Cold Hit

Chapter 44

Ten minutes later we were in Broadway's blue Caprice heading down Coldwater Canyon on our way to the CIA offices on Miracle Mile, a favored location for U. S. intelligence agencies.

"She ain't gonna be easy," Broadway said as he drove.

"Long as you don't plow too close to the cotton we'll do fine," Emdee answered.

"She doesn't like you, so let me do the talking," Broadway cautioned.

"Lay some Ebonics on the woman. That oughta light her fire."

The CIA building was actually called the Americas Plaza. I wondered if that meant it was owned by some foreign government. We parked in the basement. Zack had my badge, so Broadway and Perry vouched for me and signed me in. We took a secure elevator up to the twenty-fifth floor and exited into another beautifully decorated hallway. Our tax dollars were certainly getting a good workout in the Los Angeles counter-intelligence community. Lion claw feet held up polished Queen Anne tables with tapered legs.

But the best tapered legs in the joint belonged to Agent Wright, who was standing on the ivory cut-pile carpet wearing three-inch heels and a short, tan skirt. Her Icelandic blonde hair was done in a graceful cut that curled in just under her chin. Blue eyes the color of reefwater gunned out of an ivory complexion, clocking us. If I worked on this floor, I'd never get anything done.

"Let's go," she said, without even waiting to be introduced to me. Of course, after the funeral she'd probably run a full profile.

Agent Wright led us through a door marked Fire Exit, up a flight of stairs, and out onto the roof, which had a flat, tarred surface. We followed her to a spot between two huge, boxy air-conditioning units, which were roaring even though it was midnight. The hot Santa Ana weather had the cooling system working overtime.

Bimini Wright stopped between the A/C units and spoke, just over the roar. "This is far enough." Her voice mixed with the loud, growling exhaust. It was the rough equivalent of turning on faucets in a bathroom before a covert meeting.

Broadway introduced me. "This is Detective Scully."

We shook hands. She had a surprisingly strong grip, as if she'd been taught by some butch station chief that, if you want to make it in a man's world, you better shake hands like a trucker.

"Okay, guys. Your call. What's the deal?"

"It's the Davide Andrazack murder," Broadway said, not giving her much. She shrugged, so he dribbled out a little more. "It was in Shane's serial murder case, but now it's been stripped away from us by Homeland. The Andrazack hit is involved with another investigation we're still working. We were hoping you could give us some background."

"Davide Andrazack was never one of your serial murders," she said, looking over at me. "He wasn't a homeless bum. He was killed by Red Shirts."

"Company speak for enemy spooks," Emdee explained.

"You three need a Come to Jesus meeting," Bimini said. "So here it is. If you don't back off, you're gonna get spun and hung. You need to do exactly as Mr. Virtue instructs and leave the Andrazack thing alone. Robert Virtue lacks humor, and there's lots of heat coming down on that situation. You work it without portfolio against his wishes, and you're gonna be swept so far out into the bush we'll never find the hole you're buried in. That's the best advice I have."

"What about my murder case?" I asked.

"Believe me, they're all over it," Bimini said. "R. A. Virtue and the FBI come off a little headstrong, but they've got huge national security concerns to deal with so I try to cut them a little slack. Take it on down the road and leave this to us."

" 'Cept, somebody's planting bugs all over town," Emdee said. "We pulled a basketful outta the police administration building yesterday. It's not hard to guess that Davide Andrazack was over here trying to find out who was bugging the Israelis. I'm also guess'n we're not all standing up here on this roof, 'cause you like the smell of L. A. smog. You ain't all that sure about your shop either."

Just then, the air filtration system switched off, banging loudly as the spinning fans stopped. It was suddenly very quiet.

"We know you met with Eddie Ringerman at the Russian Roulette last night. We were in the next booth and got it on tape," Broadway said.

She smiled. "You're really gonna try and bluff me with no face cards showing? You've gotta do better than that, Roger."

"Are we just completely forgetting about the Lincoln Avenue shooting?" Broadway countered. "I thought you were good for your old debts."

"That's five levels below this on the threat assessment board."

"Then why don't you tell us about the 'Eighty-five Problem?" I ventured, and saw immediately that I'd hit a nerve.

She looked at me sharply. "I guess you were in the restaurant listening," she said, coloring slightly, not enjoying being busted. After a moment she added, "Okay, since it's only history, I guess I can tell you a little about that."

"We're waiting," Broadway said, frustration showing in his strained voice.

"Back in the eighties, I was stationed at our embassy in Moscow," she began. "It was the Cold War, and we were mixing it up pretty good with the Reds." She looked over at me. "I know you're probably interested in Stanislov Bambarak since he also came to your funeral. Back in the Cold War days, Bam-Bam Stan was a KGB legend. Our paths crossed a lot when I was in Moscow. We never hit it off, because I managed to recruit quite a few of his frontline officers as double agents. It really pissed him off. He got so jacked he ran me in four times and questioned me at the Moscow Motel, which was an interrogation center the KGB had under the Kremlin. Stan couldn't understand how I kept infiltrating his Apparat. But I was young, pretty, and flirtatious, and his station officers were lonely, horny, and alcoholic. A perfect recipe for defection. The trick was to cook up their emotions, get them half in the bag and see how scared they were that Soviet Union was about to collapse. The Cold War was winding down and it looked to everybody like we were winning. A good many of these KGB officers were willing to give me covert information in return for a promise that I would arrange for them to come to the States after the Cold War was over. Once the Berlin Wall came down, everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the Soviet Block fell apart."

"We can get all of this on the History Channel,"

Roger said, still pissed that his Lincoln Avenue trade hadn't worked.

"I was really on a roll in those days," Bimini continued. "More and more agents were taking my deal. Then, one night in August of 'eighty-five, there was a roundup. Stanislov picked up all of my Russian double agents in the middle of the night and took them to Lubianka Prison in Moscow. Lubianka was a shooting prison. People would go in there and never be heard from again. All of my doubles were interrogated, and then summarily executed. That fat bastard gave the order. They were all shot in the back of the head."

"With a five point four-five millimeter automatic," Broadway said.

"That was how they did it back then," she concurred. "I was devastated. I couldn't conceive of how Stanislov could have learned about every single one of my assets. I had spread out the case info, distributed their encrypted files to a lot of different service computers. NSA, FBI, CIA. . It shouldn't have all leaked. It became pretty damn obvious that somebody far up in our own system had sold us out. Some embassy official with high security clearance was giving up these Russian double agents. We investigated diligently but couldn't find out who it was. It came to be known on station as the 'Eighty-five Problem."

"And you never caught the guy?" I asked.

"A few years later, R. A. Virtue got a phone tip at the FBI in Washington, giving him the name of one of our ex-CIA Moscow agents. After a lengthy investigation, Virtue and some other D. C. counterintelligence types finally turned up a man named Edward Lee Howard. He'd been passed over for promotion and had gone into business with Stanislov to help beef up his CIA retirement fund. We searched his records, and found out that he had probably given up some of my double agents. But the more we studied him, the more it became obvious that he didn't know anywhere near all of it. And then before we could bust him, he shook his tail and got out of the U. S. and back to Russia. But I know there was still another traitor out there."

"You were in charge of the investigation?" Roger asked.

"It was my op. But it was Virtue who really made his bones on the 'Eighty-five Problem." Bimini took a deep breath. "In February of 'ninety-four, Virtue caught another anonymous tip. A CIA officer named Aldrich Ames was eventually arrested for treason. He too had been selling the identities of Russian double agents back to the KGB. But again, when we checked his exposure to the names, there was no way he could have known about all of them either. By then Virtue was a rising star in the FBI, and was put in charge of large aspects of the case. We all knew there was still another traitor involved. With the arrest of FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen in two thousand one in Virginia, it finally seemed that we had uncovered the last of them. But as we debriefed Hanssen, we realized that we still couldn't account for all of the lost KGB doubles. That's when we knew there had to be a fourth man. Somebody with connections high up in our operation, who also had damn good contacts inside the KGB. In effect, a double-double. Covert Intel I'm not willing to give you, leads me to believe the fourth man is hiding in L. A. It's why I'm stationed here today."

The air-conditioning unit switched on again, and this time Bimini's nerves must have been getting to her, because she flinched.

"Stanislov was probably the one who recruited Howard, Ames, and Hansen, just like you recruited his double agents," I said.

"That's right," Bimini replied. "When you boil it down, he had the exact same problem as I did. The fourth man was selling assets to both sides. Stanislov Bambarak's trying to find him, same as Virtue and me. Bambarak would do anything to get even. Both sides were losing their doubles. We arrested our traitors. Stanislov, asshole that he is, executed his." She took a breath. "I'm still looking for my last traitor. Hopefully, I'll beat him to it this time. That's all I can tell you. The rest is classified."