A Company Man: The CIA & Me Ch. 02

The second part of the night we created our own erotic escapades. Somehow I came three times that night -- twice in Katrina and once in Stacy. My seed was sure being spread around. The three of us slept together all entangled and in the afterglow of our lovemaking. We were all very tender and loving with each other in the morning; what a nice way to wake up. Eventually, Kat returned to Frankfurt, Stacy headed off for two days at the Milan training center, and I went back to London.

*****

I returned a call I'd had from the computer guy in The Company. He was more nuts and bolts than I was and he was probably going to be one of the guys that would pick apart whatever Ivan could get to us. He told me that based on Ivan's remark about 35 million lines of code and making a reasonable assumption of ten bytes per line, and knowing that you could put about 80 to 120 million bytes on a half-inch wide reel of tape, the math worked out to be about five or six reels of tape. A reel of tape was about fifteen inches around in its protective case.

Now I needed to think through how to get a box of five or six tape reels out of the Soviet Union. Hummmmm!

Stacy and I kicked the problem around over the weekend. She had the same response I did. "Hummmmm!"

*****

Stacy came up with the winning idea for how to move the tapes out of the Soviet Union. I had a couple of ideas for how to get hold of the tapes themselves -- with Ivan's cooperation. We ran some scenarios and fine-tuned our ideas. Over the summer, we sent a message to Ivan on the Katrina to Alyana channel.

I met Ivan at a computer fair in Vienna in late September. He was onboard with the idea of defecting and helping us get hold of the tapes. He was still worried about repercussions on his wife or Alyana but decided that they'd manage just fine if he told them nothing. I offered again to provide either of them a change of identities if he wanted them; he asked that we prepare one for Alyana and one for himself.

We then talked about the nitty-gritty of getting the tapes out of Russia. I described Stacy's idea to him and he thought it would be a good one, however, his concern was how to get the tapes from his secure building to our hands. Finally, we came up with a solution. Ivan would have to change his schedule a bit but it would probably work. We also needed to meet again before our caper. I gave him a small camera to use until then.

The following month I was in Brussels for two days at another information systems conference where I was the keynote. Ivan found me and slipped the camera back to me. We didn't even acknowledge each other except for a sixty second conversation. He said everything was all right and disappeared. I nodded and we returned to our 'normal' lives.

*****

In mid-November, Stacy and I arrived in Moscow playing the role of out-of-season tourists. We were no longer David and Stacy Krall either; we were Ralph and Edna Morgan from Omaha, Nebraska. I was much older, a arthritic and used a cane; my long, shaggy salt-and-pepper hair and mustache a testament to my years of hard work. Edna was an aging portly woman with dyed red hair, droopy breasts and wide hips; she had to sway when she walked to carry all her extra weight. Edna even had some photographs of some of her long distant cousins that were Russian; part of our sightseeing trip to Moscow was to see if we could look up her relatives. We both spoke a little Russian (more than we let on) and we certainly had our strong mid-west accents.

We carried a Styrofoam picnic cooler with us with some western steaks in it on dry ice that we had brought 'all the way from Omaha'. We wanted to share these beautiful cuts of meat, a specialty in Omaha, with the relatives we were to meet. Customs thought our import was interesting but paid us no mind. I made careful note of the departing customs and immigration section of the hall we were in as well as the name and rank of the customs clerk that handled our arrival into Russia.

We got a rental car at the airport and drove into the City and checked into the Moscow Hotel, a modest hotel by western standards but probably the best in the Soviet Union. We spent the first day taking a tour and walking around the Kremlin taking pictures with all the other tourists. We even just happened to walk by the office building where Ivan worked to make sure we really understood the physical layout he'd described to us.

The hotel was accommodating and got us more ice for our cooler. Ivan slipped into our room on our second evening in Moscow. We all had thought about having a sexual encounter but we were all too keyed up and nervous over what we were doing, so we just hugged and wished each other success. Ivan left with the steaks. Later that night we broke the cooler apart.

Inside the Styrofoam walls, bottom and top of the cooler were six computer tapes - exact replicas of the backup tapes now routinely kept in Colonel Ivan Rostofsky's office. The pictures Ivan had taken with our little camera were of the original backup tapes with all their stickers, scrapes and markings. The physical appearance of the tapes from the cooler was identical to those used in the daily backups. The tapes, however, were unreadable due to a 'malfunction' of the recording head on the nine-track tape unit. Further the reels were of a polymer plastic that would not show up on airport or immigration x-rays. The tapes could be used to make another backup but no material on any of the six could be read or deciphered. Each tape had been wrapped in a protective plastic before it was sealed in the special Styrofoam.

We were fortunate that Ivan had an office that faced a small park on the outside of the building rather than the interior courtyard of his complex that was protected by building security. Directly beneath his second floor window was some shrubbery. This was the good news. The bad news was that there were surveillance cameras everywhere. We'd figured this was the case but it still made our job more risky. Ivan had started months earlier to arrive at his office about five o'clock in the morning; thus, we'd at least have the cover of darkness for our swap.

On the crucial morning when our caper started, Ivan arrived at his 'usual' time. He did not turn on the lights in his office that day. Instead, Ivan pushed the vent window of his office open and lowered the six tapes of entire missile defense software system on a spool of piano wire we'd given him. Ivan's fingerprints were not on the tapes, just in case; however, the fingerprints of several computer operators were intentionally left there as a potential diversion should we be caught.

Ivan waited in his office with the lights out until a dark car paused outside his window for a few seconds then pulled up six replacement tapes. He put these in the secure safe in his office and locked it. According to plan, the car disappeared and so did Ivan. He left his building complaining of a sudden headache.

Stacy and I -- excuse me, Edna and I -- had rented the largest car we could find, ostensibly to drive around Moscow and some of the suburbs to see relatives. What we wanted was horsepower. Officially, the Morgan's were going to return the car at the airport and catch the early flight to Vienna on Aeroflot. We checked out of the hotel exactly at five a.m., driving away with our luggage. We'd wiped the room down.

At 5:10 a.m. we drove past Ivan's office with our lights off. I stopped on the road near his window. Stacy was out of the car, had picked up the tapes, left the replacements and was back in the car in less than thirty seconds. We'd rehearsed the swap many times. We pulled away trying not to call attention to ourselves in the light traffic.

But we had been seen. Just as we turned a corner two blocks down from Ivan's large, dull building where we'd stopped, I looked back and saw a security car come barreling out of the building's courtyard heading in our direction. I floored it and raced away, taking two rapid corners in hopes of evading our pursuers. Stacy was holding on for dear life. The security car was more powerful and kept getting closer. I doubled back with a couple of more turns but could not shake them.

When the powerful pursuit car was just about off our rear bumper I saw in the rear-view mirror that the guard riding in the front seat was leaning out his window with a pistol. I shouted to Stacy, "Get down. Gun!" We both ducked as the rear window of our car shattered and a bullet pock marked the front window between us.

I slammed on my brakes and the pursuit car slammed into our backend, knocking them more a kilter than us since we'd expected the collision and were braced for it. I accelerated away from them again, but they were still in close pursuit.

Stacy pulled my Glock from my holster and chambered a round. We'd only brought one gun and a couple of magazines. She popped up over the seat and fired pointblank into the windshield of the following security car. Their windshield pocked into a spider web of cracks. They dropped back a little then decided to make a run at us. They caught up to us again and moved out to pull abreast of us; several more shots whizzed through our car, puncturing the windows. We stayed low, as we'd been taught. Stacy fired two more shots at them.

As their car was almost beside me I hit the brakes hard and yanked the steering wheel in their direction, just as I'd been taught. Two amazing things happened within two seconds. First, as our car braked and rotated it solidly kissed the rear quarter-panel of their car as they sped by us, sending it careening off its straight course, over a dividing strip of grass, and into the courtyard of an apartment building where it collided hard with several parked cars. Now they were out of commission. Second, our car continued its rotation and as I accelerated again we started to move rapidly away from our pursuers in our desired direction. The car's rear end was crunched, the left front fender badly dented, and most of the glass had been shot out of our vehicle.

We left the City to the southwest then headed north to the airport. Traffic was moving rapidly at the early hour and starting to get heavy and so we were able to blend in with all the other cars - except for the damage to the car. Fortunately, it was still dark so the condition of our car was not as evident as it would be in daylight. That said, we did stand out and there was now probably a police broadcast about our vehicle. I thought about ditching the car but thought I'd risk trying for the airport since we were managing to drive at more than a eighty miles per hour -- thus the time to make the trip would be short.

As we drove Stacy leaned over and swept the glass from the back seat. She then rolled into the back and stripped her "Edna suit" off. She balled up the padding, clothes, support hose, dowdy shoes, and wig into a tight ball and stuffed them into a shopping bag we'd brought for the purpose. I could smell her make-up remover as she used it to strip her face of the facial putty, wrinkles and hair she'd acquired for her role. When it was safe and we were away from other cars I lost my mustache, wig and my bushy eyebrows as well as most of my make-up. Stacy had changed into a trim black haired woman wearing touristy clothing. When she was through she rolled back into the front seat. She held the steering wheel and pushed on the accelerator with her left foot while I stripped off my shoddy clothing in favor of a trendy sweat suit, sneakers and dark hair. She added my clothing, toupee and disguise to the garbage in the bag.

We made the airport without incident and left the car in a long-term parking lot rather than the rental car return lot. This might buy us some time. I found a trash can and disposed of our disguises and my cane. We rummaged in the rear seat of the car for a few seconds and repacked the tapes and our remaining clothing into our other luggage. We walked into the terminal just as several domestic flights disgorged their passengers into the arrivals concourse. We walked back outside to the taxi line and waited our turn to take a taxi back into Moscow. We were heading for the main train station. An hour later we left Moscow on the morning train to St. Petersburg and were playing the tourist role again.

Stacy and I -- now with new identities as Jeremy and Beth Evans from Denver, Colorado, were now part of a tour group about to visit St. Petersburg for one day, see the Hermitage and Winter Palace, and then continue on to Helsinki, Finland. On the train we got our tour badges out and placed them on our luggage. Another American asked if we were just joining the tour; I explained that we'd been on the tour that came through a couple of days earlier. I leaned in and said in a confiding voice, "I got the shits! Diarrhea. Kept me on the pot for two days. Terrible. Had to stay over at the hotel -- cost us a pretty penny too. Don't drink the water unless you boil it!." He looked horrified and broke off our conversation after thanking me for the advice. Stacy and I curled up and slept during the eight-hour train ride and prayed a lot.

The entire tour was bussed from the train station to the Ermitage House, a nice hotel that was only a modest walk from the Hermitage and Winter Palace. We ate in the hotel restaurant trading banalities with a couple from Little Rock, Arkansas. Edna carried the tapes hidden in her large purse. After dinner we said goodnight to our companions and went to our room. The hotel delivered two boxes to us at our request. One was about the size of the cooler we'd had earlier and the second, with a little work, became a proportionally smaller. Things were working according to plan.

Stacy stayed in the room the following morning while I played tourist, then I stayed with the tapes in the afternoon while she went out and did the same thing. We had dinner sent up to the room pleading fatigue and shaky stomachs.

Stacy had tightly wrapped the tapes in plastic wrap. In the afternoon, I mounted them with standoffs inside the larger box. The tapes did not touch the large box except via the thin white supports and hangers. With the same care and precision I'd inserted the smaller box so it set atop the supports. It was a close fit but nothing appeared to touch the tapes.

That evening, Stacy pulled a bottle of 'shampoo' and a bottle of 'conditioner' from her suitcase. I added my shaving cream and deodorant to the mix. Unobserved, I stole a bucket from the maid's closet down the hall. Stacy was the chemist; she mixed our concoction of chemicals in the bucket and we watched them turn into a bright white liquid and start to expand. When the brew was the right consistency, we carefully poured the expanding mix into the space between the two boxes and over and around the carefully wrapped tapes, carefully tilting and shaking the boxes and tapes to eliminate any air pockets. We'd done this a dozen times before in our practice runs.

Half an hour later, the white gooey mix had expanded and solidified into a substance that looked and felt like Styrofoam but was about fifty times stronger. We peeled the cardboard away from all sides and the inside, and admired the perfect picnic cooler and top that we had made. I rounded a few corners with some abrasive we'd brought and we banged the cooler up a bit with our shoes and some dirt to give it a well-worn look. I also added an old handle that we'd brought with us, completing the unit.

"Now for the export," I said. I grinned at Stacy and left the room armed with a roll of Russian currency. Downstairs I sat at the bar and enjoyed a local vodka. I nursed the drink until I had a chance to talk to the bartender alone; I gestured him over. In my best Russian I explained that my wife and I wanted to take some caviar home -- some really good caviar, even Beluga caviar if he could find it. I pulled my wad of rubles from my wallet and flashed it to him; he understood perfectly and excused himself. He came back and asked, "How many do you want? They come in small jars. We have twelve." He made a little box with his hands. I shrugged and indicated I wanted all twelve. He said the price would be thirty thousand rubles -- about a thousand dollars. I nodded and extracted a little more than that; he counted it slowly, giving me a questioning glance when he was through and saw the overpayment. I explained that we needed ice to keep the caviar cold. He nodded appreciatively then disappeared again. I went and got the cooler.

The barman helped me pack the Beluga caviar in our cooler. He also recommended I have ten thousand more rubles at the border to facilitate getting the rare fish eggs through Russian immigration control. I thanked him for his advice and took the full cooler back to our room.

Stacy had cleaned up our chemical 'lab', ditching empty bottles and excess Styrofoam from our production down the hotel's incinerator chute, and getting the cleaned bucket back in the maid's closet. We both looked at each other and rolled our eyes; we hugged and then got into bed with our clothes on. We were still hundreds of miles from the border and I felt like I had a blinking neon target on my back.

In the morning, our tour moved on and we were with them. We boarded a nine o'clock train to Helsinki. Three hours and a half later the train pulled into a border-crossing checkpoint. Two very bored guards came through our car checking passports and the things everyone was carrying from the country, only not very thoroughly. One guard looked through our cooler, frowning as he saw we were absconding with their caviar. I passed him a roll of bills and said, in my broken Russian, perhaps this would help ease our export of some of his country's fine caviar. I held his gaze. He thought for a minute, then pocketed the money and moved on to check the family in the next seats ... and then the next. Fifteen minutes later the train left the checkpoint and ten minutes after that we were in Finland. Our blood pressures came down significantly; finally I could breathe again. I was sweating profusely even though the temperature in the railcar was quite chilly.

Kim met us at the train station in Helsinki. The three of stayed in a suite in the Hotel Kamp that night. She debriefed us thoroughly on every aspect of the mission -- talking separately to Stacy and me. She inspected the cooler and we refilled the ice in it from an ice machine down the hall from our room. She liked the idea of the caviar.

Stacy and I were shaking we had so much nervous energy to burn off. I couldn't ever remember being so scared or in a state of tension for so long, and knowing that it could mean death if we were caught. We all hoped that Ivan had been able to follow his plan to leave the country. We didn't know if he'd brought Alyana with him or not.

Kim cuddled the three of us in bed that night and helped us get to sleep. Her idea of helping us get to sleep was to fuck my brains out and then bring Stacy to about five orgasms. We returned the favor. It was a sleep of the just.

*****

Six Months Later

I was lying on a chaise beside the pool of our Villa pretending I was reading a book. Next to me three of the most beautiful women in the world lay dozing in the warm sun on deck chairs, each wearing only the skimpiest of bikini bottoms and all coated with a fine sheen of suntan lotion. Their tanned breasts were all aimed skyward at a sunny warm sky dotted with little puffy cumulus clouds.

Stacy, Katrina, Ivan and I had taken our usual run around the island in the morning, each of us trying to maintain our buff fitness. Alyana was more content to ride an exercycle in the Villa's small gym and workout on the weights there. We were all very supportive of her efforts and encouraged her. We'd hired a physical trainer and a martial arts instructor that came in once a week and worked with each of us. I finally earned my black belt; Stacy was a ways behind me, however, we practiced together on the beach most days.