The Reluctant Spy: Detective Dave Levitan, #2

By Stanley Cutler

George Koyne, an Iowa-born scientist, disappears in 1948. Concerned that the missing man might be a Soviet spy, the feds dispatch top investigator Dave Levitan to track him down. Levitan discovers Koyne's secret biography, an astonishing story of a Jewish American life churned by global politics. Levitan's dogged hunt takes surprising turns, finally onto an ocean liner bound for France. The future of the nuclear world hangs on the outcome of their fateful, storm-tossed confrontation. What part does the missing scientist play in the first contests of the Cold War? Is Koyne on a vacation to Europe or an assignment to Moscow? Will Levitan uncover the truth before it is too late?

The Reluctant Spy is the second novel in the Detective Dave Levitan Series. A suspenseful, adventure, an engrossing tale that entertains to the final page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanley Cutler
• Release date: Sep 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781912680986

Stanley Cutler

Since beginning a professional writing career in 2008, Stanley Cutler has written six novels, two screenplays, dozens of newspaper columns, and a narrative non-fiction work on the rhetoric of political conventions. Away from his desk, he teaches Cyber Age Political Communication in Temple U’s OLLI program.  He volunteers as a Friend of the Library, doing his best to preserve Enlightenment values from the perils of digitized communication.  

Book preview

PART I

1

THE DAYTON PROJECT

Unit III of the Dayton Project was an Army compound of five buildings surrounded by barbed wire, guard posts, and watch towers. Dave Levitan’s first sighting of the place was from the passenger seat of a Jeep driven by a soldier who’d collected him at the hotel at precisely 8 AM on the morning of September 6, 1948, as specified in Levitan’s travel orders. The compound seemed out of place, an architectural anomaly in a leafy Ohio neighborhood of tidy houses and gardens.

At the entrance, a sergeant with a hip-holstered pistol and a soldier with a rifle guarded a striped barrier gate. Levitan presented his credentials. The sergeant checked his clipboard and saluted. You’re expected in Building E, sir.

Had the sergeant searched him, he would have found a holstered .32 revolver and a roll of dimes in the side pockets of his sports jacket, ballast in case he had to punch someone.

Dayton was prosperous. The townspeople had worked overtime to equip military vehicles during the war, enriching bank accounts large and small. In 1948, the city was making tires to satisfy the postwar car boom. The boys who’d been shipped, flown and trucked to places all over the world returned to America with a love for machinery and a raging desire to own cars. There were so many orders for 1949 models that the typical wait for a new car was over a year.

The massive federal presence provided by the government project was like icing on a rich cake. During the war, the boss of the Manhattan Project had tasked Monsanto’s CEO with producing an alloy of rare metals that could reliably trigger nuclear explosions. By September 1948, the Dayton Project had three industrial laboratories within the city limits and a couple of suburban locations, including Unit III, adding government dollars to the money pouring in from the automobile manufacturers.

The Project buildings were not the gray edifices that the government typically built. Rather, its facilities were housed in civilian real estate bought and improved by Monsanto: a school, a warehouse, and a theater. Security in and around the buildings was tight, not only to protect the citizenry from radiation, but also to keep secrets from escaping. Except for the new structures in the Unit III military zone, the Project buildings were secured by FBI agents who checked the credentials of people as they entered. On departure, everyone was scanned with a Geiger counter.

Unit III’s Building E was a typical Army construction, white clapboard, almost square, two stories tall with a dark red roof. It still held the smell of sawn pine. Captain Wallace Guidry was waiting for Levitan in a second-floor office with sheet metal furnishings. The desk was cluttered, a file drawer open, the atmosphere thick with cigarette smoke despite the open window. Guidry was red-haired and heavily built, with two silver bars pinned to the shoulders of his shirt.

What do I call you? Guidry demanded. Commodore? What’s the Army equivalent of a commodore? Who’s got rank?

Levitan removed a Chesterfield from its pack, lit it and settled into the visitor’s chair. Trying to sound calm and reasonable, he said, It’s really not relevant because I’m a civilian in a different chain of command. I am a contractor working for the Coast Guard. ‘Commodore’ is a civilian Auxiliary title, not really a rank, that makes my job a little easier. It sounds good but doesn’t mean much. Got an ashtray?

Guidry frowned and pushed his tin ashtray toward Levitan. This is an Army Intelligence case. I don’t get what the Coast Guard has to do with it.

Levitan nodded. It has to do with a contraband incident I was involved with back in June. I was looking into the Jewish Overseas Relief Society, JORS, the one Koyne belongs to, before you started looking for him. So this was actually a Coast Guard case before it was an Army one. So maybe it’s not a question of rank. Maybe we just ought to assume that we’re equal partners on the same task force. Rather than give each other orders, we should make decisions after we talk them over.

Guidry blinked and blinked again. Well. That won’t work.

Levitan was willing to accept a certain amount of bluster, but he’d heard enough. He said, My boss reports to the Secretary of the Treasury who reports to the President.

Guidry clamped his jaw, took a deep breath and said, Be that as it may, you are not in the chain of command. You best not get in the way.

Levitan said, Think of me as a consultant, someone working alongside, not under. That would work for me.

That’s not ideal.

It was a new situation for both of them, their first experience as members of a task force organized by the Central Intelligence Agency, the new government entity charged with coordinating the nation's intelligence activities. The CIA had a source inside the Soviet Union’s weapons development program. In mid-August 1948, the source reported that he had studied more than a dozen photographs of a blackboard covered with equations and chemical formulas concerning atom bomb triggers. The source, who was considered absolutely reliable, said that the photographs originated in Dayton, from Delmar, the code name of a high-ranking scientist, a Soviet agent on the American project.

The news had sent shock waves through the Pentagon and the FBI. If true, it was the kind of breach that could permanently damage the FBI’s reputation and could weaken the authority and influence of the Bureau’s powerful director, J. Edgar Hoover. It was precisely the kind of bureaucratic mess that the CIA had been established to correct.

We can make it work if we want to, said Levitan.

Well, I don’t want to. The investigation is pretty much over. We know who Delmar is. The FBI caught the son of a bitch and it’s not George Koyne.

Levitan was startled. You know who Delmar is? Since when?

Since yesterday. The FBI has been watching a guy for months, a German, a commie scientist named Klaus Berger. He confessed to the FBI yesterday.

You’re saying I’ve come out here for no reason?

Guidry replied, Probably. But we still need to find this George Koyne character. We’ve been told that he knows a lot of secrets. The fact that he’s gone missing is not good. Not good at all. Until yesterday, we were thinking he could be a genuine illegal.

An illegal? Really?

Legal intelligence officers were associated with embassies and consulates, thinly disguised as cultural attachés or diplomats. Such agents were automatically scrutinized by government counter-intelligence agencies. But the professionals spying illegally, people with deep training in the arts and crafts of espionage, were rarely detected. They were extremely well-disguised as ordinary citizens. And he’s disappeared? Levitan asked.

Seems to have gone up in smoke. Pfft! Vanished.

I was ordered onto the case because you found a connection between Koyne and JORS? What was the connection?

Guidry gazed at the ceiling, gathering his thoughts. Perhaps he decided that Levitan was not a threat, or perhaps he realized that he lost nothing by divulging information about a dead end. Eventually, he said, Koyne left a forwarding address, a Post Office box in New York. We picked up a letter to him that came from the JORS organization here in Dayton. There’s been no other mail and he hasn’t checked the box. When the letter came, we followed up with a visit to the synagogue where it came from, and it turned out to be the Midwest headquarters of the JORS. Which, we discovered, is an organization based in New York run by people with Russian names. So, you know, it got us thinking. It was a lead; we followed it up.

What was the letter about?

Nothing much – just a hello from the president of the synagogue and a reminder to keep in touch, for Koyne to send them his new address in New York.

Levitan nodded. It was a good lead; one any decent investigator would have to follow. Any other leads?

Guidry said, Koyne’s not enrolled at Columbia, which he claimed as his reason for leaving the project. He was at the university when he got drafted and he was supposed to be taking courses there to finish his degree. We found out that he’s not enrolled.

I guess that’s suspicious. Anything else?

"Your turn. Give me the benefit of your special expertise, Guidry said sarcastically. What do you know about JORS?"

What’s your interest in JORS now? You have your man, and it’s not Koyne.

Koyne lied about going back to Columbia. He lied about his forwarding address, a post office box that no one checks. We want to know why he lied.

Levitan countered, Maybe he didn’t lie. Did you check the other colleges? Maybe he’s not collecting his mail because something happened to him. Maybe he’s dead.

Well, he’s not dead in New York. We checked the city death register and he is not listed. But he could be dead somewhere else. In any case, we would like to find him. Checking other colleges in New York is a good idea. Maybe you should follow up…in New York.

I’d like to take a look at that letter from JORS.

Guidry did not respond.

Do you have Berger in custody? Can I talk to him?

Guidry grimaced, He’s being interrogated at Leavenworth…by the FBI. They’ve got scientists talking to him now, trying to find out how much he gave away. So you’d have to ask the FBI if you want to talk to him. Good luck.

What about George Koyne? Levitan asked. He was in the Army from ’43 to ’46. Can I see his service record?

Levitan watched Guidry think through his choices. The captain was one of those men who had to be winning. He had started the conversation as a contest. He was considering Levitan’s routine request, wondering whether giving away the right to look at a service record would in any way disadvantage him. He said, We went over his record before we caught Berger. George Koyne was a straight-arrow staff sergeant with a top secret clearance before he became a civilian. You’d be wasting your time.

I’ll have a look at that letter…please.

"What is your job? Guidry challenged. It’s your turn. Tell me about this contraband case. How is it connected to Delmar?"

Levitan judged the first round a tie; he’d give a little. He said, Back in June, I found some military contraband headed for the Middle East disguised as humanitarian relief: six five-gallon drums of clay-form TNT marked ‘fertilizer,’ six disassembled M-1 rifles marked ‘machine parts’ and 12 boxes of ammunition for the rifles marked ‘spark plugs.’ The shipper was the Jewish Overseas Relief Society.

As he was stubbing out the cigarette, Levitan added, I went to the JORS office in New York. Then I spent a couple of days here in Dayton, where the consignment originated. When I was here, I talked to the president of the synagogue congregation that shipped the consignment. He’s an insurance man named Sheldon Morrison. He manages the volunteers who ship humanitarian relief supplies. He also manages the synagogue’s bank account.

Yeah. I know, said Guidry. We talked to him. He knows Koyne, but not real well. He wasn’t useful.

He wasn’t any use to me on the contraband case either. I talked to Morrison and the volunteers who’d packed the crates that went out with the June shipment. What happened was that the two crates of contraband munitions were added to the synagogue’s consignment at some point before it showed up at the wharf in Philadelphia. I left Dayton and went back to Philly. I was planning to visit every stop the train made when we closed the investigation.

It had been a happy day; he’d had no desire to interrupt the supply of weapons to Jews fighting for a homeland. He disagreed with the UN embargo, policed by British warships, that prohibited the shipment of arms to the war zone.

So? What’s this JORS outfit like? Guidry asked.

Do I get to see Koyne’s service record?

Guidry frowned, apparently assessing the quids and the quos. Then in a less belligerent tone, said, Sure. But it stays in the building.

Levitan replied, Okay. JORS is a nationwide charity based in New York. They handle financial donations and ship goods from churches and synagogues. In New York, I talked to managers and clerks, and none of them admitted knowing about contraband – of course. But it is a fact that two crates of munitions were added to the consignment after it was loaded onto a B&O railcar here in Dayton. When it arrived at the wharf in Philly, it was to be loaded onto a Panamanian-registered ship destined for Haifa by way of Marseilles.

Guidry asked, Who was on the receiving end?

Who else? JORS.

Is JORS an Israeli government front?

Officially it’s strictly American, registered in New York. But it has to be closely connected to the Israeli government.

When you were here in June, said Guidry, did George Koyne’s name come up?

I didn’t ask about him. I’d never heard of Koyne until I was assigned to the case three days ago. I was given a day to read the briefing documents and told to show up here this morning.

Guidry said, So your JORS case had no connection to George Koyne.

At the time, no. But I wasn’t looking for a connection. I’ve requested Koyne’s personnel file from Monsanto. It should be waiting for me when I get back to my desk. But it’s your turn. What, exactly, was Koyne’s job on the project?

He was a health physics officer.

What’s that?

He measured radiation. His job was to make sure no one was exposed.

To radiation?

That’s right. Guidry leaned forward and said, Let’s get something straight. There are things you do not have clearance to know. Neither do I, for that matter. The only people who have been cleared for that information are technical experts, and most of them are only allowed to know the details of what they’re working on. Koyne is one of the ones who knows the whole program.

But Levitan did know a bit about the project, perhaps more than Guidry. The documents he’d been given on the day of his assignment included a description of the U.S. government’s most highly classified project, summarized and simplified for the non-scientists with a need to know about it.

Monsanto had been tasked with inventing industrial chemical processes that refined small quantities of polonium neutron initiators from glowing metal ingots produced in the Army’s nuclear piles in faraway Hanford, Washington. The tiny ingots were shipped from Washington to Ohio inside lead and aluminum canisters four inches thick. The end products were radioactive spheres of polonium/bismuth alloy the size of baseballs.

Much of the project’s cost was expended on safety precautions because a particle of polonium the size of a dust mote, if inhaled, could be fatal. Workers entered and left the project locations empty-handed, wore protective layers, and showered and disinfected upon leaving the buildings.

Levitan said, Let’s assume that I know as much about the project as you do. Since I’m going to be looking for him, the more information you can give me about Koyne’s job the better.

Guidry replied, "Well, I know he was not restricted from any of the project buildings. I’ve been told that he knows the chemistry from refinery to trigger design. We were not focusing on him until we couldn’t find him. We missed him because he had just left the project when we started looking for Delmar. He went into the wind a few days before the shit hit the fan, the day we got word about Delmar, the day the CIA notified us that a reliable source swears that a top scientist on the project, code-named Delmar, is spying for the USSR."

Where was Koyne during the war?

Guidry lit another Lucky. He served an extended tour from ’43 to ’46. He was at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. My investigators have been interviewing men in his unit. I can tell you that Koyne is someone whose job allowed him access to several different departments of the project. That’s why everybody wants to know what happened to him. That’s why you should go to New York and find George Koyne. He smirked, and added, Or should we talk it over?

Levitan ignored the sarcasm.