His work for Soviet Psychiatry Watch was 99 percent clerical. He did interviews with people who had been released from psychiatric hospitals. From these talks, he created databases, meticulously kept in forty-two notebooks concealed behind a loose tile under his bathtub. Another 215 notebooks had already been smuggled out of the Soviet Union to SPW headquarters in Amsterdam through a sympathetic attaché at the Dutch embassy by the name of Koos van der Laan. Danilov had never been to Amsterdam. He hoped to go someday.
Who was he kidding?
Some of Danilov’s research was published anonymously in émigré journals in Europe, Israel and the United States. Or so he was told. Most of it, however, remained in the notebooks. The notebooks represented eight years’ work.
For this secret occupation, the ambulance provided the perfect cover. He had a state salary, a state-supplied apartment in Moscow, use of a state vehicle and lots of night hours alone. He was as happy as he could imagine being. He was glad to be Russian, and he was honored to be part of Russia’s struggle. Often, Danilov was in awe of what he was doing. He considered himself a simple man.
Who was he kidding?
In his interviews with former inmates, he was part prosecutor, part sympathetic ear. Many of the people he met were still suffering from the effects of their antitherapy. When they cried, he handed them a handkerchief; when they trembled, he held their hand; when they had no place to sleep, they spent the night on his floor (provided his wife and four-year-old daughter were at the dacha). But when the business of the interview got underway, Danilov was transformed into a prosecutor. He tolerated no vague answers. Was the nurse’s name Chermuka or Chermyuka? Did she dispense fifty milligrams of Sulfazine twice per day or one hundred milligrams once per day? Did the patient say he was from Saratov or Saransk?
He pressed relentlessly for names. Who was your lead physician? Yes, we know him. Your nurse? Yes, we know her. Your night nurse? That’s a new one. What can you tell me about her? Was the club they beat you with wooden or rubber? Were you bound with rope or wire? What patients did you meet? No name? Then just the first name. No first name? Then give me a description. Was he younger than twenty or older than eighty? Okay! That’s a start!
A detective reconstructs a crime after it is committed. Danilov workedas the crime was taking place. And it was a new kind of crime, better understood than it had been when the KGB began to use it widely in the late 1950s, but still mysterious and always changing to fit the times. It wasn’t as though you could book a tour of a special psychiatric hospital. It wasn’t as though medical students received textbooks with chapters on how to use drug-induced Parkinson’s disease to reduce a healthy person to an automaton who needed help walking. Punitive medicine took place behind high walls topped with barbed wire. Those who went in never came out the same.
The chief practitioners of punitive medicine needed to be identified, their crimes documented, so that one day, when the hour came for justice, fingers could be pointed and specific charges brought.
Who was he kidding?
This was the 99 percent. The other 1 percent — the work of an undercover spy — was what concerned Pavel Danilov now. And if he was any good at it he knew he would not be making this contact. The second phone call from Victor Perov had been very peculiar. It was reason enough to cancel the meeting. On the telephone, Perov had seemed confused. He said he wanted to reconfirm the meeting. Why? If Perov hadn’t known the proper code word and phone number, Danilov would have thought it was a different person calling.
But Danilov, normally a patient man, was impatient to put this meeting behind him. In all the thousands of cases he had researched, he had never come across one like Inmate 222. The poor man was kept in a cell with the worst mental cases of Little Rock Special Psychiatric Hospital, one of a dozen such hospital-prisons in the Soviet Union. The patient’s real name was never used, just the number, 222. His drug regimen was aggressive. In another six months he would be a vegetable, if not dead, which, all things considered, might be the most merciful outcome. Already, 222 would be suffering some memory loss.
Danilov had heard about 222 during a routine interview in February. Later, he convinced a Little Rock orderly with whom he cooperated (on an economic basis) to take the extraordinary risk of copying part of the case file. Danilov was terrified just to possess it. He had hidden it in seven different spots around his apartment. No place seemed good enough.
Now, as Danilov sat in his ambulance watching the shadows around River Station for signs of pursuit, he carried in his breast pocket a document from that file: Inmate 222’s admission slip, the only place where the man’s name appeared:
Anton Perov.
When Danilov saw the name, he understood why the case was so extraordinary. But when he saw who had approved Perov’s commitment order, he wished that he had never heard the name Anton Perov.
To be committed to a special psychiatric hospital, one did not have to stand trial. Indeed, the whole purpose of having such asylums was to incarcerate people for crimes not described in the criminal code — just declare them insane and they were out of the way. That’s why these prison-hospitals were kept under the jurisdiction of the KGB, not the Ministry of Health. Admittance required signatures from two people: a KGB agent from the Fifth Directorate and a prosecutor from the Ministry of Justice. But Anton Perov’s admittance form bore neither of the required signatures. The first signature was that of Yuri Belov, the number-two man in the Leningrad KGB. That made no sense. The second signature was of the deputy minister of agriculture of the U.S.S.R., and, as it happened, the patient’s mother:
Yevgenia Perova.
Danilov read the newspapers. He was aware that the careers of both of these people had taken exceptional turns since signing that admittance form. Belov had been promoted to KGB major general and transferred to the director’s personal staff in Moscow. Perova had been elevated to the Central Committee and made a candidate-member of the Politburo.
Danilov was tired of fretting over this. Amsterdam assured him that Victor Perov could be trusted and had even assigned the code name “Sigmund” so that a reliable contact could be established. Tonight Danilov would put this Perov business behind him. He would give the admission slip to Victor Perov. Then he would go back to his beloved notebooks, back to the 99 percent. He would go back to writing his book, themagnum opus he would one day publish.
Who was he kidding?
He turned over his engine and started toward his meeting at Berth 4-A.
Victor Perov reached Berth 4-A and stopped. The wharf was deserted. A river cruiser, theAlexander Blok , was moored there. A few lights shone from the cabins. Twenty feet below him, the Moscow River, swollen by spring runoff, lapped against the sides of the ship.
Rechnoy Vokzal was Moscow’s central port. From here, ships went as far north as Leningrad and south to the Black Sea. Large cruisers like theAlexander Blok were moored alongside small ferries, party boats and dozens of knifelike hydrofoils,rokety , which carried commuter traffic through the network of rivers, canals and reservoirs formed by the confluence of the Moscow and Oka Rivers. Victor had been to Rechnoy Vokzal many times as a student, traveling with friends to a picnic ground somewhere farther up the river. Those had been happy days ofshashlyk , vodka, guitar, a little skinny-dipping and then, if all went well, a private stroll in the woods with one of the girls.
Six years earlier, Anton had joined him on one of those summer picnics. It was one of the last meetings between the twins that did not end in an argument. Everyone got drunk and played soccer. As usual, Anton was the best player and scored three goals. Later, with extravagant flair, Anton played the role of master chef for the shish kebabs. When someone suggested that Anton join a particular girl in the woods, Anton smiled coyly. No, he replied. He had his eye on someone at the university, though the girl didn’t know it yet. Victor had brooded at the time that his twin could be so over-serious as to remain faithful to a girl who didn’t even know of his affection. A
s it turned out, the girl was Oksana Filipova.
The mooring ropes of theAlexander Blok groaned.
On a summer afternoon, Rechnoy Vokzal bustled like an amusement park. But at 2:15 on a freezing morning in April, the port was as spooky as that same amusement park after hours, when the rides are closed and the clowns go about without makeup, nipping vodka from flasks.
Sigmund was not here. Victor shrugged and started back along the path he had come.
On the bank above him, two headlights sliced the darkness. They were moving down the steep road from the station to the river. They grew closer. Victor stood still, waiting. Behind him lay the gigantic stern of theAlexander Blok. After a few seconds, Victor was able to identify the vehicle. It was an ambulance.
It came nearer. Quickly. Too quickly.
The ambulance picked up speed down the hill and sped across the wharf straight for the river. Victor leaped to his right just in time to avoid being hit. The ambulance reached the edge of the wharf and sailed off the pavement. Airborne, it glided silently into the darkness over the river. It glanced off the stern of theAlexander Blok , twisted and fell to the water, grill up. There was a tremendous splash. Victor ran to the edge and looked down. The ambulance was sinking rear-end-first into a boiling kettle of bubbles. By the light of theAlexander Blok , Victor saw the driver through the front windshield. He was a dark-haired man, perhaps thirty years old, with a black beard. He didn’t move. Sigmund? Lights came on in cabins all over theAlexander Blok.
Victor kicked off his shoes and jumped feet-first into the river. He hit the water and went under. He rose to the surface, gasping from the cold. He located the ambulance and started toward it. It was twisting like a screw on its way down. Someone shouted something from the deck of theAlexander Blok.
Victor reached the ambulance, which by now had sunk up to the back of the passenger cabin. The driver was unconscious, seated like a cosmonaut on the launch pad. Victor struck the window with his fist.
“Open the door!” Victor cried.
The man didn’t move. Victor tried the door handle, already six inches under water. He pulled, but all he did was draw himself against the side of the vehicle.
“Wake up! You’re going to drown!”
Victor tried the door handle again, but by now it was too far underwater. The freezing water was sapping Victor’s strength. He sensed he was losing the battle. He beat frantically on the passenger window, but the man did not move.
The flooding water reached the man’s back and lifted him off the seat. His limp body turned and Victor gasped. A spot of blood painted the man’s forehead.
A bullet hole.
In seconds the cabin filled with water and the ambulance went down in front of Victor. He trod water a minute in disbelief. Bubbles rose around him.
Someone on the deck of theAlexander Blok threw Victor a life preserver. It hit the water a few feet away. He swam toward it and grabbed on. He was numb and exhausted.
They pulled him by rope to the side of the ship. As he was dragged, Victor looked back at the spot where the ambulance had gone under. The river no longer boiled. All was calm again. The water lapped against the side of the ship. People shouted somewhere overhead, but he kept looking back at the spot on the river where the ambulance had gone down.
Sigmund was gone. The river had swallowed him up.
12
The night began as another exercise in tedium for traffic policeman Konstantin Tarasov. It was after 4:00 A.M., and the northern Moscow suburb that was Tarasov’s post was quiet. Tarasov sat in his cold booth reading a cheap thriller about a dedicated KGB agent outsmarting CIA dimwits. Tarasov laughed out loud at the well-dressed, worldly KGB hero who spoke exotic languages and knew all about French wines. Tarasov had never met a KGB agent who drank anything but straight vodka. Who would trust a Russian who drank anything else? Still, Tarasov couldn’t read enough of these thrillers; sometimes he raced through two a night. His job gave him lots of time for reading. His chief responsibility was controlling the traffic signal at the intersection of Leningradskoye Shosse and Ulitsa Krasnoy Armii, which meant sitting in his two-story booth and pushing the buttons — red, yellow, green — as traffic demanded. By the time Tarasov came onto his shift at midnight the traffic signal was already set for blinking-yellow. He would pour a cup of coffee from his thermos and pull out one of his novels.
At 4:07 A.M., the radio on his shoulder hissed.
It was the handset, which meant the caller was either Grigori, a half-kilometer south, or Misha, a half-kilometer north.
“Konstantin?” said the voice.
“Go ahead, Grigori.”
“We got a bullet. Coming up fast.”
“Drunk?” A driver almost had to be drunk to speed at this time of night. He would be passing dozens of boredgaishniks like Tarasov who would love nothing more than to break the monotony by stopping a lawbreaker. Sometimes Tarasov got so lonely he pulled over cars just to see who was in them.
“He’s weaving pretty bad. I’m going out.”
“Understood. Be careful.”
Tarasov set down his novel. He pictured the clumsy Georgian making his way down the ladder from his booth and then lumbering out onto the highway. Tarasov climbed down the ladder himself. He peered up the highway. Headlights approached Grigori’s post.
Konstantin radioed north to Misha. “Be alert. Grigori’s got a bullet.”
“Yeah.”
“Get your lazy ass out of that chair!” Konstantin barked.
“Okay. Okay.”
In the headlights Konstantin could just make out the silhouette of Grigori. He was on the highway with his baton out. Grigori’s voice hissed over the radio.
“Devil, it’s achlenavoz. ”
This was slang for a black Volga. Literally, it meant “member carrier,” as in “a-car-that-is-carrying-a-member-of-the-Communist-party.” But “member” was also slang for penis. Tarasov winced. On the streets, the expression was common enough, but to hear it over a police radio annoyed Tarasov. Grigori had worked south of him for all of the two years Tarasov had been assigned to traffic, and his comrade’s vulgar familiarity was a sign that he had deduced Tarasov’s feelings about the Party. It occurred to Tarasov that he had been getting too friendly with his men.
“What’s the number?” asked Tarasov. License plates were coded — “K” for KGB, “MOS” for Moscow City Council, and so on. Yellow was foreign mission. Red was diplomatic. The system was supposed to be secret, but every Muscovite knew it.
“Just a minute. I’m trying to see. Damn, why doesn’t he dim his lights?”
There was a screech of tires, and the radio crashed.
“Grigori!” Tarasov cried into the radio. “What the hell’s going on?”
“I’m down! Son-of-a-bitch swiped me.”
Tarasov took off at a full run for his car, which was parked in the median of the divided highway. The Volga was coming fast toward him now. As he ran, Tarasov radioed ahead to Misha. “Grigori’s down! Repeat. Grigori’s down! Get over there with your car. He may need to go to the hospital.”
“SOP is to call an ambulance,” said Misha.
Tarasov was still running. “Too slow. He could be hurt.”
“I’m not supposed to leave my post — ”
“Misha, goddamn it! Get your ass over there. That’s an order. I’m going after the car.”
“Yes, Inspector.”
The Volga sped past just as Tarasov turned over the engine. He flipped on the siren and hit the gas.
On good roads Tarasov’s Moskvich was no match for the Volga, but this far from the center the asphalt was a battlefield of potholes. The driver couldn’t hit top speed, and Tarasov knew where to weave. After a four-mile chase, he came up behind the Volga, and it pulled over.
The plates were issued by the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet.
A real big shot.
Tarasov got out and went to the Volga’s open window. The driver was alone in the car. He was abou
t fifty years old with thin gray hair and an expensive watch on his wrist. He wore a tailored suit with a tie that was pulled loose. Tarasov could smell the vodka on the man’s breath. Tarasov saluted.
“Good evening, Inspector.”
“Get out of the car.”
“Now, Inspector, I’m sure we can — ”
“I said, get out of the car. Now!” Tarasov boomed.
The man handed Tarasov his red Communist party card. Twenty rubles was stuck in the pages.
Tarasov glared at it. “Are you attempting to bribe me?”
“What the hell are you talking about? That’s a week’s wages. Take it.”
“Get out of the car, comrade.”
The man narrowed his eyes. “Do you know who I am?”
Tarasov pulled open the door and snatched the man from his seat.
“You hit an officer of the State Automobile Inspectorate this evening, comrade. You’re going to jail.”
“I did? I mean, I only saw him at the last minute. It was so dark.”
“You are under arrest for suspicion of driving while intoxicated. At this time I will take you to headquarters where you will be given a sobriety test. Depending on the results of that test, charges will be brought against you.”
“Charges! Are you insane? I’m a people’s deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. Let me go now and maybe I won’t have you busted in rank.”
Tarasov slugged the man hard in the stomach. He doubled over and dropped to his knees. “Garbage,” Tarasov muttered.
He put the man in cuffs and led him to his car.
The station was quiet when Tarasov arrived with his prisoner, and he took him directly to the holding area. “Do a sobriety test on this one,” he told the duty officer. “Let me know the results right away. I’ll be at my desk.”
“Yes, comrade inspector.”
Tarasov went to his desk and got right to work on the arrest paperwork. Later, he felt someone standing over him. He turned and looked up at Major Karl Rostovsky.
The Forbidden Zone Page 12