The Dove Page 13

Chapter 31

  Conference Room - Yasenevo

  ”Do you think he’s telling the truth?” General Yuriy Ivanovich Morozov headed Directorate “S,” responsible for KGB Illegals operations of the First Chief Directorate.

  The General presided over a grim meeting on the third floor of the Lubyanka. Across the expanse of a conference table he now faced a dozen KGB officials, but the person to whom he directed his question was a Colonel from Directorate “T,” responsible for the clandestine acquisition of foreign technology.

  “We have no way of knowing for certain,” replied the Colonel. He had been asked this question many times and was very uncomfortable under the stormy eyes of General Morozov. “He appears to be completely insane. Imagine, such a thing happening right there on the grounds! One person dead and the other in the hospital.”

  The Colonel knew before he finished that his feeble attempt to divert attention from the main point was doomed and mentally kicked himself for the vacuity of the comment.

  “’He appears to be completely insane,’” mimicked Morozov, “And no one noticed his condition until he made a shish kabob out of this woman and cut the throat of his section chief?”

  Morozov was exasperated.

  The Colonel sadly shook his head. “All members of his analytical section are being questioned.”

  Morozov continued, “But this analyst, Barsikov, had complete access to Directorate 'T' and Line 'X' operations, even the identities of agents? How is this possible? You’ve confirmed it?”

  Agent identities were supposed to be strictly compartmentalized from analysts, but the people of Directorate 'T' were for the most part former operations officers with appropriate clearances.

  The Colonel squirmed in his chair. Without raising his eyes he replied, “Yes sir”

  “What did Barsikov say, exactly?”

  The General turned to the counter intelligence officer who had been in charge of Barsikov’s interrogation.

  “We didn’t even have to persuade him to talk,” he said. “As soon as we got him into a cell and shot him full of tranquilizers, he spilled everything – how he contacted the French, where and when he met with them at Kolomenskiy Park, and what he gave them. He certainly knew agent identities and even bragged about it. The whole thing, according to him, was over this girl he killed. He just wanted to get even with his boss and everybody else in his section. That’s what it was all about – this girl.” He shook his head, “Unbelievable. But to answer your question, General Morozov, there is no way to know whether he was actually in contact with foreign intelligence or simply hallucinating. He regularly lapses into hysteria and must be restrained with a straight jacket. Mostly it’s just gibberish and a lot of foaming at the mouth.”

  “Yes,” said General Morozov, “unbelievable, but we can’t ignore it. The French? Bozhe moi! We didn't even think they were running operations in Moscow.” He waved his arm wearily toward the door, dismissing them. “That will be all, gentlemen.”

  He headed straight to his spacious office on the tower’s 21st floor. Sighing heavily, he dropped the file folders he had carried from the conference room onto his desk and walked to the high window overlooking the wooded acres surrounding the Yasenevo complex. He stood for a few moments just staring out the window. In the distance he could see the series of dachas, rustic wooden houses, and large villas, each with its own generous plot of land, reserved for the use of the service’s senior officers.

  Mohammed Attar had suddenly dropped off the map, a prime Line 'X' source. He thought back through his years of service to that time another world and over a decade away when he had been assigned to Warsaw as General Pavlov’s deputy. The Poles had always been hard people to work with, never really partners. In fact, they hated the Russians, and the feeling was mutual. Russians and Poles had been at odds for centuries. Just look at how quickly the Poles had turned on them – Solidarity indeed!

  Morozov had recognized the potential of Mohammed Attar as soon as he read the Polish police report and it had not been difficult at all to convince General Pavlov – the General always enjoyed poking the Poles in the ribs. Pavlov had been absolutely jovial following that meeting with the hapless Pozoga. It wasn’t that he was especially enthusiastic about Attar as a potential agent; it was simply that Pozoga’s discomfiture had put Pavlov in a good mood. He left the details to Morozov.

  The trembling Lebanese was given a stark choice: cooperate with the KGB or be returned to the custody of the Poles and certain imprisonment for murder. If he agreed to cooperate, he would be permitted to leave Poland, but if he later failed to keep his promise, there was no place on earth where the long arm of KGB retribution could not reach. Mohammed was still very young – he had believed every word.

  Morozov received considerable praise for the recruitment and had followed Attar’s progress over the intervening years, if even from a distance as he moved up the ranks. The Russians were interested in OPEC oil pricing, and he had been surprised and delighted when the Prince hired the young Lebanese. Reams of information had been forthcoming, providing intimate personal details of members of the Saudi Royal Family, their inner politics and divided loyalties, their weaknesses. Russian petroleum policy also had benefited from knowing Saudi intentions in advance. And in London Attar had continued to demonstrate his value.

  Morozov retained a sentimental attachment to the case, a predilection common among good case officers. He disliked the idea of it coming to an end under such ignominious circumstances.

  Was this insane man even telling the truth? Had he betrayed Attar and other even more valuable sources?

  Morozov’s task was further complicated by the fact that the Lebanese agent’s importance had been magnified recently because his work with the British Minister of State for Defense Procurement, James Abbott, had been close to the formal recruitment stage. Chairman of the KGB Viktor Chebrikov, as well as First Chief Directorate head Vladimir Kryuchkov had been briefed on the juicy possibility.

  Morozov had seen the press account of Abbot's accidental death, but now he wondered if it had really been an accident.

  The highest authorities in the land would have to be warned of the catastrophic peril facing Directorate 'T' and the entire VPK acquisitions program. Morozov knew full well the extent of damage this could do to Soviet industry.

  If this came about, Morozov suspected more than the French were behind it. The Russians could only wait and see what happened next.

  Chapter 32

  One morning about two months after Attar's disappearance, I walked into the front office with a large café au lait from the cafeteria in one hand and a sheaf of cables in the other.

  "Terry's been here for a couple of hours already," announced Eileen. "He was called in early to read an eyes only cable from Headquarters. He said you should go right in."

  Behind his big desk, Stoddard was still wearing his running suit. He habitually jogged every morning. "Sit down, Harry. There's some news from Langley."

  I got a funny feeling that it concerned Barskikov. "Good news or bad news?" I asked.

  "Depends on how you look at it." He slid the eyes only cable across the desk toward me. "We're debriefing a new KGB defector in Washington, and he mentioned Barsikov. He's apparently dead; shot as a spy."

  I pushed some air through my lips. "Can that be confirmed?"

  "After some digging, the open source folks dredged up a tiny death notice that appeared several weeks ago in Pravda."

  "The poor bastard told me he didn't have long. I wonder how he was caught."

  I thought back to that meeting in Kolomenskiy Park that seemed so long ago but in reality had been only a few months earlier. I had been puzzled at the time by his words: "I have nothing left to look forward to, and I wish for nothing more than to do as much damage as possible." His final words to me had been, "You won't see me again."

  "The defector's story is nearly unbelievable. It's about half-way down the first page there."

  I read
through the cable in my hands and laid it back on Stoddard's desk when I was finished. "He murdered a woman and nearly killed his boss?"

  "And right at Yasenevo, to boot, if the defector is to be believed."

  "We have to tell the French."

  "Of course, Headquarters is preparing a formal report today. You'll deliver it to Picard as soon as it's in our hands."

  "This changes a lot of things, you know."

  "Of course. It throws open the doors now that there is no source protection issue. We're free to use all of Barsikov's information any way we like and as aggressively as we like. It's going to take the wind out of their sails.

  The Soviet Union was going down.

  Chapter 33

  The French can be delightfully, wickedly vengeful. It can be fun if you're working with them rather than the object of their petulance. With a fresh load of DST-supplied ammunition, Le Figaro continued its venomous campaign against the Brits involved in Al Sakir. Picard was delighted when that bastion of British left-wing thought, The Guardian, joined the campaign. The Prime Minister found herself on the wrong end of fox and hounds. But wily as ever she eluded her pursuers and portrayed them as unpatriotic prigs. She didn't feel compelled to say anything about the French.

  One of the reasons was that we provided the Brits with a copy of the Directorate T shopping list for the UK, as well as the identities of Brits who were witting or unwitting KGB collaborators.

  When Barsikov effectively took himself out of the equation, he freed us up to use his information as flagrantly as we pleased. All over Europe governments were drawing up lists of KGB operatives to be declared persona non grata. Even the Swiss were getting into the act.

  I huddled with Picard and Dominique Thibault in the down-at-heels DST conference room. Thibault was somewhat embarrassed by his first name, a perfectly fine name meaning something like "of the Lord," a description that might be considered at odds with the job of a counter-intelligence officer. But the real reason was that these days it's a name more often given to girls than boys. So Thibault preferred to be called "Dom." We're all entitled to our little vanities.

  "Well, what do you think?" Picard waved a hand over the document on the table between us.

  Truth be told, I was impressed and amazed. The French and the Russians have played footsie for centuries, since Catherine the Great. For a very long time, the Russian court spoke only French, Russian being the language of the peasantry. Pushkin wrote poems, and Turgenev came to Paris to translate and popularize Russian literature. In sum, the French were convinced that they knew the Russians as well as anyone and knew how to handle relations with them better than the Americans. Barsikov may have convinced them otherwise. The document we were studying was a list of over one hundred Soviet officials the French Government intended to declare persona non grata. All of the names came from Barsikov's documents.

  "That's pretty damned impressive, Jacques. Pretty damned impressive. It's a big step, and it makes a strong statement."

  Picard smiled contentedly through the layer of blue smoke from Thibault's ever-present Gauloise.

  There was one curiosity about the list of undesirable Soviets. Nikolay Kozlov, my weekly lunch partner, was not on it while nearly every one of his KGBnik colleagues, including the Rezident, was.

  When he first arrived in Paris, the French requested traces on him, and we had been only too eager to identify him as KGB. I met Kozlov at the so-called "diplomatic club" on Avenue George V, just across the street from the swank Hotel George V. The club was a well-stocked pond for spies trolling for recruitment targets. Very few fish were actually hauled in, but it was good sport for all.

  Kozlov and I had been flirting with one another for over a year, mostly on Uncle Sam's credit card. He was always willing to talk, if only obliquely when a sensitive topic was raised. I had yet to figure out if his willingness to meet so regularly with a well-known spook like me was evidence of what we called a "vulnerability" or if he had been tasked with keeping an eye on me. I wasn't on the circuit as much as when I had been young case officer on the make, and the Russians were probably curious about what I was up to in Paris.

  It paid to be agnostic in cases like this, wait to see if a true vulnerability to recruitment bobbed to the surface, and be ready with a tailored pitch if it did. Kozlov and I weren't "friends;" we were more like jousting opponents who enjoyed a drink together at the end of a good match. Kozlov seemed to enjoy it as much as I.

  But Kozlov should be on Picard's list, and he wasn't. What the hell did that mean? One possibility was that he was being targeted by the DST.

  "It's a pretty comprehensive list, Jacques, but not every Russki spook is on it."

  Picard glanced shiftily (I thought) at Thibault whose face remained expressionless. "We have our reasons," he said.

  Bingo.

  I couldn't be certain, of course. Kozlov wasn't the only name missing, but he was the only one I knew personally. This would bear watching. We might be reverting to the game of Ami versus frog. Who makes it to the Russian spy first? But even if they recruited him, what could the DST do with another agent in Moscow that they were incapable of running?

  "When are you going to drop the hammer?" I asked.

  "We'll send the list to the Foreign Ministry tomorrow."

  I returned to the office in a state of gleeful anticipation of the imminent disaster for the KGB and speculating on how it would affect Kozlov. Our next lunch was scheduled for the following week. I wondered if he would show up.

  Chapter 34

  Kozlov showed up.

  I was already seated at our usual table at the Petit Colombier, facing the entrance, of course, so I saw him come in. Good. For the price of lunch I would get an up-close and personal KGB reaction to the hasty and ignominious departure of literally hundreds of his fellow commies from various European capitals the week before. This would make Headquarters happy, almost justify the cost of a one-star meal, and leave me with a happy place in my mid-section.

  The Russian shook hands solemnly. As soon as he was seated, out came the pack of Marlboros, and he stoked a coffin nail with a plastic lighter. He took a long draw and exhaled with a whoosh of breath. I couldn't tell whether it was a benign whoosh or a challenge. Regardless, it was all smoke.

  He had to know I would be curious about what was going on in that huge mausoleum he and his comrades occupied in the Sixteenth Arrondisement. I wondered if he would be working from a script or give me an honest assessment … as honest as a Soviet official could afford to be, that is.

  "Hullo, Nikolay," I said, "How's it going?"

  He took a long drag and locked eyes with me. "Pozdravleniya, Harry." He was congratulating me in Russian. There was irony in the phrase, but heretofore he'd insisted we speak English. The native language of Perfide Albion is widely spoken in France, but not so with Russian. I guessed he wanted to keep this conversation private. Or maybe he thought it would give him a linguistic advantage.

  I answered in his language. "Congratulations? What for? I've done nothing."

  "Maybe, maybe not."

  "You're not referring to the sudden repatriation of your comrades to Mother Russia, are you?"

  He continued to stare at me through the smoke, so I plowed on. "At least you're still here holding the fort. They'll make you a hero."

  "Maybe I would have preferred to be sent home." He spoke quietly with a shake of his head.

  There were different ways to respond to this. I didn't think flippancy would win me any points, so I decided to be sympathetic and just a tad provocative. "I think I can understand that."

  This evoked a bitter smile. "Is that so?"

  It was a cardinal rule that we never referred directly to one another's affiliation with mutually hostile intelligence services. Once that Rubicon was crossed, all bets were off. But we were cutting pretty close to the bone here.

  "I mean, do you feel left out? Is it an insult that you were permitted to stay? Or have you figured out why, yet
?"

  His eyebrows met in a frown, and I saw his jaw tighten. Was it something I said? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably. He showed up for our regular lunch. Maybe he had something to get off his chest. I hoped I wasn't pushing too hard.

  The waiter chose that moment to offer me a wine list and suggest that le tourin d'ail doux was a special of the chef today. Kozlov buried his face in the menu while I ordered a bottle of Montrachet Bâtard, assuming we might have fish to follow the soup. Something mild and buttery seemed to be in order for Kozlov's delicate temperament. I ordered seared white sturgeon with caviar beurre blanc for both of us.

  Kozlov wasn't very talkative over the meal. I enjoyed the garlic soup, but he might as well have been spooning gruel into his mouth. Another restaurant I liked was Le Copenhague on the Champs Elysees. Not only was the Scandinavian cuisine excellent, but they provided an iced bottle of aquavit or vodka at the table. The Russian might have appreciated something heartier than white wine today.

  The fish arrived, and Kozlov was still moody. Why was he here today if he didn't want to talk?

  "Nikolay," I said, "I'll have to pay for this meal myself if you don't say something."

  That evoked an upward twitch at the corners of his mouth. "I like smoked fish, Harry," he said, "not this tasteless white stuff."

  I thought the sturgeon was really quite good.

  "Well, hell, you should have spoken up when I ordered instead of sitting there with a look of doom on your face. Eat your potatoes. Russians like potatoes."

  "If they're in liquid form," he said.

  I placed knife and fork on my plate with a regretful glance at the remaining sturgeon wine. "OK," I said, "Let's get out of here and go somewhere we can find liquid potatoes."

  The waiter assumed a stricken expression at the sight of our unfinished meal but was assuaged by a generous tip. The French are stingy with their tips. Therefore, despite what people say, French waiters love Americans … unless they order steak well-done.

  There was a bar on the corner of Acacias and Avenue Carnot, where we found a quiet table. I ordered a full bottle of Stolichnaya on ice and some smoked salmon. Ten minutes later Kozlov was in a more talkative mood.