The Deceiver

“On Afghanistan he was silent. But I know Sam. It was as if he knew something I didn’t but wouldn’t say what it was. All I could get out of him was a ‘suppose.’ He hinted the Brits thought Moscow might pull out of Afghanistan quite soon. That all Minstrel’s stuff on Afghanistan would be for the archives if that happened. Do we have any such analysis?”

“Joe, we have no evidence the Russkies intend to pull out of Kabul, soon or ever. What else didn’t satisfy Mr. Mc­Cready?”

“He said he thought the Soviet networks rolled up in Central and South America were tired networks— clapped-out was the word he used—and all locally recruited help with not an ethnic Russian among them.”

“Look, Joe, Minstrel has blown away a dozen networks run by Moscow in four countries down there. Sure the agents were locally recruited. They’ve been interrogated—not very pleasantly, I’ll admit. Naturally, they were all run out of the Soviet embassies. A dozen Russian diplomats are being sent home in disgrace. He’s smashed up years of KGB work down there. McCready’s talking crap.”

“He did have one point. All Minstrel has given the Brits concerning Soviet agents over here are code-names. Nothing to identify a single Russian asset here. Except one, and he’s dead. You heard about that?”

“Sure. Rotten luck. A miserable coincidence.”

“Sam thinks it’s no coincidence. Thinks either Minstrel knew it was slated for a certain day and released his identifi­cation too late for the Brits to get their man, or we have a leak.”

“Bullshit to both.”

“He favors the first option. Thinks Minstrel works for Moscow Center.”

“Mr. Sam Smartass McCready offer you any hard evidence for this?”

“No. I asked him specifically if he had an asset inside Moscow who had denounced Minstrel. He denied it. Said it was just his people’s analysis of the product.”

There was silence for a while, as if Bailey were deep in thought. Which he was. Then: “Did you believe his denial?”

“Frankly, no. I think he was lying. I suspect they’re run­ning someone we know nothing about.”

“Then why don’t the Brits come clean?”

“I don’t know, Calvin. If they have an asset who has denounced Minstrel, they’re denying it.”

“Okay, listen, Joe, You tell Sam McCready from me, he has to put up or shut up. We have a major success in Minstrel, and I’m not about to let a sniping campaign out of Century House wreck it all. Not without hard evidence, and I mean really hard. Understood, Joe?”

“Loud and clear.”

“One other thing: Even if they have been tipped off that Orlov is phony, that would be standard Moscow Center practice. Moscow lost him, we got him, the Brits’ noses were put out of joint. Of course Moscow would leak to the Brits that our triumph was hollow and useless. And the Brits would be susceptible to that scam because of their annoyance at not getting Minstrel to themselves. So far as I am concerned, the British tip-off is disinformation. If they have a man, it’s their man who is lying. Ours is on the level.”

“Right, Calvin. If it arises again, can I tell Sam that?”

“Absolutely. That is Langley’s official view, and we’ll defend it.”

Neither man bothered to recall that by now the vindication of Orlov was linked to both their rising careers.

“Sam had one success,” said Joe Roth. “He came at Minstrel hard and strong—I had to pull him out of there twice—but he got Minstrel to come up with a new name. Gennadi Remyants.”

“We run Remyants,” retorted Bailey. “I’ve had his product coming across my desk for two years.”

Roth went on to reveal what Orlov had said about Remyants’s true loyalties to Moscow and McCready’s suggestion that the simple way to clear the whole thing up would be to pick up Remyants and break him.

Bailey was silent. Finally he said, “Maybe. We’ll think it over. I’ll talk to the DDO and the Bureau. If we decide to go with that one, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, keep McCready away from Minstrel. Give them both a break.”

Joe Roth invited McCready to join him for breakfast the following morning at Roth’s apartment, an invitation Mc­Cready accepted.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Roth. “I know there are some fine hotels nearby, and Uncle Sam can afford breakfast for two, but I make a pretty mean breakfast myself. Juice, eggs over easy, waffles, coffee suit you?”

McCready laughed down the phone. “Juice and coffee will do fine.”

When he arrived, Roth was in the kitchen, an apron over his shirt, proudly demonstrating his talent with ham and eggs. McCready weakened and took some.

“Sam, I wish you’d revise your opinion about Minstrel,” said Roth over the coffee. “I spoke with Langley last night.”

“Calvin?”

“Yep.”

“His reaction?”

“He was saddened by your attitude.”

“Saddened, my butt,” said McCready. “I’ll bet he used some nice old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon language about me.”

“Okay, he did. Not pleased. Figures we gave you a gener­ous break on Minstrel. I have a message. Langley’s view is this: We got Minstrel. Moscow is mad as hell. Moscow tries to discredit Minstrel by feeding London a skillful line on how Minstrel is really a Moscow plant. That’s Langley’s view. Sorry, Sam, but on this one you’re wrong. Orlov is telling the truth.”

“Joe, we’re not complete fools over here. We are not going to fall for some Johnny-come-lately piece of disinformation like that, if we had some information, the source of which we could not divulge—which we do not—it would have to predate Orlov’s defection.”

Roth put down his coffee cup and stared at McCready open-mouthed. The distorted language had not fooled him for a minute.

“Jesus, Sam, you do have an asset somewhere in Moscow. For Christ’s sake, come clean!”

“Can’t,” said Sam. “And we don’t, anyway. Have some­one in Moscow we haven’t told you about.”

Strictly speaking, he was not even lying.

“Then I’m sorry, Sam, but Orlov stays. He’s good. Our view is that your man—the one who doesn’t exist—is lying. It’s you, not us, who’s been taken for an awful ride. And that’s official. Orlov has passed three polygraph tests, for God’s sake. That’s proof enough.”

For answer, McCready produced a slip of paper from his breast pocket and laid it in front of Roth. It read:

We discovered that there were some East Europeans who could defeat the polygraph at any time. Americans are not very good at it because we are raised to tell the truth, and when we lie, it is easy to tell we are lying. But we find a lot of Europeans ... can handle the polygraph without a blip. ... There is an occasional Individual who lives in that part of the world who has spent his life lying about one thing or another and therefore becomes so good at it that he can pass the polygraph test.”

Roth snorted and tossed the paper back. “Some half-assed academic with no experience of Langley,” he said.

“Actually,” said McCready mildly, “it was said by Richard Helms two years ago.”

Richard Helms had been a legendary Director of Central Intelligence. Roth looked shaken. McCready rose.

“Joe, one thing Moscow has always longed for is to have the Brits and the Yanks fighting like Kilkenny cats. That’s exactly what we’re heading for, and Orlov’s only been in the country forty-eight hours. Think about it.”

In Washington, the DCI and the FBI had agreed that to see if there was truth in Orlov’s statement about