The Domino Conspiracy

by Joseph Heywood

  “No,” she said softly. “If we leave, our people will suffer. We’ve already discussed this. We’ve started a fight and now we must finish it. We have obligations.”

  He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, but could not find the right words. Why was it that he could not openly express his feelings to her?

  Talia came to him, kissed him softly on the neck, squeezed his arm and laughed. “I know, my husband.”

  When the helicopter landed in the snowy meadow below the cabin, Ezdovo and Talia were already on the porch. A man emerged and struggled slowly toward them through the thigh-deep snow. “Pyotr Ezdovo?” The hunter nodded. “Talia Pogrebenoi?” She stepped forward. “You will come with me, please.”

  35 MONDAY, MARCH 6, 1961, 9:10 A.M.Moscow

  The lobby was jammed with its customary mishmash of uniformed officers and bureaucrats in the process of putting on or taking off heavy wool coats and winter footwear. The reception area stank of wet fur, sweat and disinfectant. Floors harbored small, shallow eddies of diluted mud and slush, their unevenness a testament to the impossibility of leveling cement floors when workmen labored with heavy blood levels of cheap vodka.

  A set of steel doors in the basement led to a huge complex that housed the headquarters of the most powerful military-intelligence organization in the world, the GRU; its denizens called it the Aquarium because everyone and everything in it was under constant scrutiny. There was something comical about entering so powerful a place through so seedy an establishment; surely it fooled none of their enemies. Bailov hated going into the Aquarium, but it was the price he paid to keep his job in Spetsnaz. In Vinnitsa he was in command; here he had limited power. Out there everything was clear and simple; here it was turgid and twisted. There his men counted for everything; here nobody counted for anything. Except Raya, of course.

  He moved through the steel entrance doors into a room with a narrow opening between brick and mortar walls; a queue of people was waiting patiently to go through a security station rigged with metal detectors. In the GRU’s inner sanctum no metal was allowed except what was already there: no belt buckles, keys, rings, watches, pocket knives or cigarette lighters. As a result, most of the men in the Aquarium paraded around in colorful suspenders rather than belts.

  When Bailov reached the checkpoint, he put his toes on a white line painted on the floor and showed his Certificate of Officer’s Identity, a small green booklet with a gold star on the cover. The armed guard took the booklet, opened it, examined the photograph, compared it with him, repeated the process, grunted, returned the booklet to Bailov and nodded—the signal that he could proceed through the sensors. Before stepping through he felt himself tense in an involuntary response to the test the device symbolized. No matter how many times he went into the GRU’s inner sanctum, he feared that somehow he would fail and be humiliated. How was it that in case of war he could be relied upon to parachute behind enemy lines to kill enemy political leaders and sabotage their factories, bridges and water supplies, yet in peacetime had to pass a loyalty test every time he entered his own building? Worst of all, Soviet technicians had built the sensing device, which meant it was probably as unreliable as the building’s uneven floors.

  No alarm sounded. On the other side he was met by two more guards; the one who hovered beside a hard-spined book was squat and well muscled, with small eyes and a bent nose. Guardsmen were uneducated reptiles in human form, impervious to pain, expected to do whatever was required of them, showing no fear and probably not feeling it either, which made them different from his own troops. Both organizations put a premium on brutishness, their missions requiring it, but guards were too stupid to be afraid and his own men too proud to give in to it. No doubt this particular animal could barely read what was written in the ledger, which made the procedure another of Moscow’s many charades. After Bailov signed in, the man beside the door pushed it open and let him pass.

  The narrow halls of the Aquarium had tan-colored linoleum floors and were well lit by powerful bulbs in small cages of black wire; the walls were pale green and there were no signs to guide newcomers; here you were expected to know your way.

  As usual the elevator was out of order; Bailov took the stairs to the third floor, walked quickly to the far end of the building and pushed open the door to the Fifth Directorate, which had responsibility for “operational intelligence,” meaning Spetsnaz as well as a number of other special and clandestine missions.

  The head of the Fifth Directorate was Lieutenant General Igor Yepishev, a forty-nine-year-old Russian with short blond hair, pale, translucent skin that never tanned because he rarely went outside, ape-like arms that hung nearly to his knees, oversized ears that stuck out like radar antennae and the thick neck of a weight lifter. Unlike many generals who grew fat from too little exercise and an excess of food and drink, Yepishev was fit; he ran several kilometers daily, and played handball with officers twenty years his junior. He also seldom bathed, and because of his peculiar personal hygiene personnel of the Fifth Directorate referred to him as the Goat, a term also used by the KGB for its informants. Despite Yepishev’s offensive body odor, Bailov liked the man. Whatever else he might be, Yepishev was a good soldier and a true professional, something the GRU and Red Army were both short of. And though he was certain the general had similar respect for him, the Goat was not the sort to share such feelings.

  Bailov slipped past Yepishev’s office into an open bay filled with nicked and discolored wooden desks. After he was seated, a clerk fetched a carton of files and Bailov spread out his work; it was not true work, of course, merely paper exercises designed to reinforce the tenuousness of his position in the chain of command. By requiring his presence every month, his superiors, all the way up to Khrushchev, reminded the strong-willed young colonel and those like him that they were serving at their masters’ pleasure. This was the sort of thing the czars had done; now those who had overthrown the czars behaved similarly. The aristocracy remained; only its name had changed.

  Today Bailov would continue his analysis of the proposition that Spetsnaz troops at the squad level should be cross-trained in individual technical specialties, which was how American and British commando units operated. As he thought about the problem, Bailov sensed a presence, then smelled it, and looked up from his notes to find the Goat standing beside his desk.

  “Good morning, Comrade General.” Was Yepishev so accustomed to his own odor that he couldn’t smell it? Other officers left their desks to give the two men space. Yepishev dropped an envelope on his desk. “Confidential” was hand-stamped in red ink across the front and it was sealed, which meant little because there were countless specialists in the GRU who could open and re-seal envelopes in such ways that nobody, including other experts, would know. Even so, Bailov assumed Yepishev would know the contents because nothing happened in the Fifth Directorate without his approval or knowledge.

  “What’s this?” Bailov asked. “Another bird study?”

  Yepishev looked paler than normal. “It came by messenger from the Kremlin.”

  “You’re joking,” Bailov said with a smile.

  “I don’t make jokes,” the Goat growled before yelling at another officer across the room and moving away.

  Strange behavior, Bailov thought. He peeled open an end of the envelope, popped a document free and unfolded it. He was ordered to report as soon as possible to an address in Odessa, there to await further orders. Nikita Khrushchev’s name was typed under the message and his initials scrawled in the space above. When Bailov looked up he saw that Yepishev was watching him with questioning eyes.

  36 TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1961, 7:15 P.M.Belgrade

  Belgrade was gray and depressing, its people seldom smiling, the sulfurous stench of factories permeating everything.

  It was nearly dark when Sylvia began to cross the narrow street; the flicker of automobile lights fifty meters away caught her eye. When the vehicle was abreast of her Harry Gabler leaned out his window. “G
et in,” he said.

  “This town has all the charm of a cement factory,” she said as she squeezed into the seat next to him. They drove north out of the city onto a flat plain, passing several dark villages surrounded by long rows of fruit trees. “Cook’s tour?”

  “Something like that,” Gabler said. He seemed preoccupied. After about forty minutes he slowed the vehicle to a crawl. “Ought to be a road to the right someplace along here. Fucking Yugos don’t mark anything.”

  The road was a dirt two-track between rows of apple trees with gnarled trunks and contorted branches. Gabler turned off the headlights and eased the car down uneven ruts to a barn at the end of the road. There he stopped the car and flashed his lights once. The barn doors swung open immediately. A small dark Volkswagen was already inside, and when they pulled in behind it, the doors swung shut behind them. Gabler got out without speaking; Sylvia followed, moving slowly, not wanting to trip in the darkness and feeling more than a little uneasy about the station chief’s secretive behavior.

  Ahead of him a door opened, revealing a dim yellow light. “This way,” Gabler called back.

  The room was small, furnished with a hand-hewn table and several chairs. Light came from a kerosene lantern hung on the wall.

  A tall, thin woman followed them into the room. She had extremely short blond hair and wore a shiny black raincoat and no makeup. Black mud caked her boots.

  Gabler unbuttoned his coat and sat in a chair. “Meet Inspector Peresic,” he said.

  Sylvia extended her hand. The blond woman had a masculine grip and maintained the contact for an unusually long time before pushing the door shut with her heel. She was more handsome than pretty and her teeth were crooked, with a severe overbite. “I’m Chief Inspector Peresic,” she said with a pronounced English accent. “Did you have difficulty finding the place?”

  “It would have been easier to meet closer to the city,” Gabler said.

  “Easy is not in our domain,” Peresic said as she sat down. “Harry likes things simple,” she told Sylvia. “It would be difficult to explain why a homicide inspector and the CIA have legitimate business together.”

  “She knows who you are?” Sylvia asked Gabler, her surprise apparent.

  The woman smiled. “Call me Vicki. I am homicide, not political, understand? Harry and I trade information from time to time. We think of it as professional courtesy.”

  Sylvia wondered if they exchanged anything else and the woman seemed to read her mind. “We’re professionally related, nothing more.” She smiled, took off tight black-leather gloves and slapped them on the table. “You Americans are not accustomed to women in positions of authority. In a socialist state we evaluate talent, not genitals.”

  Gabler chuckled. “Go easy on her, Vicki.”

  The inspector took a small notebook from her pocket, then put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Unidentified male, late thirties to early forties, slight stature, five foot eight by your measure, fifty-five kilos, brown hair, brown eyes, no scars or birthmarks. The body was discovered in the New Cemetery November 15, 1960, at 1800 hours. Three gunshot wounds: head, chest, left thigh. The leg wound was a rear entry, the others frontal. Apparently he tried to run, but the leg wound knocked him down. The headshot killed him instantly, though the chest wound would have sufficed.” She flipped the page. “Discovered by the cemetery superintendent. Several workmen were in the area at the time but nothing was heard or observed.”

  The woman was confident, almost arrogant, but Sylvia also felt something else, maybe anger. Or frustration. She looked at Gabler. “Did I miss something?”

  Gabler plopped his elbows on the table. “I asked Vicki to do a little checking for me.”

  Peresic removed her glasses. “Unsolved homicides over a six-month period with cross-referencing to missing-persons files.”

  Sylvia wanted to question Gabler but she had no idea if the woman knew about Frash or their search for him.

  “Our record keeping doesn’t compare with the West’s, but we are not without some competence,” Peresic said. “The deceased has not been identified. No papers. No distinguishing scars or birthmarks. Not a cavity in his mouth.”

  “What about his clothing?” Gabler asked.

  “Like any other man in the street. No foreign labels.” She took a small photo out of her notebook and slid it to Gabler. The black-and-white photograph had poor resolution, the angle from directly above the corpse, the sutured Y-shaped autopsy incision an ugly scar. The bullet holes in the chest and head were small and neat. The leg wound was gaping. Gabler passed the photo to Sylvia. “Morgue photography leaves a lot to be desired,” Inspector Peresic said apologetically.

  Gabler shook his head. “Can we keep this?”

  “We have others.”

  “Never seen him before,” Gabler said. “Got a best guess?” he asked the inspector.

  Sylvia saw that the face had fine, almost feminine features.

  Peresic paused before speaking. “Guesses only. An Albanian, perhaps; the face is a classical type. Definitely not a Serb or Croatian.”

  “It’s not much,” Gabler said.

  The woman smiled. “We are both in professions where not much must often be enough.”

  Gabler nodded. “Is the case still open?”

  “Only technically. We don’t have the resources to indefinitely investigate cases such as this. I have only eight people in my section. Someday perhaps we will acquire some information that will enable us to solve it, but probably not. It rests on serendipity’s shoulders.”

  The earmarks of the killing were clear to Gabler. “Assassination is a political act,” he said.

  “Our country is rife with killings. Violence is in our blood, and our people practice the Christian principle of an eye for an eye but little else. This could be politically motivated or it might be far more mundane.”

  “What about robbery?”

  “He still had dinars in his pocket.”

  “Silencers must have been used,” Gabler said. “Nobody heard the shots, yet workmen were close by.”

  “A silencer is easy enough to manufacture. It’s quite simple, really. Obviously the killing was done efficiently, but this alone doesn’t make it a political act.”

  Gabler did not ask if Yugoslavian intelligence was aware of the killing; it routinely reviewed all capital crimes. “That’s it, then?”

  “I will keep you informed,” Peresic said.

  “Same from our end,” Gabler said.

  The Americans left first and drove back to the city.

  “One of Frash’s contacts?” Sylvia asked, tapping the photo on the dashboard. The wipers clicked monotonously against the windshield.

  “Maybe,” Gabler said. “This guy bought it about the same time Frash vanished. There might be a connection. I’ve gone as deep with my sources as I can.”

  “What connection?”

  “You and your partner are looking for Frash,” Gabler said. “My wife hates my work,” he said out of the blue. Then he added, “So do I, but what else can I do? Once you’re in, you’re in.”

  “I assume there’s a point to this,” Sylvia said.

  “It’s like I told you and your partner,” Gabler said. “I looked for Frash. Nothing elaborate, but an effort nevertheless. Two investigation teams came through but I heard no follow-up and nobody asked for my help or opinion. I figured then that Frash had been ordered out, moved to new duty. Then you show up and your being here says this Frash thing is a real mess, so I tapped Vicki. Would’ve done it sooner, but I wasn’t asked. See?”

  “And your lady friend digs into her files out of the goodness of her heart.”

  Gabler nodded and turned onto a fog-shrouded bridge. “Vicki? Hell no. She owes me, and now I’ve called in some interest, but in the long run this will cost me.”

  “Previous investigations didn’t take the same route?”

  “You tell me,” he said. “I assume you were briefed before you were sent in.”
>
  Both she and Beau had been briefed by Arizona, but it had been done separately and now, it seemed, not as thoroughly as she had assumed. She looked at the stone walls of the bridge. There were no pedestrians. Arizona had said nothing about Company contacts with the Belgrade police.

  Gabler took her silence as an affirmation of what he already felt. “Who knows what angles were looked at? Not me, so I got hold of Vicki, decided it’s time for me to satisfy some curiosity, fill in a few squares. I asked her to sweep her files and see what popped up.”

  “Is that Frash in the photo?”

  “Nope.”

  “So we’ve got nothing.”

  “Maybe, but I’ve got a hunch Frash was doing something with the Pixies.”

  She looked at Gabler. “Pixies?”

  “Company jargon for Albanians.”

  “Why tell me and not Valentine?”

  “He’s an amateur,” Gabler said. “You’re not. I saw that right off. I ran into Frash a couple of times; he was carrying Albanian newspapers. They’ve got a big group in this country, maybe a million or more in a region called Kosovo; it was annexed by Tito after the war. What the hell’s Frash reading that shit for? I asked myself. Another time I heard him say something about Albanians, and another time my secretary heard him talking in Albanian. We ran an op with the Brits against the Pixies in the early fifties; I figured that maybe a replay was in the works.”

  Sylvia knew nothing of a previous operation, but in the old days the Company had engaged in all sorts of cockamamy paramilitary operations against the Soviets and their satellites. “More likely that all these things are unconnected, but you never know until you take a hard look.”

  “Right,” Gabler said, “but when you try to assemble a puzzle you take the pieces you have and look for a fit. If there isn’t one, that tells you something too. I believe in starting with what I have, not what I don’t.”

  “And now your inspector friend gives us a dead body that’s maybe Albanian. Maybe a dozen Albanians were murdered in the same time period. One corpse gives us nothing.”