Laugh of the Hyenas Read online

  In light of everything he knew about espionage and counterespionage in Bulgaria, Milev would have been an idiot not to offer vital secret information to the French and the British as well as working with the Germans. Not even the great Lupus knew that Milev sang his songs to both audiences, so that when peace finally did come, he would be a hero, no matter which side prevailed. Above all, Milev was a survivor.

  Milev chose to work for the British rather than the Russians because he deeply distrusted Stalin and his allies in the Bulgarian Communist Party. Milev took his first steps as a double agent in 1937 by sending anonymous tips to the British ambassador in Sofia. When the ambassador played tennis at the Academic Sports Club or rode his horse at the Hippodrome, Milev slipped into the dressing room and filled his locker with secrets about German operations in Bulgaria. Even though this information could have cost Milev his life, it hardly excused him for betraying other agents to maintain his position and credibility with Lupus. Milev desperately needed to do more than just pass minor secrets to the Allies to convince London that he truly supported their cause.

  Milev’s real problem began on a snowy, gray January afternoon in 1941. He had just signed several arrest warrants for some troublemakers when Lupus telephoned him at his office in the General Directorate of Police.

  “Herr Milev, I have some wonderful news for you!” Lupus spoke in German. “In the grocery near Gloria Cinema, I found your favorite Greek olives. Can you believe that they cost only five levs per kilo? I’ll keep a place in line for you.”

  Lupus spoke on the telephone in code because he was always a stickler about security, precautions, and secrecy. Because their association was top secret, Milev and Lupus only met on special occasions and in places where there was little chance of being seen by prying eyes.

  “I’m on my way to get some now,” Milev answered. That was his confirmation that they would meet in a prearranged safe place.

  Lupus chose the Skobelev Café for their secret meetings because the bistro was usually empty throughout the afternoon until early evening. The café was located on Ramona Street in downtown Sofia. Its owner was fascinated by the Russian-Turkish war that had taken place some seventy years ago when Bulgaria was finally liberated from five hundred years of Turkish rule with the help of the Russian Czar, Alexander the Third, and Romanian soldiers. In memory of the epic battles around Pleven, the owner hung a large painting of a Bulgarian war hero in the bistro’s front window. The elaborate combat scene showed the Russian General Skobelev on a white horse, dressed in a white uniform, leading his army against the town that was occupied by the Turkish General Osman Pasha. You could almost hear the soldiers shouting, “Long live an independent Bulgaria!”

  Lupus was a master agent who never wasted his time on small operations and always had the approval of the highest authorities in Berlin. Ever since Bulgaria had become a top priority in the German war effort, Lupus often used Milev to do his dirty work. Milev was flattered that Lupus respected his experience and resources, along with his discretion. But God help Milev if he displeased the Gestapo chief.

  As usual for their meetings, Lupus was dressed in a stylish dark business suit when he arrived at the precise hour. Milev, on the other hand, often arrived a few minutes late.

  “I must apologize, Standartenführer. I am so sorry for keeping you waiting. I know how valuable your time is. Please excuse me.”

  Lupus brushed aside his groveling apology. “You are here now, so let’s walk.”

  They strolled down a street covered in a blanket of dirty gray snow. After two blocks, Lupus guided him into a small dark café where a few old men played backgammon and a bored waiter polished beer and brandy glasses with a towel to pass the time. Glancing about, they chose a table in the corner. Lupus lit a cigarette, glared at the old men, and then ignored them. Milev ordered a bottle of Rakia, the national liquor. Although Lupus spoke Bulgarian, they always discussed business in German.

  “There is a new dove in our nest, and we are going to hunt for it. I had hoped that my men would have caught our quarry by now, but they haven’t, so now I come to you. You are the man for the job.”

  Milev only smiled and nodded his head.

  “The dove’s name is Helen Noverman,” Lupus said, “but I will bet you a drink that she probably has a couple more identity cards in her purse. By day, she teaches at the Sofia High School for Girls, but I’m quite sure that she performs far more dubious duties at night. I believe that she has no relatives in the country, but a few interesting friends. We will talk of them later.”

  “Helen Noverman?” Milev swallowed hard. “Do you have a photo?”

  Milev held his breath as Lupus handed over three photographs of the woman.

  Milev studied the photos, one by one. She was indeed the woman that he had met at a parent-teacher meeting, flirted with, given a ride home and kissed on her hand.

  “Oh shit!” he muttered just loud enough for Lupus to hear.

  “What did you say?” Lupus snapped.

  “I said she’s b-b-beautiful.” Milev stammered.

  After a suspicious look Lupus said, “Yes, she’s beautiful, but don’t let that fool you. She’d just as soon slit your throat as look at you. Believe me, I know. We already got to know each other somewhat in Oslo.” Without adding anything else, Lupus continued.

  “Before being recruited by the French Intelligence in 1936, she lived in Paris and worked as a prostitute. She now works as an agent for the British and the Second French Bureau headquartered in Istanbul.”

  Lupus paused for a moment to remove a small pad of paper and an expensive-looking fountain pen from his inside coat pocket. After writing down an address, he passed Milev the note.

  “This is her address in Sofia. I want you to watch her day and night. Don’t let her out of your sight. I even want you to tape record all conversations from the telephone in the lobby of her apartment building, just in case she is foolish enough to use it for ‘business.’ Monitor whom she associates with and where she goes. I want to know everyone she talks to and meets. Particularly, be on the lookout for a French dandy named Jean Lopié. I’m sure he will show up sooner or later.”

  “And who is he?” Milev asked. “Her lover?”

  “And her case officer,” he said. “They are like a horse and carriage, although I’m not sure which is which.”

  Knowing it was expected, Milev laughed at Lupus’s joke and then asked, “And after I report to you, what then? Is there something else you want me to do with these two?”

  “That’s what I like about you, George—your tact,” he said as he patted the scar on his neck. “Let’s just say that I have an old score to settle with Noverman and leave it at that.”

  Milev paused a moment to consider his mission. He had been ordered to spy on a woman with whom he was already thinking about far more than he should have. She and her lover, Jean Lopié, worked for French and British Intelligence, and given Lupus’s desire to ‘settle a score,’ he probably wanted both of them killed.

  Milev’s stomach churned and his ears burned when he thought about the possibility of hunting the spy who pretended to be his daughter’s teacher. Knowing Lupus, Milev guessed that there was more to his experience with Helen Noverman and Jean Lopié in Norway than he was prepared to share.

  “George, question?”

  “I understand that your wonderful German engineers have developed a night-vision device. One of those would be very helpful for an assignment like this. Can I get one?”

  Lupus’s lips tightened. “I was told they were top secret. How did you know about them?” Without waiting for Milev’s lie, he continued. “Oh well, what does it matter? Let me see what I can do. Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you one more thing.”

  Lupus leaned toward Milev and whispered into his ear. “Noverman presently has a lover who needs a vacation. He’s an engineer by the name of Grigor Tenev. They spent a week together skiing on Rila Mountain last December. Watch this guy carefully, b
ecause I am told he has extensive government and top military contacts, and he has worked on a design connected with a secret military project in Southern Bulgaria. I’m sure he knows about our military operations, too. Helen Noverman probably has Tenev talking out of his knockwurst.”

  Milev nodded in agreement and silently turned the photographs over in his hands.

  “George, make Tenev disappear from Sofia for a long time. Send him to Plovdiv or somewhere. I’ve got to go now. I’ve much to do. General Lehard arrives tomorrow, and I am in charge of his security. Herr Milev, I will call you in a few days to find out what you have learned about our pretty dove.”

  Lupus slipped out of the café and disappeared into the morning flow of Bulgarians on the street. After paying the bill, Milev left a few minutes later. Back in his dingy office at the police station, he looked at the photographs of Helen again before he put them into his shirt pocket. Helen Noverman was now Milev’s top priority, and he had to handle this operation personally. Chief of Secret Police was certainly a big job for one man to perform, but he knew how to monitor everyone in Bulgaria—from the Prime Minister in the Palace to the whore on the street. Of course, when he said whore, he didn’t mean Helen Noverman, but Milev could keep track of her, too.

  Part III

  January 1941

  CHAPTER 8

  Helen Noverman lived in a modest flat in an old three-story apartment building at 12 Pop Bogomil Street. If Milev’s German boss called her a spy, then she probably was a spy. Lupus had the nose of a bloodhound and the uncanny ability to sniff out enemy agents. Unlike some of the clumsy and brutal Nazis that he worked for, though, Lupus had finesse.

  Since Lupus had informed Milev that the French Secret Service in Istanbul was working hand-in-hand with British Intelligence, he saw Helen Noverman not only as a beautiful bird to keep his eye on, but also as a means to prove his allegiance to the Allies. If Milev played his cards right, he could cause just enough problems for the Germans to get a clean bill of health from the English.

  “The question is…” Milev muttered as he strolled down Pop Bogomil Street toward Noverman’s building, “… how do I convince Helen Noverman that I’m not her enemy, and how do I keep that a secret from Lupus?”

  The last light of the day had quickly faded to a gloomy dark gray. Milev turned his plan over in his head. The crowded streets were bustling with people returning home from work, carrying groceries for their evening meals. No one noticed him standing in the shadow of the dim street lamp. With its huge balconies and Bulgarian flags waving in the wind, the building where Noverman lived was a small monument from the last century. When he looked up to her flat on the second floor, Milev pictured her standing naked just behind the lace curtains that covered her windows.

  From the time Milev had met Helen Noverman, and again after Lupus had showed him her photographs, he felt a burning desire to know her in every possible way. Milev wanted to see for himself where she ate, read, slept and plied her trade to extract information from unwary German and Bulgarian prey.

  The apartment building had six names listed beside mailboxes and doorbells on the cement wall next to a weathered brown door. Milev scanned the names of the tenants and recognized none except for “Helen Noverman #3.” He looked around and saw that no one was paying any attention to him and then quietly opened the unlocked door and ducked into the vestibule. Milev used a special tool to pick the inside door lock and enter the building foyer. A telephone hung on the wall. Quiet as a cat, he slipped up the stairs to the second floor and found the front door of Helen Noverman’s flat.

  “Shall I take a quick peek inside and see what I can find?” he wondered aloud.

  Milev was about to pick the lock when he heard a door slam and loud voices and laughter from the landing upstairs. A moment later a young man and woman descended the stairs and stopped when they saw him.

  “I was looking for my daughter’s teacher,” he said sheepishly, “but she isn’t here.” They shrugged and continued on their way. Milev tiptoed down the stairs and out the doors into the street. Feeling satisfied that he had moved closer to his quarry, Milev acted on the next step of his plan.

  

  Milev’s men had found an apartment in the building across the street, from which he could observe Noverman. They told him that a man and wife occupied the flat opposite hers, but with just a stroke of his pen, he could have them thrown out. Milev climbed up to the second floor and looked through the window by the stairs. The spot was ideal for routine surveillance. To tap the telephone in the building foyer, he would simply call the special department in the Central Telephone and Telegraph Station assigned to work exclusively with the police and army corps. Milev wanted every call made to and from that telephone recorded and entered into the records. One couldn’t be too careful, he had always said, and the trap must be cleverly concealed.

  As he walked along Sofia’s cold and windswept streets, Milev couldn’t help but believe that meeting Helen Noverman a few nights ago and her appointment as Lora’s German teacher was an act of God. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. In either case, Milev was determined to use this fortunate twist of fate to his advantage.

  When a mother with her daughters in tow passed by, they reminded Milev that his work was so time-consuming that he rarely saw his wife, Veneta, and their two daughters. Feeling a little guilty about his long absences from home, that evening he visited one of his black market connections for some special gifts. Milev bought his girls some chocolate and his wife a very expensive pair of French silk stockings. These were difficult times, but not for everyone.

  

  We stand facing one another. She kisses me hard. I bite her neck. My hands press her breasts. She rubs my crotch and I instantly grow hard. I massage her nipples until their fleshy knobs become erect. Circular pink shadows dance playfully beneath her white silk blouse. My hands glide under it to her back and trace the bones of her shoulder blades. One by one, my fingers follow her backbone to the base of her spine. She takes my hands and moves them onto her ass. I squeeze her flanks until she groans.

  She swings her legs over my hips and I see myself enter her. A telephone rings. She stands up. I reach for her, but I can’t move my hands. She lowers a pillow over my head to block the sound. “Helen, stop! I can’t breathe!” I cry out. She can’t hear me, and she presses the pillow into my face even harder. My hands are tied! The telephone keeps on ringing, ringing, ringing …

  

  In that sublime moment of eroticism and panic, Milev opened his eyes to the sound of his alarm clock. He turned over in bed and saw that the naked and erotic Noverman was, in reality, his sleeping wife, quietly snoring. Noverman’s animalistic moans of ecstasy were nothing more than their hungry cat crying for its breakfast. Milev got up and went into the bathroom.

  “Is it my imagination, or has my hair turned gray?” he asked himself while shaving on that cold January morning. Milev loved being a policeman, but lately he had been under a lot of pressure. As the hot water from the shower poured over him, he replayed the torrid dream that featured Helen Noverman. Did he call out her name in his sleep? If he had, Veneta had said nothing about it, but she knew never to ask him about his work, in or out of the office. The dream felt so real that he still sensed Helen Noverman’s essence, and his hunger for her grew even stronger.

  It was nearly lunchtime, and he had finished only half of his arrest reports on some local Communists when Lupus telephoned. As usual, he began their conversation in code without even a hello or introduction.

  “Even when the dog barks, the caravan keeps walking.”

  “How true,” Milev said, although he was completely baffled by Lupus’s statement.

  “Hungry cocks dream of honey and nuts.”

  “Ah yes, another proverb,” he answered.

  As far as Milev knew, he was the only one who could understand Lupus’s coded communiqués, but even Milev sometimes failed to grasp their significance. Now he had no idea wha
t Lupus was talking about. Lupus, sensing that Milev could not follow his secret word game, translated his version of the proverb.

  “I just wanted to tell you, Herr Milev, that I have important information about our dove and her mate. These birds like to migrate into other areas and make new nests. They have a habit of moving from place to place, spoiling things, like magpies, if you understand my meaning. I will meet you at our usual location and at our usual time.”

  “Of course, Standartenführer. I’ll be there and ready.”

  Then, without thinking, Milev quoted one of his favorite Bulgarian proverbs: “God, never let the blind see again!”

  During the awkward moment of silence that followed, Milev shook his head at the stupidity of his glib remark. It could be fatal to antagonize Lupus or to give him any cause for suspicion. After what seemed like an eternity, Lupus spoke.

  “And what, exactly, was that supposed to mean, Milev?”

  Hoping Lupus wouldn’t catch his blunder, Milev quickly continued his hidden message telephone game. “I’m sure you already know, but I’ll tell you when I see you.”

  Deciding that he had better be early for his meeting with Lupus, Milev arrived at the bistro around 4:30 p.m. He sat at a table near the front door and ordered a glass of plum cognac to calm his nerves and prepare for whatever Lupus had in store for him. As he smoked a cigarette and drank the sweet brandy, Milev noticed three teenage girls standing across the street in front of the Levi’s School for Girls. They were busy whispering, laughing, and flirting with the older boys who were standing on the opposite corner.