24 Dec 89—WASHINGTON, D.C.
They nearly ran out of food on the plane because it was so crowded. It touched down at Dulles International shortly after three in the afternoon. Customs was easy because neither Ruth nor Kurt carried more than one suitcase filled with innocuous items of clothing. Passport Control was more dangerous.
The passports were very good, though, top quality, of the sort that only a man like Kurt Heinemann could obtain. The Federal Republic of Germany would have been proud to make its real passports as good as these counterfeits. Ruth Mesch and Kurt von Mannheim. Very good German visitors to the United States of America. Ruth stared around her like a Christmas morning child, beholding the wonders of the new world.
And then they were crossing the concourse to the taxi line outside and it was really done, finished, the long, difficult escape from one life to another. Behind were rows of missing files pertaining to the Double Eagle and his network and to a lifetime of terrorism and espionage. Behind was the person of Ruth Sauer, once a betrayer of an American agent called November, now a schoolteacher on holiday in a country she had never known except as “that dreadful place.”
The two men wore gray overcoats and hats. They smiled as they approached the German couple standing at the curb.
“My name is Winslow, Miss Mesch,” the first man said. “And von Mannheim.” Heavy on the “von Mannheim.” The gray coats looked right through the girl into the eyes of the man. “We have nice adjoining rooms set up at the Willard and we would like to welcome you to the country.”
Ruth turned her large, brown eyes to her brother. She bit her lip.
“No, no, Liebchen, don’t be afraid,” he said. But he was afraid. Was this a double-cross of everything he had set up?
“Not at all,” Winslow said, answering the unasked question in Kurt Heinemann’s black eyes. “We’d like to take you into the city, Miss Mesch, get you situated. Ah. Mr. von Mannheim, we’d like to… well, someone wants to meet with you and he didn’t want to wait, so would you mind traveling separately?”
If this was some cross, then it was too elaborate, but one never knew. Americans got so caught up in planning things that they sometimes made them too complicated.
But what could he do?
“Ja, sure. Go ahead, Ruth, I’ll meet you in the hotel. I will meet her in the hotel?” This to Winslow.
Winslow smiled like a toothpaste ad. “Sure, sure, there’s nothing going on, just someone wants to meet you and couldn’t wait. Okay?”
“Ja, ja.” But they were already taking her by the arm to the small gray government sedan and she looked back once at him fearfully and he had to smile for her. He gave her a little wave as well. The car pulled away with Ruth in the backseat. They stood on the curb and watched it pull away.
He turned to Winslow. “So?”
“So the big black Cadillac at the end of the taxi line,” Winslow said without a trace of a smile now that it wasn’t necessary. “Boss wants to see you.”
Kurt Heinemann thought about it as he walked along the curb to the big car. Even if he had been crossed out of his deal, they had Ruth and this was their playing field and he would just have to stall along and look for an opportunity. That was the worst case. In the best case, they wanted to make friendly noises and maybe give him some money. He didn’t really believe in either case just now; it was a way of preparing himself for the next bit of unexpected reality.
He entered the Cadillac’s rear compartment separated from the front by thick glass. The car started up as soon as the door closed. The windows were shaded and the dull afternoon of clouds was rendered into early twilight.
Pendleton smiled at him. “Wilkommen. We meet again. Fifteen years. All things come to those who wait, even the fall of the Evil Empire.”
“Ja. You told me once a long time ago to see you in Washington. You knew you were going to Washington some day,” Kurt Heinemann said. Not the best case yet, not the worst. He sat rigidly on the gray fabric seat, eyes front.
“Not a doubt in my mind. Ran a brilliant desk in Europe for six years, got me a bunch of Russian spies thanks to you, went back into the headquarters and just worked my way up. Now I’m a successful man. You might say you helped make me. Except that wouldn’t be polite.”
“And what am I, Herr Pendleton?”
“You are a dirty fucking German spy with blood all over your lily-white hands is what you are, Herr Heinemann. You are on sufferance, is what you are,” Pendleton said. The tone was pleasant, without any sense that the words were not.
“It can work that way,” Kurt Heinemann said. He stared through the darkened glass at the darkened countryside. Suburban sprawl had long since overtaken Dulles, which had originally been built so far out in the Virginia countryside that no one ever expected the suburbs to catch it.
“Or it can work the other way,” Pendleton said. “It’s gonna take a few tricks but we are gonna put you in a nice place. Ever been to Denver?”
Kurt Heinemann shook his head.
He would not look at Pendleton because he wanted to hear the words from the brown-faced man and did not want to read any intent into them because of gestures made or eye contact. He was aware of Pendleton’s eyes on him.
“I want you in Consortium International. You must have heard of it.”
Kurt did not make any gesture.
“It’s in Denver. Big contractor with a big budget but it is really all bullshit from beginning to end. CI is a CIA company. CIA don’t own it but CIA is the reason it exists. It’s a middleman for the CIA. It… does things for Langley. It acquires things for Langley.”
“You want me to work for CIA,” Kurt said. Flat, trying not to put anything in it.
“I beg your pardon, I don’t think I said that at all. You, Kurt, are in the United Fucking States at my pleasure and my sufferance. You are working for me, Kurt, for Herr Pendleton. You are gonna work your skinny white ass off for me. I want you in CI because I want you to turn it. I want you to make CI bring home the bacon for Section, not Langley. I want you to work on what CI is working on, and when we get the goods, Langley will have to write off CI and CI will have to come to Section for its sugar. That’s pretty clear, ain’t it, Kurt? Verstehen sie?”
That turned his head. Kurt looked at Pendleton a long moment. A little anger in his eyes, a little rebellion. But not now. Not this time. Not in this car. He looked away then, back to the side glass that artificially darkened the landscape.
“I did not expect this,” Kurt said.
“No. And neither will Langley. It’s a hard, cruel world and it is full of deceptions, ain’t it? The world of spies is a shrinking world today, son. Langley, NSA, Section, DIA, the whole alphabet soup of agencies is being pushed around by the Commie lovers on the Hill who think the cold war is over and spies are history. Section never went into acquiring a sideline, like snooping industrial secrets. I want to expand into the business. Expand or die. You are gonna be my most secret agent, the one no one knows about except you and me. You are going to go into Consortium International and steal what they are now stealing for Langley and bring it to me. Like a good hunting dog.” Pendleton was smiling, enjoying the humiliation of the German.
Kurt spoke in a soft, flat voice. “This is not right.”
Pendleton just stared at him.
Kurt turned back to the man. “We agreed to a deal. I expect to give you information, tell you about Stasi. Not to be your agent.”
“What you expect and what I expect are gonna end up being the same thing,” Pendleton said.
“There are many, many like CI. Contractors. Middlemen.” His tone softened. He was making a case to Pendleton. “You do not need me for this.”
“Contractors you call them. They make a difference. CI is very big in the Pacific rim. They been buying up the territory. Spies. Agents. Industrial espionage. They do the dirty work and sell secrets to Langley. Last year, CI got hold of a new guided missile system for Langley that came out of China. Best thing the Chinese have made since they invented spaghetti. Consortium got the plans and even a model and sold it to Langley for thirty-four million dollars because they are a patriotic company. No one knows how they got it, no one says it was CI that got it, but there it is. I want that kind of power working for me. Working for Section.”
“But I was Stasi. They won’t—”
“Yes they will. You know all about something they want.”
“What do they want?”
“You know about a Japanese machine. The mother of all code machines. Developing in a very secretive company in Japan. A machine that can read all the codes as well as make codes. The ultimate decoder.”
“If you know this machine, get this machine yourself,” Kurt said. But now he was interested. A moment before, he wanted to wrestle his way out of Pendleton’s grip but Pendleton had him tight now.
“I can’t. We don’t know how to do that industrial voodoo. We’d screw it up. You get a piece of information from one station and a piece from someone with something to sell… Well, enough that I know this thing exists. And enough that you buy your way into CI by knowing it exists. The man at Consortium is named Gandolph. A greedy prick like they all are. You’re gonna work for Gandolph because Gandolph wants the code machine. We should have it anyway; Japs been stealing our super silicones and building shit they don’t have any right to in the first place. I don’t know what Gandolph knows but I’ve prepared the way for you. Good reports on you. Resourcefulness. I been planting shit on Gandolph for months, waiting for you. Gandolph can get me the machine. He don’t do dirty work. You do that for him. You get Gandolph the machine and then you force Gandolph to sell it to me and that dirties up CI in its relationship with Langley. I get a machine, I get Gandolph, I get CI and Langley don’t get hind tit.”
Kurt said nothing because he saw it, saw the parts of it.
Saw thirty-four million dollars as a real thing.
Saw a Japanese code machine that could be sold. To anyone.
Saw the beginning of a good solid double cross.