All right, he thought, let's get to the questions.
The senior questioner, wearing a rumpled blue suit, looked to be sixty, ten years older now. His face was lined and gray, showing the apparent effects of too much smoke and drink. Still, his eyes did not meet Nikolai's, so no chance to take his emotional temperature.
Masirov, shuffling his feet and looking sorely uncomfortable, said, "These men want to talk about London in preparation for your new job there. But first, let's have lunch. We'll have another drink together before we eat."
The servant poured more brandies. Nikolai watched as the bottle came around to him. The servant turned it on end to serve, but it was empty. He left the room and returned with another bottle and served Nikolai.
Nikolai drank the brandy straight down. In a matter of seconds, the old Nikolai was gone, and someone new occupied his chair. Someone still calling himself Nikolai. But he was transformed.
* * *
Dimly, he heard one of them saying, "Remember one thing. We've got irrefutable evidence of your guilt. We know you are a British agent. You'd better confess. Priznaysya! Confess!" Then there was a pause. He remembered Barishsky went out and then reappeared. His movements all seemed abrupt, but probably because Nikolai was half asleep. "Priznaysya!" he repeated hypnotically. "Confess!"
Bucharov was colder, more measured. He didn't yell or pound the table. "You confessed very well a few minutes ago. Now please go through it again and confirm what you said."
"Confess again?"
"Yes," Bucharov said. "Then, we can sign a paper and go to sleep."
Bucharov was talking slowly and emphatically, as if to a child who forgets what he heard five minutes ago.
Nikolai kept saying, "No, I've nothing to confess. I've done nothing."
And so it went on. Reconstructing events after, Nikolai guessed that the interrogation lasted more than one day. At one stage, he went to the bathroom where he might have been sick. As he went, he saw the two servants staring at him most unpleasantly. Later, he heard that he made several visits to the bathroom and drank large quantities of water. The interrogators concluded that he had been trained by the British in techniques of combating drugs and was trying to clear the poison out of his system. But really, he just had a great thirst.
On the other hand, it might well have been the single British pep-pill he had taken that morning, which had helped him hold out as well as he did. That was about all he could remember, yet the key question was unanswered: had he or had he not given himself away irrevocably? He could not tell what the KGB had or had not found out, but it was clear that he was, in effect, under sentence of death, even if that sentence was suspended pending further investigations.
It took days to recover from the drug he'd been given.
But when he did, he understood Barishsky’s bottom line: they did not have proof positive about him or he would have been dead.
And, so far, he was still very much alive.
49
Which was the time Henry Stoner went for broke. The KGB had offered him one million dollars in cash for the names of all spies against the Soviet Union. Stoner took the bait and made a list. Stoner had decided to turn over all Soviet spies as a defensive matter as well so they couldn’t expose him first. They would know from the inside, at some point, that he was the leak the Soviets had developed and paid. He wanted the Soviets to clean them out and execute them all before they had his name. It was all about protection for him. Protection and the matter of one million dollars.
On 12 October 1962, Stoner made his move. That afternoon, he met Sergey Nikintov in Chadwick’s, a popular Georgetown restaurant. He handed him a briefcase stuffed with MI5 intelligence, classified cables, reports, and the names of twenty-five Soviet spies working for the United States. And one working for the UK. He had referred to this spy in their earlier meeting. But this time, he had a name. MI5 referred to him as ULYSSES, but Stoner didn’t stop there. He opened the McCone memo listing the name. “Your British spy is named Nikolai Semenov. He is the new rezident of KGB London.”
The intelligence was in Moscow’s hands one hour later. All of it, including the name of Nikolai Semenov. The message was referred to General Barishsky. Here is your smoking gun, the memo said to him.
They sent a car for Nikolai.
General Barishsky had the Stoner evidence face-up on his desk. He showed Nikolai the report. Nikolai read slowly, then looked up.
“Well,” said Barishsky, “I will keep it short. You will return to London as rezident. You are a smart, smart man. You already know what comes next.”
“I’m to spy for the KGB while MI5 believes I’m helping them.”
“I have people outside your house at this moment. If you refuse me this, your mother dies. Then your daughter dies.”
“And if I agree to spy for you?”
Barishsky smiled and turned the report face down. “Then you go to London and little Sasha stays here with the State. She will remain in a State orphanage until she is old enough to go to school. She will be sent to a top private school and receive the best education Russia has to offer. Same for middle school and college. After college, she can rejoin you in London if she wishes, for we shall be finished with you.”
“And if I refuse?”
Masirov reached for his phone and lifted it, ready to dial. “Don’t dare me.”
“I am your spy in London.”
“Tell her goodbye. You won’t see her again until she’s a young woman, a graduate of Moscow University.”
Nikolai’s eyes filled with tears, overflowing down his cheeks. “I understand.”
“You will be the best spy we’ve ever run.”
“I know I will. Thank you.”
“Now listen closely. You have hurt your country irreparably. You have given me a mess right in my lap. I have to clean up after you. You’re going on a special assignment for one week. You will be posted to a dacha. You are directed to write out your history up to when you began spying for Britain and all the years while working for the MI5. We are going to need to track down every agent you’ve jeopardized and bring them home. We’ll have to do the same with every military installation you have compromised. Every politician, every business. Your contamination is endless. But now you are ordered to write it all down so we know where to begin.”
Nikolai looked at the tabletop. At one time, he had told the English he wouldn’t reveal the names of KGB officers. But even that wall had come down.
He shuddered to think about the coming deaths because he was a traitor. “I will write down everything. I will do whatever I can to save lives.”
Barishsky sat back and pushed his glasses to his forehead. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “No one survives this in the end. Carry that with you every day.”
“I will, General.”
“Now write down your time in London. Tell us what you have done and said. Tell us how our people will die because of you.”
“Yes, General.”
“Now leave my sight. I cannot stand you another minute.”
“Yes, General.”
He waved a hand at the door. “Now. Leave. We are finished.”