“What are you going to do?”
“Moving down south. The government are setting up a radio surveillance place. State of the art computers and radios like you’ve never seen—me neither.”
“To do what?”
“Can’t really talk about it but you’d better warn your people, they’ll be monitoring everything that’s on the air. Not just in the States. All over the world.”
“And what will you be doing?”
“Maintenance, general dogsbody. Good money, pension, medical insurance—the lot.”
“How long before you close down here?”
“About four weeks. I’ll give you fair warning.”
“Is this new place FBI or CIA?”
“Don’t think it’s either.” He shrugged. “I could be wrong.”
Aarons nodded and held out his hand. “Hope it’s all you want it to be.”
“You got anything for me?”
Aarons hesitated for a moment and then took an envelope from his jacket pocket. “There’s the cash and a short message. It’s not urgent.”
Back at his apartment Aarons had encoded his report to Moscow and given it to Ivan to take down to the dentist in Brighton Beach who was a radio ham and had been his first operator. He still needed him for routine traffic to Toronto where it was passed on to Moscow. The news about Cowley and the new government radio surveillance set-up was bad news. He wondered vaguely if there was more to Cowley’s defection than he had said. But maybe it was the money and the pension. He had seen Cowley several times in the last three weeks and he hadn’t given a hint of his new plans and he must have been negotiating with them during that time. Had he been careless or had Cowley been working to somebody’s instructions?
Two days later he got orders from Moscow Centre to meet a contact at the house on Long Island.
He took a train from Penn Station and a bus to Garden City and walked the rest of the way. The area always reminded him of Paris. The long tree-lined boulevards and the grand houses. It was dark and the house itself was surrounded by tall trees. The wrought-iron gate swung open easily and he walked up the gravel pathway with lawns on each side to the glassed-in porch of the old house. There were lights on all over and the sound of a radio from an open window. As he reached for the bell the door opened.
It was Harris himself who opened the door. He was a tall, lanky man with heavy glasses that gave him an academic look. And he had once been an academic, at a university in Texas. But his appetite for teenage students had made him unemployable in teaching circles and he now earned a meagre living doing desk-research for commercial companies, including banks and sharebrokers. He earned rather more doing the same sort of work for Aarons.
Harris waved him towards the open door of the living room. “Hi,” he said, “the guy’s waiting for you. I’ll leave you to it. Give me a shout when you’ve finished.”
Aarons had been to the house several times before, and knew that Harris used the room for his work. The walls were lined with bookshelves and there was a large plain table piled with newspapers and magazines. And in a chair on the far side of the room was a man he recognised from one of the Kremlin meetings. At least he recognised his face but couldn’t remember his name.
The man stood up and held out his hand, smiling as he said, “It’s Yakov, Igor Yakov. We met in Moscow.”
Then Aarons noticed the uniform and Yakov laughed softly, “Don’t worry. It’s cabin crew uniform on Aeroflot. Moscow wanted me over here quickly.” He shrugged. “This was what your people worked out. I go back on duty tomorrow morning.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“Your report on your radio operator. The one who’s going to a new installation.”
“Let’s sit at the table.”
When they were seated Aarons said, “What’s the problem?”
“Moscow has had other reports on this new organisation. They think it’s going to be the most important US intelligence agency—more important than the CIA and the FBI. The reports indicate that it will be responsible for monitoring radio and telephone operations all over the world. There’s no doubt that it’s very high-technology.” He paused. “They want you to concentrate on this outfit. Money no object.”
“I don’t even know where it’s located. And I’ve no technical background.”
“No. But you’ve got your radio man.”
“He isn’t going to risk giving me top-secret information. He’s too keen on his job and a government pension.”
“Experience says that it’s always only a question of finding the price.”
“I don’t have funds that would stretch that far. I’d have to drop the rest of my operations.”
Yakov stood up, walked over to where he had been sitting, reached down beside the chair and picked up a worn black leather case. Walking back to the table, laying down the case and opening it, he drew out three large green envelopes and handed the top one to Aarons. The envelope was not sealed and he opened it, drawing out the contents carefully.
The first item was a letter between sheets of tissue paper and a description. It was a letter from Voltaire to Algarotti and the description gave its date as 1751. The second item was Stalin’s copy of Trotsky’s pamphlet on the rôle of trades unions. Signed by Stalin on the cover and annotated by him in pencil. A note said that this was the first time that a pamphlet belonging to Stalin had ever been on sale.
There was a letter signed by Leon Trotsky and written in English to an American Trotskyist named Dwight Macdonald. Then notes autographed by Stalin to Voroshilov were followed by a bundle of ten letters signed by Molotov to his sister. Finally there was an autographed postcard signed by Lenin to the Bolshevik Dr. Schklowsky in Berlin.
Aarons laid them all carefully aside and looked at Yakov.
“What are these
