The Miernik Dossier - Charles McCarry [65]
I guess I don’t have to tell you folks that he was writing a message, using a book code. I moved back out of the light but kept watching. Miernik was absorbed in his work. He went at it rapidly, with none of the fussiness and hesitation he usually displays. He’d find a word, note the number of its line on the pages, and enter it with the page number in a five-digit group. Judging by the place at which he’d opened the book, he was using three-digit pages. Therefore the first three digits are the page number and the last two the line number. I suppose he uses the first word on the line cited. The book had a gray cover with red lettering.
After five minutes or so, I started back to my tent. “What is he doing?” Kalash asked from the floor of the desert.
“He’s reading,” I replied.
Miernik came creeping back about ten minutes later. Kalash did not speak to him, and I was glad I didn’t have to. Catching him red-handed bothered me less than I might have expected. There is a certain satisfaction in being a successful Peeping Tom; otherwise no one would do this sort of work. But Miernik’s damn foolishness annoyed me. Why did he choose this time and this place to mess around with a book code? Where would he get rid of it? Not even the Soviets use natives with cleft sticks as moving dead-drops, and in the desert Miernik would certainly find no other way to get rid of his clandestine message. It would be typical of the man to entrust it to the Egyptian mails in the next small town we come to. The whole scene—sneaking out to the car at night, pulling down the shades, scribbling away in circumstances that offered a 99 percent chance for detection—was so amateurish. It made me angry that Miernik could be such a fool.
3 July. Two things to record in connection with the events of
last night:
1. Miernik’s book is Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, World’s Classics edition No. 496 (Oxford University Press, 1959). He left it lying on his sleeping bag when he came out for breakfast.
2. This morning, in Marsa Alam, he did mail a letter at the post office.
59. DECODED VERSION OF MIERNIK’S MESSAGE.*
JOURNEY IN FINAL STAGE. MUCH TROUBLED YOUR FAILURE COMMUNICATE, GREATLY HOPE THIS MEANS NO CHANGE IN PLANS OR DIMINUTION HOPES FOR SUCCESS. COMPANIONS AMIABLE. HAVE ADDED ENGLISH GIRL (B)ALTIMORE (E)XCELLENCE (N)OWHERE (T)RIUMPHANT (L)OVE (E)XCELLENCE (Y)OUNG. EXPECT REACH DESTINATION TWELFTH OR THEREABOUTS. MONEY GIVEN COURIER VERY GENEROUS. HER PAPERS SUPERB. MY HOPE IS FOR SAME AFTER PRESENT VENTURE. TRUSTING FRIENDS TO PROVIDE AS FINAL FAVOR. NEXT MESSAGE FROM CAPITAL OF DESTINATION COUNTRY. AFTER THAT SILENCE UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN.
60. REPORT BY A POLISH NATIONAL CONTROLLED BY A WESTERN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE (EXCERPT).
. . . Colonel Puszinsky of the Intelligence Service reported to the deputy foreign minister on 26 June that the requirements laid down for a joint Polish-Soviet operation in Africa had been fulfilled. The deputy foreign minister declined to be told full details of the operation and asked for an outline report only. Colonel Puszinsky assured him that a suitable Polish citizen, trained in intelligence work, had been assigned as a liaison between the Soviet Embassy in an East African country and an organization of freedom fighters in a different but neighboring country. The agent was en route to his assignment and on arrival would fall under control of the responsible Soviet officials. An official expression of gratitude on the part of the Soviets had been received by Colonel Puszinsky for communication to the deputy foreign minister.
61. DISPATCH FROM THE AMERICAN STATION IN VIENNA (EXCERPT).
In the hope of allaying Geneva’s anxiety over the apparent confusion surrounding Christopher’s border-crossing operation, we have conducted a full debriefing of the Czech officer in command of Point Zebra. He states that the crossing by Christopher and Zofia Miernik was authorized by the Czech counterintelligence arm. The Czech CI officer who made the