A Shadow in Moscow, page 33
“Thank you, Director, ma’am, I mean, yes, thank you.”
The director gestures to a set of plush leather armchairs in the room’s corner. “Director Weston is fine. Please sit. I simply want to say it’s good to have you here.”
I perch on the chair’s edge and wait as the director sits across from me.
She continues. “I knew your mother, Anya, back in the day. I was one of the agents who brought her out of Vienna. It was quite a day. And then when she worked here on the Soviet Desk for Aldrich Ames. To think that traitor was under our noses all that time.”
“Ames? My mom knew the Aldrich Ames? The Soviet spy?”
Director Weston narrows her eyes. “You sound surprised.”
“It’s just . . . I’ve read about him. And you, too, of course. You were a field agent, one of the last behind the Iron Curtain when it fell, and you were in Cuba . . . My mom said she was here at Langley for a couple years, but I never heard about Ames. Didn’t she file papers? I figured if you knew anyone it would be my dad, Scott O’Neill. He worked economics and diplomacy at the State Department for over twenty years. But Mom, she—” I clamp my mouth shut. I’ve just blabbed all over the director.
She tilts her head as if my verbal diarrhea was expected. “My children are the same. I expect no child truly understands her mother outside that vital role. There’s a certain myopia. Perhaps it’s our survival instinct. How is Anya?”
“She’s good. There are six of us kids . . . I’m the youngest by several years. When I started school, Mom got her master’s degree. She teaches literature and philosophy now.” I draw a breath and press my lips shut again. I seriously blab when I get nervous. It’s the main reason my five older siblings, the Big Five, say I’ll fail at working for the CIA. “One simple challenge and you’ll crumble like a day-old biscuit.” I can’t remember which one said that, but they all agreed.
Not Mom. She stuck up for me. I remember that too.
Director Weston smiles. It’s soft and full of memory. I get the impression she knows things about my own family I do not. I expect it’s probably true on myriad levels. “You are named after your maternal grandmother?”
“Yes.” I feel my spine lengthen, and more nervous now, I start twisting the heavy gold ring my mom gave me when I passed my final requirements last week. She said it was her childhood friend Dmitri’s ring, a hero’s ring, and that it would serve me well. That’s how she phrased it.
“How did you know?” I ask.
Director Weston sinks back into the leather armchair. “I met your grandmother several times in Moscow. She accompanied your grandfather to embassy events. Of course, I didn’t understand who she was until much later . . . Thinking back, it was like being near light, or a legend. The two are similar in many respects, I suppose.”
“My grandfather, Leonid Igorevich Kadinov, lived with us for some time before he died, but he never talked about her. I suppose Mom didn’t, too, out of respect for him.”
“Your grandfather moved here? To the States? I’m not sure I knew that.” Director Weston’s voice arcs with curiosity.
“After the Soviet Union dissolved, Mom worked hard to get him out. That was about the time she quit working here. I guess she thought my former KGB officer dedushka wouldn’t approve.” I use the Russian name for “grandfather,” trying to add a lightness to the story. I’ve always felt a little strange my grandfather was once part of the KGB. After all, I’ve heard the stories.
“I didn’t realize . . . I was in Hungary at that time. That must have been wonderful for her.”
“It was, I think. She doted on him and took really good care of him. Both my parents did. He didn’t speak English, so it was a crash course in Russian for my older siblings. But Russian was, perhaps, my first language. He’d been living with us for several years before I was born.”
Director Weston smiles again, but it’s not warm this time. It’s thoughtful. “And you fell in love with the culture? I heard you asked to work on the Russia Desk.”
“No. I mean, yes, I requested the assignment, but I didn’t fall in love. He shared the bad too. In fact, that’s what he wanted to talk about the most. He and Mom spent hours talking. Oftentimes, she wouldn’t let any of us even listen. She said he needed to get it all out, all the things he was never allowed to speak or even think over there. The propaganda. The brainwashing. Some of his stories I was allowed to hear were pretty horrible. And after what Putin did? . . . I speak Russian fluently and I think I can be most useful in that division.”
“I see.” Director Weston raises a brow and I wonder what she’s thinking. She doesn’t tell me. She simply adds, “I wanted to personally welcome you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I stand and turn toward the door, certain I’m being dismissed.
“O’Neill?”
I twist back and watch as she straightens in her chair. Even sitting, she is formidable, and I feel my anxiety rise.
“I have an assignment for you. You need to understand your family better. Please ask your mother to tell you about the Kadinovas, code names LUMEN and SCOUT. They were a remarkable mother-daughter pair of agents, though they never knew it while operational. One worked for MI6 for over thirty years, right in the heart of Moscow, at the highest levels of security, and is still considered the greatest intelligence asset in the history of any service. The younger, the daughter, specialized in military intelligence at a highly classified laboratory in Moscow from 1982 to 1985. They are a legendary pair and there will never be anyone like them again.”
My eyes feel like saucers, and I can’t think of anything to say. Though I’ve never been told, her statement illuminates all the shadows dancing around my mom, and her mom. My brain turns fuzzy as stories and details click like puzzle pieces into place faster than I can process.
“And remind Anya that her files and your grandmother’s have been declassified. They can be accessed by anyone at any time. Even by her daughter.”
Director Weston stands. Now she’s genuinely smiling again, probably at my gaping jaw. “Furthermore, tell her that her story and her mother’s story are too important to forget. Can you do all that?”
The air takes on a strange, heavy thrum around me. “Yes. I can,” I hear myself reply. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Good.” The director laughs. “I think you’ll find it very enlightening. And please give her my best.”
I turn to leave.
“Oh . . . Agent O’Neill?”
I turn back again, still speechless.
“Welcome to the CIA.”
Author’s Note
While creating A Shadow in Moscow, I turned my attention from The London House’s courageous and resourceful women spies within Britain’s SOE during World War II, to women working within the Cold War era. I was, again, astonished by the conviction, determination, and dedication displayed while, at the same time, shocked by how often these women were underestimated and mischaracterized by the male-dominated world around them.
Early in my research I found this quote from the early 1940s:
When interviewed by American officials, one European intelligence officer said: “An agent should be calm, unostentatious and reticent. Women are emotional, vain, loquacious. They fall in love easily and without discrimination. They are impatient with the strict requirements of security measures. They withstand hardships poorly.”*
This outlandish statement provided a little inspiration for Ingrid Bauer. While she does not become the “loquacious,” flighty woman assumed here, she does adopt the persona everyone expects—quiet, subdued, obedient, and a consummate hostess. It is within these shadows and misconceptions that she operates and quickly becomes MI6’s most prized intelligence asset.
That said, much more than a single quote formed Ingrid and Anya. Real spies and their real stories provide much of my starting material—Stephanie Rader, Jeanne Vertefeuille, Angeline Nanni, Oleg Gordievsky, Adolf Tolkachev, Pyotr Popov, and Oleg Penkovsky to name a few.
In fact, the code name PIMLICO, mentioned in the story, was not a code name at all but the operational name for MI6’s extraction of Oleg Gordievsky from Moscow after, it is thought, Aldrich Ames gave his name to the KGB. MI6 drove Gordievsky, whose code names included NOCTON and SUNBEAM, from Moscow through Leningrad north into Finland. It was an extraordinary feat, involving a checkpoint, a guard dog, and the inventive deployment of a dirty diaper. All this and more is relayed brilliantly in Ben MacIntyre’s The Spy and the Traitor. Furthermore, Anya’s approach to the CIA with the Pepsi can honors Adolf Tolkachev’s use of a similar can to convey his interest to the CIA, as described in David Hoffman’s The Billion Dollar Spy.
As you can imagine, I had tremendous fun writing this story. Anya and Ingrid came to life quickly for me, as did their voices, struggles, strictures, and world, and—in many ways—they took me on this adventure.
While I like to write stories set where I’ve lived, as I think that is the only way one truly understands a culture, I have broken that rule here. I was able to visit the Soviet Union in 1985, the year this novel ends, but I have never lived there. That’s one reason Ingrid is born outside its borders and why Anya spends a good deal of time in America. That said, my memories and notes from that visit played a vital role to create both tone and texture within this story. But, of course, the details come from research. So much research! I have listed a few of my favorite books on my website under the Book Clubs tab. It’s not a comprehensive list but a good, solid one I hope you will enjoy.
There’s one more thing I want to say about research—when it’s involved, there will always be mistakes. And those mistakes are all mine. Some inconsistencies are not mistakes, however, but a bit of fictional license. While I do like populating my stories with real people and real events, this is first and foremost a work of fiction.
For instance, while Yuri Andropov was the first KGB chairman to lead the USSR, no one named Nikolai Ivanovich Petrov ever served as the minister of defense. I needed Petrov to play a larger role in the story, and I wanted to move him and Anya between Moscow and Vienna. I did not feel comfortable taking such liberties with the real minister of defense and marshal of the Soviet Union, Dmitry Ustinov, so I didn’t include him within the narrative.
I also took a few liberties with my maps in both Vienna and Moscow so that Ingrid’s childhood home could be within the American quarter post–World War II and she could visit a park within walking distance anytime she needed one.
I also had fun with food—fun most Soviets did not have with food during the 1980s. It was a time of scarcity and economic stagnation. Yet Anya ate fairly well, as the elite were able to do. Most of my dishes came from a wonderful cookbook written by Darra Goldstein, Beyond the North Wind: Russia in Recipes and Lore. She does a fabulous job of providing not only recipes but the stories and significance behind the dishes. I learned a lot from her about the Soviet culture, especially outside the cities, where life was much more challenging.
Other things to note: Operations RYAN and ABLEARCHER ’83 are both real, as are so many of the events recounted in this story. The horrors that occurred in Poland’s Katyn Forest are also true. Twenty-two thousand Polish military officers and civilian men were massacred in April and May 1940, and the Soviet Union denied responsibility until 1990. Additionally, while we think of Kim Philby as being a member of the famed “Cambridge Five,” he was actually part of the “Cambridge Four” until 1990 when John Cairncross was added to the roster and we changed the group’s moniker. Philby did defect to Moscow, train KGB spies, and drink a lot. He died in Moscow in 1988 and was given a hero’s funeral and more Soviet medals than I want to list here.
And, finally, yes, Aldrich Ames is real and, starting in 1985, began to systematically betray the US for lots and lots of money until he was arrested in 1994. Peter Crenshaw, within this story, does take on a bit of the role Edward Lee Howard played in the real Ames drama. Howard, too, was selling secrets to the Soviets, but he could not have known all the names Ames gave the KGB, as Ames had far greater access, serving as the CIA’s chief of Soviet counterintelligence. So while Howard was a traitor and was captured, he was not the traitor the CIA frantically sought—and continued to seek until 1994 when a CIA team led by Jeanne Vertefeuille followed the money and arrested “their man.”
While the number of names on that fateful “first” list varies and the amount of money Ames received from the KGB also varies, the result of his treachery does not. He was responsible for the imprisonment and deaths of three dozen agents in the Soviet Union and for betraying hundreds more working for the US throughout the world. The death toll is staggering.
There is so much more to share of the rich history and brave men and women of the first and second Cold War eras, and I do hope you’ll enjoy learning more. I’ll continue to add thoughts to my website at katherinereay.com and, again, that’s where you’ll find a list of books. I truly do recommend each and every one of them, as I also recommend studying history. Only in truly understanding our pasts will we be able to navigate—with empathy, humanity, and wisdom—our presents well.
All the best to you,
Katherine
Discussion Questions
Anya says in the intro that the “best stories are love stories.” Do you agree, and how would you define a “love story”?
Do you think the secrets Ingrid’s parents kept from her were justifiable?
How dangerous was it for Anya to admit to Scott or to herself that “there’s a lot to love about America”?
What do you think of Anya’s assessment, based on Thomas More’s philosophy, that we have an “end point,” a point past which our consciences won’t allow us to venture?
What do you think of Anya’s surprise at how easily she feels Americans share their thoughts? She comments how rare transparency is at home, even stating about her close friends, “I trust them with my life and, more importantly, with my true thoughts.”
Dmitri states, “Do you think if I got that assignment and learned about rocks, earthquakes, and tsunamis, all this would feel okay? On some level I could study a thing and know what it was.” Do you feel it is hard or easy to discern what something is? Does Dmitri’s question make sense?
What do you think Anya meant when she said, “The why matters most—maybe both in living and in spying.” Do you agree?
Hope is alluded to throughout the novel. What does hope mean, and why is or isn’t it important?
Ingrid tries to share with her daughter an idea of freedom within strictures, even using her own mother’s phrase, duc in altum (“into the deep”), to impress upon Anya the freedom in being able to choose even while living within constraints. Why was this so important to Ingrid to convey? Is it relevant for people today?
Acknowledgments
As always, I didn’t travel this road alone . . .
Thank you to Claudia, my agent and friend. Thanks to my publishing family at Harper Muse—Amanda, Becky, Julee, Jodi, Kerri, Margaret, Nekasha, Halie, Mallory, Jere, Patrick, Savannah, Colleen, and the entire sales team—for your dedication to this story! Thank you to Kathie for answering my query and for believing in me. A special thanks also goes to E Katernia Reznichenko for being generous with her time and memories of growing up in Moscow during the 1980s.
I also need to thank family and friends. Elizabeth—my first and best reader—your navigation is vital! Kristy and Sarah—you two are lifelines! Rachel and Marie—you are both inspirations and safe havens. Team Reay—always my anchor! And thank you to all my writer friends who support one another and lift up one another every day. I can’t imagine this writing life without you.
Thanks to all the bookstores and libraries that have generously opened their doors to me. I have so much fun sharing my love of books with you! And thank you, dear readers, for trusting me with your time and your hearts once more! I hope we meet within the pages of a book again soon.
Happy reading!
Katherine
About the Author
Corinne Stagen Photography
KATHERINE REAY is a national bestselling and award-winning author who has enjoyed a lifelong affair with books. She publishes both fiction and nonfiction, holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Chicago, Illinois, with her husband.
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KatherineReay.com
Instagram: @katherinereay
Facebook: @katherinereaybooks
Twitter: @Katherine_Reay
Praise for Katherine Reay
“Rich with fascinating historical detail and unforgettable characters, A Shadow in Moscow deftly explores two female spies who will risk everything to change the world. Katherine Reay eloquently portrays the incredible contributions of women in history, the extraordinary depths of love, and, perhaps most important of all, the true cost of freedom in her latest stunning page-turner. A story that will leave readers examining what they hold most dear and positively brimming with hope, this is an important, timely tour de force—and a must-read for anyone who has ever wondered if just one person can make a difference.”
—Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Veil
“Katherine Reay’s latest has it all—intrigue, twists and turns, acts of bravery and sacrificial love, and an unforgettable Cold War setting with clever, daring women at the helm. An expertly delivered page-turner by a true master of the craft!”
—Susan Meissner, USA TODAY bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things
“This riveting story of two female spies operating in Moscow during different eras has everything you could ever want in a novel—suspense, intrigue, compelling characters, exotic settings, deep insight, and gasp-inducing plot twists. A word of advice: clear your calendar before opening A Shadow in Moscow. Once you start, you won’t be able to stop until you regretfully reach the last page of Katherine Reay’s masterfully written novel.”
