A little later they sat at a small table and Gelov brought out his check file. He re-read the first page quickly and then looked up at Kleppe.
“Are you satisfied about Dempsey?”
“In what way?”
“We have no current pressure on him except the girl.”
“We have. When we got him and the girl out of jail it was a turning point for him. That and the girl will be enough. He helps us with conviction.”
“Conviction?”
“Well, maybe not conviction, but let us say with enthusiasm and goodwill. He has the hope that in time the girl can come to the United States with the child but I have given no firm promise.”
“He was pleased with the proxy marriage?”
“Very pleased.”
“And his pressure on Powell, is that enough?”
“I expect to hear statements from Powell in the next few weeks that will confirm he is responding. He has no choice, of course. And what we require of him fits the American mood.”
Gelov nodded. “It fits our mood too, comrade. We need consumer goods and food to keep the people quiet. They have seen the success of the dissidents in Warsaw and Prague. There are some who would like to try that here.”
“Where’s the colonel?”
“Abel, you mean?”
Kleppe nodded.
“In hospital. Dying. A week maybe, not more.”
Gelov stood up, gathering his papers.
“Tomorrow then, Viktor. Say ten o’clock.”
Kleppe was shaken awake from his deep sleep at four in the morning by a KGB major and a man in plain clothes. He sat up in bed, looked at his watch and looked with disbelief at the two men.
“What the hell is going on?”
“A problem in New York, comrade.”
“What problem?”
“They have been inside your apartment in New York.”
“Who has?”
“There is no information on that.”
“How do we know this?”
“The listening post at the Consulate-General reported that the activator in your telephone registered.”
“Oh for God’s sake. Those bloody electronics are never reliable. Activator switches are always jamming on or off.”
“They think the telephone was lifted and put back. There are two registrations with a gap of several seconds.”
“Any recorded noise or speech?”
“No, comrade. But they want you to go back immediately. They are holding the London plane for you. Major Gelov is on his way to the airport to meet you.”
Kleppe sighed and stood up. He was at Sheremetyevo an hour later. Gelov was tense and agitated.
“They have booked you on a flight to Canada, comrade, and suggest you go on by car to New York. Contact Washington immediately with your situation.”
CHAPTER 7
MacKay contacted the CIA man at the US Consulate at Museumsplein. There was a long message from Nolan giving an estimate of Kleppe’s trade in diamonds and urging him to check for positive evidence of smuggling. It was also requested that he identified himself as CIA, not SIS.
He walked slowly from the Consulate to the Amsterdam police headquarters at Elandsgracht, and asked for Inspector van Rijk.
The Dutch and their police have a civilized tolerance about the facts of life. They do not find it incredible that men want to sleep with pretty girls, or that pretty girls might be willing to allow all sorts of exciting privileges in return for guilders, dollars, marks and yen. Or that there may be those in the community who prefer their sex in books and films. As long as everything is kept neat and tidy, and on the administrative railway-lines, the vagaries of the human libido are accepted as realities.
But in two areas their fuses are shorter. One of the areas is hard drugs, and the other is diamonds. The special diamond squad in Amsterdam is constantly aware that a market’s reputation, which has taken a dozen decades to build, can be destroyed in a week. There’s not much goes on in the Amsterdam diamond market that the squad is not aware of. It doesn’t always do something about what it knows, because informers and sources might be identified that way; and there are more ways than one of skinning these particular cats. So when MacKay pushed his piece of paper across the Inspector’s desk he guessed that something very near honesty would be the best policy. A question or two would decide how near.
Inspector van Rijk pushed the paper back across the desk.
“Yes. They’re both big dealers. Both have international dealings.”
“If you particularly wanted Russian diamonds, which one would you go to?”
Van Rijk half-smiled and patted the ball back.
“You could get them from either.”
“At short notice?”
Van Rijk smiled openly.
“Mr. MacKay, these men deal in millions of dollars’ worth of stones every year. They can supply or buy anything, just so long as it exists.”
MacKay realized that it was going to have to be something very close to the truth that cracked this nut.
“Do you understand what I mean, Inspector, if I talk about ‘laundering’ money?”
“Yes. And to save you the question, yes, people do ‘launder’ diamonds from Russia.”
“Which of these two would be most likely to ‘launder’ diamonds from Russia?”
“Mijnheer van Elst.”
“Why him?”
“Because the other one is a Communist and he knows he would be suspect.”
“Is it illegal?”
“Indeed not. A man brings you Russian diamonds, you exchange them for South African diamonds to a slightly less value. There is no crime there.”
“So you have no objection to this sort of trade?”
“On the contrary, we have every objection. Particularly when they come from the Soviet Union. The official Soviet diamond dealing keeps absolutely to the rules. There is no need to ‘launder.’ But Soviet diamonds do come in unofficially and we object strongly. They can be used to depress the market, and we also have security objections.”
It was going to be almost the whole truth, so MacKay plunged in.
“We suspect a New York diamond dealer of working for the Soviets. We think he could be exchanging illicit Soviet diamonds for others. He has imported no Soviet diamonds so far as we know in the last ten years.”
Van Rijk shrugged.
“You mean Kleppe?”
MacKay sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“You know about him, then?”
Van Rijk stood up and
