The Rezidentura

[Leander]

A new spy story from me.
This one has no relation to the previous 3-part Manningtree series... apart from stolen ideas from them!

[Leander]

1 – A Tunnel


“Come, come! It’s down here.” Yevgeny beckoned Katerina to follow him, using his hand as well as his urgent words. “I’ll show you a tunnel which will remind you of Sheba’s.”

He flashed a toothy grin at her then leapt into a hole.

Katerina remained where she stood, listening to the young man climb down what she could hear was a ladder. There was black darkness down there and that brought about hesitation in her to at once follow.

“Come on!” He was shouting up at her. “Follow me down into Mordor through the spider’s tunnel.”

She waited, gathering up the courage to do just as the fool ahead of her wanted.


Yevgeny was a fool.

Katerina had realised that upon meeting him not half an hour ago. He’d been introduced as her guide to show her the insides of the embassy, her new place of work. Why couldn’t they have sent her someone else, someone not as clueless as Yevgeny?

There were lots of reasons why she considered him to be unworthy of her respect. The careless leap that he had just taken was only one of many. Then there was the ‘Sheba’ remark. He’d been briefed about her, clearly taking it in that the new woman working officially for the embassy’s cultural attaché section was a Tolkien scholar. Therefore, where there was a tunnel there would be Shelob… not the bloody Queen of Sheba.

This was just going to be the start of it all, she was sure.


Katerina left the storage cupboard that Yevgeny had led her into, the one which the secure Communications Room gave access to. He had told her about the tunnel before he had gone down into it. It was an underground connection between the chancery, the consular services building and the ambassador’s residence. Those trio of buildings were all within a short distance of each other among private grounds belonging to the Russian Embassy in London with the first two next door to one another and the third just along the road. A good few years ago, long before Yevgeny had come to London, maybe a couple of decades ago in fact so he had conceded, a tunnel had been built to aid movement between the three. That kept from any prying eyes – be they British or Russian too – what certain people where up to.

She was going to be one of the few people using the tunnel often considering that down belowground too was the SVR office. Yevgeny was SVR, something that didn’t impress her at all. Russia’s state spies here in Britain weren’t meant to be fools!

Carefully, she started her climb down. Yevgeny had turned on a light and that helped her along. She counted twenty-four steps on the ladder with Katerina telling herself to remember that number because there might be a time one day in the future where she might have to climb up or down them in the dark.

“Don’t ask me how they got the earth out or what they did with it. Maybe it was like those American prison movies where the men working here had the soil in their trouser pockets, holes cut them, and walked around the grounds sprinkling it.” Yevgeny let out a laugh at his own joke.

“They probably used it in another new building.”

Yevgeny stood before her, practically in her personal space. He’d turned around quickly just as she spoke. Katerina willed herself to be calm as his eyes what they had did up aboveground when they had first met.

Down his gaze went, slowly from her face to her feet. She could imagine what was in his imagination right now.

“That is a good point.” Katerina was finally able to place his accent as he spoke: he was a man from one of those mid-Volga cities deep within the Rodina. “I hadn’t thought of that. They said that you were clever, not just a woman who likes to read books about fantasy worlds of wizard and orcs and dwarves and whatever else they had.”

They started walking again, Yevgeny out front. Katerina’s eyes took in the tunnel.

It was circular, tube-like, with a height of one and a half meters at the most. She wasn’t very tall and always held a grudge against that shortcoming. Not today though. This was a place for bashing your head if you weren’t vertically challenged. The tunnel was concrete lined and the rounded walls almost perfectly smooth. Only the uneven floor surface and the obstacles to height hanging from up above broke all that up. The light fixtures, access points and pipes up there were aplenty.

Yevgeny led her past two small doorways. They reminded Katerina of the doors in submarines, the names of which escaped her as she walked past them.

“How much further, Zhenya?”

He spun on his heels, again getting close to her. This time, Katerina stepped backwards. There was a friendly smile but it wasn’t one which Katerina had any faith in the truth of.

“My mother called me Zhenya. I’m just Yevgeny. Don’t use that other name.”

Katerina had just been trying to be friendly. She didn’t like him, thought he was stupid, but had tried to be nice by calling him the expected short form name that she had thought others would. After all, she wouldn’t have minded at all if he’d called her Katya.

What a mistake that was. Yevgeny was walking ahead of her again and Katerina was starting to reevaluate her beliefs in his supposed stupidity. Was it all an act? There was something else to him, something more that she didn’t understand.

And the mother thing? Katerina didn’t want to know what that was all about!

“Here we are.” He stopped them outside another one of those round doors. “Ilya is in here and he’s been looking forward to your arrival. You know him so I heard.”


Yevgeny was left behind as Katerina went into the room off the tunnel. She thought she might have been somewhere between the chancery and the ambassador’s residence, maybe under Kensington Palace Road itself, but there was no map nor would she ask that of anyone. It was the SVR nerve centre for their London operations, the rezidentura itself.

Ilya, the rezident, the station chief, welcomed her with a strong embrace. They knew each other from back home. He’d been a friend of her deceased father’s with Katerina not knowing until only a few years ago, when she became one herself, that each man was a spy for their shared country.

Unlike Yevgeny, his eyes weren’t mentally undressing her.

“Knowing you as I do, you didn’t like my watchdog. Am I correct?”

She nodded. “He was nekulturny.”

“I need him. He knows his job. Stay on his good side.” Ilya gave that instruction in a good-natured way but Katerina understood that she was to obey it absolutely. “Did he give you a history of the tunnel?”

“No, not really.”

Ilya shook his head wistfully. “The tunnel has been here a long time. Colonel Popov, a K.G.B rezident long before me, had it built. It’s remarkable. We’ve got a lot underground here, all safe from watching eyes, listening ears and nosey people upstairs too who sometimes don’t know their place. Back in the day, they had plans to extend it further, to give us an entry & exit point further away. That idea came to a halt when they worried about future discovery when building work might be done down the line. I worry about that now, considering the tunnel down to the ambassador’s residence goes quite the way south.

Enough of the tunnel and it’s history, that’s for another time. Now, come with me. Let me show you around: it won’t take long.”

The rezidentura was compact. Ilya had nine of his people working down there with him, all of whom would have official roles upstairs as embassy employees with diplomatic cover. Not all of them were present to be introduced but Ilya said that that would be completed in due time. She was here to work with them and that would also mean getting to know each one.


He then led her to his little office, closing the door behind him.

“And getting to know them will allow you to identify which one of them in a traitor, Katya.”

“That is why they sent me.” Moscow Centre had dispatched Katerina to London to not just work in London under diplomatic cover as a one of the embassy’s cultural staff, not to only join the rezidentura either, but to locate one of Ilya’s people who was betraying Russia and giving secrets from out of here to the British.

He gave her a glass filled with vodka, downing the one which he had poured for himself and waiting for her to do the same. Katerina was used to him, used to his drinking as well.

“It’s not one of the ambassador’s staff,” Ilya told her, “and I can assure you of that. We looked into all of them, really hard too, and also paid attention to the ambassador to see if it was him. You’ll enjoy him when you meet Pavel Antonovich. He talks with his hands and is amusing to watch. I guess every ambassador needs to be a talker but he is rather animated! But, I’m going off point here.

It’s one of mine, Katya: one of mine is talking to the British intelligence services. You’re going to catch them for me. They said you were the best and I know you too, I trust you.”

Katerina sat opposite him and wore on her face a solemn mask that hid her feelings. “I serve the Rodina, Ilya.” She thought that sounded rather pompous, something not befitting this moment. That was corrected: “I’m here to do this for you.” With as much honesty as she could hope to muster in phrase and posture, she gave him that false assurance.

“Moscow tells me that you’ve caught traitors before. Don’t worry,” he held up a hand, “I won’t ask how you did so. Or where. Or when. That isn’t for me to know. I just need you to catch the traitor here.

No one is going to suspect Lieutenant Dubova of being what she is. They’ll say that you’re too young, that you’re too inexperienced. I keep you busy as well so the traitor will see you’re busy and not worry about you looking for them.

Also… no one is going to suspect you with that disguise, Katya!”

She laughed. “My what?” Katerina was under his gaze, and felt it too, though it was far different from Yevgeny’s look.

“Look at you! I mean this well, but,” he smiled and opened his hands, “you look absurd. This isn’t you, this schoolmistress get-up. A scholar the message said, with this Tolkien thing. I know, I know: it will get you into events outside the embassy without notice and you’ll help to foster goodwill between this country and the Rodina, and all that diplomatic nonsense… yet why couldn’t they have sent you as a ballerina?”

“I’m too short, Ilya.”

It was an honest answer. Katerina couldn’t help but touch her thick glasses with a hand while worrying about how her hair looked too. There had been quite the work put into all of this, the outfit included, and it was something that she hadn’t been expecting to have laughed at.

He agreed: “Da.” Then, he was back to business: “My people, will not be taken in by it. They’ll see what we want them to see: someone play-acting the spy for Russia here among the Britons. That’s all good. That’s what I want them to see. You are to be no threat to them, no one to cause them any worry. And you look into all of them, Katya.

You find that traitor here. Moscow Centre will want to take them home for a harsh interrogation – it’ll be unpleasant – and then a firing squad, yet I want to take an axe to their private bits first.”

Katerina saw his eyes as he said that. Ilya would do no such thing but he sure seemed to like the idea of doing that when it was discovered who the fox was within his hen-house.

He got them both another drink. This time she drank hers fast as he did, matching the older man with his blood-shot, vengeful eyes.

And her mind went elsewhere.


It was to other instructions she had received when back in Russia, ones given after those to go to London and work for Ilya with his fox problem. Those came from her British MI-6 handler there because her loyalties, her new ones at that, lay no longer with Russia but this country where she was back to after a previous visit.

In a turn of events which would have made Ilya physically ill, Katerina was to protect, not uncover, the spy delivering secrets in the UK. She had been told who they were and given the task of making sure that as she had done before when on her hunts for traitors, which was to see that the blame was misdirected on to another.

And who was it to be here in London that Katerina would falsely implicate?

She’d find someone here at the rezidentura for that, anyone but that real spy.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

My apologies:

Although I find 'Cold War' and spy machinations fascinating, my sight is now so bad I cannot grok this tale.

Hopefully I'll be able to catch up and enjoy before the New Year..,.

[jemhouston]

Take care of yourself and get better.

[Leander]

2 – Prison Rules


Six years ago, Nathan Clay had been caught up in a moral panic and been on the wrong end of a demand that ‘something must be done’. He was in his twenties then, working as a tiler’s mate in South London. He liked to have a good time, he liked the ladies and he liked to drink. The latter a little too much. It had been a Friday afternoon and an early finish. Off to the pub with the guys it was. A drink had been knocked over and strong words exchanged with a guy in an Arsenal shirt: bloody damn Gooners! It had been nothing to do with Nathan but his mate’s mate had suddenly been elbowed in the face and was on the floor. Without thinking about it, and after having a few too many drinks to consider the wisdom of doing so, Nathan had gone for the Arsenal scum who had attacked his drinking companion. He just reacted, like the damn drunken fool he was.

The moral panic at the time had been about one-punch-killers. The tabloid newspapers had been bleating on about it, so too a good number of politicians. The man whom Nathan had attacked had fallen down, cracking the back of his head on the edge of the bar as he had done so. The pub patron was dead before he hit the floor. Nathan hadn’t even punched him, something which had aggrieved him no end when he’d been made an example of by the law as part of that crackdown on one-punch-killers.

He’d only headbutted the guy!

That hardly mattered. Nor did it that he had done the right thing. Other people, his fellow tiler included, had fled the pub. Nathan had stayed put. When the police had come, hot on the heels on an ambulance whose paramedics could do nothing for the dead man, Nathan had admitted what he had done and been just as remorseful there as he was in the police station. His solicitor had suggested that Nathan might want to get a bit creative in explaining what had happened: maybe he’d been fearful for his own safety?

No, Nathan wouldn’t lie. He’d lashed out in anger and was prepared to take his punishment. He plead guilt when in Crown Court with his barrister adding some mitigating circumstances but none of that had any effect upon the sentence delivered by the judge following his conviction for manslaughter: worse than murder that sounded.

Ten years they said he was going away for, all for headbutting someone who’d then fell and lost his life.

It wasn’t fair.

Someone had died and so Nathan hadn’t needed telling that he would be going to prison. He hadn’t expected such a strong sentence though, nor had his barrister. Afterwards, that woman had told him that he’d likely only serve five years, maybe six, but that was still half a decade. It was all because of a moral panic… and Nathan having a few too many drinks that afternoon.


Nathan had been held on remand while awaiting sentencing. Prison hadn’t been enjoyable at all and he had been sure that it was only going to get worse. A couple of weeks after that judge gave him all of those years to satisfy the newspaper editors, Nathan was in HMP Wandsworth, a squalid prison outside London. He actually wasn’t that far from home and his mother would be able to visit him. His girlfriend wouldn’t: she’d ditched him.

He’d learnt the prison rules fast. Not the official ones, but the ones among the prisoners. There were many, most unsaid. Nathan was always the type of guy who could follow rules though.

1) Don’t grass.

2) Don’t get into debt but if you do, pay your bills quickly.

3) Don’t steal from other prisoners.

4) Keep your eyes open for trouble and avoid it if you can.

5) Mind your bloody own business.

6) Don’t be a victim: stand your ground if they come for you.

The best way to remember those rules was to witness what happened to those who broke the rules that those inside had among themselves. Nathan made sure he wasn’t nosy but he didn’t have to be. What went on was impossible to miss. Just as difficult to avoid were troublemakers though. Not being a victim was important to Nathan. He knew if he was one once, he’d always be.

People called him ‘one punch Nath’. He had a reputation that he didn’t want. Fellow prisoners out with something to prove looked to him as an opportunity to assert themselves as those not to be messed with. He understood. He could have done the same. That wasn’t who he was though Nathan had had to whack a guy when first being held on remand and came close to more fights with others. He’d proved himself capable of looking after himself but there was always someone new, someone wanting to have a go at the one-punch-killer. They wanted to prove themselves as well.

Nathan had to work hard to keep out of trouble, all while having to show everyone else that he was ready to take it on too.


Away from the troublemakers, there were people inside who demanded and got respect. They weren’t especially tough… well, not all of them anyway. Instead, they were the career criminals who surrounded themselves with followers. Some were no better than street thugs yet others, so Nathan would learn, were head of criminal groups on the outside.

Daniel McSherry was one of them.

Nathan remembered reading about him in the newspapers. He was a gangster, an old school one. The guy was someone whom Nathan had no wish to associate with. He couldn’t imagine that going well because he didn’t regard himself as a real criminal despite what that judge had said and his sentence received.

But a fateful day arrived when Nathan had an interaction with Daniel, one when he was just a few weeks into his time at Wandsworth. It was an accident, one as bad as that afternoon in that pub where Nathan got his prison moniker.


There was another prisoner, this one named Sudz: his real name was not one that Nathan knew until afterwards. He was someone whom Nathan had seen as part of Daniel’s gang of professional criminals. Sudz had only the other day beat another prisoner enough to put him in the hospital. The talk in the line waiting on dinner which Nathan had overheard had been that the victim had owed a debt to Daniel which he had refused to pay.

Nathan turned a corner and Sudz, the fattest, ugliest guy on C Wing, had Daniel pinned to the ground. He had a screwdriver in one hand with the other trying to hold Daniel still. It looked like that screwdriver’s tip was destined for Daniel’s eye.

There was no one else around.

All Nathan had to do was make an about-turn and walk away. It was none of his business. He would see nothing and know nothing about what was going to happen if he did that.

He opted not to though.

“Oi!”

Sudz looked up as Nathan put his knee into the man’s face. It hurt Nathan to do that, more than he thought it would, and he almost hopped away. Still, despite the sudden pain, he caught sight of what happened next.

The tables had been turned with Sudz caught by Nathan’s knee. Now, Daniel put that screwdriver into Sudz’s ear. Blood trickled out soon enough, though not as much as Nathan expected to see. Stopping his mouth from falling open, he turned to walk away after that.

He was stopped from doing so by the now standing Daniel though.

“You’re Nathan Clay, aren’t you: the one-punch-killer?”

Nathan shrugged his shoulders and looked down. “I didn’t see a thing.”

“You know, he was one of my best guys, one of my most loyal people. So much for that, eh? Someone put Sudz up to that and I want to know who.

Though, I get it: you didn’t see nothing. We’re good with that.” He held his hand out to Nathan.

Regretfully, he was forced to shake.

“I’m just on my way back to my cell.” Nathan wanted to be there more than anything at the moment. After all, he was a witness to a murder. From what he’d heard, Daniel wasn’t someone who was partial to witnesses living to tell what they knew.

“You didn’t have to help me but you did. I’m alive because of you. So, I’m in your debt, Nathan, because I owe you my life. Call that debt in one time.”

Daniel pocketed the screwdriver and walked away. Nathan was just as quick to leave himself, all while thinking he should have walked away himself at the first opportunity, let alone did what he did.

What was one of those key prison rules?

5) Mind your own bloody business.


Two days later, Daniel was transferred from Wandsworth. The prison authorities and the police too were still looking into the killing of Sudz. His death was the reason that they moved his known associate.

Nathan feared the worst: implication from the police and punishment from Daniel for just knowing what he did.

Neither came to pass though, not during the next five years he spent in prison at Wandsworth and elsewhere.

After he was released, a changed man at that, Nathan looked up Daniel. He called in that debt. He did so at the behest of someone else though, not because he really wanted to. He was forced into it less the truth of what had happened to Sudz come out and he be a party to that death.

Ingraining himself with Daniel and the organised crime group of murderers & smugglers that that man led, one that had gone international and was working with the country’s enemies too, was what Nathan was made to do.

Nathan had to ask himself if he was the most unluckiest man alive.

[jemhouston]

New player on the board.

[Leander]

New player on the board.

And Hannah from MI5 too.

[Leander]

3 – Trust


The Russian Embassy lay at the top of exclusive street which was Kensington Palace Gardens, just around the corner from the always busy Notting Hill Gate and over on the western side of Central London. Security inside of the diplomatic compound was provided by the Russians themselves yet the British state provided both armed & unarmed police officers in the vicinity considering terrorism threats not just to there but other properties along the same road such as the Israeli embassy. Kensington Palace Gardens was regarded by many as one of the safest streets in London due to the security there… yet others would disagree and consider it in fact dangerous with such targets.

In addition to the overt protection, the Russian compound was covered with cameras. Some of them were part of the embassy’s security but others, especially many hidden ones, had been installed by Britain’s MI-5. They blanketed the area with surveillance devices and had observation posts where watchers with binoculars were also within sight. That was because there was quite the level of interest in the comings and goings out of that compound.

This morning they had watched a new employee arrive for her first day. She left work in the evening and swinging into action with that action went a significant on-the-move surveillance mission.

Hannah Monroe, working from Thames House, watched over that undertaking.


“She’s reached the Tube station, Boss.”

“Our Man Two is right behind her.”

“Let’s have a good look at her, shall we?”

The image of Katerina Ivanovna Dubova came up on a screen, taken via a video camera inside Notting Hill Gate Underground Station.

Tall with curly brown hair worn short, Katerina was thin with an attractive Slavic face adorned with only a dash of make-up: her narrow lips had no lipstick and there was no mascara or blush either. Big, bookish reading glasses that looked unsuitable for her sat atop her nose and ears. There were tiny hoops in each ear and a forest green leather handbag strap resting on one shoulder. Katerina wore a conservative white blouse under a neat black jacket. The lanyard which she had been wearing earlier, with its embassy pass attached, was gone. Her shoes were sensible and shiny, worn with white ankle socks too. A smart, pinstripe black and grey skirt went down below her knees, showing off her tanned legs with muscly calves. Finally, pale red polish on her square-cut nails, no rings on her fingers and a small, silver wristwatch finished the image of Katerina.

She looked very professional, so unlike her usual self.

“She didn’t have that bag with her this morning.”

“It could have been folded up inside her handbag.” The reply sounded very much like a wild guess. The item in question was a Lord of the Rings tote bag which she was now carrying alongside her handbag. What it contained couldn’t been seen by those many watching her on camera.

“Three is waiting for her down on the Central Line platform.”

“And,” another voice added, “Seven is on the Circle and District platform too.”

“Two is backing away as they go down the escalators. Our Target is going for the Central Line and she’s in quite the hurry.”

“Have Three alerted, Tim.” So came a command. “Make sure she’s not looking direct at the Target as Dubova comes onto the platform.”

“Any minute now… and here she is.”

Another image of Katerina appeared, now waiting for an arriving train. She was biting her lip, then fiddling with her phone before straightening her skirt. Unseen eyes were on her as she moved to check her phone once again while standing on a platform waiting on a train seemingly without a care in the world.

“Three is getting on the train with her when it comes, one carriage in front: he’s to get off at whichever stop she does. I want Two to stay on the train regardless.

Where are One and Four?”

“One is waiting at Bond Street, Boss, ready for if the Target takes the Jubilee Line, and Four is at Bank in case she gets on the D.L.R.”

A question came:“Who’s the guy looking at her? See him in the brown jacket, the tall dude – what’s he up to?”

“Let’s keep an eye on him. Hopefully, he’s just a creep checking out her behind, letting his imagination run wild, but let’s run his face, get some background and run a trail if anything jumps out at us.”
“The train is arriving.”

The camera footage shifted to an arriving train. Katerina was soon getting on it along with many of dozens of others, including a pair of MI-5 officers too. Electronic sight was lost of her when that occurred though more cameras were ready at stations down the line where it was thought she would get off at either of them. It was her first journey home from work and there wasn’t any consensus upon the exact route she would take to cross from one side of London to the other.

A direct route from the embassy to her new home wasn’t available for Katerina.

Those conducting surveillance of her were ready for any eventuality though, even if it wasn’t as predictable as they hoped.


Hannah took no direct part in that surveillance.

She was in the monitoring room where there were video feeds from cameras and the communications link up with Watchers out there below London as well as aboveground. Silent she stayed, not involved as those around her did their jobs.

Back in her younger days, she’d done it herself. The Watchers always wanted new faces and it was a fine career move for her, especially as a woman rising in MI-5. All sorts of tricks were employed when ‘on the street’ in the form of disguises and routes taken. There were those who sat in this room watching cameras but those at that Underground station alongside Katerina had a harder job to do. They had to avoid her detecting them as well as anyone else watching Katerina too. Their job was to look for contact being made with the Target and that was no easy feat either.

She had been briefed earlier on the route that Katerina had taken to work that morning and Hannah had agreed that it was unlikely that it would be followed on the way home. The ‘Target’ had looked frustrated at the time taken and gone rather indirect too. She’d moved into a flat in Canning Town, over in East London, upon arriving in the UK and it was no easy route to the embassy and back.

There were almost twenty Watchers out there: men and women spread out across Katerina’s route. They would shadow her all while trying to maintain invisibility. Like those in the monitoring room, they were all told that they were watching a newly arrived Russian spook. Hannah had briefed them herself, making it clear that Katerina was a priority. Her activities were to be observed with intensity. These were people who did such a thing for a living. They knew what they were doing.

What they weren’t aware of was the truth of the matter though. Hannah was keeping them in the dark on all of that, as per her own instructions from her superior. What was really going on was quite the secret. That meant that Katerina was to be watched as any other known spy. Where she went, who she might speak to and whether she might make a brush pass with a conduct was all to be given the full attention of a good number of MI-5 people.

There shouldn’t be any reason for anyone to think about nor speculate to that there was anything different about her. That would blow everything.


Once Katerina had reached Canning Town and gone into a flat being rented for her there by the Russian Embassy, Hannah left those controlling the Watchers. There were eyes still on her, ready if she chose to go out, but Hannah had seen enough. The monitoring room was one of many within the building beside the river known as Thames House: headquarters for MI-5. In others, there were suspected terrorists and spooks being the focus of teams working them. Hannah had no business with any more of that. She went upstairs through the government building that was home to Britain’s domestic focused spies. Her destination was a top floor office.

Richard was waiting for her, a cup of tea in hand too.

“It’s just the way you like it.” He handed it over while extending the other hand towards a seat. “Sit, please.”

“Thanks.”

Hannah waited for what Richard had called her up here for. He was one of MI-5’s very top people. Her activities were among many that he had supervision over. There wasn’t much time that he would have to waste yet he sat her with her saying nothing for a few moments.

Twenty-three years of service behind her, being in many dangerous situations throughout them, Hannah wasn’t one to get nervous nor eager. She waited patiently for whatever Richard had to say, perfectly able to stay calm no matter what. She had some of her tea, done just as promised the way she liked it. Richard sat behind his desk, drinking from his own cup, looking forwards towards her. His eyes weren’t fixed. He was thinking, off somewhere else.

“I don’t trust traitors, Hannah.” Finally, he had something to say. “If you can turn on one country, you can just as easily turn on another. I know, that’s the business that we’re in, dealing with traitors that is, but I don’t have any trust in them. Remember, we still are at a loss due to her inner motivation. She’s never told us that.”

“Katerina isn’t a Triple.” Hannah breathed easy to keep her cool. “Yes, it’s complicated but she is ours, not working against us. I trust in her, Richard.”

Katerina was her find. Hannah had recruiting her and was standing by her despite Richard’s comments that were alluding to Katerina being some sort of triple agent: working for Russia while pretending to work for Britain when initially working for Russia.

“I didn’t say she was. If that was the case, you’d catch her.

She’s done good for us, Hannah. Her previous work done up in Edinburgh at the consulate there was exceptional. The boys and girls from Six across the river,” his arm went out, pointing generally towards where MI-6 headquarters was on the other side of the Thames, “only have good things to say about her while we lent her out to them when she was assigned first to Canada and then back to Moscow.

What we have here now though is her trusted with SPEARMINT. She has to protect them by framing someone else. With reflection, I think it would have been best if Katerina never knew who SPEARMINT was in the first place.”

“Ah, I see.”

Hannah said no more than that. Richard was a testy man. He was the type of person to say something that would bring out ill considered replies with haste. Yet Hannah never – well... almost – did anything with haste. She gave that nothing reply on purpose.

Inside she raged at him though.

SPEARMINT was the codename for a double agent inside the Russian Embassy. Hannah had seen to it that Katerina would be placed there and Richard had agreed that to protect that source of first-rate information, she would have to know who that person was. Now, he was backtracking there.

It was too damn late late for regrets!

“What’s done is done, I guess. But, it just doesn’t sit right with me at all.”

“Katerina can do this, Richard.”

“I don’t doubt that. I just fear for the future. We must protect SPEARMINT and putting Katerina in there has been considered the best possible move. Nonetheless, the doubt that I have won’t go away.” He shook his head, drinking some tea afterwards. “And, our security remains perfect?”

She nodded. “Yes, indeed. As we agreed, I have a monitoring operation on Katerina. To everyone here, she’s known as a confirmed spook, a hostile target to be watched. If word gets back to the Russians, that will explain away what we intend to do down the line where we get close and exchange information with Katerina on the sly. The exchanges will be difficult to pull off, but doable as long as it is done right.”

“SPEARMINT must be protected. They are more valuable than Katerina. You do understand that, yes, Hannah? I know she is your agent, but if everything goes wrong, then she is expendable.”

Through gritted teeth, Hannah smiled. Her reply followed: “I understand, Richard.”

Katerina had more value than SPEARMINT, such was what Hannah believed, regardless of her reply.

“Good.” He looked like he believed her. “Now, tell me where we are with these smugglers who are friendly with the Russians and what is happening with our man among them.”

Hannah moved to do just that. The activities of Nathan Clay were in her briefing to Richard.

[jemhouston]

Nice game of three card Monty going on.

I wonder if the SVR has been watching her to pick up new agents.

[Leander]

Nice game of three card Monty going on.

I wonder if the SVR has been watching her to pick up new agents.

That would be wise considering she isn't always as professional as she likes to claim.

[Leander]

4 – Roid Rage


It had been a long wait. Four months to hear something worthwhile but, finally, Nathan heard a remark made tonight that he knew Hannah would want to be told about at the soonest opportunity.

“Make sure this,” Daniel was handing a cardboard box to Robinson, “gets to Mikhail.”

There was only a nod in reply. Off Robinson went, carrying that box.

Who was Mikhail?

Nathan had no idea. He knew quite the number of people associated with Daniel McSherry and his organised crime group. None of them had a name such as that though. None of them had name that just screamed Russia either.

Hannah, the lady from MI-5, the spy who had him where she wanted to, would be told about Mikhail by Nathan, tonight if he could manage it.


It was a warm late summer’s night in Swanley. The Kent town was somewhere that Nathan wouldn’t mind living. This place was the exact opposite of prison, nothing like where he had grown up either back on that council estate now populated by postcode shooters.

He daydreamed briefly about living here. With a woman, a couple of kids too, in a nice suburban semi. Nathan in Swanley: he liked that idea. However, that was rather unlikely. This was Daniel’s turf. When it all came to an end, even if there was no more Daniel, then Swanley wouldn’t be safe for Nathan.

From his read of how Hannah had laid things out for him, there probably wouldn’t be anywhere in Britain that he would safely end up in either. He’d be taking a trip overseas, one to not return from unless he wanted an untimely death.


The rear shutter on the lorry was being rolled up now. With Robinson gone with that package for parts unknown, the last of the cargo had been quickly unloaded. He only slowed things down when he was around. Once he left, there were no longer any dirty jokes told and no more laughter. Nathan had jumped into the back of the little lorry, helping the driver Terry finish pushing everything forward, and handing off additional packages to the other guys. There were all sorts of boxes, all sealed up with Nathan not knowing what was inside of them.

He stood in his white tee-shirt, jeans and new trainers taking a breather.

“There’s something on your shirt, Nath.”

Nigel had a finger extended. Nathan looked down and saw a grubby mark right across the belly. When he’d left his flat, not two hours ago, this tee-shirt had been more than just clean: it had been positively shiny.

“You ain’t got a woman to do your washing for you, have you?”

“No.”

“I got two.” Paul, another one of Daniel’s guys, added with a smile. “I’ll lend you one if you want.”

Nathan shook his head: “I’m good, thanks.” His colleague hadn’t been serious… or so he hoped so anyway.

Daniel returned.

“Spaniard: get going. Slim, Adolf, oh and you too Nath, come with me.”

Terry went to his lorry’s cab while the other three of them, Nathan included, followed Daniel inside the warehouse. He’d called all of them, apart from Nathan, by his own nicknames for them. He either hadn’t got around to giving Nathan one yet, or had for some reason decided not to use it in his earshot.

Surely it would have to be one punch Nath?

How Daniel liked to give people names. That guy he’d killed in prison had been Sudz for reasons still unknown to Nathan. As to those here this evening, the nicknames were from what Nathan considered was Daniel’s rather unimaginative imagination.

Terry was Spaniard because he had a Spanish mother. Nigel was Slim because he was fat. Paul was Adolf because he had a ‘tash that looked like one worn by a Seventies West German porn star.

And then there was Robinson who’d gone off with that mystery box. Daniel called him Roid, as in Steroid. He said that was the meaning of the name considering Robinson’s chemically-induced bulk and his raging temper. Nathan had his own twist on that though. In consideration of how he felt about Robinson, Roid was for Haemorrhoid.


“Get that shutter all the way down, Slim, will you?”

On command, Nigel shut out the last of the evening light that had been reaching inside the warehouse. Nathan had taken a quick look outside towards the flats above a row of shops just off in the distance before that happened. There would be someone there with a camera, someone who would no longer have eyes on him while he was among these men now the shutter had been brought down.

And Daniel stood among the boxes.

“You all know which ones are yours. Get them in your cars but check them off the list too. Let’s hurry with this, guys.”

Nathan had been supplied with a car for work use. It was a red Escort, an old banger of a motor. He hated it for its smell, one that he couldn’t get rid of it even after having it cleaned. Daniel had asked about that: why did he want it cleaned when the need was to have it pass unnoticed. Nathan had – respectfully – countered that the smell made it noticed. Questioned as to what the smell was, Nathan had told him that it was a mix of takeaways, wet dog and stale farts.

Ah, was the reply, the same smell as one of the two women that Paul had living in a house with him!

Nathan recalled that comment with a smile as he loaded the boxes in the boot of the car. There were thirteen of them for him this evening, none of them very big or heavy at all. He finished up and happened to look down at his trainers. As his tee-shirt had been, they were shiny new when he had come out of his flat. The right one had a grey scuff mark on it.

He balled his fists, cursing silently.

What the hell!? Couldn’t he get a break?

“Make your drops and go home. Roid will see you all individually tomorrow and make sure you’re all paid.”

Daniel looked at them all, one at a time, and gave them a nod. Paul had gone down to the shutter at the other end of the building, not the one where Terry had reversed up to with his lorry, and opened it up before he drove his car down there. Nigel followed him but Nathan stayed behind because Daniel had asked him to. He leant against the car he’d given Nathan and offered him a smoke while saying he wanted a quick chat.

Nathan suppressed momentary panic, took what was offered and asked what was up.


“Tottenham are playing tomorrow night.” They were Daniel’s team just as they were Nathan’s. “I think this is our year.”

“Daniel, you know my thoughts on that: I’m not going to believe it will be any more than a mediocre season… once again.”

“Have some faith, will you?” He grinned, then his face turned serious. “You’ve done well since you’ve been working for me, Nath. I haven’t had any cause to complain. Well, maybe if you got on a bit better with Roid. I got a question for you.

Does he remind you of Sudz?”

Daniel’s eyes were fixed upon him. The bigger man was only a couple of feet away. Nathan believed that he was primed to spring into action if he said the wrong thing. Maybe with a knife, maybe with a screwdriver.

What was the right answer to that question?

He could only think of one thing to reply with: “I don’t think about the past.”

“Good, good.” Daniel physically relaxed himself as relief hit Nathan for doing well. “Just be calmer around Roid when you see him tomorrow. Relax, let him see you relax. Like me, he sees how stressed you get, how the little things always seem to make you mad. Be calm and take a deep breathe. And with Roid, he’s my number two and there’s no need for your knee in his face, okay?”

“Okay.” Nathan forced a smile, recalling exactly what Daniel meant by talking about his knee.

“When I brought you inside, Nath,” Daniel dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out as he spoke, “I put you to the test. You know that. You did well. It was more than just a muscle job, even though you have that reputation as the one-punch-killer. You needed your brains for that, and you understood that without it needing to be said. I’ve tested you, more than you can guess at. Not once have you let me down.

What I’ve got you doing now is another test. Keep doing what you’re doing. Keep your mind on your job and stay loyal. The rewards will come, you can trust me on that.”

“I got you.”

Nathan gave that short reply more than something substantial. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing, not at a moment like this.

“Get going then, get those drops done.” Daniel stepped away from leaning against the car. He walked away with Nathan looking at his back as his employer disappeared further into the emptying warehouse.

Nathan’s mind was on those tests that Daniel had run for him.


It had been two days after leaving prison, getting out of HMP Rochester, the last of the four institutions which he’d been in during his five-plus years inside, that Nathan had looked up Daniel McSherry to call in that debt from their time in Wandsworth. The woman from MI-5, Hannah who had put him up do it less she had the prison authorities cancel his release when opening a new investigation into a long forgotten incident at Wandsworth – how she knew about that Nathan had no idea –, had told him where to find Daniel. She’d told him how to do go about it all, forcing him to follow her script.

Daniel hadn’t forgotten him. They’d shook hands with Nathan not even needing to remind him of what had been said all of those years ago. Nathan was out of prison and wanted some work, work which Daniel had happily obliged to give him.

Firstly, it had been that muscle job, the one that required a bit of brains too.

There were teenagers in London who stole mobile phones en masse. They did so to order and to meet a quota. The phones went off overseas, to China for disassembly there Nathan believed, in the back of Terry’s lorry through France or Holland. Dealing with those youngsters was an art. They weren’t employees of Daniel’s, they were independent. Often testy and feisty too, always wanting more money. Nathan had been able to deal with them though: his prison experiences had helped. Talking them down was better than whacking them, most of them time anyway.

After a month of that, Daniel had moved him onto something new. There was a massive public/private-funded construction project in the middle of the capital where the Tower of London railway station development was ongoing. It was replacing Fenchurch Street on the edge of The City in something costing hundreds of millions to build. Daniel had contacts with the private security company who provided guards, ones who looked the other way when theft on quite the scale went on during the night. Nathan did some driving at first for the guys stealing electrical cabling, powered hand tools and such like. Soon enough he was going over the fences himself.

Now it was this: dropping packages to customers. There were luxury goods within the plain boxes, items that were being sent to those who didn’t want to pay import taxes, not the full price either. Fancy booze, perfumes, fur coats, jewels, high-end electronics, etc. Daniel had people down at Dover, names which Nathan didn’t know, to allow for Terry’s truckload to get through customs. The goods came here to Swanley and went out with payment already paid so that Nathan didn’t see the cash. He didn’t see inside the packages either but had been told what they generally were.

Daniel didn’t run drugs nor traffic people, not as far as Nathan knew. Hannah had told him that guns and ammunition were occasionally moved by Daniel’s organisation. Doing that would bring in serious money. Still, his job wasn’t to report on any of it. MI-5, so she had said, didn’t care. They were hunting spies, not criminals, and Daniel worked with the Russians.


From what he’d heard tonight, Hannah was right.

Nathan drove out of the warehouse, headed for the A-20 to take him into London, and patted the phone inside his jacket.

He’d call her later and arrange a meeting because she’d want to know that Daniel sent Robinson to meet someone named Mikhail while bringing with him a sealed box. Nathan was aware of the danger of Daniel, hell even those apparent Russians whom he’d never seen, finding out but balanced that against what Hannah stacked against him.

A return to prison as an accessory to murder – for Sudz – for what would likely be the rest of his life.

[Leander]

5 – Daft


Hannah wanted to howl with laughter. Standing a few feet from Katerina, in a room where there were a couple of dozen people, that wouldn’t do. It would draw attention to her. Such a thing might upset Katerina too and Hannah didn’t want to do that.

But… c’mon: what an earth was she up to with this get-up of hers?

This just wasn’t the Katerina that Hannah knew. Yes, she’d seen her plenty of times in the past week in photographs & camera footage dressed and acting like she was, and Hannah should have gotten used to the charade by now.

She hadn’t though, she doubted she ever could. Katerina had gone down the absurd route in trying to make herself into something she wasn’t. Hannah kept the laugh inwards but the grin she knew she wore was one which she couldn’t suppress.


They were in an upstairs function room over a bookshop on Charing Cross Road. Hannah stood among a crowd gathered, tucked in here almost elbow-to-elbow, while there were two Russians talking to those assembled before them. Filipp Karpov spoke in reasonable but not perfect English with Katerina jumping in to keep things on track. The author was in London to talk about his latest book and from out of Russia’s embassy came one of their junior cultural attachés to lend a hand. Hannah hoped that anyone who saw her grinning would think that it was one of enjoyment at such a scene rather than her reaction to the utter insanity of Katerina behaving like she was.

“Nyet,” Karpov shook his massive head, one which held thick grey sideburns that were ugly as hell, as he answered a question that came from a man standing next to Hannah, “no, it was never meant to be Russia. Mordor is Germany if you must.”

“But what about The Last Ringbearer? That is Russia, is it not?”

Another question came from someone else. Katerina’s expression turned to one of exasperation, something which Karpov, whom Hannah had been briefed wasn’t a very patient man, vocalised.

“Tolkien didn’t write that tale: fan-fiction is something to not take seriously when we are discussing the work of a… how do you say it: a true master of storytelling. Now, we are here to talk about my book, are we not?”

Authors: Hannah hated them.

Karpov spoke over someone else’s effort to ask another question as he discussed his own work in relation to his views upon the work of Tolkien. Hannah considered him rude outright but that didn’t excuse what he did there. He was here among Tolkien fans to talk about that late author’s work with the sure fire knowledge that an audience would ask about that Russian piece. She knew what The Last Ringbearer was: a well-known Russian had written an alternate take upon The Lord of the Rings, one putting across the point of view of the losers of the final battle. It had a certain following, chiefly though among people who hadn’t actually read it to be perfectly honest. It was always going to come up at an event like this.

Her attention moved to Katerina though. She was watching her as the young woman, one whom she knew very well indeed, remained playing a role that was so unlike her. This was the second Tolkien themed event in London that Katerina had been to since she had come to London. At each of them, she had been present on behalf of her embassy to promote cultural links. Katerina not just wore what she did, looking nothing like herself, but was quiet, professional and reserved.

And this Tolkien nonsense, with her as some sort of scholar!

That wasn’t the Katerina she knew, not her own Katyusha – yes, she very much did go off like a multiple-barrelled rocket-launcher from World War Two – from that gay bar in Edinburgh back a few years ago.


*


There were a multitude of consulates in the Scottish capital. Dozens of countries, Russia included, had a diplomatic presence in Edinburgh with accredited diplomats assigned. There were spies among them, making use of official cover and protection to go about their underhand business while operating from their compounds. Hannah, Scottish herself, had been up there at the time, tasked by MI-5 to keep an eye on newly-arrived Russian diplomats to see if they were engaged in espionage activities.

Her job was to also make opening moves to recruit any of them, if such an opportunity presented itself.

That night in Gracies, a gay bar in the city centre, Hannah had done something that she afterwards had imagined her mother finding out about and calling her ‘one daft bint’. Of course, Hannah didn’t tell her mother anything about her work and wasn’t going to share the details of her sex life with her, but that thought had entered her head and stuck there. What she had done really had been out of character, wholly unwise.

Katerina had been doing karaoke up on a little stage. She’d been belting out Unchained Melody to the crowd of women in Gracies that night – Ladies Only on Tuesday and Thursday – and had received quite the positive reaction. Hannah had walked into the bar moments before Katerina had started singing. Once the Russian girl had, Hannah had fallen head over feet for her. That wasn’t what was supposed to have happened. Hannah liked women – her bosses knew that – but there had been no indication that Katerina would have the same interests. She’d naively believed that Katerina had just stumbled into Gracies, looking for somewhere to sing.

Daft bint.

No, Katerina had gone there looking for a good time and someone to go home with. She sung pretty good, following up with Right Here Waiting For You straight afterwards. Perhaps a half dozen women had tried it on with Katerina once she was done singing. Hannah had watched that take place with jealousy filling her. It came from nowhere but consumed her once it had arrived. She’d gone to talk to Katerina to have her for herself, calling herself Tamara at the time and with a whole cover legend to back up her story as being an accountant rather than a spook.

After several vodka-&-cokes with vanilla floats, Hannah had ended up taking Katerina home.

The Russian girl’s attire had been a big part of that. Knee-high black boots. Fishnet tights with silver tassels on them. A red leather shirt that came down to just above her knees. A tank top, darker in its redness than her skirt, that showed off not just her midriff but her did wonders for her cleavage too. A gold chain around her neck with a solid cross at the bottom. Red lipstick, plenty of black eyeshadow and thick eyelashes. Big hoop earrings and her wavy brown hair down past her shoulder blades.

That had done it for Hannah, that alone. Yet, Katerina had come with an attitude that had lit a fire in Hannah too. First the singing, then the two of them dancing to cheesy pop numbers sung by others on karaoke before the open flirting as a finale. Hannah had got Katerina into a taxi, to her flat and then into her bed.


Hannah had filled in a recruitment report the next day at her desk. MI-5 had a building it maintained in the West End area of Edinburgh. There was no big sign outside to advertise what was done in there, who worked inside, though it really wasn’t the biggest of secrets. As to her report, she left out details. Such things weren’t usually done, not by her anyway. However, there was no way that she was going to add into an official MI-5 document the exact goings on between her and Katerina.

There was a good chance she might have been fired if she had done so, severely disciplined if not. Sexpionage was deeply frowned upon with MI-5, at least in its use by officers themselves. A bad reaction would likely come down the line from London in reply to Hannah admitting going to bed with that Russian diplomat.

Daft bint.

More than that, Hannah was not going to put such a thing into a report that others could read. She could imagine it being shared – names and locations blacked-out – among drooling guys first in MI-5, then in government… next on the internet! No, thanks.

Her task had been to recruit Katerina. That was one which she had achieved. It hadn’t happened in the manner she thought it would, and was much quicker than expected, but she had managed it. That went in the official internal document. A family-friendly version of their encounter was one which Hannah told.


The recruitment itself had been one which Hannah had gone into unsure of its outcome. It had been tried before against other Russian diplomats with Hannah meeting both successes and failures. She had been pretty sure she was good at it all while telling herself that there were just some people who couldn’t be talked into doing what she wanted. MI-5 had a guideline on how to undertake recruitment of a foreign diplomat and it was one which used its own official terms and designations for the methods to employ. Hannah had always found that bland. It was too modern. She preferred old school recruitment types and also, when on the approach, considered potential targets as having one of four possible motivations for agreeing to voluntarily work against their country. The American M.I.C.E. system was something that Hannah liked to use.

Money. A foreigner could act against their own country for payment.

Ideology. A target might be either politically against their own nation, ideologically attracted to Britain’s system of government, or a mixture of both.

Conscience. The recruit could decide to betray their country because they had seen something wrong and wanted to do the right thing to correct that.

Ego. Those willing to commit treason might be doing it for fun, because they wanted to get revenge against someone... or just because they were damn crazy.

With Katerina, Hannah was prepared for any of those to occur. She would rather it wasn’t money, and especially not ego. Idealogical recruits weren’t so bad yet conscience ones were the best. Those who wanted to right a wrong were the recruits Hannah could deal with the best.

As with any approach to any Russian, there was always the concern about dezinformatsiya too. Hannah had met a Russian diplomat once, one who refused to cooperate with her yet had been entertaining himself at her expense, who had told her with utter seriousness that Russia had invented the art of espionage and in particular disinformation in intelligence affairs. He’d been talking out of his rear end on that. Still, Russian intelligence, now and before that in the Cold War, had been rather effective at the game of spying. When it came to telling lies, they were experts. They liked to lay complicated traps where false recruitments were dangled for immediate or long-term gains. Being tricked by them, used and duped like a fool, wasn’t what Hannah had wanted to happen to her when it came to Katerina.

Whether Katerina would agree to work for Britain, truthfully too, and how Hannah might get her to do that, had all been an unknown before the two of them had left Gracies in that taxi.


They’d finished and been laying down in Hannah’s bed. Katerina hadn’t waited for the recruitment pitch, one she told a shell-shocked Hannah she knew was coming. Moreover, she told her that she knew who Hannah was. The SVR, Russia’s external intelligence service and who she worked for, was aware of Hannah. There had been a briefing before Katerina had left Russia to come to Scotland. When she’d seen Hannah in that bar, she’d known that there would be a Tamara-type lie though what had happened next was entirely unexpected… but more than welcome!

Katerina had come home with her because she wanted to be recruited. She’d left Russia with the aim of doing so too.

She hated them all: the SVR, the government and the king-president in the Kremlin. Working with Britain’s intelligence service was what she had flown here to do regardless of what her cover as a diplomat at the consulate was nor her intelligence tasks assigned by the small rezidentura in Edinburgh. Katerina wanted to do her bit to bring them all down, working with Hannah to damage her nation’s rulers as best as possible. They wouldn’t catch her too. I’ll see to it that they’re all in the gutter, so she’d boasted.

One word had hit Hannah when hearing that: Ego.


*


Officially, Hannah ran a ‘special surveillance unit’ within MI-5. Like any national intelligence organisation, things that went on within Britain’s domestic-focused spy agency weren’t something that employees were supposed to talk about. That they did though. There was office gossip, pillow talk and political power plays. No secret is ever a secret if more than more people know it. However, Hannah was always the believer in the theory that to hide a secret, the best thing was to do was to cloak it behind the pretence of a semi-secret, something not so flashy either. If someone wanted to know what Hannah Monroe was up to, they’d be led to believe the lie rather than the truth… hopefully.

The SVR had eyes and ears at MI-5. A penetration agent of theirs was the biggest fear, the biggest unknown too. In addition, they would be able to pick up information given away carelessly or through deception. Katerina’s Edinburgh comments about Hannah being known about back those years ago had been taken note of. It was now a ‘fact’ within MI-5 that Hannah was a failed recruiter, someone whom had been moved on to surveillance tasks rather than being at the sharp end of espionage operations directed against foreign diplomats.

The Watchers that had been all over Katerina when she first arrived in London, back for a second tour of duty with Russia’s diplomatic representation in the UK, had moved on to other general targets. Hannah’s surveillance people had taken over the task and should anyone ask, they would have it whispered to them that as a known SVR officer, Katerina was being closely watched by a dedicated team to catch her in the act with any leads to be followed up by the special surveillance unit.

That gave Hannah the cover – from her own people in effect – to be close to Katerina. There wouldn’t be a repeat of that night in Edinburgh! Hannah had made a mistake and wouldn’t, couldn’t do so again. Her task wasn’t to get Katerina in bed but run her as an agent at the London rezidentura where Katerina was to protect SPEARMINT.


The book event broke up and Hannah saw disappointed faces. Karpov had been a disaster. The arrogant fool was a prima donna of the first order. He’d wanted to talk about his book on Tolkien but almost all of those guests in attendance had wanted to discuss Tolkien’s work. Hannah had no sympathy for him. Those who’d come started to drift out, maybe off to get drunk and forget this evening. She hung around though, her eyes on Katerina.

Her Katyusha helped Karpov pack up his belongings.

“It could have been worse, Vanya.” Hannah could hear Katerina and her California-English accent.

He shook that massive head of his again. “I think not. These people, they just are unwilling to open their eyes, their minds too.” He whispered: “Damn Orcs.”

“Give it time.” How optimistic Katerina sounded. “I think that you will connect with your audience more once they read your work.”

Karpov pulled a face: “They would have to buy the book first!”

With that, Hannah saw the opportunity she’d been waiting for.

“I’m looking forward to reading it. I bought a copy: could you sign it for me, please?”

She stepped forward, book in hand. A wide smile on her face, a pleasant attitude all directed at this awful author. It was to Karpov that Hannah made the effort to seem to be solely paying attention to. Katerina was right there next to him though moving forwards as Hannah did too and the Russian cultural attaché was her real interest.

She saw Katerina’s face and eyes light up.

Two years had passed since they had last met. It had been quite the separation of time.

As to Karpov, he was shocked at the attention he mistakenly believed was on him. Grinning with pleasure, he answered rapidly. “I will, da.”

“Use my pen.”

Katerina held out her pen and Hannah took it. She felt a finger trace across the back of her hand – Katerina being her Katyusha – yet paid that no overt attention to that. Her face was directed towards Karpov though her eyes were locked upon Katerina’s as there was a swap made.

Despite the get-up, Katerina remained gorgeous.

What else was going on was more important though. Right in front of Karpov, yet without his knowledge, Katerina and Hannah exchanged one identical pen for another.

The book was then signed with the one which had come from down Hannah’s sleeve.

“Thank you. You know my first cat, back when I was a little girl, was called Frodo.” That was an outright lie from Hannah.

“Do svidaniya.” It was clear he couldn’t care about such a thing as a name of a cat. “Have a good evening.”

“Goodbye.”


Hannah left after that.

She had Katerina’s pen with her. Within it there was a digital media storage device just as in the one which she had handed over. Information and intelligence went both ways that evening.

Outside on the street, Hannah ran the palm of her left hand over the back of her right one: where Katerina had touched her.

Don’t be a daft bint again, she told herself. Once, only once, could you get away with doing what you did.

Hannah willed herself to behave, be professional and unlike Katerina who took all of those risks. She had an important job to do. Part of that was to not surprise Katerina with another such in-person visit like the one which had just occurred.

[Leander]

6 – The Nine


An exiled Russian billionaire, Maxim Reblev, had last year returned to his homeland in the last weeks of life and died there as per his wish. He’d made arrangements for his family, who had also lived with him aboard, to inherit his ill-gotten fortune. However, a new will with Reblev’s name on it had been submitted the day before his death. He still left his family a lot yet much more was willed to the Russian State. Apparently, Reblev had wished to atone for his sins against the Rodina. Worldwide property was part of what Moscow gained, including a portion of the holdings of the deceased man’s in London. An office building was sold off, so too a fashionable town-house. There were apartments which were kept though with them being quickly made use of by Russian diplomatic staff in the UK. Accredited to the Court of St. James were many diplomats working at not just the embassy and the Edinburgh consulate but a series of separate complexes as well: a Trade Attaché, a Defence Attaché and a passport & visa centre. With the diplomats, who had legal protection for any of their activities, there were staffers who had a semi-diplomatic status as well. They all needed housing and the sudden bonus of additional property all across the city that didn’t need to be paid for was made use of. All thanks to the Reblev who’d been doped up when signing what he had not long before his demise.

Katerina was in one of those flats, over in Canning Town. She had to share it while she was in London though. Dasha had been there for several months with that other young woman working at the passport centre in Clerkenwell. It was a two-bedroom flat though Dasha had been treating it like it was all hers with no expectation of ever having to share. The two of them got off on a bad foot upon Katerina’s arrival and things hadn’t improved.

“Suka!”

Dasha was gone, already on her way to work. Katerina called her what she did when talking to an empty kitchen. She stood with her hand holding open the fridge door, in which there wasn’t any milk. Her flatmate had had the last of it. Closing the fridge and opening the bin, Katerina saw the empty carton.

There had been loads left!

It was another reason to despise Dasha. She was a selfish rotten person. The milk incident was yet one more act of which Katerina sure was spite from her fellow Russian. She suspected that Dasha had used what she wanted and likely poured the rest away on purpose. That would be something Dasha would do. She’d taken things from the fridge which weren’t hers before. Dasha slammed doors at all hours. She emptied the washing machine only when Katerina had forced her to. Dasha did her washing up at her own convenience. In addition, to really upset Katerina, the other woman had taken to ‘tidying’ her stuff.

Tidying meant shoving it in the corner, chucking books and papers there more like.

Giving up on having a coffee before she left the flat, Katerina got her stuff and went out the door. She locked it and listened for the alarm to beep. There was good security here and Katerina was pleased with that though there was nothing of any real value – she was thinking of a secret nature, not in terms of physical value – within the apartment. Three others here in this concrete block which had only recently been built were likewise the property of the Russian Embassy. One of the security people on staff would make regular checks on the locks & alarms. The knowledge of that was comforting to her. Canning Town was an up-and-coming neighbourhood though there were generally people lurking on the streets outside, and around the Underground Station too, who she’d didn’t like the look of at all.


Coffee from a shop in-hand, Katerina walked to the station. It was a dark morning with low clouds: so much for the late summer! It was going to rain soon and she put her hand in her bag to make certain that she had remembered to take her umbrella. It was there. Soon, Katerina was on a train. She went up to Stratford and then changed there for the trip into Central London. It was a busy commute with thousands of people all around her at Stratford and hundreds on the Central Line train going into London. She took note of faces, looking for anyone out of place. None of them set off any alarm bells.

Of course, she silently told herself, if one did, that would be a worry itself.

Any surveillance would be too good for her to make out unless something was seriously wrong.

Katerina got off the train at Queensway, going up via the lift. There was no escalator at that station and she had – foolishly – tried the stairs before. Out of the station soon enough, she walked down Bayswater. It was beginning to rain just as she reached the staff entrance beside the Consular Building. Smiling into the camera as she pushed the buzzer, she was allowed entry into the well-protected complex.

“Good morning, Stephan.” Katerina knew the names of all of the security people. To them, she was plain good-mannered. In reality, having them know her, like her even, was damn important for what she was here to do. “How did your angel Anya do?”

He beamed at her. “Second place, a silver medal for my little one!” Yesterday, Stephan had showed her a video on his phone of his six year-old practising a dance routine ahead of a competition.

“Well done to her.”

Moving on, inside the main building, she saw Tatiana.

“You came prepared today, didn’t you? You’re ready for a real downpour!” The older woman who worked for the ambassador’s bloated staff was in a chunky rain-mac.

“The rain here is just terrible. It’s worse than home,” which for Tatiana was Saint Petersburg, “and that is saying something! Did you make the appointment?” Tatiana had, at Katerina’s urging, recommended a good hairdresser.

“Friday.” Such was Katerina’s reply before moving on and finding the rezident’s watchdog Yevgeny.

“Hello.”

His initial reply was a grunt before, looking as if he reconsidered that, Yevgeny had a question: “Are you bringing Ilya the One Ring? He said it would be tomorrow.”

Rather than copy his negative attitude, Katerina remained pleasant. She smiled and then touched his arm as she took the bait. “No ring but it’ll be seeing him today. Can you take me down, please?”

“Just go ahead.” A yawn. “You will be okay on your own.” A dismissive wave of the hand, as if she was unimportant.

His eyes ravished her though, betraying his inner self.

Once past Ilya’s watchdog, Katerina headed for the belowground rezidentura.


She’d informed him that she’d bring up up to speed on her initial enquiries by Friday. Ilya had been impatient then and so was glad when she came into his office and told him that she was ready to run throw with him a summary of the opening stage of her mole hunt investigation.

Being two days earlier set their meeting off to a good start indeed.

“I’ve looked at all nine of your people, Ilya. I want you to bear in mind that this is just a preliminary and nothing is certain, can be certain yet. Do you agree?”

An eager reply: “Da.”

“Oleg, Ksenia, Vadim and Pyotr. All of them are entirely clean with absolutely no worries around any of them. Those are good, effective officers who are a credit to any rezidentura.”

The four of them were all SVR officers who worked at the embassy in cover jobs. Officially, Oleg attended to protocol tasks where his duties were for visiting dignitaries and embassy events. Ksenia was, like Katerina was, covered as a member of the cultural staff, and she was good in that role, while Vadim was with the consular staff. As to Pyotr, his official duties were that of embassy security.

“Those are, as you say, Katya, good officers, all of them.”

“There are some minor concerns with Feydor and Nikolai, Lyudmila and Polina too. I want to check up further with each of those four. Some of their activities beyond the embassy – where they have been recently and who they have talked to – need extra work doing. If you asked me to point to a single incident with each, I can, but the details are small and very likely explainable. It won’t take me long to look into any of it.”

Feydor was a budget official while Nikolai worked on visa duties: the latter doing what Ilya himself did. The two women were tasked for public facing duties as well with Lyudmila (the wife of the Third Secretary on the ambassador’s staff) serving in a front desk inquires role and Polina part of the public relations team.

“That leaves Misha, my deputy, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, Ilya it does.”

Mikhail (Misha to his intimates) was whom Hannah had instructed her to induce doubts in the Ilya over for reasons not explained. He was covered as a facilities management member with duties throughout the various London diplomatic complexes, ones which required much travel between them on a regular basis.

“I have a lot of trust in Misha. He is important to the rezidentura.”

He’s also someone I’ve been told to begin the framing of too, Katerina silently said to herself.

“I am aware,” Katerina began her explanation, “of at least three recent incidents off-site which cause me concern when it comes to Captain Mazyrin. His job is to move about but his routes of travel are concerning. There are people which he has bumped into recently. London is busy, as Moscow is,” (the two of them were both Muscovites) “Ilya, but to physically knock against someone on the street is rare indeed.

And three times too!”

The suspicion in Katerina was that each of those had been arranged by Hannah and her MI-5 colleagues. Mikhail thought the same too: he’d already written up a report for Ilya that she had been made aware of with those beliefs expressed.

“I saw this… here it is.” He picked up the report from among the many on his desk. “He came to me with this series of incidents.”

“It could be as he says, Ilya, or something else and he is trying to cover himself. My concern is that one, two or even all three of these might have been recent brush passes.”

His eyes narrowed as he dropped the report. “Do you think he is the traitor?”

Katerina didn’t commit herself: “Someone is, that is for sure.”

She knew who it was and that person wasn’t Mikhail at all. Yet, she was following the time-honoured dastardly behaviour of the SVR, and the KGB before it, of zapachkat: Katerina was besmirching Ilya’s deputy.

“I need a drink!” Ilya poured himself one, this time without offering any to Katerina. “You must have more than just this when it comes to Misha.”

She adopted a sombre look, something she’d been waiting to put on. “Ilya, Mikhail was intimately involved in the Heathrow Incident. There are a lot of questions there over his conduct which led me to have these worries that he is the one betraying embassy secrets to the British.”

“Heathrow!” An ugly snort and another gulp of his vodka. “It was he who came to me afterwards convinced that we had a gryaznaya krysa, a filthy rat – his words –, here. I wasn’t so convinced but Misha absolutely was.”

Katerina stepped closer to him and near whispered. “Ilya, that would be a good way to divert attention from his own activities, wouldn’t it?”


It didn’t sound very convincing of an argument to Katerina. Mikhail hadn’t been someone she had favoured for the frame. The SVR captain was a capable and effective man, someone whom in the reports she had read had alerted his rezident to the idea of a mole here right after the Heathrow incident had occurred. Katerina had been looking at using either Lyudmila or Nikolai as someone to point the finger of suspicion at. However, new instructions had come, from Hannah no less, for it to be Mikhail instead.

She had to work with what she had, to make do.

“I’m not relieving him of his duties nor sending him back to Moscow on the basis of what little you have, Katya.” He held up his hand to ward off any protest. “I’m not disparaging you, but this isn’t enough… not yet anyway.

Get some evidence on Misha and then I’ll take such a step.”

“In the meantime though…”

“Da,” he interrupted her, anticipating what she was going to say, “I will have to change things around her. Quietly, Misha will have to be exposed to less information and restricted from doing what I have him doing now.

This is all going to cause complications for me. Katya, why couldn’t you have brought me the name of someone else.”

Leaving Ilya’s office afterwards, Katerina wore an entirely neutral look. Inside though, she was ecstatic. She was sticking a dagger into the heart of her country’s evil security services, twisting it too all while with the pretence of protecting it. Her success at revenge for what they had done elated her. It was going to take some time, more than just this, but in the end, she’d bring them all crashing down.

Still without giving anything away, she moved through the rezidentura on her way back to the tunnel and the chancery up above. Several of Ilya’s people were working there – Mikhail not among them – and took note of her.

SPEARMINT was among them.

[jemhouston]

I'm hoping for something nasty to happen to Dasha.

[Leander]

I'm hoping for something nasty to happen to Dasha.

Don't forget about Dasha. She'll pop up again.

[Leander]

7 – What the Sparrow heard


Daniel Goldberg was the junior US Senator for Connecticut. He was fifty-four yet considered himself to be in the prime of his life. He had wealth, he had influence and he power. Goldberg felt good about himself and regarded his future political prospects as excellent too.

On his third marriage, Goldberg had no children. He wanted them but none had come. Physically, he was sure he was capable. It just hadn’t happened and, at his age now, it was unlikely it would. His second wife had a child though Goldberg had never been close to her and didn’t regard her as a stepdaughter. The current spouse had a twenty year-old boy and Ben was someone whom Goldberg was pleased to regard as a stepson, almost a son when anyone asked about their relationship. He was a good boy with excellent future prospects himself. Goldberg would like to see the boy go far. Like his stepfather, Ben had a varied taste in women. For the past five years, the boy had gone through many of them. They came in all ages, colours and sizes. Goldberg had admired some and had been aghast at others yet had to give Ben credit: the women certainly liked him.

Yet they had always liked Goldberg too. He knew it wasn’t his looks nor his prowess in the bedroom. No, it wasn’t money either. Women were attracted to the power that he had. He was a somebody. Goldberg could make things happen… as long as he got what he wanted in exchange that was. Such was the case with Ben’s latest girlfriend. She was a German national, three years older than Goldberg’s stepson. Lieselotte Schick was her name, one which had fascinated Goldberg the moment he’d heard it. Attending law school at Georgetown, the girl wasn’t much of a looker. She was a big girl, misshapen with that. Nonetheless, she was engaging. And flirtatious. Lieselotte stirred in Goldberg enough feelings that he was ready to forget his affection for Ben and take any opportunity he might get with Lieselotte. Her attraction to him was clear and he had reckoned he wouldn’t have had to wait long until she came asking for something.

That she soon did. There was a visa issue and someone else, certainly at her school here in Washington where he spent most of his time could have attended to, but she came to Goldberg. Of course he could help her. He did too. Then he wanted his reward for his assistance. Lieselotte gave him that in the back of his car, one parked outside the apartment which he had brought for his son. For not one moment had Goldberg felt guilty.

It should have been a one off but Lieselotte made it apparent that she wanted to see him again. Goldberg had no hesitation in agreeing to that.


While he represented the voters of Connecticut on Capitol Hill, Goldberg had other duties there too. As an ex officio member, he sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. That was quite a sought-after position, one which he relished. It made him important. It also gave him access to secrets. Goldberg had had the warning briefings from intelligence staffers beforehand about foreign spies. Young women – or boys – who’d throw themselves at you and seek pillow talk where secrets were spilled. That had been something he’d been told to be on his guard against. As far as he was concerned, any Russian or Chinese spy would have to be damn clever to get anything out of him!

He’d spot them a mile off. Joking with another senator, after being told about Russian training centres for their female spies who’d use sexpionage, Goldberg had suggested he volunteer as a quality control instructor!

Goldberg’s public profile made affairs difficult though not impossible. His second and third wives had each been mistresses before he married them and when first as a congressman and then now as a senator, Goldberg had learnt how to keep what was his private life private. There were measures to take to not get caught. It wasn’t his wife he was worried about, nor even Ben when it came to his affair with Lieselotte, but the media. Adding to his own precautions, he found himself very fortunate that Lieselotte was equally willing to ensure that his private behaviour wasn’t exposed. She had the ideal apartment of her own to conduct an affair within. She was very helpful, very understanding.

It never occurred to him just how fortunate, how convenient that was… almost as if a hidden hand had arranged things that way.

Pillow talk came. Goldberg shared with Lieselotte some things he shouldn’t have. What he told her wasn’t anything he regarded as important. He expressed his power not just in bed but by making her know that he knew many important things. She listened with her big eyes – everything about her was big – open and never asked anything. He’d tell without being prompted, enjoying seeing her impressed with what he was trusted to know. Goldberg knew she was impressed. Of course she was.

And there was nothing to worry about. She was a German and just a young thing working as a restaurant hostess while studying at Georgetown. Who was she going to tell the small secrets he shared with her to?


Such was how the SVR found out about SPEARMINT.

Through an American senator who couldn’t keep his zipper up and his mouth shut. They had one of their trained Sparrows, a young German woman who was an expert at getting secrets out of foolish men who should have known better, coax them out of him in that special way that she did.

The SVR learnt that the British were sharing with their American allies intelligence gleamed from a source within the rezidentura in London. The source’s real identity, codename even, weren’t something that Goldberg knew nor their motivation. He just had knowledge of where the gold-plated intelligence came from and that the source was recently gained. Lieselotte would continue to see him, to press him for more information as the time went on, all without overtly pressing too but those skills of hers.

Goldberg, the dupe that he was, would want to carry on showing his power so that Lieselotte could marvel in it. He’d bed her and tell her juicy secrets all without concern.

*

There should never have been any question when it came to someone like Goldberg knowing what he did to spill onwards to a listening Sparrow. The ranking member from the Senate’s Armed Services Committee was on the Intelligence Committee as a matter of courtesy. Like those others there by right, he wasn’t given the nitty-gritty details of intelligence operations by officials from the CIA and other agencies from the Intelligence Community. Such things weren’t done, even when briefings were held in secure facilities free of bugs and the listening ears of outsiders.

Politicians just couldn’t be trusted to keep their mouths shut… or their zippers up either.

More than any of that, the Americans weren’t supposed to know about SPEARMINT.


The intelligence agencies of the United States and the United Kingdom were the real definition of the oft misused term ‘special relationship’. They shared a lot of information and worked together on a whole range of matters. Along with the wider Five Eyes network – the former Commonwealth countries of Australia, Canada and New Zealand were the other trio –, the world was divided up into areas of responsibility by those Western powers. They worked with others too, but the Five Eyes and even more so the special relationship country’s spooks were extremely tight with one another.

Nonetheless, SPEARMINT was a British-only operation: it was even held back from MI-6 and GCHQ by the protective MI-5. They had a live agent inside of the London rezidentura and didn’t want to lose them to Russian counter-intelligence. Information gleamed from SPEARMINT, ‘product’ as the Americans would call it, was mostly a matter for MI-5 anyway. Where it was deemed to be something to be shared elsewhere, then it was heavily disguised. There was little for SPEARMINT to give when it concerned the Americans and none of that had been included in the regular briefings given by the CIA to their Senate overseers.

The human factor intervened though, out there in Washington. In a situation which was eerily similar to what had happened back in the early-Eighties, when MI-6 (working with MI-5 on that) had managed to manoeuvre a KGB officer to the rezident role in London, the Americans inadvertently put it all in danger. The CIA back then at the height of the Cold War had been fed disguised information from that source but they had wanted to know more about where it had come from. They had worked hard to uncover the truth to satisfy their own curiosity, all without telling their allies what they were up to, and that had then been discovered by a traitor within the CIA who had then sold the information to Moscow. History was almost repeating itself when it came to SPEARMINT. One of the deputy directors at Langley sought to get to the truth. He wanted to know where the British were getting their intelligence from. Part of that was curiosity but it was also to protect the CIA less the Russians be playing a complicated game with a false agent. Much about SPEARMINT was uncovered though not the all-important identification.

Over cocktail drinks at a swanky Washington wine bar, the deputy director told the story to one of CIA’s congressional liaisons, who then promptly repeated it Goldberg in another bar all for his Sparrow to hear while he was in her bed.


No one knew anything about that in London.

What they did know was that SPEARMINT was in trouble. They reported unsettling news from within the rezidentura concerning suspicion about a British agent there. Handlers asked SPEARMINT for details but few were forthcoming nor a big reveal. It was a collection of little things. Then the Heathrow Incident happened. That was nothing to do with SPEARMINT though. They were run properly, as any good spy should be by a professional intelligence agency. A wealth of information had come out of the rezidentura with only some of that acted upon, and then in a deniable manner. To suddenly shut down all Russian intelligence operations in the UK, to arrest their illegal agents & British traitors and to diplomatically expel their spooks – all but SPEARMINT – would be suicidally stupid.

MI-5 was playing the long game, the one with the big picture to take into consideration.

The event at Britain’s biggest airport which set off all the alarm bells in the rezidentura wasn’t anything that had come from MI-5’s agent there. It was crass stupidity on the part of the Russians along with a big helping of bad luck which caused all of that. Yet, with the partial leak from Washington in their minds, that told the SVR that they had a traitor on their hands. They brought in Katerina though, which was the worst thing that they could have done for themselves.

Katerina was to save SPEARMINT, someone who didn’t even want to be spy for Britain.

*

SPEARMINT had been recruited against their will.

It wasn’t the same with how it was with Katerina. The latter had voluntarily pushed herself into the lap of MI-5 – she had her own agenda behind that with Hannah not having to do any work with it all. When it came to SPEARMINT, it was an involuntary recruitment and the opposite of M.I.C.E. Instead, it was all about A.B.C. when it came to forcing a foreign national to work for MI-5.

A was for anguish. The recruit would be forced into treason due to the fear of what might happen to themselves or someone close to them. They would be coerced into it all, while being led to believe that they had no other choice less the worse happen.

B was for blackmail. Along similar lines, the target would end up committing treason because they didn’t want to see the consequences arrive if they didn’t. However, that was done when the recruit had done something themselves first that would get them into trouble.

C was for chicanery. Deception was how that was done approach to gain recruits with simplicity in that preferred over complicated schemes. False flags were some of the best tricks used where targets wouldn’t even know they were spying for Britain – they’d be led to believe it was for another country or, even better, an internal Russian security programme! – at least at first.


Blackmail had been the issue with SPEARMINT. They had an elder brother who was a former SVR officer. That sibling had failed as a spy – Russia’s foreign intelligence service often included families; their father had been a spy himself – and was on the outs with the entire organisation. He had set himself up in business, one which involved a lot of travel. The business was that of a ‘financial investigator’ and involved aiding those involved in divorce cases. SPEARMINT met their sibling for lunch in London and that was one spied upon by MI-5 who were curious about the brother. Across the Channel in France, a Russian criminal gang leader was in the middle of a messy divorce. He had hidden much of his riches less his French wife get her hands on it, which the investigator was seeking to see happen. SPEARMINT was talked into aiding in that, all for their own gain too. Classified information which the SVR held on the husband was then revealed. As to that rich gentleman – one about to lose a few million Euros –, he was an ‘access agent’ for the SVR. Like so many Russians abroad who wanted to keep on the good side of the Kremlin, the criminal had dealings with Russia’s foreign intelligence service. He aided the SVR by providing access to those who would further their aims, all without being directly involved himself: he had expected protection in return. What he got was shafted by someone unknown. SPEARMINT covered their tracks and concealed their monetary reward, all without the knowledge that the British knew exactly what had happened.

An approach was made to SPEARMINT by MI-5 and that was one that was rebuffed. The first attempt was done in a friendly manner yet due to the strength of the rejection, when MI-5 came back a second time, there was no friendliness involved. They had their kompromat on SPEARMINT and a willingness was made to use it. Secret information out of the London rezidentura was passed on with SPEARMINT deluding themselves into thinking that it was a one-time deal. It wasn’t. They’d gone and committed treason by trying to dig themselves out of a mess.

Using blackmail to keep SPEARMINT onside was something furiously argued about among those within MI-5 in the know. They called it dangerous and warned it might blow up in their faces in the end. Supporters of keeping the hooks in that SVR agent disagreed: it kept SPEARMINT at their mercy. Who was right and who was wrong would be determined in time. Before then, high-quality information came out of the rezidentura.

[jemhouston]

I know there are creatures stupider than politicians, but I'm hard press to think of one. The only thing most of them are good is getting elected.

[Leander]

I know there are creatures stupider than politicians, but I'm hard press to think of one. The only thing most of them are good is getting elected.

Diaper clothes like him are the same world over.

[Leander]

8 – Barium meals


‘M.I.Five – not Nine to Five’

The tag-line came from a TV show in the early Noughties by the name of Spooks. Hannah had not long been with the Security Service when that show came out and had wholeheartedly agreed with such a description of her working hours. Spooks was something she’d never really watched: if anyone would have asked (which no one ever had), she would have told that that Killing Eve and Slow Horses gave a truer view of the work of the country’s spooks.

Hannah got home tonight just after one a.m. She was busting for the loo in the taxi all the way home, one which had inexplicitly been caught in traffic at that time of night! It had been too late for the Tube and then the driver had an issue with providing her with a receipt for her expenses. Furious and almost hopping, Hannah had almost told him to forget it. It was too much of a cost to let go though, to swallow the cost and not claim it back.

Her little flat in Hammersmith was cold when she went inside. She was in fast and yawning as she did so. Hannah was quick to get ready for bed. Her makeup came off and she had a shower. There were emails on her phone to check before she could climb into bed less she fall asleep with her phone in her hand as she had done so before.

The life of a spook: not very glamorous at all.


Yet, the evening had been so for Katerina. That Russian had been working the ‘dip circuit’ with Hannah part of the monitoring team tonight. Never having been a diplomat herself – Katerina was on the official list –, Hannah had missed out of the merry-go-round of glamorous events for those assigned to embassies to take part in. Diplomats would receive invitations to countless events with no hope of attending even half of them as far as Hannah saw it. Other embassies would host gatherings and parties in honour of their independence, a past revolution, a monarch’s birthday, the birth of the heir to their throne, the day of their national hero and so on. There were other events held for celebrating the works of important figures living or deceased as well as ones to honour the arrival of a new ambassador or consul. These were held at embassies themselves or elsewhere. Diplomats could spend most nights going from event to event, mingling with fellow diplomats all while living the high life. Espionage took place in the dip circuit, a lot of it too.

It was Brazil’s Independence Day and a party had been held not at their embassy but at a rented venue in Mayfair. Katerina had attended along with a significant delegation from the Russian Embassy including a trio of known figures from the rezidentura, SPEARMINT included. Wearing a dress and looking damn fine, Hannah had only been able to observe Katerina from several streets away. There were security cameras inside the event location with their wi-fi feed signal hijacked. There was no champagne and no savoury treats for Hannah. She watched Katerina partaking in a little dancing too, all while herself in the back of a cramped surveillance van.

Leighanne was in that van too.

And Hannah hated her.

The younger woman was an acolyte of Richard’s. That small man who occupied a big chair, with dreams of riding SPEARMINT’s successes all the way to the very top of MI-5, pulling people like Leighanne up along with him but not Hannah, had sent her keep an eye on things. Leighanne wasn’t welcome. She hadn’t been welcome before when she had stuck her nose in as to what was happening with Katerina and wasn’t that evening too. Nonetheless, Hannah could do nothing about her presence. Richard wanted her there and so she was.

While they were watching Katerina and SPEARMINT both, Leighanne had – as she had done beforehand – grinded Hannah’s gears. She was a staffer, an analyst. Leighanne wasn’t a field intelligence officer with the knowledge of how things were really done. Richard had her present to make sure that nothing went wrong with SPEARMINT and therefore she stuck her little interfering, squat nose in everywhere.

The evening had been full of remarks from Leighanne concerning apparent concern from Richard over Hannah’s ‘full plate’.

Hannah was supervising what was going on with Nathan Clay and those Russian-aligned smugglers. She was doing that all while also running APOSTROPHE: the codename for Katerina, one which Leighanne used incessantly, as if the Russian wasn’t a real person. Was Hannah’s team big enough? Couldn’t the smuggler issue be handed off? Was Hannah certain that everything was going as well as hoped with APOSTROPHE? It was clear what was going on. The concern was over SPEARMINT and how Richard’s operation there was deemed to be under threat – in his opinion – from what Katerina was up to. But it was he who had set all this in motion, he who had sent Katerina in to protect his source in the rezidentura, and now, using Leighanne, he was trying to dismantle it all.

Little Dick would never get to the top if SPEARMINT fell flat on their face.

Leighanne had raised the ‘mysteries’ issue while they were meant to be watching the video feed. That had come after comments that surely it would have been best to watch the diplomatic event from afar, back at Thames House rather than on the street? Anyway, as to those mysteries, that was the less important information that came out of the rezidentura which hadn’t been tied down. Actions taken on significant intelligence passed over by SPEARMINT had only been towards that deemed important and in response to serious threats to the British national interest. SPEARMINT had delivered a lot more information though, much of that unconfirmed. Katerina was inside the rezidentura too and she sent out intelligence.

Some of that contradicted what had been delivered before.

Nothing was of a great deal but there were two versions of several stories. Hannah stood by her spy in there while Richard, through Leighanne, had full faith in SPEARMINT. There was little concern from Hannah. Katerina’s information was fresher and therefore more up to date: SPEARMINT could have been not working with full knowledge. More than that, two people can look at the same thing and see different things. She knew that from experience. It hadn’t troubled her. It did Richard though and so Leighanne – carefully – trash talked Katerina.

How Hannah hated her!


Hannah had to be up before six. In her mind, lying down alone in the darkness, she ran through comments made by Leighanne. Sleep was what she needed yet she seethed over how her evening had been spent. Daring not to check on the time, Hannah huffed and puffed. Getting Leighanne off her back was what she damn well needed.

The alarm suddenly went off.

It was morning. Sleep had come and gone in what might as well have been a flash.

Hannah was out of bed and into her morning routine. Twenty-five minutes later, she was out the front door. Soon she was on the Tube and heading into work. There was an early team meeting with her people just as tired as she was. Hannah saw that in their faces. Working the Katerina case was keeping them all damn busy with no time for rest let alone a social life.

Her team consisted of five personnel who were indoctrinated (spy talk for in-the-know) about Katerina. There was Abigail, Louise, Phoebe and Zach from Thames House plus Peter attached as an MI-6 liaison. There were all different, all with their own personalities. Hannah was close to the three other women, a little bit ambivalent when came to whether she could work well long term with Zach and entirely untrusting of Peter because he was one of the ‘enemy’.

Zach had an immediate question this morning: “Why are we still watching Katerina?”

It was something that Hannah was sure that others present might wanted to have asked themselves. Zach being Zach was the one to say out loud what the others wouldn’t though.

The truth was something that she wasn’t going to tell them: that being that she liked watching Katerina. Hannah instead repeated a lie which she had the previous evening given to Leighanne.

“We’re watching Katerina,” so she told them, “to make sure that no one is watching her.”

Unsure, even suspicious eyes returned her stare when, seated with her colleagues, she justified her recent actions.

The team meeting moved on. Zach, with his gym bag at his feet and having turned down a cuppa for instead some powdered water nonsense, was assigned to Daria Aleksandrovna Fukrova. She was Katerina’s flatmate – Dasha – and, despite, Katerina saying there was nothing to her, Hannah had her watched in case that wasn’t as it seemed. Joining Dasha at the gym this morning Zach would be, part of his shadowing of her to see if there was any chance that she was engaged in something against Katerina. A six-foot-three-inch Black guy, he was hardly inconspicuous, but that wasn’t always needed in this profession. Sometimes it helped to stand out.

“Did you know she wrote a book?” His question to Hannah and the others was rhetorical. “She did it under a pseudonym and self-published it too. It’s quite good to be fair.”

“Oh, what’s its about?”

“A mother who finds out her daughter is a serial killer. She first considers turning her in to the authorities before spying in her and sets out to foil each killing before they happen. In the end, its a bit of a bloodbath.”

Phoebe, who had made that inquiry, shook her head: “Yeah… probably nothing something I’m going to read. Her father was a spy too, like Katerina’s, yes?”

“It runs in families there.” So Hannah told her team.

“Drop the ‘a’ off the end,” Louise said, “and say his name aloud.”

That Phoebe did… to general laughter.

Hannah moved things along; she didn’t want to hear about another bloody author though the family connection was interesting. “Zach, stay on our budding author and spy’s daughter Dasha. I want to be sure that she isn’t a donoschik,” she used the Russian word for informer, saying it just like Katerina would too, “out to keep an eye on Katerina even if she says Dasha is no threat to her.”

Louise was all over the smugglers whom the Russians were in contact with. She updated Hannah on the latest reports from Nathan in there with that criminal group and their close observation of Robinson. With Katerina having worked to cause suspicion upon Mikhail, Louise’s goal was to see to whom Robinson would next deliver package to. Abigail was assigned to Ilya, the rezident himself. He was being closely followed and she had reports on his activities.

Talking with Peter, Hannah pressed him for ideas on how to ensure that the Russians believed that Mikhail was spying for MI-5 from inside of the rezidentura. Katerina was going to frame him from the inside while their task was to do that from without. It had to be effective and it had to stick. SPEARMINT was to be thoroughly protected by it all but so too Katerina – Hannah made that crystal clear – so that she could move on afterwards to further British interests elsewhere.

“We need to tie him to the Heathrow Incident, Hannah. That’s how we get him. The latest intelligence exchange with Katerina told us how she has already planted that seed with Ilya.”

“And how do we do that?”

“It’s not going to be easy.” He grimaced. “Not easy at all. But I have some ideas.”

“Let’s here them then, shall we?”

Peter ran through some speculative plays to put into operation. First Phoebe and then Louise had input into them, giving suggestions but also playing devil’s advocate. Hannah observed how her team worked well with that, even with Peter being quite the outsider among them considering his MI-6 status. As to the ideas presented, none of them grabbed her. She didn’t think that they would be enough to do the job of effectively framing Mikhail.

More work was needed to be done to create a plausible enough lie, one to be able to land enough of a blow to succeed. Katerina would need to be fully onside with it all too.

There was still time and Peter would be given it.

At the end of the meeting, he brought up something else.


“I’ve been thinking about what Leighanne is concerned about.” Peter had been with the two of them the night before. “She expressed that unease at those mysteries and there is a reason there that I don’t think has yet to be considered.”

Hannah was intrigued: “Go ahead.”

Well-dressed, sitting comfortable in his chair with his chin in his hand, and peering over the top of his reading classes at her, Peter floated his idea.

“Let me just start by saying that the idea that these mysteries, items of intelligence to be dismissed as trivial is, in my belief, wrong. Yet, I do understand why we are not moving forward with any of it at this time.

I thought that barium meals were your thing over on this side of the river?

That is what it seems to me that is being done inside of Ilya’s rezidentura and explains why our two people inside of there are hearing two different versions of the same thing. I think that there might be several more versions of the same truth out there and they are waiting for action to be taken so that a canary can be identified.”

The barium meal test was, as Peter correctly pointed out, a favoured tactic of MI-5. They would often do just as he suggested: tell different people they suspected of being possible leakers several versions of one thing and see how that played out when the targeted opposition reacted to one of those possible ‘truths’ from a canary.

He’d hit the nail right on the head with that.

Her eyes were opened. Hannah saw what Ilya was up to. He was acting independently of Moscow Centre sending him Katerina. The rezident was out to identify SPEARMINT by himself if possible.

“Clever bugger.” Peter reacted to her remark with a look that she interpreted as him unsure whether she meant him or Ilya. “The rezident, Peter,” she explained.

“They never send us the dumb ones, do they?”

Her team discussed Peter’s scenario while Hannah thought briefly about the information that had come first from SPEARMINT and then Katerina too, just with differences each time. It concerned current lower-grade SVR operations being run from the rezidentura. There was a French or German journalist who lived in the UK. He or she worked for the Russians as a talent spotter: someone who identified spies to recruit. They had an access agent in the manner of a secret girlfriend to a senior Met. Police officer working espionage support for MI-5 under their influence as well. Then the was an ongoing digital surveillance operations that the Russians had ongoing at either the American embassy or the official residence of their ambassador. Finally, an unknown junior minister at one of the government ministries tied to national security had had their mobile phone hacked.

The main stories were the same but the exact details weren’t.

In time, all of this would be shut down. Various undertakings would be made to address it all and end the Russian activities through each. It would all be disguised so as none of it lead back to SPEARMINT.

“Hold on. Do we think that Ilya fed a barium meal to Katerina? That would mean he suspects her, doesn’t it?”

“No, Phoebe, I don’t think that’s the case. She did say that she heard this from someone else.”

Hannah eased her colleague’s concerns there: her own too. An idea then came to Hannah, one she shared with her team.

“Can we tie Mikhail to any of this, all of it even, if he too is part of the barium meal test? Can we make it out that he gave this all away to us?”

Peter beamed at her. “Hannah,” he said still smiling, “that’s quite the cunning idea. It won’t work though. There are too many variables. It’ll end up blowing up in our faces.”

“He’s right,” Zach added his opinion on that, seeming forever buttering up Peter, “and I think that we should just stick with the initial idea when it comes to Mikhail. We tie him to Heathrow, Hannah, because otherwise by trying to end up being too clever, we’ll expose both our people in there.”

Regrettably, Hannah had to agree. They’d stick with that. Playing the rezident at his own game was impossible without all of the facts. To proceed now, there would need to be another careful contact with Katerina. She knew it couldn’t be risked that she would be the one to do it either.

“Phoebe: you get in touch with Katerina: use a dead drop. She’ll know how exactly to do this.”

[jemhouston]

Security work, 99% boredom, 1% sheer terror.