Our Woman in Moscow(112)

“All right,” he whispers. “I’ll talk.”





Lyudmila





July 1952

Outside Riga, Latvia



Once a man confesses to treason, it’s easy to vacuum out all the details from him. He doesn’t want to die! He thinks if he tells you everything, every last detail, the information will somehow weigh in his favor. This many names and dates, this many acts of betrayal, all added together—surely the sum equals one traitor’s life. All you have to do is convince him to break. That’s the hard part.

But Digby seems reluctant to reveal anything. He answers her questions haltingly, backtracks, puzzles through his memory. Lyudmila’s beginning to lose her temper. It’s nearly four o’clock in the morning and the sun’s rising, pink and orange and gold outside the window. She didn’t sleep on the airplane that brought her here; she’s worked through the night. She sets down her pen and nods to the transcript typist on the machine in the corner.

“You are not being forthcoming,” she says sternly. “I have kept my side of the bargain. A doctor attends your wife this minute.”

“I thought you were going to set her free. I thought you were going to let her and the children go to the Americans.”

Lyudmila’s astonished. “Where did you get this idea? It’s absurd! They are citizens of the Soviet Union! Why would the Americans want them?”

“They have family there. If I’m going to be shot, I want them with their family.”

“It can’t be done. It’s likely the Americans have already given up and sailed off.”

He frowns. “What about Fox?”

“Fox is a spy and has been detained separately. Listen to me. The information you have given me is all very nice, but it’s not especially useful. What I need to know, first of all, is the identity of ASCOT—”

“I’ve already told you, I don’t know that. I only knew him by his code name.”

“Nonsense. You knew him in England. You and he set up Operation Honeysuckle together, possibly with the assistance of Fox.”

Digby leans forward. “How do I know there’s a doctor with Iris?”

“A doctor has been called for.”

“How do I know that?”

“You have my word,” she says.

He sits back again. “I’m not going to give you any more information until Iris and the children are safely in American hands.”

“This is nonsense. If you don’t give me any more information, you’ll be shot as a traitor and your family sent to a labor camp for rehabilitation.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I have your confession, Comrade.”

“I retract my confession!”

Lyudmila sighs. “You’re making this so difficult. Why not simply give me the information? We both know you have it. We both know you love your wife and your family, and you don’t want to see any harm come to them.”

Digby just stares at her. He has the most remarkable eyes, a color so intensely blue it’s difficult to look away. A good thing Lyudmila is so hardened by years of practice at interrogation. Oh, the pathetic pleas she’s heard, the weeping and distress! You simply have to imagine yourself as a rock, millions of years old, impervious to wind and sea and sun and the intensely blue eyes of traitors to the revolution. You have to remember the great ideal for which you’re fighting.

“You’re going to send them to the camps, anyway, aren’t you? Whatever I say, whatever I reveal to you, you’re going to have me shot and they’re going to disappear into the gulag. Whatever I—”

Digby stops in the middle of his sentence and looks to the door in surprise. Lyudmila’s seen this trick before, however. She doesn’t flinch. Only when a small, dry gasp penetrates the air behind her does she turn her head to glance over her shoulder.

A girl stands there, all by herself. She’s wearing a rumpled school uniform and an expression of horrified shock. It actually takes Lyudmila a second or two to recognize that it’s Marina.

She starts to rise from the chair. “Marina! How did you—”

A guard appears behind her daughter and grabs her by the arm. Marina turns her head and bites his hand—kicks him—he snatches her arm and bends it behind her back and shoves her to the ground.

“Comrade! Let the girl go this instant! What’s the meaning of this?”

The guard has his knee in the middle of Marina’s back. He looks up, panting, and says, “This girl just shot the guard outside the prison hut, Comrade! She was trying to free the prisoners!”



The general stands by the window and stares at the rising sun. He clasps his arms behind his back. Lyudmila can see how furious he is by the tic of one finger against the back of the other hand.

“I did not wish to allow this facility to be used for KGB purposes,” he says. “The locals are not happy about our presence here to begin with. I agreed, because one does not refuse requests from Moscow Centre.”

“Your loyalty has been noted.”

“Has it?” He turns his head. His face blazes pink. “Why could this affair not have been handled in one of the detention centers near Moscow?”

“For strategic reasons—”