Free Agent in Place by Helen MacInnes

headlines either. “I’m afraid for my country, Tony. These are bad days.”
    “Head-rolling time,” Tony agreed. “I must say—when you Americans start swinging, you use a hatchet. Couldn’t a neat scalpel and some precision surgery do the job?”
    “You get no big headlines with a scalpel.”
    There was a brief silence.
    “Look—I didn’t bring you here to depress you,” Tony said briskly. He rose and freshened their drinks. “All I want is a little help from you on the problem of Vladimir Konov.”
    “How?” Brad was wary.
    “Konov is arriving here on Tuesday. He’s with a grain-buying team meeting your agricultural experts in Washington.”
    That was a shock. “Cool customer, isn’t he? After his exit from Canada—what is he doing here, d’you think? Gathering background for future Disinformation use?”
    “He’ll sound out those who are soft and those who are tough, and no doubt he’ll go to work on the easy marks, and arrange some future approaches through his Illegals—they were his speciality during the sixties. He provided them with American passports and life-histories—sometimes belonging to real Americans, remember?”
    Brad nodded.
    “But Konov has another reason for coming here, just at this time. A reason he has been trying to keep to himself. So we’ve heard, from one of our agents in Moscow.”
    “NATO Intelligence has an agent in place? Close enough to Konov to know his plans? Pretty good. In fact, damned good.”
    “So far, yes. He and Konov are in the same Department of Disinformation. He’s actually senior to Konov, but they are rivals for the next big promotion. Tricky.”
    “That’s one of your better understatements.”
    “So here’s the set-up. Konov has suspicions—they are his meat and drink. Konov has ambitions. Konov is out gunning for our agent. And he will succeed if he can get his hands on a NATO memorandum that was sent to Washington. He knows it exists, but hasn’t the particulars so far. And that’s what he needs, to be right on target—a piece of evidence that would disclose our agent. Several others, too, but our man in Moscow would be the first casualty.”
    “What evidence? Surely NATO didn’t mention names?”
    “No, no. The evidence would be in the kind of specialised information that was sent to NATO. Konov could track the source down. At least, that’s what our agent feels. He’s jittery. No doubt about that. We had word from him yesterday.”
    “So you took the night flight out of Brussels,” Brad said thoughtfully. “Washington next?”
    Tony nodded. “I’m on convoy duty—making sure the NATO Memorandum gets safely back to Brussels, once the Pentagon releases it to me.”
    “But what help do you need from me?” Brad’s sombre face was perplexed.
    “Just sound the tocsin. Warn any of your old friends at State that Konov is in town. They’ll get in touch with the Justice Department and see that the message gets through to the right investigative agencies.”
    “What about your own CIA contacts in Washington?”
    “Paralysed at the moment. You’ve been reading the papers, haven’t you? How do you expect them to act—boldly, effectively?” Tony’s face was grim. “This is important, Brad. One good man’s life is at stake; and eight others too. And NATO is America’s business. Without it, you’d really go bust in Western Europe.”
    “The FBI have a lot on Konov—they must have.”
    “We hope,” Tony said, a trifle bitterly.
    “You have no friends there?”
    “Once upon a time. They resigned in Hoover’s latter-day period of sainthood. All communications with European Intelligence cut off. No more quiet interchange of information. Let’s wait until the dam breaks, and then we can all rush together. Hands across the sea, tra la la!”
    Brad finished his drink. “I’ll see what I can do.”

6
    Chuck rattled off a short line of connected dashes to mark the end of the text. The typewriter sounded triumphant, but he