CHAPTER FIFTEEN, MOSCOW and GROZNY, SPRING 1996: COMBAT
Rebecca Taylor never ceased to be surprised by how quickly and how badly her field gear got trashed. On the other hand, she really couldn’t complain. She had not been killed. Other reporters had been, sometimes by Russian troops, usually in circumstances that remained obscure. She believed some of those killings had not been accidental. Still, she had found the front-line troops normally helpful and considerate. Alcohol and indiscipline were something else, and she put most of the rest of those killings down to that.
Taylor was having a good war. She had not been present during much of the Grozny operation, but she had been with the forces that had taken the Chechen town of Samashki and was one of the first correspondents in after the massacre of military-age males and others by Russian troops. Her account was raw, but would later be regarded as one of the most accurate. Not even the Russians, who apparently wanted word of their latest capacity for undisciplined brutality to spread, had disputed it or refused her further access. In some ways, they even regarded her as an asset. So did the Washington Post. Her editors valued her work and were starting to drop hints that, after her next Stateside posting, she would be considered for Moscow bureau chief.
Just now, though, neither the war nor her career prospects were on her mind. An American was. The tall, strongly built woman with the pale platinum blonde hair, worn in a shaggy crew cut, and deep blue eyes, the clearly American woman who stood a few feet away from her, was. Fortunately, she thought as she approached her in the department store’s lingerie section, we’re different sizes. I wouldn’t want to have to fight her over the same brassiere.
Taylor had first seen her several months ago, deplaning in Mozdok with a considerable tonnage of equipment and staff. She was clearly in charge. She was also met by a squad of heavily armed men, several of them obviously her personal security. But what Taylor found most intriguing about this woman was neither her air of authority nor her obvious comfort with her situation. She seemed happy, genuinely alive, and Taylor was shocked to find herself thinking, how un-American. Then the thought took on an eerie familiarity.
Taylor had returned to DC a few weeks before to attend to some medical business: nothing serious, provided she received better care than the Russians could provide. After the minor outpatient surgery, she’d walked the streets of DC, looking at all the angry, petulant faces and wondering, What in hell do they have to be so bitter about? Thanks, but I’m going back to Russia. It’s crazy, it’s brutal and corrupt, but at least it’s not petty and ugly like this. For a moment, she wondered if she’d gone native, if she’d become a war junkie, or just grown inured to it all. She got one part of her answer a few hours later when she came across a greeting card in the “Relationships” section of an office lobby gift shop. The card said, “I love you. But I don’t love some of the things you do.” She bought the card and decided that, when she got back to Russia, she would mail it to America. But she never had. Who would she mail it to? And what would she write?
She still had the card and now she sensed that the woman before her would, in some way or other, understand. Taylor had seen her once more, in Grozny, at a modest distance, in the company of Colonel Suslov. She’d been in fatigues and armed, and she appeared completely comfortable, at home in her skin and at peace with what she was doing and where she was. Later, Taylor had paid a courtesy call on Suslov and asked him about the American woman. He had looked straight at her and replied, seemingly with total sincerity, “I know no American woman except you.”
“Colonel…” she had begun. Then she stopped. As a reporter, she had long been accustomed to asking total strangers uncomfortable and outrageous questions. That had not been one of those moments. He had simply looked at her very flatly and she had decided that to press him would be, at the very least, impolitic. And she had no desire to alienate this man who had helped her get in and out of places more than once, and whom she respected. If he did not wish to acknowledge the American woman’s existence, he no doubt had his reasons.
Now, she joined the woman at the bra counter. “I didn’t know until I came here,” she said casually, “how important dressing well is to Russians. They’ll spend and spend on everything. But trying to find a decent sports bra is almost impossible.”
Olivia, startled at the sudden surge of American English, looked up, then stepped back. For a moment, she surveyed Rebecca Taylor, quickly determining what she was not. She was not a tourist, nor a visiting academic. She was clearly professional, but not a business type. US government, perhaps.
Jay Lyons…
Olivia learned what her face looked like when Taylor asked in genuine concern, “Are you alright?”
“I…yes, of course. You just startled me. What were you saying?”
“About how hard it is to find a decent sports bra in Moscow.”
“True,” she answered, amazed at her own trivial coherence. “We once had all these images of Soviet women as muscle-bound weight lifters, over-developed child gymnasts, and anorexic ballet dancers. But not a sports bra in sight in this place. Just lingerie.”
Now it was Rebecca Taylor’s turn to be startled. This was native-speaker English, but the woman’s voice now carried a discernible Russian accent. She had not, obviously, spoken much to other Americans for a while.
“I guess they’re making up for lost time,” Taylor answered.
Oh, fuck. They’re making contact. The CIA or somebody. What in the hell do I do now?
Olivia said nothing, just wondered whether this dark, petite woman was wearing a wire sensitive enough to pick up the crashing of her heart against her chest. She quickly scanned the woman’s hands for rings and saw none. She did see many small cuts, the kind acquired at a workbench or in the field. And she noticed that the woman was lean in the way she was. Toughened by something. And hard.
“Are you sure you’re OK?” Taylor asked.
“I’m an idiot.”
“Huh?”
“Oh…nothing. Just something I have reason to tell myself from time to time.” She took in a deep breath and decided to try an oft-proven Simonov tactic. When in danger, either head away from the danger or through it. One or the other. Just do it fast. “So. What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
“Perhaps something similar to what you’re doing.”
Oh, Jesus, Moses, Cyril and Methodius… “I doubt that very much.”
“I’m looking for bras. What are you doing?”
Olivia picked one up, set it down, then decided to head into the guns. “I would imagine you could get anything you wanted through the embassy.”
“I don’t work for the government. I did, but not anymore. My name is Rebecca Taylor. I’m a reporter with the Washington Post. Based in Moscow. I didn’t catch your name.”
“I didn’t throw it.”
Rebecca Taylor made her decision. “I know. But we’ve been to some of the same places recently and have some friends in common. If you tell me your name, I’ll tell you where I’ve seen you before. You don’t have to, of course. I’m a former Foreign Service officer and I know that I could get your name through the embassy. Every American who comes here is required to register. Or maybe I couldn’t get your name through the embassy. Maybe you didn’t register.”
Olivia stepped back, still uncertain yet also relieved. “Would you mind if I asked to see some identification? Not a business card, please. Real identification.”
Taylor reached into her purse, withdrew her employee ID and Russian accreditation card, plus a memo from her bureau chief, grousing about her latest expense vouchers for items damaged or lost in Chechnya.
“OK, my fellow American,” Taylor said quietly yet firmly. “I’ve shown you mine. Now you show me yours.”
“I’ve read some of your articles from Chechnya. Very well done.”
“Thanks. Got any American ID?”
“Not on me.”
Taylor nodded. “I’m not entirely surprised
. As I said, we’ve been to some of the same places, including Mozdok, and we know some of the same people, including Colonel Suslov, who claims he knows only one American woman. Me. I’ve even heard a few fascinating rumors.”
“Such as?”
“A tall American woman, very pale blonde, providing Russian forces with some sort of technology. Tactical ground sensors, I believe. Some of it strange and experimental, but enough of it good enough to use and far better than anything they’ve developed on their own. They use it.”
Olivia was now looking at her steadily, a gaze Taylor found extremely uncomfortable because it was not the look of someone who has been caught. She also found it intriguing. “Let us make our purchases,” Taylor said, “then get some food. My treat.”
“Expense account?”
“Guest of the Washington Post.”
“I accept.”
Silent, they finished their shopping. Bras and underwear and socks for Taylor. For Olivia, bras in brightly colored, heavy cotton, plus a bag of men’s briefs she’d already purchased. The women examined each other’s items, continuing the old peasant tradition of collective responsibility. Russians would tell you if they thought there was anything amiss with the merchandise. Or with each other. Both women had enjoyed the experience of being told that they shouldn’t sit on cold ground, that it would harm their ability to have children.
“What are you going to tell me about what I bought?” Taylor asked.
“Synthetics melt. Both sides are using incendiaries and of course there is always diesel or gasoline. Someone should have told you.”
“No one did.” It was an ugly thought. “What about wool?”
“Praise wool. Even spun-in-the-grease wool doesn’t like to burn and tries to self-extinguish.”
“I wish I’d met you months ago. Who are you? For real.”
“Gotta feed me first. I spent a good bit of time in DC once. I know I’m worth a lunch at the fanciest place on the entire block. Whatever that might be.”
They found a quiet restaurant, French in fact, catering to Moscow’s nouveaux riches, almost empty because of the late afternoon hour. The waitress brought them wine, then took their orders. The women ordered in comfortable, fluid Russian. The waitress was not impressed.
“OK,” Taylor said as the waitress departed. “Speak to me.”
“First, got a business card?”
Taylor offered up her Washington Post business card. Olivia studied it, slipped it into her handbag, sipped her wine, and took a moment to observe her own emotions. The fear was gone, although she reminded herself that this could still be some sort of government contact, perhaps a prelude to a deadly contact. Then she noticed a strange irritation. As starved as she was for female companionship, for serious female friendship, she did not appreciate being so easily and casually identified as an American. Especially by this American, who already knew about her, and who as a reporter might bring her unwanted and possibly dangerous publicity.
Then there was regret. Except for Borodkin, who spoke English with her as a way of being exclusive, she had not spoken much English in nearly two years. She realized that the last American she had spoken to was Jay Lyons in Vienna. It was not a memory she cherished.
And there was curiosity. She had read a dozen of Taylor’s articles, acquired by Borodkin when she’d asked him to see what kind of coverage the war was getting in America. She remembered one filed in the immediate aftermath of the Samashki massacre, incandescent with rage and rightly so. But Taylor never lost the habit of putting the ugly war in its contexts, past and present. The fact that the Chechen war was ugly, an ugliness compounded by ill-trained, ill-equipped troops led by officers they rarely trusted on behalf of a government they loathed and despised, did not make that war unnecessary.
It was a serious thing to write like that for Americans, who too often, even at the policy levels, preferred moral preening and a faux realism based on outdated categories to a real understanding of Russia’s agony and America’s interest in easing that agony.
“Perhaps we both know someone else,” Olivia said.
“That’s not answering my question.”
“It could lead to an answer.”
“So who would that be?”
“A Russian back in DC. A man who knows the meaning of American history far better than do many Americans.”
Taylor paused, then thought of the only man she knew who met that description. “Perhaps he is or was a cultural attaché.”
“He is,” Olivia agreed. “His name, please?”
“Yuri Mikhailovich Getmanov.”
“Of course,” Olivia added, “he is more than a cultural attaché.”
“Of course.” Taylor drank her wine. “After my articles had been appearing for a while, he emailed me to invite me to call upon him when next I was in DC, or he would do the same when he was in Moscow. We have had several long conversations. I have to say, the degree of sophistication I encountered was a scary surprise.”
“I am sure many Americans are used to thinking that most Russians swing from trees by their tails.”
“I remember walking into his office the first time, thinking that, at least about the higher levels of the old nomenklatura. I walked out with my head spinning with ideas, along with a list of books by impeccably American and British historians of insurgencies to read. So. You know who I am and what I do. Who are you and what do you do?”
Olivia now had only her instincts to guide her. She chose to trust.
“Back in America, I was Doctor Olivia Tolchin. I’m an engineer, specializing in military sensor technology. I worked at Los Alamos and before that at Fort Belvoir. Here my name has been Russianized to Tolchinskaya.”
Taylor set her wine glass down with a sharp click. “Are you telling me that you’re part of some kind of clandestine military assistance program? God knows, the Russian Army could use it.”
“I agree. I only wish I were part of an American assistance program. I’m not.”
“Are you part of some other government program?”
Olivia silently shook her head.
Taylor stared at her for a long time, struggling to comprehend. “Are you a defector?”
“Of course not. The Cold War is over. The category no longer applies. Perhaps other categories apply. But not that one.” Patrons were starting to trickle in and Olivia remembered General Getmanov in DC, his unwillingness to sit too long with her and his reasons why. “Let us walk and talk.”
Taylor understood what she meant. “Agreed.”
They walked for a while, lost in the swirl of pedestrians, seemingly two women friends with their shopping bags, nothing more, speaking very quietly in English, shrouded in the thickly falling snow of an early spring evening. “Are you a traitor?” Rebecca asked hesitantly.
“Treason,” Olivia replied from memory, “consists only of levying war against the United States, or in adhering to their enemies and giving those enemies aid and comfort. If you do not know our Constitution’s definition of treason, my fellow American, you should. It no more fits me than defector.”
“Then what are you?”
“I accepted Russian employment in order to help the Russians levy war against people who mean them harm and who mean America harm, too. I accepted Russian employment after it became very clear to me that the US Department of Defense had absolutely no interest in what I could do for them. I chose to come here rather than throw away concepts that have proven their value in Chechnya, over and over. Many people, hundreds, perhaps thousands, are alive today because of me.”
“Have you divulged classified information?”
“No. Nor will I. That is not what I have come here to do and the Russians respect my refusal for both practical and moral reasons. They want what I offer, what they need right now, not useless data from defense programs that, despite their highly classified nature, are worthless.”
“What are you doing then? With a Spetsnaz brigade. In Chechnya.” r />
“The brigade is my test bed. I build tactical sensors for urban combat. On the scale we are now using them, this is beginning to have strategic implications. It may be changing the entire nature of urban warfare. I am looking down the road to remotely piloted and unmanned aerial vehicles and robotics, with strong research lines in artificial life and intelligence and miniaturization trending towards nanotechnology. It is my lab and I control the projects from lab to field. Chechnya has been an exceptionally good testing ground.”
“So you are one of the reasons that in spite of the sad state of the Russian Army, casualties are so much lighter than anyone could have reasonably have expected.”
“Yes.”
“Could you not have done this for the US military?”
“As I said, I tried for a decade and will always wonder if I could have succeeded, had I banged a few more tables or heads. But no one at my level ever has such influence. You know what American defense contracting is like.”
“More and more money for less and less result. And that’s the way they want it.”
“Indeed,” Olivia said flatly.
“So when the Cold War was over,” Taylor said casually, sarcastically, “and the government wouldn’t let you do useful defense work, you left government service and went to work for the Russians.” Taylor watched words she had so carelessly said strike home, then regretted it. “I’m sorry, you don’t deserve that tone. Have you renounced your citizenship?”
“No. Nor have I been asked to,” Olivia answered, deciding to retaliate for Taylor’s sarcasm with searing formality. “Nor will I be. Nor will I. The Russians have dealt with me fairly and honestly. They have kept every promise they made me, from permitting me my personal weapon to allowing me total intellectual and creative freedom.”
The words were painful for Taylor to hear, as Olivia had known they would be. From an American, above all an American woman, it was hard to hear them spoken and to know that they were in fact true. “Does our government know what you’re doing?”
Olivia sighed. “I do not know. I believe that nothing I have told you so far is dangerous to me, insofar as our government is concerned. I know I violated many regulations and undoubtedly some laws in coming here, given the clearances I held at Belvoir and Los Alamos. But I doubt that they’d go out of their way to get me back to prosecute me. What they might do if I returned voluntarily is another matter. I would probably become a target of opportunity for some ambitious deputy assistant prosecutor.”
“So you think that no harm will come to you, so long as you stay in Russia?”
“That is my conclusion. Almost. However…”
“However,” Taylor said slowly, “there is something else you want to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Olivia paused, then decided to trust her instincts—and maybe save her life. Or lose it. She could not know, she could only hope. “You are a serious woman. I know some of the fights you’ve covered. I know some of the officers and I know some of the conscripts you’ve talked to. You are fair, and you are attempting to get it through Americans’ thick skulls that there are things Russia and America should do together.”
“I am a serious woman or, like you, I wouldn’t have been in and out of Chechnya two winters running. But you have a goal in mind, not just admiration of my virtues.”
“Correct. I go about my business as a designer and engineer, but I am working towards something larger and I hope other people notice someday and understand. The last American I spoke with before coming here was a man with the US embassy in Vienna. I had asked in a roundabout way to speak to someone from the CIA. He may have been. That was never made clear.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I wanted my government to know where I was going and what I was attempting to do.”
“Were you offering to spy?”
Olivia found herself choking on disgust. “Never. Not then. And now, I’d rather die than betray people like those I work with. I had hoped to be some sort of link, some sort of bridge, to honorably further American ends while honorably discharging the employment I had been offered. I just wanted to be a bridge.”
“What happened?”
“He thought it was a very unfunny joke. I recall his exact words. ‘Lady, this ain’t the Central Bridge Agency you’re talking to.’”
“I’ve met a few like him. Why did he blow you off?”
Olivia smiled sadly. “Several reasons. In the summer of 1992, I was in a very serious aviation accident. Multiple broken bones, including my pelvis and both hips, as well as multiple fractured vertebrae and more lacerations than anybody cared to count. I use several controlled substances, including morphine. All by prescription. The level at which I function with them apparently did not matter. He decided I was a drug addict. In all honesty, I’d had some wine the night before, too much, and I was not at my best. So he decided that I was also an alcoholic. We went over a few other things. The gist of it was, he told me he’d write a memo for the files, but don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
“Anything else?”
“He recommended that I go home and get a life. I didn’t go home,” she added dryly. “But I did get a life.”
“Do the Russians know that you had this contact? Made this offer?”
“No.”
“Do you know what they will do to you if they learn what you offered?”
“I used to think I did. Execution after very unpleasant preliminaries. Now I’m not quite so sure. Granted, the memo Mr. Lyons, or so he called himself, promised to write endangers me if the Russians learn of its existence and I truly hope they never do.”
“The CIA’s a fucking sieve these days,” Rebecca Taylor grimaced. “Between the traitors and the leaks, the only secret left is how few secrets are left. Don’t assume yours will stay in that category forever.”
“I don’t. But for whatever it’s worth, I have many living Russians soldiers and Chechen civilians, and a lot of dead Chechen fighters, to my credit. I hope that if it comes to that they will judge me by what I have done, not for expressing to a maybe/maybe not CIA officer my hope to be some kind of bridge. Funny,” she mused, “that’s all I’ve ever thought of it as. Some kind of bridge. What kind? Never got the thought that far along. Anyway, I’ve had no contact with my government since Vienna, and if they’re all like Jay Lyons, I want none.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Your writing is that of a woman who possess both physical and moral courage and you, too, believe that there are things that our countries should do together.”
“Our countries?”
“Our countries. You love America.”
“I wouldn’t be anything else.”
“Nor I. But you also love Russia, which is why you live here and I suspect are grateful to return here after you’ve gone back to America. America is where you vacation now, not where you live.”
“How do you know these things about me?”
“Because they are true. I wish I could return to America from time to time, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Not as it is and not as it’s becoming.”
“That damned greeting card,” Taylor murmured.
“Pardon?”
“I was back in DC a few weeks ago, tending to some medical matters that I’d been putting off. I found I couldn’t stand to be around Americans. Then I found this greeting card in a shop. ‘I love you but I don’t love some of the things you do.’ I bought it, figured I’d mail it back to America when I got here. I know what you mean.”
“Have you mailed it?”
“Of course not. Who would I mail it to? And what would I write on it?”
“I would write,” Olivia said slowly, “Dear America, it isn’t always true that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. You can be so far gone that you no longer understand what you’re losing or that you’ve lost it. From Russia with Love.”
“And concern.” Rebecc
a Taylor added.
“Yes.”
The sorrow in the woman’s voice, Taylor realized, was a patriotism as pure as it was broken. She no longer yearned to return; she no longer yearned even for the desire to want to do so.
“So,” Olivia continued somberly, “because you are a brave woman who understands how the world works, I want you to know what I hope for. Please keep this to yourself. But also, please don’t forget it.”
“I will not,” Taylor answered, then laughed a little. “Who knows, maybe someday it will be OK to write about your accomplishments and ambitions. In any event, if you are ever arrested and wind up in the Lubyanka, I will do what I can to write favorable articles, get you some publicity, and serve as a character witness. Perhaps we will end up sharing a cell together.”
Olivia laughed aloud, delighted by the woman’s dark wit. “Done deal.” Then, “Do you mean it? If I’m ever in real trouble here, and you find out, will you help?”
“American to American…yes.”
“Then I must reciprocate. Tell me, do you run?”
“From time to time.”
“Well then, if you also eat McDonald’s hash browns and drink milkshakes after a hard workout, I shall ask my running partner if she would mind a third.”
“I don’t think I’m as fast as the two of you.”
“That’s all right. We push ourselves, but we’re both injured. You’ll do just fine.”
“Who’s your partner?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Let’s just say, it’s a small world, even in Russia. You’ll find her, well, challenging. Also, who knows, a fantastic source one day. I’ll let her know that the Moscow Chapter of the Russo-American Women’s Hash Brown Running Society now has a new member.”