Authors: Edward D. Hoch
The Ambassador paused at the door of his study and added, “The Russians are having a reception for me tomorrow. You’re invited, of course.”
“Thank you,” Rand mumbled.
Arthur Fraze seated himself behind his desk and gently tapped the dead tobacco out of his pipe. “I can see you still have the London outlook on things—the chessboard, with the Reds on the other side in Moscow where you never see them. We see them all the time here. There’s a diplomatic reception at least once a week at some embassy or another. There are fewer diplomats in Hoihong, so we all go to these things.”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t drink with the Russians all night and then spend my days trying to outwit their agents.”
Arthur Fraze shrugged and started refilling his pipe. “The pace is different here.” He reached into his desk and took out a flashlight. “Ever see one of these?”
Rand had seen several. Without a word he removed the batteries and studied them. He slipped the cardboard wrapper off one and split it easily into two halves. “A microdot reader” he said finally.
Arthur Fraze nodded. “Of course you know all about microdots.”
Rand disliked showing off his knowledge, but there were times when it was necessary. “That’s part of my job. A spy named Kroger used them quite extensively in London a few years back. I had a hand in trapping him. The Russian unit is quite good, really—a microcamera that can shrink an entire page to the size of a pinhead. Microdots can be hidden anywhere—on the page of a book, in a letter or a photograph. They’re next to impossible to stumble on unless you suspect they’re present.”
“The Reds use them a great deal?”
Rand nodded. “More so all the time. The microcamera has been around for more than twenty years—in fact, the Germans used them on a limited basis during the Second World War. But they’ve really come into their own only recently. Our side has a micro-microcamera now that is capable of reducing the entire Bible to an area half the size of a postage stamp. The individual letters are no larger than bacteria.” He continued studying the disguised reader. “I gather this man Kudat is using microdots?”
Fraze nodded. He produced next a picture postcard showing the harbor of Hoihong. It was addressed to a doctor in Berne, Switzerland. The message, in English, was a vague comment about the weather, signed with the name of Ivor Kudat.
For a long moment Rand studied both sides of the postcard, searching for the microdot he knew was there. He couldn’t spot it. Fraze laughed and pointed finally to a tiny dot in the picture. “Here. Two centimeters from the bottom, hidden in the details of the photo. And here’s a blowup of it.”
Rand studied the photoprint that Fraze handed him. It was a typed list of number and letter designations, followed by other numbers that seemed to be latitude and longitude. “What is it?”
“The exact positions of all the United States ships in this area, as of 1200 hours yesterday.”
Rand came suddenly alert. The whole thing wasn’t a game after all. “This is the sort of thing he’s been sending every week?”
Arthur Fraze nodded and bit on his pipe. “The first couple I intercepted didn’t mean a thing to me, but then I checked with Perkins, the local C.I.A. man, and he told me what they were. It’s a regular pattern now. Kudat mails one of these cards every Tuesday morning. I intercept it, find the microdot, enlarge it, then show it to the C.I.A.”
“You want me to discover how he gets his information?”
Fraze shook his head. “We’re quite sure we know that. His mistress works in the United States Naval Operations office here. It’s the nerve center for their whole Pacific fleet. No, that’s not our problem.”
“Then what is? Why don’t you simply arrest him and be done with it?”
Fraze leaned back in his chair and frowned. “You see, he mails these postcards to his contact in Switzerland every Tuesday. We have a connecting jet flight to Rome and Berne every day, but we have only one ship leaving for Europe each week, usually on Sunday. The ship takes about seventeen days to make the trip to Genoa, sometimes longer. Am I making myself clear?”
“I don’t quite—”
“Ivor Kudat doesn’t send these cards with their carefully hidden microdots by air mail. He sends them by ship. The information must take at least three weeks to reach the Russians—in fact, it’s completely useless by the time it reaches them. There’s your problem, Mr. Rand: why does Kudat deliberately take so long to get the information to them?”
Toward evening they drove over to the American Embassy, a glistening new building with an eagle over the door and too many windows. “They should put a fence up, like the Russians,” Rand commented, as the two of them were ushered inside to meet the American C.I.A. man.
As at most U.S. Embassies, the C.I.A. agent held some nominal title on the official staff. The real job of David Perkins was known to almost everyone in Hoihong, especially to the Russians. “Sometimes they kid him about it at parties,” Fraze had said earlier.
“This is a great town for kidding.”
“We have our serious moments.”
David Perkins was younger than Fraze by a good ten years, and even to Rand he seemed too young for the position he held. But he had a certain businesslike manner that had been lacking in Fraze, and Rand warmed to him quickly.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Rand,” Perkins said. “Of course I’ve heard a great deal about Double-C.”
“I’m amazed our fame has spread this far from London.”
The American smiled. “We’ll see how well you do on this thing. Arthur and I have tended to let the case drift, because Kudat’s messages obviously weren’t reaching the Russians in time to do them any good. But your new Ambassador wants action. Maybe he’s right.”
Rand lit one of his American cigarettes. “Tell me about Kudat.”
It was Fraze who answered. “He’s some odd mixture of nationalities, partly Oriental. Lived in Australia for a time after the war. Now he’s here, writing his postcards every week.”
“Is there any evidence that he’s a paid agent?”
The C.I.A. man nodded. “I can answer that one. I got interested in Kudat after my first look at those microdots. One hundred British pounds are deposited to his account in the Bank of China every single week.”
“Then the Russians must consider his information valuable.”
“How could they? We’ve had men watch that house in Berne. The postcards take at the very least three weeks to reach their destination. By that time our ships have changed position dozens of times.”
“You always allow the messages to go through?”
Fraze nodded. “After we’ve checked them. A few times David here has had them retyped and rephotographed to eliminate something that might help the Russians even after three weeks.”
“All right,” Rand said. “I want to see this problem clearly. Just how do you intercept the postcards, Fraze?”
The man smiled and took a grip on his pipe. “You must remember this was once a British territory. I still have certain contacts in the post office.”
“Contacts that will open mail for you?”
Arthur Fraze held up a protesting hand. “Postcards, remember! Everyone reads postcards. We only divert them for a brief time. They sit in the post office for nearly a week anyway, waiting for the ship.”
Rand had a thought. “Someone reads them while they’re waiting in the post office.”
Fraze shook his head. “My man is the only one who sees them. He sorts the mail and seals them into pouches. He’s an ignorant native who wouldn’t know the first thing about microdots. And he couldn’t read them without special equipment, anyway. The sealed mail pouches aren’t opened until the ship docks in Genoa. One thing I’d stake my career on, Rand—nobody reads those microdot messages until the card reaches Berne.”
“It would seem that the Russians are merely stupid,” Rand said. “They’re paying a hundred pounds a week for nothing.”
Had he made this trip for nothing? It certainly appeared so … Rand decided to relax and enjoy himself. Perhaps he’d even go to the Russian reception the following evening.
The next afternoon Rand went off on his own. He toured the narrow streets of the city, passed the eager faces of occasional tourists, the more frequent glazed stares of the narcotics addicts. It was a city of contrasts, where British merchants still conducted business next to Red Chinese shops whose window displays frequently denounced the White Imperialists. It was a city where crime and vice flourished only a few blocks from the staid and respectable embassy district.
Rand had to admit that the weather was hot, and he already regretted wearing such a heavy suit. He felt that he should catch the next jet back to London, or at the least find some nice air-conditioned bar in which to relax. Instead, he was seeking out the man named Ivor Kudat, thinking that in a city like Hoihong the easiest solution to the problem might be simply to ask Kudat why he sent those cards by ship instead of by plane.
When he finally saw Kudat—recognizing him from photographs as the spy met a slim blonde girl outside the gate of the United States Naval Operations Center—Rand suddenly changed his mind. He’d known a good many secret agents on both sides during the years in London, and he recognized at once the smooth touches of a professional.
Kudat was neither too suspicious nor overly casual. He acted like a man who was meeting his wife after a day’s work, kissing her half-heartedly, and steering a path toward a waiting car. But in the space of a minute this short, dark-haired man in a baggy suit managed to spot Rand in his car mirror and recognize him as an enemy. He drove the car through a maze of back streets and lost Rand almost at once.
All right, then. Kudat was a professional. But that still didn’t mean he was outwitting them somehow. The messages went by boat … Why boat? Why not by plane?
The reception at the Russian Embassy was a formal affair that seemed almost like a family party. The members of the diplomatic colony were an inbred lot, and they welcomed the new British Ambassador as an honored member of their exclusive circle. No one thought it odd that the Russians were among the first to welcome him, and no one thought it signified any sort of Cold War thaw. Everyone was very polite, some were a bit drunk, and the women were all beautiful.
The diplomats lived in a world of their own, a world very far from the jungle trails of Viet Nam or the spy schools of Moscow. Seeing the Russians like this, openly drinking and joking with the Ambassador and Fraze, Rand wondered if they really were the enemy. Perhaps the whole thing was a comic opera plot where no one really cared if Ivor Kudat’s messages got through or not. Perhaps the man in Berne never even bothered to read them.
Rand drifted over to where Perkins, the C.I.A. man, stood against the wall, a half-finished cocktail in his hand. “Are these things always the same?”
Perkins nodded. “As unchanging as the Pyramids.”
“Is it safe to talk here?”
“The safest place in Hoihong. The only place you can be sure the Russians haven’t bugged.”
Rand placed his own glass on a convenient table and lit a cigarette. “Just how important is the information Kudat is passing?” He kept his voice low and his eyes on the nearest guests.
“Damned important. With even a weekly check on our ship movements they can spot concentrations near Viet Nam or Formosa. More important, they can pinpoint our Polaris subs.”
“How does this girl get the information to pass along to him?”
Perkins shrugged. “You have to trust somebody. She was cleared for the job.”
“Why don’t you arrest her and end it?”
“Well, as of now, the messages don’t seem to be doing the Reds any good. We’d rather have everything under control like this than have them sneaking around where we don’t know about it. Besides, we know the address of Kudat’s contact in Berne. If our luck holds, the address might change and then we’ll pick up a couple more of their contacts.”
Rand nodded. It made sense, and yet … “I still wish he was sending those cards by air mail—it would make the whole thing so, much tidier.”
They were interrupted by a burst of applause. The Russian Ambassador had stepped to the center of the room with his arm in fatherly position around his British counterpart’s shoulders. Rand sighed and went for another drink. It looked like a long night.
The following morning, after too few hours of sleep, Rand, stood in front of the Ambassador’s desk, surprised that the white-haired man seemed so alert.
“You get used to it in this business,” the Ambassador explained. “How is your investigation progressing, Rand?”
“Well, I know as much as Fraze and the C.I.A., but I can’t say I’m happy about it. The whole situation’s too—well, too uncertain. We think we’re outwitting the Russians—but maybe we’re not.”
The Ambassador nodded. “My feelings exactly. That’s why I requested help from Double-C when I read Fraze’s reports. He’s a good man, but he may be too close to this thing. True, the whole problem is really an American one—there are no British secrets involved. But, of course, we’d like to help.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Do you have any suggestions?”
Rand thought about it. “One, but I’d like to talk with Fraze about it first.”
The Ambassador nodded. “Microdots! This whole business of spying is getting much too refined for me. It’s for you younger fellows, I suppose, all this technical stuff. But you still have to know how to handle yourself in a dark alley at night.”
Rand smiled. “I stay out of dark alleys as much as possible.”
He left the Ambassador and went across the main reception room to Arthur Fraze’s little office overlooking the rear gardens. The older man was smoking his pipe, leafing casually through the Far Eastern edition of an American news magazine. He looked up as Rand entered and tossed the magazine down on an already cluttered desk. “Sometimes I think those damned correspondents know more about Red China than we do. How are you doing?”
Rand perched on one corner of the desk, next to a pair of gilded bookends that held a set of slim volumes on British foreign policy. “I survived last night’s reception, if that’s what you mean.”
Arthur Fraze chuckled. “You get used to it.”