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Chapter Two
Over the next several months I churn out stories for Blue
Swan. Aeroflot likes them, even translates several for the domestic edition.
From time to time, my CIA contact calls me to set up a meeting.Sometimes he says: "Hi, this is 'Steve.' Free Wednesday? … Can we meet at the American Club for tennis?" … That means we're going to have lunch Thursday at the Grand Palace Hotel.
Or maybe: "How about next Tuesday for golf?" … That means we're going to meet for dinner Monday at the New Otani.
Swear I'm not making this up. The code was that simple. But all I can report to them are what brands of fax machines and Japanese word processors Aeroflot has, and how many secretaries work in the office, and whether they're cute. My CIA guy always wants to know about this--also how they're built. Go figure.
But, boy, do I ever get wined and dined, paid and repaid all this time!
Anyhow, this goes on and on, and I realize something unexpected is happening--I'm becoming friends with these GRU/KGB guys. Especially Alexandre. Sure, in the beginning he makes a few more lame attempts to recruit me, but I always demur, finally telling him to save his breath:
"Comrade, pal, what are you trying to do--get me in trouble with my government? What happens if I get arrested or deported or excommunicated, or whatever they do to bad citizens? I'd be a man without a country. Russia's the last place I'd ever live. You don't even have baseball."
He laughs. Doesn't appear to be a problem for Alex that I won't snatch secrets. Instead, he increases my assignments.
We start meeting two or three times a week for breakfast or mid-morning coffee. Our ritual is always the same: Alex reads me anti-USA diatribe from Pravda. I tell him it's the biggest crock I've ever heard--what drugs are those editors on, anyway? … I read him items from The New York Times, which he "disproves" by applying Marxist theory. So no matter what wowie-zowie thing America did today, according to Alex, it never happened, it couldn't have, everybody except the rich is starving to death in America, don't I realize this? We get nowhere ideologically but enjoy the sessions immensely. Often Alex's cohorts join in, too. Seems like these Russians thrive on intellectual sparring--even first thing in the AM. You know, Lenin and Trotsky planned their whole revolution in coffee shops. Apparently, that's what they do.
Alex wants to know why the Japanese love the Americans, but hate the Russians so much. I explain:
"See Alex, at the close of WW II, we grabbed Okinawa and some chump-change atolls while you snatched Japan's four northern islands. Things settle down, we give the Js back their southies, but you guys never do--so how would you feel?"
Alex is silent, his eyes downcast.
I remind him that, in war, we Americans are great victors but sore losers--look at Vietnam, Cambodia. His country's the opposite: good losers but sorry winners--look at Japan, Eastern Europe.
He shrugs.
Time goes on and eventually, the CIA hears the KGB's stopped trying to recruit me. At first they're bummed, because they'd been working on some "disinformation" campaign they'd planned to feed Aeroflot through me. They moan that I should have checked with them before I'd flaunted my patriotism to Alex. Chastened, I say:
"Sorry, fellas, I'm new at the spy game. But c'mon, stick with me--I'm a fast learner."
And, as my CIA guys see story after story appearing in Blue Swan, as they hear through their own bugs how often I meet with the other side, as I show them the family photos that Alex from Moscow and Viktor from Kiev and Ivan from Leningrad presented to me, they put together a new scenario. And become happy campers again.
"Agent Chris," one finally says, "all this can only mean one thing: Those Russians are planning to defect."
Awesome.
