CHAPTER TWENTY, MOSCOW, JANUARY 1997: SMART COUNTRIES, FOOLISH CHOICES
Lieutenant General Georgii Genrikovich Schwartz, head of the FSB’s counter-intelligence directorate, was a man of firm habits. He loved the gigantic fruit-filled muffins that American corporations were now peddling in Moscow. He started each workday promptly at 0700 with one such muffin, purchased fresh by an aide and emplaced on his desk atop the morning’s correspondence and other priority items. General Schwartz insisted that each workday muffin be cut into eight pieces exactly. The reason why was simple. No one who did not outrank him, and there were few in the FSB who did, could disturb him until he had consumed all eight pieces. This meant that he controlled his morning’s vital first thirty to sixty minutes, giving him time to awaken fully, to think things out, and to plan. Many were his subordinates who’d anxiously paced his office waiting room or called repeatedly, only to be told by his secretary, “I’m sorry, comrade, but the General hasn’t finished his muffin yet.”
By controlling his American muffins, General Schwartz also controlled the entire counter-intelligence directorate of the FSB. And though many were annoyed, most, including his aides, staff, and secretaries, preferred his methods to those of his predecessors.
He also had a very large nose, which he was in the habit of trusting. Whenever he said, “My nose tells me…” he was indicating that he had some sort of intuition about something. And although he was capable of rigorous analysis and astute rational insight, his nose was damn near telepathic. Or perhaps it was because he was capable of such mental self-discipline that his intuitions were so often right. In any event, he never let his nose tell him anything unless his nose had already cleared it with his brain.
This Monday morning, now three pieces into his muffin, Schwartz was sitting at his desk, pondering the latest packet from Richard Hahn, the documents carefully arranged, it had been noted, in order of importance. None so far were important. Most intelligence work, he took care to remind himself, was boring, and Richard Hahn’s latest submission proved the adage anew. Or perhaps, now that the Cold War was over and the Americans glorying that history had finally ended in their favor, the CIA was such a boring, inept, bureaucracy-ridden place that this was genuinely the best Hahn could come up with.
At 0743, midway through muffin section five, General Schwartz’ day became untedious.
He stared down at the memo before him. His nose told him immediately that it was trouble and ought to be ignored or, better yet, destroyed. But the memo had already been reviewed and recorded, and never would he discard information because it was inconvenient. He read the memo again. It was short, but he realized that he would need the rest of his muffin, and more, to decide what to do about it.
Many more people were aware of Olivia Lathrop Tolchinskaya than she was aware of them. This was especially true in Moscow, where some regarded her as an affront, others as a curiosity, and a very few, usually military, as a trusted asset. Schwartz shared all three beliefs, if only because he lacked sufficient evidence on which to base a final conclusion. His nose told him that she was genuine. But his nose had never seen her.
Schwartz took up his next piece of American muffin, number six, and turned to what he knew of Tolchinskaya’s professional reputation. He had heard about her good work and the growing realization amongst the security and intelligence services that what she had done in Chechnya was just the beginning of what her accomplishments were likely to be. Now her lab was in a sustained push to develop miniature unmanned aerial vehicles and remotely operated vehicles of several sorts, including robotics. She still kept her habit of rushing off madly in all directions to investigate whatever caught her eye. But the lab’s work was focused now. It no longer depended on the fanciful. It worked with the proven, or the about to be.
Then Schwartz shuddered. If he knew about Doctor Tolchinskaya’s work, if much of official Moscow did, then the CIA did too, almost certainly. And you always feared your moles had been discovered and compromised. The CIA might suspect Hahn and decide to solve two problems at once, by creating a memo to discredit her, then arranging for Hahn to find it. If the Russians acted on it and dealt with Olivia, they could both lose her services and give the CIA proof that Hahn was a mole.
Schwartz moved on to his penultimate piece of muffin. If so, if this was what the Americans were up to, then why not just say she was a CIA operative, perhaps even an officer, rather than casting snippy, petulant aspersions on her character and intellect? You could compare the living woman to the aspersion. It didn’t wash. Schwartz concluded that the memo was genuine precisely because it was so inept. But that raised another problem. Were Tolchinskaya some sort of active spy or even a sleeper, he would have known what to do with her. Shoot her, imprison her, turn her around, throw her back—the standard responses. But what did you do with a brilliant woman whom the Americans had rejected, and who had given Russia so much?
Quickly, he moved on to the next question. To what might she have access? What could she have learned that the Americans might want to know? How badly the Russian Army had performed in Chechnya? He doubted very much that the Americans needed spies to tell them that when they had the BBC and the Russian press to tell them the same thing. Not to mention the Washington Post and that woman reporter who did such fine…Holy Mother of God, are we being invaded by American superwomen to complete the devastation? An interesting possibility.
Very well, then. What might she send back to the Americans? Practically her entire brain was filled with classified material. She could perhaps be transmitting information on her work back to the Americans, but why would they send her here to do work she could have done far more easily at home? Perhaps she was recruiting future generations of Russian traitors. Schwartz rejected the possibility. As an American, she would have to approach too many people to gain even one, and someone no doubt would have informed. On the other hand, assuming the memo was a genuine report of what happened, she might in fact have made a final honest offer to her nation to help do…what? In any event, that had apparently been spurned. The memo gave no indication that she had remained in contact. But the memo was a one-time affair. Much could have happened in two and a half years.
Doctor Tolchinskaya, he knew, had served Russia well. In his field, emotions such as gratitude were not operative. But she would surely be needed down the road for the second show in Chechnya, and beyond, and he wanted her to be available if possible.
If possible.
And there was his decision. This needed to be dealt with, but there was no reason for it to take on a life of its own. This could be handled quietly, decently. More importantly, he didn’t want this going public or getting out of hand. From hard experience, Schwartz was very well aware of how real and imagined spies had been used to terrorize and oppress innocent Russians. He also knew what happens to a security service when the inquisitors take over and turn on each other. Far too often, the most evil and most worthless prevail.
He rang his secretary. “Tea, please, and the complete dossier on an American national, Doctor Olivia Lathrop Tolchin, Russianized as Tolchinskaya.”
“Yes, comrade General. May I ask how this morning’s American muffin is proceeding?”
“I have one more piece to finish. It won’t be consumed until after I’ve reviewed the dossier.”
An hour later, he sat back. He now knew Olivia Lathrop Tolchinskaya. He also knew her recruiter, Major General Getmanov. One of the world’s honest men and an extremely good intelligence officer. He knew the officers who had verified her, Colonel Marianenko and Lieutenant Colonel Suslova. Two able and respected officers. If she were in fact an agent of some sort for her government, Doctor Tolchinskaya would have had to be very good indeed for all three of them to have missed it. And he knew Colonel General Trimenko as a tough, cautious soldier who was attempting to steer his service through the wreckage of the Union, always with an eye on the wars coming down the road.
Others, he also came to know through their dossiers. A
Leonid Pavlovich Borodkin. Mediocre engineer, adequate analyst, and according to Tolchinskaya, a very good administrator and expediter. But, as Borodkin’s reports showed, increasingly given to moods and undercutting. A Major Mikhail Kristinich, who had no good reputation, either personal or professional. He’d been with her in Chechnya, had filed negative but inconsequential reports, and was apparently now in Moscow. He worked in the Lubyanka in some sort of administrative position, but occasionally had to be respectfully removed from the prison levels by the guards. He was also known, increasingly, as a man who wanted the return, if not of the former regime, then of the former ways. His immediate superiors had flagged him as adequate in his present duties but not currently meriting promotion.
Very well. He would start with those two. Later, he would talk with the good men. For a moment, he contemplated a final, forlorn piece of American muffin, nibbled away but not consumed. Rather like Russia at the moment. He swallowed it in a purposeful gulp, then summoned his personal assistant, a tough old warhorse slowly adjusting to imminent retirement, pronounced him to secrecy, and told him whom to send for and what to do.
“No, Colonel Zhuralev,” said Schwartz in response to a procedural. “I do not want them together. See that they do not see each other while reporting to me. Also, schedule a secure conference call with General Trimenko and General Getmanov most immediately for 1100, Moscow time. That will be 0300 in Washington, and convey my apologies to Getmanov and his wife. Please listen in on these two meetings and on the conference call. Silently.”
“Very well, General.”
Borodkin was there within the hour. He entered. Schwartz said nothing for a few seconds, just had him sit down. Schwartz was so used to being silent that there were times when people thought he had forgotten how to speak. His family, ethnic Germans, had been in Russia for well over a century and had stayed impeccably loyal through everything. Schwartz’ father, the last of the family to speak native German, had served as an Army interrogator of German prisoners. His father had never discussed those experiences. But when Schwartz had finished his Army service in 1966 and was approached by the KGB and offered a career in counter-intelligence, his father had spoken to him about the corruptions of intelligence work. It was getting better now that Stalin was gone, but certain things never changed. He gave his son a simple set of rules.
When dealing with human beings, always remember, people will tell you what they want you to know. Understand why they want you to know it.
Beware of colleagues who are too eager to investigate; they’ll usually find whatever they seek.
An interrogation room is no place for a sadist or a brute.
And above all else remember this:
All truth is provisional. Know what you know. But never refuse to know more.
Schwartz had practiced his father’s creed for thirty years, during which he had purged from his character all impetuosity, all corrupting ambition, all hate and any need to fall in love with his own theories. He knew what he knew. He always sought more.
And he knew that in this, the final assignment of his service, it was his absolute duty to his country to keep the brutes and the sadists and the crazies and the tyrants-in-waiting under control. Not an easy job. There were so many of them. At that thought, Schwartz permitted himself a small inner smile and asked himself again. Was he himself getting perhaps a little paranoid? Then he gave himself the standard answer. After all his country had done to its own people, after all that had been done to this country by others, and with all the future’s dark possibilities…get back to work.
He inspected, once more, the man before him. Late thirties but looking older, of medium height and medium weight, clearly intelligent, but something missing from the eyes. He began with a small display of authority and something to get this man interested.
“Mister Borodkin, you are here concerning a matter of State security. You are ordered to discuss this meeting with no one outside this room. No one. Do I make myself clear?”
“Absolutely, Comrade General,” Borodkin answered shakily.
So. There was something to Mister Borodkin after all. Fear. Schwartz watched him closely. “I want to ask you some questions about Doctor Olivia Lathrop Tolchinskaya. You are, I understand, her lab administrator and FSB minder. You know her well.”
Borodkin’s eyes gleamed a little. He started to smile, involuntarily, then caught himself. “I do know her well, Comrade General. What can I say?”
“Say what you think. I’ve read your reports. Now say what you think.”
“She’s…she’s a brilliant scientist and engineer.”
He’s afraid of her, Schwartz realized and the hair on the back of his neck began to prickle in warning. Perhaps more afraid of her than of me. “Obviously. What else can you tell me?”
Schwartz watched Borodkin shift a little in his chair, watched his eyes flicker away from his, watched his hands clench and unclench. “Well, Comrade General, I’d need to know what you want me to tell you.”
Schwartz never liked to intimidate the weak; it made him feel slightly shameful and it rarely worked. Strange, he thought, to be thinking of an FSB man in such terms. Still, Borodkin’s very response, Tell me what you want to hear, attested to that weakness and fear. No, he would not indicate what he wanted to hear. So Schwartz decided to back off a bit, treat Borodkin with a combination of firmness that might not intimidate him and a respect that he in no way deserved. “Mister Borodkin, we are both intelligence professionals. Our interests in Doctor Tolchinskaya are the same. In your reports, you have suggested nothing amiss in her character or suspicious in her behavior. So I ask you now, as one professional to another, do you stand by your reports?”
“Yes, comrade General, I do. But as an intelligence professional, it is also my sense that she has another agenda.”
“Your sense?”
“My sense, yes, comrade General.” His eyes now moved about frantically, as though looking for an escape route.
“Well then. Let us determine just what this sense might be telling you. You have been her minder since June 1994. Two and a half years. In that time, have you ever observed her acquiring or attempting to acquire information that she should not have?”
“No, Comrade General.”
“Have you ever observed her in the company of foreigners, about which she has been deceptive?”
“No, Comrade General.”
“Has she had or tried to have any contact with domestic dissidents or activists?”
“Not that I am aware, Comrade General.”
“Does she possess or has she tried to acquire communications equipment she should not have?”
“No, Comrade General.”
“Have you ever known her to have relationships with her subordinates that she should not have?”
“Well, she likes to hire women.”
“What is the problem with that?”
“They might get pregnant.”
“Are her relationships with these women improper in any way, including the sexual?” Schwartz distracted himself from the distaste of the question by permitting himself to observe that to his knowledge, relations between women did not result in pregnancy.
Borodkin answered with a disappointed leer. “No, comrade General.”
“Have you ever known her to do anything improper or suspicious with her computers, her files, or her products?”
“Well, she likes to fail, and she encourages people to fail. She says failure is the only way to know if you’re doing it right, or if you’ve gotten lucky and simply avoided failure for the present.”
“Is there anything else, Mister Borodkin?”
Borodkin realized that Schwartz had walked him up to a precipice. He was now in a position where he had to commit himself one way or the other, but that was the one thing he’d refused to do in his life, over and over, until he was no longer capable of doing it. It was one of the things he had come to hate Olivia for: her ability to commit, her wil
lingness to be wrong for the right reasons, in order to be right for the right reasons. But he had no choice now. “Yes, comrade General. I strongly suspect that it is possible she may be a sleeper, awaiting instructions.”
Always possible, Schwartz thought. He assessed Borodkin. The man’s character was clear. The next matter to be addressed was his motivation. Had she spurned his advances? Unlikely. Borodkin probably had no advances to spurn. Perhaps he loved her in silence and knew that if he tried, he’d end up a humiliated failure who still had to work with her. More probably, he was just a man who did not like taking orders from women or working with them. Far from unusual. But for him to accuse her, even in the weak way he had, of something that could end her life, he had to have a deeper motivation. Yet this man did not seem capable of deep motivation. Then the answer came. He hates her because she makes him feel like the man he knows himself to be.
His face and voice revealed nothing. “Mister Borodkin, you say that you suspect that maybe she might be. Do you or do you not think she is a sleeper agent?”
Borodkin was visibly sweating and he knew it. It was embarrassing, and the realization made him sweat more. “It is my instinct, Comrade General, that I would not be surprised if she were a sleeper agent.”
Schwartz rubbed his nose. What do you know about instincts, you little worm? “Is it your professional assessment that she is in fact a sleeper agent? Not might be. Is.”
“Yes, Comrade General. That is my assessment. My preliminary assessment only. I believe you should talk to Major Mikhail Kristinich, who was with her in Chechnya. He is presently...”
“I am aware of Major Kristinich.”
“He knows far more about these matters than I do.”
“What matters might these be?”
“Dealing with the disloyal.”
Schwartz sat there looking at him from behind his eyes. “Thank you, Mister Borodkin. That will be all. I remind you again that you are not to discuss this conversation with anyone. Nor from this moment on may you discuss Doctor Tolchinskaya with anyone. That includes Major Kristinich.”
“Yes, Comrade General. May I ask why?”
Your boss has nothing but praise for you and you’ve tried to sell her out for the ugliest and pettiest of personal reasons. Vicious spite. The kind of resentment that would drag down the world if it could. If her name weren’t on that piece of paper, I’d be on the phone to her right now. And after she was done with you, I’d ship you off to the Kurile Islands with a pair of binoculars, a broken telephone, and instructions to call when the Americans invade, not before. After this is over, one way or another, I may do just that.
“There is an officers’ canteen in this building. Go there. You will not leave the canteen until I send for you again or you receive word that you may go.”
“Yes, Comrade General. I hope the information I have provided has been useful.”
“It has been. Thank you, Mister Borodkin. You may go.”
“Yes, Comrade General.”
Next in, five minutes later, was Kristinich. “Sit down, please.”
Kristinich did as he was told. His gaze was more direct. He did not know why he was there, but clearly sensed some sort of opportunity, if only contact with a senior officer. He did know, he had no doubt, that the general who sat behind the desk regarded him with loathing and disgust. He was not ashamed.
“I am taking an interest in Doctor Tolchinskaya,” Schwartz said blandly. “I understand you observed her closely in Chechnya. What can you tell me?”
Kristinich suddenly felt very cold. He had planned to build a little dossier against Olivia, and then if she gave him any reason, send it up the chain. He had never expected to find interest in Olivia, of any sort, coming down on his own head. “May I ask why?”
“It’s enough for you to know I’m interested, Major,” Schwartz said calmly, his refusal to respond with “Comrade” a clear insult.
“I did observe her in Chechnya, but not really with any intensity or regularity. She did not spend a lot of time with the brigade headquarters. Most of her time was spent with the groups. She’d drop off the latest batch of sensors and other toys, talk to the men about what worked, what didn’t, and why, fix what she could that was broken.”
“What was she like?”
“Very active.”
“Who was with her?”
If Schwartz is interested, that means he suspects her of something. She’s an American and a Jew, so it’s probably espionage of some kind. These days, if you make an accusation, it had better stick. But a little innuendo used to go a long way. Maybe it still might. “She had a permanent security detail. The head of it was a warrant officer named Simonov. He was killed. She and Simonov were very close.”
“In what sense?”
“Well, I never saw them do anything untoward. But they were very close. She has an interesting relationship with Lieutenant Colonel Malinovsky, who was the brigade chief of reconnaissance. They’re both Jews and they…box. Which is of course very strange in a Jew and even more a Jewess. You know about her relationship with the brigade commander, Colonel Suslov.”
“Now General Suslov.”
“I forgot. And she is also close to his sister, Lieutenant Colonel Suslova.”
“She sounds like a very busy woman.”
“Oh, she was. I never understood how someone who used that much medication could have so much energy.”
“Extraordinary,” Schwartz murmured.
“Extraordinary, indeed.”
“Most extraordinary that she ever even came to us.”
“True, Comrade General. Hardly a routine occurrence. To be sure, I have always had misgivings.”
He hates this woman. His hate is taking precedence over his duty.
“Her Russian is excellent,” Schwartz went on, his tone now neutral but encouraging. “We all know Americans don’t study Russian as an innocent hobby. She said that she learned it to read our technical literature, but we also all know the Americans are years, if not decades, ahead of us.”
“Not in all things, Comrade General. Not so long ago, we taught the Americans some much needed lessons in modesty.”
“So we did. Fifty years ago. Then they gave us a few. Perhaps someday we will continue their education.”
“It is to be hoped for, Comrade General.”
“It is, indeed. Do you have any further thoughts on Doctor Tolchinskaya, Major?”
“I do, comrade General. My duties with 22 Brigade were to participate in the interrogation of prisoners, with emphasis on political intelligence. Doctor Tolchinskaya was very popular with the troops, of course. And Col…General Suslov made it very plain that the normal rules did not apply to her. I always felt that, although she was neither a Russian nor a soldier, a bit more discipline might have been appropriate. Of course, she was always extraordinarily circumspect. If I may say so, the general will also want to talk to her minder and laboratory administrator, Mister Borodkin.”
“Thank you, Major. That will be all. You’ve been most helpful.”
“I will be happy to assist in any way I can.”
“Indeed. You will probably be called upon again. Do you work in this building?”
“Yes, Comrade General. In the prison administration.”
“Then return to your duties. You are under strict orders to discuss this matter with no one.”
“I understand, Comrade General.”
“Thank you for coming. You may go now, Major.”
“Thank you, Comrade General.” Then he paused. “Would you like me to write up my own full report on Doctor Tolchinskaya? I have been considering it.”
“Please do.”
“Perhaps Mister Borodkin and I could work on this together. After you lift the restriction on communication, of course.”
“I’ll consider it.”
Kristinich was barely out of his office before Schwartz’s face resolved itself into stone. Then he found himself wishing for another muffin. That, h
owever, was not possible. The technique was only good once a day and anyway, the damn things were fattening, though perhaps not nearly so deadly as the garbage he’d heard was sold at McDonald’s. No wonder so many Americans had the asses and bellies that they did.
He looked down at his hands, folded neatly atop the closed dossier. Damn it all. The name on that memo could not be conjured away. His disgust for the two men did not change that. Then there was the very real fact that by mentioning her to them, he had indicated she was under suspicion of something, most probably espionage. His orders notwithstanding, those two would be at it again, soon enough. Inevitably, word would get out. And then, also inevitably, the matter would get out of hand and those who wished to use it for their own reasons, would do so. That’s how it always started, the purges, the witch hunts, the inquisitions. Give the vicious their chance, they’ll take it. And people who would never do such things themselves, are happy to see it happen.
I will deal with those two, in time. Now, let’s talk with some men who really are men and who know her.