Siro
Page 21
“Why the fuck not?” Taylor was losing patience with Stone’s riddles.
“Because it is beyond our capabilities, my friend. The sad truth is that we don’t have the plumbing in this part of the world to pull off such an ambitious operation. Never have had.”
“So we’re back to square one.”
“Not quite,” said Stone with a smile. “Not quite. That’s what I realized last night. It may be true that we cannot create an actual underground organization of our own. But we can create something almost as good. We can create the illusion of one.”
“How, for chrissake?”
“Isn’t it obvious? By using your Mr. Rawls. By feeding him, by putting information in his hands that will convince the Russians that we are doing the very thing they’re afraid of, the very thing they’re pretending to do themselves. If we’re clever about it, we can convince them that they have stumbled across evidence that the CIA is running an anti-Soviet underground that stretches from Baku to Tashkent.”
Taylor smiled. The idea was simplicity itself. “Will they believe it?”
“Yes, if we let them discover the evidence themselves, piece by piece.”
“And what will we do with this imaginary network?”
“We will run operations. Or more precisely, we will create the illusion that we are running operations. We will let Rawls and his colleagues discover an underground organization that is sending guns into Azerbaijan. Then we’ll let the KGB chief in Baku find the guns. We will tell Rawls the underground is smuggling thousands of religious cassettes to the underground mullahs of Uzbekistan. The KGB man in Samarkand will only have to find a few dozen cassettes to believe it’s real.”
Taylor tried not to sound snowed. “Not bad,” he said.
“That’s the beauty of it, you see. It doesn’t have to be an underground network. It just has to look like one.”
“Mr. Stone, you are a devious son of a bitch.”
“Thank you. Coming from you, I take that as a great compliment.”
“So how do we get started?”
“You’ll need a small team. A half dozen people, at most. Contract hires, most of them, I should think. It’s important that this be invisible, even from the clandestine service. Especially from the clandestine service. We’ll talk about the details when we get back home. Can you be in Washington in two weeks?”
“I don’t know. What will headquarters say?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that too much. In a certain sense, I suppose I am headquarters. I’ll arrange whatever needs to be arranged.”
“Then I’ll be there.”
“Anything else?”
Taylor thought a moment, about the life he was giving up, and the one he was beginning, and a thought fell into his head. He recalled a conversation several weeks earlier with a young woman case officer from London—a woman who appeared to be unusually knowledgeable about the life and times of the peoples of Central Asia.
“I have one personnel suggestion for you,” said Taylor.
“And who might that be?”
“A NOC named Anna Barnes. Before joining the outfit she studied Ottoman history. She knows this part of the world.”
“Anna Barnes,” repeated Stone. He had that odd smile that came over him when he was caught in the midst of one of his games.
“That’s right. Anna Barnes.”
“How interesting that you should mention her. As it happens, Miss Anna Barnes is already on my list. As a matter of fact, I am planning to see her in London tomorrow. With any luck, she’ll be joining us in Washington for our little planning session.”
But Stone never left anything entirely to luck. The papers for Anna Barnes’s TDY assignment to Washington were already in the works by the time he landed at Heathrow that evening.
V
KARPETLAND
WASHINGTON / BROOKLYN
ATHENS
MAY 1979
21
The sign on the door said “Karpetland,” and in smaller type: “The World at Your Feet.” The office itself was a second-floor walk-up in a commercial building just off the Rockville Pike. It was in one of those small shopping centers built in the 1960s that had since become derelict castoffs, shunned by the newer chain stores and boutiques of suburbia. Other establishments in the complex included an insurance agency, a doughnut shop, a hardware store and a fabric store. It was a place out of time, with no evident connection to the larger environment of Washington, which was why Stone had selected it. He wanted his new enterprises to be born under cover, as far as possible from the physical and psychological orbit of headquarters.
Anna Barnes arrived punctually at ten o’clock. She was dressed for spring, in a bright silk dress gathered and tied at the waist. She rang the bell, half expecting that Stone himself would open the door to greet her. A middle-aged woman came lumbering down the stairs instead, and after giving Anna a careful look, opened the door. “I’m Marjorie,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Please wait upstairs.”
Anna walked up one flight and surveyed the office. It was a small and somewhat dilapidated showroom. Three gray metal desks stood in the front of the room, each bearing a black telephone, a blotter, pens and stationery. Beyond the desks was a thin stack of Oriental rugs and, on a table, samples of wall-to-wall carpeting. The wall decorations consisted of a clock, a calendar from an auto-parts store and an old TWA airline poster. At the back of the room were two couches, a coffee table and a water cooler. The showroom was lit by two long fluorescent fixtures hanging overhead, which gave it the seedy glow of a pool hall.
“Have a seat,” said Marjorie, gesturing toward one of the couches. On the coffee table were copies of People and Better Homes & Gardens, all several months old. Anna skimmed an article about a lawsuit filed against a famous actor by his former girlfriend, Michelle. After ten minutes the doorbell rang, and Marjorie once more clunked downstairs. This time up walked Alan Taylor, looking tanned and sleek and wearing a double-breasted blue blazer with gold buttons.
“Fancy meeting you here,” said Taylor. He had the same mischievous look in his eye that Anna remembered from Istanbul. Before she could answer, the bell rang once more. Someone apparently had been waiting for the rest of the group to arrive before making his appearance. This last visitor didn’t wait for Marjorie to let him in. He had his own key.
“Hello, friends,” called out Edward Stone, bounding up the stairs. He was in disguise, or at least his notion of it. In place of the usual gray flannel suit and brown homburg hat, he was wearing a red lumberjack shirt and khaki work pants, a pair of boat shoes and a cap that said “Redskins” on the brim.
“Welcome to Karpetland,” said Stone grandly.
“What the hell is Karpetland?” asked Taylor.
“Didn’t you see the sign? It’s your new base of operations. I hope you like it, since you may be spending rather a lot of time here over the next few weeks.”
“Delightful,” said Taylor, picking a piece of Karpetland stationery off one of the gray metal desks. “Why did you spell it with a ‘K’?”
“To discourage people from calling us on the telephone. Nobody in his right mind would think of carpets and ask the operator for the ‘K’s. And if anyone should be foolish enough to do so, Marjorie can take care of them.” He gestured to the middle-aged woman. “Did you meet Marjorie? She is on loan to us from the SB Division.”
“Not formally,” said Anna, extending her hand. She was about to introduce herself, but Stone cut her off.
“Uh-uh-uh. No true names, please. Marjorie will know you two as Lucy Morgan and William Goode, the two employees of our modest enterprise. We’ll have passports and other documentation ready for you on Monday.”
Taylor scanned the room. “We’re not actually going to have to sell rugs, are we?”
“Of course not,” answered Stone. “Don’t be silly.”
Taylor looked relieved. He sat down at one of the desks and tried the phone. It worked.
“Yes, sir,” said Marjorie, taking her purse. Stone waited for the front door to close.
“Now then,” said Stone when she was gone. “I’m delighted to see both of you. I trust your trips were pleasant, and that you have reasonable hotel accommodations.”
“Motel,” said Taylor.
“And you must be wondering, after coming all this way, just what we’re planning to do in this charming establishment in Rockville. Before we begin, however, I must ask you both to sign something.” He removed from the pocket of his lumberjack shirt two pieces of paper and handed one to each of them.
“What is it?” asked Anna.
“A secrecy agreement, of sorts. It applies to the particular compartment we’re opening for this operation. The gist of it is that you agree never to reveal details of our activity except to someone authorized to receive the information.”
“Who’s authorized to receive the information?” asked Taylor.
“I am,” said Stone. “I’m not sure who else is. For practical purposes, nobody.”
“That’s easy enough,” said Taylor. He took out a pen and signed.
“Do you mind if I read it?” asked Anna.
“Not at all.”
Anna perused the document. “It doesn’t mention the agency,” she said after a few moments.
“Quite right. It doesn’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a technicality, really. This compartment is separate from the normal administrative procedures of the Directorate of Operations. It’s easier that way. More secure.”
“Need a lawyer?” asked Taylor. His tone was not quite mocking, but close.
“Nope,” said Anna. She signed the form and handed it back to Stone.
“Jolly good!” said Stone. “Now let’s begin. I have told each of you a bit about what I have in mind, and I would like to fill in some of the blanks this morning. The simplest introduction I can give is to say that our mission here will be to practice a form of alchemy.”
“Alchemy?” asked Anna, not sure she had heard him right.
“Yes, indeed. But in our case we will be creating something much more precious than gold. We will be taking weakness—specifically the current political and military weakness of the United States—and transforming it into strength. And we will be accomplishing this magic by using the only real tool available to the alchemist, a calculated sleight of hand.”
“Sorry,” said Anna, “but I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not, but be patient. I promise it will become clear. What I want to do, by way of beginning our dialogue, is explain to you how I normally spend my time. Is that agreeable?”
Anna and Taylor nodded their heads. Since they first laid eyes on him, each, in different ways, had been wanting to know what Stone actually did.
“I believe I mentioned separately to each of you that my title is Director of Special Projects for the Soviet Bloc Division. What does that entail? you have undoubtedly wondered. What ‘special projects’ might I be directing? The simple answer is that I do whatever suits my fancy. But what I have concentrated on, for some time now, is a particular variety of what might be called, for lack of a better term, deception.”
“And what variety might that be?” asked Taylor.
“I’m coming to that. Patience, please. Let’s not be in any rush. Would you like some coffee? Tea? Marjorie told me she would have some here for us.”
Anna and Taylor both shook their heads. “Go ahead,” said Taylor. “We’re all ears.”
“Very well. My sort of deception, to put the matter bluntly, has sought to convince the Soviets that CIA operations are broader and more aggressive than is actually the case at present. My mission, if you will, has been to camouflage the frail and demoralized American intelligence service we know all too well, and to paint an alternative picture of a service that remains robust and stouthearted; and then to make the Soviets chase the robust-looking shadows I throw in their way.”
“How on earth can you do that?” asked Anna. “The Russians aren’t stupid.”
“No, indeed. They are smart and thorough, but also quite paranoid. And those are precisely the qualities I have sought to exploit. The secret is understanding how they operate. Shall I give you an example?”
“Yes, please,” said Anna.
“Take CIA operations in Moscow. The truth is that the agency has very little on the ground there these days. We have few real agents and few real operations. But it is possible to create an illusion that we are more active by pushing certain buttons. The Soviets actually make it easy. The KGB, you see, simply doesn’t believe that we are as inert and incompetent as we appear. So they go to extraordinary lengths to try to discover what we’re really up to, and in doing so, they operate by certain standing rules. You just have to know what they are.”
“Such as?” pressed Taylor.
“Such as: If an American diplomat is seen entering an apartment building where a Soviet with real secrets resides, that Soviet citizen is automatically placed under surveillance for a minimum of one year. Sometimes he is simply transferred to a less sensitive job until the KGB is sure he has not been in contact with any Western intelligence service. Obviously this sort of surveillance adds to the difficulty we face in actually recruiting any Soviets. But do you see how we might use it to our advantage?”
“By flooding the system,” said Taylor.
“Precisely,” said Stone. He was beaming. “When officers of the Moscow station come calling on me in Washington. I suggest that they visit certain apartment buildings in Moscow from time to time. All they need to do is stick their heads in the door, or ring a bell, or linger by a dark alleyway for a few minutes, or make a meaningless chalk mark on a wall somewhere, and the alarm bells go off in Moscow Center. A new counterintelligence case is opened on poor comrade so-and-so who lives in apartment 3-B.”
“Do they really fall for it?” asked Taylor. It sounded too easy.
“Yes. If you do it right. You can’t be too obvious, and you have to mix it up with other techniques. Would you like another example?”
“Please,” said Anna. Taylor was shaking his head and smiling as he considered Stone’s ruse.
“The KGB has a similar standing rule with regard to dead drops. They know our people in Moscow spend a lot of time looking for potential drop sites. So they carefully track where Americans go. And whenever they see one of our people near someplace that might make a good drop—an irregularity in the brickwork along the side of a building, or a knothole in a tree in Gorky Park, or a loose stone in a wall somewhere up on the Lenin Hills—they stake it out.”
“What do you mean?” asked Anna.
“I mean they maintain fixed surveillance on that spot—usually with a television camera—twenty-four hours a day for at least a year. They are tireless, you see. That is part of their operating style. So what does the Director of Special Projects do in confronting this vast and seamless web of surveillance? What would you do, Anna?”
“I’d send the CIA station on an Easter egg hunt, looking for phony drop sites.”
“Yes, of course you would,” said Stone. “And not just that. Sometimes you would fill those phony drop sites with phony messages for phony agents. And some of the messages would interlock, painting a picture of broader operations whose purposes Moscow Center could only guess at.”
“It’s very clever,” said Taylor, “but what does all this get you? You aren’t recruiting anyone. You aren’t collecting a scrap of real intelligence. All you’re really doing is throwing a monkey wrench into the Soviet machine.”
“And what’s wrong with that? The Soviets work very hard to maintain Moscow as a controlled environment, in which they can orch
estrate every event to their purposes. Our job, sometimes, is simply to sabotage the machine. Unfortunately, our colleagues at the State Department have never understood this.”
“Understood what?”
“How pervasive the system of control is. They don’t realize that the KGB monitors every foreign diplomat and journalist in Moscow and plays them off against each other. The ones who are cooperative get rewards—a concession in negotiations, a special interview. The ones who resist get punished—they can’t find an apartment; their toilets keep backing up; their car won’t work. Eventually even the toughest-minded give up and go home. The saddest part is the way our diplomats play along with this theater of illusion. The liberal young foreign service officer imagines that he is succeeding in Moscow because he is a sensitive and reasonable fellow, and that his more stubborn colleague is failing because he doesn’t understand the Russian people or speak their language adequately. Preposterous! These people don’t seem to grasp that Moscow is a vast Skinner box, designed to condition certain types of behaviors. And the U.S. diplomatic corps is living proof that it works! So yes, I am a Luddite. I want to sabotage the machine. Frankly, I think that’s all we really can do, for now.”
“Do you run all this from Washington?” queried Anna. She was still having trouble understanding how Stone’s operation worked bureaucratically.
“Yes,” said Stone. “And I do business only in person, with individual officers from the Moscow station when they come to visit me. I insist that there be no discussion of these operations inside the station, and no cable traffic whatsoever.”
“Why?”
“Because Moscow station is insecure. Even the supposedly secure communications areas are insecure.”
“Why?” she asked again.
“I can’t tell you that,” said Stone curtly. “I’m sorry. All I can say is that I believe the Soviets are reading our mail in Moscow, and that the only activities that can remain secret are those that are run unilaterally from here, off the books.”
“Does headquarters agree with you?”