to avoid any inadvertent pun, or possible association which, if the codename were compromised, might provide a clue to the agent’s identity. Codenames were restricted to internal use within the Firm and, when assigned to an agent, were as closely guarded as the agent’s true identity. In contrast, worknames were selected for use in open communications. These were usually common given names, appropriate to the area and language in which they were used — “Tell Harry that Max called.”
Taken at face value, Sinon’s letter with its four bits of evidence appeared to substantiate the defector Volin’s allegation that the Firm was penetrated. But the expressions “at face value” and “at first glance” were anathema. If he were lecturing at the Fort, Trosper would remind the plebes that at face value almost any forty-year-old actress in Hollywood could be made up to play a ravishing ingenue.
Sinon’s reference to “the traitor Gholam” was puzzling. If Sinon was well enough informed to know that Gholam Alizadeh was a double agent being run against the Firm, why would he refer to him only by his given name and make no reference to his family name? Did he assume that Gholam was a pseudonym known by the Firm? Or did he assume Gholam was a family name? One thing was certain. Gholam Alizadeh was one of the Firm’s marginal agents in Vienna, and the only person in the central agent index with a name even remotely resembling “Gholam.”
Sinon’s use of the Tomahawk pseudonym and communications plan, his pointed reference to “the traitor Gholam,” and his casually correct evaluation of the amateurish Troika investigation were certainly not to be taken at face value. They were to be studied and tracked back to their origins. In his precise script, Trosper penciled the four points on the lined yellow pad beside his work folder.
As he turned back to the Winesap file, Trosper added another note to the yellow pad. “What can Winesap, who sometimes comes across as intelligent
and always as sly, possibly think he is doing to warrant wages of four hundred dollars a month?” Then with a slight smile in deference to the problem of balancing plausible suspicion and paranoia, he made note of another possible source for Sinon’s data.
This done, he took a bite of the last cookie, and continued to read.
9
Washington, D.C.
Trosper glanced respectfully at the wall of photographs showing the Firm’s Assistant Controller/Personnel in various degrees of proximity to Washington’s great and near-great. “Your collection is coming along nicely,” he said.
“It’s the most benign of my vanities,” Frederick P. Tuttle said with a wink. “What with everyone else around here hiding under a bushel, I see no reason why the employees should have the idea that we’re all a bunch of faceless nonentities.”
Trosper smiled politely. “Of course.”
“Besides,” Tuttle said with a gesture toward the signed photographs on the opposite wall, “some of these have accumulated a certain value.”
Trosper turned to the wall, and his grin broadened. Three presidents, two secretaries of state, four national security advisers, a platoon of general officers, a pod of admirals, and more ambassadors and cabinet officers than Trosper could identify. “To be sure,” he said.
“Now that you’ve attempted to make your point,” Tuttle said, laughing, “is there something of a more professional nature I can do for you?” He sat behind a desk which if provided with a net might have served as a tournament Ping-Pong table.
“I’d like to see one of your files, something on James Russell Widgery.”
“Back with us these days, are you, Alan?”
“In a narrow sense … ”
“Supervising Mr. Widgery, planning to show him some of the ropes, I presume?”
“We may be doing some work together.”
“Personnel files are still restricted to the employee’s senior supervisor,” Tuttle said as he pressed a button on the panel at the side of his desk.
“Maybe you could just read some of the best bits aloud … ”
“Widgery, James,” Tuttle whispered into the intercom. “While you’re waiting, you might want to look at the photograph of Henry the K at the U.N., and the one of Eisenhower on the tee at Burning Tree. The lean gent with the most regular features is young Widgery’s pa.”
Trosper got up and walked to the photographs. Widgery senior appeared to be comfortably over six feet tall, with close-cropped hair, and a sense of confidence clearly to be seen in the black-and-white photographs.
Tuttle took his time with the personnel file, more time than Trosper thought necessary. He looked up at last. “The usual undergraduate work at Williams, capped with a master’s in modern history at Princeton. In the upper ten percent of all our usual pre-employment tests, and, predictably, a better than average training record at the Fort. Long on tradecraft theory, good paperwork. He had fourteen months in Vienna, and is high average for the new boys these days.”
“How come he only had fourteen months in Vienna?” The average first field assignment usually ran for at least two years.
Tuttle flipped back through the file. “He developed a little something on his thyroid — not an unusual sort of complaint these days — and we didn’t want him operated on in a local hospital, anesthesia and all that.”
“But he never went back?”
“While still in hospital, he was picked for the intensive course in Arab studies at Columbia. Because of a complication after the operation, he missed the course. We decided to keep him in New York until another course begins. He’s handling a couple of things for us up there.” Tuttle shrugged impatiently.
“No shortcomings at all, not the least idiosyncrasy?”
Tuttle frowned and thumbed back through several pages in the file. He glanced up at Trosper and pursed his lips. “I’d have to say he’s a bit short on the interpersonal side, impatient with routine activity.” Tuttle riffled through a few more pages of the file. “He impressed one of his bosses as being abrupt, not to say abrasive, with colleagues — even, I must say, with supervisors.”
“That sounds like the same old blarney,” Trosper said. “Isn’t it about time to come up with a new litmus, something that will uncover contradictory qualities in the same person — like attention to detail and imagination? Maybe even a true-or-false form that will expose what we used to call a nose for news? You could label it an abiding curiosity about what’s happening on the other side of the mountain?”
“Good grief, Alan … ”
“What about testing the ability to see the world through another man’s eyes, and to think with the other fellow’s heart?”
“Out of bed on the wrong side this morning, is that it?” Tuttle tossed his reading glasses onto the desk and tilted back in his swivel chair. “It was 1919 before the old Army War Office realized that in the war to end all wars, it had had no way of telling which officers were most likely to succeed in combat. During the first few days in the trenches some of the best-trained chest-thumpers froze, while some of the mildest-mannered clerks came on like bloody samurai. What’s more, a glance in the rearview mirror showed the same story in the Civil War — that fellow Chamberlain from Maine, for example. World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, and all that’s happened since have produced a ton of studies, the result of which is zip. Nothing.”
“It’s not quite the same thing … ”
“Exactly,” Tuttle said. “The Firm can test for a good level of general education, an upper-percentile IQ, the ability to reason, language-learning aptitude, stable personality, and performance under stress. After that it’s up to you operators to figure out if the best and the brightest will ever learn to see in the dark.”
Trosper got up. “Brightest and best,” he murmured. “I take it that this son of the morning has passed on all counts?”
Tuttle smiled. “As I said, he’s high average.”
10
New York
“Hi guys, I’m Amanda, your wait-person. I’ll be taking care of you today.”
Trosper lowered his menu and found himself smiling.
“Something to drink while you’re making your decisions?” Amanda wore a blue button-down shirt and a red-and-blue-striped, Brigade of Guards bow tie. Her black harem trousers bloused over the tops of scuffed running shoes.
James Russell Widgery glanced up at Amanda. “Tomato juice. Crushed, not canned. No ice.”
Trosper waited, expecting to hear “shaken, not stirred.” Perhaps the younger generation had outgrown Ian Fleming.
Widgery favored Amanda with a confident smile and put the menu aside. He was lean, clean-shaven, and the remnants of a late summer tan played perfectly against his dark blond hair. A glance at Amanda’s rapt expression confirmed Trosper’s opinion that although time had yet to leave any message on Widgery’s face, he was spectacularly handsome.
“Orange juice,” Trosper said.
Although he usually declined spirits before an operational meeting, Trosper resented the possibility that anyone Widgery’s age might suspect he had avoided ordering a martini because it would make a poor impression. Not that wait-person Amanda could have filled such a request even if she hadn’t fainted dead away on receiving it. “You’ve eaten here, what can you recommend?” Trosper said with a grim glance at the white enameled walls and stainless-steel trim that made Annie’s Cloud Nine Buttery look more like an operating room than a restaurant.
“I always have the same thing — cool carrot soup, a tofu crepe, and a half-bottle of Edelkraehe.”
“Red or white?” Trosper asked hopefully.
“It’s water,” Widgery murmured. “From Liechtenstein.”
“I’ll have it all the same.”
Amanda began to write.
Widgery took a deep breath. “I’d better confess right now that I’m totally in the dark. All I know is that Dick Todd, my division chief, telephoned me at home this morning and said I was to cho
ose a restaurant where it would be easy for a man to identify me and to introduce himself. He also said I was to be at your disposal until I was told otherwise.”
“They say half the fun is in the anticipation,” Trosper murmured.
Even more than many of his East Coast peers, Widgery directed a part of his speech through his nose. Years of having to repeat himself at prep school and college had taught him to tilt his head slightly backward as he spoke. This extended his range of audibility, but also risked giving the not entirely erroneous impression that Widgery was talking down to his interlocutors.
Trosper lowered his spoon, still half-filled with what he had decided was cold porridge soup, laced with slivers of raw carrot. “Tell me, how come the FBI isn’t handling Winesap?”
Widgery touched a napkin to his lips. “A month or so after I had to leave Vienna, Winesap — whose English is pretty good — was transferred to the Iranian mission here. About that time, Vienna was on the verge of dropping Winesap — no product, as the boss saw it. When the Firm told the FBI that we had a marginal source coming here, they read our file, and suggested that since I was already here, I might as well continue to handle him.”
“But they get all of your reports?”
“Of course, and if Winesap ever comes up with anything, I expect the Bureau will want to take him over.”