The Company: A Novel of the CIA (117 page)

From over the rim of the hill came the distinctive thwak-thwak of helicopter rotors. Ibrahim shouted a warning as the Arab herdsmen opened fire. One of the first shots caught Ibrahim in the shoulder, spinning him into the arms of the Shadow. With a flutter of wings the yellow canary scampered free, dragging its leash behind it. Brilliant lights in the bellies of two giant insects overhead illuminated the compound as the helicopters sank straight down. Gatling guns spit bullets from open ports. One of the helicopters settled onto the ground, kicking up a squall of dust, the other hovered above the mosque and bombarded the hamlet below the compound, and me path coming up from the hamlet, with phosphorus shells. From the doorways and windows of the buildings women shrieked in terror. The mujaheddin who bolted out of the dust cloud were cut down by rifle fire. The Egyptian headman knelt and fired and methodically changed clips and fired again at the Pashtuns spilling out of the mosque. Then, calling orders to his commandos in Hebrew, he started toward the fallen Ibrahim. "Take him alive!" someone shouted in English.

The Shadow drew his knife and, leaning over Ibrahim, looked questioningly into his eyes. "Recall your vow," Ibrahim pleaded. There was another staccato burst of automatic fire—to Ibrahim's ear it sounded like a distant tambour announcing his arrival in paradise. Soon he would be sitting on the right hand of the Prophet; soon he would be deep in conversation with the one true God. He could see the Prophet Ibrahim raising the sacrificial knife to the throat of his son Ismail on the black stone at the heart of the Kaaba. The vision instructed him on what he had to do. Murmuring "Khahesh mikonam, lotfi konin—I beg you, do me a kindness," he gripped the bodyguard's wrist with his good hand and coaxed the razor-whetted blade down toward his jugular.

In the attic prison, Anthony had drawn Maria Shaath into a corner when they heard gunfire in the compound. Moments later people broke into the room under their feet. "Its a commando raid," Anthony said. "But who will reach us first—Ibrahim or the raiders?" Someone set a ladder against the wall and began climbing the rungs. Anthony grabbed the small charcoal stove by its legs and positioned himself on the blind side of the trap door as it was pushed up on its hinges. A man fingering the trigger of a stubby Israeli Uzi, his face sheathed in a kiffiyeh, appeared. Maria screamed. Anthony raised the charcoal stove over his head and was about to bring it crashing down on the intruder when he said, in cheerful and flawless English, "Anyone here interested in hitching a helicopter ride to Pakistan?"

At the Company's high-walled villa off Jamrud Road in Peshawar, a young radioman sat in front of the transceiver with a crystal inserted, locking it onto a given frequency. He and his buddies had been monitoring the static twenty-four hours a day for the past week. Now, unexpectedly, what sounded like a human voice seeped through the background noise, repeating a single sentence.

"He promised me earrings but he only pierced my ears. I say again. He promised me earrings but he only pierced my ears."

The radioman ran his thumb nail down the list of code phrases in his notebook until he found the one he was looking for. He raced through the corridors and stuck his head in the door of the chief of station who had replaced Manny Ebbitt after the kidnapping. "The copters have broken radio silence," he blurted out.

"And?"

"They've sent a 'mission accomplished' message. They're in the air and on the way back."

"Encipher the message and send it on to Washington," the chief of station ordered. He sat back in relief. Jesus, the Israelis had pulled it off after all. The Champagne would flow at Langley when they learned that the helicopters were heading home. Thank goodness the naysayers had been wrong—it hadn't ended like Carter's raid to free the American hostages in Teheran after all.

The mujaheddin who had survived the Israeli raid were in for another surprise. When they tried to use the Stingers they would discover that the firing mechanisms had been removed, which made the weapons about as valuable as lengths of piping in a junkyard.

They met at first light in the back row of the First Baptist Church on l6th Street, not far from Scott Circle. There were only three early-morning worshipers in the church when Yevgeny slid into the pew and sat down next to Leo. For a moment neither said a word. Then, glancing at his cutout, Leo whispered harshly, "We always knew it had to end one day."

"It's been a long Cold War," Yevgeny said. He was thinking of Aida Tannenbaum. He could hear her voice in his ear:
I will admit to you I am fatigued, Eugene. I have been fighting on one or another front line as far back as I can remember.

Leo reached down, unzipped the airline bag between his feet and handed Yevgeny a small package. "I've had this stashed in a closet for years—it's a Company disguise kit. We'll go out as priests—there are black shirts, white collars, a goatee for me, a gray beard for you, wigs, rimless eyeglasses. Your own brother wouldn't recognize you."

"My own brother barely recognized me when I was in Moscow on home leave," Yevgeny remarked. He took a manila envelope from his overcoat pocket. "Passports, drivers licenses, and cash," he said.

"We'll change in the vestry," Leo said. "With any luck the Company'll concentrate on the hunt for my Chevrolet. We'll go by subway to the Greyhound terminal, take a bus to Baltimore, then a train to Buffalo, where we'll cross into Canada. I have an emergency address in Toronto where we can stay until they can smuggle us onto a cargo ship."

"What did you do with your car?" Yevgeny asked.

"I buried it in the long-term parking lot at Dulles and came back in a shuttle. We'll be far away by the time they find it."

Yevgeny asked, "Any idea how they tagged us?"

Leo didn't see any need to bring his daughters into it, so he answered vaguely. "They got on to your Polish lady," he said.

Yevgeny slapped his forehead. "She's dying of cancer, Leo. She begged me to meet her—"

"What's done is done. They snapped a photograph of you. Jack thought he recognized it. He came over tonight to show it to me."

"What did you do with Jack?"

"I left him handcuffed to a radiator."

"If he came over to show you the photograph," Yevgeny whispered, "he didn't suspect you were SASHA."

"I told him," he said. "I was also getting tired of the game."

"There must be more to it than that..."

"Reagan and the Pentagon aren't planning a preemptive strike, Yevgeny," Leo explained wearily. "Andropov is over the hill if he thinks they are. And I don't want to see Starik and Andropov bring the whole world crashing down around our ears."

"You never could stomach KHOLSTOMER. I could see it in your eyes when we talked about it."

"The Cold War is winding down. Our side is losing—the Soviet economy is rotted to the core. KHOLSTOMER doesn't make sense—ruining economies, pushing the Third World back into the Middle Ages, causing hundreds of millions to suffer. For what? I don't see the point."

"Ours was the best side," Yevgeny said flatly. "We were the good guys, Leo. I still believe the Socialist system, with all its terrible faults, is a better model for the planet earth than anything the West can offer. Capitalism is intrinsically decadent—it brings out the worst in people."

Leo, his eyes burning, turned to Yevgeny. "Did you ever have a shadow of a doubt?"

"Only once," Yevgeny admitted. "It was when I met Philby in Gettysburg to tell him Burgess had run for it with Maclean. Starik wanted Philby to run for it, too, but he refused. He said he could bluff it out. He said as long as he didn't confess they could never lay a glove on him. Those were his exact words. Lay a glove on him. I used to replay this conversation in my skull—it was as if a needle had gotten stuck in a groove. It raised a question that I was afraid to ask, because if I asked it I'd have to answer it."

"Answer it now."

Yevgeny recalled a snatch of the phone conversation he'd had with Aza Isanova the last time he'd been in Moscow. In what ostrich hole have you been hiding your head, she had berated him. Stalin was a murderer of peasants in the early thirties, he murdered his Party comrades in the mid and late thirties, he suspended the killings during the war but resumed them immediately afterward. By then it was the turn of the Jews.

"The system Philby was spying for would not have had a problem getting a confession out of someone like Philby," Yevgeny admitted.

"The system Philby was spying for wouldn't have needed a confession to haul him down to the basement of Lubyanka and put a bullet into the nape of his neck," Leo said.

"The Socialist revolution has been under siege from day one," Yevgeny said. "It was fighting for its life against ruthless enemies—"

Leo cut him off. "We've made too many excuses for ourselves. We justify our shortcomings and condemn those of our opponents." Leo glanced at his wristwatch. "It's going to get light soon. We have the rest of our lives for postmortems. We ought to start moving."

"Yeah," Yevgeny agreed. And he declared bitterly, "Za uspiekb nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!"

Leo, nodding fatalistically, repeated Yevgeny's old Yale slogan in English. "To the success of our hopeless task!"

At midmorning, Leo dialed ' home from a public booth outside the Baltimore Greyhound terminus. Jack's wife answered. "Millie, its me, Leo."

"Oh, Leo, you've heard—"

"Heard what?"

"Ebby called me with the news ten minutes ago. He just rang off. The helicopters have landed in Peshawar. Anthony is safe." Leo could hear Millie's voice breaking on the other end of the phone line. "He's all right, Leo," she added weakly. "He's coming home."

"That's just great. I love that kid of yours. I'm elated he's out of harm's way. I'll tell you something, I hope you remember it in the days ahead: I think this is the happiest moment of my life."

"You've been a swell godfather to him, Leo."

Leo started to say, "I'm not so sure of that," but Millie was rushing on.

"The funny part is that nobody seems to know where Jack is. When he didn't come home last night I just assumed he'd stayed at Langley to monitor the raid, but Ebby said he wasn't there." Millie had a sudden thought. "Should I be worried about Jack, Leo?"

"No, you shouldn't be. Actually, that's why I called—Jack spent the night at my place. He's still there."

"Put him on, for God's sake."

"I'm not calling from home."

"Where are you calling from? Hey, what's going on, Leo?"

"I'm going to tell you something. After which there's no point in your asking questions because I won't answer them."

Millie laughed uncomfortably. "You sound awfully mysterious."

"As soon as I hang up, call Ebby. Don't speak to anyone else, only Ebby. Tell him that Jack's at my house. He's not hurt or anything. But he's handcuffed to a radiator."

"Have you been drinking, Leo? What's all this about?"

Leo said patiently, "You don't have a need to know, Millie."

"Jack'll tell me."

"Jack won't tell you. Chances are nobody will. I got to go. Take care of yourself. Take care of Jack, too. Goodbye, Millie."

"Leo? Leo?"

"Well, how do you like that?"

Jack examined the postmark on the letter. It had been mailed from Baltimore three days before and only just arrived at the apartment the girls shared in Fairfax.

"For heaven's sake, what is he talking about?" Vanessa demanded. She glanced at her sister, than looked back at Jack. "Why in the world is he going to Russia? And why did Dad want us to show the letter to you first?"

Jack cleared his throat. "I'm glad you're both sitting down," he said. "Your father—" What he was going to say seemed so monstrous that Jack had to start over again. "It seems that Leo has been spying for the Soviet Union."

Vanessa gasped. Tessa whispered, "It's not true. You're out of the loop, Jack—they didn't tell you. He must have been sent to Russia on an assignment—"

Jack could only shake his head in misery. "He hasn't been sent to Russia—he's fled to Russia. If he manages to get there—mind you, we're doing everything to stop him, but they have escape routes prepared—it'll be to seek political asylum in the country he's worked for... the country he's loyal to." Jack sank dejectedly into a chair facing the girls. "I got my information from the horse's mouth. Leo himself told me four days ago."

Vanessa blurted out, "What's going to happen to us, Jack?"

"Why should anything happen to you. You haven't done anything wrong."

Tessa said, "How could Dad have done such a thing? You were his oldest and best friend, Jack. How do you explain it?"

"It goes back to the 1929 Crash, to the Great Depression, to his father s suicide. Don't forget your grandfather emigrated from Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution—its possible he was a Bolshevik and a Chekist to begin with, or became one in the early 1930s. In any case the son inherited his father's radicalism, this disenchantment with capitalism, this certitude that the socialist model was better than the capitalist model."

"You think Dad actually believed in communism!"

"Leo didn't spy for the Russians for money, Tessa. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I suppose you could say he was an idealist—only his ideals were different from the ones we hold to be self-evident."

Vanessa said, "If what you say is true—"

"Unfortunately, it is."

"When it becomes known—"

"When it hits the newspapers—" Tessa added.

"It's not going to hit the newspapers, not if we can help it. That's why Leo wanted you to show the letter to me. As far as the Company is concerned, Leo Kritzky retired after thirty-odd years of loyal and honorable service. After his retirement he disappeared into the woodwork. Look, the truth is that we don't want to wash our dirty linen in public. If the Company-killers on the congressional oversight committees discover that the one-time head of the Soviet Division, the man in charge of spying on Russia, was actually a Russian mole—Jesus H. Christ, they'll make mincemeat of us, budget-wise and otherwise. We have enough trouble convincing the public that we serve a useful purpose as it is."