Checkpoint Charlie (14 page)

“You know for a fact there's no possibility any of them got up to the top floor, no matter how briefly?”

“No possibility. None. Our people were at the head of the stairs to cordon it.”

“I'll accept that, then.”

“Thank you,” Dennis said. “I'm in charge of security here. I do my job.” But his eyes drifted when he said it; then he sighed. “Most of the time. As you know, there's one point of uncertainty.”

“The safe on the third floor.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It was all in my report through the bag.”

“Go over it again for me.”

He said, “Charlie, what's the point? I doubt anybody got into the safe. There's no sign any thing's been disturbed. But there's a one-in-a-thousand chance that it happened and we have to be guided by that — we have to assume the safe was compromised.”

“Hell of an expensive assumption, Dennis.”

“I know. I can't help it.”

“Files covering several current covert operations.”

“Ongoing operations, right.”

“Including the identities of at least eleven of our agents.”

“Yes. But everything's in code.”

“Never was a cowboy that couldn't be throwed, never was a horse that couldn't be rode. Dennis, there never was a code that couldn't be broke.”

“I know. But each operational file is kept in a different code. The Control on each operation has access only to his own codes.”

“Who assigns the codes?”

“I do. Part of my job.”

“Then nobody else can decipher more than one case-officer's files without access to your code books?”

“Well, they're not code books any more, they're computer programs, but in essence you're correct. Nobody can decode more than a few of those files at a time.”

“Unless they manage to break all the codes simultaneously,” I said. “If they breached those files with a camera we have to write off six current operations and eleven crucially valuable agents.”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, Charlie, but only two of them are crucially valuable. The other nine are just nice to have but in the cruel impersonal terms of modern espionage they're expendable.” He was fiddling with his windproof cigarette lighter, flicking the lid open and shut. “We've already taken preliminary steps to shut down the capers and cover our tracks.”

“Good.”

“The safe was unlocked — before, during and after the fire. In the excitement it didn't occur to anybody to lock it. I guess that's my fault; it's my job to maintain security.”

“Your loyalty to your subordinates is commendable, Dennis, but it doesn't solve the problem.”

Dennis patted ash ferociously from his cigarette, missed the ash tray and bent down to blow the ashes off the desk. I said, “Did the Comrades or did they not photograph the contents of the safe?”

“There's no way to find out. Not for a while until we start getting feedback from them.”

“That could be too late. I'll need to have a look at those files.”

*   *   *

I
SPENT
most of the night with the files and a brown bag full of cooling hamburgers from the cafeteria downstairs. By the end of it I realized why Myerson had picked me for this one. Whenever a job comes along that requires both ingenuity and mortal risk he likes to throw it at me because, whatever the outcome, he can't lose. If I come a cropper then my embarrassment, injury, incarceration or demise will provide him with perverse satisfaction; if I succeed in bringing off the impossible then the success will reflect on Myerson and he will climb higher in the favor of the Langley executives.

The files offered me half a dozen covert capers-in-progress to select from. All of them were espionage operations involving hired Russians who'd been subverted by the American station operatives, usually for money, less often by means of blackmail or other shady coercions. None of them was selling his country out for ideological reasons; spies seldom do except in movies.

The eleven agents listed in the coded files from the Embassy's safe were unimportant people for the most part — two of them were charwomen with access to certain wastebaskets; others were clerks, countermen, typists, a telephone repairman, a minor commissar's chauffeur, a computer technician, a laboratory assistant.

I found possibilities in two of the six operations although the risks in both cases would be high: one misstep and I could find myself in the Lubianka dungeons with electrodes affixed to my tender parts. There were several KGB types who would delight in getting me into such a plight.

*   *   *

D
ENNIS WAS
still nervous. “I could be in bad trouble.”

“Take it easy. The worst you'll suffer may be early retirement. You've only got ten months left anyway.”

“Just the same —”

“Don't ask me to cover up anything, Dennis. I'm not in the whitewash trade.”

“I wouldn't do that. What do you take me for? We've known each other too long for you to say that to me, Charlie.” But he said it too fast and I focused my gaze on the summary sheets so that I wouldn't compound his guilt by witnessing it.

He annoyed me, putting his petty career concerns ahead of the job at hand, but it was understandable. A black mark on his service record this late in his career would hurt his chances to get a top job in civilian security; it could make the difference between the prestige positions in aerospace corporate counterespionage and the routine jobs with the security departments of small banks.

I took out one of the summary sheets. “We'll concentrate on this one. It's our best shot. The MIG-32 designs.”

“Why?”

“If they've learned about the leak they'll plug it — start feeding us phony information.” I tapped the document and it made the flimsy flashpaper rattle. “You've got two people inside the MIG-32 program feeding us data on aircraft development and weapons systems. If the KGB got a copy of this file from our safe they'll put surveillance on these two agents.”

“Maybe not. They may try to fool us by leaving the two alone.”

“Any of the other capers, yes. But this one's too sensitive. They can't afford
not
to plug a leak in the MIG-32 program. It's the most advanced fighter-bomber design in the world. If they get it into production within the next few years they'll be a dozen years ahead of us — unless we can build countermeasures around our stolen copies of their designs. With that much at stake they can't play cute games with our intelligence people. If they know these two guys are working for us they'll either double them or transfer them to a less sensitive sector to get them away from access to top secret data.”

“Well, if the two guys get transferred we'll know about it.”

“Yeah.”

He said, “But how will we know if they're doubled?”

“Why, we'll ask one of them, Dennis.”

*   *   *

I
GAVE
it two days because I wanted to be sure the KGB had time to make their move if they were going to make one. Thursday after dark Sneden and I left the Embassy in an official limousine and led the Russian shadow-cars around the city a while. Then near the old Ekaterinburg Station we pulled around a corner far enough ahead to be out of their sight just long enough for the two of us to get out of the car and hide in the shadows while our driver went on toward the British Embassy, where by prearrangement he would enter the underground garage, wait three hours, then return along the same route to pick us up.

Free of the tail we walked four blocks along poorly lit streets to an unexceptional third-story flat that belonged to a French journalist who was away covering a trade fair in Riga. We'd had the flat swept for bugs that afternoon and in any case I carred a jammer in my briefcase. I don't have any fondness for those gimcracks but sometimes there's no choice.

Dennis made a drink and left me alone with it; he didn't want Poltov to see his face. Poltov had been recruited by another Control and was run by a cutout, all standard procedure, and Poltov had no idea who his real boss was. It didn't matter if he saw my face; I'd be out of the country soon anyway; but Dennis had to be protected — he was Embassy staff.

Poltov arrived at half past eleven. He was a neat small fellow with carefully combed grey hair and the conceited self-confidence of a Cockney pimp. He had something to do with computers — a fact that had made him a great prize to Dennis Sneden's department because it gave Poltov access to every question, answer and program that went through the computer banks on the MIG-32 project.

He introduced himself and shook my hand; he seemed amused by my corpulence. He made himself a drink without asking. Cognac, I noticed — none of the domestic trash for him. He'd be much more comfortable in sharkskin than in the drab Moscow serge he wore; he had ambitions to be dapper. One day, with the money we were paying him, he'd find his way to Austria or Denmark and set himself up in luxury.

When he had tasted the cognac he smiled at me. He spoke a hard Kharkov Russian that I had a little trouble following. “May I ask who you are?”

“Call me Tovarich Ivanovitch if you like,” I said.

“Your accent is atrociously American.”

“I'm not much of a linguist. They gave me the eight-week course at the Army school in Monterrey. Sit down, Tovarich, and tell me what unusual things have happened to you in the past forty-eight hours.”

“Unusual? Yes — there's been one thing.”

“What was it?”

“The summons to this meeting.” He smiled again, enjoying his little joke.

“Other than that, nothing out of the ordinary?”

“No.”

“No break in routine? No phone calls from strangers? No odd encounters? No questions?”

“Nothing.”

“Have you had security briefing? Do you know how to disclose a tail?”

“Yes. I know it if I'm being watched. I'm often watched, it's part of the job. They're clumsy idiots, most of them. I was tailed Monday when I left the computer building. Three men, one car. They shadowed me to the GUM store and then to my flat. I went to bed and in the morning they were gone. It was a routine check on my movements — it happens once or twice a week to all of us. May I ask the reason for these questions?”

“What would you say if I told you that some of the information you've been selling us is false?”

“I would say you are misinformed.”

“Poltov, if they've doubled you and you're feeding us false information for them, we'll have you terminated with extreme prejudice. You know the term?”

“Yes. I understand you have the responsibility to do that. But only if I have betrayed you. And I haven't.”

“You're too calm about it to suit me,” I said. “What, no indignation at the unjust accusation?”

Poltov smiled gently. “We're accustomed to such charges here. Indignation is not a useful response. I am well paid for what I sell to you. My Swiss account grows nicely. I've never sold you false information. If I ever do, I shall expect you to teminate me.”

Beneath the fatalistic surface his smile was really quite bright and ingenuous.

*   *   *

D
ENNIS WAS
cautious. “Why should you believe him?”

“Partly intuition — he's a game player, he enjoys the danger, but he's not devious enough to play both ends against the middle. If he were crossing us he'd be nervous about it.”

“I still don't see how —”

I said, “If they saw the files they know he's working for us. And if they know he's working for us they can't afford knowingly to let him go on releasing accurate data to us. The project's too vital to their security. Either they'll falsify the information he acquires, or they'll force him to discontinue delivering it. Either way we'll know it's blown.”

He managed a sickly smile. “I hope it turns out he's clean.”

“Because if he's clean then your record's clean?”

“Charlie, I'm only human.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “The security lapse was there whether or not the Russians managed to take advantage of it.”

Brief anger flashed from him but then he slumped behind the desk. “I guess I knew that anyway. Listen — no hard feelings. I know you've been fair.” He flicked his windproof lighter open, ignited it and poked his cigarette into the flame.

That was when the phone buzzed. He picked it up, spoke and listened; I watched his face change in a violent exhalation of smoke. When he cradled it he looked angry, then crushed. “The bastards. Begorenko committed suicide this morning.”

“Begorenko?”

“One of our agents in the GRU. One of the names in the safe. Charlie, I think it must mean they got into the safe.”

*   *   *

I
T CALLED
for a council of war. Reinforcements were summoned from the Security Executive — young Leonard Ross flew in from Paris and then we were favored with the presence of Joe Cutter who arrived handsome and alert from Tokyo; finally on Saturday Myerson himself flew in over the Pole from Langley and we had a quorum. In the Embassy's conference room the jammers were running and the blinds drawn.

First Sneden reported, bringing it up to date. “We lost another one last night. Rastovic jumped off the roof of a block of flats in Leningrad. Less than forty-eight hours after Begorenko's death. Of course we don't know if they killed themselves or if they were suicided by the Organs but means the same thing either way — we're blown. Six operations, eleven operatives. Including the MIG-32 program.”

Ross: “Are we sure of that? It couldn't be coincidence?”

Cutter: “Two dead out of eleven? Not a chance.”

Sneden: “I'm afraid Joe's right. I feel miserable about this. It's my fault — I was too lax in my guidelines for third-floor security. The safe should never have been unlocked.”