Deep Lie Read online

  “Sounds as though we’d better all take another look at Firsov/Majorov.”

  Rule sat back in her chair. “We’ll have to find him, first. He’s disappeared.”

  “When?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly. I’ve crawled through everything I could find on Majorov, and there isn’t much. There was apparently a Majorov in Lenin’s Cheka, under Dzerzhinsky, right after the revolution, but he seems a bit old to be our boy’s father. He was a minor figure, but he progressed under Stalin and Beria.”

  “How’d he do in the purges?”

  “The story is that Stalin shot him, personally.”

  “Oh.”

  “We got anything on Firsov before London?”

  “Only a rumor that he was personally close to Andropov.”

  “And nothing else on Majorov?”

  “All we know about Majorov is what I’ve told you—a deputy director at Moscow Center, and what we know about him as Firsov. Of course, now that we know the two are one, we have a better shot at him. I’d like for all sections to turn up what they can on either name, especially personal reminiscences.”

  There was a murmur of assent around the table.

  “What’s baffling about him at the moment, is that we know he was a deputy of Andropov, and from what we can gather, the heir apparent. The question is, why didn’t he inherit? Why isn’t he head of the KGB now?”

  There was a thoughtful silence in the room. Harry said, “Kate, I expect you have a theory.”

  She nodded. “I think he got something better.”

  “When you’ve been in the KGB probably all your adult life, what’s better than head of the KGB?”

  Rule shook her head. “I don’t know, but I think if we can find out, we might be onto something very interesting indeed. This man is a survivor; he’s run rings around us for more than twenty years; indeed, we hardly knew he was alive. I want to know what he’s up to now. It can’t be anything good, can it?”

  “You say he was wearing a navy uniform at Andropov’s funeral?”

  “Yes, and as far as we know, he’s never had anything to do with the navy. He wasn’t prominently seated, either, although he was personally very close to Andropov. I think he went to ground for some very good reason after Andropov became chairman and only emerged for the funeral out of respect. Then, poof! He’s gone again.”

  “Well,” Harry said, I guess we’d better put the word out to all sections.”

  “Yes,” Rule replied, “But do it under the name of Firsov, not Majorov. Let’s not take any chances on a leak that we’ve made the connection when we’re dealing with other services, especially the British. Since he was at Munich in ‘seventy-two, we might drop a casual hint to the Israelis that he had something to do with the terrorists; that would get a rise out of them, and with their dissident network in the Soviet Union, they might get a line on him that much faster. In fact, I think we might even tell the Israelis he’s Majorov.”

  “No Soviet moles in the Israeli service,” somebody said.

  “One more thing,” said Rule. “It’s sort of a long shot, and I know I can’t ask you to do it officially, but why don’t we put out a general query on exotic cars anywhere in the Soviet Union? Any agent claps an eye on a Porsche or a Ferarri or anything out of the ordinary sends in the number plate and the location, pronto.”

  Another murmur of agreement.

  “Anybody else?” the moderator asked. There was no reply. “Okay, let’s find Majorov.”

  4

  RULE sat and watched her boss sweat. The huge Senate hearing room was far too large for the dozen or so people involved in the closed hearings, but it had been the only thing available. Alan Nixon looked particularly small in the setting, and Rule was rather enjoying watching him twitch. Nixon, as Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI), was in charge of a significant portion of the CIA’s resources: research and analysis, scientific and weapons research, imagery analysis, central reference, and a great deal more. What was more, he also did most of the talking, especially to Congress, for the directorates of Administration and Science and Technology. He was a decent administrator, good on his feet, and an outstanding politician, but a man with only the most superficial grasp of the techniques practiced under him and the analysis passed up the line to other departments and his superiors. Rule thought of him as a librarian, who could supply a reader with a book on any subject, but hadn’t a clue about the meaning of any of the books; whose knowledge of his library ended with the Dewey Decimal System. In these hearings, he would be very good on a question about why the CIA subscribed to every periodical in the world and nearly helpless to explain why it took the New Yorker.

  Rule watched as Will Lee, an assistant to Senator Carr, Democrat of Georgia, surreptitiously slid a paper across the table to Carr, who was Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The senator glanced at the paper and nodded. “Mr. Nixon,” he said, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose—a certain sign of trouble—”I’ve got a little computer over in my office, can do just about anything. My people type on it, they do some accounting on it, they send out letters to thousands of people on it, why, they do just about anything you can think of on it.”

  Before he had finished his first sentence, Rule had opened a file and begun to search rapidly though it.

  “And that thing cost less than three thousand dollars,” Senator Carr continued. “Why, every day, you pick up a newspaper and read how computers are getting cheaper, how machines that used to fill up a room can now fit right in your pocket and cost next to nothing.”

  Rule slid a sheet of paper filled with large typing toward Nixon, who passed a handkerchief over his face, then started speed reading.

  “Now, with all that going on,” the senator said, “why does the Central Intelligence Agency want to spend …” he glanced down, “… nineteen million dollars on computer update—not a whole, new computer, mind you, but just an update.”

  It was one of Alan Nixon’s chief talents that he could read a sheet of paper at a glance, then recite its contents nearly verbatim. He wouldn’t remember it for very long, but long enough to recite it. “First of all, Senator,” he began, “that figure includes not just hardware, but a complete reworking of the computer’s operating system, which is already the most powerful and most secure in existence. That will give us a whole new range of capabilities absolutely essential in the middle of a computer revolution. It will, for instance, be able to emulate any other known operating system of any other computer, including Soviet ones, read any disk, tape, or cartridge drive from any other computer, and give us new communication facilities that were, until now, purely science fiction, taking us right into the next century. Senator, this update is an investment in the future of United States intelligence gathering and analysis…” Nixon marched on, listing the other, soundly based reasons gathered in the answer Rule had prepared for him.

  Rule glanced at the assistant, Lee. He made as if to scratch an eyebrow and, in so doing, tossed her a tiny salute. She tried to look as smug as possible.

  Later, as she made her way from the committee room, Lee fell in step with her. “Nicely anticipated, Mrs. Rule,” he said.”

  She smiled sympathetically at him. “Easily anticipated, Mr. Lee.”

  He winced. “Ouch.” He glanced about to be sure they were out of earshot of the others. “How about some dinner tonight?”

  Rule stopped and turned toward him. “Mr. Lee, you shock me. You know as well as I that there would be a clear conflict of interest in my seeing you socially—not that I would be interested, in any event.”

  “I’ve got some sweetbreads and some morels, and I’ve dug up two bottles of Krug sixty-six.”

  “Really, Mr. Lee, do you think you can tempt me into an illicit relationship with delicacies?”

  “You betcha.”

  “What time?”

  “Seven-thirty?”

  “Make it eight; I’ve got some work to clea
r up.”

  It was nearly eight when Rule got home, and the phone was ringing. She raced down the hall to get it before the answering machine picked up. “Hello.”

  “Katharine?” Only one person could drawl her name in quite that way.

  “Hello, Simon,” she said impatiently, kicking off her shoes and starting to work on her buttons. “I’m just going out; is it important? Is Peter all right?”

  “Oh, yes, he’s just fine. He’s out back; we’re barbecuing.” Simon took a deep breath. “Actually, it’s Peter I’m calling about. Missy and I have been invited up to her folks’ place, in Maine, for a couple of weeks, and I was wondering if … “

  “Hold it right there, Simon,” Rule said, in her lowest, hardest voice. “If you go, Peter goes; that’s our deal.”

  “Well,” Simon sputtered, “I didn’t think you’d take that attitude; I even thought, however foolishly, that you might like to see your son for a couple of weeks in the summer, but I can see I’ve overestimated your motherly instincts.”

  “Don’t try that hard-hearted-Hannah shit on me, Simon.” She liked using bad language with him; it annoyed him so. “You’re his father; try being fatherly for a change. I mean, Jesus, he’s only been there for ten days, and already you’re trying to unload him.”

  “I’m not trying to do any such thing, Katharine; it’s just that Peter and Missy sometimes …”

  “Don’t try and lay it off on your wife, either. I know that Missy and Peter get along just great. It’s you and Peter who have a hard time—or rather just you. That boy is the most eager-to-please child I’ve even seen; he’d walk over hot coals to get your approval, but you’re so goddamned up-Eastern standoffish.”

  “Now, don’t start that again, Katharine; I was just thinking of the boy.”

  “Sure you were, Simon; you wanted him stuck in the hell of Washington in the summertime, in some day-camp, which is where you know I’d have to put him while I’m working …”

  “So why don’t you just stop working and live on the alimony and raise your son the way you should?”

  “Because, as I’ve told you a hundred times, I don’t want your fucking alimony; I’ve got the house and the child support, and that’s all I need until you get him into Yale and start taking him to your tailor and buying him cars and all that. Until then, I can afford him. In the meantime, Simon, why don’t you try to get to know your son? He really is a remarkably bright and charming boy, and if you’ll just spend some time with him, you might even find you like him.”

  “I take it, then, you decline to take Peter for the two weeks.”

  “I decline to deprive his father of a much-needed experience in human relationships.”

  “Goodbye, Katharine.”

  “Tell Peter I love him,” she replied, but he had already hung up. “SHIT!” she shouted as she padded up the stairs in her stocking feet, pulling at her clothes. She threw her suit at the closet, stripped off her underwear and tights, grabbed a plastic cap, and leapt into a shower. Ten minutes later, refreshed and clad in faded cotton slacks, kid loafers, and a tennis shirt, she let herself out of the house, then stopped. She ran back upstairs, took the Majorov photographs from her briefcase, and stuck them into her purse. It was worth a try.

  She walked briskly down the leafy, Georgetown street, swinging her bag and taking deep breaths, looking forward to her evening. The heat still rose from the pavement, but the worst was over, for the day, thank God; she hated heat. A man leaning against a tree on the other side of the street started to walk in the same direction, but more slowly, falling behind. She glanced at him: in his forties, short; chunky, blunt features; thick dark hair, black-rimmed glasses; tan poplin suit. It had been a long time, but once you’d had the agency’s surveillance-technique training, you were doomed to a lifetime of looking over your shoulder and remembering the details of people you’d never see again. She tried to think of it as practice, a game.

  A block and a half down the street, she ran up the steps of a Federal house much like her own, tapped the bell, and let herself in with her key. “Halloo!” she called, congratulating herself on not peeking from behind the curtains to see where the man had gone.

  “Kitchen!” he yelled back, and she could hear the sounds of jazz mixing with that of a carbon-steel knife striking rock maple as she walked through the living and dining rooms to the kitchen, at the back of the house.

  “Mmmm, onions,” she said, walking toward him. There was an old Miles Davis album on the stereo.

  “Onions, my ass,” he said, switching the knife to his left hand and snaking his right around her waist. “Shallots.” He kissed her. “You get onions with hamburgers, not sweetbreads.” He kissed her again, dropping the knife and putting both arms around her. “I like it when you don’t wear a bra,” he said.

  “I know you do,” she replied, “and I thought you deserved a treat after tossing old Nixon such an easy one today.” She liked having him wrapped around her, but if she wasn’t careful, things would get out of hand, and she knew there was a good dinner in store. “What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?”

  “Nothing,” he said, going to the refrigerator. “You get the drink now, then you do it later.” He pulled a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator and began opening it. “How was your day?”

  “Oh, it would have been all right, but Simon was on the phone the minute I got home. I think he saw me leaving the office and timed me.”

  “Hazards of marrying a guy at the office. Nothing serious, I hope. Peter all right?”

  “Oh, sure. His dad was just trying to unload him so that he could go away for a nice, cool couple of weeks in Bar Harbor and try to impress his new in-laws. They’re loaded, you know, and getting old. Simon was always one for looking to the future.”

  “I should have thought that Peter would charm the socks off the old folks.”

  “Oh, he would. Simon just isn’t smart enough to figure that out.”

  “Listen, if Simon is that much of a jerk, why did you marry him?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was young and stupid, I guess. He was a lot older, very smooth.” She shrugged. “He was station head in Rome, and it was my first assignment out of the country. All very romantic, you know, two American intelligence agents, holding hands and wading in the Trevi Fountain at two in the morning. La Dolce Vita Espione. It wasn’t until I got pregnant that he wanted to get married. Then he came over all traditional; his Eastern establishment blue blood began to flow. He expected me to quit work, serve on the symphony board, and give a lot of dinner parties. You wouldn’t believe the number of cookbooks I was given. For my first birthday after Peter was born, I got a course at Cordon Bleu in Paris. He actually thought I’d leave the job for that.”

  “I’d leave my job for that,” Will laughed.

  “You would, wouldn’t you?” It occurred to her that if she’d been cooking dinner it would have been pork chops and hearty burgundy, not sweetbreads and champagne.

  Lee filled two Champagne flutes with the wine. “Cheers,” he said, clinking her glass.

  “Wow,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the bubbles. “Where’d you get your hands on this?”

  “The senator. I was afraid to ask where he got it; might’ve been from some defense contractor’s lobbyist.”

  “It’s wonderful. I love old champagne.” She raised her glass. “To national defense.”

  “Well, it employs both of us, I guess. You sure did your part today in soaking up a few bucks for the effort.”

  “Listen, we need that computer—say, that reminds me.” She took the Majorov photographs from her purse. “You ever run across this face in your sailing circles? Cowes Week, and that sort of thing?”

  Lee took the photographs and went carefully through them. “Who is he? One of your spooks?”

  “One of their spooks, name of Firsov. He’d be older by twelve or fifteen years, now, maybe graying, heavier. Talks teddibly British; sometimes plays at being a Po
lish count.”

  “What’s the sailing connection?”

  “He sailed in Stars for the Soviets in the ‘seventy-two Olympics. He was based in London for a while, and a report says he sailed at Cowes.”

  Lee shook his head. “I don’t know him. I was only in Cowes once before ‘seventy-two, then at Cowes Week in ‘seventy-nine and ‘eighty-one—Admirals Cup years. The Soviets don’t do that sort of sailing; neither does any of the Eastern Bloc countries, so it’s unlikely I’d run across him at any of the regattas I hit. Bad guy?”

  “He’s KGB; is there any other kind?”

  “What’s he up to?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know. One of the things my people do is keep track of their people, update their biographies, and for somebody who’s as important as he may be, he’s been out of sight for too long. It’s just a hunch, but I figure that whatever he’s up to is something we’d give our gold fillings to know about.”

  “Interesting work,” he said. “You love it, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “I was annoyed, at first, when I had to give up covert work and come back to Langley, but to tell you the truth, although I was one of the few women trained for field work, I discovered pretty quickly that they weren’t going to let me do very much of it. I wasn’t much more than a clerk on the Rome assignment, and then, when I married Simon and he got promoted, Langley was the only real option. It’s worked out really well, too; I have a much better overview of operations than I would have in some embassy somewhere, and I don’t have to look under my car before I start it. Besides, I like the variety—one day I’m besting you in hearings, the next I’m hunting down guys like Majorov.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh … well, that’s Firsovs real name. I really shouldn’t have mentioned that; I’m talking too much.