Program for a Puppet

by Roland Perry

  “Exactly. It takes a fee for organizing the smuggling from both the companies and the KGB.”

  “Then there is now way of proving a direct link between Lasercomp and Znorel?”

  “It’s not easy to break into Swiss bank accounts. But if you could, I’d bet you would find that Lasercomp owns Znorel, or a substantial chunk of it.”

  Graham pulled an envelope from his inside coat pocket and handed it to Revel.

  “What’s in this?”

  “Some important shots for your family album. Vienna is the central smuggling point for the Cheetahs. The men in those shots, I think you’ll find, are all in some way connected with Lasercomp. They design the master plan for the Soviet system. They work with Soviet scientists at Vienna’s Stölenburg Palace.”

  “So Vienna is the central clearing house for the smuggling, and also the focal point for designing the master plan. It’s beginning to fit.” Revel paused to sip his drink. “Where did you take these photos?”

  “At the KGB’s center in Kiev.”

  “They could even be incriminating evidence.”

  “I know two at least for sure are on Lasercomp’s payroll. They’re on two-year assignment to IOSWOP.”

  A young couple had just settled into the booth next to theirs. The two men sat silently for a minute until they heard the couple engaged in conversation.

  Revel leaned forward. Lowering his voice, he said, “I’ll get our authorities onto this right away.”

  “As soon as there is some action, I want to write an article for the press here and in London.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Maybe. But I want to draw those bastards at Lasercomp into the open. We could make it a very hot week for the giant. Especially if you win your court battle.”

  Revel winced.

  “You’re confident, aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely. We presented a winning case. But I’m still nervous about it.” Revel had tried to put the coming decision out of his mind. Since learning more about the corporation’s clandestine and ruthless activities in recent weeks, he was desperately wanting the decision to go his way. He changed the subject.

  “What are your plans?”

  “I’d like to see Dr. Donald Gordon. He may be able to help on a few things that are puzzling me.”

  “That may be difficult. I called him yesterday for you. He was ultracautious about a meeting. He said it would be dangerous for him to see anyone from the press.”

  “Well, what’s he afraid of? That’s all the more reason for seeing him.”

  Gordon had been under terrific tension since his confrontation with Clifford Brogan, Sr., almost a week ago. He had hardly ventured out of his home, a two-story wooden building called the Captain’s Mansion, in Maryland, Virginia. It was once owned by a seafaring gentleman from the Maryland region, and stood at the end of a dirt road about a hundred yards from the next house. It backed onto a lonely grassland swamp area, and overlooked the Pioneer Point conjunction of the Corsica and Chester rivers. Not a quarter of a mile away, the Soviet Union had a forty-five-acre prime waterfront retreat for their embassy and espionage staffs and their families.

  Gordon took some comfort from the fact that he had built the home into an electronic fortress over the last twenty years. It was surrounded by a ten-foot-high wood-plank fence, which had sensory devices ingrained in its top. If any person or beast tried to get over the fence they would activate a warning system. This had a high-pitched buzzer sound like a dentist’s drill, a lighting arrangement that floodlit the grounds, and an elaborate electronic eye monitoring device which, Gordon boasted, could look into every corner of the house and grounds. The scientist had also built an excellent bomb shelter beneath his basement library.

  On the night of October 23 Gordon was reading in the library when the buzzer sounded. At first he thought it was a stray cat which had often activated the system. He went to switch it off. As his hand moved over the deactivation switch he looked up at the four television monitor screens in each corner of the ceiling. Four figures dressed in hooded masks were running toward the house. Gordon ran for the steel trap door leading to the bomb shelter. He pulled it shut just as he heard glass shattering. He slid down a ladder, turned on the light in the shelter and immediately switched on another television monitor screen. The scientist watched in horror as the four men broke in and began to scour the house. They were all armed with handguns. His monitoring system was also geared for sound and he could hear and see the men stumbling around occasionally smashing something. They went through every room before he heard them.

  “He’s not here!”

  “He has to be damn well here!”

  “Then where the hell is he?”

  Gordon dialed the police.

  The gunmen noticed the scanners and began to shoot at them.

  “Jesus! This place is creepy!” one of them said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The four men clambered out of the house, ran across the grounds, and hurled themselves over the wall.

  Gordon watched their escape. His worst fears about tackling Lasercomp had been terrifyingly verified.

  Graham arrived in Washington by Metroliner from New York late on Friday the twenty-fourth and immediately took a taxi to a small hotel on Sixteenth Street opposite Lafayette Park and the White House.

  Checking in under a false name, the Australian went straight to his room, unpacked and went to bed.

  Just as he was drifting off to sleep the telephone rang. It was Revel, who had flown into Washington that morning.

  “This is important. Can you meet me immediately?”

  Graham looked at his watch. It was just after midnight. “Can’t it wait until morning?” he asked wearily. “I really am tired, George….”

  “Ed, it’s urgent. A limousine will pick you up in five minutes. Come as you are.”

  He rang off before Graham could object. The Australian cursed.

  “Come as you are?” he muttered to himself as he looked at his naked state in a bureau mirror.

  Four minutes later, he was waiting in front of the hotel. A government car cruised up and stopped near him.

  “Mr. Graham,” a marine said, as he bounced from the car and opened a back door. The Australian nodded and hopped in. He began to wonder what Revel was up to.

  The car swung around the park, and much to Graham’s surprise, was ushered through a heavily guarded back entrance to the White House. It pulled up abruptly near the west wing. The marine opened the door and led Graham to a side entrance, where a plainclothes man mumbled a greeting to the Australian and took him to a large room where Revel was waiting.

  “You could have dressed a little more formally,” he said, smiling nervously and eying Graham’s turtleneck sweater.

  “You didn’t tell me it was a White House ball …”

  Revel laughed, and paced the room.

  “George, what the hell’s going on?”

  The lawyer walked up close to Graham. “You are about to meet the President of the United States,” he said melodramatically.

  “What?” Graham asked in disbelief. “You’re putting me on!”

  Revel shook his head. “Nope.”

  “But haven’t you already let the attorney general know …?”

  “Yes, this afternoon. But Rickard expressly wanted his meeting with you. He’s like that. He has a lot of journalistic contacts. Feels easy among them.”

  “At this time of night?”

  “This guy’s a workaholic. And you’ve given him something to get his teeth into. I was with him this afternoon when he set in motion a delicate line of action with the West German government and police, NATO, Interpol and the CIA …”

  He cut off as an aide entered the room.

  “The President will see you now,” he said to both of them, Revel arched his eyebrows at Graham and motioned for him to go first. They were led out of the room and down a hallway which swung right of the Oval Office. The aide knocked
at the President’s study and ushered Graham and Revel in. Rickard was sitting at a small desk leaning forward with one hand rubbing his brow as he spoke rapidly on the telephone.

  “Hold them right there … what did they have on them? … oh, my God! … traitorous assholes!” He looked up, saw the two men and began to get up from behind the desk. “Okay, Dick, you get back to me first thing tomorrow our time. Good night … I mean morning.…” He put down the receiver and moved around the desk to shake hands with the Australian.

  “Mr. Graham, please sit down.”

  The telephone rang as both Graham and Revel took the only two seats in front of the desk.

  “Yeah … hold everything. That’ll wrap it up for the night….” Rickard slammed down the receiver.

  “Well, gentlemen, we’ve just arrested eight people—five men and three women—in Stuttgart en route from Vienna to Moscow. They’ll be charged with illegal passing of restricted and classified military documents. There’ll be a closer inspection tomorrow but it looks as if all the documents are part of important computer design specifications for NATO, American nuclear missile systems and the latest in our laser weaponry. Quite a haul. But we’ve got them!” He paused to take off his glasses. “Thanks to you, Mr. Graham.” His craggy face flashed the briefest of smiles as he focused hard on the Australian.

  Graham, embarrassed and a little nervous, nodded as Rickard picked up photos that the Australian had taken in Kiev. “I had the FBI check these today. Eight, those arrested, were identified as either employed by Lasercomp in Europe, or on assignment from the corporation at IOSWOP in Vienna. I want to see how Lasercomp tries to wriggle out of this one.…” He smiled victoriously at both of them.

  “Now Mr. Revel has briefed me on your little trip, and I have the CIA version via MI-6, you’ll be interested to know, of what you were up to…. Now first, I want to apologize for getting you over here now, and second, I would like to ask you just one or two questions about your Soviet mission. Only if you’re willing, you understand.…”

  “I’ll answer them if I can, Mr. President…

  “Okay. This is off the record completely. You’ve never met me…

  Graham nodded vigorously to that condition.

  “Now you were there when Mineva was in Moscow. Did you get any inkling from your contacts of just why the Russians want Mineva as President?”

  “I don’t think the whole administration does. Only the KGB clique led by Andropolov. It seems to be wielding the power right now … but if I may say so, you’ve made yourself unpopular with the KGB clique.…”

  Graham paused. Rickard nodded for him to continue.

  “You’re a definite threat to their plans for internal control and expansion outside Soviet territory. Halting the flow of Cheetahs halts their arms build-up. They don’t like you confronting them. The arms deal with China has meant there can be no love lost between you and the KGB.…”

  “Hmmmm … why do you think Lasercomp helped Mineva in Moscow?”

  “I can only guess at that….”

  “Go ahead, go ahead …

  “Well, Brogan Senior may well have convinced the KGB that Mineva would be a better bet for their aims than, with respect, ‘bogeyman’ Rickard. Lasercomp cooperated with the KGB in trying to make Mineva look like a statesman, and you a warmonger. You’re a common enemy to both…”

  Rickard leaned back and rubbed his eyes again. “I think you’re right … they have formed the unholiest of alliances.” He sighed deeply. “The worst excesses of Soviet Marxism and American capitalism gone haywire.…”

  “They have a lot in common, if I may say so, Mr. President,” Revel chipped in. “They both want absolute power in their respective domains. The computer is the common denominator for both.”

  Rickard looked hard at Revel and nodded slowly. Then turning to Graham he said, “That’s all I wanted to know and thank you for your replies.” He stood up and moved around to them. Graham and Revel got up and shook hands. “When I’m under a little less pressure early next year, I want to have a longer chat with you,” he said to Graham.

  “I look forward to that….”

  “On one condition.”

  “It’s off the record….”

  Rickard nodded and smiled as a marine came in to escort them out.

  Graham and Revel followed him in silence to a waiting limousine. They were driven back to Graham’s hotel.

  “Damn it!” Graham exclaimed as he got out. “I forgot to ask him if I could write anything …”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve already spoken to him about that. He says you have the exclusive as long as—”

  “—the source is a high government official.”

  “You got it … oh, I almost forgot…” Revel said, winding down the window to speak more softly, “Gordon phoned me last night in a real sweat. Someone tried to kill him. He wants to talk now….”

  “When can we meet him?”

  “I’ve said we’ll drive out to his home Monday.”

  “Good. That gives me the weekend to write a piece on the arrests for the press in London and here.…”

  “See you Monday night, better make it about nine.”

  Graham nodded and Revel signaled the driver. The Australian watched the limousine slip away and then turned for the hotel entrance. There was one week until the election and he had a story to write.

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 27

  The normally cool, clinical efficiency of Lasercomp’s HQ executive offices looked like a hospital casualty ward on October 27. Young emissaries were sent scurrying from floor to floor with scribbled memos, while small groups of grim-faced executives met briefly along the plush-carpeted corridors.

  The problem, which caused more than the usual flurry at photocopying machines, was a New York Times article written by “a special correspondent.” It was Graham’s article but not attributed to him. At the weekend he had used contacts at the paper to get the exclusive published. The report was headed: “Lasercomp Link in Scientists’ Arrests.” It ran on page one and on to page three.

  By midmorning, the corporation’s management committee had convened hurriedly in the war room. Brogan Junior, in the chair, got quickly to the heart of the problem. “We have to cover two points as quickly as possible,” he said, putting on spectacles to look at the article. “One is obviously where it says that all those arrested had a direct link with us.” He looked up at Huntsman, whose chubby fingers were working overtime taking notes. “You’ll have to get something into a release dissociating us or any of our subsidiaries in Europe, from the scientists’, shall we say, ‘regrettable’ actions.” He added vehemently, “Sacrifice the bastards! Express our shock that any of our middle managers on assignment could ever get involved in breaking NATO regulations.” He looked at the article again.

  “The second priority is where the report says, ‘The men arrested might be involved in a wider effort to illegally feed the KGB with vital computers.’ All we have to do there is restate our policy on selling to the communist countries.”

  “What about action against those arrested?” Huntsman asked.

  Brogan nodded. “I suppose you’d better mention something. Keep it fairly low-key. ‘Action will be taken internally if necessary, following our own inquiry.’ Say something about a plan to tighten up our internal security, and the movement of Lasercomp personnel into communist countries.” He took off his spectacles. “We must find out who wrote this. Any ideas?”

  Huntsman sighed and nodded. “It could only have been Graham.”

  Brogan Junior grimaced. “Has Znorel been in contact with the Director?”

  “Yes, but he wants double—”

  “I don’t care what he wants,” Brogan Junior interjected in a rare show of emotion more in keeping with the Old Man, “pay him. Just get rid of that problem!”

  Graham and Revel drove in the lawyer’s early model brown Ford Mustang coupé along Route 50 out of Washington and joined 301 coming from Richmond on the road
to Annapolis. Route 301 took them to the little town of Canterville and Gordon’s home. They arrived just after 11:00 P.M.

  When Revel announced himself over an intercom at the front, a huge iron gate automatically swung in. He drove to the front door, where the now skeletal-thin Gordon greeted them. He was dressed in a red turtleneck sweater and baggy trousers, and looked dour and nervous as Revel introduced Graham to him. He ushered the two visitors down to the basement. Gordon left them in his library and went up to a kitchen on the first floor to fix drinks. Two walls of books, ranging from the highly technical on computer design to the political works of Hegel and Marx, gave a hint of the scientist’s considerable intellect. A small log fire crackled in one corner. On a mantelpiece above it was a framed picture of the word Cogitate—Lasercomp’s motto.

  Gordon returned after a minute and handed Graham and Revel drinks. He sat down with them in easy chairs, and began to speak of his brief past working association with Revel at Lasercomp. The two had on a few occasions worked together on special computer designs.

  Graham began by quizzing the scientist about his contact with Jane Ryder. He explained that she had telephoned him twice in Paris.

  “Did you see her?” Graham asked.

  Gordon hesitated. “Yes. I lied to French Intelligence.”

  “Why did you see her?”

  “She was very persistent and I was scared Lasercomp was going to do something to me after my Paris lectures. I told her some incriminating facts about the corporation. I thought it might stop them.”

  “So they murdered her.”

  Gordon nodded. “They apparently bugged my hotel room in Paris and found out what I had told her.”

  “And now you think they’re after you?” Revel asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What did you tell Jane?” Graham asked.

  “Why I split with the corporation. I objected strongly to the Brogan marketing plans.”

  “What were they?”

  “Huge sales to the KGB for a start. Cheetahs in their hands were, in my opinion, a definite blow to human rights inside the Soviet Union and potentially dangerous to the West.”

  “Was it just marketing plans that upset you?”