The Crossing

by Ted Allbeury

  Nielson turned in his chair to look at the CIA man standing at the end of his desk.

  “Nowak, I warn you. If you people—and the FBI—don’t get your asses out of this operation this guy may never come to trial. We won’t even be able to hold him for more than a week.”

  “This is crazy—this guy is …”

  Nielson cut him short. “I don’t care whether it’s crazy or not. We have a warrant and a show cause order drawn up in Washington and that’s enough for us to pull him in. But if you people try to ride in on the back of these, nothing you uncover or find will have any legal standing in a charge of espionage and will never—I repeat, never—stand up in court. Without Hayhanen giving evidence in court and subject to cross-examination you haven’t got a leg to stand on. Even with Hayhanen testifying in court you may not make it anyway.”

  “For Chrissake, man, this guy is …”

  Nielson stood up waving his hand dismissively in front of him.

  “Don’t shout at me, Paul. The law is the law. I don’t make it, I just administer it.”

  Nowak shrugged. “Can I ask you something off the record?”

  Nielson relaxed and said quietly, “OK. Go ahead.”

  “Is somebody protecting this bastard behind the scenes?”

  Nielson looked surprised. “I’ve seen nothing that would make me think that. Why do you ask?”

  “We know this guy has been the principal KGB man in the whole of the USA. For years. He’s been running a network of agents very efficiently from what we’ve learned. Why has he never been picked up before? And why is everybody so anxious to protect him now?”

  Nielson shrugged. “The first question I can’t answer, Paul. The United States is a big place. It’s easy to disappear if you want to. About people protecting him—there’s no one protecting him in my department. It’s you people we’re protecting. Warning you that you’ll come to grief if you don’t stick to the rules.” He paused. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “If we risk it—what then?”

  “You’d be gambling. If you didn’t get a confession from him you’d be put through the mincer by the defence attorneys.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to see that happen.”

  16

  On June 21, 1957, despite the warnings of legal complications, there were a dozen FBI agents in or near to the Hotel Latham. Two officers from the INS were waiting in Room 841. Just after 7 a.m. an FBI agent knocked on the door of Room 839, and a few moments later the man who called himself Martin Collins and Emil Goldfus, naked and still half-asleep, had opened the door, and as they walked into the room the two FBI men had showed their identification cards to him. Then a third man joined the two agents and stood by the open door.

  Nobody was sure who had actually authorised the operation in that form but they knew very well what their instructions were. They could question the suspect for up to half an hour. They could tell him that he was suspected of espionage but not charge him. He was to be given every encouragement to “co-operate” and that meant indicating that he was willing to give them details of his activities and maybe offer to “come over.” The possibility of him becoming a double-agent was the prize, but any kind of co-operation could be considered a victory. If neither outcome seemed possible he was to be arrested by the two INS agents under section 242 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

  By the time the half-hour was up he had given his name as Martin Collins and admitted the obvious—that he resided at the Hotel Latham. And nothing more. He seemed subdued but not scared and he remained silent to all other questions.

  When INS agent Boyle read out the warrant for arrest it was in the name of Martin Collins a.k.a. Emil Goldfus. He had been given the routine caution that he was entitled to consult a lawyer and had a constitutional right to remain silent.

  At INS headquarters he was fingerprinted, photographed and searched. And for hours he was questioned, the INS agents asking him again and again to co-operate. But he consistently refused.

  Back at the Hotel Latham, the FBI search team was checking the room thoroughly. They had been amazed that a professional spy should have left around so much incriminating evidence of his trade. And there was still the studio to be searched if they could get a judge to sign a search warrant.

  A few days later three affidavits were presented to a district judge in Brooklyn and after checking the statements he had agreed that sufficient cause had been shown to allow the studio search to take place. The warrant listed specific items but included wording that covered almost anything they might find that could be connected with espionage. The last sentence of the warrant seemed innocuous enough, but it marked a major change in the official attitude to the case. It said—“… which material is fitted and intended to be used in furtherance of a conspiracy to violate the provisions of 18 USC 793, 794 and 951.”

  The charge of being an “illegal alien” carried a maximum penalty of deportation. The conspiracy charge could lead to a death sentence.

  It looked as if someone on the government side had decided to go for broke, because making that change involved considerable risks for the prosecution. It was feared that the switch could be challenged in court on grounds that it was unconstitutional. In addition, the conspiracy charge entitled Goldfus to a hearing without delay, and without the evidence of Hayhanen in court whatever they found, in itself, would definitely not be considered as proving a conspiracy.

  By the end of the day two things had happened that made it look as if the gamble had succeeded. Between the hotel room and the studio they had amassed a wide selection of espionage material. One-time pads, hollowed-out nails, nuts, bolts and pencils, cryptic messages, a Hallicrafter short-wave radio, bank books and microfilms. And in mid-afternoon Reino Hayhanen had agreed to testify in court. June 28, 1957, suddenly seemed a very good day.

  17

  They were only half a dozen people in the Warsaw LOT office on Ulica Warynskiego. He gave the girl five zlotys for the airport bus ticket. Five minutes later they boarded the bus and the man took a window seat. He was tall and well-built, in his mid-thirties, his black hair cut very short. His right hand guarded the worn black leather briefcase on the seat beside him.

  With the darkness came the rain, sweeping across the fields and the blocks of flats that lined the road to the airport. He guessed it would be snow by the time they got to Moscow.

  At Okecie airport there was time for a coffee. He bought a copy of Pravda and settled down at the table, lighting a cigarette, his arm resting protectively across the black briefcase on the table. It was half an hour before he heard the airline announcement.

  “Uprzejmie prosimy pasażerów odlatuja̧cych rejsem 207 do Moskwy o zgłoszenie siȩ do wyjścia numer 3.”

  He stood up and joined the queue at Gate 3. He could see the plane on the feeder runway, an old Antonov AN24. It looked as if it would be a crowded flight. It was generally full on the Friday evening flight to Moscow. Solemn-looking Soviets going back to spend the weekend with their families, hoping that their pretty Polish girlfriends were not being too blatantly unfaithful while they were away. And, of course, one or two upper-echelon Polish apparatchiki heading for a few sybaritic days at the Central Committee Hotel, or even a guest-apartment in Sivtsev Vrazhek and a walletful of privilege roubles for purchases at the discreet place on Granovsky Street that went under the name of “The Building of Passes” but was really the treasure-trove of the nachaltsvo, the Kremlin élite.

  They had been airborne for nearly half an hour when the stewardess announced that owing to technical difficulties on the ground the flight was being diverted and would not be landing at Moscow’s main airport, Sheremetyevo, but at Vnukovo II. Vnukovo was the almost secret airport used only by top Soviet officials and never the general public. Kretski wondered what difficulties could have caused such an extraordinary diversion. He checked his watch. They were already ten minutes overdue. There seemed to be some consternation among the other passengers, and a man whose
face he recognised as a senior Russian official had beckoned to the stewardess. And when she leaned over to listen to him Kretski could hear that his voice was raised in anger as he pointed at his watch. The stewardess nodded and left and a few minutes later the co-pilot came back to talk to the man, obviously anxious to placate him.

  There was a long wait on the ground before they disembarked, and as Kretski walked across the tarmac the snow was swirling and already thick on the ground.

  As he gave up his boarding card at the desk two men walked out from behind the metal screen. He didn’t know them but he knew instantly that they were KGB. The older man said in Russian, “Mr. Kretski, I’d like you to come to my office.”

  “What’s the problem, comrade?”

  The man smiled. “No problem at all.” He nodded towards the white-walled corridor and the smaller man led the way, opening a door at the far end. And Kretski noticed the security locks and the bars on the windows.

  The older man pointed to a plain wooden chair by the small bare table and drew up a similar chair on the other side. Kretski was aware that the second man was leaning back against the door, lighting a cigar.

  “My name is Pomerenko, Comrade Kretski. Would you prefer to talk in Russian or Polish?”

  Kretski shrugged. “It’s up to you.”

  “You are Jan Kretski, yes?”

  “Correct.”

  “Deputy chief liaison officer between KGB and Polish Z-1?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you must know why you are here?”

  “Not until you tell me, comrade.”

  “Maybe it would be easier for you if we spoke English.”

  “I can speak English if you prefer it.”

  Pomerenko smiled. “I am KGB, Comrade Colonel. Directorate Four. You have been under surveillance for two months and two days. And you are now under arrest.”

  “On what charges, may I ask?”

  Pomerenko leaned back slowly, his hand reaching into an inside pocket, taking out an envelope, looking at it for a moment before he pulled out a photograph and laid it, facing Kretski on the table.

  “Tell me, comrade—who is that?”

  It was a grainy black-and-white photograph, obviously blown up from the original, but he knew all right who it was. He wondered who had taken it, and when. He could just make out the archway at the back of Horse Guards Parade. He made sure that his hand didn’t shake as he put the photograph back on the table.

  “Who is it, Comrade Kretski?” Pomerenko said softly.

  “You tell me.”

  Pomerenko pointed. “The name is on the back—look at it.”

  As Kretski leaned forward for the photograph Pomerenko clamped his big paw down on Kretski’s hand.

  “You looked very pleased with yourself that day in the sunshine, didn’t you?”

  Pomerenko released Kretski’s hand and as he turned over the photograph Kretski leaned forward. There was a typed label on the back. Just two lines in Cyrillic script.

  Captain John Summers. Intelligence Corps.

  10350556. See file D4/9074/GB/ 94–105.

  Kretski looked up at Pomerenko. “I don’t understand.”

  Pomerenko laughed. “It’s taken a long time, comrade.” He looked at his watch. “We’d better go.”

  They had taken his briefcase and in the black Chaika that took them back to Moscow nobody spoke a word.

  He sat with his eyes closed, his head resting back on the seat and only stirred as they swept into Dzerzhinski Square.

  18

  “Tell us about the Malta convoys, Harry.”

  The group of men were grinning but Harry Houghton had turned to call for another pint. When it came he turned towards them, glass in hand.

  “It was air-cover that was the problem in the Med. We was doing double watches on the guns. Officers and men all had …”

  “What guns were they, Harry?”

  “Oerlikons. Twin turrets fore and aft. We had DEMS gunners. When we got to Valletta they had the Royal Marines band lined up on the harbour to play us in. ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ they played and ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ ”

  “I thought you said last time that it was the Black Watch played you in. A piper and ‘Flowers of the Forest.’ ”

  “That was another time, Lofty.”

  “Tell us about the Maltese girls, Harry. When you went to the party the day you tied up.”

  “They were fantastic those Maltese birds. You had to watch your step, mind you. Try it on the wrong one and you’d have her brothers sticking knives in you. But there was girls. Kids of fourteen and fifteen, real pretty ones. You could have ’em all night for a quid. But if you came in on the relief convoys it was all free. We was heroes to those poor bastards. Starving they was and we brought the food to them through thick and thin. I went to this party and Jesus they were all over me. Took me in the back room. Two of ’em. We was at it all night.”

  The men laughed and one of them said, “Have another pint on me, Harry, you old bullshitter.”

  “I’m not bullshitting, I swear. You ask the others.”

  “What others?”

  “The lads on the Malta convoys. They didn’t give Malta the George Cross for nothing, mate.”

  The man grinned. “And no bloody sailor ever got it for free off of a Maltese bird neither.”

  Houghton grinned. “Depends on who you are, mate. Anyway, I gotta be on my way.”

  “Your divorce come through yet, Harry?”

  “Two months ago, skipper. Foot-loose and fancy free. That’s me.”

  As he stood outside the pub he turned up his coat collar. It was beginning to snow. He put his head down and walked down the empty promenade. He could hear the waves crashing slowly and heavily on the shingle on the beach. The wind caught his face as he turned into a side road, and five minutes later he passed the permanently open gates to the plot of waste land where his trailer was parked.

  He pulled out his keys and turned towards the faint light from the street lamps to sort out the key to the trailer door. He turned to put the key in the door and a hand clamped round his wrist. He turned quickly and saw the man. He looked a real thug and when he spoke he had a Cockney accent.

  “Are you Houghton?”

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  The man put his big leather-gloved fist in front of Houghton’s face, and as Houghton instinctively backed away a pair of strong arms went around him from the other side and he realised that there were two of them.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Open the trailer door. Look slippy.”

  Houghton’s hand shook as he fitted the key into the lock and then one of them opened the door and shoved him up the steps and inside.

  “Put the light on.”

  Houghton switched the light on and turned to face the two men. The tall one said, “Why didn’t you telephone when you got the Hoover leaflet?”

  “I don’t understand. Who are you?”

  “We brought you a message, sonny boy.”

  “What …”

  And he groaned as the knee went into his crotch. And then the two of them worked him over. Carefully, professionally, leaving his face unmarked as the blows thudded into his stomach and kidneys. Even after they had finished and they stood panting, looking down at his body on the floor, he was still half-conscious and he heard one of them say, “Next time we’ll do your old woman as well. The new one. So watch it, mate.”

  It was four o’clock when he came to. The light was still on inside the trailer but the street lights were out. They had left the door open and snow had drifted onto the shabby linoleum. He groaned as he slowly picked himself up.

  He made himself a hot whisky and stirred in a spoonful of sugar and lay down in his clothes on the bunk. The light still on, the door of the trailer still open and swinging in the wind.

  19

  When Shapiro got the news he had called Morton immediately and they were still in Morton’s smoke-filled off
ice at four the following morning. Ashtrays full of cigarette ends and cigar butts, trays full of coffee cups, two jugs of cold coffee and several plates with a variety of curling sandwiches.

  They had talked for hours, sat silent for minutes at a time and they were no nearer to a solution and no nearer to deciding what to do. They were sprawled in the leather armchairs around a low glass-topped table.

  Morton started them off again. “Let’s go over it again, Joe. Piece by piece. Agreed?”

  Shapiro nodded and shifted in his seat to try and get comfortable again.

  Morton sighed. “So. Back to square one, Joe. Are they absolutely certain that he’s been picked up?”

  “He was supposed to ring the Moscow number that evening at nine local time. Just ring and they would give the password. Just that one word and then they’d both hang up. He didn’t ring.”

  “What about the Warsaw end?”

  “We know he got on the airport bus. We know he was at the airport. The girl was watching him and when the call came he went to the correct boarding gate. That was the last time he was seen.”

  “What happened at Sheremetyevo?”

  “Our guy watched for the plane. Just as a routine check. There was no contact intended.” He paused. “The flight number was never called and there was no flight from Warsaw announced or accounted for until the following morning. And that was the normal 9 a.m. flight from Paris and Warsaw.”

  “So not only our boy missing but a whole planeload of passengers missing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any indications of a crash anywhere on that route?”

  “No. But you know what they’re like about air disasters.”

  “Could it have been diverted because of bad weather?”