by Len Levinson
“Down periscope,” repeated Lieutenant Jordan.
“Take her down to fifty feet.”
“Take her down to fifty feet.”
“Steady as she goes.”
“Steady as she goes.”
Captain Sinclair and Lieutenant Jordan walked to the sonar console, where a cathode screen showed an electronic picture of the underwater cliffs around them. Between the cliffs was a luminous outline of the submarine.
“Bring her right ten degrees,” said Sinclair.
“Right ten degrees.”
The submarine headed straight for the cliff on which the Institute building sat. If you were observing the submarine from an airplane, it would appear that the submarine would crash into the cliff, but instead it entered a wide tunnel cut into the cliff.
“Reduce speed to one knot,” said Sinclair.
“Reduce speed to one knot.”
Captain Sinclair studied the cathode screen. It showed the tunnel widening into a large docking area.
“Take her up,” said Captain Sinclair.
“Take her up.”
The bow of the submarine angled upwards, and Butler held the railing for support. He wore his trench coat over his slacks and sport coat, and beside him Natalia stood in the slacks and coat she’d worn yesterday when he’d picked her up on the Russian coastline.
“This is home,” Butler whispered in her ear.
“I’m afraid,” she replied with a shudder.
“If you’re who you say you are, you have nothing to worry about.”
“But they say many an innocent person has gone to the gallows.”
“We have very sophisticated electronic devices, dear. They’ll know whether you’re lying or not.”
She looked at him in consternation. “But sometimes even lie detectors make mistakes.”
“Not ours, dearie. Compared to ours, ordinary lie detectors are like axes from the Stone Age.”
The submarine leveled off. Sailors scrambled up the ladderwells and opened the hatches.
Captain Sinclair held his hand out to the ladderwell. “After you,” he said to Butler and Natalia.
Natalia climbed the ladderwell, and Butler followed her up with Captain Sinclair behind him. They rose into a huge cave lit with rows of fluorescent lights along the walls. Sailors tied the submarine to cleats and shackled a gangplank from the walkway along the stone wall to the submarine. When the gangplank was secure, Sven Lundborg of the Institute boarded the submarine. He was slim, twenty-eight years old, and wore a snug double-breasted blue suit. Butler, Natalia, and Captain Sinclair were climbing down from the conning tower, and Lundborg looked quizzically at Natalia.
“Welcome back, Captain,” Lundborg said to Captain Sinclair, shaking his hand. “How’d it go?”
“No problems on my end.”
“Welcome back, Butler.”
“Hello, Sven. This is Natalia Kahlovka. Her father was picked up by the KGB yesterday, but she got out.”
“How do you do, Ms. Kahlovka?”
“Hello.”
Sven put his arms around both their shoulders. “Why don’t we all go upstairs and get debriefed.”
They proceeded down the walkway to a corridor at the end of which was an elevator. Getting on, Sven pressed the top button and they rode up to the eighth floor of the building. They got off the elevator and walked down a sparkling white corridor. Through windows they could see the sun shining on the fiord below.
“You’ll be speaking with Mr. Bjork,” Sven said to Natalia. “His office is right here.”
Sven opened a door and they entered a small office with a secretary typing behind a desk.
“You wait here, Butler,” Sven said.
“Right.” Butler looked at Natalia. “Good luck, kid.”
“Will I see you again?”
He smiled. “I hope so, but one never knows.”
Sven opened another door and led Natalia into Bjork’s office. Butler stood beside the secretary’s desk and lit a Lucky.
The secretary, the archetypal Swedish beauty with blonde hair and blue eyes, looked up at him. “Mr. Butler, you know you shouldn’t smoke. You know it’s bad for you.”
“Everybody’s got to have a vice, and this one is mine, dearie.”
She looked at him incredulously. “I’m sure you have other vices, Mr. Butler.”
“Like what?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Oh, go ahead and say.”
“No.”
She turned back to her typewriter. Sven returned from Bjork’s office. “Come with me down the hall, would you, Butler?”
“Why, sure.”
Butler followed Sven down the corridor to an office similar to the one they just were in, where a blonde secretary sat at a desk. Sven opened the next door and led Butler into his office, a spartan room twenty feet square with huge picture windows overlooking the fiord.
“Have a seat, Butler.”
Butler sat on one of the leather chairs in front of the sleek wooden desk. Sven dropped into a chair behind the desk. The sunlight gleamed on his thinning golden hair and sharply chiseled features.
“You don’t mind if I tape this, do you, Butler.”
“Of course not.”
Sven pressed a button on his desk. “Go ahead. Take it from the time you left the submarine.”
“I left the submarine around one o’clock in the morning and rowed to shore. There was a thick fog, just as we’d anticipated. I encountered one Soviet patrol boat on the way in, but it didn’t see me. When I was close to shore I signaled with my EDF and received an answer. I rowed to shore and signaled again. The young woman who’s with Mr. Bjork came running to me. She said she was Natalia Kahlovka, and that her father had been picked up earlier in the day. We got in the boat and rowed back to the submarine. Another patrol boat, or maybe it was the same one, came close, but didn’t see us. Finally I signaled to the submarine and it surfaced nearby, taking us aboard. Later, Ms. Kahlovka expressed concern on numerous occasions that I didn’t believe she really was Dr. Kahlovka’s daughter. I searched her for weapons, hidden radios, and the like, but found nothing. She appears rather distraught, which is understandable regardless of who she really is. I guess that’s all.”
“Think for a few moments. Something else might occur to you.”
Butler sat and looked at the rocky crags through the window behind Sven. “I can’t think of anything that might be of official interest.”
“How about something that might be of unofficial interest?”
“Well, we had sexual relations and spent the night together.”
Sven sighed. “Do you have to turn all your operations into orgies, Butler?”
“It wasn’t an orgy—there only were the two of us. As I said, she was extremely distraught and it seemed like the appropriate thing to do under the circumstances.”
“Why is it that on so many of your operations the appropriate thing to do is for you to have sexual relations with the nearest young woman?”
Butler threw up his hands. “C’mon, Sven. Life is much different in the field than it is here in the tranquility of your office. We operational agents often find ourselves in strange situations where we must make difficult on-the-spot decisions. Sometimes we get into strange states of mind where improbable things suddenly happen. Ms. Kahlovka and I were a bit frazzled by our experience. Somehow we fell into bed together. I hope you won’t think badly of her because of it.”
“I don’t think badly about her, but I can’t help wondering about you. I’m concerned that your lack of constraint in sexual matters might get you into trouble someday.”
“We were on the submarine, Sven. There was no danger.”
“I think you ought to get married, Butler.”
“I have been married. It didn’t change anything. That’s why she divorced me.”
Sven sighed. “Can you think of anything else that you might want to tell me?”
“No.”
&n
bsp; “If you do, let me know.”
“Of course.”
“Well, I suppose you’ll require a few days to unwind. The weekend’s coming up, so why don’t you report to my office on Monday at nine. The girl should be debriefed by then, and we’ll know which way we’re headed.”
“Good.”
“Have a good time, Butler.”
“You too, Sven. My regards to your wife and kiddies.”
Butler got up and walked out of Sven’s office. He made his way down the corridor to the elevator, took it to the main floor, left the building, and crossed the graveled parking lot toward another office building that also was a dormitory for Institute people who were in transit or on temporary duty, like Butler.
The building was rectangular and white. Butler went inside, took the elevator to the fourth floor, and walked down the corridor to his room. Unlocking the door, he entered and took off his trench coat, hanging it in the closet.
He walked to the window and looked down at the fiord. Gulls swooped and shrieked and the sun glittered on the waves. He took out a Lucky and lit it up, inhaling out the side of his mouth. The operation was finished and he was debriefed. Now he could relax at last. He sat on a chair that had wooden arms and a fabric covered seat and back, puffing the cigarette.
He’d been in Sweden only a month, and it still was a strange place for him. Most of his CIA duty had been in the hot-blooded countries of South America, and Scandinavia was a striking contrast to that. Here the people were calm, rational, and sensible. They were extremely polite, and you didn’t see children starving in the streets. The people enjoyed a high standard of living, higher in some respects than in the U.S.
He’d been sent here because his last operation had been in South America, and the Institute thought he’d better get out of that hemisphere for a while. He’d been seen by certain members of Hydra, and it was thought that would impair his effectiveness. What was the opposite of Latin America? Scandinavia. And here he was. He’d hoped for Hong Kong or Tokyo, but he liked Scandinavia so far. The seafood was marvelous, the cities were clean, and the women were out of this world.
He decided to drive to Stockholm and maybe find an American movie to see. Getting his trench coat out of the closet, and putting a wide-brimmed brown fedora on his head, he left his room and went down to his car, an old Saab Sonnet, painted red with a white stripe down the side. It was a two-seated roadster and the top came down, which Butler loved. He folded the top into the trunk, got in the cockpit, and started it up. He drove down the road, showed his I.D. to the guard at the gate, and soon found himself on the highway to Stockholm, buzzing along at sixty kilometers an hour.
As he passed forests turning bronze and gold, he remembered Sweden’s foremost tourist attraction which he hadn’t seen yet. It was the Wasa, a preserved seventeenth century man-of-war that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628, only a few hundred yards from the spot where she’d been launched. It lay in mud for over three hundred years and then in 1961 was raised with pontoons, restored, and housed in its own museum. Should be an interesting thing to see, he thought, something to write home about if he had anybody at home to write to.
Museums were a good place to pick up pretty girls. Maybe he’d find one today, he thought, motoring over the winding road.
Chapter Four
It was Monday morning at eight-thirty. Butler drove his Saab into the parking lot of the Institute complex and stopped in his slot. He got out, pulled up the top, and closed the doors. A cigarette dangling out the corner of his mouth, he made his way to his room, took off his shirt, and shaved quickly.
All had not gone according to plan. There had been no pretty blondes in the Wasa Museum, but that had been all right with him, because the ship was spectacular and it was enjoyable looking at it without somebody to distract him. Afterwards he went to Gamla Stan, the old section of Stockholm, and stopped in a little restaurant for herring sandwiches and beer. Two crazy young French tourist girls happened to be sitting at the next table, and one thing led to another. He spent part of the weekend in their hotel room with them, and the other part seeing the sights of Stockholm with one of them on each of his arms. It had been most enjoyable, but now he was tired and spaced out. Somehow he had to pull his brain together for the nine o’clock meeting with Sven Lundborg. He looked at his eyes in the mirror. The whites were covered with red worms. He grimaced, went to a dresser drawer, and took out a pair of sunglasses.
He crossed the parking lot, and gulls swooped through the air above his head. The sun was low on the horizon, casting a weird golden glow over everything. Entering the main building, he took the elevator up to Sven’s office.
The secretary looked up as Butler entered. “He’s expecting you. Go right in.”
Butler opened the door to Sven’s office. Sven sat behind his desk, looking over some papers. He didn’t appear to have gotten much sleep either. He glanced at his watch.
“Right on time, I see,” he said.
“On time, every time,” Butter replied with a smile, collapsing into a chair.
“We’ve been looking for you ail weekend. Where the hell were you?”
“In Stockholm. Didn’t you say I could take the weekend off?”
“Yes, but the shit has hit the fan, as you Americans say. Mr. Sheffield has flown in all the way from California to take control of the situation. He wants to see you right away. He’s in Mr. Bjork’s office.”
Butler walked down the corridor to Bjork’s office. He was in a mild state of shock from knowing that Sheffield was there. Sheffield was executive director of the Bancroft Research institute, Numero Uno himself. Something very big must be going on if he was here taking command personally.
He opened the door to Bjork’s office and saw Ms. Allen, one of Sheffield’s secretaries from the Institute headquarters in Big Sur.
“Hi, Ms. Allen. I understand the chief is waiting to see me.”
“Let me check.” She picked up the phone on her desk, pressed a button, and mumbled into it. “Go right in,” she told Butler, hanging up the phone.
Butler opened the door to the inner office and stepped inside. All the windows had been covered and it was pitch black except for the area where the desk was. A lamp on the desk sent a beam down to some papers being fondled by two hands, and behind the hands was the shadowy figure of Sheffield. Butler had never seen him, and as far as he knew no one else had either.
“Hello Butler,” said Sheffield in a voice that established his age somewhere in the fifties or sixties. “Have a seat.”
Butler sat in the darkness and crossed his legs. A lamp on the ceiling bathed him in golden light.
“A very serious situation has developed, Butler,” Sheffield said. “Very, very serious.”
“That’s what Mr. Lundborg told me. Can you tell me what it is?”
“Of course I can, and I shall. Because we want to put you to work on it right away. We want to drop you inside the Soviet Union before the week is out, and sooner if possible.”
Butler stiffened in his chair. “Drop me in the Soviet Union? That’ll be very risky. Soviet security is tighter than a drum. Even the CIA can’t operate in the Soviet Union. Whenever they’d tried to run an agent in the Soviet Union, the agent always got caught.”
“Well,” said Sheffield softly, “we’re not the CIA, are we? We know things that they don’t know. We have a plan to eliminate a lot of the risk for you. But first let me give you some background. As you know, the Institute is trying to prevent various maniacs in the huge power blocs from destroying the world, and the best way to do this is to insure that the major blocs have a general parity in weapons and technology. As long as one side can expect a devastating retaliation if it starts a war, it will hesitate to do so. This has been the status of the so-called Cold War until now. But now something has happened to change the balance of power drastically. The girl, Natalia Kahlovka, has brought us some truly unsettling information. Do you know what smart weapons are?”
; “They’re missiles guided to their targets by laser beams,” Butler answered. “They can be surface-to-surface missiles, air-to-surface, surface-to-air, or air-to-air. If the gunner can hold the target in his sights, the missile will hit its target.”
“Correct,” said Sheffield. “And as you know, these smart weapons have changed the face of modern warfare. In the 1973 Middle East War, more tanks were thrown into battle than any other engagement in history except for one near Kursk on the Russian front during the Second World War. Due to the use by both sides of smart weapons, more than three thousand tanks were destroyed and more than six hundred aircraft were downed. No longer can hordes of tanks attack an enemy with impunity. The new generation of smart weapons make that impossible. In fact, thanks to smart weapons, both the United States and the USSR can cut their arms budgets drastically. Smart weapons used for defense have made most offensive weapons obsolete. Tanks, aircraft, and battleships have become absurd. But of course, everybody continues to build them in preparation for another World War Two, or whatever. We’ve learned long ago that military intelligence is to intelligence as military music is to music.”
“Until Friday,” Sheffield continued, “we believed that both sides of the cold war had an arsenal of smart weapons that would discourage attacks from each other. But young Ms. Kahlovka has brought us terrifying news. The Russians have devised, or are in the process of devising, an instrument that confuses laser beams. It sets up an electronic microwave field that causes laser beams to bounce back in the direction from where they were aimed. That means the missiles aimed by the laser beams will come back to friendly lines and explode, and an attacking army can advance without serious opposition. As you can readily perceive, this is a most dangerous situation because it might encourage the Russians to stage a pre-emptive strike against Western Europe or the United States before these latter countries can develop a counter-measure to the new weapon, which we have code-named the ‘Doom Machine.’ ”
“Therefore,” Sheffield went on, “we must stop the Doom Machine. There are two possible ways to go about it. The first is to sabotage the plant—wherever it is—that is manufacturing the Doom Machine. The second is to obtain the specifications for the Doom Machine and make it available to all the countries of the world that don’t have it. That ought to even everything up again and bring us back to square one.”
