COPS SPIES & PI'S: The Four Novel Box Set

by David Wind

  Chapin stepped inside. “Hello, Josef.” He smiled at the eighty-year-old man and Josef Rosenkrantz returned the smile and then embraced Chapin.

  “It has been so long, my friend.” Rosenkrantz’s voice was emotional and husky behind the thick Russian accent.

  “Seven years, Josef.”

  “Come,” Rosenkrantz said, tugging on Chapin’s arm as he led him inside.

  In the living room, Rosenkrantz pointed to a chair. “Sit. A drink? Coffee?”

  “No, I need your help.”

  Rosenkrantz eased himself into the chair across from Chapin. Old and wizened eyes within a heavily wrinkled face scrutinized Chapin. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Ten years ago, Josef Rosenkrantz had been a prisoner in a Soviet political prison. Rosenkrantz, an Orthodox Jew, had been a clerk in the Ministry of Labor. He had been a department supervisor. For years, Rosenkrantz had helped other Jews get work by falsifying their papers.

  The Company learned of Rosenkrantz through his daughter, who had been able to immigrate to the U. S. because of Rosenkrantz’s false paperwork. She’d come to the CIA following Rosenkrantz’s directions. The woman had delivered the clerk’s message: an offer to aid America in their cold war with the Soviets. Over the next five years, Rosenkrantz had supplied the best possible papers to CIA operatives within the Soviet Union, as well as getting the agents into the work force.

  The Company hired his daughter to man a desk in the Office of Soviet Analysis. She still worked there.

  Eleven years ago, Kevin Chapin had successfully used a set of Rosenkrantz papers to complete a mission within the Soviet Union. That mission had saved the lives of eight operatives working in East Germany.

  Two months after Chapin’s mission, the KGB caught Rosenkrantz and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

  Most of the agents who had worked with or been helped by Rosenkrantz felt a loss at the man’s capture. A year later, a unique opportunity had arisen. Chapin had caught a KGB section head in the vault of the security room in the American embassy in Rome.

  Because of Rosenkrantz’s help to the CIA and because his daughter had been a wealth of information. Chapin had been able to persuade the powers-that-be to offer an exchange. Seven months later, the Soviets traded Josef Rosenkrantz for their KGB section chief.

  Ten years after that, Kevin Chapin was once again going to ask Rosenkrantz for help.

  Without any hesitation, Chapin explained the situation, beginning with Sortavala, and ending with Jason Mitchell’s betrayal. When he finished, he leaned back and waited.

  Rosenkrantz studied Chapin for several seconds. “And now you need my help, my old expertise, yes?”

  “Yes,” Chapin said. “But, Josef, this can get you into grave trouble.”

  The old Soviet lifted his hands. Heavily veined, his knuckles swollen with arthritis, he flexed his fingers. “Trouble I don’t worry about. And you, I know, are not a traitor. It is my hands… They are not what they used to be. But I will do my best. Come.” Rosenkrantz stood. “Let me show you to your room.”

  <><><><>

  Jason Mitchell parked in the student lot behind Tews Fine Arts Center. The University of Maryland parking lot was quiet. Across the campus, near the dorms, was where the action was.

  Mitchell sat behind the wheel, waiting for his contact. He knew his days were numbered if he stayed around. But he couldn’t walk out yet. To do so would end with his death.

  He’d been preparing a back door for himself and his family since yesterday morning. But he couldn’t use it until Chapin had been terminated and the label of double agent permanently affixed to Chapin’s file.

  The money they paid him over the years, in excess of two million dollars, was in two separate accounts: one in Switzerland, a second in the Bahamas.

  He had quietly, and under the name he would be using once he left America, bought a home in the Bahamas. In another week, he would hand in his resignation. He would use Chapin as the reason, citing how he had been unable to spot Chapin as a double and believed he was of no further use to then CIA. Then he would take his family and leave.

  “Do you have the papers?”

  Startled, Mitchell jumped. He had let his mind wander instead of watching for his contact. He started to turn.

  “No. Look straight ahead. The papers.”

  Mitchell picked up the manila envelope on the seat next to him.

  “Good,” the unseen man said without reaching for it. The back door opened and the dome light came on. The man shut the door quickly. “Shut it off.”

  Mitchell turned the light switch until the dome went out. Then the man opened the door, and got into the backseat. “Turn the rearview mirror downward.”

  Again, Mitchell complied.

  “Drive out of here. Go downtown.”

  Mitchell drove out of the University of Maryland, down Route 1, and onto 495. When he reached fifty miles an hour, the passenger said, “I will take the envelope.”

  Mitchell passed the package back and listened to the man tear it open. Mitchell turned onto Central Avenue, and the man said, “This is all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pull to the curb.”

  Again, Mitchell obeyed his instructions. When the car was idling quietly, Mitchell’s passenger said, “You may turn now.”

  Mitchell hesitated. The instruction was out of character. He turned slowly and, when he was facing the man, his chest constricted. His contact was blond and appeared to be in his late twenties. The man’s face was the one on the copy of a Department of Transportation driver’s license in the envelope.

  The name on the license read James Smirley.

  “You have done well. We appreciate everything,” Smirley said with a grin.

  Mitchell nodded, unable to speak.

  “What news of Chapin. Has he been caught yet?”

  “No.”

  “Does he suspect you?”

  Mitchell didn’t answer right away. “I’m not sure. He wasn’t at the motel when we went after him, so I must consider it a possibility.”

  The Soviet agent nodded. “I agree. Be careful.”

  “You can count on it,” Mitchell said. “And tell them that this was the last time. I’m out of it now.”

  Smirley stared at him. “I understand. There is a time when one gets tired.”

  “Yes.” Mitchell was glad that the man was professional enough to understand.

  “One day, I, too, will feel the same.” Smirley reached forward to offer his hand to Mitchell.

  Mitchell gripped the extended hand and Smirley yanked his arm down and across the seat back. Before he could react, Smirley’s other hand came up. In it was a Beretta.

  Mitchell knew he’d let his guard down once too often. He tried to pull away.

  “Do not be foolish.”

  Mitchell stopped struggling. “You can’t take me out now. It would work against you. Chapin is still alive. They would know I was the double.”

  “Perhaps.” Releasing Mitchell’s hand, Smirley did a quick torso search of Mitchell.

  “I’m not carrying.”

  Smirley drew the weapon back.

  Mitchell took a shuddering breath. “Thank you.”

  Then the barrel of the Beretta pushed against his temple. “But perhaps not,” he added as, unseen by Mitchell, Smirley picked up a syringe he had placed on the seat during the ride.

  Smirley lifted the hypodermic and pressed it a quarter of an inch into the skin and cartilage of the canal within Mitchell’s ear and emptied the needle’s contents.

  “You may make it to a hospital in time,” he said before he got out of the car.

  Mitchell’s breathing came in gasps of fear. He didn’t know what poison Smirley used. He hit the accelerator and raced forward. Panicked, he couldn’t think of the nearest hospital. He sped along Central Avenue and remembered the location of Prince George Hospital.

  He forced himself to breathe calmly. He was only a dozen blocks away. He glanced at the
speedometer. He was doing fifty. He tapped the brakes.

  A sudden jolt of pain lashed along his left arm. His chest constricted. His vision blurred. “Oh, God,” he cried.

  His body arched; his heart stopped.

  Mitchell slumped forward on the steering wheel. His right foot extended all the way. The car raced wildly down the avenue. It went another block before swerving into a row of parked cars.

  The force of the collision lifted Jason Mitchell’s unharnessed body from the seat and sent it through the windshield.

  <><><>

  “No, I have never heard the name,” Rosenkrantz said as he pushed his coffee away. “And if this installation is in the Pamir Mountains, then it is as secure as anything could be in Russia.”

  “But how could they keep such an operation, and an installation, so well hidden? Forty maybe fifty years, Josef!”

  “Many things are possible, Kevin, especially in a country where a few control the many.

  Chapin downed the remaining coffee, and set the cup in its saucer. “I don’t want to stay here too long. It wouldn’t be good for you.”

  Rosenkrantz ignored his words. “Do you have a name you prefer?”

  Chapin nodded. “Aaron Meyer.”

  “Excellent. A Jew is a Jew, and cannot be anything else. Few people will call themselves Jew if they are not. And unless there is a physical inspection...”

  Chapin laughed. “I can pass that

  “May I have your history?” Rosenkrantz took a fountain pen from his shirt pocket.

  “Born April fourteenth, nineteen fifty-three in Boston Massachusetts. Currently living at Nine-Thirty-Nine Park Avenue, New York City. I am unmarried and my occupation is teacher.” Rosenkrantz’s wizened eyes narrowed. “Not a teacher. It isn’t the summer or holiday time.” He scratched his forehead absently. “Clothing manufacturer.”

  There were certain types of people and professions meriting less curiosity than others. An American Jew was always considered a tourist. People in the garment industry were well traveled and put in the same category. A Jew and a clothing manufacturer was a combination rarely viewed with suspicion.

  “Yes,” Chapin agreed. “How long will it take?”

  “I should be finished by tomorrow night.”

  “I will leave as soon as the papers are ready.”

  “Where?”

  Chapin gazed thoughtfully at Rosenkrantz. He had only one place to go. It was where he had set up his safety net. A field agent could find himself in the cold at almost any time. By necessity, he must have a place where he could go, where he could change his identity, and be able to survive.

  Over the years, Chapin, like most agents, had built a safety net in case of an extreme emergency. Residing in a safety-deposit box was a new identity. It wasn’t just a few papers, as Rosenkrantz was making; it was an entirely new identity, from birth on.

  He had a bank account as well, in the name he had chosen fourteen years before. He would need the money. His American assets, he was certain, were already frozen.

  “I’m sorry, Josef, I think it best if you don’t know where I’m going.”

  The old Soviet nodded. “Perhaps you are right. Do you have any ideas about how to flush out this Sokova?”

  Chapin shook his head. “Not yet, but I will.”

  “We must take a picture of you.”

  “Tomorrow morning. I must prepare for it first.”

  <><><>

  Ann Tanaka finished her search and sat back down, puzzled. The copies of the early reports of the Mathews family accident and the other computer readouts she had given Chapin at the beginning of the week were missing.

  She thought back to where she’d placed the material, and who had been with her. The memory came with a jolt. It had been on Saturday. Jason Mitchell had been in her office. He had suggested lunch. He’d also seen the papers.

  Her breathing went shallow. She had gone along with Chapin when he’d called, but had been unsure if she would do what he asked of her. Her instincts shouted Chapin would not turn double. But her loyalty to The Company stood in the forefront of her mind.

  Everyone involved in the Ruby One apparatus had been checked and rechecked. A special file had been set up to track the leaks. Ann went to the computer console and called up the file.

  She stared at the dates, and tried to put the picture together. The first leak had come seven weeks prior to Mitchell’s return to Langley.

  In the three years Chapin had run Ruby One, there had been ten corrupted operations. Four of the missions ended in the deaths of the agents. Only two people knew all the aspects of those missions—Kevin Chapin and Jason Mitchell.

  Ann Tanaka closed her eyes. She had to make a choice.

  From what she’d heard about Monday’s fiasco, Chapin had overpowered Mitchell, taken him to a motel room, and tied him up. Mitchell had gotten loose and had called Langley ten minutes before Chapin was to meet with Merchenko.

  Playing the scenario in her mind, she found the fallacy. The fallacy was the scenario itself. She knew how Chapin worked. If Chapin wanted Merchenko dead, he would not have waylaid Mitchell—he would have gone to New York, without anyone knowing, and killed the Russian before he’d met with Mitchell.

  Kevin Chapin was, in Ann Tanaka’s opinion, the best field operative the CIA had. If he was a double, he would have killed Merchenko and no one would have known. He would never have taken Mitchell out temporarily. That action would have sealed his fate.

  Ann Tanaka knew Chapin was not the double. She wanted to go to the DD with her theory, but she knew he would not believe her, yet. Before she could speak, she had to find real proof it was Mitchell and not Chapin.

  Her thoughts came back to the missing material. She remembered Mitchell eyeing it with what appeared to be disinterest. But, what Mitchell had taken was the old material. Chapin had read it all.

  Tanaka glanced at the thick package on her desk. The reports Chapin had asked her for on Friday were in the package. The old OSS files, the Hirshorne and Mathews files, as well as the Sokova information.

  Tanaka’s problem, though, was in how to make the mail drop. Her first instinct was to take the package to a post office. Except, she would have to open the package for inspection before leaving Langley.

  She made herself think. A moment later, she had her answer. She addressed the package, using a phony name, but the right address.

  When she finished, doubt hit. But she remembered the inconsistencies in the material she’d read. Then Ann Tanaka broke her CIA oath and followed her intuition. She pressed a sequence of keys, and added a special password. A fraction of a second later, a single name appeared on the screen. She ran another series of keystrokes, and the screen went blank.

  Then she forged the special set of clearance initials she had gotten from the computer, placing them on the upper right corner, where a stamp would cover them.

  Finally, Ann Tanaka checked the time. It was nine-fifteen a.m. Time enough for the ten o’clock mail shipment.

  Leaving her office, she took the package to the mailroom and dropped it into the out basket. She walked casually away, knowing the initials on the package told the people in the mailroom the contents were Top Secret; the package inspected and cleared earlier.

  No one would open the package again until Chapin retrieved it.

  Two hours later, Ann Tanaka’s phone rang. It was the deputy director’s secretary asking Tanaka to report to the DD immediately.

  When she hung up the phone, she sensed that her world was about to collapse. She knew the package had been checked, and she’d been found out.

  She thought about running, but knew she would never make it. Instead, she went to the elevator, and took it to the DD’s floor.

  When she entered the deputy director’s outer office, her nerves were screaming, and she found breathing difficult.

  The general’s secretary nodded and motioned the computer specialist inside.

  “Please join us,” the general sa
id, motioning toward the three men seated on the couch across from his desk. She recognized the men. The first was the deputy director of Operations, the second was the chief of the Office of Soviet Analysis, her direct boss, and the third the chief of Security for The Company.

  Tanaka’s mind and body went numb; she knew her future was over and prison bars loomed ahead. The DD looked at the three men, and then at Tanaka. “We have been under a priority situation here, as you are aware. We have a rogue agent on the loose, and a volatile situation that he left behind. Compounding the situation, Jason Mitchell died just before midnight last night. We’ve kept it quiet until we were sure of what happened.”

  Tanaka stared at the general. Her heart rate spiked, even as a sensation of disembodiment settled over her. Then Tanaka’s breath exploded outward. She blinked, trying to clear the muddle of her thoughts. “How?”

  “At first we thought it was a traffic accident. The preliminary autopsy report called it a heart attack. His wife called me at four this morning. She was at the hospital.”

  “It...” Tanaka paused, took a deep breath, and said, “It was a natural death?”

  The general shook his head hard. “It was supposed to look like a natural death. The appearance was of a heart attack while driving. His car crashed. He went through the windshield.

  “We had his body brought to one of our facilities. The initial autopsy showed a massive heart attack. Late this morning, the toxicology report was completed. The report showed minute traces of a drug in the tissues of his heart. If another hour had passed before they took samples, we would never have known Mitchell was murdered. The only reason we were able to recognize the drug was because it’s a new Soviet drug we’ve just recently broken down in our labs.”

  Tanaka swallowed hard. “Do we know who killed him?” The general stared directly at her. “The consensus is Kevin Chapin.”

  Tanaka stared incredulously at the deputy director. Her stomach twisted sickeningly. If they thought Chapin had killed Mitchell, then they knew what she had done this morning.

  “Finding out Chapin was turned, and then losing Mitchell, are two very hard blows to Ruby One, as well as to us. But our priority now must be to put our house back in order. We don’t have any time to waste.