The Company_ A Novel Of The CIA Part 71

"I have two wives and three sons. I have several daughters also."

Casey tinkled the ice cubes in his gla.s.s. "Surprised the son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h even bothered mentioning the female children."

Maria could be heard asking, "What is you favorite film?"

"I have never seen a motion picture."

"He's trying to qualify for Islamic sainthood," Casey quipped.

"Which political figures do you admire most?"

"Living or dead?"

"Both. Historical as well as living figures."

"Historically, I admire and respect the Messenger Muhammad- he was not only a holy man who lived a holy life, he was a courageous warrior who inspired the Islamic armies in their conquest of North Africa and Spain and parts of France. Historically I admire, too, Moses and Jesus, both prophets who brought the word of G.o.d to the people but were ignored. I also hold in high esteem the sultan of Egypt, Saladin, who defeated the first colonialists, the Crusaders, and liberated the sacred city of Jerusalem."

"Too bad he's holding one of our people," Casey decided. "This is the sort of guy who could really b.l.o.o.d.y the Russians."

On the television screen Maria asked, "How about living figures?"

"She is certainly a handsome woman," Reagan said as he and his National Security Advisor, Bill Clark, watched TV on the second floor of the White House. "Remind me what her, uh, name is?"

"Maria Shaath," Clark said. "The Ibrahim character is the one who thinks we've agreed to trade Shaath and the CIA fellow for fifty Stingers."

"Living figures," Ibrahim was telling Maria, "are more difficult."

"Why is that?" she inquired.

"Because it will be fifty or a hundred years before you can have enough historical perspective to weigh what a leader has done."

"You take a long view of history?"

"I measure things in centuries."

"Go out on a limb," Maria insisted. "Give it your best shot."

Ibrahim smiled faintly. "I admire Qaddafi for not being intimidated by the colonial powers. I respect Iraq's Saadam Hussein and Syria's Hafez al a.s.sad for the same reasons. On the other hand, I despise Jordan's King Hussein and Egypt's Mubarak and Saudi Arabia's entire royal family for their failure to stand up to the colonial and secular West. They have in fact been co-opted by the secular West. They have become agents of secularism in the Islamic world."

Reagan asked, "What did I, uh, decide about those Stingers, again, Bill?"

"You felt it would be a mistake to supply them to Islamic fundamentalists like this Ibrahim character. So the Stingers we're sending in with the Israeli raiding party have had their firing mechanisms removed."

"You speak often about colonialism and secularism," Maria was asking on the screen. "What about Marxism?"

"I hate Marxism!" Reagan muttered to himself.

"Marxism is as bad as capitalism," Ibrahim replied. "Marxism is colonialism with a secular packaging."

Reagan perked up. "Well, he's not a Marxist!" he decided.

"He certainly isn't," agreed the National Security Advisor.

"I don't see what we have to lose by arming him with, uh, Stingers if he uses them against the Marxists," Reagan said.

"A lot of Senators are saying the same thing," Clark observed.

Reagan stared with troubled sincerity at his National Security Advisor. "Are you suggesting that supplying Stingers to the, uh, Afghan freedom fighters would be popular in Congress?"

"I suppose it would be," Clark conceded.

"Well, maybe we need to take another look at this, uh, Stinger business, after all," Reagan ventured. "I'm not saying we should give them Stingers. On the other hand, if they use them to shoot down Russian planes- Hmmmmmm."

Leo Kritzky had just returned from Baltimore, where he'd personally debriefed Hippolyre Fet, the former KGB rezident in Peshawar who had been spirited out of Pakistan immediately after his defection, flown to America and installed in a Company safe house. Pulling into his Georgetown driveway after dark, Leo was surprised to see a familiar gray Plymouth already parked there. Jack was slouched in the driver's seat, the radio on and tuned to a station that gave the news every hour on the hour. Both drivers emerged from their cars at the same moment.

"Jack," Leo said. "What brings you out at this hour?"

"I badly need a drink," Jack moaned as they headed toward the front door of Leo's home. He glanced at his old Yale roommate and scull-mate. Physically, Leo had pretty much recovered from Angleton's draconian inquisition nine years before; his hair had grown back ash-colored and was worn in a brush cut popular with Army officers. The gauntness had given way to a st.u.r.dy leanness. If there were vestiges of the ordeal, they were to be found in Leo's dark eyes, which still looked haunted, more so tonight than usual, or so it seemed to Jack, who said, "You look as if you could use a dose of alcohol, too, old buddy."

"We've both come to the right place," Leo said. He let himself in with a latch key and flicked on lights. The two men threw their coats over the backs of chairs. Leo made a beeline for the bar across the living room. "What's your pleasure, Jack?"

"Whiskey, neat. Don't stint."

Leo half-filled two thick jelly gla.s.ses (Adelle had taken the crystal after the divorce) with Glenfiddich. "Any news from the raiding party?" Leo asked, handing one gla.s.s to Jack, hiking his own in salute.

"The last we heard they'd transited the Nameh Pa.s.s, north of the Khyber." Jack frowned. "They're crossing unmarked mountain trails now and maintaining radio silence, so we won't know more until they've reached Ibrahim's hilltop."

"When's D-day?"

"Hard to say how long it will take them to get over the mountains with pack animals. For the rendezvous with the helicopters, we're calculating a minimum of five, a maximum of eight days."

"Must be tough on Millie," Leo guessed.

"Tough is not the word," Jack said. "On the other hand, if it ends well..."

"It will, Jack."

"Yeah, I keep telling myself that but I haven't been able to convince myself." He took a sip of whiskey and s.h.i.+vered.

"Did you catch the Shaath interview?" Leo asked.

"They supplied us with a preview tape. We ran it in the office."

"I heard it on the radio driving back," Leo said. "The part where Ibrahim says he'll defend Islam from colonial oppression in other parts of the world once the Russians are out of the way-it made my hair stand on end."

"Yeah. The Shaath woman didn't beat around the bush with him, either."

"You mean when she asked him if he was issuing a declaration of war?" Leo said. He waved Jack to the sofa and settled tiredly onto a rocking chair at right angles to him. "Ibrahim's talking about Saudi Arabia, of course," he added. "That's next on the fundamentalists' menu when the Russians cut their losses and pull out of Afghanistan." Leo drank his whiskey thoughtfully. "Its not a pretty picture. About this Fet fellow-"

"Yeah, I meant to ask you. What goodies has he brought with him?"

"Mind you, Jack, we haven't fluttered him yet so we can't say for sure he's not feeding us a load of bull. On the other hand-"

"On the other hand?"

"He claims that the guys who run the KGB are ready to write off Afghanistan. Inside the KGB this information is being closely held. As far as they're concerned the war is lost-its only a matter of time, and casualties, before the Soviet military gets the message and figures out how to wind down the war."

"Wow! If it's true-"

"Fet claims he was under orders to open back-channels to the various fundamentalist splinter groups-the KGB is already looking beyond the war to the postwar period when the fundamentalists will have taken over Afghanistan and turned their attention elsewhere." "Elsewhere being Saudi Arabia?"

"The KGB, according to Fet, thinks it can harness the hatred the fundamentalists have for America and turn it against American interests in the Middle East. If the Saudi royal family is overthrown-"

Jack filled in the blanks. "The Russians are an oil-exporting nation. If the fundamentalists tighten the spigot, Moscow will be able to buy the allegiance of European countries that rely on Saudi oil."

"The possibilities for manipulation are limited only by a lack of imagination," Leo said.

"And the KGB's schemers have never been known to lack imagination."

"No," Leo said, frowning thoughtfully. "They haven't." Something was obviously disturbing him. "They are far more cynical than I imagined."

"When Fet says he was under orders to establish contact with fundamentalists, what exactly does that mean?"

"It means that Fet and the KGB decided that Ibrahim was worth cultivating. It means they fingered Manny and my G.o.dson, Anthony. It means they urged Ibrahim to kidnap them-Maria Shaath happened to be in the car, so she was a wild card-and hold them against the delivery of the Stingers that will boost Ibrahim's chances of winding up at the head of the fundamentalist pack."

"But the Stingers will shoot down Russian aircraft," Jack said.

"According to Fet, that's the short term price and the KGB is willing to pay it. Stingers in the hands of fundamentalists, so Fet's superiors told him, will convince the Soviet bra.s.s that the war can't be won. The sooner the war ends, the sooner the fundamentalists, with the KGB pulling the strings behind the scenes, can turn their attention to the Saudi oil fields."

Jack polished off his whiskey and went over to the bar to help himself to more. He held the bottle up but Leo waved away a refill. "You're the DD/O's Chief of Operations, pal," Jack said. "Do you swallow this story?"

Leo said carefully, "There was a detail in the Shaath interview that seems to give Fet's story plausibility. Remember where she asks Ibrahim how come, with Soviet planes and helicopters crisscrossing the countryside, his mountaintop fortress hasn't been attacked, at least since she's been there?"

"Yeah, I do remember. His answer was kind of feeble."

"He said they had too many anti-aircraft guns around and the Russians knew it," Leo said. "But you and I know that anti-aircraft guns are almost useless against modern jets or helicopters hugging the ground and coming in fast."

"Which is why they want Stingers," Jack said.

"Which is why," Leo agreed.

"Which could mean," Jack said, "that the KGB-which has a hand in drawing up the target lists, same as we do-has put Ibrahim's real estate off limits."

"That's what Fet says," Leo confirmed.

They concentrated on their drinks for a while, each following his own train of thoughts. Eventually Leo glanced up at his old friend. "When are you going to get around to what really brought you over at this time of night?" he asked.

Jack shook his head in distress. "There's a photo I want you to take a look at."

"What kind of photo?"

"I'm glad you're sitting down," Jack said. He pulled the photograph from the inside breast pocket of his sports jacket and held it out. Leo rocked forward and took it. Fitting on a pair of reading gla.s.ses, he held the photograph up to the light.

Jack saw his friend catch his breath.

"So it is Yevgeny," Jack whispered.

"Where did you get this?" Leo demanded.

"We have your girls to thank for it," Jack said, and he explained how Tessa and Vanessa had come up with the Was.h.i.+ngton phone number of the old Polish woman who was acting as a circuit breaker for a KGB cutout, who went by the name of Gene Lutwidge. "I've always wondered what became of our Russian roommate," Jack said. "Now we know."

Breathing irregularly, Leo rocked back in his chair. The photo of Yevgeny had obviously shaken him.

"I couldn't believe it either, at first," Jack said. "The FBI's a.s.signed a fifty-man task force to Yevgeny. If we're patient enough he'll lead us to SASHA. If we grow impatient we'll pick him up and wring it out of him." Jack leaned forward. "You should be very proud of Tessa and Vanessa... Hey, Leo, you all right?"

Leo managed to nod. "Vanessa told me they had scored a breakthrough but she didn't give me details. I should have guessed it concerned Yevgeny..."

Jack, puzzled, asked, "How could you have guessed that?"

Leo pushed himself to his feet and, dropping the photo onto the rocking chair, made his way to the bar. Crouching behind it, he hunted for something in a cupboard. Then, standing, he splashed some whiskey into a new tumbler and carried it back across the room. This time he settled onto the couch across from Jack.

Leo's anxious eyes were fixed on his oldest friend. He had come to a decision: From here on there would be no turning back. "This is what the bullfighters and the fiction-writers call the moment of truth," he said. His voice was too soft; the softness conveyed menace. "Yevgeny doesn't have to lead you to SASHA," he went on. "You're looking at him."

Jack started to come out of his seat when the automatic materialized in Leo's hand. For an instant, Jack's vision blurred and his brain was incapable of putting the riot of thoughts into words. He sank back onto the cus.h.i.+ons in confusion. "d.a.m.nation, you wouldn't shoot to kill," was all he could think to say.

"Don't misread me," Leo warned. "I'd shoot to wound. I don't plan to spend the rest of my life in a federal penitentiary."

"You're SASHA!" It began to dawn on Jack that this wasn't a joke or a dream. "Jim Angleton was right all along!"

"Do us both a favor, keep your hands where I can see them," Leo ordered. He tossed a pair of handcuffs onto the couch next to Jack. "Attach one end to your right wrist. Don't make any sudden moves-now sit on the floor with your back against the radiator. Okay, lock the other end of the cuffs onto the pipe at the side of the radiator. Good." Leo came across and sat down where Jack had been sitting. "Now we'll talk, Jack."

"How did you do it-how did you get past all the lie defector tests?"

"Tranquilizers. I was so relaxed I could have told them I was female and it wouldn't have stirred the stylus. The only lie defector test I failed was the one Angleton gave me in his dungeon-and I was able to explain it away because I'd been locked up for so long."

Leo's treachery was starting to sink in. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You p.r.i.c.k! You betrayed everyone, your country, your wife, your girls, the Company. You betrayed me, Leo-when you drank that water from Angleton's toilet bowl, Jesus H. Christ, I fell for it. I thought you could actually be innocent. It was your old buddy Jack who didn't let the matter drop when Kukushkin was supposed to have been executed. It was me who set the wheels turning to see if he might still be alive."

"I was manning the ramparts of the Cold War, Jack, but on the other side. Remember when I came off the elevator and you were all waiting there to welcome me back after my incarceration? I said something about how I was serving the country whose system of governance seemed to offer the best hope to the world. I wasn't lying. That country, that system of governance, is the Soviet Union."

The air in the room was suddenly charged with emotion. It was almost as if two longtime lovers were breaking up. "So when did you start to betray your country, Leo?"

"I never betrayed my country, I fought for a better world, a better planet. My allegiance to the Soviet Union goes all the way back to Yale. Yevgeny wasn't a KGB agent when he roomed with us but, like all Russians abroad, he was an unofficial spotter. He told his father, who was a KGB agent, about me: about how my family had been ruined by the depression and my father had jumped to his death from the Brooklyn Bridge; about how I had inherited from my father the Old Testament belief that what you own was stolen from those who don't have enough."

"Then what?"