Triple Trap

by William H Hallahan

  Conyers nodded.

  “I’ll go over to Political Affairs,” Sauer said, “and go through the File on Violators of the Munitions Control Act.”

  “You want me to do the Visa Frauds file too?” Conyers asked him. “And the Passports Fraud file?”

  “’Kay,” Sauer said, checking the list. “We’re supposed to go through the main security file repository too.”

  “All of it?” Conyers looked doubtful.

  “Why not?”

  “There are over a half-million files there,” Conyers said. “And about a million-and-a-half index cards.”

  “Read fast,” Sauer said.

  The rendezvous was set for four-thirty in the morning. Light grains of snow were slowly covering the old, frozen dirty-gray snow as Brewer drove in the darkness out to CIA facility in Langley. The meeting place was the Langley parking lot, Sector J, Rank 12, File G.

  A photographic van, lightly dusted with snow, was parked in that slot. He opened the door to the van and looked in at a complete photographic laboratory on wheels, plus a small galley for cooking, and a lavatory. Turned away from him and bending over in tight slacks was a young woman. She straightened up.

  “Good morning,” he said doubtfully.

  She looked at her watch. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” she said. “I keep thinking it’s nighttime.”

  “Where’s Tommy Allen?” Brewer asked.

  She held out her hand. “I’m Tommy Allen.”

  “Tommy?”

  “Tomasina.”

  Tommy Allen was not yet thirty. She had a very pretty face, a good figure, a highly intelligent expression, and a wedding ring.

  “You’re my photographer?”

  “Yes.” She watched his doubtfilled expression. “You asked for the best photographer in the section,” she reminded him.

  “And I got him, ha?”

  “And you got him, ha,” she said.

  “Listen, Tommy Allen. Are you clear about this assignment? We’re liable to be spending a lot of time cheek by jowl in this tiny box, eating in here, and even sleeping here.”

  “I hope you can cook,” she answered.

  Brewer climbed into the van. “Did they tell you anything about this assignment?” he asked.

  “Nothing except it’s clandestine photography and it’s a break from the usual CIA routine.”

  “This is a very different assignment,” Brewer said.

  “Okay.”

  “What we’re going to do is very simple,” Brewer said. “You’re going to ride around in that van with all your photographic equipment, following one man. Me. Whenever I get into a crowd scene, you’re going to shoot pictures of all the faces in the crowd. Airports. Restaurants. Street scenes. Shoot pictures of people sitting in cars, standing in doorways. People in shops looking out at the street. Even cars in traffic. License plates. Then we’re going to pin up the pictures and compare different scenes to see if any faces appear in more than one scene. If we find any, there’s a good chance we’ve found a tail.” Brewer looked at her. “Simple?”

  “No,” Tommy Allen said. “It’s anything but simple.” She smiled. “But it’s interesting.”

  “I’m taking the morning air shuttle to New York today,” Brewer said. “I’ll be back late this afternoon. So that’s where we’ll begin—at the airport—when I go and when I come back. Let me see your photographic equipment.”

  “Okay,” she said. “This is the key piece. And I invented it myself.” She took out a canvas airline bag and showed Brewer a lens cover that had been sewn into the wall of the bag. She held it up to the light and squinted through it. Next she placed a thirty-five-millimeter camera inside the bag and snapped the lens cover over the lens. Then she extended a long shutter cable from the camera in the canvas bag up the right sleeve of her coat, across her back, and down the left sleeve to her left hand. Now she could operate the camera that was concealed inside the canvas bag by operating the shutter-cable end concealed in her pocket.

  “This is for inside work,” she said. “All I have to do is hold the bag on a counter or in my lap or under my arm. I can take all the pictures you want and no one will know it. On the street I can shoot from inside this van from any of these windows, a full three-hundred-sixty degrees.” She opened a cabinet. “I have all kinds of telephoto lenses and a mess of other equipment, including a computer and a scanner.” She opened a door to a small compartment. “That’s a darkroom. I can make prints and transparencies and anything else right here. This is a complete photo graphic laboratory—compliments of our own very dear Uncle Sam.”

  When Brewer arrived at the airport for the shuttle flight to New York, he saw Tommy Allen standing by a check-in desk with the canvas bag on the counter. She was already at work.

  The passengers arrived for their flight, dripping with melting snow. As they checked their bags and handed over their tickets, Tommy Allen was photographing them all—passengers, well wishers, passersby, and airport employees.

  In the Office of the Undersecretary for Political Affairs, Sauer had a long talk with the custodian of the File on Violators of the Munitions Control Act.

  “Most of that kind of smuggling would be under Military Electronics Violations,” the custodian said. “That’s one of the largest files of all. It’ll take a while.”

  Sauer looked out at the snow in the street. “I wasn’t going anywhere anyway,” he said.

  On the early evening shuttle flight, Brewer returned from New York. For one brief moment when he came off the transit bus into the terminal building, his eyes gazed candidly at Tommy Allen, who was standing at the same counter with her canvas bag, busily shooting.

  An hour later Brewer arrived at the Langley parking lot. He found her in the van, with contact prints hanging from lines strung from wall to wall. They sat hunched over a light table and studied the contact prints from both shooting sessions.

  “This is a hell of a lot of faces to remember,” she said.

  “You’d be surprised how many you can remember,” Brewer said.

  They spent over an hour squinting through the magnifying glasses. Finally Allen put down her lens. “Goose egg,” she said. “There’s no face in this crowd that was in the other crowd.”

  Brewer went over each face again as though trying to memorize them.

  “You’ve got the patience of a saint,” she said.

  Brewer looked at her thoughtfully. “No,” he said at last. “I’ve got the dedication of a fanatic.”

  They met at Slim Jim’s tavern in Georgetown at four the next day. Brewer read their faces as they arrived.

  Conyers sat down in the booth with a great sigh and stretched her legs in the aisle. “I want a cold beer.”

  “We found one Gogol,” she told Brewer. “Anton. On the Soviet staff at the United Nations, 1985 and ’eighty-six. He’s dead.”

  “We also found a Valentin Gogol from 1972. He was here for a brief time after a tour of duty in Iran.”

  “Iran?” Brewer asked.

  “Yep. Iran as in the Shah of Iran.” Sauer shrugged. “We’re running out of places to look,” he said.

  Chapter 36

  Valentin Gogol 1972, and Iran: it was a slim lead, probably so slim it was valueless, but Brewer couldn’t afford to ignore it. He called Bobby Burns, military attaché to the British Embassy.

  “Bobby, when were you in Iran?” Brewer asked.

  “Oh, let me see … 1969 to 1972.”

  “Did you ever hear of a Valentin Gogol?”

  “I do believe I did. What can I tell you?”

  “That’s what I want to know, Bobby. What can you tell me?”

  “Ah, well. Let me see. I need to chew on this. Talk to Amalia. She remembers all kinds of things I’ve long forgotten. Let me call you back in a while.”

  In the CIA library Conyers was going through diplomatic and consular lists, past and present. She raised her eyes occasionally and looked out at the blowing snow. A scouring wind was picking up clouds of whit
e flakes and chasing them in great dervishes across the Langley parking lot.

  Sauer was also in the CIA library, going through the CIA Biographic Register, a huge file on foreign personalities, culled from CIA reports, foreign and domestic newspapers and periodicals, and many other sources.

  “Will you accept variant spellings?” the librarian asked him. “G-O-G-G-O-L. G-U-G-O-I-L. And so forth.”

  “’Kay,” Sauer answered. “We don’t know for certain how the name is spelled.”

  “There’s another file you should know about,” the librarian said. She led them to a room full of cabinets with card drawers.

  “It’s all on card files?” Sauer asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” the librarian said. “It’s slow going. A lot of Washington hasn’t been computerized yet.” She smiled softly at him. “If you think this is bad, you should see the National Archives.”

  Sauer looked around the large room. A wooden wall of cabinets surrounded him. A vast cardboard army of names, annotated, cross-referenced, and keyed to a multitude of other files all over Washington.

  Sauer stepped up to the first file with a sigh. Emil Gogol, where are you?

  Amalia Burns mounted the stairs to her attic in Leesburg.

  She studied the ceiling first. No telltale water stains under the shingles. No squirrel nests; no birds’ nests; no leftover hornets’ nests. Everything seemed in order. She gazed out through the dormer window at the snow falling over the countryside. It was almost twilight, and the crows were circling before they settled for the night, circling in the snow-filled sky, black coronals over the bare trees. It all reminded her of her native Surrey when the rooks would return to their roosts at the end of the day. She watched the snow thoughtfully. It was the strangest winter she could ever remember.

  She turned her attention to the trunks and cartons, old framed prints, paper-wrapped parcels—impedimenta from a lifetime of living around the world in government service. She looked at one carton labeled IRAN, 1969-1972.

  Thoughtfully, she opened the flaps and reached inside to lift out a photo album. She turned the pages. “Ah,” she said. Carrying the album over to the half light of the window, she examined one photograph closely. Then she went downstairs to call Bobby on the telephone.

  The next morning Brewer received a message to call Bobby Burns at the British Embassy.

  “This is worth at least one lunch, Charlie, my boy,” Burns said. “Perhaps I can even finesse it to two.”

  Brewer met Bobby Burns for lunch at the old Basford Club in downtown Washington. Built originally by railroad magnates to lobby the Congress, everything was oversize and overwhelming. Brewer and Burns sat by one of the huge bowed windows that faced on the street, and dined on oversize dishes with oversize silver tableware, with oversize heavy linen napkins.

  Brewer’s seat gave him a clear view of the unmarked photographer’s van parked down the street between two high mounds of snow.

  Everything about Bobby Burns said military: the trim moustache, the Sandhurst poker-straight back, the commanding upraised chin, and the scowling falcon’s eyes. He had more than twenty years experience as a military intelligence officer with the British diplomatic corps.

  He sat across from Brewer, a relaxed, anecdotal man, a born raconteur who loved the confidential murmuring tone. Whenever he made a significant point, he would touch Brewer on the arm with his index finger. Then his raking eyes would glance around the dining room fiercely to catch eavesdroppers. He talked of Iran, of the early seventies, when he and Amalia were stationed there, and of Valentin Gogol.

  Burns reached into his pocket. “Maybe this might help,” he said. He handed Brewer a photograph. “Amalia found this in one of her photo albums. This was taken in 1972, at a British Embassy party in Teheran. That’s the Soviet Third Secretary of Cultural Affairs from the Russian Embassy. His name was Valentin Gogol.”

  Brewer studied the photograph. A man about forty. High cheekbones and deep-set intimidating eyes.

  “See who’s next to him?” Burns asked.

  “The boy?”

  “Yes. That’s his son. I should say about ten or twelve …”

  Brewer nodded. “And his name was Emil?”

  “Right you are,” Burns said with delight. “Charlie Brewer, meet Emil Gogol.”

  Brewer went to the CIA library and got out the Soviet diplomatic lists, going back year by year. Burns had guessed that Valentin Gogol had served briefly in Washington in 1973. And there, on a Washington list for that year, Brewer found the name Valentin Gogol, Third Secretary Cultural Affairs.

  Brewer contacted a friend in the State Department.

  “I have his record here,” his friend told him. “This Gogol was evidently a bit of a mystery man. He was suspected of being in the KGB—aren’t they all? Anyway, according to the records, he came here from a tour of duty in Teheran. He had his wife with him and a son, Emil, age thirteen. Most unusual. Soviet kids go home to Russia at the age of five or six. Mandatory. Anyway, the father was returned to Russia after less than a year here in the U.S. Reason given was ill-health.”

  Brewer caught up with Leslie Drinker at his home in Silver Spring. He was wearing his overcoat and hat when he greeted Brewer at the door.

  “Watch the bags,” he said. “We’re catching the afternoon flight to St. Thomas. Can’t take the cold weather anymore.” He shut the door. “You’d better make it quick. Our cab to the airport is on the way.”

  Brewer nodded. “Gogol. Valentin Gogol.”

  Drinker removed his hat and sat down on the steps to the second floor. “Gogol. Third Secretary Cultural Affairs. That must be twenty years ago. Or more. He was a man fur over-qualified for his post here, and he was suspected of being a high ranker in the KGB. As I recall, there was something else. He was not well. Heart, was it?”

  “What do you remember about his family?”

  “Oh yes. His wife. Very quiet. Kind of a washed-out blonde. And a boy. Oh … ah. Most unusual. The kid was far beyond the age limit for Russian children abroad. Seems to me he was about twelve or fourteen. Certainly no more. You know, it’s usually very hard to get at Soviet families. They keep to themselves. But this boy was very open and eager to come forward. Blessed if I can remember his name, but he had these hot dancing eyes full of enthusiasm. And he went American with a vengeance. Loved baseball. There was a rumor that he fought like hell about going back to Russia.”

  “Was that the last you heard of him?” Brewer asked.

  “Let me see.” Drinker stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Just before I retired—that’s ten years ago—I remember talking to Dawes about a trade mission to Moscow. We had a kind of détente going then with the Soviets. And I believe that Dawes saw the Gogol boy in Moscow. Why don’t you ask him about that? My memory plays tricks on me.”

  Dawes had a habit of drawing his lips back and exposing his teeth in a grimace of pain when concentrating. And it took a prolonged grimace before he remembered Emil Gogol. He looked at the Teheran photograph and grimaced again. “It could be him. Yes. That’s probably the same person. A new clerk he was when I met him in Moscow—in his early twenties, I’d say. Skinny as a sapling. Had to have been right out of school. Just a little nobody at that time. He was kept in the background and not allowed to talk. You know the Russian style. But he had a kind of irrepressible air about him. Eating the world with his eyes.”

  “What was the meeting about?”

  “Trade. It was a trade talk with Elorg. You know that company—Elorg? Electronorg-Technica. It’s one of the major Soviet companies in the electronics industry. And I believe Mashproborintorg was involved. The Soviets had just signed the Helsinki accords on human rights. It was the usual Russian cynicism. They had no intention of abiding by the human rights agreements. They only signed those accords to thaw things out so they could get easier access to American technology in return. They were desperate for our technology. George Anders spoke with Gogol. They had quite a chat, as I recall. Go see him.�
��

  George Anders had left government and was now teaching political science at Georgetown. He greeted Brewer from a small cubby that he shared with another faculty member. There were so many books in so many piles, there was no place for Brewer to sit.

  Anders removed two piles of books from a chair and stacked them out in the hall against a wall. Then he studied the photograph of the twelve-year-old boy with his father.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, “that could definitely be the same person. The eyes are the same. I remember Emil Gogol quite well. The most untypical Russian bureaucrat you’ve ever met. He had to restrain himself from talking too much. And he was very curious about the West. He was at pains to use American idioms when he spoke English. He was like a magpie. He cocked his head when we talked, listening to our slang expressions, then tried to use them himself. If he had had enough exposure, he would have gotten a creditable American accent down pat in very short order. His eyes never missed a detail: our wrist-watches, jewelry on the women, our shoes. He felt the fabrics of our clothes and studied the details and fittings on our attaché cases. He noted the slightest details.”

  “Anything else?”

  Anders nodded. “He surprised me when he asked how the Baltimore Orioles were doing. Asked about a particular player, a relief pitcher, I’ve forgotten the name.”

  “The Orioles?”

  “Oh yes. He was passionate about baseball. He made a very strange comment to me about it. He said, ‘In my next incarnation, I want to come back as a relief pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles.’”

  “Relief pitcher,” Brewer said. “Did you get any news about him after that?”

  “No. Not a word. I would guess he’s about thirty or so today. Disappeared into the Soviet woodwork, I suppose. Without connections, you don’t go far in the Soviet hierarchy. Especially people like Gogol. He just didn’t fit the mold. Too exuberant. The Soviets don’t know what to do with people like that. Neither do we, I suppose.”

  Anders smiled at Brewer. “Imagine a little clerk somewhere in the vast bowels of the Soviet bureaucracy, dreaming of being a relief pitcher on an American baseball team.”