***
Irina Borisovna Suslova had three telephones on her desk. Exterior: unrestricted and non-secure. Exterior: restricted and secure. And Interior: restricted for internal use only, and secure. All three lines were, it was necessary to assume, constantly monitored. Phone calls could be terminated at will by monitors who didn’t like what they were hearing. Such terminations could have other consequences. Her internal line rang. “Lieutenant Colonel Suslova.”
“Colonel, my name is Colonel Zhuralev, personal assistant to General Schwartz. We’ve met before. Do you recognize my voice?”
“I do and I remember you, comrade Colonel. General Schwartz, also.” She remembered them both very well. She’d briefed Schwartz numerous times, usually in the presence of Zhuralev. They were on excellent informal terms. But in their world, telephone calls were best conducted as tersely as possible.
“There is something I have determined that you need to know.”
Her cultured voice was very still and composed. “Continue.”
Zhuralev wondered if this was why he had been allowed to survive Afghanistan and Chechnya. To do, in his last assignment and perhaps, very likely the way his health was deteriorating, at the end of his life, one final thing for his country. I want this to turn out right for Russia.
“A person known to you—and to your family—has come under suspicion of possible involvement in espionage. She is soon to be taken into custody. It is possible that you may become…professionally involved. You may wish to volunteer your involvement in the very near future.”
Instinctively, Suslova began the management of her emotions. Observing them. Evaluating them. Determining their present and possible impact upon her decisions and actions. It was a family trait, but honed by years of ruthless self-mastery. Her stern outer visage was real. But it was also a façade behind which she lived.
Her initial reaction was a cold, clear rage as she wondered if she had been lied to and betrayed. She examined her closeness to Olivia and found it real, although without any kind of permanent commitment. She noted that. It might matter later. Then her rage led her to wonder if she had personally served as the conduit for others to be lied to and betrayed. Starting with her brother and through him… Her cold rage gave way to the chill which, for her, was the initial experience of what she understood to be fear—a most controllable emotion.
“Colonel Suslova?”
“Yes, Colonel.” She had been so still and silent that Zhuralev had not been certain she had remained on the line. “I understand. What would you like me to do?”
“Make your expertise available to General Schwartz.”
“My personal knowledge, also?”
“Yes.”
“Put me on his schedule.”
“He will be able to see you at 1600.”
She glanced at hers. “I’ll be there. When he asks me how I know of this, what do you wish me to tell him?”
“The truth.”
“Will you be there?”
“No. I will be performing a duty I have been assigned in this matter.”
He would be, she realized instinctively, the arresting officer. “Thank you, Colonel.”
“Good afternoon, Colonel.”
After he rang off, Suslova moved away from her desk to make herself a cup of tea and sit down at the small table in her office. It was necessary to continue the process of taking account of what was going on inside her, matching it to what had happened and might happen. The process that would lead to whatever actions she might take. The process of keeping fear from becoming dread, helpless dread, and of using fear to goad herself to a self-mastery that could then be used in the world and, as necessary, against the world.
“What,” Suslova heard herself say aloud, “does any of us really know of the human heart?”
No answer came. She pressed on within, tasking herself with an internal formality that was no less real for being internal and formal.
I am an intelligence professional. It is time to act like one.
Is my brother capable of betraying his country?
No.
How do I know this?
Because I know who Mitya is.
All right then. What do I really know about Olivia?
I know Olivia is no more a traitor to her country than my brother is to ours. She truly loves America, and deeply grieves for what it is becoming. An attitude with which I am familiar.
I know Olivia has never sought information or equipment that she should not have. Not from me or my brother. Nor from Volodya Malinovsky. Nor anyone else I know of, including General Trimenko. So could this American have fooled all of us, including General Getmanov and Colonel Marianenko as well?
It is possible. It is always possible. But I cannot conclude, on the basis of what I know at this moment, that this is what happened. New information will be made available to me and I must be prepared to reach whatever conclusions it supports. But until such information comes to me, I will continue to believe that…
Suslova sat back, accepted her judgment, then turned to her fear. It should have abated under the pressure of thought. But it had not. Fear gave way to dread. Then she realized she had distracted herself as long as she could with an unnecessary exercise because it did not address the fundamental issue that she, as a professional, understood. At issue was not really Olivia and what she might or might not have done. At risk were not her brother’s life or hers, or even the lives of Valentina and their sons. At issue was what this—whatever it was—might be used to provoke. Suslova had studied Stalin’s purges. She’d studied Ivan the Terrible and his secret police, the Oprichnina. She knew full well how things could get out of hand once an investigation began, and how many people stood to profit. At risk were Russians, beginning with the Russians who had known Olivia, extending to Russians who had known Russians who had known Olivia, continuing to Russians who had known Russians who had known Russians who knew Olivia, and from those outermost Russians, extending to Russians who knew them. And so on and so forth and so on. For the real threat to those Russians were not Americans, but other Russians.
Thus the dread. The dread for her country that it might be headed back toward that particular abyss. The dread, not that she might be caught up in it, but that she might be unable to protect Russia from it.
Suslova found a handkerchief in one of her pockets, dried her eyes, noticed her hands were shaking.
I may have to sacrifice my brother and Volodya and…my friend Olivia…to contain this. I may have to sacrifice myself. But what of it? If things get out of hand, there is no possibility of the four of us surviving it, no matter who does the killing. Better to go down trying to stop it than as a victim of it.
Yes. This is the action I will take.
And from somewhere outside herself, she felt the tears running silently down her face like rain on stone, a mixture of grief and relief that she would do whatever needed to be done to prevent far worse.