Spycraft - Melton [58]
The KGB recovered the dead drop container and its contents. Peterson was also searched and the KGB found, Velcroed to her bra, an OTS-developed frequency scanner used to intercept surveillance radio transmissions. Peterson’s “necklace” was the scanner’s induction coil antenna. Thinking the scanner was a communication device, the KGB officers talked into the black box in an attempt to elicit a response from another party. Throughout the ordeal, the small receiver Peterson wore remained undiscovered.
Peterson was then driven to Lubyanka, headquarters of the KGB’s Second Directorate, where questioning began. Within a short time, calls were made to the U.S. Embassy with news that an American citizen had been arrested.
The State Department representative who arrived at Lubyanka was as surprised to see Peterson in custody as the KGB was to see her at the bridge. By 2:00 AM, she had been released. The next day, the Soviet government declared her persona non grata and ordered Peterson out of the country. She left on the first flight out of Moscow, without ever returning to her apartment.
The CIA later learned that TRIGON had been dead for at least a month before Peterson’s apprehension, compromised by Karl Koecher, half of the Karl and Hana Koecher husband-and-wife spy team. The Koechers were Czech nationals sent to the United States in 1965 under the control of the Czech intelligence service—the Stani tajni Bezpecnost (StB). Claiming to have fled their homeland in search of freedom in America, they posed as virulent anticommunists. Karl earned a degree from Columbia University, and then landed a translator job at the CIA. The StB shared reports from its agents with the KGB and whatever information Koecher gleaned from his translation work about a Soviet diplomat working for the CIA in Colombia was enough for the Soviets to launch an investigation that eventually identified Ogorodnik.
Precise details of TRIGON’s death remain clouded, but his early insistence in having an L-pill was prescient, at least according to an account of the death of “agent Trianon” written in 2000. “Trianon” is clearly TRIGON. The author, a retired KGB officer, Igor Peretrukhin, who claimed he led the investigation, described “Trianon” sitting in his apartment surrounded by KGB officers at 2:00 AM. TRIGON requested paper and a pen to “write an explanation addressed to the KGB leadership.” He then requested his own fountain pen that was laying on the table and which one of the KGB officers had inspected. The pen received another, more thorough examination before being given to TRIGON. As he began writing, TRIGON slowed down and fiddled with the pen. When no one was near the table where he was writing, TRIGON managed to disengage the L-pill and get it into his mouth. Suddenly he quivered, leaned against the back of his chair, and began to wheeze. The KGB officers rushed to him and with a metal ruler tried unsuccessfully to open his firmly clenched teeth to find the suspected poison ampoule. Foaming blood began coming out of TRIGON’s mouth. He never regained consciousness.9
Karl Koecher was arrested in New York City on November 27, 1984, and charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. He served less than two years in prison before a swap for imprisoned Soviet dissident, Anatoly Scharansky, allowed him and his wife to return to Czechoslovakia.10
CHAPTER 9
Fire in the Arctic
And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. —John 8:32
—Inscription at the entrance of CIA’s Original Headquarters