The Backup Asset

Case # 174-NR-24578

Transcription Excerpt, Interrogation Session #5

[begin excerpt]

Interviewer: “Tell me, what kind of information have you been collecting?”

Evgheni Smolin: “I don’t have to say anything to you.”

Interviewer: “You risked your life to serve your country; don’t you want us to know why?”

Evgheni Smolin: “Whether you know or not, that is irrelevant. Everything I did and do is for my country, for Russia.”

[…]

Interviewer: “Who sent you? Who gave you your mission?”

Evgheni Smolin: “Are you actually expecting me to roll and start spilling everything to you, like the lowest of cowards? Then you’re bigger idiots than we thought.”

Interviewer: “Who’s a bigger idiot?”

Evgheni Smolin: “You. All of you, Americans.”

Interviewer: “Ahh… I see. Well, you might be right; we might be idiots. Why don’t you prove it to me?”

Evgheni Smolin: “Ha! Not worth my time.”

Interviewer: “You got plenty of time. You’re not going to get out of this alive, you know. We don’t trade spies anymore; that’s long gone.”

Evgheni Smolin: “I took my chances when I came here. I’m proud of what I did.”

[47 seconds of silence]

Interviewer: “Here’s what I think. I think you work for a bunch of old-timers, still nostalgic after the glorious times of Cold War and communism, some old farts with no idea what the future looks like. I think your country has become weak and cowardly, without its overabundance of slave republics you lost. I think you lost everything you could have been when the KGB fell apart. Guess what? We’re not afraid of you Russians anymore!” [brief laughter]

Evgheni Smolin: “Fucking idiots… Is that what you think? Good, keep thinking that, so you won’t see us coming!”

Interviewer: “Yeah, that’s what I think. And I think you are a little piece of leftover trash, still clinging to the idea that Russia could do any real intelligence work. Well, not anymore! We caught you on the double, didn’t we? And that’s because you work for some lame old farts who can’t conceive a half-decent intelligence strategy, that’s why.”

Evgheni Smolin: “I work for two of the smartest people to ever set military and intelligence strategy. What they’re planning for you, you’ll never see coming. Soon… soon you’ll remember my words. So what if you caught me? I’m just a small cog in the great Russian intelligence machine that we’ve resurrected back to life, and you didn’t even know about it! That’s how ignorant you are!”

Interviewer: “I’m sure your family would love to hear you’re just a cog in a machine when you simply disappear, never to be heard from again.”

Evgheni Smolin: “I have no other family than Mother Russia. She will mourn my loss and call me a hero. She’ll give me a hero’s funeral when I’m gone.”

Interviewer: “Russia is nothing these days… you should have picked a better employer. This one’s in rags and starving.”

Evgheni Smolin: “You — you don’t know what you’re talking about! How dare you talk about Russia like that? You bastard! Russia will rise again and shove your faces in your own smallness and insignificance. Russia has the greatest leaders it’s had in decades, united, ready to fight, ready to wipe you off the face of the Earth. There’s no greater mission that I’d rather sacrifice my life for, than the glorious future of my country. Nothing else matters.”

Interviewer: “You’re just one little cog in a machine, you know? What difference could you possibly make?”

Evgheni Smolin: There are hundreds just like me, already here, working to restore Russia’s greatness in ways you can’t even comprehend. There are hundreds of thousands more back home, getting ready to strike at a moment’s notice. You, and the rest of the arrogant Western assholes who insulted our president, are doomed. Say your prayers and get ready to die.”

[end transcript]