by Glenn Meade
“Why?”
Branigan found another key on the ring. “Because I’m going to lock the door after me while I go get a coffee and let you read that in peace. No one else in this building gets to see what’s in the file except you and me. And I’ve given orders no one’s to knock so you won’t be disturbed. You need to use the john?”
“I guess not.”
Branigan stood. “Okay, just two more instructions you ought to know. One, this meeting never happened. Two, as of today you’re officially on indefinite leave on health grounds and you’re about to take it on full pay. For the record, you’re depressed, and you need a break from intelligence work.”
Massey frowned. “Do you mind telling me what the heck’s going on?”
There was an edge of irritation in Branigan’s voice. “It’s all in the file. And between those pages you’ll find the reason Max Simon and his kid were murdered, and it doesn’t make pleasant reading.”
When he saw Massey stare at him, Branigan shrugged his shoulders. “The instructions ain’t mine.” He pointed a finger to the ceiling. “They come from high above.”
“How high?”
“The president.”
11
* * *
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JANUARY 22, 4 P.M.
The white-painted house in Georgetown looked as imposing as any in the select neighborhood that housed Washington’s elite. Built of wood, the clapboard three-story colonial property sat secure in a vast walled private garden of cherry and pear trees, and although it was winter the three men sat out on the back patio in wrought-iron garden seats.
The assistant director, William G. Wallace, was a Yale man, silver-haired and in his late fifties, and his tanned face bore the vestiges of a recent winter vacation in Miami. When the small talk was over the assistant director looked over at Massey, smiled faintly, and said, “You read the file, Jake?”
“I read it.” Massey nodded.
“Have you any questions?”
“One. Who knows about this?”
“Besides you, Branigan, and me? Only the president and the director.” The assistant director smiled. “There is one other I should mention, who’s aware, shall we say, of our intentions, and not what you’ve read, but we’ll come to that later.”
Branigan interrupted. “Maybe I could fill in the gaps, sir?”
The assistant director nodded. “I guess you’d better, Karl. I want Jake to be crystal clear about what he’s read.”
Branigan ran a hand through his cropped hair and looked at Massey. “Jake, what you saw back in the office was a confidential report written by Joseph Stalin’s private physicians. It was the last report we received from Max Simon a month before he was murdered. You know the contents, but I’ll go over them again to clear up any points. Number one, Stalin has suffered two strokes in the last six months and as a result his speech and movement are impaired.
“Number two, his medical people all agree that either as a result of the strokes or another medical condition, he’s become mentally unstable. He’s displaying signs of paranoid schizophrenia. Put simply, the man’s going crazy.”
Branigan smiled. “Now we and the world know he’s already a certifiable nut, but this report confirms it and puts it in perspective. Something else you ought to know: the doctors in the Kremlin who wrote the medical report were arrested on a charge of trying to poison Stalin. Whether it’s true or not we don’t know, but we do know they were taken to the Lubyanka prison. We’ve got no information on their fate, but I’d guess it ain’t exactly rosy. Most of the doctors were Jews. Stalin’s made no secret of the fact he hates the Jews. Pogroms have already started in Russia, and we think it’s a sign that he’s going to start his purges again. And something worrying you should know about—our intelligence people have confirmed Stalin’s already building concentration camps in Siberia and the Urals. He intends to finish what the Nazis started. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it? A buildup to another situation like the one we had with Adolf Hitler.”
Massey stared at Branigan. “What exactly are you saying?”
The assistant director said, “Jake, we know Max Simon was receiving those reports from a highly placed and reliable Russian contact in the Berne embassy. He was a Jew. I say was because I doubt he’s still alive. But he was worried, like some of his Kremlin friends, not all of them Jews, about the direction Moscow’s going. Jake, let me put it simply: Stalin is a danger. And I don’t mean only to America but to the whole darned world, including his own people. Everybody from Congress to the man in the street believes there’s another war on the horizon. And this one won’t be like the last—but it may well be the last. The potential for worldwide destruction is enormous. Stalin has set his sights on completing his hydrogen bomb program before we do, and we know for sure that’s going to happen. And that’s a mighty dangerous scenario.
“Heck, we’re building fallout shelters all over this country as fast as we can, but that’s pretty much all we can do. We’re not prepared for war. But Uncle Joe has made it pretty plain in the past what his intentions are. He sees a war with us as inevitable. I guess it’s an obsession with him. A death wish. And a crazy old man with an obsession is pretty likely to want that wish satisfied.”
Massey looked impatiently from Branigan to the assistant director. “Will someone kindly tell me just what all this is leading to?”
“Jake, the president believes Stalin’s going to use that bomb just as soon as it’s ready. We’re talking months, not years. Now we can either sit on the fence and wait for the worst to happen, or we can come up with a solution to remove the problem. A solution that’s much better for everyone in the circumstances. It calls for a pretty special operation. And I want you to head it.”
Massey said, “And what solution is that?”
It was Branigan who answered. “We kill Stalin.”
The silence went on for several long moments. The assistant director looked out at the bare winter trees, then back at Massey. “You don’t look happy, Jake. I thought you’d be impressed.”
“Whose idea was it?”
“It was a decision made at the highest level.”
“Meaning?”
The assistant director smiled. “Meaning the answer to that question is classified.”
Massey frowned and pushed himself up from the chair. “With respect, sir, what you’re suggesting is impossible. It would be suicide for whoever goes in.”
“And that’s exactly why it would work. Moscow would never expect it. Stalin is seventy-three. He’s an old man in poor health. You could say, why don’t we simply wait until he dies?” The assistant director shook his head. “Jake, he could live another five, ten years. We can’t take that risk. We’ve got to fight dirty on this one. And in a barroom brawl you can’t fight by the Marquess of Queensberry rules. Short of a preemptive war, which we’re not prepared for on that scale, it’s the only sensible solution we’ve got. We’re not going to sit back and let another Pearl Harbor happen. Not ever.
“Naturally, it’s a solution not without its risks. That’s why the mission will be limited to a small number of personnel operating externally, one we would disassociate ourselves from if it went wrong. The operation would be yours and yours alone. This is not an order to accept, Jake. But I guess if it comes to it, I could make it one.”
“Why me?”
The assistant director smiled. “Easy. I can’t think of anyone more qualified or experienced. Darn it, Jake, you’ve sent more men across the Curtain than anyone I can think of.”
Massey crossed to the end of the patio and looked back at the assistant director and shook his head. “It’s a crazy idea.”
“Crazier ideas have worked for us before. And if we’d done something like this sometime back, someone like Hitler would never have started a war.”
Massey shook his head. “You don’t understand. Getting someone close enough to Stalin to kill him is impossible. People have tried before and faile
d. Émigré groups. The Nazis. Remember the NTS report?”
Massey saw the assistant director nod, a look like distaste on his face. “Sure, I remember.”
The NTS, or Narodny-Trudovoy Soyuz, was a group of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in Europe and America, controlled by the CIA, who were devoted to the destruction of the Soviet regime. Many of its members had volunteered to be parachuted onto Soviet soil on CIA reconnaissance missions after the war. Many had also paid with their lives, both inside Russia and without, victims of Stalin’s murder squads, dispatched to Europe and America to kill any prominent Soviet émigrés who actively opposed Moscow. Two years after the war, determined to step up their campaign, NTS had set about evaluating an assassination attempt to kill Stalin in Moscow.
Massey looked back at the assistant director. “Their report speaks for itself. For one, Stalin’s quarters in the Kremlin are impregnable. Walls twenty-four feet high and five feet thick. Even thicker and higher in places. Then there’s the security measures Stalin employs. More than five hundred guards are stationed in the Kremlin Armory, all handpicked, all fanatically loyal to Stalin. Less than a quarter mile away there’s a reserve of three thousand Kremlin troops in case they’re needed. And those are only the visible deterrents.
“You both know that inside the Kremlin there are secret entrances and exits that go back to the time of the tsars, ready to be used if needed. And at his villa at Kuntsevo his personal security is impossible to breach: A twelve-foot-high fence. Guards with dogs stationed all around the perimeter. You enter that area of forest and come within a mile of the place without a special pass and you’re dead, shot or chewed to death.
“And it doesn’t end there. Every morsel of food Stalin takes, every sip of liquid that passes his lips, is first tasted to prevent someone trying to poison him. He even has a woman assigned solely to serve him tea. Each sachet is kept in a locked safe before it’s served. Once, a sachet was found not fully sealed. You know what happened? The woman got sent to the cellars of the Lubyanka to be shot.”
Branigan interrupted. “Jake, every suit of armor has its chink. It’s a matter of finding the right chink. You know that.”
Massey shook his head firmly. “In Stalin’s case, there are no chinks. His security is airtight. Some people thought there were chinks and tried to kill him, but they all failed. Even the Germans failed. And if crack Nazi troops could fail, what hope have we?”
The assistant director sat forward. “Jake, what if I told you we have a plan? Ways to get close enough to Stalin to kill him? Right now, it’s only a rough blueprint, if you like, but with your experience you could fill in the details of getting our man into Moscow and make it work.”
“Then I’d like to hear it. But who’s going to carry out the plan?”
“You are.”
“That wasn’t what I meant. Who had you in mind to send to Moscow?”
Branigan smiled. “We all know there’s only one man capable of pulling this off—Alex Slanski. He can play a Russian to the hilt, and he’d have no hesitation in putting a bullet in Stalin’s head.”
Massey thought a moment. “You’re right about Slanski. But what makes you think he’ll agree to do it?”
The assistant stood up. “He already has, in principle. He’s the one other person I told you about who knows of our plan, but not the details, and he hasn’t seen the file you read. But we can rectify that.”
Massey sat back and shook his head. “Sir, sending Slanski into Moscow alone would be madness. He’s an American born in Russia, but he hasn’t been in Moscow since he was a kid.”
The assistant director smiled. “We’ve been thinking about that. He’ll need help. Someone to act as his wife on the journey until he reaches Moscow and help him get his bearings. There’s a woman named Anna Khorev. Border-crosser. I believe you met her in Helsinki. She’s been in America almost three months.”
Massey frowned. “She’s a Russian.”
The assistant director smiled again. “I think that’s perfect for what we have in mind. She seems just the type we need and besides, she’s about the only suitable candidate we have. She knows Moscow. For the purpose of the mission she won’t even know what Slanski is after. And once she helps him get to Moscow we take her back. But I have to ask you a question, Jake: Are you still certain about her? I read in her file that even though we accepted her story, one of the senior Finnish officers who interrogated her claimed we’d been sold down the river. He didn’t trust the lady one bit.”
“I trusted her then, and I’d still trust her now.” Massey hesitated, doubt clouding his face. “But you’re assuming she’ll help you in the first place. Why should she? She’s already been through a nightmare.”
“So I read. But I guess we’ll have to take your word about her being trustworthy. I rely on your judgment, Jake. In regard to why she’d do it, she’ll have a motive. Or at least we’ll give her one.”
“What motive?”
The assistant director smiled broadly and turned to Branigan. “Karl, why don’t you go get us all a drink while I explain to Jake? I think we’re going to need one after this.”
• • •
It was two hours later when Massey reached his house east of Georgetown.
He called the boarding school in Richmond and made arrangements to see his son the next day. He was looking forward to seeing the boy, and he knew he had been less of a father than he should but he felt that somehow the boy understood.
Then he went into the bathroom and ran the cold-water tap and splashed the icy liquid on his face. He seldom looked at himself in the mirror, but that evening he was aware that he looked older than his forty-one years. He had seen a lot of unpleasant things in his life, but the image of the white frozen bodies lying in the morgue, the holes drilled in their heads, their flesh chewed away by rats, disturbed him.
He had known and respected Max Simon for many years. They had grown up together, joined OSS together, been friends all their lives. A Jewish kid who lost his father to the Reds and had made it to America on a tough winter crossing like Massey and his father.
Massey looked down as he rolled up his sleeve. There was a small tattoo on his wrist, of a white dove. Two urchin kids up in Coney Island for a day’s fun and chasing girls, and Max had wanted the tattoos to cement their friendship. He had been a gentle soul, Max, who only wanted to do his best for his adopted country, and the little girl had been the only family he had. Massey shook his head and felt the anger rise inside him again, then toweled his face dry and went into his study.
He made the phone calls he needed to make and then he poured himself a large Scotch. He took a pad and pen and went over the strategy again, looking for flaws.
The assistant director was right about one thing: the plan was something Massey could work with. But there were innumerable dangers. For starters, Stalin’s Moscow was an alien place and few Westerners were allowed to enter the city.
He thought of Anna Khorev as he sat sipping the Scotch and making notes. The details of the plan would be up to him, and even though her background was ideal for the mission he disliked having to use her. According to Branigan, the latest report by her case officer had been favorable, and she had settled into her new life and was making good progress. But Massey really wondered if she would be up to such a mission mentally and physically after barely three months since her escape. He also knew he was sending her to certain death if it failed.
And something worried him about sending her in with Slanski.
He had the file Branigan had given him, and although Massey knew Alex Slanski’s background, it still made interesting reading.
He was a naturalized American citizen, but Russian-born, aged thirty-five. They had worked together during the war when Slanski was one of a small group of highly trained assassins OSS ran into occupied France and Yugoslavia to help the resistance groups operating against the Germans. Slanski had worked under the code name Wolf. If a German commander or Nazi official in
the occupied countries became particularly unpleasant to the resistance, OSS sometimes sent in an assassin to kill him. But it had to look like an accident so the Germans wouldn’t suspect partisan involvement and exact reprisals against the civilian population. Slanski was one of their top agents and an expert at making the deaths look like mishaps.
Concerning Slanski’s past, Massey knew there would be very little in the file, except to indicate a determined but lone character. As a boy, Alex had escaped from a state orphanage in Moscow. He had managed to get aboard a train for Riga and eventually stowed away on a Norwegian frigate bound for Boston.
When the American authorities were presented with him they didn’t quite know what to do with an obviously disturbed twelve-year-old. They guessed something distressing had happened to the child because of his psychological state—he was withdrawn and rebellious and behaved like a wildcat—and he told them virtually nothing about his past, despite the best efforts of the psychologists.
Eventually, someone had the idea to send him to stay with a Russian-speaking émigré living in New Hampshire, a trapper and hunter who agreed to take the boy for a time. The forests up near the Canadian border had once teemed with Russian immigrants. It was remote, wild territory where the long, cold winters and the snow made their exile seem less alien.
Somehow the boy settled in and everyone gladly washed their hands of the matter. There he remained until he joined OSS in 1941.
No one ever learned the fate of his family and parents, but everyone who worked with Slanski in OSS guessed it was something pretty bad. One look at those cold blue eyes of his told you that something disturbing had once happened to him.
Long ago Massey thought he had guessed the truth. There was a sick joke Stalin had devised. If anyone opposed him, he as often as not had the person killed. If the victim was a man with a family, his wife and any children above the age of twelve were also put to death. But if the children were younger than twelve they were sent to a state orphanage and brought up like good communists, turned into the one thing their parents probably despised.