Harry's Rules

by Michael R. Davidson

  Sergey could not believe his luck. Here, after a decade of conniving and moving slowly through the ranks and from department to department, was his golden opportunity.

  His friend Connolly would be proud.

  CHAPTER 11 - Decision

  Jake Liebowitz’ voice broke through my reverie, “Harry, I’m asking you to take this on for a couple of reasons. There’s one important point I’ve left for last.”

  He turned his eyes downward again as he proceeded, like a bashful suitor about to pop the question.

  “You know that we still had several in-place agents in Russia when Morley took over. What you probably don’t know is that we suspect there’s a mole in Russian operations. And again, this is tightly held, and I should not be sharing it with you. We’ve lost an alarming number of agents - good ones, including several you yourself recruited - and a mole is the only possible explanation. Now we’ve lost an officer, and I’m convinced that the mole is behind that, as well. Remember what I said about someone preferring to stymie any investigation into Thackery’s murder? There has to be something important enough to risk such drastic action, and I suspect it could be something that would help us identify the mole. What else would motivate the Russians to murder a CIA officer if not to protect such an important in-place asset?”

  I felt queasy. The scuttlebutt was true. A mole could destroy an intelligence service, at the very least set back its operations for years. Trust and loyalty were the bedrock of agent handling, but they were fragile commodities. In a single stroke a mole could undermine everything and wipe out decades of work at the cost of many lives.

  Across the table Jake still watched me, gauging my reaction.

  “As a Deputy Section Chief, I have the authority to launch operations on my own, and if something goes wrong I can show your operation was sanctioned. But for now, I don’t want anyone besides you and me to know what we are doing, and that means no official funds, no official travel orders. You’ll be under my authority alone. I’ll write an Eyes Only memo and lock it in my safe. Other than that, there is no way I can actively support you. You’ll be entirely on your own. Without these precautions we risk the mole blowing the op. And by now you must realize why I came to you and why you are the only person for this job.”

  Jake was asking me to shoulder all of the risk, counting on my personal connection with Stankov for motivation. He knew me too well.

  “A rat in our basement explains a lot. The Russians would resort to extreme measures to protect his identity. If this goes south I’ll try to protect your fat ass.”

  *****

  A week’s personal leave was easy to arrange, and Monday afternoon I left a disgruntled Angus with a former neighbor in Northern Virginia before heading to Dulles to catch the United Airlines flight to Paris.

  The cattle car seat was woefully inadequate for my height. The thoughtless toad in the seat ahead reclined into my knees, and I finally stood to look for a place that did not require acrobatic contortions. There was an empty seat at the rear of the cabin, but even so it was impossible to switch off the thoughts that refused to permit sleep.

  There is a tragically wistful belief that if only we knew our antagonists as individuals, war would be impossible, but this theory is pathetically flawed. Hatreds run more deeply than acquaintanceships, deriving sustenance from past cataclysms and tragedies that cannot be changed and strength from the brute force of the masses. Occasional understanding does flicker across the chasm of historical accident that separates human beings. Hands do reach across the divide, and there are always spymasters waiting to grasp them -- ready to equip and train the owners of those beseeching hands for their own inevitable destruction.

  Spymasters try to expunge their consciences with the rationalization that spies and defectors are by nature "defective" people who set themselves consciously or subconsciously on a path to be used up and discarded like so many empty cans.

  At 35,000 feet I recalled a CIA seminar from years ago that new officers were required to attend. A particularly obnoxious staff psychologist named Gary explained that his research revealed that amoral manipulators made the best case officers. "We don't want any true believers in the CIA," the shrink concluded.

  What the hell did he mean by that? It seemed to me that he had somehow skipped over the concept of right and wrong, of virtue versus evil, or perhaps morality was something they didn’t teach in shrink school. We were, after all, on the “right” side, weren’t we? Otherwise, there could be no justification for the “amoral” acts we sometimes had to perform: deception, the manipulation of people, theft of secrets, maybe even assassination. So, if we were “good” were we just faking the amoral part? Could amorality mask virtue? Or was it the other way around? Nothing the shrink said was clarifying, but that’s what shrinks are paid to do: demolish the barriers between good and evil because everything is relative, isn’t it?

  I believed the Agency was fighting the good fight and that there were a lot more people like me than the technocrats might suspect, so I did not torment myself with psychoanalytical angst. But you can play by your own rules only for so long before it catches up with you, and it had finally caught up with me in the person of Barney Morley. Only Frank Sinatra could do it his way all the time.

  One thing was certain: Jake’s mission was my last hurrah. I’d always told myself I’d stay with the Agency as long as I was doing what I wanted to do, but I’d never considered what might come after. Now here I was at the last stop on the line with no idea of where I would be when I stepped off the train. I was still in my forties, and that meant there would be no generous retirement annuity from a grateful government. What could a dinosaur with an outmoded skill set hope to do?

  I’d been in a daze since Kate’s death and my internal exile. My refusal to accept Langley’s banishment was a sham. No matter how long my corpse haunted the hallways, nothing would change.

  CHAPTER 12 - Volodya

  The next day I sat across from a fat old man in the comfortably bohemian living room of an apartment at 13, Rue de Tournon in Paris' picturesque Sixth Arrondissement. The apartment had a very "old world" feel to it, as well it should – the building in which it was located had been constructed in the 18th century. The overstuffed furniture was just a bit too large, but perhaps just right for the old man’s ever increasing rotundity. Once an actively athletic young man, Volodya Smetanin at an advanced age increased in girth every year like some ancient redwood.

  Only a small portion of the plaster walls was visible behind the assortment of faded photographs, memorabilia, and paintings. I had walked there from the Metro station at St. Germain de Pres. We used to meet regularly at the Deux Magots to sip café crème and philosophize, a hallowed tradition of the famed cafe. I had always liked the church of St. Germain just across the street, the oldest in Paris and the burial place of the Merovingian kings.

  The city of light was a Mecca for exiles, and my friend Volodya was a remarkable man and also an exile, an active participant in history to be viewed with wonder and respect because he had led such an exceptional life compared to most of the rest of humanity.

  He spent his youth in Egypt, displaced by the 1917 Bolshevik coup in his native Russia. The very young Volodya became an eager and enthusiastic member of Baden Powell’s Scout program in Egypt's British Colony, and to this day remained active in Scouting and spoke of it with the fondness one usually reserves for a beloved child. The tracking, camping, and survival skills he acquired were put to unexpected and rough use in the North African desert campaign of the Second World War. Volodya's area knowledge made him invaluable for behind the lines reconnaissance as a commando in the British Expeditionary Forces.

  I was contemplating the dagger that hung in an honored spot above the entrance to the alcove used for dining when Volodya returned from the kitchen, bearing a tray laden with a steaming pot of tea, cups, bisquettes, two small glasses, and a frosty bottle of Stolichnaya. He caught the direction of my gaze.

&nb
sp; "So you remember, my friend, the story of the dagger?"

  "No one who has heard you tell it could forget it."

  The young Volodya had used the knife to slit the throats of Rommel's sentries as he made his way in the Egyptian night through the German lines to gather tactical intelligence for the British forces. Volodya was not one to forget his obligations, and the knife now served as an icon in honor of the dead.

  I always found it difficult to rectify the cold, stealthy killer of the North African desert nights with the figure Volodya now presented to the world. In his mid- seventies, he was very large, very rotund and jolly, an animated and highly entertaining conversationalist. He cherished life and wore gentleness like a warm cloak over a

  cold past. He had seen more in a lifetime that had marched through the cataclysms of the twentieth century than I ever wanted to see and had learned to accept fate with equanimity, with the stoicism of his Russian heritage.

  Yet beneath his tranquil exterior Volodya was still a fighter and very much engaged in certain affairs of which few were aware. He had interesting acquaintances, and they were vital to my plan to find Stankov in Vienna.

  *****

  After tea and cookies we launched a valiant attack on the bottle of Stoli as I recited the story of Stankov's disappearance and Thackery's mysterious death. Volodya was a study in solemnity as the tale progressed. As thoroughly Russian as he was, he was still far from embracing a firm belief in the capacity of his native land to reform.

  Beneath his craggy brows, deep in his grey eyes still were reflected the horrors he had witnessed as a child escaping from the Bolsheviks across the Crimea. His father had believed it better for his family to face the precarious existence of Christians in a Moslem land than to be absorbed by the Godless horror then descending on Russia. Volodya felt no atavistic urge to return to his homeland.

  "Chekisty!" His jowls shook as he spat out the word, the old acronym for the agents of the Special Committee, the Chrezvechayniy Komitet, forerunner of the KGB. "They are still there brooding in their gilded nest outside Moscow where they still pull the strings, unchanged, unrepentant, waiting for their moment," he growled.

  Volodya spoke as he poured us each another stakanchik of the iced vodka. "I continue to get reports. Most of the same people are still there, just beneath the layer of 'reformist' political appointees. Oh, they were hurt even before the old KGB was broken up last year. They lost absolute domestic control, but it didn’t slip far from their grasp, and they are regaining ground these days. They re-organized, you know. The Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, the Federal Security Service, is now responsible for internal security, just like the old KGB’s Second Chief Directorate, and the so-called SVR still has a lot of juice. There are old KGB types salted throughout the new government. No matter what happens in Russia, they will remain a force to be reckoned with.”

  In a world so addicted to change that continuities were easily overlooked, Volodya remained anchored firmly by the steadfastness of his convictions and the hard lessons of his past.

  He ran an informal network of aging Russians and others with an axe to grind with the Soviet Union, an ephemeral group with no formal organization. It was an exclusive collection of men and women who knew and trusted one another – and still knew how to recognize an enemy.

  "I thought you were no longer involved in this business." The chair creaked as Volodya leaned forward and stretched his arm to pour another shot of the cold spirit into my glass. His voice was a soft rumble, and there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. "I knew you’d be back.”

  I winced as yet another "I told you so" came my way. Within the space of a few days Jake and Volodya both had done it to me.

  I told Volodya the same thing I told myself. "This has nothing to do with anything but Stankov."

  "Why must you do this, at all? I don't understand why your organization has not already brought Stankov in." Volodya liked euphemisms such as "organization."

  I sighed, "Times change, organizations change. It's a brave new world, Volodya. You and I are dinosaurs. We're members of an endangered species."

  "Dinosaurs are extinct. Stankov is endangered. But this situation is absurd. What you have just described to me is a ceremony of confusion."

  He leaned toward me for emphasis and then shifted back into the depths of his divan. He was still for a moment, hunkered down, his eyes half closed as he organized his thoughts. The old man became very grave as he straightened back up, fixed solemn eyes on me and announced, "I am indignant."

  He sagged back again, his eyes still on me. Volodya's attitude was expectant, anticipating my next words.

  "I need your help."

  "Ah."

  *****

  The old man brooded for a long time after the American left. He had, of course, promised to help his friend, but he faced a dilemma. There was vital information he was not free to share with Connolly, information that had come to him through a ratline stretching back to Moscow itself. Unfortunately, he already had shared that information with someone else.

  Connolly’s description of the matter at hand had raised a flag. The death of an American, presumably at the hands of the Chekisty, troubled him greatly, but it was demonstrable proof that something precious to the Russians was at risk. As much as he respected his friend, he feared that he might have underestimated the danger.

  Sighing heavily, Volodya finally picked up the phone and rang a number known to few people in Paris. Two hours later there was a knock at the door, and he opened it to a man well-muffled against the cold.

  The man left the apartment thirty minutes later, and as Volodya let him out the door he prayed that he had made the correct decision.

  CHAPTER 13 - Communications

  Descending from the apartment, I felt a pang of sympathy for Volodya and speculated how often the aging warrior was able to manage the steep, winding stairs these days. How much longer would I have this rare friend to rely upon?

  A brisk walk took me to the Boulevard Saint Michel, sparsely populated on this chilly February evening with scruffy students and a few wide eyed off-season tourists looking for cheap Left Bank meals that they would find farther east on the other side of the Boulevard St. Michel in the narrow streets that ranged back from the Seine opposite Notre Dame.

  Satisfied I had attracted no attention, I found a taxi queue and ten minutes later was deposited before the brightly lit facade of the Gare du Nord on the other side of the river. There were public phones on the second level, ones that still accepted coins rather than the new plastic phone credit cards that were coming into vogue all over Europe.

  The receiver at the other end of the line was picked up before the first ring was completed. Jake’s voice was edged with worry, and I could picture the corpulent spook at the other end of the line. "Harry?"

  "Who else would be calling you like this? You got a girlfriend?" Liebowitz was at a public phone in a strip mall off of Route 7 in Falls Church, Virginia.

  "I wish." His tone could be termed lugubrious.

  I would not reveal Volodya, even to Jake. No one knew about my longstanding friendship with the ancient Russian or how much he had helped me in the past. I told Jake only that I was laying the groundwork that would get me to Vienna.

  Jake grunted, “Are you sure no one at Headquarters knows what you are doing?”

  "No one knows."

  "If anything blows people will remember that you are my best friend.”

  Jake was still worried about his career.

  “They're too busy re-inventing the wheel at Langley to remember anything." I checked my watch. We had been talking for about forty-five seconds.

  For once, no sarcastic rejoinder was forthcoming from Jake, so I continued, “I’ll need to talk to you the night after next at the same time, especially if ‘Otto’ shows. Call the Paris number I gave you the other night and leave a new contact number. I'll call you there at the time you designate."

  "I'll do it." Then, quietly,
"Harry, be careful." Maybe he wasn’t just worried about his career, after all.

  The receiver clicked in my ear.

  I couldn’t shake the notion that I was setting off for the far, spindly end of a long branch listening all the while for the sound of someone sawing it off behind me. I wondered what that poor little spy Stankov was seeing over his shoulder right now.

  I walked toward the Boulevard Malsherbes past Le Cercle Militaire to a tiny mom and pop restaurant tucked into a small side street named Rue Roquepine. This had been a regular stop for Kate and me during our Paris years. We had been in the habit of taking an evening meal there at least once a week, sometimes twice.

  The restaurant was an element in the communications plan I had in mind, a cut-out actually. Besides, I needed to relax, and I didn't want to do it in the impersonal surroundings of my hotel.

  Maurice, the proprietor, greeted me warmly. Most of the red and white checkered oil cloth covered tables in the narrow dining room were occupied, but that made no difference. Inevitably I was invited back to the kitchen where I sat with Hélène, Maurice’s wife, who happily placed morsel after morsel on my plate across a rough wooden table while we shared a bottle of the good, inexpensive house Bordeaux. The meal was completed with a large crockery bowl of the best chocolate mousse to be found in the city. I spent ninety minutes listening to prideful tales concerning the feats of the new grandson, complaints about the government and taxes, and constant exhortations to eat more.

  Maurice and Hélène easily agreed to act as mail drop and take phone messages for me for the next few weeks. (It was the restaurant’s phone number that I had given to Jake.) It was nearing ten PM when I finally headed back to my small hotel in one of the dark side streets behind the Place de la Madeleine. The room was small but clean and away from the street which meant it was quiet.

  CHAPTER 14 – On the Move