The Deceivers

by Alex Berenson

  “Besides, you’re not fake.”

  “No I’m not. But suppose they catch me? Aren’t you worried I’ll give you up?”

  “I trust you to protect me.”

  Petrov saw his words land. They both knew he was voluntarily sharing the risk the American faced. With those last two sentences, he had jump-started a relationship that normally took years to build.

  “Fine. You handle me. Any other rules?”

  “Don’t be greedy. For information, I mean. Let it come. If we need something specific, we’ll ask. But don’t start poking at things that never mattered to you before.”

  “Adam. I didn’t know you cared.”

  After that first meeting, Petrov and Grad developed a routine. The SVR was wise enough not to burn the American by pressing too hard. The man was in an unusual position. He wasn’t a case officer, so he didn’t have access to individual agents. He would have raised suspicions if he pushed for details of ongoing operations.

  But he had latitude to demand after-action reports, as well as top-level analyses and the secret appendixes that detailed the raw intelligence behind them. Not just about Russia. All over the world. The topline assessments were valuable, but the appendixes were the real prize. They provided the specific intelligence sources supporting the verdicts.

  Even with his security clearance, Grad had to read them in secure rooms. An agency minder checked whatever notes he’d made before he could leave. But as he’d said, Grad had an excellent memory. In his first big coup, he’d helped the FSB find spyware the NSA had planted in its computers. A few months later, he told the Kremlin that the CIA’s Moscow Station was stepping up its recruitment efforts, including several specific targets.

  Petrov met Grad once every three months or so. They got along. The American was brisk and businesslike. Petrov mirrored his attitude. He didn’t ask for personal information or interrogate Grad about how he was feeling. Petrov felt those questions might only cause the American to reconsider his decisions. The man seemed content with the arrangement. The money piled up in his bank account month by month. He never mentioned it, and Petrov knew he hadn’t tried to take any out.

  Julianna hadn’t told Petrov of Russia’s long-term plans for the American, or even if it had any. But a few months before, she had ordered Petrov to find out what the CIA, FBI, and NSA knew about the SVR’s operations in the United States. Aside from hacking or other cybercrime, do the agencies fear that Russia is planning attacks on the United States homeland? Are the FBI or DHS tracking Russian teams on American soil? Does the CIA have a retaliatory plan if the United States finds out that Russia has attacked its citizens?

  Petrov passed along the questions. Twelve hours later, Grad signaled, the first time he had ever asked for an off-schedule meeting. They met the next day at a long-term parking lot near Dulles, a scorching summer afternoon.

  “Nice car.” Petrov hadn’t seen the Challenger before.

  “It’s all right. What’s this new list, Adam?”

  “What they want, they want. They don’t tell me why.”

  Grad stared at Petrov with hollow-point blue eyes. “Then put me in touch with someone who can.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you. These questions—the only reason to ask them is if your people are planning something here.”

  Grad was right, of course. “Maybe.”

  “Not what I signed up for.”

  Petrov’s turn to stare. Did the American really think he could pick his assignments? He belonged to the SVR now. Petrov needed to make him understand without saying so.

  “You don’t want to answer these, don’t. I’ll tell them.”

  “Then what?”

  “Probably nothing.” As vague as possible. Not even a threat.

  The American nodded as if the reality of their relationship had hit him for the first time.

  “We’re not friends, our countries,” Petrov said. “You knew this when you signed up.” He leaned across the front seat, put a finger in the older man’s shoulder. “It’s why you came to us in the first place.”

  Under the hood, the big engine hummed and ate gasoline. Through the vents, the air conditioner blasted an arctic jet stream. Global warming wasn’t even a dream in this car. Petrov sat back and waited.

  “Yes,” the man finally said.

  “So don’t pretend you care now. Whatever we do, it’s what you want.”

  Petrov knew he was taking a chance pushing the American this way. Grad was breathing hard, like he’d run one of those marathons he liked. He reached across Petrov, opened the door. “Out.”

  “Think carefully—”

  “Out.”

  The hot soft pavement sucked at Petrov’s sneakers as he watched the Challenger wheel away. He cursed himself for overreaching. He’d overestimated the American. The man wasn’t ready to face the extent of his betrayal.

  Driving home, Petrov realized how much trouble he might face. Grad might demand a new controller. Anger and pride might even spur him to walk, figuring the SVR had too much invested in him to burn him. In that case, Julianna and everyone else would make sure the blame stuck to Petrov. The SVR would order him back to Moscow. It might even try him for dereliction of duty.

  He wondered when he would have to admit to Julianna what had happened, decided to give himself a week. He waited six miserable days before his burner phone buzzed him awake. A blocked number.

  “Did you tell your bosses I told you to get lost? Bet you didn’t.” Pause. “It’s okay. What you said, you were right. I’ll get what you asked for.” Then he was gone.

  Yet the answers that Grad eventually passed hardly seemed worth the trouble. The agencies didn’t think that Russia would risk a full-scale operation in the United States, given the risk of blowback. They thought more hacking was the most likely strategy. Petrov sent along the information, waited, heard nothing more. The months ticked by, a new year began.

  Then: Dallas.

  Petrov hadn’t known the quiet American suburbanites around him could be so furious. The morning after the attacks, he saw three white guys screaming at the Arab clerk who ran the 7-Eleven on Perry Road: Go home, we’ve had enough.

  Lived in Maryland all my life, the man said.

  Not anymore. One reached out and slapped him.

  These Americans wanted blood.

  Petrov wondered if his people had been involved with the attack. Before the Russian presidential election in 2000, bombs killed three hundred people in Moscow and other cities. The Kremlin blamed Chechen terrorists. But most observers, then and now, believed the FSB had carried out the bombings. The service wanted to make sure that its preferred candidate—who was running on a law-and-order platform—would win the election. Intelligence agencies called such operations, carried out by one country but blamed on another, false flag attacks. And if Russian security forces would kill Russians that way, they would certainly kill Americans.

  But a false flag attack on United States soil risked huge blowback. The move was too risky if Russia’s only goal was to rile Americans against Muslim terrorism. Anyway, the attackers in Dallas were obviously genuine jihadis. Petrov didn’t see how Russia could have found them, much less given them orders.

  Then he saw Senator Birman’s speech in Nashville. A guess at what his masters might be planning came to him. The next morning, he found a message from Julianna ordering a meeting with Grad. With a new list of questions. Petrov nodded as he read them over. More evidence supporting his theory.

  Unfortunately, Grad was on a hunting trip in Texas. They couldn’t meet until the following Monday, more than a week after the attack.

  But it had passed, and here they were, under the National Harbor Casino.

  Classical music, dark and heavy with violins, rang from the speakers. Petrov didn’t know the com
poser. The man in the driver’s seat jabbed at the dashboard touch screen until the violins were a whisper.

  “Adam,” the man said . . .

  “Colonel,” Petrov said.

  Colonel Eric Birman (Retired). Decorated veteran of the Special Forces. Chief of staff for his cousin Senator Paul Birman. American hero.

  Spy for Russia.

  “What couldn’t wait?”

  “Your cousin’s speech.”

  Petrov handed Eric the list of questions from Julianna. Eric studied it in silence for two long minutes, handed it back. Petrov didn’t need to ask if he’d memorized them.

  “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “All right. One other question. Your cousin—is he going to run for president, do you think?” Petrov would need to handle this conversation carefully. If Eric Birman had become a spy out of jealousy over his cousin’s success, hearing that the Russians were hoping to make Paul president wouldn’t improve his mood.

  Birman turned up the music and they sat in silence.

  Finally, Petrov turned off the radio. “So, yes?”

  “He’d run for emperor, if he could.”

  “You should have been Russian. You hate with a majesty.”

  “Maybe he even thinks he can win.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  Birman drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  “Imagine. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away—California. My cousin was sowing his oats. Fervently. He was twenty-six, twenty-seven. He got a girl pregnant. Sixteen. Henry tried to take care of it—”

  “His father?”

  “Yes, Adam, his dear old dad. The original Senator Birman. Uncle Henry. Sent lawyers to get her to, you know, terminate. Offered a million bucks. She had the baby. Papa don’t preach. Signed a confidentiality agreement. I think we pay her five thousand a month, sixty grand a year.”

  “But if it’s stayed secret for so long—”

  “Running for your daddy’s Senate seat is one thing. Hometown boy, hometown papers. You go for the White House, reporters tear open your whole life. They’ll find her.”

  “The confidentiality—”

  “Even if she sticks to it, it doesn’t cover the kid. It can’t. He wasn’t born when it was signed, and he couldn’t sign away those rights. She wasn’t supposed to tell him. But if she hasn’t, she will now. Wouldn’t you tell Junior that your father is gonna be president of the United States?”

  “Can she prove it?”

  “You mean, was there a DNA test? I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. The kid looks just like him. And there may have been another girl, too. If there was, she took the money and had an abortion, which is why I can’t be so sure, but Bobby—”

  “Who?”

  “Robert. My other cousin. Paul’s brother. He hinted about it a couple times. Back in the day.”

  “But why would Paul run, then?”

  “You don’t understand how the world looks to my cousin. He’ll convince himself it won’t come out, that no one will believe her, that maybe the kid isn’t his after all, that people will look past it. But they won’t. People in this country, they’ll put up with a lot from their politicians, but not this. It’s not just that he knocked up a teenage girl, it’s that he never took responsibility. So you can tell your bosses that if they’re hoping I’m going to ride Paul to the White House, they’d better come up with a Plan B.”

  “I see.” Petrov saw something else, something he would keep to himself. If reporters didn’t find out about Birman’s love child on their own, Eric would tip them. He couldn’t abide the idea of his cousin becoming president.

  “Good. I’m glad. My turn, Adam. The thing in Dallas, was that yours?”

  “I don’t know. Truly.”

  “I know, you’re just the water boy. But you know your people. What do you think?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Because I’ll tell you, the agency, the FBI, they’re freaking. They can’t figure the C-4 or how Shakir got radicalized. And they think more’s coming. But like I said, if the point is to get Paul elected, then you’re killing people for no reason.”

  “I understand.”

  “Anything else?” Eric jabbed at the touch screen and the violins came up. “Otherwise, I have to go. Since the speech, things are crazy. He picked up two million Twitter followers in a week. Say this for my cousin: He’s the man of the moment.”

  9

  COLFAX, WASHINGTON

  Three a.m., but every light in the trailer blazed. Tom Miller sat at the kitchen table, reading about Roswell. He had slept no more than three hours a night since Allie left. He was starting to wonder if he was dead already, waiting in Purgatory for Allie to resurrect him.

  If she didn’t . . . he would stay here until he ran out of money and the sheriff’s deputies made him leave. Three, four years tops. Then he’d have nothing left of her. Not even the memories this place gave him, that first night she’d stayed over, the first time they’d made love. The way they’d walked along the railroad tracks, feeling the steel vibrate as the big trains rolled close.

  On the day they kicked him out, he’d drive west until he came to the coast south of Cape Flattery, the big cliffs over the Pacific. He’d bust the Highway 101 guardrails and see if that fancy pickup could fly.

  Problem solved.

  Meantime, he had empty hours to fill. He smoked the pot Allie had left. He reread his Sniper School manuals. He delved into the Internet’s dark corners, the ones filled with conspiracy theories about Masons and Jews. Them. He couldn’t stop thinking about that last conversation, the night before Allie left. What she’d said. And left unsaid.

  I’m dirty inside.

  Like trying to punish God. No point even thinking about it.

  What hurt the most, Allie hadn’t trusted him to protect her. She knew he’d fought in Afghanistan. Was she afraid he didn’t love her enough to do the same for her? Or that he wasn’t big enough to face the truth?

  He went looking for it. He learned that the Illuminati were working to establish a New World Order. That the Mafia had assassinated John F. Kennedy. That the World Health Organization had invented AIDS to destroy Africa. That President Bush had ordered the September 11 attacks, and the Mossad had carried them out.

  In Miller’s lucid moments, he understood that he was filling his brain with junk as a way to avoid thinking about Allie. But with every bong hit, the fantasies wormed their way deeper into him. They weren’t true.

  Unless they were.

  He tried to call Willie Coole, his old platoon sergeant, to talk. The number was out of service. Maybe Willie had troubles of his own.

  Tonight, he was reading about Roswell, UFOs. Even high, he couldn’t buy the UFO stuff. A bunch of aliens were smart enough to build spaceships. Then they got lost in New Mexico and let the government lock them up. Miller knew firsthand the U.S. military could barely handle a bunch of ragheads. It wouldn’t have much chance against the eight-eyed monsters of Alpha Centauri SEAL Team Infinity.

  Most analysts think the aliens were moved to a secure facility at Area 51, in the Nevada desert—

  One ironclad rule: The weirder the font, the weirder the conspiracy theory.

  A knock on the trailer’s front door jolted him from his reverie. His first stoned thought was that the aliens had come. He grabbed the 9-millimeter that he kept under the sink.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Tom?”

  They sat side by side on the couch, not quite touching. Like their first night. She reached for the bong, pushed it away. Miller wanted to smash it. He didn’t need to be high anymore. He didn’t need anything but her.

  “Everything in my life that’s good, I blow it up.”

  “There’s nothing you can say to blow us up.”

  “
Guess where I went?”

  “Back to L.A.?”

  “Sioux Falls. South Dakota. Ever been?”

  “It’s on my top ten list.”

  “You’re funny. Twelve hundred miles. A day and a half on the bus. I got there, seven o’clock at night, I found a motel, cleaned myself up. And I did what I always do: Went to a bar—an after-work place—let guys buy me drinks.” She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was crying.

  “It’s okay, babe.” Although the thought of her being with someone else, some insurance agent in a suit, made him want to set the world on fire.

  “It’s not what you think. I could only think of you. I had to leave.”

  Somehow, he knew the story didn’t end there. He wanted to tell her, Whatever it is, don’t say it, I don’t want to know. But he didn’t.

  “I went back to the room. I couldn’t sleep. All night. I was waiting for a sign. Then I saw him on TV, and that afternoon I went back out. And I didn’t go anywhere nice, I went to the worst place I could find and I—”

  “Stop.”

  “Wasn’t even any pleasure in it—”

  “Stop, Allie.”

  “Forgive me.”

  He loved her more than he ever had. Hated her, too.

  “After a couple days of that, I knew I had to come back to you or die—those were my only choices—and I wasn’t ready to die yet. Here I am.”

  “What did you mean, you saw him on TV? Who’s him?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’ve only told this to three people ever and none of them believed me. They said I was crazy, Tom.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  She reached for the bong and lighter and then put them down.

  “You know how I told you I grew up in San Antone, my parents got divorced when I was twelve, me and my mom went to Chicago?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s too bright in here, Tom, I can’t do it this way.”

  He turned off every light but one and came back to her.

  “The truth is, when I was eleven, both my parents died. Car accident. Three of my grands were dead, the fourth had Alzheimer’s. My dad didn’t have family; my mom had one sister up in Illinois. Terri. She was a few years younger than my mom, maybe thirty-one, thirty-two, when my folks died. I only saw her a couple times growing up. Looking back, my mom didn’t want me near her.”