“Muscle relaxant.”
“Technically a major tranquilizer. Once upon a time it was used in abdominal surgery, but there were too many side effects.”
“I’ve used it,” Gnedin said.
“But you are conservative with drugs and many of our colleagues are not. What you see is the result of a very liberal dose typical of certain psychiatric practices.”
“It’s used to treat schizophrenia.”
Topolar laughed. “You’re an interesting man, my dear Gnedin. Worldly, yet naïve. The drug is used to induce a stupor. It can turn a vital man into a zombie; I personally can attest to its efficacy in this regard.”
Gnedin pondered this information. “Could a man walk after such a dose of aminazine?”
The toxicologist energetically scratched his left thigh. “Ordinarily I’d say no, but it depends on several factors. Individual tolerances vary. Food and other substances can affect pharmacological action, slow it, speed it, block it.”
“Vodka?”
“The combination would knock a normal man flat on his bloody ass, but each human being is different.”
“Could you kill a man with such a combination?”
“Without question. Aminazine and vodka? That would do it for most mortals, even a Russian.”
“But this man was apparently walking around under his own power.”
“Sometimes I think to myself that biological diversity within the species is proof of a higher power. He may have been ambulatory, but I suspect chemical analysis will show that this would have been temporary.”
“Certainly he would have been impaired.”
“Hammered, to use the American idiom.”
“So it’s not unreasonable that an individual in this condition might wander out in front of a vehicle.”
Topolar smiled and held up his hands. “Toxicology is my specialty; I concern myself only with molecular behavior.” He made his way toward the door, wheezing as he moved, then paused. “It’s not every day that the country’s top cardiologist can be seen doing autopsies of victims of vehicular mayhem. Be careful, my friend. The moth who flies too close to the flame may get his wings singed.”
Gnedin waved him out but the fat man stopped and pointed a cane at him. “Aminazine: confirm that and perhaps I’ll think you know enough to warrant listening to advice from a political unreliable.”
24 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1961, 11:00 A.M.Belgrade
The American embassy consisted of several unremarkable structures surrounded by a tall stone wall topped by three strands of concertina wire that angled streetward. There were no trees near the wall and only one entrance, a stone arch with a guardhouse on the left. Two unsmiling Yugoslav soldiers in gray-green uniforms were standing outside, their Czechoslovak rifles slung barrel-down over their left shoulders. At the gate behind the Yugoslavs and inside the compound’s perimeter was a U.S. Marine staff sergeant in dress blues, his .45 in a patent-leather holster. Valentine’s and Sylvia’s credentials were examined at both checkpoints. To enter the building they passed between two short Marine corporals, also in dress blues, frozen at attention, their eyes so unblinking that Valentine wondered if they were real or an unknown taxidermist’s ultimate triumph.
The CIA station chief’s office was on the second floor of the largest building in the compound. Predictably, his office faced the inner courtyard rather than the street; there was no honor among intelligence services, which unabashedly peeked in strangers’ windows with telescopes and long-lens cameras.
A small wooden fence around the receptionist’s desk outside Gabler’s office had three horizontal bars with evenly spaced vertical posts. Inside were two banks of file cabinets, battleship-gray, with five drawers each, and an adjustable footstool nearby. The secretary had boyishly short hair, a high, shiny forehead, plucked eyebrows, no makeup and long fingernails. Her desk was neat, with yellow pencils laid side by side like ships along a pier, but the length of her fingernails suggested she did little typing. Was she a receptionist or something quite different? In embassies nothing was as it seemed to be; people often had window-dressing titles, masks for their true work. Embassy cover with its entitlement to diplomatic immunity was the ultimate shield.
Sylvia was reading what she saw. Maybe the receptionist was a case officer’s wife. Nowadays the Company liked to deploy married couples in deference to the all-too-human need for companionship. The enemy specialized in entrapment—juicy boys and women, take your pick—so the agency gave people their sex on a platter, which was supposed to keep them from wandering to other beds. Still, some needed more than others, so things still went awry despite the soundness of the principle.
“Valentine and Charles,” Beau announced to the secretary.
The woman reached for the phone without looking up and punched a button on the console. “They’re here.” When she reached under the desk a gate in the wooden fence sprang open.
Valentine carefully studied the station chief’s office, searching for clues to his personality, but his room was devoid of knickknacks and personal mementos. From this he read the station chief as a careful man who followed regulations and kept everything compartmentalized. On the desk a small lamp with a flexible neck was bent to shine down on a single document. Interpretation: the man liked to focus on one thing at a time. Like most spies, he would keep important facts in his head, not on paper.
“You’re a difficult man to see,” Valentine said. They had been trying to get an appointment for two days and had met polite resistance from the station chief’s secretary.
“Priorities,” the man said wearily. “Harry Gabler,” he added without offering his hand. He had slicked-back silver hair and a ruddy complexion. “Welcome to the armpit of the world,” he went on. His voice was gravelly, he had a nervous tic and he needed a shave. “Wet, miserable Belgrade, where everybody hates everybody. They call it the White City, which is a joke. Gray city, gray people, gray sky. Yugoslavia’s not a country; it’s a goddamned zoo without cages. Only two kinds of people get sent here: career diplomats who know how to listen and the rare birds who get paid to kick ass. You two would be of the second type.”
“We’re looking for information,” Sylvia said, placing her credentials on the desk.
“Aren’t we all.” Gabler grunted. “Frash again?”
Valentine checked Sylvia’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. “Why do you say ‘again’?” she asked.
Gabler leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You’re not the first.”
“How many?” Sylvia asked.
“Two, back in December.”
“Together?”
“Separately. Two, three weeks apart.”
Arizona had given them copies of Frash’s records. Gabler was sitting rigidly now, and it seemed clear that Albert Frash was not one of his favorite topics. Go slowly, Valentine cautioned himself. “How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Four years.”
What was it about Gabler’s tone? Pride mixed with anger? Lack of attention from his superiors? Arizona had emphasized the importance of Belgrade as an East-West intelligence crossroad. Valentine sensed an opening and took it. “All four as station chief?”
“Yes.”
“Impressive. Big job in a sensitive country.”
“Our assets are limited. There are a hell of a lot more substantial operations elsewhere.”
“True, but size isn’t everything, and sometimes the most sensitive stations have small staffs by design.”
“I’ve accurately described its magnitude. You can draw your own conclusions.”
“Frash was assigned here after your arrival.”
“Yes.”
“He was in Paris as station chief only five months before he was sent here. Any idea why the shift?” The records had told them this much.
“People come and go,” Gabler said. “Priorities and assignments change.”
“Was Frash a replacement?”
“Not exac
tly.”
“What’s that mean?”
Gabler was evasive. “He was here on a special assignment.”
“Did he tell you what it was?”
Gabler shook his head slowly. “Only that we would serve as his base.”
“Who told you that?”
Gabler jerked his thumb toward the ceiling. “Shit runs downhill.”
“You didn’t think it unusual?”
“Unusual but not unprecedented. This division spawns a lot of strange shit.”
Sylvia interrupted. “But he came out of France, which is in an entirely different division, right?”
“It happens.”
“So they sent you an extra man you didn’t ask for,” Valentine continued.
“I had requested additional resources repeatedly.”
“But they turned you down, and then suddenly Frash shows up?”
“More or less.”
“He reported to you on this special assignment?” Sylvia asked.
“I won’t discuss that.” Which probably meant that Frash was independent. Gabler sounded perturbed. Was this a sore point with him?
Valentine raised an eyebrow. “What sort of special assignment?”
“Can’t discuss it.”
Switch directions. “What kind of a man is he?”
“Quiet.”
“That’s all? Just quiet?”
“That’s it.”
Wrong tack. “He showed up same way we did—out of the blue, right?” Gabler was silent. “I don’t blame you for feeling jerked around. You have a job to do. Suddenly you have an asset that’s not an asset and nobody tells you jackshit. I know, I’ve been there.”
“Save the bullshit,” Gabler growled. “In this business you don’t expect to know everything.”
“Still, I can sympathize. The station chief is responsible for everything. If an asset goes down, you have to reconstruct it. But with Frash they told you nothing, and this is a small operation where people have to back each other up. Am I right?”
Gabler was staring at the wall. Was he reacting to this approach? Keep going, Valentine told himself. Build rapport, level with him. “We’re in the same boat; we share the same problem. It’s our job to find Frash, but they haven’t told us diddley shit either. Feels like our feet are stuck in the mud. We can’t move.”
“I don’t know anything about your mission,” the station chief said. “Not my venue.”
“We’re supposed to find Frash. It’s as simple as that.”
Gabler didn’t look like a believer. “I think there’s more to it than that. We got unusually fast visa clearances for you through the Yugos, and from their top echelons. Why all the curveballs for such a straightforward job? It smells.”
“I see your point, but maybe the Yugos also want to know what happened to Frash.” Arizona had intimated this.
“The whole thing stinks, that’s what I say.”
Go easy now. “Look, we’re in a tough spot. Our people gave us very little to go on. We can’t do our jobs unless we have your help.”
Gabler made brief eye contact with Valentine and Sylvia, then inhaled deeply. What was there to lose? “Frash kept to himself. He almost never came here. He had a flat in the city, but I think it was only a cover.”
“Why do you say that?” Sylvia asked.
“I needed to get hold of him several times and tried calling. Couldn’t reach him. After that, I set up a systematic call procedure and worked it thirty days, but never got him even though he was supposedly in and out of the embassy several times.”
“Was he close to anyone?”
“Nope. Quiet but intense, like he was wired too tight. Yet cool, with no visible emotions. Good-looking sonuvabitch.”
“Any idea what he was doing?”
“As I said, that was none of my business, but several times I heard him refer to Titograd.”
“He was working on something there?” Where the hell was Titograd?
“I just heard him mention it. That’s all.”
“To whom?”
“On the telephone.”
Think. “They sent him in to free-lance. Didn’t you press for clarification through channels? Weren’t you afraid he’d fuck up your own operations?”
“I pressed,” Gabler said, his face reddening. “I was instructed to brief him on all ongoing operations, keep him updated and stay the hell out of his way.”
“But you’re the station chief,” Sylvia said. It was odd that Gabler would be ordered to share such information; this was way outside normal operating procedure.
“I thought so.”
“Strange setup,” she said.
“Unique,” Gabler agreed.
“When did he disappear?” she asked.
“The last time I saw him was early November of last year.”
Three months ago. “Did you conduct your own investigation?”
“Technically he wasn’t mine, so his status wasn’t my business. But I looked and filed a report, which was the best I could do under the circumstances; I had no jurisdiction, no idea where to start looking.”
“Except Titograd,” Valentine said.
“I tried that and got nothing. All we managed to turn up was that he may have made some flights to Paris.”
“In November?” Sylvia asked.
“Before that,” Gabler said. “I wanted to establish a pattern.”
“Evidence?”
“A description of him from assets at the airport. Might have been him, might not. I passed what I had up the line, and that was that. I got two visits in December, and now the two of you show up, which tells me the book’s still open.”
Arizona had said nothing about any of this, and they had seen no report from Gabler. “This guy is like a shadow,” Valentine said.
Gabler rolled his eyes. “Aren’t we all?”
25 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1961, 6:20 P.M.Mat District, Albania
The sun had dipped behind the jagged ridges of the Qafe e Shtamke mountains to the west, but there remained a distant lavender glow and a current of cool air curling up from the darkness in the gorge. Lejla Llarja could see her breath. Behind her was a slate lip; she had no way to gauge depth but she sensed a precipitous drop and the footing was poor. In front of her were two krulles, mountain houses made of rough stones mortared with mud and reinforced dark crosstimbering. There was a small door in each, ideal for a dwarf, which by design made entry difficult for a normal-sized man. The only windows were more than ten meters aboveground; these were only large enough to accommodate rifles and were easily closed off from the inside with stone plugs. The houses were three-story-high cylindrical towers with their fronts facing the flat ground where Lejla Llarja stood. An Albanian’s home was literally his fortress.
She was tired and nervous. Kasi had placed her in this open area and given her clipped instructions, more tactical reminders than clues about what to expect. Examine the area, find solid footing at least one body length in every direction, keep your center of gravity low, your muscles loose and defend your ground no matter what. “Your father’s fate rides on your ability, girl.”
It was an unnecessary reminder. Since her last meeting with Shehu, Kasi had been working her fourteen hours a day. She had bruises all along her left side from being slammed to the ground during hand-to-hand combat training. Once in a while she managed to use leverage against his superior size and flip him, but such reversals were few and most days he knocked her around until her thoughts were jumbled. It had been different with knife training. He had taught her to parry and thrust and how to reverse roles from target to attacker. She learned slowly and had several superficial nicks on her shoulders and arms as reminders of her deficiencies, but when she had the knife now he was a lot more careful.
Nearly every day they worked on her shooting, the emphasis entirely on rapid fire from the chest with both hands on the weapon, not aiming carefully but blasting away at a straw mannequin eight paces away, trying to get all nine r
ounds into a paper circle pinned to its chest within ten seconds. When she shot poorly Kasi slapped her to the ground, then picked her up, immediately gave her another clip and ordered her to do it again. “Zen,” he said. “Train the body and the mind will obey.” She had never been through anything like it.
Twice a day he ran her through the mountains, kicking and slapping her backside with his boot when she began to lag. “How long does this go on?” she screamed at him one afternoon. His answer was a sharp fist to her ear that left her dizzy and nauseated for an hour. With all she had been subjected to, there was no longer any doubt about what would be required as payment for sparing her father’s life. She was being trained to kill.
Now she stood in the darkness with a 9 mm automatic pistol in her right hand and a double-edged dagger in a scabbard strapped to her left calf. The pistol felt cold and heavy. Somewhere in the distance she heard dogs being unchained for the night; then she tensed as she heard low growls and sharp barks. She had grown up in cities, but she knew that in the mountains certain dogs were raised brutally, mistreated, starved, chained during the day and set free at night to attack anything that moved. This was the old law: the land belonged to the unchained dogs from an hour after sunset until an hour before sunrise. Anything and anyone that moved in their territory at night was fair game. A dog at night is the same as a man, the law said.
She had no idea where Kasi had gone, though she suspected he was watching from nearby. “You’re on your own,” he’d told her. “To live or die, I don’t care which.” Was Shehu here too?
The first attack came from a single animal. It loped toward her from downwind and stopped to growl menacingly, just beyond her sight. A dog’s voice, she knew, was no measure of its size or ferocity, though most night dogs tended to be large, muscular and bred to overpower a man with a frontal assault. When the animal became quiet, she knew it was studying her, trying to decide how to attack. She blocked the wind from one ear with her hand in order to hear better and bent her knees to receive the assault. The dog did not announce its charge; rather, it began to circle at a trot, then tightly pivoted and leaped. It was not quick enough. When it jumped, she dropped to one knee, tucked her left elbow into her side, pulled the knife from her boot and held it firmly. She was surprised that the attack seemed to be in slow motion; there was plenty of time for reaction. By comparison, Kasi’s moves seemed faster and more frightening. Some days he seemed to be able to strike her at will, but the dog was not as fast.
The Domino Conspiracy Page 12