Page 182 of Cry Havoc
Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
October 1968
MIKHAIL LAVRINENKO DID NOTbother knocking. His deputy’s secretary knew to bury her head in her work and continue to type.
Though Anatoly Penkovsky’s office was just down the hall on the same floor, Lavrinenko had never been there. He had always summoned the deputy director to his. Walking to a subordinate’s office was not how things were done in the Soviet state, and certainly not how they were done at GRU headquarters.
“Director, I could have come to you,” a surprised Penkovsky said, as he stood from behind a desk that was much smaller than Lavrinenko’s.
Everything about Penkovsky’s office was smaller than that of his superior: the space, the desk, the chair, and the window, though he still had a view of the crematorium.
Lavrinenko surveyed the unfamiliar surroundings.
“Please,” Penkovsky said, offering him a seat.
Instead, Lavrinenko walked to the window on the same side of the desk as his deputy.
“It seems I’ll be at GRU longer than I anticipated,” Lavrinenko said.
“Why?”
“Because I have no successor.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I have been wrestling with something, Anatoly. At first, I didn’t see it, but I think I do now.”
“What, sir?”
“How did the CIA know we had American POWs in Siberia?”
“Major Dvornikov obviously told them under the duress of interrogation.”
“Yes, but I kept asking myself, why go to all the trouble to abduct Dvornikov in the first place? Do you want to know what I came up with?”
“Comrade?”
“I think they already knew about American POWs in Siberia. They didn’t abduct Major Dvornikov andthenfind out about U.S. POWs in Siberia. No. They abducted himbecausethey knew we had them. The intent of their plan was always to trade him for those prisoners.”
“And how would they know that?”
“Someone must have told them.”
“A spy?”
“Yes, in our very midst. I was so busy thinking about how to manage the crisis that I did not stop to ask the most important question: Why—why was Dvornikov targeted?”
Lavrinenko paused and looked back toward the door, where a dark overcoat was hanging on a coatrack.
“I recognize that coat,” he said. “It looks familiar. I believe I have a similar one.”
“It’s quite common,” Penkovsky responded.
“That is yours, is it not?”
“It is.”
“We found that exact coat worn by a man working for the CIA.”
