When he rang Cowley’s number it was answered immediately.
“Yeah.”
“Is that Jim Cowley?”
“It is.”
“I’d like to see you about a repair, how about tomorrow?”
There was silence for a moment then, “OK. I’ll be here.”
The message meant that he would be at Cowley’s place in an hour.
The windows of the shop had been boarded up and the door was locked. He rang the bell and a few minutes later it was unlocked and Cowley waved him inside, locking the door as Aarons stood by the counter in the shop. He followed Cowley into the workshop which was empty except for several stacks of magazines and service manuals.
Cowley leaned against the work-bench.
“Thought I’d seen the last of you, skipper. I’m off at the weekend. What can I do for you?”
“Can we talk about money?”
Cowley laughed and folded his arms across his chest as he leaned back against the wall. “I’ll always talk money, my friend, you know that.”
“Can I ask what you’ll be getting at your new job?”
Cowley grinned. “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”
Aarons shrugged. “Try me.”
Cowley spread out his hand, pointing to one finger after another as he spoke. “A guaranteed minimum of a hundred bucks a week. A hundred. Twenty-five a month rent assistance, unemployment and health insurance paid by them. Three weeks paid holidays and plenty of over-time at double rate in the first couple of years.” He smiled. “What d’you think of that, eh?”
“I’ll pay you the same.”
For a moment Cowley hesitated, then he said, “I’ve signed a contract and I’ve got a house down there on special terms. I couldn’t give up all that.”
“I’m not asking you to. I want you to take the job but I want you to go on working for me as well.”
“I’m not allowed to own a transmitter or a transceiver, not even as a hobby. They’ve cancelled my amateur licence. I don’t even have a call-sign anymore.”
“That doesn’t matter. I want you for other things. Just information.” He paused. “Are you interested?”
For a few moments Cowley was silent, then, “And that’s all I have to do?”
“Yes.”
“And you’d pay like you just said?”
“Yes. And a bonus right now of a thousand dollars.”
Cowley stood there thinking, nodding his head as if agreeing to his unspoken thoughts. “I’d go to jail if they found out.”
“How could they find out? There would be nothing in writing. It would be just you talking to me or somebody I send down to you. Say a couple of hours a week at a time and place to suit you.”
“Give me an idea of what you’d want to know.”
“What’s the place like. How many people. What kind of people. Equipment. Objectives. Names of top people.”
“How do I get the money?”
“Separate bank account. Anywhere you want. I could arrange it for you over the border in either Toronto or Mexico City.”
“Starting when?”
“I’ve got the bonus in cash right here. The payments start as of now.”
Cowley took a deep breath. “OK. It’s a deal.”
After six of the weekly meetings with Cowley at small hotels on the outskirts of Baltimore Aarons had contacted Moscow and suggested a meeting somewhere with Soviet experts on communications and electronics. A reply came back immediately. The meeting was to be in Moscow as soon as possible. He should travel via London and Stockholm.
CHAPTER 41
Lensky met him in at Moscow airport. He had travelled on a Canadian passport but there had been no problems until Moscow where he had been made to wait until his passport had been checked by the border police in the office behind the control area. Lensky had come back with the passport himself.
“They’re such fools. Your visa is out-of-date in six days’ time and you said you weren’t sure how long you’d be here. But the code on your visa is a special code and intended to make sure that no attention is drawn to you as you come through immigration.” He shrugged. “So much for bureaucracy.” He smiled. “It’s good to see you again. You’ll be staying at my place. I’ve got a car outside.”
They had eaten at Lensky’s place and afterwards they listened to the mid-evening news from Radio Moscow. When Lensky switched off the radio he said, “I’d better fill you in on the local situation. The new head of our organisation is Semyon Denisovich Ignatyev. A Party apparatchik from the Central Committee.”
“What happened to Abakumov?”
“Ah, our dear Viktor …” Lensky smiled, “… he really asked for trouble. Two private brothels, people say they were the prettiest whores in Moscow, and importation of foreign luxuries on an unbelievable scale. It was embarrassing—Abakumov was popular with our colleagues here in Moscow. Stalin sent Khrushchev to the officers’ club to explain his arrest. So we had a mixture of Viktor’s moral turpitude and illegal importation and corruption. Then for a few months we were stuck with Sergei Ogoltsov. But he was only acting head.”
“And Ignatyev?”
“His first priority was handed down to him by Stalin personally—the exposure of the Zionist plot against the State. And of course that means we’re back to the purges of the Jews. Every officer who was a Jew was removed in the first few weeks. There’ll be show trials, here in Moscow, in Georgia and in Prague. Prague first as a practice run to see how it goes. They’ve been preparing that for over a year and for the first time in a show-trial defendants are going to be identified as Jews. The legal people have been arguing for weeks as to whether the prosecutor says ‘Of Jewish origin’ or
