"Would that be such a bad thing?" SASHA demanded. "If KHOLSTOMER succeeds hundreds of millions of ordinary people are going to lose their life's savings." After a while SASHA said, "A long time ago you told me what Starik said to you the day he recruited you. You remember?"

Eugene nodded. "I could never forget. He said we were going to promote the genius and generosity of the human spirit. It's what keeps me going."

SASHA stopped in his tracks again and turned to face his comrade in the struggle against imperialism and capitalism. "So tell me, Eugene: what does KHOLSTOMER have to do with promoting the genius and generosity of the human spirit?"

Eugene was silent for a moment. "I'll pa.s.s on to Starik what you said- ABLE ARCHER 83 is not masking an American preemptive strike."

SASHA shivered in his overcoat and pulled the collar up around his neck. "It's d.a.m.n cold out tonight," he said.

"It is, isn't it?" Eugene agreed. "What about KHOLSTOMER? You're still supposed to monitor the Federal Reserve preparations to protect the dollar. What do we do about that?"

"We think about it."

Eugene smiled at his friend. "All right. We'll think about it."

Tessa was incoherent with excitement so Vanessa did most of the talking. Tessa's unit supervisor, a saturnine counterintelligence veteran appropriately named Moody, listened with beady concentration as she led him through the solution. It had been a matter, she explained impatiently, of plying back and forth between the lottery numbers, various telephone numbers and the serial number on a ten-dollar bill. Tessa could tell Mr. Moody was perplexed. If you start with the area code 202, she said, and subtract that number from the lottery number broadcast with the first Lewis Carroll quotation on April 5, 1951, you break out a ten-dollar bill serial number that begins with a three and a zero. You see?

I'm not sure, Moody admitted, but Vanessa, caught up in her own story, plunged on. Using a three and a zero, I was also able to break out the 202 area code from the other twenty-three lottery numbers broadcast by Radio Moscow after an Alice or Looking Gla.s.s quotation. There was no way under the sun this could be an accident."

"So far, so good," Moody-one of the last holdovers from the Angleton era-muttered, but it was evident from the squint of his eyes that he was struggling to keep up with the twins.

"Okay," Vanessa said. "In 1950 the US Treasury printed up $67,593,240 worth of ten-dollar bills with serial numbers that started with a three and a zero, followed by an eight and a nine."

Moody jotted a three and a zero and an eight and a nine on a yellow pad.

Vanessa said, "Subtracting the 3089 from that first lottery number gave us a telephone number that began with 202 601, which was a common Washington phone number in the early 1950s."

Tessa said, "At which point we checked out the 9,999 possible phone numbers that went with the 202 601."

"What were you looking for?" Moody wanted to know. He was still mystified.

"Don't you see it?" Vanessa asked. "If Tessa's right, if the quotations from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Gla.s.s alerted the Soviet agent to copy off the lottery number, and if the lottery number was a coded telephone number, the fact that they were changing it all the time meant that the cutout was moving all the time."

Moody had to concede that that made sense; when the agent being contacted was important enough, counterintelligence knew of instances where KGB tradecraft required cutouts to relocate after each contact.

"So," Vanessa continued, "what we were looking for was someone whose phone number began with 202 601, and who moved out soon after April 5th, 1951."

Tessa said, "It took us days to find anyone who even knew that old telephone records existed. We eventually found them buried in dusty boxes in a dusty bas.e.m.e.nt. It turns out there were one hundred and twenty-seven phones that started with the number 202 601 that were taken out of service in the week following April 5th, 1951."

"After that it was child's play," Vanessa said. "We subtracted each of the hundred and twenty-seven phone numbers from that first lottery number, which gave us a hundred and twenty-seven possible eight-digit serial numbers for the Soviet agent's ten-dollar bill. Then we went to the second time the Moscow quiz program used a Lewis Carroll quote, and subtracted each of the hundred and twenty-seven possible serial numbers from it, giving us a hundred and twenty-seven new phone numbers. Then we waltzed back to the phone records and traced one of these phone numbers to an apartment rented by the same person who had been on the first 202 601 list."

Tessa came around the desk and crouched next to the unit supervisor's wooden swivel chair. "The serial number on the agent's ten-dollar bill is 30892006, Mr. Moody. Five days after Radio Moscow broadcast the second coded lottery number, which is to say five days after the Soviet agent in America phoned that number, this person relocated again."

Vanessa said, "We tested the serial number on all the lottery numbers broadcast by Radio Moscow when an Alice or a Looking Gla.s.s quote turned up in the quiz. Every time we subtracted the eight-digit serial number from the winning lottery number, it led to a Washington-area phone number in an apartment rented by the same woman. In every case the woman relocated within a week or so of the Moscow Radio broadcast."

"So the cutout's a woman!" Moody exclaimed.

"A Polish woman by the name of-" Tessa retrieved an index card from the pocket of her jacket "-Aida Tannenbaum. We got our hands on her naturalization papers. She is an Auschwitz survivor, a Jewish refugee from Poland who emigrated to America after World War II and became an American citizen in 1951. She was born in 1914, which makes her sixty-nine years old. She never seems to have held a job and it's not clear where she gets money to pay the rent."

Vanessa said, "She's changed apartments twenty-six times in the past thirty-two years. Her most recent address-which we traced when we broke out the most recent lottery signal from Moscow Radio-is on 16th Street near Antioch College. If she sticks to the pattern she'll move out in the next two or three days."

Mr. Moody was beginning to put it all together. "She moves out a week or so after she's contacted by the Soviet agent in America," he said.

"Right," Tessa said.

Vanessa said, "When she moves, all we have to do is get the phone company to tell us when someone named Aida Tannenbaum applies for a new phone number-"

Tessa finished the thought for her: "Or wait for the Moscow quiz program to come up with an Alice or a Looking Gla.s.s quotation, then subtract the serial number from the lottery number-"

Moody was shaking his head from side to side in wonderment. "And we'll have her new phone number-the one that the Soviet agent will call."

" Right. That's it."

"It looks to me," Moody said, "as if you girls have made a fantastic breakthrough. I must formally instruct both of you not to share this information with anybody. By anybody I mean any-body, without exception."

As soon as the twins were gone, Moody-who, like his old mentor Angleton, was reputed to have a photographic memory-opened a four-drawer steel file cabinet and rummaged through the folders until he came to an extremely thick one marked "Kukushkin." Moody had been a member of the crack four-man team that Angleton had a.s.signed to work through the Kukushkin serials. Now, skimming the pages of the dossier, he searched anxiously for the pa.s.sage he remembered. After a time he began to wonder whether he had imagined it. And then, suddenly, his eye fell on the paragraph he'd been looking for. At one point Kukushkin-who turned out to be a dispatched agent but who had delivered a certain amount of true information in order to establish his bona fides-had reported that the cutout who serviced SASHA was away from Washington on home leave; the summons back to Russia had been pa.s.sed on to the cutout by a woman who freelanced for the Washington rezidentura.

A woman who freelanced for the rezidentura!

In other words, SASHA was so important that one cutout wasn't sufficient; the KGB had built in a circuit breaker between the rezidentura and the cutout who serviced SASHA. Could it be this circuit breaker that the Kritzky twins had stumbled across? He would get the FBI to tap Aida Tannenbaum's phone on 16th Street on the off-chance the cutout who serviced SASHA called again before she moved on to another apartment, at which point they would tap the new number.

Barely able to conceal his excitement, Moody picked up an intra-office telephone and dialed a number on the seventh floor. "This is Moody in counterintelligence," he said. "Can you put me through to Mr. Ebbitt ... Mr. Ebbitt, this is Moody in counterintelligence. I know it's somewhat unusual, but I'm calling you directly because I have a something that requires your immediate attention..."

4.

WASHINGTON, DC, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1983.

TWO MEN IN WHITE JUMP SUITS WITH "CON EDISON" PRINTED ON THE backs showed laminated ID cards to the superintendent of the apartment building on 16th Street off Columbia, within walking distance of Antioch College. Quite a few Antioch undergraduates lived in the building, three or four to an apartment. The old woman with the heavy Eastern European accent in 3B had given notice, so the super said. She was obliged to move in with a sister who was bedridden and needed a.s.sistance; the old woman, whose name was Mrs. Tannenbaum, didn't seem overly concerned when she discovered that she would lose the two-months' security she had deposited with the real estate company. No, the super added, she didn't live alone; she shared the furnished apartment with someone named Silvester. Using penlights, the two technicians found where the telephone cable came into the bas.e.m.e.nt and followed it along the wall to the central panel near a wire mesh storage s.p.a.ce filled with baby carriages and bicycles. The shorter of the two men opened a metal tool kit and took out the induction tap and cable. The other man unscrewed the cover on the central panel. Inside, the connections were clearly labeled by apartment number. He touched 3B and, following the wire up with a fingertip, separated it from the others. Then he attached the induction clamp to the line; the device tapped into a phone without touching the wire, which made it difficult to detect. The two men wedged a small battery-powered transmitter between a metal beam and the ceiling, then ran the black cable from the induction tap up behind a pipe and plugged the end into the transmitter. They connected one end of an antenna wire to the terminal and, unreeling it, taped it to the side of the beam, then activated the transmitter and hit the "Test" b.u.t.ton.

Inside the white panel truck with "Slater & Slater Radio-TV" printed on the side, a needle on a signal reception meter registered "Strong." The two FBI agents manning the truck, which was parked in front of a fire hydrant further down l6th Street, gave each other the thumb's up sign. From this point on, all incoming and outgoing calls to 3B would be picked off the phone line by the induction clamp and broadcast to the white panel truck, where they would be recorded on tape and then rushed over to a joint command post staffed by FBI agents and Moody's people from counterintelligence.

The President was extremely proud of his long-term memory. "I recall, uh, this grizzly old sergeant looking out at the new recruits, me among them," he was saying, "and he growled at us, you know, the way sergeants growl at new recruits: 'I'm going to tell you men this just once but trust me-it'll stay with you for the rest of your lives. When you come out of a brothel the first thing you want to do is wash your, uh, private parts with Dial soap. The way you remember which soap to use is that Dial spelled backwards is laid."' Reagan, who liked to think of himself as a stand-up comic manque, grinned as he waited for the reactions. They weren't long in coming. "Dial spelled backward is laid!" one of the White House staffers repeated, and he and the others in the room howled with laughter. Reagan was chuckling along with them when his chief of staff, James Baker, stuck his head in the door of the second-floor office in the Presidential hideaway, the four-story brick townhouse on Jackson Place that Reagan had worked out of during the transition and still used when he wanted to get away from the darned goldfish bowl (as he called the Oval Office). "Their car's arriving," Baker snapped. He looked pointedly at the aides. "You have five minutes before I bring them up." With that, he disappeared.

"Remind me who's, uh, coming over," Reagan said amiably. A young aide produced an index card and hurriedly started to brief the President. "Bill Casey is coming to see you with two of his top people. The first person he's bringing along is his deputy director, Elliott Ebbitt II, Ebby for short. You've met him several times before."

"Did I, uh, call him Elliott or Ebby?"

"Ebby, Mr. President. The second person is the Deputy Director for Operations, Jack McAuliffe. You've never met him but you'll pick him out immediately-he's a six-footer with reddish hair and a flamboyant mustache. McAuliffe is something of a legendary figure inside the CIA-he's the one who went ash.o.r.e with the Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs."

"Ash.o.r.e with the Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs," Reagan repeated.

"McAuliffe's boy, Anthony, is the CIA officer who is being held hostage in Afghanistan, along with the Shaath woman."

Reagan nodded in concern. "The father must be pretty, uh, distressed."

"You were briefed about the boy's toe being amputated and delivered to the CIA station in Kabul."

"I remember the business with the toe," Reagan said cheerily. "They were able to identify it because of a birthmark."

"They're coming to see you," another aide added, "because they've discovered where this Commander Ibrahim is holding the hostages. They want a Presidential finding to mount a commando-style raid to free them."

Bill Clark, the Presidents National Security Advisor, came over to Reagan, who seemed lost in an enormous leather chair behind the large mahogany desk. Photographs of Nancy and himself, along with several of his favorite horses, were spread across the desk. "There are pros and cons to a commando raid," Clark said. "The one your predecessor, President Carter, mounted to free the hostages in Iran went wrong. US servicemen were killed. And of course the raiders never got anywhere near the hostages. Carter looked inept-the press was very critical. On the other hand, the Israelis mounted a commando raid to free the Jewish hostages being held by airline hijackers in Entebbe and pulled it off. They got a terrific press. The whole world applauded their audacity."

An appreciative smile worked its way onto Reagan's tanned features. "I remember that. Made quite a splash at the time."

There were two quick raps on the door, then Baker came in and stepped aside and three men walked into the room. Reagan sprang to his feet and came around the side of the desk to meet them half way. Grinning, he pumped Casey's hand. "Bill, how are you?" Without waiting for a response, he shook hands with Casey's deputy director, Elliott Ebbitt. "Ebby, glad to see you again," he said. The President turned to the DD/0, Jack McAuliffe and gripped his hand in both of his. "So you're the famous Jack McAuliffe I've, uh, heard so much about-your reputation precedes you. You're the one who went ash.o.r.e with the Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs."

"I'm flattered you remember that, Mr. President-"

"Americans don't forget their heroes. At least this American doesn't." He pulled Jack toward the couch and gestured for everyone to sit down. The aides hovered behind the President.

"Can I offer you boys something to wet your whistles?"

"If you don't mind, Mr. President, we're in a bit of a time bind," Casey said.

Reagan said to Jack, "I was briefed about the toe with the birthmark- you must be pretty distressed."

"Distressed is not the word, Mr. President," Jack said. "This Ibrahim fellow is threatening to cut off more of his toes unless the negotiations-" He couldn't continue.

Reagan's eyes narrowed in sincere commiseration. "Any father in your situation would be worried sick."

"Mr. President," Bill Casey said, "we've come over because there have been new developments in the hostage situation."

Reagan turned his gaze on Casey and stared at him in total concentration. "Our KH-11 has come up with-"

The President leaned back toward an aide, who bent down and whispered in his ear, "Sir, KH-11 is a photo reconnaissance satellite."

"Our KH-11 has come up with some dazzling intelligence," Casey said. "You'll remember, Mr. President, that the Russians and everyone else fell for the disinformation we put out-they think the KH-11 is a signals platform. As they don't suspect there are cameras on board, they don't camouflage military installations or close missile silo doors when the satellite pa.s.ses overhead. The KH-11 has an advanced radar system to provide an all-weather and day-night look-down capability-using computers, our people are able to enhance the radar signals and create photographs. Thanks to this we've been able to track the Ibrahim kidnappers across Afghanistan. We've traced them to a mountain fortress two hundred and twenty miles inside Afghanistan." Casey pulled an eight-by-ten black-and-white photograph from a folder and handed it to Reagan. "We even have a daytime shot of the Shaath woman and Jack's son, Anthony, walking inside the compound."

The President studied the photograph. "I can make out the two figures but how can you, uh, tell who they are."

"We determined that one is a woman by her chest. And as neither is dressed the way the tribesmen dress, we concluded that they are Westerners."

Reagan handed the photograph back. "I see."

Ebby said, "Mr. President, we have independent confirmation that Anthony McAuliffe and Maria Shaath are, in fact, being held in Ibrahim's stronghold. We arranged for our Israeli friends to send in an agent masquerading as a gunrunner. This happened four days ago. The Mossad's report reached us this morning. The gunrunner saw the two prisoners with his own eyes and subsequently picked out the young McAuliffe and Maria Shaath from a group of photographs that we faxed to the Israelis."

"While this was going on, Mr. President," Casey said, "we've been buying time by negotiating with this fellow Ibrahim by fax. As you know, he originally wanted a hundred and fifty Stinger ground-to-air missiles. In the course of the negotiations we've managed to talk him down to fifty-"

Reagan was shaking his head in disagreement. "I don't see why you're being so stingy," he said. "Far as I'm concerned Afghanistan's the right war at the right time. I told Jim Baker here that the, uh, money you boys allocated to the freedom fighters was peanuts." The President repeated the word "peanuts." The others in the room dared not look at each other. Reagan slapped a knee. "By gosh, there were fifty-eight thousand Americans killed in Vietnam. Afghanistan is payback time."

The National Security Advisor coughed into a palm and Reagan looked up at him. "Mr. President, you decided some time ago that giving Stingers to the Islamic fundamentalists could backfire on us, in the sense that after the Russians leave Afghanistan the fundamentalists could turn the Stingers on the West. Perhaps you would like to review this policy-"

"Well, I just, uh, hate to see the gall darn Commies squirm off the hook, and so forth."

"It's a piece of policy I could never understand," Casey said, hoping to sway the President. He avoided looking at Baker, whom he suspected of badmouthing him behind his back; the two were barely on speaking terms. "Putting Stingers into the hands of the mujaheddin," Casey added, "would tilt the scales against the Russians-"

"We could have the National Security shop take another look at the Stinger question," Baker told the President. "But I don't see what's changed since you made your determination that it was too risky."

"We're not afraid of taking risks," Reagan said, searching for a formulation that would accommodate everyone's point of view. "On the other hand, we certainly wouldn't want the Islamists turning the Stingers on us when this war is, uh, over."

Baker, who organized Reagan's schedule and controlled what paperwork reached his desk, took his cue from the last thing the President said. "Until the President changes his mind," he instructed the aides, "we'll leave the Stinger decision stand."

Casey shrugged; another skirmish lost in the behind-the-scenes infighting that went on around the disengaged President. "Now that we know where the hostages are," Casey mumbled, "we'd like to explore with you the possibility of organizing a commando-style raid to free them."

Jack said earnestly, "What we have in mind, Mr. President, is to farm out the operation to the Israelis. We've already sounded out the Mossad's deputy director, Ezra Ben Ezra, the one they call the Rabbi-"

Reagan looked bemused. "That's a good one-a Rabbi being deputy director of the Mossad!"

"The Israelis," Jack rushed on, "have an elite unit known as the Sayeret Matkal-it was this unit that pulled off the Entebbe raid, Mr. President."

"I'm, uh, familiar with the Entebbe raid," Reagan said.

"The game plan," Ebby said, "is for us to agree to exchange the hostages for fifty Stingers. Then a dozen or so members of this Israeli unit-Jews who were born in Arab countries and look like Arabs- "

"And speak perfect Arabic," Jack put in.

"The Sayeret Matkal team," Ebby continued, "would go in with a string of pack animals carrying crates filled with Stingers that have been modified to make them unworkable. Once they're inside Ibrahim's compound-"

Baker interrupted. "What's in it for the Israelis?"

Casey talked past Reagan to Baker. "They're willing to lend a helping hand in exchange for access to KH-11 photos of their Middle East neighbors."

The aides studied the patterns in the carpet underfoot. Baker kept nodding. Clark chewed pensively on the inside of his cheek. Their underlings were waiting to see which way the wind would blow. Finally the President said, very carefully, "Well, it, uh, sounds interesting to me, boys."