“Have you nothing to say?” he asked.
“Would it matter if I denied the charge?”
“I think not.” The interrogator lifted an open box from the floor and set it on the table, then emptied the contents one object at a time. An encryption pad, edible paper, a SRAC transmitter, and other electronics took their places in the space between the two people. “These were recovered from your home. They would seem to establish very clearly that you have been working for the CIA.”
“What would you have me say?” Puchkov asked, her voice cracking with anger.
Surprising, Sokolov thought. No fear, only hostility. Few people in her place had that reaction. For many, the main obstacle to extracting a confession was the prisoner’s anxiety. Terror was nature’s most effective paralytic. But the hostile ones, getting a confession from them often was just a matter of touching the nerve that had spawned and fed their outrage. An angry person was usually very willing to explain herself. “The truth. That is all I need.”
“What does the truth matter?” she asked. “We both know that I would not be here in shackles”—she held up her hands—“if our superiors had not already decided what the truth is for themselves. What I tell you will make no difference in what happens to me.”
Sokolov was confused. So angry, but unwilling to say why? That was unusual. He pushed again, trying to find a trigger that would elevate her hostility to a level that would override her self-control. “Perhaps not,” he admitted. “But you can still be of service to your country. Surely you still feel some loyalty—”
“Loyalty?” she hissed. “Loyalty to the country that is going to put a bullet in my head? If you were in this chair, you would find that the condemned cannot feel loyalty toward the executioners.”
“Or remorse, I suppose.”
“No,” Puchkov said. She turned her head and looked away, falling silent.
Sokolov frowned. If she wouldn’t explain herself in anger, perhaps she might respond to a kinder approach. “Then I ask you, in honesty, why did you commit treason? What was your reason? I truly would like to understand.”
“Why? So you can help the GRU become more efficient at spotting a Judas before he can kiss one of the generals on the cheek?”
A Christian? Sokolov wondered. The file said nothing about her being a woman of faith. Were her motivations somehow religious? Sokolov exhaled. “No, not that. I have my own reasons. If you will tell me yours, I promise you, I will not put them in my final report.”
“I don’t believe you,” Puchkov said, her voice flat.
“I understand, but as there has been no trial, I think you will understand when I say that those who have ordered your death have no interest in understanding your motives. I could record them, but no one would read them. Anything I record here will be boxed away in some warehouse where no one will see the papers for a hundred years. Or perhaps they will be burned… I don’t know. So I am being quite honest with you when I say that I want to know your motives only for myself.”
Puchkov stared at him for long seconds, studying his face, trying to decide whether she believed his claims. The interrogator said nothing, giving her all the time she wanted. The woman finally spoke after two minutes had passed. “Because our country is lost,” she said. “We could have had a free country. We had our moment… and we let the oligarchs and the organized criminals come back, and now we are a tyranny again. Now our leaders kill anyone who leaves and speaks out. Girenko, Novikov, Yushenkov, Kozlov, Litvinenko, Markelov? How many others? How many reporters and writers? They hunt them and shoot them in the street or feed them polonium tea. Even if I left the Rodina, if I spoke my conscience, they would come and find me and do the same to me. So tell me, how can I betray a country that feels no loyalty for me? Impossible. You can only betray those who care for you.”
A true believer, he thought. Topilin had committed treason for money; he’d seen others do it for ego or excitement, some because they felt slighted by superiors or colleagues. But Puchkov had done it because her morality had driven her to it. But there was a vehemence behind the words. This was no mere ideologue. No, the Kremlin had hurt this woman, hurt her in a very personal way. Who did we kill, Major? Sokolov wondered. A family member? A best friend? A lover? He doubted she would tell him. Such personal pain was not to be shared with those who had caused it.
“I understand,” Sokolov said. “And I do not judge you. You are not alone in thinking as you do. So please believe that you have my respect.”
Puchkov glared at him. “And what does that earn me now?”
“Perhaps nothing,” Sokolov admitted. “But the most honorable acts aren’t those that we perform for ourselves, are they? It is only when we serve others that we become the best of men and women.”
“That depends on who we choose to serve,” Puchkov said. “And you serve evil men.”
Sokolov repressed a smile and closed Puchkov’s file. “I am not a religious man, Major Puchkov. And where there is no god to tell us right from wrong, evil becomes simply a matter of perspective.”
“I am told that several of your people were injured today, Arkady.” Lavrov wanted to slam the phone onto its cradle, but he refused to acknowledge any setback to Grigoriyev. The old FSB director was known for his mind games. He had neutralized more than one opponent by pricking their egos and goading them into mistakes.
“Such things are not unexpected,” Lavrov replied.
“They are when your people are engaged in illegal operations,” Grigoriyev told him, his voice turning cold in an instant. “It is one thing for you to twist the foreign minister’s strings and convince the president to expel Americans. It is quite another for you to perform your own counterintelligence operations on our own soil. That is the duty of the FSB.”
“That is true,” Lavrov conceded. “But our source has given us the names of CIA moles within our own government. We cannot release those names to you without endangering the source, so it has become necessary for us to take on the responsibility to arrest the traitors. Call the president and discuss the matter with him if you wish.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s what you are doing, Arkady,” Grigoriyev chided. “In fact, I think that there is some other reason you want to keep this all hidden from me. I think you don’t want the FSB looking into your operations at all.”
“I have nothing to hide from you.”
“Quite the opposite, I think,” Grigoriyev said. “I am told that your people tried to arrest another person at the scene, a woman. And this woman not only escaped arrest, but she took down one of your Spetsnaz soldiers as she did so, and then left two of your men’s cars wrecked in a ditch. Three people were hospitalized.”
Lavrov restrained a curse. The old man had his own spies inside the GRU. Lavrov had suspected that, but hadn’t been able to confirm it. It wasn’t unexpected. The FSB was the spawn of the KGB, and if there was one thing that organization had excelled at, it was spying on its own citizens.
“So I have a theory,” Grigoriyev goaded him. “I think that your source did not give you the names of every CIA officer in Russia. I think there is still one out there, probably more, and you don’t know who she is.”