The Ganymede Project

by Susan Glinert Stevens

  He reached for the phone, saw the girl squeeze her shoulders in excitement while the brother giggled. Against his better judgment, Yuri picked up.

  “Hello?” A woman’s accented voice said, startling him. He dropped the phone.

  At the counter near the front of the store, Katrina Fontanova stared at him, holding a telephone.

  “Hey Mister! Pick it up,” the little girl squealed.

  “Yeah, pick it up,” her brother said.

  He lifted the handset off the floor. “Hello?Hup !” he said, finally.

  “You called this phone?”

  He saw Katrina’s lips move in synch with the voice.

  “Umm...Hup !” Thinking quickly, he tried to imitate a drunken slur. “Is thish Mako Lounge?Hup ! Can I talk to Bubba?”

  “Bubba?”

  “Hup! Okay. Jusht a minute. He’s right here.”

  He handed the phone to the little blond girl. “It’s for you,” he said. She squeezed her shoulders again, excitedly, and made ‘Golly’ eyes at her brother, who stuck out his tongue and grabbed at the handset.

  When Yuri turned around, Fontanova was gone. Vanished.

  He raced into the mall, stopped, surveyed the moving throng, and searched for signs of a fashionably-dressed, auburn-haired woman.

  “Sir?” a voice asked from behind.

  When he turned, there was the click of a shutter. Katrina Fontanova smiled as she put a small camera back into her handbag. “Would you like me to send you a copy of the print, Mr…”

  Yuri hiccuped in surprise. “Can you shend it to Bubba?” Then he hiccuped again. “He likes pictures.” After looking at her for a long moment, he put his hands into his pockets, jingled change, then attempted to imitate a drunken weave. He stumbled into the crowd, deciding to cut short this first encounter with the enemy.

  * * *

  “I gave the photograph to the security people. He may not be a gangster. It’s just that in America, everyone dresses like gangsters.” Nikolai Gallagan—fiftyish, white haired, immaculately dressed (like a gangster), beckoned Katrina with the motion of his fingers.

  She stepped closer to his desk, turning around, modeling a new evening dress, then assumed a pose she remembered from an old American movie.

  Gallagan nodded in approval. “You look very stunning, Fontanova. But do you think you are up to it?”

  “Of course, she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You have to make the enemy think you are interested in him. Make him put his guard down, to get what we want—first class American technology.”

  “Trust me, Nikolai, I can do it.”

  “It is important for Russia. Are you sure?”

  “Piece of pie,” she said. “I will act like Marilyn Monroe.”

  * * *

  Amid the conversational buzz of a Ukrainian Embassy cocktail party, Katrina Fontanova formed her lips into a silentoooh , watching her guest’s reaction—a quick, interested smirk.

  “So,” she said, in an artfully husky voice, “you think MCI can help with this project?” She batted her eyes and watched the fiftyish American businessman flash a leering smile, eyes dwelling on her breasts.

  “I don’t see why not,” he said, sipping a vodka tonic. “Especially if it leads to a bigger contract. We like to start small and work our way in. Know what I mean? COCOM’s pretty much dead—that should keep the U.S. Government out of our knickers on the technology transfer issue. We’d love to”—his eyes lingered again—”keep in touch with you on this.”

  Katrina laughed, remembering to show her teeth, as Marilyn Monroe had done, and pressed the man’s face with her hand. She looked around the crowded ballroom, wincing as she spotted a familiar head protruding above the crowd, turtle-like, two cocktail glasses raised in the air, eyes fixed on her position.

  She adjusted her revealing black evening gown, attempting to preserve decorum. The man pushed through the crowd and wedged a shoulder between Katrina and the businessman.

  “Good to see you, Katrina,” he said, handing her a drink.

  She refused to take it, then gave the businessman a pained smile.

  “I am Kostiya Baskakov,” he said, “Ukrainian Embassy.”

  “And I’m just leaving,” the American replied. “Nice meeting you.” He handed Katrina a card, winked at Baskakov, and departed.

  “And say hello to your wife for me,” Baskakov said.

  Katrina’s face flushed red.

  Baskakov looked at her and smiled lovingly. “Alone at last.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  The remark rolled off him. “You don’t come here often enough,” he said, in native Ukrainian, handing her the glass again. “Try it. It’s good Ukrainian wine. Not like the Russian swill.”

  She reluctantly took it, tasted, then replied—also in Ukrainian. “The Americans have a saying, Kostiya. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

  “Thumper, wasn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “The white rabbit inBambi , the cartoon movie. That was Thumper’s line. You remind me of Thumper.”

  Her brain alternated between two polarities—rage at his intervention, and amusement at his stupidity. She looked around the room self-consciously, then met Baskakov’s eyes. “Do I have rabbit teeth or something?”

  “No. You have fine teeth. A fine face. Like all Ukrainian women, you are very beautiful.”

  Katrina blushed. Kostiya Baskakov had caught her off guard. She searched for a witty riposte, but irritation overwhelmed intellect.

  He grinned at her discomfort. “No, I just meant that you are like Thumper because you are timid. Afraid to go with your feelings, your passion. You should be here with us, in this embassy, serving the Ukraine, not Russia.”

  “You don’t know me very well, Kostiya. You never did. I am only half Ukrainian. I weighed my options. I made my decision. You made yours.”

  “You were born in Kiev. That makes you one of us.”

  She responded in Russian. “You know, you started out by paying me a backhand compliment. Now you dig a deeper hole for yourself. I’m finding this conversation very tiresome.”

  “Why don’t you call me sometime? Or answer the phone when I call you?”

  “We used to work side by side in the same office, Kostiya. You and others left our embassy to set up one of your own. Now everyone in your embassy answers the phone only in Ukrainian—and acts stupid when you try to speak in Russian.”

  “Do the two love birds fight?” The voice came from a thin, gray-haired Ukrainian man whose massive eyebrows telegraphed ambiguous empathy. He moved between Kostiya and Katrina, hugging them both. “This is a party! Drink and be happy.”

  “Gregor!” Katrina said, grabbing the man’s hand and kissing his cheek. “It’s good to see you, dear friend.”

  “I’m just an old man who likes pretty girls,” he giggled. “How is Gallagan treating you?”

  “We get along okay.”

  “You ruined everything, Gregor,” Baskakov said, smiling. “I was trying to seduce her into returning to the Ukrainian fold.”

  “The seduction failed,” she said, coldly. “I’m here in America because of Boris Yeltsin, not because of Kravchuk or Kuchma.”

  “An accident of history. We could change that.”

  “Ah, for the good old days,” Gregor said, hugging the two, again. “Russia and the Ukraine. We were a pair, eh, Katrina.”

  “Yes,” she said, grasping his arm, but looking at Baskakov. “We were a pair. No more.”

  * * *

  As Katrina rode the Metro back to her Crystal City apartment, she thought about many things—Baskakov, the embassy split, and the untidiness of her career and love life.

  She looked back at the tidal wash of history and saw Katrina Fontanova as part of the flotsam and jetsam. She got close to Daniel, but a chance wave pulled him under. During a brief period of intelligence training, she flirted with others, but was unable to sustain a relations
hip as each student drifted away to a separate assignment. The embassy had been a pool of relative stability. There, she met Baskakov. They became intimate, like two pieces of driftwood caught in the same eddy. He asked for her hand. She agonized, then accepted. But when the Russian and Ukrainian embassies went their separate ways, the engagement fizzled. Emotions ran deep. Both had careers that turned on different political currents. Neither was willing to yield. Both were swept away in riptides of separatist politics. Just like the Ukraine and Russia.

  And now, Baskakov was trying to reverse the tide. Or swim against the current. His single-minded pursuit was unnerving.If Vladimir had been there tonight, she thought, with a smile,he probably would have flattened Kostiya . They were oil and water. Vladimir deeply resented the Ukrainian break-away, and seemed to hold Baskakov personally responsible.

  Despite harboring very traditional Russian feelings—the desire to re-unite the old empire, the desire for strong leadership—Vladimir had become a contradiction. He still spoke of the return of Party power, but such talk seemed more an intellectual exercise than an actual passion. His lifestyle now bordered on hedonistic. Western ideas infected him. He had no defenses.

  And what of Katrina Fontanova?Is she adrift too ? Katrina tried to be objective about this most personal of questions as she stared at the sea of faces surrounding her in the Metro car. The passengers were well dressed. They earned good livings. Back in Moscow, top scientists now went unpaid, or sold cigarettes or chocolates in kiosks on the street. The security of Russia was even more threatened today than during the Cold War. The enemy was invisible—the economy, political turmoil, and the humiliation of having to lick the boots of former capitalist foes.

  Here, in Washington, D.C., she could fight those invisible enemies. The stealing of secrets, after all, was a time-honored Russian tradition. If you picked the right economic secrets, it could bring prosperity. If you picked the right military secrets, it could bring security. And if you plucked the deepest, darkest political secrets in a clever way, it could bring respect.

  No, she thought.Katrina Fontanova is not adrift .She has a mission .

  25. VIEWPOINTS

  May 1993 - April 1994

  Washington, D.C.

  It had been a tough, long fight to get funding, but Yuri and Dugan made a convincing case. The Russians were raising the ante, positioning themselves to conduct very sophisticated economic and military espionage, even bringing in state-of-the-art U.S. communications equipment to do it. Therein lay the opportunity. Yuri’s plan would not only provide a counterweight, but would strongly tip the balance in favor of U.S. counterintelligence.

  There was only one catch. A political catch. It was a New World Order, and the Russians were now friends—on the surface. And surface appearances were important. The deal struck by the Director of Central Intelligence and the Attorney General emphasized accountability for the operation.

  Accountability, Yuri thought, shaking his head, walking along a subterranean corridor.A word that means what they want it to mean . In this case, it really meant plausible deniability. If the operation was exposed, if somehow details of the black project spilled into the daylight world of newspapers, press releases and diplomatic posturing, then heads would roll. Yuri’s head. Jack’s head. Yuri pictured the official response: “Agents of the FBI and NSA acted independently and without authority, illegally tapping funds, jeopardizing the relationship between the U.S. and an important ally.” The stakes were high.

  He pressed a hand against the palm scanner, watched the light blink and listened for the buzz of the lock.

  The FBI Surveillance Center was located in the labyrinthine basement of FBI Headquarters. It was a windowless chamber illuminated by ghostly green CRT phosphor and a myriad of light-emitting diodes—an engineering monument to state-of-the-art spycraft. The Center pulsed with electronic messages, quiet human chatter and visual icons.

  Yuri Sverdlov entered through a TEMPEST door, named after the U.S. program for keeping electronic secrets a secret. He walked past racks of spectrum analyzers, tape recorders and crypto boxes, treading over bundles of coaxial cable. The web-like tangle of wires and equipment formed the surveillance system’s nerves and organs.

  Yuri poured a cup of coffee while Jack Dugan and numerous other Troglodytes, wearing green, orange and black badges, prepared to tap the output of sensors located across town at 1125 16th Street Northwest—the Russian Embassy.

  “‘Scuse me, Agent Sverdlov.”

  “Yeah, Pauline, I know.” He said it without looking, gulping coffee, hoping that if he showed no fear, the ‘Hound of Sverdlov’ would not bite. However, she continued toyap .

  “Contracts wants signature today, and your boss, the Deputy Director, will be really, really sore if—”

  He turned, giving a dog-like snarl that made the five-foot, squint-eyed menace back away. “I’m not signing off on anything unless I know it works. Shakedown’s about to start, Pauline. Maybe we could finish this conversation later.”

  He walked toward the control console, ignoring Pauline’s call: “Boss wants a briefing after—”

  Yuri gritted his teeth at Jack Dugan, surprised by a control panel awash with yellow sticky notes. “These could only be yours, Jack.”

  Dugan shrugged. “They’re just labels and tags to make sure we don’t screw up in the heat of battle.”

  Yuri patted a technician on the shoulder. “You ready for this battle, Jerry? Have we tested the link, yet?”

  Jerry Ramos, NSA’s 22-year-old, Philippine-born technical wizard, shook his head, riveting attention on the status panel at his console. “Couldn’t risk it. They sweep their ops center periodically. They can detect an active bug.” He flipped more switches, locking onto the covert test tone. “They could find the probe a year from now... or the day we turn it on.”

  “Depends on how good their procedures and equipment are,” Dugan said.

  Yuri took a deep breath and nodded. “Let’s find out.”

  Ramos swiveled around to look at his two bosses. “We’re all set up. I’m ready to go if you are.”

  Dugan and Yuri put on headsets and connected to the audio panel. Yuri gave a ‘thumbs up.’ Dugan hit the ‘online’ buzzer to alert the Surveillance Center crew. Ramos flipped a switch and crossed his fingers.

  All three smiled when they heard American voices. The first voice spoke with a Texas accent: “...so I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me better informed .I want to make sure my calendar’s clear.” The second voice said, “No problem. It’s set for the twenty second. Fourteen thirty hours.” The first voice responded: “What about test security?”

  * * *

  The second voice belonged to Doctor Richard Chandra. The 25-year-old, powerfully built prodigy spoke with an authority unusual for his age, talking into a cellular phone as he guided his automobile along the crowded interstate highway near Greenbelt, Maryland.

  “Test security is not my problem, Billy, but I know that Site Security wants to close off access. Dick may need your help on that.”

  “I’m on it,” came the reply. “BLM’s already involved.”

  “And we need you to approve a few changes in Operation Majority test procedures for the Event.”

  The word “Majority” pricked Yuri’s interest, echoing a previous conversation with Louis Weddell.

  It seemed like seconds before Billy Stanton responded. “This is an open phone, Richard. There’s too much classified stuff here you’re tryin’ to talk around.”

  * * *

  In a room that was the dual of the FBI Surveillance Center, Katrina Fontanova listened intently to the conversation between Chandra and Billy. Vladimir Fontanov, 30 years old, now Katrina’s intelligence analyst, stood beside his 33-year-old sister. Dmitry, a short, gnome-like communications engineer, tuned the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) system for better reception.

  “Come on, come on. Keep talking,” Katrina muttered.

  Chandra’s voice came in loud and c
lear over her headset. “You’re right. Sorry.”

  “Tell us about the test,” Katrina grumbled.

  “Why don’t you come to my office tomorrow with specifics,” Billy said. “About ten?”

  “Right,” Chandra replied. “See you then.”

  “No,” Katrina pleaded.

  “Gotta go,” Billy said. “Bye.”

  Katrina slumped in her chair and Vladimir uttered a quiet Russian oath. Dmitry flicked a switch to stop the recording.

  * * *

  While the spy game was over for the Russians, the ball was still in play for the Americans. Yuri Sverdlov and others listened to Russian voices.

  “We lost them,” a male voice said.

  “We got a few important pieces,” a female voice responded.

  “That’s Fontanova talking,” Yuri said.

  In the background, the listeners heard a clatter, like an army of machines gone amok. They assumed the sound came from the SIGINT Operations Center. They were wrong.

  * * *

  Within the secret recesses of the Russian Embassy, the printer room was separate from the Operations Center. It represented the outeredge of the classified Russian system. It was a place where classified and unclassified systems were collocated—a design flaw in the Russian facilities. By bringing the mixture together in a physically controlled space, with measurable air gaps between the two, Russian engineers mistakenly believed that classified data could notleak to the unclassified systems.

  The other reason for physical separation of the printer room from the SIGINT Ops Center was the noise.

  Tanya Dubko, a tiny, frail-looking technical clerk, was partially deaf from years of maintaining the printers. They buzzed, clattered and hissed loudly as impact heads printed at high speed. Over the years, this created a substantial high frequency hearing deficit.