The Bearpit

12

The technician appeared modelled for the job, a neatly suited, neatly bartered, neatly precise man who set the polygraph apparatus upon the desk as if lines had been drawn to receive it, placed a file and notebook alongside with matching care and then arranged the chair with similar caution, actually sitting in it himself to measure its positioning and then, dissatisfied, shifting it further out of view of the paper drum to prevent Levin seeing the needle’s wavering reaction to the questions.

Levin waited to see if Bowden would make any formal introductions but he didn’t. Instead the American appeared fascinated by the preparations, as if he were seeing the set-up for the first time.

When the man straightened, indicating he was ready, Bowden smiled at Levin, gesturing palms-upwards apologetically. ‘Waste of time,’ he said. The clothes were the same as before, even the shirt, although it appeared freshly pressed.

Would he remember the training? worried Levin. It seemed such a long time ago. ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ he said.

‘You don’t need me, Doc, do you?’

Levin thought the question was stupid, just as the first-day remark about there being no ground rules had been stupid. Was Bowden genuinely careless? Or was the man intentionally trying to manufacture such an inference to lure him into reacting over-confidently and by so doing become careless himself? It was a possible entrapment.

‘No,’ said the polygraph operator. ‘It’ll be better if we’re alone.’

Levin’s instruction had been that such sessions were always conducted one-to-one. To Bowden he said: ‘Will you wait?’

‘You’re the job now, Yevgennie,’ said the American, at the door. ‘I’ll just grab a cup of coffee.’

Levin realized they wanted an immediate assessment. He wished the training were clearer in his mind.

‘Are you familiar with this?’ asked the technician.

‘No,’ lied Levin.

‘It might seem complicated but really it’s not,’ said the man. ‘I want you to sit in the chair that I have arranged there. I shall fix attachments to your hand, chest and arm. Monitors. OK so far?’

Levin hesitated before replying, waiting to see if the man would explain the function of the attachments, but he didn’t. Palm monitor to measure sweat level, chest band to register perceptible change in breathing pattern, blood-pressure belt around the arm, the Russian recalled, easily. He said: ‘I understand.’

‘I shall ask you some questions,’ continued the operator. ‘Here it’s important that you remember there can only be yes or no answers. No discussion or explanation. Is that clear?’

He would be expected to query that, decided Levin. He said: ‘Is that going to be possible? A straight yes or no can convey a misleading impression.’

‘We try to phrase the questions so that doesn’t happen,’ said the technician. ‘It works fine, believe me.’

If it worked fine, why was it possible to cheat the machine, thought Levin. Careful, he warned himself: he hadn’t beaten it yet. He said: ‘What else?’

‘That’s it,’ assured the man. ‘Simple, like I said. Ready to get started?’

‘Whenever you like,’ agreed Levin. He took his time removing his rumpled, sagging jacket and rolling up his sleeve, trying to bring everything back to mind. The initial questions were actually arranged to get lying replies: if they were answered honestly it indicated training to beat the machine. Essential to avoid that mistake then. A painful distraction was necessary, when the actual test was carried out. At Kuchino he’d put a pebble into his shoe and pressed down hard against it, but that wasn’t possible here. Important that the pain didn’t cause any perspiration or blood-rate increase. The inside of his mouth, he decided. He’d bite the inside of his mouth until the very moment he had to speak, hard enough to cause discomfort but not hard enough to draw blood. He would have to appear to forget about the yes or no replies, of course: that would be an anticipated mistake. Just like a certain perspiration and heart-rate increase would be expected, because it was a tension situation.

The technician’s hands were very cold, attaching the straps. The blood-pressure band to the arm was last and as he secured it the man said: ‘Just relax, OK? Nothing to worry about.’

‘I’m OK,’ announced Levin, I hope, he thought.

The fastidious man walked out of Levin’s view and there was the scrape of a chair as he seated himself in front of his apparatus. There was a cough and the man said: ‘Do you masturbate?’

Levin recognized the immediate trick question. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Have you ever masturbated?’

‘No.’

‘Not when you were a kid, at school?’

‘No.’

‘Is your marriage to Galina happy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you ever had an extra-marital affair?’

‘No.’

‘Ever had a homosexual affair?’

‘No.’

‘Never been attracted, homosexually?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever indulged in fellatio?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever engaged in cunnilingus?’

‘No.’

‘You’ve become a traitor, to your country?’

For the first time Levin trapped a piece of his lower lip between his teeth, acknowledging that the technician was good. The testing sex ritual had practically been recited, as if the man were hurrying through the preliminaries, and the last query had been posed in the same dull monotone. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘A willing traitor?’

Time to appear to make a mistake. He managed: ‘I am unwilling about…’ before the other man stopped him.

‘Yes or no,’ he insisted.

‘No.’

‘An unwilling traitor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you tricked into defecting?’

‘No.’

‘But you are unwilling?’

‘Yes.’ There would be a query in the notebook about the apparent ambiguity.

‘Your name is Yevgennie Pavlovich Levin?’

‘Yes.’ He relaxed the pressure against his lower lip, but only slightly.

‘You are forty-three years old?’

‘Yes.’

‘An officer of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti attached to the Soviet mission at the United Nations?’

‘Yes.’

‘As an agent operating against the United States of America?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you engaged in activities endangering the security of the United States of America?’

Before the sentence was completed the skin was pincered between Levin’s teeth but the phrasing of the question made it easier than he expected. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Do you regret engaging in activities endangering the security of the United States of America?’

Careful, thought Levin, biting slightly harder. He said: ‘No.’ There was a pause in the questioning and Levin knew there would be another notebook notation.

‘Do you consider yourself a traitor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you imagine you will regret what you have done?’

Need for caution again. ‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘Do you consider the United States of America a freer country than the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you become a traitor for money?’

It was necessary permanently to bite now. ‘Yes,’ Levin said.

‘Is money the primary cause for your becoming a traitor?’

‘No,’ said Levin. The perpetual use of traitor was intentional, he recognized. It was not antagonizing him as it was intended.

‘Do you consider you have become a traitor for reasons of ideology?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you no longer regard yourself as a communist?’

Time for another lapse. ‘I was never…’

‘Yes or no.’

‘No.’

‘Do you intend completely to cooperate with people who will be interviewing you in the coming weeks and months?’

‘Yes.’

‘Cooperating with complete honesty?’

‘Yes.’ That had not been as difficult as he had feared.

‘Have you provided members of the FBI with material concerning the KGB mission within the United Nations?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was all the information accurate?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you have knowledge that you believe will be useful for the continued security of the United States of America?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know the identities of people domiciled in this country engaged in activities contrary to the security of the United States of America?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you provide details of those identities, to your questioners?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you regard yourself as an honest man?’

The question was as clever as the one that had followed the testing sex queries and it was the closest Levin came to faltering. ‘No,’ he said, alert for the reaction. It came exactly as he expected.

‘You do not regard yourself as an honest man?’

‘No.’ He imagined he heard the sound of the pen, making the notebook entry.

‘Yet you intend cooperating honestly with your debriefers?’

‘Yes.’ Levin reckoned at the moment the technician was more unsettled than he was but knew it would be dangerous to relax. Part of his lip was becoming numbed under the pressure and he nipped at the left side, needing the continued pain.

‘Have you operated as a member of the KGB in parts of the world other than the United States of America?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were there to be requests from those other countries, would you cooperate with their counter-intelligence organizations in disclosing details of those operations?’

‘No.’ The pause for the notebook query was obvious this time.

‘Do you find this test difficult?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you expect to be subjected to it?’

‘I did not…’ started Levin, aware of the danger and needing the time.

‘Yes or no.’

‘No.’

‘Would you be prepared to undergo further polygraph examination, if it were considered necessary?’

‘Yes.’ There was hardly a choice, but Levin wondered if it were a standard question or whether he had made a mistake. Wrong to become nervous, risking any increase in the sweat or heart rate.

‘Do you believe in God?’

An intentional leapfrog, to disorient him, guessed Levin. He said: ‘No.’

‘In truth?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you always tell the truth?’

Now it was the technician who was being very clever. ‘No,’ said Levin.

‘Do the KGB use the United Nations as a spy base?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you identify KGB personnel among the Soviet mission to the United Nations?’

Practically repetition of an earlier question. Checking the previous answers then. ‘Yes,’ Levin said.

‘Are you aware of KGB personnel in places other than the United Nations?’

Time to throw the needle off course. ‘I do not believe…’

‘Yes or no.’

‘No, but…’

‘Yes or no.’

‘No.’ Come on! come on! thought Levin.

‘Do you have knowledge of people working on behalf of the KGB in places other than the United Nations?’

‘Yes!’ The man had responded exactly as Levin had hoped.

‘Can you identify them?’

‘Yes. No.’

‘One or the other.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Yes or no.’

‘Maybe,’ refused the Russian.

There was another pause which Levin imagined to be for a further notebook entry, but then the technician was by his side, sliding the palm monitor off his hand. So intense had been Levin’s concentration that he had been unaware of the man’s approach. The ease with which the palm pad came off indicted that he was sweating quite heavily: to an acceptable degree or too much? ‘Well?’ asked Levin, as the man removed the other two straps. It was the sort of question they would expect.

‘We’ll have to see,’ avoided the man, noncommittal. ‘Please wait here.’

He left the room awkwardly, carrying the drum and the file and his notebook. An instant discussion with the waiting Bowden, guessed Levin. He rose from the chair, aware for the first time of the ache of tension in his back and legs. Sweating hands and tension sufficient to make him ache: would that have translated on to the recordings? Possibly, but he’d tried enough to throw the needles with his answers, so hopefully the two would correlate and be explainable: if he were given the chance to explain, that is. He stood at the window, gazing out over the trimmed and sensored grounds, the tension still gripping him, the perspiration increasing. This really was testing time: the moment when he either passed, to be accepted. Or failed to satisfy them. What happened then? There were accounts of some distrusted defectors being held and interrogated in solitary confinement for months on end. And he didn’t have months. Everything was very carefully timed. The contradiction was immediate. If everything was so carefully timed, why had the signal come with Natalia still in the Soviet Union?

It was a full hour before anyone entered the room again, an hour for Levin’s mood to plunge from fragile confidence to worry to fear. And then to go almost beyond simple fear into terror as his mind focused upon Galina and Petr. What would happen to them if he hadn’t been clever enough? Imprisonment? Unlikely but possible, he supposed. Maybe repatriation, which would be as big a disaster because if they were once further split Levin couldn’t see how they would ever be reunited. Maybe… The jostling fears stopped at a sound, and Levin turned to face Bowden. The American was serious-faced and the usual bonhomie, which Levin suspected was forced anyway, was missing.

‘Well?’ asked Levin again. There was the metallic taste of blood in his mouth and he realized he had mistakenly bitten through his lip somewhere. He’d have to be careful it didn’t show.

‘One or two inconsistencies, Yevgennie. Quite a bunch, in fact.’

In addition to a file of his own, Levin saw the American was carrying the technician’s notebook and the paper upon which there was a criss-cross of different-coloured lines. The paper from the polygraph drum, Levin guessed. The reaction prepared, he said in apparent anger: ‘It was a ridiculous test! I was assured the questions would be phrased for yes or no answers but they weren’t. It was impossible!’

‘Why don’t we talk it through a little?’

It was important to maintain the indignation longer. Levin said: ‘I was promised by Proctor to be treated properly. Considerately. Promised by you, too. It isn’t happening. If you do not want me then I will go back to my own country!’ He hoped he had not over-pitched the outrage.

‘Slow down, Yevgennie. Slow down,’ placated Bowden. ‘Let’s just talk it through, like I said. Sit down and take it easy.’

Levin walked further into the room with apparent reluctance, going not to the upright chair in which he had sat for the polygraph but to a low, easy chair to one side of the desk. Bowden eased his huge frame on to the chair in which the technician had sat, awkwardly too large for it.

‘Inconsistencies,’ opened Bowden. ‘Maybe there are simple explanations.’

‘What inconsistencies?’ demanded Levin, feigning the anger.

Bowden bent over the notebook he arranged alongside the polygraph reading: the paper was numbered, for the queries to accord with the entries in the notebook, which was specially printed, numerically. He said: ‘Found it strange that you should regard yourself as a traitor?’

He’d succeeded there, realized Levin, relieved. He said: ‘I was being tested for honesty? To see if I could be trusted?’

‘Just that,’ agreed Bowden.

‘So I told the truth,’ insisted Levin. ‘I am a traitor. To my country. And to you. Let’s not pretend: wrap things up in other words, like coloured ribbon: call me a defector like it’s an honourable description. You and Proctor and anyone else I might meet will pretend to be friendly but you’ll always despise me, for betraying my service

…’ He paused, trying to discern a reaction from the other man. He thought there was a slight flush to the man’s face but he wasn’t sure. He pressed on: ‘So now you be honest with me! That’s how you think of me, isn’t it?’

There was a pause and then Bowden said: ‘I guess something like that.’

He couldn’t let the American get away. ‘Not something like that: exactly like that. So to have answered no would not have been the right reply, would it?’

‘Let’s move on,’ urged Bowden uneasily. ‘You approached our people, in the beginning. Offering stuff. And approached us again, asking to come over, when you got the recall notice. So why did you say you were unwilling to come across? That doesn’t make sense.’

‘It makes every sense!’ disputed Levin. ‘I’ve abandoned a daughter, whom I love. That’s why I am unwilling. If she had been here the answer would have been the opposite.’

Bowden nodded, making some sort of entry against the notebook log. He said: ‘You’ve come over to our side now, Yevgennie. Decided to settle in America?’

‘Yes.’

‘So how come you don’t regret spying against the United States? That’s what you said. When you were asked…’

‘I know what I was asked,’ interrupted Levin, mentally ticking off the man’s uncertainties, every one of which he had so far anticipated. ‘I was being honest again. At the time I carried out those activities I was an officer of the KGB, properly performing my assigned functions. So why should I regret it? Again, I was trying to answer in complete honesty.’

Bowden made another entry. The American was bending over the records, not bothering – or not wanting – to look up at Levin. He jabbed several times at the query sheet with the tip of his pencil, and said: ‘There’s something here that we don’t understand at all. Not at all…’ He came up at last, appearing to seek some facial reaction from the Russian. ‘You said you imagine you’ll regret coming across.’

‘But of course I will!’ said Levin, as if he found the query surprising. ‘I’ll never stop being a Russian. Thinking like a Russian. Feeling like a Russian. I might have become disillusioned with it and what I was being called upon to do but there’s always going to be a part of me uncertain if I made the right decision by coming across. And it’s a regret that is going to be a very positive attitude until I get Natalia here, with us.’

‘Disillusioned?’ picked up Bowden. ‘You say you’ve come across because you’re disillusioned but you said on the polygraph that you’ve done it for money.’

‘And then I made it clear that was not the primary cause,’ came back Levin confidently. ‘I had to answer yes – the honest answer – because that was the order in which the question was asked.’

Bowden sat nodding but Levin was unsure whether the gesture was in acceptance of the reply. The American said: ‘There were some responses to questions about truth and honesty that just worry the hell out of me.’

‘Let’s get the sequence right,’ insisted Levin. ‘It was honesty first, then truth. I replied no when I was asked if I considered myself an honest man because it was the right reply. How can I consider myself honest when I have betrayed my country? Which is what I have done and will always carry, as a burden. But I do intend to cooperate honestly if there is a proper debriefing. And I was accurate when I replied to the question about truth. We are trained not to tell the truth, you and I: to lie, if the occasion or the need arises. But again I intend to tell the truth if we debrief.’ Levin wondered if the perspiration would be visible against the back of his jacket, when he stood: trying to reduce the risk, he leaned forward slightly, to enable air to get between himself and the back of the chair.

‘Why did you find the polygraph difficult?’ Bowden snapped the question out sharply.

Remembering that the room was doubtless wired and that there would be a recording of his conversation with the technician, Levin said: ‘Before the test began, the operator asked me if I were familiar with the polygraph. I wasn’t and said so. I did not like being strapped in as I was and I did not like the restriction of yes or no answers. It’s too easy to convey a misleading impression by giving an absolutely accurate answer to a wrongly phrased question.’

Bowden’s head was moving again but Levin was still unsure whether or not it was in acceptance of what he was saying. The American said: ‘Why won’t you cooperate with the counter-intelligence services of other countries?’

‘I’m not setting myself up as a performing monkey,’ said Levin at once. ‘When I told Proctor I was being recalled he immediately suggested I should return to Moscow and act there for the CIA. Quite apart from the fact that it would not have been possible – because I believed I was being taken back for investigation – I refused. It would have meant switching to a different agency, spreading my identity: just like cooperating with other counter-intelligence would risk my being further exposed…’ He hesitated. ‘Russia – and the KGB – never forgive anyone who defects: you know that! There’s always an attempt at retribution, as an example to others.’ The ache now was beyond tension, settling into a draining fatigue not just from the pressure but from the effort of staying ahead of that pressure.

‘You had a lot of difficulty at the end, about identifying KGB personnel?’

‘The same difficulty as always: the phrasing of the questions and the insistence upon simple answers,’ Levin fought back. The people I know at the United Nations are KGB personnel. Agents. Those I think I know outside are not personnel. I think they are suborned spies. I don’t know how it is in your service, but in Russia we differentiate between agents and spies.’

‘American, you mean!’

‘That’s what I think.’

‘Think!’ qualified Bowden.

He’s taken the bait, thought Levin. He said: ‘I do not have a name. Just scraps: bits of operational detail. It may be impossible to trace backwards.’

‘Operational detail!’ seized Bowden. ‘You mean you think there’s a spy in the FBI?’

‘No,’ said Levin.

‘Where then?’

‘The CIA.’

Bowden remained hunched over the polygraph material for a long time, his head actually moving as he went over the tracings and the queries and now these responses. He looked up at last with the familiar smile in place. ‘You know what I think, Yevgennie?’

‘What?’ asked Levin, the euphoria already beginning to move through him.

‘I think you’re too fucking honest for the stupid machine.’

‘You mean you believe me?’

‘Welcome to America,’ said Bowden.

‘Thank you,’ said Levin. It would be natural to let the relief show and he did.

‘There’s one thing,’ said Bowden.

‘What?’

‘You shouldn’t have lied about masturbation,’ smiled Bowden. ‘Everybody jerks off. Everybody lies about it, too.’

Sergei Kapalet was a classic KGB emplacement within a Soviet legation in a Western capital. Holding the rank of colonel within the service, he was described upon the French diplomatic list as a driver at the Soviet Embassy in Paris. It was a position low enough to be ignored by French counter-intelligence yet one that gave him the excuse and the facility to drive at will around the city. Which he had done constantly since his posting eighteen months earlier, preparing for this small but essential part in the most destructive operation ever devised by the KGB against the CIA. His job was to insert a few pieces into the whole of a very complicated jigsaw. For him to have known all the details would have put at risk the entire operation if he were detected as an intelligence operative, to avoid which was the purpose of the rehearsals. Kapalet drove and drove and drove again around the arrondissements of the city – amusing himself by going first around Le Kremlin area – until he was familiar with every avenue and boulevard. And during every journey he was alert for surveillance which would have warned him he was suspected by the French. It never happened. A superbly trained operative, Kapalet did not rely solely upon a car, but became an expert on the metro as well, journeying as far as Mairie des Lilas and Eglise de Pantin and Pont de Levallois Becon and memorizing all the transfer stations in between, again, all the time, trying to spot any pursuit. There wasn’t any here, either.

He initiated the approach to the Americans during the third month of his posting, while officially on duty as the driver he was supposed to be at a reception at the West German embassy. The Americans were initially extremely cautious, which professionally he admired, so it was not until a further three months that he was accepted and given a case officer. The man was a black New Yorker whose name Kapalet knew, from KGB files, to be Wilson Drew even before the CIA man introduced himself. The American was given to three-piece suits, French wine and jazz, which made for convenient rendezvous. Together – although not obviously – they went to the Slow Club and the Caveau de la Montagne and Le Petit Journal.

The legend had been carefully prepared and rehearsed in Moscow. Kapalet’s motivation was supposed to be entirely financial, to support a decadent Western lifestyle to which he had become addicted, and so as well as jazz clubs they went to the Crazy Horse Saloon and the Moulin Rouge and the Lido and La Coupole and New Jimmy’s.

The information that Kapalet passed over was as carefully selected as everything else, guaranteed always to be absolutely accurate. And provably so. Over the months Kapalet disclosed Soviet finance to a peace movement protesting against US missile bases in Europe and denounced a minor official in the French foreign ministry who was being run by the Paris rezidentura after being shown photographs of himself, naked apart from his socks, with two teenage prostitutes in a brothel off the Boulevard Saint Germain. The brothel was financed by the KGB as well, specifically to obtain incriminating material for blackmail purposes and Kapalet revealed that, too. Every disclosure was authorized by Vladislav Belov, in Moscow, each sacrifice considered justified for the success of the ultimate plan.

The contact procedure for the two to meet was for Kapalet to insert a bicycle For Sale notice in the window display of a small tobacconists’ shop off the Rue Saint Giles, the venue having been decided between them at the previous encounter. That night it was to be at the Brasserie Flo, on the Cour des Petites Ecuries.

Kapalet was as cautious as ever, going by metro and arriving early but not entering the restaurant, instead positioning himself to see Drew arrive first to ensure the American was not being followed either, so risking discovery by association.

The CIA man had been equally careful in his choice of table, at the rear, near the unpopular noise of the kitchen entry and exit. It would provide a cover for their conversation.

Drew deferred to the Russian for the drinks. Kapalet ordered kir and a 1980 Hermitage la Chapelle and they both chose venison.

‘Hope the information is as good as the wine,’ said Drew. He was a big, heavily muscled man who had boxed heavyweight at college.

‘I am not sure what it is,’ said Kapalet. ‘There’s just been a transfer to the rezidentura here, from Washington.’ Like everything else, that was true. Kapalet knew that the Americans monitored movements and would already be aware of it. The man’s name was Shelenkov.

‘What about him?’

‘He drinks.’ That was also true and the Americans would know that, as well.

‘So what?’

‘He was boasting in the mess, three nights ago. Said he had your people by the balls. Those were his words: he likes to show off his Americanisms.’

Drew was eating slowly but concentrating upon the conversation, not the food. ‘Had us by the balls?’

‘That’s what he said.’

‘What’s he mean by “us”? The Agency? Or America?’

‘I thought you’d want to know that. So I manoeuvred the conversation. It’s the Agency.’

Drew pushed his plate away, as if he were suddenly sickened. ‘Son of a bitch!’ he said.

‘Well, is the information as good as the wine?’ It was important always to try to drive up the price.

Drew ignored the question. ‘Who? I need a name.’

‘Come on!’ said Kapalet. ‘Do you imagine I was going to come straight out and ask him? Or that he would have told me, if I had?’

‘Listen, Sergei. Listen good. You get this for me – get anything and everything you can for me – and you can name your own price. We’ll keep you in Roederer Cristal for life. You understand me?’

‘I understand,’ said the Russian.

An hour later the first alert reached Langley that they had a spy within the CIA headquarters. Such information is automatically classified red priority, so the Director was awakened at his Georgetown home.

‘Son of a bitch!’ he said, unwittingly echoing his agent.

‘What’s the matter?’ said his drowsy wife.

‘For fuck’s sake, shut up!’ said the distressed man.