Topaz

by Leon Uris

  “How did you know I would be at the Wivex Restaurant?”

  “Because of your basic intelligence attitude. We Russians hide our intelligence people and never let it be known who they are. You Americans advertise who is CIA, who is ININ, on the theory that people will come to you with information. In this case, your theory works. It is not secret you are in Copenhagen. You always eat at Wivex or Langelinie near the Little Mermaid. You like Danish seafood. It is not hard to find out. Today I checked your reservation at Wivex and so I ate at Seven Nations just over the square.”

  “You said you carried documents.”

  “Yes. They are hidden in Copenhagen. I will tell you where they are when we make our agreement.”

  “All right, Kuznetov. I’m impressed. We’ll get back to you in twenty-four hours.”

  “No!”

  “What do you mean?”

  The Russian’s breath quickened. Fright, real or played, was in him. “I am afraid now to return to my embassy. We must do it right away ... today, and my wife and daughter must come with me.”

  Kuznetov studied the skeptical American eyes. They all glowered in suspicion at the man who called himself Kuznetov, watched him fidget and breathe deeply over and over. The clock from the city hall tolled the hour, massively.

  “How long can you stay out now?” Mike Nordstrom asked.

  “A few more hours.”

  “Get back to your wife and daughter, then go shopping or do the Tivoli for a few hours. I’m going to make a try at putting it together. Do you know Den Permanente?”

  “Yes. The building that houses the permanent exhibits of Danish arts and crafts.”

  “It closes at five-thirty. Be there at the counter at the silversmith, Hans Hansen. It’s near the main door. Now, take a good look at these three gentlemen. One of them will be standing by to lead you to a waiting car.”

  “You must not fail!”

  “There’s a fifty-fifty chance we can do it.”

  “My guards ...”

  “We’ll handle them.”

  The Russian called Kuznetov walked slowly to Michael Nordstrom and held out his knobby hand. Nordstrom shook it, haltingly. And then Boris Kuznetov walked to a seat, sank into it, held his face in his hands and sobbed.

  3

  NORDSTROM DISPATCHED STEBNER AND another deputy to tail the Russian, then sped back to the embassy with the rest of his people, locking the ININ offices behind them.

  TOP SECRET EYES ONLY TO SAILBOAT 606. CONTACT MADE COPENHAGEN WITH BORIS KUZNETOV. CLAIMS TO BE KGB DIVISION CHIEF. DESIRES TO DEFECT WITH FAMILY. PLANS UNDER WAY. I WILL TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY. NEED GREEN LIGHT IMMEDIATELY OR NO GO. OSCAR 612.

  Coats off, ties open, sleeves rolled, Michael Nordstrom and his men plunged into formulating a quick but foolproof plan. They set into motion the obtaining of cars without diplomatic plates, finding a hideaway on the northern coast, getting a light plane on stand-by and flying Nordstrom’s own plane out of Denmark to a German airfield. Individual assignments were passed out and rehashed. The minutes ticked off too quickly, and as the hour neared five o’clock, ashtrays brimmed and the tension rose to fever pitch.

  The phone rang.

  “Mr. Hendricks’ office. Miss Cooke speaking.”

  “Cookie, this is Stebner. Boss there?”

  She handed the phone to Michael. “Nordstrom.”

  “Stebner. Do we go?”

  “No word back from Washington yet. If I don’t hear in ten minutes, we cancel. What’s your picture?”

  “He just entered Den Permanente with his wife and daughter. We’ve spotted four guards working in two pairs.”

  “Did the guards go inside the building?”

  “They sure did.”

  “Beautiful. I’m sending a half-dozen of the fellows down now. Stake them out around the entrance. If we get a cable to go, watch for Bartlett driving a blue, 1960 four-door Ford sedan with German plates. You make the hookup with Kuznetov and get in with him.”

  “Got it.”

  Nordstrom set the phone down and sent the men off to cover the Den Permanente entrance. He and Miss Cooke waited alone in the office. They both lit cigarettes. He paced. She tapped her long-nailed fingers on the desk. All around Copenhagen, bells rang out the hour of five.

  “I guess we’re out of business,” Nordstrom mumbled.

  Sid Hendricks tore in from the code room and set the cable before his boss.

  TOP SECRET TO OSCAR 612. GREEN LIGHT. SAILBOAT 606.

  Den Permanente houses the works of Danish artisans from crystal and silver to modern teak furniture and wild patterns in fabrics. Like Denmark itself, the place was not large, but its wares were magnificent.

  Near the building, Stebner and a half-dozen ININ agents waited for Bartlett and the blue Ford. Stebner took a position so that he could clearly see Boris Kuznetov with his wife and daughter. They came down from the second floor. Mrs. Kuznetov read the time from a lavaliere watch. Stebner wondered why her husband loved her so. She was a drab and dumpy woman. The daughter, he estimated, was about twenty. A fine figure, but it ended right there. Severe hairdo, no make-up, flat shoes.

  Stebner glanced over to the first set of guards. He was positive of them because he knew that one was an Assistant Resident of the Soviet Embassy. This pair lolled about a table filled with carved wooden figurines of comic Vikings, those monkeys who hang arm to leg in a chain, and several families of teakwood ducks.

  The second set of guards was a pair of women hovering over a fabric counter. They used females, no doubt, to be able to keep tabs on the Kuznetov women, even in the public toilets. The Russian women stuck out like a pair of sore thumbs among the lovely Danish creatures around them.

  Boris Kuznetov pointed to the display counter of the silversmith, Hans Hansen, and they walked toward it, containing their tension admirably.

  Down the block, a blue Ford turned the corner.

  The ININ agents closed in on the entrance as the car moved into the curb lane and inched through the ever-present sea of bicycle riders.

  Now it was halfway down the block.

  In the building, the five-thirty closing bell rang.

  Kuznetov looked desperately toward the door

  Stebner took a step inside and nodded. The Russian offered his arm to his wife and daughter, took the few steps outside quickly.

  The guards dropped the merchandise they were fingering and followed.

  Stebner slammed the doors of Den Permanente in their faces, shoved Kuznetov and his family into the rear of the blue Ford and got into the front beside Bartlett.

  Kuznetov’s guards flung the doors of Den Permanente open and rushed to the sidewalk, only to collide with an ININ man on a bicycle who rode into them. Everyone sprawled to the ground, and as they scrambled to their feet the other ININ agents jostled and bumped them creating an instant of confusion, just long enough for the car to turn the corner and go out of sight.

  It sped north out of Copenhagen along the coastal road with the Kuznetovs crouched in the back. Beyond the suburb, Bartlett turned the Ford off the highway and onto the pier at Taarbaek to switch cars.

  Nordstrom and Hendricks were waiting in the front seat of a Mercedes, Stebner transferred the Kuznetovs and Bartlett returned toward Copenhagen again.

  Nordstrom turned to the shaken family. “Everything’s going to be all right,” he soothed. “Try to keep calm.”

  Kuznetov nodded that he understood.

  “You owe me something. Some documents.”

  Kuznetov took a baggage claim check from his wallet. “At the luggage storage at the main railroad station.”

  It was given to Sid Hendricks to follow through and then they continued north. A few minutes before Elsinore stood Kystens-Perle, “The Pearl of the Coast,” built like a ship with the superb Hamlet Restaurant on the first floor and hotel rooms above. A most chic place for lovers to rendezvous. Stebner guarded the door of Room 6, while Hendricks and Nordstrom kept the family calm inside. Fear, th
at most prevalent of Russian products, had consumed them into a stunned whiteness. A torturous hour passed, during which he learned little more than that Mrs. Kuznetov’s name was Olga, and the daughter’s Tamara.

  The sharp ring of the phone startled them all.

  “Hello.”

  “Sam?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is George. Cessna 310 is at the Elsinore Airport, cleared, warmed up and ready to go.”

  “We’re on the way.”

  The flight was choppy. The damnable northern European weather moved in and flung them around. Tamara Kuznetov became sick, adding to everyone’s discomfort in the small craft.

  It turned dark and the weather had fallen nearly to the ground as they approached the British air base at Celle, in northern Germany.

  From the Ground Controlled Approach shack on the strip, the voice of a British airman talked them down through the clouds and cross winds.

  “Flaps down ... glide ...” The lights of the field burst through the fog. A sigh of relief as the little bird touched down. A FOLLOW ME jeep led the Cessna back out to the end of the strip where Nordstrom’s plane with Department of the Interior markings was revved up and waiting.

  In moments, his Convair was airborne, pushing through the turbulence toward the Atlantic ... America ... and Andrews Air Force Base.

  4

  THE HIGH-WALLED, LONG-LAWNED house in Laurel, Maryland, was guarded by a quartet of Doberman watchdogs and three handlers, on shifts. Two guards were constantly on duty on the grounds, and in the house itself another guard slept within earshot of the terrified Kuznetov family.

  Two weeks passed before Michael Nordstrom felt they had calmed sufficiently to send in Wilcox, the chief ININ interrogator, and his team.

  Boris Kuznetov toyed with Wilcox, saying nearly nothing. Each session ended with the Russian’s daily depression, or he would order them away in a tantrum.

  Nordstrom was in no hurry. The suitcase, retrieved by the baggage check in Copenhagen, was filled with tens of dozens of documents. Time would be needed to translate them from Russian, and they would be under study for months to determine whether they were of value or elaborate fakes.

  From the first snap readings, W. Smith, the ININ Russian expert, ascertained that most of the papers dealt with NATO matters. This was a hopeful clue, because all NATO documents were numbered as to the copies made and the persons who had read them. It could eventually boil down to a question of finding a common reader of all the papers, in order to dredge up a great traitor inside NATO.

  But, in reality, all that Baris Kuznetov had really done was to present them with a gigantic puzzle. Who, indeed, was Boris Kuznetov? How had the NATO documents gotten back to Moscow? As in any intelligence organization, Soviet KGB chiefs knew few names outside their immediate circle, and what Kuznetov knew he kept locked in his mind. Obviously, his wife and daughter were under orders to remain completely unresponsive.

  At the end of a frustrating month, Wilcox complained bitterly to his boss.

  “Nothing. Not even his birthplace. Nothing.”

  “Keep at it.”

  Wilcox reddened. “If you ask me, Mike, we ought to dump the bastard on the steps of the Russian Embassy.”

  “Sure, and we’ll never get another Russian defector.”

  “I’ve never run into one like this.”

  “You’re tired, Wilcox. Take a few days off.”

  The perplexed interrogator mumbled something derogatory about his chosen line of work, then apologized to Nordstrom for letting his chief down.

  “We’ve been through defectors. They’re frightened animals. Alone, wanting to live, wanting to die. In strange waters. Keep loose, Wilcox, he’ll come around.”

  Michael Nordstrom stayed outside the circle of interrogators, making himself available only as a friend to whom Kuznetov could complain and, perhaps, confide. Slowly, the Russian dropped hints that he knew the inside workings of many secret matters.

  “Do you want me to tell you why you fired the German, Captain Von Behrmann, from his NATO command? I tell you. He talked too much in bed about how important he was, and of the placement of NATO submarines in Soviet waters.”

  On every occasion of a visit to the Laurel house by Nordstrom, the Russian would try to startle him with a new piece of information.

  “Come on, Boris. You’re always feeding me news that’s water under the bridge.”

  “Water under bridge?”

  “Day-old news.”

  “Then, how about this?”

  Boris Kuznetov put on a startling display, revealing the depth of his knowledge. For over an hour he recited from memory the structure of the entire American intelligence establishment, the names of department heads, their assistants, special operators, secret posts. It was done with total accuracy.

  Sanderson Hooper, the Chief ININ Evaluator, was a disheveled-appearing, white-haired man in his early sixties, who would be better placed as a professor or an obscure poet. He was the one responsible for finding the key to fit into the lock to open the puzzle of the Russian. Nordstrom had always leaned on Hooper heavily, and as the mystery of Kuznetov thickened, he tried to press for an answer.

  “As we all know,” Sanderson Hooper said calmly, not responding to the pressure, “this Kuznetov is an extremely skilled and highly placed agent, knowledgeable in NATO matters. He has a remarkable mind.”

  “Is he authentic or the greatest fake and best actor of the decade?”

  Sanderson Hooper’s bushy brows furled in concern. He fiddled with the tobacco in the omnipresent pipe. “What do we have, Mike? A defector who wants sanctuary and protection. He’s made no deals with us.”

  “But he keeps feeding us just enough bait to let us know he’s important.”

  Hooper puffed, folded his wrinkled hands and mulled. “Don’t lean on me yet for an official evaluation, Mike, but I will give you a guess. My guess is that Boris Kuznetov doesn’t really know what it is he wants. He fled because he thought his life was in danger, and now he can’t make up his mind.”

  “Hoop, I’m not going to hold you to this, but are you saying he’s the real article?”

  “My hunch is that Boris Kuznetov will turn out to be the most important defector we have ever received.”

  5

  I’M COOPED UP HERE! MY wife Olga complains day and night. Tamara is miserable.”

  “What the hell do you expect?” Nordstrom answered. “You’ve locked yourself up for three months. You’re bound to be on edge.”

  Kuznetov had grown sallow and morose. Michael knew the family was arguing more heatedly each day. Then Olga and Tamara made a few cautious ventures into the town, and one trip to Baltimore. The revelations whetted their desires.

  “Why don’t we work out a trip for you to, say, New York?”

  “No.”

  “Then out west.”

  “No! You know I can’t leave,” he intoned shakily, with the glaze of fear returning to his eyes.

  “You’ll be protected.”

  Kuznetov shook his head “no.” “Perhaps, if we could move. If we could live in the country so I could at least go out for a walk.”

  “Let me see what I can arrange.”

  Boris studied the American with somewhat of a hint of guilt. “You are a fine man. If our positions were reversed, things would not be so easy for you,” the Russian said.

  Camp Patrick was tucked snugly along the Patuxent River outside of Laurel and midway between Washington and Baltimore in catfish country, tobacco farms, and summer places.

  The camp was built of logs and pine. A central complex held one major building that housed the office, kitchen, recreation room, and a number of smaller classrooms and briefing rooms. To one side stood a softball field and a pair of tennis courts, on the other side a riding paddock.

  Along the riverfront there were a number of cottages with screened-in porches. The camp had been abandoned when Nordstrom took it over as an ININ training site. It was conv
enient for special schoolings and particularly for important weekend briefings. On occasion, he had hidden defectors there, as he now hid the Kuznetov family.

  During the winter Kuznetov seemed to thrive in the new surroundings. True to his profession as an intelligence man, he read compulsively, devouring a dozen newspapers and periodicals daily, along with three or four books each week in English, French, and German, as well as his native language.

  Nordstrom approached the Kuznetov’s cottage these days to the sound of Tamara’s piano. She played magnificently. Olga now attempted to prepare luncheons and dinners, still baffled by the array of electric kitchen utensils and the unlimited varieties of food.

  The American and the Russian took long, unhurried winter walks along the river, during which Boris expounded Communist dialectic, literature, the American technical wonders, music. He was a well-informed buff on Western art and philosophy. Yet his only mention of personal matters was that Tamara had great promise as a musician and it was a pity to keep her from her studies.

  As the winter wore on, the confinement of Camp Patrick began to play on the family’s nerves. The Kuznetovs had, in fact, traded a small cell in the Laurel house for a larger cell.

  Yet Nordstrom sensed a softening. The interrogators, who had accomplished little, were called off at the turn of the year, much to Boris’s delight.

  Michael Nordstrom’s patience paid off.

  On a particular night in early spring he stayed over for the running of the weekly film for the family in their living room. A new breed of spy literature was being born. This film had the usual suave British hero lipping sly double entendres, being pursued by a bevy of half-naked girls, and using technical gadgetry to challenge the imagination. The dark Russians were depicted as men with dirty fingernails, ill-fitting clothes, sinister, brutal, mysterious, dedicated to false gods. Except for one Russian, a female agent of KGB, portrayed by a large-busted Italian actress whose Russian accent was unbelievable.