Biohazard

"Okay," I said. "I'll leave both letters of resignation with you. You don't have to act on them if you choose not to. If the Supreme Soviet decides that this so-called emergency committee is the legitimate government of the country, I will expect you to put my resignations into action and I will leave this insane country and go to Kazakhstan. If they agree that this is a putsch and we return to the status quo, I'll stay at Biopreparat."

Kalinin looked relieved. I watched as he pulled himself together and stood up, facing me.

"I would advise you, for your own good, to keep your head down," he said stiffly. "Don't do anything foolish until the Supreme Soviet meeting."

"That's my own business."

Neither of us could have known that, even as we spoke, Lukyanov was reporting to his fellow conspirators his failure to secure a quorum of deputies for the August 26 meeting.

After the coup failed, Kalinin destroyed the letter from Urakov's institute and showed the proclamation from Biomash to everyone he met in the ensuing weeks, boasting that "we" at Biopreparat had always known where our true loyalties lay.

If the emergency committee had somehow managed to preserve power, Kalinin would have been the first to propose that the new government abandon Gorbachev's decree halting our biological weapons production lines. And he probably would have been supported by the new leaders, even Kryuchkov.

Vladimir Lebedinsky died soon after the crisis. The old general who had commanded the Fifteenth Directorate for so many years had been ailing for months. He suffered a stroke during an operation to amputate one of his legs.

I was astonished to see how few people showed up at the funeral. Old army comrades like Kalinin and Urakov stayed away, afraid to be seen at a time when sentiment was turning against hard-liners in the military. Nothing deepened my contempt for Kalinin more than his absence that day.

One officer who did show up was Lebedinsky's successor, General Valentin Yevstigneyev. He stood with his head bowed for a long time over the coffin. However insulting he had been during our quarrel over the program's future, I recognized in him a man who was willing to stand up for what he believed in. There were few such people around in the upper levels of the Soviet bureaucracy during those three days in August.

All other Biopreparat facilities remained silent throughout the coup. My institute and Urakov's were the only ones to take a stand. Sandakchiev called me from Siberia when he heard about our proclamation.

"Fine work, Kanatjan," he said. "I'm glad you stood up to the bastards."

"Why don't you get your people at Vector to do the same?" I asked him.

"Moscow is so far away!" he laughed. "It's all politics. It's got nothing to do with us, nothing at all."

Early on the third day of the crisis, August 21,1 was awakened by a call from a man who introduced himself as the duty officer of the Moscow Military District.

"Are you Colonel Kanatjan Alibekov?" he asked.

"Yes."

He cleared his throat.

"I am calling to advise you that you are subject to arrest," he said.

Lena was still sleeping soundly.

"Why?" I asked.

"The colonel general of the Moscow District has announced that all officers who fail to fulfill their duties are subject to a thirty-day preventative arrest," he said, as if reading from a report.

There had been many military officers in the crowd at the institute the day before. Someone had no doubt felt it his duty to inform the authorities of my speech — undoubtedly the informer had raised his hand with the others in favor of our proclamation.

Forty years ago, or even twenty, there would have been no such phone call — just a sharp knock on my door at 3:00 A.M. Times had changed.

"Thank you for telling me," I said.

"You're welcome," he said cordially.

I didn't believe I was really in danger. The night had passed without the attack on the White House that everyone had feared. Yeltsin's parliament, surrounded by tanks from regiments who had announced their support for the Russian government, had survived.

"Who was that?" Lena said.

I told her, and she sat bolt upright in bed.

"Please be careful," she said. "We have three children."

A gray drizzle was falling as I walked outside. I didn't bother to go to Biomash. Slava, who had insisted on keeping me company and acting as my unofficial bodyguard, drove me to the White House.

The crowd was large and restless. Despite the official news blackout, everyone had bits of information to share. Three young men had been killed the previous night in an encounter with a tank on one of the city's boulevards. It was an accident: the tank crew, who were no older than those they killed, had panicked when they were surrounded by a mob of shouting demonstrators. Radios in the crowd were tuned to the Voice of America, and to Ekho Moskvy, a pirate radio station in Moscow that was broadcasting the endless, defiant speeches of parliamentary deputies and Yeltsin supporters inside the building.