Spy and the Thief Read Free Page B

Rand went down to visit Ivar Kaden in jail. He interviewed him in a bare room with pale green walls and barred windows. The man was sitting across the table while a guard stood silently with his back to the door.
    “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Rand began.
    Kaden was stocky with middle age, and a shadow of beard traced itself across his cheeks. “You’re the one jumped me the other night,” he said, and his muscles seemed to ripple at the recognition.
    “It was my job,” Rand told him. “The same as your job was killing Barton O’Neill.”
    “You’re bloody right! That was my job and I did it.”
    “How much did they pay you?”
    A sly smile now. “Enough.”
    “Why was he killed?”
    “Look, mister, I don’t ask questions and I don’t answer them. I do my job, that’s all.”
    “Are you a Communist, Ivar?”
    The bulky man shifted in his chair, looking at his hands. “I guess so. I guess I would be if I knew what they were talking about.”
    “Who paid you to kill O’Neill?”
    His eyes came up to meet Rand’s. “Do you really think I’ll tell you, mister?”
    “You don’t have to, Ivar. We know the orders came from a Russian agent. Just one thing—did they tell you when to shoot him?”
    Ivar Kaden hesitated and then said, “Before he went into the Foreign Office on Wednesday night.”
    “Yes,” Rand mumbled to himself. “Before.” He got to his feet and motioned to the guard. “I’m finished. You can take him back.”
    Rand left the building and drove back to his office. He phoned the Foreign Office to check once more on the code books; all were safe. He had to face the fact that Barton O’Neill had been killed by the Russians at the very moment he was about to perform an important and vital mission for them.
    There seemed only one possible explanation—that they had feared a trap and killed O’Neill to keep him from talking. But what could the actor tell? He was not a regular Communist agent—more of a freelance operator who sold his secrets to the highest bidder. It was doubtful that he would know any more about the secret workings of the Soviet espionage network in England than was already on file at British Intelligence.
    Sitting alone in his office, Rand had almost decided to drop the investigation. After all, the code was safe, the spy was dead, the assassin was in prison. What more was there to do? Did it really matter why they’d had him killed?
    Parkinson came in with a report. “This man from the Russian Embassy,” he began, eager to deliver his news. “British Intelligence has a constant watch on him. His name is Barsky, and he’s a known agent.”
    “That’s the one who visited Ivar Kaden on Wednesday morning?”
    Parkinson nodded. “But more important, a man believed to be O’Neill was seen in a pub with Barsky on Monday. Does that help?”
    “It only confirms what we already suspected,” Rand told him. “O’Neill must have got the idea of going after a code book when he landed the part in this television play being filmed in the lobby of the Foreign Office. He must have already known there was a man in the Message Center whom he could impersonate. And once he got that impression of the lock on Sunday, he knew the last obstacle to a code book was removed. So on Monday he made his offer to the Russian contact man.”
    “The Embassy sent the word to Moscow—to Taz, probably—and the word came back to kill O’Neill. Does that make any sense, sir?”
    Yes, Rand conceded to himself, they were, back to the same puzzle. “Many things don’t make sense in this business, Parkinson,” he replied weakly.
    “Perhaps they thought he already had one of the code books. Using the key and his disguise, he could have entered the building at any time.”
    Rand shook his head. “One thing we failed to find in his attaché case was any sort of false identification. He apparently was unable to forge the necessary pass to get him past the guard in the lobby. He