by Bryan Denson
Nathan parked his little blue Cavalier several blocks downhill of the consulate on a weekday morning in early October 2006. He climbed out looking road-weary but businesslike, having stopped at a rest area just before sunup to shave, slap some cold water on his face, and climb into his black suit. He hiked along Green Street, his back a little stiff from the eight-hour drive. Affixed to the front of the building was a brass plate emblazoned with Russia’s ubiquitous double-headed eagle. It read:
CONSULATE GENERAL
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
A tricolor Russian flag rustled from a pole atop the building. Nathan walked through a wrought-iron gate and made his way down a sidewalk to the public entry, which looked more like a servants’ entrance. His dress shoes treaded over steps covered with slip-proof sandpaper strips, and he found himself standing on a landing that overlooked the rooftops of mansions and a little patch of San Francisco Bay. Nathan pushed through a heavy wooden door into a room that looked like a marble tomb. It was appointed with the kind of institutional furniture you find in doctors’ offices.
Nathan hooked to his right toward a pair of windows, where he heard a woman’s voice behind thick glass asking if she could be of any assistance.
“I’m here to see the chief of security,” he said.
As he spoke, he slid a folded note under the glass. The receptionist picked it up and read it. This one, signed by his father, greeted his Russian friends and introduced Nathan as his son. She asked Nathan to take a seat and quickly disappeared.
Nathan crossed the marble floor and sagged into one of the cushioned chairs that made up an L-shaped couch. On the wall was a generic black-and-white clock. He waited for what seemed like a very long time, perhaps forty-five minutes or an hour, before a middle-aged man with a dark mustache and flecks of gray in his short-cropped hair opened a door.
“I’m to understand that you want to speak with me,” he said.
The Russian led Nathan down a hallway. They walked up a set of stairs to an office, then into an adjoining room with thick, padded walls—clearly soundproof—and took seats. The older man seemed to be sizing up this twenty-something visitor who had popped into the consulate in a discount suit and hair shaved to the quick.
Nathan reached into his jacket, producing his dad’s taped note, along with the envelope Jim had mailed to him. It held the old man’s letter and their father-son photo, which had been snapped by an inmate photographer in the prison visiting room. In the image, Jim and Nathan are standing together in front of a rendering of Oregon’s iconic Mount Hood, the conical glacier that rises taller than any other peak in the state. Jim is wearing prison khakis, his arm around Nathan, who is dressed in the same suit he now wore in the consulate.
The Russian looked it over closely and rattled off questions.
“Where were you born?”
“Makati,” he said. “The Philippines.”
“Tell me about your brothers.”
A trick question. Nathan explained he had one brother, and a sister. He gave their names.
The Russian wanted to know how he could trust he wasn’t an FBI agent wearing a wire.
“Look,” Nathan said, “you can search me right now.”
The Russian asked him to hand over his watch, phone, and wallet, and Nathan obliged. His middle-aged interrogator slipped out of the office for a moment. When he returned a moment later without his belongings, it was clear to Nathan that he had handed them off to someone else to copy his information and probably search for bugs.
Jim had saved $300 from his UNICOR earnings and released the funds from his prison trust account to pay for the suit. Nathan had needed business attire after accepting a part-time job that August as an insurance salesman for Bankers Life and Casualty Company in Eugene. Jim knew his boy needed to dress up to look the part of an insurance man. But Nathan had proved himself comically inept as a salesman. In the space of two months, he had managed to earn about $500 in commissions, after having paid $300 for his license. Nathan had no stomach for the insurance business, and he felt sorry for the senior citizens he pitched to buy policies. In fact, he spent less time closing sales than he did sympathizing with his aging customers and talking them out of buying policies they didn’t need. Within a few months, he would abandon the job.
The Russian glared skeptically at the photo, then at Nathan, and launched into an interrogation. He wanted details of his dad’s 1996 arrest for espionage, and Nathan gave him the basic story as he knew it. The Russian seemed unimpressed with his answers. He handed Nathan a set of papers that appeared to be a Russian visa application, and walked him back to the public waiting room to fill it out.
Nathan jotted answers with a ballpoint pen, giving up his Social Security number, date of birth, his mother’s maiden name, and the schools he attended. When he finished, he sat and waited. With each click of the plain-Jane wall clock, it seemed ever more obvious that he had entered the consulate under the misapprehension that the Russians were his dad’s friends. The meeting was clearly a bust, and he was ready to drive home to Springfield. But somewhere in the guts of the building, the Russian still had his phone, wallet, and watch.
After about an hour, the Russian fetched him from the waiting room and they returned to the padded office.
“I want you to know,” the Russian said, “we don’t trust you. We have no idea who you are.”
Nathan stared back, insulted.
“We want you to come back in two weeks,” the Russian said. He handed paper and pen to Nathan and asked him to draw a diagram of Sheridan’s visiting room. As Nathan sketched the room he knew by heart, the Russian asked what his plans were if someone caught him visiting the Russian Consulate.
Nathan said his cover story was that he was an architectural student who had come to the consulate to fill out a visa form so that one day he could visit Russia to study its architecture.
In an uncharacteristic burst of salesmanship, Nathan pitched the Russian.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t have much money for gas. Is there anything you can help me out with?”
The Russian shot Nathan a sympathetic look.
“I have nothing,” he said bluntly. “I’m going to give you nothing.”
The Russian hadn’t shared his name. Only much later would Nathan learn he was Mikhail I. Gorbunov, who was nearing the end of a two-year hitch in San Francisco. It may never be known officially whether Gorbunov was an SVR officer serving under diplomatic cover. But whatever his position, the Russian was smart to be skeptical. U.S. and Russian intelligence agencies had a long history of posing undercover as voluntary spies for each other’s services. Gorbunov was smart to be on guard for a false-flag provocation, responding carefully in a way that wouldn’t embarrass the federation or get him sent home.
Nathan walked out of the consulate into a gusty afternoon. He climbed into his car and pushed north over the Golden Gate Bridge. He pulled over that evening into a roadside rest stop just south of the Oregon border. He turned off the engine, settled back in his bucket seat, and slept like a stone. When Nathan woke, he still felt like a failure. He dreaded the idea of telling his dad that he came up empty-handed, and on the long slog northward, he tried to figure out what he did wrong. Second-guessing himself was his custom; nobody could pummel Nathan harder than himself. He replayed his conversation with the Russian over and over in his head. He had walked in hat in hand, carrying proof of identity, photographic evidence that he really did know Jim Nicholson; he had even gone so far as to diagram the visiting room. But the Russian had turned him away as if he were a fraud.
He felt as if he had presented a tapped-out credit card to a department store only to watch a counter clerk cut it in half. Except this was his father’s credit card. Nathan was embarrassed for his dad, and thought perhaps they were grasping at straws. He was certain that telling him about his shabby treatment by the Russian would
only make his dad feel worse.
Eight days later, he drove up to Sheridan to break the news. Jim was clearly disappointed, but he took it better than Nathan expected. He said Nathan should probably accept the Russian’s invitation to return to San Francisco the following Friday, October 27. But he told his son there was no shame in bagging the whole plan. This served only to push Nathan, ever the pleaser, back to the City by the Bay.
Jim phoned Nathan the following day, a Sunday, reaching him at home.
“You have a prepaid call,” said the recorded message. It was the voice of a woman without an ounce of personality. “You will not be charged for this call. This call is from”—now came Jim’s recorded voice, “This is Dad, Pa, Daddy”—“an inmate at a federal prison.”
Nathan knew to push 5 to accept the call, which would cut off automatically after fifteen minutes.
“Hey, Pa.”
“Hey, Nate, how you doin’ today?”
Jim sounded like a Montana rancher, his diction crisp and country. He and Nathan spoke alike, sharing the habit of repeating phrases—“Doin’ good, doin’ good”—and they even laughed alike. But Jim sounded older, with a little rasp in his voice.
“Hey, I got a verse for you,” he said. “God’s kind of opened it to me a couple of times in the last couple of days, and so I claimed it for you and me. It’s Isaiah 45:3.”
“Isaiah 45:3?”
“Yep.”
Nathan scrambled for his Bible and leafed to the 45th chapter of Isaiah, verse 3.
“I think you’ll see the relevance there,” Jim said. “It’s really gonna be a good one.”
Nathan found the verse and began to read aloud.
“And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness—secret riches,” Nathan read. “I will do this so that ye may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name.”
These were the words of God to Cyrus the Great, as recalled by the Prophet Isaiah. They were words of hope to the oppressed, part of a prophecy that Cyrus, the pagan ruler of Persia, would one day free the Jews from their bondage and return them to Israel.
The verse served as Nathan’s code from the prophet Jim that they would succeed with the Russians. They were wary of the CIA’s eavesdropping. Agency analysts pored over every call to make sure, among other things, that Jim wasn’t giving up classified information.
“Wow,” Nathan said. “I like that.”
“Yeah?” Jim said. “I claimed it for you and me.”
They laughed.
“That’s good news,” Nathan said. “That’s good news.”
Four days later, Jim phoned again to ask how Nathan was doing.
“Could be better,” he said dejectedly.
Nathan had traded in his Cavalier a few weeks back. The Chevy had a broken window and a big dent in the driver’s-side door, and its brakes and tires were tuckered out. He offered the Cavalier in trade, plus $1,000 payable in monthly installments, and drove out of the dealership behind the wheel of a white 2005 Pontiac Grand Am with just 28,000 miles on the odometer. Now, Nathan told his dad, the dealership said they screwed up the paperwork and that he had to pay $1,000 immediately or return the Pontiac.
“Oh, man,” Jim said. “Are you kiddin’ me?”
“No.”
“What?! How could they screw up like that?”
Nathan said he complained to the dealership, telling them they had signed a binding contract. But the dealership was adamant that he pay the thousand or return the Pontiac.
“So what, what’s going on now?” Jim asked.
“Well, I got my old car back.”
“You got your old car back?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh no. With the bad tires?”
“Yeah,” Nathan said. “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, you know? But I’m sure it will work out for the better.”
“Yeah?”
Nathan told Jim he hoped there would be a windfall in his future to take away the sting.
“Yeah,” Jim said. “I understand exactly what you’re saying. I’m just concerned about you. Are you gonna be able to get around in this car OK?”
“Oh yeah. It’ll be fine. It’ll last for what I need it for.”
“Well, you just be careful in it anyway,” Jim said. “OK, hon?”
“OK.”
“We’re praying for big things for you, OK?”
The following morning, Nathan steered the Cavalier onto I-5 and pointed it south. He had invited his cousin, Danielle Rogers, and her boyfriend, Jesse Mickelson, so they could have some fun and take turns at the wheel on the long drive. Nathan told them he was meeting an Army buddy in San Francisco, and he promised to spring for a hotel room.
They crossed the Golden Gate Bridge early on the last Friday in October, a clear, calm morning. They ate breakfast and climbed back into the Chevy. Nathan stopped the car a few blocks from the Russian Consulate and hopped out. He had lied to them, saying he needed to catch his Army friend before his flight back to duty. Jesse climbed behind the wheel, and Nathan told Danielle he would phone when he was ready to be picked up.
“I’ll be just a few hours,” he said.
A few moments later, Nathan pushed through the big wooden door of the consulate and told the receptionist he needed to speak with the chief of security. The Russian with the mustache appeared in a flash. Now he was a changed man, smiling and guiding his young charge into the bowels of the building. Back in the padded office, he bear-hugged Nathan and apologized for his previous skepticism. It was clear to Nathan that the Russians had vetted his story and now realized they had Jim Nicholson’s flesh and blood in their midst. The Russian asked Nathan how his family was doing.
“Doing just fine,” he said.
Nathan explained that he was in college, Jeremi had joined the Air Force, and Star was looking to put her degree in zoology to use. As for his dad, he said, he was still in prison and anxious to get out.
“Call me Mike,” the Russian said.
Gorbunov was careful not to give himself away completely. In fact, he took active measures to avoid identification. He slid a photograph under Nathan’s nose, the face of a man he’d never seen before. Gorbunov told Nathan that if the FBI should ever question him about their conversations, he should describe this man, not him. He gave Nathan a moment to memorize the face.
Gorbunov handed Nathan a small paper bag.
“This is five thousand dollars,” he said, apologizing that it wasn’t more. He asked his visitor to count it.
Nathan said he didn’t need to count it. But the Russian was adamant.
“Please, please count.”
Nathan counted fifty bills, each imprinted with the face of Benjamin Franklin. He had never held $5,000 in cash. The heft of so many Benjamins felt like a fortune.
Gorbunov told Nathan it was no longer safe to meet in the United States. He asked the young American to write down an address. Nathan plucked a business card from his wallet that read, “Nathan Nicholson, Insurance Agent,” with the Bankers Life and Casualty Company logo and the words, “We specialize in seniors.” Nathan flipped it over to the blank side and scribbled as the Russian dictated.
JOSE VASCONCELOS 204
COLONIA HIPODROMO CONDESA
DELEGACION CUAUHTEMOC, 06140
MEXICO, D.F.
Nathan had no clue that this, the address of Russia’s embassy in Mexico City, was one of the most famous places in the history of espionage. For at least two decades, the embassy served as a haven for spies, with an estimated 150 of them working undercover as diplomats, journalists, clerks, chauffeurs and other positions at the height of the Cold War. Some of America’s most famous spies sold U.S. secrets there, including two men who had served time at Sheridan with Jim. Christopher Boyce, of Falcon and the Snowman fame, had passed message
s to the KGB through the embassy, sending Andrew Daulton Lee, his boyhood best friend, as his courier. James Harper Jr. sold U.S. missile documents to Polish spies inside the embassy, and in other spots in Mexico, in the early 1980s.
Gorbunov asked Nathan to make sure he reached Mexico City early enough to walk into the embassy on the 13th of December for his next meeting. The Russian told him that before he flew south, his new contact needed answers to some questions. Gorbunov coached Nathan to code all of his questions and answers in a way that only his contact would understand them. His young American friend jotted notes on the blank sides of his business cards as Gorbunov posed questions about Jim’s travels for the CIA and the circumstances of his arrest. Nathan’s new contact would need answers when they met in Mexico City.
Nathan walked out of the consulate on air, astonished by his good fortune. His dad’s plan had actually come together, and he felt ashamed for having doubted him. Nathan celebrated by taking Danielle and Jesse to dinner. They beached up in one of those trendy blond-wood restaurants in Little Italy, where the entrees are “spendy,” as they say in Oregon, and the management crams tiny tables so close together that everybody in the joint could practically eat off the same plate. Nathan couldn’t tell his cousin or her boyfriend why he was so happy.
On the road home the next day, Nathan’s cell rang. It was Jim.
“Hey, Nate, I thought I’d call you and see what kind of hours you’re keepin’ these days.”
Nathan, caught off guard, couldn’t tell his dad he had invited Danielle and Jesse to San Francisco on a whim. That was not part of the operational plan.
“I’m on the road headin’ back now,” Nathan said.
“Oh, are you? Did everything go OK?”
“Yeah, everything went real well.”
“Oh, excellent,” Jim said. “Excellent.”
Nathan chose his next words carefully, making the news of his score sound as if it came from a break in what so far had been a specious run in the insurance game.
“Got a sale,” he told Jim. “For about, uh, five, uh, five K.”