The firebird affair

I opened my notebook. “His real name is Rashidov. My impression is that he was the guy who turned Hector in the first place. Something about the way he talked about Hector suggested a strong bond between them. But let me start from the beginning,” I said, adding jokingly, ”Speaking of context.”

After that, I told him everything I had discovered. I talked him through every day of my trip, from Washington to Moscow to Sherabad and back. I described in detail my conversations with Volkov, Churkin, and Rashidov.

As I was telling the story, a clearer picture emerged in my mind. It was like seeing a puzzle coming together, all the disparate shapes fitting neatly into something that didn’t have words yet. Clearly Emily and I had played totally insignificant parts in a plot to topple Gorbachev in May of 1991. The plotters, led by the KGB chairman Kryuchkov, had laid a trap for an unsuspecting president. They used us to put Professor Voronov in touch with the CIA. Then, knowing in advance of Holz’s plan to exfiltrate Voronov, the plotters prepared an ambush to foil the operation and have it televised on national TV. They could count on Voronov to tell the truth; as a backup, they had Gorbachev on tape encouraging the professor to establish a back channel with the Americans—a sound bite to be used to demonstrate the president’s treachery.

The plotters, I went on, evidently didn’t count on rival elements within the Russian security establishment. Somehow, somebody stumbled onto Holz’s infiltration maneuver and, unaware that this was a part of the KGB chairman’s diabolical operation, sounded the alarm.

Suddenly, counterintelligence operatives and military intelligence folk swung into action. The coup had to be postponed. The only thing that was not cancelled was the covert action to protect Hector’s identity.

“Your prospective defector’s telling the truth,” I said. “A couple of KGB agents used psychotropic drugs, supposedly to elicit vital information from her.”

The whole Prague restaurant incident was staged to cover up the tracks that could expose the mole—to protect him and prevent any inadvertent mention of his existence during gossipy luncheons in the Yasenovo canteen. The goal was to create an illusion that the inside information had come from Emily – not the mole.

I also sketched my relationship with Joseph and reproduced our final conversation. There were a few gaps—all involving Amanda—and Holz cocked his head a couple of times to let me know, I thought, that he had a sensitive ear for the false note, the thing not said or said incompletely. But he listened from beginning to end with steady, silent attention. The more I talked, the more focused Holz became. He appeared to me like a predator about to pounce, and for the first time, I sensed I was in the presence of a formidable individual.

After I finished, I stood up to stretch my legs. He was deep in his thoughts and didn’t seem to notice. He must have gone through the same ritual so many times following debriefings.

I walked over to the French windows facing the garden and looked through the Venetian blinds. The grounds were immaculate; apparently the Agency used the services of a professional gardener.

“You know,” I hesitatingly broke the silence, looking at my shoes, “I have to tell you that I had certain suspicions about you.”

“Suspicions?”

I turned around. “Well, for example, I had wondered why I was being tailed.”

“Jesus Christ, Todd, you’re nuts,” Holz said softly, shaking his head.

“Someone had it in for me,” I said after a silent interval. “Apart from you, only the publisher, Page, and two other persons knew I was going to Moscow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I consulted my best friend Alex. I also told my son.”

“I thought Rick and you weren’t talking much to each other.”

In the past, I would have felt annoyed at the thought of people prying into my private life. Now I said calmly, even though my heart was beating at high speed, “We’ve made up. This whole business has brought us closer.”

“Oh, I see.” Holz’s eyes suddenly bored into me. After a while, he added, “Good. That’s good. He’s still in California?”

“Yes. By the way, he and Kate Garment are expecting a baby. Remember Kate?”

“Of course, she’s my god-daughter,” Holz said.

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“Joe Grimes and I have been friends for a long time,” he said. “You know he was operated on recently. Prostate cancer.” He stopped and suddenly moved his head down as if he had remembered something. “Funny, Bev and Joe said nothing about Kate and Rick getting married.”

“They didn’t, but I’m told that modern couples don’t marry.” I paused and smiled. “We’re old-fashioned farts.”

“Oh.” Holz went quiet for a while. “Okay. Who’s Alex?”

“I can vouch for him. Alex Angelides is a colleague at the Tribune. He’s my best friend.”

“You can’t trust anyone,” Holz said. “I must have mentioned to you that people are as honest and truthful as they can afford to be. As the saying goes, if your best friend doesn’t covet your BMW, the odds are that he wants to fuck your wife.”

“You must have some real nice friends, Mac.” My voice was dripping with irony.

“I’m a Hobbesian. Fellows like you have the luxury of a moral point of view even if your moral bearings are no longer as fixed as they used to be. Me.” he paused for a moment. “Cynics like me, we have to do the dirty work. And yet, and yet, for the most part we manage to keep everything within the bounds of law and decency. But let’s not go there.” He smiled sadly.

I gave him a brief bio of Alex.

“Who else? Think about it.”

“No. No one.”

Holz looked baffled. He pursed his lips and said, “Are you absolutely sure?”

“Yes. What about your side.”

“I’ve kept this strictly between you and me,” Holz said, flatly. ”There’s no way anyone at my end could know a thing about your trip.”

“What if the mole is working at Langley?”

“Impossible.” He paused and stared at the ceiling as if pondering something, his face taut and eyes wide. “Where’s the email address those punks in Moscow used?”

I handed him a piece of paper. He started talking electronic technicalities. I didn’t know what he was talking about.

He said, “Obviously, somebody was keenly interested in your activities. Someone very IT savvy.”

“Looks like it.” I made no mention that Pittman’s whiz kids had already tried to check this out.

“We’ll figure it out, I’m sure. I may take a few days.”

We ran through the sequence of events again. This time around, Holz kept interrupting me with frequent questions, or prodded me to expand. His focus was Rashidov. What had Rashidov said about throwing the mole hunters off the scent? The relationship between Joseph and drug traffickers? Rashidov’s support for the IMU? Then we moved to the photographs I had mentioned at the UN Plaza in New York and the National Mall in Washington.

“Any other photos?”

“One: Mrs. Rashidov with what looked like the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, except it wasn’t the Golden Gate Bridge.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well I thought I saw a couple of minarets over on the Marin County side. Could have been Baghdad or Cairo.”

Holz pushed a blank sheet of paper in front of me. “Sketch it as best you can.”

“I’m not good at drawing,” I said. “Besides, I only glanced at the photo.”

“Do your best.” He evidently found our conversation invigorating

“Shit, all suspension bridges in the world look alike,” I said while drawing from memory. Kind of. Ha, ha. Thinking back, I saw the color photograph of Mrs. Rashidov in my mind’s eye; a wide river, couple of minarets on the far bank. For a brief instant, I imagined this might be an important clue—the photo was taken most likely in a Muslim city.

But just then, Holz asked, “You’re certain you saw the minarets, right?”

“Yes.”

What I produced looked like a cartoon. “It must have been a wide river,” I said.

I couldn’t say. I couldn’t answer his other questions about that particular scene.

The session was interrupted several times. Once to give Holz time to replace the tape. Several times to visit the bathroom. By the time he stopped, it was dusk outside. I was tired and hungry.

“We deserve a stiff drink,” Holz said.

He got up and went to the kitchen. “Good job, Martin,” he said, returning with a bottle of Black Label and two glasses with ice cubes in them. “I’m so glad you made up with your son. At least you guys have closure now.”

“I think he’s disappointed I didn’t get the mole. He didn’t say it in so many words, but I sensed it.” I’d wondered what sort of consolation could score-settling bring? Suppose Hector was captured and executed—he disappeared—but Emily had disappeared, too. No. The two disappearances were not equivalent.

“We’re not through, my friend. It’s not over until the fat lady sings.” Holz raised his glass.

Afterwards, I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator looking for food. Only beer and wine. Do safe house rules, I wondered, allow ordering food from the neighborhood Domino’s Pizza?

“Now,” Holz went on, “if tonight, tomorrow, the next day, you remember anything that you’ve not mentioned—anything at all, even if it seems completely insignificant—please write it down.” He paused. “Now let’s see about what’s-her-name,” he said and pulled out a mini laptop from his case.

Holz gave a wry smile. “Quite a looker,” he said. “Yes, she worked for us under deep cover. Mostly biotech, and biological and chemical weapons.” He added with carefully measured hesitation, “She was in Russia for the science division.”

I stood behind Holz, studying Amanda’s image on the small screen. The picture made my chest thump with apprehension.

“What’s her real name?” Then I thought: Does that really change things at all?

53

“You cost me a good agent,” Holz said.

“No, I had nothing to do with it.”

“Look at me, Mac.”

“I told you she was sent to Moscow by the science division,” Holz said firmly, looking at me.

“Oh, c’mon!”

“That’s God’s truth.”

I didn’t believe him but I wasn’t going to press him further. What would be the point? The galling part was that I had failed all along to see the obvious; I thought I had gone into this business with eyes wide open, when in fact they were shut tight.

Just thinking that it all may have been a complete sham was painful. But I also knew somewhere in the back of my mind I wanted her back, even if she had betrayed me, even if she was a luftiguz( my dad’s favorite pejorative) or a nishtikeit, (which was mom’s equivalent.) Funny how in moments of distress words from my youth come to mind.

Amanda’s real name was Joyce Amanda Fisher, Holz went on, looking at his miniature laptop. Her father is a retired army colonel who lives in Puerto Rico. The agency recruited her during her senior year at Vassar, when she opted for deep undercover work. She was sent to Penn State to do a master’s program in bio-technology. She loves horses and was a member of the US equestrian Olympic team. A show jumper. Didn’t take part in the games because she had a dangerous fall during training. She was very gutsy, very competitive, and at the same time even-tempered, in full control of her emotions. Anyone dealing with horses has to be even-tempered, Holz explained. A first-rate mind with an entrepreneurial streak.

“The agency bought a bankrupt fabrics store in Beirut. Joyce was nominally the owner. This was her cover. We budgeted a serious chunk of change for her operation. But within six months, the store became the most talked about outpost of Paris ladies fashions in the Middle East—and began to turn a profit. We recouped our investment in two years! This is something very rare for our bean counters. All our operations cost money. The main thing is that she used the shop to gain access to the elites in several Arab countries.”

I felt humiliated and nauseous when I left the safe house. I pulled out into the empty road and headed the way I had come. I experienced a twinge of self-pity. The fact was that Amanda had lied to me, deceived me. But how realistic it was to have expected her to tell me she was working for the fudge factory?

I got off I-66 at Arlington national cemetery exit, and halted on a deserted road. “No fool like an old fool,” I laughed bitterly.

Three days later, Holz called to ask for an urgent meeting. Right away, if possible. “The same place as last time,” he said. “Let’s say in forty-five minutes.”

I took the Orange line to the Vienna metro station, then a cab for a two-mile ride to Oakton.

“Thanks for coming,” Holz said when he opened the front door. “I got coffee for you.” He pointed at a Starbucks cup with a plastic top sitting on the coffee table. “Did you know that we have a Starbucks in the building? It sells only beverages, no mugs or bags of beans.”

We settled into armchairs.

Holz said, “We’ll need more time on that email address. The security firm in New York has no clue who they were dealing with. The client was paying cash—in advance—through a third party. Obviously knows his tradecraft.”

I said with heavy sarcasm, “Cash does miracles.”

“Well, give me time.” Holz coughed. “Okay, let’s get down to business.”

He now adopted the posture of a tough prosecutor about to question a prisoner in the dock. He looked at the yellow pad in front of him.

“When Rashidov says that the mole had given thirteen, fourteen years of his life to the KGB, was it your impression that he pulled the numbers out of thin air? Why not six or seven? Or three or four?”

“Jesus, how should I know?”

“Just tell me what you think.”

“I’m trying to.”

“Was he perhaps subconsciously referring to his years as Hector’s case officer? Or was he shooting the breeze?”

“My impression is that Rashidov had a disciplined intellect. “

Holz was staring into the middle distance. I could tell something was troubling him. He appeared to be going through the sequence of events.

“Okay. Let’s assume the first. If Rashidov left Moscow in late 1991 or early 1992, this would mean that Hector could have been recruited in 1977 or 1978—before his first visit to the United States as a diplomatic courier.”

“You mean Rashidov?”

“Right. Rashidov, alias Bogumilov. So we’ll have to figure out where Rashidov served in the mid-seventies.”

In the silence that followed, Holz seemed to be digesting some additional information. I reached for my coffee and took a long sip.

Holz pulled a manila folder from his attaché case. It was full of photographs. He started arranging them on the coffee table in front of me. Each photo showed a big suspension bridge over a body of water. From the way he was neatly lining them up, I sensed this was an important exercise. A test of some kind.

“Now,” Holz said casually, good-humouredly I thought, “which of these bridges looks like the one you saw in Rashidov’s house?”

I glanced at him for a moment. “I already told you I concentrated on Rashidov and barely looked his wife’s photo.”

“I’m talking about the bridge,” Holz said. “Forget about everything else: just the bridge. How wide’s the river?”

I stared at the photographs for nearly a minute. All suspension bridges in the world look alike, I wanted to say. Then I looked at each photograph for about thirty seconds in exaggerated concentration. Once I reached the end of the row, I returned to the beginning and scrutinized them again. Then I gulped, waited for a while and with my index finger pointed one out.

“This one.”

The river was about a mile across, and its color was dark blue. The sky was a washed-out blue. The far bank was flat with several minarets piercing the skyline.

“Are you sure?”

I inspected the picture more closely and shrugged. “No. Can’t be absolutely sure.”

Holz was now writing something down. Without looking up, he said, “You’ve pointed at the Europa Bridge over the Bosporus.”

“Sorry, it looks like a big river to me.”

I stood up and scrutinized the photographs from a distance, then squatted down and bent over the photographs as if I was near-sighted. In the end, I again selected the same photograph.

“Hmmm… Why? Why that one?”

“Don’t know.” I crossed my legs. “It’s just that it has the same feel as the one I saw in Rashidov’s home.”

“You said you barely looked at it!”

“That’s true. Now when I have to remember how that photograph looked, I can say it looked like this one.”

“Okay. We know KGB wives didn’t travel abroad alone.” Holz made another quick notation. “Which means Rashidov himself probably took that photo in Istanbul. That is if this is the bridge you saw. The timing fits. That bridge opened in 1975.” His face lit up suddenly and I realize in retrospect that this must have been the moment when the months of suspicion abruptly crystallized in his mind: he had his suspect.

I began to vacillate. “As I said, I can’t be absolutely sure.”

“Let’s not fart around, Todd,” Holz threw his hands in the air. “We have a hypothesis to test.”

“The hypothesis is?”

“The time: late seventies. The place: Turkey. The question for my Turkish counterpart: was a Russian diplomat named Bogumilov—or Rashidov or whatever other alias he may have used—in Turkey at that time?” I could see on Holz’s face that he was gaining confidence. I imagine he was owed favors by many security officials around the world, and these are people who settle their debts; that was in the nature of their business—favors given and favors received.

Holz continued, “I’ll send Bogumilov’s photo to Ekrem Effendi. Was there anyone in the Soviet Embassy who looks like this man? The Turks have photos of all Soviet personnel. ”

It was the cast of Holz’s features and the apparent lack of doubt in his voice that made me feel I was looking at a bloodhound smelling blood. Evidently, the bridge was the key to the mystery. With a flash of insight, I thought I had confirmed Holz’s earlier hunch; he always followed his hunches.

I imagined Holz’s next step—putting in a call to Ekrem Efendi, his opposite number in Ankara. In fact, he had already acted. Something about his facial expression made me feel absolutely certain that Bogumilov’s mug shot had already been transmitted to Ankara. He had seen something that I had not seen.

I said, “That’s brilliant!”

Holz let out a grunt of irritation. “Let’s not fool ourselves. This is one reading, the reading you and I want to believe.”

“What’s the other reading?”

“Wishful thinking. Such things happen in my business.”

I persisted, “If the Turks confirm it, you can make a list of all Americans whoserved in Turkey at that time and match them up against the names of Americans working in the embassy in Moscow in 1991.”

“Exactly.”

Holz chewed his lower lip for a moment. “We’ll see if my instincts are shit,” Holz said with disgust. He shook his head and raised his eyebrows.

“The papers say you’re in line to become the new DDO.”

Holz looked up. “Oh, bullshit. Gossip. You never know if the leak is there to undermine you, or to advance your candidacy. For you it’s a story either way.”

He stopped himself, and when he resumed there was a note of bitterness in his voice. “You have no idea of the kinds of infighting and maneuvering going on. We’re up to here,” he lifted his left hand to his throat and made cutting strokes. “Up to here in reorganization. Retooling old operatives. Hiring new people. I look around and I see people with tattoos and pierced noses and lips. If you had strip-searched the entire building ten years ago, you wouldn’t have found a single tattoo or body piercing apart from some ears. Christ! The other day, a young woman with flawless skin and coiffed hair opens her mouth to say something and shit, I see a gold ring on her tongue. Yuck.

“The real problem is Rumsfeld. He’s set up a Pentagon analysis unit to compete with us and they churn out pre-masticated intelligence so that the president can digest it easily. I’m a nuts-and-bolts guy, I don’t give a shit about turf battles. Not anymore. But many agency people are cowed. The mindset is: you don’t tell your masters what they don’t want to hear.”

Holz continued, “Okay, catching an old Cold War spy cannot be a priority in the new century. That’s what some people say. The Cold War is over. Move on, they say. But I don’t want to move on.”

I thought I saw a glimpse of self-loathing in Holz’s eyes.

“Say the answer from Ankara is positive. How do you nail your man?” I asked and crossed my legs the other way.

“Remember Hanssen?” he asked, a touch too quickly. “Even the KGB didn’t know his identity, but we figured it out: we had his finger prints. Yes siree, fingerprints. Now we have far more sophisticated techniques. The FBI has a new machine using amazing new technologies for DNA testing. All hushhush stuff. Also a new finger print identification process has been developed by a guy at the University of Arizona. We’ll get him. All I need is one item that he has handled.”

“Meaning?”

“Envelopes, containers or whatever he used to pass information.”

I said, “I don’t expect to have that kind of stuff lying around.”

Suddenly, he couldn’t get words out fast enough, explaining how the KGB saved everything in Yasenovo’s archives and what he expected to get. “As I told you, we asked our prospective defector to bring us several items. Stuff handled by Hector.”

“Has he done it?”

“Yes,” he said, his face suddenly open as if this was the most natural thing in the world. “It’s just a matter of getting them to us. It’ll be sorted out in the next few days.”

This was like chess, I thought. “Then you’ll let him and his family come over to the US?”

“Right.” Holz shook his head in a self-satisfied fashion. “I feel it in my gut,” he slapped his stomach. “We’re on the five yard line, my friend—we mustn’t fumble now.” He paused. “It came to me in the middle of the night as I was playing the tape. Something Rashidov said.”

“What?”

I’d been left hanging, like when networks slap a countdown clock at the corner of the screen to pump up the suspense. “Does that mean you have a possible suspect in mind?” I shouted after him.

I heard water running in the bathroom.

“Hard to tell,” Holz said when he returned. He slumped down in the sofa and began gathering his things—the special phone, the yellow pad and the small laptop—and laying them into his briefcase. “I don’t want to jinx it. One step at the time. Besides, let’s wait for the Turks.”

I looked at my watch and stood up.

Holz got up and grabbed my upper arm. “We gave it a good try, pal. Rick should be proud of you.” For a moment, I thought he was going to give me a hug.

After some hesitation, I said, “You’ll keep me posted, won’t you? You won’t hold anything back, you promised. ”

“Yes,” Holz grimaced, as if in pain.

“No bullshit?”

“You know the rules: I don’t bullshit unless it’s absolutely necessary. Which doesn’t mean I don’t cut corners here and there.”

“Speaking of cutting corners, why do I get this strange feeling that you’ve done it with me?”

Holz winced. The question, I saw, took him by surprise. “Well, once, now that you mention it. Nothing sinister, really. But I’ll tell you later.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Mac. Tell me now!”

“I hope you’ll forgive me,” he said softly as if something had got him into a confiding mood.