The foreign hand tie, p.1
The Foreign Hand Tie, page 1
The Foreign Hand Tie
Garrett, Randall
Published: 1961
Type(s): Short Fiction, Science Fiction
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/30497
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About Garrett:
Randall Garrett (December 16, 1927 - December 31, 1987) was an
American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a prolific contribut-or to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and
1960s. He instructed Robert Silverberg in the techniques of selling large quantities of action-adventure sf, and collaborated with him on two nov-els about Earth bringing civilization to an alien planet. Source: Wikipedia Also available on Feedbooks for Garrett:
• Pagan Passions (1959)
• Brain Twister (1961)
• ...After a Few Words... (1962)
• Supermind (1963)
• A Spaceship Named McGuire (1961)
• Anything You Can Do ... (1963)
• ...Or Your Money Back (1951)
• The Impossibles (1963)
• Unwise Child (1962)
• The Highest Treason (1961) Copyright: Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country.
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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction December
1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
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F rom Istanbul, in Turkish Thrace, to Moscow, U.S.S.R., is only a couple of hours outing for a round trip in a fast jet plane—a shade
less than eleven hundred miles in a beeline.
Unfortunately, Mr. Raphael Poe had no way of chartering a bee.
The United States Navy cruiser Woonsocket, having made its placid way across the Mediterranean, up the Aegean Sea, and through the
Dardanelles to the Bosporous, stopped overnight at Istanbul and then
turned around and went back. On the way in, it had stopped at Gibral-
tar, Barcelona, Marseilles, Genoa, Naples, and Athens—the main friendly
ports on the northern side of the Mediterranean. On the way back, it performed the same ritual on the African side of the sea. Its most famous
passengers were the American Secretary of State, two senators, and three representatives.
Its most important passenger was Mr. Raphael Poe.
During the voyage in, Mr. Raphael Poe remained locked in a state-
room, all by himself, twiddling his thumbs restlessly and playing endless games of solitaire, making bets with himself on how long it would be before the ship hit the next big wave and wondering how long it would
take a man to go nuts in isolation. On the voyage back, he was not
aboard the Woonsocket at all, and no one missed him because only the captain and two other Navy men had known he was aboard, and they
knew that he had been dropped overboard at Istanbul.
The sleek, tapered cylindroid might easily have been mistaken for a
Naval torpedo, since it was roughly the same size and shape. Actually, it was a sort of hybrid, combining the torpedo and the two-man submarine
that the Japanese had used in World War II, plus refinements contrib-
uted by such apparently diverse arts as skin-diving, cybernetics, and
nucleonics.
Inside this one-man underwater vessel, Raphael Poe lay prone, guid-
ing the little atomic-powered submarine across the Black Sea, past
Odessa, and up the Dnieper. The first leg, the four hundred miles from
the Bosporous to the mouth of the river, was relatively easy. The two
hundred and sixty miles from there to the Dnepropetrovsk was a little
more difficult, but not terribly so. It became increasingly more difficult as the Dnieper narrowed and became more shallow.
On to Kiev. His course changed at Dnepropetrovsk, from northeast to
northwest, for the next two hundred fifty miles. At Kiev, the river
changed course again, heading north. Three hundred and fifty miles
farther on, at Smolensk, he was heading almost due east.
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It had not been an easy trip. At night, he had surfaced to get his bear-ings and to recharge the air tanks. Several times, he had had to take to the land, using the caterpillar treads on the little machine, because of obstacles in the river.
At the end of the ninth day, he was still one hundred eighty miles
from Moscow, but, at that point, he got out of the submarine and pre-
pared himself for the trip overland. When he was ready, he pressed a
special button on the control panel of the expensive little craft. Immediately, the special robot brain took over. It had recorded the trip up-
stream; by applying that information in reverse—a "mirror image," so to speak—it began guiding itself back toward Istanbul, applying the necessary corrective factors that made the difference between an upstream
and a downstream trip. If it had made a mistake or had been discovered,
it would have blown itself to bits. As a tribute to modern robotics and
ultra-microminiaturization, it is a fact that the little craft was picked up five days later a few miles from Istanbul by the U.S.S. Paducah.
By that time, a certain Vladimir Turenski, a shambling not-too-bright
deaf mute, had made his fully documented appearance in Moscow.
S pies,likefairiesandothersuchelusivesprites,traditionallycomein
rings. The reason for this circumstructural metaphor is obscure, but
it remains a fact that a single spy, all by himself, is usually of very little use to anybody. Espionage, on any useful scale, requires organization.
There is, as there should be, a reason for this. The purpose of espion-
age is to gather information—preferably, useful information—against the wishes of, and in spite of the efforts of, a group—usually referred to as
"the enemy"—which is endeavoring to prevent that information from getting into other hands than their own. Such activities obviously imply communication. An espioneur, working for Side A, who finds a bit of
important information about Side B must obviously communicate that
bit of information to Side A or it is of no use whatsoever.
All of these factors pose complex problems.
To begin with, the espioneur must get himself into a position in which
he can get hold of the information he wants. Usually, that means that he must pass himself off as something he is not, a process which requires
time. Then, when he gets the information he is after, he must get it to his employers quickly. Information, like fish, becomes useless after a certain amount of time, and, unlike fish, there is no known way of refrigerating it to retard spoilage.
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It is difficult to transmit information these days. It is actually easier for the espioneur to transmit it than to get it, generally speaking, but it is difficult for him to do both jobs at once, so the spy ring's two major parts consist of the ones who get the information from the enemy and the ones
who transmit it back to their employers.
Without magic, it is difficult for a single spy to be of any benefit. And
"magic," in this case, can be defined as some method by which information can be either obtained or transmitted without fear of discovery by
the enemy. During World War I, a competent spy equipped with a com-
pact transistorized short-wave communications system could have had
himself a ball. If the system had included a miniature full-color television camera, he could have gone hog wild. In those days, such equipment
would have been magic.
All this is not à propos of nothing. Mr. Raphael Poe was, in his own way, a magician.
It is not to be supposed that the United States of America had no spy
rings in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at that time. There were plenty of them. Raphael Poe could have, if it were so ordained, availed
himself of the services of any one or all of them. He did not do so for two reasons. In the first place, the more people who are in on a secret, the more who can give it away. In other words, a ring, like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest section. In the second place, Raphael Poe didn't
need any assistance in the first place.
That is, he needed no more assistance that most magicians do—a shill
in the audience. In this particular case, the shill was his brother, Leonard Poe.
O peration Mapcase was as ultra-secret as it could possibly be. Although there were perhaps two dozen men who knew of the exist-
ence of the operation by its code name, such as the Naval officers who
had helped get Raphael Poe to his destination, there were only five men
who really knew what Operation Mapcase was all about.
Two of these were, of course, Raphael and Leonard Poe. Two others
were the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense. The fifth was Colonel Julius T. Spaulding, of United States Army Intelligence.
On the seventh day after Raphael Poe's arr
four men met in Blair House, across the street from the White House, in a room especially prepared for the purpose. No one but the President
6
knew the exact purpose of the meeting, although they had an idea that he wanted more information of some kind.
The President himself was the last to arrive. Leaving two Secret Ser-
vice men standing outside the room, he carefully closed the door and
turned to face the Secretary of Defense, Colonel Spaulding, and Leonard
Poe. "Sit down, gentlemen," he said, seating himself as he spoke.
"Gentlemen, before we go any further, I must conduct one final experiment in order to justify Operation Mapcase. I will not explain it just yet."
He looked at Lenny Poe, a small, dark-haired man with a largish nose.
"Mr. Poe, can you contact your brother at this moment?"
Lenny Poe was a man who was not overawed by anyone, and had no
inclination to be formal, not even toward the President. "Yeah, sure," he said matter-of-factly.
The President glanced at his watch. "It is now five minutes of ten. That makes it five minutes of six in the evening in Moscow. Is your brother
free to move around? That is, can he go to a certain place in the city?"
Lenny closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "Rafe says he can go any place that the average citizen would be allowed to go."
"Excellent," said the President. He gave Lenny an address—an inter-section of two streets not far from Red Square. "Can he get there within fifteen minutes?"
"Make it twenty," said Lenny.
"Very well. Twenty minutes. When he gets there, I'll ask you to relay further instructions."
Lenny Poe closed his eyes, folded his arms, and relaxed in his chair.
The other three men waited silently.
Nineteen minutes later, Lenny opened his eyes and said: "O.K. He's
there. Now what?"
"There is a lamppost on that corner, I believe," said the President. "Can your brother see it?"
Lenny closed his eyes again. "Sure. There's a guy leaning against it."
The President's eyes brightened. "Describe him!"
Lenny, eyes still closed, said: "Five feet ten, heavy set, gray hair, dark-rimmed glasses, brown suit, flashy necktie. By the cut of his clothes, I'd say he was either British or American, probably American. Fifty-five or
fifty-six years old."
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It was obvious to the Secretary of Defense and to Colonel Spaulding that the President was suppressing some inward excitement.
"Very good, Mr. Poe!" he said. "Now, you will find a box of colored pencils and a sketch pad in that desk over there. Can you draw me a
fairly accurate sketch of that man?"
"Yeah, sure." Lenny opened his eyes, moved over to the desk, took out the pencils and sketch pad, and went to work. He had to close his eyes
occasionally, but his work was incredibly rapid and, at the same time, almost photographically accurate.
As the picture took form, the President's inward excitement increased
perceptibly. When it was finally finished, Lenny handed the sketch to the President without a word.
The President took it eagerly and his face broke out in his famous grin.
"Excellent! Perfect!" He looked at Lenny. "Your brother hasn't attracted the man's attention in any way, has he?"
"Nope," said Lenny.
"Fine. The experiment is over. Relay my thanks to your brother. He
can go ahead with whatever he was doing now."
"I don't quite understand," said the Secretary of State.
"I felt it necessary to make one final experiment of my own devising,"
the President said. "I wanted Raphael Poe to go to a particular place at a particular time, with no advance warning, to transmit a picture of
something he had never seen before. I arranged this test myself, and I am positive that there could be no trickery."
"Never seen before?" the Secretary repeated bewilderedly. He gestured at the sketch. "Why, that's obviously Bill Donovan, of the Moscow deleg-ation. Poe could have seen a photograph of him somewhere before."
"Even so," the President pointed out, "there would be no way of knowing that he would be at that spot. But that's beside the point. Look at that necktie!"
"I had noticed it," the Defense Secretary admitted.
It was certainly an outstanding piece of neckwear. As drawn by
Leonard Poe, it was a piece of brilliant chartreuse silk, fully three and a half inches wide at its broadest. Against that background, rose-pink
nude girls were cavorting with pale mauve satyrs.
"That tie," said the President, "was sent to me fifteen years ago by on of my constituents, when I was in Congress. I never wore it, of course, but 8
it would have been criminal to have thrown away such a magnificently obscene example of bad taste as that.
"I sent it to Donovan in a sealed diplomatic pouch by special courier, with instructions to wear it at this time. He, of course, has no idea why he is standing there. He is merely obeying orders.
"Gentlemen, this is completely convincing to me. Absolutely no one
but myself knew what I had in mind. It would have required telepathy
even to cheat.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Poe. Colonel Spaulding, you may proceed
with Operation Mapcase as planned."
D r. Malekrinova, will you initial these requisition forms, please."
Dr. Sonya Malekrinova, a dowdy-looking, middle-aged woman
with unplucked eyebrows and a mole on her chin, adjusted her steel-
rimmed glasses, took the proffered papers from the clerk, ran her eyes
over them, and then put her initials on the bottom of each page.
"Thank you, Comrade Doctor," said the clerk when she handed back the sheaf of papers.
"Certainly, Comrade."
And the two of them went about their business.
Not far away, in the Cathedral of St. Basil, Vladimir Turenski, alias
Raphael Poe, was also apparently going about his business. The cathed-
ral had not seen nor heard the Liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church
or any other church, for a good many decades. The Bolsheviks, in their
zeal to protect the citizens of the Soviet Unions from the pernicious influ-ence of religion, had converted it into a museum as soon as possible.
It was the function of Tovarishch Turenski to push a broom around the floors of the museum, and this he did with great determination and effi-ciency. He also cleaned windows and polished metalwork when the oc-
casion demanded. He was only one of a large crew of similarly em-
ployed men, but he was a favorite with the Head Custodian, who not
only felt sorry for the simple-minded deaf-mute, but appreciated the
hard work he did. If, on occasion, Comrade Turenski would lean on his
broom and fall into a short reverie, it was excusable because he still managed to get all his work done.
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Behind Comrade Turenski, a guide was explaining a display to a group of tourists, but Turenski ignored the distraction and kept his mind focused on the thoughts of Dr. Sonya Malekrinova.
After nearly ten months of patient work, Raphael Poe had hit upon
something that was, to his way of thinking, more important than all the
information he had transmitted to Washington thus far.
Picking brains telepathically was not, even for him, an easy job. He
had the knack and the training but, in addition, there was the necessity of establishing a rapport with the other mind. Since he was a physicist
and not a politician, it was much easier to get information from the mind of Sonya Malekrinova than to get it from the Premier. The only person
with whom he could keep in contact over any great distance was his
brother, and that only because the two of them had grown up together.
He could pick up the strongest thoughts of any nearby person very
easily. He did not need to hear the actual words, for instance, of a nearby conversation in order to follow it perfectly, because the words of verbal communication were strong in a person's mind.
But getting deeper than that required an increasing amount of under-
standing of the functioning of the other person's mind.
His ability to eavesdrop on conversations had been of immense benefit
to Washington so far, but is was difficult for him to get close enough to the higher-ups in the Soviet government to get all the data that the President of the United States wanted.
