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

Isakov, barely waiting for Whitehead to finish his opening remarks, responded in his annoying, almost cloying, manner of speech. “Mr. Yoorchinka is for the first time exercising his free will in your country. His decision to return to his home has certainly been freely made. Mr. Yoorchinka”—Isakov again stressing his own pronunciation of the defector’s name—“was never in the United States of his own free will—”

Cutting Isakov off, Whitehead said, “We’re here to determine only that Mr. Vitaly Yurchenko desires to leave the United States. We have more than ample evidence of Mr. Yurchenko’s freely made decision to come to the United States in August this year. We’d like to hear directly from Mr. Yurchenko.”

Yurchenko seemed agitated and energized, much as he had been the first time I had seen him. He spoke in English. “I am returning to the Soviet Union after more than three months that American special services have taken me in Rome. I escaped from your special services after they have drugged me.” Turning toward me, he said, “This man, Tom Fountain, is from your special services, but I don’t think Tom knows they used drugs with me. But now I am going home.”

I said nothing, and Whitehead ended the meeting as quickly as he began it. “Then it is clear that Mr. Yurchenko has chosen to return to the Soviet Union,” he said. “We will respect that decision, regardless of how it was reached. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here tonight.”

Dulles Airport, 1615 Hours, November 6, 1985

The cameras followed Yurchenko in his Burberry raincoat as he climbed the stairs to the chartered Aeroflot jet, paused for a moment, then turned and waved, more in defiance than as a farewell. FBI agents Rochford and Broce were conspicuously present with the ground maintenance staff at the foot of the stairs, but again, there was no turning back for Yurchenko. He spotted both agents with whom he had become close over the last three months and broke his stride for a second to greet them with a smile. He seemed to be contemplating extending his hand, but he checked himself and then continued up the stairs without a halt.

Back at CIA headquarters, while all eyes were locked on the departing Yurchenko, Rod Carlson was looking intently at the “honor escort.” He turned to Paul Redmond.

“There’s PIMENTA.”

“Which one?” Redmond asked. He had been with Carlson the night before when PIMENTA had telephoned to say he’d be doing “escort duty” to Moscow for a week.

“The second one, the young-looking one.”

Later, in Gerber’s office, Redmond had a sense of foreboding about the presence of yet another spy for the American side taking an unexpected trip back to Moscow.

“I’m worried,” Redmond said. “PIMENTA going back bothers me.”

“Did Howard know about the PIMENTA operation?” Gerber’s question was directed at Redmond.

“PIMENTA wasn’t being geared up for internal handling. I’ll check for paper, something Howard could have seen, but that won’t tell us much. You know how secrets work their way around this place.”

“What about our debriefing of Yurchenko?” I asked. “Did we spend too much time on Line X?” Was it possible that Yurchenko had gleaned from the questions he was asked by the CIA and FBI that the Americans had a source in Line X, which conducted scientific and technical espionage? PIMENTA was a Line X officer in the KGB’s Washington Rezidentura.

“Always possible,” Redmond answered. “Rod can run it by Ames and the others and see what they think. But none of this is going to make much difference. We’ve got another compromise.”

“I’ll check it out,” said Carlson, who was the supervisor of the two men assigned to debrief Yurchenko. “Ames checks in on Fridays from language school.”

During his debriefings, Yurchenko had said that Edward Howard had told the KGB that there was an “angry colonel” who had volunteered to the CIA in Budapest. That had to be GTACCORD.

In mid-September, Moscow reported that GTACCORD had signaled that he had information to pass. But now the SE Division was worried that the KGB had identified GTACCORD as GRU Colonel Vladimir Mikhailovich Vasilliev. There was a good chance of an ambush if the CIA responded to GTACCORD’s request for a meeting in Moscow.

So before Moscow was given the green light to meet with GTACCORD, I was asked to talk with Yurchenko to try to determine how much progress the KGB had made in identifying the “angry colonel” whom Howard had mentioned.

“What can you tell me about the angry colonel Edward Howard betrayed?” I had asked him during a meeting at the Coventry safe house.

Yurchenko bristled for a moment. “Tom, I have told the story of the angry colonel many times. It is always the same.”

“I know, but this is important now.”

“You are meeting him now?” Yurchenko became more interested.

“We are trying to decide what to do. And you can help. I want you to tell me again how far you think the investigation of the angry colonel had gone when you came to us in August.”

Yurchenko was thoughtful. “We were looking at every KGB colonel in Hungary, including every KGB colonel assigned to the Southern Group of Forces of the Red Army. But we had no leads. It was very slow. But they will find him, with patience.”

I focused again on the fact that Yurchenko had assumed that GTACCORD was a KGB colonel, not the military intelligence colonel he in fact was. Howard must have misidentified GTACCORD to the KGB, sending them off in the wrong direction, screening the KGB in Hungary, not the army.

“If they had found the colonel, and brought him under control, do you think they would set up an ambush this soon?”

“Maybe. It’s Dzerzhinsky politics. A colonel is important. But I think they have not found him. I think you can meet him. I would do that.”

The next day, Moscow was told to unload GTACCORD’s dead drop. The operation was pulled off without a hitch a week later, with operatives at the dead drop site finding