But Belenko sensed that his blows were telling, and he went on, reconstructing a suppressed scandal involving a colonel in charge of housing. The colonel kept a second apartment that was supposed to be allocated to an officer, and there employed prostitutes to entertain visiting dignitaries. A general from Moscow was so taken by one of these young ladies that he locked her in the apartment for three days and nights. It happened that the girl was, or at least the KGB believed her to be, a Western agent, and during one of those three nights she was scheduled to meet her clandestine supervisor, in whom the KGB was most interested. When she failed to appear, the other agent became alarmed and escaped. The KGB ascertained some of the truth, but Golodnikov or others concealed enough to allow the colonel to retire quietly without being punished and without calling down upon themselves the righteous vindictiveness of State Security.
Golodnikov, who had avoided Belenko’s stare, now stared back at him with sheer hatred.
“There is more….”
“Enough! Nothing you have said has anything to do with your duties as an instructor. This is pure blackmail.” Golodnikov pressed a buzzer, and an aide appeared. “Tell the chief of the hospital to report to me immediately. Immediately! No matter what he is doing.”
Belenko saluted and started to leave. “No, Belenko. You stay. You had your chance. Now it is top late for you.”
Shortly, Colonel Malenkov, a trim, dignified figure who always looked composed in an immaculate uniform, appeared. “This lieutenant urgently needs a complete examination.”
“Dmitri Vasilyevich, only two weeks ago I myself gave Lieutenant Belenko a complete physical examination.”
“This will be a psychiatric examination. It is clear to me that this officer is insane. I am sure that is what the examination will find.”
Belenko, clad in a ragged robe, was locked alone in a hospital room. Nobody, not even the orderlies who brought the repugnant rations which must have come from the soldiers’ mess, spoke to him. Probably the solitary confinement was meant to intimidate him, but it afforded him sufficient respite to realize that he must say or do nothing which might give anybody grounds for labeling him insane.
On the third morning he was led to Malenkov’s office, and the doctor shut the door behind him. The pilots liked Malenkov because they felt he appreciated both their mentality and frustrations. He had been a combat infantryman in World War II, then trained as a physician, not because he wanted to be a physician — he yearned to be an architect — but because the Party needed doctors. He had served the Party as a military doctor for a quarter of a century. Asked what had happened, Belenko explained, and they talked nearly an hour.
“Viktor Ivanovich, I know you are all right. I know that what you say is true; at least, I have knowledge of some of the incidents you describe. But why try to piss into the wind? If you want to live in shit the rest of your life, go ahead and express your feelings. If you want to sleep on clean sheets and eat white bread with butter, you must learn to repress your feelings and pay lip service.
“Golodnikov is not a bad fellow; he’s a friend of mine. You drove him into a corner, and you have to let him out. If I tell him you were temporarily fatigued from overwork, that you recognize your mistake, that you regret it, that you will pursue this no further, I’m reasonably sure it all will be forgotten. Why don’t we do that?”
“I will not do that. I will tell the truth.”
Malenkov sighed. “Oh, Viktor Ivanovich. Now you drive
Although Malenkov could have chosen a local psychiatrist or a military psychiatrist, he instead drove Belenko to the medical institute in Stavropol, one hundred miles away. There he had a personal friend, an eminent psychiatrist whose name Belenko never caught. As they entered, he said, “All you have to do is relax and tell the truth.”
The psychiatrist and Malenkov talked alone some twenty minutes before calling in Belenko. “Well, well, what do we have here?” he asked Belenko, who as factually as he knew how reported his confrontation with Golodnikov. “Why, we have an open rebellion! Nothing less,” exclaimed the psychiatrist. “You must be very distraught or very brave.”
For an hour and then, after a brief pause, another two hours the psychiatrist questioned Belenko about all aspects of his life, from early childhood to the present. Neither his mannerisms nor wording disclosed anything to Belenko about his reactions to the answers, and until the last few seconds Belenko did not know whether he had “passed” the examination.
“So, Lieutenant, tell me. Just what is it that you want?”
“I want to be a fighter pilot I want to grow professionally. Most of all, I want to get away from all this lying, corruption, and hypocrisy.”
“Well, that seems to me like a healthy, progressive ambition. We shall see. You may go now.”
Escorting Belenko to the door, the psychiatrist extended his hand and gripped Belenko’s very hard. In a half whisper he said, “Good luck, Lieutenant. Don’t worry.”
Four days later Belenko learned the results of the examination entirely by chance from an Armavir classmate who was visiting the base with an inspection team. An ear problem had forced him to quit flying, and he worked in the personnel center of the Air Defense Command. When he offered congratulations, Belenko asked what he meant.
“Haven’t you been told? You’re going to a MiG-25 squadron in the Far East. The general here gave you a fantastic recommendation. Said you’re such an outstanding pilot you belong in our most modern aircraft. You must have been licking his ass every day the past four years.”
Belenko did not ask whether the records mentioned the psychiatric examination. Obviously they did not. Doubtless Malenkov and/or the psychiatrist had convinced Golodnikov that in the interests of his self-preservation he had better give Belenko what he asked and ship him as far away as possible as soon as possible.
Belenko was thankful for the transfer but unmollified and unforgiving, and in the days preceding his departure, his bitterness swelled. While he was away, word had spread or had been spread that he was insane. Krotkov, the guitar player, and a couple of other instructors welcomed him. Everybody else avoided him; they feared to be seen near him. He thought of scenes in
He was not conscious of it at the time. But within him the dam that contained the poisonous doubts, the disastrous conclusions, the recurrent rage had burst, and nothing could repair it. In a sense different from that in which they were spoken, the words of Golodnikov did apply. For Belenko it indeed was now too late.
Ludmilla cried every day their first week or so in Chuguyevka, 120 miles northeast of Vladivostok, almost a continent away from Salsk. By comparison with this village of 2,000 souls, isolated in forests not far from Korea to the south and Manchuria to the west, Salsk, which she so despised, seemed glittering and glamorous. The streets were unlighted and unpaved, the frame houses were unpainted, the outhouses and open garbage pits in their yards buzzed with flies and crawled with worms, and the whole place stank as bad as the poorest
A sawmill was the main employer of the village. A few citizens, among them a number of Ukrainians exiled to the Far East for life, worked as supervisors at a
