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“No way,” said McCready calmly. “We’d have to have known time and place for the hit in Washington. We didn’t. It’s either Orlov setting them up by prearrangement, or it’s on your side. You know what I think; it’s Orlov. By the by, how many on your side have access to the Orlov product?”
“Sixteen,” said Roth.
“Jesus. You could have taken an ad in the New York Times.”
“Me, two assistants, tape-deck operators, analysts—it mounts up. The FBI knew about the Remyants pickup, but not Milton-Rice. Sixteen would have known about both—in time. I’m afraid we have a loose nut—probably low level, a clerk, cryptographer, secretary.”
“And I think you have a phony defector.”
“Whatever, I’m going to find out.”
“Can I come?” asked Sam.
“Sorry, buddy, not this time. This is CIA business now. In-house. See you, Sam.”
Colonel Pyotr Orlov noticed the change in the people around him as soon as Roth arrived back at Alconbury. Within minutes, the jocular familiarity had vanished. The CIA staff within the building became withdrawn and formal. Orlov waited patiently.
When Roth took his place opposite him in the debriefing room, two aides wheeled in a machine on a trolley. Orlov glanced at it. He had seen it before. The polygraph. His eyes went back to Roth.
“Something wrong, Joe?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, Peter, something very wrong.”
In a few brief sentences Roth informed the Ru
ssian of the fiasco in Washington. Something flickered in Orlov’s eyes. Fear? Guilt? The machine would find out.
Orlov made no protest as the technicians fitted the disks to his chest, wrists, and forehead. Roth did not operate the machine—there was a technician for that—but he knew the questions he wanted to ask.
The polygraph looks and performs something like an electrocardiograph found in any hospital. It records heart rate, pulse, sweating—any symptom normally produced by someone telling lies while under pressure, and the mental pressure is exercised simply by the experience of being tested.
Roth began as always with simple questions designed to establish a response norm. The fine pen drifted lazily over the rolling paper in gentle rises and falls. Three times Orlov had been so tested, and three times he had produced no noticeable symptoms as of a man lying. Roth asked him about his background, his years in the KGB, his defection—the information he had given so far.
Then he went for the hard ones. “Are you a double agent working for the KGB?”
“No.”
The pen kept drifting slowly up and down.
“Is the information you have given so far truthful?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any last vital information you have not given us?”
Orlov was silent. Then he gripped the arms of his chair. “No.”
The fine pen swerved violently up and down several times before settling. Roth glanced at the operator and got a nod of confirmation. He rose, crossed to the machine, glanced at the paper, and told the operator to switch it off.
“I’m sorry, Peter, but that was a lie.”
There was silence in the room. Five people gazed at the Russian, who was looking at the floor. Finally, he raised his eyes.
“Joe, my friend, can I speak to you? Alone? Really alone? No microphones—just you and me?”
It was against the rules, and a risk. Roth thought it over. Why? What did this enigmatic man who had failed the lie-detector test for the first time want to say that even security-cleared staff were not to hear? He nodded abruptly.
When they were alone, all the technology disconnected, he said, “Well?”
