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

with just enough information to allow him to launch a methodical search that ultimately led him to Major Sergey Vorontsov, a tough KGB officer working in Moscow’s Lenin Hills district. Vorontsov hadn’t been cooperative at first, but like the others, he came around. Krassilnikov had the full story, but neither he nor his superiors were eager to take the next step and reel in an American to close the case. That could wait a little longer. Patience.

In the meantime, Krassilnikov was on another exciting hunt. He had been alerted, again discreetly from above, that the Americans were planning a technical probe of some sort across the entire expanse of the USSR, from the port of Nakhodka in the Far East.

Technical sensing equipment would be concealed in a custom-rigged shipping container loaded aboard a freighter in Japan and delivered to Nakhodka. From there it would be transferred onto the trans-Siberian railroad for the long journey to Leningrad, a route that was becoming increasingly attractive for the export of goods from Asia to Western Europe. Krassilnikov hadn’t questioned the source of the tip when he received it. He cast his net wide for the technical probe and knew that the officers of the Second Chief Directorate would reel it in as soon as the equipment entered Soviet territory.

Embassy of the USSR, Washington, D.C., January 1986

Colonel Viktor Cherkashin suppressed his rage as he sat in his tiny cubicle in the KGB’s cramped, windowless Rezidentura on the fourth floor of the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C. He’s going to get him killed, Cherkashin told himself. Kryuchkov is going to get our man killed. He can’t resist wrapping up the American spies in Moscow, and the CIA is going to figure out something’s wrong, that someone has talked.

Cherkashin had been at his post as chief of counterintelligence in the KGB’s Washington Rezidentura when Aldrich Ames had downed a few extra drinks at the Mayflower Hotel and walked into the Soviet embassy to volunteer to become a spy. He knew he had a real catch—and he’d taken extreme measures to protect his new spy. Fearful of leaks, he decided against sending a cable back to Moscow Center. Instead, he flew back to deliver his message personally to Vladimir Kryuchkov, head of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, which handled foreign intelligence operations.

Cherkashin circumvented his entire chain of command, including Dimitri Yakushkin, chief of American operations, and Vitaly Yurchenko, a top security officer in the American section. Both men had served at the Soviet embassy in Washington, and both would most likely have been on the distribution list for any cables he might have sent from Washington. But the KGB, like most professional services, had a standing procedure allowing officers to go directly to the top whenever they learned the identities of traitors within the ranks. Ames had handed over the names of KGB moles. Cherkashin told no one in Moscow about his new recruit except Kryuchkov and his immediate circle of lieutenants.

But Kryuchkov had broken one of the cardinal rules of counterintelligence. He was moving quickly—and stupidly, in Cherkashin’s view—to roll up agents identified by their new volunteer. Kryuchkov had been feeling increasingly insecure about his position since his longtime mentor, Yuri Andropov, had died. Whatever political infighting was going on back in Moscow, Cherkashin worried that the Americans would realize their security had been breached and would launch a mole hunt.

Now, sitting in the Rezidentura, with electronic white noise whirring silently between the double walls specially constructed by KGB technicians, Cherkashin knew that the most valuable agent the KGB had ever had inside the CIA was at grave risk. He was not at risk because of any mistake they had made in Washington. He was at risk because Vladimir Kryuchkov wanted to knock KGB Chairman Viktor Chebrikov off balance and steal his job.

Langley, January 1986

Bill Casey’s secretary smiled up at John Stein as he entered the DCI’s outer office. “You can go right in, Mr. Stein. Mr. George is already with him.”

Pushing through the heavy, soundproof door to the DCI’s office, Stein saw Casey and the DDO seated at the conference table at the far end of the room.

A burly man in his mid-fifties with salt-and-pepper hair, John Stein had risen through the ranks of the clandestine service. After a stint in the early 1970s as deputy chief in the SE Division, he had survived the bureaucratic chaos of Casey’s first year as CIA Director, when Casey made the disastrous decision to appoint Max Hugel, one of his Republican fund-raising pals, as DDO. Stein emerged as DDO himself after Hugel was forced to resign amid a scandal following a few months at the CIA. Two years later, Casey moved Stein out, replacing him with Clair George. Stein became inspector general. He was just leaving that post for language school and was on his way to becoming chief in South Korea when he was called into the meeting in Casey’s office.

Bill Casey spoke first. “John, we’ve got a problem,” he said. “Clair can lay it out for you.”

Stein glanced over at Clair George and realized his somber mood was genuine, not one of the theatrical plays for which the DDO was famous.

“We’re losing Soviet assets, a lot of them. You still know all the big cases, don’t you?”

“Sure. I was DDO during a lot of them. Howard?”

“Howard accounts for some of the losses, but not all. We think there’s still a problem. Maybe technical—something to do with communications—maybe human. Could be here, or maybe Moscow. We want you to take a look. A fresh look. Don’t count anything in or out. And keep it between us. No one else is to know you’re doing this. Understood?”

Stein hesitated a moment. “I’ll need someone in SE to help me, to get me the files. Is Redmond okay?”

“Okay,” Clair George said. “Just keep it quiet.”

Later that day, Stein called Redmond. The two men had worked together in the past, and Stein was pretty sure Redmond could be counted