The Deceiver

uncomprehendingly. Then he let the rabbi go.

Rabbi Birnbaum took the Aeroflot coach into central Mos­cow, drawing several curious or amused glances all the way. From the terminus building, he walked to the National Hotel on Manezh Square, entered the men’s room, used the urinal until the only other occupant left, and slipped into a cubicle.

The spirit gum solvent was located in his cologne flask. When he emerged, he was still in a dark jacket, but the reversible trousers were now medium gray. The hat was inside the suitcase, along with the bushy eyebrows, the beard and moustache, and the shirt and tie. His hair, instead of gray, was chestnut brown, and his torso was covered by a canary yellow polo-neck sweater that had been under his shirt. He left the hotel unnoticed, took a cab, and was dropped at the gates of the British Embassy, on the embankment opposite the Kremlin.

Two militia from the MVD stood guard duty outside the gates, on Soviet territory, and asked for his identification. He showed them his British passport and simpered at the young guard as it was examined. The young militiaman was embar­rassed and handed it quickly back. Irritably, he gestured the gay Englishman into the grounds of his own embassy and raised his eyebrows expressively to his colleague as he did so. Seconds later, the Englishman disappeared through the doors.

In fact, Rabbi Birnbaum was neither a rabbi nor an Ameri­can nor gay. His real name was David Thornton, and he was one of the best makeup artists in British films. The difference between makeup for the stage and that needed for films is that on stage the lights are fierce and the distance from the audience considerable. In films there are also lights, but the camera may have to work in tight close-up, a few inches from the face. Film makeup therefore has to be more subtle, more realistic.

David Thornton had worked for years at Pinewood Studios, where he was always in demand. He was also one of that corps of experts that the British Secret Intelligence Service seems amazingly able to draw upon when it needs one.

The second man to arrive in Moscow came direct from London by British Airways. He was Denis Gaunt, looking exactly like himself, save that his hair was gray and he looked fifteen years older than his real age. He had a slim attachй case chained discreetly to his left wrist, and he wore the blue tie bearing the motif of the greyhound, the sign of one of the Corps of Queen’s Messengers.

All countries have diplomatic couriers who spend their lives ferrying documents from embassy to embassy and back home. They are covered by the usages of the Treaty of Vienna as diplomatic personnel, and their luggage is not searched. Gaunt’s passport was in another name, but it was British and completely valid. He presented it and was waved through the formalities.

A Jaguar from the embassy met him, and he was taken at once to the embassy building, arriving there an hour after Thornton. He was then able to give Thornton all the tools of the makeup artist’s trade, which he had brought in his own suitcase.

The third to arrive was Sam McCready, on a Finnair flight from Helsinki. He, too, had a valid British passport in a false name, and he, too, was disguised. But in the heat of the aircraft, something had gone wrong.

His ginger wig had come slightly askew, and a wisp of darker hair showed from beneath it. The spirit gum that retained one corner of his equally ginger moustache seemed to have melted so that a fragment of the moustache had detached itself from his upper lip.

The passport officer stared at the picture in the passport and back at the man in front of him. The faces were the same—hair, moustache and all. There is nothing illegal about wearing a wig, even in Russia; many bald men do. But a moustache that comes unstuck? The passport officer, not the same one who had seen Rabbi Birnbaum— for Scheremetyevo is a big airport—also consulted a senior officer, who peered through a one-way mirror.

From behind the same mirror, a camera clicked several times, orders were given, and a number of men went from standby to full operation status. When McCready emerged from the concourse, two unmarked Moskvitch cars were waiting. He too was collected by a British Embassy car, of lower standing than a Jaguar, and was driven to the embassy, followed all the way by the two KGB vehicles, who reported back to their superiors in the Second Chief Directorate.

In the late afternoon the photos of the strange visitor arrived at Yazenevo, the headquarters of the KGB’s foreign intelligence arm, the First Chief Directorate. They ended up on the desk of the Deputy Head, General Vadim V. Kirpichenko. He stared at them, read the attached report about the wig and the corner of the moustache, and took them down to the photographic lab.

“See if you can remove the wig and moustache,” he ordered. The technicians went to work with the airbrush.

When General Kirpichenko saw the finished result, he almost laughed out loud. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he mur­mured. “It’s Sam McCready.”

He informed the Second Chief Directorate that his own people would take over the tail forthwith. Then gave his orders: “Twenty-four hours in twenty-four. If he makes a contact, pick them both up. If he makes a collection from a drop, pick him up. If he farts in the direction of Lenin’s mausoleum, pick him up.”

He put down the phone and read again the details from McCready’s passport. He was supposed to be an electronics expert from London via Helsinki, come to sweep the embassy for listening devices, a regular chore.

“But what the hell are you really doing here?” he asked the picture staring up from his desk.

In the embassy on the embankment, McCready, Gaunt, and Thornton dined alone. The ambassador was not much pleased to have three such guests, but the request had come from the Cabinet Office, and he was assured that the disruption would last for only twenty-four hours. So far as His Excellency was concerned, the sooner these dreadful spooks were gone, the better.

“I hope it works,” said Gaunt over the coffee. “The Russians are extremely good at playing chess.”

“True,” said McCready soberly. “Tomorrow we’ll find out how good they are at the three-card trick.”

Chapter 6

At precisely five minutes to eight on a warm July morning, an unmarked Austin Montego sedan eased out of the gates of Britain’s Moscow embassy and drove across the bridge over the Moskva toward the center of the city.

According to the KGB report, Sam McCready was at the wheel, driving alone. Although his ginger wig and moustache were now impeccably in place, they were clearly visible to the watchers behind the windshields of their several cars. Telephoto-lens pictures were taken at the time, and several more were secured during the course of the day.

The British agent drove carefully through Moscow and out to the Park of Technological Achievement to the north of the city. On the way he made several attempts to shake any tail he may have had, but he failed. Nor did he even spot the tail. The KGB was using six cars, each intercutting with the other so that no single car was ever behind the Montego for more than a few hundred yards.

After entering the enormous park, the SIS man left his car and proceeded on foot. Two of the KGB vehicles remained on station close to the parked Montego. The crews of the other four descended and fanned out between the scientific exhibits until the Englishman was enveloped on all sides by an invisi­ble screen.

He bought an ice cream and sat for much of the morning on a bench pretending to read a newspaper, frequently glancing at his watch as if waiting for someone to show up. No one did, except an old lady who asked him for the time. He showed her his watch without a word, she read the time, thanked him, and walked on.

She was promptly taken into custody, searched, and ques­tioned. By the following morning, the KGB had satisfied themselves that she was an old lady who wanted to know the time. The ice cream seller was also detained.

Shortly after twelve, the agent from London took a packet of sandwiches from his pocket and slowly ate them. When he had finished he rose, dropped the wrapping paper into a waste basket, bought another ice cream, and sat down again.

The trash basket was kept under observation, but no one retrieved the wrappers until the park’s hygiene team arrived with their cart to empty the basket. The wrappers were taken by the KGB and subjected to intensive forensic analysis. Tests included those for invisible writing, microdots, and microfilm secreted between two layers of paper. Nothing was found. Traces were in evidence, however, of bread, butter, cucumber, and egg.

Long before this, just after one P.M., the London agent had risen and left the park in his car. His first rendezvous had clearly aborted. He went, apparently to keep a second or backup rendezvous, to a hard-currency