Biohazard

As my commanding officer, Kalinin could have ordered me to do as he pleased. But he knew that by appealing to my sense of loyalty, he would lower my resistance. Grudgingly, I accepted.

"Good. There will be a bus outside Smolenskaya at seven o'clock on Monday morning. The delegation will be waiting for you there."

The curious thing is that I began to enjoy the prospect of escorting this delegation. I had never met an American or British scientist before, and this would be the first opportunity to meet people in the enemy camp who knew something of our trade. Not that I intended to exchange notes. As a staunch patriot, I would do everything in my power to prevent the foreigners from drawing the logical conclusions.

The fifteen people waiting outside the Soviet Foreign Ministry on Monday, January 15, looked sleepy and cold. It was still dark, and they were shivering despite their comfortable down parkas and fur-lined boots. The fact that I didn't know a single word of English made that first encounter awkward for me, but it didn't seem to bother Savva Yermoshin. He led the KGB contingent that had been surreptitiously added to our welcoming party.

Yermoshin introduced himself eagerly in broken English to each member of the delegation. He whispered to me later that he'd figured out which ones were spies.

Disconcertingly, they knew a lot about us. One asked through a translator why "Biopreparat chief Kalinin" hadn't come to greet them.

"Unfortunately, Mister Kalinin is extremely busy at the moment," I said. "He wishes he could be here with you and asked me to give you his regards."

That was our first lie, but I enjoyed telling it. Kalinin had made a special point of instructing me never to mention his name.

Everyone on the Soviet side wore suits and ties except for me. I wore an old brown sweater, which had served for the past several months as my silent protest against official protocol. Apparently they found this disconcerting.

"That sweater worried us," one of the visitors laughingly admitted to me during a "reunion" in much happier circumstances at my house in Virginia in 1998. "We thought you wore it to conceal some sort of secret equipment."

We piled into the large bus waiting at the curb. Our first stop was the Institute of Immunology at Lyubychany, about ninety minutes' drive south of Moscow. Yermoshin and his security group crowded into a black minivan and followed closely behind as we set off through Moscow's morning rush-hour traffic.

The bus driver had been advised not to hurry. The strategy, carefully worked out over the previous weeks, was to waste as much time as possible during the nonessential parts of the tour, to reduce the "official" segments in which our visitors could exercise their curiosity. We had also notified our institute directors in advance to stock up on supplies of vodka and cognac, in the hope of befuddling them with Russian hospitality.

The driver obeyed his instructions so punctiliously I was convinced we were lost.

Lyubychany was an easy stop. Since its activities were largely confined to theoretical analysis and defense work, there were no suspicious pathogens on hand.

Nevertheless, we refused to give our visitors the benefit of the doubt. The institute director, a scientist named Zavyalov, spent most of the morning talking about his research projects. Then he provided a sumptuous lunch. By the time he was finished, only a few hours remained for the inspection.

We had reserved two days for each visit. On the second day at Lyubychany, I began to challenge behavior that could be construed as threatening. I stopped Chris Davis, the leader of the British group, when he pulled out a tiny tape recorder.

"Not permitted," I said.

He looked puzzled.

"But we were only told we couldn't videotape," he protested.

After wasting some time in negotiations, I magnanimously conceded the point.

When I returned to Samokatnaya Street later that day I described our feints and evasions to a delighted Kalinin. I decided not to bring up the fact that they had asked after him.

"Wonderful," he said. "Keep it up."

Obolensk, our next destination, was more difficult. It would require finesse to explain the heavily insulated buildings and labs, the animal cages in our bacteriological genetic engineering program, and other elements of a biowarfare infrastructure. It would be hard, I thought, to conceal our projects to develop antibiotic-resistant strains of tularemia, plague, brucellosis, glanders, melioidosis, and anthrax and to pass our work off as biodefense.

General Urakov surpassed my expectations. The crusty director of Obolensk became the soul of conviviality and tact. Attendants paraded in and out of the conference room with platters of sandwiches and drinks.

By now, the delegation had figured out our tricks. They refused to touch anything.

"Could we finally get to work?" Davis said as Urakov paused for breath during an extended welcoming speech.