NINE
After they finished planning, Ammon was escorted to his bedroom and instructed to get some sleep. Morozov and the other Ukrainians walked outside into the darkness. Amril remained behind in the cabin to keep an eye on Ammon.
It was cold enough outside that the men could see their breath as they talked. In the distance they could hear a wolf, its lone and mournful howl drifting through the dense trees of the forest. The four men spoke in whispered tones, watching each other carefully in the moonlight.
“What do you think?” Morozov asked General Lomov.
“I think you had better watch him,” the general replied quietly. “He’s been away so long. After all these years, who knows where he really stands?”
“I don’t agree,” Prime Minister Yevgeni Golubev jumped in. “He’s had his world pulled out from under him. I think it would be asking too much to expect him to climb aboard without some reservations. But I think, given some time, he will come round.”
“That may be,” Lomov answered. “But still we need to watch him. For one thing, like he said, we are not asking him to work for his country. The country he left no longer even exists. And though he’s Ukrainian, I don’t feel that he has a great sense of loyalty or sympathy toward us or our cause.
“Perhaps if we pay him enough, he will go along, but I doubt it. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who has much interest in money.
“So… I think we need to watch him very closely. More important, we need to gain some other form of leverage. I am convinced that the girl may be the only thing that will bring him along to our way of thinking.”
“I agree,” Morozov said, turning his attention to the last Ukrainian. “We must find the girl.” Andrei Liski, Director of State Border Defense, returned Morozov’s cold stare.
“We are looking for her,” was all he said. Then, when none of the others looked away, he shrugged his shoulders and offered a further explanation. “Apparently she was warned. They must have had something prearranged. We know that he tried to call her the morning he was forced to eject from his plane. He left her some kind of message… some kind of code as a warning. By the time we were able to accomplish a voice analysis to confirm it was him, she was already gone.
“But I agree,” he continued. “We need the girl. Mark my words, this man will betray us if given the opportunity. I can feel it. I can sense it. Regardless of his training.” Liski turned a sarcastic eye toward Morozov. “He is no longer one of our own.
“So, we will find the girl. She isn’t trained to survive in such situations. We will have her within a few days.”
“You had better,” Golubev threatened. “We are sending Ammon to Helsinki soon. There he will begin flying the simulator we have developed. Once he has done that, he will quickly realize just how dangerous this mission really is. If you think he has reservations now, wait until he sees how difficult this mission will be.
“We will need the girl by then. If Ammon should waiver, she is the only thing we have to hang over his head.”
General Lomov muttered in the darkness. Liski swatted at some invisible gnat. Golubev nodded, then turned to Morozov to bring up another critical subject.
“When are you getting the money?” he asked.
“I’m leaving tonight.”
“Keep us informed. We need to know as soon as it’s ready. We are almost ready for action.”
Morozov nodded, turned around and walked back into the cabin. The other men watched him leave, then whistling to their guards they gathered their men, climbed into the heavy truck and drove off into the night.
Inside his bedroom, Richard Ammon lay on the moldy mattress. The room was dark and smelled of stale air and moth balls. It was very quiet. He lay there for a very long time.
It was bad. Very bad. Much worse than he had feared.
And one thing was perfectly clear — Morozov and his fellow Ukrainians would kill him if they knew the truth.
He didn’t consider himself one of their comrades. He wasn’t working for them anymore.
Looking back on it, Ammon realized that the seed of his defection was planted on the day he was taken from his family. Even now, more than twenty years later, he could still picture the inside of his Kiev apartment. It was cramped and dingy, and smelled of urine and boiled cabbage. He could remember the scene in vivid detaiclass="underline" the morning that Ivan Morozov came to take him away.
As Morozov entered the apartment, Ammon couldn’t help but notice the whispering voices and sidelong glances in his direction. He watched the yellow-eyed man count out the money, and as his father reached out and took the wad of bills, a great anxiety welled up inside him. Though he was only a child, the arrangement was perfectly clear. His father kissed him lightly on the cheek then picked up his hat and left for work, leaving no explanation.
So it was understandable that Ammon found himself constantly wondering. Why would his father have taken the money? What else had he taken in exchange for his son? A new apartment? A supervisory position at some government office? Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. This one fact was perfectly clear.
He had traded his only son for money. He had traded his child to the state.
But of course, that wasn’t the way it was explained to Ammon. Such cynicism would have never been tolerated in the Sicherheit.
He was only indoctrinated in the glory of his calling. He was one of the chosen few. His mission was of the highest importance. To be allowed to serve in such a high capacity, and to be selected at such a young age, were honors never to be questioned. But Ammon never fully accepted that explanation. He never resolved the doubts from his mind. And though he never knew to what extent the Party had compensated his father, he knew it wasn’t enough. He had lost his entire family. How much money could justify that?
But as the years went by, Ammon learned not to dwell on the past. The Sicherheit saw to that.
Once, when Ammon was twelve years old, he was sitting in a class on moral theory. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was shining outside. As the teacher droned on and on, Ammon grew impatient and began to fidget. For the first hour, he tried very hard to pay attention, but as the time went by, like any twelve-year-old boy, he began to stare out the window and daydream, doodling on the back of his notebook.
Suddenly he was jolted back to the present with a swat. His teacher had slapped him on the side of his head. He looked up in surprise and fear.
“Richard Ammon, I don’t think you were paying attention.” The pupils and teachers in the Sicherheit always referred to each other by their American names.
“Now you know what happens when you don’t pay attention,” the teacher continued. “Such a fundamental lack of self-discipline cannot go unpunished. Such a weakness in character cannot be ignored. You know that, don’t you, Mr. Ammon.”
The teacher began to walk to the front of her class. As she approached her metal desk, Richard Ammon slid out from behind his tiny table and followed her to the front of the room. He knew what was coming, and his head started to pound. He stuffed his hands deep into his front pockets in an effort to protect them from her anger.
The teacher reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a small metal pipe. It was twelve inches long and about as thick as a pencil.
“Hold out your hand,” she said slowly.
Ammon lay his hand on her desk. With a sudden snap, she whacked him across his knuckles. Ammon let out a sudden cry. The classroom winced. The room fell very silent.
“Now Mr. Ammon, you may go back to your desk.”
Ammon turned away from his teacher, holding his bruised knuckles against his chest. He started to shuffle his way down the narrow aisle. He was hurt and angry. That’s what caused him to make the mistake.