Charles McCarry - The Miernik Dossier

MIERNIK: No.

BENTLEY: But they control your country. They will go on controlling it for the rest of your life, unless Nigel is right and the bombs go off.

MIERNIK: The bombs?

BENTLEY: The H-bomb. The Americans will fry us all.

MIERNIK: Nigel thinks that?

BENTLEY: Don’t you?

MIERNIK: No. The Americans do not make horror.

BENTLEY: Ha! Ask the Japanese.

MIERNIK: The Americans were out of character when they did that. They say it saved lives because they didn’t have to invade. Perhaps they’re right.

BENTLEY: They were simply trying to keep the Russians out of Japan. Pure capitalist thinking. They wanted a client state in Asia. Markets.

MIERNIK: Ilona, I think you are a Communist!

BENTLEY: Would that be so terrible, if I were?

MIERNIK: Ugly. It would be ugly. Tell me that you aren’t.

BENTLEY: All right. I’m not. Am I less ugly now?

MIERNIK: Infinitely.

BENTLEY:: You interest me. Your emotions are so generalized. The Polish Question, the Germans, the Communists. What do you feel as an individual towards other individuals?

MIERNIK: Everything. Despite my nose.

BENTLEY: Your nose? What’s wrong with your nose?

MIERNIK: Cyrano, c’est moi.

BENTLEY: Nonsense. It doesn’t matter in a man. Even Cyrano found that out. He got Roxane in the end, didn’t he?

MIERNIK: Truth in life and truth in art are not the same.

BENTLEY: You think women don’t like you?

MIERNIK: I think that it’s safer to assume that they don’t.

BENTLEY: What nonsense.

MIERNIK: A matter of experience. I should be terrified to kiss you.

BENTLEY: My God.

MIERNIK: It’s true. Your beauty frightens me.

BENTLEY: Frightens you? Really frightens you?

MIERNIK: Yes.

BENTLEY: Come here.

MIERNIK: I think not, Ilona.

BENTLEY: Come here.

MIERNIK: The beauty and the beast. I’ll get you another drink.

BENTLEY: Come here. (A pause in the tape. Male voice groans.)

BENTLEY: Did that terrify you?

MIERNIK: A little.

BENTLEY: You’re going to sit down again? You’re going to stop?

MIERNIK: What else should I do?

BENTLEY: You really are afraid. You’re really afraid.

MIERNIK: I told you I was.

BENTLEY: That’s very exciting. Is your heart beating very fast? Let me feel. No, under the shirt. Yes, feel that. It’s leaping in its cage, poor heart.

MIERNIK: Ilona, you’re cruel.

BENTLEY: Tell me that later. Here, put your hand there. On my skin. My heart isn’t at all like yours, is it? Do you feel anything?

MIERNIK: It’s a very calm heart.

BENTLEY: There, now feel it. There is no cloth in the way now. Move your hand. You’ve touched breasts before. Haven’t you?

MIERNIK: Yes.

BENTLEY: Wait. Now you can touch everything. Get up. Take off your clothes. Take them off. Quickly. You’re covered with hair. That’s very exciting. You are a beast. No, stay standing. I’ll take off your shoes. You’re very big, bigger than Nigel. He has no hair, just a little there and around there. He has no skin at the end. The end of yours is moist. It smells like the forest, like ferns in the forest.

MIERNIK: Ilona, my God.

BENTLEY: Come down on the floor. Take off your glasses. Put your face there. Kiss. How do I smell? Do you like that smell? Is it a forest smell? Is it a sweet taste? Not inside so much. Find the place. Find the place. There. Sweetly, do it sweetly. Now kiss my mouth. Yes. Taste yourself, taste myself. Turn over. Let me see it. It’s beating too, like your heart. Feel the wet, feel the warm. You’re beating inside me like a heart. Now you’re happy. Now you’re beautiful. (Long pause in tape.)

BENTLEY: You make love with your eyes closed.

MIERNIK: I do?

BENTLEY: You do. Why do you close your eyes?

MIERNIK: I don’t know. Don’t you?

BENTLEY: Never. I watch faces.

MIERNIK: What do you see?

BENTLEY: I don’t know. Pain.

MIERNIK: You saw pain in me?

BENTLEY: I think so.

MIERNIK: It was not pain, Ilona.

BENTLEY: Did all this surprise you?

MIERNIK: It positively astonished me.

BENTLEY: You didn’t say so.

MIERNIK: There’s a time for keeping quiet.

BENTLEY: Did my talking disturb you?

MIERNIK: I never heard anyone talk like that.

BENTLEY: Sometimes I say worse things.

MIERNIK: Like what?

BENTLEY: You’ll hear in a minute.

MIERNIK: Say only beautiful things. You are too beautiful.

BENTLEY: Would you say I’m good at it?

MIERNIK: Yes.

BENTLEY: So are you, my lad. It’s all that hair, and the smell of you.

MIERNIK: Thanks.

BENTLEY: I’m trying to make you laugh. One should laugh after sex. Between sex.

MIERNIK: Laugh?

BENTLEY: Out of the joy of it. It’s all we have, Tadeusz. Bits of flesh that fit together.

MIERNIK: We have more than that.

BENTLEY: You think so?

MIERNIK: Why did you do this, Ilona?

BENTLEY: Because I wanted to. I wanted to see your face.

MIERNIK: Nothing more than that?

BENTLEY: I’ve told you. That’s enough. In fact, that’s everything.

MIERNIK: I don’t think so.

BENTLEY: You thought so five minutes ago, didn’t you?

MIERNIK: That was five minutes ago.

BENTLEY: Yes. I’ll make you think so again in a minute. Keep your eyes open this time.

1. The revolutionary-terrorist organization calling itself the Anointed Liberation Front (ALF) plans to move during June and July from its training ground in the Darfur highlands in western Sudan to a variety of large villages and small cities. Teams of trained men, usually numbering from three to seven, will carry out the assassination of important public figures, disruption of communications, small-scale attacks against police outposts, and exemplary punishment (i.e., torture and assassination) of those who refuse to cooperate with the ALF.

2. The leadership of the ALF consists of two Sudanese of unusually good educational and social background. Both were trained in the USSR in ideology, organization techniques, weapons, demolition, and communications. Of these two, one whom we have code-named Firecracker was recruited by us before his departure to the Soviet Union. He has remained our prime source of information about the ALF, although we have penetrated the organization with several other agents of lower rank.

3. Firecracker states that the ALF is well equipped with submachine guns, grenades, explosives, and other small weapons. All weapons are of American or Belgian manufacture. The weapons, together with medical supplies and other materiel, were dropped by parachute into the Darfur region from unmarked DC-3’s painted gray. Six Land Rovers, with false Sudanese registration, were driven across the border from Egypt and through the desert. A number of camels were purchased with funds provided before Firecracker and his companion left Moscow. Total funds currently available to the ALF are estimated by Firecracker at £5,000 (US $14,000).

4. In the six months since the return of the two Sudanese agents from the USSR, approximately one hundred men have been recruited and trained as three-, five-, and seven-man teams. Strict compartmentation of teams has been observed, so that the members of one team do not know the names or faces of those in any other team. The teams follow the Soviet practice of using code names even within the teams or cells, so that members know each other only under noms de guerre. Firecracker has been able to furnish us with true names for 61 of those involved.

5. The objective of ALF is to arouse an Arab resistance to the central government. After the terrorist stage, it is expected that this Arab organization will merge with the non-Arab resistance that has been attempting to operate in the South. The ALF theater of operations will be confined to an area north of a line running from El Fasher in the West to Om Ager on the Ethiopian border. This area includes about half the territory of Sudan, and most of the major population centers.