“We have that problem licked,” the General said. It was the first time he’d spoken for several minutes.
“How?”
“It is not yet known,” he said, “but we have a U-3 plane. Same as the U-2 but it will carry two men. We fly you over Russia at seventy thousand feet and you parachute in. Perfectly safe.”
“For everybody except me,” I said.
“It’s fairly safe,” Hillyer said. “We have a few days’ time. We’re going to have you brush up on your Russian and see that you get all the other information you need. We’re providing you with clothes and identification, everything you need to prove that you’re a Russian. We know you speak Russian well enough to fool them. We can give you one more bit of help. There will be one underground molecule—that is, three persons—who will assist you and be under your orders. For the rest you will be on your own.”
“From fourteen miles up in the air?” I said. “That’s really being on your own.”
When the Army gets an idea, that’s it. You’d think ideas were invented at West Point. Anyway, it went the way they said. I spent the next several days polishing my Russian. I took special classes each day and even went to sleep at night plugged into sleep lessons. In between I was fitted out for a pressure suit for the parachute jump, and given a complete set of clothes that had been made in Russia. I was given all kinds of identification cards, including a Party card and proof that I was a worker from Rostov who was spending two weeks in Moscow. I was even provided with a short-handled shovel, to bury the pressure suit after I landed; the shovel also had been made in Russia. Five days after reporting for duty, I was on an Army plane headed for Pakistan.
Three more days went by after we landed there.
I was introduced to the pilot who would fly me over Russia—a tall, blond boy from Indiana—and stuffed into a pressure suit. I felt, and probably looked, like an invader from Mars. I was led out to the plane, a stubby-winged, sleek-looking black plane with a needle nose. I climbed into the rear seat and hooked my helmet into the intercom. I checked to be sure that I had the knapsack that was going to parachute in with me.
“You plugged in, Major?” the pilot asked. His voice coming through the earphones in the helmet had a hollow sound.
“I seem to be,” I said.
“All set, Major?”
“As much as I’ll ever be,” I grunted. “But I have a feeling that this is one thing which will never become habit-forming with me.”
“There’s nothing to it,” he said cheerfully. “You don’t even have to pull a ripcord. Your chute will open automatically when you’ve fallen about eight miles.”
“They didn’t tell me that jokes were a part of this, or I wouldn’t have come,” I said. “Where are you dropping me?”
“About ten miles southeast of Moscow. That’ll give you the rest of the night to walk into the city.”
“How can you be sure that’s where you’ll drop me?”
“Major, in this weather, I could drop you from this height and make you land on a dime. I don’t even have to do any guessing about it. The whole thing’s worked out mathematically.”
We flew along in silence the next few minutes. Then he spoke again. “Better start getting ready, Major. Be sure you’ve got everything you want to take with you. It’s hard coming back after something you forgot. There’s a lever in front of you. See it?”
“Yeah.”
“When I tell you to go, disconnect your communication cord and pull that lever. It’ll drop you through the bottom of the ship and you’ll be on your way. Okay?”
“Okay,” I muttered, but I wasn’t sure it was. I felt the way I had the first time I had a serious date with a girl—lightheaded. I checked to be sure the knapsack was fastened to my shoulders. I would have liked to check the rest of my equipment but I didn’t know anything about it, so I waited.
“Go ahead, Major,” the pilot said quietly. “And good luck.”
“Thanks,” I said. I reached up and pulled the cord from my helmet. I took a deep breath and pushed the lever in front of me.
After what seemed a very long time, I felt the tug of the parachute as it opened. After that, I was vaguely aware of swinging like a pendulum from it, but it was a pleasant sensation. Then, almost before I knew it, the ground came up to meet me and I went tumbling across it until the chute collapsed. I managed to unbuckle it and then take my helmet off. There was a gentle breeze and the smell of earth, but there were no lights.
I rested for a couple of minutes, then took the knapsack off my back. I removed my gloves and opened the pack. There was a small flashlight at the very top. Shielding the light, I looked around. I was in the middle of a plowed field.
I took the other clothes from the knapsack, and quickly undressed and put them on. I took the shovel and dug a hole in the field. I gathered up the parachute and folded it, dropping it and the pressure suit into the hole. I checked the knapsack to be sure that everything was out of it, then dropped it in too and shoveled the dirt back. When I was sure that the spot looked like the rest of the field, I used the light to check my compass and headed off in the direction of Moscow. About a mile on the way, I threw the shovel into a ditch, after first wiping the handle clean so there would be no fingerprints on it.
It was just four o’clock in the morning when I approached the edge of the city. I had already decided it would be foolish to start marching through the streets at that hour in the morning, so I found a field with some bushes in it and curled up and went to sleep.
It was shortly after eight when I awakened. Now there was some traffic on the road, mostly trucks. No one paid any attention to me as I walked into the city. I soon reached a bus stop, where several workers were waiting for a bus, and I joined them. I was dressed a little better than the other men—because I was, after all, on my vacation—but no one looked at me twice. I rode the bus into the center of Moscow and began to breathe a little easier.
It didn’t take me long to find the address I’d been given. It was one of the new apartment buildings on the Kotelnicheskaye Embankment. It was in block D, entrance C. I worked my way through the corridors until I found the apartment. I knocked on the door and hoped someone was home.
The door was opened by a girl. She was small, dark-haired, and pretty. Even the loose-fitting clothes couldn’t conceal that she had a full figure.
“Dobroe utro,” I said. “U vas est mesto dlae mene?” It was part of a recognition code.
“Prikhodite v luboe vremae,” she answered. “It is lovely in Moscow this time of year.”
“Yes,” I said. “I have been admiring the red, red flowers that grow around the Kremlin.”
She smiled and stepped back, opening the door wider. “Come in,” she said.
I entered the apartment and she closed the door. I looked around. There were two rooms, small but attractive. I turned back to the girl.
“We were expecting you today,” she said. “I am Natasha Naristova.”
“I’m Milo March,” I said, “but here I will be known as Mikhail Mikhailovich.” I showed her my identification.
“It is well done,” she said, after looking at the papers. “You had no trouble in finding the apartment?”
“No. I’ve been in Moscow before.”
“I know,” she said. “I remember reading about the capitalist spy Milo March. But your country proved that you couldn’t have been here, didn’t they?”
I nodded. “Do you live here alone?”
“No, with my brother. He is one of us. He is at work now.”
“You don’t work?”
“Oh, yes. I am on the staff of Pravda. This is my day off. What are your plans? All we were told was to expect an agent, and to give him any help he needed.”
“I want to go to the opening of the trial of the American pilot tomorrow. I have to get him and part of
his possessions out of the country. Both are a threat to your group.”
“That will be difficult,” she said gravely. “I do not see how it can be done by only four of us.”
“I will try to do most of it myself,” I told her. “I don’t want to risk you more than I have to.”
“We will do what is needed. Tonight the third member of our group will be here and it can be discussed. You will stay here as long as you need to. Is there anything you would like now?”
“Some sleep,” I said. “I had only three or four hours in a field this morning.”
She led the way into the second room and indicated the two beds. I stretched out on one and was soon asleep.
I was awake by the middle of the afternoon. The girl was in the other room, reading. She made tea, and we spent the rest of the afternoon talking. At about five o’clock, her brother arrived. He was a big, blond fellow about my own age. His name was Ilya. He seemed even more pleased than his sister to learn that I was an American agent. During dinner, which Natasha cooked, he plied me with questions about America.
Shortly after dinner, there was a knock on the door. Ilya went and opened it. The man who entered was short and dark, with what seemed to be a perpetually scowling face. He was introduced to me as the third member of their NTS molecule. His name was Yuri Mogilev. Natasha brought out a bottle of vodka and filled four glasses. When they were passed around, she lifted her own.
“To a free Russia,” she said, and we all drank. Then she brought out a chessboard and set it up between her brother and Yuri. They began to put the pieces on the board.
“We always bring out the chessboard,” Natasha said. “Everyone believes that is the reason Yuri visits us so often. So if anyone comes while we are having a meeting, there is only a chess game.”
The men moved the pieces around a few times and then settled back. “Now,” said Ilya, “we are ready to discuss your problems. You have papers?”
I nodded. “I am Mikhail Mikhailovich, from Rostov. There I am a minor clerk in the offices of Internal Affairs. I have a two weeks’ vacation, which I am spending in Moscow. I have all the necessary papers.”
“Good. You will stay here, of course. If there are any questions, you and I were in the army together and that is why you are visiting me.” He turned to Yuri. “You know the American pilot who goes on trial tomorrow? The task is to get him out of the country.”
Yuri pursed his lips and scowled even more. “It is a big order. They will make the most of him for propaganda, and he will be well guarded. You have a plan?”
I shook my head. “I’ll try to make it up as I go along. Will I have any trouble getting into the trial tomorrow?”
“No. That will be open to the public.”
“Do any of you know where the pilot is being held prisoner?”
Ilya glanced at Yuri, who nodded. “The Voldovna Prison. It is where they take important political prisoners before their trials.”
“Can I get any sort of rough plan of the prison, and the location of the pilot’s cell?”
“I can get that for you,” Ilya said. “By tomorrow night, I think. Anything else?”
“I don’t think so….I have considerable money with me, most of it in American dollars. I’ll probably need to spend most of it in getting out. Will the dollars be better for bribes?”
“I do not think so,” Ilya said. “I think you should change the dollars in the black market. Yuri can take care of it.”
The four of us sat up talking late into the night, mostly about America, before we finally went to sleep. When I awakened the next morning I was alone in the apartment. There was a note from Natasha telling me where to find things for breakfast and how to get to the Hall of Columns. I had some rolls and tea, and left.
A crowd was already gathering for the trial. I entered the building with three or four others dressed pretty much as I was. Out in the corridor, there was a long, glass-covered case and a uniformed MVD man on guard. We filed by and looked at the things that had been taken from the captured pilot. There were a good many guns with ammunition, several watches, a big stack of ruble notes, a small bottle with a card identifying it as poison, all of the pilot’s personal things, and the map. The latter was all I was interested in. Under the guise of gaping at the collection, I studied the case. It was locked as well as being guarded.
I followed the others into the large room that had once been the grand ballroom of the old Noblemen’s Club, where the trial was to be held. It was flooded with lights, and there were several television cameras set up. About half the room was filled with newspapermen, many of them from the Western countries, including America. Fortunately, I didn’t see any who might recognize me. Not that they might anyway, for this was going to be a big show and all eyes would be riveted on it.
The trial was quickly called to order, and the prosecutor faced the prisoner. “What is your name?” he asked.
“James Cooper,” he said when the question had been translated into English.
“What is your nationality?”
“American.”
“What is your profession?”
“Pilot.”
There followed the reading of a long indictment of his crimes against the Soviet Union. I breathed a little easier when I realized that it contained no mention of his intending to contact the underground. It did list the guns and ammunition but merely charged that he’d had them in case of crashing inside Russia. When the indictment was finished, Cooper asked how he pleaded.
“Guilty,” he said in a firm voice.
Lieutenant General Borisoglebsky, the presiding judge, leaned forward. “Weren’t you aware that flying over Russia was a hostile act?” he asked.
“I didn’t think about it,” Cooper said.
“Didn’t you realize your action might bring about a war?”
“Things like that were for the people who sent me to worry about.”
And so it went throughout the day, the questions and answers droning on evenly. Cooper wasn’t volunteering any information, although it seemed to me that he was being more cooperative than he had to be. But then, he may have been ordered to do so in case of capture.
Ilya and Natasha were already at the apartment when I got there. We had dinner together, and shortly afterwards Yuri arrived. He brought a newspaper with him and we took turns reading the story of that day’s trial. They were milking it for everything they could.
Ilya had brought a hand-drawn map of Voldovna Prison, with the location of Cooper’s cell marked on it. I examined it carefully, but the more I looked at it, the more impossible the job seemed. There were three outer doors to penetrate before reaching the cell blocks, and each one of those doors was locked and guarded.
“It looks difficult,” I admitted finally.
“I think it is impossible,” Natasha said. She’d been leaning over my shoulder, looking at the map with me. “We are told that even a regular visitor, with an official pass to visit a prisoner, must go through questioning by the three guards, and each guard communicates with the next one before you pass through the door. It is almost certain that they will be even more careful with an American prisoner.”
“The biggest problem is time,” I muttered. “How long do you suppose the trial will last?”
“Exactly two more days,” Natasha said.
“Exactly? How do you know that?” I wondered.
“The hall is reserved for only two more days. And the writers and cameramen from Pravda are assigned for that time. They already have other assignments for the third day from now.”
“At least it lets us know how much time we have,” I said. “There is one other way. I don’t like it, but maybe we have no choice. Ilya, is there any way we can get complete details on the transportation of Cooper to and from the trial? I mean routes, time, method of taking him, and the number of gu
ards.”
“I think so,” he said slowly. “There is a man with whom I sometimes play chess at lunchtime. He would know, and I think he could be bribed.”
“I’ll give you the money,” I said. “Try to get it tomorrow. Can you take extra time at lunch or take the afternoon off?”
“I can take the afternoon off.”
“Then bring whatever you get here, and I’ll meet you. There are a couple of other things I want to ask you about, but first there is something I want to do. I’ll be back soon.”
“Where are you going?” Natasha asked.
“Out,” I said with a smile.
“Let me go with you,” she said. “I can be of help.”
“Not this time,” I told her firmly. “I’ll be back within an hour.” I smiled at her and left.
It was still early in the evening, but there wasn’t much traffic. I hit the small side streets and began walking and looking. I’d been searching for more than a half hour before I found what I was looking for. I was on a narrow, dimly lit street. There were two or three small restaurants and a few shops along it, and the rest were apartment houses. There was a man walking ahead of me; as he reached a streetlight I saw he was wearing an MVD uniform. I quickened my step.
I timed it carefully so as not to get too near until he was in between streetlights. He started to cross a narrow street angling off to the left, and I hurried forward.
“Comrade,” I called, just loud enough to reach him but not enough to attract the attention of anyone in the apartment houses.
He hesitated and looked back, peering at me. “What is it?” he called. He sounded irritable.
“I need help,” I said. I was almost up to him.
“I am off duty,” he said, his tone clearly indicating that he didn’t want to be bothered.
“It will take only a minute,” I said. I reached him and looked around. There was no one on the street within two blocks of us. “It is only that I need some advice about something I found on the street.”
The Big Book of Espionage Page 140