The First Billion

Outside, a warm sun shone down on the white birch forest that surrounded the office complex. Kirov had always enjoyed the view, finding calm and serenity in the leafy environs. Unfortunately, he could no longer see many of the trees. Dirt an inch thick coated the windows. The window washers had left with Gorbachev. Closing the blinds, he stretched on tiptoes to turn on the electric fan. He would have preferred to open the window, but that was not an option. The "empire at Yasenevo," as some of the intelligence service's detractors called the twin office blocks situated on the outskirts of Moscow, had been constructed in the late 1970s, a prefabricated concrete jigsaw puzzle once a marvel of the Brezhnev era. Soon after its completion, the foundation had mysteriously settled, leaving Kirov's tower "whiff skew," warping the steel superstructure and rendering the windows impossible to open.

Kirov benignly dismissed the shortcomings. He would gladly trade the second-rate power unable to pay its own postage for the fiercesome Soviet State responsible for the frozen windows.

Opening the top drawer, he rummaged for a letter opener. The sound of the tape's being ripped off the wax paper was like a scream in an abandoned church. He upended the package, and a neat black cartridge tumbled onto his desk. Pinching the cartridge between his fingers, he read the ASA number, and below it, written in Lapis's neat script, the actual film speed used in taking the photographs. He scribbled both figures on the corner of the newspaper. Post-its, notepads, and unruled paper were rationed commodities. A moment later he was out of his office, attacking the hallway with the no-nonsense gait of a man half his age.

At seven o'clock on a Friday evening, the building was deserted. Spying had become a nine-to-five job. Walking through the fusty corridors was like touring a ghost town. Doors to many of the offices were open. A glance inside revealed chairs tipped forward onto desks, as per regulations, carpets rolled up, occupants long gone. Some had been let go. Most had fled to the private sector, modern-day defectors.

Four flights of stairs took him to the eighth floor and photo processing. Elevators were out of service over the weekend. Power was supplied by the department's own generators, and the lifts consumed too much electricity. The chief was quick to point out that oil was priced for export and paid for in dollars.

Ah, oil, he mused. In the end, everything always comes back to oil.

He thought of the detailed model of the pump station locked in the old briefing room. He would permit himself a last look while the film was drying.

The lab was open and, like the rest of the building, unoccupied. Kirov flicked on the lights and set to work developing Lapis's film. He was happy to find the necessary chemicals in abundant supply, less so to discover only two pieces of photo paper remaining. He would use one as a proof sheet, the second for any "gems" Lapis might have turned up. There was no use being upset, he decided, reminding himself that a year ago the lab had been out of paper for three months. This was simply the result of democratization- proof positive that unfettered capitalism had no place in modern Russia.

Over the past ten years, the KGB had withered like a rose starved of water. Thirty foreign residences had been closed, staff cut by 80 percent. Typically, a foreign residency could count on a minimum of sixteen officers. Officers were assigned a particular duty, a specific "line" to manage. The PR Line officer was responsible for political, economic, and military affairs. The KR Line officer oversaw counterintelligence. The Line X officer was in charge of collecting scientific intelligence. Other officers took care of signals intelligence, harassed Soviet émigrés in the area, and kept a watchful eye on the local Soviet colony. These days a foreign residency could count itself lucky to have two officers to fulfill all these functions.

Not only had the KGB shrunk, but it had been divided into four separate and self-governing entities. The SBP, or Presidential Security Service, handled the protection of the president. The Border Guards manned the frontiers. The FSB, or Federal Security Service, made up of branches of the komitet that had once repressed internal political dissent, dealt exclusively with domestic police matters. And the FIS, or Foreign Intelligence Service, carried on the job of the First Chief Directorate- namely, the gathering of intelligence designed to further Soviet foreign policy goals and the implementation of a broad range of "active measures," such as disinformation, murder, and the support of international terrorism with the goal of destabilizing the country's enemies.