Farewell

by Eric Raynaud

  On July 31, Alexei Rogatin celebrated his fiftieth birthday. All their friends came from Moscow to stay with them in the country. There must have been half a dozen cars parked in front of their izba. Like kids, the men played soccer, cheered on by their wives, and by the people of Telitsyno who, although separated from the group by the river, were watching from their porches. The Vetrovs were invited, but they showed up only at the end of a sumptuous meal, and not together. Svetlana arrived first, on a neighbor’s scooter, holding both of their dogs in her arms. Vladimir appeared shortly after, staggering along, already seriously drunk.

  The next day, when the hosts and their guests were about to leave to go back to Moscow, he reappeared just by himself. He wanted to take advantage of the coach, which was taking most of the group back to town.

  “Galya, I am at the end of my rope,” he said, taking the lady of the house aside.

  Galina knew about his torments.

  “What do you want me to do? I can give you a drink if you have a hangover. But for the rest, it is for you to solve your problems with women.”

  “I know. I just need somebody to talk to.”

  “OK, come see us in Moscow, then.”

  Vetrov seemed relieved.

  “Thanks. Didn’t you mention a drink?”

  Yet, he kept whining the whole trip. Every once in a while, Vasily, one of the guests, also a former KGB operative, who was dozing off as a consequence of the libations that took place the day before, would lift his head and mumble somberly, “Stop the babbling!”

  This reprieve on the banks of the Tvertsa ended with Vetrov’s vacation. In the last days of August, Vladimir came back to Moscow and his problems. They did not get solved on their own while he was away. Ludmila requested that he leave Svetlana. And his mortal game with the French was about to resume.

  His journey with no compass was entering its decisive stage.

  CHAPTER 17

  “Touring” Moscow

  By the end of July, Patrick Ferrant was back in Moscow. During their first post-vacation meeting, the two officers defined their method of contact. At each rendezvous, they confirmed the date of the next meeting, a date that might change if circumstances demanded it.

  Actually, the frequency of their meetings depended on the files that landed on Vetrov’s desk at Directorate T. Farewell could tell Ferrant in advance what was in the pipeline, and thus plan their meetings more accurately. As a general rule, the procedure was always the same: the documents received by Ferrant were copied, then returned without delay. Vetrov’s worst fear was that his handler might not be able to return the documents on time, and Ferrant remembers that logistics were not always optimum to fulfill that requirement.

  On August 25, for instance, Vetrov brought a cardboard box filled with documents to be returned the next morning at nine without fail. But at that time of the year, the embassy was closed for a couple of weeks, so it was impossible to use the photocopier without attracting the KGB’s attention. “OK, I’ll take it,” said the French officer without flinching. He then went directly to the military mission and gathered all the rolls of film he could find, then bought a few more and went home with the box of documents. “I got everything together and, that evening with my wife in the apartment hallway, using a bedside lamp and my Canon camera, we shot maybe twenty 24x36 rolls of film. My wife turned the pages; she had loud music on because we did not know where the hidden mics were, and you could hear the clicking noise from the camera.”

  In the fall of 1981, Vetrov met seven times with Ferrant, on the first and the third Friday of each month; September 4 and 18, October 2 and 16, November 6 and 20, and December 4.1 The time was usually seven p.m., and the place almost always the same, with few variations, behind the Borodino Battle Museum.

  A career soldier, “Paul” was very punctual. At seven o’clock sharp, Vetrov could spot his tall figure as he turned into Year 1812 Street. Ferrant came by bus or trolley. One day, he told his mole that he had parked his car in front of the Arbat restaurant on Kalinin Avenue (from which Kutuzov Avenue runs on). Depending on the season, “Paul” was wearing a long, pistachio-green raincoat or a parka of the same color with zipped pockets, over brown corduroys. On cold days, he wore a gray wool hat. Before meeting face to face, the two men followed an intricate security route to make sure neither of them was tailed (see Figure 3).2

  Despite the many advantages offered by the operation using “Paul,” the DST still had some reservations about its mole’s sincerity. You cannot change your own character; French counterintelligence was so experienced in the tricks of the trade, it saw double-dealings and traps everywhere.

  Thus, on their second meeting in September, Ferrant conveyed regards to Farewell from a “Monsieur Maurice.” From that conversation, Vetrov thought the man was one of Paul’s bosses supervising the operation from Paris. Since Patrick Ferrant’s code name started with the same letter as his first name, one could assume by analogy that “Maurice” was no other than Marcel Chalet.

  Figure 3. Security routes followed by Ferrant and Vetrov, respectively. 1–3: visual contacts; 4: meeting point.

  The message started with kind words. “Maurice” was very concerned about Farewell’s safety, and he was asking him to take all the necessary precautions. And by the way, could Farewell take that opportunity to tell him what prompted him to contact the French secret service and provide them with confidential information?

  This was not an issue for Vetrov. On the next meeting, Vladimir handed Ferrant the following note, in broken French:3

  Dear Maurice,

  Thank you for worrying about my safety. I will do everything I can in this regard.

  You are asking why I took this step. I could explain as follows. Sure, I like France very much, a country that marked my soul deeply, but apart from this, I detest and am appalled by the regime in place in our country. This totalitarian order crushes individuals and promotes discord between people. There is nothing good in our life; in short it’s rotten through and through.

  Vetrov’s letter had the expected effect; the French never questioned his sincerity again.

  Ferrant often asked him precise questions. Sometimes, Vetrov could answer immediately. If not, he came to the next meeting with a sheet of paper, with the answers he had typed in his office. Usually, it was just one page handed over to “Paul” in the evening. Longer lists with the names and addresses of Directorate T officers and contact information for KGB agents infiltrated in the West were handwritten.4

  In September, Ferrant also brought Vetrov the “famous” Minox the CIA had given Raymond Nart. This first camera was fairly rudimentary; a roll yielded about sixty snapshots, and a full page required two photos. Very soon it was replaced with a more sophisticated and smaller camera, thumb-wide, easily hidden in the palm of one’s hand; two cameras were delivered to Vetrov. Nart had sent two of his men to the CIA to learn how to use this “little marvel of technology.”5 Then they trained Ferrant during one of his trips to Paris, and Ferrant trained Vetrov in his Lada. To ensure good focus, the camera had a string with a needle at the end; when the needle was resting flat on the document, the camera was at the right distance to obtain a good picture. Also, the needle could provide a good alibi. If a coworker was to suddenly step into his office, Vetrov had only to close his hand to hide the camera, and pretend he was sewing a button back on his jacket. The rolls looked more like small audio tapes, and they advanced automatically as pictures were taken. A roll could yield up to 160 snapshots. From that moment on, Vetrov would deliver films in plastic bags to the Frenchman, often ten or twenty at a time. This gives a better idea of Vetrov’s very real autonomy. It also shows the flexibility introduced into the process of setting dates for the meetings. Up to that point, it was imperative that documents delivered on Fridays be returned over the weekend. With the miniature camera, rendezvous could take place any day of the week, the date having been set during the previous meeting.

  The main consequence of usin
g a camera is the drastic reduction of the physical contacts. As already mentioned, it was precisely for that reason that Vetrov did not welcome this technological advance with much enthusiasm. His considerations were none of the DST’s concern; all that mattered was the necessity to reduce the number of meetings. Nart had explicitly insisted on that point with Ferrant:

  “We’ve got to diminish the frequency of the contacts. No more trailing around like this in Moscow, with briefcases full of documents. With the camera, we should be able to limit the rendezvous to six or seven a year.”

  “Alright, but you must know that Vetrov needs those contacts—they are one of his main motivations,” replied Ferrant.6

  As secondary as it may seem within the overall context of the operation, the opportunity provided to Vetrov to speak freely during the meetings turned out to play a crucial role in stabilizing his precarious psychological state. Besides the normal pressure of the job, it was the weight of the contradictions Vetrov had to manage every day that threatened this equilibrium.

  We know that Vetrov was an extroverted and congenial individual, inconsistent with the constant suspicion required by the world of espionage. He also had more and more difficulty coping with the general climate of lies and hypocrisy in which he was living. In his professional life, the brilliant agent he had been at one point came up against Brezhnevian favoritism in the seventies, when belief in communist ideals was reduced to a hypocritical façade necessary to get ahead in one’s career. Life in a communist regime also made it necessary to pretend you believed in the official ideology, promising a radiant future to triumphant socialism, a picture that was far from the harsh reality of daily life. This mild schizophrenia, endured by the majority of the population, was exacerbated in former KGB residents like Vetrov who had lived abroad and knew, but could not say, that life in Paris did not match the description given by official propaganda. His conversations with Alina Bocharova, when they met in the countryside, showed how difficult it was for Vetrov to remain politically correct.

  The situation was no better in his private life. His marriage survived only for their son’s sake. Their life as a couple had only the appearance of normality. Svetlana and Vladimir led separate lives, each with their own love affairs.

  Whether to appear faithful to a regime he hated, or to keep a shattered family life together, Vetrov was forced to live a double life in contradiction with his personality.

  Against this backdrop, it is easy to understand the liberation he felt in his meetings with Ferrant. In them, Vetrov found the simplicity and frankness he needed. They did him a lot of good, sweeping away the unspoken resentments of his daily life. Having crossed the Rubicon of illegality, Vetrov certainly intended to enjoy his freedom of speech to its fullest.

  What did the two men talk about during their long drives through Moscow?

  “Not that much about the operation. We talked mostly about his private life, about very personal details even, in veiled terms, but still…” remembers Ferrant. As he did with the Rogatins, Vetrov easily confided about the difficulties with Ludmila to his friends. With his French handler, he went a step further in sharing private details of his life. “I had become his analyst, or his sex therapist, rather. He was looking for explanations on many subjects, including the fact that ‘he could not do it anymore’ with his wife, although he still loved her. He told me, on the other hand, that he was crazy about Ludmila, but this attraction seemed to annoy him more than anything else.”

  This latter point preoccupied Vetrov more than the former. “I sensed, early in the game, that his mistress had become a source of trouble to him,” confirmed Ferrant without knowing exactly how Vetrov’s relationship with Ludmila was evolving.

  For the accidental “spychologist” the French officer had become, the main concern was to help Vetrov calm down, to bring him as much stability as possible so the operation would not suffer from Vetrov’s emotional state. Ferrant would reassure him as much as he could, confirming that “it was normal,” past a certain age, not to have the same vigor as during one’s prime, and also to be tempted to go see if the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. Those platitudes made Vetrov feel better about himself, now belonging to “normal” behavior patterns, the opposite of the inner turmoil he was experiencing.

  However, according to Ferrant, happiness for Vetrov was to be found in simple things. Their conversations moved naturally to their respective country houses. The Frenchman had a secondary home in the French Pyrenees. His dacha, the improvements he was planning to make, and how he would quietly retire there were Vetrov’s favorite topics of conversation.

  The many descriptions Vetrov gave of the Russian countryside helped Ferrant understand how deep, if paradoxical, his attachment to the land was, even for a defector of his caliber. “A visceral patriotism I encountered only among the Russian people.” Vetrov might not have had many illusions left about the regime he served, but he showed a deep, passionate attachment to his native soil. As if intertwined, his son Vladik was also a recurring topic. Vetrov enjoyed talking about him, imagining his future or describing his personality.

  As we will see later, those are the two main points that explained, in the DST’s opinion, why Vetrov steadfastly refused to plan his exfiltration or even simply talk about the possibility of going abroad.

  At this point, it would be tempting to point to the many contradictions of a man who was cheating on the woman he loved and betraying the country he cherished. In the heat of the discussions with Ferrant, though, Vetrov was still able to manage those contradictions.

  During their Muscovite journeys, Vetrov never abandoned his good humor and remained self-confident. In the most relaxed fashion, as he drove his handler around, he gave him a tour of secret Moscow, pointing out to Ferrant the most sensitive organizations in the city. One day, showing his KGB card to the guard on duty, he drove, with his passenger on board, into the yard of a missile manufacturing plant.7 Though spectacular as those escapades were, Ferrant never had the feeling that Vetrov was being that reckless because he seemed totally in control of the situation at all times.

  As far as security procedures were concerned, Vetrov always showed the same self-assured nonchalance as for the other aspects of the handling.

  One of the basic procedures of such an operation was to plan for the exfiltration of the mole in case he or she was uncovered. For the reasons mentioned before, the DST was not equipped to operate so far from its home base. Vetrov, who had chosen that agency, had to know its limitations in this regard. Yet, each time Ferrant tried to bring the subject up, Vetrov wanted to postpone the discussion until later and mumbled an answer: “There is no reason for things to go wrong, anyway.” Besides, as he repeated over and over to Ferrant, it was out of the question for him to leave his country, where he had a son, and where he was preparing to have a nice retirement in his country cottage. Vetrov, incidentally, viewed the operation in the long term, envisioning Ferrant’s successor, and even his own, whom he would recruit himself. “We’re not going to stop here; we’ve got to continue until they drop dead,” he insisted, as furious as ever about the KGB.8

  Vetrov could not have ignored that the life expectancy of a mole in the heart of Moscow was short. So, where did he find this self-assurance?

  It came mostly from the certainty that, with the DST, he had chosen in France a service not infiltrated by the KGB and, therefore, above suspicion in Moscow. Vetrov added a checking procedure very specific to Soviet counterintelligence. He asked Ferrant to bring him a significant quantity of renowned brands of cognac or gin, much sought-after products in Moscow in those days. With those precious bottles, Vetrov organized “happy hours” in his service, providing him with the opportunity to regularly sound out the KGB spy hunters.

  “It’s very simple,” Vetrov explained to Ferrant. “I’ll invite counterintelligence executives to stop by the office for a drink. If one day they start suspecting me, the first thing they’ll do, even before report
ing higher up, will be to stop coming, not wanting to compromise themselves in my company. If this happens, we’ll stop everything.”

  His plan was both astute and flawed. Although the idea was clever, in order not to come under suspicion Vetrov could only invite his colleagues from PGU internal counterintelligence to those “happy hours.” The plan left out the officers from the KGB Second Chief Directorate which was, strictly speaking, in charge of counterintelligence. While he thought he was acting safely, Vetrov had apparently neglected the main danger threatening him.

  Volodia kept giving the impression of controlling everything, as confirmed by Ferrant. What the French officer could not know was that Vetrov had found another way to sound out his colleagues from the Second Chief Directorate.

  Alexei Rogatin, Vetrov’s neighbor in the countryside and trusted mechanic of his Lada, had a certain Yuri Alexandrovich Motsak among his numerous clients and friends. Informal contacts are of special value. In this case, it was not a promotion but Vetrov’s life itself that could depend on this connection. Motsak was the head, no less, of the French section within the KGB Second Chief Directorate.

  He was fluent in Italian, but knew neither French nor the work habits of his French adversaries. He had been nominated for the job out of purely bureaucratic considerations. A dynamic professional, he had to move up the career ladder. However, the head of the Italian division could not be moved for years to come, so they gave Motsak the direction of the…French division!

  By chance, Motsak and Vetrov had car problems on the same day. They ran into one another in the courtyard of the apartment building on Smolensk Embankment where Alexei repaired cars. Soon after, the two men realized they were working in the same organization, and a few minutes later that they shared a common taste for hard liquor. It took only one bottle for Vetrov to realize that he’d hit the jackpot.