Snow Wolf (2 page)

"Ask away."

He nodded over toward my father's grave.
"Bob told me your father died forty years ago. How come you're having this
service here today?"

"All I can tell you is my father
worked for the American government. He died in Moscow in 1953."

"Did he work for our embassy
here?"

"No." Taylor said, puzzled,
"I thought Moscow was out of bounds to Americans during the Cold War,
except for those working in the embassy?

How did your father die?"

"That's what I'm here to find
out."

Taylor
looked puzzled and he went to say something else then, but suddenly thunder
cracked above us and he glanced up.

"Well, I'd like to stay and talk,
but duty beckons." He crushed his cigarette with the heel of his shoe.
"I've got to take the padre back. Can I give you a lift someplace?"

I tossed away my cigarette. "No
need, I'll find a taxi. I'd like to stay a while. Thanks for your help."

"Whatever you say." Taylor put up his umbrella. "Good luck, Massey. And I sure hope you find whatever it
is you're looking for."

This is what I remember.

A cold, windy evening in early March
1953. 1 am ten. I am in my dormitory in the boarding school in Richmond, Virginia. I hear the footsteps creak on the stairs outside, hear the door open. I
look up and see the headmaster standing there, another man behind him, but this
man isn't a teacher or staff. He's wearing an overcoat and leather gloves and
he stares at me before he smiles weakly.

The headmaster says, "William, this
gentleman is here to see you." He looks meaningfully at the other two boys
in the room. "Would you leave William alone for a while?"

The boys leave the room. The headmaster
leaves the room. The man comes in and closes the door. He's broad and
hardfaced, with deep-set eyes, and looks every inch a soldier with his tight
cropped haircut and polished brown shoes.

For a long time he says nothing, as if he
finds what he's about to tell me difficult, and then he says, "William, my
name is Karl Branigan. I was a colleague of your father's."

There is something in the tone of his
voice that puts me on my guard, the way he says was a colleague, and I look up
at him and say, "What's this about, Mr. Branigan?"

"William, I'm afraid I've got some
bad news for you. It's about your father ... he's dead. I'm sorry ... truly
sorry."

The man just stands there and doesn't
speak again. And then I'm crying, but the man doesn't come toward me or touch
me or offer any comfort and for the first time in my life I really feel utterly
alone. A little later I hear his footsteps go down the creaking stairs again.
The wind screams and rushes outside the window. A tree branch brushes against
the wall outside, then creaks and snaps. I call for my father. But he doesn't
answer.

And then a scream from deep inside me,
which echoes still inside my head, a terrible cry of grief, and I can't stop my
tears.

I remember running after that. Nowhere in
particular. Out through the oak doors of the school and across damp, cold
Virginian fields, grief heavy as stone in my heart, until I found the cold
river that ran through the grounds. I lay on the wet grass and buried my face
in my hands and wished my father back.

It was later that I learned something of
my father's death. They never told me where exactly he had died, only that it
was somewhere in Europe and it had been suicide. The body had been in water for
weeks and it wasn't a pretty sight for a young boy, so they hadn't let me see
it. There was a funeral, but no more explanations or-answers to my questions,
because no one bothers to tell a child such things, but years later those
unanswered questions always came back. Why? Where? It was to take a long time
to learn the truth.

Ten days ago when my mother died I went
back to the rooms where she had lived and embarked on the ritual of going
through her things. There were no tears, because I had never really known her.
We hadn't seen each other much over the years, a card or two, a brief letter
once in a while, because we had never been that close, not the way I had been
with my father. My parents had divorced soon after I was born and my mother had
gone her own way, leaving my father to bring me up.

She had been a dancer in one of the
Broadway shows, and knowing my father even the little I did as a child I always
guessed they had never been suited.

She rented a small apartment on New York's Upper East Side. I remember the place was in disarray. An untidy single bed, a
single chair, some empty gin bottles and a bottle of blond hair dye. Letters
from old boyfriends and some from my father, held together with elastic bands,
kept in an old tin box under her bed.

I found the letter from my father. Old
and faded with years, its edges curling and the color of papyrus. It was dated
24 January 1953.

Dear Rose, Just a line to let you know
William is well and doing fine at school. I'm going to be away for a time and
if anything should happen to me I want you to know (as usual) there's enough
money in my account to see you both through, along with my service insurance.
Dangerous times we're living in! I hear they're building air-raid shelters on
Broadway because of the threat from the Russians.

I'm keeping well and I hope you are. One
more thing should anything happen to me: I'd be obliged if you'd check the
house, and if you find any papers lying around in the study or in the usual
place in the cellar, do me a favor and pass them on to the office in Washington. Will you do that for me?

Jake.

I read through the other letters out of
curiosity. There was nothing much in there. Some were from men, notes sent
backstage from someone who had seen her in the chorus line and liked her legs
and wanted to buy her dinner. There were a couple more from my father, but none
that hinted at how they might have once loved each other. I guess she destroyed
those.

But I thought about that line in the
letter about the papers. The house that had been my father's was now mine. It
was an old clapboard place he had bought when he and my mother first moved to Washington, and when he had died it ran to ruin for a long time until I was old enough to
tidy it up. It had taken me years to get it back into shape. There had once
been a steel safe sunk into the floor in my father's study in which he used to
keep documents and papers. But I remembered him saying once that he never
trusted safes, because they could always be opened by someone determined or
clever enough. The safe was long gone, and the room refurbished. But I didn't
know of any other place he might have used.

So the day I got back from sorting my
mother's affairs I went down to the cellar. It was a place I hardly ever went,
filled with long-forgotten bric-A-brac that had belonged to my parents, and
boxes of stuff I'd kept over the years and had forgotten I promised myself I'd
get rid of. Remembering the study safe, I shifted the cardboard and wooden
boxes around and checked the concrete floors. I found nothing. Then I started
on the walls.

It took me quite a while before I found
the two loose red bricks high in the back wall above the cellar door.

I remember my heart was pounding a
little, wondering whether I would find anything, or if my mother had long ago
already done as my father had asked, or ignored him as she so often did. I reached
up and pulled out the bricks. There was a deep recess inside and I saw the
large yellowed legal pad lying there between the covers of a manila file, worn
and faded.

There are some things that change your
life forever. Like marriage or divorce or someone on the end of a telephone
telling you there's been a death of someone close in the family.

But nothing prepared me for what I found
behind those bricks in the cellar.

I took the old pad upstairs and read it
through. Two pages had been written on in blue ink, in my father's handwriting.

Four names. Some date@. Some details and
sketchy notes, like he was trying to work something out, none of it making much
sense. And a code name: Operation Snow Wolf.

My father had worked for the CIA. He had
been a military man all his life, and had worked in OSS during the war,
operating behind German lines. That much I knew, but not much else, until I
found that old yellow pad.

For a long time I sat there, trying to figure
it all out, my heart and mind racing, until I saw the date on one of the pages,
and it finally clicked.

I drove to Arlington Cemetery. For a long time I looked at my father's grave, looked at the inscription.

JAKOB MASSEY Born: 3 January 1912 Died: 20
February 1953

I looked at those words until my eyes
were on fire from looking. Then I went and made photocopies of the written
pages I'd found and delivered the originals in a sealed envelope to my lawyer.

I made the call to Bob Vitali an hour
later. He worked for the CIA in Langley.

"Bill, it's been a long time,"
Vitali said cheerfully. "Don't tell me. There's a school reunion, right?
Why do they always have these things when you're just about getting over those
days? The amount of money that place in Richmond cost me in shrink's bills
..."

I told him what I had found and how I had
found it, but not the contents.

"So what? You found some forgotten
papers of your old man's. Sure, he worked for the CIA, but that was over forty
years ago. Do yourself a favor and burn them."

"I think someone should come and
look at them."

"Are you kidding? Is this what this
call is about?"

"Bob, I really think someone should
come and look at them."

Vitali sighed and I could picture him
looking at his watch at the other end.

"OK, what's in there? Give me
something I can work with, and I'll ask around, see if what you found is
important. Remember, it's over forty years. I'm pretty sure whatever you've
found has been declassified. I think maybe you're getting excited over nothing."

"Bob, please come and look at them.

Vitali said impatiently, "Bill, I
haven't got the time to drive to your place. Give me something to go on, for
Christ's sakes."

"Operation Snow Wolf."

"What's that?"

"That's what it says on the top of
the first page on the pad."

"Never heard of it. What else?"

"There's more."

"Like what more?"

"Come over and look at the
pages."

Vitali sighed. "Bill, I'll tell you
what I'm going to do. I'll ask some of the old-timers here, or one of the
Archives boys, and see what I can come up with. See if this Snow Wolf thing
rings a bell." I could hear the impatience in his voice. "Listen,
I've got a call coming in, I'll talk to you soon. Be good, man."

The line clicked dead.

I stood up and went into the kitchen and
made coffee, It seemed like I sat there for a long time, my heart still
pounding, thinking about those pages and what they might mean. I didn't want to
tell Vitali everything because I wanted to know what Langley knew. My mind was
ablaze but I didn't know what to do next.

It must have been an hour later when I
heard the screech of car tires outside. I looked out of the window and saw two
black limousines pull up, and half a dozen men step out briskly, Bob Vitali
among them.

He looked white-faced, and when I went to
the door he said urgently, "Can I come in? We need to talk."

The others waited outside on the porch
while Vitali came into the room with just one other man. He was tall, maybe
sixty, distinguished, with silver hair. He had an arrogant look about him and
he didn't smile or speak. Then Vitali said, "Bill, I guess you figured
this is about those papers you found ..."

The other man interrupted sharply.
"Mr. Massey, my name is Donahue. I'm a Section Head with the CIA. Bob
explained about what you told him. May I see the papers you have, please?"

I handed him the papers.

He looked white. "These are
copies?"

Donahue's tone demanded an explanation. I
looked at him. "The originals are in a safe place."

A muscle twitched in Donahue's face,
suddenly stern, then he glanced at Vitali, before reading slowly through the
photocopies. Finally he sat down with a worried look.

"Mr. Massey, those papers belong to
the CIA."

"They belonged to my father. He
worked for the CIA."

Donahue's voice was firm. "Mr.
Massey, we can argue that point all evening but the papers you hold are still
classified top secret. As such, they are government property."

"It's been over forty years."

"It makes no difference-that
classification still applies. Anything in those particular papers will never be
made public. The operation referred to in the file was a highly secret and
sensitive one. I can't possibly stress both those words enough. The original
papers, please ..."

"I'll make a deal with you."