Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [9]
“In this kind of situation, speed is of the essence,” he said. “As soon as it becomes known that someone is about to cross to the other side, all the formal and informal channels turn on: ‘We know our man is in Turkey, and we know that he is going over to you. If you take him, then we will step on your tail somewhere else, we’ll expel somebody, we’ll do this or that to you, so don’t even think of taking him.’ Then the Americans will start wondering whether this guy is worth the trouble. It’s one thing when a defection occurs quietly and it becomes known much later, or never. A person disappears, and that’s it. It’s another thing when the bargaining begins. When you left for Istanbul, you lost time. In those few hours, the Russians figured out what the Americans were up to and blocked the transfer. That morning, you still had a chance, but by afternoon, Moscow pulled the strings and it was too late.”
“So who do you think were watching us at the hotel, Russians or Americans?”
“Russians, of course. But they wouldn’t have tried to do anything bad there: too complicated and noisy. They would wait it out and eventually get them back from the Turks.”
“And the Turks in the airport?”
“I doubt they were tipped off by Americans. If the Russians spotted you at the embassy, they had enough time to give the Turks his photo. Or maybe his passport was not that good after all. You got really lucky. The Turks apparently decided to let them go so as not to get involved. Next time, move faster.”
For me, there wouldn’t be a next time. For Sasha, on the other hand, not even London would be safe from the long arm of the FSB.
CHAPTER 2 THE STRANGE MAJOR
On the road to Istanbul, October 31, 2000
It was before our airport dramas, probably just during the window of time that changed the CIA’s mind about giving him refuge, that I first began to learn Sasha’s secrets. Our long nighttime drive from Ankara to Istanbul was an eye-opener and my introduction to Sasha’s past.
The woman in the backseat, asleep with her son, had been his only ally in all his travails. Everything he told me in the car—about gangsters and oligarchs, terrorists and politicians—he described as happening either Before Marina, or After Marina. The major reference point in his life was not his birth or graduation, not the day he joined the KGB, not even his flight from Russia. It was the summer day in 1993 when they first met. Whatever happened before was not really interesting to him. Meeting her was a touch of magic that transformed everything into the extraordinary. Marina stayed out of his affairs, and he avoided telling her many things that were dangerous to know. But she was always his polestar.
Before Marina, Sasha’s personal life had been difficult. Born into a short-lived college marriage, from the age of three Sasha was brought up by his paternal grandfather in Nalchik, a small town in the northern Caucasus, while both his parents formed new families in other parts of the country. His grandfather took him to the zoo, and the movies on Sundays. “When I was five, my grandfather brought me to the regional history museum in Nalchik, showed me the banner of the Red Army regiment in which he fought the Nazis, and told me that all our family had defended Russia and I would, too,” Sasha told me. He loved his grandfather, and owed him everything, but as he grew older he needed something more. In his last years at school, he became an avid athlete. He focused on the pentathlon to the point of obsession. His trainers, his teammates, and the thrill of competition became his whole life. Even more than his grandfather, they gave him a secure base, a sense of attachment and commitment that he’d lost