His request visibly annoyed Breslin, but he got up with a sigh and went to the door, opened it, and said to the woman in the red satin dress who was seated at the bar, “Could we have a bottle of wine, please?”
Hegedüs said from behind Breslin, “Would bourbon be all right?”
Breslin turned and screwed up his face. “Bourbon?”
“Yes, Miss Cahill always …”
Breslin shook his head and said to the woman in red, “A bottle of bourbon.” He then laughed and added, “And some Scotch and gin, too.” He closed the door and said to Cahill, “Never let it be said that Joe Breslin didn’t throw as good a defector party as Collette Cahill.”
“You’re a class act, Joe,” Collette said. She looked at Zoltán Réti and asked, “Have you defected too, Mr. Réti?”
Réti shook his head.
“But have you …?” She checked Breslin before continuing. His expressionless face prompted her to go ahead. “Have you been involved with our efforts all along, Mr. Réti, through Barrie Mayer?”
“Yes.”
“Were you Barrie’s contact here in Budapest?”
“Yes.”
“She would hand you what she was carrying for us?”
He smiled. “It was a little more complicated than that, Miss Cahill.”
There was a knock at the door. Breslin opened it and the woman in red carried in a tray with the liquor, a bucket of ice and glasses. After she’d placed it on the table and left, Collette cocked her head and listened to the strains of piano music and the laughter of patrons through the wall. Was this place secure enough for the sort of conversation they were having? She was almost ashamed for even questioning it. Breslin had a reputation of being the most cautious intelligence employee within the Budapest embassy.
“Maybe I’d better lead this conversation,” Breslin said.
Cahill was momentarily taken aback, but said, “By all means.”
Breslin pointed a finger across the table at Zoltán Réti and said, “Let’s start with you.” To Hegedüs, “You don’t mind, do you?”
Hegedüs, busy pouring a tall glass of bourbon, quickly shook his head and said, “Of course not.”
Breslin continued. “Mr. Réti, Miss Cahill has been back in the United States trying to find out what happened to Barrie Mayer. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but they were best of friends.”
“Yes, I know that,” said Réti.
“Then you know that we’ve never believed that Barrie Mayer died of natural causes.”
Réti grunted. “She was assassinated. Only a fool would think otherwise.”
“Exactly,” said Breslin. “One of the pieces we’ve had trouble with has to do with what she could have been carrying that was important enough for her to have been murdered. Frankly, we weren’t even aware of her final trip to Budapest until after the fact. We expected nothing from Washington. But you evidently knew she was coming.”
Réti nodded, and his heavy eyebrows came down even lower over his eyes.
Cahill said, “But you weren’t here, Mr. Réti. You were in London.”
“Yes, I was sent there by the Hungarian Arts Council to make an appearance at an international writers’ conference.”
“Didn’t Barrie know that you wouldn’t be here to meet her?” Cahill asked.
“No, I had no time to contact her. I was not allowed access to any means of communication with her before she left the United States.”
“Why?” Cahill realized she had taken the meeting from Breslin. She cast a glance at him to see if he were annoyed. The expression on his face showed that he wasn’t.
Réti shrugged. “I can only assume that they … the government had become aware that she and I were more than simply agent and author.”
Cahill processed what he’d said, then asked, “And they didn’t do more to you than just keep you from telling Barrie that you wouldn’t be here to meet her? They knew that you were involved in some sort of activity on our behalf, but only kept you from calling her?”
Réti smiled, exposing a set of widely spaced teeth. He said, “That is not so surprising, Miss Cahill. The Russians … and my government … they are not so foolish to punish someone like myself. It would not look so good in the world, huh?”
His explanation made sense to Cahill, but she said, “Still, if Barrie had arrived and didn’t find you here, what would she do with what she was carrying? Who would she hand it to?”
“This time, Miss Cahill, Barrie was not to hand me anything.”
“She wasn’t?”
“No.”
“What was she to do, then?”
“She was to tell me something.”
“Tell?”
“Yes. This time what she carried was in her head.”
“Her mind, you mean.”
“Yes, in her mind.”
The room was hot and stuffy, yet a chill radiated through Collette that caused her to fold into herself. Was it all coming true now—Jason Tolker, Estabrooks’s theories on using hypnosis to create the perfect intelligence courier, programs like Operation Bluebird and MK-ULTRA, supposedly scrapped years ago but still going strong—everything Eric Edwards had told her, every bit of it?
She looked at Breslin. “Joe, do you know what Barrie was supposed to tell Mr. Réti?”
Breslin, who’d just lighted his pipe, squinted through the smoke and said, “I think so.”
Cahill hadn’t expected an affirmative answer. Breslin said to Hegedüs, “Perhaps it’s time for you to contribute to this conversation.”
The Hungarian psychiatrist looked at Magda Lukács, cleared his throat with a swallow of bourbon, and said, “It has to do with what I told you the last time, Miss Cahill.”
Collette said it quietly, almost to the table: “Dr. Tolker.”
“Yes, your Dr. Tolker …”
“What about him?”
A false start from Hegedüs, then, “He had given Miss Mayer information of the gravest importance to the Banana Quick project.”
“What sort of information?” Cahill asked.
“The source of the leak in the British Virgin Islands,” Breslin said.
Cahill raised her eyebrows. “I thought that …”
Breslin shrugged. “I think you’re beginning to understand, Collette.”
“You told me the last time we were together, Árpád, that Tolker was not to be trusted.”
“That is correct.”
“But now I’m to understand that he’s the one who is identifying a security leak in Banana Quick.”
“Right,” said Breslin. “You know who we’re talking about, Collette.”
“Eric Edwards.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Collette said.
“Why?” Breslin asked. “Edwards has been a prime suspect from the beginning. That’s why you were …” He stopped. The rules were being broken. Take everything you could from the other side but offer nothing.
Collette was having trouble controlling her emotions. She didn’t want to mount an impassioned defense of Edwards because it would only trigger in Breslin the question of why she was doing it. She imposed calm on herself and asked Breslin, “How do you know what Barrie was carrying? Maybe it had nothing to do with Banana Quick … or Eric Edwards.”
Breslin ignored her and nodded at Hegedüs, who said regretfully, “I was wrong, Miss Cahill, about Dr. Tolker.”
“Wrong?”
“I was misled, perhaps deliberately by certain people within my professional ranks. Dr. Tolker has not been disloyal to you.”
“Just like that,” Cahill said.
Hegedüs shrugged. “It is not such a crime to be wrong, is it, not in America?”
Cahill sighed and sat back. “Collette,” Breslin said, “the facts are written on the wall. Barrie was coming here to …”
She said, “Coming here to deliver a message that had been implanted in her mind by Jason Tolker.”
“That’s right,�
� said Breslin. “Tell her, Mr. Réti.”
Réti said, “I was to say something to her when she arrived that would cause her to remember the message.”
“Which was?” Collette asked.
“That this Eric Edwards in the British Virgin Islands has been selling information to the Soviets about Banana Quick.”
“How do we know that’s what she was carrying?”
“Tolker has been contacted,” Breslin said.
Cahill shook her head. “If Tolker can simply tell us what he knows about Eric Edwards, why did he bother sending Barrie with the information? Why didn’t he just go to someone at Langley with it?”
“Because …” Breslin paused, then continued. “We can discuss that later, Collette. For now, let’s stick to what Mr. Réti and Mr. Hegedüs can provide us.”
“Well?” Cahill said to the two Hungarians.
“Miss Cahill,” Réti said, “first of all, I did not know what Barrie was to tell me when I said to her the code words.”
“What were those words?” Cahill asked.
Réti looked to Breslin, who nodded his approval. “I was to say, ‘The climate has improved.’ ”
“The climate has improved,” Cahill repeated.
“Yes, exactly that.”
“And she was then to open up to you like a robot.”
“I do not know about that. I was simply following instructions.”
“Whose instructions?”
“Mr.…” Another look at Breslin.
“Stan Podgorsky,” Breslin said. “Stan’s been the contact for Barrie and Mr. Réti since the beginning.”
“Why wasn’t I told that?” Cahill asked.
“No need. Barrie’s courier duties had nothing to do with you.”
“I wonder about that.”
“Don’t bother. It’s the way it is. Accept it.”
“Árpád, who has caused you to change your opinion of Jason Tolker?”
“Friends.” He smiled. “Former friends. There are no longer friends for me in Hungary.”
“Collette, Mr. Réti has something else to share with us,” Breslin said.
Everyone waited. Finally, Réti said in a low, slow monotone, “Barrie was bringing me money, too.”
“Money?” Cahill said.
“Yes, to pay off one of our officials so that the earnings from my books could reach me here in Hungary.”
“This money was in her briefcase?”
“Yes.”
“Joe, Barrie received her briefcase from Tolker. Why would he …?”
“He didn’t,” Breslin said. “The money wasn’t from Mr. Réti’s fund in the States. It was Pickle Factory money.”
“Why?”
“It’s the way it was set up.”
“Set up … with Barrie?”
“Right.”
“But she had Réti’s own money, didn’t she? Why would she need CIA money?”
Breslin lowered his eyes, then raised them. “Later,” he said.
“No, not later,” Cahill said. “How about now?”
“Collette, I think you’re becoming emotionally bound up in this. That won’t help clarify anything.”
“I resent that, Joe,”
What she was really feeling was a sense of being a woman, and disliking herself for it. Breslin was right. He’d read her; she wasn’t taking in and evaluating what was being said at the table like a professional. She was bound up in protecting a man, Eric, a man with whom she’d slept and, incredibly, with whom she’d begun to fall in love. It hadn’t seemed incredible at the time, but it did now.
She took in everyone at the table and asked, “Is there anything else?”
Hegedüs forced a big smile, his hand still resting on his lover’s hand. He said, “Miss Cahill, I would like you to know how much I appreciate … how much Magda and I appreciate everything you have done for us.”
“I didn’t do anything, Árpád, except listen to you.”
“No, you are wrong, Miss Cahill. By spending time with you, my decision to leave the oppression of the Soviets was made clear, and easier.” He stood and bowed. “I shall be forever grateful.”
Cahill found his demeanor to be offensive. “What about your family, Árpád, your beautiful daughter and bright young son? Your wife. What of her? Are you content to abandon them to the tenuous life you know they’ll lead in Russia?” He started to respond but she went on. “You told me you wanted more than anything else for your son to have the advantage of growing up in America. What was that, Árpád, all talk?” Her voice was now more strident, reflecting what she was feeling.
“Let’s drop it,” Breslin said with finality. Collette glared at him, then said to Réti, “What happens to you now, Mr. Réti? The money never reached you.”
Réti shrugged. “It is the same now as it was before. Perhaps …”
“Yes?”
“Perhaps you could be of help in this matter.”
“How?”
“We’re working on it, Mr. Réti,” Breslin said. To Cahill, “It’s one of the things I want to discuss with you when we leave here.”
“All right.” Collette stood and extended her hand to Magda Lukács. “Welcome, Miss Lukács, to freedom.” Hegedüs beamed and offered his hand to Cahill. She ignored it, said to Breslin, “I’m ready to leave.”
Breslin got up and surveyed the bottles on the table. “Souvenirs?” he asked, laughing.
“If you would not be offended I would …”
“Sure, Mr. Hegedüs, take it with you,” Breslin said. “Thank you for being here, all of you. Come on, Collette, you must be exhausted.”
“That, and more,” she said, opening the door and walking into the smoky barroom. The lady in red was standing at the door.
“Jó éjszakát,” Breslin said.
“Jó éjszakát,” she said, nodding at Cahill.
Collete said “Good night” in English, walked past her, and stood in the cool, refreshing air outside the club. Breslin came to her side. Without looking at him, she said, “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”
“I thought you were beat,” he said, taking her arm.
“I’m wide awake and I’m filled with questions that need answering. Are you up to that, Joe?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Somehow, she knew his best wouldn’t be enough, but she’d take what she could get.
They’d driven out of the city to the Római fürdö, the former Roman baths that now constituted one of Budapest’s two major camping sites. The sky had clouded over and was low. It picked up the general glow of the city’s lights and was racing over them, pink and yellow and gray, a fast-moving scrim cranked by an unseen force.
“You said you had questions,” Breslin said.
Cahill had opened her window and was looking out into the dark. She said into the night, “Just one, Joe.”
“Shoot.”
She turned and faced him. “Who killed Barrie Mayer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Know what I think, Joe?”
“No, what?”
“I think everybody’s lying.”
He laughed. “Who’s everybody?”
“Everybody! Let’s start with Réti.”
“Okay. Start with him. What’s he got to lie about?”
“Money, for one thing. I knew Barrie was supposed to pay off some government bigwig on Réti’s behalf, but I didn’t know until tonight that Barrie was actually carrying the money with her in the missing briefcase. Oh, that’s right, you said you’d discuss with me later why the Company used its money to buy off the official, instead of Barrie using what she’d already collected of Réti’s earnings. This is later, Joe. I’m ready.”
He scrutinized her from where he sat in the driver’s seat, ran his tongue over his lips, then pulled a pipe from his raincoat pocket and went through the ritual of lighting it. This was all too familiar to Cahill, using the pipe to buy thinking time, and tonight was especially irritating. Still, she didn�
��t interrupt, didn’t attempt to hasten the process. She waited patiently until the bowl glowed with fire and he’d had a chance to inhale. Then she said, “Réti’s money. Why the Company?”
“To make sure he knew who he owed,” Breslin answered.
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Why would he owe anyone? The money is his. His books earned it.”
“That’s what he said, but we educated him. He’s Hungarian. His big money is earned out of the country. Puts him in a tough position, doesn’t it? All we did was to set up a system to help him get his hands on some of it.”
“If he played the game with us.”
“Sure. He thought Barrie would take care of it as his agent.” Breslin smiled. “Of course, he didn’t know up front that she worked for us, and would do what we told her to do. We struck a nice deal. Réti cooperates with us, and we see that he gets enough money to live like a king here.”
“That is so … goddamned unfair. He earned that money.”
“I suppose it is unfair, unless you’re dealing with a Socialist writer and a capitalist agent. Come on, Collette, you know damn well that nothing’s fair in what we’re called upon to do.”
“ ‘Called upon to do.’ You make it sound so lofty.”
“Necessary. Maybe that’s more palatable to you.”
She drew a sustained, angry breath. “Let’s get to Hegedüs and Jason Tolker. Why do you buy Hegedüs’s change of mind about Tolker?”
“Why not buy it?”
“Why not? Joe, hasn’t it occurred to you that Árpád might have come over to feed us disinformation? What if Tolker has been cooperating with the other side? How convenient to have Hegedüs defect and get us to look the other way. No, I can’t buy it. When Hegedüs told me earlier that Tolker was not be to trusted, he meant it. He doesn’t mean what he’s saying now. He’s lying.”
“Prove it.”
“How do you prove anything in this stupid game?”
“Right, you don’t. You look at everything you’ve got—which sure as hell never amounts to much—and you feel what your gut is saying and listen to what your head says and you make your decisions. My decision? We’ve got ourselves a defector, a good one. Sure, we’d all prefer he’d stayed in place so he could keep feeding us from the inside, but it’s okay that he’s with us now. He’s loaded with insight into the Soviet and Hungarian psychological fraternity. You did a good job, Collette. You turned him nicely. He trusted you. Everybody’s pleased with the way you’ve handled him.”
Murder in the CIA Page 23