Murder in the CIA Read online

  “I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out soon enough.”

  They ended the dinner with a toast to Collette’s new adventure, especially to London.

  At the time of Collette Cahill’s decision to join the Pickle Factory, as CIA employees routinely referred to the agency, Barrie Mayer was working at a low-level editorial job with The Washingtonian, D.C.’s leading “city” magazine. Her friend’s decision to make a dramatic move prompted action on her part. She quit the magazine and went to New York, where she stayed with friends until landing a job as assistant to the executive editor of a top book publisher. It was during that experience that she took an interest in the literary agent’s side of the publishing business, and accepted a job with a medium-size agency. This suited her perfectly. The pace was faster than at the publishing house, and she enjoyed wheeling and dealing on behalf of the agency’s clients. As it turned out, she was good at it.

  When the founder of the agency died, Mayer found herself running the show for three years until deciding to strike out on her own. She ruled out New York; too much competition. With an increasing number of authors coming out of Washington, she decided to open Barrie Mayer Associates there. It flourished from the beginning, especially as her roster of foreign authors grew along with an impressive list of Washington writers.

  Although their careers created a wide geographical distance between them, Barrie and Collette kept in touch through occasional postcards and letters, seldom giving much thought to whether they’d ever renew the friendship again in person.

  After three years at a CIA monitoring station in an abandoned BBC facility outside of London, where she took raw intercepts of broadcasts from Soviet bloc countries and turned them into concise, cogent reports for top brass, Cahill was asked to transfer to a Clandestine Services unit in the Hungarian division, operating under the cover of the U.S. Embassy in Budapest. She debated making the move; she loved England, and the contemplation of a long assignment inside an Eastern European Socialist state did not hold vast appeal.

  But there was the attraction of joining Clandestine Services, the CIA’s division responsible for espionage, the spy division. Although space technology, with its ability to peek into every crevice and corner of the earth from miles aloft, had diminished the need for agents, special needs still existed, and the glamour and intrigue perpetuated by writers of spy novels lived on.

  What had they said over and over during her training at headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and at the “Farm,” the handsome estate a two-hour drive south of Washington? “The CIA is not essentially, or wholly, an espionage organization. It has only a small section devoted to espionage, and agents are never used to gain information that can be obtained through other means.”

  Her instructor in the course “Management of the Espionage Operation” had quoted from British intelligence to get across the same point. “A good espionage operation is like a good marriage. Nothing unusual ever happens. It is, and should be, uneventful. It is never the basis of a good story.”

  Her cover assignment would be the embassy’s Industrial Trade Mission. Her real responsibility would be to function as a case officer, seeking out and developing useful members of Hungary’s political, industrial, and intelligence communities into agents for the United States, to “turn” them to our side. It would mean returning to Washington for months of intensive training, including a forty-four-week language course in Hungarian at the Foreign Service Institute.

  Should she take it? Her mother had been urging her to return home from England and to put her law training to the use for which it was intended. Cahill herself had been considering resigning from the Pickle Factory and returning home. The past few months in England had been boring, not socially but certainly on the job as her routine became predictable and humdrum.

  It was not an easy decision. She made it on a train from London after a weekend holiday of good theater, pub-crawling with friends she’d made from the Thames Broadcasting Network, and luxuriating in a full English tea at Brown’s.

  She’d take it.

  Once she’d decided, her spirits soared and she enthusiastically prepared for her return to Washington. She’d been instructed to discuss it with no one except cleared CIA personnel.

  “Not even my mother?”

  An easy, understanding smile from her boss. “Especially your mother.”

  “You will hear two things from Hungarians,” her language instructor at Washington’s Foreign Service Institute told the class the first day. “First, they will tell you that Hungary is a very small country. Second, they will tell you that the language is very difficult. Believe them. Both statements are true.”

  Friday.

  Cahill’s first week of language classes had ended, and she’d made plans to spend the weekend with her mother in Virginia. She stopped in the French Market in Georgetown to pick up her mother’s favorite pâté and cheese, and was waiting for her purchases to be added up when someone behind her said her name. She turned. “It can’t be,” she said, wide-eyed.

  “Sure is,” Barrie Mayer said.

  They embraced, stepped apart, and looked at each other, then hugged again.

  “What are you doing here?” Mayer asked.

  “Going to school. I’m being transferred and … it’s a long story. How are you? The agency’s doing well? How’s your …?”

  “Love life?” A hearty laugh from both. “That, too, is a long story. Where are you going now? Can we have a drink? Dinner? I’ve been meaning to …”

  “So have I. I’m going home for the weekend … I mean, where my mother lives. God, I can’t believe this, Barrie! You look sensational.”

  “So do you. Do you have to go right now?”

  “Well, I—let me call my mother and tell her I’ll be late.”

  “Go tomorrow morning, early. Stay with me tonight.”

  “Ah, Barrie, I can’t. She’s expecting me.”

  “At least a drink. My treat. I’m dying to talk to you. This is incredible, bumping into you. Please, just a drink. If you stay for dinner, I’ll even send you home by limo.”

  “Things are good, huh?”

  “Things are fantastic.”

  They went to the Georgetown Inn where Cahill ordered a gin and tonic, Mayer an old-fashioned. There was a frenetic attempt to bring each other up to date as quickly as possible, which resulted in little information actually being absorbed. Mayer realized it and said, “Let’s slow down. You first. You said you were here to take classes. What kind of classes? What for?”

  “For my job. I’m”—she looked down at the bar and said sheepishly—“I can’t really discuss it with … with anyone not officially involved with the Company.”

  Mayer adopted a grave expression. “Heavy spy stuff, huh?”

  Cahill laughed the comment away. “No, not at all, but you know how things are with us.”

  “Us?”

  “Don’t make me explain, Barrie. You know what I mean.”

  “I sure do.”

  “Do you?”

  Mayer sat back and played with a swizzle stick. She asked, “Are you leaving jolly old England?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “I’ll be … I’ve taken a job with the U.S. Embassy in Budapest.”

  “That’s wonderful. With the embassy? You’ve left the CIA?”

  “Well, I …”

  Mayer held up her hand. “No explanations needed. I read the papers.”

  What had been an exuberant beginning to the reunion deteriorated into an awkward silence. It was Cahill who broke it. She clutched Mayer’s arm and said, “Let’s get off the cloaks and daggers. Barrie, your turn. Tell me about your agency. Tell me about, well …”

  “My love life.” They giggled. “It’s stagnant, to be kind, although it has had its moments recently. The problem is that I’ve been spending more time on airplanes than anywhere else, which doesn’t contribute to stable relationships. Anyway, the agency is thriving and, coinc
identally, you and I will probably see more of each other in Budapest than we have for the past five years.”

  “Why?”

  She explained her recent success with foreign authors, including the Hungarian, Zoltán Réti. “I’ve been to Budapest six or eight times. I love it. It’s a marvelous city despite Big Red Brother looking over your shoulder.”

  “Another drink?”

  “Not for me. You?”

  “No. I really should be heading off.”

  “Call your mother.”

  “All right.”

  Cahill returned and said, “She’s such a sweetness. She said, ‘You spend time with your dear friend. Friends are important.’ ” She delivered the words with exaggerated gravity.

  “She sounds wonderful. So, what is it, dinner, stay over? You name it.”

  “Dinner, and the last train home.”

  They ended up at La Chaumière on M Street, where Mayer was given a welcome worthy of royalty. “I’ve been coming here for years,” she told Cahill as they were led to a choice table near the center fireplace. “The food is scrumptious and they have a sense of when to leave you alone. I’ve cut some of my better meals and deals here.”

  It turned into a long, leisurely, and progressively introspective evening, aided by a second bottle of wine. The need to bombard each other with detailed tales of their lives had passed, and the conversation slipped into a comfortable and quiet series of reflective thoughts, delivered from their armchairs.

  “Tell me more about Eric Edwards,” Cahill said.

  “What else is there to say? I was in the BVI meeting with an author who’d recently hit it big. Besides, never pass up a chance at the Caribbean. Anyway, he took me on a day cruise, and the charter captain was Eric. We hit it off right away, Collette, one of those instant fermentations, and I spent the week with him.”

  “Still on?”

  “Sort of. It’s hard with my travel schedule and his being down there, but it sure ain’t dead.”

  “That’s good.”

  “And …”

  Cahill looked across the candlelit table and smiled. “That’s right,” she said, “there was something you were dying to tell me.”

  “Eric Edwards isn’t enough?”

  “Only if you hadn’t hinted that there was something even bigger. Lay it on me, lady literary agent. That last train home isn’t far off.”

  Mayer glanced around the restaurant. Only two other tables were occupied, and they were far away. She put her elbows on the table and said, “I joined the team.”

  Cahill’s face was a blank.

  “I’m one of you.”

  It dawned on Cahill that her friend might be referring to the CIA but, because it didn’t make much sense—and because she had learned caution—she didn’t bring it up. Instead, she said, “Barrie, could you be a little more direct?”

  “Sure. I’m working for the Pickle Factory.” There was mirth in her voice as she said the words.

  “That’s … how?”

  “I’m a courier. Just part time, of course, but I’ve been doing it fairly regularly now for about a year.”

  “Why?” It was the only sensible question that came to Cahill at the moment.

  “Well, because I was asked to and … I like it, Collette, feel I’m doing something worthwhile.”

  “You’re being paid?”

  Mayer laughed. “Of course. What kind of an agent would I be if I didn’t negotiate a good deal for myself?”

  “You don’t need the money, do you?”

  “Of course not, but who ever has too much money? And, finally, some earnings off the books. Want more specifics?”

  “Yes and no. I’m fascinated, of course, but you really shouldn’t be talking about it.”

  “To you? You’re cleared.”

  “I know that, Barrie, but it’s still something you don’t chit-chat about over dinner and wine.”

  Mayer adopted a contrite expression. “You aren’t going to turn me in, are you?”

  Collette sighed and looked for a waiter. Once she’d gotten his attention, she said to Mayer, “Barrie, you have ruined my weekend. I’ll spend it wondering about the strange twists and turns my friend’s life has taken while I wasn’t around to protect her.”

  They stood outside the restaurant. It was a crisp and clear evening. The street had filled with the usual weekend crowds that gravitated to Georgetown, and that caused residents to wring their hands and to consider wringing necks, or selling their houses.

  “You’ll be back Monday?” Mayer asked.

  “Yup, but I’ll be spending most of my time out of town.”

  “At the Farm?”

  “Barrie!”

  “Well?”

  “I have some training to take. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Okay, but promise you’ll call the first moment you’re free. We have a lot more catching up to do.”

  They touched cheeks, and Collette flagged a cab. She spent the weekend at her mother’s house thinking about Barrie Mayer and the conversation at the restaurant. What she’d told her friend was true. She had spoiled her weekend, and she returned to Washington Monday morning anxious to get together again for another installment of Barrie Mayer’s “other life.”

  “This restaurant isn’t what it used to be,” Joe Breslin said as he finished his meal. “I remember when Gundel was …”

  “Joe, I’m going to London and Washington,” Cahill said.

  “Why?”

  “To find out what happened to Barrie. I just can’t sit here and let it slide, shrug and accept the death of a friend.”

  “Maybe you should do just that, Collette.”

  “Sit here?”

  “Yes. Maybe …”

  “Joe, I know exactly what you’re thinking, and if what you’re thinking bears any relationship to the truth, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “I don’t know anything about Barrie’s death, Collette, but I do know that she assumed a known risk once she got involved, no matter how part time it might have been. Things have heated up since Banana Quick. The stakes have gotten a lot bigger, and the players are more visible and vulnerable.” He added quickly, in a whisper, “The schedule’s been moved up. It’ll be sooner than planned.”

  “What are you saying, Joe, that this could have been a Soviet wet affair?” She’d used Russian intelligence slang for blood, for an assassination, which had been picked up by the intelligence community in general.

  “Could be.”

  “Or?”

  “Or … your guess. Remember, Collette, it might have been exactly what it was labeled by the British doctors, a coronary pure and simple.”

  A lump developed in Cahill’s throat and she touched away a tear that had started down her cheek. “Take me home, Joe, please. I’m suddenly very tired.”

  As they left Gundel, the Soviet intelligence officer at the table with three women waved to Collette and said, “Vsyevó kharóshevo, Madam Cahill.” He was drunk.

  “Good night to you, too, Colonel,” she responded.

  Breslin dropped her at her apartment on Huszti ut, on the more fashionable Buda side of the Danube. It was one of dozens of apartments the U.S. government had leased to house its embassy personnel, and although it was extremely small and three flights up, it was light and airy and featured a remodeled kitchen that was the best of all the kitchens her embassy friends had in their subsidized apartments. It also came with a telephone, something Hungarian citizens waited years for.

  A flashing red light indicated Cahill had two messages on her answering machine. She rewound the tape and heard a familiar voice, his English heavily laden with his Hungarian birthright. “Collette, it is Zoltán Réti. I am in London. I am shocked at what I have heard about Barrie. No, shocked is not the word to describe my feelings. I read about it in the paper here. I am attending a conference and will return to Budapest tomorrow. I am sorry for the loss of your good friend, and for my loss. It is a terrible thing. Goodbye.�
��

  Cahill stopped the machine before listening to the second message. London? Hadn’t Réti known Barrie was coming to Budapest? If he hadn’t—and if she knew he wouldn’t be here—she had to be on CIA business. But that broke precedent. She’d never traveled to Budapest without having him there as the reason for her visit which, in fact, was legitimate. He was a client. The fact that he happened to be Hungarian and lived in Budapest only made it more plausible and convenient to perform her second mission, carrying materials for the Central Intelligence Agency.

  She started the second message:

  “Collette Cahill, my name is Eric Edwards. We’ve never met, but Barrie and I were quite close, and she talked about you often. I just learned about what happened to her and felt I had to make contact with someone, anyone who was close to her and shares what I’m feeling at this moment. It seems impossible, doesn’t it, that she’s gone, like that, this beautiful and talented woman who …” There was a pause, and it sounded to Cahill as though he were trying to compose himself. “I hope you don’t mind this long and convoluted message but, as I said, I wanted to reach out and talk to her friend. She gave me your number a long time ago. I live in the British Virgin Islands but I wondered if …” The line went dead. He was cut off, and the machine made a series of beeping noises.

  His call set up another set of questions for her. Didn’t he know that she would know who he was, that he lived in the British Virgins, was a CIA operative there whose primary mission had to do with Hungary? Was he just being professional? Probably. She couldn’t fault that.

  She made herself a cup of tea, got into her nightgown, and climbed into bed, the tea on a small table beside her. She decided three things: She would request time off immediately to go to London and Washington; she would look up everyone who was close to Barrie and, at least, be able to vent her feelings; and she would, from that moment forward, accept the possibility that her friend Barrie Mayer had died prematurely of a heart attack, at least until there was something tangible to prove otherwise.

  She fell asleep crying silently after asking in a hoarse, low voice, “What happened, Barrie? What really happened?”

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