The Deceiver

In London, the Secret Intelligence Service had not been entirely inactive. Timothy Edwards had quickly learned the name of the missing man from the Ministry of Defense—Pavel Kuchenko. His own databank had quickly revealed that that was the cover-name of Colonel Pyotr Orlov of the KGB Third Directorate. That was when he summoned Sam McCready.

“I’ve screwed our American Cousins as hard as I can. Deep offense taken, outrage at all levels—that sort of thing. Bill Carver is deeply mortified—he sees his own position here as damaged. Anyway, he will press Langley to give us the lot, as and when it comes. I want to form a small group to have a look at the Orlov product when it reaches us. I’d like you to be in charge—under me.”

“Thank you,” said The Deceiver. “But I’d go for more. I’d ask for access. It could be that Orlov knows things that are specific to us. Those things won’t be high on Langley’s list. I’d like access, personal access.”

“That might be hard,” mused Edwards. “They’ve probably got him stashed in Virginia somewhere. But I can ask.”

“You’ve got the right,” insisted McCready. “We’ve been giving them a hell of a lot of product recently.”

The thought hung in the air. They both knew where most of the product had been coming from these past four years. And there was the Soviet Army War Book, handed over to Langley the previous year.

“Another thing,” said Sam. “I’d like to check on Orlov with Keepsake.”

Edwards stared hard at McCready. Keepsake was a British “asset,” a Russian working for the SIS. He was so highly placed and so sensitive that only four men in Century House were aware who he was, and less than a dozen knew that he existed at all. Those who knew his identity were the Chief himself, Edwards, the Controller Sovbloc, and McCready, his case officer, the man who “ran” him.

“Is that wise?” asked Edwards.

“I think it is justified.”

“Be careful.”

The black car, the following morning, was clearly parked on a double yellow line, and the traffic warden had no hesitation in writing out a ticket. He had just finished and slipped the polythene envelope under the windshield wiper when a slim, well-dressed man in a gray suit emerged from a nearby shop, spotted the ticket, and began to protest. It was such an everyday scene that no one noticed, even on a London street. From afar, an onlooker would have seen the normal gestic­ulations from the driver and the impervious shrugs from the traffic warden. Tugging at the warden’s sleeve, the driver urged the official to come to the back of the car and look at the plates. When he did, the warden saw the telltale CO plate of the Diplomatic Corps next to the registration plate. He had clearly missed it, but was unimpressed. Foreign diplomatic staff might be immune from the fine, but not from the ticket. He began to move off.

The driver snatched the ticket off the windshield and waved it under the warden’s nose. The warden asked a question. To prove he really was a diplomat, the driver delved into his pocket and produced an identity card, which he forced the warden to look at. The warden glanced, shrugged again, and moved away. In a rage the driver screwed up the parking ticket and hurled it into the car before climbing in and driving off.

What the onlooker would not have seen was the paper stuck inside the ID card saying: “Reading Room, British Museum, tomorrow, two P.M.” Nor would he have noticed the driver a mile later smooth out the crumpled ticket and read on the reverse side: “Colonel Pyotr Alexandrovich Orlov has de­fected to the Americans. Do you know anything about him?”

The Deceiver had just contacted Keepsake.

Chapter 2

The treatment, or “handling,” of a defector varies widely from case to case, according to the emotional state of the defector or to the usages of the host agency undertaking the debriefing. The only common factor is that it is always a sensitive and complicated business.

The defector must first be housed in an environment that does not appear menacing but that precludes his escape, often for his own good. Two years before Orlov, the Americans had made a mistake with Vitali Urchenko, another walk-in. At­tempting to create an air of normality, they had taken him to dinner in a Georgetown, Washington, restaurant. The man changed his mind, escaped through the men’s room window, walked back to the Soviet Embassy, and gave himself up. It did him no good; he was flown back to Moscow, brutally interrogated, and shot.

Apart from the defector’s possible self-destructive tenden­cies, he must be protected from possible reprisals. The USSR—and notably the KGB—are notoriously unforgiving toward those they regard as traitors and have been wont to hunt them down and liquidate them if possible. The higher the defector’s rank, the worse the treason, and a senior KGB officer is regarded as the highest of all. For the KGB are the cream of the cream, afforded every privilege and luxury in a nation where most live hungry and cold. To reject this life­style, the most cosseted the USSR has to offer, is to show ingratitude worthy of death itself.

The Ranch offered, apparently, security against reprisals as well as self-destruction.

The principal complicating factor is the mental state of the defector himself. After the first, adrenaline-packed rush into the West, many develop rethink symptoms. The full enormity of the step they have taken sinks in, the realization of never again seeing wife, family, friends, or homeland. This can lead to depression, like the down after the high of a drug-taker.

To counteract this, many debriefings start with a leisurely survey of the defector’s past life, a complete curriculum vitae from birth and childhood onward. The narration of the early years—description of mother and father, schoolday friends, skating in the park in winter, walks in the country in sum­mer—instead of producing more nostalgia and depression, usually has a calming effect. And everything, every last detail and gesture, is noted.

One thing that debriefers are always keenly interested in is motivation. Why did you decide to come over? (The word defect is never used. It implies disloyalty rather than a reason­able decision to change one’s views.)

Sometimes the defector lies about his reasons. He may say he became utterly disillusioned by the corruption, cynicism, and nepotism of the system he served and left behind. For many, this is the genuine reason; in fact, it is by far the most common reason. But it is not always true. It may be that the defector had his hand in the cashbox and knew he faced harsh punishment from the KGB. Or he may have been on the threshold of recall to Moscow to face discipline for a tangled love life. A demotion, or a hatred of a certain superior, may have been the real reason. The host agency may be well aware of why the man really defected. The excuses are nonetheless listened to carefully and sympathetically, even though they are known to be false. And they are noted. The man may lie as to his motivations out of vanity, but he does not necessarily lie about real secret intelligence. Or does he ...?

Others tell untruths out of vainglory, seeking to embellish their own importance in their earlier life, to impress their hosts. Everything will be checked out; sooner or later, the hosts will know the real reason, the real status. For the moment, everything is listened to very sympathetically. The real cross-examination will come later, as in court.

When the area of secret intelligence is finally broached, pitfalls are set. Many, many questions are asked to which the debriefing officers already know the answers. Or if they do not, the analysts, working through the nights on the tapes, will soon find out by collating and cross-checking. There have, after all, been many defectors, and the Western agencies have a huge volume of knowledge of the KGB, the GRU, the Soviet Army, Navy, and Air Force, even of the Kremlin, on which to draw.

If the defector is seen to lie about things that, according to his declared postings, he ought to know the truth of, he immediately becomes suspect. He may be lying out of bra­vado, to impress; or because he was never privy to that information but seeks to claim he was; or because he has forgotten; or ...

It is not easy to lie to a host agency during a long and arduous debriefing. The questioning can take months, even years, depending on the amount of things the defector claims that do not seem to check out.

If something a new defector says is at variance with the believed truth, it could be that the believed truth was wrong. So the analysts check out the original source of their infor­mation again. It may be that they have been wrong all the time, and the new defector is right. The subject is dropped while checks are made, and returned to later. Again and again.