“You don’t miss the field?”
Janos started to shake his head, but then he laughed self-deprecatingly. “I could never lie to you. Yes, of course I miss it. But only sometimes. It is like smoking, Kirk. When you first give it up, it’s hell. But then the urge finally begins to go away. It doesn’t ever disappear, sometimes it gets very bad, even for me, but by then you know that you have it licked. I’m just fine.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Sincerely, my friend.”
Janos nodded solemnly. “You have come as a very large surprise.”
“Pleasant, I hope.”
“Pat is frightened.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Barney and Elizabeth will want to see you before you go.” Janos stopped. “Are you back in Washington for good?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“No,” Janos said. “But you did not tell me who has engaged you. It is important.”
“I can’t, Janos. It’s very sensitive,” McGarvey looked into his eyes. “But it’s legitimate. In this you must believe me.”
“I do.”
McGarvey leaned forward. “I’m going to need your help.”
“My charter—”
“I don’t care about your charter,” McGarvey interrupted sharply. Janos had to be handled this way sometimes. “Your mother never cared about charters. No one does. Just listen and then if your heart tells you no, you can walk away with a clear conscience.”
“You are a friend, but I have my position here!” Janos said, raising his voice. “I signed the Secrets Act. For me it is a very important thing. They could easily send me back to England. And from there you know where — straight back to Poland.”
“I signed the same act. And there is no way in hell they’d send you back to Poland unless you shot the president or something.”
The color drained from Plónski’s face. “Don’t even joke like that, Kirk. For God’s sake.”
“I need help, Janos. Some information out of your machines. Nothing terrible or bad. Nothing about anyone who makes any difference in this world.”
Janos looked down at his beer. “We all make a difference. I don’t think you ever understood that.”
“His name is Artime Basulto. Used to work for us in the very early days. Fifties, early sixties.”
“Cuban?”
“He worked out of Havana watching Batista. Got in on the Bay of Pigs thing, then dropped out.”
“He’d be in the old records down in Lynchburg. Army. But what about him, Kirk? Is this an old vendetta? Are you writing a book?”
“He’s been running cocaine out of Matanzas.”
Janos brightened. “You’re working for the DEA?”
“I didn’t say that,” McGarvey replied quickly.
Janos chuckled. “You want his track?”
“I want to know everything.”
“Of course.”
“No, Janos, listen to me. I want to know everything. From day one. What he did, how much he was paid for it, his day sheets, who he worked for. Everything, do you understand?”
“I understand, Kirk,” Janos said, happy now that he believed McGarvey was working on a legitimate operation. “But this could have come through channels.”
McGarvey put his beer down. He looked at his old friend. “Listen very carefully this time. Very closely. I want you to pay real close attention. This Cuban we’re talking about worked for the Company a long time ago. He might still be working for the Company.”
Janos sat back as if he had been slapped. “For who?”
“I don’t know. But open inquiries might cause trouble, if you see what I mean.”
“Oh, I understand,” Janos said.
“I’m sure you do, Janos.”
“I love this country, Kirk. I want you to know that.”
12
If Janos Plónski wasn’t particularly proud of his job as deputy director of records at Langley, he was at least proud of his own past record, and of the renewed strength the Company was enjoying since its emasculation by the Carter administration. Of the old hands he was one of the very few to have come out of that dark era unscathed. His wife, Pat, understood his moods of depression when he sometimes thought about the old friends who died in Eastern European operations, or were scalped like McGarvey. But Janos had kept his nose clean, hadn’t he? And that counted for something in this day and age. That, and his wife and children, for whom he would do anything, were his world.
Janos had become the star of archives. Who better than an operations type — an ex-field hound — to understand the practical side of an intelligence service’s record-keeping system? The college grads were mainly interested in the historical perspective. The computer whiz kids tinkered with their machines. Administration had always been, and always would be, dedicated to following the financial trail of all operations … fitting each little budget line into the whole picture. And the bookworms, who were a class all to themselves, gave a damn only about order versus chaos. Janos knew better. The only reason for the existence of an archives in this business was to provide operations planners and field men with the accurate and timely information they needed when and as they needed it. No excuses about perspective or downed data links or administrative holds on jackets. Somewhere in the great bloody pile of facts and figures is the needed bit, get it now, Janos.
He was, in nearly everyone’s eyes upstairs, a magician. Operations was pleased with his work, but so were administration and personnel and intelligence. “How do you do it, Janos, old boy? Must be a juggling game down there, keeping everyone going all at the same time. Like wagging both ends of the tail at the same time.”
His somewhat spartan office was at the rear of the exposed basement, with one large window that overlooked the construction of the new section of the building. He had spent the first hour of the morning in a staff meeting upstairs, in which the effects of the recent budget cuts were hotly debated. Everything but Central American and Libyan operations would have to bear the burden of the cuts. He told the bad news to his chief of computers, who had for the third year in a row pleaded for an updating of peripherals. Then he informed his secretary that he would be leaving his office for the entire day. At ten, having cleared the last of the morning’s business off his desk, he telephoned Ft. McGillis Army Depot outside Lynchburg and asked for Captain Leonard Treitman, Special Records Section.
“Good morning, Leonard, this is Janos.”
“Hello, Janos. I was just on my way out. Staff meeting. What can I do for you?”
“I’m driving down. Be there a little after lunchtime.”
“Damn. I won’t be here. Sam wants me at the Pentagon at two. Can yours hold till tomorrow?”
Janos looked at his watch. He was beginning to feel tight. “No, actually I’ll be tied up for the rest of the week. It’s routine anyway, unless you’re locking the doors.”
Treitman chuckled. “Sounds like another inspection to me.”
“I’d like to run a few tracks. The budget reared its ugly head again this morning. Next thing they’ll be down here fussing about our efficiency.”
“I’ll tell Charlie and the others that you’re on your way down …”
“No, don’t do that, Leonard,” Janos said a little too quickly. He covered himself, though. “I want this as routine as possible. I just called you as a courtesy. It really doesn’t matter if you’re there or not.”
“I see,” Treitman said, a bit of disappointment in his voice. He was one of the bookworms who didn’t care for someone else playing amongst the bits and pieces in his inner sanctum. “Do me the courtesy of a follow-up report.”