“It’s business lingo. Women reporters dig it like catnip.”
Maybe Irving was a little jealous, absurd as it was; she decided to take it as a compliment. “I’ll take whatever you get from the Fed down to Memphis with me after my news spot tonight. You get anything out of the Latvian girl about the Berensky family?”
“Yeah. Tell Dominick there was a letter from a friend of the sleeper’s Russian wife to Shelepin that called the kid Masha. That’s the girl that was born after Aleks Berensky flew the coop. The name of endearment is good inside stuff, like my mom calling me Irveleh.”
“Did your mother call you Irveleh?” She just could not visualize him as a little boy; it was as if Irving Fein had been issued full-blown as a hard-bitten investigative reporter, hurrying and harrying.
“About the Fed, I’ll phone your office from a booth.” He gave her the code: “Humphrey Bogart means rates go down, Joseph Mankiewicz means no change, and Ava Gardner means I couldn’t find out. You’d better jot that down.”
“That damn movie must have meant a lot to you. It got panned, you know.”
“The contessa was frigid with her shoes on, but when she took ’em off, she went wild. Gotta run.” He was off with his usual lunge; Viveca paid the check, slipping her feet into her shoes under the table. Had he noticed she had been resting her sore feet? Unlikely; he had not looked under the table, and she had removed her shoes with an imperceptible motion of her heels. But Irving seemed to notice details and make them work for him.
“Irving, if you know the identity of a person or persons passing inside information to any unauthorized recipient, you are duty-bound as a citizen to tell me.” The enforcement man, Hanrahan, was adamant. “That is a violation of U.S. Code 18, Section I forget which, the fraud provision of the criminal code.”
“Yeah-yeah. I know the person”—Irving was careful not to indicate a man or woman—“but I want to talk to the person before you pick him or her up. I’m a reporter, remember? I’m not just a fink.”
“Very big money is involved here. An egregious betrayal of the public trust. We have a major investigation in process. You cannot just interview the subject for a story, don’t you see? He’ll bolt. He’ll be out of the country in a flash and we’ll all look like idiots.”
“I know how the KGB agent Howard got tipped off and slipped away from FBI surveillance and got back to Moscow,” said Irving, recalling an episode that had embarrassed the Bureau. “Not going to happen here. I got a plan.”
“I got a better plan,” said Hanrahan, “which is to grab him first and sweat him awhile until he sings and then tip you. That’s the American way.”
“I got a better way, and I hold the cards here.”
“Wait. Wait. What’s the basis of your suspicion? What have you got on this guy?”
“I got a message from a CIA source that this is the mole in the Fed.”
“That’s zilch, Irving. A tip from a spook is not admissible as evidence. It’s not even the basis for an arrest. Tell me who the CIA source is, I’ll go through FBI channels, maybe we can get some untainted evidence that can be the basis for a court warrant for a wiretap.”
“Ah, you see? It’s not zilch, it’s what you need to catch the mole, whoever he or she may be.” Talking in this way—“person” and “he or she”—automatically led the listener to believe it was a “she.” He wanted Hanrahan to make the wrong assumption.
“If I were a mole,” the enforcement agent warned, “and a reporter flushed me out, I would get a gun and shoot that reporter between the eyes and head for the airport.”
“Nobody shoots reporters. Just not done. You ready for the plan?”
“Tell me your goddam plan.”
“The mole lives in the Zeckendorf Towers, like a whole bunch of people from the New York Fed nearby. Goes home for lunch every day, almost without fail. I’ll show up at the apartment tomorrow, confront the traitor with what I know and pretend I know more, and he or she will panic and blab.”
“Lousy plan. She’ll plug you between the eyes.”
“I don’t have to give rights, or hand over a quarter to call a lawyer, or any of that shit. I’ll rattle the hell out of him the way I know how.”
“What makes you think the mole won’t run?”
“Here comes the rest of the plan. You get a few guys who can make an arrest on suspicion of mopery—FBI, New York cops, whatever—and be outside the front of the apartment house and the service entrance in the back. I’ll be able to point to you, Hanrahan himself, standing right across the street. The mole will recognize you and know there ain’t no hole to run out. Then I’ll phone you to come and get her. Or him.”
“I cannot be part of a conspiracy to deny this woman her legal rights,” said Hanrahan.
“As a civil libertarian, I’m proud of you. Be assured I’ll point that out in the story.”
“You can be a real prick, Irving.”
“The last person to call me that was a woman who didn’t know she loved me. Hanrahan, lookit—your way, the mole would read all about it in Moscow and laugh. You’ll invite me to your retirement party?”
“We won’t need to arrest her,” the security man said, preparing a fallback position. “We can request she come to my office for a little chat. If she refuses, I’ll figure something out. You’d better wear a wire.”
“None of that.” Ever sensitive to electronic snooping on himself, Irving prided himself on never stooping to doing it to others. “I’ll hold a recorder out in the open, fair and square. I don’t go for your sneaky stuff.” He recalled the request Viveca had relayed from Dominick in Memphis. “So whaddya think, Charley, you guys cutting interest rates Friday?”
“You a stock tout on the side?”
“I know from nothing about the market.” Irving worked out an excuse for prying: “It would be helpful to have the latest scuttlebutt to prod our little mole along.”
“They don’t tell me and I don’t want to know.” When Irving kept looking at him, saying nothing, the enforcement officer added, “The scuttlebutt is no, the economy is okay, a stimulus could be inflationary, but what the hell, you can read that sort of speculation in the papers this morning. In fact, that’s where most of the scuttlebutt comes from. Don’t bet on it.”
Mortimer Speigal, hunched toward his computer screen, frowned at the sound of his apartment bell; he was not expecting any deliveries, and the intercom had not announced a visitor. He saved the urgent message he was writing to a floppy disk, quit Windows, waited for the kaleidoscope of After Dark to appear, went to the door, and asked who it was.
“It’s Irving Fein with the hot pastrami sandwiches.”
He looked through the peephole in the door. It was indeed Irving Fein, a relatively familiar face from Washington parties and recently television, holding up a brown bag whose greasy spots indicated he was telling the truth. The Federal Reserve Board official opened the door.
“I was in the neighborhood and figured you’d be hungry and could help me with some stuff about Chairman Eccles,” said the reporter, bustling past him and finding the kitchenette. “You got any beer? I didn’t bring any beer. You wrote the bio of Eccles, didn’t you?”
“I’m flattered anybody remembers,” Speigal said. “There’s no beer. Diet drinks only.”
“Got any Dr. Brown’s Cel-ray?” As he heard the sound of the fridge opening, the Fed Chairman’s assistant for international conferences went to his computer, called up the list of files, found “Fkft.tie,” and deleted the short message he had just started. “Nah,” Fein answered himself, “no celery tonic. Strictly yuppie stuff, kiwi-flavored Perrier. Yecch!”
“I didn’t know the great reporter Irving Fein was coming, bearing gifts. Why didn’t you call?”
“I never call ahead,” Fein said, setting out the sandwiches and drinks on the coffee table. “Puts people on their guard, you know?”
“Should I be on my guard?” He was inclined to think so, but could not throw the man o
ut; it would look odd if all Fein wanted was what he said he wanted.
“Alla time. Financial types want to know what you know about interest rates, so they can steal a march on the Fed.” He bit into the overstuffed sandwich. “I lied,” he said in a muffled voice, munching. “It’s hot corned beef. I swear I ordered pastrami.”
Speigal could not help being amused, and relaxed enough to help himself to one of the sandwich halves. The message to the Frankfurt tieline could wait a half hour.
His visitor swallowed, took a sip of the kiwi Perrier, made a face, and slumped back on the couch. “Here’s my recorder, saves me taking notes,” he said with candor, after pressing the record button and laying it on the table next to the half-eaten sandwich. “Okay with you? Now. Tell me about Marriner.”
“What is it you’d like to know about FDR’s Moneybags?” said Speigal, mentioning the name of his book, which he always thought had deserved a paperback reprint. “I could be more helpful if you told me the nature of your interest.”
“Actually, it isn’t Eccles that interests me,” said Fein. “It’s the other Mariner. The mole at the Fed. You and your hidden life.”
That was it. Speigal felt suddenly sick. Of all the ways he had conceived he would be informed of the government’s discovery of his long deception, this visitation by a reporter was one he had never imagined. “Get out of here.”
“No-no. I’m here as your friend. You have no idea how much better it is for you to tell your story to me instead of the gummint, which will be out to get you.”
How much did the reporter know? Fein had the code name; could it be he knew and the federal law enforcement agencies were still unaware? Didn’t all stories come from prosecutors’ leaks—was it possible a journalist could do an independent investigation? He had to find out.
“I don’t know what you mean about a ‘mole’ or ‘the other Mariner.’ Suppose you tell me what you have, and I’ll try to set you straight.”
“Gee, I have none of the color. Just the bare bones.” Irving Fein seemed relaxed about it, as if it were a dull financial story. “For years, you’ve been sending the Russkies advance poop on the Fed moves. My sources showed me all the taps and the trades and the stuff about the Swiss bank account. Pretty good story. Not as good as a mole high up in the CIA, like Ames, but pretty good. A bitch to write and keep interesting, with all the figures on the trades and shit about derivatives. Time to ’fess up, Mort, and maybe save your ass, or at least share the blame with somebody else.”
He felt faint; this resolutely cheerful Savonarola was going to expose him and put him away for life. Who had betrayed him? The sleeper agent? The Finnish economist? The private Swiss banker before he was killed? The brokers in London? Maybe the control: he should have caught the signal of the failure of his control to contact him recently; the Feds were probably rolling up the entire operation. Mortimer Speigal never thought of himself as a professional spy, but as an insider who stretched the ethical rules to provide financial data beyond the System. It was not a national security matter, nothing to do with military secrets. Only money.
“I admit nothing. Get out of here.”
“Whaddya gonna do, Mort, call the cops? Go ahead. Call your buddy Hanrahan at Fed enforcement—he’ll come and help you get rid of me.”
“How much does Hanrahan know?”
“Hey, are you the reporter or am I?” Long silence. “C’mon, Mort, jig’s up. Been a hell of a ride. People all over the world gonna recognize you for the financial genius you are, in my story. I got the dates and the accounts, all I want is some of the color. How’d you get the idea at the start?”
“They came to me,” he could hear his voice croaking. “Through a Finnish woman who was an economist I met at Davos.”
“Sure, I know who you mean.” Fein seemed to search his memory, then snapped his fingers. “Sirkka whatsername. The knockout Finn, married to that stiff Kraut.” He did know; the reporter was not bluffing. The “knockout Finn,” as Fein derogated her, was capable of anything; she had probably dispatched the banker in Bern herself. Speigal’s resistance, like his professional reputation, was crumbling; was there anything he could salvage? “Smart as hell,” Fein observed, “but weren’t you afraid of her husband, Karl? He’s a pisser.”
“I have been afraid for six long years, of everyone. I was not cut out for this, but once you start …” He could feel tears stinging his eyes.
“Then what? Let it all hang out, Mort. You’ve been dyin’ to tell somebody.”
He broke down sobbing for the first time in his life. After a few minutes, he could hear the reporter’s sympathetic voice saying, “Look, you’re not an ax murderer. You sold the Russkies some poop, now they’re our allies. You may wind up with a medal. Tell me about the first piece of information you sent that made ’em a bundle.”
“The Chairman’s reliance on gold as an economic indicator, starting in 1989.” Knowing that, Berensky—whoever the trader beyond the cutout was—could anticipate Fed judgments. “A couple of years ago, when we finally convinced the Chairman to switch to a basket of commodities—mainly soybeans and pork bellies—I transmitted the change in influence to them. Then, for a currency coup last spring, the beginning of the series of interest-rate increases.” He could not stop the flow of his unburdening, which gave him a perverse pride. “This year, by tipping them to the Chairman’s testimony to the Banking Committee, which I prepared, I was able to make possible another killing in marks and yen.”
“What bank did you use?”
“My nominee was given stock in Middlesex Midland Bank. It became the nexus of the empire.”
“What brokers did the operation do the most business with?”
“In London, they own Baker, Warr—” Speigal caught himself before he answered. No need to name names. If Fein did not know the currency traders, he did not know everything, and might not know the identity of the cutout or the existence of the sleeper. Why was he confiding in a man who would expose him to the world? “Do you know my contact in Washington?”
“Tell me.”
Fein did not know of the cutout’s possible middleman in all the dealings with Berensky, though he did know of the fallback contact of Sirkka in Frankfurt. Had either of the contacts talked? Or escaped, and was now unavailable to testify? A shrewder thought came to him: did the government have no real case against him, and was that why they sent a reporter to get him to talk without benefit of counsel?
“First you must tell me who sent you here, Mr. Fein.”
“I don’t have to tell you a thing, Speigal,” said Fein, his breeziness gone and his face turning cold. “You’re a fuckin’ traitor. You sold out your country to a foreign power for money. Unless you come clean, you’ll be a total shit in everybody’s eyes, and if you’re lucky they’ll put you away where your slimy buddies can’t knock you off. So talk fast—when did you last do business with your contact in Washington?”
He tried to push back his panic. “Tell me his name and I’ll tell you when.”
“Don’t play games with me! A good American is dead because of your goddam spying! There’s blood all over your hands! Who’s your handler?”
Speigal blanched and backed off. He had nothing to do with violence and was not responsible for what happened to the profits earned from the information he passed along. But now it was vital for him to find out one fact from the newsman. “I’ll get you the file,” he said.
He went to his desk and used the combination to open the locked double drawer. He straightened up with a gun in his hand. He had never used a gun of any kind, not even in the Army in the Korean conflict, when he was a company clerk. He had been told by his Washington handler, who had given him the gun, that the .38 was loaded.
“Mr. Fein, do not make me use this.” A pistol was heavier than he thought. “I am not a violent person.”
Fein did not treat the threat seriously. “Nobody shoots journalists, Mort. It isn’t done. Put that damn thing away before you hur
t yourself. Do you really want to protect the guy who sold you out?”
Everything Fein said ended in a terrifying question. Speigal had a question of his own: “Does any other reporter have this story?”
“You never know. We don’t tell each other, but I’m part of a team, you know?”
“As far as I know, you’re alone. And not even the government knows, or they would be here, not you.” He raised the gun, holding it with both hands; it was growing very heavy.
“For crissake, Mort, are you gonna take your little misdemeanor and raise it to Murder One? Look out the window there. You’ll recognize Hanrahan and his assistant across the street from the front entrance. He’s got guys in back, too.”
The economist, certain it was a bluff, stole a quick look over his shoulder out the window. It was no bluff; Hanrahan, who had been in his nightmares for years, was there.
“Going crazy is not the answer. Use your head. Give me a little color, get a great lawyer, and you’ll never have to serve time. I can turn you into a kind of hero, the man who turned the tables on the baddies.”
He raised the gun again and pointed it at Fein behind the coffee table full of sandwiches and pickles and kiwi Perrier. “You don’t know much beyond what I just told you, do you?” If it all could only be contained to one nosy reporter—
“You mean about Berensky and the fifty billion stashed away to overthrow the government in Moscow? And about Madame Nina and the Feliks people with their Chechen hitmen who are going to be very angry with you? And about Davidov’s KGB coming after you, and—”
Speigal’s last hope collapsed, and he turned the gun around, put the muzzle in his mouth, and pushed his thumb against the trigger.
“Oh-shit,” Irving breathed. This was turning into some story. Then to the tape recorder he added, “He blew his brains all over the window behind him. I’d better call the police right away.” The bullet had passed through his head and broken the window; the cops were surely on their way. He turned the tape machine off.
Sleeper Spy Page 33