“Running the show in the basement may not be the most exciting job in the world, Kirk,” he once told McGarvey. “But it makes Pat happy and me, too. This way I can be at home in bed with her every night. And I like her cooking.”
Janos pulled McGarvey inside, and they sat on stools in front of a long workbench in the basement. Pat brought them beers and then shooed the children away from the stairs, shutting the basement door. No one had asked him to stay for supper, though he could smell it cooking upstairs. Of course he was out, Janos was in. The association would have to be considered dangerous, no matter the closeness of the friendship.
“So, Kirk, my old friend, what has brought you back? It was my understanding you were tucked away somewhere ⦠Switzerland?”
“Lausanne. I had a little bookstore there. An apartment. Not much.”
Janos smiled appreciatively. He was very proud of what he had in the way not only of material possessions, but of his position with the Company as well as within the community.
“You're here for a visit? Is that it?”
McGarvey looked at him for a moment. He was glad Pat had gone upstairs. She'd always been the tough negotiator. She was English. Cockney. She understood real poverty even more than Janos did. And she didn't want to go back.
“Not really,” McGarvey answered softly. He took a swallow of his beer. “I'm doing a job, actually.”
Janos seemed pained. He sat forward. “For who, Kirk? Who are you working for? Not the Company; I would have heard.”
The implication was obvious. By answering it, McGarvey would be dropping to Janos's level. But then it had always been that way. Despite his experience, Janos was one of the most naive, direct men he'd ever known. Once, at a party, Pat confessed it was that very innocence that caused her to fall in love with him in the first place.
“I came all this way, Janos, to be practically turned away at the door, and then to be insulted by my friend?”
Janos sat back, his beer between his big paws. “I'm sorry, Kirk, really I am.”
“How have Pat and the kids been?”
“Very good, actually. The tops. We're a happy family here, you know that. At least in that, nothing has changed.”
“I thought about you a lot over the years.”
Janos shrugged. “We missed you, too, Kirk. You and Kathleen.”
“It's over between us. You knew that.”
Again Janos shrugged. “Yes, we both knew it. And it saddened us. But she is still Elizabeth's godmother. Will she ever come back to us?”
“I doubt it,” McGarvey said. He felt like hell. She was only in Alexandria. Christ, it seemed like a million miles.
Janos sensed something of that. “Does she know you're back?”
“No,” McGarvey said softly. “How are things in the Company these days?”
Janos brightened cautiously. “A lot better, Kirk. Believe me, under Reagan and Powers there is no comparison to the old days.”
“Danielle is running ops now?”
“He's doing a good job, Kirk, even if he is a little mouse. We have a lot of respect now, you know. It didn't used to be that way. Of course cross-Atlantic operations have shifted from Eastern Europe to the Eastern Med. But even I am getting used to it.”
“You don't miss the field?”
Janos started to shake his head, but then he laughed self-deprecatingly. “I could never lie to you. Yes, of course I miss it. But only sometimes. It is like smoking, Kirk. When you first give it up, it's hell. But then the urge finally begins to go away. It doesn't ever disappear, sometimes it gets very bad, even for me, but by then you know that you have it licked. I'm just fine.”
“I'm glad to hear that. Sincerely, my friend.”
Janos nodded solemnly. “You have come as a very large surprise.”
“Pleasant, I hope.”
“Pat is frightened.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Barney and Elizabeth will want to see you before you go.” Janos stopped. “Are you back in Washington for good?”
“I don't know. Probably not.”
“No,” Janos said. “But you did not tell me who has engaged you. It is important.”
“I can't, Janos. It's very sensitive,” McGarvey looked into his eyes. “But it's legitimate. In this you must believe me.”
“I do.”
McGarvey leaned forward. “I'm going to need your help.”
“My charterâ”
“I don't care about your charter,” McGarvey interrupted sharply. Janos had to be handled this way sometimes. “Your mother never cared about charters. No one does. Just listen and then if your heart tells you no, you can walk away with a clear conscience.”
“You are a friend, but I have my position here!” Janos said, raising his voice. “I signed the Secrets Act. For me it is a very important thing. They could easily send me back to England. And from there you know whereâstraight back to Poland.”
“I signed the same act. And there is no way in hell they'd send you back to Poland unless you shot the president or something.”
The color drained from Plónski's face. “Don't even joke like that, Kirk. For God's sake.”
“I need help, Janos. Some information out of your machines. Nothing terrible or bad. Nothing about anyone who makes any difference in this world.”
Janos looked down at his beer. “We all make a difference. I don't think you ever understood that.”
“His name is Artime Basulto. Used to work for
us in the very early days. Fifties, early sixties.”
“Cuban?”
“He worked out of Havana watching Batista. Got in on the Bay of Pigs thing, then dropped out.”
“He'd be in the old records down in Lynchburg. Army. But what about him, Kirk? Is this an old vendetta? Are you writing a book?”
“He's been running cocaine out of Matanzas.”
Janos brightened. “You're working for the DEA?”
“I didn't say that,” McGarvey replied quickly.
Janos chuckled. “You want his track?”
“I want to know everything.”
“Of course.”
“No, Janos, listen to me. I want to know
everything
. From day one. What he did, how much he was paid for it, his day sheets, who he worked for. Everything, do you understand?”
“I understand, Kirk,” Janos said, happy now that he believed McGarvey was working on a legitimate operation. “But this could have come through channels.”
McGarvey put his beer down. He looked at his old friend. “Listen very carefully this time. Very closely. I want you to pay real close attention. This Cuban we're talking about worked for the Company a long time ago. He might still be working for the Company.”
Janos sat back as if he had been slapped. “For who?”
“I don't know. But open inquiries might cause trouble, if you see what I mean.”
“Oh, I understand,” Janos said.
“I'm sure you do, Janos.”
“I love this country, Kirk. I want you to know that.”
If Janos Plónski wasn't particularly proud of his job as deputy director of records at Langley, he was at least proud of his own past record, and of the renewed strength the Company was enjoying since its emasculation by the Carter administration. Of the old hands he was one of the very few to have come out of that dark era unscathed. His wife, Pat, understood his moods of depression when he sometimes thought about the old friends who died in Eastern European operations, or were scalped like McGarvey. But Janos had kept his nose clean, hadn't he? And that counted for something in this day and age. That, and his wife and children, for whom he would do anything, were his world.
Janos had become the star of archives. Who better than an operations typeâan ex-field hound âto understand the practical side of an intelligence service's record-keeping system? The college grads were mainly interested in the historical perspective. The computer whiz kids tinkered with their machines. Administration had always been, and always would be, dedicated to following the financial trail of all operations ⦠fitting each little budget line into the whole picture. And the bookworms, who were a
class all to themselves, gave a damn only about order versus chaos. Janos knew better. The only reason for the existence of an archives in this business was to provide operations planners and field men with the accurate and timely information they needed when and as they needed it. No excuses about perspective or downed data links or administrative holds on jackets. Somewhere in the great bloody pile of facts and figures is the needed bit, get it now, Janos.
He was, in nearly everyone's eyes upstairs, a magician. Operations was pleased with his work, but so were administration and personnel and intelligence. “How do you do it, Janos, old boy? Must be a juggling game down there, keeping everyone going all at the same time. Like wagging both ends of the tail at the same time.”
His somewhat spartan office was at the rear of the exposed basement, with one large window that overlooked the construction of the new section of the building. He had spent the first hour of the morning in a staff meeting upstairs, in which the effects of the recent budget cuts were hotly debated. Everything but Central American and Libyan operations would have to bear the burden of the cuts. He told the bad news to his chief of computers, who had for the third year in a row pleaded for an updating of peripherals. Then he informed his secretary that he would be leaving his office for the entire day. At ten, having cleared the last of the morning's business off his desk, he telephoned Ft. McGillis Army Depot outside Lynchburg and asked for Captain Leonard Treitman, Special Records Section.
“Good morning, Leonard, this is Janos.”
“Hello, Janos. I was just on my way out. Staff meeting. What can I do for you?”
“I'm driving down. Be there a little after lunchtime.”
“Damn. I won't be here. Sam wants me at the Pentagon at two. Can yours hold till tomorrow?”
Janos looked at his watch. He was beginning to feel tight. “No, actually I'll be tied up for the rest of the week. It's routine anyway, unless you're locking the doors.”
Treitman chuckled. “Sounds like another inspection to me.”
“I'd like to run a few tracks. The budget reared its ugly head again this morning. Next thing they'll be down here fussing about our efficiency.”
“I'll tell Charlie and the others that you're on your way down ⦔
“No, don't do that, Leonard,” Janos said a little too quickly. He covered himself, though. “I want this as routine as possible. I just called you as a courtesy. It really doesn't matter if you're there or not.”
“I see,” Treitman said, a bit of disappointment in his voice. He was one of the bookworms who didn't care for someone else playing amongst the bits and pieces in his inner sanctum. “Do me the courtesy of a follow-up report.”
“Of course, Leonard. It goes without saying.”
“I know, but do it anyway.”
On the way out, Charlene, his secretary, chalked him out on the status board for an inspection visit to the Lynchburg facility. She was new from the pool. “Shall I transfer your calls down there, sir?” she asked.
“Unless the Russians invade Poland, make my excuses until morning,” Janos said. It had been his standard joke for years. She didn't crack a smile. McGarvey had told him to watch himself. Not to trust anyone. Anyone at all. They'd be working under the old rules on this one. Janos figured Charlene was high on his list of those not to trust.
Â
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He got his car from the parking lot, drove off the agency's grounds, then took the George Washington Parkway over to the Beltway and down to Interstate 66. The day was pleasant. He rolled down his window, lit a cigarette, and turned the car radio up. They were playing Tchaikovsky, one of the few things Russian Janos could honestly enjoy, though over the past few years even that passion had begun to abate. To say it was Russian wasn't to make it automatically bad in his mind.
He thought about Pat. She said they were becoming comfortable. He agreed with her, though for him it wasn't a point of pride, as it was for her. She liked McGarvey, but this morning before Janos left the house she had come out to the garage in her robe and slippers to face him eye-to-eye. “Janos, tell me you are not going back into the field for Kirk, or for anyone else.” He had lied to his wife, the thought lingered on the long trip south, but as he entered Ft. McGillis the old feelings of excitement and self-preservation had begun to sharpen his wits. He was glad to be back in the field.
“Oh shit,” the officer of the day, Lieutenant Charles Guthrie, said, jumping up as Janos walked in. “Captain Treitman isn't here this afternoon, Mr. Plónski.”
“I know, but that doesn't really matter, does it.” On the way down Janos had mentally prepared for his inspection tour. The safest place to conceal a snowflake, after all, is in a blizzard. “We'll just do a few line items, and then I'll get out of your hair.”
“Yes, sir,” the young lieutenant groaned.
The entire small post was nestled in a heavily wooded area of rolling hills. Lynchburg itself was a few miles to the south, and Appomattox Court House, where Lee surrendered to Grant to end the Civil War, was not too far to the east. Most of the installation's buildings were constructed of red
brick with white Colonial wood trim. From the standpoint of a record-keeping facility, the post was inefficient. The records themselves were kept in a dozen warehouse-type buildings in cardboard bins on steel shelving that rose almost twenty feet toward the very high ceilings. Here, there was no such thing as electronic retrieval. It was thought that the files, as sensitive as they still might be, had aged sufficiently so that their rapid retrieval wasn't necessary. Since Janos became director of records, that had changed. Now, unlike the old days when a few antiquated clerks ran the entire post, there were a dozen young administration types who were constantly being drilled to keep on their toes. The solution, of course, was to reduce the material to computer memory. But the amount of data was so vast, so complicated, and so sensitive that no one dared suggest such an undertaking. Some things were better left undone. The funds that such a project would drain were better spent elsewhere. The main administration building contained a couple of offices; incoming-records processing, in which arriving cartons of material were opened, sorted, graded, and cataloged according to their national security sensitivity and classification, given a retrieval code, and finally placed on the appropriate shelf in the appropriate warehouse; and the reading room, which contained the brains of the system.
Janos followed the lieutenant down the corridor that opened onto the reading room, which stretched across the entire rear of the building. Fully half the large room was taken up by rows of chest-high oak cabinets in which were contained the heart of the retrieval and cross-referencing systems. Laid out much like a library's card catalog, the filed information was given a number akin to a Dewey decimal system classification in which each document or file
was located by building, shelf, and slot, and was also referenced to dates, subjects, and case officers. A few chairs and tables were grouped at one end of the room, and at the back was a short counter from which the runners were dispatched to the various warehouses.
It was fairly quiet this afternoon. Only a couple of tables were occupied. Case officers doing their homework for the DDO, who was a stickler for details during planning. Janos knew neither of them, though he'd seen them around. He knew the type. They were the same as him ⦠or at least the same as he used to be. One of them looked up and nodded as he passed, the other was buried in his files.
“Is there something specific you'll be wanting this afternoon, sir?” Guthrie asked.
They had come to an empty table. Janos put down his briefcase. He smiled as Mary Prentiss, the chief duty clerk, came from behind the counter. She was one of four capable civilians Janos had hired. He'd got her from the staff of an angry U.S. senator.
“I'm going to pick out a few random case histories for your people to track down,” he said to Guthrie. “Nothing important.”
“What nasty tricks have you got up your sleeve today?” Mary said, smiling. She was in her thirties, somewhat too athletically built to be pretty, and was married, though no one had actually ever seen her husband.
“Leonard is gone for the day ⦔ Guthrie started.
“Well, I think we can manage for Mr. Plónski,” Mary said, ignoring him. “Is there anything specific you need, Janos, to make you come all the way down here?”
In many ways she reminded Janos of his own wife. They both were capable women who sometimes
displayed a hard edge. He'd learned early on to relax around them, let them do the work, not fight them. In the end he usually got what he wanted.
“I like to watch you work, Mary,” he said, shrugging. “Maybe we'll look at a few case histories. Maybe we'll see how well you've taken care of the jackets. Maybe we'll see how fast your crew can perform for you.”
“You won't be needing me, then, sir?” the lieutenant asked hopefully.
“No,” Mary said to him before Janos had a chance to reply. “We'll handle it.”
The lieutenant went back to the front office. Treitman didn't like civilians messing around on his turf. He'd get a full report from Guthrie.
“He's okay as long as he's shuffling army forms around. Back here he's a disaster,” Mary said.
At least, Janos thought, the lieutenant didn't actually believe he
owned
the base, as Treitman did, or the records, as Mary did. She was good, but she was worse than the bookworms; she felt she had a proprietary interest in every scrap of paper here. She would be behind the same counter twenty years from now, he figured. A fixture.
“Let's get started, then,” Janos said, opening his briefcase. He took out a legal-size tablet and a pen, but before he closed the lid he made sure she had gotten a good look inside at the several fat case files he had purposely brought with him. Two of them were marked with a diagonal orange stripe, indicating they contained secret material.
“Anything for me in there?” she asked.
Janos looked up. “No.” He locked his briefcase, then moved directly across to the first row of the card catalogs under Case Officers, AâC.
Mary came up next to him as he opened the first drawer and at random picked out a card for Albright,
Edward J. Three terse lines gave a clinical history of his life; date of birth, place of birth, education, service record, employment covers, and finally date of death, in this case April 19, 1959. The body of the card contained the code names of the operations in which Albright had been involved, followed by a three-digit building number, a three-digit row number, and a two-letter three-digit address for each particular jacket. The card was nearly filled on both sides. Albright, it seemed, had been a very busy man.
Janos jotted down three of the file numbers, then looked over his shoulder at Mary, who was hovering just behind him. “Do you want to bring me some pink slips?”
“I'll do them for you, Janos,” she said. “It'll speed things up.”
She went back to her counter as Janos moved to another drawer, this time selecting the card of Aumann, Dieter K., born in 1909 in Hamburg, Germany, ending his career, it seemed, with the BND (the West German intelligence service) in 1957. He jotted down a pair of addresses.
Mary returned with a bundle of pink retrieval slips. Each was supposed to be filled out with the name or subject of the requested file and its archives address, as well as the date and time and the name of the requesting officer, whose signature was also required.
“What have you come up with here?” she asked.
Janos tore off the top sheet of his tablet and gave it to her. “I'm going in for misfiles. Dig these up by address alone. When they come in I'll match them against name and operation.”
“You won't find any in there,” she said.