The Valkyrie Project, page 10
7
Washington’s best restaurant, L’Auberge Chez François, was not in the city but in the rolling hunt country near Great Falls, some eight miles from CIA headquarters at Langley. Laidlaw and Mendelsohn waited there for Thorn, who was uncharacteristically late. The outside terrace had been closed for the season, but drinks were still being served at the benches set out on the inn’s parklike lawn. Laidlaw was having one of his long-stemmed martinis, happy with its perfection.
Mendelsohn sipped sickly sweet cream sherry. “Your journalist is in place,” he said, another question uttered as statement.
Laidlaw nodded absently, reluctant to interrupt his contemplation of a distant maple tree still in possession of most of its leaves. He associated Mendelsohn with the evil days at the agency and also considered him somewhat daft.
“And Karin Nielsen,” Mendelsohn said.
“Not ready.”
“She’s not ready?”
“I’m not ready to send her in yet. Iceland is a small place, and we’ve already cluttered it up quite a bit.”
Mendelsohn slowly exhaled. The smoke from his cigarette hung around his face like a shroud. “Can our mole identify Karin?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Laidlaw. “Have you?”
“I know our mole,” Mendelsohn said, grinning idiotically into his glass.
Laidlaw lifted his eyebrow.
“I know everything about him but his name,” Mendelsohn said. “He’s a cautious but clever fellow, completely in control. He has access to everything we have in Iceland. He’s far ahead of us on this and probably ahead of his Russian chums as well. I think I’ve the vague outlines of a profile. ‘Whatever is unknown is taken for marvelous; but now the limits of Britain are laid bare.’”
“What?” said Laidlaw.
“Tacitus,” said Mendelsohn. He leaned back to watch a curl of smoke rise slowly above his head.
“We need his name, Freddy,” said Laidlaw. “The Icelandic election is soon.”
“‘My heart hath followed all my days, something I cannot name,’” Mendelsohn said.
“Tacitus?”
“Don Marquis.”
“This mole is not Archie the cockroach,” said Laidlaw.
“He’s a professional,” said Mendelsohn. “For all his caution, quite elegantly ruthless. Sending Krog off to his sanctum and sending an assassin immediately after. That girl, Inga Gudrun. It’s established she wasn’t one of theirs.”
“Yes,” said Laidlaw, increasingly irritated with these statement-questions. “Clean.”
“Perhaps I’m wrong,” Mendelsohn said. “Perhaps friend Krog is a murderer. Perhaps he killed her before they got to him. Iceland can be like that.”
“Perhaps.”
Mendelsohn leaned forward and looked down at the grass, the idiotic grin creeping back onto his face.
“Poor Karin Nielsen,” he said.
Thorn was coming toward them across the lawn, hunched forward in his peculiar walk, a sort of rapid trudge. “I’ve got good news and bad news,” he said, dropping heavily onto the bench between them. Laidlaw winced.
“The good news comes from State,” he said. “The Brits have agreed to take a heap of Cruise missiles. The Krauts will go along, too. But not the Frogs.”
“The trouble with giving the French Cruise missiles,” said the grinning Mendelsohn, “is that they’d aim them across the Atlantic.”
Thorn paused to order a beer from the waitress, a plain woman with a charming smile.
“The bad news,” said Laidlaw.
“The bad news,” said Thorn. “The White House now wants us to lay off particle beams indefinitely.”
“Changing administrations changes nothing,” Mendelsohn said.
Thorn paused for an enormous swallow of beer, then set the iced mug on the leveled stump before them.
“Who’s doing us in?” asked Laidlaw finally. “The National Security Council?”
“Higher than that,” Thorn said, eyeing the departing waitress as a young sailor might. “The exalted national security advisor himself. These guys always resent any intelligence that isn’t their own—no matter what it says.”
Laidlaw finished his martini, wishing he had thought to order another one. He wanted to keep this conversation going. “Who’s fighting for us?” he asked. “The director?”
“Higher than that,” said Thorn. “The deputy.”
The post-Watergate upheaval in the agency had produced an anomaly: the effective bureaucratic power in the organization was wielded by the agency’s Number 2, with the directors functioning in many ways as figureheads, whether they knew it or not. In that respect, at least, the agency knew how to take care of itself. Helms doubtless understood. And approved.
“And?” said Laidlaw.
“I think he’s on our side,” Thorn said. “Anyway, he’ll try to keep us going until the Icelandic election. Which reminds me, there’s some more good news.”
“The Luxembourgers have agreed to take the Cruise missile,” said Mendelsohn.
Thorn frowned. “No,” he said. “It’s that there actually is someone in the White House who’s worried about the Icelandic election: The President’s political advisor thinks that, if the Communists win and we get kicked out of Keflavik, it’ll look like another Panama Canal and stir up the natives in Nebraska. That’ll help.”
“Thus does Omaha shape the world,” Mendelsohn mused.
“Knock it off,” said Thorn. He turned back to Laidlaw. “There’s some more bad news. The deputy is not happy about Spencer. He is in fact at ten on a scale of one to ten extremely unhappy.”
“But why?” said Mendelsohn. “What could possibly be wrong with an alcoholic Lothario with six months to live and no experience or training floundering about a little country awash with the KGB as a deep cover agent?”
Laidlaw wondered how Mendelsohn could get so tipsy on two sherries.
“It’s not that,” said Thorn.
“It’s the ‘no-journalist’ rule,” said Laidlaw.
“You got it,” said Thorn.
Established in the Ford administration, the “no-journalist” rule was another of the reforms foisted upon the agency after the humiliation of Watergate. It made no sense. Every intelligence service in the world used journalists for agents.
“I thought that rule could be bent,” Laidlaw said.
“It’s being bent,” said Thorn. “If it weren’t, my first words to you would have been to yank him. As long as this operation stays in house, Spencer stays. But if it gets out to the White House or congressional oversight, no journalists means no journalists.”
“Isn’t the deputy concerned about our mole?” Laidlaw said. “Isn’t he concerned about World War III?”
“He’s scared shitless about World War III,” Thorn said. “But we’re a bureaucracy, you know. Just another bureaucracy. We merely move a little faster than the others. Which reminds me, when do you want Karin? I can’t keep her cooling her buns in Oslo forever.”
“Not yet,” said Laidlaw. “Spencer’s just landed. She’s only backup.”
“I may have to agree with you differently, old buddy,” said Thorn, finishing his beer. “If Spencer has to be yanked, she’ll go in as our chief asset.”
“That wasn’t what I planned,” said Laidlaw.
“Poor Karin Nielsen,” said Mendelsohn, his grin now more melancholy than idiotic. “Such a pretty girl.”
Reykjavik’s government offices were all within walking distance of one another, but with the rotten weather that day Spencer was compelled to use taxicabs. Most Icelanders spoke Icelandic, one of the Scandinavian languages, and some English. One of Spencer’s taxi drivers that morning had proved a notable exception. He had been so dumbfounded by Spencer’s request to go to the foreign ministry that, after twenty minutes of forlorn and aimless driving, Spencer finally pointed out the window and shouted, “Ask!” With that, ignoring the pedestrians Spencer gestured to, the driver signaled his comprehension with a broad grin and roared off down the street at top speed, pulling up finally in front of a restaurant called “Askur.”
Thereafter Spencer walked, first tolerating the rain, then glad of it, and of the cold, fresh wind. In associating words with cities, Spencer chose “heat” for Washington, “noise” for New York, “old” for London, and “smells” for Saigon. Reykjavik’s word was “clean”—crystalline clean, clean streets, clean air. No wonder Iceland had the highest longevity rate in the world. He wondered whether such environmental purity had any beneficial effect on certain cardiovascular ailments.
There was another advantage to walking. He could more easily ascertain whether he was being followed.
On this particular day, he wanted very much to be followed, for these many interviews he had scheduled would amply establish his cover. He could only hope that last ridiculous cab ride hadn’t raised any suspicions.
As he started up the steps to the small foreign ministry, a sailor in a dark watch cap and pea jacket stepped from a doorway across the street and began walking quickly away. That morning, as he had gotten into a taxi at the Hotel Thor, Spencer had seen a similarly dressed sailor walking quickly away across Austurvollur Square. Seldom did sailors have such pressing appointments.
By morning’s end, Spencer had gathered enough data on Icelandic energy to write the article then and there—an article acceptable to the elite readers of Perspective. Icelanders were a serious people, and they took their statistics seriously. Spencer’s notebook was jammed with entries about megawattage and kilowattage, geothermal TCALs and brine aquifers.
The picture that emerged was compelling. The country’s hydroelectric power potential alone was estimated conservatively at thirty-five billion kilowatts, much of it from just two rivers in the south, the Thjorsa and the Hvita. And the geothermal resources were of the same awesome magnitude. Underground steam heated every building in Reykjavik and in nine other communities. Hydroelectric power accounted for nearly all the electricity used, including the enormous amounts consumed by the huge Icelandic Aluminum Company plant near Reykjavik, Iceland’s only heavy industry. If a means could be found to power fishing trawlers with electricity instead of oil, Iceland would have no problems.
The Icelanders could have more than that. They already had one of the highest standards of living in Europe, but they could be rich—as rich as the Saudis. Less than seven percent of these resources were currently being used. Ireland had climbed out of poverty by attracting foreign industry with a pool of cheap, skilled labor on the doorstep of Europe. Iceland could provide infinitely more than that—more than sixty billion kilowatts of cheap electrical power. Electricity could not be exported, but industry could be brought to it. That lone aluminum plant could be joined by dozens more, by all kinds of light manufacturing, chemical firms, assembly plants. Iceland was just seven hundred kilometers from the British Isles. In per capita terms, it could become an industrial colossus.
Icelanders would have to pay a price—in threats to cleanliness, beauty, and health. The Norse culture they had managed to preserve for more than a thousand years would be threatened by every foreign influence imaginable. It was a price no Icelander could bear paying. The construction of that one aluminum plant had caused a bitter controversy.
But the economy was out of control. The inflation rate had defied every government’s efforts to curb it and was now nearly sixty percent and was being driven relentlessly upward by the price of oil. Industrialization, new foreign exchange, could change that.
This was Spencer’s story, not the vaguely technical piece Laidlaw had suggested. It appealed to the newspaperman in Spencer, and also to the would-be spy. In researching it, he would have ample reason to travel throughout the country-power plants in the north, dams in the south, fishing villages in the east—examining every aspect of Icelandic life, talking to anyone he wished. Including the friends of Geir Krog.
Spencer had talked to seven people that busy morning. In between their statistical discourses on brine aquifers, he chattered, recounting his adventures on his last visit during the cod war, letting the conversation drift to the forthcoming election, to the terrible murder, to Krog.
Every one of them knew Krog by reputation. One, an engineer with the National Energy Authority, doubted that Krog was capable of such a brutal crime but added that Krog, like many Icelanders, fought a drinking problem. He also doubted that Krog had left the country, describing Krog as an intensely patriotic man who would want to resolve this matter within the terms of Icelandic justice. Others thought Krog had escaped on a fishing boat. Another thought he was dead. Yet another expected that Krog, a sailplane pilot, would steal an airplane and try to escape to Scotland.
None of them thought the murder would have any effect on the election, Krog’s high standing in the Workers’ and Farmers’ Party notwithstanding. One minister found the notion vastly amusing. “In an unsophisticated country like yours—that is, there are countries in which a personal tragedy of this sort might influence votes,” he said. “But Icelanders, we are a very serious people, very pragmatic about our politics. Murders have little to do with the inflation rate.” And then the man became very serious himself, returning the conversation to Russian oil imports. Icelanders were also very pragmatic about the Russians.
As Spencer remembered, the bar of the Hotel Thor was jammed at lunchtime. He paused there briefly, indulging himself with a double scotch for which he paid nearly nine dollars in Icelandic Kronur. There were no sailors in watch caps, no one particularly suspicious. Indeed, a number of the men at the bar looked at him with suspicion. No one, not even a Russian, could do that more darkly than an Icelander.
Sverrir Axelsson walked through the entrance of the Hotel Thor restaurant at the precise moment they had arranged to meet for lunch. Though Spencer’s age or older, he looked almost boyish—and quite scholarly, pale blue eyes behind thick, black-rimmed glasses. He was a columnist for Kvoldbladid, Iceland’s largest afternoon newspaper. They had met during the cod war, then again a year later at George Peterson’s house in Baltimore. Spencer’s articles were read by some two million people; Sverrir’s, by forty thousand. Yet Spencer had made a point of treating him as an equal, a true colleague. Sverrir appreciated that.
Nervous, Spencer had another double scotch. Axelsson, very careful about his drinking, contented himself with a beer. The faintest of frowns crossed his face at the size of Spencer’s drink. “Skal,” he said, lifting his own glass politely.
Sverrir listened as Spencer elaborately—perhaps too elaborately—explained the magazine assignment that had brought him to Iceland.
“You should have no problem finding people to help you,” Sverrir said. “All your articles on the cod war were reprinted here.”
“George Peterson told me about that,” Spencer said, glancing out the window at Austurvollur Square.
There was another sailor in a watch cap. How long would it take them to accept his cover?
“They made George a Knight of the Order of the Falcon for bringing you here,” Sverrir said. “There was some talk about one for you.”
Spencer grinned, reminding himself of how absurd Chesley would have found that. The Order of the Falcon. “What will you do next?” she would have asked. “Become a Shriner?”
“I was only doing my job,” he said.
“That was noted,” Sverrir said. “By so fervently championing our point of view, you were merely reporting the truth.” He smiled. “But it wasn’t that. The problem was that you are not Icelandic or Icelandic-American.”
“Not through my own choosing.”
“No, of course not. Which brings us to the real reason you’ve come here. This energy story is just a pretext, an artifice.”
“The real reason?” said Spencer, reaching for his drink.
“Iceland fascinates you. You’re going to become one of those Iceland addicts. We have quite a few.”
Spencer sipped slowly. “You’ve found me out,” he said. “The magazine piece gives me an all-expense-paid Icelandic vacation, and a small profit on top of that. But there’s a matter of professional interest to me besides that. This election. Can the Icelandic government really fall to the Communists?”
“‘Fall’ is too pejorative,” Sverrir said. “Ours is a healthy democracy. They’re given their chance, and this time they have a good one. The four other parties can claim no success with inflation.”
“The Communists have vowed to throw us out of Keflavik.”
“Yes.”
“Will they?”
“I think that’s negotiable,” Sverrir said. “But it could be negotiable with the Russians. If Erikisson wins and the Russians suddenly lower the price of the oil they sell us, I think your sailors will have to pack up their duffel bags.”
“What if we made a counteroffer?”
“It might be too late. Your State Department is always too late. They were almost too late in the cod war. That base is Iceland’s only strategic weapon. We will use it.”
The subject of Krog came up, but Sverrir was a professional newspaperman and questions would only alert him. Laidlaw had stressed repeatedly that Spencer was to take no one into his confidence. Spencer intended to violate that order, but not yet.
“I met a really attractive woman on the flight over,” Spencer said. “A stewardess. A friend of George and Sonja Peterson’s.”
“Elisabet Bjornsdottir.”
“You know her?”
“Everyone in Iceland knows Elisabet Bjornsdottir, or about her,” said Sverrir. “Some say she is our most beautiful woman. She is a stewardess only because she likes to travel. If we made movies in Iceland, she could be our leading—how do you say?—star? Even if she could not act.”
