“Yes, sir. But, sir, may I ask?”
“What is it?”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because the prime minister wants the Americans to know it, and your ambassador these days meets only with the Shah. Because the prime minister knows the Shah trusts you, he wants you to be the one who conveys his message to your government. His Imperial Majesty has, of course, approved this approach. Eleven Moharram, your 12 December, is only ten days away. We must have your government’s unconditional approval of your continuing availability as an adviser by then. The prime minister also wants to be sure your government realizes how valuable you can be as a conveyer of information, in case it becomes clear that your other ideas, including your newspaper, will not be acted on in any foreseeable future.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”
Kasravi caught Frank’s eye, glanced at the tape recorder, and chopped the air with his open hand. Frank shut the recorder off.
“Thank you,” said Kasravi. “On the other matter, you have not, I believe, been granted an audience with His Imperial Majesty since we spoke about that thirty-page document.”
“No, sir. I haven’t.”
“We hope you will have an opportunity soon. Admiral Hayati spoke to me about it again early this morning. He said he would like to meet with you.”
Interesting, thought Frank. “I would consider it an honor.”
“I would consider it a mistake,” said Kasravi. “Such a meeting would compromise the admiral in the eyes of … others. I told him, suggested rather, that it would not be a good idea. Your Jayface colleague Munair, Captain Irfani, who is close to the admiral, agrees with me.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Frank. “Maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea, but I would like to meet him.”
* * *
Rocky had insisted on climbing up to the bubble. Frank wondered why.
“It’s not worth much,” said Rocky, “but do a cable on what Kasravi told you about Sanjabi and all the rest gettin’ outta jail and the stuff on the demonstrations.”
“Can I feed it to Lermontov?”
“Negative,” said Rocky. “The colonel said no foreign nationals, remember? I don’t wanna take a chance somebody may be tryin’ to set us up. Your buddy Lermontov was pretty tight with Nazih, remember? Who knows who else he’s tight with. You feed him this stuff about Sanjabi gonna get outta jail, and word gets back to Kasravi, your ass is seaweed. And then these guys don’t have to worry about you bein’ tight with the Shah.”
“Okay,” said Frank.
“Don’t look so down in the chops. You gotta realize the only game in town that counts is Lermontov. It looks like I need you to move that along, but I damn sure don’t want you t’ do anything t’ fuck it up. ’Sides, I got somethin’ else for you to feed Lermontov. Somethin’ that’ll do him and the boys back in Moscow a lot more good than knowin’ about Sanjabi.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t gimme that gloomy ‘oh’ shit. This is good stuff, about that Tudeh party of his. Seems like there’s a splinter group. Woke up one mornin’ in the middle of this Islamic Revolution. Found out they were in a foxhole and all of a sudden they ain’t atheists anymore. Call themselves the Militant Followers of the Imam’s Line. Savak’s got one of their bozos in with this bunch. He came up with a copy of a report these guys put together on how the godless Soviets plan to take over after the Islamic Revolution brings down the Shah. They plan to send some guys up to wherever it is outside ’a Paris where Khomeini hangs out and brief him on what the Sovs are up to. Tell him who the bad guys are, who the good guys are who he can trust with the Tudeh and the Muslim Mojahedin and all the other little leftist shits.”
“Any chance these were the Tudeh bunch tied in with Nazih?”
“I asked Eagle-1 about that. He said he wasn’t sure ’cause buildin’ the case on Nazih was handled by J2 and the Shah’s private spooks. And it figures Lermontov won’t know about it because his Savak contacts were part of the bunch J2 rolled up when they grabbed Nazih.”
Frank shuddered. “What can I give Lermontov?” he asked.
“The whole deal. The report these guys cooked up for Khomeini. The names of all the Tudeh creeps involved. The Sovs they work with, names and physical description, which is interesting. So far no mention of Lermontov. No description that sounds like him. Either they know him by another name or, more likely, he uses a cut out. I told Eagle-1 we wanted it all. It gets back to him that Lermontov’s got it, I’ll convince him Lermontov must have a new Joe in Savak. Stuff I’m gonna give you includes a fake cable from me to Langley. Should be enough for Lermontov to convince Moscow he’s got a real CIA defector.”
“Okay,” said Frank. “I just hope it doesn’t convince the Holy Ghost that Lermontov’s got a real defector.”
“I already cleared it with the Holy Ghost. He fuckin’ loves it. But what he’s really hot for is all you can get outta Lermontov on his penetration agent. So penetrate the shit outta’m.”
* * *
Frank checked his watch. Seven forty-five. Long past the time Lermontov should have arrived at the safe house. He turned off the light in the front window and sat in the dark. Wondering. Worrying. Had he put up his chalk mark too late? Did Lermontov simply have something else to do that he couldn’t get out of? Like a meeting with the British ambassador? Or the MI6 man with the handlebar mustache? What about the mole? Had Lermontov been rolled up? By whom? By Savak? By the Islamic dissidents in the Tudeh party? By J2 or whoever had rolled up Nazih? And if Lermontov’s been rolled up, will I be next? He hated questions he couldn’t answer. And they kept coming. Was the safe house unsafe and under surveillance? Had he endangered Bunker, who would be rolling down the drive to pick him up in a few minutes? Bunker, who hated to drive in Tehran anyway. He couldn’t endanger Bunker. He remembered all the Savak material he had in his briefcase. What would happen if he and Bunker got caught with that? He sat in the dark and worried until the flash of lights from dim to bright and back to dim alerted him to Bunker’s arrival. He grabbed his guilt-laden briefcase and hurried down the stairs to open the garage door. Fuck the need to know. They had a right to know. He decided to tell Fred and Gus about the contents of the briefcase.
* * *
“Look, I’ve got a problem.”
They sat around the kitchen table while Frank wolfed down leftovers from a dinner of veal hollandaise, asparagus, and saffron rice he had prepared the night before.
“’Cause the Russkie didn’t show?” asked Gus.
“No,” said Frank. “’Cause of what’s going to happen when he does show.”
“Is it something we need to know?” asked Fred.
“I think so. Not the details, but you do need to know that I’m carrying around some very hot material I’m supposed to feed to Lermontov. If he’d made the meet tonight, I would’ve given it to him and that’d be that. But I had to lug it from the safe house back here, and I’m worried about what might have happened to Lermontov and am I gonna be next. Tell you the truth, I even worry Lermontov might give me up, try to get me PNG’d.”
“Thought he was your buddy,” said Gus.
“Be real,” said Frank. “He’s a KGB officer.”
“Where’s the material now?” said Bunker.
“Right there. In that big ugly old briefcase.”
“Okay,” said Fred. “I’ve got that false-bottom desk upstairs. When the material’s in the house, we can stash it there. Tomorrow, I’ll get Bill Steele to secure it in one of the safes that stays locked all day, and I’ll ask him if he can hook up some kind of secure hiding place in the cars, or at least another briefcase with a false bottom, like mine. That’s about all we can do.”
“That all sounds pretty good to me,” said Gus.
“An operation like this,” said Fred, “well, we can’t eliminate the risk. But we can limit it. I’m glad you told us.”
“So am I,” said Frank.
Fred insisted on sh
owing Frank and Gus how to open the false bottom on his desk. Frank had had an identical desk in Lusaka for the Angola account, and he guessed Gus had worked with something similar often.
“I keep this tucked away in a pair of socks that are always in this corner of my sock drawer.” Fred drew out a wedge of thin, flexible metal about the size and shape of a tongue depressor. He crouched before the desk and slid the strip of metal into a recess hidden by a decorative swirl of wood. “Right about here.” A silent spring released the bottom, which fell into view. Frank saw a single manila folder, the Browning nine millimeter, and a box of cartridges.
Frank stared at the gun. He resented the agency regulations that denied him access to a weapon. Each day, and night, he took far greater risks than Bunker, yet only Bunker had an automatic.
“I wish I had one of those,” he said.
“I’m glad I don’t have one of those,” said Gus.
Fred put Frank’s oversize envelope into the drawer and shut it. He had Frank and Gus practice opening and closing the drawer several times.
“That should do it,” said Fred. “The magic wand goes back in the sock drawer. Frank, why don’t you be the one to open it up before we head out in the morning.”
“Okay,” said Frank. “And thanks.”
“Speaking of thanks,” said Gus, “thanks for the heads-up you gave Rocky about Hamid.”
“I would’ve told you myself,” said Frank, “but Rocky said he wanted to do it.”
“His job,” said Gus, “but at least we aren’t keeping each other in the dark.”
“Let’s continue to follow that paradigm,” said Bunker.
* * *
He hadn’t managed to get in any gym time. He knew he needed to spend more time with his homafar friends, but he also had to handle his obligations with the Shah, Lermontov, Colonel Kasravi, and Anwar and Mina. In an ideal situation they would have found a way for Fred and Gus to take over some of his contacts, but time seemed limited and the contacts too personal for an easy transition. He’d been accused before of falling in love with his agents. He couldn’t buy the idea that he had fallen in love with the Shah or Lermontov or Anwar. Not even with Mina. He’d let some contacts get too close, perhaps. Too personal, yes. He believed he kept a distance, a range of objectivity. But, he thought, maybe I don’t.
* * *
“New briefcase?”
“Yes,” said Frank. He extracted a metal spatula from his shoe, smaller than the one they’d used on Fred’s desk, and slid it along a seam in the shiny leather until it caught. A puff of air signaled the release of an inner lining. Frank twirled two combination locks, opened the lid, and pulled out the envelope Rocky had given him.
“We have a report from Savak that will interest you,” said Frank for the benefit of the wire he assumed Lermontov wore.
Lermontov, who had arrived exactly at seven, had already checked for bugs with his scanner. The red bulb had flashed frequently. “Better late than never. You won’t need your tape recorder. From the reactions I’m getting, and previous experience, of course, I would say the vase with the fake blue flowers is the primary receptor. The others are backup in case one of us moves about. Since the vase is the primary receptor, let’s make it easy for your technicians. Obviously, they are not very sophisticated. Let’s stay close to the vase.”
Frank pronounced “vase” with a New Yorker’s long a. He noted Lermontov used the more correct short a.
“Sorry about last night,” said Lermontov, “What was it our mutual friend used to say? A pressing commitment. And it was rather short notice.”
Frank wondered if Lermontov had heard any word of Nazih since his arrest. He sketched a question on a sheet of his notebook. Lermontov shook his head and wrote, “Nor do I intend to.” He studied the typewritten note Frank had given him, asking for verifying details on the mole.
“I anticipated this,” he said aloud. He reached into his briefcase and slid a sealed manila envelope across the table. Two words, neatly printed, advised, “Read Later.”
“And this report from Savak. I see it’s in Farsi? I hope I am not mentioned.” He seemed unconcerned by the multiple listening devices. “But the least you could have done would have been to prepare a Cyrillic script version.”
“I thought your Farsi was pretty good.”
“It is,” said Lermontov. “But we have people who are much better. I did not expect anything … anything like this so soon. We should discuss payment at our next meeting. I will take care of it. Do you know when these fools plan to go to France?”
“Two guys are named in the station’s cable, with the dates. They fly to London on party business, meetings with Kianouri and other Tudeh exiles. They have a couple of free days and plan to take the boat train to Paris. Supposedly, Khomeini’s agreed to meet with them.”
“Trust me, they will never see Paris, much less Khomeini. If it’s correct, this material has great value. I will request an initial payment of five thousand dollars. Will that be satisfactory?”
It would be wonderful, thought Frank, if I could keep it. “To tell you the truth,” he said aloud, “it seems a little low.”
“An initial payment. If you can continue to provide material of this quality, assuming, of course, it can be verified, I can arrange higher payments. Tell me, how did you get the cable?”
“I drafted it. Rocky, the chief of station, Roger Novak, likes the way I write. I draft many of his cables. I’m a fast typist, so I typed a second copy for myself. If anyone looks on the IBM tape, they’ll see that the cable’s been retyped. But no one will. When it’s full it just gets burn bagged.”
“Amateurs.”
“I know. That’s another reason I decided to talk to you. Not just the money. I also see how incompetent, how corrupt this agency is.”
Lermontov pulled apart the lapels of his suit jacket and smiled. “Don’t bother,” he said. “Next time I’ll wear a wire and you can do your whole script.”
* * *
“I dunno, Sullivan. You sound awful convincin’ when you talk about how incompetent and corrupt the agency is.”
“What can I tell you? For a while, I thought I was going to be an actor.”
“Speaking of actor, we better script you for the next meeting. Stuff you don’t want on the tape you can give each other notes about, like you been doin’. He don’t give a shit what’s on our tape, but he’s gonna need tapes he can give to his people to make you sound like a legit traitor.”
“That’s an interesting concept.”
“Yeah. You can use it for the title of your next book. The legit traitor. Meantime, more from the Holy Ghost. He’s got NE puttin’ together stuff based on our recent cables they’ll massage into shape that you can give it to Lermontov. He also wants more initiative from us on stuff like this Tudeh party business. You let Lermontov know we need some verifying details on his mole?”
“He was ready,” said Frank. He handed Rocky the “Read Later” envelope.
Rocky tore it open. “Christ. Approximate dates. Exact locations. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Russia. Twelve code names and for about half of them real names. Who they were, what they did. All wrapped up and executed on info from our mole. Fucker’s been at it six years.”
“Sounds like good stuff,” said Frank.
“Yeah. Sounds good. But if we’re bein’ fucked with, he’s just givin’ us stuff the Russians know we already got. They may be ready t’ give this bastard up anyway. Whoever the fuck he is. Let the Holy Ghost figure it out. Your next meet’s when, Friday?”
“Right. We wanted to give him time to come up with my five thousand.”
“Tell you what, Sully. If he does come up with five thousand he must’ve done a hell of a job sellin’ you. KGB usually low-ball their new recruits, keep’m hungry and greedy, slowly build’m up. Five big ones is a real high ante for them.”
“I should’ve said it’s only a thousand.”
“And we split the other four?” s
aid Rocky.
“Something like that,” answered Frank. “Anyhow, besides coming up with the money, he wants to see how this Tudeh party business shakes down.”
“You know those two guys are dead, right?”
“I guess I had a hunch they might get dead, but I thought maybe if I kept my eyes closed nobody could see me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Something kids do when they want to hide and there’s no place to hide. Close your eyes, and since you can’t see, you think nobody can see you. I don’t think I’ve ever been responsible for somebody getting killed before.”
“Come on,” said Rocky. “If we didn’t give it to Lermontov, Eagle-1 woulda had ’em killed. This way Lermontov gets ‘em killed.”
“Will he do it himself?”
“No way. They’ll hire a couple of locals or maybe even import a couple of hitters from Afghanistan. That language of theirs, Dari, Belinsky tells me, sounds about the same as Farsi, so it’s easy enough to bring in a couple of guys who’ll fit in real well but can also disappear real quick in case some Tudeh types get nosy. It’s a cinch Savak or the local gendarmes won’t give a shit.”
Yeah, thought Frank. But I do.
* * *
The summons had come during the Jayface tea break. Frank had barely entered the room when Colonel Kasravi asked, “Has your government confirmed your status as a permanent adviser?”
“Permanent?” said Frank. “Permanent sounds like an awfully long time. I believe the phrase we used was ‘continuing’ or ‘continuing basis.’ Something like that.”
The Peregrine Spy Page 32