He hadn’t really expected to stand trial at the Lubyanka. It would have been like holding a trial for an accused Russian spy at CIA headquarters in Langley. Where exactly he would be tried, however, would depend upon how important they thought he was, and how out of the eyes of the foreign press they wanted to keep it. His answer came fifteen minutes later when they finally stopped and the back doors were opened. McAllister instantly recognized the place from his briefings. It was the Lefortovsky Military Prison in Moscow’s northeastern district. The most ominous of any trial location for him. Security was tight here, and in the rear courtyard they executed people.
Here, he realized, his life could very well end. They entered through a back door, walked down a short narrow corridor and took one flight of stairs up, where they were made to wait in a large office at which a half a dozen military clerks were busy at their desks. None of them bothered to look up. McAllister watched the secondhand on the clock above the door, suddenly fascinated with time. It had been weeks since he had had any notion of the hour or minute. It was a few minutes before three now. In the afternoon. He tried to imagine what was happening at the embassy, and what Gloria would be doing.
The door opened and Tarasenko, his attorney, beckoned to them. McAllister’s guard accompanied him inside. At the head of the large room was the raised bench for the three judges, called tribunals in the Soviet judicial system, flanked by the Soviet flag and the State Prosecutor’s flag, and backed by a photograph of Lenin. The Moscow District Prosecutor was seated on the right with Chief Interrogator Miroshnikov and General Suslev, the man who had arrested him. William Lacey, the American charge d’affaires, was the only person in the gallery. When McAllister was ushered in he jumped up. “You have just a moment or two before it begins,” Tarasenko said. Lacey was a tall, slightly built, angular-faced man, with thinning gray hair, who always dressed impeccably in three-piece suits. His overcoat and Russian fur hat were lying on the bench beside him. He made no move to come over. McAllister tried to read something in the man’s expression, but he could not. Tarasenko moved off to the defense attorney’s table to the left of the bench, and McAllister stepped over to where Lacey was waiting.
“Christ, am I glad to see you, Bill,” McAllister said, keeping his voice low.
“How are you, are you all right?” Lacey asked, searching McAllister’s face.
“I’ve been better. How about getting me out of here?”
“We’re working on it, Mac. But listen, Langley says for you to plead guilty to whatever you’re charged with.”
McAllister stiffened. This wasn’t what he had expected at all. “Listen to me, goddamnit. Plead guilty, and you’ll probably be sentenced to immediate expulsion from the Soviet Union. We grabbed one of their people two weeks ago in New York. He was operating out of the UN, and they’ve been making all the right noises to get him back. They’ll trade. You’re going to have to trust us on this one. With luck we can have you out of here within the next twenty-four hours.”
“My ass is hanging out there,” McAllister said. His stomach was tight. He glanced over at the defense attorney who was watching them. “They say they have my confession.”
“It doesn’t matter, Mac. Just plead guilty and we’ll get you out of here in one piece. Soon. I promise you.”
McAllister looked at Lacey. He compressed his lips and nodded slightly. “You’re the boss,” he said. “How’s Gloria?”
“Worried,” Lacey said. “She’s back in Washington. We thought it best under the circumstances, to get her the hell out of here.”
“Good…” McAllister started to say, when a door at the head of the chamber opened and the three tribunals filed in.“All rise,” a clerk intoned.
“This will be over in a couple of minutes,” Lacey whispered. “Hang in there.”
“Sure,” McAllister said, and he moved with his guards to the rail for the accused, directly in front of the bench. A set of headphones hung on a hook for the translation. He didn’t bother with them. By now they knew he spoke Russian.
The tribunals looked down sternly at him as the clerk read out the charges specified against him before the Moscow Northeast District -1 People’s Special Court. Spying against the People’s State of Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic, the People’s States of Czechoslovakia and Poland, Afghanistan, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was also charged with carrying a deadly weapon, and with assault on an officer of the KGB who was, at the time of the assault, conducting lawful business of the State.
The tribunals sat down, and then everyone else sat except for McAllister and his guards.
“In the matter before the court, comrades,” the District Prosecutor said getting up, “the State has prepared several items of evidence including the accused’s sworn confession, the accused’s deadly weapon which he was carrying at the time of his arrest-sworn to by Comrade General Suslev-and of course Comrade Colonel Miroshnikov’s own testimony of the assault made on his person.”
Attorney Tarasenko got to his feet. “If it pleases the court, we would like to make a brief statement before we proceed.”
All three tribunals had shifted their gaze from the prosecutor to Tarasenko.
“My client wishes to plead guilty to all of the charges specified against him, without mitigating circumstances.” The attorney turned and dramatically pointed a stern finger at McAllister. “There, comrades, stands an American spy. An agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, by his own admission. A puppet of a State gone terribly.. oh so terribly bad.” He turned back to the tribunals, a new respect in his voice. “Acting on orders from his masters, he has admitted that since 1975, when he began spying against the People’s State of Bulgaria, he has engaged in the systematic assault on all good Soviet peoples … in fact upon all peace-loving peoples of the world. By his own admission, comrades… and with remorse, I might add. the accused stands humbly before this court begging understanding and forgiveness for his heinous crimes against mankind.”
“Are you pleading guilty to these crimes, Comrade Tarasenko?” the chief tribunal asked. He was an older man, his voice as dry as winter grass.
“Yes, comrade, I am, with the fervent wish that compassion and mercy will be shown here.”
“The District Prosecutor’s office has no animosity toward this unfortunate man,” the prosecutor said.
“What of you, Comrade Colonel?” the chief tribunal asked. Miroshnikov smiled sadly as he glanced at McAllister. He shook his head. “No, comrade, I hold no animosity toward Mr. McAllister. In fact he has become my friend. Believe me when I tell you that I genuinely care for this man. I see a good and kind person beneath the trappings of his professiona load, I might add, that he no longer wishes to carry.”
“You are a generous man, Comrade Colonel,” the chief tribunal said.