presents a detailed summary of:
|
HUNTING FOR THE PASTby Lev Prozorovsky1985 Riga, "Liesma" OKHOTNIKI ZA PROSHLIM |
One cold spring night, an alarm is raised at a Baltic sea border
post. A man is spotted landing on the coast and dashing into the
forest. Border guards quickly scramble and apprehend him. The
captured person (Bergmanis) is the son of Latvian emigres.
He
claims he grew disillusioned with the Western lifestyle and merely
wanted to return and live with his sister, who resides
in a Latvian village. The KGB, however, finds a hidden
two-man submarine, and when confronted with it, Bergmanis admits
there was a second person who arrived with him.|
Visit: LAT NET |
The search for the second agent leads first to a "cultural worker" at a sea side resort. (Photographs & accordion playing for the tourists). He is replaced with a KGB operative. A bearded geologist named Viktor Serfik then shows up, asking about some local residents, including an old retired forester named "Rosenberg" and an elderly woman named "Biruta".
Biruta suddenly turns up dead of a heart attack, her home ransacked. At the wake, her drunken son reveals that some time ago, he and Biruta, digging in their garden found an old metal box containing Nazi documents from the days of occupation. The documents--which have since disappeared--apparently contain a list of Nazi collaborators and spies.
|
| |
| Cheka | Extraordinary Commission (for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage); 20 Dec 1917 |
| GPU | State Political Directorate; 8 Feb 1922 |
| OGPU | Unified State Political Directorate;1923 |
| NKVD | People's Commisariate of Internal Affairs; 1934 |
| SMERSH | Death To Spies; March 1943 |
| MVD | Ministry of Internal Affairs; March 1946 |
| KGB | Committee for State Security; 1954 |
Meanwhile, Rosenberg turns himself in, confessing that for years he tried to wheedle the Nazi documents away from Biruta, fearing that he himself was named as a collaborator. In the days of occupation, the Nazis rounded up a bunch of children and demanded that Rosenberg lead them out into the forest, somewhere where no Soviet partisans would be found. Rosenberg, thinking that the Nazis just intended to frighten the children, complied. However, the Nazis did in fact murder the children and gloated that Rosenberg was now "theirs" and they would give him the Iron Cross to make sure the Soviets would never trust him again. Shortly thereafter, the Nazis came to Rosenberg's hut with the documents, which he assumed contained his name. A partisan attack, however, forced the Nazis to bury the documents before leaving in confusion. The Nazis, however, had tricked Rosenberg. He was small potatoes. His name was not on their list, which included only real spies and collaborators. The KGB colonel in charge angrily denounces Rosenberg, but releases him.
The KGB keep the bearded geologist (Serfik) under surveillance, still hoping that he will lead them to the second agent. Serfik goes to Tallin, where me immediately picks up a woman named Lili and goes with her to the city hall where they register to be married. Serfik spends the night with Lili, then, the next day, they go to the office where she works as an expeditor, providing food supplies to ships. Lili drives a van full of food supplies to a cruise ship heading for Helsinki. She is allowed to drive into the belly of the ship, but a suspicious guard searches underneath the cans of condensed milk and barrels of brown mushroom juice, where he discovers a man hiding. A chase ensues around the ship, and the suspect leaps off into the water. The suspect is apprehended. It is Serfik, who was carrying an envelop with $1,000 in it.
Serfik claims he stole the money from a foreigner in a restaurant. He says he planned to go to Helsinki, spend the money, then go to the Soviet embassy and "repent". He says Lili had nothing to do with his plan and did not know he was hiding among the food.
Serfik then changes his story: He is not Serfik, but is really Max Deryakin. Serfik is his half-brother. Some time ago Max was working as an assembler at a watch factory. He was part of a delegation visiting Switzerland to demonstrate Soviet watches. He defected, but after a while he longed to return to his mother, about whom he constantly dreamed. He claims he got a ride on a yacht into the Gulf of Finland where some Estonians were working on a Soviet fishing boat. He convinced the Estonians to hide him on board and return him to his motherland. (The KGB officials know, of course, that this is just slander against Estonians, who are patriotic and would never help a foreigner sneak into the country.)
Once back in Latvia, however, Max claims that his mother threw him out. He took Serfik's passport, since he and his half- brother look very similar, and went gadding about. He got bored and decided to return to the west.
The KGB go to Riga to question Max's mother (in the presence of two citizen-witnesses). She said Max's bad character is probably due to the influence of his father, who used to say, "Only fools need an education, smart people need money." She relates that after Max had defected, he wrote to her saying that he wanted to return. She replied to him in care of a lawyer, Jerry Sherwood (known to the KGB as a CIA agent operating in the Scandinavian countries). When he returned recently to her, he stole the passport of his half- brother (the real Viktor Serfik, a genuine, honest geologist) and disappeared. A search of the apartment turns up the clothes which Max had used when infiltrating the country--proving that he was in fact the second agent who arrived with Bergmanis. He was also responsible for Biruta's death, since he had confronted her demanding the documents in a manner which caused her to have a heart attack. His plan had been to get the Nazi documents and use them to blackmail Soviet citizens into doing the CIA's bidding.
Another CIA adventure exposed and foiled!