Sacrificial Lion Read online

  * * *

  He spent two hours driving around the city, playing the delicate game of surveillance/countersurveillance. If he knew how big the net was, he might gauge how long he had. Conversely, if they suspected he was dry-cleaning, they might scoop him up. For now, his role had to be that of the oblivious quarry.

  * * *

  He spent the afternoon at the Pieck safe house. At six o’ clock he left the city and drove north forty miles to Furstenberg, where he parked on a side street. Night had fallen and the lights along Leibninstrasse shone like yellow beacons. Only an hour from Berlin, Furstenberg had a lighter feel and the people on the streets were animated. He found the pub, the Schwarz Katze, halfway down the block.

  The bar was crowded with Russian soldiers, mostly tankers and Spetsnaz, the elite of the Soviet Special Forces. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke, and in one corner a radio blared Russian folk music. Henry picked his way through the crowd to the bar and ordered a beer. Two minutes later a pair of civilians in black leather coats walked in and took a table near the back.

  More obvious now, Henry thought. Tightening the leash.

  It took but thirty seconds for him to spot the man he was looking for. General Yuri Pavlovich Kondrash, commander of the Second Tank Guards Army and the Twentieth Guards Spetsnaz Diversionary Brigade, sat alone, hunched over a bottle of vodka. Henry walked over, offered him a cigarette and struck up a conversation: Where was the closest butcher shop? What month was the Marigold Festival held? How often did the train run to Blindow?

  Kondrash’s answers were curt, but Henry had what he needed.

  * * *

  He was back in Berlin by 10:00 p.m. On the road he’d picked up more watchers, six men in three cars, bringing the total to ten he could see, and probably another dozen he couldn’t. They were growing aggressive now, the lead vehicle only ten feet off his rear bumper.

  Not long now, he thought, checking his watch. God, let me finish.

  * * *

  Remarkably, the Schiffbauerdamm theater, overlooking the Spree River and within sight of the Brandenburg Gate, had survived the war largely unscathed. Since ’48 it had become the de facto center for East Berlin culture, from opera to ballet to theater. Friday night was opera, and according to the playbill given to him by ADEX, tonight’s production was Wagner’s Tannhauser. Henry preferred a good western to the opera, but not so the man he’d come to see.

  General Georgy Ivanovich Preminin, marshal of the Soviet Red Army and commander of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany, was Stalin’s iron fist in East Germany. He was also the last piece of the puzzle Henry was hurrying to assemble.

  He parked under a copse of linden trees behind a half-demolished church on Oranienburger Strasse and climbed out. The earlier drizzle had turned to freezing rain and the pellets ticked against the brim of his hat. He walked to the rear of the car and shined his penlight under the bumper. The transmitter was there, probably planted while he was in the Schwarz Katze. He ripped it off, crushed it under his heel and tossed the remains away. The move wouldn’t save him, he knew, but it might buy him time as the Stasi quartered the area looking for his car.

  He pulled the brim of his hat lower and started walking.

  * * *

  With the sleet, a thick fog had risen off the Spree. The Schiffbauerdamm seemed to float above the ground, mist swirling around its Gothic cornices. Lit from within, the stained-glass windows were rainbow-hued rectangles in the darkness.

  From the alley Henry studied the parking lot until he spotted Preminin’s car, a black ZIS-110 limousine with a hammer-and-sickle flag on each fender. Preminin’s chauffeur/bodyguard stood under an umbrella beside the driver’s door, smoking.

  Henry heard the squealing of tires. Down the block a black Mercedes pulled around the corner, rolled to a stop and doused its lights. Two figures, cast in silhouette from the streetlight, sat in the front seat. Henry saw the tip of a cigarette glow red, then fade.

  He pulled a pint of whiskey from the pocket of his trench coat, dumped half of it onto the ground, then took a gulp and swished it around his mouth. He tossed his hat away, dipped his hand in a puddle and mussed his hair, then stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  Playing a drunk was a tricky performance but Henry had used the ruse before. Humming tunelessly, he stumbled off the curb and weaved his way toward Preminin’s ZIS. Spotting him, the chauffeur flicked his cigarette away and slipped his hand inside his coat.

  “Hey, nice car,” Henry called in German. “What is it, eh? A Mercedes?”

  “Nyet, nyet,” the chauffeur growled. “Go away.”

  Henry ignored him and shuffled around to the passenger side. The chauffeur followed, hand still inside his jacket. “Nyet, nyet….”

  “Big bastard, whatever it is.”

  The ZIS’s rear window was rolled down an inch.

  Henry took a swig from the bottle. From the corner of his eye he saw the chauffeur moving toward him. Henry lurched forward and grabbed the upper edge of the window, pressing his face to the glass. “Big interior! Is that leather?”

  “Get away from there!”

  He grabbed a handful of Henry’s coat. Henry let the slim aluminum tube slip from his hand. It bounced off the back seat and rolled onto the floorboard. The chauffeur jerked him backward. Henry let himself fall to the sidewalk. “Hey, what’s the idea!”

  “Go away, I said!”

  “Okay, okay…”

  Henry rose to his feet, brushed himself off and stumbled back across the street.

  Behind him he heard an engine rev. Headlights washed over him. He glanced over his shoulder. The Mercedes was accelerating toward him. He dropped the bottle and ran.

  * * *

  Having sprung the trap, the Stasi was everywhere. For the next hour Henry sprinted through parks and hopped fences; down alleys and up fire escapes and over rooftops. Sirens warbled, sometimes in the distance, sometimes close. At every turn, blue strobes flashed off wet cobblestones and shop windows. Henry kept going, picking his way north and west until he reached the alley across from the apartment.

  Crouched behind a hedge, he watched for five minutes, waiting for the skidding of tires and the blare of sirens. None came. He trotted across the street. As he mounted the steps, a pair of headlights pinned him, then a second pair, and a third. Car doors opened, slammed shut. Booted feet hammered the pavement.

  “Schnell, schnell!”

  “Halt!”

  Henry charged up the stairs, fumbled with the key, then pushed through the door and locked it behind him. Boots pounded up the stairs. The door shuddered once, then again. The wooden jamb splintered. Henry rushed across the room, dropped to his knees, pried back the baseboard. Glass shattered. He glanced over his shoulder. An arm was reaching through the window, groping for the doorknob. Henry pulled the packet from its hole, then carried it to the woodstove. Inside, a single ember glowed orange. He blew on it. A flame sprung to life. He shoved the packet inside. Too big. He folded it, tried again.

  The door crashed open.

  “Halt!”

  He turned around and caught a fleeting glimpse of a rifle butt arcing toward his face.

  Everything went black.

  * * *

  Blindfolded and shackled, he was taken to what he assumed was either Stasi headquarters on Normannenstrasse or to Hohenschoenhausen prison. No one spoke to him and no questions were asked. Around the edges of the blindfold he could see shoes coming and going in his cell, then he felt the prick of a needle and suddenly he was floating. Sounds and smells and sensations merged. He heard Russian voices, smelled the tang of cigarette smoke, felt himself being stripped naked.

  His days became a blur as he teetered at the edge of consciousness. His world narrowed: the prick of the needle…the drug coursing hot in his veins…the rhythmic thump of steel wheels on tracks…the hoot of a train’s whistle…the stench of burning coal. In that small, still-lucid part of his brain, Henry knew who had him and where he was going.
/>   On the morning of the third or fourth or fifth day, the train groaned to a stop.

  He was lifted to his feet and dragged down steps. He felt the crunch of snow under his feet and through the blindfold he could see sunlight. He was trundled into a car. After a short ride he was jerked out and marched down more steps, then a long corridor. He was shoved from behind. He stumbled forward and bumped into a wall. A door slammed shut behind him.

  Henry put his back to the wall and slid down to the floor. Lubyanka.

  * * *

  He sat in darkness for three days. On the fourth day, two guards came for him. He was blindfolded and marched down a corridor, then several flights of stairs, then another corridor, ever deeper into the bowels of the prison.

  He was guided into a room, where he was shackled to a chair bolted to the floor. His blindfold was removed. The room was small and square, windowless, with a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. A man in an MgB uniform stood before him. The man’s epaulets told Henry he was a colonel. Second Chief Directorate, he thought. Bad, bad news.

  “Good morning, Mr. Caulder,” the colonel said in accented English.

  Henry wasn’t surprised they knew his name. He’d run dozens of operations in Berlin, either from the ground or at a distance, causing both the Stasi and the MgB a lot of heartache.

  The colonel said, “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

  “And now that you have, I assume you’ll let me go?”

  The colonel chuckled. “No, I’m afraid not. Let’s have a talk, shall we?”

  * * *

  Over the next two days the colonel interrogated him twenty hours a day, at dawn, during the day, in the middle of the night, sometimes for twelve hours, sometimes only an hour. All the questions were variations on a theme: Why had he come to East Berlin?

  Henry remained silent.

  On the third day, the beatings began. He was hung by his wrists from the ceiling while a bald, heavyset man worked on him with a truncheon, pausing only to catch his breath or to let the colonel ask questions.

  Still Henry remained silent.

  At the start of the second week, he was brought again to the interrogation room. This time, however, he was stripped naked and shackled to the chair. The colonel stood in the corner, smoking, watching him. The bald man entered, carrying what looked like a birdhouse.

  No, not a birdhouse, Henry thought. Get a hold of yourself. You know what it is.

  A hand-cranked field phone.

  The bald man attached wires first to the phone, then with alligator clips to Henry’s testicles. He then nodded at the colonel, who walked over and stared down at Henry. “One last chance.”

  Henry simply shook his head.

  The bald man started cranking.

  * * *

  He managed to hold on for another week. Once he started talking, it came in a flood, from his arrival at Tempelhof, to his meetings with Belikov, Kondrash and Preminin, to his capture at the Pieck apartment. Friendly now, the colonel walked Henry through the story again, and again, and again, looking for inconsistencies and contradictions. Finally, on the fifth day the colonel ended the questioning and dismissed the stenographer.

  “Don’t feel bad, my friend. You did your best.”

  For the first time in forty days, Henry Caulder smiled.

  * * *

  Now, standing at the threshold of the execution room, Henry felt that same smile forming on his lips. He quashed it and stepped forward. The space was identical to the interrogation room, save two features: The walls were draped in thick, heavily stained canvas, and off to one side lay a body bag.

  “Good morning,” the colonel said.

  “That’s a matter of perspective, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed. A poor choice of words. I wish it hadn’t come to this, but I have my orders.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  “We are enemies, you and I, but professionals nevertheless. You were doing your job and I was doing mine. Of course, they don’t see it that way.”

  “They never do.”

  “It will be quick, I promise.”

  “What’s going to happen to my people?” Henry asked. “Belikov, Kondrash and Preminin?” He already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear the words.

  “It’s already happened. They were convicted of treason and executed yesterday.”

  “And my network?”

  “We’re investigating each of their commands. We’ll have confessions soon.”

  “I have no doubt,” Henry said.

  “On your knees, please.”

  Henry turned to face the wall and knelt down. He was waiting for the fear to come, ready for it to fill his chest like acid, but nothing happened. He felt peace. Suddenly a cough welled up in his chest. He heaved, bent double with the pain until the spasm passed. He wiped his mouth. His palm came back bloody.

  “Pneumonia,” the colonel said.

  No, I don’t think so, Henry thought.

  Ironic that only now he was feeling the symptoms. The doctor had given him four months, no more, before the cancer would metastasize and spread from his lungs to his brain, then to the rest of his organs. Past that, he had a week, perhaps two.

  * * *

  For years both the American and the British intelligence communities suspected Stalin would eventually send the Red Army rolling across Europe, and the allies would be hard-pressed to stop them without going nuclear. The question was how to stop it before it started. For Henry, the answer was simple: Gut the Red Army of its best and brightest. Stalin’s own paranoia had cocked the gun; all that remained was the gentlest of nudges on the trigger.

  He’d purged the Red Army a dozen times since the twenties, killing hundreds of thousands of dedicated soldiers based on nothing more than suspicion and innocent association. Despite this, three of the most gifted had survived and had come to command key positions: Colonel General Vasily Belikov, General Yuri Kondrash and Marshal Georgy Preminin. When war came, these three men and their armies had the power to conquer Western Europe.

  Of course, all three had sworn their innocence, but the MgB, ever ready to ferret out traitors to the motherland, and Stalin, ever wary of plotters from within, had all the evidence they needed.

  Planning the operation, Henry had rehearsed the scenario from the MgB’s perspective:

  A British spymaster who has plagued them for years suddenly appears in East Berlin on a hurried mission.

  A message intercept from a code the CIA believes still secure mentions an Operation Marigold and the activation of three agents: PASKAL, HERRING and ARIES.

  In the weeks preceding the agent’s arrival in East Berlin, CIA-backed Radio Free Europe strays from its normal programming and begins broadcasting what the MgB believes is plain-talk code, which includes multiple uses of the word Marigold.

  Finally, coinciding with the agent’s arrival in East Berlin, an executive secretary at GSFG headquarters vanishes.

  Henry had little trouble envisioning the MgB’s report to Stalin:

  Once inside the Soviet sector, British agent Caulder was followed to Magdeburg, where he serviced three dead drops near the headquarters of the Third Shock Combined Arms Red Banner Army, after which he was photographed passing a message to Colonel General Vasily Sergeyevich Belikov. Upon Belikov’s arrest, a false coat button was found on his person. Inside the button was a microdot containing a two-word message: PROCEED MARIGOLD.

  In Furstenberg, Agent Caulder was seen talking with General Yuri Pavlovich Kondrash, commander of the Second Tank Guards Army and the Twentieth Guards Spetsnaz Diversionary Brigade. Witnesses state the word marigold was passed between them.

  In East Berlin, Agent Caulder was photographed near the limousine of General Georgy Ivanovich Preminin, commander of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany. Upon Preminin’s arrest, his limousine was searched, and found was a small tube containing a message: PROCEED MARIGOLD.

  During questioning, Agent Caulder offered a signed confessio
n disclosing the details of Operation Marigold and the complicity of Belikov, Kondrash and Preminin in a plot to foment an uprising in the Red Army and topple the Soviet government.

  For his part, Henry had selectively and carefully broken every tradecraft rule in the book: He walked undisguised into a CIA station where he was photographed by Stasi watchers; he entered East Berlin from the French sector with a poorly backstopped cover letter; he was stopped by the VoPo, who noted his license plate and destination, which allowed the Stasi to intercept him in Magdeburg; he destroyed a tracking transmitter, a sure sign he was about to run; finally, he was arrested with espionage paraphernalia, including a cipher book and a partially encoded message containing the word marigold, false travel documents and a burst transmitter found hidden behind a wall.

  From the start, Henry had been the right man for the job, but he knew if it were to succeed, the plan required a sacrifice—a man willing to punch a one-way ticket.

  The cancer had made his decision easy.

  * * *

  He heard the scrape of the colonel’s pistol sliding from its leather holster, followed by the clicking of heels on concrete. He imagined the pistol drawing level with his skull, the cold muzzle hovering over his skin. No regrets, Henry. You made a difference. You went down like a lion.

  “Colonel,” Henry said without turning. “A favor? One professional to another?”

  A pause. Then, “What is it?”

  “I’d like to see the sun one more time.”

  Silence.

  Henry squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath.

  “Very well, Henry,” the colonel said. “Stand up, I’ll take you.”

  * * *

  In the months following Henry Caulder’s arrest, hundreds of officers from units across the GSFG were tried and either executed or imprisoned for treason to the motherland. The purge spread quickly, first to associated commands, then to the civilian political ranks, and finally to GRU military intelligence. By the end of February thousands had disappeared into Lubyanka’s basement.

  On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin died in his sleep.

  * * * * *