Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring (37 page)

The Ad:
Start with “RUS:”, followed by whatever message you desire to pass. If your message is not clear I’ll send another letter. If I decide to cooperate you will hear from me via an attorney. Otherwise nothing further will happen.

Jerry signed the letter: RUS.

He wanted to make certain it was difficult to trace, so he made a copy of the letter and sent the copy to the FBI. If the price was right, he was ready to squeal. It was the one surefire way to get out of John’s clutches.

Chapter 57

Michael had hoped his transfer to the U.S.S.
Nimitz
would give him better access to secret material than he had as a clerk for the fighter squadron. But when he reported aboard the carrier in January 1984, he found himself assigned to the recreational department, where he was put in charge of handing out and collecting basketballs.

John was irritated. He telephoned Michael the weekend of April 15 and asked him to come over. By this time, John had already had his angry exchange with Jerry. Now John was going to turn up the heat on Michael. John formed several stacks of bills, $1,000 each, on his desk, and when Michael arrived, John made certain that he got a good look at all the money. Then John picked up one of the stacks and gave it to Michael.

“This is all you’re getting this time,” he said.

“But I thought I was going to make a thousand a week doing this,” Michael complained. “Not a thousand every six months.”

“You want more money, you’ve got to earn it,” John replied. “You’re a big married man now, off on your own. No one is going to give you spending cash for nothing.”

Now it was Michael’s turn to get angry. John didn’t care. He explained to Michael that Jerry had quit the Navy, leaving him in “deep shit.”

“I’m counting on you to produce some heavy-duty shit, otherwise neither of us is going to make any money,” John told Michael.

Michael returned to work determined to get promoted. He took an advancement test for his next promotion three times. He also worked hard to befriend as many sailors as he could who worked in the operations administration office of the carrier.

“I was really busting my ass,” Michael recalled later, “and my dad was helping me by filling out all the right forms and putting just the right words on them to get me that promotion.”

Still, promotions take time, and neither Michael nor John was patient. They both were becoming frustrated and irritable. Michael began to avoid his father, and John began to feel that Michael wasn’t trying hard enough.

Michael also was having problems at home. When he first told Rachel about the spying, she had been fascinated. She had assumed that Michael was spying for the Navy with his dad. But after they were married, Rachel discovered that Michael was stealing secrets for another country, and she immediately assumed it was the Russians.

Rachel knew what Michael was doing because he brought home several classified reports from the Oceana Naval Air Station that he had tucked into his backpack. Being curious, Rachel had looked through the reports, unwittingly leaving her fingerprints on them for the FBI to find later. Since her father had been a twenty-year Navy man, she knew that Michael was breaking the law and she warned him.

“Michael, you’re playing with fire,” she said, shortly after they were married. “This is dangerous.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he replied. “My dad and I got everything under control. I can handle this.”

The spying was not the only issue causing Michael and Rachel problems. Michael didn’t seem to understand why Rachel needed to work so hard to get her college degree. Never a scholar himself, Michael saw little value in good grades.

“So you get a C instead of an A. What’s the big deal?” he complained. He began to pressure her about the time she spent studying, particularly when she refused to be with him because of homework. She either was at school, studying, or at work as a waitress at Chi-Chi’s restaurant.

“Rachel didn’t have any time for me after we got married,” he complained later. Rachel, meanwhile, felt Michael was immature. All he ever wanted to do was surf and party with his punk rock friends. Every time she managed to earn a few extra bucks at the restaurant, he spent it.

John contributed to the growing tension between the two newlyweds. He had always told Michael that the pickup truck he had driven since high school was his. But one morning, Michael was hit from behind while driving his truck and it was demolished. When it was time for the insurance company to pay for the damages, Michael discovered that John had never signed the truck’s title over to him, so John received and pocketed the insurance claim payment.

Without the pickup truck, Michael and Rachel had to depend on her 1974 Dodge Dart. Their days began at five A.M., when Rachel drove Michael to the Norfolk Naval Base. Then she would return home, shower, dress, study, and hurry to her eight A.M. class. Michael got off work at three P.M., the same time that Rachel’s classes ended. She would hurry to the base to pick him up, fix dinner, and then leave for the restaurant, where she waited on tables until one A.M.

Bored without his wife at home, Michael began dropping by the restaurant late at night to wait for Rachel. His drinks came out of her tips. Because Rachel could make better tips by working on Saturday nights, she often chose work instead of going out to party with Michael.

The $1,000 that Michael collected from John in April 1984 went fast. Michael said later that be gave $700 of it to Rachel so she could pay for summer school. But their money problems weren’t because Michael and Rachel were poor. He earned $11,000 per year from the Navy and also received extra pay for housing. Rachel’s father also gave her $150 per month to help with her schooling. On a good week, she earned $200 to $300 in salary and tips as a waitress.

The money never seemed to be enough, though, and the main reason was Michael. John had given Michael everything he desired as a teenager, and Michael was completely without financial discipline. He spent money as soon as he received it.

Besides arguments about Michael’s spying and finances, the couple also had troubles because of their relatives. A few weeks after Michael and Rachel were married, John decided it was time for him and P.K. to meet Rachel’s parents. He suggested that everyone get together for dinner at a Norfolk restaurant. It sounded like a great idea but quickly turned into a disaster.

John chose an expensive restaurant that Michael and Rachel simply couldn’t afford. Don’t worry, John told Michael when they met in the lobby, he would pick up the tab.

Even though Rachel’s father had been in the Navy, it soon became clear that he and John had nothing in common. Worse, John showed up a bit tipsy and quickly began drinking heavily. Rachel’s side of the family didn’t drink at all. They sipped iced tea and coffee while John began telling bawdy stories about his adventures as a private investigator.

When the bill finally arrived, John handed it to Michael and asked, “What’s your share?”

John laughed and announced that he would bail out the newlyweds since it was clear that they didn’t earn enough between them to pay their own way. Rachel was embarrassed and Michael was humiliated. As they left the restaurant, Rachel’s father whispered to her. Never again, he said, did he want to go anywhere with John Walker.

After that, Michael and Rachel didn’t see much of John. If Michael wanted to talk to his father, he drove over to his house. Yet Michael still had an intense loyalty, not only to John, but also to Barbara.

For instance, as soon as Rachel married, her father had signed over to her all of her insurance policies and the title and registration for her car. She, in turn, listed Michael as her beneficiary on the insurance policies and as the co-owner of the car. But Rachel discovered Michael had listed two beneficiaries on his life insurance policy. If he died, the money would be split equally between her and Barbara.

In July 1984, Michael announced that he had agreed to pay half of the cost of an airline ticket to bring his mother to Norfolk for a vacation. His sister, Margaret, paid the other half. Rachel was irritated because she knew that she would have to work extra shifts to pay the cost of Barbara’s ticket. Why, she wondered, should they have to pay for his mother’s vacation? If anything, Barbara’s money should be paying for them to have a vacation.

By the time that Barbara arrived in Norfolk, Rachel was steamed, but Michael didn’t care. Michael and Margaret insisted on taking their mother out to celebrate, even though neither could afford it. After dinner they stopped at Chi-Chi’s to say hello to Rachel, who was working. The three of them were having such a good time that they decided to go barhopping, and Michael borrowed some money from Rachel.

Barbara spent the first week of her visit with Margaret, and then, during the first week of August, moved in with Michael and Rachel.

Barbara began unloading her problems on the couple. Her mother, Annie, had died, and she had been forced to ask John for $500 to help cover the cost of the funeral. He expected to be repaid, but Barbara had quit her job at the shoe company in Skowhegan and didn’t have any other job lined up. She was thinking about moving to Hyannis, where Cynthia lived. Perhaps she could find something there.

One afternoon, Rachel arrived home from her classes to find Barbara sitting on the couch, drinking the only liquor that Michael and Rachel had in their apartment – a bottle of Triple Sec.

“I want to go see John,” Barbara announced. “Will you drive me to his office?”

Rachel agreed. On the way, Barbara said she didn’t want Rachel to come inside. Rachel was glad not to be caught in a family squabble.

Barbara marched into John’s office without acknowledging his secretary. “I need ten thousand dollars,” she said. “I want to go to school.”

Barbara’s demand caught John off guard. “I looked up and here’s Barbara demanding money,” he recalled later. “She said if I didn’t give it to her, she was going to tell. I tried to calm her down, but she had been drinking. She tells me that she is moving to Hyannis to be with Cynthia because she [Barbara] doesn’t have a job and she can’t pay her rent or the telephone bill or the utilities.”

John said he stalled. It was clear to him, although Barbara denies it, that she was implying she would turn him in if he didn’t give her the money.

“I don’t have any money right now,” he told Barbara.

“The truth was,” John recalled later, “I really didn’t have any money because Whitworth had screwed everything up. If I’d had ten thousand in cash I would have given it to her.”

“Look, Barbara,” John said. “My head ain’t the only one that is going to roll here if you start shooting off your mouth.”

Barbara told him that she didn’t care.

“You promised to pay alimony and you never did,” she said. “You owe me ten thousand dollars and I want it now!”

Barbara was furious when she returned to the car and Rachel. She began chain-smoking, smashing her cigarettes out before they were half finished.

“I’m going to fix him,” Barbara said. “He owes me. He can’t do this.”

Barbara began drinking large glasses of Triple Sec without ice at the apartment. Rachel excused herself, explaining that she had to get ready for work. Hurrying to the telephone, Rachel called Michael.

“Your mother went to see your father today,” she said, speaking softly so Barbara wouldn’t hear, “and they fought. She’s going crazy!”

“Oh my God!” Michael responded. “What happened?”

“I didn’t go in, but she keeps saying that he owes her and she is going to get him.”

Rachel worked late that night, but the next morning when she drove Michael to work, she asked him what had happened.

“I think everything is going to be okay,” he assured her. “We talked.”

That afternoon when Rachel finished her classes, she found Barbara waiting for her. Barbara wanted to know how to catch a bus that would take her to downtown Norfolk.

“Oh, I’ll drive you downtown,” Rachel volunteered.

“No, no, I don’t want you to get involved,” Barbara said.

“Where do you want to go?”

“The FBI,” Barbara said. Rachel tried to act nonchalant.

“Why would you want to go there?” she asked.

“I’m going to turn John in, but I can’t say for what, only that he’s doing something illegal.”

Rachel pressed Barbara. “You’ve got to tell me. Is Michael going to be hurt by all this? What are you going to say?”

Barbara dodged the questions but finally blurted out her reason: “John’s a spy!”

Rachel faked shock. “Oh my God, no!” she said.

She called Michael immediately. “Michael, I’m here with your mother,” Rachel said. “She wants me to take her downtown. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“Are you talking about a federal agency?”

“That’s right.” Rachel gave the telephone to Barbara, who had a brief exchange with her son. He was coming home immediately, he said. They needed to talk.

Barbara was drinking when Michael arrived. She was so upset that she was shaking, Michael recalled later.

“Listen, Mom, you don’t want to do what you’re thinking about,” Michael explained. “You don’t want to turn Dad in.”

Barbara disagreed.

“Mom, you don’t want to see Dad go to prison, do you?” Michael continued. “Do you really want to see him in prison?”

Barbara was undeterred.

“She was really pissed,” Michael told me. “She said she was sick and tired of him screwing her around. She had had enough.”

“Mom, listen,” Michael told Barbara. “This is more than you can handle. You are going to destroy this family if you do this. The entire family will be ruined.”

“That seemed to calm her down,” Michael said later. “I didn’t tell her that I was involved and I don’t think she thought, at that point, that I was.”

Rachel had gone to work, and when she got home that night, she demanded to know what Barbara had decided. Michael laughed off the incident.

“She’s got a drinking problem,” he said. “She does this every once in a while. It’s no big thing.”

“I can’t believe you,” Rachel responded. “She almost went to the FBI today. She could have turned him in and you too!”

Michael wasn’t in the mood to fight. He wanted to make love, but Rachel declined. She walked out onto the back porch of their apartment because Barbara was asleep on the couch in the living room. Michael followed her outside.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t want her here tonight,” Rachel said.

“She’s leaving on Sunday,” Michael said.

“Tell me that you’ll quit,” Rachel said. “Promise me.”

“I have,” Michael said, lying. “And I’m going to talk to my father tomorrow about Mom.”