IWCF 008 - Card Game in the Clouds

I was a Communist for the FBI. Starring Dana Andrews and an exciting tale of danger and espionage. I was a Communist for the FBI. Many of the incidents and the story you are about to hear are based on the actual records and authentic experiences of Mats Savitic two or nine fantastic years lived as a communist for the FBI. Here is our star, Dana Andrews as Mets Sevetic. Nine years, nine nervous years, always looking over my shoulder because if I didn't, my head might roll when I didn't want it to. Years of isolation and tension, being alone in crowds of comrades, a long, hectic dream. But now that it's over, the dream is more real than ever for all of us. Now in a moment, listen to Dana Andrews as mat Sabetic undercover man. Now Here is Dana Andrews as math Sabetic undercover man. This story from the confidential file is marked card game in the clouds. The federal court room is jammed. There's no stir and no sound in the room except the voice of the attorney for the federal government making his opening to the court. Everybody in the room knows that this matters, This is important, This is part of an enormous struggle for our survival. We listen spellbound, and. We shall present witnesses whose testimony will prove beyond any shadow of a reasonable doubt that these defendants, all members of the Communist Party, have been guilty of sedition, seeking the overthrow of the United States government by force and by force of arms, if need be, we are ready to procedure on them. Oh, are you ready to leave? Mister h who you come with me? Give me one good reason and maybe I will with Chenko wants you all right? Chenko Headquarters? Certainly not. I'm the telephone r Chenko that I've found you. He'll pick us up at a spot that Ale does at. You must be quite a gal with the party. I am. We better go. Revchenko is an impatient man. Comrades, Sevetk, you know that we wish to know at all times where our comrades are and what they're doing. You seem to know where I was, Comrade Revchenko. Only because you were seen in the courtroom by a comrade. I've been looking all morning for you, so the lady tells me. The lady is Comrade Laura Black. Comrade, Comrade, well, I'm ready for orders. When we reach the city limits. This automobile may have been wired, but the FBI we. Will abandon it to talk interesting problem, comrade. When we leave the. Car, Comrade, this will do. I'm about tired of walking in fields, our comrade. Comrade Laura, I'm out of breadth again for me. If you will be direct, comrade's detic you and I will meet a plane at Municipal Airport tonight. The plane is from Washington d c oh. I will meet a man coming off the plane. What about me? You will stay in the background. The man will give me a portfolio which we will deliver to a comrade in New York. City the Park Lowell Hotel. You will take the night train. Does it take two? If one of you is detained, shall we say the other must get through with the briefcase at all costs, shaid, I know the contents of the briefcase. No, simply follow orders and to the letter. And the letter is exactly. You are to report to a mister Penrose at the Park Lowell Hotel tomorrow night, no later. Mister Penrose has made elaborate and delicate plans for leaving the country Friday night with the briefcase. Of course, suppose Laura and I become separated and she has a briefcase. Do I report to mister Penrose anyhow? Yes? Empty handed? Yes, okay, a good stroke, comrade, our executing this audacious move during the communist trials when the FBI expects us all to scurry into hiding. Yeah, it's a good time for us to move. You have a revolvers a edit, yes, take it with you. Take all orders from comrade Laura. Does that all see to it that one of you succeeds in getting the information and that briefcase to New York. That is all, mister Oxford. Please, who's calling mister Oxford Cambridge? This is Oxford. Go ahead. The boys dragged me out of the federal courthouse this morning for an assignment with all aromatic gingerbread mysterious gal briefcase by plane from Washington, d C. Gun tolling. Yeah, where did you say? You're calling? From paystation drug store twelfth in may fool with. A sandwich there and I'll pick you up in exactly ten minutes. Sound big to you too, Oxford? Ten minutes. The FBI has been waiting for this chance for a long time. Matt, this looks like it. It felt important the second that Gal tagged me. Vital information leaks have been occurring in Washington a lot too frequently. We've wanted to know how the comedies do it. This looks like a look in on. This could be my big moment. It's peculiar. Why do they want you to report to this mister Penrose Friday night? Even if you don't have the briefcase with you? A discipline? I suppose that's what worries me, Matt. We want you to deliver that briefcase. And believe me, I want to deliver it too, if only as a personal health measure. Keep in touch all the way, Matt. Stay with me, boy huh will? We'll be with you at the train sort of. I pick up Laura at six. We drive to the airport and wait for flight six nine five from Washington d C. The taxi to gate five, A tall man in a flapping topcoat and dark glasses steps out of the plane. He's carrying a briefcase. I crowd the wire fence for a good look, but the girl pushes ahead of me and faces me. Her eyes are cold toward me, but I sense an inner excitement in her manner. I'm not the guy that's exciting her. Please go inside and wait for me. Why can't I meet the gentleman from across the Potomac? Do as I say? Please, you're pretty set on my not seeing your boy. Up close, and you're set on seeing him close. Why just being a good party? Members? All more like one of those contemptible FBI plants. We're going to testify at the trial. How does that figure? And that's a rough remark. Please don't intrude until you're needed. No, go, yes, sergeant. I go inside and wait, doing a slow burn and starting to worry a little. Five minutes later, another plane is announced a parting for Washington, and Laura comes into the waiting room with the briefcase. She also has a smudge of lipstick on her cheek. Thank you for waiting. Where's the watch on the Potomac? He's on the way back to Washington. I UH have be glad to carry your school books for you. Thank you, But I'll carry the brief piece. Wait here again, I'll pick up our plane reservations. I thought you said we were taking the train. We were now we're not. That can be confusing. I mean it to be confusing. Well, you made it, sister, no objections. I don't like to be treated like the bourgeois rich relative while I'm an accredited and trusted member of the party. Unless maybe you don't trust me. I don't know. Do you do you trust me? Let's say I trust. Comrade Laura Black, but plain Laura Black, who isn't plain at all, and with. A smudge of lipstick on her cheek. Maybe something else. Again, Warren and I happen to be in love. Warren, is it and you'll forget it? Do you hear the tender passion? And the party? Is it quite all right with you? The question is is it all right with the party? The answer is that if we weren't in love, he wouldn't be doing this for me and the party. Flight eight oh two for Buffalo is now loading at day seven. Well, I did a hurry and pick up our reservations. No hurry, that's lay though two for Buffalo. Yes, that's for us. We're going to New York. By way of Buffalo. Why you'll see. Thousbannger for flight eight oh two for Buffalo. Please board your plane and you wait here. I'll get the tickets. I look around for a telephone booth. I've got to let the FBI know that I'm flying to Buffalo tonight instead of training out to New York. Holophone booths are filled and people are waiting, except at one, where a soldier is talking and smiling in pantomime behind the glass door. Come on, soldier, I'm next. Bring off. Hang up. Because of that briefcase that Laura Black carries under her arm gets to Moscow, it may wipe that smile. Off your face for good and for a. Lot of other guys like you, if you can talking. There's the telegraph counter. I go to the counter and scrawl a message and hand it to the clerk, just as Laura Black's hand reaches past me and takes the yellow blank out of my hand. May I met? You? May not? Oh private and personal, and you're getting pretty personal with my privacy. There's no such things in our lives, you dear. Go ahead read it? Missus VESI my mother. Who is mister. Oxford a prospect of mine? What kind of prospect? Insurance? I sell insurance as a front as well as a livelihood. I've got to live while I'm serving the party. You tell your mother to phone this mister Oxford at Cress two to one one and tell him you're flying to Buffalo tonight. Ry Why mother expected mister Oxford and May for dinner tonight before I took the train. I want him to know my plans are changed and we can't dine together tonight. Cress two to one one. That's right. Why not telephone him? The boos are full, now they aren't or a minute there they go better? Still let me telephoney? What for? Will you think I'm your secretary? It does make an impression. Oh no, not with smaller investors, they feel somehow it runs up the cost to them. I'll know how to talk to mister Oxford. You wait here, no, Laura, No, oh no, I'll wait if it kills me. And if Laura makes that call and they tell her there's no such person there and wait, I got to I've got nothing to lose but everything. Now back to. Dana Andrews starring and I was a communist for the. FBI and the second act of our story. Laura Black goes to the telephone booths and stops there fumbling for a coin I shoved the telegraph blank at the clerk again and hand her two dollars and start after Laura. If she phones Cress two two one one, the. Unlisted FBI number, there won't be a mister Oxford there, not for her. If Laura Black calls and doesn't get Oxford, she'll be more suspicious than ever. I'll be in trouble THEND. I reach your side just as she finds a coin in her purse. I thought I told you to wait for me. I saw you needed some change. I have it now, thank you. Excuse me? Well, Laura, this is the last call for passengers or fight eight oh two to Buffalo. Now ready, dear, never mind, it's all right. Oxford will understand better. We mustn't miss connections with our man in Buffalo. Come on. In the plane. Laura and I play Canaster with cards furnished by the stewardess. The briefcase on her lap serves as a table on her lap. Somehow, I've never even touched the leather portfolio so far. I'm excess baggage on this assignment, and I don't like it. We play indifferently, at first, idly, then as the coveted sack of cards on the briefcase grows larger, the play grows tense and watchful. Strangely, some enormous stakes seem in the balance. Our playing is careful and charged. M stuck all out of wild cards. Well, I may ever throw away or two. Lip sure, fatten a pile for me to take. You don't want a pile, do you? You're ready to go out? Okay, I'm ready to go out. Agreeable monster, aren't you play? And I just can't help it. I gotta give you the deck there. Hmm, I don't know. All at once. The innocent card game in the clouds is a clue to another more sinister game that lovely Laura Black is playing. She's trying to keep me in the deal until she can raise her score just enough to win. It's like putting me on an important job for the Commies so that the FBI won't want to call me off that job, even to testify at the trials. If that's the game, then they know I'm an FBI spy? Or do they? For a long time. I stare at my cards unseeingly a long time. It's a matter of man, what make up your mind? We're coming into Buffalo. All right, I'm not going to bide. You, refuse all those juicy points. Yes, I'm going out. Operator, Oh, Operator, I was connected with my party long distance. There's no time to ix we were cut off. You say you were calling from Buffalo Airport? Yes, and I want to know if you heard from my mother. I wired her to call you. She called, I recognized her voice and got your message. I wanted to be covered here in Buffalo. Don't worry. Where's the girl getting plane reservations for New York? Now? Go ahead? Then? Look? Does this make sense? Or am I getting in an uproar? I just got a brain wave that the Reds know m FBI and are letting me string along here so they won't call me to testify. Or am I screwy? No? You're not. It makes sense? Man? What do I do? Play the game out of the finish? That's all. Stay with me, fellas, stay with me. Huh, I'm that you can depend I've got to ring off. Here comes the gas alone, So long. Buffalo American Products. Corporation, Baxter and Baxter Law. Officers, Fantas and Arbogast stop here. May I help him? Yes? Will you tell mister Arbogast, that miss Black is here. Oh yes, miss Black, he's expecting you go writing. Thank you? Will you wait out here? Mass? What else have I got to do? Give me your revolver? Please? What your revolver? Why? Because I asked for it? Don't you trust me with a gun? Perhaps I don't trust mister Arbogast without a gun. I have definite orders and revchenko to go on. You have definite orders from him to take orders from me your gun? Please? All right, don't shoot yourself on the foot. Thank you. Wait here. I sit in the small waiting room with Phantas and Arbogast advertising, waiting. The typewriter thumps louder. My heart begins to stumble crazily, needling, perspiration chills my whole body. Panic takes charge. I stand up, get out of here, and run for it. If I did well, that crisp piquet blouse, reach for a gun and stop shooting nonsense, That best girlfriend with a bride wouldn't shoot anybody. But I don't try to go out. Thanks for waiting. It's been a joy. Here's your revolver. Thanks. Come on, I. Thought you were making plain reservations to New York. How come the bus. The object is to deceive, deceive who the FBI? Yeah, just for example, good example, we. Know they have stool pigeons among us. Yes, then why do you ask such stupid questions? I happen to be stupid. I wonder I'm a specialist stupid about that gun in the waiting room. We won't discuss it. All right, you do all the talking. I want to go to sleep. Now. I'll take care of that briefcase for you. If I take care of it, Thank you, Good night, mister Sdick. Matt, Matt, it's gone. Huh, the briefcase is gone? When I don't know. I thought you might be able to tell me. I was fast asleeper? And what kind of a lopsided remark do you call me? Mind? Never mind? Who sit there and imply that I. You can't sit here and argue about it? What are we supposed to do about it? Well, I'll have to go back and report to Ribchenko and then Cole Washington. See if you can get a new set of data. Yes, you go on to New York without the briefcase. We haven't got it, have we. What happens to me arriving empty handed? It'll be worse if you disobey orders. Hold the door, driver, I'm getting off here. Aura is gone, the briefcase is gone, and we're underway again. In the gloom of the bus, I check the chambers of my gun. A gun is still loaded. That's something. And another thing is that I'm still safe, still dark. When we roll into New York. I go to the hotel. There's a note waiting for me. Meet me Pier eleven East River, Urgent, no signature. I go outside. My throat is dry and my palms are moist. Meet whom why? On a dark, lonely waterfront facty the Bulldog edition of a paper on the driver's seat. The headline says, FBI Plant takes stand against accused Reds today. Now now, if the Reds suspect me, they can knock me off. And no bearing on the case. Whatever. Here it goes here eleven, the darkest hour before dawn. Waiting behind a stack of packing cases, waiting. Steps M. I stepped the revolver from my shoulder, holster, stuff the safety catch and wait. A beam of light spears my eyes and I go blind, blind and wild, and my finger tugs at the trigger. Nothing happens. The gun on fire. Who is one of the cartridges, might be good. I'll take the gun now. You left that note in my box. Sure, I didn't know if you were your comrade. Contact would check in first. In fact, I couldn't be sure it was you until just now. You can get killed that way, not with your gun. It's full of blanks. Blanks. That's why Laura took my gun away. No, I'll take it, mare. They do suspect me, then if. They did, they wouldn't have loaded your gun with blanks. I don't get it. I give up. Our agents checked all landis at Buffalo until they latched down to you and comrade Laura. They tailed you to Fantis and Arburgast advertising go on. After you left, we picked up Arburgas on a long standing illegal immigration rat. They can't possibly connect his arrest of you. And while we were there we found out that Fantas and Arborgast advertising is a cover for a microfilming laboratory. After that, a tiny, tiny film thing, tiny. Enough to roll up and fit into a cartridge, emptied of powder and the lead replaced. Yeah, are you telling me? They microfilmed the stuff on that briefcase and put it into the cartridges of my gun. Here they are, and they didn't go off, did they. I'm in trouble. Comrade Laura never lost the briefcase on that bus. Our ragents were on board watching. She slipped it to a confederate while you slept. We let them. We'll get them in Washington when they tried to put the data back in the files. Yeah, I'm in trouble. I've got to go back to the hotel and give mister Penrose, whoever he is, my gun with those microfilm bullets in it. Right, you got it. Here's your gun back. What about their bullets? It's got bullets with doctor microfilm in them. I've reloaded your gun with FBI prepared ammunition. It'll make the Kremlin very very happy with you, Matt, and it won't do them any good at all. See you better clever, are you? Boygeois bloodhounds? Oh we got to be here, we'd all be in the doghouse. Get going, Matt. You don't want to keep the Kremlin waiting. I leave Peer eleven feeling great exhilarated. The card game and the Clouds has come down to earth with plenty of inside stuff for high stakes and I've won, and then I think, no, the game isn't over yet. I've just won the deal. The long gamble is still ahead of me, and when the final chips are down, I'll be on my own. I'm a communist for the FBI. I walk along. Our star Dana Andrews will return in a moment. This is Dana Andrews with a word about the story you've just heard. In this story, as in all others, names, dates, and places are fictitious to protect innocent persons. Many of these stories are based on incidents in the life of Matt Sevedic, who worked under cover for the FBI. Next week, another fantastic adventure. Join us, won't you, and