The Company_ A Novel Of The CIA Part 54

"How about working backward from the vacation pattern?"

"Tried that, too. Got swamped. Half of NSA takes off for Christmas, the other half for Easter, and the security people don't have a systematic breakdown on where people went during vacations. If I give them a name they could find out-from phone logs, from discreet inquiries at their travel office, from office scuttleb.u.t.t. But I'm obliged to start with a suspect. We need the second son to narrow the field."

"What does Elliott think?"

"Ebby says that the answer is probably staring us in the face, that it's just a matter of coming at the problem from the right direction."

"All right. Keep looking. Anything else?"

"As a matter of fact, there is. Director." Jack cleared his throat.

"Spit it out. Jack."

"It's about Leo Kritzky-"

"Thought it might be."

"Jim Angleton's had him on the carpet for five weeks now."

Colby said coldly, "I can count as well as you."

"When Angleton turns up for a meeting of the ae/PINNACLE task force, which isn't often these days, Ebby and I ask him how the interrogation is going."

"He probably tells you what he tells me," Colby said uncomfortably.

"He says these things take time. He says Rome wasn't built in a day. He says he's convinced ae/PINNACLE is a genuine defector, which means that Leo Kritzky is SASHA."

"What do you want me to do, Jack?"

"Put a time limit on the interrogation. G.o.d knows what Angleton's people are doing to Leo. If you let Angleton have him long enough he'll confess to anything."

Colby pulled a manila envelope from a bulging briefcase and dropped it onto the table in front of Jack. "Jim polygraphed Kritzky."

"You can't flutter someone who's been in solitary confinement for five weeks. His nerves will be shot. He'll send the stylus through the roof when he gives his full name."

"Look, Jack, for better or for worse, Jim Angleton is the head of counterintelligence. Counterintelligence is supposed to detect Soviet penetrations of the Company. Angleton thinks he has detected such a penetration."

"All based on the fact that SASHA's last name begins with the letter K, that he is a Russian speaker, that he's been out of the country at such and such a date. That's pretty thin gruel, Director. On top of which ae/PINNACLE's second serial-the Soviet mole inside the NSA-hasn't worked out. If the second serial is wrong there's a good chance the first is, too."

Colby eyed Jack across the low table. "Are you sure you want the second serial to work out?"

The question stunned Jack. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"If you find the NSA mole it will establish that ae/PINNACLE is genuine. If ae/PINNACLE is genuine, Leo Kritzky is SASHA."

"d.a.m.nation, Director, I'd give my right arm for there to be no mole in NSA. But if there is a mole I'll find the son of a b.i.t.c.h. Count on it."

"If I wasn't convinced of that, Jack, you wouldn't be in my office this morning. Look, the case Angleton's building against Kritzky rests on more than the ae/PINNACLE serials. Jim claims to have discerned a pattern to the SASHA business-a long list of operations that went bad, a short list of operations that came off and boosted Kritzky's career. He's saying he was closing in on Kritzky even without the ae/PINNACLE serials."

Jack pushed away the cup of coffee and leaned forward. "Jim Angleton has been chasing shadows since Philby was exposed as a Soviet agent. He's convinced the Sino-Soviet split is phony. He thinks half the leaders of the Western world are KGB agents. He's decimated the Company's Soviet Division in his manhunt for SASHA. We don't even know for sure that SASHA exists outside of Angleton's head, for Christ's sake."

"Simmer down. Jack. Put yourself in the catbird seat. Maybe ae/PINNACLE is a dispatched agent. Maybe Leo Kritzky is clean as a whistle. Maybe SASHA is a figment of Angleton's imagination. But we can't take the risk of ignoring Jim Angleton's worst-case scenario." Colby stood up. Jack rose, too. The Director said, "Track down the father of the second man, Jack. Or bring me proof that he doesn't exist."

In the corridor, Jack hiked his shoulders in frustration. "How can you prove something doesn't exist?"

The words, uttered in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, were almost inaudible. "I don't have any recollection of that."

"Let me refresh your memory. The Russian journalist was recruited in Trieste, given some elementary tradecraft training on a farm in Austria, then sent back to Moscow. Less than a week later he was pushed under the wheels of a subway train-"

"Moscow Station said he'd been drinking-"

"Ah, the story's coming back to you now. Moscow Station pa.s.sed on the police report printed in Pravda, which mentioned a high alcohol level in the dead man's blood. A journalist who worked at the same radio station said our man was perfectly sober when he was picked up by two strangers the night before. The next morning the women cleaning the subway found his body on the tracks. The NODIS file describing the initial recruitment of the journalist has your initials on it. And you want to chalk it up to coincidence-"

"I haven't been able to... to move my bowels in days. I suffer from stomach cramps. I would like to see a doctor-"

James Angleton glanced up from the loose-leaf book, a soggy cigarette stuck between his lips. "In August of 1959, two six-man frogmen teams from Taiwan were caught as they come ash.o.r.e on mainland China and shot the next morning. Do you remember that incident?"

"I remember the incident, Jim. I told you that last time you asked. The time before, also. I just don't remember initialing the op order on its way up to the DD/0."

Angleton unhinged the loose-leaf spine and pulled a photocopy of the op order from the book. "The LK in the upper right hand corner look familiar?" he inquired, holding it up.

Leo Kritzky swayed on his seat, trying to concentrate. The overhead lights burned through his lids even when they were closed, causing his eyes to smart. An unruly stubble of a beard covered his face, which was pinched and drawn. His hair had started to turn white and came out in clumps when he threaded his fingers through it. The skin on the back of his hands had taken on the color and texture of parchment. His joints ached. He could feel a pulse throbbing in his temple, he could hear a shrill ringing in his right ear. "I have difficulty... focusing," he reminded Angleton. Trembling with fatigue, Leo bit his lip to fight back the sobs rising from the depths of his body. "For G.o.d's sake, Jim, please be patient..."

Angleton waved the paper in front of Kritzky's eyes. "Make an effort."

Leo willed one of his eyes open. The LK swam into focus, along with other initials. "I wasn't the only one to sign off on that op order, Jim."

"You weren't the only one to sign off on the one hundred and forty-five op orders that ended with agents being arrested and tried and executed. But your initials were on all one hundred and forty-five. Should we chalk them all up to coincidence?"

"We lost something like three hundred and seventy agents between 1951 and now. Which means my name wasn't a.s.sociated with"-simple arithmetic was beyond Leo and his voice trailed off-"a great many of them."

"Your name wasn't a.s.sociated with two hundred twenty-five of them. But then a lot of paperwork never pa.s.sed through your hands, either because you were too far down the ladder or out of town or out of the loop or sidetracked on temporary a.s.signments."

"I swear I've told you the truth, Jim. I never betrayed anybody to the Russians. Not the Russian journalist who died in Moscow. Not the Nationalist Chinese who went ash.o.r.e on the mainland. Not the Polish woman who was a member of the Central Committee."

"Not the Turk who smuggled agents into Georgia?"

"Not the Turk, no. I never betrayed him. Our investigators concluded that the Russians had been tipped off by his wife's brother when he failed to come up with the bride price he'd promised to the wife's family."

"You didn't betray the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs."

"Oh, G.o.d, no. I never betrayed the Cubans."

"You never pa.s.sed word to the Russians that the landing had been switched from Trinidad to the Bay of Pigs?"

Kritzky shook his head.

"Somebody pa.s.sed word to the Russians, because Castro's tanks and artillery were waiting on the other side of the Zapata swamps when the brigade came ash.o.r.e."

"The Joint Chief's postmortem raised the possibility that Castro's forces were there on a training exercise."

"In other words, chalk it up to coincidence?"

"A coincidence. Yes. Why not?"

"There were a lot of coincidences over the years." Angleton remembered the E.M. Forster's dictum, which had been posted over Philby's desk back in the Ryder Street days: "Only connect!" That's what he was doing now. "You never gave the Russians the brigade's order of battle but the Cuban fighters who were released from Castro's prisons said their interrogators knew it. You never told them that Kennedy had ruled out overt American intervention under any circ.u.mstances?"

"No. No. None of it's true."

"Let's set the clock back to 1956 for a moment. The current DD/0, Elliott Ebbitt, was sent into Budapest under deep cover. Within days he'd been arrested by the Hungarian AVH."

"Chances are he was betrayed by a Soviet spy inside the Hungarian resistance movement."

Angleton shook his head. "The AVH Colonel who interrogated Elliott seemed to be familiar with his Central Registry file: he knew Elliott worked for Frank Wisner's Operations Directorate, he knew that he organized emigre drops behind the Iron Curtain out of Frankfurt Station, he was even able to identify Elliott's superior at Frankfurt Station as Anthony Spink."

Leo's chin nodded onto his chest and then jerked up again.

"You are one of the thirty-seven officers in Washington whose initials turn up on paper work relating to Ebbitt's mission. I suppose you want to chalk that up to coincidence, too."

Leo said weakly, "What about the other thirty-six," but Angleton had already turned the page and was struggling to decipher his own handwriting. "You were present in early November of 1956 when the DCI and the DD/0 briefed President Eisenhower in the White House on American military preparedness in Europe in the event of war."

"I recall that, yes."

"What did Eisenhower tell our people?"

"He said he wished to G.o.d he could help the Hungarians, but he couldn't."

"Why couldn't he?"

"He and John Foster Dulles were afraid American intervention would trigger a ground war in Europe, for which we weren't prepared."

"There's a lot of internal evidence to suggest that the Soviet Politburo was divided on intervention and Khrushchev was sitting on the fence. Then, out of the blue, he came down on the side of intervention. It wasn't because you pa.s.sed on Eisenhower's comment, was it?"

"I never pa.s.sed anything on to the Russians," Leo insisted. "I am not a Russian spy. I am not SASHA."

"You denied these things when you were hooked up to the polygraph."

"Yes. I denied them then. I deny them now."

"The experts who read the polygraph decided you were lying."

"They're mistaken, Jim." One of Leo's hands waved in slow motion to dispel the cigarette smoke acc.u.mulating between the two men. "I am agitated. I am exhausted. I don't know whether it's night or day. I've lost track of time. Sometimes I say things to you and, a moment later, I can't remember what I said. The words, the thoughts, slip away from me. I reach for them but they are illusive. I have to sleep, Jim. Please let me sleep."

"Only tell me the truth and I'll turn out the lights and let you sleep as long as you like."

A spark of bitterness flared for a moment. "You don't want the truth. You want me to authenticate lies. You want me to vindicate all these years you've been turning the Company inside out looking for SASHA. You've never actually caught a mole, have you? But you've wrecked the careers of more than a hundred Soviet Division officers looking for one." Leo licked dried blood from his lips. "I won't crack, Jim. This can't go on forever." He looked up wildly; the lights blazing in the ceiling brought tears to his eyes, blinding him momentarily. "You're recording this. I know you are. Somebody somewhere will read the transcript. In the end they're going to become convinced I'm innocent."

Angleton flipped to another page in the loose-leaf. "Do you remember the Russian trade attache in Madrid who offered to sell us the Soviet diplomatic cipher key, but was drugged and hustled onto a Moscow-bound Aeroflot plane before he could deliver?"

Millie kissed Anthony goodnight, then made her way downstairs to find Jack in the living room fixing himself a stiff whiskey. Lately he always made a beeline for the bar when he came home. "Sorry," he muttered, and he waved his hand to take in all the things he was sorry for: returning from Langley, once again, at an unG.o.dly hour; getting back too late to help Anthony with his homework or take Millie downtown for a film; being down in the dumps.

"Don't tell me-let me guess: You had another hard day at the office " Millie remarked testily. It was written on his face, inscribed in the worry lines around his eyes. Millie had compared notes with Elizabet over lunch that afternoon; Elizabet's husband, Jack's boss, Ebby Ebbitt, had been in a sour mood for weeks, leading the two women to suspect the worst. They teased out various possibilities from the clues they had: the DD/0 was being shaken up; one or both of their husbands had been fired or transferred to the Company equivalent of an Arctic listening post; the Company had suffered an operational setback; some friend or colleague was dead or dying or rotting in a Communist prison somewhere in the world. Both women agreed the worst part was that you couldn't talk to them about their troubles. Raise the subject and they clammed up and went back to the bar for a chaser. "Jack," Millie whispered, sinking down onto the couch next to him, "how long is this going to go on?"

"What?"

"You know. Something's very wrong. Is it us? Is it our life together, our marriage?"

"Oh, Christ, no," Jack said. "It has nothing to do with you and me. It's Company stuff."

"Bad stuff?"

"Terrible stuff."

"Remember me. Jack? Millie Owen-Brack, your wife for better or for worse? I'm the guy who writes speeches and press releases for the Director," she reminded him. "I'm cleared for anything you're cleared for."

Jack tossed back half his drink. "You don't have a need to know, Millie. Even if you knew, I don't see how you could help."

"Wives are supposed to be sharers of troubles, Jack. Just sharing will lighten the load. Try."

She could see he was tempted. He actually opened his mouth to say something. Then he blew air through his mustache and clamped his mouth shut again. He threw an arm over Millie's shoulder and drew her against him. "Tell me about your day," he said.

Millie leaned her head against his shoulder. "I spent most of my time working up a press kit on this Freedom of Information act. Jesus, if Congress actually pa.s.ses the d.a.m.n thing, people will be able to sue the CIA to get their 201 records."

Jack nursed his drink. "Always has been, always will be a tension between an intelligence agency's need to keep its secrets and the public's right to know what's going on."

"What if the American Communist Party sues the FBI to find out if their phones are being tapped? What then?"

Jack laughed quietly. "We'll draw the line where national security is at stake."

"You surprise me, Jack-I thought you'd be against this Freedom of Information business."

"As long as there are safeguards built in, h.e.l.l, I don't see what's so G.o.dawful about it."

"Hey, you're turning into a flaming liberal in your old age."

Jack's gaze drifted to a framed photograph on the wall of two men in their early twenties, wearing sleeveless undershirts with large K's on the chests, posing in front of a slender racing sh.e.l.l. A thin woman in a knee-length skirt and a man's varsity sweater stood off to one side. The faded caption on the scalloped white border of the photograph, a copy of which was on Leo's living room wall, read: Jack & Leo & Stella, after The Race but before The Fall.

"I believe in this open society of ours," Jack said. "G.o.d knows I've been fighting for it long enough. I believe in habeas corpus, I believe every man has a right to his day in court, I believe he has the right to hear the accusations against him and confront his accuser. We sometimes forget that this is what separates us from the goons in the Kremlin."

Millie sat up and caressed the back of Jack's neck. She had never heard him wax pa.s.sionate about the American system. "Say, Jack, what is going on at your shop?"