American. But at the time Hoover was casting suspicious eyes on the farm-labor move- ment in California, which was just being organized, and needed some Chicanes to use as undercover agents. So Luis Camacbo was investigated and approved and recruited.”
Caplinger laughed. “Hoover, the paranoid anti-communist, re- cruited a deep Soviet plant! Oh, they tried to check Camacho’s past, and the reports to Washington certainly looked thorough. But the agents in the field — all good, white Anglo Protestants with dark suits and short haircuts — couldn’t get much cooperation from the Chicano population of Dallas and San Antonio. So rather than admit failure to the Great One, they sort of filled in the gaps and sent the usual reports to Washington. And the FBI got themselves a new agent.
“How do you like your coffee?”
Royce Caplinger got milk from the refrigerator and let Toad add some to his coffee. They carried their cups back to the study.
“Where was I?”
“Camacho was a deep plant.”
“Yes. Anyway, being smart and competent, he rose as far as the racial politics of the FBI would allow, which really wasn’t very far. Still, amazingly enough, Luis Camacho liked America. But that is another story.” Caplinger set his coffee beside him. “Maybe I should fill it in, though. Luis was a very special human being. Luis—“
“There were three other names on the list,” Toad said irritably. His whole manner told what he thought of Caplinger’s tale.
“Ah yes,” Caplinger said, looking at the lieutenant thoughtfully. “Three more names, two of which the defector could remember, one which he could not. The problem was we didn’t know who any of the other three were. Tsybov was Camacho, whom the Soviets thought was still a plant under deep cover, a sleeper, available for use if the need arose. They didn’t know that Camacho had revealed himself to us voluntarily almost ten years before.”
Caplinger looked from face to face. “You see the problem. The Soviets had three more agents in America planted deep. And we didn’t know who they were!
“Naturally the intelligence coordinating committee took this matter up. What could be done?”
“So you became X.” Jake Grafton made it a state- ment, not a question.
“We needed bait, good bait. We wanted those three deep agents. Or two or one. Whatever we could get. Someone had to become X, so the President chose me.”
“The President?” Toad said, incredulously.
“Of course. Who better to choose what military secrets the Sovi- ets would find interesting? Who better to reveal the aces?” Caplin- ger sipped his coffee.
“So you…” Jake began. “You wrote the letters and mailed them?”
“Yes. The National Security Agency gave me the computer codes I needed and helped with the encryptions. But I had to sit down and write each letter- The human touch, you see. Each letter would reveal something of the man who wrote it, so they all had to be written by one man.
“Much to our dismay, the instrument the Soviets chose to ex- ploit the gifts of was a traitor-for-hire who had al- ready approached their embassy a year or so before. Terry Frank- lin. What Terry Franklin didn’t know was that the National Security Agency has special programs that reveal when each se- lected classified document is accessed. He wrote a trapdoor pro- gram that got him by the first security layer, but there was another that he didn’t know about. So we were immediately on to him. And immediately faced with a dilemma.”
“If you arrested him too soon, the Soviets might just ignore the Minotaur.”
“Precisely, Captain. For this to work, the information had to be very good stuff, the best. And we had to give them enough so that they would become addicted to it. Then, and only then, would they feel the potential profit was enough to risk deep plants that had been in place for twenty to thirty years.” The secretary looked from face to face. “Don’t you see? These sleepers were assets! They belonged to someone in the GRU who had built his career on the fact that he had these assets, which would someday, at the right moment, be of incalculable value. Our task was to convince him or his superiors that now was that moment.”
“So you let franklin do his thing.”
“Precisely. And we gave them excellent information. We let them see the best stuff that we had. We got them addicted, and curious. So one day Franklin’s control approached Camacho, Tsybov.” He lifted a finger skyward for dramatic effect. “That was a very important event. The Soviets had gone to one of the names on the list. Now we knew we were on the right track. We were heart- ened.”
Caplinger rose quickly from his chair and began to pace. He explained that Harlan Albright, the control, was a GRU colonel. He made contact with Camacho, moved into the house beside him, insisted on biweekly briefings. “What the Soviets wanted, of course, was the identity of X. So the game began for Luis Camacho. We didn’t authorize him to reveal X’s identity. But he knew. He had to know. He knew from the first. He was the man who was actually going to uncover the sleepers.”
He was silent for a moment, thinking it over yet again. “Once Camacho was in the game, he became the key player. It was inevi- table. He had to appear to be a double agent and yet he had to force the Soviets to act. To act as we wanted them to. He was playing a dangerous role. And to appreciate how good he was at it, you would have to have known Luis Camacho very, very well. I didn’t, but I got the flavor of the man. In his own way, in his own field, he was a master.”
Caplinger stopped at the window and looked out at the meadows and distant blue mountains, which were a thin line on the western horizon. “Inevitably, and I do not use that word lightly, people were going to get hurt. Smoke Judy was an information peddler. He killed Harold Strong — your predecessor. Captain — when Strong found out about his activities. Camacho learned his iden- tity, but we thought he might be of use later, so the committee ordered him left alone. Certainly no one could foresee that an indirect result of that decision would be the loss of the TRX proto- type and your wife’s injuries, Lieutenant, but… there were rea- sons that looked good at the time why it was handled the way it was.” He finished lamely and turned to face Tarkington. “I am sorry.”
Tarkington was examining his running shoes. He retied one of the laces.
“Anyway, there were several other deaths. A woman was killed who witnessed a drop set up by the Soviets to give Terry Franklin information, a Mrs. Matilda Jackson. Harlan Albright killed her, after we ordered Camacho to reveal her identity to Albright as proof of his bona fides, his commitment. Camacho refused at first, but we convinced him. This was the way it had to be. Better to sacrifice one to save the many.” The secretary went back to his chair and sat heavily. He shook his head slowly- “Too often,” he said softly, “we must assume some of God’s burden. It is not light”
“Too bad,” said Toad Tarkington, now staring at the secretary, “that after you gave an innocent civilian the chop, this whole thing fizzled.”
“Did it?” Caplinger’s voice assumed an edge, a hard flinty edge. “Did it now?”
When Toad didn’t respond, Caplinger went on, his voice back to normal. “So after three years and some damn tragic risks, the stage was set. After a few carefully chosen facts were fed to Albright, he killed Terry Franklin. That was a masterpiece of cunning, well set up by Camacho. Of course Luis didn’t like it, not he, but he played his part to perfection. Albright personally eliminated the Soviets’ only access to the Pentagon computer. He had to find another. Because now X offered the richest gift of all: Athena.”
“Smoke Judy,” said Jake Grafton, unable to keep silent.
“Yes. Smoke Judy, a bitter little man who had killed once and found how easy it is. Of course, that was the crisis. When Judy failed, as fail he surely would with Luis Camacho watching him, Albright would have no other choice. He would have to go to another deep plant on the list! And he would make this inevitable choice of his own free will, unpressured by anyone. That was our thinking, at least. Didn’t work out that way- Camacho thought Albright was onto him and made a decision on his own to warn Vice Admiral Henry about the risk to Athena.” He gestured to the heavens. “It was all downhill from there. Henry took it upon him- self to apprehend Judy. You know how that turned out. The jig was up. Camacho had no choice. He sent men to arrest Albright.”
“You were willing to give away Athena?” Jake’s horror was in his voice-
“We on the committee were willing to take the risk Albright would get it, which isn’t precisely the same thing, Captain. By now X’s credentials were impeccable. We thought that surely, for this exquisite technical jewel, the Soviets would brush the dirt off one or two deep agents.”
“But they didn’t?”
“No. Perhaps Albright was suspicious. Probably was. Camacho knew that Albright saw the whole operation
