Biohazard

Similar double games were being played around The System. While I closed production lines down, Davydov was authorizing new railcars for the mobile deployment of biological production plants. He could only have done this with Kalinin's encouragement.

The memo was never sent to institute directors. They knew of its existence but were not in a position to act on it without receiving an order from headquarters.

In July 1990, Communist Party organizations in all government agencies were ordered to hold elections for senior management personnel. The election of cadres policy was part of a new campaign to democratize The System. A year earlier, the first elected political assembly in Russia since 1918 gathered to form the Congress of People's Deputies. In February, the Party gave up its seventy-year monopoly on political power.

Mikhail Ladygin, a loyal Party worker in charge of the Communist organization at Samokatnaya Street, asked for my help in setting up the elections.

"You should go to Kalinin," I said.

"I already have. He wants nothing to do with it."

Kalinin believed there was no place for democracy in Biopreparat. It was a military unit, and military discipline had to prevail. Nevertheless, he was too good a politician to stay for long on the wrong side of a Party decision.

We came up with a compromise. Instead of an election, we would hold a "poll" rating candidates on the basis of scientific knowledge and leadership abilities. The poll wouldn't be binding, but Kalinin fully expected to win. To protect himself against surprises, he ordered the list of candidates to be limited to three people: himself, Colonel Davydov, and me.

Ladygin wasn't happy, but he went along. On the appointed day every employee at headquarters dutifully filled out a questionnaire grading each of us on a scale of one hundred points. The highest score would win.

When the results came in, Kalinin was not pleased.

I won with an average score of eighty-five points. Kalinin was narrowly behind with eighty-three points, and Davydov got thirty.

The results didn't thrill me. Even if I had wanted to replace Kalinin, an "election" was not going to get me the job. It would take more than superficial reforms to change the way the network of military and Party insiders anointed and destroyed its leaders.

When Ladygin presented the poll results to a small group in Kalinin's office and asked when he could make them public, the general scowled. The blow couldn't have come at a worse time: he had not yet told Bykov about the May 5 decree freeing Biopreparat from the medical ministry. Bykov might well use the poll results to relieve him of his post.

"We don't need to publish the results," I said. "Why not let people know informally? We can address this again after vacation."

Kalinin eagerly assented. I thought I had removed what might have been a new source of tension between us, but I was wrong.

Several days later we met with senior management staff for our last major project review before Kalinin's departure for the summer holidays. Kalinin and I were sitting next to each other in our usual places at the head of the conference table. When someone suggested that we review an issue discussed the previous week, I said, "We don't think that's really necessary."

Kalinin glared at me.

"Are you thinking of yourself in the plural now?" he snapped.

Everyone in the room watched us carefully.

"Of course not," I said. "This was our common decision."

We had reached a breaking point. It was time for me to leave Samokatnaya Street.

Visitors

Moscow, 1991

In the fall of 1990, I told Kalinin I wanted a new job. He was less upset than he might have been.

One of the largest Biopreparat facilities in Moscow was a scientific conglomerate known as Biomash. Based at the Institute of Applied Biochemistry, with branches in four other cities, it designed and produced most of the basic technical equipment for our weapons plants, ranging from fermenters to concentration and testing equipment.

For several months Kalinin had been trying to get rid of the Biomash director, but he was unable to find a satisfactory replacement.

"Give the post to me," I said in a meeting with him after we had all returned from summer holidays.

"It's a boring job."

"Not to me."

Kalinin had made his career by eliminating threatening adversaries, and now his newest rival was giving up without a fight. Still, the timing of my departure was inconvenient. He had had no time to think of anyone to take my place.

"I need you here," he said.