June 1977

 

After a 12-hour drive from Amelia, Peter checked into the Washington Hotel near Tysons Corner just outside McLean, Virginia. Driving that distance with his Florida license plates and parking in the hotel lot added complexity, but he didn’t want to be without a weapon. It wasn’t likely he would run into any KGB agents who knew his face there.

For the past year he had been researching the ranks and assignments of U.S. diplomats to find a CIA officer on the fast track. From his KGB training he knew what to look for. There were several tip offs. One was where the officer lived. Not many CIA officers lived in Washington, D.C., and not many State Department Foreign Service officers lived in McLean or farther west. Daily commuting was a fact of life, and the fewer hours spent in a car going to and coming from work was a strong influence in picking a place to live.

Peter’s checklist came up with a number of candidates. He liked one in particular. A Frank Batcher who lived alone near McLean along Old Dominion in an upscale but not affluent subdivision. This candidate was not a graduate of an Ivy League school, had served three years in the military, saw combat in Vietnam, and held a mid-level rank.

Peter wanted no personal contact with any CIA officer. Telephone contact from a pay phone was the limit. No identification and he wanted nothing from the CIA for himself. He only wanted them to help clean up his network of illegal agents posing as Americans. His first attempt at contact had to work.

He prepared a package to put in the Batcher mailbox. He made sure no fingerprints or other forensics could lead back to him. He included in the package one of the two miniature KGB radios he had kept. In the letter, Peter described in general terms information about his network without identifying himself in any way. He made clear he would control all future communications and any effort to identify him would end the relationship.

After ten o’clock at night Peter walked by the Batcher home and put his package in the mailbox. He then drove into Georgetown and called Batcher from a pay phone. Batcher picked up. “Batcher here.”

Peter said, “Look in your mailbox. I’ll call again in twenty minutes.”

In exactly twenty minutes, Peter called from a different payphone. Batcher answered and said, “An impressive package. What do you want?”

“I want nothing but your help in destroying a KGB network of illegal agents posing as Americans. These people are trained and equipped to cause havoc and mass deaths in America, if and when the USSR decides to begin an attack on the United States.”

“How do I contact you?”

“You don’t. I will contact you.”

“I’ll need some time to get approval for this activity.”

“If you believe that, I’ve contacted the wrong person and I will have to go somewhere else, maybe to another Agency. In one more minute this call will end.”

“If I agree, what is the next step?”

“I call you and tell you everything you will need to pick up a Russian spy. If that works then we will take down another one. I want nothing. No money. No awards. No recognition. If I have anything tangible to give you, I’ll tell you where to find it. You do understand dead drops, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Peter said, and hung up.