CAREY Jordan was in an exceptionally good mood. Such moods were brief in late 1986 because the Iran-Contra scandal was raging through Washington, and Jordan more than most others knew how deeply the CIA had been involved.
But he had just been summoned to the office of the director, William Casey, to receive the warmest plaudits. The cause of such unaccustomed benignity from the old director was the reception in the highest quarters of the news brought back from Yalta by Jason Monk.
In the very early eighties, the USSR instituted a series of highly aggressive policies against the West, its last desperate attempt to break the will of the NATO alliance by intimidation. Ronald Reagan was in the White House at the time and Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street. The two Western leaders decided they would not be browbeaten by threats.
President Andropov died, Chernenko came and went, Gorbachev came to power, but still the war of wills and industrial power went on.
Mikhail Gorbachev had become General Secretary of the party in March 1985. He was a dedicated Communist born and raised. The difference was that unlike his predecessors he was pragmatic and refused to accept the lies that they had swallowed. He insisted on knowing the real facts and figures of Soviet industry and the economy. When he saw them he was traumatized.
By the summer of 1986, deep in the heart of the Kremlin and the Defense Ministry, it was becoming clear that the military-industrial complex and the weapons procurement program were absorbing sixty percent of Soviet gross domestic product, an unsustainable figure. The people were at last becoming restive with their privations.
That summer a major examination was undertaken to see how long the Soviet Union could keep up the pace. The picture in the report could not have been blacker. Industrially, the capitalist West was outperforming the Russian dinosaur at every level. It was this report that Solomin brought on microfilm to the park bench at Yalta.
What it said, and what Solomin confirmed verbally, was that if the West could hang on for two more years, the Soviet economy would come apart at the seams,
and the Kremlin would have to concede and dismantle. As in a game of poker, the Siberian had just shown the West the Kremlin’s entire hand.
The news went right into the White House and across the Atlantic to Mrs. Thatcher. Both leaders, beset by internal hostility and doubt, took heart. Bill Casey was congratulated by the Oval Office and passed the plaudits on to Carey Jordan. He summoned Jason Monk to share his congratulations. At the end of their talk Jordan brought up a topic he had raised before.
“I have a real problem with those damn files of yours, Jason. You can’t just leave them sitting in your safe. If anything happened to you, we wouldn’t know where to begin to handle these two assets, Lysander and Orion. You have to log them with the others.”
It had been over a year since the first treachery of Aldrich Ames, and six months since the disaster of the missing agents had become apparent. The culprit was by then in Rome. Technically the mole hunt still plodded on, but the urgency had gone out of it.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” pleaded Monk. “These guys are putting their lives on the line. They know me and I know them. We trust each other. Let it be.”
Jordan had known before of the strange bond that could be forged between asset and handler. It was a relationship the agency officially frowned on for two reasons. The agent runner might have to be moved to a different post, or might retire or die. A too-personal relationship could mean the asset deep in the heart of Russia might decide he could not or would not go on with a new handler. Second, if anything happened to the asset, the agency man could become too depressed to retain his usefulness. In a long career an asset might have several handlers. Monk’s one-on-one bond with his two agents worried Jordan. It was ... irregular.
On the other hand, Monk was irregular, one of a kind. If Jordan had but known it, which he did not, Monk made a point of ensuring that each asset inside Moscow (Turkin had left Madrid and was back home, producing amazing material from the very heart of K Directorate of the FCD) received long personal letters from him, along with the usual tasking lists.
Jordan settled for a compromise. The files containing details of the men, where and how they were recruited, how they were “serviced,” their different postings—everything but their names and yet quite enough to identify them—would be transferred to the DDO’s own personal safe. If anyone wanted to get at them, he would have to go by the DDO himself and explain why. Monk settled for that and the transfer was made.
¯
INSPECTOR Novikov was right about one thing. Inspector Chernov did indeed reappear at the embassy. He came the next morning, August 5. Jock Macdonald asked him to be escorted to his office where he masqueraded as an attaché of the Chancery section.
“We think we may have found the man who broke into your colleague’s apartment,” said Chernov.
“My congratulations, Inspector.”
“Unfortunately, he is dead.”
“Ah, but you have a photograph?”
“I do. Of the body. Of the face. And ...” he tapped a canvas bag by his side, “I have the overcoat he was probably wearing.”
He placed a glossy print on Macdonald’s desk. It was fairly gruesome, but a close match to the crayon drawing.
“Let me summon Miss Stone and see if she can identify this unfortunate man.”
Celia Stone was escorted in by Fields, who remained. Macdonald warned her what she was about to see was not pretty, but he would be grateful for her advice. She glanced at the photo and put her hand over her mouth. Chernov took out the frayed ex-army greatcoat and held it up. Celia looked desperately at Macdonald and nodded.
“That’s him. That was the man who—”
“—you saw running out of your apartment. Of course. Clearly, thieves fall out, Inspector. I am sure it is the same the world over.”
Celia Stone was escorted out.
“Let me say on behalf of the British government, Inspector, that you have done a remarkable job. We may never know the man’s name, but it matters little now. The wretch is dead. Be assured the most favorable report will be received by the Commanding General of the Moscow militia,” Macdonald told the beaming Russian.