A Shadow in Moscow, page 21
Philby grinned and tucked her arm through his own. He turned them a quarter away from everyone’s gaze. He, too, returned to speaking Russian. “They are a xenophobic people to be sure. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Thank you.” She laughed. “While I miss Austria on rare occasions, I confess to loving my new city more. Everything and everyone I love is here.” She stepped back toward Leo, who stood stiff and silent, and reached for his hand.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Philby thumped her husband on the back and Leo visibly relaxed. His features softened and he squeezed his wife’s gloved fingers.
“Well done. He adores you,” Leo whispered to her as Philby moved on to the next guest. “I sometimes forget myself you aren’t a true Muscovite.”
“Don’t you think I am by now?”
Again, her comment visibly pleased her husband as he peered deeper into the room, determining who to converse with next. Ingrid peeked back and willed the butterflies in her gut to settle. She watched as Philby stood spooning out stories to his admirers. But just as she drew her eyes away, the man inexplicably stopped in the middle of his tale and winked at her. She forced a smile to bloom across her face as butterflies took flight again. She’d gone a step too far—she’d made herself memorable.
Proceeding with Leo to the large table in the dining room, Ingrid noted that her place card situated her far from the guest of honor. She laid her evening bag beside her plate and scanned the table for her husband’s card. She eventually found it—directly to Philby’s left. Leo, she noted, was staring at the same thing with satisfaction settling in his dark eyes.
Leo never talked about work. He obviously shared whenever he received a promotion, and those had come fast over their decade of marriage, but he never said what those promotions entailed or even within which department of the government’s vast bureaucracy they occurred.
In fact, if she followed all his clouded comments and leading remarks, he still worked as a bureaucrat within the CPSU as he had in Vienna. It was only by listening to other remarks made by a variety of people on a vast array of topics over the years, including their awkward silences, pauses, and slipups within those conversations, that she came to learn he was lying—and perhaps always had been.
Perhaps not when they’d first met, but without a doubt from the day he proposed and every day since. Is anything real? Did he ever love me at all? She banished the questions as quickly as they rose. They were for the dark hours when sleep eluded her. Not for here. Not for now.
In an unthinking gesture, her hand moved to her belly. That was real. At least it had been. She’d been three months along when she lost the baby, and Leo had been as devastated as she had been. That was real too. He had desperately wanted a son. She had desperately wanted someone more to love.
Ingrid shook away her sadness. The very night it happened, young Anya had climbed into bed with her, sensing her mama was sad. And she’d done that each night for a week until she’d sensed Ingrid was okay. And the wise little girl had been right too—after a week, Ingrid knew she would, in fact, be okay.
She stepped toward her husband and gestured to his place card. “You are positioned well.”
Leo’s eyes gleamed. “I have no idea how. Come. Let us mingle.”
Ingrid knew Leo not only was pleased with the honor but had expected it. His controlled grin gave him away—as had the papers in his desk.
Reginald had given Ingrid her first Minox camera in 1960, and since then she had used it as often as she dared. Perhaps a dozen times in the past four years. The most recent documents, photographed several months ago, consisted of a series of memos detailing background information on new Party and Politburo promotions. The content led her to believe Leo’s latest promotion was within the KGB’s Seventh Directorate, internal surveillance.
Leo, like Philby, was a spy-hunter among his own.
And that meant Ingrid never had a real moment. Because a real moment, such as her outrage over the Hungarian Revolution, could get her killed or—worse—get Anya killed. That boy’s father worked for the KGB! Daily Ingrid chastised herself to stop struggling, to stop trying to bridge the gap between what she appeared and what she truly was, to relinquish her pride and simply accept this was the path she’d chosen. Someone, everyone—including and especially her own daughter—needed to view her as small, weak, and insignificant.
“We have a line of sight to all the top players now,” Reg told her after he’d developed that batch of film rolls. “Leo is clearly head of the—”
“Don’t.” Lost in those same thoughts, she raised a hand just in time to stop Reg from continuing. “Don’t tell me. Please. Let me live within the fantasy that because no one has ever told me directly, Leo does not work within the KGB.”
Reginald nodded and said nothing more. But even she couldn’t deny it now, and looking at Leo, she knew he didn’t want to. He was proud of his success and his accomplishments. And if she was right about the rewards within the service for loyalty, and the costs of proving one’s loyalty, she suspected her husband had paid dearly for each and every one.
She thought back to her friend Vada all those years ago. She thought back to colleagues, friends who once had frequented his parties, who—one day—simply never came again. “They’ve been transferred out of the city,” he would say when she asked. But the way he said it, just like when his father was “sentenced to ten years without the right to correspondence,” Ingrid knew these friends would never return to their homes or to Moscow again.
Ingrid followed Leo back into the foyer where guests began gathering before dinner. He paused at the door and stretched out a hand, waiting for her. She knew he only stopped, reached for her, and even now curled his arm around her back because Philby had complimented her. She was an asset tonight, when almost every other day she was a liability.
He had tried to hide it, of course, but games required energy. And on days when Leo was stressed or tired, he had no energy for his wife. There was a curl of contempt to his lips. He spoke down to her rather than to her, or he ignored her altogether. The KGB was rumored to be puritanical, rigid, and almost pathologically xenophobic. And Leo was, as Reginald quipped one day, a “company man.”
After dinner, a quartet played in the ballroom. Guests strolled into the room, drinks in hand, as General Kamenev and his wife started the dancing. Ingrid watched Philby cross the room, only realizing once he was halfway toward her that she was his intended target.
“May I have this dance?” He spoke like a Russian but with the bow and intonation of a Brit.
Ingrid let him lead her to the center of the floor.
“Your husband tells me you have a daughter starting primary school who has just joined the Little Octobrists.”
“She was the first to memorize the oath and motto.” Ingrid widened her eyes with glowing pride. “In fact, the first to memorize the songs too. Though I wish she would perhaps not sing those all the time.” She lifted her hand off Philby’s shoulder and touched a light finger to her temple.
“I can imagine.” He laughed, leading them in perfect time across the floor. “Little voices. No tone . . . But what an exciting time. I have great hopes for this next generation.”
“Yes, I heard you are starting a training school. Every young KGB recruit will benefit from your experience.”
Philby studied her but did not answer her. “You intrigue me, Comrade. I hope to spend more time with you.”
Ingrid’s face warmed, and by the gleam in Philby’s eye, she knew he mistook it for a blush. She dipped her head and let him believe what he wanted.
The next morning, as soon as the apartment was empty, Ingrid and Dolores scoured it from top to bottom. There were a few things Leo had packed away long ago, reminders of Ingrid’s childhood she thought he no longer remembered. But she knew where they hid—books in the back of their bedroom closet, pictures in her bedside table drawer, jewelry from her mother, and various other items scattered across small private spaces. Memorabilia of a Vienna and a past she needed to purge.
“You’re going to throw away your Shakespeare? Your Austen?” Dolores pulled a box from the back of her closet and held up a green leather-bound book in one hand and a red one in the other.
Ingrid reached for both. She ran her hands over the smooth covers with titles embossed in gold. They were her mother’s books, and never telling that part of their history, Ingrid had read the plays and stories to Anya when she was younger—far too young to remember and repeat—and she often read them herself at night when Leo worked late.
You fool, she scolded herself, feeling the full weight of her indulgence. “It all goes.”
Dolores took the pictures and books and proceeded to tear them apart before she dropped them section by section into the trash bin.
“Let’s divide them into small bags and take them to bins throughout the city. I don’t want any debris left in or near the apartment.” Ingrid then, unable to watch as Dolores burned her family pictures in the kitchen sink, walked to the apartment’s bathroom and shut the door. Inside she faced the mirror.
Are you ready for this? You’re forty-one years old. She pressed her hands against her jaw, her cheeks, the soft skin around her eyes. Did she have the energy and the stamina for all that lay ahead?
She ran her fingers through her hair. It was still blonde, but there were more than a few strands of grey near her temples now. Her eyes, still blue, carried new lines at the corners and seemed to have darkened with shades of grey in the irises. She wasn’t sure if that was a real change or a perceived one—was there a difference?
Shaking away her fear, she stared straight at herself in the mirror. “No cracks in the facade. Because it’s not a facade. This is who you are. Like Mutti used to say, ‘Duc in altum.’”
Dolores knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you okay?”
Ingrid opened it. “I’m just giving myself a pep talk.” Dolores stared at her. “What is it?”
“Your husband just called . . . I’m to go to the market. He’s bringing Comrade Philby and a few others home for after-dinner drinks tonight.”
“It was expected.” Ingrid leaned against the doorjamb. “Take my Party card and food voucher to Universam and get caviar and anything else we’ll need. I’ll take the papers and find bins.”
“It’s too risky for you. Let me do that.”
Ingrid shook her head, feeling oddly comfortable with her new reality. “The risks are just beginning, my friend.”
Eighteen
Anya
Moscow
October 30, 1983
I returned home untethered—unable to think, eat, focus, sleep.
Thankfully, however, Petrov was impressed with my thoughts and insights from the meetings. So impressed I sense a subtle change in my world. Rogov no longer harasses me. Stanslych’s tone carries a tiny bit more respect. They are little things, to be sure, but they matter.
A letter arrives.
It is unsigned and carries only a few lines. Although it’s stamped Tennessee, it’s from Scott, and he drove across state lines to further separate himself from the postmark. Who told him to do that? Or has he always known? As if reading my mind, the letter merely says,
I never lied. I would tell you everything if I could. You were the start. You are the journey. It’s the color of anger, but also the color of love.
All I see is Scott. I picture him writing this note, debating what to pen that only I could understand. I see that questioning moment when his eyes flashed to mine in Vienna, and I sent him away. I had to do it—to be seen talking, even for an instant, would have ended my career, perhaps my life. But as much as I want to forget that split second of connection and all the questions flooding my brain—because I’ll never get any answers—they’re consuming me.
After two weeks of this stupor, my office mates stop talking to me. I fumble through work, through lunch, through the security line. Walking home, I see my life stretching before me and it’s not bad. It’s predictable, comfortable. I have it so much better than most. I could quit all this—what am I doing other than putting myself and my family at risk? Why am I doing it? Was it for Scott all along? I can’t be that lovesick, that shallow.
Focus on life here, that’s what we’re raised to do. Not to question. Not to dream. To work. To live. I could find a nice man. We could marry. We would work our jobs each day, make dinner, make love at night, and start again the next day as families do. We would endure. We could survive. Maybe we’d even have children. That’s where my imagining stops. Children require hope. I’m not sure I have that anymore.
Yet whenever I feel I’ve almost given up, something roars to life inside me. Call it fight, call it dissent, call it anger. Whatever it is, it rebels against capitulation. Those years in the US were mine—not Scott’s, not anyone else’s. I grew within the Thursday music at the chapel; I grew through learning the philosophies and ideals of dignity and freedom; I grew within the pleasure of open debate and discussion. All these things sound theoretical, but they weren’t. They were real and tangible, and I lived in and among them four whole years.
And no matter whether Scott lied to me or not, those were my experiences and they changed me.
I chuckle to myself as I walk the final block to my apartment. Scott read me well. Red. The color of love. A nice reminder. The color of anger. He knew where I’d go first. We really are a fighting people.
I turn to walk back toward the zoo. After tossing an empty pack of Primas into the bin, I place a red wax mark on the cement wall right behind a trash can.
I want to pick a fight, and I’m just getting started.
* * *
“Is Scott O’Neill CIA?”
Peter shuts the door to Safe House #2 in the Basmanny District behind me. “Hello to you too.” He raises a brow.
He’s annoyed and I don’t blame him. A red mark signals an emergency, and most likely Peter and a whole team worked nonstop today to secure this moment—which, by my attitude, he suspects is not an emergency.
Without saying hello I turn inside the doorway. “Tell me about Scott O’Neill. Does he work with you?”
“Who?” Peter’s face contorts with such consternation I can’t tell if he’s asking or overacting.
I go with my gut. “You’re lying . . . I’m not in the mood for games, Peter. You’re probably buddy-buddy. He must be CIA.” I fill a glass with water and take a few sips, watching him. He seems genuinely perplexed.
“I have no idea. And of course we’re not all buddy-buddy. This isn’t grade school,” Peter says, mimicking my tone. “And I can give you a thousand reasons to Sunday why it’d be stupid if we were. Who’s this O’Neill?”
“Playing dumb doesn’t suit you.”
I glare at him and he glares back. After a minute, he raises a brow and concedes. “Georgetown boyfriend from Atlanta, Georgia. Second of three kids. Works financial markets and fiscal policy in DC, specializing in emerging markets. You saw him in Vienna.”
“You knew he’d be there? And you didn’t warn me?” My hand shakes and I set down the glass. I don’t want Peter to notice it too.
“After the fact. We got the list of delegates after you’d left for Vienna. It should’ve come earlier, but it didn’t, and it was too late to warn you. I’m sorry.”
“So he’s CIA? Was he always?” A bit of me has moved on, but most of me still wants answers. Peter drops into one of the metal chairs at the kitchen table. “Not that I’ve heard. He could be private sector with some special skill set in grain, Russia, widgets, I have no idea. Or, yes, he could be CIA.” Peter stares at me. “Did something happen? Is there something you want to tell me?”
I sit across from him. I feel my heart hammering. It makes an audible sound within my ears. How can Peter not hear it too? Working with the CIA was never going to get me Scott, yet deep down, I can’t deny a part of me said yes to Olivers for both Dmitri and him. One to vindicate. One to love.
I keep my eyes steady and employ the same strategy of calm I used to use on Sasha. Only it’s me I’m trying to subdue into stillness. “Nothing, but . . .”
“Seeing him, you wondered if he used you?” Peter chuckles at my expression. “That’s hardly a leap, Anya. Why don’t you lay low for a while? Get over him and get your head back in the game.”
“Absolutely not, and what you’re implying is insulting.” My bark surprises us both. So much for calm control, but that is the one thing I can’t do. Maybe all this did start in some way for Scott and certainly for Dmitri. But it also has little to do with either of them now.
Without this work, this adrenaline, and this mission, I’ll come undone. It may not be a better motivation, but it’s real.
While memorizing diagrams and details, I’m outside myself and focused. I don’t feel hurt, or lonely, or sad. I’m not questioning anything or anyone and I’m not a hair’s width away from losing it. It’s the only thing left in my life that feels good and right, a true virtuous fight.
I can’t tell Peter any of this. It makes me sound as desperate and crazy as I feel—not good for someone working in a world of secrets. So I say, “I’m ready for more. Give me a camera,” instead. “The tiniest you’ve got. Like in James Bond.”
“You can’t be serious.” Peter’s intonation leads me to believe he senses all I’ve left unsaid.
“Just hear me out.” I hold up a hand to keep him from interrupting me. “We can’t slow down, and I can’t get any drawings out. You see how long it takes me to memorize all that data, and then it takes hours with you in a safe house to recreate them. It takes too long. It increases the danger for everyone. Someone is going to come looking for you, if not for me. With a camera we can speed this whole thing up.”
“There you go again, trying to ‘speed things up.’ What exactly are we speeding up, Anya?”
“The end of all this. War, destruction . . . the Soviet Union.”
