The Company_ A Novel Of The CIA Part 69

Later, waiting outside number 716 Jackson Place for the Company car to pick them up, Jack turned on Casey. "Jesus, Bill, we came away without an answer."

Casey smiled knowingly. "We got an answer."

Ebby said, "If we got an answer it went over my head."

"We all heard him say the idea was interesting, didn't we? That was his way of saying okay."

Ebby could only shake his head. "It's a h.e.l.l of a way to run a government!"

Aida Tannenbaum s.n.a.t.c.hed the phone off the hook after the first ring.

"Yes?"

When no one responded, Aida became anxious. In her heart she knew who was breathing into the phone on the other end of the line. "Is that you, Gene?" she whispered, hoping to lure his voice through the miles of wire and into her ear. "If it is, please, please say so."

"Its me," Eugene finally said. His voice was strained; he obviously felt uneasy. "I promised I'd call back-"

"Dear child," Aida said, "I knew you would."

"It violates basic tradecraft but I'll do it-I will meet you for a drink if you like."

"Where?" she asked impatiently. "When?"

"How about the bar of the Barbizon, on Wyoming off Connecticut? At eleven if that's not too late for you."

"The Barbizon at eleven," she said. "You don't mind if I bring Silvester?"

Eugenes voice turned hard. "If you are with anyone, I won't show up."

"Dear, dear Gene, Silvester is a cat."

He laughed uneasily. "I didn't understand... sure, bring Silvester if you want to. It'll be a recognition signal-I'll look for a woman with a cat. You look for an overweight middle-aged man with hair the color of sand carrying a copy of Time Time under his left arm-" under his left arm-"

"Even without the magazine I would know you immediately. Until tonight, then?"

"Until tonight."

Eugene made his way across the half-empty lounge to the bird-like woman sitting next to a small table at the back. She was wearing clothing that he'd seen in old black-and-white motion pictures: a square hat was planted atop her silvery hair and a black lace veil fell from it over her eyes, a paisley form-fitting jacket with padded shoulders hugged her delicate rib cage, a heavy black satin skirt plunged to the tops of st.u.r.dy winter walking shoes. Her eyes were watering, whether from age or emotion he couldn't tell. A wicker shopping basket containing a ratty old cat with patches of pink skin where his hair had fallen out was set on the chair next to her.

"I don't even know your name," Eugene said, looking down at the woman.

"I know yours, dear Eugene."

A skeletal hand encased in a white lace glove floated up to him. Eugene took hold of it and, recalling the etiquette lessons his mother had given him when he was twelve years old, bent from the waist and brushed the back of her hand with his lips. He removed his overcoat and threw it across the back of a chair and settled onto a seat across from her.

"I will have a daiquiri," the woman informed him. "I had one immediately after I arrived in America in 1946 in a very elegant c.o.c.ktail lounge the name of which has since slipped my mind."

Eugene signaled to the waiter and ordered a daiquiri and a double cognac. The old woman appeared to sway on her seat, then steadied herself by gripping the edge of the table. "My name," she said, "is Aida Tannenbaum."

"It is an honor to make your acquaintance," Eugene told her, and he meant every word. He knew of few people who had given as much to the cause.

The waiter set two drinks on the table and tucked a check upside down under an ashtray.

Eugene said, "So this is Silvester."

Aida lifted the veil with one gloved hand and sipped the daiquiri. She swallowed and winced and shuddered. "Oh, dear, I don't remember the daiquiri being so strong. Yes, this is Silvester. Silvester, say h.e.l.lo to a comrade-in-arms, Eugene." She swayed toward Eugene and lowered her voice. "I was instructed to live alone and never told anyone about Silvester. I found him on the fire escape of an apartment I rented in the early 1970s. You don't think they would mind, do you?"

"No. I'm sure its all right."

She seemed relieved. "Tell me about yourself, Eugene. How did an American-I can tell from your accent that you are from the East Coast; from New York in all probability-how did you become involved in the struggle..."

"I was led to believe that I could contribute to the fight to defend the genius and generosity of the human spirit."

"We are doing exactly that, dear child. Of course I don't know what it is that you do with the messages I pa.s.s on to you, but you are a Socialist warrior on the front line."

"So are you, Aida Tannenbaum."

"Yes." Her eyes clouded over. "Yes. Though I will admit to you I am fatigued, Eugene. I have been fighting on one or another front line as far back as I can remember. Before the war, there were some who believed that only the creation of a Zionist state in Palestine could shield the Jews, but I was in the other camp-I believed that the spread of Socialism would eradicate anti-Semitism and protect the Jews, and I joined the struggle led by the ill.u.s.trious Joseph Stalin. If I were a religious person, which I am not, I would certainly think of him as a saint. During the war I fought against the Fascists. After the war-" She sipped the daiquiri and shuddered again as the alcohol burned her throat. "After the war I was mystified to find myself still alive. In order to make what life I had left worth living, I joined the ranks of those battling alienation and capitalism. I dedicated the fight to the memory of my son, a.s.sa.s.sinated by the n.a.z.is. His name was Alfred. Alfred Tannenbaum, aged seven at the time of his murder. Of course I don't believe there is a word of truth in the things they have said about Stalin since-I am absolutely certain it is all capitalist propaganda."

Three young men in three-piece suits and a young woman, all slightly inebriated, entered the lounge. They argued over whether to sit at the bar or a table. The bar won. Sliding onto stools, depositing their attache cases on the floor, they summoned the bartender and loudly ordered drinks. At the small table Eugene inspected the newcomers, then turned back to Aida. "You are what Americans would call an unsung heroine. The very few people who know what you do appreciate you."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Aida dabbed a tear away from the corner of an eye with the paper napkin. "I have rented a furnished apartment at number forty-seven Corcoran Street off New Hampshire, not far from Johns Hopkins University. I am moving there tomorrow. I prefer to live in buildings with college students-they are always very kind to Silvester. And they often run errands for me when I am too nauseous or too dizzy to go out in the street." She managed a tight-lipped smile. "Perhaps we could meet again from time to time."

"This was probably a bad idea. We must not take the risk again."

"If they haven't found us out during all these years I doubt they will do it now," she said.

"Still-"

"Once every six months, perhaps? Once a year even?" Aida sighed. "What we do, the way we do it, is terribly lonely."

Eugene smiled back at her. "At least you have Silvester."

"And you, dear child. Whom do you have?"

When he didn't answer she reached across the table and rested her fingers on the back of his hand. She was so frail, her hand so light, he had to look down to be sure she was touching him. She pulled back her hand and, opening a small snap purse, took out a minuscule ballpoint pen and scratched a phone number on the inside of a Barbizon Terrace matchbook. "If you change your mind before-" She laughed softly. "If you change your heart before our friends broadcast a new lottery number you can reach me at this number."

Outside, a cold wind was seeping in off the Tidal Basin. Aida was wearing a cloth coat with an imitation fur collar. Eugene offered to flag down a taxi for her but she said she preferred to walk home. She tucked the thick piece of cloth in the basket around Silvester and b.u.t.toned the top b.u.t.ton of her overcoat. Eugene held out his hand. Ignoring it, she reached up and placed her fingers on the back of his neck and, with a lover s gesture perfected fifty years before, gently pulled his head down and kissed him on the lips. Spinning quickly away, she walked off into the night.

As soon as she was out of sight Eugene pulled the matchbook from his pocket and ripped it so that the phone number was torn in half. He dropped half of the matchbook in the gutter and the other half in a garbage pail he found two blocks up the street.

He would never again set eyes on Aida Tannenbaum.

Casey, bored to tears, was auditing a high-level symposium that had been convened to reconcile the differences between CIA forecasts for the Soviet Union and those from a "B" team panel of outside economists. CIA specialists maintained that Soviet per capita income was on a par with Britain's; the "B" team had calculated that it was roughly equal to Mexico's. To make matters more complicated, the "B" team insisted that the Company's projections of Soviet strategic forces was also on the high side. The argument raged back and forth across the table as economists on both sides of the divide dredged up statistics to support their conclusions. Swallowing each yawn as it bubbled up from the depths of his weary soul, Casey gazed listlessly out the window. Darkness had fallen and the lights that illuminated the security fence around Langley were flickering on. Casey knew what the number crunchers didn't: that the CIA had in fact detected signs of a slowdown in the Soviet economy but continued to overstate its size and the growth rate to appease Reagan's people, who grew livid when anyone raised the possibility that the Soviet economy and Soviet military spending were flattening out. Team players, so the Reagan people contended, didn't challenge the logic behind the President's decision to build the B-1 bomber or recommission two World War II battleships and budget for a 600-ship navy: military-wise, the Soviet Union was nipping at our heels and we had to throw immense amounts of money at the problem to stay ahead. Period. End of discussion.

"The Soviet Union," one of the independent economists was arguing, "is an Upper Volta with rockets." He waved a pamphlet in the air. "A French a.n.a.lyst has doc.u.mented this. The number of women who die in childbirth in the Soviet Union has been decreasing since the Bolshevik Revolution. Suddenly, in the early seventies, the statistic bottomed out and then started to get worse each year until the Russians finally grasped how revealing this statistic was and stopped reporting it."

"What in G.o.d's name does a statistic about the number of women who die in childbirth have to do with a.n.a.lyzing Soviet military spending?" a Company a.n.a.lyst snarled across the table.

"If you people knew how to interpret statistics, you'd know that everything is related-"

Elliott Ebbitt, Casey's DDCI, appeared at the door of the conference room and beckoned the Director with a forefinger. Casey, only too happy to flee the debate, slipped out into the corridor with Ebby.

"Will Rogers once said that an economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's," Casey grumbled, "but I'm beginning to have my doubts."

"I thought you'd want to be in on this," Ebby told him as they started toward the DCI's suite of offices. "There's been a breakthrough in the SASHA affair."

Moody from counterintelligence, along with two FBI agents, were waiting in the small conference room across from the DCI's bailiwick. Waving a paw at the others to go on with the conversation, Casey flopped into a seat.

Moody picked up the thread. "Director, thanks to the ingenious work of Leo Kritzky's daughters, we've identified what we call the circuit breaker between the Soviet rezidentura and the cutout that runs SASHA."

"What makes you think the cutout runs SASHA?" Casey wanted to know.

Moody explained about the Kukushkin serial involving the woman who freelanced for the rezidentura and the cutout who worked SASHA. "Kukushkin was a dispatched agent," he said, "but he gave us true information in order to convince us he was a genuine defector. It looks as if the tidbit about the woman freelancer and the cutout could have been true information."

The FBI agent wearing a nametag that identified him as A. Bolster said, "We're not a hundred percent sure why, but the circuit breaker, an old Polish woman by the name ofAida Tannenbaum, met the cutout late last night at the Barbizon Terrace."

Casey nodded carefully. "How can you be sure the person Tannenbaum met was not simply a friend?"

Bolster said, "We have a tap on her phone. The person who called her earlier in the evening told her: "It violates basic tradecraft but I'll do it-I will meet you for a drink, if you like."'

"He said that?" Casey inquired. "He used the word tradecraft?"

"Yes, sir."

Moody said, "It was short notice but we managed to get a team into the lounge when they were halfway through their little tete-a-tete. One of our people had a directional mike hidden in an attache case, which he put on the floor pointing at them. The sound quality wasn't very good but our technicians enhanced it and we came up with a transcript of their conversation." Moody pa.s.sed two typed sheets across to the Director, then read aloud from his own copy. "We can hear him saying, and I'm quoting: 'You are what Americans would call an unsung heroine. The very few people who know what you do appreciate you.' And she answers, and again I'm quoting: 'Perhaps. Perhaps not.' Then she can be heard saying: 'I have rented a furnished apartment on number forty-seven Corcoran Street off New Hampshire, not far from Johns Hopkins University. I am moving there tomorrow. I prefer to live in buildings with college students-they are always very kind to Silvester. And they often run errands for me when I am too nauseous or too dizzy to go out in the street. Perhaps we could meet again from time to time.'"

"Who's Silvester?" Casey asked.

The second FBI agent, F. Barton, said, "We think it's the woman's cat, Director."

Jack McAuliffe turned up at the door, a preoccupied frown etched onto his forehead; he'd been over at the Pentagon laying in the plumbing for the Israeli commando raid on Ibrahim's mountain compound, and was worried sick they weren't a.s.signing enough helicopters. "Director, Ebby, gentlemen," he said, sliding into a free seat next to Moody, "what's this I hear about a breakthrough in the SASHA business?"

While Moody brought the Deputy Director for Operations up to date in a hurried whisper, Ebby said, "Director, taken together, the phone conversation and the conversation in the Barbizon seem to suggest that, in violation of standard tradecraft precautions, the Polish woman talked the cutout into a face-to-face meeting. If, as we suspect, she's been acting as his circuit breaker for decades, she may have fantasized about him; may have even fallen in love with him. As for the cutout-"

"Maybe he felt sorry for her," Moody suggested.

"What do you think. Jack?" Ebby asked.

Jack looked up. "About what?"

"About why the cutout violated standard tradecraft precautions."

Jack considered this. "He's been leading a dreary life," he guessed. His eyes were heavy lidded, his face pale and drawn; it wasn't lost on Ebby and the Director that the DD/0 could have been describing himself. "Maybe he just needed to talk to someone to get through one more night," Jack added.

"Either way," Ebby said, "he agreed to meet her this one time." Bolster said, "On Moody's recommendation we laid on a tiered surveillance. Twelve vehicles-six private automobiles, three taxis, two delivery vehicles, one tow truck-were involved, one peeling off as another came on line. The cutout flagged down a taxi and took it to Farragut Square, then caught a bus to Lee Highway, where he got off and changed to another bus going up Broad Street to Tysons Corner. He got off there and walked the last half-mile to an apartment over the garage of a private home-"

Barton said, "When he emerged from the Barbizon he tore up a matchbook and threw the different halves in different places. Our people recovered them-the phone number of the apartment the Polish woman moved into today was written inside."

Casey, always impatient, snapped, "Who is the cutout?"

Moody said, "He's renting the apartment under the name of Gene Lutwidge, which is obviously an operational ident.i.ty."

Bolster said, "We've put a tap on Lutwidge's line from the telephone exchange. And we've created a special fifty-man task force-he'll be tailed by rotating teams every time he leaves the apartment. With any luck, it'll only be a matter of time before he leads us to your famous SASHA."

Casey asked, "What does this guy do for a living?"

Barton said, "He doesn't go to an office, if that's what you mean. People in the neighborhood are under the impression that he's some kind of writer-"

"Has Lutwidge published anything?" Casey demanded.

"We checked the Library of Congress," Barton said. "The only thing that surfaces when you look up the name Lutwidge is Alice in Wonderland Alice in Wonderland and and Through the Looking Gla.s.s Through the Looking Gla.s.s-"

"They're by Lewis Carroll," Casey said.

"Lewis Carroll was the pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson," Bolster explained.

"Did you say Dodgson?" Moody exclaimed.

Everyone turned to stare at Moody. Bolster said, "What do you remember that we don't?"

Moody said, "In 1961-that was before your time, Archie-the FBI arrested a man named Kahn who ran a liquor store in the Washington area. You also arrested the girl who worked for him, name of Bernice something-or-other. Both Kahn and Bernice were American communists who had gone underground, and were providing infrastructure for the Soviet agent who was the cutout between Philby and his controlling officer. We think this same cutout serviced SASHA after Philby was no longer operational. The FBI agents who raided the liquor store came across evidence of the cutout's presence: ciphers and microfilms, a microdot reader, lots of cash and a radio that could be calibrated to shortwave bands, all of it hidden under the floorboards of a closet in the apartment above the store, which is where the cutout lived. The cutout smelled a rat and a.s.sumed another ident.i.ty before he could be apprehended. The name he was operating under was Eugene Dodgson."

Casey was starting to see the connection. "Dodgson. Lutwidge. The Alice Alice or or Looking Gla.s.s Looking Gla.s.s quotes on the Moscow quiz program. Someone in the KGB is obsessed with quotes on the Moscow quiz program. Someone in the KGB is obsessed with Alice in Wonderland Alice in Wonderland."

Bolster asked Moody, "Do you remember what the man posing as Dodgson looked like?"

"The FBI report described him as a Caucasian male, aged thirty-one in 1961-which would make him fifty-three today. He was of medium height, with a st.u.r.dy build with sandy hair. There will be photographs of him in your files taken during the weeks he was under surveillance."

Bolster extracted an eight-by-ten photograph from an envelope and handed it across the table to Moody. "This was snapped by a telephoto lens from the back of a delivery vehicle as Lutwidge pa.s.sed under a street light. The quality is p.i.s.s-poor but it'll gives you a rough idea of what he looks like."