In the morning, calmer, Helen considered blowing off Baucom’s request entirely. Why should she stick her neck out to find out more about this “Beetle” fellow? But by the time she was halfway through her first cup of coffee, she’d reconsidered.
Baucom was not a man who did things offhandedly. If he could have pursued the matter himself, he would have done so. If he had deemed it unworthy of pursuit, he never would have mentioned it to her. And while, to her, the more pressing interest was still Kevin Gilley—a rapist and probably a murderer—she was undeniably curious about the strange conversation she’d overhead between Edward Stone, aka Beetle, and the younger man, Lewis.
Was it part of some conspiracy? Toward what end? And for which masters? To help the Soviets? To help themselves? And who, she wondered, stood to be eliminated as part of their plans? At the very least, she ought to do some poking around at the fringes.
She settled on the records room as the best starting point, if only because she had Eileen Walters on her side. Cryptonyms. There must be a file somewhere containing all the cryptonyms in current use by operatives and sources for Berlin station.
Not long after she reached the office, Helen popped into the records room and loitered toward the back of the filing cabinets while Walters conversed with a field man named Haller about a new restaurant that had just opened in Steglitz. By the time Haller left, she had settled on an approach.
“What is it, Helen?” Walters said, looking up from her desk. “Is there something I can find for you?”
“Oh, probably not. I’m just a little confused at the moment.”
“Over what, may I ask?”
“A stray cryptonym that popped up in one of my usage requests. ‘Beetle,’ like the bug.”
The words sounded forced the moment they left her mouth, and she was about to blush when Walters, not seeming to notice her discomfort, cheerfully said, “Oh, you must mean Eddie Stone.”
“Possibly.”
“Has to be.”
“He works here?”
“Goodness, no. Vienna. And not for years. Not surprised you haven’t heard of him. He was well before your time. Whenever he came to Germany it was usually to Bonn.”
“So you know him?”
“Knew. I was posted to Vienna then. Still remember the send-off they gave him when he retired in ’73.”
“He’s retired?”
“Yes. And quite the bash it was. I was the only decently dressed female in the room, apart from the chief of station’s secretary. Like something out of Cabaret. All very louche.” She laughed and covered her mouth. “I’m afraid I only lasted half an hour, but of course by then most of them were three sheets to the wind. Boys and their libidos, you know.”
“All too well. Where did he go after hanging it up?”
“Now, that’s a very good question. I seem to recall he found a soft landing with some multinational. That was around the time that hiring international security consultants was all the rage in the corporate world, what with the Red Guards kidnapping business executives and that sort of thing.”
“Ah. So he went back to the States?”
“No, I think he stayed over here. London, maybe? With Philips, the electronics firm. Or, no, I think it might have been Uniroyal, the tire maker. Why, is one of his old contacts looking for him?”
“Something like that.”
“Langley would know his current whereabouts. Would you like me to put a trace on him for you? I could send out a request on your behalf and probably have an answer by tomorrow.”
“Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much, Eileen.”
Well, that was easy. Helen practically floated back to her office.
For the rest of the morning she worked quietly at her desk, and by early afternoon she’d caught up on her administrative chores. That evening, she activated the new mail drop she’d selected the night before by sending off a test message to her two allies, CDG in Paris and IAD in Washington.
That night she slept soundly. Maybe this wasn’t going to be impossible, after all.