The Main Enemy Milton Bearden (read full novel .txt) 📖

were growing frustrated with his inability to close the deal with Vasilenko. Some at the CIA wanted him to either break off the contact or force the issue by threatening to blackmail Vasilenko. The Soviet was now having unauthorized contacts with a CIA officer; couldn’t Platt use the threat of exposure to force Vasilenko to cross the line? Platt angrily refused to use such hardball tactics. It wasn’t because he considered Vasilenko a friend—Platt’s ultimate goal of recruiting Vasilenko trumped his friendship with the KGB officer—it was because he knew the strategy was doomed to fail. Vasilenko was a roustabout, but he also had a stubborn sense of honor, and trying to blackmail him would only backfire. No, Platt realized, the only way Gennady Vasilenko would ever become an American spy was if he decided to do so on his own. Jack Platt just wanted to keep up the friendship so that he could be there if and when he was ready.

In 1981, Vasilenko was transferred from Washington back to KGB headquarters in Moscow, and Platt realized that there was no way he could maintain contact with him there without putting him at risk. Platt told Vasilenko to have a nice time back in the socialist paradise, secretly hoping that a couple of years back in the drudgery of Moscow would convince him of the merits of working for the United States. He vowed to himself that when Vasilenko reemerged for his next overseas assignment, he would track him down and recruit him once and for all.

In 1984, Vasilenko finally came out again, this time assigned to Guyana. The Soviet ambassador in Guyana had excellent connections back in Moscow and had complained that his embassy deserved a fully staffed KGB Rezidentura. That was, after all, a measure of status within the foreign affairs bureaucracy. Vasilenko was sent to Georgetown as deputy Rezident to help satisfy the sudden demand. Back in Washington, Platt had moved on to a new assignment, running the CIA’s Internal Operations training course, teaching young CIA officers how to work behind the Iron Curtain. But he was also trying to watch for signs that Vasilenko had reemerged from Moscow. It took a while, but eventually Vasilenko was back on the CIA’s scope, and Platt started asking for permission to go to Guyana to try to pick up where he had left off in 1981. By October 1987, Platt had finally been given approval to travel to Georgetown and to buy a hunting rifle to take to Vasilenko as a kind of homecoming present. Platt hoped that he could convince Vasilenko to go hunting with him in the wilds of South America as a way to renew their friendship after so many years apart.

It turned out that Vasilenko was just as eager to see Platt, but he did recognize that there were new dangers. It was one thing to go out to dinner in Washington with an adversary; that was part of the business of intelligence. But how could Vasilenko explain to his bosses in Moscow the fact that his CIA friend had flown thousands of miles—bringing along an expensive gift—to renew their friendship? From now on, all of their contacts would be unauthorized, and Vasilenko had to make certain they remained out of view. He had good reason to be more cautious now; KGB Center was swirling with rumors that old colleagues from Washington had been arrested and that other KGB officers had fallen under suspicion as well. There seemed to be a bloodbath under way in Yasenevo, and morale was plunging. Officers walking the corridors felt like hiding their faces, in case another mole might be just around the corner. Paranoia and fear, the birthrights of the KGB, began to climb to pre-détente levels.

But just because Vasilenko wanted to keep his friendship with Platt a secret didn’t mean that he was ready to spy for the Americans. He wanted to see Platt mostly because he was bored and wanted some diversion. He was still rebuffing all of Platt’s offers to spy, still teasing him with KGB office gossip without crossing the line into espionage. Platt spent a few days in Guyana, meeting Vasilenko each day along the oceanfront seawall, little more than a cement levee erected to protect a military hospital built just beyond the beach in nearby lowlands. The men brought snacks, drinks, and ice so they could picnic each day out of sight of the prying eyes of Soviet personnel at the embassy. During the afternoons, they would have shooting contests, firing pistols at tin cans. While they kept their conversations light, there were small signs of progress along the way that kept Platt interested from a professional standpoint as well. At one point, Vasilenko casually mentioned that a KGB man named Vladimir Tsymbal had been sent from Moscow to visit the Washington Rezidentura in 1985 and again in 1987.

Platt was intrigued by this offhand remark. Tsymbal, Platt knew, was a covert communications specialist in the First Chief Directorate’s Line KR. The CIA knew from past experience that Tsymbal was used by the KGB to arrange the delicate covert agent communications details for highly sensitive operations. He was one of the KGB’s top technical experts, and when Tsymbal showed up somewhere, the CIA’s first instincts were to start looking for a spy. So why had Tsymbal been sent to Washington in 1985 and again two years later? What agent operations in Washington were so important that they required Moscow’s best covert communications tech? Probing for answers from Vasilenko was no use; even if he wanted to tell Platt, he wouldn’t have known the truth. No, Platt would just have to report back to headquarters on what Vasilenko said and see if the counterintelligence analysts in Langley could make sense of Tsymbal’s travels.

In October 1987, Platt wrote up a summary of his trip to Georgetown, complete with Vasilenko’s mysterious reference to Tysmbal’s visits to Washington, and sent a copy along to the FBI, since the