Read Online The Company: A Novel of the CIA by Robert Littell - Free Book Online

with a red thermite canister. "Elementary deduction, my dear Watson," Torriti said mockingly. "Careful that doohickey doesn't blow up in your puss. By the way, did you get ahold of the lambs you sent to the slaughter?"
    "Afraid I haven't, Harvey. They missed the time slot. There's another one tomorrow night."
    "Like I said, it's the goddamn Goths who are winning the goddamn war." Torriti turned his attention back to Miss Sipp.
    "Item number four: Gehlen's night duty officer at Pullach rang us on the red phone to say that one of their agents in the Soviet zone who is good at 'Augenerkundung'—the Night Owl raised her eyes and translated for the benefit of those in the room who didn't speak German—"that means 'eye spying'; the Augenerkundung had just spotted wagons filled with Volkspolizei throwing up roadblocks across the approaches to the Soviet air base at Eberswalde. Minutes later—just about the time the defector was supposed to present his warm body at your safe house, Mr. Torriti—the Augenerkundung spotted a convoy ofTatra limousines pulling on to the runway from a little used entrance in the chainlink fence. Sandwiched in the middle of the convoy was a brown military ambulance. Dozens of civilians—KGB heavies, judging by the cut of their trousers, so said the Watcher—spilled out of the Tatras. Two stretchers with bodies strapped onto them were taken out of the ambulance and carried up a ramp into the plane parked, with its engines revving, at the end of the runway." Miss Sipp looked up and said with a bright smile, "That means Vishnevsky and his wife were still alive at this point. I mean"—her smile faded, her voice faltered—"if they were deceased they wouldn't have needed to strap them onto stretchers, would they have?"
    "That still leaves the kid unaccounted for," noted Jack.
    "If you'd let me finish," the Night Owl said huffily, "I'll give you the kid, too." She turned back toward the Sorcerer and recrossed her legs; this time the gesture provoked a flicker of interest from his restless eyes. "A boy—the Watcher estimated he was somewhere between ten and fifteen years of age; he said it was difficult to tell because of all the clothing the child was wearing—was pulled from one of the Tatras and, accompanied by two heavies, one holding him under each armpit, led up the ramp onto the plane. The boy was sobbing and crying out 'papa' in Russian, which led Gehlen's duty officer to conclude that the two people strapped onto the stretchers must have been Russians."
    The Sorcerer palm came down on his desk in admiration. "Fucking Gehlen gives good value for the bucks we provide. Just think of it, he had a Watcher close enough to hear the boy call out for his papa. Probably has one of the fucking Hauptverwaltung Aufklarung storm troopers on his payroll. We fucking pay through the nose, how come we don't get Watchers of this quality?"
    "Gehlen was supposed to have planted one of his Fremde Heere Ost agents in Stalin's inner circle during the war," remarked the Berlin Base archivist, a former Yale librarian named Rosemarie Kitchen.
    "Lot of good it did him," quipped Ebby, which got a titter around the room.
    "I don't fucking see what there is to laugh about," Torriti exploded. His eyes, suddenly blazing, were fixed on Ebby. "The frigging Russians were tipped off—the KGB pricks know when and where and who. Vishnevsky's got a rendezvous with a bullet fired at point blank range into the nape of his neck, and that bothers me, okay? It bothers me that he counted on me to get him out and I didn't do it. It bothers me that I almost didn't get myself and Jack and the two Silwans out neither. All of which means we're being jerked off by a fucking mole. How come almost all the agents we drop into Czechoslovakia or Rumania wind up in front of firing squads? How come the emigrés we slip into Poland don't radio back to say they're having a nice vacation, PS regards to Uncle Harvey? How come the fucking KGB seems to know