A Question of Time

by James Stejskal

  Only a language enthusiast would have understood her humor. None were apparently present.

  “And you, Kim?”

  “My family is from the Alsace. I’m fluent in French and German.” Wheeler explained his concern. “We had to call in some favors from the French station chief to get the docs. He knows we’re using them but not when and why. If you’re picked up and held, we’ll have to rely on them to help us get you back. It wouldn’t go over well if you couldn’t hold up your story.”

  “We have our cover down pat, both for who we are and what we’re doing over there. Everything we wear or carry is either German or French. We can’t risk being tagged as Americans, for our sake as well as the asset’s.”

  “Exactly what counter-surveillance training do you have?”

  “Rohan has none, other than what she learned escaping from Czechoslovakia. I have had several courses and, most importantly, your Internal Operations course.”

  “That course is normally reserved for case officers going to denied areas. How did you get it?”

  “It was for a specific mission,” Becker said. “If you are read on to ‘Cauldron’ material, I can discuss it with you separately.”

  “That is all I need to know,” Wheeler said, “Okay, then what kind of surveillance detection route will you run?”

  “It’ll be around 10 kilometers with the car and then we’ll transition to foot. That leg will be around 2 kilometers. We can’t do a full denied area route; our cover and the time we have won’t support much longer than what we’ve planned.”

  “What about surveillance on the house?”

  “Apparently there is a car on the street in front most of the night. Sometimes one of the team walks the alley in the back, but infrequently.”

  Wheeler nodded.

  “You have to be very careful then. One more question. Are you going to carry any weapons?”

  “No. We can’t carry anything. We couldn’t shoot our way out of a jam anyway. We’ll talk our way out. If we’re arrested, we stick with our story until they throw us back. We’re protected civilians, they can’t hold us for very long according to the Berlin Occupation Treaty.”

  Wheeler gave way back to the Colonel: “That’s it, sir. I’m good.” Despite the fact that Wheeler’s General Service-15 rank was equivalent to Jelinek’s colonelcy, Wheeler knew who was more important.

  “Sergeant Major?” Jelinek looked at Bergmann.

  “There are a lot of moving parts. You don’t think it’s too complicated?”

  “No, each element has a specific job and there is built-in redundancy if a problem arises.’

  “Fine, when will you go?”

  “Assuming the colonel gives us the go-ahead, we have theater tickets for tomorrow night.”

  Bergmann turned to the colonel.

  “Sir?”

  Jelinek stared intensely at Becker for a moment before speaking.

  “I am approving this only if you promise to break it off if anything appears to be out of the ordinary. I trust your judgement but I don’t want to have to explain anything to the USCOB. He might make sure I don’t make general,” he said.

  Jelinek once said the only way he would see a star on his uniform was if he got a job at a Texaco gas station, Becker remembered.

  “Absolutely, sir. That’s my rule: everyone comes home.”

  “Then you are good to go. Hodně štěstí!” The colonel stood up.

  “Gentlemen, let’s go smoke a cigar,” he said to Bergmann, Kelly, and Wheeler.

  As the room emptied and the rest of the team pulled down the maps and made sure no papers were left behind, Becker looked at Rohan.

  “What did he say?”

  “Good luck.”

  “I hope we don’t need it.”

  “You weren’t playing down the risk of our getting arrested were you?”

  “No, I’m sure we will be fine and we have good back-up. If anything looks wrong, we’ll just break off.”

  Sarah relaxed a bit. “I’m trusting you, you know.”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t want anyone pissed off at me, especially you,” he said.

  “Another thing, what is Cauldron?”

  “It was a project I worked on a couple of years ago. Nothing personal but I can’t talk about it.”

  “It’s okay, I understand the system.”

  “It wasn’t a memorable experience, I’ll just say that. Anyway, we should be spending our time getting ready.”

  “Yes, because now we’re off to see the—” “Don’t even say it.”

  “What? Why can’t I say it?” “You’ll figure it out soon enough.” “I think I just did.”

  “I imagine you did, you’re a smart cookie.”

  “I am indeed. On a lighter note, you know I learned my English from Judy Garland.”

  17

  As Becker walked back to his team room, he mentally traveled back to a small room in one of the Special Warfare Center buildings at Fort Bragg. After his return from Vietnam, he spent a tour with the 10th SF Group before being hauled down to “Fayettenam” to help teach the SF Operations and Intelligence course. His previous attendance at the Agency’s operations course had marked him as one of the few SF soldiers who were fully trained in intelligence tradecraft. Yes, the O&I course taught it, but it was an abbreviated version suitable for field operations, not stuff required to be a case officer. Someone upstairs figured that Becker could improve the course curriculum without bringing in an intelligence officer who knew a lot about intelligence tradecraft but little about Special Forces operations.

  Although very few SF soldiers want to be tied to a classroom, Becker had accepted his fate stoically.

  Two years at the most and then I’ll go back to an “A” Team.

  He was about a year into the assignment and sitting in his office on Smoke Bomb Hill when he got the call to show up at the school’s headquarters, the building everyone called the Puzzle Palace. Not without reason, because much of what came out of the big white office block was confusing to anyone who had to implement its directives.

  He wondered if he was in for another course change directed by some field-grade officer who decided he knew better than anyone else. Luckily, he was spared that pain. Instead, he was given a more perplexing task.

  “Operation Hamerkop is the codename for the South African government’s nuclear weapons program,” announced an unknown man with “Agency” written all over him.

  They were sitting in a small room cleared for classified discussion. The Agency liaison officer was present, along with one of school’s many lieutenant colonels, Robert Foster, a guy waiting for reassignment back to a Group or to be tossed out of the service in a “RIF,” one of the periodic reductions in force. The speaker was a classic Agency type who had come down from Langley to present the briefing to Becker.

  “Hamerkop?”

  “Hammerhead, it’s a bird from southern Africa. We received warning from the Soviets, of all people, that the South Africans appear to be constructing a nuclear test facility in the Kalahari Desert. They took pictures of it with one of their satellites, and we confirmed it with a SR-71 ‘Blackbird’ overflight. Information we have from a couple of our assets leads us to believe they may be ready to do a test.”

  “That’s all very interesting,” Becker said, “but where do I fit into this?”

  “The facility is located at a place called Vastrap, a bombing range north of Upington. It’s here on the map,” the Agency man said, pointing out the location on a map, “but they have built a shelter over the site and we can’t see the construction or anything else going on. To make things more urgent, we think they may have moved a device from their Pelindaba assembly plant to the site. They may be ready to do a test shot. We want to confirm that.”

  “Why? Why not just wait for the detonation? You’d pick up a seismographic event and have good confirmation,” Foster said.

  “First, because we plan to confront them beforehand and get them
to shelve the project. Second, we think the Israelis are helping them carry out the test. We don’t want either of them to advance their capabilities.”

  “So, I ask once again, how do I fit in to the equation?”

  “We want you to go in and retrieve some soil samples and take a look at what is under the shelters.”

  “In the middle of a South African Air Force facility that is, I imagine, pretty well guarded?”

  “We think you have the right qualifications for this mission. You went into areas that were more hostile in Vietnam and Laos. The South Africans don’t have that kind of security on their bombing range, only right around the test site.”

  “You don’t have any Para-Military Branch guys who can do it?”

  “PM? Ha, most of them are too old, too fat, and too long out of the saddle to take on a job like this one.”

  “I’m not sure that makes me feel more comfortable. How do I even get in country to get close to the place? I have heard the South Africans have a pretty good intelligence service.”

  “We will document you as a German businessman. Your cover for being in country could either be a business trip or a vacation, so we’ll look at those options. But we also want you to do our surveillance detection course.”

  “I have done two of those courses, once in O&I and then your tradecraft course.”

  “We have another surveillance training module called the Internal Operations Course. It’s quite a bit more intense—long days and longer nights—and is only for officers going into places like Moscow. You’ll need it for the times you’re in Jo’burg or Cape Town when you might be watched by the BoSS—the Bureau for State Security.”

  “Aren’t we allied with South Africa?”

  “Sort of, but it’s just like we’re allied with Israel: both countries make our work on their territory difficult. They are a pain in the ass. BoSS is a good service, they know what they’re doing and they trust no one, especially Americans. A German has a better shot getting to the target, especially one that seems sympathetic to the Afrikaners.” Becker went to Washington and lived out of a hotel for the course. He met with instructors in various locations and received both group and personalized instruction before he was sent out onto the street. Some of the training was repetitive, like how to load a dead drop or do a brush pass. What made it different was that everything was done under surveillance. The “operational act” had to be accomplished without the surveillants picking it up. He often did six- or seven-hour runs—a couple were even longer, twelve hours—that would culminate in a “clandestine act” on some dark street, a subway, or in a cemetery. It seemed cemeteries in Moscow were well visited by American intelligence officers.

  Then came the rousts. He got busted by the FBI on a couple of occasions for no apparent reason other than being on the street. The charge was that he was a drug dealer. He saw quickly that he could never admit to being in Washington to go through secret squirrel training, he had to find a different way to explain himself. Not everyone figured that out and those who did screw up were summarily tossed from the course and sent off to an easier assignment in Asmara or some other god-forsaken place where they didn’t have Moscow Rules. In those places, if they caught you they just shot you, no explanation required.

  Finally came graduation day.

  The infamous chief surveillance instructor, John, a former marine known as “Cowboy” not for his horsemanship, but for his tendency to break rules, shook his hand and said something along the lines of “Go get ’em.”

  No diploma, no nothing. It was all recorded in his file locked up somewhere in the bowels of Langley.

  He met his handling agent again, Gordon Bennett, the man who briefed him, who cared for and fed him, the man who was sending him to Africa. The man Becker called the Zookeeper.

  “You’re almost ready,” Bennett said.

  “I am trusting in your good judgement.” “The instructors were happy, so am I.”

  A week of more briefings followed. Becker learned everything he could about Israeli nuclear weapons and an approximation of what the South African system might look like. Signature pieces of equipment were shown to him in slide-shows and photographic books until he could name them after seeing the briefest exposure of a part or the whole object. Then came the contact plan; who he would meet and how, and what he needed to do in an emergency.

  There would be no contact with any of the official-cover officers from the consulate in Cape Town. There would be only one brief encounter, if he made it that far, with a non-official cover officer, a NOC, another illegal. Otherwise, he would rely on a local contact, a Rhodesian expat who lived in South Africa and provided the Agency with logistical support in the continent.

  “We are ready to send you in,” Bennett said.

  Becker flew to Germany and spent several days in Stuttgart before continuing on his way to Cape Town. It was nighttime as the big Boeing descended towards the coastal city. A dimly lit shanty town was just visible below and Table Mountain spread its majesty across the background. Just before the plane touched down, the houses seemed to grow and spread out, the lights became brighter. He knew he was seeing Apartheid for the first time.

  Airport formalities were perfunctory. Herr Klaus Winter, born in

  Baden-Baden, a travel specialist, was visiting the country to inspect vacation hotels, bush resorts, and sightseeing possibilities for his company in Germany. The entry stamp came down on his perfectly forged German passport and he entered the country.

  A taxi brought Becker to the Cape Heritage, a fine old hotel in the center of town. It was a good start point for the trip. For the first days he wandered the city visiting touristy things and getting oriented. He was surprised by Cape Town; it was unlike any other place in Africa he had visited. Heavily influenced by the Indian and Malay slaves who had been transported there by first the Dutch, then the British, Cape Town had a distinct Asian flavor about it.

  It was two days later in Bo-Kaap that he met his contact. Becker walked through the neighborhood, a tightly packed warren of row houses and shops, many painted in pastel colors, and turned into a nondescript, hole-in-the-wall restaurant, not far off the Buitengracht. The only identifying features on the outside were a street number and a sign that announced it to be a Kombuis, a kitchen.

  It was a small place, clean and tidy, outfitted in what Becker would soon realize was the same cheap furniture used in every local restaurant in the city. What made it special was the cuisine, a fusion of Malay, Eastern, and African dishes called Cape Malay. Taking in the pungent aromas and looking around the small seating area, he recognized his contact from the photo he had been shown in Washington. It made sense to meet him openly because he too was in the travel industry.

  Doctor John Kingsley was a Renaissance man. The travel company he ran was a hobby; his real interests lay in archaeology. Anytime the government or a company decided to build something, it was him they called on to survey the land for any undiscovered history, which gave him good access to people and places. He was also a former soldier and a bush pilot whose combined skills came in handy on the continent.

  It was the gray beard that made him stand out.

  “John?”

  “Klaus, I assume? Please sit with me.”

  “Thanks for meeting me.”

  “I understand you want to establish some travel itineraries in the region,” Kingsley said, reconfirming the reason for their being together. Kingsley’s English accent was proper in a colonial sort of way, toned by his upbringing in Rhodesia. “Where would you like to start? What kind of things do you want to see?”

  “I thought the Garden Route would be interesting, maybe around the De Hoop Reserve. And then I think the Orange River and the Kalahari. Do you know the Vastrap?”

  Within those areas were objects of interest to the Agency and key to Becker’s success.

  “Interesting. Let me begin by saying I was asked to help you during one of my trips to Nairobi. I normally don’t do this
sort of thing close to home. You know the saying about backyards.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Good, because what I am about to say may upset you. You are not going anywhere near Vastrap. It’s in the Kalahari and 70 clicks from anything. You can’t carry enough water to walk it and I assume you don’t know what a boomslang looks like, right?”

  “Boomslang? No, what is that?”

  “Just one of our deadliest snakes. And there are many other things out there that will kill you.”

  “Can’t you get me in closer?”

  “I assume the part of Vastrap you want to see is somewhere near the administrative facilities?”

  “It’s north of the airfield,” Becker nodded.

  “Yes, that is a restricted area and they patrol it. Not to mention it’s used as a bombing range. You would probably either get picked up or blown to pieces in an hour.”

  “That’s the focal point of my survey. I need to get there.”

  “I know what it is, that’s why I agreed to help. Listen, I was military, I served with the Selous Scouts, but I wouldn’t go in there.”

  “Then how do you suggest I get the information?”

  “I said you or I couldn’t get in there, I didn’t say we couldn’t get someone else in there.”

  “Who else?”

  “You’ll see. We’ll start at my camp on the Oranje.” He said the river’s name as the Dutch did, in three syllables.

  They met at the Morningstar Airfield the following morning. Kingsley walked into the administrative building from the airfield side, just as Becker arrived.

  “Let me take your bag,” Kingsley said as he grabbed it out of Kim’s hand. “It’s my job,” he said before Becker had a chance to resist.

  Walking out into the sunlight, Becker enjoyed the comfortable Cape weather. In the late morning, the ocean air was fresh and clean. In the fall temperatures wouldn’t get too hot until mid-afternoon.

  “Which one is yours?”

  “The yellow Pilatus over there.”

  Staying in role, Becker said, “Great airplane, I have used them a lot for exclusive travelers.”