Red Army Spies and the Blackrobes Trilogy

by Patrick Trese

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Charley was shivering, chilled to the bone. His mind was descending into a dark unfamiliar place. His Master of Novices had vanished before his eyes and he had seen this stranger emerge. Charley had listened to this Russian Army intelligence agent’s God-awful story and now he felt himself changing as well.

  Carissime Charles Coogan, the devout novice, no longer existed. Charley was alone, abandoned, lost in the dark, a frightened young man filled with hatred for the man who had betrayed him.

  The Rector’s office door remained closed. The minutes dragged by and Father Thornton kept glancing at the clock on his office wall. The Russian and the novice continued staring at the floor, avoiding each other’s eyes. The silence had become unbearable. The Rector thought he should say something, anything to break the tension, but then thought better of it.

  Finally, the telephone rang. Father Thornton answered immediately, listened for a moment, then swiveled around to thrust the phone toward Charley. “It’s your father.” he said. “He wants to speak with you.”

  Charley sprang out of his chair to take the call.

  “Get me out of here, Dad! I want to come home!”

  “I can’t. Not right now, Charley,” he heard his dad say. “Listen carefully. This is important. Does this phone have a speaker?”

  Charley asked the Rector who shook his head.

  “No, Dad.”

  “Who else is with you in the room?”

  “The Russian and Father Rector.”

  “Make sure the door is closed and tell them that you are going to repeat everything I’m going to say to you. Tell them this right now.”

  Charley did as he was told.

  “The Soviet Union must not learn (or even suspect) what we have learned today.”

  The Rector and the Russian agent leaned even closer while Charley paused between sentences.

  “This situation is now officially designated Top Secret,” Charley repeated.

  “You three must keep this absolutely secret.”

  “Father Novak has informed the Jesuit Father General in Rome.”

  “A special Jesuit official is now on his way here to deal with the situation at Milford.”

  “Now this is absolutely vital.”

  “You three must change nothing about your behavior.”

  “Continue your regular activities until he arrives to take charge.”

  “This afternoon I will brief the President.”

  “Can I assure the President that you three will keep acting as if everything is normal at Milford . . .”

  “. . . until we determine what to do about all the problems we face in Milford, Rome and Washington?”

  Charley held the phone aloft.

  “Yes, I can,” said the Rector, then the Russian and then Charley.

  “Okay,” said Herb Coogan. “This is just for you, Charley. I’m sorry I got you into this mess and I know what I’m asking you to do now is going to be really hard for you, but it’s more important than you can imagine. Just remember that I love you, Charley. I know you and I know you’ll do your best.”

  “I love you, too, Dad,” said Charley. “Don’t worry. I’ll do the best I can.”

  C H A P T E R • 12

  President Kennedy’s rocking chair was gone.

  That was the first thing Herb Coogan noticed when he stepped into the Oval Office that afternoon. He wondered where the rocker was now. Probably in storage, he thought, along with everything else that had made the Oval Office so warm and comfortable. The big room was colder now, as unfriendly and intimidating as the man who now presided over it.

  Special Agent Herb Coogan was having a bad day and it wasn’t even half over. Earlier at FBI Headquarters, the Director himself had taken him apart, piece by piece. And now here he was, just a few minutes past noon, standing tall on the Oval Office carpet being chewed out by Lyndon B. Johnson, the new President of the United States, whose anger and profanity added several inches to his height.

  J. Edgar Hoover, who was standing at Herb’s side, was seething inwardly and seemed to be getting shorter and meaner looking. Herb was trying to stay calm and detached through the barrage of verbal abuse. Quite a pair, thought Herb: a domineering Doberman and a bitchy Boston bull.

  At last, it was time for Herb to speak up.

  “Do you want my resignation, Mister President?”

  “No, I do not want your goddam resignation, Agent Coogan! I want you to get your President and your country out of this cesspool that you have dropped us into! If there was anybody else in the world I thought could handle this particular job, I would get him to do it. But, I can’t. So, you are going to do it, Agent Coogan!”

  The President aimed his index finger at Herb. “And you are going to do it right!”

  The Director, eyes bulging, hissed up at Herb. “We’ll discuss your resignation after you clean up this mess.”

  “The hell you will!” thundered the President. “You just don’t get it, do you, Director Hoover! I’ve got a dead Roman Catholic President on my hands, you understand that? The damn country is torn apart with grief and anguish! I’m doing the best I can to hold it all together! And what I don’t need—and what our country cannot afford!—is any bullshit speculation from the Catholics or the anti-Catholics or the radicals or the John Birchers or whoever!”

  Lyndon Johnson slapped the palm of his right hand on the desktop.

  “This has got to be the quietest goddam job that you people ever got done! Is that clear? You will do nothing, now or hereafter, that will in any way call any attention whatsoever to Agent Coogan or this case. No dismissal, no resignation, no demotion, no transfer, not even an internal reprimand! As far as you are concerned, Director Hoover, Agent Coogan here is golden until his retirement!

  “Absolutely nothing is to be done to cause the press to take even the slightest interest in Agent Coogan! Just leave him in charge of your office in Cleveland! That’s an obscure enough place for him to be, isn’t it? Just leave him in goddam Cleveland. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Mister President.”

  “Can you imagine, Director Hoover, how this country would react if they ever found out that your FBI made it possible for their beloved President Kennedy to spend hours whispering God-only-knows-how-many state secrets into the ear of a goddam Russian spy? You and I would be dog meat, Director Hoover.

  “So we don’t ever want to read anything about this mess in the newspapers, do we? And we sure as hell don’t want to see a story about some priest turning out to be a Russian spy on the goddam Huntley-Brinkley!”

  The President lowered his voice and walked around his desk toward Herb.

  “What’s done is done,” said the President. “Now the job at hand is to make damn sure nobody finds out that any of this ever happened.”

  He put his hand on Herb’s shoulder and favored him with his most sincere country-boy smile. “I sure as hell know you’re going to handle this challenge, Agent Coogan,” said the President.

  His tone now was one of sweet reasonableness. “The task at hand is to get this goddam spy-priest out of this country and back to Russia without anybody figuring out a damn thing about him. Or what he was doing here. Now, do you think you can do that for me, Agent Coogan?”

  “I’m sure I can, Mister President, as long as the Russians don’t reveal anything about it,” said Herb. “But Khrushchev may say something publicly.”

  “Don’t you worry yourself about that. I’ll take care of Chairman Khrushchev. After he hears what I have to say to him, I’m sure that son-of-a-bitch will be more than eager to keep all of this quiet.”

  J. Edgar Hoover spoke up.

  “The woman in charge of the spy ring must be apprehended. I’m not sure that can be done quietly.”

  “Oh, really?” The President raised his eyebrows. “Your agents can’t take some woman into custody without the whole goddam world finding out about it? Do you have to invite the TV networks to film you picking her u
p? Do you have to hold a news conference to announce her arrest? Couldn’t you and the FBI, just this one time, try to stay out of the newspapers?”

  He turned back to Herb.

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out how to arrest this woman without a fuss, Agent Coogan. You don’t have a burning desire to see your name in headlines, now do you?”

  “No, sir,” said Herb. “But the Director makes an excellent point. Any apprehension is unpredictable. This woman could resist arrest. Things could get out of hand. There could be violence, even gunfire. That would certainly attract attention.”

  “Kidnappers manage to do it every day,” said the President. “They snatch people right off the goddam street in broad daylight and nobody’s the wiser. Why not steal a page or two from the criminals’ handbook and get that woman under lock and key as quietly as possible? People can just disappear. Right?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Herb. “But I’ll need some help from the Jesuits.”

  “Yes, you will, Agent Coogan. What about the Jesuits? Will they cooperate? You want me to call the Pope for you? I can do that, you know. Holy Father and I get along right fine.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, Mister President. The Jesuits assure me that they will help as much as they can.”

  “And with no publicity?”

  “Definitely with no publicity. That’s the last thing they want.”

  “I’m sure as Hell glad to hear that.”

  “The Jesuit’s Father General in Rome is sending a deputy to size up the situation here and help us figure out how to fix it without raising questions anywhere—especially at the Vatican. That may take some time to figure out, sir.”

  Lyndon Johnson folded his arms and stared at the carpet.

  “And you’re sure you can work things out with the Jesuits?”

  “I believe so, Mr. President.”

  “Well, if the Jesuits can’t figure it out, nobody can,” said the President. “So I’m giving you the authority to work this out with them and get this job done. And rest assured that I will not be saying a word about this to Khrushchev or the Pope or even Lady Bird.”

  President Johnson walked back behind his desk and sat down.

  “I thank you both for dropping by,” he said without looking up. “It was right nice talking to you.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  J. Edgar Hoover stalked out of the Oval Office, jaw set, eyes blazing. The Director said nothing until they left the White House and climbed into his waiting limousine.

  “Remember what President Johnson told you, Agent Coogan. You get this job done right or you’ll wish you were never born.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Herb.

  The limousine pulled out of the White House driveway and headed for FBI headquarters.

  “What will you need?” asked the Director.

  “I’d like to request the assistance of one of the men at the Justice Department.”

  “Those people? One of Bobby Kennedy’s boys?”

  “His name is Mitchell Sloane. He took part in the initial interrogation of the Russian imposter. He’s up on the case. He’s fluent in Russian. He’ll be helpful in dealing with the GRU woman.”

  “Very well,” growled the Director. “Get him. And whatever else you need. Just remember this, Coogan. You had better hope to God your new pal Lyndon Johnson gets elected to a full term next year. Once he’s gone, so are you. That’s a promise.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Late that night at Milford, Charley Coogan slipped into the Novices’ chapel. The only light came from the red glow of the candle in the golden lamp beside the sacristy door. Charley knelt in the darkness for a while and tried to pray. But once again he could not, no matter how he tried.

  He stood up and surveyed the rows of chairs and prie-dieux, the carved wooden figures in the Stations of the Cross along the dark paneled walls, the crucified Christ hanging above the altar. Whatever had enthralled him in this chapel, whatever he had heard or experienced here was gone.

  Charley sank down on his chair, weeping silently. His anger was gone and now there was nothing but sadness. Everything he had heard and learned and felt in this chapel, everything he had come to believe and wanted to love and to become had been stolen from him. And he was never going to get it back.

  It was as if someone he loved had died. And in a way, he thought, that was true. Charley had never known the real Father Samozvanyetz. But he had lost him nevertheless. And he wasn’t going to get him back, either, that’s for sure.

  Charley wiped his eyes and blew his nose with his handkerchief. What’s done is done, he told himself. Whatever it was, it was gone. So to Hell with it. Turn the page and get on with it. Maybe a walk in the cold winter wind would clear his mind.

  Hands jammed into the pockets of his pea-jacket, he jogged out past the cemetery, past the benches where the novices took recreation in warmer weather, out around the perimeter of the ball fields, back toward the novitiate building, past the tall cement handball courts, then onto the gravel path that led through the woods to the statue of Saint Stanislaus. He stopped there and sat down on the cold wooden bench.

  Only then did he realize that when he left the chapel he had genuflected. It was just habit, that was all.

  He stared up at the dark metal face of the Jesuit novice, the very image of youthful Ignatian perfection.

  I’ll be leaving here soon, he thought. He would do what his Dad told him he had to do. He’d do his best to help the Jesuits get through this crisis. Just like the Russian who pretended to be Father Samozvanyetz, he would continue to play his own part and help keep the Milford Jesuits in the dark so that they would not suspect that everything here was far from normal. It was the right thing to do and he would do it until he was no longer needed.

  But as far as Charley Coogan was concerned, his Jesuit game was in its final minutes. “It’s almost over, Stosh,” he said to the statue. “When the Jesuit from Rome gets here, I’ll be going home. The sooner, the better.”

  Before getting up, Charley felt under the bench and pulled out the thumbtack as he been told to look for every day from now on. The head of the tack was yellow, so Charley put it in the pocket of his jacket and headed back to the novitiate building where he dropped the yellow thumbtack into a waste basket. How long, he wondered, before he found a red one.

  C H A P T E R • 13

  Father Edmund Fitzmaurice, S.J., swept into the Provincial’s office on the sixth day of December. “My name rhymes with Horace,” said the Jesuit Visitor from Rome. “I had hoped to arrive on Blessed Edmund Campion’s feast day, for dramatic effect. Alas, appearing within the Octave was the best I could manage.”

  The Visitor was nothing at all like the urbane envoy Father Novak had been expecting. Father Fitzmaurice was one of the tallest Jesuits he had ever encountered: long and lean, mostly bone and gristle, towering almost seven feet into the air.

  The Visitor’s clerical black suit was cut along English lines, but no one would call it stylish. Beneath his well-worn suit coat, he wore a grey cardigan sweater with mismatched buttons. Patched at the elbows, Father Novak supposed. He could envision the priest puttering around a country churchyard, not prowling the corridors of ecclesiastical power, wise in the ways of Vatican institutional intrigue.

  Yet here he stood: this fortyish, diffident English clergyman, dispatched with secret instructions from the Father General of the Society of Jesus and armed with the awesome authority to execute them.

  “We’ve been eagerly awaiting your arrival,” said the Provincial. “As you know, we have some big problems to solve here.”

  “Indeed you do,” said the Visitor, bending down to grasp the Provincial’s hand. “And I shall do whatever I can to be of service.”

  He took a moment to survey the Provincial’s office. “Quite pleasant,” he said. “I do hope no one finds my presence in any way oppressive, Father Novak. Please treat me as, I think you Americans say, one of the boys? Which, in point of
fact, I am, actually.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Father Novak. “Just one of the boys. So be it.”

  “I shall attempt to blend in as best I can,” said the Visitor, waving his hands in the air in what he apparently hoped would be a gesture of helplessness.

  Father Novak laughed out loud and the English Jesuit smiled, obviously aware of the absurdity of what he had just said.

  Father Fitzmaurice folded himself onto the leather sofa adjacent to the Provincial’s desk. Once seated, with his large shoes planted on the floor, his knees were almost level with his chest. Otherwise, the Visitor seemed to be built on a normal scale. His head was no larger than most and smaller than some. His light brown hair was, to Father Novak’s eyes, much too long and unruly. It seemed to interfere with his hearing as well as his sight. He was constantly brushing it away from his ears as well as his eyes. Slipping up and down his nose was a large pair of black horn-rimmed spectacles through which he peered or looked over or took off and waved about to make a point or amplify a self-effacing remark.

  “I’m just here to listen, actually,” Father Fitzmaurice was saying. “Well, to listen, mostly, first of all. But then, only later, mind you, shall I be recommending possible courses of action, all of which have been considered by my superiors in Rome who are, one might say, in the business of finding solutions to difficult problems.”

  “At which point,” said the Provincial with a smile, “we will do exactly what you recommend in the spirit of Perfect Obedience.”

  “Well, actually, yes, I suppose so, in a way,” said Father Fitzmaurice. “I mean, that’s what’s expected of all of us, after all, is it not, Father Novak?”

  The Provincial laughed. “As a matter of fact, we’re extremely eager to receive what we’ll call your recommendations. Frankly, Father Fitzmaurice, we are stumped.”

  “Then, may I suggest that we start the process of un-stumping? I met your Brother Krause on the way in,” said the Visitor. “I understand that he prepared the transcript of the impostor’s initial interrogation? Might I speak with him first?”