Murder in the CIA Read online

  She went behind the church, stopped, looked around, saw no one. Maybe he wouldn’t show. Podgorsky had raised that possibility. “More times than not they get cold feet,” he’d told her. “Or maybe he’s been made. He’s put his neck way out on a limb even talking to you, Collette, and you may have seen the last of him.”

  She had mixed emotions. She hoped he wouldn’t show up. She hoped he would. After all, that’s what her new job with the CIA in Budapest was all about, to find just such a person and to turn him into a successful and productive counterspy against his own superiors. That it had happened so fast, so easily, was unlikely, was … “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans,” her father had always said.

  “Miss Cahill.”

  His voice shocked her. Although she was expecting him, she was not ready for his voice, any voice. She gasped, afraid to turn.

  Hegedüs came out of the shadows of the church and stood behind her. She slowly turned. “Mr. Hegedüs,” she said in a shaky voice. “You’re here.”

  “Igen, I am here, and so are you.”

  “Yes, I …”

  “I will be brief. For reasons of my own I wish to help you and your country. I wish to help Hungary, my country, rid itself of our most recent conquerors.”

  “What sort of help?”

  “Information. I understand you are always in need of information.”

  “That’s true,” she said. “You realize the risk you take?”

  “Of course. I have thought about this for a very long time.”

  “And what do you want in return? Money?”

  “Yes, but that is not my only motivation.”

  “We’ll have to talk about money. I don’t have the authority to …” She wished she hadn’t said it. It was important that he put his complete trust in her. To suggest that he’d have to talk to others wasn’t professional.

  It didn’t seem to deter him. He looked up at the church tower and smiled. “This was a beautiful country, Miss Cahill. Now it is …” A deep sigh. “No matter. Here.” He pulled two sheets of paper from his raincoat pocket and thrust them at her. Instinctively, she reached for them, then withdrew her hand. His expression was one of puzzlement.

  “I don’t want anything from you now, Mr. Hegedüs. We’ll have to meet again. Is that acceptable to you?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Yes, you can reconsider your offer and withdraw it.”

  It was a rueful laugh. “Pilots reach a point in their flight that represents no return. Once they pass it, they are committed to continuing to their final destination—or crashing. It is the same with me.”

  Cahill pronounced slowly and in a clear voice the address of the safehouse that had been chosen. She told him the date and time: exactly one week from that night, at nine in the evening.

  “I shall be there, and I shall bring what I have here to that meeting.”

  “Good. Again, I must ask whether you understand the potential ramifications of what you’re doing?”

  “Miss Cahill, I am not a stupid man.”

  “No, I didn’t mean to suggest that.…”

  “I know you didn’t. You are not that kind of person. I could tell that the moment I met you, and that is why it was you I contacted.”

  “I appreciate that, Mr. Hegedüs, and I look forward to our next meeting. You have the address?”

  “Yes, I do. Viszontlátásra!” He disappeared into the shadows. Somehow, his simple “Goodbye” was inadequate for Collette.

  If the meet went smoothly, she was not to get into the Zim but return to her apartment by public transportation. A half hour after she’d arrived, there was a knock on the door. She opened it. It was Joe Breslin. “Hey, just in the neighborhood and thought I could buy you a drink.”

  She realized he was there as part of what had gone on at the church. She put on her coat and they went to an outdoor café, where he handed her a note that read, “Tell me what happened without mentioning names or getting specific. Use a metaphor—baseball, ballet, whatever.”

  She recounted the meeting with Hegedüs as Breslin lighted his pipe and used the match to incidentally ignite the small slip of paper he’d handed her. They both watched it turn to ash in an ashtray.

  When she was done, he looked at her, smiled his characteristic half-smile, touched her hand. “Excellent,” he said. “You look beat. These things don’t take a hell of a lot of time, but they drain you. So drain a hosszúlépés and I’ll take you home. If anyone’s tail is on us, they’ll think we’re having just another typical, torrid, capitalistic affair.”

  Her laugh caught, became almost a giggle. “After what I’ve been through, Joe, I think we should make it a fröccs.” Two parts wine to one part soda, the reverse of what he’d suggested.

  Now, two years later, she prepared for another meet with the Fisherman. How many had there been, fifteen, twenty, maybe more? It had gotten easier, of course. She and “her spy” had become good friends. It was supposed to end up that way, according to the handbook on handling agents-in-place. As Árpád Hegedüs’s case officer, Cahill was paid to think of everything that might compromise him, threaten him, anything that conceivably could jeopardize him and his mission. So many rules she had to remember and remind herself of whenever a situation came up.

  Rule One: The agent himself is more important than any given piece of information he might be able to deliver. Always consider the long haul, never the immediate gain.

  Rule Two: Never do anything to jog his conscience. Never ask for more than his conscience will allow him to deliver.

  Rule Three: Money. Small and steady. A change in basic lifestyle tips off the other side. Make him come to depend upon it. No bonuses for delivering an especially important piece of information, no matter how risky it was to obtain. Among other reasons, don’t reveal how important any one piece of information might be.

  Rule Four: Be alert to his moods and personal habits. Be his friend. Hear him out. Counsel when it’s appropriate, hear his confessions, help him stay out of trouble.

  Rule Five: Don’t lose him.

  This meet had been arranged like all the others. When Hegedüs had something to pass on, he left a red thumbtack in a utility pole around the corner from his home. The pole was checked each day by a Hungarian postman who’d been on the CIA payroll for years. If the tack was there, he called a special number at the American Embassy within ten minutes. The person answering the phone said, “International Wildlife Committee,” to which the postman would respond, “I was thinking of going fishing this weekend and wondered about conditions.” He would then abruptly hang up. The person who’d taken the call would inform either Stan Podgorsky, Collette Cahill, or the station’s technical coordinator and second-in-command, Harold “Red” Sutherland, a hulk of a man with sparse red hair, feet that had broken down years ago beneath his weight, and who was fond of red suspenders and railroad handkerchiefs. Red was an electronics genius, responsible for video and audio eavesdropping for the Budapest station, including an elaborate recording operation in the safehouse where Cahill and Hegedüs met.

  It was understood that a meet would take place exactly one week from the day the tack was found, at a predetermined time and place. Cahill had informed Hegedüs at their last get-together of the change in safehouses, which was acceptable to him.

  Cahill arrived an hour before Hegedüs. The recording and photographic equipment was tested, and Cahill went over a set of notes she and others at the station had developed. Hegedüs’s desk officer back at Langley, Virginia, had transmitted a series of “RQMs,” intelligence requirements, that they wanted met from this most recent meet. They all involved the operation known as Banana Quick. Primarily, they needed to know how much the Soviets knew about it. Cahill had given the requirement to Hegedüs at their last meeting and he’d promised to come up with whatever he could.

  When Árpád Hegedüs walked into the room, he chuckled. A table was set with his favorite foods, which had been bro
ught in that afternoon—libamáj, goose liver; rántott gombafejek, champignon mushroom caps that had been fried in the kitchen by Red Sutherland shortly before Hegedüs’s arrival; a plate of cheeses, Pálpusztai, Márványsajt, and a special Hungarian cream cheese with paprika and caraway seeds known as körözött. For dessert there was a heaping platter of somlói galuska, small pieces of sponge cake covered with chocolate and whipped cream—they were a passion for Hegedüs. Everything would be washed down with bourbon. He’d been served vodka early in the game, but one night he expressed a preference for American bourbon and Red Sutherland arranged for Langley to ship in a case of Blanton’s, the brand Sutherland, a dedicated bourbon drinker, claimed was the best. An hour-long meeting on the subject of which bourbon to sneak into Hungary had been held behind embassy closed doors and, as often happened, it became a project with a name—“Project Abe,” referring to Abraham Lincoln’s pre-political career as a bourbon distiller.

  “You look well, Árpád,” Cahill said.

  He smiled. “Not nearly as good as you, Collette. You’re wearing my favorite outfit.” She’d forgotten that at a previous meeting he’d complimented her on the blue and gray dress she had on again this night. She thanked him and motioned toward a small bar in the corner of the room. He went to it, rubbed his hands, and said, “Splendid. I look forward to these evenings for seeing Mr. Blanton almost as much as for seeing you.”

  “As long as I’m still the most important, the highest proof, you might say” she said. He seemed puzzled; she explained. He grinned and said, “Ah, yes, the proof. The proof is always important.” He poured himself a full glass and dropped an ice cube from a silver bucket into it, causing the amber liquid to spill over the sides. He apologized. Cahill ignored him and poured herself an orange juice, almost as rare in Budapest as bourbon.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  “Always,” he answered, his eyes lighting up as if there were candles on the table. He sat and filled a plate. Cahill took a few morsels and sat across from him.

  Hegedüs looked around the room, as though suddenly realizing he was in a new place. “I like the other house better,” he said.

  “It was time to change,” Cahill said. “Too long in one place makes everyone nervous.”

  “Except me.”

  “Except you. How are things?”

  “Good … bad.” He waved his pudgy hand over his plate. “This will be our last meeting.”

  Cahill’s heart tripped. “Why?” she asked.

  “At least for some time. They are talking of sending me to Moscow.”

  “What for?”

  “Who knows how the Russian mind works, what it’s for? My family packs now and will leave in three days.”

  “You won’t be with them?”

  “Not immediately. It had occurred to me that sending them has other meanings.” He answered her eyebrows. “It has been happening to others recently. The family is sent to Russia and the man stays behind expecting to join them but … well, he never does.” He devoured two of the mushrooms, washed them down with bourbon, put his elbows on the table, and leaned forward. “The Soviets become more paranoid every day here in Hungary.”

  “About what?”

  “About what? About security, about leaks to your people. Having the families in Russia is a way to control certain … how shall I say?… certain questionable individuals.”

  “Are you now considered ‘questionable’?”

  “I didn’t think so, but this move of my family and talk of moving me … Who knows? Do you mind?” He indicated his empty glass.

  “Of course not, but put the ice in first,” she said lightly. She’d been growing increasingly concerned about his drinking. Almost the entire bottle had been consumed last time, and he was quite drunk when he left.

  He returned to the table and sipped from his fresh drink. “I have news for you, Collette. What did you call your request last time—an RQM?”

  “Yes, a requirement. What is the news?”

  “They know more than your people perhaps realize.”

  “About Banana Quick?”

  “Yes. That island they’ve taken has been doing its job. The surveillance equipment on it is their best, and they’ve recruited native people who have been passing on information about your activities.”

  The Russians had leased the private island in the British Virgins from its owner, a multimillionaire British real estate developer who was told it was to be used as a rest-and-recreation area for tired, high-ranking Soviet bureaucrats. The U.S. State Department, upon learning of this and after hurried conferences with the CIA, approached him and asked that he reconsider. He wouldn’t. The deal went through and the Russians moved in.

  A further assessment was made then by State and Central Intelligence. Their conclusion: The Soviets could not move in enough sophisticated equipment and staff in time to effectively monitor Banana Quick, nor had they enough agents in place to build an effective corps of citizen-spies.

  “Can you be more specific?” Cahill asked.

  “Of course.” He pulled papers from his rumpled black suit jacket and handed them to her. She laid them flat on the table and started reading. When she was done with the first page, she looked up at him and allowed a tiny whistle to come through her lips. “They know a lot, don’t they?”

  “Yes. These dispatches arrived from the island outpost. It was all I felt I could safely take—and bring with me. I return them in the morning. However, I have seen many more and have done my best to commit them to memory. Shall I begin?”

  Cahill looked to the wall that concealed the cameras and recorders. Hegedüs knew they were there and often joked about them, but they remained shielded from his view, the sight of such instruments providing neither inspiration nor incentive. She prompted him to start before more of the bourbon disappeared and his memory with it.

  He talked, drank, ate, and recalled for three hours. Cahill focused on everything he said, making notes to herself despite knowing every word was being recorded. Transcripts seldom provide nuance. She pushed him for details, kept him going when he seemed ready to fade, complimented, cajoled, stroked, and encouraged.

  “Anything else?” she asked once he’d sat back, lighted a cigarette, and allowed a permanent smile of satisfaction to form on his thick lips.

  “No, I think that is all.” He suddenly raised his index finger and sat up. “No, I am wrong, there is more. The name of a man you know has come up.”

  “What man? I know him?”

  “Yes. The psychiatrist who is involved with your Company.”

  “You mean Tolker?” She was instantly furious at herself for mentioning the name. Maybe he didn’t mean him. If so, she’d given the name of a CIA-connected physician to the other side. It was a relief to hear him say, “Yes, that is the one. Dr. Jason Tolker.”

  “What about him?”

  “I’m not really sure, Collette, but his name was mentioned briefly in connection with one of the dispatches from our island listening post about Banana Quick.”

  “Was it positive? I mean, were they saying that …?”

  “They said nothing specific. It was the tone of the voices, the context in which it was said that led me to believe that Dr. Tolker might be … friendly.”

  “To you. To the Soviets.”

  “Yes.”

  Cahill had forgotten about Barrie during the session. Now her image filled the room. She wasn’t sure how to respond to what Hegedüs had said, so said nothing.

  “I am afraid I am becoming an expensive friend to you and your people, Collette. Look, the bourbon is all but finished.”

  She resisted mentioning that it always was, said instead, “There’s always more to replace it, Árpád. But not to replace you. Tell me, how are things with you personally?”

  “I shall miss my family but … perhaps this is the time to bring up what is on my mind.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I have been thinking, I have been feeling lately
that the time might be approaching for me to consider becoming one of you.”

  “You are. You know that.…” She observed him shaking his head. He was smiling.

  “You mean time to defect to our side?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know about that, Árpád. As I told you when that subject came up before, it isn’t something I deal with.”

  “But you said you would talk to those in charge about the possibility.”

  “Yes, I did.” She didn’t want to tell him that the discussion with Podgorsky and with two people from Langley had resulted in a flat denial. Their attitude was that Árpád Hegedüs was valuable to them as long as he remained ensconced in the Hungarian and Soviet hierarchy and could provide information from the inner councils. As a defector, he was useless. Of course, if it meant saving him in the event he’d been uncovered by his superiors, that would create a different scenario; but Cahill had been instructed in no uncertain terms that she was to do everything in her power to dissuade him from such a move, and to foster his continued services as an agent.

  “It was not met with enthusiasm, I take it,” he said.

  “It isn’t that, Árpád, it’s just that—”

  “That I am worth more where I am.”

  She drew a breath and fell back in her chair. It was naive of her to think he wouldn’t know exactly the reason without being told. He worked for an organization, the KGB, that played by the same rules, operated from the same set of needs and intelligence philosophies.

  “Don’t look worried, Collette. I do understand. And I intend to continue functioning as I have. But, if the need arises, it would be comforting to me and my family to know that the possibility was there.”

  “I appreciate your understanding, Árpád, and I shall bring it up with my people again.”

  “I am grateful. Well, what do you say, ‘One for the road’? I shall have one, and then the road, and then home.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  They sat in silence at the table and sipped from their drinks. His smile was gone; a sadness that pulled down the flesh of his face had replaced it.