At the roadblock they had to step out of the car and hand their papers to a sergeant while a soldier searched the car. Grigorenko muttered an oath and Rykov said, “An inconvenience, but I can hardly make exceptions to my own standing orders, can I.” Finally the sergeant clicked his heels and let them pass.
Grigorenko spoke irritably:
“Don’t you think your precautions are excessive?”
“We don’t want anyone coming inside who’s likely to forget himself and speak Russian to the Illegals.”
“They’ve heard Russian before. They are Russians.”
“That’s what we’re teaching them to forget.”
Yashin’s eyes flicked him. “And what if they forget too well?”
The wall was twelve feet high and crested by electrified barbed wire. The Zis stopped by a barracks and the woman driver opened the door for them. “We change cars here,” Rykov said. “Your luggage will be brought along.” He took them past the checkpoint, through the gate. Between the outer and inner walls they showed papers to a guard in an olive-drab American uniform with an Eisenhower jacket. A yellow Chevrolet waited, tended by a man in denim jacket and a greasy yellow cap; the car had an Arizona license plate and a “Tucson Yellow Taxi” decal on the door. Rykov put the visitors in the back seat and climbed into the front beside Andrei, twisted around with his left arm across the back of the seat and said, “I’ll have to remind you, please, not to speak to anyone we see along the way.”
Yashin said, “My objective is to interview some of your people. You know that.”
“We’ve got to keep you separated from them. You’ll conduct your interviews through soundproofed glass. There’ll be simultaneous interpreters—you’ll see the men and women you’re talking to, but they won’t hear your voice. Do you speak English?”
“Only in self-defense.” Yashin did not smile at his little joke.
Rykov said, “The Illegals you’ll meet here are the survivors. We’ve screened out nine out of ten before they get this far. You understand we can’t afford the slightest slip at this stage. Once they come here from the primary training centers they need speak only a single word of Russian, even in their sleep, and they’re given the sack. I must ask you to humor my regulations.”
The taxi took them through the woods on a four-lane stretch of highway divided centrally by a grass strip. Large yellow signs in English announced PAVEMENT NARROWS—EXPRESSWAY ENDS 1000 FEET, and they bumped past a row of flaming oilpots onto a temporary macadam surface full of chuckholes. They turned abruptly into a district of warehouses and automobile junkyards and repair shops, a utility plant, another patch of woods and a street of pleasant small houses with trees arching the sidewalks. A man stood in a driveway washing down a Buick with a garden hose, and a cocker spaniel cavorted on the sloping lawn. The house was all on one level and had large picture windows. They passed a small U.S. POST OFFICE van and a slow-cruising police car with a red dome light and came to an intersection with filling stations—Mobil, Texaco, Union 76—on three of its four corners. The traffic signal suspended on cables above the middle of the intersection turned from yellow to red and Rykov got out of the car to pick up a newspaper from the unattended corner stand. He left a five-cent piece beside the iron weight that kept the newspapers from blowing away and returned to the car before the traffic light had turned. “The Tucson Daily Star. We get it through Tass. It’s about ten days late, but that hardly matters. Yesterday we developed the major news stories from it and designed our radio and television broadcasts around it.”
Traffic in a wide street sucked them into its flow. The curbs were lined with parking meters. Rykov pointed out Regan’s Drugs, the movie theater, Woolworth’s, John’s Men’s Shop, a beauty salon, real-estate and insurance offices. A red light halted them beside an open-fronted lunch counter and Johnnie Ray was singing “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home” on the jukebox. They went on past a Safeway Market with an enormous asphalt car park and General Grigorenko said, “You don’t see as many motorcars on the streets of Leningrad. What was the cost of this?”
Rykov pointed off to the left. “The nursery school. We allow Illegals with children into the program if the children are younger than eighteen months. They’re raised in English.”
Yashin’s wintry expression never changed. “One might suspect the Americans grow enough of their own.”
The taxi slid to the curb by a big Spanish stucco edifice, FEDERAL OFFICE BUILDING engraved in concrete above the entrance. Rykov preceded them through the revolving door and saw the general give the device a narrow look full of nervous distrust. Yashin gave the surroundings no more attention than he would have paid a Moscow worker’s flat. Andrei trotted to the elevator bank and inserted a key and the car took them to the fifth floor.
“Your quarters are at the rear. We’ll try to anticipate your needs but you’ll have to regard yourselves as confined in quarantine.”
“I’m sure it’s all quite necessary,” Yashin said.
Rykov took them into his office and closed the door. Andrei arranged chairs, and from the way General Grigorenko’s eyes followed Andrei around the room it was evident Grigorenko didn’t like his being there, but if Yashin could bring a witness Rykov was entitled to the same privilege according to the rules of protocol. Rykov pressed a button under the lip of his desk and sat back. “We can begin right away if you like.”
“By all means,” said Yashin.
An old man brought in a large tray and set it down and left the room. Chilled glasses of vodka, dishes of smoked whitefish on bread, and sour pickles. Andrei passed them around.
Rykov settled his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. “You’ll want a general briefing, but first let’s clear the air. When you return to the Kremlin there will be nothing to prevent you from remembering a great many ugly things that did not happen here. You might try to persuade the Politburo that my operation here is slipshod and worthless, nothing but a danger to the Soviet Union and a grave drain on her resources. When men in your position make such statements, rebuttals from men in my position mean little.”
Yashin murmured, “You forget your superior. What about Tolubchev?”
“Naturally his assurances would be discounted because ultimately the responsibility for Amergrad is his. He authorized it and he has no choice but to defend it. Who would believe him?”
The narrow face did not change. “You have a lively imagination.”
“Have I.”
“What do you want, Comrade—my assurances of support?”
“Only your assurances of an open skepticism. I never ask the impossible.”
“Show us what you have to offer. Then we’ll see.”
“In a moment. It remains to be said that the state security files are at my disposal at all times.”
Yashin didn’t stir. It was Grigorenko who stiffened. “You’re threatening us with blackmail?”
“You? Hardly.”
“Never mind,” Yashin said. He appeared remote, detached. He understood well enough. The government was unsteady, the post-Stalin purges had stripped the top levels of functionaries, and those who remained were a meager cadre intent on training a new generation to fill the bureaucracy’s vacancies. Yashin and his comrades could not afford the loss of further Party executives. Yet Rykov’s threat was explicit: destroy Rykov and you risk destroying men whose services are vital to the Soviet Union. The ammunition waited in his NKVD files.
He was offering Yashin a simple trade and making it clear he was not asking for support, only indifference.
Yashin lit his pipe. He had not conceded yet. “We’ll see,” he said again. “You may proceed.”
Rykov sat back. “Andrei?”
Andrei clasped his hands behind him and assumed a gentle ex cathedra manner. “The first group of trainees is to matriculate in three weeks’ time. They’ll be seeded in at discreet intervals over a period of eighteen or twenty months. These agents may not be called on to act for many years, and in the meantime their whole concern will be to behave like Americans. That’s why their training here has to be exhaustive, and incidentally expensive. Once in place they will have no contact with active Soviet field agents. Their instructions will come from Moscow—directly, without the use of established rezidentsii or safe-houses.