There it is, Billy thought. In heaven, everyone will talk like that.
In the time of their meetings, he’d often thought she was barely tolerating him. She had ended whatever it was without ceremony, even without notification. This was a very different Lila—her voice just now was darker, lower, more powerful than it normally was. Wholly uncontrived. Inviting. He hesitated to say it, but that was what he’d heard. And yet—given the potential gravity of this change, it would be irresponsible not to ask—could he have heard her wrong? Was she merely tired or distracted? Was there distortion in the room, a hidden echo? No, he thought. Emphatically not. There was a depth of resignation in her voice, an almost unwilling knowledge, clear evidence of a struggle prior to the Baffin situation. Some veil had lifted, if only for a moment. Billy Quick hated mysticism in all its many forms, but it was nevertheless true that with Lila, only the vanishing images were real. He had heard the Old Man say many times In this room we speak the truth, so however improbable his conclusion might be, he would let it stand for now. What Billy Quick had seen, what he thought he heard inside those three nothing words I loved it, was the raised flag of Lila’s surrender. To him.
58
March 1964
Camp Peary, Virginia
It was now Sunday afternoon. Subotin’s debrief was over. The practice of Wise Men panels was to reach a conclusion immediately after all primary material had been disclosed. Cressie would ask for opinions, and then they would vote.
Mr. Danziger, Cressie said.
Subotin is a fraud, Danziger said. Moscow sent him to discredit Astrakhov. His awareness of us is too good and his resistance to interrogation too complete for him to be untrained. He’s clearly a professional, and we know that the KGB doesn’t send staff officers as false defectors, so his resume is certainly faked. That explains some of the inconsistencies, and the fact that we’ve heard nothing about this operation through other channels would suggest that it was restricted to the top level in Moscow. That would also explain the huge resources they’ve put in the field here—a lot of work has gone into this guy, a lot of background. We’re lucky he slipped up a few times. Frankly, we’re fortunate that Counterintelligence was on top of this.
At the CIA, Hillsinger thought, they wanted to believe the Russians were free from all internal inefficiencies, doubts, restrictions, as if they were the reverse image of us. As if totalitarianism had produced in Moscow the Platonic intelligence service. It was a lie.
Mr. Todd, Cressie said.
The inconsistencies concern me, Todd said, as do the gaps in internal KGB knowledge. He knows both too much and too little. He does not know the things he ought to—like when the Dzerzhinsky statue went up—and his overseas knowledge bears no relationship to his stated positions. It seems most likely that he’s some guy, a freelancer, who they trained up partway. He knows enough to be credible but not to sustain hostile interrogation like this. He’s a botched project, and we caught him thanks to the strong questioning.
Between them, Hillsinger thought, Danziger and Todd had just articulated the Counterintelligence view of Subotin. They had both reached the conclusion that Angleton had designed this exercise to produce—that Subotin was a double agent, a provocation, a closely held KGB operation. Subotin was chaos and confusion, set against the clarity of Astrakhov. This Wise Men panel, Hillsinger reckoned, was intended as a minor formality en route to Astrakhov’s briefing of the President.
For Hillsinger, though, the case was not convincing. The current debrief had been heavily slanted toward the gaps and inconsistencies in Subotin’s story, but then the truth most often had a rough surface. The defectors who scared him were the ones with perfect stories.
Mr. Hillsinger, Cressie said.
So which is it? Hillsinger said. By Danziger’s lights, the KGB is an organization of supermen who make no mistakes, who conceived this elaborate provocation and almost pulled it off, or—as Todd says—they are a bunch of amateurs who sent a botched project to do the most dangerous job they have. We can’t have it both ways.
And your own view, Mr. Hillsinger? Cressie said.
Hillsinger knew that a minority view was not what Angleton or, for that matter, the Director would want from this panel at all. Anything less than unanimity would cause the Director to table the recommendation for the near term. Angleton would be furious.
What does Astrakhov think? Hillsinger asked Cressie. Hillsinger knew the answer, but he wanted to see what Angleton had authorized his team to disclose.
Astrakhov, Cressie said, actually predicted the appearance of Subotin, or of someone like him. He said that Moscow would certainly send out one or more false defectors to discredit him.
Has Astrakhov seen the Subotin material? Hillsinger said.
Some of it, Cressie said.
That, Hillsinger thought, was a massive tactical error. Cressie had just admitted a violation of applicable CIA policies and possibly several laws—they had disclosed classified information to an unauthorized person. In a courtroom, this case would be thrown out right there.
So to summarize, Hillsinger said, we have shown a known KGB agent the take from a secret KGB source attempting to defect?
Only when it conflicted with Astrakhov’s own information, Cressie said.
I see, Hillsinger said. Meanwhile, we have effectively created a situation where Astrakhov is one hundred percent incentivized to reject Subotin’s information as false.
That’s irrelevant, Danziger said. We’re making this decision today, not Astrakhov.
Hillsinger wondered if his exposure of the preposterous bias of this panel—which was now established beyond doubt—would make any difference to the official voting, which was still to come. Would the Director really have sanctioned a show trial like this? Did he know what was happening here?
Actually, Hillsinger said, it seems to me that Counterintelligence has already made this decision. Everything we have seen the last three days suggests that the present interrogation is hostile. This special cabin, the handcuffs. One does not undertake hostile interrogations unless one already believes the subject to be lying. Therefore, Counterintelligence has prejudged the case.
What we have done—Cressie began, but Hillsinger interrupted him.
Here is my assessment, he said, since you’ve asked: in my view, both Astrakhov and Subotin are legitimate, in the sense that they are both former employees of the KGB who are legitimately attempting to escape the Soviet Union. It strikes me as unlikely that either is being controlled by Moscow. But—and this is crucial—they are also both much smaller fish than we have been led to believe. The information of both should be treated with suspicion. And as far as this panel is concerned, let me state for the record that Subotin is not a case of deception; he is a case of nepotism and bureaucratic incompetence.