Trinity factor, p.18
Trinity Factor, page 18
At Kansas City they would rent a car, and from there drive to New York, where he would call their contact for transportation to Nova Scotia.
There would be a possibly pleasant sea voyage, depending upon the weather, and then they would be home.
He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, looked at his watch again, which showed it was nearly time, and then began to slowly rappel down the slope of the roof and over the edge, just in back of the general’s compartment window.
Here the motion of the train seemed more violent, and his rubber-soled shoes barely had any traction on the slick surface. Beneath him the ground was rushing by at a terrifying speed, but his eyes were only on the window. The curtain was pulled back and a light shone from inside.
In position, the toes of his shoes dug into a riveted seam, Badim withdrew his Luger with his right hand, flipping the safety off.
He tensed, ready to swing to the right so that he would have a clear shot through the window, when something snapped against the side of the car just above his left shoulder.
For a moment he was confused, not knowing what was happening, but then he looked up. There was a bullet hole in the car. Someone was shooting at him.
He twisted violently to the left, nearly losing his toehold, and looked over his shoulder in time to see the muzzle flash from the driver’s window of a car less than 20 yards away on the highway. The shot was high again, to the right this time.
Badim fired four shots in quick succession at the car, which suddenly swerved to the left and braked hard, falling behind.
Stuffing his gun back in its holster, he quickly scrambled back to the roof, undid the belts holding him to the rope, and threw them aside, as the car again pulled up.
He yanked the Luger out and, taking careful aim, fired two more shots. At least one, he was certain, hit the driver, because the car swerved off the road and into the ditch.
Unmindful of the danger of a fall now, Badim raced forward, leaping over the connecting roofs between cars until he was directly above his own compartment.
He got down on his stomach and worked his way as close to the edge of the roof as he could get.
“Jada,” he shouted over the noise of the wind and the clattering wheels against the tracks.
He looked back, but the car was no longer in sight. Somehow they had been blown. But how? And by whom?
“Jada,” he shouted again, this time louder.
“Alek?” her voice drifted up to him from the open window below. She sounded nearly hysterical.
“Find the emergency brake and pull it. We must get off.”
“I can’t,” she shouted.
“You must! Listen to me, Jada, they know we are here. Hurry!”
There was no answer from below, and he was about to call her name again, when he realized that she was probably complying with his orders, and he scrambled up to the center of the roof as fast as he could go, and was about to reach for the air-conditioner vent, when the train lurched with unbelievable force, the wheels squealing on the tracks, and he was thrown violently forward and to the right.
At the last moment he reached out for a ventilating pipe of some sort, but he missed it, and went over the edge, headfirst.
21
NEW YORK CITY
Harry Gold, whose code name was Raymond, waited in front of St. Mark’s on East Tenth Street in Manhattan for Klaus Fuchs to show up. The man had never been late before, but this evening he was already thirty minutes overdue.
Gold was a small man. Pint-sized, they called him. But his appetites were voracious. For freedom for the oppressed proletariat. For a workers’ paradise in which big business and bigger government could no longer devour the output of honest men’s toil. For those things, and others like them, Gold was a zealot.
He wore green gloves and carried a novel with a green binding, and as he paced fretfully up and down the block he scanned the passersby for Fuchs, who always carried a tennis ball. The accoutrements were their recognition signals that everything was all right for contact.
They had been meeting like this since March, rendezvousing sometimes in Central Park, sometimes on Madison Avenue, or in Queens, and once in Brooklyn’s Borough Hall. This evening it was to have been St. Mark’s In The Bowery.
Fuchs had been transferred from the University of Birmingham in England to New York to work with the Kellex Corporation on the design of a uranium separation plant. And in five months he had passed on to Raymond everything he knew—which was considerable—about the American efforts to build the “gadget,” as they were calling the bomb.
Dutifully, Gold had passed this information on to his contact, a man code-named John, who in turn had passed it down to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, where it went back to Moscow in the diplomatic bag every Friday.
But there would be nothing for the bag tomorrow unless Fuchs showed up. And that meant there would be no money for Gold. No money.
He checked his watch again, and for the tenth time tapped the crystal with a forefinger to make sure it was running. It was. Fuchs was late.
Gold knew about Fuchs’ background. Knew about the man’s early days in Germany, about his beating at the hands of Nazi ruffians, and then about his immigration to England.
But Gold also knew that the British, and therefore probably the Americans, were aware that Fuchs had Communist sympathies. Perhaps something had gone wrong. Perhaps he had been arrested and was now being interrogated. Perhaps he would break under pressure and lead them here, to his contact.
Gold forced a deep belch, trying to quell the rumbling in his stomach, and finally headed away from the church at a brisk pace. He could not wait here any longer. He was due soon across town to pass his information on.
As he walked he kept thinking about his contact; he simply could not go to the man empty-handed. But what to give him other than the information that Fuchs had not shown this evening?
He pondered that problem up Lexington Avenue until nearly East Thirty-fifth, when he finally came up with a possible solution, and a block later he came to a telephone booth.
Slipping inside, he dropped a nickel in the slot, dialed for the operator, and gave her a Cambridge, Massachusetts, telephone number from his little black book. It was the home phone of Mrs. Kristel Heinemann. Fuchs’ sister.
He deposited the necessary coins for the long-distance call, and the phone was ringing.
His hand shook as he held the instrument to his ear. What he was doing was risky business. If Fuchs had been found out, the authorities would be watching his sister’s house. Possibly even monitoring her phone.
On the fourth ring a woman answered. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Kristel Heinemann?” Gold asked.
“Yes, who is this calling?”
“I’m a friend of Klaus’. I’m wondering if he is there?”
“No, he is not. Is this his friend Raymond?”
Gold’s heart nearly stopped, and for a moment he could not speak, his throat constricting.
“Klaus left a message for his friend. Is this Raymond?”
“Yes,” Gold managed to squeak.
“Good,” the woman said. “Well, Klaus went somewhere in the southwest. It’s his work, you know. But he’ll contact me when he’s settled.”
If this call was being monitored they were all dead. But what could he say to this foolish woman? What could he say?
“Have you a message for Klaus?”
“No … no,” Gold said. “I will call later.”
“Very good,” the woman said cheerfully, and she hung up, leaving Gold, a stupid expression on his face, staring at the phone.
MOSCOW
It had been well past one in the morning when Major Runkov finally left his office at Lubyanka and stumbled home to fall fully clothed into bed. The workload across his desk had been tremendous over the past week, and combined with the tension of not hearing a thing from Badim, had completely exhausted him.
Ever-faithful Sergeant Doronkin had practically forced him into leaving the office for at least a few hours’ sleep at home. Only it was difficult with all the racket going on, and even asleep he could sense his anger steadily rising.
As he lumbered heavily out of his deep sleep he began to realize that the noise was someone pounding at his door, and for a confused moment he was certain it was the Nazis, who had finally taken over Moscow, and he reached for his gun, but it wasn’t there.
He came fully awake, finally, and sat up in bed, the sweat pouring from him as the pounding on the door continued.
Swinging his legs over the edge, he got unsteadily to his feet and lurched out of the bedroom to the front door, which he yanked open, not bothering to slip the lock, the wood splintering and pulling away from the frame.
Two men in civilian clothes stood in the dark corridor, and Runkov reached out, grabbed the nearest one by his shirt front, and pulled him forward.
“What in fucking hell are you doing banging on my door at this hour … comrade?” he bellowed.
“Marshal Stalin wants to see you,” the other man said, backing a few steps away. “Now, major.”
Runkov turned his attention to the other man for a moment, then let go of the man he was holding. “Wait,” he snapped, and he turned and went back into his apartment, where at the kitchen sink he splashed some water on his face, and brushed his hair back with his fingers.
In the dim light filtering in from outside, he could just make out the small clock on the wall above the gas ring. It was 4:30 A.M.
Without bothering to straighten his crumpled clothing, he went back to the front door, followed the two men downstairs, and climbed into the backseat of a dark green limousine. Within ten minutes he was inside the Kremlin and an aide was escorting him down a wide corridor, their heels clattering hollowly on the parquet floor.
Stalin was waiting for him in a small, plainly furnished office off one of the main conference rooms. His gray tunic was half-unbuttoned, his hair was mussed, and he was smoking a foul-smelling cigarette that was mostly cardboard filter.
His entire bearing and demeanor were the exact opposite of what they had been the last time Runkov had met with him. Then the supreme Soviet leader had seemed ebullient; now he seemed to be a dark, foreboding, malevolent force.
The aide quietly withdrew, closing the door softly behind him, and Runkov stood facing Stalin, who had been seated behind a desk, but now stood up, crushing the cigarette out in an ashtray.
“Valkyrie’s mission is to be changed,” Stalin said, his voice cracked and hoarse.
“Comrade?” Runkov said, but Stalin’s face suddenly turned red and he slammed his fist on the desk top, making the ashtray jump.
“Do not argue with me, comrade major!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. “Paris has fallen to the Americans and British, but all we have is Bucharest! We must have Berlin! We must have Hitler!”
For a moment Runkov was certain the man had lost his mind, or was having a seizure of some kind, and he just stared, unable to think of anything to say.
“Paris has fallen,” Stalin said, regaining some of his composure, but evidently misinterpreting the expression on Runkov’s face for complete understanding.
“Yes, comrade,” Runkov said, hesitatingly.
“Yes, comrade!” Stalin exploded again. “Is that all you can say? Valkyrie must be diverted or everything will be lost!”
It was as if someone had slammed a fist into Runkov’s gut. There had been trouble of some kind. But why hadn’t he been told?
Stalin was shaking with rage, but with obviously great effort, he managed to control himself as he picked up an NKVD file folder from his desk and handed it across to Runkov.
“Valkyrie must be immediately called down from his assassination attempt on Groves and Oppenheimer,” he said.
“Shall we bring him home, comrade marshal?” Runkov asked. He desperately wanted to look at the information contained in the file folder, but he didn’t dare to move.
“No, you fool!” Stalin screamed. “He and the woman are to remain undercover in the United States. One of Beria’s people in New York has learned that Fuchs has been sent to the southwestern part of the country, evidently to work on the bomb design itself. He’ll send us all the information we need. I don’t want the project interfered with!”
Now Runkov was totally confused. “Then why, comrade marshal, should we take the risk of keeping Valkyrie in place?”
Stalin’s eyes opened wide in disbelief. “I want him to sabotage the test of the first bomb!” he shouted insanely.
OCTOBER 1980
22
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
It was late afternoon by the time Mahoney and Jada returned to the Holiday Inn just off Interstate 25 in Albuquerque. He had cleaned up first and went down to the bar, Jada promising to join him as soon as she had taken a bath.
They had registered as husband and wife in the name of Charles and Marion Anderson. McBundy had insisted on the precaution in case Washington KGB operations had somehow gotten a line on the woman. She was hot stuff, and would remain so until the dust had settled, which might not be for several months. Or as long as a year.
“It’s not every day a KGB chief of station chooses to defect,” McBundy had cautioned. “If you want to take her down to New Mexico, it’s up to you. But you’ll do it my way.”
Mahoney had thought that the assumed identity bit was silly, but now that he had heard at least the first part of Jada’s story, he wasn’t so sure. Her assignment with Valkyrie was the sort of operation that could be politically embarrassing if it got out, even though it had happened more than thirty-five years ago.
He sat in a back booth in the cocktail lounge drinking a bourbon neat—no ice, no water—as he waited for Jada.
He spotted her as she hesitated at the doorway, obviously searching for him, but he did not immediately get up and beckon. Instead he watched her for several long moments.
She was wearing a fashionably cut, pale yellow jump suit with a scarf at her neck, courtesy of Sampson’s wife, who had done the shopping for her with CIA slush funds. Her hair, which she had washed, was brushed to one side. She had put on a little makeup to give her face color, and from here she looked beautiful.
Combined with her clothes, her speech, which held little or no accent, marked her as western—definitely not Russian.
He waved. Jada spotted him immediately and came across the crowded room to him and sat down.
Close up he could see the lines of her age and of her sickness, and again he felt sorry for her. For just a fleeting moment he found himself wishing he had known her in the forties, but he instantly dismissed the thought.
“Would you care for a drink?” he asked.
She managed a slight smile, although it was clear she was still shaken and weary from telling her story out at the Trinity bomb-test site. “A cognac, plain, would be nice,” she said softly.
Mahoney motioned for a waitress, and ordered them both a drink. When the young woman was gone, Jada leaned forward, placing her hands over Mahoney’s.
“What I’ve told you so far, Mr. Mahoney, is the truth. You must believe me,” she said earnestly.
“I do,” he said. “But I’m puzzled by a number of things.”
“For instance, where did I get all my information?”
Mahoney nodded.
“You must understand that although I’ve given you the motions of our operation in strict chronological order, the details did not come to me until long afterward.”
“You went digging,” Mahoney said.
She nodded. “Yes, I went digging. After the war, I remained as a clerk in the NKVD, and then in 1953, when Comrade Beria was shot, there was the great reorganization of our intelligence apparat, culminating in the formation of the KGB in 1954. At that time I was promoted to the Cipher Division, and then later I was moved to the Second Chief Directorate.”
A startled expression crossed Mahoney’s features. “Did you know Yuri Zamyatin?”
“No,” she said. “But I’ve heard of him. He took over Department One within the directorate after I left. Is he familiar to you?”
Mahoney had worked with Zamyatin on an Allied mission in Germany during the war, and later the man had been involved with the trouble Mahoney had had in Moscow. But his name now served to focus attention on the fact that, after all was said and done, Jada had been a high-ranking KGB officer. Defector or not, she was the enemy.
She noticed the sudden change in his expression, and she drew her hands back as the cocktail waitress came over with their drinks and Mahoney paid.
When they were again alone, she sipped at her drink and then held the balloon glass in both hands to warm the liquor. It seemed to Mahoney that she was stalling for time, trying to think of the right thing to say, and he held his silence. It was her story, but when it was finished, he would make sure he had all the facts.
“Everything I’ve told you, including Captain Lovelace’s part in the business, is on file in our archives at Dzerzhinsky Square.”
“Impossible …” Mahoney started to say, but then he closed his mouth. If what she was saying was true, it would indicate that nearly every level of government had leaked like a sieve in those days. Not a comforting thought, but not impossible, nevertheless.
“I’ve seen the files recently,” she said, “including the reports I filed myself in the late summer and fall of ’45.”
Mahoney stared at her for a long time. She was indeed an extraordinary woman. But the story she was telling him was even more startling than she was.
She took another sip of her cognac, then set the glass down and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. When she looked up, her face was composed.
“Lovelace knew we were there to assassinate Groves and Oppenheimer, and once he had them out of danger, he came looking for us.”
