The Soviet Comeback

by Jamie Smith

  “At some point every asset must be burned. You will be able?”

  Nikita nodded, showing no emotion. “It is what I have been trained for.”

  “Very well. You are right to gain her trust; if she gets too close you will need to use this to your advantage. What have you given them on Yerin?”

  “So far very little. I’m reporting accurately what I’ve been able to decipher from the outside, which is that his movements appear very normal, and that no unusual KGB activity is visible. I need to give them something else. Something on our possible retreat from Afghanistan perhaps?”

  “We never retreat!” said Klitchkov with scorn. “It is a victorious withdrawal. If I ever hear you use the word retreat again you will wish you had stayed in the cold box. It is a word that struck fear into all of us who fought for victory against the German Nazi pigs many years ago. I did not fight to defend Stalingrad through the bleakest of winters in 1942 to raise Soviet agents who talked so carelessly about retreats.”

  “Yes, sir, your bravery in the war is famous. What I meant was that perhaps the… victory in Afghanistan presents an opportunity to feed the Americans a story to divert their attentions away from the INF Treaty.”

  “Do whatever you must to turn their attentions away from investigating our nuclear disarmament,” he said shortly.

  “And what of the White Russian lead? It would not be prudent to eliminate anyone else connected to the Cold War.”

  “Agreed. There is a plan in place.”

  “Who do you have in mind?” Nikita asked.

  “That is classified, agent.”

  “I will need to know my assignment, sir.”

  “Not every assignment is carried out by you, Allochka. You are part of a network, do not forget that. You are far from the only agent we have in the CIA. While you are significant, you are not the only vital asset. Everyone can be replaced.”

  Nikita looked at him, and he knew that they were both fully aware that he was irreplaceable and an agent it would take years to replicate. It did cause him to think about who else was a CIA mole. Most, he imagined, would be American double agents, but he was curious to know if any others from the Soviet Union had been so deeply embedded.

  “Of course, I understand, Colonel. Please forgive my assumption.”

  “I know you excel at fooling lie detectors, which is what made your entry into the CIA possible. But even the most steadfast and resilient of people can crack when pressure is applied to the right place. What you do not know you cannot divulge. It is standard protocol as you well know. You receive instruction related to your mission alone; anything else is not your concern. What is your concern is maintaining your cover and giving the Americans whatever it is, they need to look elsewhere. There are plans in motion to ensure that US and NATO staff see what they need to see at our mid-range nuclear sites.”

  “Has there been a change of strategy, sir?”

  “Of course not, this is the tip of an iceberg we have been developing for years. Do not fear, comrade, your cover is safe and we will ensure that the Americans get what they need. Now let us talk about how to sow the seeds of doubt into their theory of the White Russian…” said Klitchkov, leaning forwards and chuckling again at the code name.

  ***

  Half an hour later, Nikita was in a cab on the way into town to his car. He noticed that the chalk marks on the mailbox had now disappeared.

  His head was whirring from his conversation with Klitchkov. It felt so strange that the colonel would visit him in person; it was what his handler was trained for. It only served to pile pressure on him for what was a mission already pushing him to the edge of his nerves. He could feel the weight of the Soviet empire pushing down on him and it felt crushing. As he got out of the cab and into his own car, he spotted a liquor store already open for business and felt a pull to get himself a drink to prepare him for the day. Removing his hand from the door he slapped himself round the face. “What are you becoming Nikita?” he said to himself, and started up the car, pulling off and making his way to work. He needed his wits to be razor sharp if he was to successfully manufacture another deception of an entire intelligence agency and government.

  Chewing his lip, a habit he had developed when deep in thought, his mind was completely preoccupied with his conversation with the man he could not figure out. Sometimes he hated him; sometimes he felt he was just being pushed to become what he must. Sometimes he longed for an easy, normal life. Certainly, he wished for a life of peace. Sleeping was become increasingly elusive to him. During the days, he barely spared a thought for his victims who were now piling up considerably. But at night, that was when they returned to him. Their faces, the light in their eyes fading until extinguished, the souls that would be waiting for him in the afterlife. He considered himself a rational man and gave little credence to such things as an afterlife during his waking hours, but the night brought with it doubts, fears and a desire for there to be something greater than himself that could save his soul.

  Recently he had come across Theodore Roosevelt’s words which had since become his mantra. ‘Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty. I have never in my life envied a human being who leads an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.’

  The irony of using the words of a former US president as a motivation for his current pursuits wasn’t lost on him.

  After going through the daily security checks, he parked his car and headed into the ugly, largely concrete Central Intelligence Agency offices, enduring further security checks. Then he made his way through the labyrinth of corridors to the dingy rooms of the Soviet Counter-intelligence Branch, all the while running on autopilot.

  He hadn’t given a moment’s thought to Chang until he keyed in his passcode, entered the office and saw her standing over by the coffee machine, talking to a middle-aged woman with hair drawn tightly back who he knew to be a researcher named Julie.

  He paused, and she glanced over at him. They made awkward eye contact before he looked quickly away and made his way over to his desk. He couldn’t afford distractions, and the words of Klitchkov echoed around his head. ‘At some point every asset must be burned.’

  Blaine was sitting bleary-eyed at his desk and grunted at Nikita as he sat down. Nikita was in no mood for conversation so set his bag down, and checking that Chang was no longer at the kitchen point, made his way over. He made himself a strong black coffee which he drank there and then, before pouring himself another, and getting himself some water. Arriving back at his desk, he took two aspirin and, despite feeling sick, the caffeine and drugs soon began to course through his veins and he felt an improvement.

  He was very aware of Chang glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, but he focused instead on the large list of papers on the tray in front of him that he needed to work through. Field agents were gathering vast tomes of information for him to sift and analyse on a daily basis and it could be gruelling work requiring high levels of concentration.

  He could hear Blaine muttering to himself as he was wading through his own pile, circling paragraphs and underlining words.

  “You’re doing it again, Blaine,” Nikita said.

  “Sorry, dude, I just find it so much easier to concentrate if I read aloud to myself.”

  “Most of us grow out of that at around the age of ten.”

  “At my high school most graduates only had the reading age of ten so just be grateful that I’m able to read at all.”

  “You’re right, what was I thinking? I’m so grateful,” said Nikita.

  “You’re a mean drunk.”

  “On the contrary, I am a very loveable drunk. It’s the hangovers that make me mean.”

  Blaine laughed and then scrunched his eyes up and rubbed his temples. “Don’t make me laugh this morning. Not cool.”

  “You’re right, silence would really be the best thing for both of us this morning,” said
Nikita, winking.

  Blaine scrunched up a piece of paper and threw it at Nikita. “OK, OK, point taken!”

  Nikita returned to his papers, many of which were reporting largely insignificant information. He had to go through them in painstaking detail; it was the not the sort of work he had imagined doing when being trained to be a spy. So many of the days working as an analyst for the CIA, particularly in the Soviet Counter-intelligence Branch, were spent poring over reams of paper; pages and pages documenting the movements of KGB officers and political figures in a bid to understand underlying intent, to make connections, identify trends and predict future activity and movements.

  However, working as an embedded spy made the process slightly different. For Nikita, he could clearly put faces to many of the names he read about, and had to fight the urge to give up information on those Soviets that had treated him most cruelly. His days were an exercise in swimming against the tide, while doing enough good analysis to keep his job.

  He was constantly astounded at the amount of paperwork the CIA produced, and the level of contact CIA agents were required to keep with station chiefs. At the KGB it had been instilled in him to avoid leaving a paper trail at all costs. Cables were rarely sent, and every KGB agent from junior lieutenants up to rezidents was tested regularly on their ability to covertly dispatch pouches of undeveloped microfilm, which would be sent on to Moscow to be developed and printed. A KGB officer was held personally responsible for every single piece of paper that he printed. ‘You are expected to be self-sufficient and able to handle your assignments with minimal input. You do not seek support from your superiors unless absolutely necessary.’ The words of his trainers echoed around Nikita’s head.

  Sorting through the papers he came across a document that he knew would be there. The file was a plain pale brown, no different from many of the others, but this one was titled ‘Domestic Activity’.

  Unusually, it hadn’t come across from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but was a file that had been passed to him from the Soviet-East (SE) European division of the Department of Operations within the CIA, based within these very headquarters. Nikita knew of the department, with their inevitably being a great deal of overlap between the two, but also a great deal of competition, and the SE division usually tried to avoid handing over information to the counter-intelligence division if they could avoid it.

  There was nothing to distinguish the file at all, but upon seeing it Nikita instinctively knew that this was the one he had been looking for. He opened it and placed it down on top of the other files and papers. There were only three pages in the folder. The first was headlined ‘Suspected USSR activity on US Soil’.

  SUSPECTED USSR ACTIVITY ON US SOIL — OCTOBER 1987

  It is well understood that there are spies from the Soviet Union operating on US soil, mainly from the KGB. However, following the signing of the INF Treaty, espionage activity has appeared to slow as relations between both nations show signs of improvement.

  Recent reports from the FBI and NSA point to potential increased covert Soviet activity on American soil, with numerous assassinations that would be in direct contravention of the rules of the Cold War to date, and if proven, could be considered an act of war.

  In light of General Secretary Petrenko’s policy of Glasnost and suggestions that they may be withdrawing from the Afghan-Soviet war which would be in direct contravention of the Brezhnev Doctrine’s principle of ‘Never Letting Go’, it is unlikely that they would seek to undo so much of the progress we have made in cordial relations with the Politburo. However, the SE department is seeing increased activity through the East-European satellite states, particularly in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Lithuania. We request the aid of the Soviet Counter-intelligence Branch in investigating mercenary activity from hard-line Soviet communists.

  One figure, identity unknown, was seen in Odessa, Texas on the day of the death of Secretary of Defense Simon Conlan. Although identity is unknown, it is an individual we know to have links to the KGB and is a suspected rogue KGB agent. It is suspected that he may either be, or at least has links to the assassin, code name The White Russian.

  REPORT COMPILED BY SOVIET-EAST DIVISION.

  ZB.

  Nikita turned the page over and saw that the second page was a grainy A4 photo. It was black and white and the numbers in the corner combined with the low quality of the image suggested that it was a freeze frame from closed circuit television footage. The image was taken on a dark street with which he was unfamiliar, but the figure at the centre of the image was unmistakable — the handsome face with high cheekbones and mouth curled in a perpetual half smile laced with contempt. Agent Taras Brishnov. On the back of the photo had been scrawled, ‘Captured in central Odessa, Texas. March 21, 1987.’

  He turned to the next page and saw that it was another photo. This one was of better quality and looked to have been taken with a long lens camera. It showed Brishnov, this time much more clearly and several years younger, dressed in the KGB uniform of the long grey coat belted in gold at the waist, and a matching grey ushanka. Long black leather boots disappeared up underneath the long coat, while his hands were hidden under black leather gloves. He was shaking hands with the imposing form of former Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev with his hunched shoulders and thick, slug-like eyebrows. Alongside them stood Viktor Yerin, looking no younger and no less serious, but somehow less disapproving. Behind them the crimson flag fluttered boldly, the golden star, hammer and sickle clearly visible in what must have been a stiff breeze.

  Nikita let out a low hiss, put the photo down and closed the folder. He then opened it and inspected it all once more. He looked at the face of his fellow KGB agent from the dark hair, taking in the scar and the straight nose down to the firm jaw, to the dead eyes. He absorbed everything about the man who he despised but who had saved his life. The man he must now burn.

  It was incredible that a man who had been operating within the KGB since the days of Brezhnev (replaced back in 1982 following his death) and had completed countless missions both foreign and domestic, had kept his identity completely unknown until now. For that, Nikita had to admire him. After being a fully-fledged KGB agent for little more than a year, a trail of breadcrumbs already led to his existence as an agent even if his identity remained hidden. Yet Brishnov had remained under the radar of even the CIA agents embedded within both Brishnov and Petrenko’s inner circles, a feat for which he commanded respect.

  Surveying the report once more, his eyes landed on the letters at the bottom of the document. ZB.

  Were they the initials of the other high-level Soviet asset operating within the CIA? If he was going to be liaising with him, why had Klitchkov been so cagey about the identity of other operatives? Perhaps they were not initials, but a departmental acronym unfamiliar to him.

  He picked up the file and walked over to Chang, cursing that it was her that had been assigned the role of researcher on the case of the White Russian. She was gazing intently at her screen on which were microfilms of newspaper cuttings that he could not see clearly from where he stood. Behind the computer was a large cork board on which were pinned more newspaper clippings and photos of people that were hauntingly familiar to him. It represented a photo album of his US assassinations and it felt uncomfortable seeing it so brazenly in front of him.

  He averted his gaze and threw himself down in the chair next to her.

  She looked up and smiled awkwardly.

  “How’s the head?” he asked, smiling.

  She looked around nervously. “Not too bad. Everything OK? You never come over to my desk.”

  “Well for some reason I thought today maybe the rules had changed a little,” he replied coyly.

  She frowned at him and whispered angrily, “Why are you talking like this in the office?”

  “OK, chill out,” he said, holding his hands up defensively, which only seemed to serve to agitate her further. He lifted the file in front of her. “
I may have something that could bring us a little closer to the White Russian.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Oh really?” she said in a voice dripping with cynicism. She waved a hand at the photos and clippings on the board. “Because if you can see anything in these deaths to link us to a Soviet assassin, you’re a far better analyst than me.”

  I can’t take too much credit, but the guys over at SE seem to have a theory.”

  “The SE are coming to us with a theory?” she said disbelievingly.

  “More than a theory actually, there’s a solid lead to pursue here. I guess they’re pretty swamped with all the activity in the Eastern Bloc at the moment. I hear Hungary is on the verge of another revolution.”

  She grabbed the file from his hand and skimmed across the report before looking at the two images.

  “It’s tenuous. Barely a lead,” she snapped. “I mean are we sure this is the same guy in both the photos?”

  “Come on, it’s clearly the same guy. Look at the cheekbones, the shape of the face.”

  She traced the face of the CCTV shot. “I can’t see a scar on his face here.”

  “Of course you can’t, the resolution is terrible. Why are you resisting this?”

  She looked at him crossly. “It feels a bit manufactured.”

  “What do you mean?” he said, confused.

  She lowered her voice to a whisper again. “That the day after we sleep together you find a way for us to work a case together.”

  He looked at her, surprised. “Jesus, Sarah, look we are both professionals and we have a job to do. I have enough on without creating cases to work just to be closer to you for a few hours more a day. Do you hear yourself?”

  She said nothing so he continued. “You’re investigating the existence of a covert KGB agent carrying out assassinations on US soil, and I’m leading on KGB movements and operations. We have a duty to the American people to pursue it and try to prevent any more deaths. If you don’t want to work with me on this then I’m sure I can ask the chief to find me someone else who will. This is the sort of case that analysts die to get their hands on.”