***
“Thank you, Comrades, for agreeing to this conference call on such short notice. Especially you, General Getmanov. I take it that you are at your home at your ungodly hour.”
“I am, comrade General. In my study. My wife is making the coffee now. How may I help you and the Chief of Airborne?”
“My best to Madame Getmanova. I am hoping that you comrades may both help me, for this involves a person well known to you. One of our moles in the CIA—his identity is unimportant…”
“The one I recruited several years ago?” Getmanov asked.
“Yes, but for present purposes, no names. This man transmitted to us a CIA memo about a woman who concerns you, General Getmanov, directly, as her recruiter, and you, General Trimenko, indirectly, as the mentor of her lover. The memo is very likely authentic. The woman’s name is Olivia Lathrop Tolchin, whom Russia knows as Olivia Lathrop Tolchinskaya.”
There was the silence of sudden dread. Then Getmanov spoke slowly. “Comrade General, I request permission to have my wife sit in on this call. She knows Doctor Tolchinskaya well and her opinion is always valuable.”
“Permission granted, General Getmanov.”
Getmanov called for his wife, who ambled in with two cups of coffee and her traditional dour morning expression. For over thirty years, they had gone to bed together and arisen together, as much a form of mutual protection as would be one of them standing guard while the other slept. At times, that had also been necessary. “May I put this on speaker phone so she may hear?”
“I would prefer not. I assume that your home is periodically examined for American listening devices, but just in case.”
“Very well, comrade General.” He motioned his wife to another telephone in the room.
“Could you tell us what this memo says?” Getmanov asked as his wife took up the receiver.
“I will read it to you. I have to say, I find it one of the most bizarre documents I have ever encountered. This is a memorandum for the record, written by one Jay Lyons, apparently a CIA officer in Vienna.”
He began to read aloud. When he finished, there was silence for some seconds. Finally, General Trimenko spoke. “Surely we do not know the same person.”
Lyudmila Trofimovna looked at her husband, both of them remembering when Olivia had faced them and said, It has been a hard few hours. You know me now. Please promise me this. If ever I need an advocate and in your eyes I have earned one, be mine.
That time had come.
General Getmanov, though the most junior in rank, was the oldest of the three men and a legend in the intelligence community, a wise old stallion indeed. He cleared his throat. Once, to defend Olivia would have been to sign his own death warrant, and very likely the warrants of his wife and children. Perhaps it might be so again. But this was the matter at hand.
“General Schwartz, this is not our Olivia.”
“I, too, find it hard to believe the memo describes her.” Schwartz paused. “That, however, is not the issue. The immediate question before us is, I think, is it your sense that she is would have said such a thing to the Central Intelligence Agency?”
“General,” Trimenko said hesitantly. “I have come to know her reasonably well. I had initial misgivings. Over time, I have come to regard Doctor Tolchinskaya as a future daughter-in-law, the probable wife of a man who is almost my son and whom I hope succeeds me as chief of Airborne, so I am obviously not entirely objective. However, I must say this. I once asked her what she hoped to accomplish in Russia, and she talked a little bit about the road she planned to travel as an engineer. Then she said she hoped that eventually her work would serve as a bridge between her two countries because she did not believe a weak and hostile Russia was in the best interests of America, Russia, or the world we share. I am quoting her almost directly.”
Schwartz also heard what Trimenko did not say. She said it to me and I found nothing wrong with her words. She had also, as Schwartz had read in Marianenko’s report on her initial interrogation, said the same thing to him and Colonel Suslova. But the knowledge wasn’t comforting, for it provided additional proof that the memo was genuine.
“She mentioned this to me, also,” Getmanov said. “She also mentioned to me her meeting with this Lyons.”
“What did she tell you?”
“In Vienna, as we were preparing to leave for Moscow, she said she had dealt with one American too many, and that he had showed her she was right to come here.”
“She might have meant…” Schwartz shut up, realizing he had been incautious.
“She did not, Comrade General. I knew in my heart that she was not talking about some idiot American tourist she’d met in a hotel bar. It had to have been something regarding her plans.”
“And you put her on that flight to Moscow anyway?” Trimenko asked.
“Yes,” Getmanov said simply. “I knew what and how great our needs were, and that she could very likely fill them.”
“Even though she might be passing it back to the CIA?” Schwartz asked.
“An interesting arrangement. The CIA dispatches a brilliant engineer to Russia to send back information on work she wanted to do for her own country and could have done far more efficiently at home. Perhaps it was their way of helping us out in Chechnya. However, comrade General, I doubt it.”
“It does seem hard to believe,” Trimenko heard himself say, “that she had to leave America and come to Russia for creative and intellectual freedom.”
“General Trimenko, whatever Doctor Tolchinskaya may have told you about the intellectual state of affairs in America, she was probably being extremely gracious. The country is squandering its intellectual, moral and physical capital and doesn’t give a damn. Doctor Tolchinskaya is symbolic of something that is happening in many other ways.”
“True,” Schwartz cut in, “but not immediately relevant to our conversation. General Trimenko, do you think she would be passing information back to the Americans?”
“She was closely observed in Chechnya by many people and there were no indications she was anything other than what she claimed to be, doing anything other than what she was obviously there to do. If she was, she’s very, very, very good. And extremely devious and deceptive. That does not accord with everything I have heard of her, and have seen in her myself.”
“General Getmanov?”
“She told me, more or less, of her contact with Mr. Lyons. No name was mentioned. She was subtle but direct and I did not misunderstand. We might not know what a bridge looks like, this kind of imaginary bridge. But we know what spies and traitors look like, and they are not the same. Now I must ask a theoretical but important question.”
“Go on.”
“If her government had accepted her offer and she had told us, would that have been so terrible? I ask again, comrades. If her imbecile CIA had accepted her offer, would that have been so bad?”
Trimenko’s voice held a passion and a sorrow that surprised even him. “God knows, we could stand to deal with Americans who do not believe Russia is to be humiliated and ignored. No, it would not have been terrible. It might have taken us years to figure it out, we might have failed to make it happen on our end. But it would not have been terrible. No, not at all.”
“Now that is wisdom,” Schwartz agreed. “But why would she go to the CIA?”
Trimenko shook his head, the gesture not visible to the men. “I don’t know. She’s a brilliant woman. She had to know how dangerous it was, what she was doing. But what could she have done at that final hour? Joined their Peace Corps? Applied for a grant?”
Getmanov remembered the weary sorrow and utter defeat in Olivia’s eyes that day. “Doctor Tolchinskaya is an honorable woman. I believe she would no more betray Russia than she would betray America.”
“Then why, General Getmanov?”
He looked at Lyudmila. She had put down the phone and was walking the book stacks of the study. She went directly to the shelf where she placed books
for her husband to read. The shelf had two piles, one for the books he needed to read and would, one for the books he needed to read but wouldn’t. She drew one from the second pile and showed her husband the cover. Getmanov laughed in surprise.
“General?” Schwartz queried.
“My apologies. We were discussing possible motivations for Doctor Tolchinskaya’s action. We are agreed, I think, that she is sincere in her desire to be a bridge. The question is, why did she choose that particular way of going about it? I think we would agree that she made her choice during a period of emotional turmoil. Perhaps there is an additional explanation.”
“Proceed.”
“Comrades, my wife gives me great and constant insight into American women. They are a subject I am, for many reasons, all of them valid, unable to investigate myself.” Lyudmila glared happily. “She is at this moment presenting me with a book I have not yet read. But the title seems evocative and perhaps explanatory.”
“And what, might we ask, is the title?”
“Smart Women, Foolish Choices.”
Now it was Trimenko’s turn to laugh. “It may indeed come down to that. I speak from personal experience here. She can be dense.”
“Do we truly think,” Schwartz interjected, “that this is what it comes down to? A good and brave and brilliant woman with a capacity for occasional stupidity.”
“I have heard her call herself an idiot,” Trimenko added.
“With cause?”
“In that particular situation, with great cause.”
“She is an honest woman,” Madame Getmanova said. “When she says she’s an idiot, we can believe her.”
“Occasional idiocies aside,” Trimenko answered, “she is very brave and I know her as an America patriot who is nevertheless loyal to Russia so long as we do not wage war or act against her country. God and the Airborne Forces know well that such qualities are not conducive to common sense. I think,” he concluded, “that if she was indeed a smart woman doing something foolish, such dangerous stupidity probably deserves a hug and kiss for surviving it, then a spanking for being such a stupid child as to play in the world’s traffic like that.”
“I am inclined to agree with you, comrades,” Schwartz said. “However, the explanations only validate the memo. This happened. I therefore have to bring her in for questioning. She also has, as I have come to learn, real enemies who are in a position to fabricate and plant incriminating evidence. I believe they would do so. So this is how we shall proceed. We shall proceed with dignity and courtesy and without violence or intimidation beyond that which must occur. She will be arrested shortly, but treated as a prisoner of status and not yet officially charged with anything. We will seal her house and her lab. Her staff will be detained and questioned. Her housekeeper will also be questioned, but treated as a loyal FSB Russian employee. If Doctor Tolchinskaya comes up as clean as you two think she will, she comes up clean and we proceed accordingly. If she doesn’t…”
“She doesn’t,” Getmanov said simply.
“Agreed,” Schwartz said. “Let her be judged by what she has done and by her intentions. Not by something written by someone who seems to have met someone else entirely. General Getmanov, thank you once again for taking this call at this time, on such short notice. General Trimenko, would you please stay on the line with me after General Getmanov rings off?”
“Of course.”
Knowing himself dismissed, Getmanov rang off and sat shaking in his study with Lyudmila. After a time, he reached out and took her hand and kissed it, and then they held each other silently.
In his Moscow office, General Schwartz continued his conversation. Getmanov had been valued for his opinion, but now it was time to act. “General Trimenko, how confident are you in General Suslov?”
“Totally. He did not become involved with Doctor Tolchinskaya until I told him this was permissible. And until his sister told him that separately, as both a family and a State matter.”
“And your confidence in Doctor Tolchinskaya?”
“Very strangely, even now total.”
“All right then. This is how I wish to proceed, in order to protect those who have relationships with Doctor Tolchinskaya. This is not a standard procedure and I wouldn’t do this for anyone else. Obviously, I cannot order you to this. I am asking for your voluntary co-operation. If you feel deeply that what I am going to propose is unworkable or wrong, please tell me and I will proceed more normally.”
“Please tell me your plan, Comrade General.”
“As I mentioned, Doctor Tolchinskaya will be taken into custody as a prisoner of status, her lab and her house sealed. I would ask you to inform General Suslov personally that Doctor Tolchinskaya is being taken into custody as a person of interest, concerning her possible relationship with the CIA, rather than being arrested on suspicion of espionage. By the time you speak with him, that will have been accomplished. We will take her from her lab to her house, where she can pick up a few things. Tell me, does General Suslov have a home in Moscow, other than his quarters at Voroshilov or Doctor Tolchinskaya’s house?”
“There is a modest family dacha north of Moscow. Too far out to be convenient for anyone to live there regularly and too barren for most people’s comfort. But it is there and available.”
“Very well. Then we will convey her to the dacha and inform her that we will come for her again in the morning. Have him join her there for one night. I would like him to find out what he can. If she’s not going to come up clean, it would be best for a great many people and possibly Russia itself if they handled this themselves. Certainly, it would be best for them. Unfortunately, this is Russia with its unquiet ghosts. Even if she is clean, that may still be best for her. Perhaps for them both.”
“I understand. I will tell him so. Will you have the dacha under surveillance, wired for recording, and the phone tapped?”
Schwartz thought a moment. “No. At this point, I would rather not do such a thing to a Russian general and hero of two wars. There will be security around the dacha so that…” Schwartz smiled to himself, “I almost said, so that our lovers don’t leave. So that General Suslov and Doctor Tolchinskaya don’t leave. There will be no recording devices or communications monitoring. If there is guilt here, I want no record of it. If there is guilt here, significant and premeditated guilt, General Suslov will want to behave as he knows a Russian general officer should.”
“He also loves her deeply.”
“If there is genuine guilt here, and he places his emotions above his duty, best we let him discover that now.”
“Agreed. Thank you for the wisdom of your plan, General Schwartz. Let us proceed.”
“Thank you, General Trimenko.”
General Schwartz hung up the phone. He sat in the silence of his office for a few minutes, listening to the pain echoing in the room. Then he called in his personal assistant. Colonel Avrum Vissarionovich Zhuralev, much to his disgust, would soon be retired for wounds received in Chechnya that had aggravated wounds received in Afghanistan. It is hard to take bullets in the same leg and belly twice, and the fact that Zhuralev still had a full head of hair was not, to the ever-balding Schwartz, sufficient reason to retain him. Or so he joked with the Colonel. Schwartz trusted the man completely.
“What do you think, Vissarionovich?”
“This is the strangest thing I have ever heard of, Comrade General.”
“Isn’t it? Well, then. You understand the plan that General Trimenko has approved, do you not?”
“I do, comrade General.”
“You will execute it. Take smart, tough, cultured people you can trust. All armed. About twenty should be sufficient for everything. Use your judgment. Take also several women, for propriety if needed. Organize them into two details. After Doctor Tolchinskaya is arrested, one detail will seal the lab. Get our technical people in there immediately. Everyone on the staff goes off for rigorous but non-hostile interrogation. If they’re not at the lab, have your peop
le locate their homes. All must be done today. No one is to be harmed or insulted in any way without ample provocation. Escort Doctor Tolchinskaya to her home with the second detail, including matrons. Allow her to pack an overnight bag. Make sure she includes her medications. Have her housekeeper pack a bag, too. Seal the house and have one man escort the housekeeper here for debriefing. She’s one of ours. Have our forensics and technical people search the house thoroughly.”
“Yes, Comrade General. What shall I say to Doctor Tolchinskaya?”
“Just that she is being taken into custody regarding a matter of intelligence interest, but has not been formally accused of anything. Tell her nothing else and answer no questions, but please make it very clear that if she offers no violence, none will be used against her. Make it also very clear to her that we are interested in real information, not making her confess to be the Virgin Mary made pregnant by the ghost of Peter the Great and engaged in a vast conspiracy to restore the Czar.”
“If she resists?”
“Subdue her with as little damage as possible.”
“If she resists with a weapon, Comrade General?”
“Then you will know that for one reason or another, she is offering us a graceful exit from the situation that her idiocy has placed us all in. You will accept her offer, if at all possible making certain that only one person dies. However, try to persuade her to do nothing rash. Tell her that we would like her and General Suslov to have a private conversation before we proceed.”
“Understood. Major Kristinich and Mister Borodkin are conspiring in the officers’ canteen. It appears that Major Kristinich stopped in on his way back to work. Perhaps the General should have stored Mister Borodkin in a less public place.”
“I’m an idiot.”
“Sir?”
“Oh, well. They were going to get together eventually, anyway. We’ll deal with that later. Keep Borodkin here under observation until you seal the lab. Then inform him of the closure and have him sent home.”
“And Major Kristinich?”
“He’ll wander on back to his office eventually. Maybe Russia can get a few final hours of decent work out of him.”
“Understood, comrade General.” Colonel Zhuralev came to brief attention, then left.
General Schwartz sat silent once again. He had nothing now to do with the matter until something happened, or until Tolchinskaya was brought to the Lubyanka tomorrow. No, that was not true. He needed to select, then brief his lead interrogator, give the man time to select and brief his team. This was going to require men who could get it right, right from the start. He began a quick mental review of the senior interrogators available to him. But a single thought kept crowding into his mind.
If this all blows up, what am I going to do? What will I do? What should I do?
Lieutenant General Georgii Genrikovich Schwartz went back to work.