Shadow of the Condor (10 page)

"How, indeed? Evidently his superiors were already suspicious. They broke him even easier than Parkins. Of course, they had some advantages. At any rate, the double claims the courier was terminated, and a new run is being attempted Tuesday. The double will let us know the flight number the new agent will be taking sometime early Tuesday. Go back to
Berlin
. Contact the agency's local head. He'll pass the flight number on to you, you board it. We'll run a check on the passengers, and perhaps by the time you hit
London
we'll have narrowed the potentials down to a few. You'll have assistance and should be able to blow the man's cover."

"Then what?"

"Then we wait, we wait and see what is so important that they risk a run after Parkins' death."

"The game's going on rather better now," she said, by way of keeping up the conversation a little. "

‘’Tis so," said the Duchess: "and the moral of that is 'Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round" '

"Somebody said,"
Alice
whispered, "that it's done by everybody minding their own business!"

"Ah, well! It -means much the same thing," said the Duchess, digging her sharp-little' chin into
Alice
's shoulder as she added, "and the moral of that is 'Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves."

"How fond she is of finding morals in things!"
Alice
thought to herself.

The man in the window seat 42B of the 9:40 BOAC flight from
Berlin
to
London
had three passports. He carried his first passport in his left suit-coat pocket, the same pocket containing a cyanide pen gun with an effective range of three meters, a vast improvement over the larger, tubular, cyanide shooting device a KGB agent used in 1957 to assassinate exiled Ukrainian leader Lev Rebet in
Munich
. The man in 42B's first passport identified him as Ivan Markowitz, a Polish national, and listed his business as industrial representative. Backup, complementary identity papers gave the purpose of his visit to
London
as a trade exposition. The trade exposition existed, although the real Ivan Markowitz had perished ten years before in a Soviet detention camp. The passengers, second passport identified him as Canadian citizen Ren6 Erickson, and the support papers for this passport told of a lengthy European vacation' with receipts from numerous hotels to show how expensive tourism can be. These papers were sewn into the thick cover of an account ledger containing Ivan Markowitz's business records. The third passport, an emergency backup the passenger fervently hoped he would not have to use, listed him as an American citizen, one Frank Walsh from
St. Louis
, a college professor of foreign languages. The man in window seat 42B carried no paper which gave his true identity, for Feydor Nurich knew that might prove fatal.

Nurich pretended to read a magazine while he went over the mission in his mind. He didn't relish the idea of penetrating the
United States
on such short notice, with little backup and few preliminary precautions. True, he had done technical work before, but he was much better on straight intelligence runs and best at paramilitary activities. He had no idea why it was necessary to send an agent all the way from
Russia
to reconnoiter the missiles, but, like most intelligence agents, he was used to knowing only the minimum amount of information necessary to perform his part in an operation.

Nurich's actual commander, a major in the GRU, Soviet military intelligence, also had questions and reservations about this mission, but there was nothing he could do to satisfy himself. He would have to wait until Nurich completed the task for the KGB and reported back to the GRU.

Spying on one Soviet intelligence agency for another bothered Nurich no more than spying on other nations. He found the danger inherent in both levels of his work approximately equal, and he vacillated on which of his intelligence roles he considered the more important. Nurich was a Russian, a soldier, a communist and a spy, in that order. Being a Russian and a communist gave him firm, active conviction in fighting the enemies of his country and his cause. His-inclination for the military was almost genetic in origin. Nuriches have defended Mother Russia against Napoleon, Hitler and other villains on battlefields throughout
Europe
. Feydor Nurich was the first of his family to be an officer, an accomplishment he took pride in even though his rank was a military secret not shared knowingly with ' civilians. Nurich's faith in the military, learned at his father's knee, had been the overriding factor in his espionage career since he entered that field in 1959, a young, talented linguist fresh out of college and "inducted" into Soviet civilian espionage.

Three days after he learned he had "won" the opportunity to join the ranks of the secret police, an opportunity he had prudently accepted, an old military acquaintance of his father's who bad somehow risen to a captaincy while avoiding the numerous purges contacted the younger Nurich with a counterproposal. Feydor should by all means join the MVD (one of the names used by the secret police before the adoption of the KGB designation), but he should join as an agent of the military. By serving the military first, the civilian secret police second, Nurich could contribute the most to keeping Mother Russia strong and secure.

Nurich hadn't needed much convincing to accept the military's offer. Although he had never told anyone, even his family, Nurich had concluded that
Russia
's strength depended on the supremacy of its military, a supremacy which of necessity had to be measured through more than comparison with enemy nations' potentials, a strength which of necessity meant Soviet military supremacy and domination of all levels of the state's activities. Only a calm, rational, strong military could protect
Russia
and the Soviet system from the ravages of foreigners and-the cancerous destruction of incompetent, self-serving civilian bureaucracies. The military would perfect the Soviet system, would keep the revisionist and capitalist elements in check and would do so without making the disastrous mistakes perpetuated by the predominantly civilian Russian government.

When he searched for blatant examples of civilian mistakes, Nurich always remembered a neighbor and his daughter. The girl was nineteen, a year older than Nurich the night she and her father disappeared from their
Moscow
home in a civilian secret police Black Maria. Nurich never discovered what happened to her, and he had been wise enough not to ask. He knew the military would, not make a mistake like that, for the girl and her father were good Russians and good communists. The military would never send the wrong people to the camps,

All, well, he thought regretfully, that was long ago. Today was today, and if he concentrated on his work, if be did the best he could, perhaps on another day such things would be impossible. Once again Nurich carefully reviewed his plan for the mission. The review didn't convince him to like the plan any more than he did when he received his first briefing.

Kevin sat in seat 27A at the rear of the same compartment Nurich occupied. Kevin paid no attention to Nurich; he had no reason to. While pretending to read a magazine, he was actually watching the passenger in seat 31A. That passenger was a fellow CIA agent, an agent who Kevin fervently hoped would soon receive a list of probable suspects for the Russian spy.

The CIA's source in the Berlin KGB section had passed on the flight number the Russian agent was scheduled to take. Kevin had agents from the CIA's
Berlin
section photograph all the passengers as they waited in the lounge prior to departure. With the cooperation of Western German intelligence, a CIA agent filled in for the regular boarding clerk. As each passenger presented his ticket, a small camera hidden in the checkin booth took a picture. The "clerk" assigned each passenger's seat and picture a corresponding number as he checked his ticket. American and West German intelligence officials were investigating the background of the flight's passengers before the plane left the ground. Kevin hoped at least to narrow the field of suspects before the plane's landing in
London
complicated matters. He and another CIA agent also boarded the plane.

Forty-five minutes before the plane arrived in
London
, Kevin's fellow CIA agent received a note from a stewardess. She passed him the note while handing him a drink he hadn't ordered. The agent didn't read the note. He waited a discreet three minutes, then walked to the mid-ships bathroom. Two minutes later he returned to his seat, and two minutes after that Kevin went to the same bathroom.

A looped piece of scotch tape held the note to the metal wall deep inside the used-towel receptacle. Kevin almost dropped the note trying to retrieve it. The note listed three names and seat numbers: Johan Ristov, 1211; Ivan Markowitz, 42B; and Sean O'Flaherty, 15A. The hunt had narrowed to three suspects.

The simple dead drop system of placing another agent between Kevin and the communications received by the plane's radio operator was a precaution the CIA Berlin director thought unnecessary. Kevin overruled the director’s objections. If the Russian saw who received the note and if his suspicions were aroused, the note's recipient would be blown and could not be used on the case again. Kevin wanted at least to protect himself from that possibility, no matter how remote it was. The intermediary in such a system is called a "cutout."

Kevin returned to his seat. He barely resisted the temptation to stroll casualty up the aisle to see the three suspects. If he looked at them, the "dirty one" in the trio might notice him.

The 9:40 flight from
Berlin
had been an uneventful journey to
England
. As the plane taxied to its disembarking point, the passengers noticed a large number of emergency vehicles and trucks converging on an overturned baggage cart near the main terminal. While the plane .slowed to a standstill, the pilot, speaking first in English, then in German, bade farewell to his passengers and thanked them for flying his airline. He also announced that because of a minor accident, their baggage dispersal would be slightly delayed. He apologized for the inconvenience and wished them an enjoyable stay in
London
.

Kevin stood on the edge of the anxious crowd assembled in the waiting room. Most of his fellow passengers watched the chute periodically spew forth baggage which was eagerly claimed by passengers from earlier flights. Kevin watched the crowd.

Tyler Cassil had been with MI5,
Britain
's major counterintelligence force, for eleven years. For queen and country he had performed a number of chores quite well. He took pride in his work. Unlike many of his fellow officers, Cassil didn't mind working with the Americans. A rumor which had recently come to his attention through a friendly neutral party even claimed Cassil enjoyed working with the hotshot Yankees. Cassil himself wouldn't go quite that far, although he did admit that working with the Americans could be quite amusing and occasionally instructive. And they certainly ran a cushy budget show. The particular case be was involved in that morning was quite amusing. Cassil strolled to the wall where Kevin stood, leaned against it and said, "And how was your flight, old chap?" Cassil thought Americans in
England
felt cheated if they weren't periodically addressed as "old chap."

Kevin looked at the short, seedy Englishman, whom he knew, and said, 'Fine, thank you. What are you doing here?"

The two men spoke softly. The nearest person was ten feet away, and neither of them worried about what-the aging spinster could hear at that range.

"Oh, just a day's work," replied Cassil easily, "the SB [Special Branch] fellows got a request for some info from your local. That naturally prompted our desire to help, and we offered our services. Your local thanked us politely, but said w~ weren't needed. Our assistant chief worried that perhaps your
London
man didn't have enough authority to ask for our assistance, so he got on the scramble phone to a deputy in your shop, and presto, within half an hour your
London
control told us we could help you flush a Russki on this flight.

"We helped SB arrange the baggage delay so the passengers could be checked out as much as possible before they scattered across our Merry England, and downstairs our people are running the X rays over the pieces belonging to the three major suspects. Can't tamper with them much more because you never know what clever tricks Uncle Boris builds into his stuff so he can tell if you've been at them. Hope you don't mind."

Kevin smiled at his companion. M15, worried about Americans pulling a coup in England without Her Majesty's Secret Service's knowledge, tracked down Kevin's work with the Special Branch and applied enough pressure to be let in on the game. Kevin wondered and worried about how much M15 knew. The more people involved in a covert intelligence operation, the less covert the operation became. But politics, thought Kevin, is politics.

"On the contrary, you seem to have things well in hand. Do you have anything definite yet?"

"No, nothing definite, but I think we're doing very well. None of the three suspects are booked out on flights to
Canada
or the States, but that means nothing, since our boy will probably change identities for that segment of the run. We're still digging, but I already have my favorite.

"The least likely is Johan Ristov, who had twelve B. His cover is a Polish professor, and we're having trouble verifying that, which could mean something. But his passport and travel papers list him as sixty-three, and he looks at least seventy. I can't picture him on any kind of active run, which, I understand, is what this is all about."

Good, thought Kevin, they don't know many details about the mission. He said nothing when Cassil paused. "My number two choice," continued Cassil, "'is Sean O'Flaherty, supposedly an Irish national. We're running into some discrepancies between what his passport says and what we have on record, but I think that's because he's dirty in another way. If he is up to anything, I'll bet it's smuggling or IRA business.

"Which leads us to number three, Ivan Markowitz of seat forty-two B. He caught our eye first time through the list. His cover is good on the surface, but our computers turn up no mention of him in any open Polish sources: nothing in newspapers, trade journals, government reports, party membership rolls, honors lists or anywhere, all of which is rather strange for an official so important and trustworthy he gets sent off to a trade exposition in
London
by himself. We're having the MI Six boys-without telling them anything, naturally-check over their sources, and I understand your people are doing the same. However, that will take some time. This Markowitz is medium age, good physical shape, and my bet. What do you think?"