The equipment was foolproof, but its operators and technicians were not; they were only human after all. “Yarnell fingered one of the technicians, Staff Sergeant Barry Innes, as being on the KGB’s payroll. To this day I don’t know how he got his information, but the proof was there.”
Yarnell prepared several dummy messages out to Langley that consisted of information of potentially great interest to the Soviet Union’s delegation to the UN in New York. Within days of the transmission of the messages — transmissions done only during the time when Innes was on duty — the information was showing up on the Security Council in New York.
“We had a traitor in the embassy. A kid in the air force, clean shaven, wife and a small child living somewhere in California. I wanted to arrest him, send him home. He was young enough, I figured, he might have gotten out of prison with time enough left for some sort of a life.”
Innes, along with the other air force operators and technicians, as well as the marine guards, had quarters within the embassy itself. The rule was that single men and women resided automatically in the embassy — that is, military people, of course, not civilians — while married personnel had a choice. If they brought their spouses with them to Moscow, the assignment was for three years and they lived in town. If they came alone, leaving their mates at home, or if they were unmarried, Moscow was a remote assignment for only eighteen months, and they lived in the embassy. Innes came alone.
Within three months of his arrival, Yarnell had him cold, Owens said.
It was around Christmas that Yarnell proposed Hellgate, and he got back to Moscow a day before the twenty-fifth, leaving his wife all alone back in the States. By then, of course, she wasn’t quite as big an issue as she had been earlier. Too many other much greater things were happening in Moscow and elsewhere around the world for them to worry about someone’s wife, who, after all, was living a life of relative splendor and luxury at home. Who could feel sorry for a poor little rich girl?
“So you had your traitor cold,” McGarvey said. “Why wasn’t he arrested and sent home for trial? Operation Hellgate was a success.”
“You don’t understand,” Owens said. “Just proving that the kid was a traitor wasn’t what Darby had proposed. Not at all. Operation Hellgate was a hell of a lot more than that.”
“What then?”
“The Russians had turned one of our people; Darby wanted to get back at them. He wanted to send it back to them in spades. He wanted to send them a great big bomb that they’d take into their midst and that would blow up in their faces, causing them not only the maximum damage, but the greatest embarrassment as well.”
“Innes was the key.”
“He was our carrier,” Owens said. “And from day one it was Darby’s baby. No one — and I do mean no one, not even the ambassador — got in his way.”
The idea in conception was rather simple, as all good ideas are, but in execution it was damned difficult, according to Owens. The notion was that if the Russians had successfully turned Innes, and if our knowledge of it could be kept secret, Innes could prove to be of inestimable value to us. Yarnell’s plan was to give Innes a promotion to technical sergeant, put him in charge of CIA communications, and then begin pumping him with information so stunning that when he passed it over to his Soviet control officer, the man would be mesmerized, he would take whatever we wanted to give him. He would be ours.
“We set about to make poor sergeant Innes a superstar,” Owens said. “Within a month he was working directly for Darby, and within a few weeks we were pumping him with information.”
There were two classes of data fed to Innes, Owens explained. The first class was absolutely true things useful to the Russians. We had to mix the good with the bad in order to present a convincing front. The second, of course, was disinformation. On Mondays the select committee at the embassy — me as chief of station, Darby as Innes’s control officer, the charge d’affaires, usually an analyst or two, and at least the Military attache — would get together to work up the product we would force-feed the kid. During the remainder of the week, Yarnell would give it to Innes. Worked like a charm.”
“So Sergeant Innes actually passed good information across?”
“Yes.”
“A lot of information? Damaging information?”
“A big volume, yes. But most of it was pretty mild by comparison.”
“By comparison with what?” McGarvey asked.
“By comparison with some of the other stuff we fed him, as well as all the bogus shit Darby was coming up with. And some of that was very wild, believe me.”
“So, no matter what happened or didn’t happen, Sergeant Innes actually did pass along some valid intelligence to the KGB.”
“Only on Langley’s specific approval.”
McGarvey could understand at least the first part of the operation, and he could appreciate its boldness. He was, however, having a little trouble visualizing the actual method. He asked Owens about it.
“For the most part that was Darby’s province,” Owens admitted. “Sergeant Innes worked directly for Darby, so most of his briefings were done in private. It built up a barrier of trust. A barrier in the sense that Innes had eyes and ears only for Yarnell. It was the old charm all over again. Yarnell had totally taken over the kid, whom he began to refer to as ‘the Zombie’ during our Monday jam sessions.”
“You didn’t much like that?” McGarvey asked.
“It was enough that we were using the kid without calling him names behind his back.”
“How long did this go on?”
“Months.”
“Three months?” McGarvey asked. “Six? Seven?”
“Maybe a year. It was a long time. Darby wanted everything to be just right. He wanted the complete trust not only of Sergeant Innes, but of Innes’s Russian control officer as well. He wanted them eating out of his hand.”
“And they did?”
“They did.”
“How did Yarnell know this? I mean, did he give it twelve months exactly, and then after that time had passed he said now we make our move? What?”
“It was easier than that,” Owens said. “Yarnell figured he would have them by the balls on the day Innes came back with a specific question.”
“A question from his control officer?”
“Presumably.”
“Did he ask you, or did he ask Yarnell?”
“Darby was handling it on a personal basis, I’ve already told you that,” Owens flared.
“Then you don’t know what this important question might have been?”
“Goddamnit, I don’t know what the hell you’re getting at, McGarvey. Of course I knew.”
“How?”
“Darby told me, of course …” Owens suddenly trailed off, realizing what he was saying, at long last understanding what it was McGarvey had been getting at all along. “It was documented … I mean a lot of what we were feeding the kid was showing up …”
“You went on Yarnell’s word alone?” McGarvey asked as gently as he could, though the question itself belied any gentleness.
“He was a friend,” Owens replied. “Darby was the CIA in Moscow. I’d sooner have questioned the president.”
“What was the question?”
Owens took a moment to reply. He focused on McGarvey, then shook his head. “Hell, I don’t remember. It seemed important at the time. Something about satellites, I suppose, but for the life of me I can’t remember it now.”