“Shooting an enemy of the country, a spy, is not acting rashly.”
Kaverin said. “No, but shooting an ally would be.”
“Ally?”
“Agent Barter, I am going to tell you some things you will undoubtedly find incredible—though they are true. Then, after we make some formal arrangements, I will give you your gun back and I will give you my gun and I will surrender to you. May I proceed?”
Warily Barter said, “Yes, all right.” His eyes shifted from the pistol to the documents extracted from the lid of the attaché case.
“Earlier this week I was called into the office of my superior at GRU headquarters. I was given an assignment: to protect an individual in the United States who would further the interests of the Soviet Union. A man we have code named Comrade Thirty-five.”
“Yeah, yeah, that son of a bitch, Lee Harvey Oswald.”
“No,” Kaverin said. “Comrade Thirty-five was our code name for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”
“What?” Barter squinted at him.
“‘Thirty-five,’” Kaverin continued, “because he was the thirty-fifth President of the United States. ‘Comrade’ because he shared certain interests with our country.” The Russian pushed forward the documents he’d extracted from his case. “Can you read Russian?”
“No.”
“Then I will translate.”
“They’re fake.”
“No, they are quite real. And I will prove to you they’re real in a moment.” Kaverin looked down and scanned the documents. “‘To Comrade Major Mikhail Kaverin. Intelligence received from sources in Washington, D.C., has reported that in October of this year President John Fitzgerald Kennedy signed an executive order, initiating the reduction of American advisory and military forces in Vietnam.’”
“Vietnam?” Barter was frowning. “That’s that country near China, right? A French colony or something. Sure, we’ve sent some soldiers there. I read about that.”
Kaverin continued his reading. “‘Our sources have reported that Charles de Gaulle told President Kennedy that it would be very detrimental for the United States to become enmeshed in the politics of Southeast Asia. Kennedy went against the advice of his generals and established the goal to have all American troops out of Vietnam and neighboring countries by 1964. After the Americans are gone, the communist regimes in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia will surge south through Malaysia and Singapore, establishing governments with true Marxist values throughout Southeast Asia. Our Premier and the Politburo will form an alliance with that bloc. Together we will stand firm against the wrong-minded Maoist cult in China.’
“‘If anything were to happen to Kennedy, our intelligence assessment is that his successor, Lyndon Johnson, will drastically increase the U.S. military presence in the region. This would be disastrous for the interests of the USSR.’”
He put down the documents, shook his head and sighed. “You see, Agent Barter, the mission of the agent who preceded me and of myself was to do whatever we could to uncover any threats to your President Kennedy and stop them. Our job was to protect him.” Barter snapped, “That’s bullshit! You knew about Oswald but you didn’t report it! If you’d really been concerned, you—”
“No!” Kaverin replied angrily. “We knew nothing of Oswald. That’s not why I was sent here. There was another threat to your President. Completely unrelated to the assassin. Do you know of Luis Suarez and Carlos Barquín?”
“Of course, we’ve been on the look-out for them for months. They’re Cuban Americans under orders from Fidel Castro to kill Kennedy because of the Bay of Pigs invasion. We haven’t been able to find their whereabouts.”
“I can produce them.”
“Where are they?”
“They’re in the trunk of my car.”
“Are you joking?”
“Not at all. That was my assignment. To find and eliminate them. We knew they were going to attempt to assassinate Kennedy, possibly on his visit here. When I shot them they were on Houston Street—at a place where your President’s motorcade would pass by. Undoubtedly they were looking for vantage points to shoot from. Both of them were armed.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that you had a lead to them?”
Kaverin scoffed. “What would you have done?”
“Arrested them, of course.”
“For what? Have they committed a crime?”
Barter fell silent.
“I thought not. You would have put them away for a few months for threatening the President or for having a weapon. Then they would have been released to try to assassinate him again. My solution was far more efficient and… far more permanent.” Kaverin grimaced. He said passionately, “No one was more shocked and upset than I to hear the terrible news today of your President’s fate.”
Kaverin fell silent, noting that Barter, who until now had been looking him straight in the eye, had grown evasive. The Russian said, in a whisper, “You knew about Oswald.”
No answer for a moment. Then: “I’m not at liberty to talk about investigations.”
Kaverin snapped, “You knew he was a threat and yet you were not watching him constantly?”
“We have… limited resources. We didn’t think he’d be a threat.”
Silence flowed between the men. Finally Kaverin asked softly, “Well, do you believe me, Special Agent Barter?”
After a moment the FBI man said, “Maybe I do. But you haven’t told me what you want out of all this.”
Kaverin gave a laugh. “It’s obvious, no? I want to defect. I have failed in my mission. If I return home I will become a nonperson. I will be killed and my name and all record of my existence expunged. It will be as if I never existed. I had hoped to marry, even at this age, to have a son. That is a possibility if I remain here.” He gave a faint smile. “Besides, I must tell you, Agent Barter. I’ve been in this country for only several days but I already find it rather appealing.”
“What’s in it for us?”
“I can give you a great deal of information. I have been a GRU officer for many years. And I can offer something more. Something to, as your card players here say, sweeten the pot.”
Barter said, “And what’s that?”
“What I can offer you, Agent Barter—excuse me, Special Agent Barter—is a real, living, breathing KGB agent.”
“KGB?”
“Indeed. You can arrest him and interrogate him. Or your CIA could run him as a double agent. You Americans love KGB spies, do you not? Why, your citizens know nothing of the GRU or the Stasi. But the KGB? Pick up a James Bond novel or go to the cinema. Wouldn’t it be a fine national security coup to land a fish like that?”
Kaverin put just the right tone into his voice to suggest that the arrest would be fine for Barter’s career personally too.
“Who is this man?”
“He is in Miami, operating undercover as the head of a transportation company. His real name is Nikolai Spesky. He purports to be a GRU agent, but in fact his employer is the KGB.”
“How d’you know that?”
“For one thing, because of your presence on my trail.”
“Me?”
Kaverin said, “I assume you learned of me through an anonymous tip, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right. Received by our New York office.”
“Perhaps through New York, but it originated from Comrade Spesky in Miami. He informed on me. You see, neither Customs officials or any airline in New York knew that my final destination was Dallas. Only Spesky did. I didn’t receive my ticket until I was in Florida. In fact, I wasn’t wholly surprised when you appeared; I was suspicious of Spesky from the beginning. That is one of the reasons I was looking for surveillance—and spotted you.”