Red Army Spies and the Blackrobes Trilogy

by Patrick Trese

  She completed her exploration of the first floor on schedule and turned off the living room lights at eleven thirty-five. A neighbor or passerby would assume that Mrs. Vogel had finished watching the news on television and had gone upstairs to bed.

  On the second floor, Oksana found the family album. She took the time to photograph every page. In the attic, she looked through six cardboard cartons and the drawers of an old bureau, but found nothing of interest. She took her flashlight and went down into the basement.

  There was a workbench standing against one of the whitewashed walls. Above the workbench, the late Professor Vogel’s tools were arranged neatly on pegboard. Her light flicked past a gas furnace, a hot water tank, an electric washer and dryer, a large double sink. Oksana looked carefully through a closet where Mrs. Vogel stored her canned goods. The basement, like the attic, was tidy and orderly as if it had recently been cleaned out. She found no books, photos or documents stored in the cellar.

  “I checked the garage,” said the resident agent when Oksana reached the top of the basement stairs. “Very clean. Nothing much in it except the woman’s old Pontiac. Storm windows, garden hose, snow shovel. The usual stuff. Nothing in the trunk of her car except the jack and a spare tire. I left the trunk lid up and the car door open. I messed up the glove compartment and left the car keys on the front seat. What do you want to do with her purse?”

  “Dump it out on the dining room table and take any money you find. We’re finished here.”

  It was one o’clock in the morning. Working without light, the two women moved the burglary loot from the kitchen to the car. Oksana Volkova made one last tour of the house. They had left a convincing mess, but no clues.

  “Where’s the gun?” she asked when she returned to the kitchen.

  “In our car. On the floor under the front seat. Don’t worry,” said the resident agent. “I never leave anything behind. Only the body.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The two women drove out of Bellefonte and headed west toward Ohio and Michigan. Along the way, they stopped in the woods and changed their clothes. Driving on, they disposed of all the items they had taken from Mrs. Vogel’s house, a little bit here, a little bit there. They ate an early breakfast at a rural drive-in restaurant and, before leaving the parking lot, tossed their boots and coveralls into the dumpster out back.

  The gun used to kill Mrs. Vogel ended up submerged in an abandoned quarry along with its silencer. One by one, the coins from her husband’s collection were redistributed to waitresses, cashiers, panhandlers and shopkeepers. Others were dropped into church poor boxes.

  After stops in Cincinnati and Detroit, they headed north to Port Huron, Michigan, and drove across the Blue Water Bridge to Sarnia, Ontario. The officers on duty waved them across the border without question: just two more American tourists starting off on a Canadian vacation. They headed east toward Ottawa.

  Two nights later, eleven women from the Soviet embassy went to a movie theater to see The King and I with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr. Oksana and the resident agent entered the theater a few minutes after the main feature started and went directly to the ladies room. There, Oksana removed her glasses and her wig and changed into Russian shoes. The resident agent stuffed her American raincoat, wig and shoes into a shopping bag. Oksana left without a word and walked down the aisle to where the Russian women were sitting. She slipped into the seat they had saved for her. A few minutes later, the resident agent took a seat in the back of the theater and sat through the rest of the film alone.

  That night, having enjoyed the movie and a dish of ice cream at the restaurant down the street, Captain Oksana Volkova walked through the doors of the Soviet embassy with the other Russian women and disappeared. The resident agent spent the night in a hotel in Ottawa. Next morning, she drove back across the border to the United States to await her next assignment.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Oksana Volkova returned to the Soviet Union in September.

  “Before leaving Canada,” she told General Kalenko as they walked away from GRU headquarters, “I took the opportunity to watch an American political convention on television. The Democrats, not the Republicans.”

  “And you saw something that intrigued you,” said the General. “Or should I say somebody?”

  Oksana smiled.

  “His name is John Kennedy. A wealthy young senator from Massachusetts. He almost won the nomination for vice-president. His supporters fought hard for him. You could see that on the television: people running up and down the aisles, people arguing, the cries and shouts as the leaders of the various states called out their votes. Very exciting.”

  “But he lost,” said the General.

  “He lost this time. By only 17 votes. Next time, I think it will be a different story. He will run for president himself in 1960, so people in America seem to believe. He won’t have Eisenhower to contend with.”

  “True,” said General Kalenko. “No one can beat Eisenhower this November. Adlai Stevenson lost to him last time and he will lose again this time.”

  General Kalenko said nothing for a few moments.

  “So you believe this Kennedy might become President of the United States? In just four years, Oksana?”

  “He’s an impressive young man, General, and a Roman Catholic, as well. Intelligent, charming, somewhat ruthless they say. I think he will run and I think he will win.”

  “It’s a gamble, I know,” said the General. “But if this Kennedy becomes the American president? He might be worth waiting for. It is always better to do something—even the wrong thing—than do nothing and be destroyed. If your project falls apart, Oksana, nothing is lost. But you have identified a suitable target, so keep pushing forward and take the steps to reach it.”

  He clasped her by the shoulders.

  “Good work, Major Volkova.”

  C H A P T E R • 3

  The patrol car was parked in front of the house on the tree-lined street of the small Pennsylvania town. It was a routine call. The two uniformed officers had walked up the driveway and stood outside the side door.

  “It’s unlocked,” said the younger policeman. He pushed open the door and listened. “I don’t hear anything, Jake.”

  “Then go ahead and let her know we’re here.”

  “Mrs. Vogel? It’s me! Cecil Moore! Are you okay? Your friends asked us to check and see if you’re okay!”

  There was no reply.

  Jake Pendleton stepped into the silent house. The kitchen and dining room seemed undisturbed. The living room was a mess. Ransacked, obviously.

  Pendleton drew his revolver and motioned to the rookie he was training to do likewise. The two officers moved slowly up the stairs to the second floor and stopped at the door of the largest room.

  “Oh, my God!” gasped the rookie.

  “Don’t make a move, Cecil. Stay perfectly still and don’t touch anything.”

  The woman on the bed was sprawled on her back. Her head was covered by a blood-soaked pillowcase.

  “It’s Mrs. Vogel, Jake! I’ve known her ever since I was a little kid!”

  “I know, Cecil. But there’s nothing we can do for her now. We have to step back out of here now and leave everything for the detectives just the way we’ve found her.”

  “She always had cookies and milk for us kids! She did, Jake! Always!”

  “That’s right, Cecil. But now we have to take a deep breath and then we have to go room to room and make sure there’s nobody hiding in the house. Her killer’s probably long gone, but stay alert. Just in case, Okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, Jake.”

  “Once we secure the house, we call it in. While we wait for the detectives, we can look around and make notes. But we won’t disturb anything. And we won’t offer the detectives any advice. Got it? They don’t care what we think about anything.”

  “Yeah, Jake. I got it. But why would anyone want to kill a nice old lady like Mrs. Vogel? She wasn’t mean or rich or anything
.”

  “I don’t know why either, Cecil. Somebody may figure that out, but it won’t be us.”

  “But it’s so horrible, Jake. I can’t stop wondering why.”

  “To tell the truth, Cecil, neither can I. But we’ll just keep our theories between us, okay? From here on, we’ll just answer the detectives and do what they tell us to do.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Three days after the discovery of Mrs. Natasha Vogel’s body, Detective Paul Mooney of the Bellefonte Police Department finally found a next of kin to notify. The dead woman’s pastor had suggested he call the Catholic Chancery Office in Pittsburgh which referred him to the Jesuit Province’s office in Oak Park, Illinois, where a Mrs. Henrietta Leary took his call.

  “You’ve phoned at a bad time,” she said. “Father Provincial is on his way to the University of Detroit and can’t be reached until tomorrow. But I’ll make sure he gets your message when he returns next Monday.”

  Detective Mooney sighed. “Well, maybe you can help me, ma’am. We want to make sure that we notify one of your priests, a Father Alex Samozvanyetz, that his sister has died.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Mrs. Leary.

  “She was found murdered at her home here earlier this week.”

  “Murdered, you say? That’s dreadful. Do you know who did it?”

  “No, not yet. But we found family records in her house that indicate that this Father Alex Samozvanyetz was Mrs. Vogel’s only living relative. So we’re trying to get in touch with him.”

  “Yes, of course. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

  “Do you know where he can be reached?”

  “No, not offhand. His name isn’t familiar to me. But let me check our files.”

  Detective Mooney waited patiently until the woman returned to the phone.

  “All I can tell you is that he’s a missionary, but I don’t know where. From what I can see, he left our province to study in Rome back before the war. There’s nothing current on him in our files. He may be deceased himself, for all I know. But I’m sure Father Provincial will be able to get a message to him if he’s still alive. There aren’t that many Jesuits in the world, you know.”

  “Well, I’d appreciate it if someone could find him and let him know about his sister. I’ll be happy to give him a full report if he wants to call me.”

  He gave the woman his name and telephone number.

  “I’ll make sure Father Provincial’s secretary gets this information. He’s very thorough. I’m sure we’ll find Father Samozvanyetz and break the news to him that his sister is dead.”

  “Murdered,” said the detective.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said she was murdered. During a burglary in her home.”

  “Yes, murdered, of course. Well, God rest her soul, the poor dear. But she’s at peace now, I’m sure.”

  Later that morning, Mrs. Leary placed a note on Brother Al Krause’s desk where he would be sure to see it upon his return.

  Police Detective Paul Muni in Bellport, Penn, called to inform Father Provincial that Mrs. Natasha Vogel, the sister of Father Alex Samozvanyetz, S.J., died this week there. Father S. is her only known relative. Said you would find Father S. and let him know. Have enrolled Mrs. Vogel in our Perpetual Mass Association.

  She signed the note and added the detective’s name and telephone number.

  The following Monday, the Provincial and his secretary spent the morning disposing of accumulated paperwork.

  “About this note from Mrs. Leary,” said the Provincial, “I think we’ll leave this for Father Beck to deal with when he takes over. He’ll know how to handle it much better than I do.”

  The Provincial put the note to one side.

  “What’s next?” he said.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Earlier in the spring of 1956, Father John Beck, S.J., who taught Latin and Greek at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, Ohio, received a letter from the Jesuit Father General in Rome advising him that he was appointed to be the head of the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus. Father Beck would assume the office of Provincial later that summer and, for the next six years, he would be the superior of all the Jesuit priests, scholastics and lay brothers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, and would oversee the province’s high schools, colleges, universities, churches and houses of study.

  Father Beck dropped the letter on his desk and said, “Oh, nuts!” He had never aspired to high office. He did not want the job of Provincial or the authority that went with it. But he had no choice. It was, he said later when his appointment became known, the most severe test of his vow of obedience in all his years as a Jesuit.

  “I just hope I can keep my same hat size,” he told his fellow Jesuits. The promotion did not seem to go to Father Beck’s head. If anything, he became more modest. His colleagues noted only one change in his behavior. Until that June, Father Beck had always read the daily newspapers standing up because, he would say if anyone inquired, “A standing man is less prone to distraction.”

  Every evening after supper, Father Beck would stand at a table in the priests’ recreation room and skim through the Press, the News and The Plain Dealer while the conversations flowed around him. He quickly checked the obituaries, the sports results and the first three paragraphs of all major news stories. He scanned the headlines of the business, real estate and entertainment sections, but ignored most editorials, columns, letters to the editor, food and fashion features, and helpful hints for housewives and handymen.

  He did, however, follow the adventures of Li’l Abner, Orphan Annie and Dick Tracy. Once a week, he spent ten minutes paging through Time magazine and the Catholic Universe Bulletin “to stay abreast of trends in mass culture.”

  But that June he sat down to read newspaper and magazine speculation about the speech Nikita Khrushchev may have made in the secret session of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party in Moscow.

  The New York Times had managed to obtain and print what it believed was a full text of the Khrushchev speech and it was reprinted in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Father Beck studied it carefully. There were a few new details, but Father Beck had known or suspected what had been happening under Lenin and Stalin since the Russian Revolution.

  During the war, he had hoped that Hitler’s defeat might halt Stalin’s terror. But, in the Soviet Union, mercy had not followed victory. He had a surge of hope when Stalin died in 1952. But the executions continued, the gates of the Soviet prisons remained locked, and exiles continued to suffer and die in Siberia.

  Father Beck studied the accounts of Khrushchev’s career, just as he had scrutinized his secret speech, wondering if things would be different in Russia now. “De-Stalinization” was what the papers were calling Khrushchev’s policy. But, as far as Father Beck could see, there was no real change. Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin and what he called his “cult of personality” was most likely only a bold political stroke by an ambitious politician.

  “Business as usual,” concluded Father Beck. He put aside the papers and magazines and wasted no more time on speculation.

  The minutes he saved were spent in the chapel. But prayer and meditation produced only two good things to say about his new assignment. It was God’s will and it was terminal. Jesuit provincials serve for six years. Then they are removed from their position of authority and returned to the ranks.

  That can’t be soon enough, thought Father Beck.

  C H A P T E R • 4

  It was the summer of 1961 and Harold Hoffmann was wasting his time in the Soviet Union. It hadn’t taken him long to figure that out. He’d gone there with a bunch of Iowa farmers and agricultural professors, ready to give Russian farmers any help he could. Once there, he found that the Soviet government people escorting the American goodwill group didn’t want any help.

  Harold didn’t know exactly what they were: bureaucrats, guides, interpreters, spies maybe. They sure didn’t want any advice. Much less any
criticism, real or imagined. They didn’t know spit about agriculture, but they sure knew their Marx and Lenin. “Our jailers” is how he came to think of them.

  Was he the only one in the group who felt strongly about any of this? He guessed he was. The other Americans seemed to be having a good enough time, eating the Russian food, drinking the Russian vodka and taking snapshots of each other visiting Russia. So here he was in Siberia, stuck with a bunch of dumb Americans who didn’t seem to give a damn, and being escorted by a squad of Commie bastards who were insulting his intelligence.

  The tour guides made him madder than hell with all their denying that anything was going wrong anywhere in their damned country. They even denied what he could plainly see: they were having a drought. Harold was a farmer and farmers know about drought, dammit. Any fool could look at the sky at sunset and see that dark band just above the horizon. That meant that their topsoil was blowing away, for God’s sake!

  By now, with one more week to go, he had no one to talk to. After a month on this road, Harold’s companions had tired of listening to his observations and complaints. Even those who more or less agreed with him felt it best to keep their opinions to themselves. “We’re not here to bitch about everything, Harold. We’re representing the United States here, don’t forget. So be polite, for God’s sake!”

  And so it was that by the time the Americans reached the seedy hotel somewhere in Siberia, there was only one person willing to listen to what Harold Hoffmann had to say: one of his jailers. Her name was Anya Something. He never could pronounce her last name right, so he’d started calling her “Comrade Anya” and she said that was “Okay” with her. Her English was a hell of a lot better than the rest of the jailers. Almost like an American.

  Anya was a real person, not a robot: a yellow-haired young woman with a round face. He figured she was about the same age as his son’s wife, maybe younger. But she had old eyes, best as he could describe them. Harold sensed the presence of a wise person behind them, someone reasonable, someone he could talk to. And so he did.