XPD, Page 39

  ‘I’m going to take you for treatment, then to headquarters, Mr Breslow. We’ll soon get it sorted out downtown.’ Officer Cooper had spent nine years on radio cars. He had long ago learnt that it was easier to take into custody a prisoner who thought it would all be sorted out quickly and conveniently.

  ‘No need for the handcuffs,’ said Mary Breslow.

  ‘Regulations, I’m afraid, miss. Felony suspects have to be cuffed.’ He flicked the cuffs on to Breslow’s wrists with practised agility. The last time Mary saw her father on that terrible day he was in the back seat of the black and white, leaning well forward with his hands stretched behind him, and the passenger officer was reading to him the Miranda rights.

  ‘Well, you’re happy now, I suppose?’ Billy Stein asked Stuart.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You chased him and harassed him. You threatened me and locked me up. Now he’s gone and you’ll get your medal.’

  ‘Don’t, Billy!’ Mary Breslow told him. ‘Don’t talk that way.’

  ‘They killed him,’ Billy insisted. ‘Your father didn’t kill mine. These bastards did it.’

  ‘Get in the car, Billy,’ said Boyd Stuart. ‘I’ll take you home.’

  ‘What am I going to do?’ said Billy. ‘Me and dad … we’ve always been together. He’s always done everything for me.’

  Stuart took Mary Breslow’s arm and guided her close to Billy Stein, who was leaning on the car roof with his face buried in his folded arms.

  Chapter 45

  Willi Kleiber had regained consciousness in a wooden hut in South Carolina. The lush green marshlands, through which the rains from the Appalachian Mountains flow in a thousand rivers to the Atlantic, provided an ideal hiding place. Rutted, potholed tracks meandered through the trees to a dilapidated pier. From there they had taken him to one of the little islands which hang along the coastline like iron filings on a magnet.

  There was no electricity and the only communication with the mainland was by short-wave radio. The men with Kleiber wore cotton trousers and sweat shirts, with lace-up boots to protect their ankles against the snakes. It was hot and almost unbearably humid. The only sounds came from the insects and the ocean, and the only movement was that of the shrimp boats far out to sea.

  There was a physician there – a young man, his skin as black and shiny as a newly polished limousine. He had come from Charleston on a motorcycle and now as twilight came he was fretting to get away. He pronounced Kleiber fit and signed accordingly, before they heard the sound of his bike clattering down to where the motorboat was waiting to ferry him back to the mainland.

  Melvin Kalkhoven did the primary interrogation but it was the project chairman who, later that evening, got down to what was expected of Kleiber. Kleiber listened, as he had listened to Kalkhoven, without saying very much. He stared at the fly screen, which throbbed and vibrated under the weight of moths which desired nothing more than the chance to dash themselves into the flames of the kerosene lamp hissing on the table in front of him.

  ‘But why would I make direct contact with the Soviet embassy in Washington?’ Kleiber said finally. ‘No experienced agent would do that. It’s damned dangerous, and it goes against everything that Moscow Centre teaches.’

  The project chairman leant back so that his rocking chair creaked. He rested his elbows on the arms of it and put his fingertips together. Intended as the mannerism of a scholar or philosopher, it looked more like the attention-seeking gesture of a man who liked to listen to himself.

  ‘You’ll scare him,’ he promised. ‘You’ll scare Yuriy Grechko half to death. When he hears you tell him what is happening to his network – that Parker is going into the bag and the rest of them are being rolled up – he’ll be terrified. Moscow Centre hates that kind of foul-up. They’ll recall him; he’ll be scared – really scared.’

  The project chairman broke off as another aspect of the case came to mind. ‘Is Parker a Russian?’

  ‘He’s never admitted it,’ said Kleiber. ‘But yes, he is.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I was born in a house that looks out over the Baltic. I can recognize a Russian when I see one.’

  The project chairman nodded contentedly and tapped his fingertips together. ‘So Grechko will be worrying if we’ll dig that out too. You’ll tell him it’s going to hit the fan, Willi. Grechko won’t be reading the instruction book to tell you you shouldn’t have called him; he’s going to be worried sick.’

  Kleiber said, ‘Grechko will ask me where those Hitler Minutes are.’

  The project chairman turned away to get his coffee cup. There had been several mentions of something called the Hitler Minutes but that was of no concern to him or to the CIA. He was determined not to have any red herrings drawn across the very satisfactory path of this investigation.

  ‘You tell him the papers were taken off you by the customs officials at Kennedy. We’ll fake you the kind of receipt that the customs use. Give it to Grechko. Let him worry about that.’

  ‘He’ll be furious,’ said Kleiber. ‘He’ll be furious with Parker for ordering me to bring the stuff back to the USA.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the project chairman, wiping coffee from his lips with a paper handkerchief. ‘Now you see what I’m driving at, Willi. We’re going to create a problem for Grechko … and the only way out of it will be to make you the illegal resident.’

  ‘Illegal resident!’ said Kleiber. ‘Now look …’

  The project chairman stared at him, blank-faced. Kleiber ran a finger round inside his collar, and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead and in a line along his upper lip.

  ‘Well, you don’t think we went to all that trouble in there unless it was going to yield something real big, do you, Willi?’ The project chairman scarcely moved his head to indicate the room next to where they were sitting. Displayed in there had been all the accumulated evidence of the murders that Willi Kleiber had committed. There were colour photos of the corpses of Bernard Lustig and MacIver and some black-and-white shots of the two men killed in London. There was other evidence too: the damaged wristwatch that provided an estimated time of death, the parking ticket and teleprinter messages and other police paperwork. There were even fingerprints; Kleiber had thrown his cotton gloves into the car trunk with Lustig’s body and then closed the lid with his bare hands. There was also a signed statement from someone who had witnessed the MacIver shooting that took place that same evening. The murderer’s description fitted Kleiber exactly. Kleiber had spent fifteen minutes studying the material and then had declared that there was not enough evidence to get a conviction. The project chairman had shrugged. Tell me what else we need and we’ll get it manufactured, he had said. Kleiber believed him.

  ‘Illegal resident for the Russians? Controlled all the time by the CIA?’

  ‘Keep the Ruskies happy, and then they won’t release your war-crimes file, Willi.’ He smiled and slapped a fly on his arm. It was a sudden movement and it made Kleiber start in surprise. ‘We’ve got a common interest, Willi old pal, we want to keep those Ruskies smiling.’

  ‘They’ll suspect me.’ Willi had begun to waver as both men knew he would.

  ‘We’ll give you some real good breaks, Willi. Don’t worry about that. We’ll keep Moscow happy. We know the sort of thing they so desperately need; undersea warfare technology, computer advances, cruise missiles data. We won’t keep you short of stuff to feed them. We’ll make you a big man, Willi.’

  Kleiber shook his head. ‘We were talking about my feeding Parker, not replacing him …’

  ‘Maybe that’s what you were talking about,’ said the project chairman. ‘But I’m talking about the big one.’

  ‘It’s something I’d have to think about,’ said Willi Kleiber.

  ‘Yes. You think about it, Willi,’ said the project chairman in a fruity, avuncular voice which was all the more worrying because of the quiet confidence that it showed.

  ‘W
here the hell are we?’ said Kleiber for what must have been at least the hundredth time. It was the sound of an airliner passing over which made his mind go back to that question. It unsettled him not to know where he was – just as it was intended to do.

  The project chairman ignored the question, as he had ignored it all the previous times. He stepped across to where a white plastic fascia panel disguised a stove. The wormy floor of the shack moved slightly under his weight. He scooped some instant coffee and milk powder into a thick white mug he got from the cupboard. ‘Quit worrying, Kleiber. I tell you it will be all right.’

  ‘What do you know about what will be all right?’ Kleiber grumbled. ‘Were you ever a field agent?’

  ‘It will be all right, compared to the alternative,’ said the project chairman ominously. He lifted the lid of the vacuum flask and, deciding that the water was still hot enough, poured some into the mug. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Why can’t I have a proper drink?’

  ‘The doc says no.’ The project chairman had no great liking for this arrogant hoodlum. ‘You’d better know this, Kleiber, old sport. There are quite a few people working on this project who’d like to see you arraigned on a murder indictment.’

  ‘The bible man for one,’ said Kleiber. ‘Yes, he told me that.’

  The project chairman nodded. Melvin Kalkhoven had been vociferously opposed to any deal that allowed Kleiber to escape punishment. Kalkhoven had told the project chairman, ‘“I called thee to curse mine enemies, and behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times.”’ His indignation was fired by the knowledge that Kleiber would be paid at a higher grade than Kalkhoven himself.

  ‘But not me,’ added the project chairman. ‘I’d XPD you if I had my way.’

  Chapter 46

  In the last two decades the KGB have been less paranoid about their huge Moscow office block with its infamous Lubyanka prison and rooftop exercise yard. Fewer Russians have been arrested for loitering in Dzerzhinsky Square, and it has been a long time since a tourist has had his camera confiscated in this vicinity.

  This is not due to any change of policy by the upper echelons of the world’s largest and most powerful political police force. The large grey stone building which before the revolution belonged to the All-Russian Insurance Company now houses only less important echelons of the secret police. A large computer and a specially built telex network have made it possible to spread KGB offices throughout the city. The First Main Directorate’s Section 13, together with the personnel office, now occupies six floors of the thirty-one-storey SEV building. This well-designed modern block is at the Tchaikovsky Street end of one of Moscow’s widest and most modern boulevards, Kalinina Prospekt, not far from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.

  The SEV building is sited at a place where the slow-moving Moskva River loops towards the city and back again. From its higher floors there are magnificent views across the city, and away to the south where the gigantic – and hideously ugly – university sprawls across the Lenin Hills. But not many of General Shumuk’s staff of nearly 400 spent much time admiring the view. These floors, occupied by specially selected KGB employees, are noted for cleanliness, industry and silence. Even the telephones are specially muted.

  General Shumuk’s office was large, its size emphasized by the lack of furniture. There was only a metal desk, swivel chair and a high-back wooden visitor’s chair with uneven feet which, rumour said, Shumuk himself had designed to cause concern and discomfort to anyone sitting in it. The new linoleum had already cracked around the places where the hot water radiators were let into the floor. On the desk there were two trays, three telephones and a concealed button for calling his secretary. The only picture on the wall was a cheap lithograph of Peter the Great. Shumuk had always been careful not to identify himself with any of the more modern residents of the Kremlin; it was too dangerous. Behind the picture there was the standard steel safe provided for all senior KGB officials. Each evening it was ceremoniously sealed with red wax.

  There was a knock at the door and the duty cipher clerk entered. Without a word the clerk put a red folder on General Shumuk’s desk and passed to him the timed receipt. Shumuk initialled it without looking up, and started reading the telex codes. It was the one from the Soviet embassy in Washington which spoiled his even temper. It was a long message: four pages of text largely concerned with low-grade trivia which should not have been sent on the signature of Yuriy Grechko, the senior KGB man in the embassy. It should have been consigned to the weekly summary. Shumuk read on hurriedly. He had once been an embassy legal himself; he too had learnt how to wrap up bad news.

  When he came to the paragraph in which Grechko reported that Wilhelm Kleiber had phoned the embassy asking for an urgent meeting, Shumuk put down the telex sheets. He took off his steel-rimmed spectacles and laid them on his desk while he placed the palms of both hands over his face. Long, long ago such mannerisms had been mistaken for grief, alarm or anxiety, but by now everyone knew that it was just a way in which Shumuk was able to concentrate his thoughts. If there was a way in which he manifested grief, alarm or anxiety – or any strong emotion other than anger – no one working with him had yet discovered it.

  Kleiber had failed to obtain the Hitler Minutes, that much was obvious. An agent did not make contact in this reckless, unprofessional manner to report success. If Kleiber had secured the Hitler Minutes in the way that the popinjay Grechko and his sleepy-eyed friend Parker had promised, then by now they would be here on Shumuk’s desk instead of this long telex cluttered with nothing better than gossip culled from Aviation Week. He read the paragraph again.

  PARA EIGHT TASK POGONI 982 [Grechko’s submission numeral] SUGGEST MEETING KLEIBER ROUSILL ON BEACH MOTEL VERNON FAIRFAX COUNTY ++ 22 00 HOURS TUESDAY TWENTY FIRST AUGUST STOP CONSENT REQUEST TWO END PARA

  General Stanislav Shumuk could not think about Task Pogoni without seeing in his mind’s eye the two men upon whom he had relied for its success. Shumuk had no confidence in either Parker or Grechko. He had been a member of the promotions board that had selected Grechko for his present KGB appointment in the Washington embassy. Needless to say, Shumuk had strenuously argued against giving Grechko such responsibility, but he went unheeded. Shumuk was over six feet tall and he could never reconcile himself to the fact that Grechko habitually wore elevator shoes which gave this overconfident little man a sorely needed increase in height. Stanislav Shumuk believed that the elevator shoes revealed the fundamental flaw in Grechko’s personality; his desire for elevation – literally and figuratively – characterized his attitude to his job, to his family and to the women with whom he wasted so much time. Several times Shumuk had made formal complaints about Grechko’s womanizing, but on every occasion Grechko had been able to ‘prove’ that the ladies in question – who included the wives of foreign diplomats – were a valuable source of intelligence material.

  Shumuk put on his spectacles, got up and looked out of the window. Across the street the COMECON annex building was in the course of construction; work continued all round the clock – when darkness came, the construction workers toiled under floodlights. Many of the labourers were women. A line of people waiting for a bus were watching a brawny peasant woman mixing cement. There were long bus lines. A militiaman and some Young Pioneers in their green uniforms were waiting for the special bus that would take them down the Minsk Highway to the battlefield of Borodino. It was a necessary pilgrimage for all the party faithful. Here they would see the place where the might of Napoleon was broken, and where in a later war the Soviet Guards halted the Nazis and stood outnumbered for five long days and nights. Borodino never failed to inspire new faith in the onlookers. Perhaps Shumuk now needed such an infusion of fervour to help him endure the machinations of his colleagues in the Political Bureau. There was little doubt that they had prepared their enthusiastic report about the propaganda value of the Hitler Minutes as a way of putting Shumuk on the spot. Now there were memos,
reports and inquiries coming every day, some of them from the Central Secretariat. All could be summarized as ‘How much longer?’ Shumuk sighed. It was time, he reluctantly decided, for drastic action.

  Essentially, Parker must be brought out of danger – that was the code of Moscow Centre. None of its professional Russian-born agents were ever abandoned to their fate. It was imbecilic of Parker to involve himself with the man who had committed the murders in Los Angeles and London, but that did not change matters. On the contrary, it made it even more vital to get Parker home for, if he was taken into custody by the Americans, he would be facing charges of first-degree murder.

  And yet to pull Parker out would mean that Grechko would come back to Moscow with his reputation unimpaired. Grechko would be able to blame the collapse of Task Pogoni on Moscow’s decision to move Parker. Knowing the way that Grechko could always muster support and sympathy from certain highly placed enemies of Shumuk’s, one could easily envisage Shumuk himself being blamed for the failure of Task Pogoni. That was something he was determined to avoid.

  Shumuk always kept a pair of high-powered binoculars on his windowsill. He found it interesting and instructive to study the people in the streets below. The Red Square bus arrived, and the line of passengers began to board. There was not enough room for everyone. One woman stepped out to hail a passing taxi and a man in a bright blue woollen hat shouted angrily at the bus driver as the bus pulled away. It was unseemly and un-Russian, and the others, although equally angry, turned away to pretend it had not happened. But after the bus had gone the anger of those left behind abated. Shoulders hunched, they turned their backs against the wind and watched the big blonde girl mixing cement. Shumuk put his binoculars down. The bus for Borodino still had not arrived.