The guests from Moscow got into the backseat of Semionov’s car, with Semionov himself squeezing into the front, alongside his driver. They were greeted by the scent of an air freshener mixed with the odor of cheap cigarettes, and Demedev suppressed the gag reflex that threatened momentarily to overcome him.
“Anything and everything you need,” Semionov said, “just say the word.”
“I’ll tell you exactly what we need,” Demedev responded. “The interrogation room you have on the basement floor of your headquarters, along with a secluded detention cell on the same level. And you’ll also give us a room in the basement to serve as our accommodation. Three field beds, a desk, a safe. A bottle of vodka. One guard per shift, three in all. That’s all we’ll need. I want our presence here to go completely unnoticed. But if someone does see us and asks questions, simply say it’s a routine spot-check by general headquarters. That we showed up unannounced. I don’t want others to be privy to the inquiry we’re conducting. No one from your Investigation Division or the Credibility Department. And certainly not Alexei Volkov, who somehow ended up here instead of receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics.” The irony wasn’t lost on Semionov. “Is that clear?”
“As clear as a sunny day in mid-August,” Semionov responded.
“Make the arrest at three-thirty in the morning. I want a low-profile operation, without any fuss or disturbances. Knock quietly on the door, without alerting the entire neighborhood. If necessary, rather than make a noise, pick the lock. Don’t break down the door. I don’t want any drama. But the moment you’re in the house, cuff her hands tightly, so that it hurts, and put a bag over her head. And not a new one, if possible. A bag that others have thrown up in before. You know what I mean, one that’s still going to smell even after a thousand washes. And bring her directly to the interrogation room. We’ll be waiting for her.”
“Everything will be carried out exactly according to plan, Captain Demedev.”
“And one more thing, Colonel Semionov. I wish to thank you. I appreciate your efforts and expeditious organization. It’s good to see that we have competent commanders of high stature in remote locations, too. Thank you.”
Katrina Geifman was led into the interrogation room. The bag was still on her head. She was shoved down onto the chair set aside for her, a low chair, its seat sloping forward slightly, almost imperceptibly, toward the floor. “Take the hood off, please,” Demedev said quietly to the guard. “Release the handcuffs. And now please leave the room. We’ll call for you if needed.”
Katrina rubbed her eyes and tried to fix her hair. Her eyes were still puffy from sleep, and she massaged her wrists, which were now swollen, thanks to the over-tight handcuffs. A powerful beam of light was aimed in her direction, and she could barely make out the face of the interrogator standing in front of her, dressed in the middle of the night in a dark and handsome suit, his shirt white, tieless, its top buttons undone. He approached her slowly. “Katrina Geifman,” he said softly, almost in a whisper, “Katrina Geifman.” He stood behind her, and despite the terrible stench from the bag that had invaded her nostrils, she could still detect the fragrance of his manly cologne. He leaned over her suddenly and reached for her left wrist, gripping it tightly and pinning her palm to the table. With his right hand he then grabbed her forefinger and violently tugged it upward, until the room filled with the sickening noise of a bone snapping and the terrible sound of her screams. Katrina felt as if the screaming was coming from someone else. An awful pain spread through her and she gazed at her broken finger, which now appeared crooked and no longer an integral part of her hand. Her eyes filled with tears of anger and surprise, and she could see flashes of red, purple, and yellow in her mind, as if something had exploded inside her head. Her interrogator sat down seemingly in slow motion, without a sound, on the other side of the table. On the edge of her vision she could make out a second, dark figure, leaning comfortably against the wall in the corner of the room.
“Katrina Geifman,” Demedev said in an even tone. “Good evening. My name is Captain Gorodov. View this as a piece of personal advice: Make this process as brief as possible. Because it could also be a long one, and very painful, too. It’s your decision. I demand to know exactly, in full detail, what you told the spy who visited you at your home, a spy whose presence you didn’t even bother to report to us.”
Katrina Geifman lost track of time. She couldn’t tell if she had been there for an hour or two days or perhaps even longer. And if it was only an hour, then it was a very long and agonizing one. Two men dragged her to the detention cell and tossed her onto the bed like a rag doll. The blood was pounding in her head, her broken fingers appeared swollen and deformed, as if they were no longer human digits. Her entire body was crying out in pain. She asked for water. Air. All she wanted was a brief respite. Just a brief one. A pause before the pain resumed. There were moments when it seemed to her that there was nothing else in the world aside from the pain that sliced through her body, as if it were a lightning rod for all the agonies of the world. At those moments her mind was blank. Her thoughts weren’t her own. She told her interrogators everything, absolutely everything. All she knew about Cobra, and every piece of information on him that she had passed on to Galina Abramovich, who, as the interrogators had mockingly hurled at her, was actually someone else. At the edges of her thoughts somewhere, between the explosions of pain and waves of nausea, she asked herself if they were authorized to be privy to the secret. Yes, Katrina, good on you, she mocked herself. Preserving compartmentalization and information security even during your darkest hours. Is that really the thing that should concern you now, in the pits of hell, the inferno of your pain—whether the interrogators are authorized to know your secrets? During the course of her interrogation she hadn’t behaved any differently from the tens of thousands of other interrogation subjects whose flesh and bones had been crushed and broken. The human body isn’t designed to be torn to shreds with torture. And there was only one thing that she didn’t tell the monsters. One detail she had guarded as if her life depended on it. And it wasn’t even anything significant. But Katrina knew that if she wasn’t able to keep it from them, her soul would be crushed. She had told Galina that Brian, Cobra’s handler, was from a place in the United States that gets snow during the Christmas period. But she had kept that from the elegant officers from Moscow who had turned her into a miserable and beaten lump of flesh. They would never hear that from her! That was one more secret, a small one, that would remain hers.
Her pulse pumped shards of pain to every organ in her body. It wouldn’t let up. Perhaps the pain would never let go of her. A heavy darkness descended on Katrina Geifman, and she couldn’t tell if she was falling or asleep or passing out.
41
FSB HEADQUARTERS, MOSCOW, MARCH 2013
The adjutant showed Demedev into the extensive chambers of the deputy head of the FSB.