CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO, MOSCOW, JANUARY 1997: THE LUBYANKA
General Suslov’s duty station was the Voroshilov General Staff Academy. The new semester was underway and he, like the rest of the fall seminar, was enrolled in CC Cooper’s new course. Having no direct orders to the contrary, he decided to go to work. He dressed and closed up the dacha. The house had acquired its next generation of ghosts. He got into his Zhiguli, a simple black four door sedan of a staff car that Trimenko had lent him, and returned to the Academy. He was unaccustomed to driving—men of his rank had drivers—and had never cared for the activity. Yesterday, rage had kept him from feeling the tedium and distaste of traffic. Today, fear did the same.
He arrived in time for Cooper’s class, which he uncharacteristically felt was a good omen for the decision he and Olivia had made. He sat at the table quietly, listening, taking notes, feeling utterly dead inside. He made eye contact whenever he could with Colonel Cooper, staring hard as though he could communicate his message without actually having to say it. After a few repetitions, Cooper looked at him knowingly.
Neither man was surprised when a young orderly brought Suslov a note. He read it, then quickly rose to leave. Cooper watched him go. Such interruptions were not uncommon; his students, after all, were far from mere students. But now Cooper knew that Suslov’s eye games held meaning, and that their meaning was not unrelated to his departure.
Little alcohol and less sleep, General Trimenko thought as Suslov entered the same conference room where they’d met the day before. Yesterday, Trimenko had thought of delivering his message by secure telephone, then rejected it. When you tell a man you love that he might have to kill the woman he loves and perhaps also himself, when you tell a man that the woman he loves might be a spy, you do it to his face. Suslov came to a brief attention. Trimenko motioned for him to sit, then took the chair across from him.
“I have been informed that Doctor Tolchinskaya has been taken into custody. I am glad, Dmitri Borisovich, that you are…alive.”
“I imagine that the proper response is, ‘Thank you.’ We chose to survive. I hope it turns out to be a wise decision.”
“I also. Have you learned anything?” he asked, watching Suslov’s face very closely.
Suslov looked back at him and spoke the language he and Olivia had rehearsed together. “We talked for some hours. She told me this much. She was not a spy, a mole, a sleeper agent, a traitor to anybody, or anything else. She had neither transmitted nor received anything, was awaiting nothing, and would have refused any approaches. She had never made any offer to spy, had in fact explicitly rejected the suggestion she do so because she would not have such betrayals marked against her soul. She offered herself to the CIA, once and once only, as a bridge. It is the same hope she has expressed many times to many people. She said that nothing to the contrary would be found at home, at work, on her computers, in her lab or accounts. And,” he added with a small rise in his voice, “she said that she had told no one of her appalling stupidity in approaching her own government in that manner.”
“I see,” Trimenko said quietly. Then he asked the question he had to ask, even though he knew the answer would be a lie. “Have you anything else to tell me?”
“No, Comrade General. I do not.”
Trimenko exhaled. He did not believe him. And yet, if this man, or any man, let his woman go to a fate like that without having some other course of action in mind, he was nothing but a coward. He made his choice. “It may have been a mistake to leave the two of you alone in an unmonitored dacha. It may not have been. Only time will tell. However, given the volatility of the situation, I cannot have you going about as though nothing has happened. For everyone’s sake, I am placing you under house arrest at your dacha.”
So I am going back there. As my own ghost. Will there be a real ghost to meet me?
“Please collect your things from the seminar room,” Trimenko went on. “Then go to your quarters. One of my aides will meet you there to help you pack whatever you’ll need. Once you are at the your dacha, determine what provisions you will need for the next few days. He will attend to that. He will not stay with you, but he will be on call, should you need anything. For the moment, there will be no security detail. Please do not leave or attempt to contact anyone.”
A pause. Then: “Comrade General, I must make a formal request.”
“If this is to appeal your house arrest, it will do you no good.”
“No, not that. I formally request that if Doctor Tolchinskaya does not come out of this as a free woman, unharmed, I share her fate with her.”
Trimenko swallowed hard. Now I have two problem children. “Please. No dramatics.”
“I am not being dramatic, General. I am stating my intentions. I wish to make them clear to the FSB. In writing.”
“Dmitri Borisovich, you’re becoming as dense as your lady. You do not simply pen a memo to the FSB. To Whom It May Concern: If you imprison my lover, could we please share the same cell? If you execute her, I’d like to be shot alongside her.”
“I may be dense. But I am also serious. I will not live in or serve a country that imprisons or kills her.”
“I will let certain persons of my acquaintance in the FSB command structure know of your attitude. I do not say, intention. This is a hard day for all of us, Olivia especially, and you may not wish to get too stubborn too soon. And if the lady is set free, what will you do?”
“Marry her.”
“You are very certain of her.”
“As certain as I am of you or myself, comrade General. Do you think she will have me?”
“You’re perfect for each other. So I’ve reluctantly come to believe. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. You two gallop. Very well, General. Now. Please give me your word. Once you leave this building, you will do or say nothing that might affect the situation in any way at all. You will go to your dacha and wait until I or someone of the FSB contacts you. Your word, my son?”
“I promise. After I leave this building, I will do nothing.”
Trimenko blanched a bit at the phrasing. In silence, he embraced and kissed the younger man farewell, holding him very close for a few seconds, then released him to whatever would happen next.