by Glenn Meade
• • •
Slanski was lost. The forest was a maze of narrow paths, and in the darkness it was impossible to guess which led where. There were no signposts, and more than once he had to stop to check the map and the compass. Sweat dripped down his face, and every time he glanced back at Anna he saw the raw fear in her eyes.
Suddenly the road widened, and a wooden sign before a bend up ahead said CAUTION—EXIT TO KOLIMKA ROAD. TRAFFIC AHEAD. As he came around the bend he squeezed hard on the brakes and skidded to a halt.
Half a dozen jeeps and trucks and a line of soldiers and militiamen stood across the road, waiting silently in the darkness, readying their weapons. A voice called out, “Halt! Dismount and throw down your weapons!”
Slanski revved and frantically spun the BMW around. A terrible volley of fire exploded through the forest, lead zinging through the air and cracking all around them, as Slanski tore back the way they had come.
• • •
It was almost impossible. Lukin had to use his feet for balance, finding it hard to control the machine with one hand. He halted on the bumpy lane that led through the woods, his good arm aching from the effort of gripping the handlebar, sweat pumping from every pore.
He had followed the tire marks through the forest, but now he switched off the engine, listening for noises in the woods or the sound of an engine, but all he heard was his own heart thumping in his ears.
And then—a thunderous volley of gunfire erupted somewhere close and his heart skipped. Lukin started the motorbike again and drove toward the noise. He had traveled only another fifty yards when he cut out onto a broader road. He saw the single headlight flashing through the trees off to the right, coming toward him. He pulled back in off the road and flicked off the safety on the Kalashnikov slung around his neck.
The BMW roared past, and he saw the man and woman. He shifted into gear and drove after them. He was twenty yards behind the BMW when the woman looked back. Lukin saw her face in the beam from his headlight, her mouth open in a terrible look of fear and surprise.
And then she was turning, thumping the man’s shoulder and screaming to warn him.
The man glanced around briefly, his face masked by his helmet and goggles. The BMW suddenly picked up speed, racing dangerously fast over the forest path.
Lukin could barely keep control of the motorbike, his feet skimming over the ground for balance. If he could only aim the Kalashnikov at the rear tire he stood a chance of slowing them, but it was impossible with one hand and he could just about manage to keep up speed as it was.
The man and woman were racing ahead of him now. As the BMW rounded a corner in the forest, suddenly Lukin saw a bank of headlights, army trucks and jeeps straddling the road a hundred yards ahead, as another roadblock obstructed the way. The BMW slowed and swung a hard right to avoid it, roaring up a bank leading into trees. Lukin realized that Slanski was trying to cut around the patrol. The BMW shot up the bank, and Lukin went after it.
He had gone hardly a couple of yards when the machine wobbled beneath him, snaked violently, and he came off and landed hard. He saw the BMW put on a burst of power and growl up the rise, but just before it reached the top it suddenly seemed to stall, bucking like a horse unwilling to jump the final fence. The woman was thrown off, hit the earth hard, and rolled back down.
Lukin stumbled to his feet and raced toward her. Up on the top of the rise he saw the driver fighting hard to control the machine until it nosed down and the tires gripped and then it was safely at the top. Lukin saw the driver look back as the woman’s body rolled to a halt at the bottom of the bank. There was a moment of indecision, then a scream of despair. “Anna!”
Lukin gripped the Kalashnikov and fired wildly, the volley showering the woods with splinters, but the man turned and sped away into darkness. Soldiers from the trucks ran forward, firing into the woods and climbing the rise after the BMW.
Lukin tossed away the Kalashnikov and lunged at the woman just as she was trying to put something into her mouth, and as he landed on her hard she cried out in pain. He shoved his fingers into her throat.
* * *
PART SEVEN
* * *
FEBRUARY 27–MARCH 2, 1953
37
* * *
PARIS
It was just before ten that same evening when the sleek black Citroën pulled up on the Boulevard Montmartre and Henri Lebel climbed out. Rain was pouring, and as the chauffeur handed him an umbrella Lebel said, “You can go, Charles. Pick me up from Maxim’s at midnight.”
“Very good, sir.”
Lebel stood watching as the Citroën disappeared into the sheeting rain before he crossed the boulevard and turned down a narrow street and came to a littered alleyway. A cat scurried past him out of the shadows, and when Lebel reached the end of the filthy lane he came to a blue-painted door on the right. A floodlit sign above it said CLUB MALAKOFF. MEMBERS ONLY.
Lebel knocked on the door. A grille opened, and a man’s unshaven face appeared. “Oui?”
“M. Clichy. I’m expected.”
There was a rattle of bolts and the man opened the door and peered out into the rain-soaked alleyway before admitting his visitor. Lebel went down a winding metal staircase to a packed, smoky room, the tables occupied by tough-looking workingmen drinking glasses of beer and cheap wine. An elderly man wearing an apron and polishing glasses behind a zinc bar smiled when he saw Lebel, then came over and said, “This way, monsieur, follow me.”
Lebel followed him through some curtains behind the bar up a narrow flight of stairs to a door at the end of a shabby hallway. The old man knocked, and a voice said, “Come in if you’re good-looking.”
“It’s Claude. Your visitor has arrived,” the man said and opened the door.
Lebel stepped into a tiny smoky room with a single lightbulb dangling low in the center, the rest of the room in shadows, an ancient scratched mirror covering one wall. A man in his middle thirties sat at a table in the center of the room, a bottle of pastis and two glasses in front of him. He was small, wiry, and had a hunched back. His two front teeth were missing, and the shabby black suit he wore was flecked with cigarette ash. As he lit a Gauloise he winked to the barman. “Leave us, Claude.”
When the door closed the man at the table gestured to a chair in front. “Henri, my old flower, always good to see you.”
Lebel sat opposite and removed a pair of exquisite hide gloves. “Unfortunately, Bastien, I wish I could say the same.”
“As always, the diplomat. Take a seat. Drink?”
“You know I only drink champagne. Anything less upsets my stomach.”
Bastien grinned. “Tough. All I’ve got is cheap pastis. Not even the chairman of the Party can afford the finer things in life, Henri.”
“Then I’ll decline.”
Bastien shrugged and poured a drink for himself. He looked over at Lebel, who wore an expensive suit and silk tie with diamond pin, the collar of his beautifully tailored camel-haired overcoat trimmed with sable. Bastien smiled, his missing teeth leaving a black gaping hole in his mouth. “You’re looking well as usual, Henri. Business good?”
“I presume you didn’t ask me here to discuss such a repulsive subject as my moneymaking. So perhaps you’d get to the point. What is it this time? Another contribution to the Party?”
Pierre Bastien stood up. Lebel always considered that the man would have looked at home swinging in the bell tower of Notre Dame. Unkind, perhaps, but the man before him was a particularly nasty piece of work behind the simulated bonhomie.
“Actually, just a friendly talk, Lebel, and there’s no need to get snotty, comrade.”
“I’m not your comrade.”
“Fighting the Germans together for two years counts for nothing, I take it?”
“Let’s get the facts right as to who did the fighting. You like to tell people the Gestapo knocked out your teeth and injured your back when we both know it was really your former wife. She pushed
you down a flight of stairs as repayment for leaving her and your children alone to face the Gestapo who raided your home. Naughty, Bastien, especially since some of us had to endure real hardship and torture, while you sneaked from one safe house to another and never fired a shot at the Germans until the Allies had safely secured Paris. Still, it got you the Croix de Guerre from de Gaulle. And you really ought to get something done about those missing teeth of yours. For too long you’ve been wearing that gap in your mouth like a badge of honor.”
A look of contempt twisted Bastien’s face. “Don’t belittle me, Lebel. I did as much as any man. Besides, it was important I wasn’t captured, for the sake of the Party, to continue the struggle after the war.”
“Indeed. And remember this is the same scum who contributes so generously to your cause. Get to the point. I’ve a dinner appointment at Maxim’s.”
“No doubt with some tarty model,” Bastien said with a sneer.
Lebel sighed. “Envy will get you nowhere. Having death hang over me in a concentration camp taught me two things: one, you can rely only on yourself, and two, enjoy life when you can. I do both every day, and my private life is none of your concern. So, what do you want to talk about?”
Bastien grinned maliciously. “A sensitive matter. That’s why I asked you here in person. You took the usual precautions?”
“Naturally. From the look on your face I can only conclude you have some unpleasant news to impart.”
Bastien finished his drink and slapped his glass on the table. “A man named Jake Massey. Do you know him?”
Lebel looked up a little unsteadily, thrown by the question, and tried hard not to show his alarm. “What’s this got to do with?”
“I asked a simple question. Do you know him?”
Lebel sighed and idly glanced at his watch so as not to betray his unease. “Look, Bastien, can we get to the point?”
“That is the point. Do you know this Massey?”
“The name sounds familiar. He was an American OSS officer working with the resistance during the war. Why?”
“Have you seen him recently?”
Lebel saw that Bastien had a slight grin on his face, which was always dangerous. He decided to tell the truth. “Actually, yes. He was in Paris recently and called at my suite to say hello. But what’s going on? Are you checking up on my social calendar, Bastien?”
“So, just a friendly visit, was it, Henri?”
“Of course. Look, what’s the point of all this? I told you, I’ve got an appointment.”
“What did Massey want to see you about?”
“Nothing in particular. I told you, he called to say hello and talk about old times. I asked him to join me for dinner, but he said he had another engagement.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Now, Bastien, unless there’s anything else . . .”
As Lebel went to rise, Bastien’s hand fell on his shoulder. “Sit down. I’m not finished yet. Some important people have been asking questions about you.”
“Who?”
“None of your business. But because we’re old resistance comrades I asked you here to pass on a warning. The last thing I’d like to see happen is for you to get hurt. Then where would we be? Your contributions to us are quite generous, Henri.”
Lebel shrugged. “I do what I can. But hurt how, by whom? What kind of warning?”
“To be careful about the people you meet. And you can cut out the claptrap. You contribute because you have to. Because it ensures that Moscow looks favorably on you and your business.”
“You haven’t answered my questions. How might I be hurt? And by whom? For what reason?”
“It’s best not to ask. But do yourself a favor. Next time Massey contacts you, tell me. He was OSS. Now he’s CIA. Your private life may be no concern of mine, but it is to Moscow. You get mixed up with someone like that, people may get the wrong impression.”
Lebel pretended alarm. “Massey, CIA? I had no idea . . .”
“Well, you do now. Okay?”
Lebel nodded. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
Lebel said, “Is that it?”
Bastien nodded. “That’s it. Just remember what I said.”
As Lebel stood, Bastien grinned slyly and said, “By the way, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” He turned toward the mirror. “You can come in now, Colonel.”
A door opened somewhere in the shadows, and a man appeared. He was big and brutish, his face a mass of pockmarks and scars, and part of his left ear was missing. Bastien said, “Colonel Romulka, KGB Moscow, meet Henri Lebel. The colonel here tells me you were due to travel to Moscow in two days’ time. He wants to rearrange your travel plans and get you there a little earlier.”
Lebel’s face bleached. “What’s going on here?”
Romulka snapped his fingers, and two men appeared from behind the door. They grabbed Lebel and rolled up one of his sleeves, and Romulka came forward and jabbed a hypodermic needle in his arm.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
FEBRUARY 27, 8:30 P.M.
Rain streaked against the French windows of the Oval Office and a flash of lightning lit up the black evening sky beyond the Washington Monument. Eisenhower sighed as he sat down heavily at his desk and looked at the three other men in the room. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me now it’s impossible to stop this thing?”
Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA, sat near the president, Karl Branigan and Jake Massey in front of the walnut desk.
There were dark shadows under the president’s eyes, the famous grin nowhere to be seen. The weather outside seemed to match his black mood.
Branigan sat forward in his chair. “I’m afraid it looks bad, Mr. President. As Massey explained, the only way we could get word to Slanski in Moscow was through Lebel. But now Lebel has vanished.”
Eisenhower said bleakly, “Tell me what happened.”
“As you know, sir, Lebel was due to fly to Moscow in two days’ time. We had our Paris desk try to contact him, but Lebel couldn’t be found. His chauffeur claims he was to pick him up from Maxim’s club at midnight, Paris time, where Lebel had a business appointment. Our men were waiting for him at the club, but Lebel never turned up. But something else did.”
“What?”
“Our Paris desk monitored an unscheduled Soviet diplomatic flight leaving from Le Bourget Airport with a flight plan for Moscow, not long after Lebel was dropped off on the Boulevard Montmartre by his chauffeur. There’s a club near the boulevard, the Club Malakoff, used by known French Communist Party members. We also know from our contacts in French counterintelligence that Lebel has been observed occasionally visiting the club. Lebel’s chauffeur says his boss took a phone call earlier in the evening and claimed he had a private meeting to attend but didn’t say where, only that he wanted to be driven to the Boulevard Montmartre.
“But there’s something much more worrying to consider. There were several passengers bundled on board the Soviet flight just before takeoff, one of them on a stretcher and accompanied by a doctor. According to the French, the Soviets claimed he was a member of their Paris embassy staff being taken to Moscow for urgent medical treatment. However, from talking with the French authorities who checked the Soviet passenger manifest and getting their descriptions of the people who went on board, we suspect now the man on the stretcher may have been Lebel.”
Eisenhower’s jaws clenched hard as stone. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”
“Which leads me to believe Moscow has figured out Lebel’s connection to Massey, and they want to interrogate him.”
Eisenhower put a hand to his face and rubbed his eyes. “It gets worse.”
“Mr. President, taking Lebel to Moscow would suggest he hasn’t already cooperated. But in my opinion, no matter what we had ordered Slanski to do at this stage, I’m convinced he’d ignore our command.”
Eisenhower looked up. “Even a direct command from me?”
“Yes, sir, if it were possible to relay one to him.”
Eisenhower sighed again and turned in his chair. “Mr. Massey, do you want to say anything?”
Massey looked up. He wore a troubled expression. He had hardly slept for the last forty-eight hours, the long flight from Helsinki to Washington swiftly followed by a grueling four-hour debriefing by Branigan, the assistant director, and Allen Dulles, every detail of the operation gone over. A feeling of doom and sickness gnawed at the pit of his stomach. The news about Lebel only added to it, and there was an atmosphere of hopelessness in the room.
He looked over at Eisenhower, who was staring at him. “I don’t know what to say, Mr. President.”
Eisenhower flushed angrily. “Considering you’re partly responsible, I think you had better contribute something to this conversation. You’ve been sitting there for the past ten minutes like a man who’s lost his way home. Don’t you have any suggestions?”
“If Lebel’s been taken to Moscow, then we’ve no way of stopping Slanski, short of sending someone in there to reason with him. As for Lebel’s abduction there’s no answer, unless you consider shooting down the aircraft he’s on.”
“Impossible, even if I considered it,” Eisenhower answered sharply. “By now it’ll be inside Soviet territory. And in answer to your first suggestion you heard what Branigan said—Slanski would never listen. What’s your opinion about this Lebel? Do you think he’ll break easily under interrogation?”
“Lebel was in a concentration camp after being caught and tortured by the Gestapo, so he’s been through the ordeal before. He may refuse to talk and deny his involvement, depending on what evidence Moscow has to implicate him. But they must have some, and they must be in a hurry, otherwise why abduct him, especially when he was to arrive there in two days? Or Lebel may just as easily tell Moscow everything. I’ve no way of knowing.”
“But you know the man, right? Give me your honest opinion. Will he talk?”