by Glenn Meade
“Well, that’s it for another four hours. Now it’s time to keep myself warm. Like most sensible Finns at this or any other hour during this lousy winter, I’m going to have a couple of stiff drinks to keep myself from cracking up and my blood from freezing. Care to join me inside?”
Massey said, “Sounds like a good idea.”
He looked over at Slanski and Anna. Tension tightened the corners of Slanski’s mouth, his eyes full of nervous energy. He looked like a caged animal anxious to be let loose, and Massey thought that the strain of everything was beginning to show. Anna appeared calm, but he could sense her restlessness.
Slanski said, “Thanks for the offer, Janne, but another time.” He looked at Massey.
“What’s next on the agenda?”
“We’ll go over the weapons, clothes, and papers tonight. Everything you need for the drop and afterwards. But in the meantime, there’s nothing to do but wait.”
“Then how about I take Anna for a little diversion?”
“What kind of diversion have you got in mind?”
“A drive into Helsinki and back, if we could borrow Janne’s car.” He looked over at Saarinen. “How about it, Janne?”
The Finn shrugged. “It’s okay by me.” He found the keys to the Volvo and tossed them to Slanski. “Just watch the roads, they’re pretty icy this time of year. And don’t hit the bottle before you drive back. It’s about the only thing the police are strict about in these parts.”
Massey said to Slanski, “Okay, but I want you both back here by nine, no later.”
“A last taste of freedom before we go. Jake, I think you owe us the price of a good dinner.”
Massey took out his wallet and handed Slanski some Finnish marks. “I reckon you’re right. Compliments of Washington. Don’t get lost on me, either of you. And be careful, for heaven’s sake.”
25
* * *
WASHINGTON, D.C.
FEBRUARY 24
It was just before 2 a.m. and raining hard as the unmarked black Ford sedan drew up outside the rear entrance to the White House. As the three passengers climbed out, Secret Service men led them briskly through to the Oval Office.
President Eisenhower was already seated behind his desk, wearing a bathrobe, his face looking tired and drawn, and he stood briefly as the three men were ushered into the room. “Take a seat. Coffee’s on the table if anyone’s interested.”
There was a pot of steaming coffee and a tray of cups on a side table but no one bothered to touch the refreshment. Lights from the security arc lamps outside blazed beyond the tinted windows onto the expansive lawns. There was an air of anxious restlessness as the men sat.
Allen Welsh Dulles, the acting director of the CIA, took the chair next to Eisenhower. Appointed director only six weeks previously and not to be sworn into office for another four days, the sixty-year-old Dulles was to be the CIA’s first professional director, but he neither looked nor behaved like one.
A big, wide-shouldered New Yorker with rumpled white hair and a mustache, he had an easy manner and a taste for partygoing. That early morning, however, his face appeared tense and there was no sign of the charming seductiveness for which he was noted. A distinguished intelligence chief, he had led America’s OSS in Europe from his wartime base in Switzerland, being responsible for secret missions into Nazi Germany and, more notably, Operation Sunrise, the surrender of all German troops by SS general Karl Wolff in the last bloody stages of the war in Italy. Normally a calm and relaxed man, that February morning Dulles seemed a bundle of nerves.
The other two men in the room were the assistant director of the Soviet Division, William G. Wallace, and Karl Branigan, the special operations chief. Both men sat facing Eisenhower’s desk, and both, like Dulles, looked tense.
It was exactly two when Eisenhower opened the meeting, in a voice raw from sleep and a lifetime of too many cigarettes. “You had better begin, Allen. It’s bad enough being awakened at one thirty a.m., so let’s not waste any more time.”
Dulles leaned forward and formally introduced the other two men present. “Mr. President, the assistant director of the Soviet Division you know already.”
The assistant director nodded to Eisenhower. “Mr. President.”
“Good to see you, Bill.” Eisenhower frowned and smiled slightly. “Or maybe not, as the case may be.”
“Sir, this is Karl Branigan,” Dulles went on quickly, “Soviet Division’s special operations chief.”
Branigan raised himself briefly from his chair, but Eisenhower indicated with a wave that he should remain seated. “Relax, Mr. Branigan, we don’t stand on formality at this hour in the White House. Allen, let’s get to it. I presume this isn’t going to be good news.”
Branigan sat down again as Dulles cleared his throat. “Sir, I believe we have a major problem.”
“I already gathered that from your call,” Eisenhower said sharply.
Dulles placed a red folder in front of Eisenhower. It was stamped FOR PRESIDENT’S EYES ONLY. “Mr. President, sir, as of this morning we believe Moscow may be aware of our intention in regard to Operation Snow Wolf.”
At once Eisenhower reacted. There was a look of alarm on his face and he instantly paled. “You’re certain about this?”
“As certain as we can be.”
Eisenhower sighed deeply and ran a hand across the back of his neck as if to ease a growing tension in himself.
The anger showed instantly on his face as he stared at the other two men in the room, then back at Dulles. “You mind telling me how in the heck one of the most sensitive, top-secret operations your department’s ever handled has been blown? What on earth has gone wrong?”
Dulles opened the file and shakily handed it to Eisenhower. “Inside you’ll find all the details, Mr. President. But I’ll run through them to save time. At exactly ten thirty last night a diplomatic attaché named Kislov from the Soviet UN Mission in New York boarded a plane for London, with onward connections to Moscow. As you might expect, Kislov is no attaché—he’s the KGB station head in New York. He had with him a diplomatic bag. We believe it contained information from a copy of a secret file we had given Massey on Stalin’s personal security and habits.”
Eisenhower frowned. “And what makes you assume that?”
“It’s rather complex, Mr. President.”
“Then tell me as simply as you can.”
Dulles explained about the bodies found by the police in the Brooklyn apartment after a shooting had been reported and that one had been identified as Dimitri Popov, who worked for the CIA. The body of the second man was Feliks Arkashin, a Soviet attaché and KGB major. It took Dulles several minutes more to outline the complete details of how the CIA had been alerted by the FBI. Branigan had learned of the alert and knew Popov had been seconded to Massey for agent training, so Branigan had decided to have the house in New Hampshire visited for the sake of security.
Dulles went on worriedly, “The cabin had been burned to the ground, and Massey and his people had vanished. Branigan called in one of our teams to check the property. As of an hour ago four bodies have been found, three in the woods, another near the lake by the cabin. One of the bodies is of a killer named Braun who worked for the Soviets, and the body had a single file hidden on it—the file I referred to. Massey had been supplied with a copy for Slanski to study. It contained details on Stalin’s background, his personality, his weaknesses, his strengths. Even his medical data. His present security arrangements, as far as we can ascertain. The layout of the Kremlin and the Kuntsevo dacha he uses. It was top secret.”
“Did the file contain any details about Snow Wolf?”
“No, sir, it did not.”
Eisenhower said impatiently, “Then just how do you suppose the Soviets could have deduced what we intend? This man Braun is dead, and the file didn’t contain any suggestion of our intentions.”
Dulles hesitated. “I think maybe the assistant director can better answer that questio
n, sir.” Dulles nodded to William Wallace, who sat forward.
“Mr. President, as you know, for the sake of security and the extremely sensitive nature of the mission, Snow Wolf was ultra-covert. No one knew about it but the four of us here in the room and the people directly involved. By that I mean Massey and the man we’re sending in, Slanski. Not even the woman accompanying him knew the target.”
Eisenhower said abruptly, “Get to the point.”
The assistant director looked uncomfortable. He glanced at Dulles for support, but when none came, he said, “Our forensic people believe Braun’s body had already been disturbed before we found it. We also now suspect Moscow had been watching the woman and sent Braun to kill or abduct her. It seems the likely scenario. Braun must have found the file in the cabin, sir, before he was killed, most obviously by Massey or one of his people. We concluded that when Braun and the others didn’t return, the KGB sent someone, possibly another team, to check.”
Wallace paused, let out a breath. “We don’t think Kislov flew to Moscow just to report Arkashin’s death and the deaths of the others—that would hardly warrant such a trip. We think he flew there because the team sent to find out what had happened to Braun also found the file. They examined it but left it on the body. Kislov was informed and realized what the information might suggest. A man like Kislov is no fool—with the kind of details in the file and with Massey being involved, it’s more than likely he’ll have reasoned we intend an operation against Stalin, and soon, considering most mission training is done shortly before a drop takes place.”
Eisenhower waited silently until Wallace had finished. There was a frustrated look on the president’s face, then he read quickly through the file himself. When he had finished he closed it with a heavy sigh. “It seems like we’ve landed ourselves in one big mess, haven’t we?”
“It’s pretty bad, sir,” Dulles agreed.
Eisenhower said quickly, “Okay, first things first. Has the team gone yet?”
“No, sir.”
Eisenhower sighed. “Thank the Lord for that. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s when you’re in a hole you stop digging. At this stage, we can’t be absolutely certain Moscow will know exactly what’s going on, but if there’s a risk of that, then the obvious answer is for us to abort the whole operation. It’s a darned pity. The way things are going with us and Moscow I had hoped your people stood a chance, however slim.”
Dulles went to speak again but Eisenhower put up a hand. “Let me worry about the Soviets if they do start making noises, diplomatically, about this man Arkashin. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what develops.” He shook his head resignedly. “But who knows where it’s going to lead if you’re right. So where’s Massey?”
The assistant director looked uncomfortable. “Sir, despite what’s developed, we know he’s flown to Finland for the final stage of the mission, but we don’t know exactly where in Finland he is.”
Eisenhower stared at Dulles. “I thought you said the operation hasn’t started yet.”
“We can really only assume that, Mr. President, because we haven’t received the ‘Go’ code. As you know, the operation was entirely run on Massey’s discretion. We provided a rough plan, a template if you like, and Massey filled in the details. One of our instructions to Massey was that we receive a signal from him when the operation proceeded to the final and imminent stage—by that I mean just before he was ready to drop his people. It was to give us a chance to cancel the operation if we so wished. So far, that hasn’t happened. And considering the fact that Massey hasn’t informed us of his problems at the base, we can’t be certain he will signal the code.”
“I don’t believe it . . .this gets worse by the minute.”
“There are also several other factors at play that would suggest the operation hasn’t yet become active.”
“Such as?”
“We believe Massey left Boston the night before last with the two people on a scheduled flight to London, and from there on to Stockholm and Helsinki. Going by the schedule he used, that means he’d have arrived in Helsinki within the last fourteen hours, Washington time. We’ve had the immigration departments of those countries contacted as a matter of urgency, and we’ve verified that the false passports supplied by our Soviet Division were used. The Finnish authorities also confirm Massey and his team landed in Helsinki yesterday evening. But because of the weather, our belief is that Massey won’t carry out the drop until tonight.”
Eisenhower said quietly, “Then how do we contact him?”
“As I said, contact was left at his discretion. That’s what we agreed. It would distance us from the operation if it went wrong. Massey was simply instructed to get in touch if there were problems and to call a Washington number with the ‘Go’ code.” The assistant director swallowed. “Sir, we can only assume he’s still intent on going ahead with the plan, for whatever personal reasons he might have.”
“Is the man dumb or crazy? I thought you said he was one of the best we had!”
“He is the best, sir. Mr. Dulles worked with him in Europe during the war and can attest to that. And I can’t imagine what’s made him behave so unprofessionally.”
The assistant director shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and Eisenhower stood up. He was angry, his face whiter than ever, the eyes dark and narrow. “The only chance of success this thing stood was if it remained covert. That’s plainly no longer the case. From what you’ve told me, Moscow may already have a hint something’s in the air. If these two people make it onto Soviet soil and they’re captured, there’s only one outcome for us. And that’s a possible disaster. I think we all know how the Russians would respond once they have the evidence.”
Eisenhower looked around. “We’re not just talking about a cause for a war, gentlemen. We’re talking about the war. We’re talking about a Soviet response that could put us back twenty years. They can march into West Berlin and anywhere else in Europe on the pretense that it’s now a question of security or retaliation. We’re talking about the greatest potential disaster that could ever hit this country and our allies.”
Dulles looked back at Eisenhower uncertainly. “Mr. President, needless to say, we’re doing everything we can to locate Massey. But as you’ll appreciate, because of the sensitive nature of this situation, we’ll need our own people on the ground in Finland. Branigan here has already assembled a team, and they’re on their way. There’s a jet aircraft waiting at Andrews. As soon as he’s through here, he’ll be on it to connect with his team in Finland. But we’ll need your intervention with the US Embassy in Helsinki to ask their complete cooperation as well as that of the Finns, if necessary.”
Eisenhower took a deep breath and let it out in a long, worried sigh. “That’s valuable time, gentlemen. What happens if you’re too late? Where does that leave us?”
“With respect, Mr. President, we can still locate and stop them,” said Branigan.
“Then for pity’s sake tell me how.”
“It’s a question of timing,” Branigan explained. “Most operations into Russia and the Baltic are weather-dependent. If the weather’s good, the CIA never drop by air, because the Russian radar can easily track our aircraft. The report Massey was shown recommends an airdrop for the penetration into the Baltic area, and I’m certain that’s the way he’ll do it. He’ll most likely need a local pilot, someone with experience of flying in Russian airspace. We’ve checked the weather report for the region. It suggests a bad snowstorm moving in from the northeast Baltic area tonight; that’s eight p.m. Helsinki time. That’s around the most likely time Massey’s people would go, which gives us some leeway. With enough manpower we could find them before that happens. And with the cooperation of the Finns and their air force we could make it impossible for Massey’s team to make the crossing. With enough of their aircraft patrolling the area, they could make sure the plane doesn’t get anywhere near its destination.”
“You mean blow it out of th
e sky?”
“If necessary.”
Eisenhower looked at each of the three men in turn. The steel that was always just beneath the surface of the friendly blue eyes showed itself immediately. “Then I don’t care how, but I want it done. I want Massey and the others found. Found or stopped any which way you can. Even if it means their deaths. An unpleasant thought, gentlemen, considering they’re brave people, but the consequences are far too threatening otherwise. You all understand that?”
The three visitors nodded in turn.
Eisenhower’s face was still pale as he looked at his wristwatch to end the meeting. His gaze shifted back to Dulles. “Make whatever arrangements you have to. Needless to say I want the clamps on this. And I want hourly reports until this thing is through. Just make sure you stop them, understood?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”
FINLAND
FEBRUARY 23
Slanski parked the Volvo along the Helsinki seafront, and they took a tram the rest of the way into the city.
Lights were still on everywhere, and they strolled around the old harbor market and the cathedral square for half an hour before finding a small restaurant on the Esplanadi main boulevard.
The restaurant was warm and bustling, and they found an empty table beside the window. Slanski ordered schnapps and Vorschmack for both of them. They ate silently, and when they had finished they walked back out along the coast road toward Kaivopuisto. A wind came up, and it blew in off the frozen sea, bitterly cold.
Slanski stopped and pointed to a bench, his face serious. He lit a cigarette and offered Anna one as she sat beside him. “How do you feel?”
She brushed a strand of hair from her face. “How should I feel?”