The Falstaff Enigma (33 page)

"I would say that my feelings are typical among the officer corps. Most men would follow Marshal Timolenko into hell and most feel certain that Andropov is leading us into hell."

Borskov turned to walk out. He stopped to talk quietly to the short agent. "Treat him well. Feed him, clean him, but don't give him the opportunity to kill himself. He will probably take it. You can let him walk around in here for a few minutes, but be sure his hands are bound behind his back or to the chair at all times. Also turn those lights off and get a fan in here." He walked out of the horror chamber, he hoped for the last time.

A yellow cab pulled to the curb. The car was only two years old, but it looked as if it would fall apart upon its next encounter with a large pothole. The right rear door creaked open, the passenger utilizing most of his muscular frame to force it to move. A cool breeze rushed into the taxi as the man stepped out and onto the curb. An attractive young woman brushed past him and got quickly into the taxi, slamming the creaky door behind her.

The man used his left index finger to push his tortoise shell glasses back into their desired position on his nose. He glanced in each direction, orienting himself in the midst of the morning rush-hour pedestrian traffic. Maryland Avenue was particularly busy at this time on Fridays. People were anxious to get to work on time so that they wouldn't feel guilty when they left early that afternoon.

The man raised his left forearm to waist level, rotating the back of his hand toward his face. With his right hand he pushed back his suit sleeve to reveal a gold Rolex watch. It was 8:55 a.m. He relaxed his hold and the wool sleeve snapped back to its proper position. His suit was navy blue with very thin gray stripes running through it. The suit was tailor-made and very expensive. The man stood straight as he began covering the block's distance he needed to walk. All the time his eyes scanned from side to side looking for that which should not be there. He could not decide whether all the people were a benefit or a detriment.

As the man approached the office of Strouble & Co. he slowed down and then stopped in front of the plate glass window.
He looked at the desk of Yuri Savitsky – alias John Nevin. It was clean and clearly had not been used in at least a few days. No customers were inside, but Savitsky's partner was busy making phone calls, seeking out more business. The man continued down Maryland Avenue. He swerved his path to avoid a homeless drunk sitting next to the still locked door of the precious metals office. His eyes caught those of a woman passing in the opposite direction. She was not good looking, but he did not want to catch the eye of the bum.

He felt his usual guilt as his mind ran through the paradox once again. He was an avowed Marxist, a secret he shared only with those very few he could trust – those in the KGB. Yet he loathed the scum who roamed Amer
ican streets. They were the responsibility of the State, and the capitalist government of America did not give a damn. He bore no responsibility, he told himself; they were the product of the capitalist system.

He brushed aside his guilt as he had always been able to do, and returned to the immediate problem. He had already called in sick for the day and had spent the previous evening usefully. He had packed two bags and filled his briefcase with essential documents: the false Swiss passport the Soviets had given him several years earlier, the papers he needed to gain access to a numbered bank account in Zurich that had been receiving regular, untouched deposits for years, everything to start a new life in comfort. He was ready to leave his homeland if it became necessary. He wondered how much more difficult the process of
defection would be if he were still married, and he thought about the teenage daughter he might never see again. It was an acceptable price.

For years he had run through the scenario. Some high- ranking KGB official would defect and reveal his name. He would receive a frantic phone call from his Soviet contacts and the race would be on. His scenario ended differently with each screening, depending on his mood. One time he would evade the FBI by only minutes. The next time he would be arrested as he was walking down the boarding ramp. And the next time he would die in a wild gunfight in his front yard. In the last few months, the scenario had occupied his mind daily, taking on new complexities all the time.

For twenty years he had risen through the ranks of the United States Army, finally retiring as a full-bird colonel to become a civilian advisor to the Defense Intelligence Agency. All the time, through two years of combat in the jungles of Viet Nam and an entire career in intelligence, he gave information to the Soviets.

He had been recruited while studying at
Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. It was out of curiosity that he had taken a course on Marxist theory. But the course filled more than just a curious void; it satisfied an inner emptiness he had felt since studying economics at the University of Massachusetts. He had discovered a philosophy he knew to be right and he developed a close friendship with his professor. The old professor solidified his pupil's viewpoints and introduced him to a friend from Moscow.

It did not take long to convince the young student that he could contribute greatly to the cause of freedom by just living a typical American life. It was exciting and it gave the student a purpose to life that he had never known. Now he had given a lifetime to his cause. He had always been patient and unerring, never coming under suspicion. To his knowledge, he was the most valuable source of information the Soviets had and
he was compensated accordingly. By his reckoning, he had accumulated over two million dollars in his secret Swiss bank account, just waiting to be claimed.

But he had grown doubtful in recent years. The Soviet Union had lost its path and the zeal needed to spread the teachin
gs of Marx throughout the world. Andropov was ready to give up all the gains of the past just to consolidate his own power. The Soviet leader would destroy all that this man had quietly struggled for over two decades. But a way out – a salvation – had been presented only three months earlier by Yuri Savitsky. Premier Andropov could not be allowed to stay in power. Marxism would prevail and this man would be a part of it.

The man checked his watch once again. It was just after nine in the morning. He turned around and headed back to the office of Strouble & Co. As he approached the door he was angered by the drunk who was still seated next to the entrance. He held a tin cup that rested on his knee. A two-foot square of cardboard was resting on the drunk's lap, its back leaning against his chest. The DIA advisor was reaching for the door's handle when the writing on the cardboard caught his eye. He stopped and stepped back. In black magic marker the cardboard said:

My name is Joseph Cunningham. I served my country in Viet Nam and am now abandoned. I need your help to survive as I once helped you.

The man knelt down in front of Joseph Cunningham.
"I have come just to see you, Mr. Cunningham," he said as he dropped two quarters into the tin cup.

The drunk gazed into his
well-dressed counterpart's eyes. His breath smelled of cheap whiskey. "Are you the friend of John Nevin?" The man had been drinking, but seemed remarkably lucid. It was the sign of a true alcoholic.

"Yes.”

"I have this for you." He lifted his body just enough to pull out an envelope that he had been sitting on. He handed it to the DIA mole. "He said you would give me twenty bucks for this.”

The retired colonel took the envelope. “Who is 'he'?"

"I don't know. Just some guy who paid me to do this.”

The mole reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills bound in a gold dollar sign
money clip. He peeled off three twenty-dollar notes. "Here's sixty dollars to forget this whole episode.” He grabbed the cardboard sign and stood up.

"Now head off."

"Hey, thanks. Thanks a lot.” The drunk slowly rose to his feet and staggered off. His walk was not as lucid as his speech.

The mole walked to a corner trash can and tossed in the cardboard sign. He opened the letter and read the instructions.

Walk to Stanton Park and sit down on the bench closest to the center.

It took the man only six minutes to comply with the instructions. About a hundred yards away Nikolai focused a 50 millimeter telephoto lens on the impeccably dressed target. He shot eleven photographs and then laid down the camera to pick up a newly purchased rifle. They could not be sure how this man would react.

Robert Austin meandered slowly through the park. He wore a false moustache in a weak attempt to insure that the mole would not recognize him from photographs. He was reassured by Nikolai's presence. He made his way to the bench, grabbing quick glimpses of the mole's face. The man's distinguished face did not trigger any memories in Austin. He felt certain that they had not met before. The analyst finally sat down a few feet from the mole. His heart was racing. He spoke in Russian. "I understand that Mr. Nevin is ill today."

The mole turned his head and looked Austin in the eyes. His stare was intense but held no hint of recognition. Sunlight reflected off his glasses. "Excuse me?" he said.

Austin paused, reminding himself that he had finally found the man responsible for putting him into this hell. This must be the man who had convinced the CIA to send him to Ankara so that he could die with General Fyodor Poltovsky and scores of innocent people. He finally spoke but this time in strained English. "I am sorry. You are friend of Nevin, yes?"

"Business acquaintance. I wa
s wondering where he has been."

"You work long with Savitsky?"

"Who are you? You aren't the person who called me yesterday."

"I am friend of Savitsky. I am sent here by him to give you this.
” Austin removed an envelope from his breast pocket and laid it on the bench between them. The mole picked it up and looked inside. It contained a thick stack of blank traveler's checks in $100 denominations. “Your caller was friend of mine. He speaks fluent English and knows nothing."

"I don't understand," the mole
said.

"I am sent here to say it is time you leave. We will go on flight tonight to Paris. Paris then to Moskva."

"Why didn't Nevin come?" The mole put the envelope in his own breast pocket.

"Yuri is dead." Austin waited for a reaction. The mole only looked forward, his eyes not focusing on anything specific. "He contact me four days ago and tell me what I will do if hear of his death. He give me code for reach you. Two days ago l hear he die of heart ... how is this?" Austin grabbed at his chest and twisted.

"Heart attack," said the mole under his breath.

"Yes, heart attack. I leave then and come. He also said tell you all unravels in America." Austin waited for a response.

"Yes, I will leave tonight."

The analyst was stunned. He never expected this to be so easy.

"We not talk on trip. We fly on same trip and talk in Moskva." Austin offered his hand. "My name is Andrei Glinka. And you?" The analyst knew that this was the moment of truth. This response would tell him if he had been convincing.

The mole sho
ok Austin's hand. His features were solid and handsome. He was very Germanic in appearance. He had run through all of the scenarios in his mind and knew that if the man on the bench with him worked for the FBI or CIA, he would have been long since placed under arrest. "My name is Thomas Berkshire." The mole fell for the ruse completely. His own habit of rehearsing scenarios was his downfall. This had been one of his recent ones and he never questioned the reality of the situation.

Suddenly Austin’s mind was opened. Clues ignited memories.
Don Clements. An interrogation by the DIA’s Review Committee. One man obsessed with Robert Austin. A distinguished Germanic look. Stereotypical Norman Rockwell. Black hair with streaks of gray. Newscaster’s voice. Oversize tortoise-shell glasses. This is that man.

"Are you all right?"
Berkshire asked.

"I am scared of this all," replied Austin without thinking of his words. "We will take flight on Air France. We leave seventeen hundred. I see you there." Austin stood.

"One last thing," said the mole as he stood up also. "So you know, I will be traveling under the name of Tomas Strauss with a Swiss passport. You understand?"

"Yes,"
the analyst replied. "And remember we not talk again until Moskva. We not sit with each other. l get you by Immigration in Moskva."

The small truck screeched to a stop, its brakes barely adequate to end the momentum of the overloaded vehicle. Behind it, an olive drab sedan glided effortlessly to a halt. The car was an oddity in the Soviet Union – it was meticulously maintained. But that was one of the privileges of being a general in the world's most powerful army. Ten soldiers filed out of the truck gracefully, their movements coordinated like a well-choreographed ballet. The young men wore flak jackets which protected their torsos from the waistline to the neck. Each man carried an AKM assault rifle, its large 30-round magazine anchoring the center of the weapon.

The general's driver stepped out and ran around the rear of the sedan to open the right side passenger door for the general. The man emerged from the car and stood. A phalanx of young soldiers lined his path to a large steel door. General Gleb Ilyan, at six
-feet-five-inches, rose above all of his men. He looked at the soldiers as they stood at attention, their weapons held in front of them with muzzles pointing at the stars. Their chins were raised, their heads cocked slightly toward the general in the tradition of Soviet Army.

The general was
handsome and built like a boxer. At a youthful 50-years-old, he was the youngest general in an Army that valued longevity in service above all. His hair was full and jet black, with no hint of the gray that afflicts most men with his responsibilities. The teenagers who stood in front of him admired the man. He barked his orders and was ruthless with incompetents, but he was concerned with his men. He was a soldier's general and commanded fierce loyalty from his troops. He was a man Hollywood directors would fight to cast as commander-in-chief of one side or another.

General Ilyan shifted his gaze up toward the heavens. A waning moon set slowly in the west while the first hint of dawn invaded the eastern sky. Overhead he could recognize only the belt of Orion in the cloudless sky. He promised himself that he would someday study astronomy, but then he had been promising himself that for almost forty years. His eyes fell again on the western horizon. The forest of Minsk offered no artificial light to obscure his view. He wondered whether the moon would look the same from the forests of northern France.

The general walked through the middle of his men and through the steel door which was obscured by camouflage nets. Inside, a non-commissioned officer shot to his feet, recognizing instantly the officer who walked in. "The meeting is in the conference room at the end of the hall, sir," the guard said.

The general's adjutant saluted the NCO and broke into a j
og to keep pace with his leader. The pair walked for more than 150 meters. Their pace was quickened by both the excitement of the moment and the gentle downward slope of the hallway. They were heading deep under the forests of Minsk. Finally they reached a waiting room with its steel walls freshly painted a light gray. At the opposite end was a heavy vault-type door that protected the conference room. Two young soldiers guarded the entrance. They were a little more alert than usual, each caressing his weapon the way only veteran infantry men did. About twenty men occupied the waiting room, all of them relatively low ranking adjutants.

The general did not move his eyes from the two guards, his long legs carrying him quickly across the room's expanse. In the background only the hum of fans droned from the huge ventilation shaft openings in two corners of the room. Otherwise there was only silence, each man knowing that this meeting was of cataclysmic importance but not knowing why. The two guards saluted as the g
eneral passed. In his left hand each man held the butt of his weapon, balancing it in the air with seeming effortlessness, a skill unique to the Soviet military. After the general passed, both guards returned to an at-ease position, moving their inside legs closer together to block the path of the adjutant.

"No aides, by order of Marshal Timolenko," said one guard, his voice holding the delegated authority of the man who would soon be the commander-in-chief of the Red Army. The adjutant stopped instantly, feeling embarrassed for not picking up on all the clues that surrounded him. He found a seat and looked around at the nervous faces, the tension of the room filling his body uncontrollably. He had been General Ilyan's aide for almost two years and this was the first meeting he had not been allowed to attend. The same was obviously true for the rest of the men in the room.

Marshal Anton Timolenko stepped from the dais, a smile creasing his lips. He bypassed several generals and offered his hand to the tall man who had just walked in. "Gleb, it has been too long, my friend."

The young general shook his friend's hand but did not smile. He never smiled. "Over a  year, I believe."

"Yes, since I was stripped of my rightful command."

"Well, Anton, I hope  to toast you soon on the return of your command."

"You will, my friend, you will. Please have a seat." Timolenko directed him to the front of the conference room. The general was to join him in conducting a meeting he had not even known about six hours earlier.

Marshal Timolenko tapped one of the guards on the shoulder and nodded his head as
soon as the young man could see the movement. Without hesitation, the sentry closed the large door, the slam of metal on metal reverberating loudly off the barren walls of the conference room. Timolenko followed General Ilyan to the dais. He aligned himself behind an ancient oak podium and glanced over the notes that lay on the wooden pedestal. With his left hand he turned a small knob built into the podium. A green light came on, indicating that the room was now sealed off from the rest of the underground complex – from the rest of the world.

"Welcome, comrade officers," said the
marshal, sounding something like a game show emcee. "I am happy to see that everyone was able to make it on such short notice and I apologize for the early hour. Recent events have made it necessary to alter our timetable. This morning you will all learn our current status, as well as why I asked all of you to travel with an armed escort.

"Until now, only three of us in this room knew the scheduled date for October Day. Now you all fall under the 'need to know’
category. The original date was July fourth, the American independence day, and the scheduled start of July maneuvers in Eastern Europe. It is necessary to move the date up to as soon as possible. The final decision will rest on the shoulders of General Ilyan.''

G
eneral Ilyan was surprised at what he had just heard. He was not one of the men who had known the original date for October Day but he knew it was coming soon. He suddenly grew very excited. The day he had been preparing for all his life was now only days away and, more important, he controlled the trigger.

"Let me first ex
plain why the timetable has changed," Timolenko continued. "For the past few months we have been systematically eliminating our opposition. To do this, we used a KGB assassin named Leonid Sorovin. He performed flawlessly until somehow – we are not quite sure how – a KGB colonel named Borskov and two Americans working with him picked up Sorovin's trail. We have isolated Borskov and the Americans appear to be working outside their government's sanction. In any case, all intelligence sources indicate that the United States has taken no action to mobilize their forces. NATO is still at stand-down and American forces are at Defense Condition Five.

"Just a few days ago, Sorovin spoke with me and told me he was ready to remove Borskov. Then two days ago I spoke with Sorovin again. He told me that his men had been killed by Borskov and he needed new men to finish off the last major target left – blue-five, the commander of the Moscow Military District. I discussed this situation with General Maslov and we decided to remove Sorovin, since he h
ad become too great a liability. We sent a trusted officer whom Sorovin had previously met. He took a partner with him. The partner returned late that night to report that our officer was arrested while approaching Sorovin. We assume that we are now fully compromised." The marshal gazed down at his notes as several of the generals present whispered among themselves, openly uncertain for the first time. Timolenko was uncomfortable in this setting; he much preferred to give orders to unquestioning subordinates.

The marshal looked up again.
"The plan for October Day, however, remains the same. Only the timing has changed. The Politburo is scheduled to convene at twelve hundred hours Moscow time on Monday after Andropov returns from the weekend at his dacha. We will act then. We will destroy the Great Kremlin Palace as the Politburo is in session. The attack will be blamed on a West German fascist group. We ..."

"A modern Reichstag Fire,"
Ilyan interjected. "We finally repay the German bastards." The group laughed nervously at the general's reference to the fire that the Nazis had blamed on the communists and that Hitler used as his excuse to take dictatorial power.

"
Yes, I had not thought of that. I think justice will finally be served. But only if you are ready to move soon, General. Please update us."

General Ilyan stood. Unlike his commander, he was very comfortable in this setting. He knew that the men in this room admired him for his youth, his fitness, and most of all for
his skill and the adoration it provoked among his troops. He walked over and claimed the podium that the marshal had abandoned. He was ready to alter the course of destiny. "Comrade officers, we have all been waiting for a long time to hear the words that Marshal Timolenko just spoke. He gives me great honor to control the hour of deliverance of our motherland."

The
general's words were confident and sure. The insecurity that this group of military professionals had felt only a moment before dissipated as quickly as it had arisen. "We sat idle for several years now as the health of comrade Brezhnev deteriorated. While Mikhail Suslov lived, I, like you, was confident that the right man would succeed Brezhnev. But when comrade Suslov died in January last year, I feared the worst. Well, the worst has happened and we have had to watch as the country went first through chaos and then, even worse, into the hands of this traitor Andropov and his KGB cronies. In his naiveté he brings about the destruction of the motherland as surely as if he worked for the capitalist slave masters. He reduces our funds even as Western forces engage in the greatest build-up since the Great Patriotic War. He allows hooligans to speak their venom against the motherland openly. He seeks to sign away all of our nuclear power in return for nothing." He punctuated the last sentence by pounding his solid fist on the old podium, causing it to wobble precariously. "Only we stand between this traitor and destruction. Only we stand as the final guardians of comrade Lenin's vision. Fate will not allow us to fail!"

General Ilyan stepped back from the podium. Behind him, a white sheet covered what could have been a large painting. It was actually a map of Europe, measuring two meters square. As he had discussed with General Maslov six hours earlier, it
now contained a summary of the plans the two men had been working on for the past three months, with Maslov always traveling to Ilyan’s headquarters in Leipzig, German Democratic Republic. Ilyan pulled the sheet off the map. As always, Maslov had done his work flawlessly. The map was illustrated exactly as Ilyan wanted.

The tall general stood to the side for a moment, examining the plan and allowing the other officers to burn it into their minds. The initial offensive was represented by four red arrows, three of which were relatively small.

One of these arrows started at the West German border town of Helmstedt, due west of Berlin. It curved north through Hannover and into Bremen. The success of this pincer would mean the Isolation of British and West German forces in the north from the bulk of NATO forces to the south.

A second arrow began where the
Bohmer forest of southern Germany met the Czechoslovakian border, not far from Austria. The line went straight to Munich, representing a distance of 160 kilometers, sure to seem longer due to the hilly landscape. The arrow continued on the other side of Munich through the Bavarian countryside to the industrial center of Stuttgart. A very small red arrow turned in the opposite direction and advanced toward the Austrian town of Salzburg, its huge medieval fortress unaware of the destruction that awaited.

The last of the original three small arrows began at the Czech border town of Bratislava and effortlessly covered the short distance to Vienna. It continued without hesitation along the Autobahn through Linz and linked with the last pincer force at Salzburg. The Russian planners knew the puny Austrian
Army would be only a warm-up.

One large red arrow dominated the center of the map. It started at a small German town named Fulda where the Americans had their forces heavily concentrated. The arrow brushed through the central German plains and came to rest on the city of Frankfurt. This was prime tank territory, and tanks were the domain of General Gleb Ilyan. But the threatening arrow did not stop at Frankfurt; it began again past the city and swept northward along the Rhine Valley. It smashed through Wiesbaden, Koblenz, Bonn, Cologne, and finally Dusseldorf. The German core was to be carved out by the very tactics developed  by Von Rundstedt and Guderian at the start of World War II. The German fascists would learn the horrifying reality of the Blitzkrieg that they invented.

The Russian planners borrowed from another German for their next phase. The large arrow continued again outside Dusseldorf, this time pointed westward to Brussels. Like a giant sickle, the arrow cut through the Belgian capital and curved along the French coastline, finally cutting back into the heart of France: Paris. For the third time, Von Schlieffen's plan would highlight the start of a world war, only this time it would be a victory for mankind if the war lasted long enough to enact the plan. The nuclear genie was firmly corked, but the bottle was balanced precariously on the precipice.