Traitor

by Jonathan de Shalit

  “They gave the young man another assignment to carry out. Unrelated to the Canadian agent. They had no idea that he had been uncovered, and they couldn’t have known, because the Canadians’ covert investigation into the engineer had yet to go public. Meanwhile, this so-called Thomas Langham, the Russian courier’s assumed English name, as you recall, was added to our list of suspects at all our border crossings. The instructions were clear: Encountering a man by the name of Thomas Langham, date of birth such and such, at any American border crossing requires an immediate report to the nearest FBI field office. The FBI has offices, and even operational squads, at all the major airports. When it comes to the smaller border crossings, a report has to be made to the local field office. Don’t detain the man, don’t touch his luggage, don’t take him aside for a customs check. Don’t do a thing. We don’t want him suspecting anything. Simply notify the nearest FBI office. If we’re lucky, we’ll be there and we’ll be able to follow him. If luck isn’t on our side, we’ll try to locate him via alternative means. If we don’t find him, we’ll wait for the next opportunity. Most important, we don’t want him to feel at risk and to cancel his plans.

  “And we got lucky. The man who called himself Thomas Langham arrived in the U.S. via Boston’s Logan Airport, where we have a surveillance team on hand on a permanent basis. Fortunately, too, the Homeland Security officials weren’t as dumb as usual, and everything went smoothly. Langham landed, waited almost an hour in line, his name popped up on the blacklist, they asked him the usual questions, stamped his passport, and off he went. FBI officials were already waiting for him by the time he got to the baggage carousel, waiting and ready to follow him. Tracking him became a lot simpler from the moment they saw what car he got into. It may be pretty easy to spot a tail when you’re driving a car, but not if you’re being monitored from the air. And the FBI had a drone. I told you we got lucky. Because the drone was in working order. The weather was good. And Thomas Langham set out in the direction of Rhode Island.”

  38

  MOSCOW, FSB HEADQUARTERS, FEBRUARY 2013

  “Names, names! The moron didn’t ask for names!”

  Captain Viktor Demedev was tearing his hair out—metaphorically speaking. His hair was so short that no amount of trying would have allowed him to get a proper grip on it anyway. Demedev was a desk chief at the so-called Credibility Department, the department responsible for preventing both current and former FSB employees from leaking secrets. The department’s name, Credibility, was a remnant from the Stalinist period. Back then, they still opted for awe-inspiring names that only die-hard cynics dared to secretly term pompous, archaic, or pretentious. Whatever the case, despite the upheaval experienced by the Soviet Union, and despite the changes the KGB itself had undergone, the name, Credibility, still remained in place. However, even though its name remained a constant, the department’s methods had changed significantly. Its members during the darkest days of the empire were viewed as the KGB’s butchers. And the widespread purging operations, to which the security services, too, were subjected, were carried out within the KGB by its very own people. Arrests in the dead of night, harsh interrogation methods, psychiatric and psychological manipulations, secret trials, and when necessary—a bullet in the back of the head. Over the years, these all gave way to bureaucratic, systematic, and well-organized intelligence work, to tenacious yet pertinent and humane interview sessions, and softer and more contained resolutions than in the past. There were those who longed in whispers for the days when things were put to bed at lightning speed, leaving no loose ends at all. The work the department did, however, remained professional and thorough, accompanied by a stringent, sometimes zealous, sense of duty. After all, who’s going to protect the FSB, this huge and magnificent security service, if not the members of the department? With infinite patience and endless determination, only they had the wherewithal to identify the risks and weed out the rogue employees whose individual weaknesses posed a threat to the strength of the whole.

  Demedev was holding the brief report that had come in from FSB headquarters in far-off Dimitrovgrad about the surprising visit paid to retired comrade Katrina Geifman. Yes, the system works, Demedev said to himself. At some point in her distant past, Geifman committed a serious violation of the organization’s security procedures, and she was dealt with wisely by means of a transfer to a remote city, far from the real secrets with which she had busied herself previously, to a desk position of little significance. She remained there under the watchful eyes of her superiors and the Credibility Department’s local representative. Until she was pushed a few years ago into early retirement and became a potential “person of interest,” someone whose behavior and actions were monitored from time to time. The FSB’s network of sources on the ground had been instructed to report anything out of the ordinary insofar as she was concerned. She was also required to report for a briefing once every two years. And her telephone line at home was subject to random tapping. And lo and behold, the moment something unusual did in fact occur, the system had functioned smoothly. The hotel reported its foreign guests, the informer at the taxi rank made a report about the foreign woman who had gone to Geifman’s residence, one of the neighbors added a report about an unusual visit to the house, and within two days Katrina was called in for questioning, defined as usual as a routine talk. All okay thus far. But that idiot Alexei Volkov, that moron, hadn’t even asked Katrina Geifman for the name of her guest, the daughter of that man she had known in the past, that man whose name Volkov hadn’t bothered to check out either.

  Demedev did that himself. Okay, not really personally, but my means of his secretary, who identified herself as a desk clerk at headquarters. She didn’t say she was from headquarters in Moscow, Katrina was supposed to believe she was from local headquarters in Dimitrovgrad. “I’m calling simply to fill in a detail or two, so that the report can be properly filed away. I’m sure you understand.” Yes, Katrina certainly understood. She herself had filed thousands of documents during her years in exile, with a separate copy for every name that was mentioned, because every name had its own dossier. “I simply wanted to know the name of the young woman who visited you.”

  “Galina Abramovich.”

  “Are you sure her name is Abramovich?”

  “Of course. She’s the daughter of Igor Abramovich. Actually, she told me that she’s married and has two children, with the eldest about to finish high school. Her surname may have changed, assuming she took her husband’s and didn’t keep her maiden name.”

  “Did you meet with her husband, too?”

  “No, him I didn’t see, and I’m not really sure she was with him anyway. I think she said she was traveling with a colleague from work. They were in Moscow on business, and then went on to Kazan. They stopped here on the way because she wanted to see me. But I don’t think there’s anything sordid going on there, she came across as a good woman. I’m sure they’re just friends.”

  “What’s going on between them is really no concern of ours. Okay, thanks, Katrina. You’ve helped. If I need anything else, I’ll be in touch, okay?”

  “Certainly. I’m happy to have been of assistance.”

  Demedev sat down and stared at the papers on his desk. Ya’ara Stein. That was the name of the woman who had visited Katrina Geifman. Not Galina and not Abramovich. Ya’ara Stein. Thus said the records at the hotel in Dimitrovgrad, and that was the name that appeared in the passport she showed to border control officials at the airport in Moscow. Born in 1979, thirty-three years old. Even if her eldest son were only sixteen, that would mean she had him at the age of seventeen. Unlikely. But possible. And yes, Amnon Aslan probably wasn’t her husband. At the very least, they didn’t have the same name, and in terms of their ages he could be her father. Demedev didn’t like what he was seeing. He didn’t like inconsistencies and he loathed particulars that didn’t add up. He knew life had its oddities, but things that appeared out of place required a thorough investigation. An in-de
pth probe. Never assume extenuating circumstances, and always carry out a detailed check into anything and everything that people tend to pass off as a slight unpleasantness. He pressed the intercom button and asked his secretary to bring him Katrina Geifman’s personal file. He wanted to recall why she had remained under suspicion and surveillance by the organization she had served for so many years.

  • • •

  Wrapped in a woolen blanket, Katrina sat down in her favorite armchair, her Dimitrovgrad home in darkness, all its lights turned out. The call from Alexei Volkov’s clerk was troubling her. She had sounded a lot less stupid than he had. She hadn’t called on a whim.

  Katrina had already exacted her great revenge. She had told that beautiful young woman all she knew about Cobra—the little that there was to tell. Now she only had to wait. She had paid them back and she was going to have to pay the price.

  39

  VIRGINIA, FEBRUARY 2013

  They listened with bated breath. Thomas Langham was on his way to Rhode Island. A drone was keeping watch over him from above. And an FBI surveillance team was waiting for him meanwhile on the outskirts of Providence, the capital of the tiny state. Michael could already tell where the story was going, and how it tied in with their Cobra mystery from Bill Pemberton’s perspective. But he allowed Bill to tell his tale. Ya’ara was sitting next to Michael, and his fingers brushed inadvertently against her hand. She squeezed his hand for a second and then let go, her eyes fixed on Bill’s face, over which shadows and tongues of flames from the fireplace appeared to be dancing. His eyes were shining. Aharon was slumped back in his chair across from their host, his eyelids almost closed. But the fleeting touch of hands between Ya’ara and Michael failed to escape his vision.

  “Okay, then,” Bill continued, in a show of the power of his memory when it came to even the smallest details, “the FBI team continued to monitor Langham. He settled into a small motel nearby Providence and didn’t leave his room until the following day, apart from a visit to a diner across the street for a pizza and two cans of beer. He didn’t call anyone or meet with anyone. Nothing. He left the motel the following day at around ten, after having already checked out. He had no intention of returning. At the request of the FBI, a police team, allegedly on the trail of a drug dealer, checked the room. You can be sure they turned it inside out, but they found nothing. Langham hadn’t left anything behind for someone to pick up. He drove from there to Brown University, without any wrong turns or hesitation. Either he knew the way very well or he was using Sat-Nav software. We learned subsequently that he had indeed used a GPS device, thus reinforcing our assumption that his visit to Brown University wasn’t a routine mission. The Russians were improvising—and when you improvise, you also make mistakes.

  “He appeared far less familiar with his surroundings once he got to Brown University campus. He stopped several times to read the signposts indicating the way to the various faculties, and he also asked students and staff members he encountered for directions. He eventually found his way to the Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, a small, three-story, brick building, with ivy-covered walls. On display at the entrance to the building is a splendid Greek marble statue, the half-turned torso of a muscular man, probably swinging a sword or wielding a dagger, on the offensive. But you can’t tell for sure, because his arms are missing. Anyway, the closest member of the surveillance team saw Langham enter the building and walk up the stairs. He emerged again a few minutes later. The team then continued to follow him, leaving two of its members behind. Langham walked quickly back to his car, delayed his departure for a few minutes, presumably to activate the GPS device and enter his next destination, and then drove straight to Logan Airport in Boston. Like I said, we examined the GPS device and Langham did in fact enter only two destinations, Brown University in Rhode Island and the airport in Boston.

  “And now,” Bill said with the self-satisfaction of a gifted storyteller rather than the dignified demeanor befitting an espionage official, “we return to the surveillance team members who were still at Brown. As you recall, both had remained outside the Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World. Two young team members, a guy and a girl. Their instructions were very clear. Zero friction with their surroundings. So they didn’t enter the institute, didn’t make any inquiries, and didn’t check who was in the building. But they did exactly what they were supposed to do. They verified that the building had only one exit, and then took up a position on a bench some distance away from it. They sat there holding hands for three hours and looked just like any other student couple on campus, he in his sweatshirt and she with her red baseball cap and blonde ponytail, and they photographed everyone who either entered or left the building. They then called in a second couple to replace them and continue to monitor the entrance to the institute. The objective was to then analyze the photographs and pick out the people who were in the building at the time Langham had gone in. The photographs of the people who entered the building were intended to rule out some of those who were also captured leaving it. Only those who left the building but weren’t caught on camera going in were marked as suspects, as they were already in the building when Langham went in. We ruled out a group of eight young men and women who were indeed in the building when Langham went inside but were subsequently identified by the university’s chief security officer as students who were attending a seminar class in a lecture hall on the ground floor. You recall Langham was seen going up the stairs immediately on entering the building. In other words, whatever he did there, it wasn’t anything on the ground floor. The professor giving the seminar class at the time was also thus removed from the list of suspects.”

  Bill was telling his story as if he had been a member of the surveillance team himself. Michael was sure he must have met with the team at least two or three times before arriving at an exact understanding of how everything had gone down, until he felt as if he himself had been there on the shaded lawn in front of the institute and until he had a clear grasp of the surveillance operation down to its very last detail. Someone like him surely went to Rhode Island himself to feel the campus slowly seep into his bones. That’s what he would have done, anyway. The place, any place, tells you its story. Teaches you things that are impossible to learn from afar.

  Bill continued. “The results were surprising. Aside from the lecturer and the eight seminar students, there were only four other people in the Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at the time of Langham’s brief visit. Three researchers and the institute’s legendary secretary, whose name, if I’m not mistaken, is Mrs. Ascot-Giles.” He wasn’t mistaken. “The three researchers were two professors, Professor Julian Hart and Professor Linda Baer, and a doctoral student, a young German man by the name of Kurt Assenheim. From Darmstadt originally.”

  “So what do we have?” Aharon asked, and then immediately answered. “On the one hand, Cobra’s handler, a man, in his fifties at least, a Russian intelligence officer deep undercover, an expert on the subject of the ancient world, or so he purports to be, who’s been living in the United States for a very long time, probably on the East Coast, or some other cold location, where it snows at Christmas. And on the other hand, a courier for the Russian intelligence service who meets briefly with someone from the Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World. One of four possible suspects flagged by the FBI and the CIA. Probably someone in the service of the Russians. But we’re obviously groping around in the dark. It’s nice after all to tie loose ends together, but we all know there’s no definite link between the Cobra affair and the Russian agent in Rhode Island, and Cobra’s handler could very well be at Yale or Harvard or the University of Chicago or in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan or a thousand other places whose names I don’t even know.”

  “Before you rush into a summation, dear Aharon, you’d be wise to listen to the rest of the story,” Bill said. “Look, we have just four suspects. Two women and two men. A very simple process of el
imination: You’re not looking for a woman, as Cobra’s handler is a man. And of the two men, only one can be relevant, since the German is too young. We conducted a thorough inquiry, the FBI and ourselves. Because we were convinced we had stumbled onto something big. Think,” and he turned to look at the three people sitting in the room, “we know that Thomas Langham is working in the service of Russian intelligence. We know that he came to the United States to carry out an assignment of some kind at the Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University in Rhode Island. He did nothing else at all between the time he arrived at Logan Airport and the time of his departure from there, less than forty-eight hours later. His destination thus was clearly Brown University. They didn’t even bother to fabricate a cover for him: He didn’t participate in a conference, didn’t engage in a prolonged meeting with one of the scholars. He went in, left, and that’s it. Something took place there. Let’s assume he relayed an urgent instruction or received certain material. We have no evidence to indicate what he may have done there. Sometimes you have to make do with probable assumptions. We also don’t know why the SVR chose to assign a courier of another agent in Montreal to the mission in Rhode Island. He arrived in Rhode Island and appeared very unfamiliar with the territory. That’s unprofessional. The assignment in the U.S. was new to him. But, as all of you sitting in this room are well aware, intelligence agencies, even the very best of them, make mistakes. And the Russians made a mistake and led us to another of their agents. We exposed not only the engineer from Canada, but also another one of theirs at the institute at Brown University.”