He recognizes the woman across the table, though he can’t remember where or how. Some debriefing, perhaps, when they first arrived in the Soviet Union? Or later—some lecture or training session? Or both. She’s extremely attractive in an unremarkable way, like a woman in a magazine advertisement, each feature flawless and bland. She’s not wearing cosmetics, not even lipstick, and her dark hair sits in a tidy knot at the nape of her neck. Not the tiniest emotion manifests itself on her face—maybe that’s why it’s so forgettable. An asset in her line of work, he reminds himself, and a skill he was never able to master. He always had to get by on his other strengths.
“Mr. Dubinin,” she says in English. “Or should I say Digby? Welcome.”
“Welcome to what? What the devil’s going on?”
“It’s funny, I was going to ask the same of you. This is not what we expected of you, Comrade, when we extended the arm of friendship to you and your family four years ago. We did not expect betrayal.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’ve never once betrayed my loyalty to the Soviet Union.”
She allows a hint of inquiry to dent the space between her eyebrows. “Then why are we here? In Latvia?”
“I was kidnapped. My family and I, we were kidnapped by some kind of enemy operative, probably CIA—”
“You did not go willingly? You were not, perhaps, in the very act of returning to the protection of the US government?” She takes some documents out of the folder at her elbow and lays them out before him. “These passports, identification papers—they are not for you and your family?”
“I’ve never seen them before in my life. I don’t know where they came from, or who arranged it, but it wasn’t me. It’s someone trying to frame me, and I can’t begin to imagine why. Where’s my family? My wife and children? My wife’s just given birth, she might be ill—”
“Don’t worry about your wife and children, Comrade. Let us concentrate first on the matter at hand.”
Sasha leans against the chair, although not very much, because his hands are secured in a pair of handcuffs behind the chair’s back. “Whatever’s happened, I’m sure we can get to the bottom of it.”
“Yes, I’m sure of that,” the woman says. “Because if we don’t, I’m afraid we shall have to imprison you and your entire family as traitors to the Soviet people.”
“What? That’s nonsense!”
“I’m afraid so. You see, we have incontrovertible proof that you’ve been passing along vital and highly classified information about the KGB and its agents abroad for the past four years, in a counterspy operation named”—she looks down at some papers before her—“Honeysuckle.”
“Honeysuckle? I’ve never . . .”
The sentence dissolves in his mouth.
“Yes, Comrade?”
“I’ve never heard of it. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The woman puts her elbows on the table and leans forward. “Think, Comrade. Tell me about ASCOT.”
“The racecourse? I’ve been there.”
“Don’t play with me.”
“I’m not playing. I sincerely don’t know what you mean. I’ve spent the past four years tirelessly working on behalf of the Soviet people, who have welcomed me so warmly. I have never acted as a counterspy in the Soviet Union. Look at my records. Since coming here I’ve been grateful to be relieved of the burden of hiding my true loyalty. I’ve given up the booze, I’ve given up women, I’ve been a devoted husband and father. Just look at my records.”
He says the last words fiercely. Of course, he knows they’ve had him under surveillance. He’s always accepted this state of affairs philosophically, as the price one pays to hold off the ever-present threat of counterrevolution. Until now, in fact, he’s been glad of them. Let anyone doubt his true intentions in defecting! Let anyone say a word against him! In those dark and terrible days after Iris found him bleeding inside their apartment in Oakwood Court, having shot Beauchamp as an intruder, he had sworn that if Iris forgave him and offered him another chance, he would be true and loyal to the rest of his days. He would never touch another drop of alcohol! He would devote himself to Iris, as she had devoted herself to him. When she agreed to go along with him—yes, she would do it, she would defect with him, take the children and start over again with him in the Soviet Union!—he had worshipped her for it. He had loved and cared for Claire just as if she were his own child. And now this! This was how they repaid him! Just look at my records!
“Of course I have looked at your records, Comrade. I have examined every word, believe me. You’ve been an exemplary citizen, by all appearances. But there is also this. Discovered in the diplomatic bag of the American embassy in Moscow.”
“You opened a diplomatic bag?”
“You know this is sometimes necessary, Dubinin. Don’t play innocent.”
“I have never in my life opened the diplomatic bag of another country.”
“Then you have been derelict in your duty.” The woman picks up the slip of paper before her and lays it before him.
All right, so he’s lied to this woman. But he’s only lied because he doesn’t really know the truth, and it seems stupid to muddy the waters with speculation.
Sitting in that hospital waiting room with Ruth’s husband—Ruth was married to Sumner Fox, of all people, the Sumner Fox, he just couldn’t get his head around that—he had craved a drink very badly. He hadn’t wanted to get Iris pregnant again, God no, not after Claire’s birth—but she had begged him and he was only a man, after all, and there it was, another baby, sapping the strength from his wife and possibly sapping her life as well.
The funny thing is, he’s never loved Iris more than he has since they came to Moscow. He might almost say that he never really loved her until Moscow—had never appreciated all the beautiful qualities inside his wife because he was too busy drinking, obsessed with himself and his own agony and the guilt and secrecy that tore his guts apart. Also, in Moscow there was no Nedda. No dazzling unpredictable bitch to pour his vanity into. Just her sublime creature, Iris, to whom he was actually married—who, in this newly discovered perfection, took on all the qualities he once imagined existed only in such great works of art as they had examined in their first moments together. You might say he’d gone from one extreme to another, from hardly appreciating Iris at all to idealizing her as a goddess.
Which made it all the more bewildering when, after leaving the hospital almost with relief at three o’clock in the afternoon to retrieve the children from school, he came home to discover a world he did not understand.
He knew at once that someone had searched the apartment. Among the first things you learned as a covert operative, you figured how to detect the signs of intrusion. Sometimes it was easy, as when the searchers didn’t bother to hide their intentions and just ransacked the place. Other times they covered their tracks exquisitely well, so the subject wouldn’t know he was under suspicion.