The Brotherhood of the Rose (29 page)

Burgess had warned Maclean. Burgess knew Philby, the man who accused Maclean. Indeed Burgess had once been a guest in Philby's home. Had Philby made an inadvertent slip, letting Burgess know Maclean was in trouble?

That explanation made no sense. Philby had too much experience to reveal sensitive information to a friend of the man he planned to accuse.

Then what was the connection? Burgess, Maclean, and Philby. Hardy made a drastic leap in logic. What if Philby too was a Communist agent? What if Philby had accused Maclean but first had sent Burgess to warn him?

Why, though? Why would Philby accuse a fellow Communist agent?

Hardy could think of only one reason-to protect a more important Communist agent who was close to being uncovered. But who'd be more important than Maclean? Hardy's breathing quickened. Philby himself? By accusing Maclean, Philby would raise himself above suspicion. Perhaps, in his work with the FBI, Philby had discovered he was close to being identified as a spy Assumptions, Hardy thought. But where's the proof? He suddenly recalled a Communist defector named Krivitsky who, years before, had warned about three Soviet agents in the British diplomatic corps. Krivitsky had identified one man by his last name, King (subsequently arrested), but Krivitsky had been vague about the other two: a Scotsman attracted to Communism in the thirties, and a British journalist in the Spanish Civil War. The Scotsman had now been identified as Maclean. But who was the British journalist?

Hardy studied the small details in Philby's dossier, almost laughing when he found what he wanted: Philby had once been a journalist-in the Spanish Civil War. Abruptly everything fit. Philby and Burgess had known each other as students at Cambridge. Maclean had also gone to Cambridge. In the thirties, each of them had been sympathetic to communism but then had undergone a drastic change, all at once preferring capitalism, joining the British diplomatic service.

Of course, Hardy thought, They'd been approached by the Russians and agreed to become deep-cover Soviet agents.

"That made my reputation," Hardy said. The sour vermouth tainted his breath. "People forget I'm the man who unmasked Philby."

"Some of us know who the legends are," Saul said. "Ze, and Eliot." Hardy drank. "The golden boys. Eliot points by using ex-Nazis and ex-Fascists who rebuilt their intelligence networks after the war, this time working for us. It seemed we couldn't do anything wrong."

"What's his background?"

"He didn't tell you even that much? Boston. His family was in the social register. His father went to Yale, then worked for the State Department. Shortly after Eliot was born in 1915, his father died when the Germans sank the Lushania. His mother died in the 1918 flue epidemic. You understand what I'm saying?"

"Eliot's an orphan?" Saul felt a chill. "Like you and Chris. Maybe that explains his interest in the two of you."

"He went to an orphanage?"

"No. He didn't have any grandparents or uncles and aunts. There were some distant relatives who might have taken him in. His inheritance was large enough that supporting him wouldn't have been a problem. But a friend of his father offered to raise him-a man with influence in the State Department. Eliot's relatives agreed. After all, this man could train Eliot as his father would have wanted. The man had wealth and power."

"Who?"

"Tex Auton."

Saul's eyes widened. "That's right," Hardy said. "One of the designers of the Abelard sanction. Eliot got his training from Auton, who helped to establish the ground rules for modern espionage. You could say Eliot was there at the start of everything. Of course, before the war, America had no separate intelligence network. The military and the State Department did it all. But after Pearl Harbor, the OSS was formed, and Auton encouraged Eliot to join. Eliot went to England to receive his training. He ran some effective operations in France. He liked the work, so after the war he made the shift when OSS became the CIA. Auton had retired by then, but Eliot often went to him for advice, and the most important thing Auton told him was not to try for the top positions in the agency."

"But for an ambitious man, that advice makes no sense."

"It does if you think about it. How many directors and deputy directors has the agency had over the years? So many I can't remember them. Those positions are political appointments. They change with whoever's in the White House. The real power in the agency-by which I mean the consistent power-lies just below the deputy director and his subordinate: the number four position, nonpolitical, nonappointed, based on merit, on experience within the agency."

"So Eliot took Auton's advice."

Hardy nodded. "He rose as high as he dared. Hell, one ,resident even offered him the directorship, but Eliot turned it down. He wanted to keep his job secure. But he also wanted more power, so he broadened his base, arranging for more and more agents to be responsible to him, spreading his influence into operations in every hemisphere. Chief of counterintelligence. He got that title in 1955, but he had considerable clout even in the forties. Senators, congressmen, presidents, they depend on elections. Eventually they have to leave office. But Eliot never had to worry about elections. Year after year, regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans ran the country, Eliot kept the number four slot in the agency. Only one other man ever managed the trick of holding power so long."

"J. Edgar Hoover."

"Right. But Hoover's dead now, so it's no exaggeration to say that Eliot's been the most consistent influence in American government since the forties. Mind you, Eliot always faced the danger of another ambitious man coming along to bump him out of his number four position. To give himself an edge, he investigated anyone who might be a threat to him. Presidents, cabinet members, the various directors of the agency, it didn't matter who. Maybe he learned that tactic from Hoover, or maybe Auton taught it to him. But he put together the bestdocumented collection of scandals you can imagine. Sex, booze, drugs-you name a vice, he found out about it. Tax evasion, conflict of interest, kickbacks, bribery. If someone threatened to take away Eliot's power. Eliot simply showed that person his file, and all threats stopped. That's why he's still in the agency even though he's past the age for retirement. Because of those files."

"Where are they?"

"Anybody's guess. Maybe a bank vault in Geneva. Maybe a locker at the local Y. Impossible to tell. Believe me, people have tried to find them. He's been followed, but he always loses a tail."

"You still haven't told me why you investigated him." Hardy thought about it. "Another hunch. You remember how Eliot always insisted there were other Communist agents, not just Philby, Burgess, and Maclean, but a lot more, hidden here and in Britain, high in the government? In particular, he felt sure we had a Russian spy in the agency. He used this theory to explain the U-2 incident, the Bay of Pigs disaster, the JFK assassination. Whenever we started a new operation, the Russians seemed to know about it beforehand. Eliot's theory had seemed paranoid. Now it sounded convincing. Everybody in the agency started checking on everybody else. We got so busy looking behind our backs, suspecting each other, no work got done. We never found the spy. It didn't matter. Eliot's theory did as much damage as any spy could have done. In effect, he paralyzed the agency, and that's what started me thinking. Maybe Eliot protested too much. Maybe Eliot himself was the spy, cleverly disrupting the agency by insisting there was a spy. That was Kim Philby's tactic, Accuse someone else, and no one suspects the accuser."

"You suspected, though."

Hardy shrugged. "Let's say I was jealous. We started our careers together. At first, we were equally brilliant. But over the years, he had more successes. He rose higher while I stayed where I was. If things had been different, maybe I could have equated him." He raised his glass. "I guess I wanted to bring him down and in the process pull myself up. I kept remembering my first big success. Maybe I could repeat it-exactly the same. I told you Eliot went to England for his OSS training during the war. We didn't know much about espionage, but the British did. The man in MI-6 who taught him. You'll never guess who he was."

Saul waited. Hardy drained his glass. "Kim Philby."

Saul stopped breathing. "Eliot's a mole?"

"I didn't say that."

"Why the hell mention Philby if you're not accusing?"

"It's only what I thought. I can make assumptions, but they're meaningless without proof."

"And you don't have the proof."

"I told you I never got that far. When Eliot had me sacked, my office was sealed. My apartment, my car, my safety-deposit box were searched. Every scrap of paper even vaguely related to the agency was taken from me."

"Including your research?"

"I never wrote it down, thank God. If Eliot had seen a file on him, if he thought I was dangerous... well, he wouldn't trust a drunk. I'd have had a sudden heart attack or fallen off a building."

"You remember what you learned?" Hardy straightened indignantly. "Of course. I'm not-look, he's a man of habit, so I have to become suspicious when I find variations in his routine. In 1954 -his travel vouchers tell an interesting story-he made several unexplained trips to Europe. For a week in August, he dropped completely out of sight."

"Vacation?"

"Without leaving an address or a phone number where the agency could reach him in an emergency?"

"I see your point."

"I can trace him to Belgium. After that Hardy lit a cigarette, exhaling smoke. "And no one questioned his disappearance?"

"Not only wasn't it questioned, the next year he got promoted. For all I know, he'd been sent on a mission, and his promotion was a reward for success. All the same, that missing week - -."

"If he's a mole, he could have been meeting with his KGB control."

"That suspicion occurred to me. But it's sloppy tradecraft. I can think of too many other less mysterious ways for the KGB to get in touch with him. Why invite attention by having him disappear like that? Whatever the reason for his disappearance, it was obviously necessary-something that couldn't be done any other way.". Saul frowned. As the air conditioner rattled, he shivered but not from the chill. "Something else," Hardy said. In 1973, he disappeared again-this time for the last three days in June,"

"To Belgium again?"

"Japan."

"So what's the connection?"

Hardy shrugged. "I've no idea what he did on those trips. But I keep going back to my first assumption. Let's say during the war, when he went to England, he joined Philby, Burgess, and Maclean in becoming a Soviet double agent."

"Or a triple agent."

"Could be." Hardy scratched his chin. "I never thought of that. He could have pretended to go along with Philby, planning to use his relationship with the Soviets to the advantage of the United States. He always liked complexity, and being a triple agent's the most complex role of all. The difference is the same. Whether a double or a triple agent, he'd have been in contact with the KGB. Someone had to pass messages to him, someone so much a part of his routine no one would question if they regularly got in touch with each other, someone with freedom of movement, preferably with European connections."

"And you found him?"

"Roses."

"What?"

"As much as complexity, Eliot loves roses. He structures his day around them. He exchanges letters with other enthusiasts. He sends and receives rare varieties."

Saul felt a jolt. "And goes to flower shows."

"In Europe. Particularly a show in London every July. He hasn't missed that show since the first one in '46, right after the war. A perfect meeting place. He always stays with a friend who owns an estate near London... Percival Landish Junior."

Saul inhaled sharply. "So you recognize the name?" Hardy asked. "His father represented England's intelligence network at the Abelard meeting in '38."

"An interesting pattern, don't you think? Auton, who was also at that meeting, became friends with Landish Senior. Eliotauton's foster son-became friends with Landish's son. By the way, the senior Landish was Philby's supervisor."

"Jesus," Saul repeated. "So I have to wonder," Hardy said. "Was Landish Senior a mole as well? The trouble with believing in a conspiracy is that after a while you can make anything fit your theory. Have I got too much imagination? Let's put it this way. If Eliot works for the Soviets, Landish Junior would be my candidate for the courier passing messages. He's perfect. He occupies the same position in MI-6 that Eliot does in the CIA. Like Eliot, he's been insisting there's a mole in MI-6. If Landish Senior worked for the Soviets, maybe Landish Junior continued the job after his father died."

"The question is how to prove it."

Erika stopped halfway down the aisle and leaned toward a passenger in a window seat. "Sir, fasten your seatbelt, please." She wore an attractive El A] stewardess uniform. Because of the hurried arrangements, she'd been given a limited choice of women for whom she could substitute. Her height, hair color, and facial structure had been similar to a scheduled member of the flight crew. But the woman whom Erika had replaced and who was now driving south from Miami toward Key West on a sudden all-expenses-paid vacation was a bit smaller than Erika, so the uniform fit tightly, emphasizing the contour of her breasts. The males on board looked pleased instead of puzzled.