The Zebra Network

Chapter 3

The cell was clean, warm, and reasonably well furnished. For the last three evenings the lights had been extinguished so he had been able to sleep.

Solid, if plain meals had been brought at regular intervals. The Soviet attorney looked up from his reading.

“A substantial case has been built against you, Mr. McAllister. I don’t think a lengthy trial would be of much value. In fact, because sentencing in these kinds of matters is left entirely to the discretion of the judges, the easier you make it for them, the easier they will make it for you.”

“What about my defense?”

Yevgenni Tarasenko, the court appointed attorney, shook his head and smiled.” Under the circumstances, I frankly don’t think you have a defense.”

“Why have I not been allowed to speak with a representative from my embassy?”

“We have been in communication with them,” Tarasenko said.” In fact, I personally have spoken with Mr. Lacey, your charge d’affaires, and his concern goes out to you with all sincerity. He too wishes for a speedy conclusion.”

“Will I be able to speak with him?”

“Before your trial?”

“Now, immediately,” McAllister said. He felt much better than he had for days, and yet he still had the sensation of detachment. He supposed his food was still being drugged.

“I am sorry, Mr. McAllister, but in these matters we must adhere to Soviet law. Our constitution clearly outlines our rights as well as our responsibilities. It is the same in Washington, I assure you.”

McAllister had wondered about Miroshnikov. After that first night of torture, the interrogation sessions had ended. That very night he had been moved to this cell. The next morning he had been allowed to shower and shave, and had been fed a huge breakfast. It all had been confusing.” Formal charges have been filed against me?”

“Yes, they have. You are accused of spying for the United States against my government. Very grave, very serious charges.”

“And you are to be my attorney?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Are there other charges?”

The attorney shrugged. “You were armed with a deadly weapon at the time of your arrest. And there is the matter of the assault on Colonel Miroshnikov in front of witnesses.”

“Was my torture witnessed?”

The attorney looked again at the bulky files he had brought in with him.” Those charges may be dropped, Mr. McAllister, but it depends upon you.

“On my cooperation.”

“Yes, exactly.”

McAllister thought about the chief interrogator and their sessions together. Never once had Voronin been mentioned. Most of their time had been spent going over the Scorpius Network, and Tom Murdock’s whereabouts these days. Evidently the Russians were still feeling the effects of the Bulgarian operation. For that, at least, he was thankful. He sat forward. “Then what evidence is there against me?”

The attorney’s eyes were round. “Your confession, of course. We wouldn’t have dreamed of going to trial without it.”

“May I see it?”

“There is no need, believe me, it is very complete. You spelled out in very complete detail how you, at the orders of your government of course, operated a successful nest of spies in Sofia in the late seventies. Really, Mr. McAllister, there can be no doubt in anyone’s mind.”

“I don’t remember making any such confession…. of my own free will, that is.”

The attorney’s lips compressed. “You signed the transcript.”

“Under duress.”

“Please, Mr. McAllister, believe me when I advise you to plead simply guilty before the judges. It will be much better for you, much better indeed.”

“Thanks for the advice,” McAllister said.” I suppose I’ll get your bill in the morning.”

It took a moment for Tarasenko to realize that McAllister had made a joke, and then his face split into a wide grin. “Very good,” he said, gathering up his papers and rising. “Yes, very good, Mr. McAllister. My bill in the morning.”

With lunch they brought him a blue pin-striped suit, a white shirt and tie, underwear and socks, and freshly polished black shoes, all of which fit well, though the cut wasn’t very good by Western standards.

He had been here for a long time. Certainly weeks, possibly more than a month, yet his memories were hazy and indistinct, partly because of the drugs he had been given and partly because of the lack of sleep and proper food. Yet he didn’t feel terrible. There was no real pain, only a weakness and the slight feeling that he was floating. When he stood up too suddenly sometimes, he would experience a little nausea and light-headedness, but even those feelings had slowly begun to pass, over the past few days.

After he got dressed he began pacing his cell, five steps to the steel door, turn, five steps back. If indeed Bill Lacey had been contacted at the embassy the wheels in Washington would be in motion. At the very least they would stave off any possibility of a death penalty. It was likely that he would be sentenced to a few years imprisonment, probably even here in Moscow. But even Francis Gary Powers had been quickly released. Spies were exchanged on a regular basis.

It could be months, or possibly even a couple of years, but he was definitely going home to the desk, because from this point on he would present too high a profile for fieldwork. Langley had many such men forever denied sensitive foreign postings.

He stopped. They had his confession, according to the attorney, which meant they had broken him. Or had they? Was it all a big ploy? Was this just another of Miroshnikov’s little tricks? Was this simply another of the interrogator’s phases? Perhaps there wasn’t going to be a trial just yet. Perhaps he would be taken instead back to Miroshnikov, or perhaps back to the torture chamber.

The Scorpius Network was a long time ago. The information by now was outdated. What was of more immediate importance was Voronin, and yet his name had never come up. He searched his memory, but he could not recall being asked, other than in a superficial manner, exactly what he had been doing so late out on the streets the night of his arrest. Had they operated with blinders on, so excited by the prospect of catching an American spy, that they had missed the obvious? Or had he missed the obvious?

Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two. What the hell did it mean? Thinking about it now, he was no longer certain that those words had simply been the ravings of a man gone finally mad. They were cryptic, yes, but they had cadence, they hinted at some abbreviated message, there was meaning. Some sort of a connection between Washington and Moscow? How was that possible, he wondered. And what was or were Zebra One and Two? Obviously code words. Zebra One, a man in Washington and Zebra Two, a man in Moscow? Or was he chasing a will-o’-the-wisp after all? He began his pacing again, five steps to the steel door, turn, and five steps back again, as he tried to get himself ready for whatever would be coming next.

The two armed guards came for him early in the afternoon, and he fell in between them as they marched wordlessly down the broad, stone-walled corridor. At the end they entered an elevator. On the way up both guards stared at McAllister as if he were a wild animal who at any moment might try to run. The flaps of their holsters were undone. One of them rested his hand on the butt of his pistol.

It was to be a trial after all.

He was in the Lubyanka, that much he knew, which was located on Dzerzhinsky Square downtown. In the old days, before the war, this building had housed the All-Russian Insurance Company. Nazi POWs had been made to build a big new addition to the building which was then used to house the NKGB and NKVD which were the forerunners of the modern-day Soviet Secret Service.The elevator opened onto another corridor, this one like the one below, deserted. They turned right, marched to the end and suddenly they were outside in a narrow lane that led up from a broad courtyard. It was very cold. A black windowless van was waiting for them, and McAllister was hustled inside, and the doors slammed shut before he had a chance to savor the frigid air and bright afternoon sun, his first for a very long time. As on the elevator, his guards carefully watched him as the van lurched forward, turned, slowed, turned again, and then accelerated, the driver crashing through the gears.

He hadn’t really expected to stand trial at the Lubyanka. It would have been like holding a trial for an accused Russian spy at CIA headquarters in Langley. Where exactly he would be tried, however, would depend upon how important they thought he was, and how out of the eyes of the foreign press they wanted to keep it. His answer came fifteen minutes later when they finally stopped and the back doors were opened. McAllister instantly recognized the place from his briefings. It was the Lefortovsky Military Prison in Moscow’s northeastern district. The most ominous of any trial location for him. Security was tight here, and in the rear courtyard they executed people.

Here, he realized, his life could very well end. They entered through a back door, walked down a short narrow corridor and took one flight of stairs up, where they were made to wait in a large office at which a half a dozen military clerks were busy at their desks. None of them bothered to look up. McAllister watched the secondhand on the clock above the door, suddenly fascinated with time. It had been weeks since he had had any notion of the hour or minute. It was a few minutes before three now. In the afternoon. He tried to imagine what was happening at the embassy, and what Gloria would be doing.

The door opened and Tarasenko, his attorney, beckoned to them. McAllister’s guard accompanied him inside. At the head of the large room was the raised bench for the three judges, called tribunals in the Soviet judicial system, flanked by the Soviet flag and the State Prosecutor’s flag, and backed by a photograph of Lenin. The Moscow District Prosecutor was seated on the right with Chief Interrogator Miroshnikov and General Suslev, the man who had arrested him. William Lacey, the American charge d’affaires, was the only person in the gallery. When McAllister was ushered in he jumped up. “You have just a moment or two before it begins,” Tarasenko said. Lacey was a tall, slightly built, angular-faced man, with thinning gray hair, who always dressed impeccably in three-piece suits. His overcoat and Russian fur hat were lying on the bench beside him. He made no move to come over. McAllister tried to read something in the man’s expression, but he could not. Tarasenko moved off to the defense attorney’s table to the left of the bench, and McAllister stepped over to where Lacey was waiting.

“Christ, am I glad to see you, Bill,” McAllister said, keeping his voice low.

“How are you, are you all right?” Lacey asked, searching McAllister’s face.

“I’ve been better. How about getting me out of here?”

“We’re working on it, Mac. But listen, Langley says for you to plead guilty to whatever you’re charged with.”

McAllister stiffened. This wasn’t what he had expected at all. “Listen to me, goddamnit. Plead guilty, and you’ll probably be sentenced to immediate expulsion from the Soviet Union. We grabbed one of their people two weeks ago in New York. He was operating out of the UN, and they’ve been making all the right noises to get him back. They’ll trade. You’re going to have to trust us on this one. With luck we can have you out of here within the next twenty-four hours.”

“My ass is hanging out there,” McAllister said. His stomach was tight. He glanced over at the defense attorney who was watching them. “They say they have my confession.”

“It doesn’t matter, Mac. Just plead guilty and we’ll get you out of here in one piece. Soon. I promise you.”

McAllister looked at Lacey. He compressed his lips and nodded slightly. “You’re the boss,” he said. “How’s Gloria?”

“Worried,” Lacey said. “She’s back in Washington. We thought it best under the circumstances, to get her the hell out of here.”

“Good…” McAllister started to say, when a door at the head of the chamber opened and the three tribunals filed in.“All rise,” a clerk intoned.

“This will be over in a couple of minutes,” Lacey whispered. “Hang in there.”

“Sure,” McAllister said, and he moved with his guards to the rail for the accused, directly in front of the bench. A set of headphones hung on a hook for the translation. He didn’t bother with them. By now they knew he spoke Russian.

The tribunals looked down sternly at him as the clerk read out the charges specified against him before the Moscow Northeast District -1 People’s Special Court. Spying against the People’s State of Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic, the People’s States of Czechoslovakia and Poland, Afghanistan, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was also charged with carrying a deadly weapon, and with assault on an officer of the KGB who was, at the time of the assault, conducting lawful business of the State.

The tribunals sat down, and then everyone else sat except for McAllister and his guards.

“In the matter before the court, comrades,” the District Prosecutor said getting up, “the State has prepared several items of evidence including the accused’s sworn confession, the accused’s deadly weapon which he was carrying at the time of his arrest-sworn to by Comrade General Suslev-and of course Comrade Colonel Miroshnikov’s own testimony of the assault made on his person.”

Attorney Tarasenko got to his feet. “If it pleases the court, we would like to make a brief statement before we proceed.”

All three tribunals had shifted their gaze from the prosecutor to Tarasenko.

“My client wishes to plead guilty to all of the charges specified against him, without mitigating circumstances.” The attorney turned and dramatically pointed a stern finger at McAllister. “There, comrades, stands an American spy. An agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, by his own admission. A puppet of a State gone terribly.. oh so terribly bad.” He turned back to the tribunals, a new respect in his voice. “Acting on orders from his masters, he has admitted that since 1975, when he began spying against the People’s State of Bulgaria, he has engaged in the systematic assault on all good Soviet peoples … in fact upon all peace-loving peoples of the world. By his own admission, comrades… and with remorse, I might add. the accused stands humbly before this court begging understanding and forgiveness for his heinous crimes against mankind.”

“Are you pleading guilty to these crimes, Comrade Tarasenko?” the chief tribunal asked. He was an older man, his voice as dry as winter grass.

“Yes, comrade, I am, with the fervent wish that compassion and mercy will be shown here.”

“The District Prosecutor’s office has no animosity toward this unfortunate man,” the prosecutor said.

“What of you, Comrade Colonel?” the chief tribunal asked. Miroshnikov smiled sadly as he glanced at McAllister. He shook his head. “No, comrade, I hold no animosity toward Mr. McAllister. In fact he has become my friend. Believe me when I tell you that I genuinely care for this man. I see a good and kind person beneath the trappings of his professiona load, I might add, that he no longer wishes to carry.”

“You are a generous man, Comrade Colonel,” the chief tribunal said.

McAllister felt as if he were in a very bad high school play parodying a Russian kangaroo court. The kids couldn’t have done a worse job than the real participants.

“May I speak?” McAllister said in very good Russian. The tribunals seemed genuinely surprised. The chief tribunal’s eyes knitted. “Only if you wish to contradict the very fine words that have already been spoken on your behalf.” He leaned forward. “Everyone in this room is on your side, young man.” McAllister glanced back at Lacey who sat without expression. “Well?” the chief tribunal demanded.

McAllister turned back. “I wish to enter a plea of guilty.”

“That has already been done,” the chief tribunal said impatiently. “Have you anything else to add?”

“Nyet,” McAllister said after a moment.

The chief tribunal continued to stare at him for several long seconds, then he leaned over and said something to the other two tribunals. He nodded and straightened up again.

“The death penalty is indicated for a crime so vast as yours,” he said, addressing his remarks to McAllister’s attorney. But even the prosecutor has had very kind words to say about you. However, it cannot be forgotten that you carried a deadly weapon-here in Moscow of all places-and that you assaulted the body of a good and just man while he was engaged in the performance of his lawful duties.”

McAllister might not have been there. His attorney was the object of the chief tribunal’s mounting wrath. Only Bill Lacey’s presence behind him buoyed his spirits.

“It is the unanimous opinion of this court that you be sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor in the Autonomous Republic of Yakutsk. It is also the unanimous opinion of this court that your imprisonment shall commence immediately, and shall be without possibility of parole or exchange.” The chief tribunal rose up a little higher in his seat, and now he looked directly at McAllister. “Here you shall live out the rest of your days as a reminder to all foreign interventionists and adventurers that the Soviet peoples are a peace loving peoples who want nothing more than to live without interference.

Yarasenko and Miroshnikov were smiling. When McAllister turned around Lacey was gone from the courtroom.

Evening had come to Moscow, and with it the first few flakes of an approaching snowstorm whipped by a building cold wind. General Alexandr Borodin sat alone in his Lubyanka office, his ashtray filled, his mouth foul from too many cigarettes, and his uniform tunic off, his tie loose and his shirt collar open. He pressed the earphone more tightly against his left ear as he worked the tape recorder controls with his right hand.

At first he could hear the sounds of a door opening and closing, and then footsteps. He could hear the rustling of fabric as McAllister was undressed.

He had listened to all of these sounds over and over again a dozen times or more in the last two hours since the edited interrogation tapes had finally been sent up to him.

He leaned forward and closed his eyes as if by these actions he could hear better. He turned the volume up as high as it would go.

“Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two.“There it was again. No mistaking the words this time. No mistake at all. “What?” Chief Interrogator Miroshnikov had asked. A pause.

“Fuck you,” McAllister’s words again.

General Borodin reached out and savagely snapped the machine off. He was reminded of an old Russian proverb: Once a word is out of your mouth, you can’t swallow it again. Had Miroshnikov heard? Had he understood what McAllister had babbled in his delirium?

Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two. Fuck your mother, but this wasn’t going to turn out so good. He reached out for the telephone on his desk, but then stayed his hand. There had to be a way out. But how? Where? To whom could he turn without starting in motion the machinery of his own destruction?