The following morning, a colleague led him into the bowels of the Embassy and introduced him to the “dry cleaner" — a network of tunnels that branches out from a basement storeroom, providing concealed access to surrounding streets and vice-versa.
“The Company keeps us under constant movements analysis,” the colleague warned. “They know about these tunnels, too; but the station chief doesn’t have the personnel to monitor each terminus round-the-clock. Let’s hope we picked one he’s not watching today.”
Gorodin hurried anxiously down the damp narrow passageway. It led to a rickety staircase that came up in an alley behind a bordello on Calle San Jacinta. Gorodin opened the door a crack and peered into the alley. An Embassy driver was waiting in a cab to take him to the airport. A bleary-eyed prostitute was leaning against the door, propositioning the driver. Hooker or CIA case officer? Gorodin wondered. He waited until the driver got rid of her, then pushed aside the sheet metal door and hurried to the taxi.
The second leg of his journey took Gorodin over the Mexican Gulf. The route reminded him that seven miles below, search and rescue teams were scouring the waters for Theodor Churcher and his helicopter.
The tires of Mexicana Airlines Flight 730 added their black stripes to runway 37N at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport twenty minutes ahead of schedule, and taxied to the terminal directly.
The time was 11:40 A.M. when the mechanized boarding ramp swung into position and bit into the side of the jet’s fuselage.
The passengers spilled into the customs area, gathering around baggage conveyors. A few with canyons proceeded directly to counters where uniformed United States customs agents waited.
Gorodin was in this group. Time was his adversary now, and he was pleased to have arrived early.
In sunglasses, white shirt, tie, and rumpled beige suit, he looked every bit the travel-weary businessman. But it had been years since he had operated in the field, alone and undercover.
A wave of apprehension broke over him as he approached the customs agent. His mouth turned to cotton. A wetness broke out behind his knees.
Gorodin fought to overcome his anxiety, and nonchalantly tossed his two-suiter onto the counter. He presented a bona fide French passport — one that had been surreptitiously procured, and then washed by GRU counterfeiters.
The customs agent, a skittish young woman with close-cropped hair, saw “Republique Francais” embossed in gold on the deep maroon cover. “Parlez vous, Anglaise, monsieur?” she asked haltingly.
“Mais oui, madame,” replied Gorodin. “When in Rome—” he added jovially in English. He was fully prepared to converse in fluent French but gladly accommodated her.
“Great,” she drawled, “because my French is—” she paused and waggled a hand, then opened his passport and matched face to photo.
“Where you coming from Mister — Coudray?” she asked, quickly adding, “I say that right?”
Gorodin nodded amiably, and leaned on the counter.
“Mexico City,” he replied.
“City of embarkation was Paris?”
Gorodin nodded again.
“And you’re going to?”
“Dallas, New York, Paris.”
“Business?”
“Oui, madame,” he replied, purposely slipping into French.
“Okay,” she drawled, tapping his bag. “Would you open that for me, please?”
Gorodin popped the latches of the two-suiter. His hands were sweaty, and his fingers left smudges on the chrome. He split the halves of the bag and dried his palms in his pockets.
The agent poked through the clothing, seemingly disinterested. But her eyes alertly recorded the labels of French manufacturers on most of the garments. She paused and fingered one curiously.
Gorodin’s heart quickened. His mind leapt to all the disastrous possibilities: Had the label been improperly sewn? Had he been given a shirt much too small for him? Had she spotted some silly oversight that had cast suspicion on him?
“Cardin. Great stuff,” she said. “Bought the same shirt for my husband. He loves it.” She smiled and flipped the bag closed.
Gorodin nodded, and felt somewhat relieved. He was thinking that the hours at the Embassy in Mexico City had been well spent when she made an offhanded observation that threatened to unnerve him. “Your accent, if you don’t mind me saying it,” she remarked, “sure doesn’t sound French.”
She’s right! Gorodin thought. Despite his language skills, the years in Cuba had imparted a decidedly Latin flavor to his English. Even his Russian had been slightly tainted.
“I am a Basque,” he replied proudly, as if he’d been saying it all his life. He snapped the latches on the suitcase closed, punctuating his reply.
The agent stamped his passport and returned it.
“Have a nice day, Mr. Coudray,” she said in a singsong cadence. Gorodin slipped the passport into a pocket, and forced a smile in response to her rhyme. Then, he slid his bag from the counter, and walked quickly into the long tunnel that led to the terminal.
There was a new confidence in Gorodin’s stride. Yes, yes, it was good to be back, he thought — back closer to the edge, thinking on his feet, winging it resourcefully. He was hurrying past a newsstand when he noticed headlines proclaiming—"CHURCHER STILL MISSING IN GULF.”
Outside, he threw his bag into a dusty Chevy wagon on the arrivals ramp and jumped in next to the GRU driver, a powerfully built young agent named Vanik.
The car pulled away immediately, heading south for U.S. 45, the arrow-straight freeway that connects Dallas, Houston, and Galveston.
The drive to Houston would take approximately four and one half hours. Gorodin would have preferred to fly. But no connecting flight meant no record of M. Coudray ever having gone to Houston. And Gorodin wanted this last task to be as clean as possible.
“Everything’s being arranged,” Vanik said.
“Good,” Gorodin replied. “We have to move fast.”
They spoke in Russian.
The long drive ended at an abandoned ranch in desolate country outside Houston. They immediately entered a ramshackle barn where a third man was painting a mobile cherry picker to resemble a Houston County Gas & Electric service truck. That evening Gorodin pored over the photographs of Churcher’s estate Vanik had taken from the Piper, and began solidifying the plan to break into the underground museum.
Chapter Fifteen
Dinh Tran Xuyen and his family lived in a steel Quonset hut, one of thousands of makeshift structures dotting the countless islands and estuaries along the Gulf coast of southeastern Louisiana where colonies of homesteaders had sprung up. Most were immigrant fishermen from Southeast Asia who found that the climate and ecological makeup of the area closely resembled the land they had left behind.
Dinh had come to the United States in the mid-seventies with the members of his family who’d survived the war. They started a fishing business and made a living netting menhaden — the yellow-finned members of the herring family which run in large schools in Gulf waters, and are more commonly known as bony fish.
But Dinh wasn’t fishing this night. The deck of his forty-two-foot trawler was piled high with discarded refrigerators, bathtubs, and assorted car parts as he headed out into the Gulf. Dinh, his brother-in-law, and their teenage sons ferried the junk into the Gulf and heaved it over the side, marking the spot with an inexpensive navigation device. The submerged Lorans unit emitted a radio signal that would guide them to precisely the same spot with their next load. Indeed, they weren’t scuttling junk, but rather building a reef on which vegetation and inert sea life that would attract fish would grow.