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Noya led Sharon to a neighboring block of highrise apartments, where they climbed the stairs up to the floor above, hurried to the far end of the building and back down the other stairs and out the door, where they ran across an empty lot, between four more blocks of apartments and into another block, where Gorev was waiting in a basement corridor beneath the harsh glare of an overhead bulb. The corridor led to a furnace room and was sooty with coal dust.
With Noya translating, Gorev introduced himself, thanked Sharon for coming, then introduced his wife, Anna, and his parents, saying they were being pursued by the KGB and wanted to defect if the Americans would grant them asylum. Speaking fluent Russian – to the surprise of Gorev and his family – Sharon asked what Gorev’s medical specialty was. Gathering his family together in front of him, Gorev replied that it was too dangerous to speak of in such informal surroundings. Sharon nodded pleasantly, indicating that she understood his not wanting to communicate details about what he did in front of the others.
Nevertheless, if Gorev wanted asylum, Sharon needed more than a few vague hints. “We grant asylum to people whose lives are in danger in their own countries. Is this the case for you and your family?”
Gorev nodded.
“Why is that?” asked Sharon.
Gorev rubbed his forehead anxiously. How much should he reveal? From what he’d heard, the Americans did not know about the secret laboratories of Biopreparat. He thought about the laboratory where he worked and how it had been constructed beneath a compound of mustard-colored hospital buildings. And because it was underground, it was impossible to detect by satellite or ground surveillance. Built four blocks from the edge of a depressing downtown district, the complex was surrounded by wooded parklands and a concrete parking lot full of cars. Beyond was a river and the residential sprawl of the city. Ambulances came and went to the hospital, and a nearby factory spewed soot into the air. By all appearances, it was a functioning medical facility in a medium-sized polluted Russian city.
Protected by a garrison of armed troops, the underground complex was accessed through blast-proof steel doors. Comprised of laboratories, clinics, surgical theaters and more than a dozen observation and experimentation rooms connected by a network of reinforced concrete tunnels, the complex employed over one hundred medical and scientific personnel in rotating twelve-hour shifts. Unlike the deteriorated appearance of the hospital above, the underground complex was outfitted with the latest computers, equipment and supplies. There were miles of electrical wiring for communications, lighting, air filtration, heating, incubators and refrigerators – rows and rows of them – plus freezers capable of holding dozens of cadavers. There was a cafeteria and sleeping quarters, and the complex maintained its own generators and sanitation. Prisoners were brought in for experimentation through a separate tunnel accessed from a parking garage two blocks away. Bodies were removed the same way and burned in the nearby factory.
He knew biological weapons was one of those murky areas you didn’t allow yourself think much about very much, because if you did, you would crack under the pressure. A genetically engineered strain of bacteria in a Petri dish was one thing. Injecting that strain into the arm of an inmate to see how quickly he died was another. The screams . . . the cries of desperation for something – anything – to end the suffering had eventually become unbearable. His supervisors, who ordered these experiments, considered the Nazis barbarians. What they failed to see – or saw but did not want to admit – was how little difference there was between what the Nazis did and what they were doing.
His last group of prisoners had been the worst. After unknowingly being fed a powerful laxative in the food line one day, the five targets – three men and two women between the ages of twenty-six and sixty – had been brought into his clinic for treatment, having been told they were being inoculated against dysentery, after which they would be kept for observation. The inmates were actually excited to be sick, thinking they would be given decent food, some clean clothes and a comfortable bed. He then had the assigned task of recording the progression of their symptoms while watching their initial optimism turn to uncontrollable shivers and raging fever within hours of being injected. Several hours later, terror set in when each of the inmates started coughing up blood. Within twenty-two hours, every one of them was dead.
And all because of a virulent new strain of bacteria that he himself had engineered.
His supervisors and department heads – all five of them – were ecstatic. He could still see them laughing and dancing behind the window when he went home that night. Something had to change. Someone had to speak up.
Ordinarily, he would not have had the strength to carry out a defection. But over the last year, he had seen the light fade from Noya’s eyes. She never laughed. She seldom smiled. She didn’t eat. The same with his wife, Anna. They were slowly dying under the constant surveillance. Thus, he set about planning their defection, knowing if they were caught trying to escape, or if anyone got so much as a hint that he was planning something like this, his family would be exiled or executed. Their only hope was reaching the West.
And so, here he was, in Leningrad, on the border of freedom, meeting with a woman he hoped would help them escape. But now was not the time to explain what the Soviet Union was doing.
Gorev glanced at his daughter, who was looking around at the spider webs and dirt of the corridor. Here they were, on the run, fearing for their lives, hoping beyond hope they didn’t starve or get caught. Noya deserved a future, which he could not give her so long as he did what he did.
“Dr. Gorev?” asked Sharon in the absence of a reply.
“I cannot say, not here.”
“I sympathize, Dr. Gorev,” Sharon replied. “Unfortunately, before we can talk about whether or not you qualify for asylum, I need to know why your lives are in danger. So I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me something.”
“My government does not want me to explain to you the nature of my research.”
“Which is?”
“I cannot say.”
“But this has placed your lives in danger?”
Gorev nodded.
“I’ve heard rumors that some of your laboratories are researching germs that make people sick,” Sharon continued, speaking in Russian and choosing her words carefully since Gorev’s family could understand every word. “Can you speak to those rumors?”
Clearly nervous at the question, Gorev repeated that he was unable to answer any specific questions right now, adding that a hematopathologist would be able to verify everything he had to show them once he and his family were safe.
“Are you saying you have something to show us? As in samples that would speak to those rumors?”
Gorev nodded.
Sharon said, “All right, then, based on what you’re telling me, the United States can grant you and your family asylum. Unfortunately, we have a big problem and that’s my inability to get you out of Leningrad without some advance planning. As you know, Cold War tensions have never been greater between our two countries. Thus, to risk an escalation with anything less than a well-planned strategy is out of the question.”
“I do not require you to help us escape,” Gorev replied. “I will take care of that myself. I ask only that you grant us asylum once we arrive.”
“That can be arranged.”
“I mean no disrespect, Miss Williams, but you are a secretary. Do you have the authority to make such a guarantee?”
Sharon smiled. “I’m not really a secretary, so, yes, I do.”
“Can your people receive us in a city of my choosing?”
“Where might that be?”
“With respect, I do not wish to state right now where that is.”
“That’s fine. When you’re ready, let me know when and where and we’ll work something out.”
And for the first time that night, Gorev smiled.
“Thank you very much,” he replied, shaking Sharon’s hand vigorously. “Noya speaks very good English. I will have her phone you at your Consulate in three days with the information that you require.”
“I’ll wait for her call. When she phones, have her ask for Walt Disney so I’ll know who it is.”
And for the first time that night, Noya smiled.
Bixler rode along silently in the darkened van thinking about Sharon’s report. Sharon knew how to read people and said Gorev had been difficult to judge. He had dropped all the right hints but in fact had said very little of substance. She had encountered people like that before and most of them had been fakes.
For Sharon, it was Noya’s fatalistic honesty that let her know Gorev was probably legit. Sharon went on to say she had done a lot of reading between the lines, but thought with a high degree of certainty that Gorev was probably part of a top-secret biological weapons program. “We’ve got no evidence such a program even exists,” Sharon concluded, “but I think Gorev may well be that evidence. I recommend we grant him asylum.”
“You’re awfully quiet,” said Pilgrim.
“I was thinking about Sharon’s report,” Bixler replied.
“Gorev does know to expect long lines at Disneyland, doesn’t he?” asked Franco.
Bixler and Pilgrim both laughed.
Picking up her phone, Bixler entered a number and put the phone to her ear. After some static and a series of clicks, a connection was made to Ricardo Valerdi, in the security room. Bixler asked if everything was secure.
“Talanov and Dubinina are still bickering over soccer,” Valerdi replied, “and their conversation matches exactly what’s happening in the game.”
“So we know they’re still in the room?”
“Affirmative. When Ireland scored, Talanov cheered and made glowing remarks about Ireland’s genetic superiority. Dubinina responded by saying how pretty Swatch watches were and did Ireland have anything that could top that. ‘You mean aside from a winning soccer team?’ Talanov replied.” Valerdi laughed. “Great response.”
“He’s deadlier than a snake, Valerdi. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Affirmative. But you should have heard what Talanov said next. He told Dubinina it was no surprise the Irish were winning. He said, ‘Those bonny Swiss lads grow up on milk chocolate, the Irish on whisky.’” He laughed again.
“What are you, a fan? Snap out of it! This guy’s as slippery as an eel . . . and twice as dangerous.”
“You got it, Boss.”
Bixler clicked off and sat with the brick phone in her lap, drumming her fingers thoughtfully while staring out the windshield at the passing lights.
“Slippery as an eel?” asked Franco. “Deadlier than a snake?”
“Clichés are clichés for a reason,” Bixler replied.
“Well, I’m no rocket scientist,” quipped Franco, “but how long will this go on? Where’s the line in the sand?”
“Cute.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Paul,” chided Pilgrim. “Better quit while you’re ahead.”
“Oh, you two are a barrel of laughs.”
“Sorry, Boss,” said Franco with a grin. “I know we’re skating on thin ice.”
“Go ahead, give me your best shot,” said Bixler, swiveling in her seat to look at them. “Tonight, it is water off a duck’s back. And you want to know why? It’s because we did it. We gave Talanov the slip. So while he and Dubinina are up in their room living it up, we’re about to steal a top scientist right out from under their noses. Man, I would not want to be in Talanov’s shoes come morning. His Irish lads may have won at soccer, but his head is definitely going to roll for letting Gorev slip through his fingers. And I cannot wait to see how this wipes that cocky smile off his face once and for all.”
