The proof of how good they are now is that when they reburied the tsar and his family in Moscow, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was there on his knees. Somehow that photograph of that born-again Christian made front-page news all over the world.
"Just for the sake of conversation, Sergei, what have I got that you want?"
"Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky and Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva."
"Since you have assets all over, Sergei, I'm really surprised you don't know that we don't have either of them, and never have had."
"But in a manner of speaking, Frank, if you have someone who has anything-a bottle of Remy Martin, for example-wouldn't it be fair to say you also have that bottle of cognac?"
"If you're suggesting I have someone who has your two defectors, I don't. And I think you know that, Sergei."
"What about Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Castillo? Doesn't he have Berezovsky and Alekseeva? And since that name has come up, he wants Colonel Castillo, too."
"Who 'he,' Sergei? Who 'wants Colonel Castillo, too'?"
Murov smiled, but now his eyes were cold.
"Frank, we never lie to one another," Murov said.
True. But we obfuscate as well as we know how-and we're both good at it-all the time.
"So far, that's been the case, Sergei," Lammelle said.
"That being the case, you're not going to deny that Berezovsky and Alekseeva left Vienna on Castillo's airplane, are you?"
"Several people I know have told me that, so I'm prepared to believe it. But I don't know it for a fact."
"Or that Castillo works for you?"
"It's my turn to ask a question. You didn't answer my last question: Who 'he' that wants Castillo?"
Murov took a moment to organize his thoughts, and then asked, "How much of the history of the SVR do you know, Frank?"
"Not nearly as much as I should," Lammelle said. "I know that the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki used to be the First Directorate of the KGB, and there's a story going around that the reason it's so powerful is because, in addition to his other duties to the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin runs it."
"You do know how to go for the jugular, don't you, Frank?"
"Excuse me?"
"My question was: How much of the history of the SVR do you know?"
"Putin doesn't run it? For a moment there, I was beginning to think that Putin was he who wants Castillo, too."
"Once more, Frank: How much of the history of the SVR do you know?"
"Why don't you tell me, Sergei, what you think I should know about it?"
Murov looked at him carefully and pursed his lips as he framed his reply.
Finally, he asked, "Would you be surprised to learn that its history goes back beyond the Special Section of the Cheka? Back beyond the Revolution?"
"I don't know. I never gave that much thought."
"Where do you think the Cheka came from?"
"I know it really became important in 1917-1918?-when Felix Dzerzhinsky took it over."
"Did you ever hear that Dzerzhinsky was an oprichnik?"
"I don't know what that is. But I have heard that Dzerzhinsky had been locked up and nearly starved to death by the Bolsheviks until just before he was given the Cheka."
"That's what you and I would now call 'disinformation,' Frank. I think it unlikely that he ever spent a day behind bars. Dzerzhinsky was in fact an oprichnik."
"And I told you I don't know what that means."
"I'm about to tell you. In 1565, Ivan the Terrible moved out of Moscow, taking with him a thousand households he'd selected from the nobility, senior military officers, merchants, and even some serfs. Then he announced he was abdicating.
"The people left behind were terrified. Ivan the Terrible was really a terrible man, but those who would replace him were as bad, and before one of them rose to the top, there would be chaos."
Where the hell is he going with this history lesson?
"So they begged Ivan to reconsider, to remain the tsar. He told them what that would take: the establishment of something, a 'separate state' called the 'Oprichnina,' within Russia. The Oprichnina would be made up of certain districts and cities, and the revenue from these places would be used to support Ivan and his oprichniki.
"To make the point that it would be unwise to challenge this new idea, Ivan first had Philip, the Metropolitan of Moscow-who had said the Oprichnina was un-Christian-strangled to death. Then Ivan moved to Great Novgorod, Russia's second-largest city, where the people had complained about having to support the new state-within-the-state.
"There he killed all the men and male children, raped all the women, seized all the crops and livestock, and leveled every building. No one ever questioned the Oprichnina again."
"Not once, in the next-what?-four hundred fifty give-or-take years?"
Murov ignored the sarcasm, and went on: "In 1825, after Tsar Nicholas the First put down the Decembrist Revolution, he realized the revolution would have succeeded had it not been for the assistance-more important, the intelligence-provided by trusted elements of the Oprichnina, so he made them into a separate state within the separate state. He called this the Third Section, or sometimes the Special Section.
"When the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and, finally, the Communists took over, Lenin, on December 20, 1917, formed from the tsar's Special Section what was officially The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage, but commonly known by its acronym as the Cheka. He placed an aristocrat named Felix Dzerzhinsky in charge."
"The tsar's secret police became the Cheka under an aristocrat named Dzerzhinsky?" Lammelle asked incredulously.
Murov nodded.
"Dzerzhinsky's father had been one of the more important grand dukes under the tsar. One of the oprichniki. There were no more grand dukes, of course-or any 'nobility.' But there was the Oprichnina, and Dzerzhinsky was one of them.
"He apparently decided he could best serve Russia by serving Lenin. The family still lives on the estates they had under the tsar. That's the point of this history lesson, Frank. To make sure you understand how important the Oprichnina remains even today."
"I guess you wouldn't know all these fascinating details if you weren't one of them, huh, Sergei?" Lammelle said, more than a little sarcastically.
Murov either missed the sarcasm or chose to ignore it.
"My family has been intelligence officers serving the Motherland for more than three hundred years," Murov said with quiet pride. "We have served in the Special Section, the Cheka, the OGPU, the NKVD, the KGB, and now the SVR."
"And Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is one of you, too, I suppose?"
"I've answered your question truthfully. Now answer mine: You're not going to deny that Colonel Castillo works for you, are you?"
"Lieutenant Colonel Castillo does not now, nor has he ever, worked for the agency. That's the truth, Sergei."
"But you're-how do I put this?-in touch?"
Lammelle shook his head. "No."
"Do you know where he is?"
Lammelle shook his head again. "No, but if I can find out, I'm going to warn him that Putin's after him."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to," Lammelle said. "Are you going to tell me what that's all about? Why does Putin want his head?"
"I didn't say President Putin is in any way involved in this, Frank."
Of course you didn't.
Those cameras and microphones also are recording everything you say, aren't they?
"Okay. Let me rephrase. Why does He Who Wants Castillo want him? And please don't tell me 'wants' isn't shorthand for 'wants eliminated.'"
"There are several reasons, most of which-probably all of which-have occurred to you. For one thing, Colonel Castillo has left a great many bodies behind him in his travels around the world. Do I make my point?"
"That accusation would be a good deal more credible, Sergei, if you put names to the bodies," Lammelle said.