Snow Wolf (3 page)

"No deals, Massey, the papers,
please. Donahue demanded. I was determined not to be bulldozed. "I think
you'd better listen to me, Donahue. My father died over forty years ago. I
never knew where or when or how he really died. I want answers. And I want to
know exactly what this Operation Snow Wolf was he became involved in."

"Out of the question, I'm
afraid."

"I'm a journalist. I can have the
papers published, and have the article investigated, see if anyone who worked
for the CIA back then remembers something. You might be surprised what it turns
UP."

Donahue paled again. "I can assure
you not a paper in the land will publish anything you may care to write on the
matter we're discussing. The CIA would not allow it. And your investigation
would lead absolutely nowhere."

I stared back at him. "So much for
democracy. Then maybe I couldn't publish here," I said. "But there
are always newspapers abroad you can't control."

Donahue went silent, his brow furrowed,
and I could see his mind was ticking over furiously.

:"What do you want, Massey?"

"The answer to those questions. I
want to know the truth. And I want to meet the people involved with my father
on that mission, whoever's still alive."

"That's quite impossible. They're
all dead."

"Hardly all of them. There must be
someone. One of those on the pad. Alex Stanski. Anna Khorev. Henri Lebel. lrena
Dezov. Whoever they were. I don't just want a report secondhand. You could tell
me anything you want. I want evidence. Flesh and blood evidence. Someone to
speak with who knew my father and knew the operation and knows how he really
died. And," I said firmly, "I want to know what happened to his
body."

This time Donahue really did turn
terribly pale. "Your father was buried in Washington."

"That's a damned lie and you know
it. Look at the copies, Donahue. There's a date written on the last page, 20
February 1953, in my father's handwriting. You people told me my father died in
Europe on that date. That's the date on his tombstone-20 February. Now I may be
dumb, but dead men don't write notes. The CIA said my father died abroad but he
was here in this house on that day. You know something? I don't think you even
buried my father. I don't think you had a body. That's why you people never let
me see it, that's why you gave me all that crap about him being in the water
too long. I was a kid, I wouldn't question not being allowed to see the body.
But I'm questioning it now. My father didn't commit suicide. He didn't drown
himself. He died on this Snow Wolf operation, didn't he?"

Donahue gave a weak smile. "Mr.
Massey, I think you're being highly speculative, and really over the top
here."

"Then let's not speculate any
longer. I went to see my lawyer. I'm having the body exhumed. And when that
coffin's opened, I don't think I'll find my father inside. And then I'll have
you and your superiors dragged into a public court to explain."

Donahue didn't answer, just went a deep
red. He was either totally embarrassed or he wasn't used to being spoken to
like that. He looked briefly at Vitali for support, but Bob just sat there, in
some kind of shock, like he was dumb-assed or completely in fear of the man or
both.

Finally, Donahue stood up, looking like
he wanted to hit me. "I want you to understand something, Massey. You do
that and you'll find yourself in a whole lot of trouble."

"From whom?"

Donahue didn't reply, just kept staring
at me.

I stared back, then adopted a more
conciliatory approach. "If you tell me what really happened to my father,
what harm can it do? I'll agree to return the papers. And if it's that secret
I'll agree to sign whatever you want pledging my silence afterwards. And don't
talk to me about trouble, Donahue. Not knowing the truth about my father, being
told he committed suicide, cost me forty years of trouble and pain." I
looked at Donahue determinedly. "But believe me, if someone doesn't tell
me the truth, I'll do what I say."

Donahue sighed, then looked at me
angrily, and his mouth tightened. "May I use your phone?"

"It's in the hall. You passed it on
your way in." Donahue said, "I think I should tell you at this point
that this matter is no longer within my control. I'm going to make a call, Mr.
Massey. A very important call. The person I speak to will have to call someone
else. Both these people will have to agree before your demands can be
met."

I looked at him. "Whom are you going
to call?"

"The President of the United
States."

It was my turn to react. "And who's
he going to call?"

Donahue flicked a look at Vitali, then
back at me.

"The President of Russia."

The rain had stopped and the sun shone
warmly between broken clouds and glinted off the golden onion domes of
Novodevichy Convent.

I looked down at the two simple graves
lying in the earth, my father's and the worn and weathered slab beside it.

There was no name and no inscription on
the slab, just blank stone, the way my father's was.

In all Russian cemeteries there are small
chairs facing the graves, a place for relatives to come with a bottle of vodka
and sit and talk to their departed. But there were no chairs beside these
stones, they were forgotten, the ground around them overgrown with weeds and
grass.

I wondered about the grave but knew there
was no use wondering, even though my mind was already racing, knowing by some
instinct there was something about this simple unmarked slab that related to my
father's death.

There was so little I knew and so much to
learn. I hoped Anna Khorev would tell me.

I walked back to the cemetery gates and
found a taxi, drove back through the hot, crowded Moscow streets to my hotel
room and waited. I lay on my bed and closed my eyes but I did not sleep.

Now that the rain was gone the heat
lingered like smoke on a windless day.

I had waited over forty years to know my
father's secret. Another few hours was nothing.

The sun was shining on the Swallow Hills,
flowers blooming in the gardens of the big wooden houses that overlook the
Moscow River. The address was one of the old villas from the Tsar's time. A
big, rambling place with a white picket fence and clapboard windows and flower
boxes out front.

The taxi dropped me at the gate and when
I walked up there were two men in plain clothes, Israeli guards, standing
beside a security hut. They checked my passport and one of them examined the
bunch of white orchids I had brought, then telephoned the villa, before they
opened the gate for me and I walked up to the front.

Unexpectedly it was a young woman who
opened the door when I rang the bell. She wore jeans and a sweater and was in
her early twenties, tall and dark-haired and deeply tanned.

The smile was warm when she said in
English, "Mr. Massey, please come in."

I followed her into a cool marble hall
that echoed to our footsteps.

She led me out to the back of the villa.
The gardens were dazzling with color but in the bright Moscow sunshine the
place looked a little shabby. Creepers grew raggedly on walls and looked as if
it could do with a coat of fresh paint.

As I followed the girl across the patio I
saw the elderly woman waiting at a table, She was tall and elegant, with one of
those chiseled, well-proportioned faces that keep their age so well.

She would have been in her late sixties
but she didn't look it. She was remarkably handsome. Her face had a Slavic
look, high cheekbones, and although her hair was completely gray, she looked
like a woman ten years younger. She wore a simple black dress that hugged her
slim figure, dark glasses and a white scarf tied around her neck. She stared up
at my face for a long time before she stood and offered her hand "Mr.
Massey, it's good to meet you."

I shook her hand and offered her the
orchids. "Just to say hello. They tell me all Russians adore flowers."

She smiled and smelled the flowers.
"How very kind. Would you like something to drink? A coffee? Some
brandy?"

"A drink would be good."

"Russian brandy? Or is that too
strong for you Americans?"

"Not at all. That sounds fine."

The girl hovered by her side, poured me a
drink from a tray and handed it across.

The woman placed the orchids on the
coffee table and said, "Thank you, Rachel. You may leave us now."
When the young woman had gone she said, "My granddaughter. She traveled with
me to Moscow," as if explaining the girl's presence, and then she smiled
again. "And I'm Anna Khorev, but doubtless you know that."

She offered me a cigarette from a pack on
the table and I accepted. She took one herself, and when she had lit both, she
looked out at the view. She must have been aware of me staring at her but then
I guessed she was used to men staring.

She smiled as she looked back at me.
"Well, Mr. Massey, I hear you've been very persistent."

"I guess it comes with the territory
of being a journalist." She laughed, an easy laugh, and then she said,
"So tell me what you know about me?"

I sipped the brandy. "Almost nothing
until a week ago, when I learned you were still alive and living in
Israel."

"is that all?"

"Oh, there's more, I assure
you."

She seemed amused. "Go on,
please."

"Over forty years ago you escaped
from a Soviet prison camp, after being sentenced to life imprisonment. You're
the only survivor of a top-secret CIA mission, code-named Snow Wolf."

"I can see your friends in Langley
filled you in." She smiled. "Tell me more."

I sat back and looked at her. "They
told me hardly anything. I think they wanted to leave that to you. Except they
did tell me my father wasn't buried in Washington, but in an unmarked grave in
Moscow. He died on active service for his country and you were with him when it
happened."

She nodded at me to continue.

"I found some papers. Old papers of
his he kept."

"So I'm told."

"Four names were written in the
pages, and they cropped up several times. Yours. And another three names. Alex
Stanski, Henfi Lebel, lrena Dezov. There was also a line written on the bottom
of one of the pages, the last line, 'if they're caught, may God help us all.' I
was hoping you could help me there." For a long time she said nothing,
just looked at me through her dark glasses. And then she removed them and I saw
her eyes. They were big and dark brown and very beautiful.

I said, "That line means something
to you?" She hesitated. "Yes, it means something," she said
enigmatically. She was silent for several moments and turned her head to look
away. When she looked back she said, "Tell me what else you know."

I sat back in my chair. "The file
cover I found, would you care to see it?"

Anna Khorev nodded. I took the
photocopied single sheet from my pocket and handed it across.

She read it for several moments, then
slowly laid the page on the table.

I glanced down. I had read it so many
times I didn't need to read it again.

OPERATION SNOW WOLF.

SECURITY, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY,
SOVIET DIVISION.

VITAL: ALL COPY FILES AND NOTE DETAILS
RELATING TO THIS OPERATION TO BE DESTROYED AFTER USE.

REPEAT DESTROYED.

UTMOST SECRECY. REPEAT, UTMOST SECRECY.

Her face showed no reaction as she looked
back at me.

"So when you read this and the other
pages and learned your father had not committed suicide or died on the date you
were told, you realized there was perhaps more to his death, and went looking
for answers?"

"That's when I was offered a deal.
If I agreed to hand over the original pages I'd hear some answers, and I'd be
present when my father was given a proper burial service. But I was told that
the matter was still highly secret, and that I had to sign a declaration
promising to uphold that secrecy."

She crushed her cigarette in the ashtray
and said, as if quietly amused, "Yes, I know all about your friends in
Langley, Mr. Massey."

"Then you'll also know I was told
that it was all up to you, whether you'd tell me what I wanted to know."

"Which is?"

"The truth about my father's death.
The truth pure and simple about Snow Wolf and how my father ended up in a grave
in Moscow at the height of the Cold War."

She didn't answer, but stood and crossed
to the veranda. i sat forward in my chair. "The way I see it, my father
was involved in something highly covert, something that people are still
reluctant to talk about. I'm not just talking about a secret. I'm talking about
something totally extraordinary."

"Why extraordinary?"

"Because the people from Langley I
spoke with still wanted to hide the truth after all these years. Because when
my father was involved in the operation it was a time when the Russians and the
Americans were out to annihilate one another. And you're the only person alive
who maybe knows what happened to my father." I looked at her. "Am I
right?"