“Too soon. I must show you where the old man is—”
“I trust you. Tell me and here is your ticket and your identity.” He reached inside his vest pocket.
“But I expected to go with you—”
“Look. You’ll be in the air before the old man gets aboard the Finlandia at six tonight.” Devereaux spoke slowly, flatly. “There is no way we can double-cross you. Unless, of course, you are double-crossing us. Is that it?”
“Do you think that? I will take you to the old man myself.”
“Your plane leaves in an hour,” Devereaux said.
“There is no great hurry,” Tartakoff said. “There is a second plane to the United States at four. I know this thing. I study all the timetables of Finnair—”
“All right. Take me to the old man.”
“You know how important he is?”
“Not really.”
Tartakoff looked surprised.
Devereaux smiled. “But then, I’m just the messenger.”
26
“Accounting,” said the Russian, and Penev, the Bulgarian, opened the large accounting book.
They sat in the back room of the shuttered offices of the Balkan tourist authority, which Penev ran. It was raining again in Amsterdam but the day was warm and the windows were steaming. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the first signs of thaw and spring were breaking across the European continent.
Penev had never seen the Russian before. He usually dealt with the Soviet KGB station chief in Rotterdam but this man was from Moscow. It must have been an important matter and Penev had had no idea of the importance of it.
In the accounting book were names and times and places, all rendered in a neat hand.
The names might have been names of customers of the travel service. In fact, there were six legitimate names and departure schedules on a page and then one name and schedule involving another part of Penev’s business. The part that had to do with assassination.
“Should I speak aloud?” Penev said.
“Do you think it is safe?” The Russian was mocking him. “Of course speak aloud or I will not be able to hear you.”
“I do not know what procedures you wanted followed, comrade; that is all,” Penev said, somewhat annoyed. After all, he had upheld his end of the matter. He had never failed. Even if there had been mistakes made along the way.
Penev felt warm and clammy. Sweat spread a stain under his arms.
“As I was instructed,” Penev began.
The Russian waited across the table from him without speaking.
“I contracted Antonio from Reggio Calabria. We have used him before with satisfaction. He is somewhat… odd… in his habits. Cocaine user. I had no reason, based on what he had done for us in the past, to think he would have fouled the operation. I said she was a spy. He never failed before.”
“But he did this time.”
“First, he killed the priest in Dublin.”
“That was satisfactory.”
“I did not understand that part—”
“The priest knew the mission of Crohan in the war. That is all. He was too talkative. He corresponded with the old woman in Chicago. It was better to get rid of him from the first.”
“From there he went to Helsinki. That’s where the mistake was made.”
“Two mistakes,” said the Russian slowly. He removed a cigarette and fitted it into a holder and placed the holder in his mouth. The Bulgarian lit the tip of the cigarette for him.
“He panicked over the whore. So he killed her and he stupidly left the body near the hotel. And then he arranged the murder of the agent so that this American agent, Devereaux, would find him. That was not what he was told to do.”
“I didn’t know about the American agent. I was not instructed,” Penev said.
“No, comrade. But it was a mistake nonetheless. Continue.”
“The third mistake. He was to eliminate Ely, the British agent in Dublin. Ely had the assignment to investigate the matter of the priest. The death of Ely would only frighten the British into thinking the Americans were behind this. Instead, he killed the wrong man. An agent named Sparrow.”
“And so you sent him to Helsinki to kill the American journalist. The fourth mistake. He might have killed her if the Finnish police had not been waiting for him at the airport.”
“The police were the problem,” Penev agreed. “Kulak had to be pulled from the American agent, Devereaux. He might have arrested him. But it was clumsy.”
The Russian saw criticism in this and he frowned. “It was direct. Direct action was needed. Kulak had to be kept away from Devereaux. He was the messenger.”
“Antonio had made too many mistakes,” Penev continued. “Let the police have him in Helsinki for the two murders there.”
“We did not expect the American journalist to be in Helsinki. This was fortunate for us. It allows the disinformation to be applied quickly, before the British can move to stop it. Crohan will tell her the truth once he is certain he is safe.”
Penev glanced up from the book.
“What is the truth, comrade?”
The Russian smiled. “Very simple. The British made a signal to the SS in Vienna four months before we liberated the city. We found the records of it. The Germans save everything, even secrets. The Germans were told the identity of Crohan by the British. It is that simple. It is the reason we could arrest Crohan.”
“But what reason—”
“The American OSS had sent Crohan into Vienna as a spy to save Jews there from transportation to the concentration camps. But he was a spy, nonetheless. And the English were terrified when they found out what the OSS had done. Crohan would have emerged as a national hero in Ireland after the war. He was an agitator against the British; he was a socialist. He would have caused Britain great harm after the war. So the British wanted the Germans to kill him. They betrayed him. That is the great secret.”
Penev frowned. “But this is tied to the submarine base for refueling?”
“There is no such plan,” the Russian said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Let the British worry about the submarine base while the threat comes from another place. The threat comes from the mouth of Tomas Crohan, who will reveal that he was betrayed by the British when he was working for the Americans behind the Nazi lines.”
Penev understood at last and a slow smile spread across his face. “An old man held prisoner was made prisoner because the British betrayed him to protect their own selfish interests.”
“And then, after the war, when we said to the British that we would release this man, they gave us evidence of his anti-Soviet activity on behalf of the Nazis. Until this last moment, we were convinced the evidence against him was genuine.”
The two men were smiling. “And where did we get the evidence? The false evidence?”
“From our mole inside British Intelligence. Very, very important man. I cannot say his name.”
“And the matter is closed now?”
“Yes. Tonight, the American will take the Irish prisoner back to his home and the journalist will reveal all that Crohan has been told—”
“It will finally break the American trust of the British—”
“Of course. They will demand separation from British liaison. Even at Cheltenham. Which will make our work much easier.”
“But Tartakoff?”
“Oh. He will be back in Leningrad tonight, I think. Unless something has gone wrong. He has one option he did not have before, before the American journalist came into the picture.”
“What?”
“If he is suspected, he will be able to kill the messenger.”
27
“I don’t have any time,” Devereaux said.
“Where are you?”
“Just where you think.”