I AM FORMALLY REQUIRED BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE VICTIM AND WITNESS PROTECTION ACT, 1982, AS SUBSEQUENTLY AMENDED, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, TO ADVISE YOU OF THE IMPENDING RELEASE, UNDER REQUIREMENTS OF SENTENCING REMISSION, FROM WHITE DEER PENITENTIARY, PENNSYLVANIA, OF JACK CHARLES MASON, IN WHOSE PROSECUTION YOU WERE A PRIMARY PROSECUTION WITNESS ON JANUARY 10 THRU 14, 1986, CASE NUMBER 01121. IF YOU HAVE ANY CAUSE OR REASON FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT THE ABOVE NUMBER BETWEEN 9 AM AND 5.30 PM, MONDAY TO FRIDAY.
It concluded, above the indecipherable signature: ‘Yours faithfully’.
What was decipherable? The case number was certainly right. And the bureaucratic officialese fitted the jargon of the dozens of American government letters and documents he’d read – mostly provided by Jack Mason – during the three years he had headed the KGB’s Washington rezidentura at the Russian embassy before defecting, because of his unsuspected love for Ann, rather than obey the statutory end-of-posting recall to Moscow. What else? There had not been any contact from the CIA or the Justice Department for years, once he’d been debriefed on the KGB’s Washington operations and staffing and given his shielded, video-linked evidence against Mason. So it was hardly surprising he didn’t recognize the name J Peebles. Or the telephone number or the Justice Department address: total secrecy and anonymity was the entire purpose and function of the Witness Protection Programme. At once the contradiction came up, like a halting flag. With all those provisos, why write him such an identifiable and identifying letter, its security guaranteed by nothing more protective than the correctly addressed envelope and the correct stamp, which wasn’t any sort of security guarantee at all. Why, all those years ago, hadn’t he been told there would be such a warning, as and when Mason came up for parole or release? The letter talked of conditions being amended but if the advice was an innovation after his case, he should have been told, not left all this time and then so abruptly confronted.
All the uncertainties had to be resolved, all the unanswered questions answered and those answers double-checked before disclosing the approach to Ann. Which he would do, rather than keep the letter from her. The most solemn vow each had made to the other when they had embarked upon the life they now had – after their affair had begun and Slater risked everything by confessing that he was not her husband’s CIA friend but his KGB control – had been that there would never again be any secrets between them, most specifically of all about Jack Mason. And if … Slater refused to let the spectre form. To do so would be unprofessional. He paused at that thought, too, accepting a practical reality, not an unformed speculation. He had – briefly he hoped – to revert to what he had once been, a professional intelligence officer, believing nothing, trusting no one, confiding in no one, apart from, of course, Ann. Could he do it? This doubt unsettled Slater more than any other that morning. Of course he could do it, he told himself. He didn’t have any choice. It wasn’t any longer just Ann he had to protect and guard from danger. Now they had David – as precious to each of them as they were to each other – who had to be kept from all and any harm. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – fail either of them.
Slater’s receptionist Mary Ellen Foley, a plain-featured, sheltered woman who at twenty-eight still lived with and supported her widowed mother whose hand-knitted shawls and sweaters Mary Ellen frequently wore, as she was that morning, showed no surprise at Slater’s announcement that he needed to go into DC to complete the last outstanding security report. She was to log all in-coming calls with a return number, identification and full address but not disclose where he was or offer any suggestion when he might be back in the office. If there was an unannounced, unexpected visitor she was to note the time. He’d keep in touch during the day to pick up any messages, but she shouldn’t wait if he hadn’t returned by 5.30. For the first time in the eight years she’d worked for him, Mary Ellen’s insistence upon writing down his instructions didn’t seem unnecessary. Her reminder to herself about unexpected visitors would be sufficient in turn to remind himself – although with his new professional determination he wouldn’t need reminders – of specific times to check the CCTV footage from the lobby, elevator and seventh floor upon which his office was located.
As he left Slater said, ‘I like the sweater. Blue suits you.’
‘My mother made it,’ smiled the woman, gratefully.
‘I guessed.’
Slater was glad that in the early months of his new identity and relocation he’d instinctively taken various precautions to thoroughly orientate himself to the geography and transportation routes of Maryland, and even into the surrounding states, although today’s journey into DC scarcely needed such rehearsal. It enabled him, though, to turn off and on the interstate to avoid its traffic bottlenecks and get into the capital well before noon. He made sure to head for the car park near Union Station, not for the appropriate irony of it being where he’d often held his clandestine, document-exchanging meetings with Mason, but to be sure, in the age of cell phones, of finding coin-operated kiosks within the railway terminal itself. It only took him a further ten minutes, traversing the concourse and the upper level, buying all but one instantly discarded newspapers, as well as magazines, to obtain coins from notes for his hopefully untraceable call to the unknown J Peebles, despite that morning’s letter having been delivered to his known address. Once more Slater refused to contemplate the spectral upheaval of his having, at a moment’s unexplained notice, to drag Ann and David into escaping flight if he developed the slightest doubt about what was to happen.
Slater separately stacked his nickels and dimes on the convenient shelf, knowingly overpaid for the first call and then dialled the number on the letter, quickly pocketing the incriminating document.
The telephone rang twice before a voice said, ‘Yes?’
Slater didn’t detect the slightest blur of an accent other than American, although one word wasn’t sufficient to be sure. ‘I received a letter today.’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you J Peebles?’
‘Who are you?’
Definitely no hint of a recognizable Russian accent but that meant nothing. ‘The letter said I was to call this number, if I had any questions about its contents …’ Fifteen years ago the conservative estimate had been that it took three minutes electronically to get a traceable, cross-grid reference for an incoming telephone call. From the security consultancy business he now ran Slater knew the gap had technologically narrowed to a minute and thirty seconds. A recording of the conversation would be automatic if he were connected to a CIA facility. He’d been on the phone for forty-five seconds.
‘Who are you?’
‘How many people would have this morning received a letter from J Peebles that might have prompted this call?’
‘If you are calling from a public telephone, this conversation is not secure.’
‘I know. Which is why I am going to terminate it in another sixty seconds.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Answers.’
‘Ask your questions.’
‘This conversation is not secure.’
There was a discernible sigh. ‘I’ll ask you again, what do you want?’
‘A meeting.’
Now there was a pause. ‘What for?’
‘The answers.’
‘I’ll set one up.’
‘I’ll set one up,’ insisted Slater.
‘When?’
‘Now.’
‘That’s not possible.’
It would take a minimum of twenty-four hours to put in place a snatch squad with any chance of success. ‘Why not?’
‘It … it isn’t.’
‘That’s not acceptable. I still have numbers I can call, to complain.’ Slater was glad he’d retrieved the ancient contact procedures from his safe before he’d left the Frederick office. From the sweep hand of his watch Slater knew he had been on the telephone for one minute, ten seconds.
‘Where?’
&nb
sp; The Mayflower Hotel.’
‘An hour then?’
‘How will you recognize me?’
‘I have your photograph, of course.’
Hardly the necessary reassurance that the approach was genuine. The KGB successor, the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, would have as many photographs of him, albeit twenty years old, as the CIA. ‘Describe how you’re dressed: the colour of your suit, shirt and tie.’
There was yet another hesitation. ‘A sport coat. Brown. Blue jeans. A polo shirt. Blue again. No tie.’
‘Age?’
‘Twenty-eight.’
‘Hair?’
‘Brown.’
‘Height?’
‘Six one.’
‘Glasses?’
‘Yes.’
‘Describe them. Heavy, light, what?’
‘Heavy. Black framed. Whereabouts in the Mayflower?’
‘Just be there. I’ll find you.’
‘Jesus!’ exclaimed John Peebles. ‘It was Sobell or Slater or whatever he’s called. You wouldn’t have believed the conversation!’
‘I probably would, if you’d recorded it,’ said Barry Bourne.
‘Shit!’ said Peebles, looking down at the telephone and its connected but unactivated apparatus.
When Peebles finished recalling the conversation his partner said, ‘You going to go?’
‘I guess I’ve got to.’
‘The regulations are that you get permission from Langley. And send them the recording, to verify the voiceprint,’ Bourne reminded his colleague.
‘Shit!’ moaned Peebles again. ‘He said he still had numbers he could complain to.’
‘This isn’t looking good.’
‘I know. Fuck it!’
‘What’s he want?’ asked Bourne.
‘He wouldn’t say, on an open line.’
‘Proves he’s professional.’
‘I reminded him first,’ insisted Peebles, defensively.
‘You gotta go.’
‘I know. But what about Langley? Oh fuck!’
‘You disconnect the plug of the recording machine, disconnect one of the internal wires and then plug it back into the mains. That’s why the tape didn’t run. It’s not your fault – the equipment is faulty.’
‘That’s good,’ accepted Peebles.
‘What about permission?’
‘I don’t go, he complains to whatever numbers he’s got. I’m fucked either way.’
‘Better you go, try to keep a lid on everything.’
‘Fucking son of a bitch defector!’
‘Be careful,’ advised Bourne, unsympathetically.
‘You wanna come along?’ invited Peebles, hopefully.
‘We both can’t be out of the office at the same time.’
Peebles went to speak but changed his mind. Instead he thought, Asshole.
Slater went completely around the Mayflower Hotel block, finally establishing a vantage point bench on Connecticut Avenue that gave him a view of the main entrance as well as one to the side. He held up the one retained newspaper, USA Today, sufficiently to shield him but not high enough to obscure his observation as he looked out for a flurried group arrival of the snatch squad, his confidence growing as the time passed without his identifying one. It grew further when he identified the man he assumed to be Peebles, not emerging from the Metro, upon which he was concentrating, but coming up the avenue itself on foot from the direction of Lafayette Square. There were no telltale body movements or quick head shifting to indicate anyone else was with him. He went by the side door, hesitated at the main entrance without looking around to establish whether he might be under surveillance and then pushed inside. The man was precisely on time. Slater remained where he was, with no intention of going into the hotel, still alert for a group arrival once he had been recognized and identified by the entering man. There was nothing that aroused his suspicion.
It was forty-five minutes before the man emerged, again through the main entrance. This time he did pause to look around, the intention obvious before he did so, enabling Slater more fully to raise his protective newspaper. Slater was on his feet, hurrying in pursuit, the moment the man turned to walk back the way he had come. Within minutes Slater was comfortably in position ten yards behind, eight people separating them as a convenient barrier if the tall man turned to check his back. He hadn’t by the time they reached the grassed square, which he started to cross towards the White House and where Slater chose for them finally to meet.
‘Let’s sit here, on one of the benches,’ said Slater, coming up from behind.
‘Jesus!’ exclaimed the man, visibly jumping.
‘You Peebles?’
‘Of course I am. What the hell’s going on?’
‘My being careful is what’s going on.’
‘I just wasted an hour back there at the hotel.’
‘Forty-five minutes,’ corrected Slater. ‘Let’s sit on the bench, like I suggested.’ He waited for Peebles to lower himself before following.
‘What is it you want?’ demanded Peebles. He was visibly flushed, embarrassed at his startled reaction.
‘Why’d you write the letter?’
‘It was spelled out. It’s regulations.’
‘I wasn’t told that – warned about any release letter – when I went into the programme.’
‘That was spelled out, too. There’s been a lot of amendments. Six or seven maybe, since your case. I think the warning clause was included in the Witness Protection and Interstate Relocation Act of 1997: H.R. 2181.’
‘Don’t you know!’
‘That was the statute.’
Slater didn’t believe it was; Peebles was making a wild guess. ‘Mason got twenty years. It’s only been fifteen.’
‘He got maximum remission, apparently. A model prisoner.’
‘Is he already out?’
‘In four or five weeks.’
‘Which penitentiary?’
‘I’m not sure I’m allowed to tell you.’
‘Which penitentiary?’
‘Pennsylvania.’
Close, thought Slater. Almost too close. ‘Where’s he going?’
‘How the hell do I know? If I did I certainly wouldn’t tell you.’
‘I don’t think it was very secure, telling me in a letter like that.’
‘It’s the system.’
‘Everyone like me get such a letter, simply sent through the mail?’
‘There aren’t a lot of people like you,’ said Peebles, in weak sarcasm. ‘Guys who’ve been involved in criminal cases, organized crime prosecutions, sure, all the time.’
‘How many people like me have you sent such letters to?’
‘If I was asked that by somebody else like you, would you want me to answer?’
‘The letter said if I had any cause or reason for further information I was to call you,’ reminded Slater. ‘How many calls do you get from defectors?’
Peebles hesitated. ‘You’re the first I’ve had.’
‘What about your department?’
‘We don’t share cases,’ lied Peebles, his embarrassment turned to anger at believing he had been made to look stupid.
‘You any reason to believe I am at any risk from Mason’s release?’
Peebles looked sideways along the bench in genuine astonishment. ‘Absolutely not! I told you, he’s been a model prisoner. He wouldn’t have got maximum remission if there was a history of threats, would he?’
‘You’re not operational, a field agent, are you?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Maybe a lot. Perhaps we’ll need to keep in touch?’ suggested Slater. There’d been little to arouse any professional fear. What incongruities there had been were easily accountable by the fact that Peebles was clearly a back office clerk.
‘If there is a need, let’s do it properly next time, OK?’
‘Very much OK,’ came back Slater. ‘You need to talk to me you do just that, tel
ephone and arrange this sort of meeting. Not send a letter that could have been intercepted or mislaid and caused me all sorts of problems.’
‘I don’t imagine there being a need.’
‘Keep in mind the approach I want if it does.’
Slater remained on the park bench, watching Peebles walk away, not once bothering – or allowing himself – to look back. An adequate check, as far as it had gone, decided Slater. Now came the hopeful double check. Slater hailed a passing cab to take him back to the station, where once again he stacked his pocket-bulging coins on the telephone kiosk ledge, fed seventy-five cents into the box and dialled his long ago ascribed number at the CIA’s Langley headquarters.
‘Yes?’ demanded a voice before the telephone appeared to ring.
‘I want to speak to Burt Hodges.’ The raw-boned, laconic-voiced Texan – certainly not this voice – had been his case officer from the moment of his defection and through the seemingly never-ending debriefing sessions.
‘Who?’
‘Hodges. Burt Hodges.’
‘There’s no one of that name here. Who is this?’
‘I once had a lot of dealings with Burt Hodges. This was the number I was given to keep in touch.’
‘How long ago?’
Slater swallowed. ‘Fifteen years.’
‘No one named Burt Hodges has worked here in the ten years I’ve been here. Why don’t you tell me your name? Maybe I can help?’
‘What about Art Cole?’ He’d been Hodges’ partner, a sharp-featured, critically impatient man, Slater remembered.
Time to Kill Page 4