CHAPTER ONE

The steering wheel of my 1980 Chevy Monza almost wrenched from my hands as the right front wheel plunged into an unseen pothole.  Cold coffee from the half-finished cup nestled on the console splashed up and out, soaking my jeans. I glanced up into the rear view mirror as the rear wheel struck the void, and then the wheel of the U-Haul trailer I was towing behind. The trailer swayed violently, and for a heart-stopping moment I thought I had lost control.

I let out a deep breath as the vehicle straightened, and eased off the gas.  As the needle on the speedometer dropped below 70, I fumbled in my shirt pocket for cigarette. The thought that I had been damned lucky flitted briefly through consciousness, and I resolved to drive the last few miles in safety.

I glanced down at my watch to check the time.  It was almost midnight, which meant I was four hours behind schedule.

Although I had made the drive from St. Louis to Washington many times, the Capitol Beltway still confused me. I was reasonably convinced that the exit for either Connecticut Avenue or Wisconsin was fast approaching, but I wasn't quite sure.  I briefly considered pulling over to consult the map on the passenger seat beside the but decided not to. At this hour the Beltway was heavily trafficked by commercial trucks, and when weighed down by the U-Haul trailer the Monza's acceleration was dangerously slow.

The Mormon Temple appeared on my right, rising majestically through the illumination of spotlights. It was a beautiful and deeply reassuring sight. Even though I'd been born and raised in St. Louis, I had spent so many carefree summers in Washington with my grandparents that I had come to think of it as home.  They had lived in a lovely third story apartment on Connecticut Avenue, in a building immediately adjacent to the National Zoo; and during my first summer there, when I was perhaps five or six, I'd spent weeks on end exploring the conservatory, the nearby parks, and the tree lined streets of the Calvert Area with my indefatigable grandfather.  By the time August had come to a reluctant close, I had adopted Washington as my own. 

The car had become smoky, so I rolled down the window.  It was the first of September, but there was an unnatural chill in the late night air. Exhilarated, I left the window down and turned up the heat to compensate for the cold wind that blew across my face.

The Massachusetts Avenue exit appeared barely visible in my high beams.  A few minutes beyond lay Connecticut, a few more exits I could not remember, and then Wisconsin.

This was the most direct route to my destination, the Iwo Jima Motel in Arlington, Virginia. But I had taken that route some six years before, when I had returned to Washington as an adult; and I had learned from frustrating experience to avoid Wisconsin Avenue and it's inevitable congestion whenever possible. I would follow the Beltway across the Potomac, and drop down along the George Washington Parkway to Rosslyn.

Relaxed, I slipped into a quiet reverie as the night air blew across my face.

I had returned to Washington in 1977, after completing a master's degree in international relations at the University of Missouri.  I been admitted to Georgetown University's doctoral program, but I fell short of the scholarship to which I aspired.  After working of a series of odd jobs in St. Louis to scrape together a bare minimum of cash, I had loaded my clothes and my stereo into my car and taken off for Washington anyway. I had no real plan, other than to enroll part-time at Georgetown and hope for a lucky break.

I had applied for a position with the Central Intelligence Agency almost a year before, and my application had been well received.  At the end of a lengthy interview in St. Louis, the recruiter assured me that I would be offered a slot. He had been maddeningly vague as to what sort of job I would be offered, or when, so I wasn't counting on it.  In fact I had become mildly concerned in the intervening months, for I was already a spy of sorts. Even though I had been given explicit permission to accept a position with the Agency, I had begun to wonder if serving two masters would be wise.

It had all begun in October of 1973, some seven months after I formally separated from the Marine Corps. It was then that I had received a letter from the Department of the Navy asking that I contact a certain naval captain at the Federal Building in downtown St. Louis. Although the letter was vague, I had no doubt of the subject matter; and for that reason I was filled with trepidation when I dialed the number given in the text. At the time, I was staying at my parents' house in West County while finishing my history degree at Webster University.

The Marine staff sergeant who answered the phone put me through to the captain without delay. When the captain picked up the phone, he was brief and to the point. He wanted to see me regarding a matter of some urgency, and asked if I could meet with him at his office. Puzzled, I agreed an early morning appointment the following week, and hung up the phone.

This proved to be the first of a lengthy succession of mysteries, which I had still not penetrated. For reasons unknown, the scheduled interview had been repeatedly postponed and by the time we actually met, in early February of 1974, I had developed a deep sense of foreboding.

When at last I was ushered into the captain's office, I found him and a Marine colonel standing to the left of a badly battered desk. To my surprise, both wore the wings of naval aviators.

The captain introduced himself, and the colonel, and waved us to our seats. Accepting a proffered cup of coffee, I emplaced myself on a dilapidated chair and warily asked the purpose of the meeting. Dodging the question, the captain asked me about my knee. I told him that it had healed well, but the long-term prognosis wasn’t good. Prior surgery to repair a high school football injury left the second series of operations problematical. It was fine for now, but the doctors felt I would need a cane by the time I reached forty. Very pointedly, the captain then asked me about the nightmares. 

I felt violated by so personal a question, and anger flashed in my eyes. For the first and only time the captain addressed me by my first name, assuring me that it was alright. Very painfully, he admitted that he had problems himself. From the corner of my eye, I saw the colonel lower his gaze as if to make a silent prayer. 

Accepting my silence for an answer, the captain straightened and handed the colonel a file from his desk. After thumbing through it, the colonel withdrew half a dozen paper-clipped forms and handed them to me. They were secrecy agreements that I had signed while on active duty, most of them related to intelligence matters. I glanced at them, and confirmed that the signatures at the bottom of each page were mine.

The colonel nodded and brusquely informed me that the matter at hand was sufficiently sensitive that the Marine Corps had considered recalling me to active duty. Instead, they had decided to first seek my cooperation as a civilian.

I had recognized the implicit threat, and taken it seriously. Stalling for time, I fished for a cigarette. A fast calculation told me I would be far better off playing the game as a civilian, and so I assured the colonel of my willingness to cooperate in that capacity. The captain looked at the colonel, the colonel looked at the captain, and both smiled wryly. They were playing hardball, and they were playing to win. 

The captain produced yet another secrecy form, and pushed it across his desk. I glanced at it, signed it, and leaned back in my chair. The captain handed the form to the colonel, and began speaking in a crisp military voice.

He continued for almost half an hour; pausing only to swig his coffee or light a cigarette.  When at last he finished speaking, he formally asked if I would be willing to assist the Navy - and the United States government - in a domestic counterintelligence operation fraught with political implications. Mindful of the alternative, I nodded in assent. I was three months away from completing my degree, and being recalled to active duty was far from appealing. The captain smiled and thanked me; and instructed the colonel to escort me to his office for a supplemental briefing.

By the time I emerged from the Federal Building some three hours later, my life had turned on end. I had been given a simple set of instructions, and an emergency contact number. I had been ordered to go about my business as though nothing had happened, maintaining complete secrecy at all times and all places. I was to watch, to wait, and to listen; and if I were asked about certain events that allegedly occurred during my tour of duty, I was to report them with deliberate speed. As I walked along the windswept street to my car I felt suddenly isolated, and very alone. Although I didn't know it at the time, these feelings would be my constant companions for the next twenty-four years.

It was five months before contact. During what seemed a chance encounter, an old girlfriend uttered the magic words. Shaken, I had extricated myself as best I could and made my way indirectly to a discrete pay phone some miles distant. After dialing the contact number I waited as it rang until a male voice answered. Accepting my code word identification, the voice instructed me to a rendezvous three days hence. It was then that I had first met my case officer, whom I would later dub "The One Armed Man" in a private and uneasy jest.

When I arrived at the designated meeting point, I was taken aback by his appearance and deportment. I had expected to find a naval or Marine Corps officer, but when the door of the suburban apartment opened the man who confronted me was clearly a civilian. Without speaking, he waved me in and gestured me toward a chair. He had apparently been on the phone when I arrived, for he returned to the credenza and lifted the handset to his ear. After a few short words, he hung up without saying goodbye.

He looked to be about thirty. Standing about 5'8", he weighed perhaps 180 pounds. Stocky and muscular, he reminded me of a wrestler. He had brown eyes, and matching brown hair that fell fashionably below his collar. He introduced himself as Jerry, and explained that he would be my control for an indefinite period. He further explained that this would be probably be our only meeting. For the duration of the operation he would hover nearby, but direct contact would be avoided. 

Much to my surprise, he expressed little interest in the event that precipitated my call. He listened to my report, but asked few questions and took no notes. I had the uneasy sense he already knew the details; and I wondered briefly if they had somehow managed to bug me without my knowledge. I dismissed the thought as impractical and settled instead upon provocation. On the basis of the scant evidence available to me, I concluded that my ex-girlfriend was probably one of theirs.

To avoid the risk of detection and compromise, I was instructed not to call again except in an extreme emergency. Henceforth, all communications would be conducted with encrypted notes deposited at prearranged points. Noting that I had recently resumed jogging, he instructed me to make a yellow chalk mark on the tenth telephone along my route in the event of contact; then leave my encrypted report in the leaf of an obscure reference text at the local public library the following day. Pick-up would be acknowledged by a blue chalk mark on the 20th pole from my residence; and new instructions by a red mark on the 35th. I was to pick these from another reference work at the library the following day, and acknowledge them with a mark of my own. 

From his instructions it was clear that the Navy had placed me under surveillance, and that fact made me distinctly uneasy. Although I knew it was untrue, I persuaded myself that it was in my best interests. I had nothing to hide; and if worse came to worst, help might be fast forthcoming. 

Picking up a book from the coffee table, he proceeded to give me a fast but through briefing in alphanumeric skip codes. Although these were easily broken, when used in conjunction with a book they were considered secure.

He flipped to page 87. The first number in my report was to refer to the page of the book, the second to the paragraph, the third to the sentence, the fourth to the word, the fifth to the letter. Thus from Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, the code group 77-02-05-02-02 represented the letter "B". It was a cumbersome and time-consuming system; but with cold assurance, he said I would understand. I had already had one bad experience with compromised codes, and he knew that I would not want another. 

To make sure that our communications were not penetrated by technical means, he instructed me to encrypt and decipher underneath a blanket, using a felt tipped pen. When writing, I should have music playing in the background; and I should destroy all traces of his instructions as soon as I had deciphered them. 

We would start using a current edition of Gulliver's Travels; thereafter, the book would be changed at 30-day intervals. He gave me the publisher's name and paperback edition's number, and informed me it was available at B. Dalton. Very pointedly, he reminded me that I was responsible for my own expenses.

After a score of rote exercises, he turned to surveillance and countersurveillance. He gave me the names of two texts on the subject, and noted that the public library had recently been given copies of each. I was to check them out and study them carefully. He told me that while surveillance and countersurveillance could not be learned from books, the basic concepts could. After that, it was a matter of relentless practice.

I had objected to this action as far too obvious. Checking the books out would create a paper trail, linking me to texts on tradecraft. Moreover, the gift of the books was itself suspicious. The fact of their unsolicited donation suggested that someone had placed them there for a purpose, and quite possibly for me. He nodded, and informed me that this was a part of the operational plan. A "legend" or deep cover identity was being created around me as we spoke; and the paper trail was intended in part to sustain it. From time to time, I would be instructed to undertake similarly revealing actions for reasons I need not know. 

As part of this legend, I was instructed to avoid discussions of my military service. If asked, I was to admit that I had served in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1971 to 1973, and instructed to claim that I had graduated from Officer's Candidate School in April of 1971. In actual fact, I had graduated from OCS on a later date; but Jerry assured me that my record book had been altered to reflect this change and others, including rank and deployments. If anyone persisted, I was to shrug off their questions. Queries about Viet Nam were to be flatly denied. I silently assented, for the war was a painful subject I wanted to avoid.

He concluded by stressing again the politically sensitive nature of the operation. The Department of the Navy had the authority to recreate my service identity; and if necessary, to make it vanish altogether. In a soft but emphatic voice he warned that if the operation went bad, I would be left twisting in the wind. Having expected as much, I nodded my head in silent assent.

At last standing up, Jerry said there was just one more thing. From that point forward my codename would be JITTERBUG. He walked me to the door, and shook my hand. In the eleven years since, I had occasionally glimpsed him shadowing me, but we had not spoken again. He had appeared in Columbia, Missouri, while I was working on my master's degree, and later in each city where I had lived. I was sure he would turn up again in DC; but who he was remained a mystery.

High beams from an oncoming truck wrenched me from my reverie. I was surprised find myself passing the Wisconsin Avenue exit; and I wondered uneasily where I had been. It seemed as though time had somehow leaped ahead, for ten minutes or more had passed with the vaguest awareness. But the low fuel warning light flashed from the dashboard, interrupting my discomfort. I would have to stop for gas soon, which meant changing my original plan. Rather than follow the GW Parkway straight into lower Arlington I would have to detour into McLean, where there were several all night service stations. A quick calculation told me I would make it to a gas station, but with little room to spare. I eased off the gas to save fuel, and lit another cigarette.

Immediately ahead lay the Potomac River. Posted above was the welcoming sign to Virginia; and just beyond lay the northern-most suburbs. As I crossed the American Legion Memorial Bridge I felt a deep sense of release; for after four long years in the wilderness, I was finally home.

I navigated the exit loop onto the GW Parkway with some difficulty, and merged into light late-night traffic. The U-Haul I was pulling behind was hardly noticeable on straightaways, but it became threatening in all but the most gentle curves. I wondered how many had overturned in similar situations.

Five minutes later I repeated the maneuver with greater care and emerged on Highway 123 in McLean. The entrance to CIA headquarters passed on my right, but I took little note of it. The angry glare of the low fuel warning light had my full attention, and I hoped that I had calculated the distance correctly. After driving almost 12 hours non-stop, I was in no mood for a late night hike.

A few minutes later I downshifted, and began a slow turn through the amber light onto Chain Bridge Road. I eased through the next light, and pulled onto the concrete tarmac of a brightly lit service station. Pulling up to the nearest pump, I turned the ignition to off. I pushed myself back in my seat, and stretched and yawned before stubbing out a freshly lit cigarette in the ashtray. Clambering out of the small car, I hobbled stiffly to the sales office where I paid the attendant for half a tank, and bought a coke.

I set the can down on top of the car while I removed the nozzle from the pump and wrestled the twisted hose into the side spout. But as I began to squeeze the trigger of the gas handle, I was suddenly startled by an unseen presence. I glanced around quickly, but saw nothing but the bright lights of the sales office and the unattended pumps. My eyes flitted to the glove compartment of the car; but the loaded semi-automatic nestled within gave me no comfort.

I involuntarily shivered as fear possessed me; and as I looked up into the starlit sky above, an insistent sense warned me that my fate was somehow linked to this specific place. In the depths of my being I felt an indefinable evil; and I knew that it lurked somewhere close about.

An act of will drove the ghostly warning back into shadows of my mind, where it would remain hidden for many years. A decade and a half would pass before I recalled the omen, and recognized my folly. For had I paid heed, I would have turned my car around and abandoned Washington altogether.