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

a half-full two-liter bottle of Coke from the countertop and began to pour a glass. “Ice?” Medanich asked.

“No ice. Americans like everything with ice. It makes them sick. Never should use ice!”

“Alex,” Medanich said, “I’m going to be with you almost constantly in these early weeks and months of settling in. You’re a man who has much of great value to give our side, but I want you to know that my job is to see to it that your needs are understood. I want you to know that you can turn to me anytime something is bothering you, or even when nothing is bothering you. And if you ever have anything you want to discuss with someone other than the colleagues here, anything that you want to bring directly to the attention of Mr. Casey, just tell me. Mr. Casey is deeply interested in your welfare, and he wants you to know that.”

Yurchenko nodded in understanding. “These boys are fine, and I have much to tell them. But I have been here more than one day already, and I thought I would by this time hear from Mr. Casey. . . .” He let his sentence trail off without transforming his statement into a request.

Medanich put his hand reassuringly on the defector’s shoulder. “Mr. Casey sent me here this morning to tell you personally that he is briefing the President on the courageous decision you have made,” he said, “and he will call you personally to welcome you to the United States on Monday.”

“He should tell President Reagan that I have come to him to help him in the struggle,” Yurchenko replied, perking up.

“That’s precisely what he is telling the President.” So that’s where the agitation is coming from, Medanich thought. His sense of self-importance. “Is there anything I can do to help you in these first few days? Do you need rest, some time to gather your thoughts?”

Yurchenko shook his head vigorously. “I need no rest. I have had a lifetime to gather my thoughts for this. And I must work fast because my own time may not be long.”

Medanich decided to let Yurchenko’s statement pass, at least for the moment. He would bore in on that one later. There were too many people involved in this operation, he thought. The FBI and CIA were crawling all over the place. Word of Yurchenko’s arrival had spread rapidly through the intelligence world, and Medanich worried that everyone would want to be a part of the espionage freak show in Oakton.

Yurchenko had been brought to this town house in a congested suburb only because the agency’s stock of available safe houses had been so low at the time. But it was clear the CIA needed to find a better place to stash its defectors outside of the twenty-five-mile zone around Washington, D.C., in which Soviet diplomats were allowed to travel. Taking in the scene at the town house, Medanich grimaced and thought to himself that this resettlement, one of the biggest in CIA history, was being conducted with all the subtlety of a goat-fuck.

Over the next few days, as Medanich had feared, the safe house became a tourist stop for intelligence officers. What was worse, the debriefings were badly organized; too many different agencies were clamoring to grill Yurchenko on their pet issues.

At first, Yurchenko didn’t seem to mind, since he had so much he wanted to get off his chest. He was so eager to talk that one day he pulled out a large sheaf of paper and spread it across the kitchen table so he could diagram the KGB’s organization. But even as he and Medanich were hunched happily over the table, an FBI official who was not involved in the case arrived unannounced and invited Yurchenko to dinner. Yurchenko turned to Medanich and asked, “Do I have to go with him?” Medanich, furious at the interloper, said no. Yurchenko declined the dinner invitation and quickly returned to his organizational chart. Medanich had a feeling Yurchenko wouldn’t remain so tolerant if this kind of chaos wasn’t brought under control soon.

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, 1410 Hours, August 5, 1985

Bill Casey was leaning so far back in his chair that I thought he might actually topple over. Gerber and I were sitting in two straight-backed chairs in front of Casey’s desk in the DCI’s birch-paneled seventh-floor office. Behind us, through floor-to-ceiling windows, lay the lush, wooded panorama of the Virginia side of the Potomac. On the corner of Casey’s desk was a stack of books with titles ranging from Middle East oil politics to history and the stock market. Casey was a voracious reader. He would devour books all weekend, returning on Monday to tell his closest aides which ones they should read, perhaps even how to read them.

Gerber and I were in Casey’s office to brief the DCI on the initial counterintelligence take from Yurchenko. Gerber confirmed that he was convinced Yurchenko’s Mr. Robert, a dismissed CIA employee who had turned to the KGB, was Edward Lee Howard.

“What do you think about the Howard thing, Milt?” Casey asked.

“Sometimes we get what we deserve,” I said.

I felt, more than saw, Gerber bristle beside me. “I can’t imagine anyone thinking we deserve this kind of treachery,” Gerber said tensely.

“What I mean is that Howard’s firing and the way it was handled is driving his revenge. The agency can’t say it was uninvolved in pushing him over the edge. I’m not saying that minimizes in any way what he’s done, Burton.”

Casey stopped the exchange with one of his standard throwaway lines. “Hey, so we make mistakes.” Turning back to the subject of Yurchenko, he was almost gleeful. “How’s it goin’ with him?” Casey had almost given up on trying to pronounce Yurchenko’s name.

“He’s running on nervous energy,” I said. “But Chuck Medanich, our psychologist, doesn’t think he’s in a higher than usual state of agitation for someone who’s done what he’s just done.”

“So you want me to call him?” Casey asked,