“I do honest-to-God scandals,” Fein snapped. “News stories that shake up governments and get big people canned. Jeez, why doesn’t anybody want to deal with reality anymore?”
“A mole is an agent who penetrates another intelligence agency,” Viveca said primly, “and sends information back home, the way Aldrich Ames did. But a sleeper is different. He’s an agent who integrates himself into the enemy society. He is left to his own devices. Once his cover is established, and his legend—that’s his false identity, greatly detailed—becomes a part of him, he must remain alone, unaided. He is not contacted for years, even decades, until the moment comes for him to be activated.”
“That would require remarkable motivation,” Dominick offered, nodding at her to go on.
“Not only loyalty, but dedication and amazing self-discipline. A free society is seductive,” she said, recrossing her legs. “A new family and a career over here must exert a powerful pull. A sleeper agent faces the constant temptation to cross over, to forget his ties.”
“Yeah,” said Fein, wondering where she got all that.
Dominick apparently wanted to see how much she knew about intelligence tradecraft. “What did you mean by his ‘legend’ becoming part of him?”
“The false identity,” she went on, “is constructed from childhood to resist investigation. The files of schools and motor vehicle bureaus and early employers are fixed to have a record of him, so the younger he is when he is sent over, the better. When a credit agency checks him out, for example, the legend responds consistently. And in his own mind, the sleeper almost becomes the person that the legend has built.”
“That’s what this guy did,” Irving picked up. “He came here a generation or so ago. He got into banking. He put down roots. He blended into our landscape. So when the old KGB sent a handler to activate him, this guy was ready to direct the operation to bury all the communist assets.”
“In gold?” Dominick looked skeptical. “We were all told that the Soviets, toward the end, had a dangerously low gold reserve.”
“A few billion, peanuts,” said Fein. He drew out a long computer printout prepared by Mike Shu and showed it to the banker. The preliminary report was mostly questions about the possibility of oil scams, grain credit fraud, overruns of paper money printings, the illicit sale of plutonium. Nothing solid; they were at the start of their investigation, and what few solid leads they had from Treasury and Fed sources were not to be shopped around until their banker-ringer had committed himself.
“And you want technical advice from me? I’m flattered, but why me? You live in New York, you’ve got—”
Viveca tapped a cigarette out of her pack and leaned forward. “Because we think you would be the perfect—”
“Just a second,” Fein interrupted. “What do you think of that list? On the right track?”
“Kind of obvious,” the banker replied. “I’m assuming what you say is true about sleepers and legends and all that. And for the sake of argument, I’ll buy the whole notion of a scheme to run up a fortune using the inside information available to the KGB. But this printout approaches it from a bookkeeper’s mentality.”
“How would you approach it, Edward?” This from Viveca. She looked around for an ashtray. Dominick took one out of a drawer, evidently kept there for important clients, and put it in front of her. Irving figured that little byplay of hers gave him a whiff of her delicate perfume, as she had done with him in her house; Irving was glad to have her on his side, though he wished he knew who had briefed her on the tradecraft.
“The key to amassing a great fortune,” Dominick said, “is not to steal money. A better way is to set up situations of guaranteed profit. If you were the government of the Soviet Union, and you wanted to channel really large sums into a secret fund, you wouldn’t want to put deposits in other people’s banks, especially regulated banks. Instead, you’d want to take over banks of your own, ones that could then buy their own shipping lines, which in turn would profit from hauling your oil and grain. You would construct an integrated, worldwide profit-making machine. But that’s only one way, or part of one.” He thought some more, willing to appear intrigued by the possibilities.
“Part of the way?” Viveca asked, from within her cloud of smoke.
“The key you have is information. Inside information. The equation is this: advance information, plus serious money—major capital to act on the data—equals big profit. A superpower like the old Soviet Union could manipulate markets on a grand scale. You could sell short on the commodity futures market and then produce a glut of that commodity, and your man on the outside would be able to make billions in a year. Or you could buy long and then create a shortage, and make more billions.”
“You’re going too fast for me,” Viveca said. Irving was glad she’d said it.
“Miz Farr, Mr. Fein—Viveca and Irving, if I may—I really don’t know if this sleeper business of yours is true or not. Maybe you’re just down here pulling my leg, and this is Candid Camera or something. But if you knew in advance what a superpower was going to do in politics or economics, it would be like owning tomorrow’s newspaper today. You’d know what to buy and sell. You’d know who won the races, where the local wars would start, what shortages would develop. You could make fortune on top of fortune.”
A buzzer sounded; Irving figured Dominick had told his secretary to interrupt him with a nonexistent important call at about this point. As he spoke to his secretary on the intercom, the reporter murmured to Viveca: “He’s hooked. Reel him in.”
Viveca sensed it wouldn’t be that easy. Dominick was apparently intrigued with the Soviet plot, but if he was anything like her banker father, he would want to protect himself against losses in any involvement. This Memphis banker reminded her of her father, Victor Farrano, when he was at the top of his profession, at the time she was away at Mount Holyoke. He was carefully easygoing, immaculately disheveled; interested in his daughter in a measuring way, requiring her to display self-confidence lest she disappoint him. Her father, who worked successfully at being outgoing, had been centered on his own being, sure of his moral moorings until he went overboard at fifty on a financial scheme and a scheming woman and lost his fortune and his home and his family. Viveca wet her lips and swallowed; whenever she thought of that benighted man, she wished she had a drink. From the heights of social prominence, so important at a top-line school, she found herself waiting on tables, her humiliation delighting the young women she had previously snubbed. Since that day she had felt as if she were standing on a trapdoor always on the verge of being sprung. At least she had been able to make the money on the air to get the Pound Ridge house back.
She was impressed with Irving’s choice of a banker. Dominick exuded authority from the way he made no obvious effort to make his presence felt. A charming chuckle, but no fake heartiness; the handshake was firm, but was not followed by a too-familiar touching of the shoulder or holding of the forearm.
“Let me have lunch with him alone,” she told Irving while Dominick was on the phone. “Meet me at the departure gate at three.” When he hesitated, she added, “He doesn’t like you.”
“Nobody likes me; so what,” Irving said, playing the self-mocking realist by adding, “At least he has good judgment. But you’re right, he has eyes for you. Pull out all the stops.”
“I’ll only pull out the ones I need.”
“Remember to get him to check with Clauson at Langley,” Irving reminded her, “and prime him to expect ‘neither confirm nor deny.’ Hint that we have a source at the Fed, because I do, and that’s catnip to these bankers. And don’t push to close the deal.”
Viveca rose as Dominick put down the phone. “Irving has to go and milk a source, as he puts it. Is there a place near here where a single woman can sit at a counter and have a lonely lunch?”
As she had expected, Dominick took her to the restaurant atop the bank building. He did not try to pour on the charm; he did not pump her for more ab
out the reason for her interest in the world of espionage, which she hoped he would, because she preferred responding to selling. He did not come on to her, nor did he show her pictures of his late wife and away-at-school kids; the banker played it down the middle, smoothly sharing backgrounds, delighted to learn that she was the daughter of a banker, showing sincere interest in the way she presented the news. Perhaps this project would balance out; Irving the frenetic boor, Dominick the stable gentleman. Both men were daring—Dominick had to be a bit of a gambler to get ahead in the Southern banking world of the eighties—but there was a nice element of prudence to him.
Persuading him to join the enterprise became important to her, not merely to prove to Irving and Ace how valuable her participation could be, but for her own self-confidence and peace of mind. It would be good, for a change, to enjoy her work.
“And now, Miz Farr, you’re about to tell me why you chose me, out of the whole world of bankers, to be your technical adviser.”
“It’s more than that, Edward. You know I could take Irving to any one of a dozen top bankers for good strategic advice. And Irving could take me to the best SEC enforcement people, Federal Reserve monitors, banking sources on the Hill. He has an especially good contact at the Fed.” She took a step further: “Look—Irving is not our kind, but he is very good at what he does.”
“I believe you. And you two make a good team. I’m glad I’m having lunch with the good cop.”
“What we want is not only your technical advice, but your strategic sense. That equation of yours—about advance information plus major capital equaling big profit—was an eye-opener to me. I had no idea that the Information Age extended that far.” She knew her memorization of his fairly obvious “equation” would cause him to preen, but sensed she was laying it on a little thick; she came to the point she and Irving had rehearsed. “We want your involvement, Edward. If we are going to find the sleeper agent—and I’ll tell you what we know about him if you’re with us—then we need somebody who can think the way he does, act the way he might act. We want you to become him, track his decision-making, get into his stream of affairs.”
“I quite understand what you want of me. You set a banker to catch a banker. But I’m no detective. How’s it going to work?”
“We’ll have a way to make the KGB, and the other elements in Russia that are looking for the sleeper, suspect that you’re him. We want them to come to you.”
“Why?”
“Irving can explain this better than I can, but the idea is to become a player. Then people trade information. You find out what the investigative agencies are looking for, how much they know. He’s done this before, and it works—he’s won every journalistic prize that counts.”
She gave him time to think it over. Then he asked the question Irving had hoped he would ask, showing he had the imagination necessary for the role. “Sooner or later, the real sleeper will get wind of this, won’t he? I mean, you can’t set up a parallel operation, tracking a pattern of successful trading over the past five years, without the coon gettin’ wise there’s a coon dog after him.”
Viveca was briefed and ready for that. “There’s at least a good possibility that he’ll soon be aware of your impersonation, Edward. Then we have reason to believe he will approach you to act as his intermediary in some major deal.”
“Why would he do that? What’s the deal?”
She skipped over the why; Irving hadn’t told her why. “The Russians, both the government and the antigovernment group, want their money back. That’s their business. Let the sleeper work something out with either of them, I don’t care. Our business, Irving’s and mine, is to get the story—how the sleeper did it, who he involved, especially in our government, where the money is, and where it goes.”
“If all you say is true,” Dominick mused, “he’s the richest man in the world. And hardly anybody knows he’s alive.”
“It’s a fantastic story, and it will make my career.”
“That’s a fine deal for you, little lady, but how did you come to pick me?”
“First of all, your physical appearance. He’s six-four.”
“You ought to come to an American Bankers Association convention. That narrows down the field to a couple thousand.”
“And you were recommended by some people in the government.”
“Who?”
“Irving didn’t tell me, and I don’t blame him for holding his sources very tightly. I do the same. But he surely didn’t get your name out of the Memphis phone book.”
Dominick seemed to relax; she was telling the truth. “Viveca, if I may call you that, I can make a pretty good guess at who our mutual friend in Washington is. But I’m a businessman, right? I hate to sound crass, but this would be a lot of trouble, take a lot of time …”
He wanted to know what was in this for him. She had that down pat: “You would be at the center of the book, as the hero, and the star of the television series. You and I would narrate the whole story. You’d become one of the most famous bankers in the country. In the whole world.”
“Fame counts, there’s no denying that. But no fortune. That’s not much of a return on the investment of time.”
When he said that, her stomach constricted, and she took a gulp of wine. She did not want to lose him, and tried her first fallback position. “The monetary return is something we could work out with the governments that pay a fee for recovering lost assets. Or with our own government on an income-tax whistleblower reward if the sleeper evaded taxes, as he surely must have. Or if the sleeper wants to make a deal with you, to act as his agent in dealing with the Russians—” She shrugged and didn’t finish that possibility. Irving had said that Michael Shu suspected that if our ringer had a little larceny in his soul, he might try to make a deal with the real sleeper to get a small cut of the fortune.
“The risk is higher than you think, Viveca. If I am to impersonate a possibly criminal figure, our investigation would have to have the color of law.”
That was almost a setup; she knew precisely what to say. “We anticipated that. You are to call—do you have a pen?—a man named Walter Clauson in the counterintelligence division of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. The central switchboard is in the telephone book, or the information operator will give it to you.” That was so he would know he was calling a real person at a real agency, not somebody who would answer a precooked number. “You are to say you would like to discuss a matter about a man with insomnia. Remember that the call is recorded. He will make an appointment for you to come to his office in Langley, Virginia, or on F Street in the District of Columbia, all open and aboveboard.”
She had memorized this perfectly, wasn’t tripping over a word. A memory intruded of the mentalist reciting secrets in an ancient movie called The 39 Steps with Robert Donat, a reference to which would drive Irving up the wall, because this was real reality, not virtual reality. “When you get there, tell him of our visit to you and what we want you to do. He will then say these exact words: ‘I cannot confirm or deny the existence of a KGB sleeper agent in the United States. You are one hundred percent on your own. Thank you and good afternoon.’ Listen for that ‘one hundred percent.’ ”
“Is that all?” He did not seem reassured.
“What that should tell you is that we are in touch with a high official in counterintelligence; that we have worked out with him who will call him and what he will say; and your recorded interview will be part of the CIA’s record of the case.”
She watched him assess that. As she expected, it came up short. “That’s not a whole bunch of protection.”
“Edward, I’m told that you’re not entirely an innocent in these matters. You said it yourself—we may have a mutual friend in Washington. You can check our bona fides”—she pronounced it in proper Latin, bone-a feedays, as instructed—“by the exact way Clauson answers. He cannot give you a go-ahead, but this proves to you that he sent us to you.”
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p; Dominick remained noncommittal; she supposed he would check this out. Irving had told her not to expect an answer right away. She took out her business card, wrote on it her private numbers in New York City and Pound Ridge, and gave it to him. Personal chemistry was important here; the prospect of working with her might attract him, and she felt that she had established some rapport. “Let me know. I’d really like to work with you.”
A group of men passed their table, said hello to him, looked at her, and one looked back at Dominick, eyebrows up, impressed. She was grateful for that.
“You haven’t been entirely frank with me, Viveca, and I don’t hold that against you, considering the business you’re in. But I’m going to be very straight with you.” The banker’s large brown eyes were now more penetrating than mournful. “This sleeper fellow, if he exists, has to be resourceful. He isn’t going to want to be found out. He’s not going to want a partner. He could be dangerous, not just to the impersonator, but to you.”
“I’ll take that chance. Will you?”
“Don’t know why I should. The monetary reward you speak of is highly problematical. The notion of being a big celebrity if we succeed is kind of attractive. I could run for office on it, but I have no political ambitions.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Still, you’re considering it. Tell me why.” She remembered her father’s advice: give a prospect a chance to sell himself on a deal.
He leaned back and looked out over Memphis and the river. “Your approach is sound. The sleeper would find out about the parallel operation soon enough, even on a small scale, because this world of big-league banking is a tight circle, and he might just reach out in one way or another. Second, working with you journalistic types would be kind of exciting, no bones about that.”
He flexed his arm and she removed her hand. “Most important, though, there’s the challenge. Can’t ignore that. How do you take a few billion, and using the inside information of a superpower, run it up to the biggest private fortune in the world? And all the while, keep it hidden?” He all but licked his lips at that. “I bet I could figure it out, with some really good staff support backtracking market movements. Be a hell of an exercise.”
Sleeper Spy Page 16
