The Domino Conspiracy

by Joseph Heywood

  “Frash tried to hide the newspapers from me, but I saw him reading one of them.” He glanced at her to see if she was taking in all this.

  “Could’ve been left by somebody else,” she insisted.

  “Two places, two different times, same behavior, and Albanian rags are not exactly regular fare in Belgrade.” Gabler stopped the car down the block from her building.

  “Why all the sudden help?” she asked as she got out.

  “Been in this business too long,” he said. “Seen loose ends hang more than a few of our kind. Until you write the ending to this Frash thing my entire operation is in jeopardy. The sooner you get your job done, the sooner I can get on with mine.”

  She found Valentine waiting in the flat. “You ever hear of a Company operation against the Pixies?” she asked.

  “Only in Peter Pan,” he said with his infuriating grin.

  37 FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 1961, 1:00 P.M.Odessa

  The car that came to fetch Bailov was a black Pobeda taxi driven by a man with white hair and liver spots on his hands. The driver dropped him at a sanatorium on the outskirts of the city. Though it was a clear, sunny day there were no bathers and no activity around the building.

  The front door opened as he reached for it and Gnedin grinned from inside. “You’re older,” the doctor said.

  “I see your diagnostic skills are as keen as ever,” Bailov said. The two men embraced and exchanged kisses. Spying Ezdovo and Talia in the hallway beyond the doctor, Bailov said, “One senses the pulling of some very strong strings.”

  Ezdovo and Talia embraced Bailov at the same time. She seemed more beautiful than the last time he had seen her. “How does an old bear like Ezdovo hold on to such a treasure?” he asked her.

  “Rope,” Ezdovo said. “A short one.” Talia beamed. She had once been as fond of Bailov as her husband had been.

  The four of them sat in white rattan chairs in a sort of parlor, all of them knowing only one man could account for such a reunion.

  Melko came in first. Because it was warm and humid he had stripped off his shirt. The others stared at his tattoos, which immediately marked him as a professional criminal.

  Petrov entered a moment later. He wore a black fedora with a wide brim, a dark raincoat, khaki trousers and new black shoes. He looked gaunt, tired and in need of a shave.

  “This is Melko,” Petrov said. The others introduced themselves. “History sometimes repeats itself.”

  “If that’s the case,” Bailov said laughing, “there should be a bottle of pertsovka.” In the old days they had always celebrated with the spicy pepper vodka.

  Petrov opened his coat and placed two bottles and five metal cups on the floor, then filled each cup slowly and stepped back. “Rivitsky is dead,” he said. “Complications from diabetes. Father Grigory, too. His heart gave out.”

  The four old team members raised their cups in silent salute to their dead comrades and saw that their former leader and the stranger called Melko did not drink with them.

  “I assume there’s a reason for such a reunion,” Talia said.

  Petrov nodded but said nothing.

  The others knew that when he was ready he would explain. Whatever their mission, they knew it would be dangerous, and they wondered if they would be as lucky this time around, for to travel with Petrov was to travel with death. Oddly enough, this made living seem more real.

  38 FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 1961, 9:30 P.M.Belgrade

  Pixies! The word still made Valentine smile. He had listened to Sylvia’s story about the John Doe and looked at the photograph. Gabler seemed to think there was some connection between Frash and Albania, but what kind of connection? It seemed farfetched to think the CIA would attempt to dislodge the Albanian government, but the papers back home had been filled for months with stories about a probable and not so secret effort to unseat Castro in Cuba. In fact the media seemed to consider the Cuban operation a foregone conclusion; only the timing was in question. If true, it had to be the CIA’s worst-kept secret, but except for the Reuters stories he had gotten earlier from Gabler, there had been no media mention of any U.S. interest in Albania. Gabler himself said you couldn’t believe anything the Albanians said publicly; they were full of shit. Hell, who even knew where Albania was? Unlikely or not, however, he understood covert strategy well enough to know that any operation that might put an enemy at a disadvantage would find sympathetic ears in the Company. What puzzled him was Arizona’s reticence about telling him the nature of Frash’s asset. All he had was the code name REBUS and an impression that the man was providing information of a technical nature. Hunting Pixies, he told himself. Serves you right for letting yourself get talked into this.

  Sylvia had been gone most of the day doing something unspecified with Gabler; she was to meet him in thirty minutes at a café a couple of blocks away. By the time he got downstairs he had come to a decision; as soon as he could arrange it, he was going home to Galveston. Arizona could find some other chump to do scut work.

  It was raining again, forcing him to take cover in a doorway until the downpour relented. As he waited a black Volkswagen jerked to the curb less than a meter away. A blond woman stared at him with hard eyes, then rolled down her window. “I’m Peresic,” she said. “Get in.”

  “We haven’t been formally introduced,” Valentine said.

  “Don’t play games,” she said. “Foreigners are not invisible in this place. I’ve met your partner.”

  Peresic was more attractive than Sylvia had let on, and he wondered why. “What happened to security?” he asked.

  “I’m not being followed,” she said, “but if you insist on standing there I’ll have to move on. In or out?”

  He got in.

  “No need to worry,” she said.

  “Curious, not worried. Where are we going?” It occurred to him that this could be a setup, but something in her voice told him she was wired tight. The windows immediately fogged up and she wiped at the windscreen with the back of her hand. “The Germans exaggerate their engineering prowess,” she complained.

  “We going to your place?” She smelled of soap.

  Their route twisted through the old quarter, then over a sharply angled bridge and river. The rain was hard now, and thunder drowned out the chatter of the air-cooled engine behind them. There were few street lights in the city, and apartment buildings were dark. When they reached a hilly area where houses had been built among stands of large hardwood trees, she pulled into a sloping driveway beside a house, cut off the motor and let the machine coast down a grassy incline. At the end there was a building with a door. “Open it,” she said.

  She pulled the Volkswagen into the garage and latched the door behind them. He followed her upstairs and through a low, arched door, which required both of them to crouch to go through. She locked the door behind them, then lit a small lamp that sat in the middle of a table.

  “Your place?” Valentine asked.

  “Ownership is irrelevant in a socialist state,” Inspector Peresic said. “If we’re disturbed, you go out that way.” She pushed open a window. Rain blew in, whipping the curtains. “There’s a tree to the right. Climb down, keep to your right until you intersect a brick lane, then right to the intersection and left down the next street. Walk until you reach the river. There’s plenty of cover the whole way.”

  Valentine unbuttoned his coat and grinned. Suddenly she seemed very tense as she stepped toward the table and kicked off her boots. Her hooded coat crinkled when she laid it over a chair. “Is this an official meeting?” he asked.

  “Was my information of interest to your colleagues?”

  “Libraries are filled with interesting information. What we need is useful information. There’s a big distinction.”

  “Perhaps there’s more,” she said. She unbuttoned her blouse, dropped it on her coat, bent her thin arms behind her, unhooked her brassiere, let it fall, cupped her small breasts and let her hands trace the line of her flat belly. The zipper
on her skirt made a sharp sound as she stepped out of it, then slid her panties down and tossed them in the air with one foot. Balancing on one leg and then the other, she removed her garter belt and stockings. Her thighs were thin and her hips on the bony side. Not a bad package, though.

  “Do all homicide detectives here work this way?”

  “Get on the bed,” she ordered. The bed was low and narrow and had been pushed into the corner.

  Valentine was in no hurry to comply; he needed more time to evaluate the situation. “You mentioned something about more information?”

  “I said perhaps.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed and patted the mattress. “I propose what lawyers call a quid pro quo,” she said. “But first I suggest we find out how well we communicate.”

  “Fucking is only one form of communication and not exactly brimming with information,” Valentine said. “Flattered as I am, it might be better for both of us if we talked first.”

  She shrugged, got a cigarette from her purse and lit it. “As you wish, but I assure you that I’m very skilled in such matters.”

  He didn’t doubt it. “You have a wedding ring,” he said. The storm outside was intensifying, the thunder nearly continuous.

  “Do married women in America not have occasional affairs?”

  “Most affairs have longer warm-ups. American women prefer to ease into such situations, which gives them a sense of having been seduced, which in turn protects their sense of moral righteousness.” How many times had he been through this scene or something like it since Ermine’s death?

  “Copulation is not a moral event,” the inspector said. “In our country there’s no time for contemplation. One acts or loses the opportunity forever. Socialism requires decisiveness.” Her voice was low. “My husband is in the government and much older—seventeen years, to be precise. Time passes, people change, our bodies decay. There are certain amenities he can no longer provide, do you understand? We have been married eight years now. I am thirty-nine, he is fifty-six, and now he takes pleasure from power, not sex. The marriage is one of convenience.”

  He sensed a familiar story. “So you take care of your needs in other ways.”

  “Of course. I am responsible for myself and do what I must.” Her nipples were small but hard. “I must get to America,” she said. “I think you can arrange this.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Valentine smiled. The rain had let up for a moment. “I’d say you’ve overestimated my influence.”

  “Not at all. I have carefully analyzed the situation. Gabler is station chief, but he defers to your colleague.”

  “So we hop in the sack and then you get the ticket. Is that the idea?”

  She carefully extinguished the cigarette in a cup on the stand beside the bed. “The sex would be for my benefit, the information for yours.”

  “You do this sort of thing regularly?”

  “Less frequently than the need. Such matters are not taken lightly.”

  “No long-term complications?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re a careful woman.”

  “Exceptionally careful.” She picked up her panties but did not put them on.

  “I sense something more,” Valentine said. Nothing else made sense.

  “There was a newspaper stuffed in the dead man’s shoe,” she said. “It was dated four days before his death. From Tirana. The Albanians do not export their newspapers. I concluded from this that the dead man had come from Tirana to Belgrade shortly before he was killed.”

  Another Albanian connection, but no more than an interesting tidbit and not nearly significant enough to warrant what she wanted in trade. “That’s what you propose to trade?” He guessed that she would be as good in bed as she claimed, which made him regret his quick decision.

  Inspector Peresic stuffed her underwear in her purse and began to pull on her blouse. “Albanians rarely venture this far north. For many years Tito and the Albanians have been engaged in a very quiet but deadly war. There have been many unsuccessful attempts to unseat Hoxha’s regime, and at times there has been considerable bloodshed on both sides. I believe that the dead man was involved in such an intrigue.”

  “I’m listening.” First Harry had produced wire stories about Albania, and now the woman was talking about Albanians. Coincidence? “Does Harry know about this?”

  “He knows about the conflict but not what was found on the dead man,” she said. “Tirana Radio recently announced that the Sigurimi had uncovered a plot against Hoxha.”

  “We’re aware of that.”

  She pulled her skirt up backward, zipped it, then rotated it into place. “Albanians are creatures of habit, more so than my own countrymen or yours. They would make no allegations about such a plot until the conspiracy had been thoroughly investigated and crushed.”

  “You want to give me a history lesson, is that it?”

  “I want you to hear me out, then judge the value,” she snapped. “There is an individual in my country who knows more about what goes on in Albania than anyone.”

  “Who?”

  The homicide inspector stared briefly at him, then smiled. “Duzevic,” she said.

  A clap of thunder was followed by a surge of wind that made the candle flicker, but it sounded like the rain had stopped.

  Valentine had known a Duzevic a long time ago when the Germans were a common enemy. Could it be the same man? Probably not. Duzevic was an old coot then; surely he was dead by now.

  “There are nearly a million Albanians in Kosovo province,” Peresic said. “Most are devout Muslims who want nothing to do with Hoxha or his Sigurimi psychopaths. But with so many ethnic connections to connect with, Hoxha has built up his own network of agents and informers. It is General Duzevic’s mission to counter Hoxha’s intrigues. Duzevic reports to my husband.”

  Jesus, he thought. “Your husband must be an important man.”

  “He is,” she said. “And equally dangerous.”

  “But you want to leave him.”

  “I’ve had enough.”

  “Divorce is a simple procedure in most socialist countries.”

  “The aftermath would be too complicated. My husband has great power. He is with Tito in Africa now and will be away for some time. If I’m to act, it has to be now. You have to help me.”

  “Fly to Rome, present yourself at our embassy and ask for political asylum. It happens all the time. You don’t need me.”

  “I have to disappear, understand? Completely. I have great knowledge to share with the CIA. My husband has been with Tito since the war.”

  “It’s a pretty big gamble.” What was she holding back?

  “You don’t gamble? I thought this was an integral part of the American character.”

  “Only when we like the odds.”

  “I see. The capitalist need for collateral.”

  “That’s about the size of it.” She was quick on the uptake.

  “If I provide the collateral you require, how do I know I can trust you?”

  “That’s your gamble. What it comes down to is that you need me more than I need you.”

  He could see her mulling this over. Finally she went to her coat, opened an interior pocket, took out an envelope covered in plastic and handed it to him. “Payment on account.”

  The envelope contained a photograph of two men. One of them seemed to be the dead man he had seen in the grisly photo Sylvia had shown him. There were gravestones behind them. Valentine didn’t say anything. “The one on the left is the man known as Frash,” Peresic said.

  A photo of Frash with the dead man. Valentine’s pulse surged.

  “The one on the right is a Russian,” she said.

  “You told my colleagues that he looked Albanian.”

  “He does. It was not to my benefit to disclose everything to them last night.”

  “But now it is?”

  “You tell me.”

  Was this Frash’s asset? “Does
this dead Russian have a name?”

  “It can be acquired,” she said.

  “How quickly?”

  “For now price is my main concern,” she said. “The timing depends.”

  “On what?”

  “A trip to America, with no trail to be followed.”

  39 SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1961, 7:00 P.M.Odessa

  Talia was as interested in how Petrov looked as in what he had to say. He had aged, of course, but not in a linear sense; it was more as if he had suffered a massive implosion. His hair was gone, the skin taut on his face, eyes rheumy, his back bent. There was a ghastly quality to his appearance, but his voice was unchanged; high-pitched, sharp, his words came out crisp and clean like bolts from a crossbow.

  “We have a new benefactor,” Petrov told the group. Melko had already related to the others how the General Secretary had plucked them from an icy prison camp near Novosibirsk.

  “Benefactor” was an odd choice of words, Talia thought. In the old days their orders had come directly from Stalin, whom Petrov had always referred to as the Boss. Now it would be Khrushchev who gave orders. Did this signal a different sort of relationship? Stalin’s power had been absolute, his word law, and all of them, even Petrov, she suspected, feared him. With Stalin the penalty for failure was death, and the mere thought of the dictator’s name gave her a chill. It was not the same with Khrushchev, and Petrov’s use of the word “benefactor” seemed almost benign. Was he suggesting that the Ukrainian was not the mad Georgian’s equal?

  Last night the group had socialized and drunk their fill, but Petrov had left them alone, which also seemed to signal a change; in the old days he would have stayed with them, not imbibing with the same enthusiasm, but with them spiritually, and invariably within arm’s length. If the others had been bothered by Petrov’s absence from the reunion, they had not said anything, and when she had mentioned it to Ezdovo he had dismissed it and reminded her of her overactive imagination.