The Dove Page 8

  Even in her inebriated state Wanda knew this was real trouble that would carry dire consequences. She began gathering her things, frantic to get out of the room. Using one of the oversize bathrobes from the bathroom as a makeshift carry all, she wrapped everything, including Danuta’s clothes and gifts, and jerked on her dress. She ran out the door and disappeared, still wailing as she ran down the hall.

  Wafiq turned off the music, and the two young men sat together on the sofa in stunned silence until the pulsating scream of a klaxon cut through the night, growing louder each second like a banshee on its way to collect their souls.

  After what seemed an eternity, there was a loud banging on the door of the suite, and before they could rise from the sofa, it burst open to reveal three police officers in gray uniforms with their side arms drawn. A grim visaged man in civilian clothing followed them into the room.

  Chapter 16

  When Danuta Novikova hurtled 14 stories to a messy death there were few people out in the pre-dawn morning to witness the event. The hotel doorman rushed into the street and looked up the brightly illuminated side of the building to see the shattered window on the 14th floor.

  Hotel staff immediately divined the source of the trouble. The młodzi Arabowie, young Arabs. When the excited doorman rushed into the lobby to report what had happened, the manager called the hotel security chief, who in turn reported the incident to the Milicja.

  Within moments two green and white Militia cars screeched to a halt at the hotel’s main entrance, klaxons blaring, followed by an unmarked car. All were Polski Fiat 125p’s, of Polish manufacture.

  Captain Jerzy Kowałczyk of the Polish security service, the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, exited the unmarked car and conferred with the group of uniformed officers gathered at the hotel entrance. He ordered two men to secure the impact site and cordon it off. Another he told to obtain witness statements. Satisfied that his instructions were being carried out, he entered the hotel with three of the uniforms.

  Jan Kuczynski, the hotel security chief, was waiting just inside, breathless with excitement. Kowałczyk spotted a young, blond woman in a state of partial déshabille who was being questioned by one of Kuczynski’s men in a far corner of the lobby. He jerked his head in her direction and raised an eyebrow at the security chief.

  “A witness,” said Kuczynski, “She saw what happened up there. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened with those Arab animals. I have a man upstairs guarding their door.”

  “Give me the names of the suspects, as well as their passports and any other documentation you have,” Kowałczyk ordered.

  “Tak toczno, pan Kapitan. Immediately!” Kuczynski rushed to the reception desk while Kowałczyk took three uniforms in the elevator to the 14th floor.

  Upon entering the suite they discovered two young men huddled, shivering on the sofa wearing nothing but their boxer shorts despite the lowered temperature in the room. The taller of the two had his arm around a small, pale fellow with large, round eyes.

  He rose on unsteady legs to address Kowałczyk. “My name is Wafiq Al-Salah. There has been an accident.” He spoke in English.

  Kowałczyk looked him up and down, his face expressionless. Ignoring the young foreigner’s ridiculous statement, he said in the same language, “Sit back down and wait to be questioned about what happened in this room. I suggest that you answer truthfully.”

  Kowałczyk intended to examine the crime scene before questioning the suspects, but the boy wasn’t backing down, and his next words grated on Kowałczyk’s ears.

  “My father is a cousin to King Fahd, and I carry a diplomatic passport. I demand you call the Royal Saudi Embassy at once!”

  The sound of Kowałczyk’s open palm striking the side of the young man's face echoed off the walls. The boy was stunned.

  “How dare you strike me, you pig,” he shouted and then made another mistake by taking a threatening step toward the SB Captain. The three militia men charged forward, and Wafiq stared down in disbelief at three pistols pressed hard against his chest.

  Kowałczyk’s voice was icy. “Your country has no Embassy in Poland. It may take some time, possibly a long time, to contact any representative of your government, at all. In the meantime, we are dealing here with a capital crime, and I don’t care what kind of passport you are carrying. You’re not a diplomat in Poland.”

  The uniforms roughly shoved Wafiq back to the couch where he sat, but Kowałczyk could tell that he was still seething with the insult to his person.

  His words dripping with disdain, Kowałczyk spoke slowly and clearly. “A Polish citizen, apparently a young girl was murdered here tonight. Do you really think your petrodollars exempt you from the law? This is a country ruled by Socialist justice, and I assure you that someone will pay for this murder. Someone will spend many years as a guest of our fine penal system.”

  He felt nothing but sour contempt for these młodzi Arabowie. “You animals should have stayed in the desert fucking camels.”

  Turning to the uniforms he instructed, “Get them dressed, cuff them and bring them to Headquarters.”

  He began his inspection of the crime scene, noting especially the empty bottles and glasses. It was plain to see what had happened here.

  Chapter 17

  Number 5, Ulica Stefana Batoriego

  The two increasingly panicked young men were allowed to dress and then perp-walked across the wide expanse of the hotel lobby and outside where they were bundled into the back of one of the green and white Fiat patrol cars. With klaxons pulsating high-low notes the car tore south down Marszałkowska before veering right into a broad street called Puławska. Within five minutes of leaving the hotel the car screeched to a halt in the courtyard of an ominous stone building at Number 5, Ulica Stefana Batoriego. This was the Ministry of Interior, the ruling body of the Polish Republic’s intelligence and internal security services. The two prisoners were escorted inside, none too gently, and through a maze of dimly lit corridors to a bare, gray room where they were instructed to sit on a hard wooden bench ranged against the far wall. A gray-uniformed, stone faced guard observed their entrance disinterestedly from behind a metal desk across the room.

  Kowałczyk’s chauffeured car arrived an hour later. He had thoroughly examined the crime scene at the hotel and retrieved the passports and other documents of the prisoners from the hotel security chief. The uniform he had assigned to find witnesses had come up empty handed. His brief on-the-spot interrogation of the prostitute, Wanda, had yielded the salient facts of the case. The slimy little Lebanese worm with the big puppy eyes was clearly guilty of manslaughter, if not murder. He would hang or spend many years in a Polish prison. Nobody cared about the Lebanese.

  But the Saudi was another matter. His country hefted a lot of weight internationally, and the blood relationship to the Saudi King, if true, would guarantee some noise in the Western press. They undoubtedly would claim this was a frame-up, that any signed confession the Poles might produce had been coerced. The final decision on this case would be made at a much higher level, but for now Kowałczyk was in charge, and he would do a thorough job.

  A guard confirmed that the prisoners were in the holding cell, and Kowałczyk headed down the hall to Interrogation Room Number 3 to prepare for what he expected would be a long day. It was already nearing another frigid dawn in the Polish capital. The SB Captain spread the prisoners’ documents across the desk, arranging them in two groups. He took his time going through them.

  It was nine A.M. before Wafiq and Mohammed were escorted from the holding cell to Interrogation Room No. 3, where Kowałczyk waited with humorless, black-rimmed eyes behind a desk. The ashtray beside his hand was filled with butts and the room reeked of cheap tobacco.

  The walls were of bare, gray stone, the floor of cement, and Wafiq noticed that there was a large grated drain in the center of the floor from which a fetid odor rose. A bright light was shining directly into his eyes, and through a miasma
of cigarette smoke that hung in motionless, blue layers, he could barely make out the SB officer seated behind the metal desk. The guard pushed him and Mohammed onto two wooden chairs facing the desk. At a gesture from Kowałczyk, the guard unlocked the cuffs and twisted their arms behind the backs of the chairs, where they were again locked. This was an uncomfortable position, and the wooden chair backs bit painfully into their arms.

  Wafiq squinted, trying to get a better look at the Polish official. Every story he had ever heard about the terrors of Communist prisons reverberated in his mind. Kowałczyk still did not utter a word. He leaned back, chain lit another cigarette, and simply stared malevolently at the young men.

  Kowałczyk noted that the Saudi was trying to get a better look at him, but the Lebanese hung his head, perhaps to avoid the bright light, perhaps to conceal his face and his guilt. This was a good sign. The Captain had interrogated hundreds of prisoners, some of them hard to break, some easy. These two would be easy, especially the slimy little Lebanese.

  They sat in silence until Wafiq, impatient as usual, could stand it no longer.

  “Well, what do you intend to do? You can’t keep us here.” He tried to sound angry, but his rising panic caused his voice to break.

  Kowałczyk studied them for a moment longer and his expression turned to disgust, as if he were observing particularly repellant insects under a glass. His voice when he spoke dripped with sarcasm.

  “Since you ask, here is what will happen, Mr. Salah. You will confess to the murder of Danuta Nowikova, Polish citizen, 19 years old. You will do this in writing, and you will sign the confessions. You may write in Arabic, if you like. We have excellent linguists available. When you are ready to write, I will instruct the guard to free your hands. Or, if you prefer, we can compose the documents ourselves. All you have to do is sign.”

  He shoved two pads of yellow paper and two ball-point pens across the desk toward Wafiq and Mohammed and sat back. His chair squeaked as he rocked back and forth. “I will have your hands freed whenever you are ready to write.”

  Finally processing what the Polish officer had said, Wafiq croaked, “We didn’t kill anybody! We never did! What happened was an accident.” A thought occurred to him, “I will pay the girl’s parents a handsome compensation for the loss of their daughter … the TRAGIC loss of their daughter.” The payment of so-called “blood money” was an old and honored tradition among Arabs.

  Kowałczyk brought his fist down on the desk with such force that the pens and paper jumped into the air. He snarled the ancient Polish insult into the prisoners’ faces, “Psa krev!! Dog’s blood!! The Polish Republic is a socialist state ruled by socialist justice. The girl’s parents have no need of your filthy money. They will be well taken care of by the state. Now, stop wasting my time. Shall I free your hands so you can write out a confession?”

  Captain Kowałczyk explained in excruciating detail what would happen to them in the Polish penal system, assuring them that there was no hope if they refused to confess and then were convicted of murder.

  “There is no doubt you will be convicted, by the way. The friend of the girl you murdered has given us all the testimony we require. You found two innocent young Polish girls on the street, enticed them to your room, debauched them, and in a drunken rage you,” and here he pointed to Mohammed, “threw her through a plate glass window.”

  “But, Sir,” said Wafiq struggling to achieve a reasonable tone, “they were prostitutes. Surely the people at the hotel will confirm that. And it was an accident. Mohammed did not push the girl through the window. She simply stumbled and fell into it. It was an accident,” he repeated, desperation now constricting his throat and making his voice tiny. To make matters worse his head was pounding from the after effects of the alcohol he had consumed.

  Kowałczyk stood, walked around the desk and struck the bound Wafiq with his fist, full in the face, smashing the Saudi’s nose and knocking him, still bound to the chair, to the floor. A sudden gush of blood spilled over the front of his shirt. Mohammed helplessly witnessed the scene as his friend nearly passed out from the blow and the pain.

  A guard rushed in to right Wafiq's chair. Kowałczyk bent low over him and screamed into his ear, “There are NO prostitutes in the Polish Republic! This is a socialist state and such capitalistic degradation of women is not permitted! You will not repeat such lies!”

  The Captain knew perfectly well that Warsaw’s population of prostitutes was numerous. In fact, such women were required to share their earnings with the state and were managed by SB agents under cover as bartenders, hoteliers, etc. who mined them for information on the foreigners they serviced. He simply hated the thought of them doing business with these dark skinned Arabs.

  Chapter 18

  I was spending so much time in the air between Paris and Washington that I was on a first-name basis with the United flight crews. They insured that I got a comfortable seat alone in the rear of the Business Class cabin and were extra generous with the single malt from First Class.

  After we got our heads around the information on the films, Barton Graham invited me to lunch at the Army and Navy Club on Farragut Square. I was happy to escape the corridors of Headquarters where I kept bumping into people I knew but could not tell them why I was spending so much time there of late. Compartmentalization can be uncomfortable, especially when you're surrounded daily by smart spooks who can sniff out that something special is going on. They also were smart enough not to ask any questions.

  Graham arranged for a company car with a driver, which was nice and spared us the walk from a parking garage to the Club in Washington's humid 90-degree summer.

  I'm not a very clubby guy, but I've always admired this one. The venerable club is a vestige of a more elegant era and is filled with historic memorabilia, including the flag that was hoisted on Stephen Decatur's ship. The whole place is a study in American history. One of my favorite facts is that the first Daiquiri in the United States was consumed here, introduced in 1909 by Admiral Lucius W. Johnson. The drink was named after the beach on which the American Expeditionary Force landed in Cuba.

  The wood paneled dining room is large with huge, torch like sconces spaced evenly along the walls. It is dominated by a huge and excellent reproduction of the Landsdowne portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart. We had no problem finding an isolated table by a window with a view of uncomfortable Washingtonians scurrying along outside in search of their next air-conditioned refuge.

  Lunch with Graham was a rare event, and he'd given no particular reason for the invitation. I wondered if it might be some sort of atonement for his earlier behavior toward me.

  But, of course, it wasn't.

  He wasn't much for small-talk, and as soon as our plates were delivered he got right down to business.

  "Harry, I want to talk to you about this Directorate 'T' business. You may already have realized its significance. The material from Moscow opens an entirely new vista on KGB operations on behalf of the Military Industrial Commission, the VPK. They have established a complex system of front companies and foreign bank accounts and are abetted by witting and venal agents in industry and trade. Thanks to Barsikov, we now have a fairly complete picture of their operation. Maybe even more important is what we've learned from their shopping list about Soviet weaknesses. The White House intends to use this information to wage all-out economic warfare against the USSR. The President means to take them down."

  "So the plan is to deny them the technology they need to keep up with the West?"

  "Defensive measures are part of it, of course, and I'll get to that in a minute, but there are other possibilities. We've been tasked with planning active measures, as well."

  "Covert action?"

  Graham levered a spoonful of Boston clam chowder to his mouth. "Yes."

  Why was he telling me this?

  The chowder was good, and we finished our bowls in silence. I figured Graham would say what he had to say when he was ready
.

  "We'll have to work in close coordination with the French on this. We owe them a great deal, and the White House is inclined to give them their due."

  The CIA was normally stingy with its operations, but this was a special case, and Graham's words pleased me.

  "I agree."

  I had interrupted his narrative. "Magnanimous of you, Harry, to agree with a Headquarters decision for a change."

  I wasn't about to try to match sarcasm for sarcasm with Graham. He was too good at it. I decided to wait him out and tucked into my main course.

  He chewed on his steak for a few minutes before continuing. "Because the French will be intimately involved, Paris Station, and you specifically have a large role to play. We're keeping the operational aspects on a strict need-to-know basis. This means that we're going to put the operational as well as the liaison onus on you."

  "What exactly does that mean?"

  "It means you're going to tote up an enormous number of frequent flyer miles."

  I thought I caught a rare twinkle in Graham's eyes. "And you have your decision to bring that material directly to Washington to thank for the assignment. Well done."

  The prospects for long week-ends at Compiegne got a whole lot dimmer.

  "The first problem we face is how to disseminate the information to our friends."

  "We agreed to let the French handle that."

  "Well, they'll handle some of it, but we've had some afterthoughts." He crammed a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.

  Crap. If we renege on the promise I'd made to Picard life would become even more difficult in Paris. I like Paris. I wanted to stay there as long as possible.

  "We're not going to renege on them, are we?"

  Graham's lips twitched in a tight smile as he wiped them with his napkin. "Aren't you listening? I just said we'll be working closely with them."

  "Okay."

  "I just think it's a bad idea for all the information sharing to go through the French. We'll also have to make sure that whatever and however we share doesn't reveal the source. That means we'll have to make it look like it's coming from multiple sources. Too many leads coming out of Paris might prompt the Russians to take a look at personnel who have served there in the past."