XVHI
But life is cruel, it separates even the best of friends. In 1939 the Spanish Civil War is ending, and Fischerabel and Orlov part ways. They check out of the Hotel Nacional in Madrid, where the entire operation was run, and travel— some by air, some by boat, still others by the submarine that carried the Spanish Gold Reserve, which was handed over to the Soviets by Juan Negn'n, the Republican government's Finance Minister—in opposite directions. Orlov disappears into thin air. Fischerabel return to Moscow and continue to work for the old establishment, filing reports, training new recruits—the kind of thing that field men do when they are out of the -field. In 1940, when Rudolf Abel gets transferred to the Far East, where trouble is brewing on the Mongolian border, he makes a wrong move and gets killed. Then comes World War II. Throughout it Willie Fischer remains in Moscow, trains more recruits—this time perhaps with greater gusto, since German is his father tongue—but he generally feels fallen by the wayside, bypassed for promotion, aging. This fretful state of affairs ends only in nineteen faulty-ape, when he's suddenly taken out of mothballs and given a new assignment. "The kind of assignment," he remarks cryptically on the eve ofhis departure to one of his former sidekicks from the old Spanish days, "the kind of assignment that a field man's entire life is the preparation for." Then he takes off. The next time his pals hear of him is x years later when, nabbed by the feds in that Brooklyn apartment, good old Willie sings, "I am Colonel of the Red Army Rudolf Abel, and I demand . . . "
xix
Of the many virtues available to us, dear reader, patience is best known for being rewarded. In fact, patience is an integral part of every virtue. What's virtue \vithout patience? Just good temper. In a certain line of work, however, that won't pay. It may, in fact, be deadly. A certain line of work requires patience, and a hell of a lot of it. Perhaps because it is the only virtue detectable in a certain line ofwork, those engaged in it zero in on patience \vith a vengeance. So bear with us, dear reader. Consider yourself a mole.
XX
The hvang of a guitar, the sound of a shot fired in a poorly lit alley. It's Spain, shortly before the end of the Civil War (not ending through neglect on the part of Orlov's good offices, of course, but in Moscow they may see things differently). On this night Orlov has been summoned to see a certain official from Moscow aboard a ship lying at anchor in Barcelona. As the head of Soviet intelligence in Spain, he reports only to Stalin's own secretariat: directly. Orlov senses a trap and runs. He grabs his wife, takes the elevator down, tells a bellboy in the lobby to get him a taxi. Cut. Panorama of the ragged Pyrenees, roar of a hvo-engine airplane. Cut. Next morning in Paris, sound of an accordion, panorama of, say, the Place de la Concorde. Cut. An office in the Soviet Embassy on the rue de Varenne. Stalin's whiskers above the door of a Mosler safe flung wide open; a pin-striped wrist with cuffs stuffing a satchel with French banknotes and files. Cut. Blackout.
Sorry, no close-ups. Orlov's disappearing act offers none. Still, if one stares at the blackout intently enough, one can make out a letter. This letter is addressed to Comrade Stalin, and it says something to the efl'ect that he, Orlov, now severs his links with godless Communism and its hateful, criminal system; that he and his wife choose freedom, and should a single hair fall from the heads of their aging parents, who are still in the clutches of this system, then he, Orlov, will spill urbi et orbi all the dirty top-secret beans in his possession. The letter goes into an envelope, the address on that envelope is that of the offices of Le Monde, or maybe Figaro. At-any rate, it's in Paris. Then the pen dips into the ink pot again: another letter. This one is to Leon Trotsky, and it goes something like this: I, the undersigned, am a Russian merchant who just escaped with my life from the Soviet Union via Siberia to Japan. While in Moscow and staying in a hotel, I overheard, by pure chance, a conversation in the next room. The subject was an attempt on your life, and through the crack in the door I even managed to espy your would-be assassin. He is young, tall, and speaks perfect Spanish. I thought it my duty to warn you. The letter is signed with an alias, but Don Levin, the Trotsky scholar and biographer, has positively identified its author as Orlov, and if I am not mistaken, the scholar has received Orlov's personal confirmation. This letter is postmarked Nagasaki and the address on it is in Mexico City. It, too, however ends up in a local tabloid (La Prensa Latina? El Pais?), since Trotsky, still smarting from the second attempt on his life (in the course of which his American secretary was murdered by a would-be world-famous muralist—David Alfaro Siqueiros—with the assistance of a would-be world-famous, indeed a Nobel Prize-winning, poet, Pablo Neruda), habi- 170 I J 0 S E PH B R 0 D S K Y
tually forwards all threats and warnings he receives to the press. And Orlov must be aware of this, if only because for the last three years he has been in the habit of perusing quite a few periodicals in Spanish. While having his coffee, say. In the lobby of the Nacional, or in his suite there on the sixth floor.
XXII
Where he used to entertain all sorts of people. Including Ramon Mercader, Trotsky's third and successful assassin. Who was simply Orlov's employee, much the same as Fi- scherabel, working for the same outfit. So if Orlov really wanted to warn Trotsky, he could have told him a lot more about Ramon Mercader than that he was young, tall, handsome, and spoke perfect Spanish. Yet the reason for the second letter was not Trotsky; the reason was the first letter, whose addressee wasn't Stalin. To put it more neatly, the Stalin letter, printed in Le Monde, addressed the West, while the Trotsky letter, though it went literally to the Western Hemisphere, addressed the East. The purpose of the first was to win Orlov good standing abroad, preferably in the intelligence community. The second was a letter home, informing his pals in Moscow headquarters that he was not spilling the beans, though he could: about Mercader, for instance. So they, the pals, could go ahead with the Trotsky job if they cared to. (They did, though no tear should be shed, since Trotsky, who drowned the only genuine Russian Revolution that ever took place—the Kronstadt Uprising— in blood, wasn't any better than the spawn of hell who ordered his assassination. Stalin, after all, was an opportunist. Trotsky was an ideologue. The mere thought that they could have swapped places makes one wince.) Moreover, should the authorship of the second letter ever come to light, as it did in Don Levin's research, it could only enhance Orlov's credentials as a true anti-Stalinist. Which is precisely what he wasn't. He had no ideological or any other disagreement with Stalin. He was simply running for his dear life, so he threw the dogs a bone to munch on. They munched on it for a couple of decades.