Read Someone Else's War: A Novel of Russia and America Page 82

  ***

  Raduyev closed the door behind him, gave his orders to a guard, and then went straight up to Schwartz’s office. “I need to see the General now,” he told his secretary.

  “The General…” she began.

  Colonel Zhuralev spoke up from his own desk near the inner office. “The General will see Colonel Raduyev any time the Colonel needs to see him, Katrina.”

  The secretary buzzed and announced him. Schwartz came out, shook his hand, told his secretary to bring tea, then escorted him in.

  “Sit down and tell me all about it, Colonel.”

  Raduyev summarized his conversation.

  “Your preliminary conclusion?” Schwartz asked.

  “I think she’s telling the truth.”

  “So do I. However, fifteen minutes is not enough. At the very least, we have to keep the process going. Have you picked your men?”

  “Two teams of two men each. Young, not all that experienced, but promising. It will be good training for them.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Three to four hour sessions, teams alternate. Standard batteries of questions, standard repetitions. We’ll start with foreign contacts in Moscow, do Chechnya later. Has anything turned up at the lab or in her flat, comrade General?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I doubt that anything will. Do you wish me to fabricate something? Just to test her reactions, of course.”

  Schwartz thought a moment. “No. These sessions are videotaped. We don’t need to introduce anything now that might be misconstrued later.”

  “What about General Suslov?”

  “By order of General Trimenko, he is under house arrest at his family dacha. Incommunicado. Security but no monitoring. We plan to leave him that way for now. Please supervise your teams carefully. Record everything. Report to me twice a day, or upon discovery of something important. Please converse with her yourself at least twice a day. Keep it human.”

  “I will.”

  “Tell me, Colonel, speaking of human, what do you think of her as a person?”

  “Admirable. Intense. Sensitive.”

  “Do you find her physically attractive?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Explain.”

  “Well, Comrade General, it’s not so much that I wouldn’t know what to do with her. It’s that I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “I think I understand.”

  “How do you think this will all play out?”

  “I don’t know, Sergei Lazarevich. I truly do not know.”