The Falstaff Enigma (30 page)

David Margolis awoke abruptly. His back ached from sleeping on an old army cot that had probably been manufactured during World War II. Sleep had come only sporadically the night before. Next to him the impersonator enjoyed the tranquility of a deep sleep. David couldn't help but think that a cot must be a luxury for the skinny man.

Across the room, the electronics expert was engaged in a chess game with two young KGB agents, the pair who had been the back-up men when Sorovin was killed two days earlier. The electronics man was soundly beating the pair.

Margolis stood up and gazed at his watch. It was just past 7:00 a.m. He wondered how he could get a shower.

"Good morning, sir," said one of the young men, making the Mossad s
py feel much older than he was. "There's soup on the stove."

"Thank you. How can I get …”

A red light began flashing rapidly on top of the communications equipment, followed by the regularly interspersed pinging of a small bell.

The electronics expert jumped out of his seat and over to the table with the communications equipment. He turned on a tape recorder he had hooked up and began playing with the dials on the equipment. David bent over and shook the skinny impersonator violently. "Wake up. You're on now."

The man shot up from the cot, wearing only his underwear. He said nothing but stepped over to the sink and stuck his face in running water. Then he cupped his hands and drank several gulps of water. He began to rehearse his voice. "I am in trouble. I am in trouble. You must help me now or I will die." He sounded exactly like Sorovin.

The electronics expert was nervous and held out the telephone-like receiver for the skinny man. "Come on, come on. We're going to miss it."

The impersonator stepped over and grabbed the receiver. He paused for a moment to gain his composure fully. David was impressed by the professionalism displayed by the man – as professional as possible when one is wearing only cotton briefs that are ill-fitting. Then the man nodded his head slowly. The electronics expert flipped a switch. The bell stopped, the red light no longer flashed.

"Blue-one?" asked the young voice from somewhere among the forests of Minsk.

"Yes," replied the impersonator. The room was motionless. If a code word were to have been exchanged , they would know by the line going dead.

"Hold the line," came the reply.

The electronics expert bowed his head and clinched his fist in triumph. They had passed the first hurdle but the real test remained.

"Blue-one, are you there?" The voice was that of Marshal Anton Timolenko, but the skinny impersonator only knew instinctively that this was the voice of Sorovin's commander
and belonged to someone very powerful.

"Yes, sir. I have an urgent matter ..."

"Never mind that," interjected the marshal, his voice loud with impatience. "Our last discussion has weighed upon my thoughts heavily. Our KGB friend must be dealt with now. If his wife is a problem, then remove her however you have to. The whore should have been killed long ago."

"But sir, he is the problem. I have lost contact with my team."

"What in hell are you telling me?" the marshal's voice exploded.

"I think they were taken. I will need more men to complete the job." The sudden weakness in the impersonator's vocal rendition was not acting. He waited for the outburst that was sure to come.

"Why do you fail me now?" the marshal shouted rhetorically. "Wait." The skinny man wasn't sure what the commander meant. There was silence for almost a minute until Marshal Timolenko spoke again. He had obviously been thinking about his next move. "I don't know what happened and l don't have time to find out, but I will stick with you this time. You will have more men in the morning. Be in a sedan in front of Patriots' Park at 0700 hours. You will be contacted by Captain Shetshikov. You do remember him, don't you?"

The impersonator wondered if this was a test. He decided against it. "Yes."

"Don't fail me again." The marshal hung up the phone.

The skinny man replaced his receiver and turned to David. His thick eyebrows drooped a bit as the muscles in his face loosened. He was an actor coming out of character. "We have a name and a meet."

David headed for the door with a sudden burst of adrenalin. "Let’s get to work."

Austin aligned a row of quarters on the shiny metal countertop of the phone booth. He was several blocks from the hotel, just far enough to eliminate a direct line of sight. He rehearsed his lines one more time, trying to shake the doubts he held about his own acting abilities. He picked up the phone and inserted a coin. The dial tone mesmerized him as he raised his index finger to punch the number from Yuri Savitsky's telephone book. The few remaining seconds were used to make his final mental checklist. He would ask for Mr. John Johnson and then use the square root of 5625 to establish his credentials as a surrogate for Savitsky. If he could only do that, then the rest would be easy.

The ring was quickly answered. Austin's grip tightened, his fingers turning white.

"We're sorry, this number is not in service. Please check the number and dial again. If you need assistance then stay on the line and an operator will be with you shortly." The analyst had heard the recorded message a hundred times before but had to concentrate hard to comprehend the implication of the words. He hung up and checked the sheet that had the phone number for one “John Johnson” on it. He was certain he had dialed correctly. He tried again with the same result. This time he waited until an operator came on the line.

"Thank you for using AT and
T. How may I help you?”

"Operator, I seem to be having trouble dialing five-five-five-seven-eight-two-one."

"Hold on, please, I'll try for you."

Austin was patient as the woman quickly performed her routine functions. "I'm sorry, sir, that number is not in service."

"Thank you." The analyst thought about his problem. He was positive that the exchange number was the same as one used by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The key had to be the number 75, the square root of 5625. Austin began adding and subtracting the number from the extension he had. He dialed over and over, spending thirty minutes in the small phone booth as the afternoon traffic passed only inches from where he stood. No matter what he did, he got the same result, a number that was not in service. He finally admitted defeat and began the short walk back to the hotel.

Robert Austin walked into a darkened room. His Russian comrade had closed the
opaque, heavy drapes, effectively transforming day into night. He snored deeply, conceding total control to the jet lag that fatigued his body. Austin longed to climb into the other bed and get four or five hours of sleep. However, he had too much work to allow himself the luxury of sleep. He checked his pocket, running coins through his fingers in an effort to estimate how much money was at his disposal. He went back into the hall and backtracked to the soda machine, returning to his room with two cans of Coke.

He shook the sleeping Russian.
"Nikolai, you have to get up." The KGB agent opened his eyes slowly, mumbling something about it being midnight. "Sorry, it's not midnight, it's fifteen hundred." Austin pulled the chord that parted the heavy drapes, the sun's light quickly engulfing the room. "Here, drink this, you need the caffeine," said Austin, offering a can of Coke.

Nikolai sat up and eagerly downed several gulps before speaking. "Did you get to talk to Falstaff?"

"No. I had absolutely no luck. The number doesn't work. There's some key we're missing." Austin sipped his drink.

Nikolai m
umbled something between gulps.

“What's that?" asked the analyst.

“Maybe this is a worthless chase. It is possible, after all, that Savitsky was not a conduit to some well-placed mole."

"It's possible. We will know soon enough." Austin was annoyed at the doubts that Nikolai harbored. He wondered if the Russian's sense of nationalistic pride might be hindering his usefulness during this search for a deep-cover Soviet mole. He asked himself what he would do if the situation were reversed and he realized that a part of him would want the mole to remain undetected. Suddenly he thought of the next course of action.

He walked in between the two queen-sized beds and sat down by the night stand. He picked up the phone and dialed information.

"Could I have the number for Strouble and Company in Washington, please." There was a brief pause. "Yes, that's S-t r-o-u-b-l-e." Another pause and then Austin wrote down the number on a small pad with the Holiday Inn logo emblazoned on the upper left-hand corner of each little sheet. "Thank you." He dialed the number.

“Good afternoon. Strouble. May I help you?” The woman’s voice was soft yet authoritative.

"Yes, I'm calling for John Nevin," replied the analyst in his most businesslike manner.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Nevin is travelling. May I take a message?"

"When do you expect him back?"

"We expected him yesterday, so I'm sure it will be any moment now. If I could just give him your name, sir."

Austin was delighted to hear the last sentences, for they meant that these people were not covering up, that they did not know the fate of Savitsky. "Thank you, I'll call back tomorrow." He hung up.

"No luck?" commented the displaced KGB agent. He had no idea what conversation had just transpired, but the length of the call made his conjecture easy.

"They have no idea that Savitsky is dead. There was no attempt at cover-up." Austin lay back on the bed, fighting the drowsiness that held sway over his eyelids. His eyes wandered along the ceiling, following a crack in the plaster to the wall. He examined a painting that occupied the room's longest wall. It was an impressionist vision of a countryside scene. Perhaps a copy of a Van Gogh or a Renoir; it seemed familiar but the analyst couldn't place it. He thought about the starving artist who painted it and how if the same painting were called a Van Gogh it would be worth millions. Justice could only be relative.

"What do we do now?" Nikolai asked as he stood to head into the restroom.

"We try phone numbers; try to break the code contained in this damn book." Austin sat up again with a new thought. "The key lies in Strouble, John Johnson and this square root nonsense." Austin was speaking to himself; the Russian was already in the shower. The analyst picked up the phone once again. He busily scribbled down numbers between each round of finger-tapping on the phone's keyboard. He continued this for almost thirty minutes, using every logical combination he could think of. Every time he got an answer, he would ask for "Mr. Johnson" and say that "Mr. Nevin" was calling. The reply was always the same: it was a wrong number, and there was never a hint of recognition, only annoyance. He made a note of the numbers with no answers.

Nikolai stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. "You look like an eighteen-year-old who's just found out he is going to Afghanistan,” the Russian said.

"Still no luck. I must have tried forty different numbers." Austin reached into his bag and fished around for one of Savitsky's fake business cards. He pulled one out and examined it. The printed phone number for Strouble & Co. was the same as the one the operator had given him earlier. The address did not even give the street number, saying only "corner of Maryland and Third."

"I'm going to visit Strouble & Co. While I'm gone you can keep trying different phone numbers. Here," Austin handed the half-dressed Russian the business card, "try combinations with the number three and/or the zip code in it. Just ask for Mr. Johnson or Mr. Nevin in English. If someone else comes on the line then make a note of the number and I will call back later." The analyst wasn't quite sure how the Russian could call people, but he really didn't care whether he made any progress or not.

"Why are you going to this office? It will be closed by the time you get there." Nikolai finished buttoning his shirt as he spoke.

"I don't know. It's something to do." Austin hated dead ends and had to stay in mental motion. He loaded his pockets with the necessary travel items: money, wallet, paper and pen. "This won't take long."

"Robert,” the KGB agent stood up straight, "what if we can't get anywhere with this?"

Austin paused at the door, his hand gripping the knob. "I'm thinking about contacting my partner who hasn't seen me in weeks."

Nikolai shifted his weight nervously. "That wouldn't be smart, my friend."

"It's only a thought, Nikolai." The analyst opened the door and headed down the hall.

The building on the corner of Maryland and Third was an old brick structure with street level businesses and several floors above street level that looked like apartments. Austin had taken a taxi to Stanton Park and walked the block down Maryland Avenue. In the distance he could see the dome of the Capitol Building. He thought about the irony of a Soviet spy using a front within sight of the Capitol.

The red letters of Strouble & Co. appeared on his left as he walked along the sidewalk. It was past five o'clock and most of the businesses, including Strouble, had shut down for the day. He reached the gold merchant's window and stopped. His first thought was that this must have been a copying shop before its current usage.

A large plate glass
window about twenty feet wide exposed the inner office. There were four desks aligned in a rectangular fashion with an aisle running down the middle. The two desks in front had credenzas attached with large IBM typewriters on top. Only one secretary had remembered to cover her typewriter. The two rear desks had computer terminals on them. One desk was covered in papers that Austin could not make out. An ashtray with five cigarette butts was perched precariously on the corner of the desk, simultaneously hanging over two sides. An open Wall Street Journal lay on the desk, pushed off to the side. The other desk was clean and orderly. On the front edge was a gold colored nameplate that read "John Nevin." This was the U.S. base for the late Yuri Savitsky.

Behind the desk was a wall with a heavy steel door in the center. What appeared to be a teller's window was at the left of the door. Austin scanned the room several times, not sure what he was looking for. Nothing stood out. Nothing offered any clue to help crack Savitsky's code. The analyst stepped back to look at the window. He pulled out the paper and pen he had brought with him and jotted down the street address: 315 Maryland. Nothing else was on the window. His eyes focused past the window one last time, scanning the office interior.

Something suddenly caught his eye. Against the far wall, next to the teller window, stood a felt letter board on top of a four-foot brass pedestal. In white letters were these words:

Call 24 Hours

Current Rates for All Precious Metals

1(800) BUY-GOLD

Another phone number. Another dead end.

Austin turned around, suddenly anxious to get back to the hotel. He waved down a passing cab. The trip back took twice as long as the trip to Strouble & Co. This time he was with the traffic. The round trip had been expensive and Austin worried that his money had been spent foolishly.

''Did you discover anything?" asked the analyst as he entered the room.

"I don't knew for sure, but everyone who answered quickly hung up on me." Nikolai held up his scratch pad with a long list of numbers with various markings by them, as if this act alone would convey all that had happen
ed during these calls. "And you?"

"I have a new phone number but I'm not sure what it will amount to." Austin took his seat from before. His can of Coke was still sitting on the table relatively unscathed. He took a sip and lifted the phone to his ear. "Let's see what this does." He dialed the toll-free number.

After one ring, Austin's heart sank as he heard the now familiar pitch of a recorded voice start. But this time the message was different. "If you would like the current price of gold, please push 'one' now. If you would like the current price of silver, please push 'two' now. If you would like the current price of other precious metals, press 'three' now."

Austin pressed the numbe
r one on his telephone keyboard. This time a man's voice began a mechanical monologue. "Monday, June twentieth. Gold closed on the London market today at $415.75 bid, up 25 cents from Friday’s close. On the Comex, gold closed at $415.50 bid, unchanged for the day. In early trading in Tokyo, gold remained flat, trading at $415.75 bid. After the close in New York, the Federal Reserve released revised first quarter figures showing inflation running at 3.6% annually instead of the previously announced 3.8%. This is down sharply from the first quarter of 1982. Strouble & Co. will take your orders each weekday between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. We offer the lowest commission schedule in the Washington area on all trades of ten ounces or more.” The connection was severed.

Austin quickly redialed the toll-free number, this time punching the number two at the appropriate time. Two minutes later he repeated the procedure, altering only the final number. He finally hung up, refusing to accept the futility of his efforts. His gaze met that of the KGB operative. Nikolai did not need to say anything; his eyes held the obvious question.

"It seems like a legitimate business," answered the analyst, his voice containing the frustration that both men felt. "I don't think we have anything with this."

Nikolai looked at the phone, thinking about what he had seen j
ust moments ago. "When you were making those calls, you would wait a few seconds and then push one more number. What was that?" The Russian was used to the rotary dial system still prevalent in Moscow.