The Domino Conspiracy

by Joseph Heywood

  Sylvia was asleep when he turned off the highway and waited at a one-lane bridge while a white Wonder Bread truck lumbered across. Their destination was a small white house that sat on the point of a ridge south of the bridge. As promised, an envelope had been left for them at the Algonquin Hotel in the city: it contained the key to a safe-deposit box at a Chase Manhattan Bank branch at Forty-sixth and Madison. The box contained directions to Stuyvesant Falls and the keys to a Ford sedan that was parked in an underground garage on Fifty-second Street. They weren’t supposed to meet Arizona until tonight, but Valentine insisted on arriving early in order to look over the meeting site.

  “You don’t trust him?” Sylvia had asked.

  “Do you?”

  She had shrugged and curled up to take a nap.

  Valentine cruised slowly past the house, made a one-eighty beyond the village and came back for a second pass. The house was dark and there were no vehicles in the two-track dirt driveway. Just east of the bridge he found a gravel road, followed it down to the river’s edge, backed into a sumac grove and cut the lights and engine.

  “Where are we?” Sylvia asked sleepily.

  “Some kind of lovers’ lane.”

  She cursed at him and bunched her coat like a blanket. “Are we going to spend the rest of the night in the car?”

  “Romantic, isn’t it?”

  78TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 1961, 7:00 P.M.s’Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands

  s’Hertogenbosch was more village than city, a maze of well-maintained brick and wooden tenements with white shutters on the windows, gingerbread trim, cobblestone streets and polluted canals of still, brown water. In the town square there was a half acre of blood-red tulips, a memorial to those who had perished during the disastrous Arnheim raid. British and American paratroopers had fluttered down under their silks or crashed their plywood gliders into muddy fields and been bottlenecked by the Germans because of weather and too few bridges to get them across strategically important canals. The Arnheim raid had been a Brit show turned bad by factors beyond its planners’ control, Frash reminded himself; this described his own situation as well.

  Kennedy was coming to Europe. The newspapers said he would visit France and perhaps England. Neither of these was a surprise; American politicians found it difficult to visit Europe without paying homage to their former masters. The question was, Would Khrushchev meet with Kennedy? European media led by the Germans speculated that it would happen, but so far the White House and Kremlin were silent on the question. He would like to catch them together.

  Frash could not remember the woman’s exact address, but landmarks were etched in his memory and these led him to a brick house with blue-and-white shutters and a brass nameplate on a blue door. It was precisely where he remembered it; the place had not changed in three years. It was a law office, but the names on the brass plate meant nothing. It was her first name he remembered: Ina. “I work here,” she had told him. A secretary or clerk, he assumed. He let himself in without knocking. A small woman was putting on a black raincoat. The sky had threatened rain all afternoon.

  "Ina?"

  “You have an appointment?”

  “I’m an old friend.” What could be a more accurate description of twenty-four hours of intimacy?

  The woman looked him over, trying to make a judgment, then reached for the telephone. “Let me ring her for you.”

  Frash tried to charm her with his smile. “Actually, I’d rather it was a surprise.”

  The woman shrugged and pointed. “Upstairs to the right.”

  Ina was sitting on a loveseat, her legs folded under her. There were papers all around her and a half-eaten sandwich on the corner of a large desk. Her eyeglasses were suspended by a gold chain and rode between her small breasts. She wore a white sweater with the sleeves pushed above her elbows; her shoes were off. She did not look up when he closed the door. “Lock up on your way out, Marie,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of work tonight and I don’t want to be bothered.”

  “But I’ve just arrived,” Frash said, his voice startling her.

  She clutched at her glasses and stared at him. “You?”

  “I’m flattered that you remember me.”

  Her eyes were wide, her body rigid. “I never even knew your name.”

  “You never asked.”

  She had short reddish-blond hair and pale skin covered with freckles; a blush crept up her neck. “What is it you want?” She pressed herself back against the loveseat.

  “You told me you worked here. You didn’t tell me you were a lawyer.”

  “I’m not. I’m the accountant.”

  There was no pride in her voice; it was a mere statement of fact. Was she unhappy? Bored? “A scorekeeper,” he said in English.

  She didn’t understand the word. “Why are you here?” She seemed frantic.

  “Why are you so nervous?”

  “You know why,” she said, uncurling her legs and tugging her skirt down. “It’s not Carnival,” she added. “The circumstances are different; this is not permitted.”

  “I simply wanted to see you again,” he said. “I need some advice.” He had met her during the town’s annual Shrovetide carnival, a three-day event during which all of society’s restraints were cast off without guilt. He had never experienced anything quite like it.

  She closed her eyes, removed her glasses, set them on the cushion beside her, then folded her hands in her lap and looked directly into his eyes. “What sort of help?”

  “Why don’t we get reacquainted first?”

  She rose, walked to the window and looked down dolefully. “You’re a dangerous man,” she said. “I knew it then and I feel it now. You frighten me.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  He tried to put his arms around her, but she squirmed away. “I don’t know,” she whispered. She smelled of talcum powder and strong soap and was trembling.

  He smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry.” Ali urged Albert to force the issue, but Albert kept him at bay. “I only wanted to surprise you, but now I see that it was a poor joke. If I had known it would upset you, I would have phoned instead.”

  She turned to face him again. “It’s not as bad as all that,” she said. “I suppose I’m overreacting.”

  “Dinner to start afresh?”

  “I really shouldn’t.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  She smiled. “What harm can there be?”

  79TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 1961, 7:40 P.M.Stuyvesant Falls, New York

  Valentine saw immediately that Arizona was under stress. “Thought maybe you two had run off somewhere to play doctor and nurse,” the CIA man said. “What happened to Gabler? He wasn’t supposed to be part of your act.”

  “Our script had a lot of blank pages,” Sylvia said. “If somebody had helped us we might not have needed to involve Harry.”

  “The State Department is frosted. The dead woman was married to a Yugo VIP, which means there’ll be repercussions.”

  “We think Frash’s asset was terminated by the Soviets,” Sylvia said. “His name was Lumbas. The dead woman was named Peresic; she was a Belgrade cop, a homicide inspector. She was a collaborator of Gabler’s.”

  “Soviets?” How had they found out the identity of REBUS? Even he had not known that. “You’re sure?” Had the asset been blown before or after he passed the info on the Cuban pilots?

  “We have autopsy photos. Peresic said that the Russians took him out. She wanted to trade the information for a ticket to the West.”

  Which explained the frantic messages from the Israelis, but if the Soviets were on to Lumbas why would they kill him? It made no sense.

  “What did Frash have going?” Valentine asked. “And no bullshit this time around.”

  “Lumbas was his asset. He had been in the Soviet missile program, and still had contacts there, which gave us an exceptionally clear window into the program.”

  “Did everything he gave you check out?”

  “Not
everything is verifiable with this kind of information, but nothing he gave us was disputed by our analysts. The man knew his subject cold.”

  “His motive?” Sylvia asked.

  Arizona laughed. “Cash.”

  “Life’s most reliable motivator,” Valentine said.

  “Bona fides?” Sylvia was pressing.

  “There are two schools of thought about situations like this. In one you establish the bona fides of the source as a precursor to accepting information; in the second the quality and legitimacy of what you’re getting establishes its own bona fides. We accepted Lumbas on the second principle, partly because he was too valuable to risk alerting the other side by digging into his background, but, more important, because his information was so damned fertile.”

  “But the Yugoslavs claim the Soviets blew him away,” Valentine said. “If he was legit, why didn’t the Ivans put him on ice and squeeze till his balls popped out his ears?”

  Arizona allowed that this was perplexing, but since he had just heard about it he was not prepared to speculate. This would be assessed in due course; in the meanwhile, what had they learned about Frash?

  Sylvia did the talking while Valentine sat back to watch their superior’s reaction. “Harry and the Yugos thought Frash had something going in Albania,” she began. What little color remained in Arizona’s face drained as he fumbled to light a cigarette. “We also have a source that leads us to believe that Frash had networked with Albanian expatriates in Paris,” she went on.

  “Hard evidence?”

  “You judge,” she answered. “First, he was born in Paris, not Boston. Second, his parents were Albanian. Third, our source says that he was mixed up in some scheme to invade Albania. Fourth, the source claims that there was an earlier operation against the Pixies about ten years ago. The operation involved Cyprus, which fits the timeline bio you gave us. He was there in ’53. Was he part of that show?”

  “Briefly,” Arizona admitted, “but only tangentially. Tell me about this so-called new scheme.”

  “He had money in Paris and bought arms, which were sent to Trieste. It may be that the Yugos thought the Company was bankrolling the deal, so they committed to it; so did the Greeks. Certainly the Albanian expatriates in Paris believe it was our op—and maybe even under way.” She related the news stories about Albania. “The evidence says Frash was playing director and maybe screenwriter as well. Were you the producer?”

  Arizona felt tired. “Not a chance,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “His job was the Russian and nothing more. I cut him loose from Paris so that he could concentrate on REBUS.”

  “Was that move your idea?” Valentine asked.

  “No, his,” Arizona said. “I agreed to send him to Belgrade because it made sense. The asset was based there. He was a marginal station chief, but a whiz in the field.”

  “How did he get the Paris job?” Sylvia asked.

  “He was due a promotion and had requested Paris; he spoke the lingo like a native. We sent him as a test to see if we could move him up the Soviet-East Europe Division ladder. S. E. is the major league, but not everybody’s cut out for it.” He paused. “Where is he now?”

  “He’s Houdini,” Valentine said. “Maybe the Russians grabbed him instead of Lumbas.”

  “Maybe,” Arizona said, but he doubted it.

  “If the Russians don’t have him and he hasn’t checked in with his own people, what does that tell us?” Valentine asked.

  “Listen up,” Arizona answered, almost relieved that at last he was going to have to explain what he had been living with since Venema’s call. “There are some things about Frash that have just come to light and that you two need to know.”

  80WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1961, 7:25 A.M.Barvikha, Russia

  Talia and Gnedin worked through the documents methodically. The files were thicker than anticipated, containing not only finished documents—minutes, agendas and special reports—but also notepads used by various committee members, rough drafts and the tapes used to record their rambling deliberations. In all, the files amounted to seven large cartons. As she anticipated, the boxes had been packed haphazardly, which meant that before they could analyze and evaluate their contents, they had to reorganize everything chronologically. Once this had been done, they examined every piece of paper from oldest to newest. Gnedin read official minutes of a meeting while Talia listened to the raw tape; then they swapped. This done, they went through all the supplementary information connected to a particular meeting before moving on to the next. Throughout this process they each made their own notes; there was no discussion because they had agreed it would be best to develop their own ideas and hypotheses, then compare when they had control of the information. To think out loud together before they had formed their own opinions might risk losing an important insight.

  Khrushchev came in several times to find out if they had made any progress, but each time he found them deep in concentration and left without disturbing them.

  They worked straight through for twenty-four hours, then ate, took showers and reconvened to compare notes.

  “Sloppy work,” Gnedin began. “There’s nothing about Lumbas in the notes or final reports.”

  Talia’s search had yielded the same result. “Even so,” she said, “it seems to me that the deliberations and record keeping are so loose that there was plenty of room to conceal something.” She had also noticed that at the end of the meetings there was a rush to approve various transfers that needed committee approval; for these there was little if any committee discussion.

  “Shelepin rarely attends the sessions,” Gnedin said, “which bears out what Dirikova told us. Khrushchev delegates to Shelepin, who delegates to Perevertkin.”

  “But Malinovsky seldom misses a meeting,” she added.

  “Which adds up to very little; he rarely says anything,” Gnedin said. When Malinovsky did speak, it generally was to brag about some military official he had served with or nurtured in some way, but for the most part he was silent. On those few occasions when he did enter a debate he spouted so much ideology that the discussion seemed to drown in trivia. “The minister of defense is a doddering old fool,” the doctor concluded.

  “Perevertkin is the one who controls the committee,” Talia said. “Whatever the committee approves has to be followed up by him.”

  “But all transfers go to Khrushchev and Malinovsky for signature. To move a man requires both.”

  They were silent for a long time. “If there is no information, then we look at behavior,” Talia said at last. “What is consistent or inconsistent?”

  This time they concentrated on the tapes, but as the hours passed Talia’s frustrations grew. “What the hell was Trubkin looking for?”

  “He never got this far,” Gnedin reminded her. “His focus was the committee itself because he guessed there was information there, but he had no chance to confirm whatever suspicions he harbored.”

  “His questions to the woman showed an interest in Shelepin and Perevertkin, but now we know that it was Perevertkin who shouldered the lion’s share of the work. There has to be something in the tapes,” she said with growing exasperation.

  Gnedin put the first reel on the tape player again and slumped in a chair.

  The doctor was the one who caught it. Rewinding a tape he said, “Listen to this.” It was the end of a meeting and Perevertkin was speaking. “We’re running late,” he said. “If there are no objections I’ll take care of the remainder of the agenda items.” Gnedin then stopped the tape, rewound it, took it off and put another on. This time Perevertkin said, “We’re running late. What’s the committee’s desire with regard to the remaining agenda items?” An unidentified voice said, “You take care of them.” Several other voices chimed assent and the tape ended with the shuffling of papers and the sound of chairs scraping the floor. Gnedin put on another tape and advanced it to the end of the meeting. Talia sat with her head back, arms crossed, eyes closed. The end of the new ta
pe was nearly identical with the last one, and on each subsequent tape the meetings ended the same way. “Hear it?” he asked. “In all the tapes but that one he’s strictly reactive. Only that once did he volunteer to take care of what hadn’t been covered. It’s an exception.”

  Talia found the file of papers that related to this particular meeting and examined the agenda again. Several items were unchecked. Perevertkin’s own copy contained the notation “Handle,” and arrows were drawn from the word to several items. One man was to go to the Office of Technology Exchange, whatever that was, two more were headed to a submarine project at Kamchatka, another to assess problems at a radar installation on the Kola Peninsula, two more to come from Siberian installations to Moscow for special training assignments in project security, another man to attend a London conference on television microwave transmission, and a final man to go to Belgrade on loan to the Yugoslavian Aviation Ministry to serve as a technical consultant. “Check the original paperwork on these,” Talia said, but Gnedin was already searching. They laid the papers out side by side and studied them.

  By now Talia’s concentration was flagging, but Petrov had pressed them and there was no time now to sleep or eat. After a while she flung up her hands. “Nothing,” she cried. “Not a goddamned thing!”

  “Wait,” Gnedin said. “Wait a minute.” He had one paper in his hand and picked up others. “Top right,” he told her. “Top right.” Each application had a box in the corner, and in each was a handwritten three-letter designator and a typed number. All of them showed the letters “V-P-S,” but none of the numbers were sequential.

  Talia picked up the committee’s cloth-bound logbook and flipped through the pages. “The initials are for Velak, Perevertkin and Shelepin,” she said. “They have to initial each set of papers before it goes to the committee.”

  Gnedin placed one of the pages in front of her. “But this one’s different. All three letters are the same, but it looks to me like one hand wrote them.”