Williams grinned. ‘And she told me that in your case, Redfield, they’d have to ring the bell!’
Reed shaped to throw his pen, but there was a shadow of a smile. Williams’ sense of humour was always a welcome circuit-breaker in the often politically charged atmosphere of the National Laboratory.
‘It’s up to you, Jackson,’ said Williams, ‘but I can’t support Bartók’s confirmation.’
‘I agree with Irving,’ said Reed. ‘David Magnuson is an outstanding physicist. I can’t quite remember from his CV . . . was it three years ago he was awarded the Albert Einstein Medal? He can be a bit testy and arrogant, but he’s still a far better manager than Bartók and a good public face for the laboratory.’
‘He would be an absolute coup,’ Williams agreed, ‘and a finger up the noses of Livermore.’ When it came to nuclear weapons and research, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California and the slightly older Los Alamos National Laboratory had long been in competition. ‘He’s on about US$150 000 over at Livermore, and we can do better than that.’
The room fell silent.
‘Okay,’ Harris said finally. ‘I’ll give Magnuson a call and offer him the job, and I’ll let Bartók know the bad news.’
‘You wanted to see me, Jackson?’ Denis Bartók was beaming. The Senator’s briefing had, in his view, gone exceptionally well and despite his anger over Harris and the National Laboratory taking much of the credit for his work, he’d put that to one side. Confirmation of his position as Director of Weapons Programs would be a just reward.
‘Yes . . . have a seat, Denis.’ Harris made no attempt to get up, instead he gestured to one of two chairs in front of his desk. ‘This is not easy for me, or for any of us, Denis,’ he began. ‘Over the years you’ve made an outstanding contribution to the National Laboratory, and your work on fusion has been first class, but I’ve met again with my advisory group and it’s my unpleasant duty to advise you that we’ve decided to not confirm you in the position of Director of the Weapons Program.’
Bartók sat immobile. Stunned. His anger rose quickly and he made little effort to control it. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’ he spat.
Harris shook his head. ‘No, Denis . . . we’ve reached this conclusion only after careful consideration.’
‘Why! I’ve not only solved the problem of building smaller warheads of previously unimaginable power, but I’ve put this country and the world on the path to clean, almost limitless energy. So you tell me why the fuck you’ve reached your conclusion!’
‘Calm down, Denis . . . I realise this is a big disappointment for you. It’s just that in addition to research, the position of director of that division requires a broad range of management skills. That said, I want you to know we will still very much value your continued work here and I’m sure you will give the new director, whomever that might be, your full support.’
‘Like fuck I will! You people are going to regret this. This country is going to hell in a hand basket! I should never have left Russia!’ Bartók stormed out of Harris’s office, slamming the door behind him.
Irving J. Williams appeared from the outer secretary’s office. ‘Didn’t take it well?’
‘That would be an understatement,’ said Harris, a note of concern in his voice.
‘Yes – you could hear him yelling all over the building, but he’ll calm down in a day or two.’
‘I’m not so sure. He just made a very odd threat about us regretting it and never wanting to have emigrated from Russia.’
‘Well, that was a long time ago. You think he might become a security problem?’
‘Don’t know, but we can’t afford to take any risks with him. This is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the country. There’s fewer than a dozen people who’ve been cleared into the DRAGON compartment. In the Pentagon, only the Secretary and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs have been briefed. The problem is, if I get security to start monitoring what Bartók’s doing in his office and laboratory, they’ll start to talk amongst themselves and it will get out. I might need to have a quiet word with a contact I have in the FBI.’
‘A little over the top?’
‘Perhaps, but we not only have to protect the nation’s secrets, we have to cover ourselves as well, Irving.’ Jackson Harris might have been a scientist, but he’d spent enough time in Washington and around the corridors of power to know how the bureaucracy worked. ‘If Bartók does something that puts DRAGON at risk, and it becomes known that we had some kind of warning of his behaviour, the going at a Senate inquiry would be more than a little uncomfortable.’
Bartók looked at his watch. Four p.m. Fuck them. Fuck the lot of them. He would, for the first time he could remember, take an early mark. Ungrateful fucking bastards.
Bartók turned into 47th Street to find Grover Adams’ van still parked outside, blocking the driveway. Irritated still further, Bartók parked in the street, but as he walked to his front door, he could hear voices coming from the bedroom.
‘Fuck me, Grover, fuck me! Shove that monster cock of yours right up my cunt! Oh yeeess! Give it to me!’
His hands trembling, Bartók inserted his key in the front door. The remains of lunch were still on the dining room table, along with two empty bottles of champagne. With his mind in a whirl, he made his way down the hallway.
‘Oh, Grover . . . oh fuck. I’m going to cum again! Fuck me!’
Bartók stood looking at the scene in his bedroom in disbelief. His wife was groaning on all fours with the gardener mounting her from behind.
‘What the . . .!’ Bartók’s voice caught in his throat.
Darlene turned and shrieked. ‘What are you doing home?’ she demanded. Grover Adams leapt off the bed and fled down the hallway, hitching up his jeans as he went.
‘Another Scotch on the rocks,’ Bartók slurred. The Pajarito Brewpub and Grill on Trinity Drive was only a short distance from 47th Street, and Bartók was a regular in what was a company town, but the barmaid, Hannah, noticed that tonight he was drinking even more than usual.
‘Are you okay, Denis?’ Hannah asked, as she served him the Scotch.
‘Fuck ’em. Fuck this country. I should never have left Russia.’
‘It can’t be that bad Denis, surely,’ Hannah said soothingly, placing her hand over his. ‘The sun will still come up tomorrow. We all go through rough times.’
‘Rough times! You don’t know the half of it.’
‘I’m a good listener, and the bar’s pretty slow tonight.’
‘Do you know what those bastards did today? Twenty years I’ve given my all to them. Twenty years! Today I expected to get confirmed in my director’s job. And d’ya know what they’ve done?’ he slurred, rocking on his bar stool. ‘Those barshtards are going to give it to someone else. Barshtards. An’ I come home today, and that bitch of a wife of mine’s fucking the maintenance man.’
‘Oh no, Denis. You poor man. Some women don’t know how lucky they are . . .’
‘She’s a bitch. It’s time I got the hell out of Dodge.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘Dunno. But I’ve got a lot of secrets. Someone’ll buy ’em. Maybe Russia.’ And with that Bartók downed his Scotch and ordered another.
The Mossad means literally ‘the Institute’. Six months previously, Amos Regev’s ring had been added to the ‘Mossad Rod’. Each Mossad Director’s name was engraved on a separate gold ring around the base of the stylish wooden rod that was held in the Mossad’s headquarters. The rod was embossed with the Mossad symbol, the Menorah and a verse from Proverbs 11:14: ‘Where there is no wise direction, the people will fall, but in a multitude of counsellors there is safety.’ Solomon was considered amongst the wisest men of the Old Testament, and the Mossad had also long adopted Solomon’s words in the previous verse: ‘A talebearer reveals secrets, but he that is of a faithful spirit conceals the matter.’
Regev parked his Passat in the car space reserved for the director and he made h
is way to the top floor of the nondescript building that contained the headquarters of one of the world’s deadliest intelligence agencies. Mossad operatives and agents were forbidden from ever disclosing the location. A good hour away from the Knesset in Jerusalem, the highly secure complex was convenient to Tel Aviv, located just to the north of the CBD. Nor was it particularly large. The Mossad, like any competent intelligence organisation, placed a high priority on compartmentalisation. Many of the Mossad’s operational units were located away from the headquarters, where planning was conducted on a strict need-to-know basis. And for the issue exercising Regev’s mind, the number of Mossad operatives who had a need to know was in single digits. The Israeli embassy in Moscow had received an application for asylum from one of Russia’s top nuclear physicists, a Colonel Rabinovich, and the prime minister wanted a briefing. Regev smiled to himself as he walked from his office to the secure conference room down the corridor. Given some of the difficulties the Jewish community was facing in Russia, he knew his prime minister would not miss an opportunity to rub Petrov’s nose in it, but after nearly 30 years in both the Israeli Defense Forces and the Mossad, Regev had learned to be cautious.
‘You’ve seen the background briefing on Rabinovich,’ Regev said. The other three occupants in the room nodded – Regev’s deputy, David Koren; the Mossad’s special agent on Russia, Leonid Feldman; and Michael Lapid, the head of Tzomet or ‘the Junction’, charged with recruiting new agents for Israel and operating those already in the field. ‘The prime minister wants an urgent briefing on whether we should move on this . . . your thoughts?’ he asked, looking first to Lapid.
‘There is no doubt that Rabinovich would be a prize asset and a foreign policy coup,’ Lapid said, thinking along the same lines as his director. ‘I’ve been through as much background as we have on her, and she is, let’s say, unusual. She seems to excel in whatever she takes up – nuclear physicist and a member of Spetsnaz is not a common combination. So on the competence score, she’s very near, if not at the top. Rabinovich would be the equivalent of Alibek’s defection to the US.’
Regev nodded. Israel would have dearly loved to have been able to offer a safe harbour for the second highest ranking colonel in the Russian biological and chemical weapons program.
‘David?’ Regev deliberately kept his own misgivings to himself, preferring not to influence his subordinates’ opinions.
‘There’s no doubt Rabinovich would be very useful . . . on two fronts,’ said Koren. ‘Firstly, she would be able to provide us with detailed intelligence on what the Russkies are up to with their nuclear weapons program. And secondly, she may be able to help us. We’ve all seen the reports from Dimona, and things are not going too smoothly in terms of miniaturising the new suite of warheads. The yields are just not there for the smaller weapons.’
‘I think it would be a while before we could clear her into the Dimona compartment,’ said Regev. ‘We’ve no way of knowing this isn’t a trap, and we’ll have to be damn certain she’s not a Russian plant.’
‘There is another option to gaining help on the warhead problems,’ said Lapid.
‘Another option?’ asked Regev.
‘I don’t want to muddy the waters here, because I haven’t had a chance to brief any of you yet, but I received a cable last night from our embassy in Washington. Despite our best efforts, we still haven’t been able to get anyone on the inside of the US nuclear program at their Sandia laboratories at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque or the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California. Even more importantly, we haven’t been able to penetrate their National Laboratory at Los Alamos. But we have on our payroll a waitress in a bar in Los Alamos and she’s provided some interesting information which is in this report.’ Koren distributed a one-page brief marked TOP SECRET.
‘The acting Director of Weapons Development at Los Alamos, a Doctor Denis Bartók, emigrated from Russia to the United States 20 years ago. He frequents this bar, and as you will see from the report, he’s often confided in our waitress. Things are not going well for Bartók – he’s just been turned down for promotion, he’s drinking heavily and he’s got marriage problems as well. I’ve left out the more colourful rumours that are doing the rounds of Los Alamos, because, as our waitress puts it, if you’re not in the bed or under it, you don’t really know. But there appears to be ample evidence that Bartók’s wife is a grade-A bitch and Bartók has confided that she’s been having it off with the local handyman. When he’s in his cups, which these days is more often than not, he’s been suggesting to our waitress that he has, quote “a lot of secrets” unquote and he’s considering going back to Russia. If we can offer the right inducements, Bartók might provide us with an opportunity to get into the American system.’
‘How?’ asked Regev.
‘In two words, sex and money. Right now he’s not getting any of the former, and he’s hinting at selling information for the latter,’ Lapid said. ‘If we can provide one or the other, or even both, he might come over to our side.’
‘Hmm.’ Regev looked thoughtful. ‘But he might take the sex and the money and then start to get cold feet, so if we go ahead with this, we should record any conversations . . . it has potential, although we’d have to find a Mata Hari from within your ranks to get him into bed. Do you have someone in mind?’ asked Regev, pondering the plan.
‘We may be able to kill two birds here,’ said Koren. ‘If we feel Rabinovich can make a contribution down at Dimona, yet we’re unsure about her, why don’t we test her loyalty? Give her a crash course to bring her up to speed as an agent, and then send her over to the US to recruit Bartók. She’s Russian, so is he, and they’re both nuclear physicists.’
Regev grinned. ‘She may not be too keen on leaping into the sack with someone like Bartók,’ he said, looking at the photograph Lapid had provided. ‘A lanky, balding nerd with wispy hair whose best friend is the barmaid at the local. He’s no Brad Pitt.’ Regev waited until the laughter had subsided. His ability to see the funny side of their deadly trade had brought some relief to the Mossad’s overworked staff and their espionage operations that were directed against the nation’s friends and enemies alike. Through bitter experience, Israelis had learned the only people to be trusted in this world were fellow Israelis. ‘But we won’t know that until we get her out of Russia – if we can get her out. What are our chances, Leonid?’
‘Getting Bartók into the sack might be the easy bit,’ said Feldman with a grin, ‘but we have an outline plan and I’ve been in touch with our embassy in Moscow. She’s scheduled to give a speech at the Moscow State University next week, and I’m working on a way of snatching her when she finishes. It should be possible to organise a safe house near Vnukovo Airport. Less busy than Domodedovo International and much closer to the city. Domodedovo’s more than an hour away and if she’s under surveillance, we may not have a lot of time to get her out.’
‘Do we know if she is?’ asked Regev.
Feldman shook his head. ‘The request for asylum cited irreconcilable differences between her vision for Russia and the current regime, as well as a curtailing of freedom. And she’s right on that point – if you protest in Russia these days, you’re likely to end up in gaol. We’re not sure exactly what’s been going on between her and the authorities, but in my experience, the FSB are never far away from prominent Russians, and particularly prominent nuclear scientists.’
‘What’s the outline plan to date?’ asked Regev.
‘Our plant in the British embassy in Moscow says he can organise access to the VIP lounge at Vnukovo. If we get the green light, we plan to take a Gulfstream from here to London, make a flight to Berlin and back to muddy the trail, and then I’ll fly in posing as a wealthy British businessman. Assuming I can get to her, we’ll fly out on British passports with Rabinovich posing as my secretary.’
‘She speaks English?’
‘Fluently.’
‘Anyone got any better ideas?’ Regev looked aroun
d the table. ‘All right. The PM wants a brief, and he’ll undoubtedly bring up the Pollard fiasco. I’ll let you know.’ It was a reference to one of the most embarrassing failures of Israeli intelligence.
‘The prime minister will see you now.’ Avigail, Prime Minister Omer Rosenfeld’s attractive and chillingly efficient secretary, stood aside for Regev to enter the Prime Minister’s Jerusalem office which was located on the top floor of the ministerial offices in Kaplan Street, a short distance from the Knesset. The Prime Minister rose from behind his large, polished desk. Behind it stood the blue and white flag of Israel – the iconic Star of David. It hung in front of a heavy floor-to-ceiling bookcase containing Rosenfeld’s most treasured books and photographs.
‘Have a seat, Amos,’ Rosenfeld said, gesturing toward one of two large brown leather chairs either side of a round, glass-topped wooden coffee table.
‘The Rabinovich file, Prime Minister.’ Regev withdrew a red folder marked TOP SECRET from his leather brief case. Rosenfeld read the executive summary and flicked through the remaining pages.
‘Is she genuine?’ Rosenfeld demanded, getting straight to the point.
Regev smiled wanly. ‘There are, as you well know, Prime Minister, no guarantees in this game. But as far as our operatives can determine, both here and in Moscow, the Rabinovich request has the hallmarks of being genuine. Russian-Jewish emigration has increased markedly in the last two years, and although we’ve not been able to determine precisely what the relationship is between Rabinovich and her superiors, her complaints about loss of freedoms are undoubtedly valid. We’ve also done some checks on her Jewish heritage, and that too appears to be genuine.’
The Prime Minister returned his attention to Rabinovich’s file. ‘It would be one in the eye for Petrov if we can pull this off,’ he said finally.
Regev maintained a neutral expression. He had been around politicians far too long to be surprised at their priorities.
The Russian Affair Page 11