Biohazard

Back in Moscow, I told Lena what I had done. She agreed without hesitation that we should go. She was angry about my treatment in Kazakhstan and feared for my safety in Moscow.

In September I arrived in New York with my friend Naum. We had planned to spend a week in the city talking to Russian emigres about trade possibilities, and we'd booked a double room in a hotel at Thirtieth Street and Broadway.

As soon as we arrived I called my friend. She offered to meet me anywhere, but I decided the hotel was the best place. I was nervous about venturing alone into the streets of a strange city where I couldn't speak the language and where I knew the KGB had agents. I pulled Naum aside.

"I have a favor to ask you," I said.

"Go ahead. Ask."

"I'm not sure how to put this, but there's a friend here in New York I need to see," I said awkwardly. "She's kind of an old girlfriend, and I thought we could get together for old time's sake, you know, so if you wouldn't mind staying clear of our room this afternoon…"

Naum winked.

"Of course. Anything to oblige."

My friend arrived a few hours later. She was nervous and spoke quickly. Lisa Bronson had given her the names of some people in Washington to call.

"They're ready whenever you are," she said. "They'll set you up so you can get paid as a consultant in biological defense. But there's one thing."

"What?"

"They want you to do it now. They think that if you go back, there's a risk you'll never be allowed to leave. They can arrange r<> get your wife and children out later." I told her this was impossible. She smiled faintly.

"They thought you might not agree, but they felt they had to ask."

She gave me precise instructions for the arrangements I would have to make. The instructions involved officials in Kazakhstan, Russia, and other countries, all of whom would be compromised if their efforts could be traced. The details of my escape to America are the only secrets I have resolved to keep.

A week later I was back in Moscow. On the night of my return, I asked Lena to join me for a walk and explained the plan. I could take no risk of being overheard by KGB bugs. We decided to tell Mira but not the boys. Mira was fifteen, old enough to keep a secret, but Alan was twelve and Timur barely seven. The boys wouldn't have been able to resist bragging to their friends about a trip to America.

Discreetly, we began to prepare for our departure. I sold a few books and keepsakes, but decided to leave most of our furniture in the apartment to avoid arousing our neighbors' suspicions. I arranged with a relative for the sale of our household goods after we left. The money would be used to pay off our debts. I wanted no one to say I had left Russia to avoid creditors.

In the final weeks of September, we tried to lead as normal a life as possible. We told the boys that we would soon be going on holiday to Almaty.

The day before we were supposed to leave, we got a call from the KGB. The caller introduced himself as Captain Zaitsev of the Moscow Region KGB. He spoke in a low and pleasant voice.

"We'd like to have a talk with you," he said. "Would you mind coming down to our office?"

"I've got no time today," I said.

"How about tomorrow?" "Ah," I said. "I'm flying to Almaty tomorrow."

"It really is urgent."

"Couldn't it wait until my return?"

"When is that?"

"Two weeks or so," I said.

He sounded unsure.

"Could I call you tomorrow, anyway?" "Go ahead," I said.

I didn't wait for his call. The following day, we flew to Kazakhstan.

As I walked into the old apartment on Communist Prospekt I wondered if I would ever see it again.

My father had gone completely deaf, so I had to write my plans out on a pad of paper and show it to him. The old soldier read carefully. We stared at each other for a few moments, then he reached over and took my hand. He said nothing, but I understood I had his approval.

Later, I sat in the kitchen with my mother and brother. We spoke in Kazakh and Russian.

My mother asked me why I was leaving.

I told her about the surveillance, the phone taps, the great difficulty of finding the kind of work I wanted to do. And I told her about my encounter with the Kazakh Defense Ministry. Her voice was firm when she finally answered.

"You have no choice for yourself, or for your family. You have my blessing."

My experiences had touched a chord. As my brother and His tened in awestruck silence, my mother began telling us a story about the family we had never heard before. She had been a girl of ten when her father, my grandfather, was arrested by the security police on a trumped-up political charge. In prison, he contracted a fatal illness. My grandmother was allowed into the prison hospital with her two children — my mother and my uncle — to pay him a last visit.