Harris showed Serov the suite of rooms he would occupy on the top floor of the pleasant old house. He seemed impressed, and they ate, the three of them together, in a large room that covered the whole of the ground floor. They were sitting around a low coffee table after the meal when Serov said, “What did Malloy say when you told him?”
“We haven’t contacted Mr. Malloy as yet, Serov. He’s no longer in the intelligence business.” He smiled. “But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t meet him when you and I have had a talk.”
Serov shook his head. “First I talk with Malloy. Then if he says OK I talk with you.” He shrugged. “And anyone else. But first Malloy.”
Harris glanced at Friedman who leaned forward and filled Serov’s cup from the coffee jug. “Tell us about your work in France, Mr. Serov. Just a general outline.”
“And if I don’t talk with you people you don’t let me stay in USA?”
“Mr. Serov, you’re an experienced intelligence officer, you must know that no intelligence organisation would accept a man from the opposition without trying to make sure that his reasons for coming over are genuine.” He stood up, smiling. “Tomorrow you and I will go shopping. Get you some clothes and things. There are shaving things in your bathroom. Have a good night’s sleep. I think we both need one.”
“Am I safe here?”
“Absolutely. Don’t worry about that. I shall be here too. I’ll show you back to your rooms.”
When Friedman came back Harris was waiting for him with fresh coffee.
“Were you able to trace this guy Malloy?”
“Yes. He’s a lawyer. He’s a partner in a Manhattan law firm.” He looked at Friedman. “I don’t see why we should involve him. Not at this stage anyway.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not his business. If Serov wants to defect then he’s got to talk to us.” Seeing Friedman’s frown he said, “Maybe when we’ve got him straightened out we’ll see if Malloy wants to talk to him.”
“Are you doubtful about Serov?”
“I’m always doubtful about walk-ins until we’ve put them through the wringer.”
Friedman smiled. “I must get some sleep.”
CHAPTER 26
A month of talking and questioning went by before they were satisfied that it was unlikely that Serov was a plant. Experience made them cautious. Too often in the past a defector had been hailed as a great prize in the continuous intelligence game, only to be doubted or even exposed as time went by. There was no litmus paper that turned purple as proof of genuineness. Moscow’s plants were not sent like lambs to the slaughter. They had sometimes been singled out and trained over years for their role, and all the interrogations and polygraph tests wouldn’t dent, let alone break, their covers.
But Serov had none of the arrogance of some Soviet defectors, and he asked for no great rewards. Just the chance to live with CIA protection in the United States without harassment and free from the bureaucracy that he had come to despise and hate.
The information that he gave them about both past and current Soviet operations in France was useful but not dramatic. His knowledge of the rivalries and machinations in Moscow politics were, in fact, invaluable, but at that level of the CIA it was just seen as gossip. They valued most his detailed knowledge of how the Soviets had penetrated French politics and the French security services. There were lessons to be learnt there. His knowledge of the inner workings of the Moscow political scene seemed an irrelevance. The names were unfamiliar and there were too many to be absorbed. All the details were noted but at that time in the Cold War what mattered to the CIA was the Soviet’s intelligence operations in the United States.
Three months after Serov had walked into the embassy in London he was offered new documentation and a modest post in the CIA’s analytical section evaluating French documents. He had asked a couple of times about meeting Malloy but there had been no response from his handlers. When Serov discovered that one of the other men in the section had been in OSS in France he asked him about Malloy. The man had worked in the south of France whereas Serov and Malloy had been in Occupied France. But the man had vaguely heard of Malloy and thought that he was now a lawyer in New York. When the man found that Serov was originally Russian he said his wife was Polish-American and told him that there was a place in Brooklyn where everybody was originally Russian or Polish. You could hardly hear anyone speaking English. They had Russian newspapers and magazines, Russian delicatessens, cafés and shops. The man had laughed and said that New Yorkers called it “Odessa by the Sea” although its real name was Brighton Beach and you went through it on the subway on your way to Coney Island.
Serov had hesitated for two weeks, curious to see this Russian community but worried that he might be recognised. It seemed unlikely because he had spent most of his time in France. His visits to Moscow had been made in typical secrecy and his time there had been spent with people who were too important and privileged to end up in a Brooklyn ghetto. It seemed crazy, but he was homesick for Moscow. Maybe not Moscow itself but for silver-birch trees and piroshky. Even in France he had sometimes felt this homesickness. But in those days he could just go to Moscow and a day with those bastards would be cure enough.
It was a Saturday when he took the bus to New York and made the long subway journey to Brighton Beach. It was just like he’d been told. He stood at the cross-roads and looked across at the dilapidated clapboard building that advertised Bar-mitzvah instruction on a crudely painted board. Facing him across the street was a car-repair shop and next to it
