The Company_ A Novel Of The CIA Part 73

Yevgeny asked, "Any idea how they tagged us?"

Leo didn't see any need to bring his daughters into it, so he answered vaguely. "They got on to your Polish lady," he said.

Yevgeny slapped his forehead. "She's dying of cancer, Leo. She begged me to meet her-"

"What's done is done. They snapped a photograph of you. Jack thought he recognized it. He came over tonight to show it to me."

"What did you do with Jack?"

"I left him handcuffed to a radiator."

"If he came over to show you the photograph," Yevgeny whispered, "he didn't suspect you were SASHA."

"I told him," he said. "I was also getting tired of the game."

"There must be more to it than that..."

"Reagan and the Pentagon aren't planning a preemptive strike, Yevgeny," Leo explained wearily. "Andropov is over the hill if he thinks they are. And I don't want to see Starik and Andropov bring the whole world crashing down around our ears."

"You never could stomach KHOLSTOMER. I could see it in your eyes when we talked about it."

"The Cold War is winding down. Our side is losing-the Soviet economy is rotted to the core. KHOLSTOMER doesn't make sense-ruining economies, pushing the Third World back into the Middle Ages, causing hundreds of millions to suffer. For what? I don't see the point."

"Ours was the best side," Yevgeny said flatly. "We were the good guys, Leo. I still believe the Socialist system, with all its terrible faults, is a better model for the planet earth than anything the West can offer. Capitalism is intrinsically decadent-it brings out the worst in people."

Leo, his eyes burning, turned to Yevgeny. "Did you ever have a shadow of a doubt?"

"Only once," Yevgeny admitted. "It was when I met Philby in Gettysburg to tell him Burgess had run for it with Maclean. Starik wanted Philby to run for it, too, but he refused. He said he could bluff it out. He said as long as he didn't confess they could never lay a glove on him. Those were his exact words. Lay a glove on him. I used to replay this conversation in my skull-it was as if a needle had gotten stuck in a groove. It raised a question that I was afraid to ask, because if I asked it I'd have to answer it."

"Answer it now."

Yevgeny recalled a s.n.a.t.c.h of the phone conversation he'd had with Aza Isanova the last time he'd been in Moscow. In what ostrich hole have you been hiding your head, she had berated him. Stalin was a murderer of peasants in the early thirties, he murdered his Party comrades in the mid and late thirties, he suspended the killings during the war but resumed them immediately afterward. By then it was the turn of the Jews.

"The system Philby was spying for would not have had a problem getting a confession out of someone like Philby," Yevgeny admitted.

"The system Philby was spying for wouldn't have needed a confession to haul him down to the bas.e.m.e.nt of Lubyanka and put a bullet into the nape of his neck," Leo said.

"The Socialist revolution has been under siege from day one," Yevgeny said. "It was fighting for its life against ruthless enemies-"

Leo cut him off. "We've made too many excuses for ourselves. We justify our shortcomings and condemn those of our opponents." Leo glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. "It's going to get light soon. We have the rest of our lives for postmortems. We ought to start moving."

"Yeah," Yevgeny agreed. And he declared bitterly, "Za uspiekb nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!"

Leo, nodding fatalistically, repeated Yevgeny's old Yale slogan in English. "To the success of our hopeless task!"

At midmorning, Leo dialed ' home from a public booth outside the Baltimore Greyhound terminus. Jack's wife answered. "Millie, its me, Leo."

"Oh, Leo, you've heard-"

"Heard what?"

"Ebby called me with the news ten minutes ago. He just rang off. The helicopters have landed in Peshawar. Anthony is safe." Leo could hear Millie's voice breaking on the other end of the phone line. "He's all right, Leo," she added weakly. "He's coming home."

"That's just great. I love that kid of yours. I'm elated he's out of harm's way. I'll tell you something, I hope you remember it in the days ahead: I think this is the happiest moment of my life."

"You've been a swell G.o.dfather to him, Leo."

Leo started to say, "I'm not so sure of that," but Millie was rushing on.

"The funny part is that n.o.body seems to know where Jack is. When he didn't come home last night I just a.s.sumed he'd stayed at Langley to monitor the raid, but Ebby said he wasn't there." Millie had a sudden thought. "Should I be worried about Jack, Leo?"

"No, you shouldn't be. Actually, that's why I called-Jack spent the night at my place. He's still there."

"Put him on, for G.o.d's sake."

"I'm not calling from home."

"Where are you calling from? Hey, what's going on, Leo?"

"I'm going to tell you something. After which there's no point in your asking questions because I won't answer them."

Millie laughed uncomfortably. "You sound awfully mysterious."

"As soon as I hang up, call Ebby. Don't speak to anyone else, only Ebby. Tell him that Jack's at my house. He's not hurt or anything. But he's handcuffed to a radiator."

"Have you been drinking, Leo? What's all this about?"

Leo said patiently, "You don't have a need to know, Millie."

"Jack'll tell me."

"Jack won't tell you. Chances are n.o.body will. I got to go. Take care of yourself. Take care of Jack, too. Goodbye, Millie."

"Leo? Leo?"

"Well, how do you like that?"

Jack examined the postmark on the letter. It had been mailed from Baltimore three days before and only just arrived at the apartment the girls shared in Fairfax.

"For heaven's sake, what is he talking about?" Vanessa demanded. She glanced at her sister, than looked back at Jack. "Why in the world is he going to Russia? And why did Dad want us to show the letter to you first?"

Jack cleared his throat. "I'm glad you're both sitting down," he said. "Your father-" What he was going to say seemed so monstrous that Jack had to start over again. "It seems that Leo has been spying for the Soviet Union."

Vanessa gasped. Tessa whispered, "It's not true. You're out of the loop, Jack-they didn't tell you. He must have been sent to Russia on an a.s.signment-"

Jack could only shake his head in misery. "He hasn't been sent to Russia-he's fled to Russia. If he manages to get there-mind you, we're doing everything to stop him, but they have escape routes prepared-it'll be to seek political asylum in the country he's worked for... the country he's loyal to." Jack sank dejectedly into a chair facing the girls. "I got my information from the horse's mouth. Leo himself told me four days ago."

Vanessa blurted out, "What's going to happen to us, Jack?"

"Why should anything happen to you. You haven't done anything wrong."

Tessa said, "How could Dad have done such a thing? You were his oldest and best friend, Jack. How do you explain it?"

"It goes back to the 1929 Crash, to the Great Depression, to his father s suicide. Don't forget your grandfather emigrated from Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution-its possible he was a Bolshevik and a Chekist to begin with, or became one in the early 1930s. In any case the son inherited his father's radicalism, this disenchantment with capitalism, this cert.i.tude that the socialist model was better than the capitalist model."

"You think Dad actually believed in communism!"

"Leo didn't spy for the Russians for money, Tessa. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I suppose you could say he was an idealist-only his ideals were different from the ones we hold to be self-evident."

Vanessa said, "If what you say is true-"

"Unfortunately, it is."

"When it becomes known-"

"When it hits the newspapers-" Tessa added.

"It's not going to hit the newspapers, not if we can help it. That's why Leo wanted you to show the letter to me. As far as the Company is concerned, Leo Kritzky retired after thirty-odd years of loyal and honorable service. After his retirement he disappeared into the woodwork. Look, the truth is that we don't want to wash our dirty linen in public. If the Company-killers on the congressional oversight committees discover that the one-time head of the Soviet Division, the man in charge of spying on Russia, was actually a Russian mole-Jesus H. Christ, they'll make mincemeat of us, budget-wise and otherwise. We have enough trouble convincing the public that we serve a useful purpose as it is."

"But won't the Russians spill the beans?" Tessa asked.

"We don't think so. We think Leo will oblige them to keep his defection under wraps to protect you guys and your mother. He told me as much-"

Vanessa interrupted. "How will Dad be able to oblige the KGB?"

"For one thing, he'll dose out what he knows over a period of years. They won't have any choice in the matter if they want him to cooperate."

Tessa had a sudden doubt. "Did Dad's going to Russia have any connection with the phone numbers we broke out of the Russian lottery numbers?"

"None whatsoever. The two aren't connected."

"Swear it, Jack," Tessa said.

Jack didn't hesitate. "I swear it." He could hear the Sorcerer, back at Berlin Base in the early '50s, swearing on his mother's grave that SNIPER and RAINBOW hadn't been one of the barium meals he'd used to unmask Philby...how effortlessly lies came to the lips of spies. "You have my word," he added now. "Honestly."

Tessa seemed relieved. "Thank goodness for that. It would have been hard to deal with."

Vanessa turned to her sister and announced, very calmly, "I think I hate him!"

"No, you don't," Tessa said. "You're angry with him. You're angry with yourself because you still love him and you think you shouldn't." A faraway look appeared in Tessa's eyes. "It's as if he died, Vanessa. We'll go into mourning. We'll rend our garments and grieve for what might have been but isn't."

Tears streamed down Vanessa's cheeks. "Nothing will ever be the same."

Jack was staring out a window. "It won't be the same for any of us," he muttered.

Reagan's professional instincts surfaced when he spotted the television cameras. Deftly steering Anthony and Maria Shaath across the Oval Office, he positioned himself and them so that the light from the silver reflectors washed out the shadows under their eyes. "Good lighting can take ten years off your age," he said to no one in particular. Squinting, he glanced around the room. "Can someone close the curtains," he called. "We're getting too much backlight." He turned to his visitors. "For the photo op," he told them, "you'll want to keep your eyes on me and, uh, smile a lot while we chat, and so forth." He turned to the cameras. "All right, boys, roll 'em."

And he grasped Maria's hand in both of his and exclaimed, in that utterly sincere and slightly breathless voice that the entire country loved, "Gosh, are we suckers for happy endings, especially where Americans are concerned."

"Can we have another take, please, Mr. President?" one of the television producers called from the bank of cameras.

"Sure thing. Tell me when you gents are ready."

"Do we have to have so many people in the room?" the line producer complained. "It's distracting to the princ.i.p.als."

The President's press secretary shooed several secretaries and one of the two Secret Service men out of the Oval Office.

"Okay, Mr. President. Here we go."

Reagan's eyes crinkled up and a pained smile illuminated his ruggedly handsome features. "Gosh, are we suckers for happy endings, especially where, uh, Americans are concerned."

"Great!"

"I got what I wanted," the producer told the press secretary.

"Thanks for coming around, fellows," Reagan told the television people as he escorted Anthony and Maria to the door.

Bill Casey caught up with the President in the small room off the Oval Office that Reagan retreated to after photo sessions. "Congratulations, Bill," Reagan said, swiveling toward his Director of Central Intelligence. "You people did a swell job on this raid thing. My pollster tells me that my, uh, positive job rating leaped six points."

"You're only getting your just desserts, Mr. President," Casey said. "It took moxie to sign off on the venture."

Reagan's long term-memory kicked in. "My father, rest his soul, loved the taste of Moxie-he drank a gla.s.sful when he got up in the morning, another before going to bed, swore the, uh, gentian root in it was a purgative." He noticed the bewildered glaze in the eyes of his aides. "I, uh, guess Moxie Nerve Food was before your time, boys."

"Bill's come over to brief you on this KHOLSTOMER business," the President's chief of staff, James Baker, reminded Reagan.

Bill Clark said, "KHOLSTOMER's the code designation of the Soviet plot to undermine the US currency and destabilize our economy."

Reagan raised a hand to Casey, inviting him to go on.

"As you know, Mr. President, the CIA worked up intelligence on KHOLSTOMER, so it didn't come as a surprise to us. On D-day, the Federal Reserve was ready and waiting to support the dollar the instant there were signs of a sell-off on the spot market. We knew that the Russians only had sixty-three billion available, and it wasn't difficult for the Fed to sponge it up. The danger was in the panic money that might come in behind the sixty-three billion if fund managers and central banks and foreign ent.i.ties got the impression that the dollar was in free fall. Importantly, we flooded the media with inside stories of the Federal Reserve's resolve to support the dollar, and its almost unlimited ability to do so. The result was that the panic money the Russians were counting on never materialized."

Reagan nodded solemnly. "So the panic money never, uh, materialized."

"On top of that, we worked up intelligence revealing that Soviet agents of influence close to the central banks of j.a.pan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia, along with an economist close to West German chancellor Kohl, were set to press their central banks into a sell-off of dollar Treasury bond holdings."

Reagan, who tended to become ornery when he was deluged with details, said, "Sounds like one of Hitchc.o.c.k's McGuffins. Cut to the chase, Bill."

"We managed to neutralize these agents of influence. One was arrested on charges of molesting a minor, the other four were encouraged to go off on vacation for a month or two. All five, I might add, will be job hunting. On D-day, we brought our own pressure to bear on the central banks in question to make sure there would be no panic sell-off. The bottom line, Mr. President, is that Andropov's scheme to destabilize our currency and our economy turned out to be a blind alley for him."

Reagan's eyes narrowed. "You think Andropov was personally behind this, uh, KHOLSTOMER business?"