Biohazard

Butuzov was guarded about the lab's work, but he mentioned a few of its "achievements." In the late 1940s, a powdered version of plague was manufactured for use in a tiny toiletry container, like talcum powder. An assassin could approach a target from behind, spray the lethal powder, and vanish before his victim knew there had been an attack. The assassin would of course have to be vaccinated against plague beforehand to protect him from stray particles.

This device was to be used against Marshal Tito, the Communist partisan who became head of postwar Yugoslavia.

Tito provoked Stalin's anger in 1948 with his plan for a Balkan federation that would dramatically reduce Moscow's control over the region. At the last moment, Stalin decided against assassination. Tito lived to take Yugoslavia down the road of nonalignment and died an old man in 1980.

"Why did Stalin change his mind?" I asked.

Butuzov laughed.

"The only person who knows that is Stalin," he said.

Laboratory 12 was kept busy during the 1970s. In September 1978, Georgy Markov, a Bulgarian dissident, was taken to a hospital in London suffering from a mysterious ailment. Before he died, he casually mentioned that a stranger had grazed him with the tip of an umbrella while walking across Waterloo Bridge. Puzzled doctors were unable to trace the cause of death until a Bulgarian emigre in Paris reported falling sick after a similar scrape with an umbrella. When a second autopsy was performed on Markov, the coroner found the remains of a tiny pellet with traces of ricin, a toxin made from castor beans.

The ricin came from Laboratory 12.

Nearly eight months earlier, the Soviet Union had been asked by the Bulgarian government of Todor Zhivkov to help assassinate Markov. Bulgaria's intelligence service passed the request to its Russian counterpart, but the KGB chairman, Yury Andropov, balked at sending his own hit men to do the job. Instead, he authorized a special consignment of ricin to be sent from Laboratory 12 to Sofia. KGB technicians were sent along to train Bulgarian agents. There were several unlucky rehearsals: at least two failed attempts on Bulgarian exiles, including the one in Paris, were made around the same period.

Butuzov eventually told me why he was based at Biopreparat.

"The pharmacology institute worked exclusively with chemicals," he said, "but we decided the biological area was more promising. So they sent me to your shop."

I don't know what Butuzov really thought about his job, but I noticed that as perestroika and "new thinking" came to penetrate more of our political life, he seemed less busy. He looked more relaxed than usual, but I think he was also bored.

In the spring of 1990, Butuzov walked into my office and sank into the big armchair across from my desk. He stared for a while at the portraits of scientists hanging on the wall.

"I need your advice on something, Kan," he said casually.

"Sure," I said. "Professional or personal?"

"Professional."

I waited until he spoke again.

"I'm looking for something that will work with a gadget I've designed. It's a small battery, the kind you use for watches, connected to a vibrating plate and an electric element."

"Go on," I said. He spoke in the same casual tone in which we discussed a soccer match. I was fascinated.

"Well, when you charge this element up, the plate will start vibrating at a high frequency, right?"

"Right."

"So, if you had a speck of dried powder on that plate, it will start to form an aerosol when it vibrates."

He looked at me for encouragement, and I motioned for him to

continue.

"Let's say we put this assembly into a tiny box, maybe an empty pack of Marlboro cigarettes, and then find a way to put the pack under someone's desk, or in his trash basket. If we were then to set it in motion, the aerosol would do the job right away, wouldn't it?"

"It depends on the agent," I said. "Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about. What's the best agent to use in such a situation if the objective is death?"

I'm not sure why I went along with him, but I did.

"You could use minimal amounts of tularemia," I said, "but it wouldn't necessarily kill."

"I know," said Butuzov. "We were thinking of something like Ebola."

"That would work. But you'd have a high probability of killing not just this person, but everyone around him."

"That wouldn't matter."

"Valera," I said. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Is this a theoretical discussion, or do you have someone in mind?"

A grin crossed his face.

"No one in particular," he said. "Well, maybe there is one person — Gamsakhurdia, for example."