The Main Enemy Milton Bearden (read full novel .txt) 📖

In the last eight months, the strange case of “Mr. X,” the KGB volunteer who had dropped a letter in a Bonn case officer’s mailbox in March, had played out without leading to any firm answers. Langley reacted quickly to his initial approach, and the $50,000 he had demanded was laid down for him in a German dead drop. The possibility that the CIA’s communications had been compromised—Mr. X had suggested just such a technical penetration in his first letter—had been thoroughly checked out, without results. In his subsequent letters, Mr. X had attempted to raise suspicions about one CIA case officer, Chuck Leven, who had been handling Gennady Varennik. Leven was fabricating his financial dealings with Varennik, skimming, the author of the mysterious letters had charged.

Redmond thought the ploy was too cute by half. Of all the case officers on the street, Leven would be the last to start fooling around with his cash box. Feeding the CIA disinformation about its case officers was an old KGB trick, and Redmond wasn’t falling for it. Clair George also thought the operation was bad from the start, and when Redmond had the handwriting on the Mr. X letters carefully examined, it seemed there was a faint resemblance to the handwriting in the communications plans the KGB had provided John Walker over the years.

The information Mr. X provided about how Gennady Varennik had been compromised still bothered Redmond. In his second letter, Mr. X said that Varennik’s father had come across some material evidence of his son’s betrayal, and as a good and loyal former counterintelligence officer of the KGB during the Great Patriotic War, he had turned his son in to the authorities. The father was convinced that his son would ultimately be set free, after having served some jail time.

With the arrival of Mr. X’s sixth letter a few weeks earlier, Redmond became convinced that the whole case was a ruse. But what kind of ruse? Either Mr. X was involved in a scam—he’d gotten a bundle of money from the CIA—or the KGB was running an elaborate deception game. But for what purpose? They had a spy to protect, Redmond concluded. A big one.

The inventory of lost agents and operations over the last fifteen months was devastating. Now there were rumors of more damage, that two more assets had been rolled up. One, a KGB officer last seen in Indonesia, Vladimir Piguzov, code-named GTJOGGER, had reportedly been arrested during the summer. Vladimir Potashov, an officer in the Institute of the USA and Canada, encrypted GTMEDIAN, had been arrested about the same time, according to the latest reports. Nothing made sense these days, Redmond thought, except his conclusion that there was probably a spy somewhere.

The phony recruitments in Nairobi and Moscow had been painstakingly played out for months without any sign of the bait being taken. Both Soviet intelligence officers set up in the fake operations remained in place, and Redmond concluded that the two probes had failed. But why? he wondered.

Frustrated, he decided it was time to put all his thoughts on paper.

Vienna, Austria, 2000 Hours, December 14, 1986

Ambassador Ron Lauder’s Christmas party for the American embassy staff was an elegant affair. Lauder had a knack for combining the old-world grace of Vienna with the new money chic of his mother, who had transformed beauty into big business. The eggnog and glühwein had flowed, the Christmas carols had been sung in English and German, and a sense of camaraderie and celebrity had flowed throughout the ambassador’s residence.

Jim Olson, the CIA chief in Vienna, was circulating from group to group along with his wife, Meredith, exchanging Christmas greetings, fulfilling the function that fell to senior members of Lauder’s country team. An old SE Division hand who’d done battle with the KGB in Moscow a few years earlier, Olson had been the first man “down the hole” in the CIA’s cable tap outside Moscow, and he knew his craft. He’d just arrived in Vienna, having lived through the nightmare of the last eighteen months in SE Division, and he harbored lingering doubts about the 1985 losses. Now, as he worked the ambassador’s Christmas party, Olson began to notice one of the Marine security guards hanging back slightly but following him from group to group. As the party began to break up, the Marine intercepted Olson and self-consciously said he needed to talk to him. His voice quavered as he spoke. Olson saw fear verging on panic in the man’s eyes.

“I’m Clayton Lonetree. I know who you are, Mr. Olson. They told me when I got here.”

“They told you?”

“I served in the embassy in Moscow as a Marine security guard and got into something with the KGB. I’m in over my head.” The Marine was stiff. He spoke in stilted bursts, as if he were reciting lines he had carefully written for this moment of confrontation. To Olson, the young man appeared barely under control, almost psychotic. He took the Marine by the elbow and led him to a quiet corner where they could talk in private.

“Did you give up classified information in Moscow?” he asked, trying to gain control of the conversation in the short time he knew they would have before the guests began to file out.

“No, sir,” Lonetree responded.

As he looked at the Marine, Olson suspected that he was lying. “Did they give you money?”

“No, sir.”

“Were you involved with a woman?” Watching Lonetree closely, Olson wondered if he might break down right there. “Are you meeting the KGB here in Vienna?”

“Yes, sir. They were the ones who told me about you.”

“Who do you see here?”

“George. That’s all I know.”

“When is your next meeting?”

Lonetree hesitated only a moment. “December 27.”

“Where?”

“At a church not far from here.”

Olson quickly wrote a number on a piece of paper and handed it to the terrified Marine. “I want you to keep all of this to yourself,” he said. “You are to tell no one else that we have spoken. Do you understand?”

“Yes,