Whether Miernik was or was not the agent sent out by our friends in Moscow to case-officer the ALF is, in reality, beside the point. We could not foresee that events would develop as they did, but in the end the Sudanese dealt with the ALF in a way that made Miernik’s presence irrelevant. There was some revulsion here over the methods used by the Sudanese army and police: all that killing really was unnecessary and counterproductive. The fact that Firecracker was killed out of cardessness was particularly hard to take. We felt that we owed him something better than that. The Sudanese not unnaturally decided to keep the whole affair quiet, so the idea we had for a really embarrassing exposure of Moscow’s hand in Africa went by the boards. Personally, I think this is just as well: the heroic death of the ALF martyrs was more likely to be an inspiration than a discouragement to other potential terrorists.
You may read the foregoing paragraph as confirmation of your belief that your own assignment was without value. Far from it: we wanted to cover all bets, and you covered Miernik in a style that few could equal. I believe we had the right man, did the right thing, and produced the right results. That’s all that matters. Forget Miernik and go on to something else. You have a brilliant professional future before you. Let’s get on with it.
I can understand why you want to avoid any further reporting on the people who were with you in Sudan. As Bill has already told you, we think you should drift out of these relationships as naturally as possible and as soon as possible for security reasons. We have some residual curiosity about Ilona Bentley. There’s no question that she fingered Miernik, although the results were not what she expected—and maybe not what the Russians expected, either. We taped a pretty hysterical encounter between her and her Soviet case officer, a fellow named Kutosov who operates out of Paris. She accused the Soviets of having murdered Miernik. Kutosov denied it, of course, and blamed it on the stupidity of natives. And on us. They’ve guessed that Firecracker belonged to us, and they naturally conclude that we put him up to the killing of Miernik. Bentley may even believe this, for all we know. As nearly as we can make out, the Soviets recruited her around 1957, promising special treatment and perhaps even release for a Hungarian she knew (knew in the biblical sense) in return for her cooperation. After she got involved, she grew to like the work for its own sake. Kutosov is still running her on a variety of low-grade operations, according to our cousins in London. We don’t imagine that she’ll hold up for very much longer, considering her emotional pattern and the fact that she’s thoroughly blown to half the services in the world.
If I were you, I’d abstain from any more quick tours of Czechoslovakia. The Czech officer commanding the area of the frontier where you crossed over with Zofia defected a couple of weeks ago. His superiors began to wonder where he was getting all his money. Among the things he told the debriefers was this: Sasha Kirnov was shot dead by the KGB man, Shigalov, in the woods behind you as you made your way across the frontier. There are any number of ingenious theories as to why this was done. The most probable one is that the Soviets thought Kirnov had been doubled. He was in contact with a third-country agent in Vienna named Heinz Tanner who had been co-opted by the British. And one of our people in South America had been seeing a lot of Kirnov socially, trying to set him up for defection or recruitment. Our fellow had no luck. Neither, in the end, did Sasha.
We hope to see you before much longer. Betty still wonders when you’ll find the right girl and has a whole platoon of prospective brides lined up in anticipation of your next visit to Washington. If I were you, I’d leave all that for old age. If I have anything to do with it, you’re going to be too busy for a family for a long time to come.
Best regards,
JACK
89. FROM THE DEBRIEFING OF ZOFIA MIERNIK.
The months have gone by, and now we never speak of what happened in Sudan. It’s curious how little difference Tadeusz’s absence makes. When Father died, there was a hole in the world. Tadeusz left no trace of himself. Perhaps I’m older and more used to things. One does get used to things, I’ve found.
I don’t even have a photograph of my brother. I suppose the only pictures of him in existence are in the files of the Polish police; even Tadeusz couldn’t escape their cameras. He used to say that the police alone can certify that one is alive, with their passports and identity cards. I can certify that he is dead. I have a witness in Paul Christopher, and I still have Tadeusz’s ashes in their urn. I keep them at the back of the closet. There seemed to be no point in burying them in some Swiss cemetery that I would never visit. This way I am obliged to think of him every time I open the door to take down a dress. Tadeusz doesn’t haunt me. God knows where his ghost has gone—back to the Polish woods where our mother was killed, perhaps.
The others tried for a while to keep up their friendship, but it didn’t work. In the old days they were held together by humor and good times. They all realized, after we came back from Sudan, that they’d have to look elsewhere for those things; they couldn’t give them to each other any longer.
Of all those who were involved, I think Ilona suffered most. She lost Nigel completely. What happened between them I don’t know. It was almost as if Nigel blamed Ilona for all that had happened. He was brutal toward her—if she came into a café to meet us, Nigel would simply get up from the table and leave. For weeks Ilona was absolutely haggard. She’d come to see me in the middle of the night, and then just sit in a chair with her eyes closed, saying nothing. She told me she had begun to dream of Belsen for the first time since her childhood. I see her sometimes in the city. She always has someone with her—she can’t be alone, and she’s lucky to have such looks so she doesn’t have to be without a man.
Nigel rings me up sometimes and takes me to dinner. He has been awfully kind. Once in a while I see Kalash, always with a different little female. He wears these girls like scarves—they flutter around his neck till his mood changes, and then he puts on another.
For a time I saw Paul constantly. When we got back to Geneva, it seemed natural to stay at his flat. I didn’t want to be alone, and I didn’t know anyone here. Even if I’d been a native genevoise I would have found a way to live with Paul. I love him. When we found my brother’s body in the desert, I took about fifteen minutes off to mourn Tadeusz. Then all I thought about or felt had to do with Paul. I could have sung, to be beside him under that awful sun, alive in that awful dead place with Tadeusz’s corpse behind us in the Land Rover.
While we were living together I tried to create an atmosphere of happiness. It lasted for forty-three days. Paul did his best, really he did. I bought cookbooks, and tended his clothes, and kept the flat neat because he hates clutter, and made him drinks at the end of the day. I really wasn’t very good at any of that, but he has a gentle way about him and I thought for a while that all those things didn’t matter so long as we had the other thing. As time went on, Paul became more and more quiet. I took his loss of gaiety for a sign of love.
Then, on a Saturday afternoon in September, I coaxed him into bed. It was a lovely day; we’d had lunch on the terrace and drunk a lot of wine in the sun. It was wonderful for me to be with Paul. I used to cry afterward, foolish with happiness. On this particular afternoon I noticed his body more than I usually did. For the first time I was aware of something I suppose had only registered on my subconscious all the other times. When pleasure runs through the body of a lover, you can feel it. I felt nothing like that in Paul.
I opened my eyes and saw his face above me. It was the first time we had done it in the daylight. In his eyes I saw the truth. I guess he had drunk too much wine or was too tired to save me from it. Paul did not like to make love to me. I waited until he went to sleep, and then I left. Paul never tried to find me.
So what I have is Sasha’s money and Tadeusz’s ashes, and the absolute conviction that I am going to live to be an old, old woman.
E N D
*This message was intercepted on 11 July in Buenos Aires in a routine chec
k on correspondence addressed to a box number known to be used by Sasha Kirnov. After Christopher delivered his report in Khartoum (6 July) a round-robin cable was sent to all stations in the world, instructing them to give priority to intercepted letters bearing Egyptian postmarks. Christopher provided certain other helpful details, e.g., that the envelope was addressed in green ink in a large hand. It is conceded that the interception of this message was more a matter of luck than of efficiency. Once it was in our hands, decoding presented no problem because we knew, as a result of our agents alert work, the title of the book used to write the code. Without this information, a book code is, of course, indecipherable.
*The sources referred to here are Christopher’s reporting, particularly his discovery that Miernik was communicating with a third person through use of a book code; the reports by a Polish agent that a Pole was being sent into Africa under Soviet control; and the account by the Czech frontier guards officer relating the peculiar circumstances surrounding the border crossing by Zofia Miernik. Other scraps of information, seemingly minor, also aided in fastening suspicion on Miernik. In regard to Bentley, her correspondence with Soviet letter-drops under a cover name and her meeting in Cairo with a Russian intelligence officer were sufficient to remove any but the most marginal doubts about her role. Miernik’s presence in Vienna, and in West Germany at the time of the cyanide murders in Munich and Berlin, was given some weight, but we regarded it as unlikely that he had been used as an assassin.
*”Do you know the country where the lemon trees bloom?” (Goethe)
*intercepted radio traffic contained no reference to Miernik or the route of the Cadillac. It is assumed that Ahmed mounted the attack on his own initiative, possibly with the idea of kidnapping Prince Kalash, possibly as a means of demonstrating to Miernik the ALF’s capacity to carry out independent operations. All indications are that Ahmed was a somewhat dashing figure, intelligent and courageous, but difficult to control.
*The chief of the American station in Khartoum.
Table of Contents
Cover
Series Page
Also by Charles McCarry
Author Page
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Halftitle
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89