"The president has signed top secret executive order 2579, authorizing the Federal Bureau of Investigation Counterintelligence office to take all necessary measures to neutralize Soviet directorate "S" sleeper-cell agents in the continental United States. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to war." - Deputy Attorney General of The United States.

Forty-eight hours later the FBI had organized a 'Command Performance' for all counterintel agents. KGB Activities in America: The Current Threat, featuring key speaker, recent KGB defector, Nikolai Timoshev, of the Directorate S program in the Soviet Union.

All the old-timers forced to attend, they doubted, extremely that such generational sleepers existed. They thought, though, that if a defector could spin a good story, then that defector could fetch $millions from Uncle Sam.

TAKING STOCK - NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1980

What the hell had we accomplished? We'd been in America sixteen years, we'd just barely stayed one step ahead of America's counterintelligence apparatus, even in pre-Reagan times. We'd seen the rise of Christian nationalism - leading up to last November's presidential election….

….. where the most anti-Soviet politician since Joseph McCarthy had taken the White House. Ronald Reagan, yes the actor. The war monger. He'd been a union president - but he'd also been one of the most reactionary State-governors that there had been in the USA. That included Alabama or Mississippi - strangely, Reagan had got that reputation as Governor of California! The progressives in the Californian universities took him on, but what good did that do?

Come January 20 in three weeks, he'd be replacing Jimmy Carter. Carter had at least been a decent man - perhaps the best of what America could offer.

But as you may wish to remind me - I'm no American.

Okay, okay, outward appearances might betray that I am. I've told Paige that if I ever go and get those cowboy boots I once saw on TV, I'll get her to help me pick them out. Most certainly, Elizabeth was of no help in that regard. She's said more than once that I simply like it in America. Too much. Me, I told her that it was more than that.

It's not just that the electricity in Falls Church works. Me, I fit in. Looking for an opportunity to put illegals work behind me - for my family.

Whatever it was about being raised in Tobolsk, maybe it was only post-War Tobolsk, the eat or be eaten life we had to endure - life there seemed to have transferred here well. Americans, they see each other not as fellow-citizens (except for times of war), they see one another as competitors.

Certainly the travel industry is like that. In 1975 another, more low-cost agency opened within spitting distance of Dupont Circle. We had to go 'predatory' on the guy - Elizabeth had learned a few tricks from her M.B.A. studies - leveraging loans and the like. Lacey and Steve, when they inquired as to why I'd lowered our margins to near zero, they almost quit. Steve said that he did not want to work in a dog-eat-dog atmosphere, one that was guaranteed to fail.

In 1976, though, we finally forced out the other guy. I will admit, that that felt satisfying - I really was figuring out American alligator capitalism. And I had won. That was the best part. Collectivism be damned. Steve, he stayed.

From Elizabeth, I only got criticism. I told her that this type of capitalistic warfare was what Americans did. She reminded me of the real reason for all the charades of marriage, kids, Falls Church, our neighbours, as well as the travel agency. She said that those were necessary evils to support our work - our presence as illegals.

"Our children? Necessary evils?" I had chided back! She accused me of a lack of focus. I tried to caress the back of her neck. She told me to stop. I said to her, "you're my wife!" She turned to looked scornfully at me and said, "is that so!"

I said, "name one operation we've done, where I've been anything other than a pillar?" She couldn't.

Like her I knew my job. Like her, when called upon by The Centre, we did things without fear nor favour, without prejudice. Things that wore us down.

Yet, as January 20, 1981, approached, you could feel it. The election now done, some real fascists were poised to take over. Our missions, they were about to get uglier.

Yes, there was a lot about America to like. Ronald Reagan, though, he was about to turn our work on its head. America, it was going to war. Against me and Elizabeth. We were the illegals. It was our boots on the ground, and our necks on the line.

ROBERT McKENZIE - NEW YEAR'S DAY 1981

PMJ: Holy moley, if it's not Rob! - we gave each other a big hug, including the requisite pat-down for any secret bugs on each of us. Finding none - What's it been, 5 years? How's business? From what I know, you're still flying solo in Philadelphia. Me, I literally know nothing about you, Rob, not now!

RMc: Yeah, it's better that way, I'm now used to it. Me, I just thought I'd trek over to D.C. to see how you and 'the missus' are doing?

PMJ: You were on our minds - you know that Gabriel, that he's gone. Our contact with The Centre, it's now through a guy on the phone, someone named 'George'. At least he's local.

RMc: That's the same guy who calls me, there have been two calls since Gabriel was recalled. The first one was to tell me just that - that the old bugger Gabriel, he finally hit his due date. No replacement as of yet.

PMJ: It's amazing that The Centre still holds to due dates. Me and Elizabeth, we should have been back in Moscow a decade ago.

RMc: - silence - Philip, then there's the second thing. I guess you could say it's the reason I'm here.

PMJ: I'm all ears, Rob. I guess with Gabriel gone… - I said chuckling a bit - … you're our handler now!

RMc: Nikolai Timoshev.

PMJ: There's a blast from the past. - when he did not continue, I said - Okay, 'Nikolai Timoshev'. Twenty years ago, he was one of General Zhukov's men - a trainer for Directorate S. Was disciplined for something, no one ever said.

RMc: Well, after you and Elizabeth infiltrated - you were out of that loop - The Centre would not pass on stuff like that to you, not when you were here.

PMJ: Okay, 'Timoshev'. - I paused, then said half-joking - You're not saying he's here, are you? In America?

RMc: It wasn't Gabriel, but it still was The Centre. Through 'George'. He's here, Philip. In D.C. A guest of the US State Department. Only the American AG knows where he's kept, and they're giving him $millions. There's a Department of Justice guy, David Sepsill who's organizing Timoshev's schedule, including a speaking engagement with FBI counterintel. Sepsill knows where he'll be, and when. I've been given the operation.

PMJ: - was it envy or shock? Either way I paused - He's defected?

RMc: He's defected. He's getting millions. Someone as close to General Zhukov as you can get - at least he was. The Centre's fear is that he's schooling FBI counterintelligence on people like you and me - what we do. Starting with confirmation that we actually DO exist, and have been for decades.

PMJ: Jesus, Elizabeth, she's going to shit.

RMc: There's a boat, a ship, leaving Baltimore in five weeks, February 7th for Finland. I've been ordered - er, we've been ordered, to put Timoshev on it. Alive. I could do the dead part, but not the live part. I can't do this by myself, Philip.

PMJ: Does he have a tail?

RMc: Well, he must have been here for some time - FBI has put him on what is now a predictable surveillance schedule. Sepsill is organizing that, too. Any luck, we can just grab him on the FBI's off day. I haven't yet discovered if the 6th or 7th would be better to grab him.

PMJ: I'd prefer that Elizabeth not be part of this.

RMc: I can't do this, not alone. D.C., it's your 'hood. Me, I know Philadelphia, I'm even comfortable in Boston…. but this is Timoshev. The FBI know who he is. I mean, who doesn't? Take my advice, bring Elizabeth in on it. Point her to Sepsill….

THE JENNINGS HOME

With the kids, Elizabeth was not exactly a 'yeller'. But she was a disciplinarian. If you knew what to look for, you'd see 'post-War Smolensk' in her, raised in grinding poverty by her single-parent mom. To survive the 40s and 50s there, one had to be severe about the basics.

This, though, was Falls Church, Virginia, just as the 1980s were getting going. Our grind, was grinding consumer excess. Still regarded as a new subdivision - our neighbourhood was a bastion of liberal-America, the bourgeoisie. Who behind those progressive views, they were the ones exploiting the labour of America's under-class. Like Stavos, Lacey and Steve.

There was much about our neighbours to admire. Despite our training back home, I now really could see how people rose through the class ranks in places like this. All you needed to do was take advantage when opportunity presented itself.

Elizabeth? She'd spit at the suggestion - but always either on the ground or on a vinyl floor - never on the carpet. She hated it - yes, behind that practised middle-class mom's vacant smile, she abhoured everything American. She saw their spirit as weak.

Her disciplinary views about the children had two flaws, flaws built into the kids themselves.

It was no good yelling at Paige. At 13, she was a compulsive homework-doer. Her room, it was fanatically clean - even cleaner than ours. Great marks at school, never a problem. She'd never, not once, spoken a word of rebellion to either of her parents, not to me nor certainly not to Elizabeth. Truth be told, there was actually nothing to yell at Paige about - even from a Russian point of view based on a bare existence.

Which is why yelling at the nine-year-old Henry did no good either. Unlike Paige, he had a cloud of friends at school - if he didn't get the latest electronic toy from us, plenty of his buddies were exceedingly well decked out in their middle-class homes.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9th, 1981

"Kids!" Elizabeth yelled. "Lunches! Time to get out the door!" True to form, both kids obeyed - soon it was me and just her at our breakfast table.

I broke the silence, "I've got to get going. I've been away from the agency for this whole, botched Timoshev thing."

"I told you, Philip, the mission was more important than even Rob. You knew that - yet Saturday you left him at Emergency. That little detour made us miss the freighter for Finland. That was your screwup, Philip."

I tried to cut through the tension with the quip I'd used while watching the freighter sail away. "It's not my fault everyone is so punctual in this business!"

Elizabeth, she reprised her remark from two nights ago, "Fuck you, Philip. You don't know if Rob, if he's dead or alive - talking. We have a defector - in our car's trunk, in OUR garage!"

I laughed a nervous laugh, hoping what I was to say next did not set Elizabeth off.

"What I've learned about America - I mean, it's me who fits in - is that you take advantage of opportunities when they arise."

Elizabeth looked horrified. "What's that supposed to mean?" she said, looking like she was going to spit on the floor. "The mission, it's all that matters."

I blurted it out, now with only half a laugh. "That man in our trunk, he's worth millions. If dangled to the right people. Dead, he's worth nothing."

To my surprise and a little bit of horror, Elizabeth yelled so loud that she started to cry. Real tears. Unlike the Elizabeth anyone knew. "I don't think you know who that man is!?" She must not have realized her tears, she made no attempt to wipe them from her cheeks. If I didn't know her, I'd have said she was crumbling.

Finally she stood, "me, I'm going to kill him. Right now. I should have done this years ago."

Running after her into the garage, I saw her with a knife, trunk opened, she drew the bound man out and forced him to stand, as wobbly and confused as he was. He then recognized the situation… just as I yelled, "no!"

What she told me next, it was me. I didn't shoot or knife him. I broke his neck. In a fit of anger, I'd ruined our passport to defection.

BALTIMORE HARBOUR

It was cold that night by the harbour at this isolated spot. Yet it did not faze either of us, Elizabeth standing absentmindedly at the passenger door, me across the car at the driver's side - neither of us getting in where it was warm. She was mumbling to herself, "it never goes away, even when he's dead."

"Elizabeth," I said over top of the vehicle. "I never knew. I'm so sorry. I've been a boar to you all these years. A real pig."

"This isn't about you, Philip." For the first time, she then wiped tears from her cheeks, said that after her own assault, that she'd learned there were others. "That man back there, sinking dead in the harbour, he was an insult to women of the revolution. He was nothing but protected."

"He won't bother you any more."

She finally looked over at me, "fuck you, this isn't about you, Philip. I didn't need you to kill him for me. You cannot protect me, Philip. This is something I live with every day of my life." She then said that the worst part for her, after the assault, she felt she'd never be able to do the Directorate S job she was being trained for. Rape made her feel so empty and weak.

I said softly, in a voice almost lost in the nighttime, maritime noises, "I listened to the Sepsill tape you made, Elizabeth. All of it. From the intel you got, yet," I paused, "all the way to the sounds you and he made - I heard firsthand, you can 'do your job'."

"Fuck off, Philip. It's just sex. What's sex? I got the intel about Timoshev, that was all that mattered."

At that we got into the car, each on our own side. Then Elizabeth looked at me, deep in contemplation about something. I never knew what. Her tears had stopped. She then reached over and undid my pants. She then sidled over to the driver's side and mounted me, with her panties pulled aside. There was a first!

Sixteen years ago in our first American motel, us just off the boat, she'd said at my advances, "I'm not ready." Subsequent to that, even with two children, she'd been cold as ice.

All she now said was, "you chose me, you chose the mission, you didn't sell the man for millions." This was a woman who I'd met twenty years ago. And I still had no idea what made her tick.

NEIGHBOURS - SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1981

I'd been told by Martha, that the FBI had tied a kidnapped Russian, to a '77 Oldsmobile, gold, with D.C. plates and 'bumper stickers'. Just like the one in our garage. Like the one which had held Timoshev. Shit. Fuck.

I had just come in the door from a Saturday morning at Dupont Circle Travel, and our home smelled wonderful. Elizabeth, she'd been baking. Brownies.

I said, "hey, honey, the new people across the street, they're there with their truck."

Elizabeth said, "who do you think these are for?" She threw a tea-towel over the still warm baking, and yelled, "Paige! Henry! We're going over!" Both Paige as well as her brother raced for the door, to stay within smelling-distance of the aroma.

Over there with the new family we introduced ourselves. Paige, she seemed awkward in the presence of the couple's son, a boy her age.

"Hi neighbours," Elizabeth said with an upbeat lilt of middle-class optimism. "I'm Elizabeth, this is my husband Philip, and the two rude ones…. Paige, and Henry."

The woman said, "You didn't have to, but this is so nice! I'm Sandra, by the way. We've just moved from St. Louis."

I looked at the tall, strawberry-blond man - he looked like he worked at every ad agency there was. He said, "and I'm Stan."

I asked, "and what do you do, Stan?"

He said without so much as a waver, "oh, I'm FBI, I work in counterintelligence."

I said as plainly as I could manage…..

…. "Oh".