Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,25

Diego,” she said. Then she stood back and looked at him, puzzled. “But I thought you worked for Miguel. How come you helped me get away?”

“I work for Miguel only as a cover,” Diego said with a little smile. “I’m a spy for Fidel Castro. Fidel hates everything Batista stands for—the corruption, the goon squads, the social injustice, the raping of innocent women like you—and he’s starting a rebel movement. As a bartender at La Europa, I overhear a lot of secret information that can help Fidel get rid of Batista and free the Cuban people from oppression.”

Gabriela felt strangely moved by this disclosure. She couldn’t explain it, but when she smashed the lamp over Guillermo Sanchez’s head, something had exploded inside her, and she knew that her days as an innocent showgirl had come to an end.

VI

Washington, D.C., May 1952

It was shocking to see. There he was, the trusted valet for the British ambassador to Turkey, and he was using his position to pass on top secret documents to the enemy. And he wasn’t acting alone; he was receiving help from a beautiful refugee Polish countess he had designs on. His idea was to take the money he accrued as a spy, quit his job as a valet, and retire to Rio de Janeiro, where he and the countess would live comfortably for the rest of their lives.

To make matters worse, the traitorous valet was being portrayed by the suave British actor James Mason.

Jackie sat back in her seat and tried to concentrate on the movie, 5 Fingers, which began with a statement that the events depicted in the film were based on a true story. As she watched, she tried to evaluate the movie based on her own experiences as a neophyte spy for the CIA, paying careful attention to the valet’s tradecraft and comparing it to what she had learned as a trainee at the Farm.

Jackie looked at her watch in the dim light cast by the projector beam overhead. It was almost three o’clock. She wasn’t used to going to the movies during the day. And she wasn’t really here to watch the movie. Yesterday, when she had returned to her car in the parking lot of the Times-Herald, she saw that someone had dropped an envelope on the front seat. She opened it and withdrew a single piece of notepaper. Printed in large block letters, the note read:

TOMORROW

3 PM

UPTOWN THEATRE

BALCONY

ROW 3/SEAT 7

She knew that the Uptown Theatre was located on Connecticut Avenue past Dupont Circle in Cleveland Park, a neighborhood where inexpensive housing made it possible for underpaid congressional aides and other young professionals to pool their resources and rent houses together. So early this afternoon, she’d arrived at the Uptown, not knowing why she was here or whom she was supposed to meet. She found the designated seat in the balcony, which was deserted, and sat through the coming attractions, the newsreel, the travelogue, and the cartoon before the actual movie got under way.

As she waited for three o’clock to arrive, Jackie thought back on her recent conversation with Allen Dulles at the Pickle Factory, the CIA’s own term for its temporary headquarters in Foggy Bottom. As usual, it took place in his office. The only unusual aspect of the meeting was the fact that his assistant, Tod Henshaw, was not also present.

Dulles began by once again asking Jackie to go over the particulars of her visit to New Orleans, which was now almost one year in the past. During that time, Jackie had continued her training at the Farm, had gone to work as the Inquiring Camera Girl for the Times-Herald, and had seen her assignment to Cuba scrapped over what Dulles had termed “the continuing and uncertain political turmoil” in that country.

“During World War Two,” Dulles explained to Jackie, “the Abwehr, German military intelligence, employed a listening post in New Orleans so they could receive reports on when convoys departed the port. They operated out of one of those stately old mansions right on St. Charles Avenue, not far from where you stayed, actually. After the war was over, Stasi, the East German intelligence service, took over the listening post and ran it for their new masters, the Russians. We knew about the listening post and decided to let them keep it going, just on the off chance we could use it to feed them false information. I guess, when they got wind of your arrival and saw you visit the professor,