Liberty by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online

boyfriend introduced her to Ilin, who over the course of four dinners, one a week for a month, felt her out about her political views.
    She was not a communist and she told him so. She labeled herself a citizen of the world who happened to be Russian. She believed in democracy, she bravely told Ilin, and the rule of law.
    Finally, at the fourth dinner, Ilin asked her to leave Russia, to get a job in European finance and provide him with information, when and if circumstances required it. Of course she refused. She thought he was asking on behalf of the KGB, now the SVR, the senior officers of which had just tried to overthrow Gorbachev in a coup d’état and were now under arrest.
    â€œI am not asking for anything,” Ilin said. He laid a passport and exit visa on the table and pushed it across to
her. “No strings. I shall provide you with a drop, which is a way to communicate with me. If you ever discover anything you wish to tell me, you may use the drop. If you don’t, never use it.”
    She refused the offer, but two weeks later, when Ilin called again, she decided to talk with him one more time. The thought of leaving Russia intrigued her. She had never been abroad. She had heard so much of the West—seeing it, living there, working there would be a great adventure. She could always return to Russia if she ever wished to. Her parents were elderly, and she talked about the possibility with them, leaving out Janos Ilin and his conversations with her. Seeing her enthusiasm, they gave a reluctant approval.
    So she listened carefully to Ilin and decided to take a chance. This time, when he handed her the passport and exit visa, she had put them in her pocket.
    Upon graduation six weeks later she went to Switzerland and began hunting a job. Her linguistic skills landed her in a Zurich bank. She heard nothing from Ilin for five years.
    One day she ran into him on a street corner as she left her building for lunch.
    He picked the bistro and the booth. Over a sandwich and glass of wine, he asked how she was, how she was doing. Finally he got around to it: “I would like for you to apply for a job at Walney’s Bank in Cairo. They have an opening for an experienced European banker, and I think they might hire you.”
    â€œAre you asking me to spy for the SVR?”
    â€œNo. I have a friend inside Walney’s. I want you to carry messages from me to him, and him to me. I want you to be a courier.”
    â€œThat sounds like spying to me,” she retorted, thinking of her Swiss friends and a man she thought might be in love with her.
    Ilin had taken his time answering. They were in a corner booth where no one could overhear their conversation.
“Walney’s is involved in financing Islamic terrorist organizations. These groups are composed of fanatics who murder people for political or religious reasons.”
    â€œWhat if I’m caught?”
    â€œYou will be tortured for every scrap of information you know, then murdered.”
    â€œAnd you thought of me. I’m flattered.”
    â€œSomeone has to do it.”
    After a week’s thought, she had applied to Walney’s. They asked her to come to Cairo for an interview. Then they hired her. That was five years ago.
    Anna soon decided there was no spy at all. The drop, an opening in a brick wall behind a loose toilet paper dispenser in the ladies’ room, was never used. One had to reach behind the dispenser with two fingers to extract whatever was there while sitting on one of the commodes. At first she checked it daily, then weekly, finally once a month or so. Nothing. Until five months ago, when she found the first wadded-up candy wrapper in the drop.
    The information was on a tiny roll of film inside the wrapper. The candy wrapper seemed innocuous. The film certainly wasn’t. Someone was risking their life photographing records, just as she was risking her life carrying the film.
    She carried the wrappers