Shadow Wars, page 25
“The State Department liberals, you mean. They’d have you kissing Sergei Markov’s ass in another few weeks.”
Crandall climbed out of the pool and began toweling himself dry. “Come on, Henry. Up and out. You can do it. Your reward’s a cold beer. That’s part of the reason I do this every day. It tastes twice as good after you’ve exercised.”
Hunter patted his ample belly. “There’s been too much beer poured in this barrel. How about something nonfattening like a martini?”
“There’s the bar. Make yourself at home.” Crandall spread his towel neatly over a plastic chair and sat down. “And after you mix yourself one you can open me a beer and tell me what’s on your mind.” He allowed himself a comfortable sigh and closed his eyes. “Damn, I feel good. I don’t know how I’d survive if I couldn’t do this most days.”
Hunter mixed a drink for himself and opened a beer for Crandall before slumping into the chair across from him. “Damn, I feel like I’m never going to swim again.” He grinned at Crandall. “Sure I will. Same time tomorrow. Deal?”
“Deal.” Crandall swallowed a mouthful of beer and looked across at the other, waiting, aware that Henry Hunter wouldn’t exercise without an objective in mind.
“Perhaps I’m covering old territory,” Hunter began. “I’ll back off if you want, and I promise I’m not lobbying.” He leaned forward. “The problems in the old Pact nations don’t seem to be getting any better. Moscow, Sofia, Warsaw, Prague, take your pick. Any of those cities. And I can name a dozen more. You can’t turn a Communist into a Republican or Democrat any more than you can turn a dog into a cat. What’s going to happen?”
“You’re sure you’re not getting ready to lobby me?” Crandall asked, his forehead wrinkling with curiosity as he gazed at Hunter.
“No, sir. Opinion. Ideas. I’m a naturally curious creature. That’s why I’m asking. If you want me to back off, just tell me,
“The process of change is never an easy one, Henry. It’s generational, sometimes spreading over many generations. The Soviet Union didn’t become communist overnight, and it won’t become a democracy quickly either. When change takes place, it’s just like a child growing up. There are growing pains and mistakes and misjudgments and the anguish of adolescence. With all that against them, kids turn out best when they’re properly managed by their parents. And I think nations do well when their friends help them through their growing pains. You and some of the others who always point out the forever evil child who was always bullying and selling drugs in the alleys now see an adolescent headed for even bigger trouble. Some of us are heeding what you have to say at the same time we’re trying to give that kid all the help he’s willing to accept, and then a little bit more, too. You still expect those kids to fail, don’t you?”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” Hunter muttered, shaking his head. “No different than teaching old dogs …” His voice drifted off as he saw the expression on Crandall’s face. “That’s why I’m curious to know what you’re thinking now, sir. What are you planning? Or what are you and others planning? Should I be changing my attitude?”
“Well, Henry, we’ve been asked for help. You know that.”
“Yes, sir, but you haven’t said much about how far you’re prepared to go. We’ve had meetings with the Security Council, the military chiefs, the intelligence people, and you’ve offered aid to most of the Europeans if they ask for it. There’s just a sense of a something that I don’t have.”
“And I don’t think you ever will, Henry, because you’re different from me. I got elected for reasons you wouldn’t have, and I wanted you in your job for exactly those reasons. How come you want to talk after we agreed to avoid this topic for the time being?” Crandall asked.
Hunter shrugged. “Curiosity. Maybe a little smug self-satisfaction if things fall apart over there. No, forget that,” he added, wrinkling his nose. “I didn’t really mean that. Perhaps there’s a need to understand you,” he added with a tone of finality, “if I’m going to do right by you in an emergency.”
“You’re right on that. Nothing goes beyond here though. Comprenez?”
Hunter nodded. “Comprenez, sir.”
For the next half hour, enough time for a second beer and a refill on Hunter’s martini, Gilbert Crandall shared his thoughts with his chief of staff. On occasion, he selected subjects that only he and Sergei Markov had covered during their numerous discussions over their secure communications circuit.
As they spoke, Crandall considered his motivation for carefully selecting what he wanted to discuss with Hunter. He surprised himself when he realized that he actually had developed an unusual loyalty to Sergei Markov. He could think of no other reason. It wasn’t so much that Crandall was still circumspect about Hunter’s prejudices, because the chief of staff was so superior to anyone else who might have filled the job. But Markov had as much as admitted that his back was against the wall. After their second conversation. Crandall had placed himself in the Russian president’s position and quite suddenly developed a new respect for the man and his situation. Things like that didn’t happen in the United States. Crandall was secure in the knowledge that neither his own generals nor assistants would plot to kill him and overthrow the government. When he allowed himself to enter Markov’s head, he was overwhelmed with sympathy for the man and respect for his courage.
In retrospect, as Crandall finished his rare second beer and realized he now had to excuse himself to prepare for a formal dinner that night, he was comfortable with himself. “Well, what do you think, Henry? Have I made you a softer and wiser person? Or do you still want to rub their faces in it?”
Hunter grinned ruefully. “Oh, I don’t know if I’m any softer in my old age. But I guess I understand better why you’re the president and I’m your bad guy. Like I said, I’ll leave well enough alone.”
As he toyed with his black bow tie in the mirror before appearing for dinner, Gilbert Crandall again pondered his feelings about Sergei Markov. He was as surprised by the unexpected affection he’d suddenly acquired for the Russian as he was for his reticence to open up completely to his chief of staff.
Henry Hunter went back to his office to clean up some paperwork and found that he spent most of his time considering his conversation with Crandall. The paper pushing was unimportant, staffers’ work. He was surprised how difficult he found it to disagree with some of Crandall’s points. Hunter had always equated his job with Crandall’s but now the difference in their responsibilities was staggering when he considered how the man contemplated Markov’s position in relation to his own presidency in the U.S. There was indeed something to think about. But in the end, he satisfied his second thoughts by waking up Norman Smith—tit for tat! He’d never know that most of what he was able to relate had little value to Norman Smith.
Carl Halder’s initial choice for his rare assembly had been an emotional one—Berlin, their former headquarters, a symbolic location to reaffirm their commitments. Imagine gathering again at the complex off Normannenstrasse. But moments later, he privately acknowledged that it was a poor idea to bring his old Stasi compatriots back anywhere near Berlin. It was much too easy to be recognized and there were still numerous people who held grudges. It would only take one ID and they’d be forced underground. And now was not the time to be driven under, not when their place was in the forefront. He had to consider the fact that Raskova was gone. There was also a conviction lurking in the back of his mind that pressure from outside sources was increasing as time grew more critical. And there was an impatience among his own people. But what a temptation, almost a seduction by an emotional corner of his brain, to return to the seat of their power in those massive structures on Normannenstrasse.
Dresden was better. It wasn’t symbolic, but it was safer.
And it was also time. Certain of the men and women who had gone underground when the Stasi ceased to exist could convene there with little trouble. There wouldn’t be many of them, just the leaders that Carl Halder had cultivated. Then there were a chosen few from the other intelligence services, the Securitate, the StB, and a few paramilitary specialists trained by the KGB.
They congregated one by one, most of them for the first and only time, at a large old farm on the outskirts of Dresden which had been a Stasi safe house. In the rush to promote democracy, it had never been recognized for what it was by the new government. Halder had even installed a family who operated it as a real farm. It offered a convenient, pastoral setting for his purposes.
He explained to his people who came to the Dresden Farm that, at the final moment, success in Germany couldn’t be achieved wholly by subversion. A demonstration of power would be necessary. Halder understood that as well as Ryng and Voronov did. That was why he’d brought these leaders to the farmhouse on the outskirts of Dresden. Up to that day, he explained, very carefully organized covert forces, small and viable and supplied with the modern weapons that never completed the long trip back to the USSR, had been trained in small groups at his central training center outside Fürstenwalde. It had been an ideal place. The major rail line through Poland to the Soviet Union passed through Fürstenwalde. There was a small deserted airport with plenty of space to store the attack helicopters that might be needed. The location, halfway between Berlin and the Polish border, was perfect.
Covert operations, subtle, quiet, more devastating than massive power when properly employed, primarily by Halder’s Stasi special forces team, would likely be necessary, but that really wasn’t military in his mind.
Carl Halder’s people, men and women who’d been unaware of each other until that day, sensed that their efforts on behalf of Carl Halder would ensure them of a place in history. He’d thought of everything. It never occurred to them that Halder might be feeling pressure and was worried about the pace of events. They were also unaware of the phone conversations he would have later that day.
Adolph Geyer, the chief of intelligence for Germany’s GSG-9, had reacted noncommittally to the initial fax that day after the drug bust in Ijmuiden, Holland. He had great respect for the Royal Dutch Marines, especially Henryk Luden, and he rejoiced whenever another former Stasi was located. If his superiors ever realized that Geyer would have been pleased to wipe out every human being ever involved with the Stasi, he probably would have been relieved.
By the time the second fax came a couple of days ago from Luden, the Dutchman really had obtained his total attention. Karl Braun was what caught his eye. He was more than familiar with that name, if the investigators were certain that was the dead man’s real name. That was a Stasi name, one of their specialists in assassination. And Eva Werth had been one of the Stasi’s first-class bitches. The Stasi paid no attention to national borders, infiltrating his beloved Federal Republic of Germany as if they would annex it for their own. They’d murdered decent men and women as well as their own kind. They’d destroyed careers and reputations with facility. And now two of them were dead!
In a word, the Stasi epitomized everything that Adolph Geyer considered evil. It had come as a blessing when Henryk Luden brought Karl Braun and Eva Werth to his attention for he’d been increasingly sure as each day passed that the Stasi had not died with the GDR. Joseph Drobner’s corpse reinforced that and the name—Halder—that had escaped from General Raskova’s lips had convinced him.
Adolph Geyer came by his hatred of the Stasi honestly. Geyer had been fortunate to have a mentor in the German army, a senior officer who recognized potential in the young man. He was the one who had seen to it that Geyer received a commission, that he was assigned under the finest officers, and that he was transferred to GSG-9 when that unit was established. He was as much a father as a mentor to the young Geyer. An intelligence specialist, he was responsible for coming as close as any man to breaking the back of Stasi operations against the Federal Republic’s army. Adolph Geyer was the one who found his mentor, or what was left of his body, in the wreckage of his cottage—along with the torn bodies of the man’s wife and daughters. It was the only way the Stasi could silence him. The man rumored to have masterminded the bombing was named Karl Braun, the killer who worked for the hated Carl Halder.
Geyer eventually knew the Stasi as well as any man. He’d told anyone who would listen that they wouldn’t disappear just because the German Democratic Republic collapsed. Spying was an organic business that fed on itself, nourished its people, grew inwardly, continued to flourish like malignant cells. The Stasi could disappear on the surface, but he was sure it continued to subsist on another strata.
And now Henryk Luden had made them real again. Once that first fax appeared on his desk, Geyer had ordered a computer search of Stasi who remained unaccounted for. Even he was appalled at the number. German intelligence had located substantial evidence of familiar Stasi names in a number of European cities. In some cases, faces had been identified but the reports had never been passed up the ladder. And when Geyer, now wondering why he’d been so dense the past few months, asked for a compilation of violent deaths of officials in those cities, a familiar style emerged, a Stasi touch.
This morning, when he came into his office, he saw the glossy reflection of a photograph on his desk. It was full-size, eight-by-ten, an exceedingly clear black and white, and the face that stared back at him was Carl Halder’s. That was no ghost. He’d been seen—and now identified. Without a second thought, Geyer dialed Bernie Ryng’s private number in Prague. Carl Halder was very much alive and so much of what was now happening bore his signature. Kat Ellyson’s disappearance had everything to do with Carl Halder and what was taking place across Europe.
Sergei Markov knew innately what Tatyana Belov was. He didn’t care. She was everything that he desired but had always lacked in his life of power. His wife and children had been more than suitable for his career and his affection for them was immense. Yet when he was with Tatyana his lust was paramount. Family was subordinate. He would gladly have given up his position and everything that went with it to keep her. In return, this beautiful, sensuous woman was totally devoted to him. He could ask for nothing more in whatever time remained to him.
If Markov could have read Tatyana’s mind as they made love that evening in her immense bed, he would have been overcome with shock. She had actually contemplated taking his life and then killing herself. It would have been preferable to violating his trust and certainly better for her than what would happen if she failed to provide Arkady Malik with what he wanted. Yet after their first desperate coupling, consummated in a matter of moments, she knew that death wouldn’t be an immediate option, not that night anyway. The expression on his face, the words of devotion, the real tears that welled up as he held her face in his hands—the combination of emotions was simply too much for her. Tatyana Belov knew she was loved unquestioningly and she doubted such a compliment would ever come her way again. Could she save everything? Could she provide Arkady Malik the information he needed and still keep Sergei Markov?
She studied Markov as he lay back on the pillow and, instead of a jowly, balding, overweight man, she saw a sensitive human being desperately hoping to be all things to all people. Instead of success, he was faced with exactly the opposite, an unhappy fate for an individual who wanted to offer his nation for the world’s approval. He rarely discussed politics with her, but he’d intimated during weak moments that he was facing a bleak future. With many of his own people apparently turned against him, he’d made Tatyana the confessor who would absolve him of his errors and misjudgments. He said as much as he lay there still bright with perspiration, smiling up at her with complete trust. She couldn’t take the life of the man who’d elevated her to goddess. Perhaps later she’d be able to take herself out of the picture.
“Vodka, my love.” He inclined his head toward the bottle nestled in a cake of ice on the table at the foot of the bed. Pointing at his limp penis, he added, “He needs fuel. It used to be that he required nothing at all but now a little vodka makes him young again.”
He watched with amusement as Tatyana crawled seductively to the end of the bed on her hands and knees, glanced back over her shoulder fetchingly, then lifted two glasses from the ice and filled them. She returned on her knees, her breasts swinging from side to side, and paused to allow him to stare at her before she placed a glass in his hand.
Without taking his eyes from that magnificent body, he touched his glass to hers, took a tentative sip, then downed the remainder in a swallow. What a combination! A sense of renewed power seemed to course through his veins. With that woman and perfectly chilled vodka he could face whatever his enemies prepared for him. “You will see, my love, shortly I will be ready again. This time we will make real love, slowly and passionately.”
Tatyana stretched out on the bed resting her head on his thigh and gazed provocatively at him. “Every time we make love is real. Whether it is a minute or an hour, it is all beautiful to me. Relax. We have nothing to do but love each other.” She took his empty glass and refilled it, pausing often in the short trip to the end of the bed to let him stare at her from another angle. She was willing to do anything he desired and she’d found that at Markov’s age his state of mind had a great deal to do with his sexual ability.
Markov drank two more glasses of vodka. He said little during that time but she could see him visibly relaxing. When he reached for her again, she suggested that they take more time to renew themselves. It would be so much better if they didn’t rush. He let her bring a tray of hors d’oeuvres to the bed and they picked at it and drank some more.
“Today was a bad day, wasn’t it?” she began.
Markov sighed. “No worse than others.”
“I read about the problems in the papers, the riots, the lack of food, costs rising so rapidly. Is there anything that can be done to slow it all down? Is that what’s wearing you down so much?”
He placed a piece of smoked fish in his mouth, licked his fingers before wiping them on a napkin, then took a swallow of vodka to wash it down. “Perfect,” he sighed contentedly. “No, I don’t think that’s my worst problem. Such problems happen in almost every country around the world at one time or another, and solutions eventually appear. I think … no, I know disloyalty is … it’s breaking my heart …” He appeared to have more to say but a great sadness, an expression she would never forget, descended across his face. He looked at her with sad eyes before tossing off the remainder of the vodka. Finding his voice again, he said, “When a man no longer knows how many of his friends to trust, or why, that is when he …” He was unable to continue.
