Grigoriyev stared hard at Barron, murder in his eyes. “You have lived in Russia before, Mr. Barron,” he said. “My men retrieved our old file on you. It said nothing about you being a CIA officer.”
“I lived here for three years,” Barron confirmed. “I’d like to think I was good at the business.”
“It appears you were. But you were in a terrible car accident,” the Russian noted.
“Some of your counterintelligence boys were tailing me and one of my officers,” Barron told him. “They got a little aggressive and ran into us… flipped our car and killed the young woman who was with me.”
“They thought they were trailing diplomats and thought they could intimidate you. It was a new team and they were reckless. My condolences, though such accidents do happen from time to time. For their stupidity, the team responsible was reassigned to some very unpleasant duty in our far northeast, if that gives you any satisfaction at all.” Grigoriyev’s tone announced that he could not have cared less about a dead American spy. He turned to the senior U.S. officer in the room. “I was quite surprised to receive your request for a meeting, Miss Cooke. It is rare for American intelligence officers to meet with us at all, and when it does happen, months of planning occur in advance. Rushed meetings are rare things, so you must forgive my suspicions and concerns about your honesty right now.”
“Not at all, Director,” Cooke said. “I would feel the same if I was sitting on your side of the table.”
“So we understand each other,” Grigoriyev agreed. “Then why did you wish to meet with me?”
“There is a situation with one of our assets here in Moscow that has gone out of our control and we need your assistance to resolve it,” Cooke replied.
Sokolov leaned in to Kyra, close enough to whisper. “I turned cameras off, so they cannot hear us, before they came in with you. Will look like equipment failure. You know where you are, yes? This building is old GRU headquarters, but GRU does not handle counterintelligence in the Rodina. That is FSB. They don’t know you are here and Lavrov will not tell them or your embassy. FSB would turn you over to your embassy and expel you from country after making you a… what is the word… spectacle? But FSB does not know about what Lavrov is doing here and he does not want them to know. So if you want me to tell your embassy that you are here so they can tell FSB to come, you must give me your name.”
Kyra looked at the man in disbelief. “I have wanted to work for your people, long time now,” Sokolov said.
Kyra stared at him, watching him twitch. The arrogance had disappeared so quickly and completely that she wasn’t sure it hadn’t been an act all along. “I don’t believe you,” she finally said, cautious. He was showing none of the physical signs of deceit, but he was a Russian intelligence officer after all. The GRU trained its men to hide them, she was sure.
Sokolov saw her expression. “For thirty years, I am interrogator for GRU,” he said. “I am good at it, but I am sick of it. Seeing people brought to me who have done nothing but make angry or insult some senior man. Then our Soviet Union falls and I had hope we would be a better country. We are a better country, for a few years. They do not bring people to me in here for long time. Then Putin takes over and I see him and his friends taking us back, making us again what we were. And then they start bringing people to me again—” He stopped talking, almost in midsentence, choking on whatever he was going to say next.
Kyra didn’t try to fill the silence. Finally, Sokolov looked up. “And I am a coward,” he said, self-loathing in his voice. “They bring these men to me… sometimes women, sometimes journalists who try to solve murders done by government… officers and spies who tell superiors that they are evil men… sometimes just businessmen who do not want to sell things to the Kremlin at prices the Kremlin wants to pay. And I ask them questions, and if they do not give me answers that my bosses want to hear, then I step outside and let guards come in and beat them until they give me answers that my bosses want to hear. And I am afraid to say no because I know the names of so many people that my bosses kill. I am afraid that if I stop, they kill me too.”
The Russian colonel slumped, resting his backside on the heavy metal table. “So I think maybe I can be a spy, but I never volunteer because I am afraid. And then Lavrov tells me that he has source who is going to give him names of Russians who I need to kill. And I think, if names come from his source, then Russians brought to me must be working for CIA, yes? And I think, maybe I can warn the men who the source names, so they can maybe escape. So Lavrov gives me the name, I find the person, and I make private phone call and tell them to run. But my unit, they are too good and catch them anyway, and I have to act like I am pleased and do my duty so they do not kill me.”
He had hardly looked at Kyra during his explanation, but he raised his head and looked at the analyst’s face. “But now Lavrov brings me Americans, you and the other man. He will not talk and I have to try to make him. Lavrov does not want me to kill him, but I think maybe it would be better. If you do not talk, maybe Lavrov will tell me to do to you the things I had to do to him. I do not want to hurt you. I hope you can tell your bosses about me and help me escape my country. Will you help me? Will you help my family? If you say yes, I try to save you. I cannot get you out of the building. The escorts have orders from Lavrov. The only way to get you outside is to tell FSB. Grigoriyev hates Lavrov and to hear that Lavrov is holding and torturing diplomats will give him a chance to hurt Lavrov. But FSB, they will contact your embassy first to confirm you are diplomat. They will need your name to do that. If your embassy agrees, FSB will come—”
The door opened behind them. Sokolov’s face switched from one of depression and despair to a mask of nonemotion in an instant. He turned around.
General Arkady Lavrov stood at the door. “I am told that we have an American guest,” he said, in English.
“Yes, General,” Sokolov replied in the same language. “I am asking her questions, but she says only that she is diplomat and will not answer questions. She wants us to tell U.S. embassy—”
“Yes, yes,” Lavrov said, waving the explanation away. “You are dismissed.”
“I—” Sokolov started. Then he decided that silence was the better course, looked at Kyra, and retreated from the room. The door closed behind him.
“And this ‘situation’… who does it concern?” Grigoriyev asked.
Play it up, Cooke thought. People believe what they want to believe… even Russians.
“Three of our officers and GRU Chairman Arkady Lavrov,” Barron said.
Grigoriyev held up a hand. “You have never admitted to having intelligence officers on Russian soil.”
“And we’re not admitting it now. You understand how this is all played, Director,” Barron told him.
“I do. But to the best of my knowledge, Arkady Lavrov and the foreign minister have expelled all of your people. Are you telling me now that they missed some?”
“We’re not at liberty to confirm or deny whether any of the people Lavrov had expelled were intelligence officers,” Cooke countered. “They’re not the issue. The officers that Lavrov is holding is the issue.”
Grigoriyev frowned. “The GRU has no authority to detain foreign citizens for espionage. Such arrests are strictly the purview of the FSB.”