The Monte Cristo Cover-Up

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  She made him feel sentimental. He wondered why he was so affected by her. Was it simply because she looked so much like Chantal? Why did it seem to him that he had known her well for years, for whole ages?

  Pamela told him that she had been born in America of German parents. Since 1950 she had been working for the American secret service. He asked what made her adopt that profession. She shrugged her shoulders, answering frankly; I suppose it was chiefly a longing for adventure. My parents are dead. I wanted to travel, see foreign countries and get experience ..."

  Experience, Thomas thought. Foreign countries. The parents dead. Chantal might have answered the same if she had been asked why she became an adventuress. Chantal, oh Chantal! Why on earth should this young woman resemble her so closely?

  "But I've had enough of it now, you know. It's not my sort of life. I was wrong. Or else I'm already too old for it."

  "How old are you, then?"

  "Thirty-two."

  "Good Lord," he murmured, remembering his own age of forty-eight.

  "I'd like to stop now. Marry, have children and a little home where I could cook nice meals for my family."

  Thomas asked hoarsely: "You ... you're fond of cooking?"

  "It's a perfect passion with me. But why do you look at me like that, Herr Lieven?"

  "Oh ... nothing ... nothing."

  "But a secret service is a sort of fiendish trap that never lets anyone go. As for stopping, who can ever do that? Can you? No one can. No one's allowed to ..."

  [2]

  The enchantment that took possession of Thomas Lieven that night kept its hold on him. It increased steadily. He sank into it as into a sea of sweetness or a cloud of bewildering fragrance.

  From New York he flew on to Washington with Pamela Faber. He was now observing her closely, with positively clinical interest. She had Chantal's frankness, good humor and courage. She had the same feline wildness and energy. But she was better educated and shrewder. Thomas wondered why he always felt so distressed when he looked at her.

  J. Edgar Hoover, at sixty-two the head of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, received Thomas Lieven in his Washington office. Their first meeting lasted only a few minutes. After a cordial greeting the thick-set man, whose keen eyes always seemed a little melancholy, observed: "We can't talk in peace here. Do you know what? The three of us are going to the country for the weekend."

  The house was in Maryland, among ranges of low, wooded hills. There were many such comfortable houses scattered about. The retreat owned by J. Edgar Hoover, the top criminologist of the United States, was full of fine old furniture.

  On Saturday morning, at breakfast, the FBI boss remarked, rubbing his hands: "I think we'll have turkey today. It's a bit early in the season. But I've seen some splendid young birds down in the village. I'll go and get them presently. And cranberries too."

  "Cranberries?" Thomas wrinkled his forehead. Pamela, who was looking more stimulating than ever in a lumber-jacket and blue jeans, explained smiling: "In the States we always have turkey with cranberries, Mr. Lieven."

  "How ghastly! Well, personally I always—"

  "Stuff them, don't you?" Pamela nodded. "So did my mother. She made the stuffing from minced turkey and goose liver and—"

  "Veal, bacon and yolk of egg—" Thomas interrupted her excitedly.

  "Then you add truffles, rub off the husks, chop the truffles up, then two rolls—"

  "And the bacon must be fat—" They suddenly both stopped speaking, looked at each other and blushed.

  J. Edgar Hoover laughed. "Well, what an extraordinary thing! The way you two top each other! It's fantastic! What do you think, Mr. Lieven?"

  "It certainly is," said Thomas. "I've been thinking so for a long time now."

  Two hours later they stood in the kitchen together. Pamela helped Thomas to clean the bird and draw it. She also helped him to prepare the stuffing. When he looked for the pepper she handed it to him. When it seemed to him that the stuffing needed thickening, she was already putting a soaked roll through the mincer.

  Good God, thought Thomas. Good God Almighty!

  Pamela said: "Let's wrap the breast in bacon. That's what my mother always used to do*."

  "Ah, your mother wrapped the breast in fresh, fat bacon?" Thomas repeated, beaming. "So did mine! She used to put it on one side for half an hour before she began roasting." ^

  "Yes, of course, to prevent it getting too dry."

  Thomas held up the turkey's backside while Pamela dexterously sewed up the natural aperture through which the stuffing had been inserted in the fowl's interior.

  Hoover, who was watching them, said slowly: "Mr. Lieven, I'm sure you must be aware that we didn't bring you to America simply because you're such a good cook."

  "But because?" Thomas turned the turkey's backside this way and that.

  "But because you know Mme. Dunya Melanin."

  Thomas dropped the turkey on the table.

  "Oh!" cried Pamela.

  "Pardon," Thomas picked the bird up again. "Where . . . where is the lady at present?"

  "In New York. She was your mistress, I believe?"

  "Well, yes ... I mean ..." Thomas knew Pamela was looking at him. He stared desperately at the turkey's backside. "She imagined she was in love with me ..."

  Hoover stood up. He had now adopted a very serious tone. "We know that a powerful Russian espionage ring has been operating in New York for a long time. We don't know how it operates. We don't know who's in it. But three weeks ago a member of the ring turned up at our embassy in Paris. His name is Morris and he was the last lover of Mme. Melanin."

  Thomas laid the turkey carefully down on the table again. "You need say no more, Mr. Hoover," he said pleasantly. "I'll do my best. Under one condition."

  "And that is?"

  Thomas glanced at the sad-eyed authority on criminal law, at that delicious turkey and at Pamela with her stained, wet hands and her flushed cheeks. How beautiful and desirable she was! He said cheerfully to Hoover: "That I shall be allowed to die as soon as my mission is completed."

  MENU

  Clear Soup with (Toast

  (Turkey with (Truffle Stuffing

  Lemon Sponge Cake

  MARYLAND, 25 MAY 1957

  Thomas cooks for America and decides to die.

  Turkey with Truffle Stuffing

  Prepare a stuffing from a third of a pound of lean pork, a quarter of a pound of veal, half a pound of fresh pork fat, the turkey liver, a quarter of a pound of raw goose liver. Put the mixture through the mincer and add two soaked and

  squeezed bread rolls and two yolks of egg. Add the finely chopped husks of two truffles and the sliced truffles themselves. Add a further quarter of a pound of goose liver fried in butter and chopped, with salt, mixed spices and a dash of madeira. Stuff the turkey with this mixture, sprinkle the fowl with salt and wrap the breast in slices, not too thin, of fresh bacon. Remove the bacon half an hour before the turkey is fully cooked, so as to allow the skin to brown. To roast the bird place it in a large pan with plenty of butter and some boiling water. The fowl should be laid sideways, turned frequently and basted. Only in the last half-hour should it be turned on its back. The cooking time depends on the size of the turkey. It is also possible to use the above mentioned stuffing for the crop only, using a simpler stuffing for the inside of the bird. In that case the goose liver should be replaced by calfs liver. Serve with buttered tinned corn, cranberry sauce and a special salad made from cubed raw apples, oranges and boiled celeriac, mixed with mayonnaise and sprinkled with grated coconut.

  Lemon Sponge Cake

  Take two cups of sugar, six eggs, half a cup of hot water, two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice, the grated rind of one lemon and two cups of flour. Cream the eggs, add the sugar, the hot water, the lemon juice and peel, the flour and lastly the whites of the eggs, whisked until stiff. Pour the mixture into a cake tin and bake at medium heat for forty-five to fifty minutes. The cake can be serv
ed hot or cold, with fruit juice.

  [3]

  In the early morning of November 21, 1957, children playing on the white beach of the fishing village of Cascais near Lisbon found a number of different shells, starfish, fish that were half dead and a gentleman who was quite dead.

  The corpse lay on its back. The face bore an astonished expression. The body was clothed in a gray worsted suit of extremely fashionable cut, though soaked through and through with sea water. On the feet were black shoes and socks. The dead man had on a white shirt and a black tie. There was a circular hole in the shirt over the heart and a great bloodstain, which had also spread to the jacket.

  The children ran away screaming. Five minutes later fisher-

  men and their wives came running to the spot and gathered around the corpse in great excitement.

  An old man said to his son: "See whether the gentleman has a passport on him, Jose." The younger man knelt and searched the corpse. He found four passports on the body.

  Another old man exclaimed: "I know that fellow!" He declared that in September 1940, seventeen years before, he had been well paid by German agents to assist in the kidnapping of an elegantly dressed gentleman. The speaker had at that time been the mate of a fishing boat. "They'd knocked him out somewhere in the city and brought him down here unconscious. Then we stowed him aboard and put out to sea. The Germans told me that a German submarine would be waiting outside the three-mile limit to take him over. But the submarine never got him. Something else happened instead." The old man told them what it was. The attentive reader knows already.

  "He was referred to several times as a merchant named Jonas," the old seaman added.

  "Jose," said the other old fisherman. "Look and see whether one of his passports is in that name."

  Jose confirmed that one of the documents had been made out in the name of Emil Jonas of Riidesheim, a merchant.

  "We'd better tell the police at once," he said.

  [4]

  The police inspector Manuel Vayda of the Lisbon Murder Department dictated the following report to his secretary. "The corpse found on the beach at Cascais was of male sex and aged between 45 and 50. The enclosed Police Surgeon's report—um—urn—certifies the cause of death as shooting with a 9mm. American Army pistol . . . paragraph.

  "In the pockets of the clothing there were found 891 dollars 45 cents, two accounts from New York restaurants, one from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, a German driving license made out in the name of Thomas Lieven, an old-fashioned gold repeater watch and four passports, of which two were German in the names of Thomas Lieven and Emil Jonas and two French in the names of Maurice Hauser and Jean Leblanc ... paragraph.

  "Photographs of Jean Leblanc and Emil Jonas in police archives correspond, both with each other and with the photographs in the other two passports of the dead man. From all

  this evidence the conclusion can reasonably be drawn that the murdered man was the agent Thomas Lieven, who has been the cause of so much talk during the last few years. No doubt the murderer was another agent. The case is being investigated with the utmost vigor . . . what awful rot! As if anybody ever bothered to investigate the murder of an agent! The murderer must have got clear long ago . . . good heavens, senhor-ita, have you gone quite mad? What possessed you to type out those last three sentences?"

  [5]

  "The life of man born of woman is short and full of trouble," intoned the priest at the open grave. It was half-past four in the afternoon of November 24, 1957. Rather more time than usual had elapsed before permission was given for burial.

  It was raining in Lisbon that day and quite cold. The few mourners were shivering. They were all men, with the exception of one young woman. The men looked what they were, professional colleagues of the deceased. Ex-Major Fritz Loos, formerly of the Cologne Army Recruiting Office, stood with bent head. The British agent, Lovejoy, yellow as a quince, sneezed at his elbow. The Czech spy, Gregor Marek, remained motionless, with hunched shoulders. Colonel Simeon and Debras of the French secret service looked thoughtful. Colonel Erich Werthe, once of German Military Intelligence in Paris, and little Major Brenner, bore melancholy expressions. Nearest to the priest stood the American agent, Pamela Faber, who had so much reminded Thomas Lieven of his dead mistress, Chantal Tessier.

  "May the earth rest lightly upon thee, Thomas Lieven. Amen," said the priest.

  "Amen," responded the unusual group of mourners. They had all known Thomas Lieven. He had fooled them all in his time. They had been sent by their chiefs to make sure that the accursed rascal was really dead. Well, thank God, he really is, they thought.

  The grave was filled in. Thomas Lieven's former colleagues each threw a small shovelful of earth into it. Workmen brought up the plain marble stone that was to mark the spot.

  The agents climbed into taxis outside the cemetery. They might just as well have hired a small coach, for they all lived in the same hotel, the best, naturally. Their respective countries paid expenses. They proceeded to send telephone

  messages to England, France, Germany and even beyond the Iron Curtain, from their rooms in the magnificent luxury hotel Palacio do Estoril-Parque.

  As soon as they got their connections they uttered incomprehensible sentences such as: "The yellow shark was served up this afternoon."

  That meant: "I've inspected the corpse in the mortuary. It was Lieven."

  On that afternoon of November 24, 1957, therefore, certain more or less thick files were closed and shelved in various secret service centers. They were all labeled thomas lieven, with a cross underneath the name.

  Pamela Faber, while the other agents, her colleagues, remained glued to their telephones, sat in her room resting. She had ordered iced whisky and soda. She had kicked off her high-heeled shoes and put her admirable legs up on a stool. She sat relaxed hx an armchair and played with a big glass of whisky.

  Her black eyes were shining like stars. Her wide mouth seemed forever on the point of bursting into a laugh at some prodigious secret joke. She sat there smoking, drinking and chuckling while the dusk of a wet autumn evening closed over the city of Lisbon. Suddenly she raised her glass and said aloud: "Here's luck, Thomas, my beloved! Long life to you— for my sake!"

  When we last saw Thomas Lieven, he was in a country house among the rolling hills of Maryland, as a guest of the highest authority on American criminal law. He had just expressed the surprising wish to die as soon as his mission was completed.

  "Aha," said Hoover coolly. "And what sort of death do you propose to die?"

  Thomas Lieven told him and also Pamela what he had in view. He closed with the words: "It is absolutely essential for me to die in order that I may at last— at last —be able to live in peace."

  Hoover and Pamela laughed heartily at this remark and the projected end of Thomas Lieven.

  "We can discuss the details later," Thomas said. "For the time being perhaps you can tell me a little more about my friend Dunya and your Mr. Morris. Where is he?"

  "In Paris," said J. Edgar Hoover.

  "Oh, I thought he was in New York?"

  "He was, up to a few weeks ago. Then he went to Europe.

  In Paris he put up at the Crillon. But then he must have lost his nerve. For on the afternoon of May 4 he left his hotel and crossed the Place de la Concorde to the American Embassy. He asked for the ambassador and said: 'I am a Soviet spy.' "

  [6]

  "I am a Soviet spy," said Victor Morris to the American ambassador in Paris. "I can give you information about the biggest Soviet spy ring in the United States."

  That was at a quarter to six p.m. on May 4, 1957.

  "And why do you wish to do that, Mr. Morris?" asked the ambassador.

  "Because I need your help," Morris replied. His broad, bloated features were adorned with heavy black horn rims. "I received orders to leave the United States and return to Moscow through Paris. I knew what that meant. They were going to liquidate me."

  "Why?"

  "Well.
I ... I think I was a failure," answered Morris in faultless American English. "Women. Liquor. Too much hot air. And then Dunya as a chaser ..."

  "Who is Dunya?"

  "Dunya Melanin, the former wife of a Russian officer. Employed as a doctor's receptionist. I got friendly with her. But we were always quarreling. People noticed it. Mark told me I'd have to make myself scarce at once."

  "Who is Mark?"

  "Head of the biggest spy ring in America for the last ten years."

  It soon came out that Victor Morris was a man of many aliases. His real name was Hayhanem. He was a lieutenant colonel in the Russian secret service. From 1946 to 1952 he was trained in Russia for espionage work in the United States, as a colleague of the legendary, the fabulous "Mr. Mark."

  It is worth while considering what that six years' training meant. Hayhanem, alias Morris, had to forget his old personality completely and enter upon a new one. He had to learn to read, speak, eat, walk, think and argue like a man with a New York background. He had to drive his car like an American. And dance, write, smoke and get drunk like one. ~ Colonel Hayhanem became a new man. The task had been tremendous. And yet someone else had already succeeded in it

  This was "Mr. Mark," the best spy the Kremlin had ever had in the States. It was ten years before anyone suspected him.

  Hayhanem, alias Morris, passed all the tests. On April 14, 1952, he reported, armed with an excellently forged American passport, to Michael Svirin, secretary of the Soviet Delegation to the United Nations in New York. Svirin met him after taking every conceivable precautionary measure, gave him money and instructed him as follows. "Contact Mr. Mark. You and I will never see each other again. From this moment on you exist for me as little as Mr. Mark does officially. You can never count on any help from me. I am a diplomat and must not have anything to do with you."

  "And how do I recognize Mark?"

  "He will call you up. At your hotel. Here is a little carved pipe. Keep it in your mouth as a recognition signal when you go to meet Mark after he has made an appointment with you."

  Three days later Mark telephoned. "Five-thirty p.m. precisely in the men's room at the RKO movie theater, Flushing."