Farewell (31 page)

Patrick Ferrant was not exactly surprised by Vetrov’s disappearance. Not knowing the gruesome details that unfolded on February 22, he remembered Vetrov’s erratic behavior on January 26 being a complete departure from his attitude during all the previous rendezvous. Vetrov gave no signs of specific disorders such as depression or of an emotional crisis on the verge of exploding into a murderous rage. As far as Ferrant was concerned, up to then he thought things were going smoothly, and all of a sudden he was left with no news from his contact, with no possibility to turn to someone for help.

He simply sent a detailed report in the military mission pouch indicating the interruption of the contacts with the mole and the strange circumstances of their last meeting (
see Figure 5
). Of course, Ferrant kept going, every Friday, to the small park where they used to meet, but by then Vetrov had long been prevented from honoring their agreement.

The French officer even made several discreet trips to Vetrov’s apartment building to watch out for him. For her part, Madeleine came back equally empty-handed from the emergency weekly contacts at the Cheryomushki market. It was time to face the facts: Volodia had disappeared.

Then, a period of great uncertainty and contained tension started for the Ferrants, who were anxious not to change their habits, to continue living as if nothing had happened, although every day brought new questions about Vetrov’s whereabouts. The couple adopted an attitude close to the one adopted by the DST; kept in the dark, with no means of action, they chose to stay put and wait patiently and calmly, and to stay on the lookout for any providential reappearance of Vetrov at the backup rendezvous.

Figure 5. Ferrant’s report to the DST after Farewell’s disapearance.

We learned that the DST never finalized an evacuation plan. Based on the emergency contact procedures in force, Vetrov’s best chance would have been to plan a murder on a Saturday. At ten a.m. he would have showed up at the Cheryomushki market, buying radishes while at it, then would have left quietly to go kill Ochikina, and afterwards would have had only to patiently wait a few hours before being rescued behind the Borodino Battle Museum at seven p.m. Had Vetrov not lost his self-control, he should have waited an extra day and could have then explained his situation to Ferrant during their rendezvous scheduled for February 23, pressing him to prepare an exfiltration procedure. There are two possible explanations for this enigma: either Vetrov, indeed, had a sudden fit in the car, or he had another plan (see chapter 30). The DST put its hopes in the second chance rendezvous. It was supposed to be on the third Friday of each month; in this case, it would have been March 19.

However, when Farewell did not come to that meeting either, the DST chose to continue thinking that a business trip or a long illness “prevented him from dropping a postcard in a mailbox.”
¹
Does this last detail mean that Farewell still had a way to communicate with “Paul”? If this was true, any message sent through the regular mail, ciphered or not, would have exposed them to a huge risk. The mail addressed to foreigners living in Moscow was systematically opened. Asked about it, Nart explained that in case of a problem cropping up, the signal was to send an anonymous postcard to a specified address, but with a “somber” illustration.
²
In fact, considering the logistical shortcomings of the DST in Moscow, it is not difficult to understand that the low profile the service kept during that period was the result of those circumstances.

Meanwhile, the Vetrovs were meeting at Lefortovo, either in Petrenko’s directorial office or in one of the small interrogation rooms with bars on the window. Usually, there was an investigating magistrate present. He was minding his own business, but the spouses could not exchange any remark without him noticing.

It happened during one of their early visits, in the beginning of October.
³
Apparently, Vetrov feared he might be transferred somewhere else. One day, in the middle of the visit, the magistrate left the room. Vladimir used the opportunity to slip a folded piece of paper in Svetlana’s hand. They knew that the office was probably bugged. It was also possible that the magistrate left them alone on purpose. Vetrov, therefore, indicated to Svetlana only by a gesture to hide the paper.

Once back home, Svetlana realized that the few sentences written on the piece of squared paper were addressed to Jacques Prévost (
see Figure 6
). Vetrov was asking his French friend to take care of his family. Svetlana had no questions, since Vladik had told her everything he knew about his father collaborating with the DST.

She had no intention to contact Jacques Prévost, though. She was too scared. She flinched each time she heard the elevator door opening on their floor. Had they come to arrest her too? A few decades back, Svetlana would have been sentenced to follow her husband to the Gulag. How could she be sure things had truly changed since then? Officially, Stalinism had been condemned, but proven methods could very well still be applied secretly.

The last thing Svetlana wanted was to be dragged into an espionage story. Even if she had been living in poverty and if an intervention by the French had showered her with money, she would not have transmitted the message
⁴
to Prévost. Furthermore, in her opinion, this was totally unrealistic. Svetlana was even wondering whether what Vladik told her was true since in spite of the disappearance of their mole, the French did not make any contact.

Figure 6. The message to Prévost written by Vetrov in the Lefortovo prison.

On the part of the French players who lived in Moscow, Vetrov’s disappearance was at first perplexing, followed by a gnawing anxiety, felt as acutely by the Ameils as by the Ferrants, if not more.

Xavier Ameil, as the reader remembers, handed over to Patrick Ferrant in mid-May of 1981. The Ferrants and the Ameils continued socializing fairly regularly. Both couples knew the nature of their respective relations with Volodia. However, fearing KGB eavesdropping, they never discussed the topic over dinner. Claude Ameil claims that they talked about the whole thing only after they had all returned to France for good. And yet, everyone had remained very discreet since it was only during our interviews that the Ameils learned about many details they ignored concerning “Marguerite” and “Paul’s” meetings with Vetrov. Unlike the Ferrants, the Ameils, who had no diplomatic immunity, never stopped fearing that the KGB would find out what was going on.

Starting in the spring of 1982, Xavier called his wife on the phone to tell her he was leaving the office every evening. They thought that should the KGB learn about Ameil’s role in the Farewell operation, it could seek revenge by setting up a car accident. Claude was worried sick for thirty minutes each night until her husband rang the doorbell.

One evening they had invited friends for dinner, and Xavier called home as usual: “Do you need anything? I am leaving the office now.”

At the set time, he was not home. Claude started worrying. An hour later, Xavier still had not turned up. If something had cropped up at the last minute, Claude hoped that her husband would have called her; but no phone call. The guests were becoming aware of her anxiety.

Two hours later, Xavier turned his key in the door. He was slightly tipsy. He’d had a cocktail at the office with some Russians. Ameil had indeed left the office after having called his wife. Except that he had forgotten to tell her he intended to give a lift home to his three Russian business partners. Claude was so happy to see him safe and sound that she did not lecture him.

By the end of their stay in the Soviet Union, Xavier was alone in Moscow for ten days; each time he left his apartment or the office, he called Ferrant, the only person informed of the affair.

It must be said that their fears were not justified. The KGB could openly arrest an accomplice, but since Khrushchev, “wet affairs” (assassinations) involving foreigners were prohibited.

Ameil noticed another alarming sign. When Xavier came back to Moscow on September 2, 1982, after his summer vacation, he wanted to change clothes, but the pants were missing on the hanger of the suit he planned to wear. Xavier called his wife in Paris: “What did you do with my pants?” Claude had no idea. Inspecting the apartment more closely, Ameil realized that five hundred rubles left in a drawer were gone, and that a few objects had been moved. If it had been a break-in, the damage would have been much worse.

Through friends from the French colony, Xavier knew that instead of making a fuss, it was the usual way to warn a foreigner considered persona non grata: “Leave! Clear out quick, we are tailing you.” In the past, KGB people just left traces of their presence in the apartment, moving objects or changing the combinations of locks. Recently, the rumor was that they had started stealing while “visiting” rooms. When she came back from vacation, the wife of a “diplomat” could not find a single pair of tights in her drawers; her entire stock was gone. Thus, after noticing that his pants and five hundred rubles had disappeared, Xavier concluded it was a warning.

In fairness, it must be reported that Vitaly Karavashkin, who had headed the only KGB service empowered to secretly search French residents’ apartments, vigorously denies such practice. According to him, this was part of the climate of paranoia the KGB created and maintained among foreigners regarding surveillance. We leave the reader free to decide the truth.

On Ferrant’s side, it was no longer the time for fruitless trips to rendezvous spots or hanging around his friend’s home. In Paris, too, they wanted to know more. The decision was made to call Vetrov’s home phone.

Initially considered to make the phone call, Ferrant was eventually taken out of the loop for safety reasons. Nart preferred asking the one person who could the most naturally call Volodia: his old friend from France, Jacques Prévost. To say the least, Prévost was not too keen about carrying out the mission. KGB fear was real on the part of a man who had often stayed in the Soviet capital and had been identified as a DST “honorable correspondent.” It was, therefore, with apprehension that he met Xavier Ameil in Moscow and decided to place the phone call, between October 25 and 29, 1982. To Ameil, on the contrary, this was the continuation of an adventure he had acquired a taste for, but had been taken away from him. He, thus, was the one who insisted Prévost call the Vetrovs’ home. The two men got in a public booth.

The Vetrovs’ phone was tapped, making it possible to relate the transcript of the conversation, which was archived in the investigation file.

The phone rang at 7:26 p.m.

Svetlana Vetrova: “Hello!”

A man’s voice: “Svetlana?”

Svetlana: “Who’s talking?”

The man’s voice, in Russian: “It’s Jacques. Where is Volodia?”

The communication got cut.

“I hung up,” said Svetlana. “I was scared stiff. I was certain it was a trick from the KGB. I imagine that Jacques was as scared as I was and rushed back to Paris.”

Svetlana adds that she was so terrified by the espionage side of the story that even if she had met Jacques by chance in the street, she would not have let on that she knew about it. She would have mentioned only the crime of passion.

This is how the only opportunity to transmit Farewell’s message to the French was lost.

How could the KGB or the CIA have proceeded to find out with certainty what happened to their agent? They would have thoroughly studied pictures of Svetlana and her son. Then they would have tailed them discreetly for a while to make sure they were not followed by the KGB, and to establish their routine itineraries. It would probably have been safer to contact Svetlana through Jacques Prévost, a man she knew and trusted. On the day chosen for this encounter, Svetlana would have been tailed closely a good part of the day. A discreet countersurveillance would have also been put in place to protect Prévost. Then Jacques would have met her on her way home from the museum, and he would have asked her the same question again.