On the top floor of the chancery, a middle-aged woman knocked on his office door and announced to Valeriy Eduardovich Karpov “The Polyanskaya girl is waiting at the gate.”
“I’d almost forgotten about her,” was his sour response. “Go fetch her up here.”
Karpov slumped behind his desk and reached for a pack of Marlboros.
Why had the Center saddled him with this inexperienced young girl? What could she possibly know about his work? On his desk lay the mottled green cardboard folder containing her dossier, and he flipped through it again. She’s just a little propaganda bitch that works the Kremlin parties. All she’s good for is shrieking slogans and waving placards. What the hell am I, a nanny? Do they think I have nothing better to do than mess around with an empty-headed kid from Moscow? He could only conclude that some powerful friend in Moscow was rewarding her with a “vacation” in the U.S. Or perhaps she was the mistress of some silovik who just wanted to get rid of her.
But the orders were clear. Use her as efficiently as possible, and keep an eye on her. How was he to interpret that?
There was a light knock at the door. “Come,” he said, closing the file folder.
The girl entered the office and stood uncertainly before his desk while he gave her a frankly appraising once over.
She was of medium height with jet black hair and large green eyes, what the Russians would call a real krasavitsa, a beauty. Karpov settled on his mistress theory as the most likely explanation for her assignment.
Olga would not have called the man behind the desk handsome. He was dark-haired, around forty with high cheek bones on a sallow face currently arranged into a sardonic expression. He possessed none of Solntsev’s masculine charm or the refined courtesy of Stash. In fact, she found something repulsive about him. He was more like a former soldier than a successful diplomat. She was disappointed.
“My name is Valeriy Fedorovich.” He shot her an irritated glance. “You’re three minutes late,” he said, as though no better was expected from her.
He stood and walked around the desk, gesturing for her to follow him out the door. “Come on, we’re going to talk somewhere else.”
Without uttering a word she followed in his wake. He led her down a flight of stairs to the floor below and to the end of a corridor. He used a key to unlock a featureless door, and they entered a small, windowless room. It contained a small table surrounded by four chairs. He took a place across from her.
“Well, Olga Vladimirovna, tell me what you did in Moscow.”
She was confused by the question, although it was not unexpected. This man’s unconcealed displeasure erased the words she’d planned to say.
Looking down at her hands, she said, “Officially, I worked as a press secretary, meeting with media and the public. I prepared presentations and made speeches, supervised student meetings and social and charity events.”
He cut her off. “And unofficially?”
She swallowed uncomfortably. “Unofficially we followed opposition activities, especially those traitors who were in touch with Americans. We organized counter-demonstrations, interrupted their gatherings, we explained patriotic values and the danger of revolution to young people.”
“So you persecuted dissidents.” She couldn’t tell from his voice whether he approved or disapproved.
“Not at all.” Olga didn’t bother to conceal her indignation. “We worked to prevent a revolution, so that people can live normally. I took no personal pleasure in ‘persecuting’ anyone. I just did not want blood and chaos in my country.”
She wondered if Valery Eduardovich might be somehow testing her. But it was impossible to penetrate his opacity, and it was driving her crazy.
“Is that all?”
“We recruited volunteers to send to the Donbas.”
“Why?” His tone was sharp.
This was a provocative question. She wanted to talk about the terrible Ukrainians, the fascists, about protecting the Russian-speaking population, how New Russia was a historic possession of Russia, but instead she answered, “Because Ukraine is of strategic importance to Russia.” She was doing her best to appear professional and cynical.
He gave her another hard stare, and said, “More than anything else, Russia itself is strategically significant to Russia.”
She couldn’t take much more of this. “The boss gave me the Donbas assignment, and I don’t argue with orders.”
For just an instant she thought she detected a hint of approval in Karpov’s eyes.
“What kind of training did they give you before coming here?” he asked.
“Solo and team surveillance, counter-surveillance…”
“And do you understand what you’ll be doing here?”
“Only in general.”
Karpov leaned back in his chair and lit a Marlboro despite the closeness of the room. “Olenka, our situation is complicated. Our country made a strategic mistake. Possibly, in the course of events, there was no other choice. The invisible Cold War had gone on too long, and at some point it was bound to turn hot. The Yankees grabbed Ukraine by organizing an armed coup, and Russia was forced to act. Those at the top, of course, had a clearer view as to whether there was another way…” He was silent for a few beats before continuing, “But now it’s clear that the States wanted to draw us into a destructive war, and they succeeded. And now they’ll do everything possible to extract maximum gain and destroy us in the end.”
As his words soaked in, she experienced fear for the first time and to such an extent that it erased her indignation.
Karpov continued as though he were talking to himself. “And they have every resource and possibility. Many organizations serve this American goal, and not only the CIA. There’s the State Department, various government commissions, many funds that provide grants to Russian traitors, several research institutes — every one of them working for American intelligence. Our traitors and liberals who’ve come to the States work with these organizations. And you must sort it all out: their programs, actions, specializations, goals and methods. You should have learned all of this before coming here. Your cover work will place you in contact with all of this, but first you must realize what they are actually doing and what they’re after. This can be a dangerous game.”
“I’ll sort it out,” she said with some heat. “Believe me. I’ll do it.”
“OK.” She detected condescension in his voice and eyes. “I’ll explain it simply. They may be divided into ‘doves,’ or ‘hawks’ — neocons. It’s even easier to deal with the latter: they are clearly enemies, and they don’t hide the fact that they want to destroy our country. They dream of our collapse. They don’t hide their goals from anyone. But the ‘doves’ are more complicated. They pretend to be the ‘party of peace,’ but it’s far from the truth. They’re just more refined and delicate: they pretend to be weak and create the illusion that they’re easy to trick. But they actually want to entrap you. At first glance, it seems that these two tendencies work against one another, but it’s really nothing more than a banal lust for power. Both hate Russia.”
“What kind of traps do these ‘doves’ have?” she asked, quite taken aback by Karpov’s exposition.
“That’s what we have to find out, Olenka. That’s the task set before us all. Sometimes they can create the illusion that there is no trap, but there is. It cannot be otherwise. If we don’t find them, it just means we aren’t looking hard enough. The very survival of our country depends on our success here. This is a war of destruction, and it’s us or them. You know what will happen if the liberals and national traitors come to power in Russia. They’ll demand to get rid of people and to put anyone associated with the present government on trial, and that means you and me. If we lose, we’ll lose not only Russia, but our freedom and maybe our lives. There is nowhere we can go; the time for compromise is past. Our real enemies are the Americans — not the ragged bunch of sell-outs you were after in Russia. Our real goal is to save Russia and not to go on some quest in the Donbas. Do you understand?”