Leon Uris Read Free Page B

ready to go.”
    “We’re on the way.”
    The flight was choppy. The damnable northern European weather moved in and flung them around. Tamara Kuznetov became sick, adding to everyone’s discomfort in the small craft.
    It turned dark and the weather had fallen nearly to the ground as they approached the British air base at Celle, in northern Germany.
    From the Ground Controlled Approach shack on the strip, the voice of a British airman talked them down through the clouds and cross winds.
    “Flaps down ... glide ...” The lights of the field burst through the fog. A sigh of relief as the little bird touched down. A FOLLOW ME jeep led the Cessna back out to the end of the strip where Nordstrom’s plane with Department of the Interior markings was revved up and waiting.
    In moments, his Convair was airborne, pushing through the turbulence toward the Atlantic ... America ... and Andrews Air Force Base.

4
    T HE HIGH-WALLED, LONG-LAWNED house in Laurel, Maryland, was guarded by a quartet of Doberman watchdogs and three handlers, on shifts. Two guards were constantly on duty on the grounds, and in the house itself another guard slept within earshot of the terrified Kuznetov family.
    Two weeks passed before Michael Nordstrom felt they had calmed sufficiently to send in Wilcox, the chief ININ interrogator, and his team.
    Boris Kuznetov toyed with Wilcox, saying nearly nothing. Each session ended with the Russian’s daily depression, or he would order them away in a tantrum.
    Nordstrom was in no hurry. The suitcase, retrieved by the baggage check in Copenhagen, was filled with tens of dozens of documents. Time would be needed to translate them from Russian, and they would be under study for months to determine whether they were of value or elaborate fakes.
    From the first snap readings, W. Smith, the ININ Russian expert, ascertained that most of the papers dealt with NATO matters. This was a hopeful clue, because all NATO documents were numbered as to the copies made and the persons who had read them. It could eventually boil down to a question of finding a common reader of all the papers, in order to dredge up a great traitor inside NATO.
    But, in reality, all that Baris Kuznetov had really done was to present them with a gigantic puzzle. Who, indeed, was Boris Kuznetov? How had the NATO documents gotten back to Moscow? As in any intelligence organization, Soviet KGB chiefs knew few names outside their immediate circle, and what Kuznetov knew he kept locked in his mind. Obviously, his wife and daughter were under orders to remain completely unresponsive.
    At the end of a frustrating month, Wilcox complained bitterly to his boss.
    “Nothing. Not even his birthplace. Nothing.”
    “Keep at it.”
    Wilcox reddened. “If you ask me, Mike, we ought to dump the bastard on the steps of the Russian Embassy.”
    “Sure, and we’ll never get another Russian defector.”
    “I’ve never run into one like this.”
    “You’re tired, Wilcox. Take a few days off.”
    The perplexed interrogator mumbled something derogatory about his chosen line of work, then apologized to Nordstrom for letting his chief down.
    “We’ve been through defectors. They’re frightened animals. Alone, wanting to live, wanting to die. In strange waters. Keep loose, Wilcox, he’ll come around.”
    Michael Nordstrom stayed outside the circle of interrogators, making himself available only as a friend to whom Kuznetov could complain and, perhaps, confide. Slowly, the Russian dropped hints that he knew the inside workings of many secret matters.
    “Do you want me to tell you why you fired the German, Captain Von Behrmann, from his NATO command? I tell you. He talked too much in bed about how important he was, and of the placement of NATO submarines in Soviet waters.”
    On every occasion of a visit to the Laurel house by Nordstrom, the Russian would try to startle him with a new piece of information.
    “Come on, Boris. You’re always feeding me news