Page 56 of The Other Woman

“Ivan Kharkov.”

Sergei Morosov smiled. “Your old friend.”

Because he came to the Red Banner Institute directly from university, Sergei Morosov’s training period was three years in length. Upon graduation he was assigned to the First Chief Directorate and placed on the German operations desk at Moscow Center, the directorate’s wooded headquarters in Yasenevo. A year later he was assigned to therezidenturain East Berlin, where he witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, knowing full well the Soviet Union would crumble next. The end came in December 1991. “I was inside Yasenevo when they lowered the hammer and sickle at the Kremlin. We all got drunk, and we stayed drunk for the better part of the next decade.”

In the post-Soviet era, the KGB was disbanded, renamed, reorganized, and renamed again. Eventually, the basic elements of the old organization were split into two new services: the FSB and the SVR. The FSB handled domestic security and counterintelligence, and took over the KGB’s old central headquarters in Lubyanka Square. The SVR became Russia’s new foreign intelligence service. Headquartered in Yasenevo, it was essentially the old First Chief Directorate of the KGB with a new name. The United States, ostensibly a Russian ally, remained the SVR’s primary obsession, though officially the SVR referred to America as the “main target” instead of the “main enemy.” NATO and Great Britain were also primary targets for collection.

“And Israel?” asked Gabriel.

“We never gave you more than a passing thought. That is, until you got into your feud with Ivan.”

“What about you?” asked Gabriel. “How did Sergei Morosov fare in the new world order?”

He hung around Berlin, where he constructed a stay-behind network of agents that would spy the daylights out of the reunified Germany for years to come. Then it was off to Helsinki where, under a new name, he served as deputyrezident. He became arezidentfor the first time in 2004 in The Hague and then, in 2009, he reprised the role in Ottawa, an important post, given its proximity to the United States. Unfortunately, he got into a bit of trouble—“A girl and the Canadian minister of defense, water under the bridge”—and the Canadians told him to take a hike, quietly, so as not to start a tit-for-tat scandal. He cooled his heels at Moscow Center for a couple of years, changed his name and his face, and then returned to Germany as Sergei Morosov, a Russian banking specialist employed by Globaltek Consulting.

“The German services were so clueless, no one remembered me from my days in East Berlin.”

“Does Globaltek do any actual consulting?”

“Quite a bit. And we’re rather good, I must say. But mainly we function as arezidenturain the heart of the German business community, and I’m therezident.”

“Not anymore,” said Gabriel. “You’re a defector now, but please continue.”

Globaltek, said Sergei Morosov, served two functions. Its main task was to identify potential assets and steal German industrial technology, which Russia needed desperately. To that end, Globaltek ran numerouskompromatoperations against prominent German businessmen. Most of the operations involved illicit payments of money, or sex.

“Women, boys, animals...” Sergei Morosov shrugged. “The Germans, Allon, are a freewheeling lot.”

“And the second function?”

“We service sensitive assets.”

“Assets who require special care because their exposure would create problems for the Kremlin.” Gabriel paused, then added, “Assets like Werner Schwarz.”

“Correct.”

By any objective measure, Sergei Morosov continued, the Globaltek operation was a smashing success. Which was why he was surprised by the message that arrived in his encrypted mailbox on an unusually warm October afternoon.

“What was it?”

“A summons from Moscow Center.”

“Surely,” said Gabriel, “you returned home for consultations frequently.”

“Of course. But this one was different.”

“What did you do?”

Sergei Morosov did what any SVR officer would have done under similar circumstances. He put his affairs in order and penned a letter of farewell to his sainted mother. And in the morning, certain in the knowledge he would soon be dead, he boarded an Aeroflot flight to Moscow.

37

Upper Galilee, Israel

“You’ve been to Moscow, yes?”

“Several times,” admitted Gabriel.

“You like Moscow?”