CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE, MOSCOW, JANUARY 1997: THE MASTER PLANS OF THE MOMENT
All bureaucracies have rules. The larger they are, the more rules they tend to have. Amongst the most important of bureaucratic rules: no surprises.
By late Tuesday afternoon, Raduyev had a sense that there weren’t going to be any surprises. It would take time to go through her lab, but initial interviews indicated nothing untoward in Olivia’s behavior or relationships with her employees. Her home held nothing suspicious; her personal computer was clean. Other investigations also yielded nothing. There were no unaccounted-for withdrawals or deposits of money in her personal accounts. Her spending was wise and reasonable, her charitable giving, mostly for the families of dead and disabled soldiers, was generous but anonymous. Her prescription drug usage was not unreasonable. She drank in moderation, enjoyed a small circle of close friends and a larger circle of acquaintances, and was a highly skilled knitter. She wasn’t religious in any conventional sense. She didn’t socialize with dissidents, human rights agitators, or bohemian types, although several of her friends were serious artists. She had two foreign contacts, both American. Her love affair with Major General Suslov was cause for substantial gossip, but they behaved discreetly and there was no evidence of any infidelity.
The next session began in mid-afternoon. Matrons escorted her from her cell back to the interrogation booth. She sat down in the chair across from the opaque, one-way window, placed her hands on the table, and waited. After a few minutes, two very muscular young men entered. She knew that interrogators sometimes identified themselves truthfully. Other times, to gain advantage, they went in with false names or ranks or affiliations. There was, however, a limit to the play-acting. A sergeant could no more convincingly claim to be a colonel than someone like Raduyev could pretend to be a conscript. She guessed their rank as senior lieutenants, perhaps junior captains. Politely, she half-rose and inclined her head. One took the seat, the other stood beside him, arms folded, the window unimpeded.
“Good afternoon, Doctor Tolchinskaya.”
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. May I know your names?”
“It is not necessary for you to know our names,” said one.
“We will ask the questions. You will answer them,” said the other.
She studied the two young men, decided she was not intimidated, and chose to startle them by saying, “Let us begin.”
“If you please, we decide when we start and stop. This phase of your interrogation will concentrate on your activities and contacts since coming to Russia. Since you have been here for nearly three years, there is much to review.”
The questioning, dull and dreary and repetitious, went on the rest of the day and into the early evening. Sometimes the two men stayed in the booth, one pacing beside the table or standing behind her. Olivia was not permitted to turn toward him, even when he asked a question. Sometimes only one stayed with her. She knew the technique from her American experience and a few vaguely remembered television shows from her youth. Mutt and Jeff. Good cop, bad cop. But this version of Mutt and Jeff behaved precisely the same and were in many ways indistinguishable.
They finally took a break. A matron took her to the latrine. Upon her return, she found Colonel Raduyev in the room, along with a guard who’d brought dinner for two on a tray, paper cups and plates, no utensils. Although she had no watch and there were no clocks in the room or anywhere else, her stomach told her that it was past dinner and reminded her that she hadn’t eaten that day, or much the evening before.
“I will join you for dinner, Doctor Tolchinskaya.”
“In the hope that I eat more?”
“Yes, in fact. It is one of the most important points to be made when armies train their people how to behave as prisoners. Eat everything they give you. You do not know when you’ll eat again. It is important to keep one’s strength up.”
“I will try.” She examined the contents of the tray the guard had placed before her. Included were two pills, valium and codeine.
“We assume you need these.”
“Thank you. Prolonged sitting used to be almost unendurable. Now it is merely extremely unpleasant.”
“How do you cope at your lab?”
“I pace a great deal and I often work at a standing desk. An entire wall of my office above the waist is white board. I hope my notes weren’t erased.”
“They have not been. What are you working on?”
“I am thinking about being able to activate sensors and other circuitry through signals sent over a commercial cell phone.”
“Interesting. We found some magazines in your flat. They’re in Japanese. You have not noted that as one of your languages.”
“It isn’t. I subscribe to a Japanese knitting magazine. You need not know Japanese to be able to read a Japanese knitting pattern, although I know a few kanji, or characters. I recognize for example, the kana for silk. But if you look at the pattern in my valise, you’ll see it’s almost entirely graphical and that the graphics correspond to the texture and shape of the fabric. If I taught you how to read the graphic, you could knit the pattern.”
“But you said you don’t know Japanese.”
“I do not. I recognize a few kanji, that’s all. If you like, I will write you a list of the kanji I recognize, in Russian, because I cannot write Japanese characters themselves. And then, if you like, I will also show you how to read and work the pattern I am knitting so you can see for yourself that you do not in fact need to know Japanese to knit a Japanese pattern.”
Raduyev’s sense of the absurdity of the case was growing stronger. “How do I know that these patterns do not contain coded instructions?”
She looked at him oddly. “The patterns would be very wrong and the magazine’s subscribers would let them know.”
“No, I mean, what if certain patterns were prearranged signals and…we’ll pursue that later,” he heard himself say hastily. “Have you had any contacts with any Japanese nationals while in Russia?”
“No. I order off the Internet. It’s all done by credit cards.”
“But those are Japanese sites. Therefore, you have had contact with Japanese nationals.”
“No, the sites are hosted in Japan, but I deal with a graphical user interface.”
“A what?”
“A computer screen.”
“How did you come to knit Japanese patterns?”
“I was introduced to them by Madame Getmanova. As beautiful as Russian and Shetland lace styles are, Japanese lace is from another universe.”
“I will ask Madame Getmanova about that.” Between question and answers, Olivia was picking at her food again, not really eating. “Will you please eat?”
“Yes.” She chewed and swallowed politely.
“What else do you correspond with Madame Getmanova about?” Another wary look from Olivia. “Yes?” Raduyev prodded her.
“Russian marriage and family traditions and customs.”
“I see. Did you save this correspondence?”
“Was I supposed to?”
Slightly frustrated, Raduyev glared at her. “Do you often answer questions with questions?”
“It’s a Jewish thing.”
“You would do well not to remind us that you are Jewish.”
“Shall I also not remind you that I am an American and a woman?”
“If you answer a question with a question one more time…” He caught himself. “You do know that all our sessions are being video-taped, don’t you?”
“Yes, you told me so. What is the problem?”
“The problem is that you’re making me look unprofessional!”
“I am?”
“You are. You seem to have a tendency to take things over.”
“I do?”
“Stop that this minute!”
“Very well.”
“I’m going out for a cigarette.”
“You do know those are bad for you, don’t you?”
Raduyev stalked
out. Mutt and Jeff returned, except that this time it was two new Mutt and Jeffs—or was it Mutts and Jeffs, she wondered—making a total of four. Like the first two, they were young, strong, and indistinguishable. This time they carried paper, pens, and what looked like a thick dossier. It was certainly thick. The repetitive questioning, the always probing for inconsistencies or changes, began again. Olivia began to become aware of a strange sense of the world behind the window. During the afternoon, she had intuited Raduyev, then sensed an absence, as though the recorder might be unattended. Now she sensed the first team behind the window, watching her.
After several more hours, everyone was becoming a bit dazed and lost. Olivia could read Russian upside down but she didn’t need to look at their question lists even right side up to know the sequence. One young man, looking down at the sheet and rubbing his eyes, paused a moment.
“‘Have you used any illicit or unauthorized drugs?’” she prompted.
“No,” both young men replied automatically, and then, realizing what they had done, began to stammer an admonition.
“I know. I know,” she said, gentle and weary. “I’m supposed to answer the questions, not ask them. Isn’t that right?”
Raduyev and the first team, watching from behind the mirror, shook their collective heads. This had the makings of an extremely unfunny personal and professional joke. He dismissed the two young men, then walked into the interrogation booth. “I think we’re all done for the night. Doctor, a matron will escort you to your cell.”
At the Wednesday noon meeting, after another four-hour shift, this time with Olivia one-on-one with each of her interrogators in turn, Raduyev had the beginnings of a quiet, low-grade mutiny on his hands.
“Have we found anything on the good doctor?” one of the young men who had answered the question about illicit drugs asked.
Raduyev shook his head. “And we’ve running out of places to look. Very well, comrades. Keep it up. I’ll take her for lunch. After that, two shifts of two, three hours each, and I’ll take her again in the evening. I know it’s boring and disheartening to keep going over the lists. So let’s just start talking with her. Maybe she’ll let something slip. But please…don’t let her take over the interrogation. Again.”