The Deceiver

by Frederick Forsyth

  McCready began gently, flatteringly, and kept it up for the first hour. Orlov’s answers came fluently and easily. But after the first hour McCready became more and more perplexed, or so it seemed.

  “It’s all very fine, wonderful stuff,” he said. “I just have this tiny problem—well, I’m sure we all do. Everything you have given us is code-names. We have Agent Wildfowl somewhere in the Foreign Office; Agent Kestrel, who may be a serving officer in the Navy or a civilian working for the Navy. My problem, you see, Colonel, is that nothing could actually lead to a detection or an arrest.”

  “Mr. McCready, as I have explained many times, here and in America, my period in the Illegals Directorate was over four years ago, and I specialized in Central and South America. I did not have access to the files of agents in Western Europe, Britain, or America. These were heavily protected, as I am sure they are here.”

  “Yes, of course, silly of me,” said McCready. “But I was thinking more of your time in Planning. As we understand it, that entails preparing cover stories, ‘legends’ for people about to be infiltrated or just recruited. Also, systems for making contact, passing information—paying off agents. It involves the banks they use, the sums paid, the periods payments are made, the running costs. All this you seem to have—forgotten.”

  “My time in Planning was even before my time in Illegals Directorate,” retorted Orlov. “Eight years ago. Bank accounts are in eight-figure numbers, it is impossible to recall them all.”

  There was an edge to his voice. He was getting annoyed. Roth had begun to frown.

  “Or even one number,” mused McCready as if thinking aloud, “or even one bank.”

  “Sam.” Roth leaned forward urgently. “What are you driving at?”

  “I am simply trying to establish whether anything Colonel Orlov has given you or us over the past six weeks will really do massive and irreversible damage to Soviet interests.”

  “What are you talking about?” It was Orlov, on his feet, plainly angry. “I have given hour after hour of details of Soviet military planning, deployments, weapons levels, readiness states, personalities. Details of the Afghan affair. Networks in Central and South America that have now been dismantled. Now you treat me like ... like a criminal.”

  Roth was on his feet, too.

  “Sam, could I have a word with you? Privately. Outside.”

  He made for the door. Orlov sat down again and stared disconsolately at the floor. McCready rose and followed Roth. Daltry and Gaunt remained at their tables, fixated. The young CIA man by the tape machine turned it off. Roth did not stop walking until he had reached the open grassland outside the building. Then he turned to McCready.

  “Sam, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  McCready shrugged. “I’m trying to establish Orlov’s bona fides,” he said. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Let’s get this absolutely straight,” said Roth tightly. “You are not, as in ‘not,’ here to establish Minstrel’s bona fides. That has already been done. By us. Over and over again. We are satisfied that he is genuine, doing his best to recall what he can. You are here, as a concession from the DCI, to share in Minstrel’s product. That’s all.”

  McCready stared dreamily at the waving fields of young wheat beyond the perimeter fence.

  “And what do you think that product is really worth, Joe?”

  “A lot. Just what he said: Soviet military deployments, postings, weapons levels, plans—”

  “Which can all be changed,” murmured Sam, “quite quickly and easily. Provided they know what he’s telling you.”

  “And Afghanistan,” said Roth.

  McCready was silent. He could not tell his CIA colleague what Keepsake had told him in the café twenty-four hours earlier, but he could hear in his mind’s ear the murmuring voice from beside him.

  “Sam, this new man in Moscow, Gorbachev. You know little about him, as yet. But I know him. When he was here to visit Mrs. Thatcher, before he became General Secretary, when he was just a Politburo member, I handled his security arrangements. We talked. He is unusual, very open, very frank. This perestroika he talks about, this glasnost. You know what these will mean, my friend? In two years, by 1988, maybe 1989, all these military details won’t matter anymore. He is not going to attack across the Central German Plain. He is really going to try and restructure the whole Soviet economy and society. He will fail, of course, but he will try. He will pull out of Afghanistan, pull back from Europe. All that this Orlov is telling the Americans will be for the archives in two years. But the Big Lie, when it comes—that will be important. For a decade, my friend. Wait for the Big Lie. The rest is calculated minor sacrifice by the KGB. They play good chess, my former colleagues.”

  “And the networks of agents in South America,” said Roth. “Dammit—Mexico, Chile, and Peru are delighted. They’ve rolled up scores of Soviet agents.”

  “All locally recruited help,” said McCready. “Not an ethnic Russian among them. Tired, clapped-out networks, greedy agents, low-level informants. Disposable.”

  Roth was staring at him hard.

  “My God,” he breathed, “you think he’s phony, don’t you? You think he’s a double. Where did you get that, Sam? Do you have a source, an asset, that we don’t know about?”

  “Nope,” said McCready flatly. He did not like to lie to Roth, but orders were orders. In fact, the CIA always received Keepsake’s product, but disguised and attributed to seven different sources.

  “I just want to push him hard. I think he’s holding something back. You’re no fool, Joe. I believe that in your deepest heart, you have the same impression.”

  That shaft went home. In his secret heart, that was exactly what Roth still thought. He nodded.

  “All right. We’ll ride him hard. He hasn’t come here for a vacation, after all. And he’s tough. Let’s go back.”

  They resumed at a quarter to twelve. McCready returned to the question of Soviet agents in Britain.

  “One I have already given you,” said Orlov. “If you can detect him. The man they called Agent Juno. The one who banked in Croydon, at the Midland.”

  “We have traced him,” said McCready evenly. “His name is, or rather was, Anthony Milton-Rice.”

  “So there you are,” said Orlov.

  “What do you mean, was?” queried Roth.

  “He’s dead.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Orlov. “It has been several years.”

  “That’s another of my problems,” said McCready sadly. “He didn’t die several years ago. He died yesterday morning. Murdered, liquidated, just an hour before we could get the surveillance team around him.”

  There was a stunned silence. Then Roth was on his feet again, absolutely outraged. They were back outside the building again in two minutes.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, Sam?” he shouted. “You could have told me.”

  “I wanted to see Orlov’s reaction,” said Sam bluntly. “I thought if I told you, you might break the news yourself. Did you see his reaction?”

  “No, I was watching you.”

  “There wasn’t one,” said McCready. “I would have thought he’d be pretty stunned. Worried, even. Bearing in mind the implications.”

  “He’s got nerves of steel,” said Roth. “He’s a total pro. If he doesn’t want to show anything, he doesn’t. Is it true, by the way? Is the man dead? Or was it a ploy?”

  “Oh, he’s dead all right, Joe. Knifed by one of a gang of teenagers on his way to work. We call it ‘steaming’; you call it ‘wilding.’ Which gives us a problem, doesn’t it?”

  “It could have leaked at the British end.”

  McCready shook his head. “No time. It took time to set up a killing like that. We only had the man’s real identity the night before last, after twenty-four hours of detective work. They got him yesterday morning. No time. Tell me, what happens to Minstrel’s product?”

  “First to Calvin Bailey,
direct, by hand. Then the analysts. Then the customers.”

  “When did Orlov produce the product about the spy in our Defense Ministry?”

  Roth told him.

  “Five days,” mused McCready. “Before it reached us. Time enough. ...”

  “Now just hang in there a minute,” protested Roth.

  “Which gives us three choices,” McCready continued. “Either it was a remarkable coincidence, and in our job we can’t afford to believe too many of them. Or someone between you and the teletype operator leaked. Or it was set up in advance. I mean, the killing was prepared for a specific hour on a specific day. A certain number of hours before that time, Orlov had a rush of memory. Before the good guys could get their act together, the denounced agent was dead.”

  “I don’t believe we have a leak in the Agency,” said Roth tightly. “And I don’t believe Orlov is a phony.”

  “Then why isn’t he coming clean? Let’s go back to him,” suggested Sam gently.

  When they returned, Orlov was subdued. The news that the British spy he had denounced had been so conveniently liquidated had evidently shaken him. In a change of tone, McCready spoke very gently.

  “Colonel Orlov, you are a stranger in a strange land. You have anxieties about your future. So you wish to keep certain things back, for insurance. We understand that. I would do the same if I were in Moscow. We all need insurance. But Joe here informs me that your standing with the Agency is now so high, you need no more insurance. Now, are there any other real names you can offer us?”

  There was utter silence in the room. Slowly, Orlov nodded. There was a general exhalation of breath.

  “Peter,” said Roth coaxingly, “this really is the time to bring them out.”

  “Remyants,” said Pyotr Orlov, “Gennadi Remyants.”

  Roth’s exasperation was almost visible. “We know about Remyants,” he said. He looked up at McCready. “Washington-based representative of Aeroflot. That’s his cover. The FBI picked him up and turned him two years ago. Been working for us ever since.”

  “No,” said Orlov and raised his gaze. “You are wrong. Remyants is not a double. His exposure was arranged by Moscow. His pickup was deliberate. His turning was phony. Everything he provides has been carefully doctored by Moscow. It will cost America millions to repair the damage one day. Remyants is a KGB major of the Illegals Directorate. He runs four separate Soviet networks in mainland U.S.A. and knows all the identities.”

  Roth whistled. “If that is true, then it is real pay dirt. If it is true.”

  “Only one way to find out,” suggested McCready. “Pick Remyants up, fill him full of Pentothal, and see what falls out. And I do believe it is the lunch hour.”

  “That’s two good ideas in ten seconds,” admitted Roth. “Guys, I have to go down to London to talk with Langley. Let’s take a break for twenty-four hours.”

  * * *

  Joe Roth got his link direct to Calvin Bailey at eight P.M. London time, three o’clock in Washington. Roth was buried deep in the cipher room below the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square; Bailey was in his office in Langley. They were speaking in clear voices, their tones slightly tinny because of the encrypting cipher technology through which both voices had to pass to cross the Atlantic with security.

  “I spent the morning with the Brits up at Alconbury,” said Roth. “Their first meet with Minstrel.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Badly.”

  “You’re joking. Ungrateful bastards. What went wrong?”

  “Calvin, the debriefer was Sam McCready. He’s not anti-American, and he’s no fool. He believes Minstrel is a phony, a plant.”

  “Well, bullshit to that. Did you tell him how many tests Minstrel has passed? That we are satisfied he’s okay?”

  “Yes, in detail. He sticks with his view.”

  “He produce any hard evidence for this fantasy?”

  “No. Said it was the result of the British analysis of Minstrel’s product.”

  “Jesus, that’s crazy. Minstrel’s product over a mere six weeks has been great. What’s McCready’s beef?”

  “We covered three areas. On Minstrel’s military product, he said Moscow could change it all, as long as they knew what Minstrel was telling us, which they would if they had sent him.”

  “Crap. Go on.”

  “On Afghanistan he was silent. But I know Sam. It was as if he knew something I didn’t but wouldn’t say what it was. All I could get out of him was a ‘suppose.’ He hinted the Brits thought Moscow might pull out of Afghanistan quite soon. That all Minstrel’s stuff on Afghanistan would be for the archives if that happened. Do we have any such analysis?”

  “Joe, we have no evidence the Russkies intend to pull out of Kabul, soon or ever. What else didn’t satisfy Mr. McCready?”

  “He said he thought the Soviet networks rolled up in Central and South America were tired networks—clapped-out was the word he used—and all locally recruited help with not an ethnic Russian among them.”

  “Look, Joe, Minstrel has blown away a dozen networks run by Moscow in four countries down there. Sure the agents were locally recruited. They’ve been interrogated—not very pleasantly, I’ll admit. Naturally, they were all run out of the Soviet embassies. A dozen Russian diplomats are being sent home in disgrace. He’s smashed up years of KGB work down there. McCready’s talking crap.”

  “He did have one point. All Minstrel has given the Brits concerning Soviet agents over here are code-names. Nothing to identify a single Russian asset here. Except one, and he’s dead. You heard about that?”

  “Sure. Rotten luck. A miserable coincidence.”

  “Sam thinks it’s no coincidence. Thinks either Minstrel knew it was slated for a certain day and released his identification too late for the Brits to get their man, or we have a leak.”

  “Bullshit to both.”

  “He favors the first option. Thinks Minstrel works for Moscow Center.”

  “Mr. Sam Smartass McCready offer you any hard evidence for this?”

  “No. I asked him specifically if he had an asset inside Moscow who had denounced Minstrel. He denied it. Said it was just his people’s analysis of the product.”

  There was silence for a while, as if Bailey were deep in thought. Which he was. Then: “Did you believe his denial?”

  “Frankly, no. I think he was lying. I suspect they’re running someone we know nothing about.”

  “Then why don’t the Brits come clean?”

  “I don’t know, Calvin. If they have an asset who has denounced Minstrel, they’re denying it.”

  “Okay, listen, Joe, You tell Sam McCready from me, he has to put up or shut up. We have a major success in Minstrel, and I’m not about to let a sniping campaign out of Century House wreck it all. Not without hard evidence, and I mean really hard. Understood, Joe?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “One other thing: Even if they have been tipped off that Orlov is phony, that would be standard Moscow Center practice. Moscow lost him, we got him, the Brits’ noses were put out of joint. Of course Moscow would leak to the Brits that our triumph was hollow and useless. And the Brits would be susceptible to that scam because of their annoyance at not getting Minstrel to themselves. So far as I am concerned, the British tip-off is disinformation. If they have a man, it’s their man who is lying. Ours is on the level.”

  “Right, Calvin. If it arises again, can I tell Sam that?”

  “Absolutely. That is Langley’s official view, and we’ll defend it.”

  Neither man bothered to recall that by now the vindication of Orlov was linked to both their rising careers.

  “Sam had one success,” said Joe Roth. “He came at Minstrel hard and strong—I had to pull him out of there twice—but he got Minstrel to come up with a new name. Gennadi Remyants.”

  “We run Remyants,” retorted Bailey. “I’ve had his product coming across my desk for two years.”

  Roth went on to reveal what Orlov had
said about Remyants’s true loyalties to Moscow and McCready’s suggestion that the simple way to clear the whole thing up would be to pick up Remyants and break him.

  Bailey was silent. Finally he said, “Maybe. We’ll think it over. I’ll talk to the DDO and the Bureau. If we decide to go with that one, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, keep McCready away from Minstrel. Give them both a break.”

  Joe Roth invited McCready to join him for breakfast the following morning at Roth’s apartment, an invitation McCready accepted.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Roth. “I know there are some fine hotels nearby, and Uncle Sam can afford breakfast for two, but I make a pretty mean breakfast myself. Juice, eggs over easy, waffles, coffee suit you?”

  McCready laughed down the phone. “Juice and coffee will do fine.”

  When he arrived, Roth was in the kitchen, an apron over his shirt, proudly demonstrating his talent with ham and eggs. McCready weakened and took some.

  “Sam, I wish you’d revise your opinion about Minstrel,” said Roth over the coffee. “I spoke with Langley last night.”

  “Calvin?”

  “Yep.”

  “His reaction?”

  “He was saddened by your attitude.”

  “Saddened, my butt,” said McCready. “I’ll bet he used some nice old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon language about me.”

  “Okay, he did. Not pleased. Figures we gave you a generous break on Minstrel. I have a message. Langley’s view is this: We got Minstrel. Moscow is mad as hell. Moscow tries to discredit Minstrel by feeding London a skillful line on how Minstrel is really a Moscow plant. That’s Langley’s view. Sorry, Sam, but on this one you’re wrong. Orlov is telling the truth.”

  “Joe, we’re not complete fools over here. We are not going to fall for some Johnny-come-lately piece of disinformation like that, if we had some information, the source of which we could not divulge—which we do not—it would have to predate Orlov’s defection.”

  Roth put down his coffee cup and stared at McCready open-mouthed. The distorted language had not fooled him for a minute.