The Dove

  In the development of this novel the author was inspired in part by actual events connected with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its aftermath that have been amply reported in the press and literature.

  Having made this clarification it is important to emphasize the fact that this is a work of fiction and the situations described, as well as the characters and their actions are totally imaginary.

  Having reviewed the manuscript, as required by law, the CIA required the following disclaimer:

  “All statements of act, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the CIA or any other US Government agency. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government authentication of information or Agency endorsement of the author’s views. This material has been reviewed by the CIA to prevent the disclosure of classified information.”

  THE DOVE

  Copyright © 2017 by Michael R. Davidson.

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  MRD Enterprises, Inc.

  PO BOX 1000

  Mount Jackson, VA 22844

  mrdenter@shentel.net

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017905637

  ISBN 978-0-692-87714-2

  Contact author at info@michaelrdavidson.com

  Cover by Damonza

  Also by Michael R. Davidson

  Harry's Rules

  Eye for an Eye

  Incubus

  The Incubus Vendetta

  The Inquisitor and the Maiden

  Retribution

  Krystal

  With Kseniya Kirillova

  In the Shadow of Mordor

  Successor

  THE DOVE

  It's the 1980's. There are no smart phones and very few mobile phones, certainly not the proliferation of electronic neck benders available to us today, neither was there a Google nor even an Internet as we know it now. Photography was still limited to film rather than electronic pixels.

  Espionage had not yet come to rely very heavily on gadgets. Most "advanced electronic" gadgets of the era intended for espionage were beta types and unreliable. They tended to break easily or simply did not work, at all. Agent communications were still in the form of secret writing, short wave radio, one-time pads, and hands-on street work – case officers pumping adrenalin and agents sweating bullets. In other words, what one might term classical tradecraft. It was risky business.

  The times were precarious. The Soviet Union, engaged in a debilitating, losing war in Afghanistan, was teetering, but still not vanquished. We still lived in a bi-polar world. The Cold War dominated international relations. The deadly contest between the CIA and the KGB raged on.

  And 1985 marked the beginning of problems for the CIA's Moscow Station as its most valuable agent operations were wrapped up one after another by the KGB. The treason of Aldrich Ames would not be uncovered until the 1990's.

  Contents

  Prologue: Moscow – February 1987

  Chapter 1: Paris, France – April 1987

  Chapter 2: A Volunteer

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6: Langley

  Chapter 7: Moscow

  Chapter 8: Kolomenskiy Park

  Chapter 9: Langley

  Chapter 10: London

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12: London

  Chapter 13: Rule No. 1

  Chapter 14: London

  Chapter 15: Warsaw, Poland - 1974

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17: Number 5, Ulica Stefana Batoriego

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19: Geneva, Switzerland

  Chapter 20: Moscow

  Chapter 21: Warsaw, 1974

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23: Paris

  Chapter 24: Mohammed’s Journey

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28: London

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30: Headquarters of the KGB First Chief Directorate - Yasenevo

  Chapter 31: Conference Room - Yasenevo

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42: Chop-Chop

  About author

  Also by Michael R. Davidson

  Prologue

  Moscow – February 1987

  Lieutenant Colonel Stepan Timofeyevich Barsikov watched helplessly as Elena Trofimovna sashayed through his office door, giving him an impudent and dismissive twitch of her round derriere. He knew where she was going. She was headed in the direction of the Head of Section, Colonel Yuriy Nikolaevich Lebedev. Stepan could imagine Lebedev's hand snaking up under her dress after they had closed the office door.

  Stepan covered his face with both hands as tears started suddenly from his eyes. With as much dignity as he could muster, he rose almost painfully, like an arthritic old man, from his desk and made his way, slightly staggering, out of the office and down the hall towards the restrooms. He needed to splash some cold water on his face. As he passed open doors he could hear the scarcely concealed titters of his fellow workers.

  Until just a month ago, Elena had been his. He knew she was the office flirt. Moreover, Stepan had been married for 20 years. Nevertheless, he had fallen head over heels for her, but his infatuation had turned into fixation and fixation had become obsession. His smothering attentions had finally driven her away and into the arms of the office’s most notorious lothario.

  Stepan’s office mates had followed the deteriorating romance with the avidity of afternoon soap opera fans. Lebedev, always one to recognize a good opportunity when he saw one, deftly caught Elena on the rebound, and now Stepan lay awake night after night imagining the depravities to which “his” girl was being subjected by his slick rival.

  The ill-concealed mirth of his soulless coworkers spurred his despair towards malice. During his darkest hours Stepan resolved to wreak vengeance on Elena, Lebedev, and the hyenas with which he shared the office. Most important, he would do all he could to destroy the corrupt organization that he served, the Committee for State Security – the KGB.

  Stepan was a highly proficient engineer, a graduate of the Bauman Higher Technical School, and a specialist in advanced aircraft design. During his university days his dream was to work at the famed Mikoyan Design Bureau, or perhaps Ilyushin, but his fate had been different. Instead of designing aircraft himself, he had been recruited by the KGB.

  In the beginning it had been exciting and rewarding. He was selected for the prestigious PGU, the First Chief Directorate. Already proficient in the French language, he was rewarded with a highly desirable posting to Paris under Trade Mission cover. He had been highly successful, both at recruiting sources within French industry and gleaning restricted technical information that would boost Soviet weapons production. At the end of his tour, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

  He and his wife, Svetlana, had luxuriated in the glamorous atmosphere of the City of Lights. Stepan in those years was gregarious and convivial, and he was highly intelligent. With attractive Svetlana at his side, it had been easy to cultivate French friends and business contacts. There was a special affinity between Russians and the French that dated from the time of Catherine the Great.

  But things took a turn for the worse in Stepan'
s next assignment to the Soviet Trade Mission in Montreal. One night, his conviviality led him to one drink too many, and he was involved in an automobile accident resulting in serious injuries to the occupants of the other car. Inevitably, Stepan was recalled to Moscow in disgrace. He would never be given another foreign posting.

  That had been ten years ago, and here he sat, still a lieutenant colonel in a dead-end job in Directorate "T" where he evaluated stolen Western aircraft designs and weapons systems. Stepan was no longer a James Bond type. And he was surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of the KGB.

  Directorate "T" was devoted to what in the West would become known as “technology transfer,” the illegal acquisition of protected technology for adaptation and incorporation into the Soviet Union’s military-industrial complex. This work was accomplished through an incredibly well-organized and extensive network of front companies and espionage operations directed by the Military Industrial Commission, the VPK.

  Stepan’s personal isolation and deepening sense of despair could not be concealed, and he found himself involuntarily playing the role of office goat, the butt of a steady stream of maliciously ribald jokes. His helplessness in the grip of his own emotions ignited deep within him a waxing desire for revenge that bordered on mental derangement. He was possessed by an inchoate rage that over the days and weeks would take on shape and meaning.

  Stepan would have his revenge on them all. When he slept he dreamed of the stricken looks on their faces when their work was destroyed and they became irrelevant. He especially relished the idea that they would know in the end that it had been he who had caused their collective misery.

  All he required was the right opportunity.

  Chapter 1

  Paris, France – April 1987

  It was Thursday, which meant that the plat du jour at Le Petit Colombier was calves' liver, perfectly braised and left a delicate rosé in the center. In this case, the dish was foie de veau en persillade avec pommes de terre, a Lyonnais version of the dish. A four-year-old Saint Estephe provided a worthy accompaniment.

  The restaurant, one of my favorites, was high up on Rue des Acacias, a stone's throw from the Arc de Triomphe. I frequented the place so often that the staff knew my name. A table on the second floor had become my regular Thursday rendezvous with Nikolay Kozlov. Kozlov was the Novosti representative in Paris and I held First Secretary rank at the American Embassy. Kozlov, of course, was a KGB spook, and I was Chief of Operations for the CIA's Paris station.

  In this position, I wasn't really expected to pound the pavement and develop candidates for recruitment, but I still liked to keep my hand in.

  According to our file on him Kozlov was thirty-five, several years younger than me, I won't say how many. He carried himself with the grace and elegance of a pre-revolutionary Russian nobleman, and with his careless dishwater blond hair and thin moustache he could have been a 1930's movie idol. I thought there was a slight chance of convincing the Russian that he was working for the wrong side, but truth be told, I enjoyed the verbal sparring with an intelligent adversary/target and the opportunity to brush up on my rusty Russian language skills. Personal interaction with the enemy was the most interesting part of the job.

  The waiter cleared the table of the main course and placed generous wedges of tarte tatin and small cups of strong coffee before us. Kozlov's elbow was on the table supporting an upraised hand, bent gracefully at the wrist, in which he held a lighted cigarette, a Marlboro. Maybe this was a sign he was vulnerable to Western degeneracy. I rolled an oily Montecristo No. 4 between forefinger and thumb. Maybe the commie across the table thought this meant I was vulnerable to Cuban blandishments. It was only fair.

  I decided to wait until I was back in the office to light it and put it back in the breast pocket of my blazer. I didn't think the conversation would last much beyond coffee, and I had decided to walk back to the Embassy, which would delay my afternoon smoke even longer. No one who loves cigars would ever think of smoking one out of doors.

  When anyone spoke of the Soviet Union these days the conversation turned inevitably to the Chairman of the Communist Party of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev. It was difficult to discern what official Russians abroad really thought of their leader, and Kozlov was no exception.

  "I think things are going to change radically in your country, Nikolay," I ventured. "I think they're going to change quite a bit."

  Kozlov took a hit from his cigarette and resumed his languid pose. He slit his eyes and squinted across the white tablecloth as he exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. "Never," he said. "Things will never change."

  It was hard to tell whether it was conviction or resignation in his voice, so I took another stab at it. "I wouldn't be so sure. Your new guy is shaking things up. Don't you think it's a good thing?"

  Now, this was downright provocative, but I was trying to get a reaction. Besides, it was always fun to poke the bear.

  Soviets were studiously neutral when asked for their personal opinion on just about anything. You could say the weather was nice, and they'd check with Moscow before answering. But once in a while a fellow got lucky.

  Kozlov smiled thinly as he tapped the ash from his cigarette. "What do you think, Harry? Do you think it's a good thing?"

  "It looks like it's heading in the right direction."

  The Russian took another drag before crushing the cigarette out in the ashtray. "There's your answer, then," he said with a crooked half-smile.

  It was impossible to know whether he meant it was a bad thing if I liked it or it was a good thing and I was correct in liking it.

  I dropped enough cash on the table to pay the tab, and we walked in single file down the narrow staircase to street level. On the sidewalk we shook hands, and I watched Kozlov turn up Avenue Carnot towards the Metro at the Etoile, probably on his way to the glitzy modern edifice in the 16th Arrondissement that was the Soviet embassy where he would write a report on our luncheon conversation. Undoubtedly, it would depict Kozlov as besting me through clever use of dialectic materialism. I wondered if the KGB had me listed as a recruitment target or whether they allowed Kozlov to stay in contact just to keep tabs on me. There could be no doubt that they knew who I was. Or maybe he just liked to eat in one-star restaurants on Uncle Sam's tab. I certainly did.

  It was a long walk down the length of the Champs Elysees to the American Embassy on Place de la Concorde, but it was a brilliant spring day and the double rows of elm trees that lined the avenue were sprouting new leaves. They don't call Paris the City of Light for nothing. There is a quality to the air that can't be duplicated. I'd missed my morning run, so the walk would do me good. This made me feel virtuous. I set off down the gentle slope of the most famous avenue in the world blissfully unaware of what awaited me.

  I had become inordinately fond of Paris and of the French people. Most Americans did not understand this, but most Americans did not speak fluent French and had little, if any, appreciation of foreign cultures. I had found that immersion in the culture of any host country is basic to work as an intelligence officer, and usually leads to professional benefits because it encourages locals to trust one.

  Trust is as important to the intelligence professional as cynicism, maybe more important. Trust and cynicism are the yin and yang of the craft. Sooner or later, everybody needs a friend. Sooner or later, intelligence officers need cynicism.

  Poor Kozlov. He was the representative of a rapidly declining totalitarian dictatorship that was approaching a total dead end. How could he not know this? The KGB was enormously powerful, both inside and outside the Soviet Union. The boys and girls at Lubyanka and Yasenevo were also smart and highly capable. In many ways their ruthlessness gave them considerable advantages over the CIA. I had worked against them my entire career and had developed professional if not admiring respect for them. What I did not understand was how such demonstrably intelligent people could support the corrupt Soviet regime. Maybe it had something to do with the Russian soul. Many
would say it had something to do with cynicism and fear.

  But that would be unfair to the Russians who have Russian reasons for what they do. Hell, most of them probably believed in Communism. God knows they've sacrificed terribly in its name. Sure, they were rational and no doubt recognized the faults of their system. The rampant corruption of the Brezhnev era was recognized even inside the USSR. But Russians could be patriots, too. And besides, aside from the Nomenklatura, the KGBniks were the elite of Russian society. It's nice to be part of the elite. Ironically, their greatest reward was the privilege of going abroad. Maybe that was enough for the KGBniks.

  It required about a half-hour of purposeful strides to reach the neo-classical pile of stone that was the American Embassy. It was the last building to be erected on the Place de la Concorde in the 1930's, but it had been built to look much older so as to blend in with the surrounding architecture. I entered the marbled foyer, flashed my i.d. at the Marine Security Guard and headed for the elevator to the Agency spaces.

  Eileen, the secretary for the front office gave me a reproachful look when I entered. "Where have you been? We called the restaurant, but they said you had left a half-hour ago."

  Eileen was an attractive middle-aged blonde who was always well turned out. The plum assignment to Paris was probably her last overseas assignment after a long career. It was common knowledge that not only was she highly competent, but also that she was the long-time mistress of the current European Division Chief at Langley. She thus knew no fear and considered herself a full-fledged member of Station management. In fact, her competence was highly valued. The Division Chief had good taste.

  "I decided to walk back. It's a nice day out there. 'April in Paris' and all that. Has something come up?"

  "We don't know, but they've been calling for you at the Place des Saussaies. The boss says you should get over there pronto."

  One of my duties was liaison with the French services, and No. 2 Place des Saussaies was the headquarters of the internal security service, the Dirección de Surveillance du Territoire, the DST. We usually met on Mondays, and an urgent call from the DST was unusual.