Nobody was sure who had actually authorised the operation in that form but they knew very well what their instructions were. They could question the suspect for up to half an hour. They could tell him that he was suspected of espionage but not charge him. He was to be given every encouragement to “co-operate” and that meant indicating that he was willing to give them details of his activities and maybe offer to “come over.” The possibility of him becoming a double-agent was the prize, but any kind of co-operation could be considered a victory. If neither outcome seemed possible he was to be arrested by the two INS agents under section 242 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
By the time the half-hour was up he had given his name as Martin Collins and admitted the obvious—that he resided at the Hotel Latham. And nothing more. He seemed subdued but not scared and he remained silent to all other questions.
When INS agent Boyle read out the warrant for arrest it was in the name of Martin Collins a.k.a. Emil Goldfus. He had been given the routine caution that he was entitled to consult a lawyer and had a constitutional right to remain silent.
At INS headquarters he was fingerprinted, photographed and searched. And for hours he was questioned, the INS agents asking him again and again to co-operate. But he consistently refused.
Back at the Hotel Latham, the FBI search team was checking the room thoroughly. They had been amazed that a professional spy should have left around so much incriminating evidence of his trade. And there was still the studio to be searched if they could get a judge to sign a search warrant.
A few days later three affidavits were presented to a district judge in Brooklyn and after checking the statements he had agreed that sufficient cause had been shown to allow the studio search to take place. The warrant listed specific items but included wording that covered almost anything they might find that could be connected with espionage. The last sentence of the warrant seemed innocuous enough, but it marked a major change in the official attitude to the case. It said—“… which material is fitted and intended to be used in furtherance of a conspiracy to violate the provisions of 18 USC 793, 794 and 951.”
The charge of being an “illegal alien” carried a maximum penalty of deportation. The conspiracy charge could lead to a death sentence.
It looked as if someone on the government side had decided to go for broke, because making that change involved considerable risks for the prosecution. It was feared that the switch could be challenged in court on grounds that it was unconstitutional. In addition, the conspiracy charge entitled Goldfus to a hearing without delay, and without the evidence of Hayhanen in court whatever they found, in itself, would definitely not be considered as proving a conspiracy.
By the end of the day two things had happened that made it look as if the gamble had succeeded. Between the hotel room and the studio they had amassed a wide selection of espionage material. One-time pads, hollowed-out nails, nuts, bolts and pencils, cryptic messages, a Hallicrafter short-wave radio, bank books and microfilms. And in mid-afternoon Reino Hayhanen had agreed to testify in court. June 28, 1957, suddenly seemed a very good day.
17
They were only half a dozen people in the Warsaw LOT office on Ulica Warynskiego. He gave the girl five zlotys for the airport bus ticket. Five minutes later they boarded the bus and the man took a window seat. He was tall and well-built, in his mid-thirties, his black hair cut very short. His right hand guarded the worn black leather briefcase on the seat beside him.
With the darkness came the rain, sweeping across the fields and the blocks of flats that lined the road to the airport. He guessed it would be snow by the time they got to Moscow.
At Okecie airport there was time for a coffee. He bought a copy of Pravda and settled down at the table, lighting a cigarette, his arm resting protectively across the black briefcase on the table. It was half an hour before he heard the airline announcement.
“Uprzejmie prosimy pasażerów odlatuja̧cych rejsem 207 do Moskwy o zgłoszenie siȩ do wyjścia numer 3.”
He stood up and joined the queue at Gate 3. He could see the plane on the feeder runway, an old Antonov AN24. It looked as if it would be a crowded flight. It was generally full on the Friday evening flight to Moscow. Solemn-looking Soviets going back to spend the weekend with their families, hoping that their pretty Polish girlfriends were not being too blatantly unfaithful while they were away. And, of course, one or two upper-echelon Polish apparatchiki heading for a few sybaritic days at the Central Committee Hotel, or even a guest-apartment in Sivtsev Vrazhek and a walletful of privilege roubles for purchases at the discreet place on Granovsky Street that went under the name of “The Building of Passes” but was really the treasure-trove of the nachaltsvo, the Kremlin élite.
They had been airborne for nearly half an hour when the stewardess announced that owing to technical difficulties on the ground the flight was being diverted and would not be landing at Moscow’s main airport, Sheremetyevo, but at Vnukovo II. Vnukovo was the almost secret airport used only by top Soviet officials and never the general public. Kretski wondered what difficulties could have caused such an extraordinary diversion. He checked his watch. They were already
