“Maybe next week. Maybe the week after. They’ll want to evalu- ate. At first they’re going to be interested in Pochinkov. For a day or two. Then they’ll get interested in Mrs. Jackson again.”
“Pochinkov is a dead end.”
“They’ll come to that conclusion. Bigelow, my boss, has no background in counterespionage, but he’s a smart man. Hell drool over Pochinkov for a day or two, toy with the idea of trapping and turning him, then eventually decide that we can’t spare the man- power to watch him day and night forever. Of course, the National Security Council could decide to try to catch him servicing a drop just so we can kick him out of the country, but you probably have a better feel for that than I.”
A wry grin twisted Albright’s lips. The implication was that Albright knew whether or not the Soviets were going to pick up an American diplomat in Moscow anytime soon, knowledge that Ca- macho well knew Albright would never have. So even here, in the safety and comfort of his awn den, Camacho was stroking the ego of his control. He did it unconsciously, without even flunking. No wonder Luis Camacho had done so well in the FBI.
“How come you guys had a drop in that neighborhood any- way?”
“It was on the approved list.” Albright shrugged. The paper pushers in Moscow had no appreciation of the dynamics of an American neighborhood, how fast it could evolve or erode. The approval of drop sites was one method Soviet intelligence bureau- crats used to justify their salaries, but Albright wasn’t going to explain that to Camacho. He had learned early in his career that a wise man never complains about things he can’t change, especially to an agent he needed to keep loyal and motivated.
Still, Luis Camacho wasn’t like other agents. Albright had been running him now for over ten years, but it was only in the last few years, when the source the Americans called had surfaced and within months Camacho had had the serendipitous good fortune to be assigned to head the Washington, D.C., FBI counterespionage department, that Camacho had become a Soviet treasure.
Tonight as he stared at the ballet of black men on the television screen, Albright reflected again on that chain of events. After a high-profile black-tie affair in the ballroom of a Washington hotel, the Soviet ambassador had discovered a picture postcard in his coat pocket as his limousine returned him to the embassy. On the front of the card was a photo of the Pentagon at night On the back were two words and a series of numbers and letters — a computer file name — all written in block letters. Below that were ten words;
not a message, just words. Nothing else. No fingerprints except the ambassador’s.
It had been enough. Using Terry Franklin, the Soviets had ob- tained engineering and performance data on the new U.S. Air Force stealth fighter, the F-117A, from the Pentagon computer system. The information appeared genuine. So who was the source? Unmasking the source would undoubtedly reveal why the information was passed and enable the Soviet intelligence commu- nity to properly evaluate its authenticity. But the official guest list for the black-tie reception ran to over three hundred names and was almost a Who’s Who of official Washington. The names of spouses and girlfriends in attendance were not on the list. nor were the names of at least a dozen officials who had been seen there. The fists of hotel and caterer personnel were also inaccurate and incom- plete.
The upper echelons of the Soviet intelligence community were stymied. The first rule of intelhgenee gathering — know your source — had been violated. Yet the information appeared genuine and revealed just how far ahead of the Soviets the Americans were with stealth technology.
Three months after the ambassador had received the postcard, an unsigned letter in a plain white envelope arrived at the Soviet embassy addressed to the ambassador. The letter, in neat block letters, was a commentary on the rights of minorities in the Soviet Union. In accordance with standard procedure for unsolicited mail, the letter was sent to Moscow. There the code was broken. The writer had constructed a matrix using the first random word on the original postcard as the key word. The message was three random words, the first two of which proved to be computer access words. The third word wasn’t a word at all, but a series of numbers and letters. From the bowels of the Pentagon, Terry Franklin pro- duced a fascinating document concerning the development of a land- based anti-satellite laser about which Soviet intelligence had known absolutely nothing.
Further letters followed, each encoded on the basis of a key word which appeared on the original postcard, the ambassador’s. The information was golden: more stealth. Trident missile updates, SDI research breakthroughs, laser optics for artillery, satellite naviga- tion systems … the list was breathtaking. The Soviets were see- ing hard data on America’s most precious defense secrets. And they didn’t know who was giving it to them. Or why.
So Harlan Albright was told to use Mother Russia’s most pre- cious agent to find out. And here he sat, Luis Camacho, FBI spe- cial agent in charge, Washington, D.C., office of counterespionage.
Camacbo hadn’t found a sniff.
Damn, it was frustrating. And now the Terry Franklin tool to exploit the unknown source was unraveling.
“Do you believe in the entropy principle?” Camacho asked. There was a commercial on the television.
Albright shifted his gaze and tried to dear his thoughts. “En- tropy?”
“Disorder always increases in a closed system.”
“I suppose.”
“Will Franklin hold up?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it And he knows too much.” He felt a chut as he contemplated the wrath of his superiors if Franklin should ever list his thefts for the Americans.
“Can you get him to the Soviet Union?”
Albright shrugged and stood. “I’d better go home and get some sleep.”
“Yeah.”
“Drop over tomorrow evening.”
“Sure.”
Rita Moravia’s worst moment came when she preceded Toad into his apartment. “I’ve only been here a month or so,” Toad said behind her. Open cardboard boxes brimming with books and tow- els and bric-a-brac sat everywhere. She stepped into the kitchen. The sink was full of dishes. Something hideous was growing in a saucepan on the stove. The refrigerator contained half a case of beer and a six-pack of Coke — nothing else. At least it was clean. But how in the world had this man managed to get all these dishes dirty? Aha, the freezer was chock-full of frozen vegetables and TV dinners. Even some meat.
She dumped the contents of the saucepan into the sink and ran the pan full of water, then let the water from the faucet flush the putrid mixture past the trap.
Toad was fidgety. “I’m not much of a housekeeper,” he mum- bled. “Been trying to get unpacked and all but I’ve been so busy.”
Rita went into the bedroom and snapped on the lights. The bed was a rumpled mess. She ripped away the spread and blanket and tossed them on the floor, then began stripping the sheets. “Get out clean sheets.”
“Uh… y’see, that’s the only set I have. Why waste money on extra sheets when you can only use one set at a…” He ran out of words when she glanced at him as she removed the pillows from their cases. “Why don’t I take the sheets and pillowcases down to the basement and run them through the washer.” He grabbed them from the floor where Rita had thrown them and charged for the door. It closed behind him with a bang. Rita Moravia smiled and shook her head.
She tackled the bedroom first. Dirty clothes were piled in one comer of the closet. She used a T-shirt for a dustrag. No cleanser in the bathroom. He had never cleaned the commode. She was swabbing it when she heard the apartment door open. In seconds he appeared.
“Hey, Rita, you don’t—“
“Is there a convenience store nearby that’s still open?”
146 Stephen Coonfs
“I suppose…”
“I want cleanser, dishwashing liquid, something to clean these floors with … a mop and some sponges. And an air freshener.”
“Tomorrow I—“
“Now, Tarkington.”
He turned and left without a word.
In twenty minutes he was back with a bag full of supplies. -She handed him the laundry from the closet. “You go wash these and then clean up the living room and kitchen.”
When she got the sheets back on the bed she locked the bedroom door. Toad was making noises in the kitchen. She washed her face, brushed her teeth and hung up her clothes from the overnight bag. She put on a frilly
