Topaz

by Leon Uris

  “What means by this, relocated?”

  “He has moved. Did you not receive the letter?”

  “Yes, I got a letter. But who can read?”

  “You damn fool. Why didn’t you get it read to you?”

  “Well, I get the letter and I see all the government stamps and seals in it so I think it is an order for more crops. So I throw the letter away. I want to see my grandfather.”

  “You must go to the District Committee in San Cristóbal to find out where he has been relocated.”

  Vicente Martínez scratched his head.

  A Russian officer pulled the Cuban officer aside. “He must be taken in for questioning,” the Russian demanded.

  “Oh, I don’t think that is very wise Señor Captain.”

  “He may have seen too much.”

  “Señor Captain, you do not understand. This man is a Cuban peasant. The families are very close. If he does not show up at his home tonight, we will have ten more of his relatives down here looking for him. It is safer to send him off.”

  The Russian grunted reluctantly at the Cuban’s logic. Perhaps he was right. It would be better not to risk having any more of them around or to arouse suspicion by questioning.

  “Gonzoles” was ordered to leave the area and never return.

  “I need some water for my old car,” Vicente Martínez said.

  They got him water. He poured some into the radiator and drank some. Then he turned and drove away, still mumbling protests.

  Vicente Martínez was one of the finest lawyers in that part of Cuba. When Héctor de Córdoba practiced law in Havana, they had a number of joint clients and cases. Juanita de Córdoba was a good family friend of two decades’ standing. He was one of the first recruited.

  In addition to the telltale tire marks on the dirt road he was able to spot hundreds of Russian soldiers beyond the Finca gate.

  He saw something else, too.

  He saw the launching tower.

  The information was written and placed in the little holder of a magnetic hide-a-key. The railing of the bridge outside San Cristóbal was made of hollow tube, like most of Cuba’s bridges.

  Vicente removed a loose knob at the end of the rail and placed the hide-a-key inside and returned the knob.

  Later the dead-letter box was emptied and the message eventually found its way to the poultry butcher Jesús Morelos in Havana.

  25

  AS THE TAPE CAME to an end, everyone stood and stretched. Kramer pushed the buzzer to call the outside guards and asked that the lunch dishes be cleared and a new pot of coffee brewed.

  Dr. Billings spooled on another tape. “One, two, three, four,” he counted into the microphone, adjusting the voice level.

  In the second week of interrogation the atmosphere had relaxed. Boris Kuznetov had come to find the four ININ people agreeable and was less and less disturbed by W. Smith’s rapid-fire, terse questioning. After all, if one had to speak, it was far better that it was under such circumstances. The continued absence of André Devereaux annoyed him, but Michael Nordstrom personally assured him that Devereaux would return within a few weeks.

  One by one they came back to the conference table from the adjoining washroom, braced for another round of questioning.

  Dr. Billings scanned his notes, then said, “In the purges of 1937 and 1938 you told us the Soviet intelligence system was badly disrupted.”

  “It was worse than that,” Boris answered. “By 1939 NKVD, the forerunner of the present KGB, was a total shambles.”

  “What was your own status at the time?”

  “I was the top student of my class in gymnasium. I went on to study for another four years at Smolensk University. And then I was invited for postgraduate work at Moscow University. I had strong recommendations.”

  “When did you go to Moscow?”

  “In the first semester, fall of 1939. Here I also met Olga. Her name then was Cherniavsky. She was of the family of the Soviet General Cherniavsky, all ranking Communists.”

  “Her curriculum?”

  “Art student.”

  “Your studies?”

  “Required courses, mainly. No specialty or, as you say, no major.”

  “You were quite active with the Young Communists in Smolensk. Now did you continue this in Moscow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Diligently or because it was required of all students?”

  “Diligently. At the end of the first semester I was voted Komsomol unit leader. It is an extreme honor for a first-year student.”

  “Olga was in your unit?”

  “Yes. A Soviet student has to fight for time to see his sweetheart. After Komsomol meetings was an excellent time ... to discuss dialectics, of course.”

  They laughed.

  “Isn’t it hell on young people?” Kramer asked. “No apartment rooms, freezing weather outside, or during the summer the parks are filled with blaring speeches, no cars to park in.”

  “It’s difficult but, as with boys and girls everywhere, we managed. You must remember revolutionaries are apt to be prim. We are quite Victorian in our morals.”

  “At the end of the first semester?”

  “I was an honor student. My group leader ...”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Tomsk.”

  “Go on.”

  “Tomsk instructed me to go for an interview at NKVD headquarters. I was asked to transfer from the university to the College of Intelligence. At first I did not like the idea, but the choice was limited and the rebuilding of NKVD was urgent ... and my duty is my duty.”

  “When did you enter?”

  “Immediately. Spring of 1940.”

  “Courses?”

  “Politics ... our politics and economics. Mainly we were indoctrinated in military intelligence and sabotage. Everyone in the school at that time held a reserve commission.”

  “What rank?”

  “Few were over captain. You must bear in mind we were mostly Young Communists, all coming up together to take over the future intelligence system after the purges.”

  “How many years was the full course of study?”

  “It was set up for four years, but the war interrupted and the need for military intelligence was desperate. After the first winter’s siege of Moscow I was inducted into the Red Army as a captain. In the spring of 1941, April 15, to be precise, I was parachuted into Poland in the Lublin district, where the Germans had set up their government general.”

  “Mission?”

  “Establish a small espionage network, set up radio communications, dead-letter drops, contacts. We had two people working inside German headquarters.”

  “How large was this group?”

  “It varied. Never more than eight people. Our special job was to find out the time of the rail movements of German troops and equipment heading to the eastern front on the Brest-Gomel lines and its spurs.”

  “You remained in Lublin?”

  “Until July. Then I moved back toward Russia on foot, stopping in cities along the rail line, Brest, Pinsk, and so forth, to establish even smaller radio units. Eventually, advice on train movements would get into the hands of partisan units working in the Pripet Marshes. It was a good operation. We destroyed over ten trainloads.”

  “And you made it back to Moscow?”

  “Not until midwinter. I lived in the Pripet Marshes.” Boris Kuznetov related the brutal days of the Russian winter in which he lived with a partisan unit. They moved about in the bitter cold like hunted animals for whom there would be no mercy.

  “As you know, I am missing three toes on my left foot due to frostbite. My eyes are also extremely sensitive to light due to partial snow blindness. By the time I reached Moscow I had lost twenty kilos’ weight, over forty American pounds. But I am lucky. Most of that particular unit died of starvation or cold. The rest of that winter I spent in the hospital.”

  “No official duties?”

  “No. Unless you call m
y marriage to Olga an official duty.”

  “And you remained in Moscow?”

  “Only until the spring. Again in April of 1943 I was parachuted into Poland to establish another network east of the Praga River in the Vilna-Grodno-Kovno area. This time I was better at my work and I was able to get through German lines into Moscow by December. I was so good, in fact, I was sent out again after being home only two weeks to coordinate sabotage activities of the partisan units beyond the Second Baltic Front of Marshal Yeremenko. In February of 1944 I was captured with a unit of forty men in an ambush and we were sent to a stalag in Memel. By May of that year only four of us had survived the German brutality.”

  “I take it you were able to avoid being singled out.”

  “The men in the unit were of exceptional courage. No one told who I was and I was able to conceal my true identity.”

  “How long did you remain in prison?”

  “I escaped in the summer of 1944 and reorganized a sabotage unit to coordinate with our summer offensive. When our forces passed my operation and moved into Poland and the Baltics, I returned again to Moscow. This time by train. For the rest of the war I worked at intelligence headquarters in Moscow, mainly in evaluation of information from German prisoners and information from our own sabotage units in Poland.”

  “You stayed till the war ended?”

  “Yes.”

  “Decorations?”

  “A few.”

  “Order of Lenin?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Then?”

  “I was discharged as a reserve colonel and invited to study advanced intelligence at the Intelligence Academy in Moscow. I remained there for the next five years.”

  “Weren’t the courses for three years?”

  “I was a teacher for two years.”

  “How many were enrolled?”

  “Three hundred, more or less.”

  “Women?”

  “A few. It was an extremely difficult school.”

  “What percentage of people were dropped?”

  “Not many. They were careful who they asked in.”

  Boris Kuznetov then recited a murderous scholastic ritual that converted a normal day’s work into twelve to fourteen hours of study. At the academy he learned English, French, and German. There were intelligence courses in evaluation, analysis, coding, and ciphering. There were courses in geopolitics, psychology, advanced mathematics, art, and music. There were courses in military staff training. There was an intensive sports program and chess training.

  “This, gentlemen, is the first time I came to learn about the West. I read Western literature and philosophy and religion. Along with general history we made an intensive study of each Western country, its political system and, most important, the lives and behavior of the Western leaders. We knew how they would react to each issue. And mainly, we learned their weak points.”

  The six-o’clock chimes played out “Rock of Ages” from Bethesda’s chapel.

  They all stood and gathered their notes. The four ININ men had come to respect Boris Kuznetov for he had sobered them on the depth, skill, and devotion of the enemy.

  Boris smiled. “I look forward to seeing Olga and Tamara these evenings. Your Americanization program has given me two new beautiful women.”

  The tapes were locked into an attaché case. The room was thoroughly searched for loose scraps. Unneeded notes were placed into a basket shredder and chopped into a billion bits and mixed so they could never be read again.

  They shook hands with Boris.

  “Have a good Sunday,” Boris said.

  They left and Boris was wheeled out. The room was sealed.

  26

  MAGGIE, THE COOK OF Juanita de Córdoba, made many trips to the stall of Jesús Morelos in the three weeks André Devereaux had been in Cuba. As often as not she brought home a chicken containing a message sewed up in its innards. Each new message gave another clue indicating that the Soviets were indeed bringing missiles into the country.

  Yet the key link of an actual eyewitness remained missing.

  The four Soviet ships left Viriel and were replaced by four others. André knew that the missiles would soon leave the Viriel docks on their trip to Finca San José. He became enormously anxious about what appeared to be a major Cuban and Soviet blunder.

  In mapping out the routes to Finca San José there was but one choice. The missile carriers were compelled to travel from Viriel to Havana, through the edge of the city, then south on the airport highway.

  Traffic into Havana was on a road that ran between Morro Castle and La Cabaña, then under the harbor through a tunnel. The tunnel emptied into Havana on the sea-front road, the Malecón.

  By his own calculation of the size of the suspected missiles, they were too large to fit into the tunnel. This miscalculation would force the carriers to take a secondary road into Havana that led right into the old city. Here the missiles would have to travel through a labyrinth of small narrow streets.

  If André’s reckonings were true, it was just possible the error would force the Russians to parade their secret cargo under their very noses.

  In addition to Jesús Morelos, a number of other friends of Juanita de Córdoba lived in the old town. She told them what to look for and to sleep with one eye open.

  The word passed from Viriel that the cargo had left the port under heavy guard on large carriers and was heading for Havana.

  A young medical student, Arnaldo Valdez, lived with his parents in the La Lisa section of Havana, but often spent his nights with his sweetheart, Anita, who had a small apartment near Avenida de Agua Dulce in the old city.

  During the day curious activity had taken place on the streets near her flat. Anita and Arnaldo spoke about it when he arrived in the evening, and they both concluded that it could be the clearing of a route.

  It was after midnight, as Anita slept and Arnaldo studied at the desk in her bedroom, that he heard a distant sound of motors.

  As he buttoned on his shirt, Anita awoke, frightened.

  “For God’s sake, Arnaldo,” she pleaded, “don’t go out on the streets.”

  “I must. You know what our instructions are.”

  “But I’m afraid.”

  “Shhhh. It will be all right.”

  He left her stunned on the landing, looked up the stairs, blew a kiss and disappeared out onto the street.

  In the old days something would be going on all night. Raucous revelry, laughter, whores, fights. But since the Revolution the streets were empty and listless soon after dark.

  In the shadows of the arcaded sidewalks, Arnaldo wove his way through a maze of streets and alleyways past sleeping dogs and howling cats, moving ever closer to the sound of the motors.

  Even as the streets began to rumble under the weight of abnormal loads no one was curious these days. The lights of Havana, save for a few squalid joints, remained dark. “HALT!” the sign before him warned, “THIS STREET IS CLOSED FROM MIDNIGHT TO DAWN!”

  Arnaldo peered around the corner of the arcade and pondered his move. There were no headlights, but the convoy could not be more than a few blocks removed.

  Across the darkened avenue he could make out the wooden booth of an old lottery stand. He darted out and crossed the street and dived under the counter. There he crouched into a ball and labored to quiet his gasping lungs.

  Now he peeked around the tight confines. The stand was dilapidated. He poked with his penknife and pried a couple of boards apart, allowing him enough of a crack to see the street.

  A platoon of motorcycles was almost on him, gunning up a roar, followed by the shuffling feet of soldiers at fixed bayonets probing around for loiterers or watchers.

  Arnaldo curled into a ball of fear, mumbling prayers as the rumbling grew more pronounced. With a face of frightened sweat he lifted his eyes and knew he was going to dare a look.

  An enormous tractor, the largest vehicle he had ever seen, pulled a trailer of six axles. Each ax
le had eight wheels. In a blur of cold excitement, he tried to remember his instructions from Juanita. Look at the tires! Look at the tires!

  Yes! See! They are squashed half flat under the agony of the load. The great tube lay on the trailer bed. It was two arcade lengths and covered with canvas, and as it inched along the street was indented by the tire marks.

  The tail was uncovered. Arnaldo tried to draw a picture in his mind of its size and shape.

  But he could no longer see. The caravan passed on, with a dozen armored cars and an open truck of Russian soldiers following the missile carrier.

  He waited for total silence, but there would be none for his own breath and heartbeat were audible. At last the motors faded from earshot.

  He was about to crawl from his cover but hedged. For certain, G-2 men would be sweeping the area. The thought of the Green House sickened him. That was where his brother had been beaten to death.

  The lottery vendor’s stall seemed to be the safest place. Tuck in and stay till daylight. Anita would be frantic, but it was all for the best.

  In the old days before the Revolution it was a common sight to find drunks asleep in the streets. But this morning Arnaldo Valdez was discovered by a pair of militiamen and dragged to his feet and shaken rudely.

  He played the part of a sick man with a hangover and grinned at his captors sheepishly. “I am a medical student, comrades. Please let me clean up and get to the university.”

  “Drunks are a disgrace to the Revolution. You are going to the police station. They’ll sober you up all right. Pancho, call for the wagon!”

  “I beg you, señores. If you don’t give me a break, I’ll be thrown out of school.” Then Arnaldo wept, and not all his tears were phony.

  “Who wants doctors like you in Cuba?” the militiaman scorned.

  “Let the stupid bastard go,” the second said. “Who wants to fill out all those damned reports?”

  “No! A medical student should not behave like a drunken pig.”

  “Oh, very well. I’ll call for the wagon.”

  Anita appeared on the scene. She walked to Arnaldo and slammed him over the head with her purse and kicked his shins.

  “Dog!” Anita screamed.