Ted, Terry, and I sat on a bench to the left of the nymph. On this chilly December morning, the three of us were the only people sitting out there.
“How did Oleg react when you approached him?” Terry asked, getting the conversation rolling. “He was expecting just your father, right?”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call him friendly,” I said. “Unfortunately, I made a joke. It didn’t go over too well. He didn’t think it was too funny.”
“You made a joke?” Ted asked. “What kind of joke?”
“A glasnost joke.”
The agents looked at me and then each other. “You know any glasnost jokes?” Terry asked Ted.
“I don’t think so. You?”
“Me, neither,” Terry said, and then to me: “What was the joke?”
“You want to hear it?” I asked.
“Yeah!” the agents said almost in unison.
I told them about the guy who was so sick of all the lines in the old Soviet Union, he went to shoot Gorbachev, but the line was too long.
“And Oleg didn’t find that funny?” Ted asked.
I figured Ted was messing with me.
“I think it’s hilarious,” Terry said.
“You would,” Ted told him.
I told the agents how Oleg wasn’t much of a talker and seemed more comfortable interacting with my father than with me, not that he seemed too comfortable interacting with anyone. I said I’d been able to chat him up a little, discussing what I’d studied in graduate school and how I was in the company now.
“I think I made a little progress with him,” I said, exaggerating the stiff interaction a bit.
I gave Terry the new list. I said I was sure Oleg would return in a few weeks to pick up these books and place another order. Then, as vividly as I could, I described the kind of person Oleg seemed to be. I gave special emphasis to the freebie books.
“What a cheap ass he was!” I said. “Are these guys that broke? They have to come to small businesses and take free shit? A box of wire hangers from the dry cleaners? A bucket of ketchup packets from McDonald’s?”
Ted started laughing. “I believe it,” he said. “They’re awful.”
The senior agent said that some of the diplomats got subsidies from the UN to pay for their tolls on New York bridges and tunnels. “Then they go out of their way to use the free bridges. They complain that the tolls are supporting the American government—and really, they just want to pocket the money themselves.”
I told them that my father had a theory about the booze the Russians often brought after they went home to Moscow. “My father says they don’t actually buy it there,” I said. “They get it dirt-cheap from the Mission, or they pick up a few bottles at the duty-free store.”
“Sounds about right,” Terry said.
I count that conversation in Straus Park, which lasted no more than fifteen minutes, as my first operational meeting with the FBI, the first time I was reporting to the agents about something I had picked up in the field. It might not have been much. It was just my initial impressions and a few stray details. But I’d had my first face-to-face conversation with a Russian diplomat, and I’d passed my own intelligence to the FBI. I’m not saying any of it was valuable. But that is how trust is built, and I hoped I was building some on both sides of the post–Cold War divide.
* * *
Nine weeks later, Oleg returned to Dobbs Ferry, for all the usual reasons: To pick up the books he had asked for. To order some new ones. And yes, to fill his Hefty bag with sweeping armloads from the restocked shelves. It was the dead of February, and as usual, Oleg simply showed up. No call beforehand. No prescheduled appointment. No heads-up of any kind. Expecting this, I’d been making sure to be around the office as much as possible, arriving early, staying late. I didn’t want to miss Oleg. My other hope was he’d arrive when my parents were out.
Success on both counts: I didn’t miss him, and they weren’t there.
He stepped inside the front door but came no farther. After he stood there for a moment, I walked over to him.
“Hello,” I said.
“Good morning,” he said in that soft, flat voice. “Is Naseem here?”
“He isn’t,” I said. “My mother isn’t, either. Is there something I can help you with?”
He paused. “I see. Will they be back later?”
“Not today.”
“I see. Perhaps I should come back another time.”
The whole point was having Oleg establish a rapport with me. My parents were out. This was the perfect opportunity. I didn’t want to let it slip away. Who knew when Oleg might return? If he thought something was wrong here, would he come back at all?
I pedaled hard. “You’re more than welcome to come back later,” I told Oleg. “But my parents are spending less time in the office. They told you they’re retiring, right? Their schedules are very erratic, you know. I’d hate to have you return and miss them again.”
I could tell he was studying me, trying to process what I was telling him. For the first time it occurred to me that there was a very real possibility the Russians had done some research of their own and decided my parents were safe to do business with. I was an unknown.
“I’m sure I can help you,” I told him.
He took a breath and finally agreed. “I am here to pick up my order,” he said.
“It’s not a problem,” I said. “I can go and grab it for you.”
“Uh-kay,” he said.
I didn’t get the feeling that he disbelieved me. It was more like this was a new development for him and he was taking it in. He didn’t seem like someone who reacted well to surprises.
I headed back to the storeroom and found his cardboard box. As usual, the box wasn’t sealed yet, and the invoice was sitting on top. I carried the box out to the reception area and placed it on the coffee table. “I believe we have everything here,” I said. He didn’t check.
I handed Oleg the invoice. He looked at it carefully. He paid his money with the usual sweetener added on. He left another list. Then he reached into his trench and pulled out his trusty Hefty bag and got busy at the bookcase.
As he left, I had the feeling that this time I’d made some actual headway. He hadn’t expected me to be in the office. He assumed he’d see my mother or father, like he and all the Russians before him usually did. I could tell he didn’t like that. But at least he and I were talking. And even that little conversation gave me hope that we might be heading somewhere.
CHAPTER 9
* * *
NETWORKCENTRIC
To get their hands on secret information, the Russians liked a technique perfected at American convenience stores by generations of thirsty sixteen-year-olds. In my town, we called it “slipping it past ’em.”
“Okay, I want a Lean Cuisine, a jar of applesauce, two D batteries, a child’s toothbrush, a six-pack of Bud—oh yeah, and an Us Weekly.” We’d say that as casually as we could, hoping the clerk wouldn’t respond, “Hey, wait a second! You’re a teenager! You can’t buy beer!”
They must have had something similar in Russia.
Over the years, I had laughed with my parents when one Russian or another tried to bury a classified document or a restricted report inside a routine order for research books. But the first time I witnessed a Russian slip it past ’em was in 2006, when Oleg showed up at the office in Dobbs Ferry—unannounced, as usual—one steamy August day.
He issued a few awkward pleasantries, then cast his gaze, as he always did, on the book-giveaway shelf. As I went to fetch his order, he began loading the freebies into his plastic garbage bag. Nothing out of the ordinary so far. That was Oleg. After paying me in cash for the order, rounding up generously, he handed me his latest wish list. It contained a dozen or so books and articles, plus a printout about a conference that had been held in
Washington earlier that year.
“What’s this?” I asked him with all the charm of a harried 7-Eleven night clerk.
“Oh, yeah,” he said as if he’d almost forgotten. “Are you a member of this organization? Would you be able to get the proceedings from this conference for me?”
I glanced at the printout he’d handed me. “IDGA,” it said. “Institute for Defense and Government Advancement. 5th Annual Conference on Networkcentric Warfare.”
Hmm.
I’d heard of networkcentric warfare. It was a theory of war articulated in the mid-1990s by Admiral William Owens and others in the U.S. Defense Department. The basic idea was that we had far better computer technology than most of our enemies did, so we should try to translate America’s information superiority into practical military advantages for our troops on the battlefield. Network sensoring systems, shared situational awareness, full-spectrum dominance, rapid target assessment, reduced operational pause—those were the buzzwords of networkcentric warfare. It was a hot topic in defense circles when Oleg expressed his interest to me. I knew nothing about this particular conference. As far as I knew, it could be a walk-in presentation open to anyone with a single-ride MetroCard. But I promised Oleg I’d find out what I could.
As much as I wanted to keep a dialogue going, maybe finally crack this guy’s stiff facade, it was a little creepy having him in the office. I noticed a couple of people casting uncomfortable glances in his direction, as if to say, “Oh, him again.”
“I’ll look into it for you,” I promised before he left the office that day. “I will let you know either way.”
He was gone as quickly as he came.
* * *
The IDGA, I vaguely recalled, catered to government officials, mostly from the Pentagon, and people from the technical side of the defense industry. Part networking group, part training platform, part idea lab, the organization and industry events were “dedicated to the promotion of innovative ideas and latest developments in public service and defense.”
Defense wonks trading information for fun and for profit, if you prefer the English translation.
From a quick Google search, I learned that the IDGA’s network-centric warfare conference was held in January at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, one block from the White House. And yes, the conference seemed to be a whole lot more than a gathering of IT hobbyists. It was, to quote the brief hype material I found online, “a unique opportunity to learn from and network with over 800 senior-level military and industry colleagues.” The speakers’ first-string players from this muscular-defense world: General Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave the keynote. John Ashcroft, former U.S. attorney general, also spoke.
I passed Oleg’s request to one of the researchers in the office, as I would any order. I was trying to pretend that Oleg was just another customer. “Get what you can,” I said.
The researcher came back a couple of days later, saying he had tried everything he could think of but had pretty much struck out. “It’s not generally available” was the way he put it to me. “I don’t think we can help with this one. You have to be a member of the organization to get this kind of access, or you have to have attended the conference.” There seemed to be a complicated credentialing process for any of that.
I asked the researcher if he had any other ideas. He said he didn’t. This wasn’t going to be easy, I concluded. We weren’t likely to get these conference proceedings by simply strolling in the front door at IDGA. And I couldn’t see myself arriving on cables suspended from the ceiling like Tom Cruise did in Mission: Impossible.
But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I saw Oleg’s request as a golden opportunity. He was asking for material that was clearly off-limits to him. If he’d asked my parents, they would have simply told him no, as they’d told him and his predecessors many times before. Had Oleg picked up on my signals of openness? Or had he decided to roll the dice on me? Either way, I hated the idea of returning to him empty-handed. If I wanted to deepen our relationship, I’d be missing an opportunity.
I was eager to talk to the agents. Maybe they would have an idea. Ted and Terry agreed to meet me in the rose garden at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. As long as we had business to do, I thought we might as well do it somewhere nice. That stinky August, the cathedral garden was one of the few pleasant and secluded spots in all of New York.
“I’ve been trying to get these conference proceedings for Oleg,” I explained to the agents. “They’re different from the usual things he’s been asking for. I don’t think that’s by accident. But I’ve basically hit a dead end.”
I told them I wasn’t ready to give up yet. “I have this feeling that he might be probing me,” I said, “trying to figure out what I have access to, what I am able to get for him, how I feel about the rules of secrecy, how far I am willing to go for him. I’m not even sure how much he cares about the conference. I guess what I’m saying is I think he’s testing me.”
“For what?” Ted asked, the obvious follow-up.
“Hell if I know,” I admitted.
Ted and Terry didn’t agree to jump in immediately. But they seemed to like the fact that I was thinking strategically and trying to tease out the Russian’s motives. At least they didn’t dismiss me outright, as I’d feared they might.
“That’s all very interesting,” Ted said.
“I can tell Oleg, ‘Look, I can’t get this for you. I’m sorry.’ But what would I do if this was real, if I really was ready to spy for him? I’d try to get it for him, right?”
Ted and Terry seemed to get my logic. But we ended our rose-garden conversation on a noncommittal note. “Okay,” Ted said, “let’s think about this.”
* * *
There wasn’t any rush. We knew we had three months or so before Oleg would return.
Ah, not quite.
Oleg turned up again at the Dobbs Ferry office in mid-September, less than a month after he’d last popped in. As usual, he came without any warning. I just looked up, and he was there. This habit of his was becoming annoying. He made planning impossible. I didn’t want to miss him. I felt like I had to hang around the office. That was no fun. And he continued to make the other employees uncomfortable. Our customers were spread across the country and around the world. This wasn’t an office where the customers dropped in at random. Besides all that, I wasn’t ready for him.
I hustled Oleg outside as quickly as I could. After some perfunctory small talk, he turned quickly to what I assumed was the reason for his speedy return. “You have those conference proceedings for me?”
All I could do was put him off. I didn’t want to tell him I’d tried and hadn’t gotten the material. “I’ve been swamped around here,” I said, which was true but not the reason. “I’ll get on it soon. I’ll try and get them for you.”
As soon as Oleg left, I was on the phone with Ted and Terry. “He’s still asking about that conference,” I told the agents. “I can try one more time on my own and see if I can get this. But I have to be careful. I don’t want to stir up a whole bunch of suspicion. And I really can’t spend too much time on it. People in the office are already wondering about him. I can’t let this fuck up my business. We should decide if we want to get this for him—and how.”
“So how do you read it?” Ted asked me. I liked that he was seeking my opinion. “What do you want to do?”
“I wish we could find a way to get him that conference material,” I said. “I think it might build some trust between us.”
“Well, give it one last try,” Terry told me. “Let us know how it goes.” I said I would. I thought they could have been a little more helpful, but at least they weren’t telling me my analysis of the situation was wrong.
I found some additional conferences. There was a networkcentric warfare conference in Europe. I could atte
nd that one and report back to Oleg. Traveling abroad sounded like fun. But that didn’t answer his request for the Washington event. I got about as far as I expected on that one, which was nowhere, not that I had very long to try.
Oleg was back again in October, another one-month turnaround. Our rhythm was definitely changing here. I looked up from my desk one rainy Thursday morning, and there he was. This time I walked him out to the parking lot. We stood out there like a couple of drug dealers haggling over gram prices. He got around to the conference soon enough. Clearly, the former Russian military man was not someone who liked to let things linger. The man had to have an iron to-do list!
“I’m working on it,” I told him a little impatiently. “But this isn’t like ordering a book for you. It’s taking time. I think I can get it, but I have to jump through some hoops.” I lowered my voice. “You know, this is different. A completely new category. I’m not even sure I can get it. I may have a friend who might be able to help. But it’s going to cost you something. It won’t be cheap. You understand?”
He said he did.
As soon as he left, I went back to my office and called the agents again.
“Look,” I told Terry. “I have discussed with Oleg the difficulties. I need to be clear on what I should tell him. Are you guys gonna leave me hanging forever? Or can you help me get it?”
“Maybe,” Terry said, making me think he meant probably. “I’ll see what we can do.” I felt relief. Even without any solid assurances that he’d help, we began to discuss how I would explain to Oleg where I’d gotten the documents.
“The logical thing,” I said, “would be to say I relied on someone else to procure them. Either that or I signed up with IDGA, paid the fees.” I was thinking fast, coming up with ideas and tweaking them on the spot when I saw a problem. “Perhaps,” I continued, “just joining would yield results, but that would produce a paper trail, and I couldn’t be sure Oleg’s people hadn’t already tried and knew it wouldn’t work. This could all be a test. It would be better, I’m thinking, to let him believe I had someone on the inside helping me.” I liked the idea of planting the thought that I knew lots of people in lots of places. “To me,” I said, satisfied with my analysis, “that seems like the way to go.”
How to Catch a Russian Spy Page 10