by Eric Raynaud
“She” being Svetlana, clearly.
The next day, Vladik asked him questions about the visit to the embassy. His father explained that “Paul” took him in the trunk of his car, going in and going out.
The story is not believable, and it was never confirmed by any French source. The desire to flatter its mole’s ego, provided there was such a desire on the part of the DST, did not justify taking such a risk. Who else could have been invited to that banquet? It would have resulted in a dramatic increase of the number of individuals informed of the operation; the banquet story could only be pure invention. It was well deserved in Vetrov’s mind that a hero like himself would receive such conspicuous marks of appreciation. For lack of such gratitude, he invented it for his son’s benefit.
Vladik readily admits that his dad was quick to get carried away. When a new idea caught his imagination, he could nurture it for weeks. He would eventually believe in his dreams. Then, when his latest castle in the air crumbled, he forgot about it just like that.
For instance, for years he talked about moving permanently to the countryside for his retirement. He would get hired to drive a tractor or a harvester, spending the rest of his life in the great outdoors surrounded by fields and meadows. He toyed with this idea until the summer of 1980. Then, having become a French mole, he abandoned his pastoral dream for a much more extravagant project.
Almost every evening Vladik accompanied his father to park their car on Promyshlenny Passage, a small street located behind the Borodino Battle Museum. There stood two long, three-level buildings, each sheltering hundreds of vehicles, mechanical repair shops, carwash facilities, and so forth. The Vetrovs left their car in their parking spot and walked back home. This was the moment of the day when father and son could spend forty-five minutes together and discuss their problems. It was during one of those “parking trips,” around November 1981, that Vetrov shared his new plan with his son. He proposed fleeing to the West, just the two of them. His French friends would arrange their passage to the embassy by putting them in the trunk of a car. From there, everything would be easy.
As fantastic as the story may seem technically, Raymond Nart confirmed that there was a plan along those lines. The DST deputy director was even keeping, “at their disposal,” two false French passports. Unfortunately, like most escape plans devised by the DST, this plan remained just an idea.
From day to day, Vetrov embellished his plan with new details. They would live in Canada or in the United States; Vladik would go to college. They would not be in need of anything. “I have enough money to buy an island,” declared Vetrov.
While being aware of the dreaming nature of his father, Vladik believed that the plan was very serious. Maybe he too wanted to believe in it. On the other hand, the young man was hesitant because he did not want to abandon his mother. He had said so to Vetrov. His father nonetheless kept discussing the plan.
Vladik clarified that this was not an escape plan for when the moment would be right, in six months or a year; this was a plan for an imminent move. Did Vetrov understand that the game had become too dangerous to last much longer? Further, and Vladik is adamant on this point, Vetrov never planned to settle in France. This leads to two conclusions. It validates the assumption that cultural affinities with France were not part of Farewell’s decision to collaborate with the DST. Being in Moscow, he thought he was taking less of a risk with the DST. Once in the West, however, he would be safer, and certainly more pampered, as a Langley resident.
The technical aspects of the escape were nevertheless problematic. Once in the French embassy, “it is easy” had declared Vetrov. Raymond Nart has confirmed that the DST had contemplated an exfiltration via the French embassy. An operation “à la Gordievsky,” which in theory should not have posed too many problems.1
In reality, that was when true problems would have started.
Nearly all of KGB or GRU renegades defected while in the West. Soviet counterintelligence knew of only two successful escapes from the Soviet Union by KGB moles working for Western intelligence. One was the exfiltration of Victor Sheymov, with his wife and young daughter, by the CIA in 1980; the other was the case of Oleg Gordievsky, exfiltrated in 1985 by MI6 (British intelligence). It is unlikely that the moles escaped through the embassy of the country they worked for. Let us examine the most optimistic hypothesis. If we assume that Vetrov and his son could get passage to the French embassy hidden in the trunk of a car, it would mean informing other embassy personnel beyond Ferrant. This could involve four or five individuals: the ambassador, the military attaché, the head of security, and one or two guards. The risk of leaking information would then be increased significantly, even if they all maintained absolute silence and managed to provide a space for the Vetrovs inside the embassy totally sheltered from the KGB’s ears and eyes, making the Vetrovs’ presence unnoticeable, assuming that the PGU ignored that its missing officer was now willingly in French territory in the heart of Moscow. Lastly, let us believe that the fugitives would stay in the embassy for the shortest time possible since the risk of being spotted increases with every day. Even if all those favorable conditions were met, the hardest part of the operation would be yet to come.
A man cannot be shipped like a parcel in the diplomatic pouch. An actual failed exfiltration attempted in the seventies had the following plan. A Westerner with a physical resemblance to the individual being exfiltrated, and made up to look even more like him, arrived in Moscow on a business trip. The mole was expected to cross the border back to the West carrying the Westerner’s passport. With the mole safely on the other side, the Westerner could have reported a stolen passport and left the Soviet Union with a temporary passport. The plan seemed reasonable enough, especially considering the fact that the mole was fluent in the language of the country he was supposed to be from (which would not have been Vladik’s case). Unfortunately, because of edginess or some kind of typically Soviet behavior on his part, the mole attracted the attention of the customs officials and was arrested at the airport.
One must admit that such an operation is tricky, even for a service that would have thought out all the details of the exfiltration well in advance. Was it one of the many escape plans Ferrant talked about that led Vetrov’s wild imagination to the craziest scenarios? It is likely, since the DST had not finalized any emergency procedure to be implemented in Moscow. If so, a more reasonable man would not seriously contemplate fleeing to the West via the French embassy.
Why did he? Why did he keep entertaining ideas he must have known to be totally unworkable? All the indications lead to the belief that, by then, he had become more and more delusional.
Vetrov would not have the opportunity to see for himself how illusory his escape plan was. The tensions in his life were getting worse, and the safety valve Vladik represented was no longer sufficient. Vladimir was walking through a minefield.
In early February 1982, Vetrov mentioned to his son that Ludmila had given him an ultimatum until February 23. His mistress, he said, stole secret documents from his jacket. Having understood he was collaborating with a foreign country, she supposedly was blackmailing him. In Vladik’s opinion, Ludmila did not care about his father anymore. She simply wanted to benefit from the situation to extort money from him. Vetrov was in a panic. If his mistress were to turn into a blackmailer, he would be at her mercy for the rest of his life.
“What are you going to do?” asked Vladik.
“Well, I don’t really know. I’ve got to talk to her. I’ll try to settle the issue in an amicable manner.”
Vladik did not say anything, but disagreed with his father. He was painfully affected by his parents’ conflicted relationship. At the beginning, he tried to make them patch things up. Then he gave up, hoping things would work themselves out. He was glad to hear his dad saying, at last, that he was going to leave his mistress. But he knew too well how weak and wavering Vetrov was. At eighteen, he could see only one way to put an end to the mortal danger
threatening his father.
The closer the ultimatum date, the edgier Vetrov became. On their routine walk from the parking garage to their home, Vladik raised the issue again: “Dad, it’s time to cut this Gordian knot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I know the way you are; you’re going to try to sweet-talk her again. Dad, you’ve got to be tough! Only fear will silence her. I am coming with you, by the way!”
Vladimir agreed reluctantly. He clearly needed support, so the two men devised a plan.
February 23 was Soviet Army Day. It was not a public holiday, but military personnel, KGB members, and policemen celebrated without fail, at the office and at home. The day before, February 22, even if most employees left the office at the regular time or fifteen minutes earlier, few were truly working during the afternoon. “I’m going to rest at work,” as the Soviets used to say. Parties were organized here and there in offices, and every man considered a past, current, or future defender of the homeland received a small gift. This was, in fact, some kind of “Men’s Day,” soon to be followed by “Women’s Day” on March 8. A good opportunity to have a frank discussion with Ludmila.
For Vladik, February 22 was the first day of the second semester. It was also his turn with his classmates of the same year to take part in the construction of a new MITKhT building in the southwest of the capital. During the day they had to work at the construction site, and in the evening they had to be in class in the old building located at 1 Malaya Pirogovskaya Street.
Classes were over at eight thirty p.m. On February 21, Vetrov promised his son he’d come pick him up the next day after class. Then they would go together talk to Ludmila.
“We’ll have to be tough, Dad,” repeated Vladik.
“Yes, fine, we will.”
Vladik went to bed reassured.
His dad, however, had his own plan.
CHAPTER 21
February 22
What happened that day is still so vivid in the minds of the surviving witnesses that years later it is possible, at times, to reconstruct the sequence of events to within five minutes. Here are the main moments.1
It was still pitch dark when the phone rang. Svetlana turned on the light of the bedside lamp. The alarm clock showed 3:25 a.m. The phone rang again. Svetlana answered.
“Hello!” said a female voice she knew too well by now. “May I…talk to…Vladimir Ippolitovich?”
Svetlana put the receiver on her pillow and got up.
“It’s for you,” she said on her way to the bathroom.
She did not want to be there during their conversation. When she came back, Vladimir had hung up already. He was lying on his back with his eyes open. A bolster separated the bed into two independent territories, that’s how bad things were.
Svetlana looked hard at him.
“Now, that’s really going too far!” she said in her contained, slightly nasal voice. “She’s calling you in the middle of the night now! I have to get up early to go to work, and your son, too. Can’t you at least change this part of it?”
Vladimir did not answer. Svetlana looked at him, got back to bed, and turned the light off.
She often remembered that scene. Would things have turned out differently if she had not said anything? And yet, she had not raised her voice nor made a violent scene.
She could sense that Vladimir had trouble going back to sleep. Was he thinking about the day ahead, slowly, methodically, hour by hour, action by action? After all, he was a professional. He had to be used to preparing his secret meetings with his KGB agents and, recently, with his French handler. Did he, at any moment, have the feeling that on this Monday February 22, 1982, his life was about to be turned upside down? For a year now he had had the feeling of sliding down a bobsled track head-on at top speed. Despite the risks the slightest mistake would have exposed him to, he told himself that he had a good chance to finish his journey. Even though irrational, some people persist in believing they are protected.
Vladimir lay awake after the phone call and got up when the alarm clock went off. As he went to the bathroom, then to the kitchen to drink his morning coffee, he ran into Svetlana several times. Each time, she moved away as if avoiding a tree, not looking at him, which made the situation visibly easier on him.
He got dressed with great care. His wife had taught him to take care of his appearance. Svetlana remembers exactly the way Vladimir was dressed that day: an elegant Italian shirt, a French tie, a navy blue three-piece suit with fine stripes, and a warm reddish-brown sheepskin coat.
He was about to leave, when his son came out of his room.
“Oh, you’re leaving already?”
Vladimir gave him a friendly tap on the back.
“So, Dad, we do as planned, right?” asked Vladik again, knowing how moody his father could be.
“Yes. Tonight, eight thirty, in front of your department building.”
The PGU headquarters were south of the capital, in the woods of Yasenevo. On days when he did not have his car, Vetrov would get on the bus at the terminal located not far from his home, in front of the memorial stele on Kutuzov Avenue. But on that day in February, Vladimir drove his Lada to work. Because the PGU provided transportation services to its thousands of employees, at 6:00 p.m. dozens of buses loaded officers and regular employees who were going back home in various parts of town. Car owners had to wait a good fifteen minutes to let the buses leave first. This detail gives a fairly precise idea of the time at which Vetrov left “The Woods” with Ludmila to drive her back home. If they left before the buses, it must have been around 5:50 p.m.; if they left after the buses, it was around 6:15 or 6:20 p.m.
They drove clockwise on the Moscow Ring road since Yasenevo was in the southeast and Ludmila lived in the northwest of Moscow. On the way, soon after the intersection with Rublevo Road, the highway widens, forming a parking area, always vacant at night. Vetrov and his mistress would sometimes park there to stay together a little longer.
The place was deserted. On the right, woods surrounded weekend homes. Nobody waited at the bus stop, about a hundred meters further away. On the left, cars were driving by at a sustained pace. Like a strobe, headlights lit the inside of the Lada. In February it is dark at 6:00 p.m.
The parking area along the Moscow Ring road where Vetrov’s descent into hell began.
What exactly did happen in the pitch darkness of this remote suburb? The lights of a car streamed into the Lada where two lovers were drinking champagne in paper cups. The next car passing disclosed a man who, with his eyes wide open, was blindly stabbing a woman.
Vetrov kept two weapons in his car: a genuine hunting knife with a very sharp blade, used to cut branches when the Lada was stuck on a dirt road full of potholes; and the pique for slaying pigs he had found in their house in Kresty, which was the most frightening weapon. He chose the pique.
Ludmila struggled desperately as the pique was thrust into her again and again. As Vetrov braced to stab Ludmila one more time, he heard a knock on the car window. He turned around. A man was looking into the car. Apparently, he had just realized that the couple inside was not making love.
“Get lost!” Vladimir shouted through the window.
But the man was not scared away. He shouted, “What are you doing!” as he grabbed the door handle.
Vetrov shouldered the door open, violently. The man, fifty-something, was thrown back.
At that moment Ludmila found herself outside the car; Vetrov stabbed the man in the abdomen. Bleeding, Ludmila ran toward the bus stop in the hope there would be people waiting there. Suddenly, headlights beamed behind her; the Lada was chasing her.
Toward the end of the day, Svetlana felt very unwell. As if it were a thick black cloud, an overwhelming anxiety invaded her, making her heart heavy. She left the museum a little earlier than usual and walked home to get some fresh air.
The doorbell rang at 7:15 p.m. Svetlana opened the door. A rare occurrence at the time, Vladimir was so
ber. His eyes were opaque as if made of glass, though. When he came in, Svetlana noticed that he had blood on the back of his neck. That day, roads were terribly icy. She thought Vladimir had fallen or, worse, had been in a car accident or caused one.
“Are you wounded?” she asked.
“No, I just killed somebody,” he cried.
“Here we are, delirium tremens!”
Although they were not talking to one another, Svetlana, being a good wife, helped Vetrov take off his sheepskin coat. The collar was soaked with blood; even his suit and shirt were stained.
“You must have had a serious accident!” said Svetlana on her way to the bathroom to wash the blood off the coat.
“I killed somebody, I told you,” answered Vladimir. Emotionless, he said, “Those are spatters. I’ll change and go get Vladik.”
Curiously, now that her bad premonition of the afternoon had been fulfilled, Svetlana felt much better. It took her only a moment to absorb that her husband had committed a murder. Without articulating it to herself, she was compelled to experience two different but complementary states. On one hand, there was the serene and absolute certitude that everything that had, up to that point, made her life quiet and happy was over. From that moment on, nothing would ever be the same, and the future would hold only trials and misfortunes for her. On the other hand, she had the feeling all this happened to someone else. She could not be this woman washing off the blood of a human being killed by her husband.
Through the noise of running water, she heard the door slam shut. Vladimir had left. It was about seven thirty p.m.