“So did you really swim a mile in the Baltic Sea?” Morel asked Szwedko.
“Yes, yes,” Szwedko answered with an aggressive nod. “And it was dark. The boat had stopped to wait for the clearance. I was a—what you call it?—stow-the-way, and I had to hide out in the cargo bay until I heard the engines cut. Halfway up I encounter crewman and talked my way out of it. As soon as engines start up again, I jump.”
“That takes some guts,” Curtis remarked.
Szwedko shrugged demurely. “Lucky I was very good swimmer my whole life, always outdoors in cold water.”
“How about you, Mr. Curtis?” Morel asked.
“It’s just Curtis,” the blond man answered. “What about me? I’ve knocked around some—Africa, the Arab countries, Europe. A little bit of diplomatic cover work, and some deep stuff. I expect Keeton and I are about the same age, midthirties. We’ve both seen a fair amount of field action—danger, death, and all that. You, Morel?”
“Until recently, I was a signals analyst in West Berlin. We built a listening device, and Keeton put it in East Berlin for us. That was my first real field assignment, with him. I transferred to Keeton’s field support team after…well…”
“You lost a man,” Curtis said quietly to Keeton, whose nod was barely perceptible.
“Make sure you’re in the field for the right reasons,” Curtis said, sensing between Morel and Keeton the dynamic of guilt and loyalty that could bury an agent. “Take it from me.”
The men ate in silence for the next several minutes, until stewards came into the dining room to clear the plates and fill their coffees. Boyle told them they would convene in the library in half an hour to commence the training on Keeton’s cover, and he encouraged them each to take a walk before the long book-learning session. Morel said he wanted to check with the teletype operators on incoming messages, and Szwedko declined in favor of unpacking his books and other materials he would need for Keeton’s cultural tutoring. That left Boyle, Keeton, and Curtis standing together on the front porch of the house a couple of minutes later.
“Sorry, boys, I’ve got to make sure the barn is ready for PT,” Boyle said with his usual devilish twinkle. “Carry on.” Then he jogged away.
“Let’s take the short path,” Keeton said, pointing at the trailhead with the wooden sign painted with a green triangle. It was the camp’s half-mile route used for outdoor sprint training. “But we’ll just walk, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Sure, I don’t want to vomit on the first day, either,” Curtis answered with a smile. The two men headed down the green trail.
“What does ‘knock around’ mean, in a powder keg like the Near East?” Keeton asked.
“Mostly getting knocked around, I guess,” Curtis laughed. “No worse than yourself, I’m sure, in this business. For a while I was stationed in Cairo, basic intel gathering that was filtered and then handed over to the Israelis. Later I did something similar in Syria and barely got out during the revolution and the coup attempt that we helped with—that was two years ago. You’re right about the powder keg thing, though. Shit going on all over the region with military coups, religious wars, tribal squabbles, and, of course, with everybody pretty much hating Israel. I predict everything over there to escalate in the next ten years, and after that, who knows.”
“Sounds about right from what I know,” Keeton commented. “Postcolonial chaos. Is the Syrian post where you got that wound?” Keeton pointed up to Curtis’s ear.
“Nope, that was earlier,” Curtis said darkly. “Africa. Nigeria. Back in ‘60 just before they got their independence I was picked up by some kind of militant freedom group. I think they wanted to be in on things when the Brits finally let the place go. They thought I could help them, that I knew something about all the negotiations, which I didn’t. They started carving on me to get me to talk—an interrogator, an enforcer, and a one-armed guard. I had a Cameroon informant working for me who got there just in time to break up the party and get me to a hospital. So, after the Syrian thing I decided to try my luck as a liaison and cover runner. That’s why I’m here.”
“Tough stuff,” Keeton said. “My assignment is mostly Iron Curtain. Less violence—in theory.”
“I’ve heard about the Cavalry,” Curtis said. “Asset rescue missions, like the one you’re training on here. I’ve been working with the Brits on your cover into Poland. By the way, there’s a lot of nasty things being said about you in London right now.”
“Nothing I don’t deserve,” Keeton answered with a bitter laugh.
“Well, they’ve got rumors of their own to worry about, as you probably know,” Curtis said. “But listen, there’s something closer to home I wanted to tell you about.”
“What’s that?” Keeton asked, sensing the harbinger of bad news in the other man’s tone.
“It’s Szwedko,” Curtis replied. “Something’s not right about him. I’m not sure he’s exactly who he claims.”
“A sleeper? I don’t think Donny Boyle would let—”
“No, not that,” Curtis said. “Inside man, I think.”
“What are you getting at, Curtis?” Keeton asked sharply.
“I met him at the New York station,” Curtis said. “But as we were leaving, one of his handlers called him ‘professor,’ and another guy tells the first one to pipe down. Pretty clumsy craft, but these two were junior desk jockeys. On the plane ride over here, he sort of grilled me, but in a way that he must’ve thought was subtle—it wasn’t. Then at breakfast, the whole time we were talking his eyes never stopped moving around the table. I’ve got a theory.”
“Which is?”
“Headshrinker,” Curtis declared. “Oh, I think his back story about escaping Poland is true. But I think he could be doing a crazy check on one of us. I wouldn’t blame the agency for sending a guy after me, but I don’t think it’s me they’re watching. Do you?”
***
Anatol Kozlow sat at the small round table in his apartment in Krakow and thumbed through the developed photographs, selecting a few that he then arranged upside down so the man opposite him could discern them. Two cups of brewed tea sat steaming aside the pictures.
“What about this one?” Kozlow’s companion asked about the first photograph as he picked up his tea to sip it. He was known to Kozlow simply as Jakub, a circumstance that was the product of carefully honed profiling and trade craft. As planned, it was soon taken for granted by Kozlow that he should not even ask or wonder about Jakub’s full name or even whether it was real.
“His name is Łukasz Sobol,” Kozlow answered. “He volunteers quite a bit in the cathedral, usually organizing fund-raisers or keeping the books for a committee here or there.”
“An accountant, like you,” Jakub said with a smile. He looked closer at the man in the picture, an older gentlemen standing next to a tree, looking off to the side.
Kozlow nodded. “A nice fellow. To my knowledge he’s not close to Baca but is deeply loyal to him. Perhaps he could be useful.”
“And this one?” Jakub moved to the next picture, and together they repeated the evaluation of the subjects in the photographs one at a time. Jakub was gratified that Kozlow was beginning to use words like “useful,” “control,” and “discard” when they discussed Paszek’s various circles of friends and parishioners. The more impersonally his informant thought of these people, the easier it would be if unpleasant action was called for in the future. The final photograph was of a woman, beautiful with a face of fair skin framed by long blond hair. She was sitting on a park bench, intensely reading a novel. Like the others, the picture was in black and white and artistic in its demonstration of Kozlow’s skill as a photographer.
“And her?” Jakub asked with interest.
“A professor at the university,” Kozlow explained. “A classic academic, as you might expect. She seems intrigued by the phenomenon of Baca the bishop but not really close to him and certainly not a believer. I met her at a Workers’ Party meeting. I
thought perhaps…”
“Yes, you were correct,” Jakub said. “Please write down what you know about her on the back, as usual.” Kozlow turned the photograph over and wrote his notes in neat block letters with a pencil. By the time he was done Jakub had produced an envelope from his jacket and dumped out a stack of Polish złoty notes neatly bound by a paper strip. Kozlow slid the photograph across the table as Jakub pushed over the bundle of currency. Jakub thought that his informant might view the exchange as seedy, but for him it was another moment of triumph in developing this human asset before him. He placed the picture in the envelope, which then went back into his jacket.
“I hope that will be enough, old friend,” Jakub said, glancing down at the money. “I do what I can.”
“Of course, of course,” Kozlow answered quickly. “Would you like more tea?”
Jakub shook his head. “You know, Anatol, you have turned into quite the agent—resourceful and connected.”
Kozlow grunted. “Perhaps you could tell that to my wife. She worries about me getting too much into politics, that it’s dangerous. And maybe even dangerous for Baca.”
Jakub stood and walked toward the door. “Forgive me for saying this, Anatol. She’s a woman, so emotion rules intellect. It’s in her nature to worry, and then to worry too much. Of course, this is all well and good for tending children. But when serious matters arise that require action, that’s what us men do. We protect. You and I protect. What we’re doing now is helping to protect Baca.”
Jakub watched the subtle signs evolve on Kozlow’s face as he spoke. It was one of his stock lectures when dealing with a pliant husband and a skeptical wife, a simple lesson for this Polish simpleton. No, that was not fair—Anatol really had developed some rudimentary skill at analyzing personalities. Unfortunately for him, however, Jakub was using him to find Paszek’s potential enemies rather than allies, as he had been told. Finally, Kozlow nodded slowly and walked over to Jakub to see him out.
They shook hands, and then Jakub—who was known by several names in various locations around Europe—reached over to the hook on the wall and lifted the tan fedora to his head, and left.
***
Keeton bit down on the rubber mouth guard and charged forward, his hands raised in expectation of another barrage of blows from the man coming at him from the other corner of the boxing ring. Unfortunately for Keeton, that man was Jimmy Morel. It was only after the first three hard rounds that Donny Boyle had whispered the bad news gleefully into Keeton’s ear as he sucked in air and water in copious quantities. Morel had been a Golden Gloves contender as a teenager, and had even considered a professional career before deciding on the army—where he had again done well in competition before getting recruited into the CIA.
It was Keeton’s third day of training. The much-anticipated match was supposed to be a recreational break from the rigors of the studying and practicing and Boyle’s famous physical regimen. Keeton also had had to endure Szwedko’s evaluation concerning his psychological fitness. The agent had taken enough psych exams to recognize the ever-so-slightly too clever questions about how he felt and what he’d do if this or that. The queries were benign enough, so Keeton put them aside in favor of focusing on his upcoming field assignment.
“Get him, Keeton,” Curtis called from his corner. But it was no use. Although shorter and slighter than Keeton, Morel was well honed, quick, and younger. His jabs stung even through the padded headgear, and by and large he was able to dodge Keeton’s counterattacks. Keeton resorted to leaning and pushing Morel around, but everyone there knew that he would get no credit for this tactic. Of course, the teasing on the first morning between them made the ordeal that much more embarrassing. Finally, Boyle called thirty seconds in his role as referee, timekeeper, and all-around gadfly.
Keeton took three big steps back and pushed off his sneakers, then stuttered ahead toward the surprised Morel. Suddenly Keeton’s right leg lashed out so that the top of his foot struck the back of Morel’s left leg, nearly buckling it.
“Foul!” Morel cried in shock. “I say that was a—” Before he could finish, a second kick from Keeton struck his headgear and sent him tumbling sideways. He jumped up immediately only to be felled again by the same combination but from the other side. Morel spit out his mouth guard and stood flailing angrily, but this time Keeton launched a front kick to his midsection that pushed him to his backside. Boyle called time as Morel sat on the thin mat hurling oaths. Romain Roy jumped in from Morel’s corner and Curtis from Keeton’s, and the four men converged in the center with indignant pushing and cursing until Boyle stepped in and used a whistle to subdue them. He was laughing.
“I give the battle to Jimmy but the war to Keeton,” the Irishman declared, attempting to raise Keeton’s hand in victory. But he was having none of it, and neither was Morel.
“You kicked me like a girl!” Morel cried.
Keeton’s eyes flashed, and he pushed Boyle out of the way and then grabbed Morel’s headgear and walked him backward into a corner. “Listen, sonny, your enemy’s going to kick you, gouge your eyes, bite, punch you in the balls, and sneak up from behind with a letter opener—or any other damned thing he can do to finish you off. Got it?”
Morel glared at him for a few moments, then suddenly hooked Keeton’s arms at the elbows, ducked under them, and executed a hip toss that slammed him to the mat, on his back. From atop Keeton he stared down and said, “I was a judo champion, too.” The rest of the men stood there watching, astonished, as Keeton exhaled heavily and let his head fall back to the mat.
“Of course you were,” he said wearily. Then he looked back up until both of them finally cracked the slightest grins. “Foul!”
“That’s a good one, you lunatic,” Morel said, and he helped pull Keeton to his feet.
The mood of the group broke, and they all began teasing and laughing again. The volunteer corner men helped them off with their gloves and out of the ring to the floor of the old barn, the big building that doubled as Boyle’s rough-hewn gymnasium. Despite the large fan spinning in the corner, the air in the barn bore the oppressive thickness of summer in Virginia. Curtis handed Keeton a water bottle and gave him a pat on the back.
“He gave you hell in there, but I agree with Donny that you won.”
Keeton shrugged and tipped up the bottle. Sweat dripped from his chin, his ears, and even his elbow. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Szwedko standing by the barn door, having watched the entire bout and the aftermath with his hands clasped in front of him. He was staring at Keeton.
“Did I really?” Keeton muttered after gulping a mouthful of water. He wondered what Szwedko must be thinking. Morel had said it.
Lunatic.
***
Director Morrison liked walking the floors and rooms of the Cavalry’s main headquarters, the building unofficially dubbed “the Fort” by his staff and agents. His was not a sprawling empire within the CIA, but his team did execute rescue missions all over the globe. They required the ability to readily communicate and monitor the status of each agent and the respective regions. The Fort itself was carefully hidden behind the illusion of the Halley Travel Agency, the front office of which, although empty most of the time, was actually configured with a front desk for a secretary and two offices for the fictitious staff.
“This damned job is sedentary enough; I’ll go down there myself,” he said to Betty as he passed her desk. It was nearing the end of the standard American workday, but for Morrison there was no such thing.
“But that’s one of the things you pay me to do,” Betty responded in lighthearted protest. “Bring the new teletypes up to you and send your responses back down.” They also shared a devotion to the men and the women of the Cavalry and loved being among it all.
“Have a good evening, Betty,” Morrison said over his shoulder with mock sweetness as he rounded the corner that led to the Map Room. “Tell Cubby I said hello!”
“You know I can’t do that, Director
. He thinks I help type up travel itineraries for a living.” But it was too late—Morrison had gone.
Two minutes later—with a stop to get a cup of strong coffee at the tiny canteen—Morrison stood on the platform above the Big Map, the motorized contraption on which the location of the five Color agents were marked. Various maps of countries, regions, and cities could also be ordered up for viewing as needed.
Specialist Banks, one of the men who managed the Map Room, walked up to Morrison. “Good evening, Director. What can I help you with?”
“Nothing at the moment, Banks, thank you,” Morrison replied. “Just taking a walk to avoid fossilizing.”
Banks smiled. “Not anytime soon, sir. If you’re interested, we’re going to be adding two updated zones to the Vietnam-Laos border—based on the Corona satellite pix. Low orbit birds. Better than getting your spy plane shot down. Good material. I have a feeling it’s not going to be over in Vietnam as soon as most people think. The images we already have show a lot of very dense jungle. Nothing I’d want to try fighting in.”
“I’ll swing by tomorrow and have a look,” Morrison said. “And I agree with your assessment about Vietnam.”
“Tomorrow then, sir,” Banks said before returning to his work down on the floor of the Map Room.
Morrison then made his way to the other side of the Big Map and through a set of doors that served to isolate the noisy teletypes. A bank of four machines chattered incessantly inside the warm room. Each machine was situated atop a metal stand, the feet of which were recently adorned with thick rubber boots because a technician from Langley thought the Soviets could measure and record vibrations by way of intercepting their transmissions. They couldn’t, but nonetheless the boots were attached.
Two types of messages were received by the teletypes, coded and flash. The former—also called “scrambled eggs” in the playful parlance of Cavalry agents—were encrypted by a onetime cypher system that changed daily. The book for it was published every few months to the various stations around the world. It was the so-called unbreakable code—the only way for the enemy to read these messages was to have stolen the code book, and this had happened on only one occasion. Each night, at one minute past midnight, an operator pulled out the code book and set the teletypes to automatically unscramble the new scrambled eggs. Flash messages, on the other hand, were unencrypted code words and phrases that were used to send fast, urgent messages that could not wait for the letter-by-letter cyphering—much riskier but sometimes necessary.
The Schoolboy (Agent Orange Book 2) Page 4