The Domino Conspiracy

by Joseph Heywood

  The aircraft were small, two-engine, prop-driven models, parked only a few meters from the briefing facility. Parachutes were strapped on in the ready room; then each stick moved as a unit to its aircraft and climbed aboard.

  “Cold as fucking Siberia,” one of the men in Bailov’s group complained as they sat in the cabin’s web seats. “Freeze off a Yakut’s tool.”

  “Wrong, Russian,” another man said. “Just cold enough to make it good and hard.” He was a Yakut.

  Everyone laughed. Unlike other elite Red Army units, Bailov’s Spetsnaz brigade had been drawn from every race and nationality in the U.S.S.R.; here, and perhaps only here, they were true equals. Still, they took enormous pleasure in teasing one another about ethnic and racial differences, usually in fun; when it threatened to get out of hand, Bailov and his senior officers would intercede.

  Aloft, the noise from the engines was too loud to allow conversation. Each man had his own way of preparing himself; Bailov’s was to empty his mind of all thoughts except those required to complete the jump. This did not include emergency procedures; at two hundred meters a parachute malfunction meant death. Nothing could be done, which put a certain psychological edge on doing things right, especially in packing your own parachute. The one thing that they had learned in Spetsnaz was the importance of the human mind in the physical organism’s ultimate success, which for Spetsnaz meant doing the impossible. The regular army concentrated more on the body; Spetsnaz focused on the mind and on selecting the right kind of men. There had been a lot of injuries and deaths along the way, but the price had been worth it. Now they knew how to select the candidates most likely to succeed; more important, now they knew how to train them. It would have been less costly in time, money and lives to have trained, competent psychologists and psychiatrists to guide the process, but Soviet psychiatry was the domain of political punishment. Bailov had met only one doctor worthy of his respect, and that had been long ago.

  When the aircraft leveled off at jump altitude, Bailov stood and attached his D-ring to a steel cable running the length of the fuselage and terminating at a U-shaped bar over the jump door. As the heaviest man in the stick, he would jump first, the lightest man last, so that the bigger jumpers wouldn’t cascade into the silk canopies of the lighter ones below them. Now the jumpmaster gave the hand signal to prepare; the jump light over the door turned from red to yellow and began flashing. Bailov made his way past the others to the door opening and crouched with his right leg forward; the other eleven men squeezed into position behind him. The next man’s belly was snug against Bailov’s back, his right leg in the V made by the colonel’s right leg. The stick had become a snake.

  The light changed from a flashing yellow to a steady green. The jumpmaster whacked the back of the colonel’s left thigh and Bailov propelled himself out, followed by the eleven other men, one by one. Cold air slammed into his face as soon as he leaped out the door; soon he felt a sharp pain in his crotch and a sense of rising, a misreading wrought by the fluids churning in the inner ear. Look up. Chute good. Arms extended up the risers, legs together. Relax, now. No sight line at night, nothing to help gauge altitude, relax, wait for first touch, now! He hit, then rolled, collapsing his legs, falling sideways, hitting the outside of his right knee, then his right hip and shoulder, a somersault and quickly to his feet, hands out on the risers. No wind, that’s good. Release one riser, spill the air out. Disconnect the canopy, grab the shrouds, pull everything toward you quickly, roll it into a ball, bury the chute in the snow. Harness too, get it off. Dump the chemical on the pile to keep dogs away. Done. Pat everything down, tramp it flat, hurry.

  The snow was thigh-deep and soft, with pine trees all around. How many of them were hung up? No crust. Bailov took his special skis out of their carrying case and clamped them onto his jump boots. Only a meter long and very wide, their undersides were covered with a layer of fox fur, which was better than wax. The skis would slide forward with little effort but would not slip backward. On crusted snow they would leave no tracks, and they were better than snowshoes because they were easier to use and conserved energy. All right, last clasp secure. One final check. Touch each binding to be sure it’s fastened; trust your hands because your eyes are useless in the darkness. Satisfied, he moved his pack from his waist to his upper back, slung his Kalashnikov over his shoulder and tightened the strap so that it would not slip. Looking around, he saw that the others were ready and strode forward with long strides, using arm swings for balance. For most able skiers the journey ahead would require four hours; Bailov and his men would do it in less than two.

  Ninety minutes later they saw the glow of the lights from the base, and while they continued to glide forward, the radio operator used his radio to alert perimeter security of their approach. Bailov heard him ask, “Are we the first?” but couldn’t hear the answer.

  “All four groups have called in, Colonel,” the man yelled ahead to his commander. “We’re all close.” This news sent the stick into a sprint for the fence. In Spetsnaz, to be first was paramount. “All but first are last,” was their motto. Bailov’s lungs were burning as the chain-link and barbed-wire fence came into view; at the same time he saw three other lines of scrambling troops hell-bent for the finish point.

  “Ondatra!” Bailov shouted. Muskrat was the nickname of their fastest man, an Evenk from the Vilyui River area. Immediately Ondatra sprinted past his colonel and the others, opening a space between them as he drove across the line, barely edging out a skier from another group; this immediately set Bailov’s men to cheering while the other groups cursed the victorious Evenk. “Get their speed from fucking reindeer,” a voice bellowed.

  “But not the ugly ones,” the Evenk responded.

  Having reached the perimeter, the exercise was complete. Bailov and his men stripped off their skis, carried them on their shoulders and marched in cadence in a column of twos while heat from their bodies rose into the night air.

  Colonel Taras Ivanovich Bailov walked quietly and proudly at the front of his troops through the light snow that engulfed them and wondered what mere mortals were doing on this snowy night.

  14 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1961, 7:00 P.M.Krujë, Albania

  Mehmet Shehu stood beside the crumbling white brick walls of the ancient temple and sucked the crisp night air deep into his lungs. After a lifetime of warfare his body remained lean and hard, but at forty-eight the spring in his step was gone and his joints were often stiff. Arthritis, the doctors said, but it would be a slow degeneration, an inconvenience for a robust man but not crippling for many years. Here in the limestone outcrops of the Krrabë Mountains the thin winter air took a toll, but it rejuvenated his spirits and cleared his mind as no other place did.

  In these deep crags, the heroic Gjerj Kastriotei Skenderbeg had repelled the assaults of a hundred thousand Turks commanded by Sultan Murad II. With a force of fewer than eighteen thousand poorly equipped herdsmen, Skenderbeg had kept the powerful Ottoman Turks at bay for nearly a quarter of a century, facing the enemy twenty-two times and winning each time. In May 1450 Skenderbeg’s disciplined mountain fighters killed twenty thousand Turks, and in 1467, a year before he succumbed to a fever, they routed the enemy for the final time. For nearly twenty-five years the great Skenderbeg had been invincible, but soon after his death the Turks returned again and this time conquered the mountain people. Shehu was certain that one day his fame would equal Skenderbeg’s.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Haxi Kasi, who wore a dark green coat and a black wool hat. “She’s inside, Mehmet.” Kasi was a colonel in the Sigurimi, the Albanian secret police, Shehu’s closest companion since their days in the French Shock Brigade and his only friend. When there were special tasks, Haxi Kasi would do whatever was required, no questions asked.

  “Any problems?”

  Kasi shook his head. “We found her with her mother; she offered no resistance and said nothing during transport.”

  “Your assessment?”


  “At first she looks soft. Too much pampering, a weak mouth, no eye contact. But my belly says she’s tough inside.”

  “We’ll see,” Shehu said as he brushed past his colleague and entered the poorly lit interior of the old temple. The girl was sitting on the barren floor, unclothed, knees drawn up, arms wrapped tightly around her legs, her face down. Shehu recognized the submissive position. In these situations, women always reacted more powerfully to their nudity than men did.

  “Good evening,” Shehu said softly. The girl did not look up. “My name is . . .” Be gentle, he cautioned himself. Create a contrast between what she knows is happening and what she perceives to be happening.

  “I know who you are,” the girl said. Her voice was husky and firm, but Shehu heard it waver.

  “What is your name?”

  “I have no doubt you already know it.”

  Defiance? Interesting. Shehu circled her, calculating. The first moments were always the most important. “We have arrested your father.”

  “I know.”

  “He is a traitor.”

  “I know nothing of such things.”

  “He is a traitor to you as well.”

  “He is my father. I know only that.” Her head remained down.

  “You have a choice,” Shehu said. “You can help your father. Would you like that?”

  She nodded slightly. Her long hair was tied back with a blue ribbon. She had strong back muscles, thin calves and thick thighs that tapered to the knees. An athletic physique, like a dancer’s. He sensed that she had quick reflexes.

  “Your father has been charged with treason, and the evidence is irrefutable.” He made a fist and held it in front of her face. “The case is like this, you understand? There is no hope. If he’s brought to trial, he’ll be executed.” He waited for her reaction but got nothing. She was holding back, measuring the situation. Kasi was correct in his instinct; she was not as soft as she appeared.

  The girl’s father, Hajredin Llarja, was a hard man, born a Dukagjin Gheg of the northern mountains, now a diplomat. He too had been a partisan and had served on the Central Committee of the Albanian Workers’ Party for fifteen years. For nearly ten of those years he had been attached to the Albanian delegation at the United Nations. He was rumored to be a longtime friend of the traitor Admiral Sejku, and now he had been named by the Greek infiltrator as an integral part of the conspiracy. Perhaps he was even the contact with the CIA, Shehu thought. The girl’s name was Lejla, aged twenty-four, born in Tirana, but a graduate of Columbia University in New York, where she had lived during her father’s UN assignment. New York was a dangerous assignment for Albanians; the city was full of Zogites and other expatriates and counterrevolutionaries who formed pathetic little groups aimed at overthrowing Comrade Enver’s government. Had her father known these people? Had she? These questions needed answers.

  “A cooperative attitude on your part would be in your father’s best interest,” Shehu told her. “It is possible that if you are cooperative—I say if—we might be able to arrange a more favorable outcome for him. We have uncovered a plot against our government by the Americans, Yugoslavs and Greeks. He is linked to the Americans; we know this. His mission was to provide communications support for enemy troop landings.”

  “My father could never betray his country,” she said without emotion.

  His country, not our country, Shehu noted. Semantics were clues to subconscious choices. “Your father has betrayed our country, and now he must pay. The question is, what price? If it pleases you, we can consider this meeting to be a negotiation on his behalf. Quite official, I can assure you.”

  “I have done nothing,” the girl said suddenly.

  Shehu smiled. Another interesting assertion, the strongest sign yet. With this simple statement the girl had separated herself from her father, and in doing so had declared a subconscious priority for her own fate. Very promising, Shehu decided. She had defended her father only mildly and already was distancing herself from him. Despite this, it was unlikely that she understood what was taking place in the recesses of her mind. Mehmet Shehu had interrogated hundreds of suspects of virtually every imaginable crime, and usually he understood their thoughts long before they did.

  Lejla surely believed that her father was innocent; this, too, was normal. Why not? A father would never share his treason with a daughter; with a son, perhaps, but never with a daughter. Shehu was certain that she had no knowledge of the elder Llarja’s perfidy, so she would trust that an investigation would only reveal what she knew to be true in her heart. Despite this she would harbor doubt; such was the power of the Sigurimi. Even to be suspected of a crime was dangerous; this they had learned from the Russians. Under Soviet law, suspicion and arrest were proof of guilt; though Albanian law was less rigid in this regard, the Sigurimi was as sinister and threatening as the KGB. People internalized such things; Shehu had seen to it that they did so because the security of his country depended on it. Lejla was afraid for herself; the purity of her feelings for her father was one thing, but her own fate was another matter because only she knew her own thoughts and crimes. Everybody had such feelings.

  Shehu broke the silence. “I do not believe in God, but were I a religious man, my philosophy would be much different from the Party’s. Males and females are equal. Both must work to live. We make allowances for each other’s shortcomings. This is what we offer you, girl. You have a chance to compensate for your father’s errors. Few individuals have such an opportunity.”

  For the first time Lejla looked up. She did not speak, but watched nervously as Shehu went to the door and opened it. Haxi Kasi entered quietly with a small lacquered box, which he placed on the whitewashed floor in front of her.

  “Do you understand the Lek, the old laws?” Shehu asked. Now she was giving him her full attention. “In the mountains, where your father was born, people do not take an affront lightly. Even the smallest insult must be avenged. All members of the injured family are bound by the Lek to defend their relative’s honor to the death. Retribution in kind is required. To shirk family duty is to commit the worst sort of treason. It’s a hard law, but life itself is hard and the law must equal it.”

  “The Party renounced the Lek long ago,” the girl said. “With everything else that was archaic.”

  There was a hint of resolve in her voice; Shehu sensed that she was probing him and smiled. “The code itself was abandoned, but not the principles. Albania is a single family now; wrongs against one require righting by all. What is important now is that you understand the implications of the decision you must make.”

  “I could help my father?”

  Again she separates herself and retains a choice. Not can, but could. Theory without intent. “And yourself, but it must be a complete decision. The Lek requires total commitment.” Shehu rubbed his chin. It would be a long, cold ride back to Tirana, and tomorrow morning there would be another endless meeting with Hoxha to discuss the latest negotiations with the Chinese. “You must understand the precariousness of your father’s position,” He pointed at the box on the floor.

  The girl looked down but made no move to open it. There was no need to remind Kasi of what needed doing. He knocked the box over with his boot. For a split second the girl stared, then a scream erupted from deep inside her and echoed from wall to wall. There was a finger on the floor, and on it was a delicate ring of woven gold. It was her father’s wedding ring.

  15 SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1961, 2:00 P.M.Ocracoke, North Carolina

  It was late afternoon with a low, soot-colored sky and a pelting rain out of the northeast. Valentine stopped on the pocked macadam, watched gumdrop-sized raindrops ricochet off the pavement, and tried to get his bearings. On a sweeping right curve to the southeast just ahead, white frame houses hugged both sides of the road, their shutters closed, with red and green shingled roofs and chimneys of softball-sized stones. To the east were low dunes with wind ridges, sea oats, eelgrass and panic grass, several p
atches of evening primrose, their tiny yellow flowers the only color among the gray, all the vegetation chattering and snapping in the wind like spooked reptiles. To the west were more ocher sand dunes, low pygmy oaks with splotched bark, windswept loblolly pines, two dark cottontails sitting on their haunches. Arizona had sent an address but no directions, and in any event this section of the village looked deserted, so there were no local inhabitants to confer with even if he had wanted to advertise his presence.

  Valentine was not surprised by the isolation. It was in character for Arizona to choose an out-of-the-way meeting place, and this was about as far off the beaten track as you could get, especially at this time of year. On the other hand, an island was the worst possible place for a meeting with an agent; it meant limited access, which meant easier surveillance. Maybe Company thinking had changed. Arizona’s note had said only, “14 Cove Road, Ocracoke, North Carolina.” The return address showed the name of Cordell M. Harker, which he recognized as one of Arizona’s many pseudonyms. He had never known his old supervisor’s real name and guessed he never would. The d in Cordell had a small line underneath. It was a simple code: the meeting day would be four days after the postmark date. It was their old system and Valentine had picked it up immediately.

  It had been a long, uncomfortable journey. He had left his pickup at Hobby Airport in Houston, flown through Atlanta to Norfolk, rented a year-old brown Ford Falcon with black-wall tires and headed south on two-lane roads to the 125-mile strip of sandy fingers that North Carolinians called the Outer Banks. He didn’t give much thought to what he would find in Ocracoke. It might be a safe house, or someone’s cottage. It was more than sixty miles from Nag’s Head and nearby Kitty Hawk to the ferry that yawed and rolled across Hatteras Inlet, then another fifteen miles south from there to Ocracoke. Most of the drive took him past isolated beaches and through several semideserted settlements. Once on the Outer Banks, he had seen only half a dozen cars, all of them northbound, and there had been no vehicles since leaving the ferry.