Conversation Summary

Marina, Svetlana, and I looked at each other. This was the first emotional breakdown in several hours of conversation, but it was clear how much effort it took Sasha to remain calm.

"In general, we must proceed from the fact that they know you are abroad. Tell me, if, for example, you robbed a bank or killed someone, how quickly could they put you on the wanted list?" I asked.

"Fast enough, but they won't give Interpol an obvious fake. First, they need to glue together a serious case and tailor it to me so that it looks plausible."

"So, we have a few more days."

We drove to Ankara in a rented car, not daring to take a plane—you have to show passports there, and we decided it would be better if Sasha's fake name didn't get into the airline's computer. It was a cloudless night with a full moon. We sped along an empty highway through a rocky desert, and Sasha told me stories from the life of cops so that I wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel.

Meeting with Joe in Ankara

In Ankara, at the Sheraton Hotel, Joe was waiting for us—a small, mustachioed New York lawyer, a specialist in refugee rights, whom I had persuaded to stop by Ankara for a day from Europe, where he had business. After listening to Sasha, Joe said:

• "You can only apply for political asylum in the USA while on US territory. The embassy is not suitable for this. While abroad, you can apply for a refugee visa if you believe you are being persecuted in your homeland for religious, political, or ethnic reasons. At the same time, there is an annual quota for refugees, which is always overfilled. Therefore, you have to wait months, and sometimes years, to enter. And you, as I understand it, have no time."

"He understands correctly," Sasha confirmed after hearing the translation.

"In the past, Soviet dissidents, and not only dissidents—simple defectors—were let into America right away," I said.

"Well, that was the Cold War," Joe countered. "In principle, there is such a form of entry—out of turn—which we call 'parole,' when a visa is given for reasons of 'public interest.' This requires a decision at the top of the State Department or in the White House. Do you have connections?" he asked me.

"I have connections, but there are elections now; they have no time for us."

"In any case, I recommend that you formally apply for a refugee visa so that the documents are already in the system, and then let them wait here, while you go to the States and try to push through a 'parole' for them."

"I don't want to stay in Turkey," Marina said.

"Yes, they deport from Turkey without any problems," Joe said. "Mainly, people seek political asylum from Turkey, not in Turkey."

"Tell him it won't come to deportation. As soon as our people find out I'm here, they'll come themselves and rub us all out right here in the bar," Sasha said.

"Joe, after all, Sasha is a GB officer, not some Jewish repatriate. They really will rub him out."