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

Ames was pretty confident that if anyone in the American Department of the First Chief Directorate knew about his case, it would only be the chief and his most trusted aides. Yurchenko was likely out of the loop. But Ames couldn’t be sure, since he knew that Yurchenko could have heard “corridor gossip” about his case. He hadn’t mentioned anything about the case during his initial debriefing in Rome, but he could be saving the bombshell for after his arrival in Washington.

Ames decided he had to test Yurchenko as soon as possible. So in the back of the car as they drove away from Andrews, he broke off their conversation long enough to hand him a note that he had prepared earlier. “If you have any particularly important information which you wish to provide only to the Director or another senior U.S. official, tell me, and I will take you to him.”

Yurchenko grinned at Ames and said he had no message that required such special care. The confirmation came as a relief.

But then Yurchenko passed on some KGB gossip that sent a chill through Ames. It was, Ames would later recall, “one piece of corridor gossip of great relevance to me, despite the tight compartmentation the KGB used.” It seems likely that Yurchenko told Ames that he had heard of a sudden and unexplained trip home to Moscow by the KGB’s Washington Rezident, Stanislov Androsov. Androsov (along with his counterintelligence chief, Viktor Cherkashin) had turned up in Moscow in April or May, so the speculation along the corridors in the First Chief Directorate’s headquarters was that something big had happened in Washington at about that time.

Ames quickly calculated how best to handle this nugget of information. It was the sort of thing, he later recalled, that he could put into his debriefing report with confidence that no one would notice it for some time. Perhaps no one would ever pay much attention to it, if he buried it deep enough.

The tip went into the Yurchenko file without anyone connecting the Androsov trip with the CIA’s 1985 losses. In part, that was because Yurchenko’s identification of Mr. Robert—Edward Lee Howard—seemed to answer the problems the CIA knew about at the time, particularly the loss of Adolf Tolkachev.

It felt a little ridiculous, but the CIA driver had his orders: Instead of heading straight from Andrews to the safe house, he began a countersurveillance run, zigzagging around Washington for at least a half hour to make sure that the KGB wasn’t on their tail. When they arrived at the town house, followed by other government vehicles, there was no way to hide from the neighbors the fact that something strange was going on.

Oakton, Virginia, 1000 Hours, August 2, 1985

The scene at the Oakton safe house, a modest town house on Shawn Leigh Drive, was anything but discreet. A line of government cars awkwardly disgorged a dozen passengers at the door while Medanich fumbled with the keys. I arrived just as the group was ushered inside. Yurchenko stood out among the group.

“Colonel Yurchenko, I am Thomas Fannin, representing Mr. William Casey, the Director of Central Intelligence,” I said. “He has asked that I personally convey to you his compliments, and tell you that if there is anything you need, just ask.”

Yurchenko seemed pleased that Casey had sent a personal envoy to welcome him.

“Thank you, Mr. Fountain,” he said, getting my alias wrong. “Please tell Director Casey that I have no special needs at this moment, and that your boys have taken wonderful care of me from the moment I met them in Rome. Our KGB boys would still be trying to figure out what to do with someone like me, and yours already have me in Virginia.” Yurchenko’s English was heavily accented, and he was clearly running on adrenaline, but he struck me as genuinely grateful for the treatment he had received so far.

“Colonel, Mr. Casey asked me to assure you that he is available at any time if you have information that you would prefer to share only with him. Do you have any such information?”

Yurchenko shook his head, while pointing to Ames. “I have already told that one, that colleague, that I have no such information. But I have much, very much, to tell you and the boys.”

Before I could respond, Ames was at my side, having seen Yurchenko point in his direction. “Need any help, Tom?” he asked, using my alias.

“No. No help needed.” I looked at Ames, whom I had just met for the first time the previous afternoon, and thought, I don’t even know what alias this guy’s using. Maybe we ought to try to get this thing a little more organized.

McLean, Virginia, 0900 Hours, August 3, 1985

Burton Gerber pulled his gray Toyota into the slot next to my car in the parking lot of Charley’s, a popular happy hour meeting spot off Virginia’s Route 123, a short drive from CIA headquarters. Both of us were a few minutes early for a hastily called Saturday morning meeting with the FBI. It was the second day after Yurchenko’s defection. Gerber got into my car to wait for the FBI.

“You said you knew Jim Geer,” Gerber said, directing the air-conditioning vent away from himself. Geer, the newly appointed chief of the FBI’s intelligence division, was one of the men we’d come to meet. He had just wound up his duties as director of the FBI laboratory and hadn’t yet reported for his first day on the new job—that would take place on Monday. Geer’s predecessor, Ed O’Malley, had retired the day before, and the whole affair—the Yurchenko defection and the Mr. Robert investigation—was suddenly in Geer’s lap.

“Yeah, he was ASAC in Dallas when I was down there about five years ago. He’s a big, easygoing guy. Tennessee. Smart, professional. Didn’t seem too caught up in the turf battles. At least not back then.” I motioned to the envelope