Sophia recognized Ms. Chambers’ reasoning as sexual discrimination. It made Sophia mildly uncomfortable, but as long as it worked in her favor she didn’t see a need to complain. And whom would she complain to? The federal government?
The weeklong training period began with a lecture from Ms. Chambers on basic surveillance and shadowing techniques. “Your job is to be invisible. Do not go on assignment dressed like Cyndi Lauper or Madonna.” That got a laugh from the girls. Both singers had become MTV sensations the previous summer. Sophia was certain that even though Cyndi Lauper dressed like a thrift shop explosion and talked like Betty Boop when she appeared on David Letterman, hers was a true talent and she would be a star for years while sex kitten Madonna would fade quickly.
The day following Ms. Chambers’ lecture began what Sophia considered the most organized tournament of hide and seek ever played on the streets of Manhattan. The girls were paired off each afternoon. One girl was instructed to tail the other without losing her, and the other girl was instructed to shake her follower. The sessions lasted two hours. Ms. Chambers insisted it wasn’t a competition. Yet Sophia was the only girl who “won” every session, whether she was the tag or the tail. At the end of the week, Ms. Chambers’ eyes lingered on Sophia and the instructor gave her a slight nod. Sophia felt a rush of satisfaction.
As the assignments started, Ms. Chambers reiterated that the girls of the Harriet Brigade were “extra sets of eyes,” a backstop to regular FBI surveillance that might result in added, beneficial intelligence. If the subject lingered on a park bench or walked up to a tree, the Harriet was supposed to pass along the location of the bench or tree, but not approach it. The Harriet Brigade would be called off if involved if a subject was suspected of active involvement in an espionage operation.
Even so, those early assignments carried a sense of danger. Late last summer, only a few weeks before Sophia joined the Harriet Brigade, President Reagan made a joke when he thought the microphones were off. “My fellow Americans,” he began, “I’m pleased to tell you that today I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” The already frosty relationship between the super powers went into a deep freeze overnight. “This is the worst it’s been since the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Sophia’s father said a few days later. Her mother grimaced and changed the subject to the new Clint Eastwood movie, something about a detective on the edge.
It was into this charged atmosphere that Sophia joined the Harriet Brigade. During her early days she felt a thrill watching suspected spies from the “Evil Empire,” as President Reagan once called the Soviet Union. But the thrill faded as routine set in, and Sophia understood why Ms. Chambers believed boys would quit the program once they realized their James Bond fantasies would go unfulfilled. Sophia had never seen a subject go anywhere near a park bench. Most of her assignments came down to watching her man leave the United Nations and get into a cab or limousine. Sophia would call in to the FBI, report the vehicle’s license plate number, then go home.
Such had been the nature of her job for months until this evening, a Friday, when Janov broke his pattern.
Sophia knew slightly more about Vasily Janov than her prior subjects, which was their name and nothing more. When Ms. Chambers gave her the new assignment, Sophia joked, “Oh, another KGB guy?” and Ms. Chambers made an uncharacteristic slip when she murmured, “More likely a GRU guy.” Ms. Chambers caught her indiscretion immediately, refusing to add anything else, except that Sophia was to identify Janov by the code name TENSPEED. A trip to the library informed Sophia that the GRU was the Soviet Union’s military intelligence agency and that it had a rivalry with the KGB just as the FBI had a rivalry with the CIA. If Janov were a GRU agent operating in the United States, he might be stepping on the KGB’s toes.
Early on, Sophia had witnessed nothing to indicate Janov was any sort of spy. To her eyes he was a U.N. diplomat who slipped into a limousine every afternoon and drove off into the care of the FBI surveillance team watching his residence. That had been his daily pattern until this evening. This evening he had ignored the taxis and limos in the circular drive and crossed First Avenue at the busy Forty-second Street intersection. He continued West. Sophia fell in a cautious half block behind him. This was an unusually cold January, and Sophia was underdressed for it, with only a light blue ski jacket (a recent Christmas present), stocking cap, earmuffs, and a pair of mittens to protect her from the frigid air. She envied Janov, who wore a heavy pea coat and a fur hat. At least it wasn’t snowing.
After two blocks Janov stopped in front of a shoe store to look at the display window. Anyone else would think he was considering a new pair of shoes, but Sophia knew Janov was using the window’s reflective surface to check for tails. She slowed her pace but didn’t stop. Janov would be looking for anyone who stopped at the same time he did or who ducked into another shop. The thing about Manhattan, Sophia knew, was that the sidewalks were always crowded, especially this close to Midtown, so spotting suspicious behavior in fellow pedestrians was nearly impossible. Besides, Janov would be looking for a suspicious man, probably with a short haircut. He wouldn’t pay any attention to a sixteen-year-old girl. Janov started walking again after about twenty seconds, and Sophia paused at a bookshop window to let him gain a half a block on her.
As they passed the Chrysler Building Sophia had a suspicion where Janov was heading. She closed the distance between them, and her instincts proved correct when he turned toward Grand Central Station.
Sophia risked closing the gap between herself and the Russian as she followed him into the station. Rush hour had passed, but the nation’s largest train terminal was still bustling with borough dwellers arriving for a Friday night on Broadway, Amtrak travelers squinting at the departures board, and sightseers eager to imbibe expensive cocktails at The Campbell Apartment. If Janov was meeting a contact here, Sophia needed to witness it. She must not lose him in the crowd. Luckily, Janov was a tall man and he had left on his fur hat. The hat was an ermine beacon that Sophia followed through the shifting masses.
Sophia watched the hat separate itself from the pack and disappear into a men’s room. If Janov was meeting a contact in there, Sophia could do nothing about it. She slipped into a nearby newsstand and picked up a fan magazine with Duran Duran on the cover. Not her favorite band, but the Talking Heads weren’t available. She flipped open the magazine and pretended to read as she angled her body so that she could see the men’s room door from the corner of her eye. After maybe two minutes Janov emerged and Sophia was about to replace the magazine when she saw it wasn’t Janov, but a man of similar build wearing an identical pea coat and fur hat. Sophia kept to her post.
Thirty seconds later Janov appeared, bareheaded and wearing a camel-hair coat. He and the other man must have switched coats. A thrill jolted through Sophia. Janov was trying to shake a tail! He was trying to shake a tail, but he failed because he didn’t shake her. She set down the magazine and fell in behind Janov again. It occurred to her that perhaps Janov had just made contact, that signals were exchanged along with the coats, but her intuition told her something else was up.
Janov entered the large alcove filled with coin-operated lockers. Following him and pretending to find a locker would be too conspicuous. Sophia slowed her gait and walked past the area, watching him obliquely. Janov headed straight for a locker, pulling one of those keys with the thick orange fob from the pocket of his newly acquired coat. He opened the locker and extracted a suitcase and overnight bag, which he slung over his shoulder.
Sophia remained outwardly calm as another wave of excitement raced from her scalp to her fingertips. Janov was leaving town! After weeks of boring surveillance work, one of her subjects was behaving like a spy. The moment was almost surreal. Now she had to learn what train he was taking and report in to the FBI. She could practically feel that acceptance letter in her hands and see the Princeton seal atop the page.
Sophia stopped in front of
a rack of Amtrak brochures and schedules and waited for Janov to return to the concourse. Within moments–before she had time to pick up a brochure– Janov exited the locker area.
That’s when he looked at her.
Sophia immediately unfocused her eyes and pretended to watch at someone in the distance. Janov looked away quickly, no more than two seconds. Sophia’s skin tightened. She reminded herself that hers was one face among hundreds and that Janov in no way would consider a teenage girl a threat. Yet in those two seconds he glanced at her, Sophia had the feeling her face had been photographed and filed away.
Then Janov was moving again and, though spooked, Sophia knew she had to follow. This was the most important part of her assignment. She had to learn what train he was taking. Janov quickened his pace and so did Sophia, hoping she would be seen as merely another passenger rushing for the same train. She glanced up at a clock to see it was 7:11 p.m. The track entrances were ahead. Janov was walking toward a door marked THE LAKE SHORE LIMITED. Below the name was a list of cities–Boston-Albany, Cleveland-Toledo, Chicago–and the departure time, 7:30. Sophia dodged through a family in front of her. Getting close to Janov was chancy, but she needed to know his destination. The noise increased and the temperature dropped as she stepped onto the platform with only four people between her and Janov. He approached a redcap and Sophia pressed close enough to hear.
“Where to, sir?” the redcap asked.
“Chicago,” Janov replied. “I have a bedroom, a roomette.”
“Slumbercoach? Yessir. Allow me to take your bag, sir. All right then, follow me.”
Janov and the redcap retreated down the platform. Sophia was about to find the nearest pay phone when another redcap approached her and asked, “Where are you traveling to tonight, miss?”
At that moment it occurred to Sophia there was one more key piece of intelligence she could obtain. The FBI would want to put a man on the train somewhere down the line. It would save them time if they knew Janov’s room number. The train wouldn’t depart for fifteen minutes. Enough time to locate Janov’s room and get off. Sophia would show initiative and maybe earn another approving look from Ms. Chambers.
“Where to, miss?” the redcap repeated.
She thought quickly, recalling her train trip to Florida the previous summer to visit her grandparents. Coach passengers did not have to produce their tickets until the conductor came through once the train was underway. She would have to board at a coach car and make her way back to the sleeper cars. She didn’t have a suitcase, which meant the redcap would assume her baggage had been checked. But only the larger stations were equipped to handle checked baggage.
“Cleveland,” she said.
“All right, miss, you go on up to the sixth car ahead and get on board there. Have a good trip.”
Sophia thanked him and jogged along the length of the silver train, ducking around other last-minute passengers. She wished she had a walkie-talkie to contact the FBI, or a wrist-radio device like Dick Tracy wore. She once asked Ms. Chambers if the FBI issued equipment like that. Ms. Chambers replied, “Are you kidding? I have enough trouble requisitioning a computer.”
When Sophia reached the sixth car, she bounded up the metal steps into the tiny foyer and slowed down. Running through the cars would draw attention, especially from the conductors. She would prefer they ignored her. As she walked into the car she saw few empty seats. Most of the passengers were already settled. The adults read books, magazines, or newspapers, and the teenagers listened to Walkmans. Only the children squirmed. Above the rows, thin slips of paper sprouted from the luggage racks. The slips bore three-letter codes for each passenger’s destination. Most of the strips in this car said CLE for Cleveland with several that said ERI, which Sophia figured meant Erie, Pennsylvania. A few said ELY, but Sophia didn’t know what city those initials signified.
Moving through the coach cars, Sophia noted the alcoves containing suitcases at the front and rear of the seating areas. Briefcases, duffle bags, and backpacks filled the luggage racks that ran the length of the cars above the seats on either side of the aisle. Sophia knew she had reached the last coach car when almost every destination tag read CHI for Chicago. She checked her watch as she passed through the lounge car, and it told the lie that she still had ten minutes to find Janov’s compartment. When she entered the sleeper car, Sophia realized the flaw to her plan. The corridor was empty. The passengers were already in their rooms. She had no way to know which one was Janov’s unless she started knocking on doors. That might not be a terrible idea, she had reasoned with herself when the train started to move.
And now she was in the lounge car, a stowaway watching through a darkened window as the Lake Shore Limited made its passage beneath the streets of Manhattan en route to the Midwest. The train had reached cruising speed, and the wheels clicking on the tracks seemed to say, “Connecticut, Connecticut,” over and over, emphasizing every syllable and hitting the C sounds hard. Sophia surveyed the lounge car. With the voyage just begun, the car was empty except for her and the steward, who stood behind the stainless steel counter in the middle of the car. Like most of the train crew, he was African-American. He was setting snack size bags of potato chips on the counter when he looked up at Sophia.
“Food service doesn’t start for another thirty minutes, miss, but I could get you a cup of coffee if you want,” he said.
“No, thanks,” Sophia replied. “But do you have a schedule?”
“A timetable?” he said. “I happen to have a few. Here you go.”
Sophia stepped up to the counter as the steward handed her a timetable, which was printed as a trifold brochure. The steward’s name badge identified him as Aaron. Sophia thanked him as she opened the schedule. Reading down the timetable’s left-hand column, she learned the train made its first stop at 8:18 p.m. in Croton-Harmon. That would be Croton-on-Hudson. A bit farther north than Sophia expected the first stop to be, but it should give her enough time to take a Hudson Line train back into the city and be home by eleven. She would tell her parents she got roped into seeing a movie with friends. She’d pick one she had already seen, probably Beverly Hills Cop, in case her parents asked about it.
Sophia wondered again if lying to her parents had become too easy since she joined the Harriet Brigade. Perhaps, but did this make her any different from the average American teenager? Anyway her parents were easy to deal with. Sophia was sure to catch hell from Ms. Chambers for getting herself trapped aboard a train.
She thanked Aaron again, stuffed the schedule into a coat pocket, and left the lounge car. Sophia spent the next thirty minutes moving from one restroom to another to dodge the conductor. She was in a lounge car restroom when she heard the announcement for Croton-Harmon. She stepped out of the restroom and took one last glance down the length of the car before heading for the exit. She gasped at what she saw.
Janov was in the lounge car. He was seated alone at one of the pale yellow Formica-top tables, drinking coffee from a paper cup and reading the Times. Janov was on the side of the car facing the station and was positioned next to the window. Anyone on the platform would see him clearly. He was turned toward Sophia but didn’t notice her. As the train slowed, Janov set the paper down and looked out at the platform. He rested his cheek nearest the window on his hand and gripped an earlobe between his thumb and folded forefinger. With a bored expression on his face, Janov tugged at his ear. Twice.
It was a signal. Sophia was sure of that. Janov was signaling someone on the platform. He was meeting a contact aboard the train. If Sophia got off at Croton-on-Hudson, she would not know which new passenger was Janov’s contact. She let out a frustrated, nearly silent growl. She needed to stay aboard to get a good look at the contact and pass along a description to the FBI. Sophia did some mental calculations. The next stop was Poughkeepsie. She had to get off there whether she saw Janov’s contact or not because Poughkeepsie was the last stop the Hudson Line. Beyond Poughkeepsie there was no commuter train
to return her to Manhattan.
The restroom was adjacent to the passage leading to the sleeper car. Sophia went toward the sleeper car without attracting Janov’s attention. She went to the rear of the car and waited inside the far doorway, listening. She was counting on Janov wanting to confer with his contact in his compartment. As soon as she heard someone in the corridor she would make her way forward and hopefully get a good look at Janov’s contact before they vanished into his compartment. It was also possible, Sophia knew, that Janov would meet his contact in the dining car, which was at the other end of the train, but that would afford them less privacy. Spies wanted privacy, right?
Apparently they did, because Sophia heard masculine voices down the corridor. She started walking, and Janov came around the corner with another man. They didn’t acknowledge her.
“How was your drive?” Janov asked the man.
“Not too bad once I hit the New York line,” the man replied. “I tell you, it’s snowing a shitstorm in Groton.”
Janov frowned when the man mentioned Groton, as if he had been indiscreet. Sophia could guess why. Like any New Yorker who read the newspapers, she knew the Connecticut port was home to most of the U.S. Navy’s Atlantic submarine fleet. It was also home to the shipyards that built those submarines and an array of defense contractors that designed the systems that powered the subs. Most of what happens in Groton would be of interest to Soviet military intelligence.
Still moving toward them, Sophia studied the man from Groton. He was in his mid-thirties and handsome, with clear blue eyes and a firm jawline. The only thing Sophia disapproved about his appearance was that he wore his light brown hair puffed up above his forehead, that ridiculous Jack Kemp look. He wore a belted trench coat and carried a briefcase. Sophia looked down at his shoes to see what they would reveal about him, but they were encased in a pair of galoshes. He had spoken with a Boston accent. The FBI would want to know that.
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