The Story of Henri Tod by William F. Buckley

Author:William F. Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504018531
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

Ustinov, in his clandestine office at Blockhouse H, on reading the document confessed his surprise to Dmitri Gouzenko and rang for Felix Zimmerman, who appeared twenty minutes later looking suave and suspicious. Ustinov leaned back in his chair. “I just don’t understand it. The reconstruction we made, confirmed by your wife Clementa, about Tod’s relationship with her simply does not explain Tod’s indecisiveness. He seems almost blasé about her turning up alive. I’d have expected almost immediate action.”

“Do we know that Tod has seen my letter?” Gouzenko asked.

“It would seem to me inconceivable that such a discovery would be kept from Tod by his American friends. And Tod is reported here as having verified that the picture is that of your wife. Of course, she has changed; perhaps Tod has changed. But I would be surprised. The question now, of course, is do we go along?”

“Sir, if I may say something here,” Gouzenko spoke. “They don’t know for certain whether Mr. ‘F’ is KGB or a mercenary. Our response at this point is surely going to incline them in one or the other direction. If we don’t go to Vienna, they’ll—”

“Of course we will go to Vienna,” Ustinov interrupted.

“I was going to say, Colonel, that the only reason not to go to Vienna is if we conclude that they are not interested in Clementa, and that is inconceivable. And if we don’t go, they’ll conclude it was definitely a KGB operation, that Clementa is safely in Soviet hands and we’re simply using her as bait for Tod. In that case, unless Tod is willing to exchange his own freedom for Clementa’s, which isn’t likely—he presumably wants to enjoy her company—the whole operation will stall. Among other things, Tod would first need to convince himself about Clementa’s condition, and on that point we couldn’t be very reassuring.”

“You are saying if we don’t go, they’ll conclude they haven’t been dealing with an independent operator. I agree. But what do we think we can get out of the Vienna rendezvous? Other than the money?”

“Well, Colonel, I could maybe stand a chance of stringing him along. I could go and tell him that I worked at the Vorkuta labor camp, that I got to know his sister, who has been in that camp for fifteen years but is not under sentence at this point. I could say that she is a little amnesiac but otherwise quite normal. And that it would be possible for me to return to Vorkuta, and plot with her to effect her release by marrying her. He may even know about Article 118.”

“Article 118 does what? Remind me.”

“It permits ‘rehabilitated prisoners’ to leave a camp provided a) they have a family to return to, or b) a job that also provides living facilities. My line—and I think he would swallow this—is that I am willing, for fifty thousand marks, to go back to Vorkuta, take out wedding papers, and bring his sister to East Germany. From there, as we all unfortunately know, it is easy enough to get her into West Berlin.

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