The Main Enemy by Milton Bearden (epub e reader txt) 📕

Shadrin before him, would be sentenced to death in absentia. It was no wonder he was afraid he might have to testify in court. Perhaps the CIA was trying to ensure that Yurchenko could never go home again.

Santa Fe, 1530 Hours, October 28, 1985

Jack Platt sat across from Mary Howard in a room at the La Quinta motel in Santa Fe. Of those in the intelligence world who knew her at all, Platt probably knew her best. He’d assessed Mary as a hard worker, but Ed’s dominance over her was total. But he wasn’t a marriage counselor. Platt’s job was to get the young Americans up to speed in a matter of a few months and then to send them into the Moscow grinder. It was true, however, that many of the spouses bonded with him and came to look on the gruff ex-Marine as a father figure. Mary was one of those, and he liked her no-nonsense approach to a difficult job.

He recalled how well she had handled herself when she and Howard had been arrested in an elaborately staged drug bust in Washington. The couple had been given the task of recovering a dead-dropped half-pint milk carton, ostensibly loaded with microfilm from a site near the Maine Avenue marina. Just as Howard unloaded the dead drop, both he and Mary were arrested with the violence typical of a drug bust. They were immediately separated. Mary was thrown into the back of a car with one of the FBI’s “Gs” who had become famous for his ability to play the role of a drug addict/dealer. On the ride to the FBI’s Washington Field Office, the G in the car with Mary Howard kept her in a state of near terror as he moaned and complained loudly to the driver that he would vomit if he wasn’t let out of the car immediately. Through all this, Mary remained tearful but silent, even when the FBI agent came into the interrogation room with the “results” of the lab tests on the milk carton she and Howard had retrieved: #3 heroin.

Meanwhile, in a separate WFO interrogation room, Howard had quickly broken cover with the FBI agent playing the role of his attorney. Almost immediately, Howard was ready to shrug off the bust as a joke, while his wife was hanging tough in another room. The arrest was not graded in a formal sense, but Howard had a hard time accepting that Mary had performed more stoically. Platt had come to like and respect the mild-mannered young woman, perhaps more than her husband. But in the end, Howard had done well enough to get Platt’s clearance to enter the Moscow pipeline.

Now, sitting here in the aftermath of Howard’s escape, Mary Howard was attempting to deal with her nightmare, and with the truth. The FBI had maintained full coverage on Mary Howard, including a much belated dispatch of the Gs to Santa Fe, to watch Mary in case she, too, decided to make a break for it. Platt had been asked by the FBI to go to Santa Fe to hold Mary’s hand and nudge her into full cooperation.

Mary knew she was in over her head. After Howard’s escape, in which she had played a supporting role, the FBI told her that her son’s future depended on how she responded to the bureau’s request for a full account of what she knew about her husband’s involvement with the Soviets. Mary came to fear that her son might not only be without a father, but could be without a mother if she didn’t cooperate. So she began to talk, and she sat for two difficult polygraph sessions. Before the polygrapher strapped her to the machine, Platt told Mary Howard, “Just tell the truth.”

After the polygraph sessions, the FBI was satisfied that Mary was not guilty of any criminal acts, since no warrant had been issued for her husband’s arrest at the time she helped him escape. The bureau was convinced that Mary was not involved in her husband’s suspected espionage, although she provided valuable insights into Howard’s actions. Platt saw a new strength developing in Mary.

Before Platt left Santa Fe, Mary Howard received a phone call from a Russian, who told her that her husband was safe and well. The call was probably from Moscow, routed via Switzerland, which was as far as the FBI could trace it.

Washington, D.C., October 31, 1985

The Shadrin story broke in the press as fast as I had predicted, and Yurchenko’s name was mentioned prominently as the source of the new information about Shadrin’s death at the hands of the KGB. Now, Yurchenko felt he could no longer trust the CIA.

Burton Gerber had issued a standing order that Yurchenko should not be brought inside the twenty-five-mile radius around Washington unless he had a business or medical appointment, or unless Gerber had given prior approval to the trip. The point of moving him out to Coventry had been to put him outside the zone in which Russian intelligence officers from the Washington Rezidentura could legally operate; bringing him back downtown placed him at risk of exposure to the Soviets, Gerber believed. But on Halloween, with Yurchenko’s mood worsening, Medanich and a CIA security officer took Yurchenko down to watch the wild Halloween parade and street festival in the city’s Georgetown neighborhood. Yurchenko and his watchers mingled with thousands of partyers along the jammed streets.

Gerber didn’t authorize the trip. He didn’t even hear about the Halloween outing until two nights later, after Yurchenko and one CIA security guard went back to Georgetown one more time.

   16   

Coventry, November 2, 1985

Yurchenko waited until there was just one CIA security officer on duty and then said he was restless and wanted to go for a drive. In violation of standing orders requiring that he be accompanied by more than one security officer when out in public, the young officer, Tom Hannah, agreed to take him for a ride. Yurchenko told Hannah