The Monte Cristo Cover-Up

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  Most of the thirty-eight would not in fact have found it necessary to attend the court from the beginning, since from the afternoon of the first day onward they could read the most detailed descriptions of the proceedings in the newspapers.

  For security reasons the FBI agents and other endangered persons giving evidence had to appear on the witness stand with their faces covered. They wore hoods provided with small apertures for mouth and eyes.

  Thomas Lieven also appeared with a head covering of this description. There was a card affixed to his chest with a number on it, as in all the other cases of masked witnesses.

  Extracts from his examination in court by Judge Byers, taken down in shorthand, read as follows.

  Q. Number seventeen, you were present when Mr. Abel was arrested. Describe his behavior.

  A. Mr. Abel was very calm. He only became upset during the search of his premises.

  Q. Why?

  A. Because a radio was turned on full blast in the apartment next door. Elvis Presley was singing. Mr. Abel pressed both fists against his ears. He exclaimed—and I report his exact words—"That is sheer poison to the nerves. This chap is the main reason why I want to return to Russia." (Laughter.)

  Q. I must insist on absolute quiet in court. Number seventeen, you interviewed some of the tenants of the block. What were their impressions of Mr. Abel?

  A. The best conceivable. They all thought him a most . admirable human being. He had painted many portraits

  of them and also of officials of the branch of the FBI which was situated in the building. (Sensation in court.)

  Q. He painted officials of the FBI?

  A. Half a dozen of them, your honor. And very good portraits they were, too.

  Q. According to the papers submitted in this case Abel kept the short-wave transmitter he was in the habit of using quite openly in his studio.

  A. That is so, your honor.

  Q. Did it not attract the attention of the FBI agents whom he painted?

  A. It did. Many asked to have the apparatus explained to them. They supposed Abel to be an amateur wireless expert. Once the transmitter began to function while Abel was painting one of the agents. He sent a brief reply. Transmission then ceased. The agent asked: "Who was transmitting then?" Abel replied: "Who do you think it was? Moscow, of course!" (Loud laughter.)

  Q. If that occurs again I shall have the court cleared. Number seventeen, it was you who picked up a quantity of old paper handkerchiefs in which Abel had concealed tiny rolls of microfilm. One of them contained the key to a complicated cipher. Did you succeed in decoding the message which the defendant had written out immediately before his arrest, in the form of several four-figure groups of numbers?

  A. I did so succeed, your honor.

  Q. What was the message?

  A. (read out from a card) "We congratulate you on your lovely rabbit. Don't forget to practice your Beethoven score. Smoke your pipe, but hold the red book in your right hand."

  Q. That cannot possibly be the text in clear.

  A. Of course not, your honor. It is the deciphered numerical code. Abel seems to have double-coded all his messages.

  Q. What about the key to the second code?

  A. I'm afraid it never came to light, your honor. (Loud laughter. Sensation in court. Judge Byers adjourned the hearing at 11:34 a.m.)

  The trial lasted nearly a month. The jury then retired to consider their verdict. They debated for hours, while the spec-

  tators and the reporters grew more and more restless. They wondered what could be keeping the jury so long.

  It was not until a quarter to eight on the evening of October 23 that the jury returned. A deep silence fell in court. All present rose. Judge Byers asked: "Well, Mr. Foreman, have you decided upon your verdict?"

  "Yes, your honor."

  "Then how say you?"

  "Our unanimous verdict is that the accused is guilty in the sense of the indictment."

  Not a muscle twitched in the features of Rudolf Ivanovich Abel.

  On November 15 judgment was pronounced. The accused was sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment and ordered to pay a fine of two thousand dollars.

  Such a sentence on the greatest Russian spy of all time was found incomprehensible. The entire country was bewildered by it. But only for a few days. Then the Abel case, like everything else in life, was forgotten.

  By a strange coincidence, in the summer of 1960, as these lines, were going to press, history, so to speak, overhauled us and made the forecast of our friend Thomas Lieven a reality. We hope that the kindly-disposed reader will pardon a short leap forward into the present. We must attempt it, for otherwise the story of the Abel case would remain incomplete.

  On May 1, 1960, an American reconnaissance aircraft of the U2 type fell into the hands of the Soviets near the Russian city of Sverdlovsk. All newspapers carried the headline:

  AMERICAN AIRCRAFT SHOT DOWN BY RUSSIAN ROCKET. The pilot answered to the name of Francis G. Powers. He was thirty years old, married and a citizen of the state of Virginia in North America. The event occurred at a time of great political tension, immediately before the so-called Paris summit conference, at which Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Macmillan and De Gaulle were to discuss the prospects of world peace. The Sverdlovsk incident served the Soviet Union as a pretext for cancellation of the conference before it had even started.

  The pilot was brought before a military court in Moscow. The Soviets made the occasion one of a great stroke of propaganda. Rudenko, the public prosecutor, who had acted as such on behalf of Russia at the Nuremberg trials, declared in his opening speech: "In this court not only the pilot Powers but also the Government of the United States, the true instigator and organizer of this outrageous crime, stands on trial."

  Although the public prosecutor had characterized the crime as "outrageous," he showed a more reasonable spirit at the conclusion of his speech. "I take the remorse of the defendant into consideration and do not insist upon the death penalty." He asked for a sentence of fifteen years' imprisonment. The Court reduced this period to ten years.

  The Soviet spy Abel, sentenced to thirty years' incarceration, had a wife, a married daughter and a small son in Russia. They had not been allowed to testify at his trial. On the other hand the wife of Powers, his parents and his mother-in-law received entry permits to the Soviet Union and were given special seats at his trial.

  Oliver Powers, the defendant's father, a respectable shoemaker, told journalists: "I hope that Khrushchev will pardon my poor boy. After all, the Russian leader lost a son in the war against the Germans, in which our soldiers fought side by side with the Russians. But if Khrushchev cannot pardon my son perhaps he could be exchanged for a soviet spy who has been imprisoned in the United States. I mean the secret agent Abel."

  So what will happen now?

  Hard to say.

  [13]

  Now let us return with all speed to the autumn of 1957. And once more we have to apologize, this time to the Federal Bureau of Investigation itself, for speaking of the "Harper Clinic," which of course, since we wish to oblige the FBI in this matter, is not called by any such name. Nor do we intend to state where it is situated. But it exists, we know where it is and we also know its right name.

  It was on October 23, 1957, that the Soviet spy Abel was found guilty. On October 25 two persons visited J. Edgar Hoover's office in Washington. They were Thomas Lieven and Pamela Faber.

  The beautiful young woman with blue-black hair and wide, glowing red lips repeatedly glanced sideways, with great affection, at Thomas Lieven.

  Hoover was in good temper. He greeted the pair heartily.

  "What can I do for you?" he asked.

  "You can redeem your promise," said Thomas amiably. "You remember that I once asked you the favor of allowing me to die once my mission was fulfilled?"

  "Yes, I remember," answered Hoover slowly.

  "Well," exclaimed Pamela cheerfully. "Now the time has come. We want to be married a
s soon as possible afterward."

  Hoover bit his underlip. "Naturally I'll keep my word," he said. "But you mustn't suppose that it will be a pleasant job, Mr. Lieven. Things like that hurt. They hurt like hell."

  "Well, one should be ready to do anything to ensure one's death," Thomas remarked. "Apart from that, I hear you have some really first-class men at the Harper Clinic."

  He didn't call it the Harper.

  "Very well, then. I'll fix it up with them. Have a good death and be very, very happy with Pamela. All the same, it may be weeks before you're dead. We shall have to wait until we can find a corpse that looks like you. They don't crop up every day."

  "Really, Mr. Hoover, in a big country like the United States you ought soon to be able to hunt up something suitable," said Thomas Lieven.

  On October 27, Thomas Lieven, accompanied by Pamela Faber, entered the Harper Clinic, a secluded building surrounded by high walls and guarded day and night by FBI agents. It lies somewhere in the United States.

  Thomas was given a comfortable room with a window overlooking a great park. Pamela was accommodated next door. As soon as they had settled in she came to see him. They took two hours to say hello to each other.

  At last Pamela murmured, with a tired, happy sigh: "Oh, how wonderful it is to be alone with you after all this time!"

  "When they give us the chance," he said, caressing her affectionately. "It's really a funny sort of situation. Just think, I'm going to have a new face, new papers, a new name and a new nationality—everything will be new! Not many people are so lucky." He kissed her. "How would you like me to look then, my sweet?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, you know, when they begin cutting up my face, I shall undoubtedly be allowed to make certain suggestions. Regarding my ears or nose, for instance."

  Pamela had to laugh. "As a matter of fact, when I was a child I was mad about the Greeks. I used to think, the man I marry must have a Grecian profile. Do you suppose ... er ..." She blushed. "Oh, it's too silly," she murmured.

  "You mean you'd like a Grecian nose?" he inquired indulgently. "Well, if that's all! My ears all right?"

  "Absolutely, darling. Everything else is quite in order."

  "Are you sure? Now's the time, you know! The operation will be like washing up dishes. The doctors here can unquestionably make everything about me nicer—bigger or smaller— just as you wish . . ."

  "No," she cried passionately. "No! Otherwise everything ought to remain exactly as it is!"

  [14]

  During the next few days three doctors had their hands full dealing with Thomas. They photographed him, measured his skull and left no part of him unexamined. Then he was forbidden to smoke. Then he was forbidden to drink. Then Pamela had to— Then Thomas had to drop everything.

  They operated on him on November 7. When he recovered consciousness he was lying in his room with his head bandaged and painful.

  On the fourth day after the operation he began slowly to feel better. The doctors changed his bandages. Pamela sat all day at his bedside and talked to him. But she could only tell him serious stories. For whenever he tried to laugh under his bandages it still hurt.

  One day an impatiently awaited telegram arrived for Mr. Grey, as he was known at the Clinic. He read:

  AUNT VERA ARRIVED SAFELY STOP BEST LOVE EDGAR

  Pamela read the telegram with him. She uttered a happy little cry and squeezed his hand. "They've found the corpse, darling! They've found the right corpse!"

  "Nothing can go wrong now," Thomas commented, with satisfaction. But he was mistaken. Something did go wrong unfortunately, most unfortunately. On November 13 a worried gentleman with melancholy eyes and a heavy cold arrived at the clinic. He asked to see Mr. Grey alone and then introduced himself as John Misaras, FBI agent. He brought bad news.

  "An annoying thing happened to that body. We're most distressed about it, Mr. Grey, believe me."

  "What happened to it then?" Thomas asked anxiously.

  "It's gone."

  "Where is it now then?"

  "In Ankara."

  "Aha," Thomas murmured, disconcerted.

  "It's been buried."

  "Aha," Thomas murmured for the second time.

  "There were five bodies available that day, you know. And two were mixed up. Ours and another. We still have the other, a Turkish diplomat. But unfortunately he doesn't look like you. It's a pity."

  "Aha," murmured Thomas for the third time.

  "You don't understand?"

  "Sorry. Not a word."

  "We found a corpse without relatives in Detroit. Might have been your twin brother. Died of a heart attack. We gave the body suitable treatment—"

  "Treatment?"

  "Yes. And then we packed it in a special coffin to be flown to Europe. My boss wanted to ensure its safety. So as not to attract the attention of other agents, he had our corpse flown to Europe in an aircraft which had four other coffins on board. It was a charter plane hired by the Turkish Embassy. One of their diplomats had been killed in a car accident together with his wife and their two grown-up children. The affair was reported in all the newspapers at the time and also the fact that an aircraft had been hired to transport the bodies. Consequently no one took any notice when we brought another coffin on board. Didn't strike anyone as peculiar."

  "I understand."

  "Unfortunately a mistake was made in Paris, where our coffin was to be unloaded. The other four were to be flown on to Ankara. We had of course specially marked the coffin with our own body. But a transmission error had crept into the coded telegram and our people in Paris accordingly unloaded the wrong coffin."

  "Oh God."

  "Yes, it's most embarrassing. We found the Turkish diplomat himself in the coffin."

  "And ... and ... and what about the corpse that looked like me?"

  "It was buried yesterday in Ankara. In the family vault. I'm really sorry, Mr. Grey, but we can't do anything more about it. We must wait till we find another one for you."

  So Thomas and Pamela waited. On November 19, another telegram arrived for Mr. Grey.

  UNCLE FRED SAFE STOP BEST LOVE EDGAR

  "So they've found another suitable body," Pamela whispered.

  "We'd better keep our fingers crossed in case anything else goes wrong," Thomas said. But this time all went well. The second suitable body lay, while Thomas and Pamela clenched their fingers over their thumbs, on the operating table of a trusted doctor on the staff of the FBI in Chicago. The dead man looked extraordinarily like Thomas Lieven. The doctor, working from photographs of Thomas, used hydrogen peroxide and paraffin injections and other ingenious methods to ensure that the corpse came to resemble Thomas Lieven more and more. Meanwhile collaborators of the FBI held in readiness articles of clothing and other objects which had belonged to Thomas, including his gold repeater and four passports in different names.

  One of the FBI agents watched with particular interest the cosmetic surgeon as he injected a little liquid paraffin into the dead man's nose. "Who was this fellow, by the way?" asked the surgeon.

  "Lucky Campanello," said the agent. "Narcotics, blackmail and white slave traffic. Couple of hours ago some of my pals shot it out with him. They were lucky. He wasn't."

  "So I see," said the doctor, looking at the place where a revolver bullet had penetrated the heart of Lucky Campanello.

  In his forty-seven years of life on this earth Campanello had always done evil and lived from evil. He had never given pleasure to anyone. No one had loved him. Many had hated him. He had no relatives. And that circumstance enabled him to play for the first time an important positive part in life—after his death.

  As soon as the doctor in Chicago had finished with him, Lucky was flown to Malta in a special receptacle. An American ship lay at anchor in the harbor. The special receptacle was rushed at high speed from the airfield to the ship. A few minutes later the vessel put to sea.

  At midnight on November 20, she was rocking gen
tly off Lisbon, outside Portuguese territorial waters. A boat was low-

  ered. Three living men and one who had ceased to live found accommodation in it. The boat made for the coast.

  On the early morning of November 21, 1957, accordingly, children playing on the white beach of the fishing village of Cascais near Lisbon found all sorts of shells, starfish, half dead fish and a dead man.

  EPILOGUE

  [i]

  Well, and what is the rest of the story? How does it end? What else happened to Thomas Lieven and his Pamela? Who told us the tale of all his wild adventures? How on earth did we come to be in a position to describe contemporary events hitherto kept secret and top secret?

  Many questions! We can answer all of them. But for that purpose it will be necessary, unfortunately, for someone to emerge from the shadows where his profession obliges and always will oblige him to remain.

  That man is myself. I, the author who has written down for you the adventures and the recipes of the secret agent Thomas Lieven.

  In August 1958 I flew to the United States on behalf of my publishers. It was understood that I should stay a month. I stayed four. I was supposed to collect material for a novel. The novel was never written.

  But the story you are reading was. I came on the scent of it over there. And the scent originated—how else could it?—in the company of an enchantingly beautiful woman.

  I have good reasons for not mentioning the name of the city where I first saw the lady. It was a mild September afternoon. I was hungry. A journalist friend had recommended a connoisseurs' restaurant. I was on my way to it. Then I saw her.

  She was walking ahead of me on high heels. She wore a beige costume, had blue-black hair and a lovely figure. She was of medium height and built like a racing yacht.

  Suddenly my hunger was forgotten.

  I hope my beloved Lulu will forgive me. She knows men. She knows that they are all alike and a worthless lot when they are allowed to go traveling alone.