“I was tired of the military.”
“I haven’t seen your complete service record yet. But I am sure that you distinguished yourself in Vietnam. Or did something happen in 1973? Did you feel the sense of shame that you had lost your little war? Is that it? Are you a dropout?”
“The State Department was hiring.”
Miroshnikov smiled again. “You thought you could do more for your country with words than bullets, is that it?”
“Something like that.”
“Are you a Democrat or a Republican, Mr. McAllister? A registered party member?”
“What about it?”
“You’re not. Curious that you are willing to fight, or talk, for your freedom, but you are not willing to register with a party. In this country we take our government much more seriously.”
“You don’t have the choice.”
“Neither do you now,” Miroshnikov said softly. “Only because I’m here in this place for the moment.”
“For the moment, yes, Mr. McAllister. But a moment that could stretch to the end of your life. It depends on you. Upon how willing you will be to cooperate. And in the end you will talk to me. They all do.”
“If I don’t?”
“You will.”
“If I’m damaged you’ll have a hard time explaining it.”
“I think not.”
“Drugs, is that it?”
“Perhaps,” Miroshnikov said. “But I am glad to see that you are beginning to have a healthy curiosity about your future. It means to me that you will not be so tough, though from what I understand the CIA’s training camp outside of Williamsburg the Farm, isn’t that what you call the place? is staffed with some of the very best instructors in the business. I’ve often found myself wishing I could see it.”
McAllister allowed himself a smile. “With my connections at State, I’m sure something could be worked out. Perhaps a tour of the headquarters building at Langley, Colonel…
Miroshnikov glanced at the file again. “I suspect you were trained at the Farm in 1974, did your desk duty at Langley and then received your first overseas posting shortly afterward. I show you in Greece in 1975.”
“As a Special Assistant in the Political Affairs Section.”
“Your cover.”
“I am not a spy, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that.”
“No?”
“No.”
Miroshnikov smiled gently, indulgently, as a father might at a child who has been naughty.” Then a dreadful mistake has been made here, Mr. McAllister. A letter of apology will have to be sent, of course. This sort of thing has never happened before. You understand?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Just a few more questions, I think. You can manage just a little longer?”
“A mistake has been made. So release me. Now. Short of that let me speak with a representative from my embassy.”
Miroshnikov’s eyebrows rose.“Dear me, my good fellow, I believe you don’t understand after all.”
“What?”
“A mistake has been made, but not by us. By you, sir. By your government. By your ambassador.”
McAllister glanced up at the video camera mounted on the ceiling, its lens staring implacably toward the center of the room. He looked back at Miroshnikov.” What are you talking about?”
“The gun. The Beretta automatic that you were carrying in your pocket. Your ambassador must write us an immediate letter of explanation and apology. Second secretaries, even assistants to the ambassador, do not run around Moscow armed with deadly weapons. Only spies carry weapons, don’t you see? And in Moscow we execute spies.”
Chapter 2
The method of interrogation was as simple as it was effective. The Russians had been perfecting the art for many years, and Chief Interrogator Miroshnikov was very good at it.
In the first place, McAllister was denied sleep or even any proper rest. The interrogation sessions, sometimes lasting up to ten hours each, came at any time of the day or night. He would often be brought back to his tiny cell with its strong overhead light that was never switched off, where he might be allowed to lie on his bed which consisted of nothing more than an unpadded stainless-steel shelf hanging off the wall. Sometimes this bed was wet, at other times it was too hot even to touch and he would have to squat against the wall because the floor constantly had water running over it.
As often as not his rest period only lasted ten or fifteen minutes, when he would be hauled to his feet, dragged out into the corridor where he was made to undress and stand, shivering in the cold, at attention, until it was time to return to the interrogation room.
“There will come a point where I will be useless to you,” McAllister said, running a hand across the stubble of beard on his face.” It’s a delicate balance for you, colonel, between wearing me down so I become cooperative, versus wearing me down so badly that I’ll collapse on you. Maybe my heart will stop.”
“Time, I believe you are beginning to understand, is on my side,” Miroshnikov said, sipping his tea, steam rising from the glass.” For you, of course, the actual hours and minutes are of little consequence.” He smiled.” And yes, I agree with you. Your heart might stop. It is something to think about.”
“Then I would be dead, and of no further use to you.”
“On the contrary. We might not let you die. Not yet. But even in death you would be of some use to us. We Russians are frugal with our resources. And you, my dear McAllister, are most definitely a resource.”
“I would like to speak to a representative of my embassy.”
“Such comments are counterproductive at this point,” Miroshnikov said. He opened a file folder on the steel table between them.” Let’s return to Greece, August of 1975. As we see it your cover was as a special assistant in the embassy’s political section. You were the new kid on the block, as they say, but nevertheless you were given the responsibility for product management of a very successful agent network that operated across the border in”
“I was a political officer, nothing more. We were having trouble with the Greek government at the time, as you may recall. I was a troubleshooter.”
“The network was called Scorpius, which we thought at the time was quite imaginative. In fact your little nest of spies was quite effective, until the woman-Raiza Stainov-fell out of love with her control officer, in this case a man we learned was Alfred Lapides, with whom you had regular contact over a period of thirty-three months.”
“I’ve never heard the names,” McAllister said.” It’s of no mind to me now. Lapides is dead, killed in an unfortunate automobile accident in Sofia. We need, however, information on two other men-Thomas Murdock and Georgi Morozov. They were part of your Scorpius Network. Where exactly did they fit, can you tell me at least that much?”
The extent of Miroshnikov’s knowledge was bothersome, but they had known finally that the network had been blown, though they had never suspected Raiza. She had been one of their gold seams. Her husband had been chief of Section Three of the Bulgarian Military Intelligence Service, serving directly under General Ivan Vladigerov. Through Raiza they had learned about troop movements, about the new Soviet-Bulgarian missile pact in which Soviet 55–18 nuclear missiles were placed very near the Greek border, and on the failing health of Bulgarian Defense Minister Petko Dimitrov. How much of that information had been legitimate and how much had been disinformation now was seriously in doubt. Miroshnikov had provided him with a stunning piece of intelligence. Information, however, that was of absolutely no use in here.“I’ve never heard their names either,” McAllister said.” You are lying, but there is time, and I have no doubt that we will finally hit upon a subject of which you will be willing to speak about with me.”