“Soviet Affairs.”
Having already reviewed his record I knew he was a Soviet Foreign Affairs officer, had been sent by the Army to the language school in California, then for a graduate degree in Russian studies at Harvard, and then spent six months at the Russian Center in Garmisch, Germany. Presumably, Morrison did well at his training, as the Army tries to hide its dunces and uglies rather than assign them to other agencies.
I asked, “Did you have access to knowledge that would’ve been helpful to the Soviets?”
“I saw everything.”
Katrina said, “Describe everything.”
“Military assessments, what you’d call spy reports, the most sensitive satellite shots and electronic intercepts. If I asked for it, I got it.”
I asked, “Was this material controlled?”
“There were safeguards. You’d get a paper with a control number stamped on it, so you had to keep the original. The office copiers had control methods, too. But sneak in a camera and take a picture, and nobody would ever know.”
“Like Ames did?”
“Exactly.”
Katrina asked, “Did you have any dealings with the Soviets?”
“Not then, no. I got occasional invitations to cocktail parties at the Soviet embassy, but I always reported those contacts to the Agency.”
I leaned forward. “Did you ever go?”
“Are you kidding? I knew why they were inviting me.”
“Why?”
“To see if I was vulnerable.”
When I didn’t reply to that, he continued, “They first try to establish social contact with a target. They charm you. They probe to see if you’re disaffected, or need money, or are vulnerable to flattery or sexual overtures. They make their try, and if it works, the game’s on. If it doesn’t, they invite someone else to the party.”
Katrina asked, “Did you know any Soviets?”
“A few. Mary’s job put her in much more contact than mine. That rubbed off, though.”
I asked, “Why? What was Mary doing?”
He stopped and leaned back in his chair. “Wait a goddamn minute, Drummond. I’m not dragging her into this.”
I drew a deep breath and very nicely said, “Neither am I, General. But yours wasn’t just any marriage. There are all kinds of possible intersections we’ll need to sort out.”
He considered this. “You’re not going to involve her in this?”
“She’s already involved. She’s interviewing lawyers. Would you prefer I learn these things from Eddie Golden in the courtroom?”
A truculent scowl shifted into place. “Okay, okay. But you better be damned careful with what I tell you about her activities. You got that?”
Surely, this was the appropriate moment to remind him that I used to sleep with her, too. Okay, right… perhaps not.
He said, “Mary was a case officer. She was controlling some assets.”
Katrina said, “Like spies… agents… targets?”
“All the above. Mary was in a cell that worked the Soviet embassy and the large contingent at the UN.”
“And how did that bring you in contact with Soviet citizens?”
“It didn’t. I knew who she was meeting with, though. I’m only warning you about this in case any of those people were exposed.”
“How about 1989? What were you doing then?” Katrina asked.
“That was the year the disintegration began. Suddenly all the intelligence agencies were critically short of people.”
“Why?”
“Because Eastern Europe and the Soviet republics were coming apart at the seams.”
“Tell us about that,” I said.
“We called it the Big Bang. It happened so fast that Gorbachev’s own apparatchiks couldn’t understand it.
“Neither could we. Over fifty years we’d built this massive intelligence kingdom to watch the Soviet Union. Presidents and their advisers became spoiled. The thing we were watching moved half an inch and legions of analysts immediately wrote thousands of papers to explain why. We were experts at watching water freeze.”
Katrina scratched her head. “What did that have to do with you and your responsibilities?”
“The White House was screaming for information, and we couldn’t keep up. I was rushed through the Georgian desk, then the Azerbaijani desk, and then the Chechen desk.”
“Doing what?”
“Producing assessments. I was flying to those places, interviewing officials, meeting with country teams, trying to get a handle on it.”
I suggested, “And meeting Soviet citizens?”
“Of course. I went to Moscow five or six times that year and I met with plenty of Soviet officials in the republics.”
“Did you form any special relationships?” I asked, slyly homing in on the one relevant fact I’d learned from the news releases.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you form any long-term bonds with Russians?”
He suddenly looked very nervous. He rubbed his lips with a finger and was obviously struggling with something. Uh-oh. He replied, “Drummond, I, uh, I can’t discuss this with you.”
“You have no choice. Besides, I’m not only your lawyer, I’m an officer with a Top Secret clearance. And Katrina had her Top Secret restored last night.”
He studied our faces. “You don’t get it. I could get court-martialed for whispering this name.”
“No shit?” said Katrina, in every regard an appropriate sentiment.
Still we had to weather thirty seconds of hand-wringing, heavy breathing, and idiotic indecision before he said, “Have you ever heard of Alexi Arbatov?”
“No.”
“Alexi is currently the number two man in the SVR, one of the two agencies that split out of the old KGB… the one with responsibility over external affairs.” He paused in a transparent attempt at melodrama. “I met Alexi that year… I cultivated him.”
“Cultivated?” Katrina asked.
“It means I didn’t succeed in fully turning him. But I got him halfway there.”
“And halfway there is… what?” I asked.
“Alexi sometimes passes me information. It’s always his choice and usually his volition. In our jargon, he’s an uncontrolled asset.”
“He still is?” I asked.
“Yes. I was his controller. Eventually we brought in Mary also. I was assigned as the military attache in Moscow and she was assigned as the station chief to put us right next door to Alexi.”
I was gaping, mouth hung open, the whole nine yards. Morrison was claiming he’d “acquired” the number two guy in Russia’s most important spy agency. That’s like owning the deed to the Empire State Building: You see all kinds of things from a really great vantage point.
Obviously impressed, I said, “Holy shit.”
And he replied, “Now, asshole, do you see why Mary took me over you?”
Actually, I’m just good at mind reading-what he really said was, “You’re understating it. I brought home the biggest intelligence catch the CIA ever heard of, and look what those bastards have done to me.”
We stared at each other for a while, a sort of awkward pause, contemplating the possible ramifications of this news.
