Deep Undercover

by Jack Barsky

  For the next nine months, Penelope lived alone with her baby, fully dependent on a fake husband for support and with little hope for a secure and happy future. During the week, her only companions were Chelsea and a color TV. On weekends when I wasn’t busy with work for the Center, I often drove over and took the two of them to a nearby park. But for the most part, I was so wrapped up in my work for MetLife and the KGB that it never occurred to me to wonder how it must have felt for Penelope to endure that kind of seclusion. That experience left another big gash in our marriage of convenience.

  It didn’t take long for Chelsea to shed the look of a newborn. Every time I paid a visit, I noticed something new. Her large dark-brown eyes were her first distinguishable feature, before she began growing a full head of curly jet-black hair. Her toothless smile stirred something in my heart I had never felt before. But what sealed my affection for her was the day I entered her room and found her standing in her crib, holding on to the rail. As soon as she saw me, her entire face lit up with the most radiant smile I had ever seen. Without any words, the message was clear: “I love you, Dad.”

  Love tiptoed up on me—at first almost imperceptibly, but in the end, undeniably. And this love was unconditional. It came from deep within me and wasn’t linked to or rooted in desire. It was pure and powerful. All I wanted to do was take care of this little one and protect her, expecting nothing in return.

  Along with all this love grew an equally strong emotion: guilt.

  Like a torturing demon that never left my side—when I awoke, when I was at work, when I was doing my KGB activities, and when I closed my eyes to sleep—this guilt hounded me with the one question I couldn’t answer: How are you going to take care of this helpless baby?

  Guilt is a hard emotion for anybody, but the fact that I felt it at all showed that I was becoming a different person. The wall of protection I had built around my heart—the impenetrable armor that had allowed me to walk away from numerous human connections with only a tinge of remorse—was beginning to crumble, and I had no idea how to stop the process.

  When Chelsea was nine months old, the landlord in Queens told Penelope that she had to vacate her apartment. After a two-week search for a reasonably priced alternative yielded no results, serendipity once again came to the rescue. Our real estate agent showed us a spacious two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a two-family home in Ozone Park.

  There have been many occasions in my life when the word serendipity seems the most appropriate descriptor. I used to think it was accidental dumb luck, but I’ve come to believe that it was actually the hand of God working in the background of my life to open doors I didn’t even know existed and lead me onto a path that only He could know and foresee.

  As I inspected the apartment, it occurred to me that the layout made it suitable for the three of us to live together. There was a small study at the far end of a long hallway that would allow me to continue my operational activities—primarily radio reception and secret writing—without being disrupted or discovered. After mulling it over for a day, I talked to Penelope about it and signed the lease for us to live together.

  When we moved into that apartment in April 1988, I made it very clear that I was never to be disturbed when I was working in the study.

  “I’m working on some intricate computer code that could one day be sold for a lot of money,” I told Penelope, and she never once knocked on the door while I was holed up in that room.

  Out of our new togetherness, the seeds of a somewhat normal family life began to sprout. There were more walks in the park and more opportunities for Mom and Dad to spend time together with their always smiling baby. There was a first birthday party and Chelsea’s first tentative steps. And there was a visit to my office, where all the ladies shrieked with delight at the sight of my beautiful little girl, with her dark, curly hair and big, curious eyes.

  One day, while Penelope was waiting for me in the lobby at One Madison Avenue, she put Chelsea on a table near one of the elevator banks. At one point, a woman approached slowly with a curious look on her face, and when she came close enough to see, she let out a startled cry.

  “Oh my! I thought this was a doll!”

  These times when people made a fuss over Chelsea made me swell with pride. After all, this was my child.

  Summer came and went, and by autumn 1988, it was already a few weeks past the agreed-upon end date of my ten-year assignment in the United States. I wasn’t sure why there was a delay, but I didn’t broach the subject in my communications. My mind was like that of the haunted creature in the famous series of expressionist paintings by Edvard Munch called Der Schrei der Natur—more commonly known as The Scream. Like me, the tortured soul in those paintings is covering his ears as if to avoid the persistent question of an ever-present demon.

  How are you going to take care of this helpless baby?

  My demon also had an ally—time—which was moving relentlessly forward and would ultimately force an answer to the unanswerable question.

  Confessing my sin to the KGB was out of the question. It would only trigger a punishment of unpredictable severity. All I could do was wait and hope that a solution would miraculously appear.

  IN EARLY DECEMBER 1988, the clock finally ran out for me.

  As I translated a shortwave radiogram from digits into letters, the message began to sound more and more ominous.

  PREPARE FOR URGENT DEPARTURE. WE HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THAT YOUR COVER HAS BEEN BLOWN. YOU ARE IN SEVERE DANGER. LISTEN ON THIS FREQUENCY EVERY DAY TO RECEIVE FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. CONFIRM RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE WITH SIGNAL AT REGULAR SIGNAL LOCATION. THIS IS AN ORDER.

  I left my little study and softly closed the door behind me so as not to disturb Penelope and Chelsea, who were already asleep. I heard Chelsea stir, but luckily she did not wake up. I leaned against the wall, drained of all energy, creativity, and drive.

  I had no idea what to do next. So I stalled and did not set the signal. As a result, the Center could only assume I had not received the message.

  Exactly one week later, the radiogram from the prior week was repeated verbatim. Again I ignored it, while furiously searching my mind for a solution to this dilemma. By now, the comrades at the Center would be trying to make sense of the situation. There were all kinds of possible reasons for my silence. Maybe I had fallen ill or been injured, as had happened a few years earlier. Maybe the shortwave signal had degraded to a point where it was no longer audible. Maybe I had accidentally destroyed the pad used to decipher the messages. Or worst of all, maybe I had already been arrested and was under interrogation.

  After another week passed, the Center escalated the emergency drill. On Monday morning, I spotted the danger signal on my way to work. A resident agent had placed a large red dot on a metal support beam for the elevated tracks at 80th and Hudson, which they knew I passed every day. The meaning of this signal was unequivocal: Leave the country immediately, using the predetermined emergency route.

  The meaning of immediately was quite literal. When I saw the warning, I was supposed to grab enough money for a trip to Toronto, retrieve a set of emergency documents—including a Canadian birth certificate and driver’s license—and cross the border as soon as possible. I was then to travel to Toronto, where I would contact the Soviet embassy, and the comrades there would make arrangements for my exfiltration.

  On one of my early forays into the boroughs of New York City, I had stashed my emergency documents in a safe, long-term outdoor hiding place in the Bronx. But instead of following orders and retrieving my travel kit, I ignored the screaming red dot and continued on my commute to work.

  The Center finally decided on a last desperate measure. A week after the first appearance of the red dot, a resident agent approached me on the subway platform and whispered an ominous phrase that would rattle around in my head for a long time: “You must come home or else you are dead.”

  I was stunned but not panicked. After looking around and ascertai
ning that nobody could have overheard this brief encounter, I got on my train as usual and went to work. I didn’t get much done that day, however, as my mind wrestled with a million thoughts.

  One thing was clear: I couldn’t stall any longer. The KGB now knew that I knew, and I was forced to choose. I must either obey the order to return home with a reasonable explanation for my temporary silence or find a way to ignore the order and stay in the United States.

  Applying logic and weighing the consequences of either decision, I wrote down my thoughts.

  IF ALBRECHT GOES HOME . . .

  IF JACK STAYS IN NEW YORK . . .

  Rejoin my German family and live my life in peace and safety.

  Take on a double risk—either of going to jail because my cover had been blown or of being kidnapped or assassinated by the KGB.

  Be a hero in my own country and enjoy the rewards the KGB had promised, including a single-family house in the suburbs.

  Assuming I wasn’t caught or killed, continue to live the life of a programmer residing in a modest apartment with Penelope and Chelsea.

  Reconnect with old friends.

  Retain my new friends and my very satisfying job as a computer programmer.

  Find the peace that would come with a fully legal existence in my homeland.

  Lead a peaceful, quasi-legal existence for the rest of my life.

  Rejoin a system and a party whose viability and validity I had begun to question.

  Enjoy the freedom the United States grants its citizens.

  Never see Chelsea again.

  Never see Gerlinde and Matthias again.

  Lose the ability to support Chelsea. (Considering that her mother has only four years of formal schooling, Chelsea may grow up in poverty.)

  Not be able to support Matthias directly. (This concern was somewhat mitigated by the knowledge that he was supported by a functioning family structure and that the GDR generally did not let children slip through the cracks.)

  For any reasonable man motivated by self-preservation, the equation was severely tilted in favor of returning home. However, I was not the same coldhearted, mission-focused individual I had been in the past, who would choose only the most logical and self-serving option.

  During my time with Chelsea, I had discovered my heart. It was as if she made me human, perhaps more human than I’d ever been. When I looked at her face, so innocent and pure, so trusting and dependent, there didn’t seem to be a choice at all. Though staying in the US was utterly risky and completely foolish, somehow this sweet little child’s mere existence put the equation in balance.

  I still hadn’t made a final decision by the following Thursday, when I deciphered the weekly radiogram. The Center was calling me for a dead-drop operation the very next day.

  The location for the operation was Clove Lakes Park on Staten Island. After retrieving the container with a passport and travel money, I was to immediately leave the US and make contact with a KGB representative in Toronto.

  It was around 11:00 p.m. when I finished deciphering the radiogram. Chelsea and Penelope were already fast asleep. I kissed them both lightly on the cheek, still uncertain about what I would decide to do. After getting very little rest that night, I left early the next morning before the two of them awoke. Though I was committed to complete the drop operation, I was not yet committed to leave the country. Once I retrieved the travel documents, though, I would have to choose.

  I drove my car to the Hunters Point Avenue station of the #7 subway line and took the subway to work, arriving shortly before 8:00 a.m. For the next four hours, I stared at the flickering green display of my computer screen, unable to do any real work. At lunchtime, I excused myself under the pretense of a splitting headache. I then took the Queens-bound #7 train, retrieved my car, and drove to Staten Island. The drop operation was scheduled at 3:15 sharp, as usual.

  As I walked through the heavily wooded park, I had every reason to believe the operation would be routine. It was a cold late-autumn weekday and the park was essentially deserted. The location, which I had selected and transmitted to the Center, was one of my favorites, with a drop site next to the roots of a large fallen tree about 300 feet from the edge of the park to the right of a narrow, winding walkway.

  As I approached the area, the “container deposited” sign was clearly visible on the designated lamp pole. When I reached the fallen tree with my plastic shopping bag at the ready, I expected to see an old oilcan nearby. But at first glance, I saw nothing.

  Maintaining the casual posture of a man on a stroll in the park, I looked around more thoroughly.

  Still nothing.

  After a minute or two, the truth began to sink in: There was no container.

  This can’t be!

  In my confusion, I widened the search perimeter, but to no avail—there was no container to be found.

  During my ten years as an active agent, I had conducted six dead-drop operations and six meetings—and every one of them went like clockwork. There was no reason for this time to be any different. The drop site was easy to find and identify, the signal had been set—I checked it again—but the drop had not been made.

  I couldn’t imagine that a passerby had seen my contact drop the oil can and picked it up, or that my contact had faked the operation and kept the money for himself. Both explanations seemed highly unlikely, if not nearly impossible.

  Without the travel documents, I couldn’t execute the departure plan. I think, subconsciously, that was exactly what I was hoping for—that someone or something would make the decision for me. Was it luck, or something more?

  Of course, I had the option of asking the Center for a repeat, but as I drove back to my apartment, the final decision took shape: I was going to take the risk and stay behind.

  All of a sudden, the anxiety I had carried in my heart for weeks—the worry of leaving my young daughter to an uncertain future and never being able to see her again—gave way to an inner peace I hadn’t felt in months.

  Making the decision to stay was one thing, but how could I make a clean break from the KGB? They weren’t going to let a rogue agent just walk away.

  Defection was not an option. By now, I had already betrayed my mother and brother, as well as Gerlinde and Matthias. I didn’t want to make things worse by betraying my country and my friends who still lived there. I was also concerned that the American authorities might put me in jail, deport Penelope, and make Chelsea a ward of the state.

  But what could I tell the KGB that would minimize the chances of retaliation against Gerlinde and Matthias—as well as keep me safe here in the US?

  The idea struck me like a bolt of lightning. During one of my meetings with Alex in Moscow, he had mentioned the AIDS epidemic that had ravaged certain sectors of the American population, and he had seen it as a clear sign of the decay of capitalist society. “We just need to be very careful not to let the virus in here,” he said. “I hope we will soon have a test to screen out infected would-be visitors.”

  AIDS—that’s it!

  At that time, an AIDS diagnosis was the equivalent of a death sentence. The Soviets wouldn’t want me back if I was infected, and in time they would assume I had passed away.

  I walked around for days thinking it through. Could it really work? It had to.

  I penned a letter using secret writing, telling the KGB that I could not return to Moscow because I had been diagnosed with AIDS three months earlier. To make my story as credible as possible, I traced my infection back to a woman I had dated and profiled in the past. I claimed she had caught the disease from a drug addict ex-boyfriend. I assured the Center that I would not commit treason by contacting the US authorities, that my focus was on getting whatever treatment I could, but the prognosis was not good. Finally, I asked them to tell Gerlinde the bad news and give her the savings of approximately $60,000 that had accumulated in my account.

  For days, I monitored the shortwave frequency every night, and every night there was action o
n the airwaves. I made no attempt to write down the message or decode it, but I knew what it said.

  “Come home or you are dead.”

  “Come home or you are dead.”

  “Come home or you are dead.”

  Then one day the voice went silent. No more mesmerizing dits and dahs in the ether. The Center had apparently received my letter.

  With amazement, I realized that this was the end. Everything I had worked for had now been abandoned—all for the love of a father for his daughter. Even more amazing to me was that I knew it was the right choice.

  Many years later, I found out that the big lie had worked exactly as intended. I had stumbled onto what was likely the only viable exit strategy—and I had succeeded in deceiving the mighty KGB.

  My established reputation for complete honesty must have played a role in their decision not to pursue me; they had swallowed my story hook, line, and sinker. During a final contact with Gerlinde, Sergej had handed her the $60,000 bankroll—what a fortune for an East German in 1988!—and told her I had died from AIDS.

  For several weeks after the radio transmissions went silent, I remained in execution mode. I burned the contact paper used for secret writing and destroyed the pads with the encryption numbers. As a precaution to avoid any “accidents,” I began to alter the pattern of my daily routine—changing the times when I would leave the house in the morning and return at night, and varying the route I took by alternating between two subway stations that were near my apartment.

  No one could have ever guessed what was happening beneath the surface in my life—especially my little girl. Whenever Chelsea saw me, she reached up her arms with complete trust and affection. She could say a few words by now, and the things she pointed out made me see the world with new eyes. Her unquestioning love for me both astounded and assured me that the risk I had taken was justified.