The voyage from the naval base at Tallin required nineteen days. The submarine was a new 3,000 tonner, designed along the lines of the French Surcouf, with comfortable living quarters, a hangar, and a catapult. The hangar could accommodate four large guided missiles or two jet aircraft, so it received a landing barge with ease. Inside the landing barge was a car. In the car’s luggage compartment were five suitcases, four filled with the essential tools of their job, concealed under lightweight clothing, one filled with money.
They were chaperoned, on this voyage, by two dour O.O. men and an uncommunicative, thin, gray-faced man, much older, who represented the MVD, or perhaps the Presidium itself. On their last day at sea, this man called them into the captain’s cabin, which he had occupied since the voyage began. He spoke to them in Russian, repeating much of what the Air general had told them in the Kremlin. Then he gave them the name and address of Robert Gumol, a banker in Upper Hyannis, a suburb of Philadelphia. They had only to tell Gumol, “I am from Five-Star Electric” to establish their identity. Smith was at first surprised that a banker should be an agent, but the more he thought about it the more he was impressed by the cleverness of his superiors. In the United States bankers were the most respected and conservative group in a community. Bankers handled large sums of money as a matter of routine. And a bank’s doors were open to all, and in a bank’s inner offices private and personal discussions were usual.
Only one small incident disturbed Stanley Smith during the landing. The navigator of the submarine was not a Russian, but a German, a former officer of the German Navy. This man, Karl Schiller, was chosen for the mission because he had been a Leutnant on a U-boat that had landed eight German saboteurs at exactly the same spot, on the same coast, in 1942. Schiller and Smith both enjoyed chess and they had become friendly, and Schiller had sometimes invited Smith topside for a breath of fresh air and a glimpse of the stars when they ran on the surface, nights. Schiller often related, with pride, the details of the previous voyage. It had been a much more difficult undertaking, he assured Smith, with the British and American navies to dodge and the coast itself patrolled. Now it would be simple, with the world basking in peace.
It was Schiller who commanded the landing craft in its run for the beach, and it had been Schiller who ran down the beach to the car and shook his hand. At that moment Smith asked a question that had been troubling him. “By the way,” he said, “you never told me what happened to the sabotage team.”
Schiller had smiled and said, “Oh, I forgot. They were all caught and executed.”
It was hardly a pleasant way to bid one goodbye, Smith thought as he drove through the night. It could shake a man, until you considered that it had been wartime, and the eight Germans probably had not been so thoroughly conditioned as he, Palmer, Masters, and Johnson.
The speedometer crept past sixty and Palmer, sitting next to him, said, “Hey, Stan, slow down. Florida law is sixty by day but only fifty by night. Remember?” Palmer was the most cautious of the four.
Smith slowed, although he was confident that there were no cops on the road at this hour. Anyway, back in Little Chicago they had even schooled him not to panic when stopped by the police. It had been a hard thing to learn, but he was ready to test it.
In St. Augustine Smith pulled into an all-night filling station and said, “Fill ’er up with high test.”
The attendant, alert despite the hour, filled the tank and checked under the hood. He whistled and said, “Say, lucky I looked. Your battery water’s way down.” He immediately filled the battery with distilled water, without instructions. Then he wiped the windshield. Smith was impressed with this service and efficiency. He wondered whether all travellers received such service, or whether it was only because the Buick was new and large. He realized that there was still much to learn about America. He had not been told everything.
The attendant said, “Three eighty-four, please,” and Smith handed him a five dollar bill. The attendant noted that the four men in the car all wore bright sport shirts. The license prefix was 2-W, which meant Duval County. Four young guys from Jacksonville, he thought, away from their wives for a big weekend in Miami, or maybe a fishing trip down on the Keys.
Smith pocketed the change and drove on. He felt elated. For the first time he had encountered an American on American soil, and had passed inspection.
Just before dawn they pulled off the road and split up the money in the extra suitcase. Smith realized that even by American standards all four were rich men. The thought occurred to him that once they dispersed in Miami his companions could take their money, lose themselves in this fat, careless country where security controls were almost non-existent and a man could travel at will, and enjoy life. In America it was not necessary to register with the police, not anywhere, nor were permits required for work, or for purchasing luxury goods. But he doubted that the others would be tempted. Like himself, they were responsible and dedicated men. Also, one day there would come an accounting, for one day the Marx-Lenin ideal would stand supreme over all nations, united in the comradeship of proletarian order and peace.
In Miami, they breakfasted for the last time together, in a restaurant of antiseptic cleanliness, with walls mostly of glass. Smith felt naked, as if he were eating in a shower room. The eggs, bacon, toast, marmalade, and in particular the coffee tasted different from the same breakfasts in Little Chicago, just as borscht in Kiev might be more flavorful than borscht in Boston. From Miami, Johnson was to go to Louisiana, Masters to Texas, and Palmer to Arizona. Palmer was to take the car, and dispose of it as he wished. As for Smith himself, he could buy another car later, if he found need of one and if a car befitted his station. His first objective, now, was to find a job in a restaurant, start a small bank account, and establish himself as a reliable citizen, suitable for enlistment in the United States Air Force. 3
Of the forty thousand people who went to work in the Pentagon that morning, Katharine Hume was somewhat of an oddity. Genius shows no discrimination of race, creed, sex, or physique when it chooses a body to inhabit. It can lodge in the twisted shape of a Steinmetz, or behind a sightless, soundless wall, as in Helen Keller. It can even pick the body of a young and desirable woman.
Not that Katharine Hume was a classic beauty. She wasn’t. But in a city where a woman’s allure is often measured by the collective influence of the guests she can entice to a party, her position on the protocol lists, or her Civil Service rating if she works, and where it can be undiplomatic to have legs finer than those of your senator’s wife, Katy Hume was a rarity. She had a dancer’s rhythm of movement and sway of hips. Her full lips were usually half open and she had a habit of moistening them with her tongue before speaking. That this was the result of a slight nasal obstruction didn’t make her mouth appear less sensual. Her hair was of an undecided color, so she had tinted it ash-blond, which contrasted with dark eyes, in the Viennese manner. Her flair for style she held in check, for in Washington, especially if you are in a responsible or sensitive position, it is chic to be dowdy. The oddest thing about her could not be seen. In her head was a questing brain equipped with an astonishing memory and capable of the most complicated mathematical acrobatics. Her intelligence quotient was 180, minimal, and she possessed Q-clearance for atomic security. She was by nature warm-blooded and friendly, but she was isolated by her profession and its taboos and secrets. Her profession was war.