Biohazard

All of the director's charm rapidly vanished. He accused me of stealing his people's patrimony and vowed he would appeal to the government of Georgia, which had declared sovereignty the previous year.

"This laboratory is the property of the Soviet government," I said. "As its representative, I've made my decision."

We had to find a taxi to get us to the airport for our return flight to Moscow, but I didn't mind.

My trip to Tbilisi exposed me to a more complex problem than graft or medical incompetence. Nationalism in the different Soviet republics was beginning to tear the country apart, and it was tugging at me.

We never studied Kazakh history in school, where even our language was mocked, and over the years I had learned how to integrate myself in the system, how to become a Soviet man. I was now one of the highest-ranking Kazakhs in the Russian army, if not the Soviet government. I knew of only one other senior Kazakh in Moscow, a well-respected general. Kalinin sometimes appeared to be blind to my ethnic features. He would make disparaging comments about Central Asians or people from the Caucasus in my presence as if I were as Russian as he. But when I stepped out of my official car in Moscow, I was often taunted with racial jibes. Nationalist sentiments were rising in Kazakhstan as well as the other Central Asian republics. As more republics declared sovereignty or independence, I began to wonder where my allegiances should lie.

When Lithuania declared independence on March 11, 1990, General Volkov of Gosplan called senior representatives from the Ministry of Health and other organizations linked with our program to his office for an urgent meeting.

"We need to know what projects your agencies are supporting in Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia," he said.

We would be required to suspend them as part of the economic pressure the Kremlin was applying on the Baltic countries.

Biopreparat had several civilian-run facilities in Lithuania. One was the most modern laboratory in the Soviet Union, thanks to my predecessor, General Anatoly Vorobyov, who so much enjoyed traveling to the Baltics that he funneled over $10 million in hard currency to purchase sophisticated Western equipment.

The lab in Vilnius was the only facility in the country that used genetic engineering techniques to produce interferon, part of the body's natural immune system and used for treatment of hepatitis B and several types of cancer. If it closed down, our top Party officials would lose some of the high-quality medical care they expected.

The order to cut off funding was given and then reversed. Even our political leaders seemed unable to stick to their decisions.

Doubt and uncertainty were creeping into every level of national life. New publications, new revelations, new movies, new books challenged our assumptions every month.

One book in particular created a powerful sensation at Samokatnaya Street — a fictionalized account of the Lysenko genetics controversy that had sent so many scientists to prison in the 1940s and 1950s. It was called Belye Odezhdy (White Robes). No one had dared to discuss the subject in print before. The book, written by popular historical novelist Vladimir Dudintsev, appeared in 1988, but copies were hard to get. When I finally obtained one from a friend at the office, I stayed up all night to read it and then read it seven or eight times more. Soon all of us were discussing its provocative theme: the role played by the Soviet state and the Communist Party in stifling science.

In April 1990, the government announced that it was planning another reorganization. This time, the Ministry of Medical Industry would be broken up into separate state enterprises. Soon after this announcement, a friend came to me with a job offer from General Yevstigneyev, who had replaced the ailing Lebedinsky as head of the Fifteenth Directorate earlier that year. Yevstigneyev invited me to become his deputy, a position that would mean automatic promotion to the rank of major general.

"Nobody thinks Biopreparat is going to last," my friend warned. "This is probably a safe bet."

I spent the weekend thinking about it. Finally, I turned it down. I had decided to move in a different direction. Kalinin called me into his office one afternoon to discuss the proposed reorganization.

"This could be a way to preserve Biopreparat," he mused. "If we could convince Gorbachev's people to turn us into a separate program again, we could protect ourselves."

"I can't believe Gorbachev will have much time to think about the structure of Biopreparat," I said. "He's got a lot of other things on his mind."

Kalinin looked at me curiously. By now, he knew me well.

"Are you trying to say you have another idea?"

"I do," I said.

"Well, don't sit there dreaming about it."

I drew a deep breath. The announcement of the restructuring plan had given me an opportunity to revive an idea I'd been thinking about ever since Kryuchkov's memo.