Siro by David Ignatius (short books to read txt) 📕

were Halcyon’s clients, and what services had Anna performed for them? Why had she been absent from London so much during her first year with the firm? Anna had appropriate answers for all these questions, most of them backstopped by cover arrangements back home, but as she repeated them, they began to sound ridiculous—even to her.

Anna had decided, from the moment they took her into custody to admit whatever she knew they could prove and deny everything else. She had tried all along with Aram to build a plausible legend about their relationship, and now she repeated the story like a mantra. She had met him in Paris while she was there on business for the firm. Yes, she had known that he was a dissident; that was part of the reason she found him so attractive. Yes, she had come to Armenia to see him. No, she hadn’t informed him she was coming, because she had wanted to surprise him. And yes, she had been in love with him.

She admitted, of course, that she had written the note to Antoyan that was found on the floor of his apartment. She couldn’t very well deny it, since it was written on one of her traveler’s checks. The interrogator kept returning to one phrase in the message: “The friend you were going to meet tomorrow has unfortunately caught a cold.” What did that mean? From the moment of capture, Anna had worried how she would explain that phrase. She eventually settled on an answer, which she repeated over and over. The “friend” in question, she told the interrogator, was a reference to herself. She had gotten the sniffles during the trip from Moscow, and was forewarning Aram so he wouldn’t be disappointed. It was lame, but the best she could do.

Explaining why she had traveled to Kiarki was the most awkward part. When she had met Aram in Paris, he had spoken often about the beauty of the Ararat valley, she said. He had urged her to see the monastery at Khor Virap and the little Azeri villages near the border. Aram had said he often went there himself, to relax, and when she couldn’t find him in Yerevan the night she arrived, she had concluded that perhaps he had gone south and decided to follow him. She “admitted” after several days of questioning that one reason she had gone to Kiarki was jealousy. When Aram hadn’t come back to his apartment that first night, she had feared he must be with another woman; and because he had mentioned Kiarki so often, she suspected they might be there. The interrogator listened politely to her and then laughed and said the story was preposterous.

They allowed a counselor from the U.S. embassy to come see her after several days, and at regular intervals after that. But the visits were little comfort. Anna assumed that every word and gesture was being monitored, and when the embassy officer leaned toward her at one point, as if to hand her something or whisper in her ear, she pulled back. The Soviets also sent in the Moscow equivalent of a jailhouse stoolie to try to elicit information. Their candidate was a chatty woman about Anna’s age with a New York accent who claimed she had been arrested in Leningrad with several grams of hashish. Anna, who had previously been denied contact with other prisoners, was now allowed to eat all her meals with the loquacious woman. The New Yorker tried every way she could to get Anna to open up, without success. She talked about boyfriends, she talked about clothes and makeup, she talked about the CIA. After a week, she disappeared.

The harshest tactic the Soviets used was simply to let time pass—and let Anna come to the recognition that nobody was going to save her; to the realization that, without cooperating, she might spend years in a Soviet prison. And as the weeks passed and Anna’s sense of abandonment increased, her spirits inevitably began to ebb. Doing battle with the KGB in the early days had galvanized her and given her an identity. Now she was just a prisoner.

In January, after she had spent two months in custody, Anna was introduced to a new interrogator. His name was Viktor, and he was a different sort altogether from the functionaries who had visited her before. He was in his late forties, with sleek gray hair and the cool manner of a professor of mathematics, and he spoke near-perfect English. He made no pretense whatsoever of investigating the case and was, transparently, an intelligence officer. He began the first conversation bluntly.

“Do you know that Edward Stone has sacrificed you?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” bristled Anna. She had denied, from the first day, that she had any connection to the Central Intelligence Agency or that she knew any of its personnel.

“I don’t expect you to answer,” said the Russian. “In fact, I would prefer that you not answer. But if you must, please do not make stupid statements that insult my intelligence. Can we agree on that?”

Anna didn’t speak. She had a vague recollection from some long-ago training session that this was a standard KGB interrogation technique—to tell the prisoner details about the case, using bits of information to gather more—and she tried to steel herself. But in this case, steel was blanketed by velvet.

“Stone sacrificed you,” repeated the Russian. “That’s why he let you go to Armenia to rescue poor Dr. Antoyan. And that’s why you’re still here, two months later. You are expendable. I am sorry to have to tell you these facts, but you should know them.”

“I am innocent of the charges against me and I demand to be released to the custody of the American embassy,” Anna said dully. That was part of her standard line, repeated in every interrogation session.

“Yes, of course. I will note that for the record. If it is important for you to say this, I am