“But a special man. I also told him that we believe the ex-STASI group is well financed, maintaining its bank in Switzerland. Did you know this?”
Lynch held his silence, but he was seething inside. McGarvey should have told him about his meeting with Marquand. But he had lied.
“What we didn’t know … or I should say suspect … is who has provided the bulk of their financing.” Marquand looked away. “In the old days we might have suspected the Soviet Union. Perhaps the PLO, they sometimes fund outside groups. But it was none of these.”
“No?” Lynch said.
Marquand turned back. “No,” he said. “Our sources in Switzerland tell us that the currency paid into those accounts was in the form of yen. Japanese money. Now, what do you think about that?”
Seventy-five yards away, a man dressed in a French police uniform stood at an open window on the second floor of the School of Mines main building. He’d followed Marquand from Action Service Headquarters off the Boulevard Mortier, and it was only by happenstance that he spotted Lynch seated alone on the park bench in time to get into position.
He’d put it together that Marquand had come here to meet with the American CIA chief of station, and he knew that whatever those two men had to say would be of extreme importance.
He had missed the opening chitchat, but not the meat of their conversation. Lowering the four-inch parabolic antenna, which he’d carried in a leather haversack, he watched as Lynch walked off.
Spranger would pay well for this information, especially because it was the worst of all news.
Chapter 19
The Director of Central Intelligence’s chauffeured Cadillac limousine headed down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House a few minutes before 9:30 a.m. As usual, Monday morning traffic was heavy, but the day promised to be beautiful.
Murphy was in a puzzled, almost pensive mood. For the first time in his long government service career he was running up against a situation for which he had no clear answers.
They could provide the President with the data-speculations, actually, because that’s all they really had to this point-but it would be up to him to make the decisions.
In the transition period between the Cold War and what the politicians were now starting to call the “new world order,” there was no predicting what could and would happen.
“Look at the war with Iraq and the subsequent fallout in the Gulf region,” he’d told a gathering of U.S. military intelligence chiefs at the Pentagon. “There was no way in which we as an intelligence-gathering service could have foreseen even in broad strokes what came to pass.
“We can provide the raw data. We can provide spot analysis. And we can even point out what we believe are the current trends. But when the leadership of a foreign power we’re monitoring doesn’t even know where it is going, there is no chance for us to provide any realtime recommendations.”
The unspoken crux of the situation, however, as all of them that day knew, was that their customers-the leaders who made use of the intelligence information they were provided-wanted the realtime advice.
As the President would today, he thought. Only this time there were no answers, not even any clear speculation.
Murphy’s limo was passed through the White House gate to the West Portico, where he was ushered immediately upstairs to the Oval Office, his bodyguard waiting downstairs.
It was precisely 9:30. The President rose when Murphy came in and went around to the serving cart. He poured two cups of coffee and handed one to his DCI.
“You know, whenever you come in here with that look on your face, Roland, I automatically brace for the worst,” the President said. He was a tall man whose face showed the strain of the office. But his eyes were penetratingly sharp, and he seldom if ever missed a beat. His staff had to keep up with his schedule, not the other way around.
“You haven’t had the messenger shot yet,” Murphy said, setting down his coffee cup.
He took a leather-covered folder from his briefcase and handed it to the President.
“This is the latest from Paris.”
“Have a seat,” the President said, putting down his coffee and sitting in his rocking chair. Murphy settled onto the leather couch across the coffee table.
“My chief of Paris Station met this morning with a colonel in the SDECE’s Action Service, and was given some information. What I would call startling information.”
“You’ve not pussyfooted before, General, don’t start now,” the President said, not yet opening the report. “Spell it out for me.”
“The terrorist attack on the Swissair flight out of Orly on Friday may have some deeper, more ominous significance than we first suspected. The French intelligence service has identified the attacker as a man by the name of Karl Boorsch. An officer in the old East German intelligence service. We have him in our files as missing, and presumed still at large somewhere in Europe.”
“You don’t think he went to the Soviet Union?”
“No, sir,” Murphy said. “But he wasn’t working alone. The French found a walkie-talkie of an unusually advanced design in the van Boorsch used to penetrate Orly security.”
“Go on.”
“We haven’t been able to figure out exactly how it works yet, but we know that it encrypts the signal, compresses it into an incredibly brief duration, and sends it out. Virtually undetectable by any equipment we currently have in the field.”
“Who built it?”
Murphy shook his head. “There are no manufacturing plates or marks anywhere on the device.”
“German?”
“Possibly. But it means that Boorsch had help.” “Which tends to verify the Swiss engineer’s story,” the President said.
“The French believe that an organization of ex-STASI members has been formed, presumably somewhere in Europe, perhaps even Switzerland, which tends to confirm the reports we’ve been hearing.”
“Just what we need.” The President shook his head and looked away for a moment. His presidency had been a successful one to date, but definitely anything but quiet.
Someone in the media had begun calling him “America’s crisis president,” and the moniker seemed to be catching on.
“Apparently they’re organized well enough to maintain at least two bank accounts; one in Zurich, and the other in Bern.”
“What do they think they’re trying to do? Retake East Germany? What’s their purpose?”
“It’s unknown at this point, Mr. President,” Murphy said, “Where are they getting their money? Who is supplying it?” “Also unknown,” Murphy said, girding himself.
“But the French Action Service officer told my Chief of Station that they had identified the currency in which payments had been made into at least one of the STASI organization’s accounts.”
The President’s left eyebrow rose. “Is this fact significant?” Murphy sighed. “Well, Mr. President, if it is, I think we’re in big trouble.”
“As I said, spell it out.”
“The payments were made in yen. Japanese yen.” “It’s a stable currency,” the President said. “I’m told that there’s a small but growing movement to suspend trade on the international marketplace in dollars. The yen might be the next logical choice.”
“Japan may be the country of origin for the payments into the STASI accounts.”
“Could also be a ploy to throw off the investigation.” “I don’t believe so, Mr. President, although it’s a possibility.” “Because, Roland, God help us if what I think you’re suggesting has even the slightest grain of truth.”
