Red Army Spies and the Blackrobes Trilogy Read online

  Table of Contents

  B O O K • 1

  Death & Duplicity

  1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19

  B O O K • 2

  Days of Danger

  1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21

  B O O K • 3

  Death & Discernment

  1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25

  About the Author

  The Complete Trilogy

  Red Army Spies

  and

  The Blackrobes

  Patrick Trese

  Verisimilitude, in my book, trumps factuality.

  This novel mixes fiction and fact. It tells the stories of make-believe men and women who became involved with real people in actual major events. Those real people who spoke to my fictional characters said what I wanted them to say. So did the characters I created until they began to say and do whatever they wished. It happens and, as one of my imagined persons reminded me, it’s strange how some things work out. Amen?

  Book 1: DEATH & DUPLICITY

  Book 2: DAYS OF DANGER

  Book 3: DEATH & DISCERNMENT

  Copyright © 2019, Patrick Trese

  All Rights Reserved.

  Red Army Spies

  and

  The Blackrobes

  B O O K • O N E

  Death & Duplicity

  C H A P T E R • 1

  The winds of change were blowing through the streets of Moscow. Russians were moving cautiously, eyes averted. Much was being left unsaid.

  It was February 27, 1956.

  Two days before, so it was whispered, Nikita Khrushchev had stood before the Communist Party Congress and vigorously denounced Stalin and his reign of terror. The speech had been delivered in secret, but enough fragments had leaked out to panic Captain Oksana Volkova of the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army.

  Fighting the gusts of cold air that sliced through her heavy overcoat, she rushed through corridors of snow piled high along the sidewalks. Her general had summoned her and she dared not be late. She skidded around an icy corner, but kept her balance and did not fall.

  Up ahead loomed the headquarters of her special division of the GRU. Beyond its iron gates stood the ancient gray mansion surrounded by its black, leafless trees. Her wristwatch was buried beneath her winter gloves, but she reckoned it was at least ten minutes before ten o’clock. She paused, squared her shoulders and marched through the open gates toward the sentries standing guard in the colonnade.

  General Michail Andreyevich Kalenko stood waiting for her in the entrance hall, his overcoat draped over his arm. She whipped the glove off her right hand and saluted.

  “Am I late, General?”

  “No, Captain. You are punctual. As always.”

  General Kalenko threw his overcoat around his shoulders like a cloak.

  “Turn around,” he said. “We shall take a walk.”

  He ushered her out the front door, across the porch and down the steps. He did not speak until they were beyond earshot of the sentries.

  “It’s intolerable in there,” he said. “For two days nobody has said anything. Not inside the building, at any rate. You have heard about Khrushchev’s speech?”

  “Just rumors, General.”

  “Well, I was there when he made it. Damned frightening, let me tell you!” He spat into the snow. “Khrushchev! Where was this ignorant upstart’s voice when Stalin was alive? This Khrushchev had the audacity to stand there and pontificate with such malice. What is frightening is that nobody has dared to challenge him!”

  “What about Bulganin and Molotov and Malenkov and the rest?”

  “Yes, what about them? Silent, so far. They wanted to block his ascendency, but they waited too long. Only last year he was sharing power with Bulganin. ‘Co-equals’ the Western press called them. The celebrated B-and-K. But no more. Khrushchev has managed to make sure there is no B. Only the K.”

  They reached a slippery patch of sidewalk and stopped short of the edge.

  “We have to discuss your project,” said the General. “How does it progress?”

  “It goes slowly, but steadily. I make good progress every day.”

  “I fear that good is no longer good enough, Oksana. Stalin appreciated the patient, subtle game. But Khrushchev is impulsive. If he continues ruling unchecked, time is not our friend. Your clock must run faster.”

  He strode forward across the sheet of ice. “Khrushchev is ignorant and therefore impatient. He is abusive and shrewd and dangerous. Arrogant, ignorant, reckless. Much too provocative and relentless, this Khrushchev. He will destroy us.”

  “Destroy the GRU, General?”

  “The world, Captain! I fear he will destroy the world. There will come a day when this arrogant fool Khrushchev will push the United States too hard and too far. Once Eisenhower leaves office, who in America will be able to deal with this Khrushchev? Eisenhower understands war. Therefore, he knows how to avoid it. But what does this Nixon know?”

  “You believe the vice-president will succeed Eisenhower?”

  “If not Nixon, some fool like him. Eisenhower is the last man of substance the Americans have. Whoever takes his place will most certainly be a shallow politician, no better than Khrushchev with little understanding of the power at his disposal. The bluffs and threats of two such blockheads will cause them to lose what little self-control they possess. Pride and ignorance cause irrational decisions to be made and can destroy both our nations. I do not exaggerate! Both nations have more than enough weapons to destroy our planet. That real possibility is beyond Khrushchev’s comprehension.”

  The General stopped walking.

  “How far can you take your project, do you think? To what level?”

  “It depends on circumstances, General. It may all fall apart and fail. But the possibilities are without limit.”

  “You have determined what must be done in the United States? Every last detail?”

  “I believe so, General.”

  “Then let us continue to assume that it will work, Oksana. It could turn out to be critical. Win or lose, it is time to get started. Go there and prepare the ground as soon as possible. We are facing a perilous future, Oksana, and our time is running out.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Several weeks later, Captain Volkova, traveling under an assumed name, joined the staff of the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa. Documents submitted to the Canadian government certified that she was a stenographer and research assistant. She stayed inside the embassy until one Thursday morning when she joined several other Russian women from the embassy staff on a shopping tour of the city. Shortly before noon, she rendezvoused with a resident agent, an American woman her own age. In the ladies room of Ottawa’s largest department store, Captain Volkova changed her shoes, slipped into the other woman’s raincoat, adjusted the wig she had carried in her purse, put on a pair of glasses, and checked her new image in the mirror. Satisfied, she left the store with her new companion.

  They walked two blocks to a public garage where the American woman had parked her automobile, a light blue sedan with New York license plates. Once inside the car, the woman gave her a well-used wallet.

  “Tuck that away in your purse,” she said. “It has all the documents you’ll need: driver’s license, birth certificate, Social Security card, library card, that sort of thing. No need for a pas
sport, as you know. You are Lydia Chalmers, my old college roommate from Dayton, Ohio. I’m Joan Cunningham from Buffalo, New York. Your clothes and toilet articles are packed in a suitcase in the trunk. There’s also a shopping bag with a sweater and some knick-knacks you bought here in Canada. Nothing expensive. The travel brochures in the glove compartment will give you an idea of where we’ve been on our vacation, in case anybody asks.”

  “Do you have a weapon?”

  “I won’t be given one until we cross the border and clear customs. Don’t worry; I’ve done this before. I’ll have a gun when we need it.”

  They left Ottawa and drove west to Toronto, then followed Lake Huron southeast to Niagara Falls. The two women, “American tourists returning from vacation with nothing much to declare” crossed the Rainbow Bridge and entered the United States without incident. From Buffalo, they traveled south through New York State into northern Pennsylvania.

  Throughout this part of the trip, Oksana Volkova studied the way the traffic moved along the streets of the towns and cities they passed through, examined the goods for sale in the stores, took snapshots of street signs, mailboxes, traffic lights, fire hydrants and telephone booths. She kept a notebook in which she wrote down overheard slang words and idiomatic expressions. By the time they approached the town of Bellefonte in Pennsylvania, she had filled two shopping bags with copies of the local newspapers, illustrated travel guides, church bulletins, handbills, ticket stubs and restaurant menus. They cruised down Bellefonte’s tree-lined Main Street that sunny morning, turned right onto a shady avenue, and then turned left into a smaller side street.

  “That’s the house,” said Oksana, who had been checking the numbers on the modest homes. “There! That red brick house on the right.”

  The resident agent glanced at the house and nodded. She did not slow down.

  Later that afternoon, the two women joined a group of tourists and took a boat ride through Penn’s Cave near the village of Centre Hall. A middle-aged couple took the seat behind them.

  “Reminds me of the old poem,” said the man as the flat-bottomed boat floated through the subterranean stalagmite forest.

  He leaned forward and recited softly: “‘Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea.’ Wordsworth,” the man said.

  The resident agent turned her head slightly. “I believe it was Coleridge.”

  “Really? All these years I thought it was Wordsworth.”

  “No, Coleridge,” the resident agent said firmly. “Samuel Taylor Coleridge.”

  “Well, thank you,” said the man. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “Please do,” said the resident agent. “Here, I think you dropped this.” She handed him the key to the trunk of her blue sedan.

  “Ah, yes, thank you,” said the man. “I’m very much obliged.”

  After the tour of the caverns ended, the two women spent several minutes in the souvenir shop before returning to their car. The resident agent retrieved the key from under the floor mat. “You can check the trunk, if you want to,” said the resident agent, “but I’m sure what we need is there.”

  “Very well,” said Oksana. “Let’s be on our way.”

  They ate a leisurely dinner at a rustic tavern perched on the summit of Nittany Mountain. From their booth by a window, they watched the dusk creep across the checkerboard fields below. They quietly discussed the house in Bellefonte. The hedge running alongside the driveway was high enough to cut off the neighbors’ view of the side door. They’d be able to get in and out without being seen.

  They lingered over coffee and walnut pie until it was dark and then drove down the mountain. At the first service station, they made certain that their gas tank was full. The resident agent asked the attendant to check the oil and water and the air pressure in the tires. When he finished, she paid him in cash.

  Driving along a back road, they found a clearing in the woods where hunters, so said the resident agent, parked their vehicles during deer season. They changed clothes in the dark. They put their skirts and shoes in the trunk of the car, put on gray coveralls, tucked their hair under workmen’s caps and laced up sturdy boots.

  “Let’s not forget the present our friends left us,” said the resident agent.

  She took a shoebox from the trunk and put it on the front seat of the car. Oksana lifted the lid of the box. The firearm was inside. Before getting back on the road, they replaced the car’s New York license plates with license plates from Pennsylvania.

  C H A P T E R • 2

  At ten o’clock that night, while the resident agent waited in the car, Oksana made a call from a public telephone booth on Bellefonte’s Main Street.

  “Mrs. Vogel?” she said when the woman answered. “My name is Helen Haywood. You do not know me, but I must see you tonight. Yes, I know it’s late, but I have news of your brother. Yes, the very one. But for God’s sake, don’t tell anyone, whatever you do. I am very frightened to do this. I can’t be seen. The side door? Good. Yes, good, Mrs. Vogel. I am so glad I can trust you to keep my visit secret. My sister is driving me. She says we can be there in five minutes.”

  She climbed back into the car. “She’s waiting for us. Pull right up into the driveway. She’ll meet us at the side door.”

  The resident agent handed her a pair of the thin rubber gloves surgeons wear in operating rooms. Oksana Volkova slipped them on and flexed her fingers. “Good fit,” she said.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Mrs. Vogel was a stout woman of medium height, grey hair, in her late sixties. She stood at the top of the steps to the side door of her house, peering through plain, gold-rimmed spectacles. She was clutching her pink quilted bathrobe at the neck.

  Oksana entered first. “Forgive our disguises, Mrs. Vogel,” she said. “We cannot take the chance of being discovered. Our lives depend on it. And we must hurry. This is my sister, Martha.”

  The woman tried to greet her visitors, but Oksana urged her back into the kitchen.

  “Hurry. We must not be seen,” she told the woman.

  The resident agent, carrying the shoebox, edged around them and hurried toward the living room.

  “The blinds are all drawn downstairs,” she reported. “I’ll go upstairs and check the bedrooms.”

  “Don’t forget the bathroom!” Oksana called back.

  “What is going on?” said the woman. “You can’t just come barging in here!”

  “Forgive me,” said Oksana Volkova, forcing the woman backward into her own home. “We must make certain that we are not observed. You must understand. The nature of this business makes it necessary.”

  “But I don’t understand . . .”

  “Please! There is not much time. It is about your brother.”

  Oksana kept moving Mrs. Vogel backward into the living room.

  “The second floor is clear,” the resident agent called down from the top of the stairs. “Use the bedroom on your right. It’s much larger.”

  “Who are you?” cried Mrs. Vogel. She seemed unable to move.

  “All in good time. I have news. Upstairs,” said Oksana firmly, turning the woman toward the stairway. “We will talk upstairs. About your brother. Quickly now.”

  She pushed the woman up the staircase and into the bedroom. The resident agent was waiting there, holding a pillowcase.

  “Here,” she said. “Put this over your head.”

  The woman stared at her wide eyed.

  “Put it on. Don’t you want to hear about your brother? Then slip this over your head. Quickly, now.”

  The woman did as she was told. “I don’t see why this is necessary,” she whined.

  Oksana Volkova sat next to her on the bed with her arm around the woman’s shoulder.

  The resident agent cut a length of window cord to hold the pillowcase in place and tied it around the woman’s neck. “Hold her tightly, now,” she said.

  Mrs. Vogel struggled, but she did not scream.


  “What are you doing?” she said. “What are you doing to me?”

  The resident agent screwed a silencing device onto the barrel of her gun.

  Mrs. Vogel began whimpering. “My glasses have fallen off. Please, my glasses!”

  Oksana Volkova put her mouth close to the woman’s head.

  “Listen carefully. Your brother is alive. For now, he is safe. Just relax and listen.”

  “Why do you have my head covered? Why are you treating me so roughly?”

  “Only to make things safer, Mrs. Vogel. Please just sit quietly. I will explain everything to you.”

  Oksana stood up and moved a few steps from the bed. The resident agent fired. The pillow case flushed red. Mrs. Vogel collapsed onto the bed. A dark red pool spread out around her head and seeped into the bedspread.

  “Well done,” said Oksana.

  She checked the dead woman’s pulse. “No blood on either one of us.”

  The resident agent, breathing slowly and deeply, stood staring at the body on the bed.

  “I’m always surprised how quickly life ends,” she said. “Instantly.”

  Without taking her eyes off the corpse, the resident agent unscrewed the silencer from the barrel of the gun and put the weapon back into the shoebox. She looked at her wristwatch.

  “Twenty after ten,” she said. “What now?”

  “Start collecting small items,” said Oksana. “Anything a thief would carry away. Put them in the kitchen and we’ll take them out to the car later. I will be looking for documents, photographs, letters and so forth. When you find such things, call me so I can examine them. Remember: the house should look ransacked, not searched.”

  Oksana went through each room, each closet, each drawer, each box, each pocket. She examined each note, each letter, each snapshot. She opened each book and shook out whatever was tucked between the pages. From time to time, she would place a note or a newspaper clipping or a snapshot on a smooth surface and photograph it with the small camera she wore on a strap around her neck. Then she would put the item back into the book or box or drawer exactly as she had found it.