The Sokova Convention

A Novel of Late Twentieth Century Espionage

THE SOKOVA

CONVENTION

By:

David Wind

ColSaw Publications

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ColSaw Publications

ISBN: 978-0-9989712-7-8

Copyright © by David Wind.

A Novel of Late Twentieth Century Espionage

THE SOKOVA

CONVENTION

By:

David Wind

Dedication

A novel, though it may spring from one person’s mind, cannot be completed without contributions from others. It is to those others—my others—that I say thank you."

To Leslie O’Gwin-Rivers, my unflagging researcher, and her husband Jim Rivers; Allan Suchman for brainstorming on this one; and, as always to Bonnie Marilyn.

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PROLOGUE

Chaumont, France, 1947

The tall broad-shouldered man stared through the thick lead glass window as the gathering purple haze of dusk settled firmly on the French countryside. The coming of night did nothing to ease the tension weighing on Michael Mathews.

His gaze followed the wall, nine feet of stone and vine, until the encroaching darkness, not the distance, swallowed it. From the left, a soldier in full uniform emerged from the darkness to walk his post along the inside of the wall. The soldier’s rifle was loaded and held at the ready. Mathews knew that at some point during the next forty seconds to four minutes another guard would follow. The time schedule was never the same: the guard rounds changed every quarter hour of each three-hour shift to avoid any patterns.

He looked at the wall again. His first sight of the wall had been in the last year of the war, when the chateau the wall surrounded was an OSS operations center, regulating the invasion of Germany.

Michael Mathews took a deep breath. I shouldn’t be here. I should have left a year ago, he said as he turned to face a man seated behind him.

Colonel Walter Hirshorne shifted in his seat. That’s bullshit.

No, Walter, I should never have let you fast talk me into staying on after the war. Jesus, man, you’re the patriot. You’re the man whom this is meant for, not me. Hirshorne shook his head. If that were true, you wouldn’t have survived this long. Mike, you’re as natural to this as I am. More so.

Stop it, Mathews snapped. "You talked me into coming with you when they folded the OSS and merged everything with Army Counterintelligence. Even when I got married, I let you talk me into staying on for another year.

My God, Walter, Mathews said, anguish thickening his voice. I’ve spent more time in Greece and Berlin than I’ve spent with my wife. And...

Mathews wiped a hand across his brow and fixed Hirshorne with a hard stare. Anne shouldn’t be in this damned place. She should be in a real hospital, with real doctors, doctors who know about childbirth, not army surgeons.

Is that what this is all about? Mike, Anne will be fine.

For now, perhaps. Mathews turned back to the window and the creeping darkness. But as long as we stay in Europe, I’ll have to worry about her and the baby. Walter, I’ve got a death sentence hanging over me because of what happened in Greece. It would never have happened if I’d left when I wanted to.

Hindsight—

Hindsight, my ass. Stupidity. Mine and the jackasses in Army Intelligence who think good security is watching their subject from a bar stool.

That’s unfair, Hirshorne said.

Mathews spun; his eyes hard and unyielding. Unfair? What the hell kind of security lets a man walk around carrying the theoretical design and prototype manufacturing plans for a fusion bomb in his suitcase?

Was it fair for me to have had to take a team into Greece, hunt down seven communist terrorists, and kill each of them because they’d seen the designs?

He drew himself taller. Was it fair to murder those seven just to make sure that none of them might possibly have been able to memorize every bit of scientific information they’d read?

That’s not the point! Standing, Hirshorne took three steps forward, stopping inches short of Mathews. His chin jutted forward; his teeth clamped tightly together. "What you did, fair or not, was to make certain the future balance of power does not leave us with our thumbs up our asses, the way we were when the Japs hit Pearl Harbor.

The Soviets would have given anything, killed any number of people, to keep Tucker’s papers. And for God’s sake, stop this self-pitying hypocrisy. Hirshorne took a step back and looked around the room. We aren’t in the middle of a war, Michael: We’re waiting for your child to be born.

Mathews started to say something but changed his mind. He exhaled sharply, and nodded.

Good. Now, try to relax, cesarean sections aren’t that uncommon any longer, Hirshorne added, giving his friend’s arm a reassuring pat and then moving on to the window.

Michael Mathews was no less anxious with Hirshorne’s words. His friend’s wife wasn’t lying on the operating table; his was.

He tried not to castigate himself further. There had been choices, and he held himself partly to blame as well. He could have forced Anne to return to the States when he learned she was pregnant. She would have had the advantage of a real hospital instead of a country retreat for worn out intelligence officers.

As usual, he’d been involved on a mission. To leave it would jeopardize the entire operation; Anne had refused to return home when she learned she was pregnant. Those were the reasons why, instead of being in a stateside hospital, his first child would be born in the French countryside, in a former OSS hospital now under the control of the Army Counter Intelligence Corps—the CIC. And, he added in his silent dialogue, Walter Hirshorne had needed him. He couldn’t let his friend down, not even when it came to childbirth.

Mathews inhaled the almost toxic fumes of disinfectants and cigarette smoke. He slipped a cigarette between his lips and, lighting it, gazed at Hirshorne’s semi-profile.

Mathews studied his friend’s strong face. He tried to see beyond the taut lines of tension that Hirshorne wore like battle armor. He tried to read his friend’s expression and failed. There was no one in the world like Walter Hirshorne. The man was the most dedicated person he had ever known, and he’d known Hirshorne almost all his life.

Walter Hirshorne, former assistant director of the disbanded European section of the OSS, and second in charge of the OSS under General ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, was now in charge of the Western European CIC, and had been since the end of the war. Hirshorne ran the operation as he had run everything else in his life, with all-out purpose and dedication to his country and his job.

During the war, Hirshorne had lived for the OSS. He’d made his division the most potent intelligence apparatus on the Allied side. When the war had ended and Truman had given in to the fears of the OSS growing into a super intelligence agency, he’d ordered the OSS dismantled.

Army Intelligence swept up the ashes of the OSS and incorporated the remaining apparatuses into the Counter Intelligence Corps. Picking through the remains of the OSS personnel, the powers-who-had-been asked Hirshorne to stay on and guide the CIC.

Hirshorne agreed, because he’d known the importance of information gathering and of counter intelligence was not something that ended with the war. Rather, as he had explained many times to Mathews, he envisioned the intelligence apparatuses of the major powers becoming the most important and significant part of their long-term ability to survive. More so, Hirshorne believed, than even the armed services.

Such was the future according to Walter Hirshorne; but it was Walter Hirshorne’s future, not his.

Did you put my papers through? 

Hirshorne’s back stiffened. It was answer enough for Mathews.

I’m finished. No more, Walter. I’m out of it.

A desk job, Hirshorne implored. A transfer back to the States and a promotion. You can’t give it all up—not when they’ve already started to set up the new agency.

Yes, I can. When Anne, I, and the baby leave this hospital, we’re going home. I’m going to become part of the real world.

Hirshorne waved his hand in the air. It’s not that simple.

Mathews stiffened. The hell it isn’t. I’ve been playing spy since the third year of the war. I’ve been shot twice, and I’ve killed more people than I want to contemplate. However, I have a family now. I’ve made my decision. I’m out and I’m staying out.

Hirshorne shook his head. Michael, you’ve spent the last four years doing things that most people back home couldn’t even bring themselves to imagine, much less do. How can you think you can go back to what you were before the war? My God, you’ve got more enemies around the world than most people have friends.

Don’t play those games with me, Walter. You know better. And, Walter, after this last operation, I won’t give myself six months of life if I stay in.

Mathews fell silent. Then his features shifted. It’s not for me. I don’t care about me; but I have a wife, and in a few minutes, I’ll have a child. Try to understand the responsibility I feel for them. Walter, I owe it to them to stay alive, to be there for them when they need me.

Hirshorne turned fully to Mathews. Let’s talk about it after the baby.

No. Riveting Hirshorne with a long stare, Mathews said, We’ll do it now. We’ve known each other for over twenty years. Five more minutes isn’t going to change my mind. I want out of CIC, out of the army, and out of Europe!

Hirshorne held Mathews’ determined gaze before reluctantly nodding. I’ll make the arrangements as soon as Anne and the baby can travel.

I want one more thing. I want protection. Not for me, but for Anne and the baby.

Hirshorne shook his head sadly. You’re letting that death thing get to you. That’s not the way to play the game, and you know it. It was an operation. Not even the Soviets turn failed clandestine operations into personal vendettas.

The threat is from SMERSH, not from anything else. You heard what Serkovich said before he died. The Madman put a price on my head. I have no reason to doubt him. No reason at all.

I would never let anything happen to you, or to Anne and the baby. It’s a godfather’s responsibility; you know that.

Then, you’ll arrange for protection for a while after we return home?

Of course, Hirshorne said.

Mathews drew in a deep breath. He knew he was overreacting, and tried to make himself calm down. He looked at his watch. How much longer?

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The operating room was quiet. Anne Mathews lay on the table. Her body was draped with operating sheets except for her swollen abdomen. Her eyes were closed, her breathing monitored carefully.

Two army doctors, Captain Joe Markham, and Colonel Steven Ginsberg, with a team of three nurses had begun the cesarean section eleven minutes ago—seven minutes after Anne Mathews had succumbed to the anesthesia.

Joe Markham stood on Anne’s left, watching Steven Ginsberg make the final incision that bared the woman’s uterus, admiring the field surgeon’s precision.

Nice, Markham said as Ginsberg began the delicate maneuver of lifting the uterus. When that task was completed, Ginsberg smiled beneath his surgical mask and slipped his hand into the uterus to ease the infant out.

A few seconds later, Markham’s gaze went farther up the uterus. Steven, look. 

Ginsberg paused to glance at Markham. I see it, he said as the baby’s head emerged.

C’mon, Joe, let’s move.

Markham edged closer to Ginsberg and prepared to take the baby. A quarter of a minute later, Ginsberg pulled the baby completely out of the uterus and handed it to Markham.

Joe Markham put one gloved hand under the newborn’s chest, and placed the other on its back. He lifted the baby and turned to the nurse. She was in position, ready to receive the baby, and hold it so that the doctor could cut the cord.

When the doctor placed the child in the nurse’s grasp, it opened its eyes and stared up at the doctor. He quickly and neatly tied and cut the umbilical cord. Welcome to the world.

Let’s move it, Joe. I need some help, called Ginsberg.

Clear his breathing passages, Markham ordered the nurse holding a stainless-steel tray of utensils and instruments.

When Markham turned back to the operating table, he noticed the third nurse was backing toward the door. Her eyes were frightened. Her face was pale. He chalked up her reaction to inexperience. Dismissing the young nurse from his mind, he went to assist the other doctor in finishing the operation.

Behind him, unnoticed, the chalky-faced nurse reached the door and tapped it three times with her heel before stepping away.

The door burst open. The nurse clearing the infant’s throat turned and froze. Five feet away stood two men wearing army uniforms with CIC insignias. Both men held weapons at the ready.

Startled, Colonel Steven Ginsberg looked up from Anne Mathews’ abdomen. Get the hell out of here.

The baby, said the man holding a Colt .45 automatic. Give me the child!

Joe Markham moved protectively toward the nurse and infant.

The man with the Colt fired once. The bullet entered the doctor’s forehead and exited the back of his head, spraying Steven Ginsberg and Anne Mathews with gray matter and blood. The force of the bullet knocked the doctor’s body back. Joe Markham’s body hit the operating table and fell across Anne Mathews’ open abdomen.

Don’t anyone move, said the man, his voice thick with the accent of Eastern Europe.

The nurse who had signaled the men took the infant from the second nurse, wrapped it in a receiving blanket, and started toward the door.

Suddenly, the operating door burst open as Michael Mathews and Walter Hirshorne charged inside.

The lead gunman turned and fired. Mathews grunted off a cry of pain as he fell, clutching a shattered knee. He stared at the man who had shot him, his mind strangely sluggish.

The second man jumped Hirshorne, pinning him to the wall and pressing the barrel of his pistol to the underside of Hirshorne’s chin. His finger tightened on the trigger.

No, ordered the leader. I have what I came for.

The gunman eased the pressure on the trigger, but did not move the weapon away.

The leader stared down at Mathews, his face alive with unbridled rage and hatred.

I am Vladim Koshenski! You remember my son, do you not... four months ago, outside of Athens?

Mathews recognized the pale blue and crazed eyes almost before the man had spoken. The man’s eyes were duplicates of another man’s. And, staring into those eyes, Michael Mathews knew that his worst nightmare had come true. The head of European operations for SMERSH had come for him.

Mathews ignored the pain burning through his leg. He ignored the man who had shot him and looked across the room to the table where his wife lay.

Look at me! Koshenski screamed. I know you remember him. His name was Serge Koshenski! You murdered him for a few scraps of paper!

Mathews tried to stand, but his ruined knee would not hold him.

I know you remember him, as I know you killed him. Now you pay. I take your son to replace mine. I want you to know, before you die, I will become his father!

Mathews forced himself not to react. Vladim Koshenski, known to CIC as the Madman, was the NKVD agent in charge of terrorism and subversion in Greece: He was also a sadist—a madman who did not care who he killed, only that it caused pain and furthered his country’s obsession with the domination of other countries.

Mathews remembered the night he and Vladim’s son, Serge Koshenski, had met. It was just after he and his team had taken out the Soviet terrorists who had passed the designs. Serge Koshenski had been in a different room. When he’d heard the gunfire, he’d hidden.

When Mathews and his men had begun a search, Koshenski killed three of the six men before Mathews had been able to take him out.

Mathews stared up at Koshenski as the memories replayed within the space of a heartbeat. He forced away the past, and his mind raced to find a way to protect his newly born son.

He started to speak, to plead for his son, but when he read the knowledge of his future in Koshenski’s insane eyes, he said nothing.

From behind, Walter Hirshorne spoke. You can’t do this. Your people won’t allow this to happen!

Koshenski looked at him, a sad and strange grin forming. You are a fool. I am doing this. No one will stop me. Then Koshenski nodded.

The man covering Hirshorne arched his arm and clipped Hirshorne on the side of the head. Mathews heard his friend’s body collapse behind him.

Rage, fear, and desperation sent Mathews charging forward. Ignoring the pain, he refused to believe his leg would not support him.

His mad attack fell two feet short. A dark fury burned through him as he tried to crawl the remaining distance. When he saw Koshenski’s pistol center on his head, he screamed out his hatred.

Koshenski pulled the trigger.

Mathews was dead before what was left of his head slammed into the floor.

Koshenski spun, his weapon pointing at the doctor and two nurses who remained. Don’t move! Do nothing until we are gone.

Koshenski motioned to his companion and the nurse with the child. The three backed out of the operating room, turned, and began to run.

Goddammit! shouted Colonel Steven Ginsberg as the door closed. He pushed the body of Joe Markham off the unconscious woman and stared at the two remaining nurses. Get over here! Help me with her. We’ve got work to do, now!

ONE

October 1992, Lander, Wyoming, Saturday

The turquoise sky was clear. The breeze coming down from the Wind River Mountains was cool, carrying with it the first hint of the early Wyoming winter to the group of twenty-plus reporters and cameramen who surrounded Congressman Robert H. Mathews on the front lawn of his ranch house.

Within the group of reporters, Joel Blair of the Washington Courier tried to make his six-foot two-inch height blend into insignificance while carefully, if not blatantly, looking around.

For the past ten minutes, he’d had the tingling sensation of being watched. It wasn’t a new feeling, but it was disturbing.

Glancing surreptitiously about, he hoped to catch someone’s eyes locked on him; no one was watching him. Everyone’s attention was on Vice-Presidential candidate Mathews.

For two weeks, the feeling of being watched and followed was a constant. The sensations of people staring at him, of people looking at him, were strong, and had been growing more powerful every day.

He didn’t know why, but he was certain his feelings were not those of a paranoid journalist.

He looked around again. The group was paying attention to only one person, Robert Mathews. Off to the sides were a couple of the ten Secret Service assigned to the candidate.

He turned slightly and, using his peripheral vision, sought for a strange face. There were a few unknown people behind the hanging press credentials, none of whom touched the spot within him that would tell him it was one of them. Blair gave a mental shrug.

Ignoring the warning sensations, he focused his attention on the press conference and Mathews, whose handsome face was carved with lines of concentration.

Mathews, in a suede work jacket and jeans, spoke rapidly, and answered everyone’s questions without hesitation. Behind Mathews were two Secret Service agents standing at relaxed attention, their eyes never still. Four others stood in posts across the front lawn.

Congressman, called Jeremy Cohen of the New York Times. We’re all aware of your intense anti-authoritarian stance, but I would like to know how you will be able to temper those feelings with the reality of dealing with the Soviets on an economic level in order to keep world market balance, and at the same time help stop the Soviet economy from bankruptcy?

Mathews held the reporter’s curious stare for several seconds before saying, "A firm stance does not negate dealing with an authoritarian led or communist country; rather, it forewarns them our negotiations will be adhered to along certain predetermined lines.

But, to answer your question completely, he added as he heard the under-the-breath muttering from the group, I foresee no problems in dealing with the Soviets, or any other country, on an economic level. The political manifestations, growing out of the economic, are what concern me. You’ve all heard me say, enough times, I will not bend to fear tactics or dictates of any communist nation. I meant and I mean just that. Nothing more and nothing less. We are a country with every right to stand up for what we believe, and we are a strong enough country not to have to force our beliefs or our power on others.

Are you suggesting isolationism?

No. Patriotism, if that word isn’t too archaic for you to remember its true meaning.

During the brief silence following his statement, Mathews searched the faces of the people surrounding him. And, as a rhetorical question for each of you to ponder, if Soviet society works so well, why then is their structure no longer working? Could it be that with the possibility of their system breaking down, either it will burn out, or they’ll have no choice but to try and take over the rest of the world and bend it to their own ways?

Don’t you think you’re a little drastic? asked a TV newscaster.

Do you? Mathews shot back.

Yes, I do, replied the reporter.

Perhaps it is, but it’s the way I see it. And I’m not ashamed of voicing my opinion.

Do you think that you’re scaring away voters with your hardline stance? After all, Congressman, the election is only a few weeks away.

Mathews turned to face the reporter who’d asked the question. Well known on television, he was a tall, thin man with dark and wavy hair.

Mr. Cortney, you’ve been on the campaign with me for two and a half months. I’ve never hidden my views about authoritarian led countries like North Korea, or the Chinese, nor my feelings toward the Soviets. So, you tell me, am I scaring away voters?

Bill Cortney shook his head slowly.

And I think that wraps it up. I’m taking tomorrow off, ladies and gentlemen, so don’t come pestering me. I’ll see you all on Monday in New York. Mathews turned from the crowd, ignoring their indefatigable thirst for more and more answers, and went into the house.

The reporters broke into smaller ranks as they walked to their cars. Most talked cheerfully, some grumbled about having to go to New York, and others just went quietly.

Joel Blair took his time going to his rental car; every step was haphazard, designed to make anyone who might be following him stand out.

There was no one. Everyone moved with a purpose. Blair seemed to be the only laggard.

Feeling like a fool, Blair stopped abruptly, turned, and looked back at Mathews’ house. He wondered if this ranch, along with the town of Lander, fifteen miles away, would become a landmark as the hometown of the next vice president.

Mathews and his running mate, Daniel Etheridge had a good shot at the job, given the political attitude in the country today. But Blair still had his doubts.

Hey, Blair, are you joining us for a drink? called Bill Cortney.

Blair waved to him. I’ll meet you at the motel.

Blair went to his blue Chevy rental car, and slid behind the wheel, but made no effort to turn on the ignition.

What? Something had been gnawing at him for weeks, but he hadn’t been able to single out the cause of the worry. He shrugged, knowing whatever it was would eventually make itself known, and started the car,

Then he pulled out his small tape recorder, checked the tape, and set it on the seat next to him. Only then did he drive out the long drive to the main road.

He turned left at the intersection and headed for Lander, which was ‘over that-a-way, in the valley, after the third mountaintop’. Hell of a way to live, he thought as he pressed the accelerator.

While Blair drove, he could not get Robert H. Mathews off his mind. Mathews was the dream candidate his party had been looking for him ever since Sirhan gunned down Robert Kennedy. Ted Kennedy became a presidential leper, and Carter fizzled out; but Mathews was in all ways, true to the original J.F.K. mold.

Robert H. Mathews was young, in his forties. Erudite and handsome, with the appeal of an optimist with strength. He was never indecisive in anything, and after the first week of his campaign, any comparison between Mathews and the V.P. nominee of the last election had stopped.

Blair was willing to admit he liked Mathews. He appreciated the man’s views, and admired the way he campaigned. The only problem was Mathews was just too good. He was as perfect a candidate as could have been found. Every journalist and pseudo-journalist from the Times down to the Enquirer had exhausted all means of finding a chink in Mathews’ armor, or a speck of dirt lying in some hidden closet. There had been none—at least nothing damaging enough to hurt his campaign.

Halfway through the campaign, the searches had stopped, the tones of the journalists changing from skepticism to admiration.

He couldn’t help but wonder if he was tilting at windmills in his effort to uncover the real Robert Mathews. Yet, he knew what was wrong with him, and with the rest of his world, was that there was no one person to look up to and respect. But what, he wondered, drove his need to find the ‘dirt’?

All he sensed was a feeling of something being off, which pushed him to find out what it was. Instead of pondering further, he picked up the recorder and turned it on.

He pressed the accelerator, as the car began the upward climb along the mountain, and spoke.

Today, the Mathews campaign was contained to his hometown of Lander, Wyoming. He made the rounds, glad-handing his neighbors, and smiling a lot. He gave a short and powerful speech in the parking lot of the shopping center.

Blair glanced in his rearview mirror. His stomach twisted when he saw a pickup truck close in fast behind him.

TWO

The pickup slowed and turned into a side dirt road. Dammit, he thought as he shook off the sudden rush of fear.

He fought away the feeling of paranoia and, taking his eyes from the mirror, spoke. After his speech, the congressman returned to his ranch, where he answered the questions from the now familiar press corps on the trail with him. We heard nothing new today, just a rehash of his ideals.

Blair paused as a new thought struck. Note: In tomorrow’s interview, ask about life on the large ranch after the death of his family.

Blair shut off the recorder and placed it on the passenger seat. He wasn’t sure if he should tread on the past in his upcoming interview with Mathews. Mathews’ wife and child had died four years ago, killed in a tragic automobile accident.

Blair knew broaching the touchy subject would help him see Mathews’ ability to deal with personal history while in the midst of a political interview.

Excitement replaced the fear of moments before. The interview was a major coup. He had spent five weeks trying to get an exclusive with the vice-presidential candidate. Although he wasn’t quite sure why Mathews had finally granted him the time, he wasn’t about to question the reason. Tomorrow, after he spoke with Mathews, he would let himself wonder.

For him, everything about this year’s presidential campaign had been a surprise. Especially the nomination of Robert Mathews. A man who no one had really known until three months ago. The congressman had never been mentioned as part of the challenging ticket against the incumbent president and vice president. It seemed to have come only on the eve of the nominating convention in New York City.

By the time everyone realized the V. P. nominee was a young congressman from Wyoming and a former two-term governor of the state, the press found themselves scrambling to learn about Robert H. Mathews.

What the press and the rest of the country learned was that while Mathews had kept a low political profile on the national level, he had been the youngest governor of his home state, and had been acclaimed for his job. As a congressman, he was tough and rigorous, and sat on several committees in positions much higher than his age and newness to congress would have warranted.

Everyone, political friend, and adversary, agreed Mathews was a fireball on the Hill. He was low key, but relentless in his responsibilities. His political enemies had never put dirt to his name, and even they admitted Mathews was a good man.

Within a week of the nomination, Joel Blair had been assigned to Mathews. His editor had bluntly told him his only job was to learn about Mathews and to report the findings to him. Blair had free rein as to what he wrote and what he did. All the Washington Courier wanted was a straight story on the man and the race.

For several weeks before joining the press group covering the election, he’d researched Mathews. When he had completed his base research, he thought he knew Robert Mathews almost as well as someone he’d known all his life.

Blair had traced Mathews’ life, from birth to the vice-presidential nomination. Born in an army hospital in Europe, and therefore born on American soil, his birth had marked one of the most sensational and bizarre anecdotes of the early cold war period. However, the incredible events surrounding Mathews’ birth had not come to light until Mathews had run for his second term as governor. At that time, an enterprising young reporter had used the freedom of information act to learn the exact circumstances of Robert Mathews’ birth and his parents’ deaths.

Mathews’ father had been a high-ranking Army Intelligence officer. During the cesarean section needed for Robert’s birth, a deranged Soviet spy, bent on revenge, had infiltrated the hospital, killed Robert Mathews’ father and mother, and kidnapped Mathews.

The details of the aftermath of the kidnapping and murders had never been revealed, other than the fact that Walter Hirshorne, the then European director of the CIC, had rescued the infant. Following the rescue, Walter Hirshorne raised baby Mathews.

That fact, not the kidnapping, had been Blair’s first angle. Walter Hirshorne was a name that for generations had been and still was synonymous with international politics.

A political superman, Walter Hirshorne had been the Assistant European Director of the OSS in World War II, and had taken over the reins of the CIC at the end of the war. Hirshorne was one of the principals responsible for the formation of the CIA.

Hirshorne’s career had then skyrocketed forward from there. He served as the United States ambassador to Great Britain, to France, to India, and a half-dozen other nations. He’d served several terms as undersecretary of state. When he retired in the early eighties, he was the most powerful political force in the country, and is still looked upon as the unofficial head of his party.

For a guardian, Robert Mathews could not have had a more powerful, nor a more patriotic father.

Blair glanced in the rearview mirror. The pickup truck that had turned off, was back. Was he being followed? He couldn’t tell. This was the main road to town. Anyone could be on it.

The knot in Blair’s stomach throbbed as he acknowledged there was nothing for him to do. A few seconds later, his thoughts returned to Robert Mathews. The man’s rise to national fame had been meteoric, yet Blair saw no change in the man from the eve of the political convention to this afternoon on Mathews’ front lawn.

Yet, Blair acknowledged there had been change, but not for Mathews; it was within himself. Over the past weeks, Blair had begun to like Mathews, as a person and as a candidate. The man’s words always rang true, and what he said made a lot of sense. Still, the journalist within him would not allow him to translate his inner feelings to print—he needed more.

Tomorrow, if he handled the interview properly, he would have his story, or at least the information to let him write it.

He looked in the rearview mirror and realized the pickup had closed the gap. His stomach knotted tighter. His hands gripped the steering wheel tensely as he fought a wave of panic. He had to find out if the truck was following him.

Blair floored the accelerator. The Chevrolet sped up to eighty. The truck stayed with him, hanging a bare thirty feet behind.

He eased off the gas. The car slowed: The pickup did the same.

Damn! he swore as he looked for a way of escape.

He spotted an unpaved brown and red dirt road up ahead. Keeping his speed steady as he approached it, and timing everything carefully, Blair hit the brakes and turned the wheel. The car veered from the road and, when the tires hit the gravel, started to spin.

He worked the wheel while pumping the gas and brakes until he got the car under control. He stopped, his breath ragged, and turned. The pickup truck kept going. The driver stared at him through dark glasses.

Blair watched the truck until it was out of sight. With each passing second, he wondered if he had finally reached the rarified strata of being a fully obsessed and paranoid reporter.

Still, no matter how he tried to tell himself it was his imagination, he couldn’t shake the feeling that ever since he’d dropped the pretense of being just another reporter along for the ride and openly started his in-depth investigation of Robert Mathews, he was being watched.

THREE

Sortavala, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic.

The chill Saturday evening air, blowing in through the open window, kept Kevin Chapin alert. The alien countryside was bare of life. Signposts were as rare as smooth pavement. But he knew there would be a sign soon if he didn’t miss it.

He was tired. He hasn’t slept in thirty-six hours. But sleep didn’t matter; only one thing did—making his rendezvous with Ruby Red.

Had it been only a day and a half since he’d been sleeping peacefully in his apartment in Stockholm? The whirlwind had begun with a startling phone call and was moving so fast he wasn’t sure of his instinctive response to the call. Not for the first time did he think he’d stepped a little too far over the line.

He shook his head and cast aside his doubts, because there was no choice once the agent, code name Ruby Red, had sent the special priority code. Either he had to get him out, or he had to go in. Ruby Red, a deep cover agent in the KGB, would only send an emergency signal if his information were valuable enough to warrant blowing his cover. In this agent’s case, giving up his cover meant giving up his life.

When, four hours after Ruby Red’s priority call, Chapin had been unable to find a quick way to get the agent out of Russia, he knew he would have to go in. It had taken two more hours to make the arrangements and send a message back to Ruby Red.

Ten hours after waking, he was freezing on the deck of a Finnish fishing boat, heading from the Port of Rauma on the Gulf of Bothnia to the Soviet port of Primorsk in the Gulf of Finland.

Once docked, Kevin changed into the coarsely woven suit he’d brought with him, a suit originally purchased at the state department store in Moscow. The identification in his pocket was authentic, except for the name and stamped photograph, which proclaimed him as one Anatole Charusco, a colonel of the KGB.

A black Zil had been waiting for him, the keys left on the tire and hidden by the wheel well. A nine-millimeter Kalashnikov automatic was under the front seat, two spare clips taped to the grip.

From Primorsk, he drove toward Vyborg. His nerves turned painfully tense, the moment he’d landed on Soviet soil, and hadn’t eased once.

He didn’t castigate himself for not waiting for approval from CIA headquarters, because he hadn’t sent for that approval. He knew he wouldn’t get it, not since the new president had begun to run the tumbling Soviet Union.

Rather than take a chance at a turn down, Chapin took full responsibility for the mission. As head of Ruby One, he believed there was no choice. His last three operations had been terminated because of infiltration. There was a Soviet counter agent somewhere within either his own special field unit or in CIA headquarters in Virginia. Either way, Ruby Red’s life and identity were too important to risk by alerting anyone.

Stopped by a road check five miles outside of Vyborg, and speaking the faultless Russian of a highly educated KGB officer, Chapin received a perfunctory exam before going on.

That was one of the things that had not changed in Russia since the new reforms—the KGB and the fear of the KGB were still very much alive.

At Vyborg, Chapin drove to the meeting spot Ruby Red had given. He waited there for over an hour, his nerves burning and his stomach churning acidly until the appointed meeting time was a half hour in the past.

Knowing Ruby Red wasn’t going to show, Chapin drove off. Heading along the small peninsula between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, he ate one of the sandwiches he’d brought with him.

The sandwich turned to lead. The sour in his stomach increased as he prayed Ruby Red would be at the back-up rendezvous.

If he wasn’t there, Chapin was dead in the water. The only thing good about tonight, was the vigilance in this area wasn’t as tight as others areas in Russia.

He was worried about Ruby Red. Chapin had been control leader of the Soviet agent for three years, and had grown to like and respect the man. Born in Moscow, the son of Jewish parents, Ruby Red had supposedly given up his religion when he joined the Party. After graduating as a computer engineer, he’d joined the KGB. Chapin thought he’d been lucky when he’d found Ruby Red. But on later introspection, he’d realized Ruby Red had found him.

There was a loyalty between himself and the Soviet Jew. Ruby Red’s information had always been accurate, and the man had never let him down.

He would not let Ruby Red down either. What did the man want? What