“You want me to break off contact with one of my sources, is that it?”
He shook his head as if it hurt. “You will do what you want. But won’t you even consider the possibility that you are being used as a pawn by a group whose values you do not share?”
“Their information has been accurate so far. And Nikolai—I am onto a big story.”
She thought she might use his worry about her association with the Feliks people as a lever to pry open the KGB; curiously, his half-smile seemed to say he liked that—unless it was a reaction to her artful first use of his first name, remembered from his credential.
“Perhaps I could persuade my colleagues,” he suggested, “to be more helpful in finding the person you seek. But they would not want to aid the old apparatchiks—Madame Nina, Arkady Volkovich, that whole group of reactionaries. So long as you are with them, you are consorting with the enemy. The world has turned upside down, Liana—the new KGB is not your enemy.”
She touched the second videotape box. “I heard the old KGB had cameras everywhere in the Hotel Berlin next door, taking pictures of foreigners in sexual acts, to compromise them. You say you have changed, then?”
“Unfair. The search of you was a reasonable precaution. And the only copy of that tape is the one you hold in your hand.”
“It does not please me, knowing that these pictures of me with my clothes off may be played for the amusement of your colleagues.”
“Steal it,” he said. “Take a deep breath, stick it in the waistband under the back of your blouse. I understand that’s the best place to hide it. Then walk past the guards. They’ll never notice it.”
At that, she reddened again. “No. You will take it and walk out with me.” She looked hungrily at the release document on the table, set aside from the file. Its lies could ruin her. She knew how she felt about the friend she had discovered had betrayed her; she knew how all her friends in the former underground would feel if that paper were available to searchers of files. “Do you suppose that’s the only copy of that?”
He inspected it closely. “It’s the original. They didn’t have copying machines in Riga then. A handwritten copy wouldn’t be proof of anything.”
She wondered if he was going to offer a warm bed in trade; that was her experience of the KGB way.
“Push over that big ashtray,” Davidov said. He placed the document in it and lit it with his cigarette lighter, and they watched the sheet flare and burn to a crisp. She flicked her fingers along the top of her short hair and wondered what he wanted in return. If it was a night together, that would not be such a humiliation, except for the principle of it; he was an attractive man.
The KGB official lifted his jacket off the wall, made a face in the lens, and replaced the mirror. He beckoned to her to follow him out of the room, tossing an airy salute to the stern face of Iron Feliks. As he led her out of the building, the guards stiffened to attention. He led the way through the X-ray search, tape openly in hand.
Outside, Davidov handed the tape to her with an avuncular admonition: “Think twice about letting the Feliks people use you. If you need me, my numbers are on this card, office and home.” He wrote in his fax number, she presumed for emphasis.
“This cannot be the only copy,” she said, looking at the tape in her hand.
“I do not deny looking at it more than once,” he replied. “It shows that you are in some ways a beautiful woman, and you have a ballerina’s flair for suggestive movements that exquisitely deceive. You can believe me or not, but it is the only copy. And it does not belong in Lubyanka.”
“I choose to believe you.” She did not, but shook his hand firmly. Frowning afterward, she wondered what he meant by “in some ways” beautiful.
He flexed his fingers, liking the memory of the feel of her hand: on the bony side, long fingers, no-nonsense pressure and quick release. He also liked her calculated choice of words in “choosing” to believe him, which she did not, of course.
Davidov crossed his arms at the top of the steps at the front door and watched her walk past the Kazakh street merchants around the square. Hers were the long strides of the purposeful walker, rhythmic but not undulating, a woman certain she was being watched by the man she just left. Davidov knew he was not alone in the watching; he observed the Feliks shadow openly picking her up and the KGB shadow subtly picking up the Feliks shadow.
He felt noble at giving up the tape showing her fine figure in its nudity; as far as he knew, it really was the only copy. He was certain the fake release document he had burned had no copies; Yelena had created it only that morning, at his instructions, to be placed in Liana’s file—a piece of disinformation worthy of Shelepin, the power-purist who had raised that form of deception to a high art before he was deposed by a General Secretary fearful of his discipline.
Davidov took the elevator back to the Cheka room’s floor. Hands in his pockets, jacket over his shoulders, the economic intelligence chief looked first at the ashes in the glass ashtray and then directed his gaze at the portrait of Iron Feliks, whose Ozymandian statue no longer dominated the square outside, and whose feared name had been obliterated from street signs and maps.
In a sense, the sleeper was Dzerzhinsky’s direct descendant. Willing murderer, ideologue of authority, organizational genius, visionary—the strain ran from Iron Feliks through Shelepin to the man hidden in America assembling the economic power to destabilize a nation and deliver it back to the legatees of the unbroken Cheka line.
“The Director never does any fieldwork,” Yelena protested to Davidov. “Why are you doing this? If the Director makes a mistake, there can be no review.”
Davidov nodded. “Some American foreign service officers do not like summit meetings. They say, if the President misses the tackle, there is no one between him and the goal line.”
She was not familiar with the American football metaphor. “Remember how our dangle took in Casey himself, and the whole CIA was a laughingstock? That could happen to us, with you doing fieldwork yourself.”
He shrugged. She was right, but the time spent with Liana Krumins had been the most enjoyable hour he had spent in months.
“You wanted the original birth certificate of this woman,” she said. “Here it is. The facts on the replacement copy in the file are identical, down to the hour she was born.”
He laid the two documents side by side, verified that, then examined the original. Davidov, trained in the more practical aspects of epistemology, was attuned to anomalies, and here was one plain to see. All the facts of name, date, hour, hospital were in one handwriting in one color ink, but the name in the space for father was in a lighter shade. The father’s name—a Latvian name—was filled in by another hand, days or months later, seeking to imitate the other handwriting. There was no erasure or other alteration; the space had been left blank, presumably until a suitable father could be found, and then the name, Ojars Krumins, had been written in by the registrar of births.
“What name should have been there?”
“I am willing to bet the name is Aleks Berensky, the bastard son of Shelepin and his private secretary.” He put it in a way that would strike home to his assistant. “It’s as if you and I had a child, Yelena, and I send you off to Latvia to marry a respectable husband and bring up the boy. But I keep my eye on that boy, of course—he’s my natural son—and when he grows up and marries unwisely and impregnates that unsuitable girl against my wishes, I am angry at him.”
It fell into place in his mind as he explained it. “The son is now eighteen, a reluctant father himself, and tired of the girl he married. He realizes he has nearly wrecked his career. But I, his father, tell him that there is hope for him. He could have a new life on a most important and exciting assignment. He could be trained and sent to America under deepest cover, with no contact with any other agents, to make a career until he is called upon to serve his country.”
“His wife and baby?”
“After Shelepin’s son
accepts the assignment, the wife becomes an inconvenience to the State, especially since she wants to bear the baby. Aleks drops out of sight, becomes a nonperson, trains at our American Village. The unwanted wife has her baby. Shelepin sends the rejected mother away from Moscow to Latvia, arranging for some Latvian to marry her, or at least to raise her daughter as his daughter. His name, Krumins, goes on the space left blank for father on the birth certificate.”
Yelena nodded. “And Shelepin’s son, Aleks Berensky, has no ties to anyone in Russia.” She thought about that. “Possible. In the sixties, the Director of the KGB could do anything. He provided a good marriage for his secretary, Anna, when their son, Aleks, was born; he could easily have done almost the same for the son’s wife when she became, as you say, inconvenient.”
“I am willing to bet that the man once named Aleks Berensky is the sleeper agent now in America.” He waited for the import of that guess to sink in.
“Then you are saying,” said Yelena, finally catching up with him, “that Liana Krumins is the sleeper’s daughter.”
Davidov felt, for the first time in his brief tenure, that he was truly the chief of a directorate of the state security agency. “That is a useful piece of information for us to have. The Feliks people have connections to old hands in the KGB, and especially our retirees, who knew that the agent in America is Liana’s father. That is why they chose her, of all the journalists in the country, to lead the search.” That was the question that had been nagging at him: why this particular reporter?
“And here’s the delicious irony, Yelena: she doesn’t know it. She thinks she’s onto a big story. She has no idea the man she is looking for is her father.”
The analyst fell behind again. “But why doesn’t somebody tell her?”
“Because we—and the Feliks people—expect her father to look for her. Liana Krumins is the bait. And the best bait does not know it is bait.”
Davidov allowed himself to wallow in his insight for a while, then got to work. He called in the only supervisor he more than half trusted in the counterespionage section of the Fifth Directorate and told him to evaluate, in his new knowledge of who the sleeper was, who within the Fifth Directorate knew or should have known it. That would reveal who had been deliberately withholding that fact from the Director. Those were the new moles loyal to their old colleagues now among the Feliks people, to be exposed by what they failed to do; they would have to be arrested, removed, or turned.
And he would need a new team of investigators drawn from the central bank, the Oil Ministry, the grain traders, perhaps the new Russian entrepreneurs, to answer the questions for the KGB that the American investigators, Fein and Shu, were asking on behalf of their CIA control.
KGB surveillance of Liana would have to be obvious; the Feliks people expected it, and it established her bona fides with them as a person mistrusted by the Russian government. But a second, subtler level of surveillance would have to be in place as well, to detect any approach to her from the sleeper, her father, who had the resources that made him, in the accountant Shu’s intercepted phrase, “the richest man in the world.”
That was why the Feliks people had enlisted her, though she did not know it; it might also be why Shu, who worked for Fein—a possible CIA asset, but KGB and CIA had parallel interests here—had established a link with her. Sooner or later the father could be expected to reach out for the daughter he had abandoned, especially if he learned she was reaching out to him. The subtle watchers would observe the Feliks people watching the KGB following the sleeper’s daughter, and would provide her a measure of protection as well.
All this might take more fieldwork on the part of the head of the Fifth Directorate, Davidov decided; but with the goal line at his back, he had better not miss the tackle. This was why he had been vaulted over more experienced, traditional operatives to be placed in this position; no other case was as vital to Russian national stability and international security, and at least he could trust himself.
MEMPHIS
Edward Dominick’s reaction to Irving Fein was negative the instant the renowned reporter walked in the door. Fein lunged into the office without a modicum of deference to the lovely young woman who accompanied him.
The Memphis banker was reminded of a remark made by his late wife, looking out the window of the Plaza Hotel, where the Dominicks stayed on visits to New York City. She saw the gilded statue of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, scourge of the South, mounted on a horse being led by the goddess of liberty; Mrs. Dominick, until her death a national board member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, observed, “Isn’t that just like a Yankee to ride while the lady walks?”
Dominick reached past Fein’s outstretched hand to grasp the hand of Viveca Farr. The television newsperson was shorter than he had expected. He didn’t know why he was surprised at that—he had never seen her full-length before—but her onscreen carriage gave the impression of a taller woman. Fein was tallish but slumped, eyes darting, uncomfortable in his own skin, not the sort to be lent substantial funds no matter what his collateral. Dutifully, the banker shook his hand as well—the reporter’s idea of a handshake was a single furtive pump, in contrast to the authoritative grip of his companion’s—and motioned them to the couch against the wall in the sitting area of his spacious office.
“Great digs for a little bank,” said Irving Fein.
“Memphis Merchants Bank may have only two hundred million in reserves,” Dominick said cheerily, “but some of our customers find us able to meet their local needs. And on global matters, our correspondent bank in your hometown of New York is the Chemical.”
“What Mr. Fein meant was,” said the young woman, “that we Easterners often have a stereotype of a medium-sized Midwestern bank that’s usually wrong. This is an impressive office.” She looked admiringly at a bronze statue of a cowboy on a horse descending a steep slope. “That’s a Remington, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but a reproduction, of course. Whatever it is that brings you to Memphis, Miss Farr, I want you to know how much I enjoy your newscasts. Sometimes you’re the only reason we watch your network.” The flattery had the added advantage of being true. Everyone in the bank’s employ had been alerted to her visit, so as to get a good look, and to point out the television star to the customers. “And your reputation, Mr. Fein, precedes you. I cannot say I’ve read your work, but my friends at the Commercial-Appeal have high regard for it.”
“You checked us out, huh?”
“It’s not every day I get such distinguished visitors.” He was not going to ask that they get to the point; he enjoyed her presence. The nightly newsflash would never be the same.
“What I’m saying is, I hope you checked us out with a mutual friend in Washington.” When Dominick maintained his most inscrutable smile, Fein stated the purpose of his visit, and as the press would say, put the story in the lead: “We’re here to interest you in helping us solve the greatest theft of the century.”
“Let’s see, the Brink’s robbery was three million—”
“No, no. That was a piddling little heist, compared to what we’re after.” Fein stopped fidgeting and looked directly at him. “We’re talking about a major swindle, bigger than BCCI, bigger than Keating and his S&L. The figures involved are mind-boggling, because they involve a deliberate milking of a major government treasury. Interested?”
When Fein awaited some response, Dominick maintained a poker face and said only, “Tell me more.”
Irving got up and began walking around the office, touching the tail on the horse of the Remington, glancing at papers on the banker’s desk, checking the view from the window. He did not care if the banker considered him nosy; nosiness was the essence of the reportorial persona.
“Back in the eighties, the guys in the Kremlin began getting nervous,” the reporter recounted. “Gorbachev’s reforms weren’t working, but they were encouraging republics like the Ukraine and the Baltic countries to pull away from the center.
These guys in Moscow were no dopes; they liked their power, so they began planning for the worst.”
“The worst being the breakup of the Soviet Union,” added Viveca Farr quietly, “and the loss of the power and the financial assets of the Communist Party.”
“Prudent,” Dominick said to her. Irving assumed he was a go-go banker who had trained himself to inject the word “prudent” into the conversation whenever possible.
“You ever been over there?” Irving tossed at him.
“I was part of a trade delegation to Ukraine a few years ago,” said Dominick. Irving noted that Dominick spoke of Ukraine, without the article “the,” as Ukrainians preferred; that suggested a nation, separate from Moscow’s domination, rather than a region, as the Soviets considered it. The reporter figured this banker must have done a few chores for the Agency in the past; Clauson would not have just picked him out of a hat because he was six foot four and the right age.
“The last people the old KGB wanted the assets to go to were the Russian reformers,” Fein continued. “So the bad guys—they call themselves the Feliks organization—hatched a plan to hide the money all over the world. You follow?”
“It’s not very complicated. A logical reaction, actually.”
“Right. But to run the operation, they needed a banker—a helluva banker—over here. Respected. Clean. Not a big shot, not a little shot. But very smart, and completely trustworthy, loyal to the hard-liners who used to run the KGB.”
Dominick looked interested. He turned to Viveca. “Who did they get?”
She looked at her partner.
“Nobody you know,” Fein answered. “Years ago, a generation ago, they planted a sleeper over here.”
“You mean a ‘mole’? I’m a fan of John le Carré. I enjoyed Tinker, Tailor—”
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