happens, Lochart thought, and having made the decision, some of his concern left him. The main decision’s do we start the evacuation or not? To decide that, you have to decide how far to trust Nitchak Khan. Not very far at all.
Chapter 38
AT INNER INTELLIGENCE HQ: 6:42 P.M. It was barely twenty-three hours since Rakoczy had been captured, but he was already broken and babbling the third level - the truth. The first two levels were cover stories of partial truths rehearsed and rere-hearsed by all career agents until they were deeply embedded into the subconscious in the hope that these partial truths would deflect questioners from probing deeper, or make them believe they already had all the truth. Unfortunately for Rakoczy, his interrogators were expert and anxious to probe ever deeper. Their problem was to keep the torment from killing him first. His problem was how to die quickly.
When he had been caught yesterday evening, he had at once tried to get his teeth into the point of his collar where the poison vial was sewn - a trained reflex action. But his captors had forestalled him, held his head backward while they chloroformed him, then carefully stripped him, probed his mouth for a false tooth of poison and his anus for a capsule. He had expected beating and psychedelic drugs: “If they use those on you, Captain Mzytryk, you’re finished,” his teachers had said. “Nothing much to do but to try to die before giving secrets away. Better to die before they break you. Never forget we’ll avenge you. Our reach can span fifty years and we’ll get those who betrayed you.”
But he had not expected the level of agony to which they had taken him so fast, or the unspeakable things they had done to him, electrodes inside him, in his nose mouth stomach rectum, on his testicles and eyeballs - with drug injections to put him to sleep, to wake him up, minutes only between sleep wake sleep wake, disoriented, upside down, inside out.
“For Christ’s sake, Hashemi,” Robert Armstrong had said, sickened, long long ago in the beginning, “why don’t you just give him the truth drugs, you’ve got them, no need for all this shit.”
Colonel Hashemi Fazir had shrugged. “A little cruelty is good for the soul. By Allah, you’ve seen the files, you’ve seen what the KGB’s done to some of our citizens who weren’t even spies.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“We need his information quickly, by God. We need to reach the third level you’re always harping about. I’ve no time for your twisted ethics, Robert. If you don’t want to stay, leave.”
Armstrong had stayed. He had muffled his ears against the screams, loathing the brutality. No need for that, not nowadays, he had said to himself, knowing he would have died long since.
He watched the two men through the one-sided mirror as they worked Rakoczy over again in the small, well-equipped chamber, sorry for him in an oblique way - after all, Rakoczy was a professional like him, a brave man who had held out against them extraordinarily.
Abruptly the screams stopped and Rakoczy was again inert. Hashemi spoke into the mike that fed into the earphones of the man below. “Is he dead? I told you stupid sons of dogs to be careful!”
One of the two men was a doctor. The headset he wore cut out all sound except instructions from the interrogators. Irritably he lifted Rakoczy’s eyelids and peered at his eyes, then, with his stethoscope, listened to his heartbeat.
“He’s alive, Colonel. He’s … there’s still a way to go yet.” “Give him five minutes, then wake him up. And don’t kill him until I say so.” Angrily, Hashemi clicked off the mike and cursed the man. “Don’t want him dead when we’re so close to cleaning him out.” He glanced at Armstrong, eyes glittering. “He’s the best we’ve ever had, ever, eh? By God, Robert, he’s a gold mine.”
Rakoczy had babbled out his two covers long since and then his real name, KGB number, where he was educated, born, married, lived, his known superiors in Tbilisi, their involvement in Iran, the Tudeh, the mujhadin, how and where they supported the Kurdish independence movement, who his contacts were. “Who’s the top KGB Azerbaijani?”
“I… no more please … pleasestoppppp it’s Abdollah Khan of Tabriz … him, only him of importance and he… he was … is to to to be the first President when Azer… Azerbaijan be… becomes independent but now he’s too big and inde independent so… so now he’s a Section 16/a…”
“You’re not telling us all the truth - teach him a lesson!” “Oh I amlamlampleaseeeeee…”
Then reviving him and his babbling again, about Ibrahim Kyabi, Ibrahim’s father, the mullah Kowissi, who the Tudeh student leaders were, about his own wife, about his father and where he lived in Tbilisi, and about his grandfather who was in the tsar’s secret police before being a founding member of the Cheka, then OGPU, NKVD, and finally the KGB - founded in ‘54 by Khrushchev after Beria had been shot as a Western spy. “You believe Beria was a spy for us, Mzytryk?” “Yes … yes … yes he was, the KGB had proof oh yes … please stoppppp… please stopppppp I’ll tell you anythth-ingggggg…”
“How could they have proof to that lie?” “Yes it was a lie but we were to believe it we were… we had to had to had to… please stopppppp I begggggg you…”
“Stop hurting him, you devils.” Armstrong’s voice came in on cue. “No need to hurt him if he’s cooperating - how many times do I have to tell you! So long as he tells the truth don’t touch him. Give him a glass of water. Now, Mzytryk, tell us all you know about Gregor Suslev.”
“He’s … he’s a spy I think.”
“You’re not telling us the truth!” Hashemi roared at him, on cue. “Teach him a lesson!”
“No… no… noplease stopppppppppohGodplease stoppppp he’s he’s Petr Oleg Mzytryk my father my father… Suslev was his… his cover name in the in the Far East based out of Vlad … Vladivostok and and and another cover’s Brodnin… and and and he lives in in Tbilisi and he’s commissar and senior ad…
adviser Iranian affairs and con controller of Abdollah Abdollah Khan…”
“You’re lying again. How could you know such secrets? Teach him a les - ” “Please no I swearrrrrr I’m not lying I… read his secret dossier and I know it’s true… Brodnin was last and then he… Allah helppppp meeeeee…” Again he fainted again. Again they revived him.
“How does Abdollah Khan contact his controller?”
“He… my … they meet when whenever… some… sometimes at the… at the dacha sometimes at Tabriz…”
“Where in Tabriz?”
“At… at the Khan’s palace…”
“How do they arrange a meeting?”
“By code… coded telex from Tehran… from HQ…”
“What code?”
“The…G16…G16…”
“What’s Abdollah Khan’s code name?”
“Ivanovitch.”
“And his controller’s?” Armstrong was careful not to agitate the helpless man by reminding him he betrayed his father.
“Who were Brodnin’s contacts?”
“I… I don’t… I don’t rememb remember…”
“Help him remember!”
“Pleaseplease oh God oh Goddddddd wait let me think I can’t remember it was it was … wait he told me there were there were three… it was something like like like one of them was a color a color… wait, yes, Grey yes Grey that was it… and and an another was… and another was Broad something … Broad something… I think… you it was Man Broad something…” “Who else?” Armstrong asked, hiding his shock. “The third?” “I… I cant remem… no waitttttttt let me thinkkkk… there .vas there was anoth… told me there were he told me about… about four… one… one was… Ted… Ever… Ever something … Everly… and and another there were… if… I… pleaseeee if I think let me think and it was it was Peter… no Percy … Percy Smedley yes Smedey Tailler or Smidley…” The color left Armstrong’s face.
“… that was all that was all that he that he told me…” “Tell us all you know about Roger Crosse!”
No answer.
Through the mirror they saw the man writhing on the operating table, heaving against the wires as more pain was fed into him and, mixed with the moans, the words poured out again: “He he… stoppppppppppppp he was was head no assistant head of MI6 and almost our top English secret agent for for for… twenty or more years for us
