In a report he filed, he suggested that Violetta be allowed to accompany him on the next trip. Give the two lovebirds a few days together, he recommended. As it was, Lonetree had nothing with which to combat his feelings of guilt for his spying activities.
But the bosses had refused to sanction a visit, because by this time they were afraid that Violetta herself was unreliable. It all went back to an insulting remark made to her by someone in the department about the fact that she was sleeping with the Marine. Operationally her sleeping with Lonetree had been a legitimate step; the comment had been more a reflection of a chauvinistic attitude among certain agents who suspected that Russian women enjoyed having affairs with Western men. Violetta had taken offense and threatened to quit. A tense situation had resulted and the operation hung in the balance before she was calmed down, but her fierce reaction made her superiors suspect that she had crossed over a line and gotten personally involved. Which angered them, because she had known the rules of the game before she got involved, she had agreed to play the game, and she should not have let herself forget that it was just a game.
It also reminded them that a person who was willing to engage in duplicity and deception with a target might be willing to do the same with an organ of the state.
In October 1986, Chairman Chebrikov put an end to the dispute when he formalized the transfer of Lonetree from Counter-intelligence to Intelligence. Yefimov was instructed to prepare Lonetree for the transition. But even as he did this, Yefimov suspected that the outcome was inevitable. Lonetree, in Yefimov’s mind, was a nechiporenko. Literally the word translated as “condemned agent,” though in this case it meant someone whose value was used up and whom sooner or later they could expect to lose.
He had no idea what plans Intelligence had for Lonetree. Had he been asked for his advice, he would have said use him as a “sleeper”—leave him alone, let him go on with his life, hope that he would be elevated to a career in a sensitive intelligence position, and if so, recontact him at a later date.
He didn’t know that KGB agents operating out of the Soviet Embassy in Vienna had detected CIA personnel lurking around his meetings with Lonetree, suggesting that American counterintelligence people were aware of the Marine’s espionage activities. Nor did he know that rather than continuing to task Lonetree for information from inside the embassy in Vienna, Intelligence had other uses in mind. Such as converting him to a chip in a double-agent operation run at the CIA, in which a Soviet intelligence agent would bona-fide himself by providing exclusive details about a leak inside an American embassy. Or exposing Lonetree in a way that would provide protective cover to a more important source of inside information.
21
As a rule the KGB paid very little attention to the motivation of its agents, provided it had a handle on them. Its main concern was to establish control, and it didn’t really care whether anybody liked it or not. The security services knew, for instance, that UPDK workers were generally so grateful for their jobs that fear of losing their employment status was not just an adequate driving force, it was insurance of loyalty.
For the most part they would be right. One of the things that people not closely acquainted with Soviet life tend to have difficulty understanding is on what an elemental level people in the U.S.S.R. lived, and how extraneous the considerations of motivation were to most people. In this case, however, it was a fundamental miscalculation.
After Violetta had reported that someone was waiting for her when she left the embassy, keeping his distance but following and watching her, and was told they would keep a watchful eye on the situation, she was still anxious about the whole development. Why she had been singled out? she wondered. Were there forces within the embassy that were interested in her for some special reason?
Even before Lonetree approached her, she began to investigate him, asking questions of her coworkers and taking note of his behavior. It didn’t take long for her to conclude it was highly unlikely that he was a Western intelligence agent pretending to be a security guard, though she also determined that he was not a typical Marine. She was put off by the antics and attitudes of most Marines. They reminded her of German shepherds who barked loudly and strained at their collars. This one, however, was more like the shy pup with hurt eyes who hung back. He did not appear to share his fellow Marines’ appreciation for rowdy parties in the Marine House, and seemed to have few if any friends in the detachment. By the time he worked up the nerve to actually approach her, she felt she had nothing to fear from him.
She had been instructed to pay him attention but to be careful not to appear as if she was provoking a relationship, which posed no difficulties because her curiosity was genuine. Prior to this she’d had very little direct contact with Westerners, so strictly from a language point of view the chance to converse with someone whose native tongue was English was new and different and interesting. It helped their communications that he did not use big words or express complicated thoughts, but he did impress her with his knowledge about a range of subjects. She’d found this to be true about Westerners in generaclass="underline" They drew from a broader base of information than Russians, which made for stimulating and informative discussions.
The one topic they all seemed to be sorely misinformed about, however, was Soviet society. Every American she’d met, including Clayton, seemed to think communists were no different from fascists. It must be the anti-Soviet ideological propaganda in America that makes them think so, she decided.
“Befriend him. Encourage him to talk about himself. Get to know him,” she’d been told. In other words allow a personal relationship to flourish. So she followed her official guidance, not for a minute suspecting that they would have anything in common. But over the next few weeks, as they discussed American movies and books and food, his impressions of Russia, his likes and dislikes, she was agreeably surprised to find they hit it off quite well. Even more surprising, because Russians on the whole were very circumspect when talking about their inner feelings with strangers, he very quickly took her into his confidence.
Until he told her he was a Native American, she hadn’t put his swarthy face and dark hair and eyes together with her picture of an Indian. From official discussions she had heard that America was built on the bloodshed of Indians, there was hatred between the races, and the human rights of Indians continued to be violated, but she had given very little thought to the subject. Hearing him talk with pride about his heritage, and yet admit to feeling at times like “a second-class citizen” in his country, struck a sympathetic chord; and although she’d been advised to stay away from political discussions, she was just being honest when she said in her country ethnic orientation didn’t matter, and talked about the great communist ideology where all men were equal and no man was oppressed.
It was when he opened the floodgate of feelings from his unhappy childhood that she had a reaction for which she was unprepared. When she heard about the lack of love and attention he’d received from his parents, how he’d spent lonely years in an orphanage, and how he’d joined the Marines to get away, the pity she felt for this person was profound.
One story he told her touched her in a special way. Attempting to explain why he had difficulty making friends, he said as a small boy he’d had poor eyesight but no one had tested him for glasses; and because his vision prevented him from keeping up with the other kids he had stopped playing games, turned inward, and become a withdrawn person.
It was heartbreaking. He struck her as someone who had stored up his thoughts and feelings for years and years, just waiting for someone to come along and ask him about himself. But more than that, she identified with his feelings. Her parents had also fought frequently and separated when she was young. She too felt unwanted and alienated from her family. Like him she had come to believe she could count on no one but herself. And the core of loneliness at the center of his being reminded her of an empty place within her own soul.