The Kremlin Letter (15 page)

“It's not quite the real thing,” Buley said apologetically. “But it should do the trick.”

Rone drank it down. It didn't taste different from any other water.

“Now I think you had better toddle off to bed. Don't drink anything else. We'll know by morning if you're immune.”

Rone got his answer in the middle of the night.

13

Matriculation

At six-thirty the next morning Rone made his way down to the dining room. He was still sick. The Highwayman, Ward, Janis, B.A., T.E. the Warlock and Professor Buley were already seated at the table. So were four additional men. The Highwayman quickly introduced them as the Casket Maker, the Ditto Machine, the Priest, Clocker Dan and the Transom Man. Rone was in no condition to remember names. When he looked down at his plate he felt even worse. One single dried fish and two roots was all that was in front of him. No knife, fork, or spoon, no juice or coffee; just a dried fish and two roots.

“And now, gentlemen,” Buley said, standing, “for your first home-cooked Russian meal. In front of you you will see the sumptuous fare of that part of the USSR you supposedly come from. The water in your glass, for those of you who have water, is also of that area. Drink that later, since Russians do not use such liquids with meals. Some of you have beer, others wine or milk. Some of you have eating utensils, others do not. Those of you with forks please place them in your left hand. The Russians eat continental-style, except in regions from which none of you come. Now do like me.”

The Puppet Maker proceeded to demonstrate the table manners of the various regions. He also displayed how to eat without utensils. He picked up a dried fish, bit off the head and swallowed it. He began chewing on it much as a child would eat a Good Humor.

Rone picked up the fish and took one bite before abruptly pushing his chair back from the table. After breakfast they withdrew to the adjoining study for Russian coffee. The Highwayman got up and officially welcomed everyone. He explained that the group had been brought together for a specific mission.

“The project will have three phases,” he told them. “Training, Interior Action, and Exterior Action. All of you will participate in the Training and Interior Action. Only some of you will be asked to participate in the overseas operation. This is a matter of circumstance rather than failings on any of your parts. Each of you is a specialist, but we still must determine our action plan and which of your skills will be required. For reasons of security no one will know the exact objective of the mission until the latest possible moment. Knowledge or lack of knowledge of this objective will in no way indicate you are, or are not, being selected to go on the expedition.”

Ward took the floor next and reviewed the financial arrangements. Everyone in the room would receive the base payment of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Those who were selected to go on the expedition would receive an additional hundred and twenty-five thousand as a danger bonus if they accomplished their objective. There was also the possibility of uncovering a cache during their mission of another million dollars or so. This would be thrown into the pot and divided by those who were selected for the expedition. There were grave risks involved. Some might not make it out.

“If we don't make it out, will we handle the danger pay and additional money in the usual way?” asked the Priest.

“That's up to all of you,” Ward answered.

“I'm for the usual way,” the Casket Maker let it be known.

“The usual way,” Ward explained to Rone and B.A., “is that only the survivors of the expedition share in anything above the basic guarantee. They can decide among themselves whether they want to give anything to those who stayed behind or to the relatives of those who might be lost.”

“It's superstition, boys and girls,” Janis added. “Superstition says this is the best way to handle it.”

Ward asked for a vote. The first eight men raised their hands in approval of survivors take all. Rone and B.A. made it unanimous.

Ward next explained the domestic operation. The Tillinger mansion would be manned by a hand-picked staff that would arrive the following day. The house behind it, the one they were now in, would be the security area. It was completely restricted to the people in the room and those few specialists from the Tillinger mansion who were required from time to time. The Tillinger mansion was mainly clerical. The heartbeat of the project would be where they now were.

“How big a staff will be moving into the mansion?” asked the Casket Maker.

“Sixty-five,” answered Ward.

“Do they know what we're about?” asked Clocker Dan. He was a jolly little man no more than five feet six. A blue silk ascot was tucked into his expensive tweed jacket. A blue silk handkerchief peeked from his breast pocket. He wore dark cashmere trousers and brown suede shoes. His hair was silver and his face round and red. With a white beard, Rone thought, he would look like Santa Claus.

“The staff are all selected intelligence personnel on loan to us from various organizations. They know they are on a high-classification project, but that is all.”

“Even so,” pointed out the Priest, “those who work in the labs or special sections are bound to get some idea of what is happening.”

“That's true,” answered Ward, “but we've taken two precautions. First, the staff is exceedingly large, so no one will have to work in more than one area, and secondly, they will not be able to leave the house individually.”

“That protects us during our stay here,” the Priest said, “but what happens when we go over the line?”

“As I said before, they are all volunteers. They have agreed to quarantine until we have returned or are captured.”

Training would not begin until the following morning. Rone spent the afternoon checking in more equipment and helping the Ditto Machine organize his ultramodern printing and engraving shop. Crates of Russian paper of every description were unpacked and catalogued, the same paper that the Soviet government used for passports, money and a dozen official documents. Even the inks had been procured in Russia.

In the evening Janis and Rone helped B.A. unpack and catalogue five television cameras, ten television sets, and quantities of recording and movie equipment. As Rone was going through the receipts he noticed an item for two truckloads of a new transparent plastic board. The purchase price was listed at seventy-five thousand dollars.

It was past midnight before Rone got to his room on the fifth floor. He showered and was prepared for bed when he heard the knock. He opened the door. B.A. came in.

“Is anything the matter?” he asked.

She shook her head without speaking.

“Come in. Sit down.”

Once again she shook her head, making the long soft hair swirl about her features.

“Then just stand there,” Rone told her gently.

“I've never been away from home,” she said quickly. “I've never been away from home and I've never done any of those—those other things my father talked about. You know. Those physical things. I told him I had, but I haven't.” She turned and ran from the room.

14

Yorgi Ivanovitch Davitashvili

Breakfast was at six-thirty
A
.
M
., and for Rone it consisted of one small bowl of kasha. The typewritten description beside it explained that it was the equivalent to American hot cereals. Rone had grown so hungry that even the coffee tasted good.

The first Interior Action briefing took place in the basement meeting room, directly after breakfast. Ward took the floor.

“To accomplish our mission,” he began, “it will be necessary to establish a headquarters in Moscow. One that can be used for six months or longer. Ideally we would like enough room to house eight men. Since every last inch of space in Moscow is under government assignment, this creates a problem. Our best chance is to find a house or apartment that belongs to a Russian who doesn't use it very often. People who fall in this category are usually high-ranking officials on foreign assignment, those stationed out of the country. We have picked a target. A man presently residing in New York. The objective of interior action is to convince him to cooperate.”

The lights were switched off and a picture of a dour, round-faced man flashed on the screen.

“Let me introduce Captain Potkin, head of the Soviet Third Department's United States operation. He travels under diplomatic immunity, as a member of a United Nations delegation. This mild-mannered, devoted husband and father murdered his first man when he was just fifteen—by strangulation. His victim was in his seventies and partially blind. He had razed his first village by sixteen.

“Potkin developed his craft under Beria. During World War II he was sent into Germany and skillfully infiltrated the Reichshauptsicherheitsamt. His rise to Nazi trust began in the political prisons, where he efficiently persuaded suspects to give up secrets they had never possessed. Potkin was promoted to the rank of S.S. Hauptsturmführer, Sicherheitsdienst, Gross Paris. His duties included interrogation, reprisal, procurement and the infiltration of Communist intelligence. He kept quite busy. So busy, in fact, that he barely managed to set up three underground networks and assassinate twenty-eight of his fellow German officers. After the war he accompanied Russia's first delegation to the opening of the United Nations in San Francisco. We next heard of him in northern China, as an adviser to the training of red Chinese guerrillas. As a cultural attaché to Hungary he had not foreseen the Budapest uprisings of 1956, so he was brought back to the seclusion of Russia. His fall from grace lasted four years. Then he was assigned to a highly powerful counter-espionage operation—Colonel Kosnov's, Third Department. The appointment was arranged through Aleksei I. Bresnavitch, whose name will come up later. Potkin's star began to rise. He was assigned a new apartment in Moscow and made second in command in the Division of United States Affairs. Later a new car and a summer house near Moscow were awarded him. Kosnov elevated him to head all North American affairs. He has held that position for three years now. That more or less is a capsule view of our subject. You can read the details in your brochures.

“Captain Potkin seems to have no exploitable vices, so we must start with the obvious possibilities.”

A picture of an older woman and two young girls flashed on the screen.

“These are his wife and daughters.”

From the lecture Rone went to a basement classroom for his first language instruction. It was given by Clocker Dan, the little cherubic man with the tweed jacket. He was extremely patient and extremely tolerant.

“Now, let us hear your Russian. Take any one of those books on the table and read,” he instructed politely.

Rone picked up a volume of Gorki and began.

“Excuse me a minute,” Clocker Dan interrupted. “I forgot to turn on the tape recorder.”

He snapped on the machine and Rone began again. He read for almost half an hour. Every time he looked up from the page, Clocker Dan was staring at the floor, nodding and smiling to himself.

“We do read very well. Yes, we do,” he finally said, taking the book from Rone's hand. “One would think we came from Leningrad itself. Only we're from Tiflis. Now let me see. You must have learned the language at that Army school in California—the one out near Santa Cruz, perhaps?”

“Yes,” said Rone. “The Army Language Center.”

“Well, don't worry about it,” he said hopefully. “We'll get you back on the right track in no time. Class dismissed.”

Rone left. He could hear Clocker Dan replaying his voice as he walked to the next appointment. Ten
A
.
M
. to twelve noon, Personality Instruction—basement room C—Professor Buley. When he entered Professor Buley was waiting with folded hands.

“Now then,” he began chipperly. “What name would you like? To me you look like a Josef or a Jakob. What do you look like to you?”

“Either one will do.”

“Good. Then we agree. Josef it will be. Or should it be Yusev? What about Yorgi? I feel Yorgi is even better.” He examined Rone close up and then from a distance. “There's no doubt about it. You're a Yorgi. Now for the patronymic. Something patriotic, would you say? Show how much your poor departed grandparents loved Mother Russia?”

“What about Nikolayevitch?”

“Oh-ho-ho-ho. That would put you in the soup, wouldn't it? Once I knew an agent who took the name Nicholas before going across. They shot his brains out while he was on the crapper for no reason at all. I always attributed it to the name. I think Ilya would be nice. You can never go wrong with that. Or perhaps your father could be Ivan. It's always best to be simple, I think. Shall we settle for that—Yorgi Ivanovitch, son of Ivan?”

Rone nodded.

“Now for the last name I think we should have something historic—historic to Georgians, anyway. It's a little risky using Djugashvili. Might still get the police in a tizzy. Ah. How does Davitashvili strike you?”

“Smashing,” said Rone, “but will I ever learn how to spell it?”

“It won't matter.” Buley smiled. “You're supposed to be semi-illiterate.”

Yorgi Ivanovitch Davitashvili followed the professor out into the hall, where a row of school lockers stood.

“This one is yours,” said Buley, throwing open the door and taking out some rumpled, smelly clothes. “These are your new uniform. They were lifted right off the back of a peasant heading for Tiflis less than three days ago.”

“Will they be washed?” asked Rone.

“And ruin the effect?” Buley was shocked. “If you're to be a peasant you must eat, drink, sleep and smell like one.”

“It's something like method acting, isn't it?” Rone concluded.

“You could look at it that way. Stanislavski did not come from Des Moines, Iowa.”