Escape from the Departure Zone

Moscow's Sheremetyevo-2 Airport is supposed to be a gateway to the outside world. In 1981, however, its international departure zone is also a carefully guarded extension of the Soviet state-a place where every employee is watched, every foreign traveler is evaluated, and every private conversation may eventually reach the KGB.Behind the polished counter of the airport's hard-currency bar, imported liquor, foreign cigarettes, diplomats, athletes, prostitutes, black-market dealers, and government officials mingle under the same roof. The bar's employees appear to be ordinary Soviet workers, but nearly all of them have secret obligations. Some cooperate willingly. Others are pressured by fear, ambition, jealousy, or the threat of compromising information. Friendships are tested, romances are manipulated, and personal betrayals become another instrument of state control.For one bartender, the departure zone represents something more dangerous: the possibility of escape.When a drunken West German passenger becomes vulnerable, an audacious plan begins to take shape. A passport, an airline ticket, and a departing aircraft may offer a path out of the Soviet Union-but only if the bartender can cross a landscape of passport officers, customs inspectors, undercover operatives, surveillance teams, informants, and KGB supervisors. One mistake could expose everything. And in a system built upon suspicion, even the people closest to him may already be reporting his every move.Escape from the Departure Zone combines a suspenseful story of desperation and betrayal with an unusually detailed portrait of Soviet intelligence operations. The novel explores the recruitment of informants, covert surveillance, psychological pressure, operational planning, internal reporting, political loyalty checks, and rivalry between branches of the security establishment.Drawing upon his professional experience as a former Soviet criminal investigator, Alexander Couprin brings authenticity to a world rarely described from the inside. His characters range from airport bartenders and hard-currency prostitutes to police officials, intelligence officers, and powerful KGB generals-all trapped within a society where survival depends upon knowing whom to deceive, whom to fear, and whom never to trust.