Part 50 (1/2)

”We will do everything under the sun to prevent them from finding out,” Manny promised her.

At Langley, Angleton emerged from a sick bed-he had come down with Asian flu and was running a fever-to attend the regular afternoon task force meeting down the hall from the DD/O's office. Wrapped in an overcoat and a scarf, he settled sluggishly into his habitual seat at the head of the table. The skin on his wrists and face was almost translucent, his s.h.i.+rtfront was drenched in sweat; beads of perspiration trickled down the side of his nose. For the first time in memory he didn't immediately light a cigarette. ”My people have gone over the serials with a fine-tooth comb,” he announced, his voice low and trained. ”And we've added a serial of our own that has been on a back burner for years. My tentative conclusion is that ae/PINNACLE could be the rarest of orchids, a genuine defector bearing real secrets.”

Colby looked across the table at his DD/0, Elliott Ebbitt. It was easy to see that both men were stunned.

”Are you telling us that you've identified SASHA?” Jack asked.

Angleton only said, ”You're not going to like it.”

”You want to walk us through it,” Colby said impatiently. He doodled with the point of a number two pencil on a yellow legal pad, creating an endless series of linked circles.

Aneleton's lanky body could be seen trembling under the overcoat. ”Working from ae/PINNACLE's four serials,” he began, ”my people have narrowed the list of suspects dramatically. I'll start with the first three serials. There are one hundred and forty-four Russian speaking Company employees whose last name begins with K and are expected to be away from Was.h.i.+ngton until Sunday. Of these hundred and forty-four, twenty-three were also out of Was.h.i.+ngton at some point during the period Kukushkin claims SASHA was away, which was in September of 1972.”

Colby designed a very elaborate ”twenty-three” on his pad, replete with curlicues. From his place at the far end of the table, Manny watched Angleton slouch back into his seat, almost like an animal gathering itself for a kill.

”Which brings me to the serial that I've kept on a back burner now for thirteen years.” Angleton's mask of a face twisted into an anguished smile; his dark eyes seemed to be laughing at some long-forgotten joke. ”Thirteen years! You need the patience of a saint to breed orchids. It can take twelve months for the seedpod to develop, another year or two for the seed to grow as big as your thumb. The flowering, if there is a flowering, could take another five years, even eight or ten. Counterintelligence is like that-you nurture seeds in small jars for years, you keep the temperature moist and hot, you hope the seeds will flower one day but there's no guarantee. And all the while you hear the voices whispering behind your back. Mother's obsessed, they say. He's paranoid, they say. Mother is a conclusion searching for confirmatory evidence.” Angleton s.h.i.+vered again and chewed on his lower lip. ”Believe me, I heard every word. And every word hurt.”

Colby tried to gently nudge Angleton back on track. ”The fifth serial, Jim.”

”The... fifth... serial,” Angleton said, dolling out the words as if he had decided to toy with his audience. ”In 1961 the FBI stumbled across an old Communist named Max Cohen who had gone underground twenty years earlier. You recall the incident, don't you. Bill? Cohen, using the alias Kahn set up a wine and beverage store in Was.h.i.+ngton. Kahn provided the perfect front for the Soviet cutout who lived above the store and delivered liquor to hundreds of clients in the Was.h.i.+ngton area. The cutout went by the name of Dodgson, which, curiously, happened to have been the real name of Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland; it makes you wonder if the KGB spymaster who ran Philby, who runs SASHA, isn't, like Dodgson, creating worlds within worlds within worlds for us to get lost in.” Angleton shut his eyes and appeared to meditate for a moment before going on. ”When the FBI searched Kahn's store they discovered ciphers and microfilms, a microdot reader, wads of cash bound in rubber bands and a shortwave radio, all of it hidden under the floorboards in Dodgson's closet. Dodgson himself somehow slipped through the FBI's fingers when they arrested Kahn and a female employee. But I never forgot him. Not for a moment. All these years. Nurturing the seeds, keeping the temperature moist and hot, hoping against hope that the seeds would burst into flower.” His voice trailed off and a glazed look came into his eyes.

Colby tugged on the rein again. ”The fifth serial?”

”The fifth serial... I checked Kahn's invoices for the previous ten years and discovered that, at one point in the early fifties, Dodgson had been delivering liquor to”-Angleton spit out the words-”my former colleague Adrian Philby; I myself was at Adrian's house one evening when Dodgson brought over two bottles of Lagavulin Malt Whisky. At the time, of course, it seemed perfectly natural and I thought nothing of it. Only now do I understand how close I was to...” The sentence trailed off. Angleton shook his head in frustration. ”With Philby gone,” he plunged on, ”it seemed logical to suppose that this same Dodgson would act as the cutout for Philby's replacement; for SASHA.” Angleton reached into a jacket pocket and extracted a pack of cigarettes, which he set on the table. The sight of the cigarettes seemed to revive him. ”Checking through Kahn's clients who had been on the receiving end of deliveries during the previous ten years, I was able to identify the names of one hundred and sixty-seven full-time Company employees and sixty-four contract employees.”

Jack jumped ahead. ”You matched the Kahn client list against the twenty-three names you teased out of the Kukushkin serials.”

”It seemed too good to be true,” Angleton admitted. ”And it was. None of the names on Kahn's delivery list matched any of the twenty-three names derived from Kukushkin's four serials.”

”It sounds as if you reached another dead end after all,” Colby said.

Angleton extracted a cigarette from the pack and turned it in his fingers.

”Oh, I may have looked like a dead end to the ordinary eye. But not to mine. I knew the ident.i.ty of SASHA was buried there-somewhere in the overlap of he two lists.” He clamped the cigarette between his chapped lips without lighting it. ”Last weekend,” he continued, his voice a throaty growl, the unlit cigarette twitching on his lower lip, ”I overheard my wife on the phone making hotel reservations for us in New Haven-Cicely and I were going up to attend a Robert Lowell reading at Yale. As a security precaution-we don't want the opposition keeping track of my movements, do we? -I always have my wife make reservations or purchases using her maiden name. And all of a sudden it hit me-my G.o.d, how did I miss it?-SASHA could have had a wife. To put as much distance between himself and Dodgson, he could have had his wife order the liquor from Kahn's using her maiden name. With this in mind I sent my people back to the drawing boards. We checked the maiden names of the wives of the twenty-three people we teased out of Kukushkin's serials, and then went back to Kahn's clients-to the people the cutout Dodgson had delivered liquor to between the hasty departure of Philby and Kahn's arrest ten years later.”

By now everyone in the room was hunched forward, their eyes fixed on Angleton s lips almost as if they expected to see the name emerging from his mouth before they could hear it.

”And?” Colby whispered.

”The only maiden name that turned up on both lists was... Swett,” Angleton said.

Both Jack and Ebby recognized the name instantly. ”Adelle Swett is Philip Swett's daughter,” Jack said.

”And Leo Kritzky's wife,” Angleton murmured.

”You're way off base, Jim-” Ebby started to say.

”Are you suggesting that Leo Kritzky is SASHA?” Jack demanded incredulously.

Manny said, ”This has got to be a blind alley-”

Jack's palm came down hard on the table. ”I've known Leo since Yale. We crewed together. We roomed together. He's the G.o.dfather of my boy. I'd stake my life on him-”

Angleton produced a lighter and brought the flame to the tip of the cigarette. He inhaled deeply and let the smoke stream from his nostrils. ”You don't want to do that, Jack. You'd lose it.”

Colby scratched at the stubble on his cheek, deep in thought. ”How can y0u be sure that the Swett who ordered liquor at Kahn's wasn't Adelle's father, Philip Swett?”

”Or anyone else named Swett,” Jack snapped.

The fix of nicotine had soothed Angleton; the s.h.i.+vering had let up a hint of color had seeped back into his skin. Even his voice was stronger. ”Question of addresses,” he explained. ”In the early fifties Dodeson delivered the Swett order to an apartment on Bradley Lane behind the Clic Chase Club, which is where Kritzky lived when he married Adelle. Starting in 1954 the Swett order was delivered to the small house on Jefferson in Georgetown, which Philip Swett purchased for his daughter when his granddaughters were born.”

”I'm at a loss for words,” Colby admitted. ”I'm staggered. If ... true... good G.o.d, if Leo Kritzky has been spying for the Soviets all these years, do you realize what it means? He was in on Wisner's roll-back strategy in the early fifties-he would have known about all of the Wiz's Soviet-targeted ops. Kritzky knew about your mission to Budapest, Eb. He was Bissell's ADD/O/A during the Bay of Pigs business-he knew the time and place of the landings, he knew the Brigade's order of battle, he knew which s.h.i.+ps were loaded with munitions and fuel. The possibility that the man who's running the Soviet Division might be a KGB mole...”

”It happened before,” Angleton reminded Colby. ”Don't forget that Philby ran MI6's anti-Soviet counterintelligence show after the war.”

Colby thought of something else. ”His wife, Swett's daughter Adelle, was a White House legislative aide during the Johnson Presidency. Imagine the inside stuff he could have gotten from her! It makes me sick to my stomach.”

”I'm not buying into this,” Ebby announced. ”Leo's a loyal American-”

Angleton, puffing away on his cigarette, seemed to grow calmer as the others became agitated. ”It all fits like the pieces of an elaborate puzzle,” he said. ”Leo Kritzky is a Russian speaker whose last name begins with K. In September of 1972 he vacationed in Nova Scotia for two weeks. On a number of occasions the cutout Dodgson-who had delivered liquor to Philby address on Nebraska Avenue-also delivered liquor to a client named Swett, who turns out to be Kritzky s wife.” Angleton concentrated on Colby. ”The evidence is overwhelming. Bill. Kritzky's due back from a two-week bicycle trip in France on Sunday afternoon-”

”Jesus,” Manny exclaimed from his end of the table. He was horrified at the conclusion Angleton had drawn from the ae/PINNACLE serials. ”What are you going to do, arrest him?”

”That seems like the obvious place to start,” Angleton remarked.

”The evidence is circ.u.mstantial,” Jack insisted. ”The case is full of holes. It won't hold water when we take a closer look at it.”

Colby doodled another circle into the chain on his yellow pad. ”We'd have to be horses' a.s.ses not to take a closer look at it,” he decided. ”Let's not forget that ae/PINNACLE is out there on a limb-if Kritzky is SASHA, we can't afford to let him back into Langley.” He turned to Angleton. ”The ball's in your court, Jim. Run with it.”

Jack blurted out, ”d.a.m.nation, Bill, you're giving him a blank check.”

Angleton gathered up his papers. ”This isn't a garden party, gentlemen.”

Colby said, ”A blank check, within limits.”

Jack said, ”Whose limits?”

Manny rang again. When n.o.body answered, he tried the door of Nellie's top-floor loft. It was unlocked. He stuck his head inside. ”Anybody home?” he called. ”Nellie, you there?” He went in, kicked the door closed and looked around. The long, narrow living room was aglow with flickering candlelight. Sheets of typing paper, each with a bare footprint traced on it, were set out on the floorboards. With a laugh, Manny followed the footprints and wound up in front of a not-quite-closed door at the end of the corridor. On the floor in front of it was an open bottle of Dom Perignon in a silver bucket filled with crushed ice, and two gla.s.ses. He eased the door open with an elbow. Candles set into two candelabras bathed the misty room in sulfurous hues. Stretched languorously in a bathtub filled with steaming water was Nellie; only her head and a single toe broke the surface. Overhead, a three-quarters moon could be seen through the condensation on the skylight. ”You're ten minutes late,” she announced in a throaty whisper. ”The ice was starting to melt. Me, too.”

”For Christ's sake, Nellie-”

”I'm not naked as a jaybird for Christ's sake, I'm doing this for your sake.” She grinned lewdly at him. ”So why don't you slip into something more comfortable, like your birthday suit, and we'll guzzle Champagne in the tub while you try to fend off my advances.”