Yuri Kuznetsov sat at a Starbucks on the north side of Lubyanka Square, nursing a Venti black coffee, trying to keep his head upright. He massaged his bald scalp with his fingers, trying to shake off a splitting headache. He wore the same blue suit he’d traveled in, rumpled now, his tie loosened, collar stretched open. He was trying like hell to get some air.
Somewhere under the pounding jackhammer in his head, he dimly remembered a saying he’d heard used by an American CIA officer once: No good deed goes unpunished.
It seemed a fitting tribute to his current predicament, though the Russian translation—Ni odno dobroye delo ne ostayetsya beznakazannym—lacked the same sense of irony. In the Russia where Yuri had been raised, good deeds, bad deeds, innocent deeds—any deeds were subject to punishment.
He looked out at the gray skies of central Moscow, noting the snow blowing between buildings, the wind harassing shoppers. This was the touristy core of upscale downtown now. Around the corner from this Starbucks stood a cavernous Nike store. The Lubyanka, home throughout the decades to the KGB and now FSB, sat just across the street—five stories of crushing masonry that took up half a city block.
To Russians of Yuri’s generation, the very name Lubyanka evoked tremors, and with good reason. It had served as the clearinghouse for terror of Russian civilians since Stalin. A mountain of gray stone and yellow stucco, it stood as a perverse monument to despotism. Juxtaposing it with the happy distractions of modern American retail was a Russian version of irony, he thought dimly.
He tried again unsuccessfully to piece together the events of the last twenty-four hours. He’d thought the coffee would help. Maybe it was helping. There were now at least parts that were perfectly clear, others opaque as tar.
It had started in Lebanon. He’d driven down from Damascus with Putov. After a day there, he’d caught the direct Aeroflot to Moscow. The plane had been deserted and he’d stretched languidly across three seats. He remembered zipping through customs at Sheremtyevo and coming out on the street, stunned by the cold.
A man had met him there.
That’s right! He thought now, the fog lifting barely.
A balding redheaded man in a long leather jacket. Yuri had followed because the man had identified himself as FSB, state security. He’d escorted Yuri into the rear of a Renault, landing next to another FSB man in the backseat.
He remembered being told he simply had to answer a few questions at the Lubyanka, after which he could be on his way to his actual meeting over at Yasenevo. He recalled being pissed off, but also, as a lifelong foot soldier in the Russo–Soviet system, compliant.
Things were coming back to him now.
They’d given him a medical exam. They’d weighed him, taken his blood pressure and temperature. Then a young doctor had given him a shot. After that, things had gotten weird.
Thinking about it in the safety of the Starbucks, he yawned and downed more coffee. He knew now what the shot had been: scopolamine, hyoscine, a drug that blocked the responses of the nervous system. With the right dosage, it served as both a truth serum and an amnesiac. The Russian security services had been quietly using it for years.
But to do it to one of its own? Thank God he had nothing to hide, he thought. Suppose he had? He shuddered over the cup. Lubyanka.
He vaguely recalled an indeterminate period of questioning. At some point he remembered stumbling under the arms of two strong men who clumsily deposited him in a room with a cot and a locked door. He’d awoken in complete darkness but had no idea where he was, how he’d gotten there, what time it was. They’d taken his wristwatch. He’d slept some more. For exactly how long, he didn’t know.
Trying to remember the interrogation now had that slippery quality of piecing together the elements of a fever dream. He couldn’t quite be sure any of it had actually happened, could he? The career intelligence officer in him told him it had; but if someone had told him it was all a figment of his imagination, he probably would have accepted it. He could recall bits of emotion, feeling something. He’d been angry, indignant. But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what they’d been asking him or why.
Finally, harsh white lights had come on in the locked room and they’d provided a sandwich with some water. As though they’d mildly inconvenienced him, a uniformed FSB officer and a doctor then thanked him for “volunteering” for the interview and made him sign a one-page legal sheet as a condition of his freedom. Moments later he was out on the street, jacket in hand, tie in pocket, eyes blinking at the falling snow.
And now here he sat in a Starbucks, wondering why the hell all that had happened.
A good-looking blue-eyed blonde in a turtleneck under a fur coat came into the Starbucks with an enormous striped shopping bag on her arm. A blast of cold air followed her, ruffling Yuri’s napkin. After ordering, the thirtyish woman took off the coat, showed off her chest, and installed herself a few feet away.
That was at least one thing he missed about Moscow, Yuri thought, rubbing his head. Perhaps the only thing. Women like her sure as shit didn’t exist in Damascus. He thought about shifting his seat to catch a peek at this otherworldly creature, but his head hurt too much to bother.
After downing his coffee and a large wedge of carrot cake, he stepped into the freezing cold, looking for a secure spot to use his phone, out of sight of Lubyanka. He took a left on Kuznetsky, passing more shops, looking for shelter from the wind. Finally, he found a vacant retail storefront with an alley to the side. He stepped into it and called Putov through the encrypted mobile app.
“How’s Beirut?” he asked, his voice rasping.
“A little hot,” said Putov. “There are no sheep in the fields today.”
Yuri nodded, rubbing the back of his head, still trying to chase away the headache.
Putov had just given him the code that their surveillance had still come up empty. He’d sent his deputy to Lebanon to watch for any sign of Kasem, the Quds Force operator he’d tipped about the Iranian leak. Though on a secure line, they still spoke in code because they assumed that some Russian security agency was listening to them. Probably those murderous bastards a quarter mile away in the Lubyanka, he thought.
“You’re sure? No sheep at all?”
“No, none.”
Though he’d tipped off the Quds man, Yuri had yet to see any significant reaction from the Iranians that would help establish the connection to the CIA.
He felt like he was losing time. Russian teams had been sent into various Iranian facilities and the trip to the half-completed Bushehr reactor was still on. But he’d lost the Zoloto link on the American network. He didn’t know why. The information had simply dried up for some reason. It was as though the whole thing had just gone away.
“All right,” Yuri said finally.
He rubbed his eyes and yawned, shaking off the cold. He considered telling Putov about the FSB pickup he’d endured here in Moscow, but decided against it. For all Yuri knew, Putov might have orchestrated it. And besides, the bastards were likely listening to him right now.
He simply said, “Any other messages?”
“Just that Colonel Niskorov confirmed your meeting for this afternoon at Yasenevo,” said Putov. “Where are you staying, by the way? Down at Yasenevo or up in the city?”
“Yasenevo. The usual fleabag, Gostevoy Dom,” Yuri said.
“Well, for whatever reason, they don’t want you to take a cab to headquarters. You’re to call this number and ask for a ride. I’ll text it to you.”
After the call Yuri looked at the number. The fact that his boss, Niskorov, had called Putov with instructions was interesting. It meant that the colonel was aware of Yuri’s night in hell at the Lubyanka. Not exactly the reception he was looking for on returning home. He made the call and waited.
After several minutes, a white Lada Largus emblazoned with a taxi logo pulled up. Yuri suspected a fake brand. Sure enough, when Yuri entered the backseat, the driver turned to him and flashed SVR credos. At least he wasn’t FSB—a marked improvement.
As the car pulled away from the curb, Yuri saw the good-looking blonde from Starbucks exit the Nike store, bags still on her arm, heels clicking down the sidewalk. Despite the burden, she walked with the tall, confident poise of a runway model.
Maybe being back in Moscow wouldn’t be so bad, now that he was free of the FSB scum. He rubbed his head and lit a cigarette.
He arrived a little after noon at SVR HQ, without the benefit of getting to a hotel room to freshen up. He entered the lobby and endured a frisk, a metal detector, and a confiscation of his phone for the second time in twenty-four hours. Moments later he was on his way up the elevator and standing in front of his boss, Colonel Vladimir Niskorov.
Yuri came to slovenly attention. He had a two-day beard and a suit that looked like it had been crammed into a pillowcase.
“Ah, tovarisch, it’s good to see you,” said the colonel, seated behind his desk. “You look . . .” The older man stopped and eyed his subordinate. “Well, let’s just say you look none the worse for wear.”
He was in his sixties with swept-back white hair. He wore a black suit beneath perpetually half-lidded pale gray eyes.
“A lot of wear, sir,” Yuri answered. His knees were unsteady. He found a chair and sat.
The office was modern—glassy, steely, brightly colored. It looked like a tech start-up. The new Russia.
Yuri glanced at his boss. “I presume you know I was a guest at the Lubyanka last night?”
“Yes,” said the colonel.
He was writing something. The half-masted eyes remained fixed on his desk blotter. A bookshelf clock clicked behind him.
“I don’t suppose you could tell me why, sir?” asked Yuri.
Before the colonel could answer, an older woman in a cardigan and woolen skirt arrived, carrying a tea service. She spread it on the table next to Yuri. It seemed to take her forever to fill the glass cups and arrange them.
When she’d finally gone, Niskorov looked up from his papers. He came from behind his desk and seated himself in the chair across from Yuri. He took another ten seconds to cross his long legs and smooth his trousers. The clock ticked.
“Well,” he finally said, “I suppose I would say that you are something of a victim of your own success, Major. You’re not the first officer to have been given such a . . . greeting.”
No good deed . . . , thought Yuri. “What have I done of late that has been particularly successful?”
The colonel settled into his chair and touched the cup to his lips. He blew on it. “Your tip about the American operation in Iran.” He sipped.
Yuri nodded once and waited to hear more. Evidently, the colonel had nothing to add. “Thank you,” Yuri said unevenly.
“Yes,” answered the colonel. “But unfortunately, now we think the Americans have taken countermeasures, changed the nature of their operation.” He repeated the blow-and-sip sequence. “The S people are worried about security. Something happened.”
The S people meant the spies in Directorate S, the illegals. The branch for nonofficial-cover operatives like Zoloto. By contrast, Yuri and Niskorov worked for Directorate PR, the branch that gathered political intelligence from embassies under diplomatic cover.
Yuri said, “I was corroborating what I knew from Dubai with the S source operating in America. The source was called—”
“Zoloto,” said the colonel, sipping. He waited three clock ticks before continuing. His half-lidded eyes met Yuri’s. “We are talking about the same thing. Zoloto is now off-line. Compromised, apparently.”
Yuri’s mind was nearly back to full strength. It dawned on him why FSB had picked him up, drugged him, interrogated him. He leaned forward, put his head in his hands, and sighed.
Looking up at his boss, he said, “They think I’m a mole?”
“I’m afraid it could not be discounted.”
He leaned back in his chair, expecting to feel anger. But the drugs in his system were offering an oozy calm. “I suppose the fact that I’m sitting here now shows I passed. Am I clear now?”
“I saw the report.” The colonel nodded curtly. “And yes, you are here now. Good to see you handling it with such poise.”
“You may thank the scopolamine.”
The colonel winced. “For what it’s worth, Major, I do apologize. It was not my idea.”
Yuri nodded. He drank his tea. “So the entire summons back . . . it was just a trick to test whether I was some kind of leak that somehow ruined an S team operation.”
“Yes.”
Yuri sat in silence for a moment, listening to the clock. “What should I do now? May I go back to Damascus?”
The colonel shrugged. “I suppose you may. There’s a chance the S people may want to talk to you. But that’s up to them. As far as I’m concerned, you should get back to your post.”
A few minutes later, he was back out front to catch another fake cab to the nearby Gostevoy Dom Hotel. His plan was to immediately get into a hot shower and go to bed, then hightail it out of here.
He’d deal with logistics tomorrow. He’d arrange for the first flight out of Moscow, not even caring where it landed. Any city in Europe would suffice. He could find his way to Damascus from there. He just wanted to get as far away from the Lubyanka as possible.
A different driver arrived in the fake taxi and flashed SVR credentials. He was young and fit with short military hair, rolled-up sleeves under a down vest, and a tattooed forearm. He jumped out of the cab and opened the back door for Yuri.
He said, “I’m to take you to Hotel Baltschug.”
“I wish,” Yuri said, cramming himself with his bag into the backseat. “I’m staying at the Gostevoy Dom just over there, pozhalsta.”
The driver looked at him and flashed a brief smile. “I was told, tovarisch, that as a gesture of appreciation and to make up for some of the inconveniences of your trip, you have been upgraded to a room at the Baltschug on behalf of SVR.” He shut the door and slid behind the wheel.
Yuri thought about it for all of two seconds. The Baltschug was a glorious five-star hotel on the Moscow River. He might even stay an extra day to sleep off this miserable scopolamine hangover.
He said, “Da. Ochen horosho.”
The room did not disappoint. There was a sweeping view of the river and a bed the size of a tennis court. He took a scalding shower, ate a double serving of room service pizza, and slugged two straight vodkas from the minibar. After drawing the thick blackout curtains, he turned in before the sun had even gone down, snoring under a pillow.
Two hours later, a knife was at his throat.
The SVR driver from the fake taxi was straddled over his body, holding him by the neck, jamming the point of the blade under Yuri’s chin. When he opened his eyes, the driver hit him in the jaw with the butt end of a flashlight. The driver then flipped him over on the bed and squashed his face into the mattress.
Yuri attempted a scream, but it went harmlessly into the mattress. He could barely breathe. His hands were ratcheted painfully behind his back. He felt rope tighten around his wrists. He started kicking, bucking, doing anything he could to frantically get the man off his back. Nothing worked. He felt his ankles being tied. A gag went around his mouth; his hair was pulled as the assailant roughly tightened it.
He was flipped onto his back, helpless. The bright light was in his eyes. He now heard someone else in the room. They were talking. It was a woman.
The man dragged Yuri’s head toward the foot of the bed. He felt himself being rolled, tilted down, faceup. The man had suspended Yuri upside down, holding him in place by his belt. Yuri stared at the ceiling. The flashlight was in his eyes. The gag was removed and he started to scream, but just as quickly the man covered his mouth with a meaty hand.
Thrashing, Yuri tried to bite it. The man punched him hard in the side of the head. A towel went over his mouth and nose, ratcheted down tight. The woman was now on the bed at his feet, raising them, tying his ankles to the headboard. Moments later they inserted an ironing board under his back. He heard the screech of duct tape binding his knees to the board.
Once he was secured, she hopped off the bed. She returned with a pitcher of water and stood over Yuri’s face.
She poured water from the pitcher over the towel across Yuri’s mouth and nose. His vision blurred. He coughed. The man held his head in place, straight ahead. Yuri felt himself drowning, panicking, wildly flopping his whole body as the water streamed into his nose and mouth through the towel.
The water stopped. The towel was removed. Yuri gasped. Air had never tasted so sweet. But the bright flashlight beam stayed in his eyes.
“How do you know Meredith Morris-Dale?” the woman said, her voice hot and close in his ear. “Answer very carefully. If you lie, you drown.”
Yuri wheezed as the towel came up. He spit a gob of water into the air. “Fuck you!” he managed to scream. The mouthful of water fell back and splattered on his forehead.
The man put the towel back over his mouth. Water poured from the pitcher for five, ten, fifteen seconds. His heart was exploding in his chest. He was sure he was going to die this time. The towel came off again.
“How did you come across her name?” asked the woman. Her Russian was perfect, native. Perhaps from the western part of the country, St. Petersburg, maybe slightly Latvian.
Yuri struggled to answer. He tried to choke out the question: who are you? But he’d hesitated a moment too long. The towel went back over his face.
She had another pitcher waiting. The water poured again. Ten excruciating seconds. “Answer the question,” the woman said. “Why did you submit her for surveillance?”
Yuri was gasping, coughing. The man slapped him and held him in place. The woman walked away, toward the bathroom. He could hear her filling the pitchers in the sink. He caught a glimpse of her. It was the beautiful blonde from the street. She was still wearing the white turtleneck, but her skirt and heels had been replaced by blue jeans and black boots.
“Please,” he said, coughing. “Give me one moment to . . .” He burst into a coughing fit.
The man slapped him across the mouth. “Answer, tovarisch.”
“Da, da. Let me answer! You’re S people? You know I was already questioned at the Lub—”
The towel was back. Yuri cried out, shutting his eyes. They held the water back.
“Do not ask us questions or you’ll die this time,” the woman said. “How did you come in contact with Morris-Dale?”
The towel came off. He was allowed to answer. “I know you’re S Directorate people.” He coughed. “I would never betray my country. I would never say anything to CIA. You must understand this!”
The man slapped him.
Yuri grunted. He tasted blood in his mouth. “All right!” he screamed desperately. “I’m PR Directorate based in Damascus. We coordinated a snatch about a month ago for a weapons buyer. The buyer turned out to be a CIA asset. I had pictures of the Morris-Dale woman, who led the CIA team. I asked for the tasking on the intel net. A surveillance order went out, a Krasniy Odin. That’s all I really knew.”
“You’re lying,” said the woman.
The towel came back. She started pouring the water again. Five seconds.
Yuri was desperate when the towel came off. “You must believe me,” he said when he’d been given another chance. “Or just kill me. It is the God’s honest truth. I don’t know anything else. Look at the FSB records in the Lubyanka.”
“Are you FSB?”
“What? No! I hate FSB. I’m SVR, same as you. PR Directorate.” Yuri saw the woman raising the water. “I fucking swear!” he screamed. “What do I have to do to prove it!”
Suddenly his ankles were thrust off the bed. He was jerked upright. He coughed out more water, breathing hard.
The woman knelt before him, looking him in the eye. “You’re coming with us,” she said. “We’ll verify your identity and your story. If it checks, we’ll talk about what we’re going to do next. If it doesn’t, your corpse will be floating in the Moscow River by sunrise. Vy ponimayete?”
“Yes,” Yuri said, “I understand. I want to get her as bad as you do.”
“I doubt it,” she said. “Do you know who I am?”
Scared to answer, Yuri shook his head.
She grabbed him by the back of his head, yanking his hair. “I’m Zoloto,” said Maria Borbova. “You got two of my men killed, you idiot.”