As he emerged from the metro Okhlopkin paused to straighten his overcoat, then cut through the park near where his troops were billeted. It was Friday and the weather pleasant, so the streets were jammed, and it seemed that every Muscovite was watching him. When the great men had brought him to Moscow they had told him how exciting the city was, but they had not mentioned the open hatred for Asian people. This he had learned the hard way. Even whores spat on him and refused his rubles.
At the far side of the park a man suddenly confronted him. “Cigarette?” he begged. He was tall and thin, with a bald head and a scalp lock of the sort people wore in the East, but he was too effeminate to be a real man and Okhlopkin was disgusted to be so close to him. If it had been dark or if there was more time he would have pulled this disgusting excuse for a man into the shadows and rid Moscow of a dreg, but Gaponov had demanded that everything happen tomorrow, and he was not a patient man. He pushed the parasite aside and walked on, not looking back to see that the man was following him.
91FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 1961, 3:20 P.M.Vinkeveen, The Netherlands
Monsieur Barrie was not happy to hear from Sylvia again, but he understood that to refuse her was to invite his own destruction, so he readily agreed to process the fingerprints from Lamoura. Like all government agencies in France, the Sûreté had an enormous workload, he explained, but after making this point he pledged to see to it personally that the prints were processed quickly. If Mademoiselle would ring back on Monday he would have the results for her.
The next task was to have the slug and ampule pieces examined. She had discussed this with Valentine; the Sûreté had the expertise for ballistic tests, but the FBI was the best in the world at this sort of thing. She called Arizona, who told her to deliver the bullet to the embassy in Paris and ask the station chief to tag it for FBI liaison in Washington; the glass fragments were to go in a separate bag addressed to Langley. When she got to the embassy there was a phone call waiting for her. It was Arizona again. “Amsterdam,” he said with uncustomary excitement. “Go to the KLM flight crew desk at Schiphol Airport and ask for Mr. White.”
“Why?”
“You’ll find out when you get there,” Arizona said. Actually it was not clear to him what they would find when they got to the airport. After putting Venema on Frash’s track he had cabled MI5 and asked the Brits to alert him to any unusual goings-on that involved American agents, their suspected contacts, money washing or problems with credentials. It was a long shot, but in the shadows of intelligence work a lousy horse was better than no horse at all. Police work was the equivalent of fishing with a line, whereas intelligence was more like the deployment of nets—in this instance a rather coarse one. Now MI5 had called back to request a meeting; Sylvia and Valentine were closest, and with the Cuban operation so near there was no way he could leave Washington right now.
It took them just over six hours to get to Schiphol, park the Jaguar, find the KLM crew desk and inquire about Mr. White. They were shown into a room with a wooden table and several sturdy chairs. Fifteen minutes later a tall man with white hair and a pronounced limp greeted them with a stern nod and cold blue eyes.
“Identification?” he asked, stretching the word to twice its normal syllables. After studying their papers he gave them back and said, “Cumming.”
Sylvia had heard about the legendary Sir John Cumming, and looked at him with interest. He was the grandnephew of Sir Mansfield Cumming, the founder of England’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI5, never smiled and so rarely betrayed his emotions that his harsh countenance had earned him the nickname of Sunny John to CIA officials who had to work with him. Nowadays he served as a senior liaison officer at No. 10 Downing Street, but despite his breeding and influential position he was a battle-hardened agent, a first-rate field man who had risen through the ranks.
“What have you got?” Valentine asked immediately, but Sir John pivoted and led them to a Mercedes waiting in a no-parking zone just outside the terminal.
Thirty minutes later they passed through the village of Vinkeveen and up a long gravel lane that led to a stone farmhouse surrounded by a two-meter-high stone wall. Two men in gray coveralls and muddy black gum boots opened the gate for the Mercedes, then closed it and took up positions nearby. Sylvia realized that despite their intended appearance the farmhouses were part of some sort of elite security unit; no doubt the farm was an MI5 safe house.
Sir John led them to an upstairs room where two women waited: one sitting by the window, her attention directed outside; the other, a thin but attractive blonde with swollen eyes, at a dressing table. The woman by the window surrendered her seat and left, closing the door quietly behind her.
“Mrs. VanderLeyden,” Sir John said softly. “Please tell these people what you told me earlier.”
Ina VanderLeyden’s face radiated hope. “Then you believe me?”
Sunny John was noncommittal. “Please.”
The woman described a man with such precision that Sylvia could clearly visualize him; she was sure it was Frash.
“Her paramour,” Sunny John said when she had finished. His description made the woman wince.
“Albert Frash?” Sylvia asked. No reaction. “Ali Frascetti?” Still none.
“He said his name was Albert Frijk,” the woman said, barely able to hide her anger.
Sylvia smiled: old training, ingrained habits, never change the whole name. Loose ends often came together in unexpected ways. Could it really be Frash? She tried to calm herself but it was no use; the scent had been cold and now it was warming again. She wanted to know everything. “When did you last see him?”
Before the woman could answer, Sir John crossed between them and motioned for the Americans to follow. They descended to a study on the ground floor where the Englishman shed his trench coat, straightened his red-and-black striped tie, patted the lapels of his gray suit, poured two jiggers of straight vodka from an unlabeled bottle and passed them to his guests. “A bloody accident we got onto this at all,” he said. “Think it’s one of your lads?”
Apparently Arizona had asked the Brits to watch their nets for any unusual catches; it was equally obvious that he had given them few details, which was why Sir John was trolling. Ambiguous favors like this were traded regularly by friendly intelligence agencies. Sylvia nodded. “Could be.” She drained the jigger and let the fire bloom in her stomach. “We’d like to show her a photo.”
“Yes,” Sir John said, drawing the word out. “That should do nicely.” He held up his jigger, said “Cheers,” and swallowed. “Here it is, plain and simple. If it’s one of your people he’s made a complete fool of her and hurt us in the process. Can’t say that I blame him. She’s a lovely creature but a bit of a twit. Reap what ye sow and so forth. She’s employed as an accountant by a solicitor in s’Hertogenbosch, a longtime employee who is quite competent, by all reports, and has been extremely reliable until now. Gets sticky here; my people established this firm in 1947 to broker certain credentials to a network of Allied cold warriors. That’s the sole reason for the firm’s existence; has its public clients, of course, but they’re only fronts to assure legitimacy. The woman was part of that front and not part of the covert operation, but somehow she got onto the existence of the credentials. Apparently that’s what attracted the man. At first she was going to keep her mouth shut about what happened, but then she figured that the firm had enough muscle to go after what they’d lost, and in the process would take care of the man who had played her for a fool. So she confessed the whole lot to her employers, never understanding that they weren’t who she thought they were all these years.”
Cumming poured another vodka for himself, swallowed it and resumed. “Several years ago, this fellow and Mrs. VanderLeyden, then unattached, became, shall we say, acquainted, then involved in the strictest biblical sense, all in astonishingly short order. Fast worker, that boy. Must say I envy him; never had that sort of knack with the girls myself. Had themselves a fling, your countrym
en would call it, and she told him about the firm’s private holdings. The little vixen even had the combination to the shop’s safe. Wanted to impress him, one could assume. This was three years ago, and apparently the man tucked the information away for a time when he needed it. Time passes, circumstances change and now he needs a new identity, something untraceable. What better than pristine passports?”
Sir John was playing all the parts in a morality play, his voice resonant. “The man returns unannounced and the lovebirds take up where they left off, the power of lust being ever so durable. She is infatuated, bored, unhappily married, in need of a diversion, and, no doubt with his subtle prompting, proposes an elopement of sorts. Impossible, he counters. Too bloody troublesome because her husband is much too powerful, a man of considerable influence who would track them down. Match point here. She racks her pitiful mind for a solution. Eureka! The safe. She suggests new identities. Freedom in new names, new pasts, which no doubt was his intent from the outset. Elementary, my dear Watson! He agrees. She pinches the documents and passes them to him to take to Amsterdam, where they can be expertly forged, but of course she never sees him again. Buggered on all counts,” Cummings said with a snort. “He has his new identity, she has a broken heart, and I have debris that has to be properly disposed of. There you have it.”
Sylvia fought an urge to cut him off so that she could take the photo upstairs.
“The heart is a durable organ. Pure muscle.” The Englishman paused to light a pungent Gauloise. “She’ll never appreciate the irony. She’s labored all these years under the illusion that her employer is engaged in illegal activity, confesses to her superior in the belief that the firm will do anything to recover its precious property, in so doing hoping they will become the instrument of her revenge. Cold-blooded bitch is rather reptilian, but not altogether unclever. We must grant her that, her amateur status notwithstanding.”
“But her employers are your people, so they alerted you,” Valentine said.
“Straightaway,” Sir John said. “Bloody shame to see an effective operation end over such a silly thing, but all good things must end, and end they do. Mustn’t bowl stones in the land of mirrors, eh?”
“When did this happen?” Sylvia asked.
“Two days ago,” Sir John said.
Sylvia’s heart jumped. Two days! Compared with November this was like yesterday.
“The man is clever. He now has a dozen blank passports, and one presumes he can forge them without outside assistance.”
“Piece of cake,” Valentine said.
“Quite.”
“What happens to the woman?” Sylvia asked.
“Sacked. The firm will be closed after a decent interval. She’ll be properly debriefed and returned to her husband. Turns out that he’s an old chum, you see—RAF during the war, Battle of Britain and all that. He’ll have to deal with the creature.”
When they finally were able to show Frash’s photograph to Ina she sobbed and smacked her hands against her thighs.
When Sir John drove them back to the airport he gave Sylvia a piece of paper. “The passport registration numbers and nationalities,” he said. “They’re legitimate and worth a fortune in the right hands.”
Valentine considered the implications. “Which means they can be traced through immigration services?”
“Piece of cake,” the Englishman said, deadpan. “Now do you think you might let us in on your problem?”
“Talk to Washington,” Valentine said as he and Sylvia got out of the Mercedes.
92SUNDAY, APRIL 9, 1961, 2:06 P.M.Moscow
Ezdovo sat by the window, not moving, still as as hunter along a game trail, occasionally checking his watch, while Melko looked on with amusement. “We have more than enough eyes watching our asses, and they’re paid to be reliable.”
But Annochka did not come at the appointed time and now an hour had passed; though both men were worried, they did not speak of it.
A little after two o’clock there was a ruckus on the stairwell and Melko heard a familiar voice mixed with those of the Georgians he had hired to protect them. Seconds later a frantic Leonid Sarnov burst into the flat, saw Ezdovo’s revolver pointed at him and threw himself on the floor. “Don’t shoot,” he shouted. “It’s me, Lenya.”
Ezdovo immediately triggered his walkie-talkie. “Scout One?” No answer. “Scout One, are you there?” There was still no answer, and none from the other two Spetsnaz men who had been posted as lookouts. Melko saw the concern in his colleague’s eyes.
“Did you think you could be shed of me so easily?” Lenya said as he dusted himself off.
“What are you doing here?”
“Came to warn you,” Lenya chirped just as Ezdovo suddenly flattened himself against the wall by the window and tried again to make contact with their lookouts. “Just in time,” Lenya added as he hurried to the window for a look.
“What the hell is going on?” Melko demanded.
Ezdovo saw several men advancing down the street in loose formation. “Trouble,” he growled.
“Of course it’s trouble,” Lenya added. “Do you think I’d push my way through those damned Georgians without good reason?”
Muffled pops stopped any further conversation. Lenya moved to the far window and jumped to the roof; Melko started to follow but paused astride the sill. “This way,” he said to Ezdovo, but the Siberian had moved to the door.
More shots sounded below; they seemed closer now. At least two shotgun blasts were outgoing. When he looked back Ezdovo saw Melko perched in the window, waving for him to follow. He went into the darkened hallway and got down on his belly. Two armed men came bounding up the stairs; he let their heads get to his level, took careful aim, hit each man in the chest, darted to the bodies, searched them, took their wallets and papers, fired three rounds at more men at the bottom of the stairwell, scrambled upstairs, ran to the window, jumped to the roof below, rolled over, got up and ran. Melko was ahead, waving for him to move faster. Shots came from the window behind them but snapped harmlessly over their heads; Melko fired several answering rounds as Ezdovo reached him, and the two of them ran along the roof’s edge to the sounds of a full-fledged firefight erupting in the Armenian’s place behind them. The noise subsided after a grenade burst.
The three of them fled the Zone at a point near where they had left one of their lookouts and saw that he was down, his head in a pool of dark liquid. After a long run they ducked into an alley and stopped to catch their breath. Lenya knelt and splashed his face with water from a puddle.
“What’s happening?” Melko gasped.
“I’d like to know who, not what,” Ezdovo said.
“No questions now,” Lenya said. “We have to put distance between us and them.”
With one lookout dead and the other two presumed to be, there was no way to return to their vehicle. “Move,” Ezdovo ordered. “Keep apart, but maintain visual contact. No more than ten meters apart; head for the metro and don’t look back.”
A steep escalator carried them underground to an ornate marble platform with floodlights, chandeliers and alcoves jammed with statues depicting the nameless heroes of the Bolshevik Revolution. The platform was not crowded. A man in a leather coat was asleep on a bench with a shoe perched on his chest. Several babas tightly held the hands of young children. An air force sergeant embraced and fondled a fat girl in skintight slacks. Two militiamen appeared at the far end of the platform; they were smoking and talking with great animation and seemed interested only in each other, but Lenya knew their ways; they would be scrutinizing everyone in the area. As he suddenly walked toward the two men, Ezdovo stepped back to get a better firing angle, but one of the policemen smiled as he lit Lenya’s cigarette and soon the three of them were carrying on like old schoolmates.
When the train arrived Lenya boarded at the last possible moment and slumped into the seat beside Melko.
“You’ve got nerve,” Ezdovo said.
Lenya shrugged
off the compliment. “They’re trained to look for people skulking away. The direct approach throws them off every time.”
They rode to the southwestern section of the city and got off at a station called Ocakovo. The area was old, with only a few modern apartment buildings amid a sprawl of crumbling older places.
“How did you find us?” Melko asked.
Lenya grinned. “You found me, I found you. Men like us can always find each other.”
“Why?”
“The Asian.”
Melko’s nostrils flared. “The one you saw at Velak’s?”
“The same. Something about him just didn’t sit right, and my life depends on my ability to sniff out things that don’t fit,” Lenya said. “He got into Velak’s apartment house through the sewer. I found tracks and followed them, which was no great accomplishment because he has feet as wide as a duck’s and boots with rippled soles. I lost his trail when he surfaced, but I’m not one to give up. I thought, he came here for a reason, and his tracks showed that he knew where he was going. Old dogs piss on the same trees. I told myself, if he came here once maybe he’ll come again, so I made myself comfortable and sure enough, there he was.”
“You could have been wrong,” Melko said.
Lenya only smiled. “When I’m stumped I always tell myself to try something, which is better than doing nothing, though doing something often looks exactly like doing nothing, which was the case this time. I went around the neighborhood. Hey, old man, have you seen an Asian the size of a musk ox? Baba, there’s a sinister-looking Mongol lurking around the area; have you seen him? Ask questions and you’ll get answers. Sure, they said. He’s an ugly one and not very friendly. He’s been around here for several weeks, but we don’t know where he lives. That was enough for me. I waited, and sure enough he came back and I spotted him, the same guy I saw at Velak’s, no mistake about it. I followed him to a building and tried to get close, but that wasn’t possible. He has a lair filled with confederates, and they watch the place like mothers with virgin daughters.” He paused and grinned. “If you want to get at a virgin you don’t go to her house. You’ve got to be patient and get her alone, so I settled back to wait. This morning the Asian came out with his playmates, loaded them onto two trucks, and fled with me following in a taxi. The fare I paid was criminal, but what’s a few rubles when a friend’s interests are at stake? The Asian unloaded his comrades near the Zone, then went off on his own in a cab, which left me with a decision: follow him or the group? I chose the pack, and at first I thought I’d made a mistake. They spread out and set their security, but made no effort to move in until suddenly they shot a man. They did it from behind; his hat flew off. He had a shaved head like the soldier who was with you at Velak’s. I remembered reading somewhere that Spetsnaz troops shave their heads. My logic was that the Asian killed Velak; you brought a soldier with you to Velak’s; the Asian brought his people to the Zone; they killed a man who reminded me of the soldier; then they move into the Zone, which I remember was once the self-proclaimed kingdom of Melko. By God, I thought, they’re going after my benefactor. Luckily they moved cautiously and I flew past them.” Lenya paused to catch his breath. “A long time ago you told me about your connection to the Armenian, but you never mentioned those damned Georgians. I said to myself, Find a common language, Lenya, or your goose is cooked, so I waved my dick at them, and while they were licking their lips I got past them. You can fill in the rest.” Another pause. “It was God’s will that I didn’t fall or they’d still be putting it to me.” He roared with laughter.
The Domino Conspiracy Page 36
