Kompromat

[Leander]

One – Defector

Svetlana Danilova woke up late on the Friday morning in her apartment in the Spanish city of Sevilla, one which she shared with her purported husband. She got out of bed and went to the bathroom to look in the mirror at her bruised face. Splashing water over it, the dried blood was washed away. The bruises showed all signs of erupting into anger to match the fists which had delivered them last night.

“Do it.” The twenty-five year-old spoke quietly to herself, giving the instruction to do exactly what she had thought about doing the night beforehand.

Svetlana walked barefoot and without any clothes to the kitchen. Mikhail was there. The older man was leaning over the kitchen counter, his back turned from her. His head was in his bruised hands. The coffee machine was on, so too the television tuned to RT from back home in the Rodina where they both came.

He made no sign of acknowledging her even when she opened the draw beside him. Out it slid, revealing its contents. Svetlana picked up the item she wanted.

“Misha.”

She called him by the diminutive form of his name. It was for friends, for those who one held affection for.

Svetlana had none of that for Mikhail but it made his turn towards her calm, one without any concern in him. Anti-clockwise he came around to face her. His mouth opened in surprise at what he saw.

The kitchen knife had a blade of forty centimetres. It was the biggest one in the draw. With two hands, as if it was a dagger, Svetlana plunged it downwards from up at head height into his chest.

She aimed for his heart.

“Nyet!”

Mikhail bellowed such a cry. It was the last thing that he’d ever say.

He fell towards the floor. Svetlana let go of the knife though only after twisting it as Mikhail collapsed.

She stood above him. His eyes were wide open, looking up at her with hate. She returned that, standing there until all life in the monster that was Mikhail was gone.

Blood spread across the tiled floor.

Svetlana stepped away from it, almost in fear of it touching her toes. She left the kitchen.


She was out of the apartment twenty minutes later. After a shower and a hasty dash around to grab what she had decided last night in her mental list as to what to take with her after she’d killed him, Svetlana fled from where she had ended Mikhail. She had taken his phone along with his car keys.

The two of them were both Russian nationals using false names who apparently worked solely for the Russian Government’s Trade Mission in Sevilla at the Honorary Consulate. They weren’t married despite records saying that they were. That was because they were both overseas intelligence officers with the SVR instead of just plain diplomats. Russia’s external intelligence organisation had people like them all over the world, many under much deeper cover than just an alias and an alleged marriage like she and Mikhail had been.

To the tiny diplomatic compound that was the honorary consulate – nothing more than a converted house used as an office – Svetlana didn’t go. It was a few kilometres away, in the middle of the city. Instead, in Mikhail’s car, she drove from the outskirts of Sevilla and started going south.

There was a phone call incoming to Mikhail’s phone. It sat on the passenger seat beside her as she drove through the Spanish countryside along one of the big highways of Andalucía.

Briefly, Svetlana looked at the phone screen.

“He won’t be picking up, Vanya.” She spoke aloud rather than as she had meant to in silence. “Your favourite Misha is in hell.”

Vanya was Ivan Sobolev, their controlling officer based out of the embassy up in Madrid. He was an SVR man playing the role of a trade official. He knew about the previous beatings that Mikhail had given her, ones he had said she should accept as part of the job. Mikhail was too important to him for an intervention, something that he could have done, but he had opted not to. He had also refused to let her go home yesterday when she had asked for the family loss that had just taken place for Svetlana. Ivan had said he needed her to stay and that what she and Mikhail had been involved in was too important to lose either of them.

Too bad for him now. Ivan had neither of them.

Svetlana had been in Spain for two years and had spent almost a year in Belgium before that, and also elsewhere too. She was a spy, a patriot serving her nation overseas. After this morning though, that was all coming to an end.


La Línea de la Concepción was a Spanish town at the bottom end of the country. Svetlana had never been there before yet she found it easily enough and drove through it. There was a passport control station on the Spanish side. She was leaving the EU at its frontier and so needed documentation. She had that with her. It wasn’t in neither her real name nor that of the alias she used in Spain though. Instead, it made her out to be someone else entirely.

There was no trouble in going past the EU frontier check. Ahead there was the British check, the one barring entry to those unwelcome in their territory of Gibraltar.

“Good morning.”

He was a good looking young man who reached for her offered passport though also wore a look of concern.

It was her face that did that, surely.

“Hi.” She replied as briefly as possible, with a deliberate effort made for a smile.

“Are you okay?” He touched his own face as he spoke, his finger running a line across his left cheek. She’d already seen the frightening cut there on her own.

“I had an accident.” Still, Svetlana was brief.

“A bad one?”

“Yes.” Of course, it would have been had that been the case. “I was rock climbing and I took a tumble."

Svetlana had spent some time in the UK, before Belgium. She’d been there under yet another name. That had come following much training and an immersion in British culture. Her accent as she spoke this morning was that of a Londoner, that great big melting pot of immigrants. The choice made by those who taught her how to appear British had been to excuse any concerns among those who’d hear her speak their native language.

That appeared to work with the young man.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He sounded rather genuine, no trace of suspicion in him that the state of her face came from the fists of an angry, drunken & jealous man who lay dead back in Spain. “Perhaps you should see someone?”

“It looks worse than it is.” Svetlana didn’t want to say any more than that but thought it best to due to the situation. “But I’ll go to the A & E once I’m across.”

“You really should.” Her smiled at her, one that still denoted concern.

Her passport was checked. There were no problems with it. It wasn’t a forgery but in fact one issued by official channels in London. Only to someone else it had gone instead of its intended recipient, to end up with Svetlana being handed it back this morning. She took it with a smile and looked ahead at the huge rock which loomed above her.

“First time here?” He asked one question then another without missing a beat. “Impressive, isn’t it? Welcome back to the U.K., Miss Sharpe.”

Svetlana, carrying the passport in the name of Sarah Sharpe from Holborn crossed into Gibraltar. She was now on her final stage of her defection.


Near to the border crossing, past the airport and near to the army barracks, there was an office building on a busy street. Svetlana parked Mikhail’s car almost outside the door then went to the front of the building. There was a buzzer entry system with an intercom. She selected the button for Elite Global Transportation & Freight, a company up on the second floor.

“Yes?” A man answered in an eager but guarded tone.

Svetlana leant inwards, speaking in clear English loudly due to traffic noises.

“Can I speak to Grace Miller, please? Or, if she isn’t in, maybe Jessica Harrington if that can be arranged?”

There was hesitation in the voice on the other end with the reply which came: “Can I ask who you are, please? We’re not generally open to the public.”

Supressing a laugh at such a thing, Svetlana got right to the point. “Tom Clarke is who you are though the other week when you were up in Sevilla, you were using the name Antonio. You took plenty of snaps of Mikhail, or Nikolai as you know him, and our apartment too.

I really need to come in. I’m Svetlana Danilova, or Sofiya Borukhova: that depends upon who you ask. Allow me to talk to one of the two ladies I mentioned, please, and everything will all make sense.”

The buzzer went off and the door opened. Svetlana went inside and up the stairs. She was certain that she’d shocked this Tom fellow quite a bit though was unsure what kind of response waited for her up there.

She’d find out quickly though.


There was a door in which he let her in through, showing her towards a seating area within the office. Svetlana noticed both women who worked here, spooks like he was with the MI-6 operation in Gibraltar, standing back. Like the man whose name she knew, she wasn’t supposed to know who Grace and Jessica were too. That Svetlana did though.

“Grace,” as she sat down, she called over to the redhead one, “could you get me a cuppa?” Then it was to the other one she spoke next: “How about a biscuit or two, Jessica?”

The looks on their faces were priceless. They had not been expecting their morning to go the way that it was!

Tom sat down beside her, turning to face her. “Sofiya or Svetlana?”

“The latter.”

That was her name, the one which he recently departed mother had named her.

“How can we help you?”

He looked like he wanted to do anything but. Grace and Jessica came over, bringing with them that she had asked for.

Svetlana smiled at them before thanking them in her native tongue: “Spasibo.”

“Svetlana, so you are here and…?”

He was eager to get to the point. Svetlana had a sip of her tea and took a biscuit from the plate. She then did as he wished and told Tom, and the two listening women too, what she was here for.

“I’m defecting, right now too. I’m an officer with the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, Russian foreign intel., but you know that. I bring with me gifts. There’s some documentation in my bag you’ll find useful. More than that, there is what is in my head, what I know and wish to tell in exchange for my safety.”

Tom shook his head. “We don’t usually deal with walk-in defectors. There are things that could be arranged. Asylum and safety can be something that can come after a time, a suitable time at that.”

It was her turn to shake her head. Svetlana touched her face then looked over at Grace and Jessica, playing to an audience.

“I cannot be a defector-in-place, working for you for some time before coming over. I cannot go back. I murdered Mikhail – sorry, Nikolai – this morning. He beat me for the last time and I stabbed him in the heart in our kitchen with a mighty big knife. He’s dead and there’s no going home for me, not even back over to Spain too.

You’re going to take me as a defector right now because what I have to tell you will mean that you will want to.”

Grace had a sip of her own tea and then leaned forwards towards her. It was her that was in charge here, Svetlana knew, not Tom who’d been doing all of the talking. The woman was a long-serving career spook. She’d want Svetlana to spill it all now, tell them everything and then be at her mercy. That was no game that Svetlana would play the rules of. She’d set her own rules. The first one of those was to tell some, just enough, now.

As to the rest, MI-6 would get that when she was in the UK.

“The S.V.R. has kompromat on your new prime minister. She’s a long serving coerced operative, an intelligence source and forced bad actor for my country’s goals. It’s been going on for years.

Alicia Manningtree is a traitor and when you have me back in Britain, where I’ve been before as you can surely tell, I’ll prove it to you. I’ll help you catch her and everyone else involved in what she’s been up to too.

Grace, fly me out of here today, come with me, and I’ll spill my guts in Britain.”

Putting down her cup of tea, Grace looked over at Tom first and then Jessica before turning back to Svetlana. She starred hard at her, saying nothing.

Svetlana smiled. She could tell that the woman was about to do it, wanting to know if the bombshell – you only had to look at the faces of the other two to see that it was that – really was true.

It was and, as she’d said, Svetlana could prove it too. But only when back in Britain again.

“So, are we taking a flight then?”

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Brrr...

Back in mid/late-20th century, there were many rumours, whispers etc etc that several very well known UK politicians were more than the mere apologists for 'Moscow Central' they often appeared. Others seemed determined to undermine 'Western Society'. And, yes, Thatcher's 'Miners Strike' was significantly supported by Kremlin cash, as was a certain fire-brand news-paper...

But, when you get deep-cover / blackmail at national level, you're into 'Smiley Country'...

[Leander]

Brrr...

Back in mid/late-20th century, there were many rumours, whispers etc etc that several very well known UK politicians were more than the mere apologists for 'Moscow Central' they often appeared. Others seemed determined to undermine 'Western Society'. And, yes, Thatcher's 'Miners Strike' was significantly supported by Kremlin cash, as was a certain fire-brand news-paper...

But, when you get deep-cover / blackmail at national level, you're into 'Smiley Country'...

The latter is where we will be going here. A world of apparent coincidences, lies and deception.
Svetlana has a story that some will believe and others will not want to hear.

[jemhouston]

Isn't that the way the truth normally works.

[Leander]

Isn't that the way the truth normally works.

Yes indeed.

[Leander]

Two – Body woman

Off across on the other side of an ocean, Lauren Worthing was in New York. She was walking up Fifth Avenue while browsing at the wares displayed in shop windows. It was the high-end shopping district she was in and, like a tourist, the Briton in the Big Apple marvelled at a lot of what she saw. There was one shop which she was heading of, to collect a gift that her employer had purchased, but that was still some distance off. A sunny day and her desire to see this part of New York during her trip here kept Lauren out of a yellow taxi or a Subway ride and walking instead.

There was also another reason while she walked, why she had in fact come out today to make this particular trip.

Lauren saw him at the junction of 48th Street and inconspicuous he was not.

He wore a blue jacket and a pink t-shirt. She’d been told that he’d stand out dressed like that and he really did. The tall Russian looked foolish, someone clearly in need of some fashion available from one of the many trendy shops which she had walked past. He was standing in the middle of the pavement – they called it the sidewalk here – seemingly looking down at his phone. Lauren knew that he was waiting for her though. They’d done this before, in London and elsewhere.

Taking her time, Lauren walked towards him. Within touching distance, when there were people to her left and behind, he stepped aside just as she passed him.

Lauren’s hand touched his.

The exchange was made.

Onwards she walked afterwards, up another couple of blocks towards the store near to Saks. It wasn’t into that world famous department store that she went, but to a little boutique shop close by and on the other side of Fifth Avenue. Carefully, Lauren negotiated the traffic to get over there, all while what she had received in that brush pass now within her coat pocket. Into the shop she went afterward and Lauren spoke to the manager. She was there to collect a purchased gift, the one which she’d insisted she’d like to collect rather than have brought to the hotel.

It was a birthday present for her employer’s daughter, something special from New York.

When back outside, Lauren hailed a taxi. Like they were in London, such vehicles were plentiful here in the Big Apple and wouldn’t be much different in terms of what they were and did. Nonetheless, Lauren was looking forward to the ride. She found one soon enough and climbed in.

“Where to?”

He didn’t even look at her.

“The United Nations building, please?”

That got his attention. Now he turned around to look at her, flashing a toothy grin.

“Are you English?” He asked that in what had to be one of the worst attempts at an impression of a Cockney accent that she’d ever heard.

“I’m from Cambridgeshire.” Lauren hardly expected him to know where that was, let alone what it even meant.

“Is that in London?” He was pulling out into traffic now. He drove what his passenger considered to be on the wrong side of the road.

She stifled a laugh before replying. “No, not at all.”

The taxi driver said nothing for a moment before he had another question. “Say, are you a diplomat?”

“Oh, I’m just a staffer. Us Brits are in town talking world affairs and all that.”

“Ah. I see.” He turned back away, driving onwards. To the taxi driver, she was no longer of any interest. It seemed his passenger was unimportant and just a fare.

Lauren knew that she was anything but, and her employer certainly wasn’t either. That was Alicia Manningtree, the British Prime Minister. It was for her whom Lauren had picked up not just the gift for but what also had so carefully passed to her on that busy sidewalk too.

She looked out of the window, taking in all of the sights during another big adventure where she was travelling the world, living the exciting life which she had always wanted to.


After the taxi ride, Andrew Thorn was waiting impatiently for Lauren when she arrived back at the UN complex on the eastern side of Manhattan. He was the Downing Street deputy chief of staff, someone who thought that he was her boss. That he certainly wasn’t.

“You could have got someone from the Mission or even the Consulate to pick that up. The P.M.’s been asking where you were.”

“She sent me out to get it.”

“What was it?”

“A present for her daughter.”

“Something for Becca?” He was buttonholing her, right in her face with his questions about what she’d been up to while Alicia was in her meeting with those other heads of government.

“Yep.”

Having enough of him, Lauren stepped to the side and then walked past his immobile figure. They were inside a suite of offices set aside for the use of the prime minister and her staff and there were plenty of places to be where Andrew wasn’t.

“Where are you going?”

She didn’t even turn back to look at him, let alone verbally acknowledge him. Andrew was self-important and out of his depth. He had no control over what Lauren did and she didn’t have to report to him.

In the privacy of the bathroom, Lauren removed what she’d been handed on the street from her pocket. It was a flash drive, something old school tech-wise. Black and featureless, Alicia had told her to get it and that she’d done. Her mind wandered a bit, seeking an unknown answer as to what was on it as well as the others she’d picked up beforehand elsewhere in similar fashion.

Was it instructions?

Information?

Only Alicia and those who’d sent it to her via Lauren would know that though. Back into her pocket it went, kept secure there until she was ready to give it to the woman who was waiting for it.

Andrew was on the phone to someone back home when Lauren re-emerged. He flashed her a mean look, one which she took only momentary notice of. She’d heard rumours that he was soon for the sack anyway. Katie Fieldhouse was his boss and the closest of political allies to Alicia. The former went through deputies at an astonishing rate and Lauren was sure that what she’d heard on the sly was true about Andrew soon to be gone. Good riddance to him.

Katie was back in London after being caught up in some sort of domestic policy kerfuffle which had nearly kept Alicia there too. The trip to the UN was too important though with foreign sanctions and international trade to be discussed with other world leaders at a scheduled meeting. Andrew had come along, so too other members of staff plus the foreign secretary and some of his people. Then there was Lauren, someone who worked neither for Downing Street, nor the wider government wither.

She had her own special place next to the prime minister.


Nearly four years past, when Alicia had first entered government as a junior minister at the Department for International Trade & Development, she’d needed a personal assistant. Lauren had at that point been engaged to the politician’s brother and had partial experience at such a role. That engagement had fallen apart yet Alicia and Lauren had stuck with one another. To head that ministry, joining the Cabinet when doing so, Alicia had risen before moving for a brief period to the role of home secretary and then, this summer, into Downing Street when the then PM stood down. Alicia’s rise was rapid. Throughout all of that, she’d maintained her personal assistant.

Lauren’s employer was rich from her own (pre-premiership) divorce and paid the salary directly of her aide rather than having her on the payroll of the party or the government. Working directly for Alicia as that woman rose as high as possible through government, Lauren’s job was to be at her side. She dealt with personal matters for the prime minister on all levels: financial, familial and secret. Keeping her mouth shut and her loyalty in place was what Lauren was all about.

There was love too.

While officially she was a personal assistant, Alicia had started to call Lauren by a different term, one of affection: her body woman. The term was American, something that as prime minister she’d picked up when talking with the US ambassador about what Lauren did for her. Presidents had body men who did some of what Lauren did though both women knew that Lauren did more than that.


The meeting of the important people broke up. Lauren was called in as others were leaving the room though Alicia stayed behind. She brought in the prime minister’s phone – Lauren often carried that along with so much more for Alicia – and knelt down beside her as Alicia finished up having parting words with her Australian counterpart.

“Did you get Becca’s present? No problems with it all.”

“It all went well.” Lauren meant both the present and what else she’d gotten but was hardly going to say it aloud in a place such as this. “She’ll love it.”

Alicia smiled though was still questioning. “You checked it, yes? It’s got to be right… right for her that is.”

“I did.” Lauren touched Alicia’s arm briefly. “Don’t worry.”

The prime minister was standing now with Lauren following her lead.

“Bring it into my office and we’ll have another look. Becca’s such a little madame and I don’t want to fly home not knowing its perfect.”

The charade was for all those who might be listening: those in the room themselves and those on the other end of any recording devices too. An urgent need for the prime minister to see something away from everyone else had been created.


In another room within the suite, Alicia had been set up with a temporary office for the trio of days which she was in New York. It was private in there, guarded too. Lauren brought to her the present for the prime minister’s daughter along with the handbags of each of them. There was a cheap tablet device in Lauren’s, one with no wi-fi connection and something to be disposed of soon enough. Once the door was shut, Lauren gave the electronic screen to Alicia along with an adaptor (the flash drive wouldn’t go straight into the tablet) and the drive as well. She turned towards the window while Alicia got to work reading or viewing what she’d been given.

“Take this back, please.” Alicia handed over the tablet. “And find a bin for this too.” That was the flash drive, something that Lauren wasn’t about to drop in any ordinary waste basket. “So, here we have Becca’s present, I see. Something to make my precocious, stubborn and moody fourteen year-old happy!”

The present was perfect. Alicia beamed with pleasure at the thought of Becca’s face and Lauren hoped that she was correct in having that outcome repeated when they got home. She watched Lauren securely wrap it there and place it well within her bag.

“Another meeting next?”

“More diplomats, more double talk.” A solemn grimace came from Alicia. “I get more sense out of those at home.”

Lauren arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

“No!”

Laughter rang out.

The two of them had always had good banter. They fitted together perfectly in work, friendship and conspiracies too.


There was a meeting an hour later. It was an informal one and therefore Lauren attended alongside her employer. The prime minister met with her own foreign secretary, who was in New York with her, and the US Secretary of State too. Lauren’s task was to stay silent and invisible but to take everything in.

“Should we proceed,” Michele Herrera Flores, America’s top diplomat, began, “in lifting the stringent of sanctions upon the Russian Federation due to new leadership in Moscow, we would expect that Britain would follow. We won’t be alone, yet we would rather have our strongest ally alongside us from the start as well as those other nations too.”

The foreign secretary, someone whom Lauren knew full well wanted Alicia’s job, shifted uncomfortably in his chair before he replied to that. “Our position is that while there are a lot of positive signals being seen there in the Kremlin, and plentiful fresh faces talking of democracy, the Koskhin regime is still supported in the shadows by those from the old regime. The sudden swing to democracy there might turn out to be a façade.”

“Well… President Koskhin is a democrat. Those old faces might find out that they no longer have the same power that they once had. I for one believe that a page has been turned in Moscow.”

The reply from the prime minister left the foreign secretary a bit taken aback. Lauren saw it, so to was it shown on the face of Herrera Flores as well. If that American had been a different type of character, she might have spoken up as to ask whether there were two different opinions within the top ranks of the British Government as to how the view was of the new Russian leadership. She wisely said nothing though.

“He is a democrat, yes, and…”

Alicia cut of whatever else her foreign secretary was about to add to that: “…who needs our full support. The lifting of sanctions and the restoration of many – not all, I must add – pre-Ukrainian ties would go a long way into emboldening his rule. Moreover, it will also weaken those still in the Kremlin who want a return to the old ways.

That, Madame Secretary, is the position of His Majesty’s Government there.”

Once more, as Lauren watched him closely, the foreign secretary shifted himself in his seat. He crossed his arms and kept his mouth closed. Herrera Flores’ eyes were momentarily on him before they returned to the prime minister.

“So, we are in agreement then on the joint approach to be taken by our governments, yes? Back to business with Russia?”

“Correct.” Alicia confirmed that straight away. “When does your president arrive?”

“She’ll be here,” Herrera Flores checked her watch, a nice one which Lauren eyed with some envy, “in two hours.”

“I’ll talk with her in person then.”

The meeting broke up with that.

Lauren waited behind with Alicia while the foreign secretary, visually uneased at the turn of events, walked out with his American counterpart.

“Did you see what he tried to do?” The prime minister asked of Lauren.

“He went against the agreed approach, making up policy on the fly right in front of you? Defying your authority too?”

Alicia nodded gravely.

“His time in government will come to an end soon. There is a new era opening in relations with Russia and he’s firmly stuck in the past, with disloyalty at the heart of that too.”

She said no more. Lauren started picking up their belongings and they left the room. As she followed Alicia out, she had to wonder how much of what was happening right now was to do with what she’d collected and passed to her prime minister before the meeting.

Russia had been in touch and so how much was Alicia doing their bidding?

[jemhouston]

The British PM under Soviet influence, chilling.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

There are 'Back-Channels', 'Back-Channels' and 'Back-Channels', also, 'Smile, you're now our NSFW...'

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

FWIW, there's a recent novel, 'Geiger' by Gustaf Skördeman (sp), bravely translated from Swedish by Ian Giles.

Premise is a beloved Swedish entertainer / broadcaster, sorta mix of Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall and Jimmy Savile, is found after his murder to have run many of his busy house-parties as a paedophile brothel, filming and compromising a scary range of celebrities / influencers / politicians etc etc...

And, incidentally, grooming, co-opting and destroying many of his daughters' school-friends and acquaintances.

Then it rakes up unspeakable Cold War stuff, such as those Fulda Gap nukes etc etc.

And then it gets really complicated, segues into mirror-maze country, bad as an Origami crane...

[Leander]

There are 'Back-Channels', 'Back-Channels' and 'Back-Channels', also, 'Smile, you're now our NSFW...'

Its pretty damn bad!

The British PM under Soviet influence, chilling.

The Russians have her under their spell.

[Leander]

Three – Compromising material

Grace Miller had been with MI-6 – the correct title was the Secret Intelligence Service – for more than three decades. She was in her mid-fifties now with a career as a professional intelligence officer due within the next few years to come to an end with retirement. However, since Svetlana had walked into the out station in Gibraltar with her tale to tell, Grace had never felt so alive.

She’d gotten the Russian spook on an aircraft that very same day. There had been a Royal Air Force aircraft which had been scheduled to fly into Gibraltar and out again after dropping off military personnel and supplies. It was a big Voyager aircraft, with more than enough room for her and her own cargo. Permission had been sought and gained from MI-6 HQ back in London for Grace to bring Svetlana with her and there had too been cooperation with the RAF to see them take two extra passengers. An airbase in Oxfordshire had been the initial destination before the two of them had been driven to a safe house in the nearby countryside of the Chiltern Hills where additional colleagues of Grace were waiting.

All of that had been allowed to proceed because the walk-in defector which the Russian was had quite the story to tell and, additionally, after she had done so, quick checks made back in Gibraltar by Jessica and Tom had confirmed the outlines of that. There was a body, the Spanish were looking for a murderer and what had been gleamed from the stolen phone from Svetlana’s victim had backed up some of what she had been saying. Those details only covered the fact that Svetlana and Nikolai aka Mikhail were engaged in high-level spying and there was valuable information to be gleamed from that though. What had been said about the SVR agent of influence that they had in Britain, the biggest name possible which Svetlana could have thrown out there, was a different matter though.

Grace herself, in person no less, briefed her boss, and her boss’ boss too, on that.


Daniel was unimpressed at what Svetlana was selling. That was evident in his disbelieving face and what he had to say to follow up that frown with.

“It’s a tall tale. Too good to be true, I say.” He was the European area chief, responsible for stations such as the one which Grace headed down in Gibraltar as well as the many larger ones throughout the Continent. “My thinking in this is that she’s got herself into a situation, a bad one at that. The girl killed her fellow spook and ran, crafting a story on the way to you so as to avoid the consequences of her actions.”

Paul was the deputy chief of the whole of MI-6, someone whom Grace had impressed upon Daniel to allow her to have a hearing with. He nodded as his underling spoke that opinion before adding his own doubts.

“Grace, I think that you should be looking at the bigger picture here too.

This could be quite the disinformation job being undertaken here, something planned and directed from Yasenevo,” (the locality outside of Moscow where the SVR had its headquarters), “for quite the expected pay off if it goes well. They get us to maybe chase our own tail, looking the wrong way while something bigger is going on.

Or, its one massive set up that this Svetlana / Sofiya character is part of where the Russians are looking to have us take this seriously and start looking into whether it is true. The next thing you know, it’s all over the media with headlines such as, well… ‘M.I.Six suspect their own prime minister of being a foreign agent’. Something along those lines.

We here don’t want to be party to that.”

While Daniel and Paul were both career intelligence officers with long service within MI-6, the latter was as much a political appointee as well. Paul was someone whom Grace, and practically everyone else at MI-6 too, knew for certain had his eyes on the top job where – as the rumours ran – the chief herself would retire next year.

He’d never get that job if the second of his suspicions had any truth to it and it all exploded over the media.

“We should hear her out properly.” Grace had anticipated resistance from those at the SIS Building at Vauxhall Cross, but not something this strong, not this soon too. They had given the go ahead for her to airlift Svetlana out of Gibraltar when Grace first related the Russian spook’s tale, but now they were back peddling fast on that.

“I agree.” Daniel said that without seeming to mean it. “What she can tell us about their Spanish ops, along with the other limited stuff she brought with her, can be useful for having a look into current S.V.R activities. The rest though…”

He didn’t finish what he was saying there, leaving the remark unfinished for Grace to wonder upon that.

“I’m thinking that we need to talk to our sisters across the river.” Paul was now back directing the conversation and referred to MI-5 with their headquarters on the other side of the Thames. “Grace, I think you should be part of a joint task group on this. Don’t go back to The Rock for the time being and work with them on all of this Sarah Sharpe info which Svetlana has given us. We’ll look into what she was part of while here in the U.K.”

Daniel leaned towards his boss, lowering his voice somewhat though with Grace still able to clearly hear that. “Five should be in charge of that.”

“Of course.” Paul agreed with that. “You’ll work underneath whomever Five puts in charge, Grace, as this will be their operation. It could take some time and so you’ll stay here with Svetlana too rather than go back.”

Beaten Grace was, by the two of them. Still, she still had a little bit of fight in her. If she couldn’t win them around, then at least she had one last thing to say.

“What if it’s true what she’s saying?”

Daniel looked up at the ceiling. Paul had a sip of his drink – Grace’s had remained untouched on the table between them – before he replied to that.

“Her information is wrong, proven wrong already. She told you about Liam Pearce being the contact: the current contact too apparently. He’s the prime minister’s former parliamentary researcher, as you know. I say ‘former’ because that aide is deceased, Grace.

All that Svetlana is telling you is, firstly, something I don’t believe, and, secondly, out of date as well as wrong. I’d additionally ask you, Grace, what makes you think that if entrusted with this information on what has to be the biggest state secret in Russia, what was she doing in Spain out there on a limb?

Think on that rather than answer, in fact.

Wring everything else out of her. I want to know about Spain and want to see you working for Five with the rest. As to everything else of it, Svetlana’s tall tale, as Daniel so aptly named it, forget that. Humour her if you have to, to get her talking about what is true, but don’t bring me anything else on this allegation about our P.M.”


Grace was now back at the safe house after her disappointing trip to London. It was a cottage in rural Oxfordshire, one of several owned outright by MI-6 though in the names of various shell companies. Shut up for most of the time, it was there for uses such as this though: hiding and debriefing foreign defectors. There was a two-man security team which had arrived on-site and there was also Terri–Anne there as well. She was a Russian speaker and a colleague whom Grace knew well. While Grace had been getting told by her bosses what was what, the younger woman, one Svetlana’s age, had stayed with the defected spook in the secure & isolated safe house.

“They didn’t go for it then?”

Svetlana was in the living room, watching a movie. Terri–Anne saw the look on Grace’s face when she came into the kitchen straight from the hallway and had that as a first response to her arrival.

“Nope.” Disappointed, maybe a bit despondent, Grace sat down on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “How’s she been? Talking?”

“I cannot shut her up. She only talks in English, not in Russian even when I’ve tried that. Svetlana has to be the strangest Russian I’ve ever met, Grace. She has the expected attitude, especially when it comes to distrust of authority, and that air of superiority I’d expect. There is the openness there, but it’s a guarded one at that.

At the same time, she has this trust in us. It’s a strange thing to figure out.

The woman’s got a temper too. She stubbed her toe in the bathroom and smashed up the mirror. Seven years bad luck, so she told me, but with a smile along with that fatalism that I’d expect: a real smile, not an ironic one either. Then there’s the films. All she wants to do is watch rom-coms, silly ones at that.

In short, she’s bloody odd.”

“Tell me more.” Grace was resigned to hearing here more of what she’d received in London.

“S.V.R psychological screening should have weeded that out, though you can see why she killed that fellow spook of hers. Still… it blows holes in her story as a professional super spook trusted with such a great deal of knowledge.”

“Daniel and Paul both doubt her completely.”

“What was their biggest doubt?” Terri–Anne asked, before speculating on what that might have been. “That she couldn’t tell us what the kompromat was? That Liam is dead and so the contact which she had when she says she was in London cannot be investigated?”

“Daniel already had it out with me about what Svetlana doesn’t know before we even went into see Paul. As expected, Paul mentioned too about the parliamentary aide but his biggest issue was that it’s all a disinformation job ready to blow up in our faces if we pursue it.”

Terri–Anne nodded in agreement at that. “Which I warned you of, didn’t I? Nonetheless, she’s spent a good deal of time in the U.K. Her accent is perfect, better than I’ve heard any Russian speak with in a while. She has regional nuances from across the country and…”

“I heard the Yorkshire in her.” Grace interjected. That was where she was from, over in the East Riding, and Svetlana had picked up some of that clearly from some time spent there.

“I heard that too. It reminded me of you for a moment. Anyway, there’s still a lot she can tell us about what she did while she was here before. For Five, she might be the biggest intel. boon that they’ve had in a long while. As to the rest, it all remains fanciful to me.”

“But,” Grace felt compelled to remind her colleague, “the Kompromat that, if true, would prove what she’s saying.”

‘Kompromat’ was a Russian loan word which had recently made its way into the English language to be used among intelligence, political and media fields: even espionage fiction at times. To English-speakers, it meant compromising material. Soviet and later Russian intelligence agencies had for decades been using kompromat as a hallmark of their trade when conducting foreign espionage operations. They’d gather information on someone of a secret nature to blackmail them into doing their bidding. Nothing was off the table with that be it a secret about a relationship or sexual orientation, past acts of a criminal or embarrassing nature and even complete lies spung in a web of fabrication and presented to the person being blackmailed as something that a denial of which would never be believed. Intelligence organisations worldwide had long done the same thing, though not on the scale and complexity which the Russians did it.

Terri–Anne had been over at the kitchen side. She came over to where Grace was and sat down with a reflective look on her face.

“What are you thinking?”

“Well…,” Grace’s colleague gave herself a moment before saying what she did, “did they tell you that you couldn’t ask about the prime minister?”

“I was told not to bring it back to Paul but…”

“So, you can ask, then.”


In a room bugged with recording equipment – audio and video, a proper set up –, Terri–Anne heard what Grace had heard down in Gibraltar. Svetlana once more told her story of how she had been previously involved in helping to facilitate contact between Alicia Manningtree before she was prime minister. The then rising star in the government had been in regular contact through an intermediary but it was she who was receiving instructions from Russia to further that country’s interests. Svetlana had all sorts of details, including that she had been told by her controlling officer at the time that the politician only did so because she was being forced to do so.

The story was told in English and came with Svetlana talking about her own activities apart from just serving as a cut-out in the chain which information flowed both ways along. Hearing it once more washed away any doubt that Grace might have had after her trip to Vauxhall Cross.

She believed in Svetlana and what the defector was saying.

Back alone again afterwards, Terri–Anne gave her opinion on that. “It’s one hell of a story, but I’m torn between believing it or not. The proof of which she talks of just isn’t that. That, along with the political considerations, is why Daniel and Paul have reacted the way that they have.

I have a question though, one for you and one that’s been on my mind.”

“Shoot.” She was willing to hear it all.

“She doesn’t know that Pearce is dead. That’s one thing. Related to that, it’s something interesting, isn’t it? A parliamentary aide being killed, one whom Svetlana says was deep in it all. I don’t just mean her not knowing, but him being actually dead.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” She hadn’t. Grace could have kicked herself for missing what she suddenly realised was the significance of that possible coincidence. “As to her story though, with that in mind, you’re still not onboard with it.”

“Sorry,” she said as she stood up, “but I’ll need a lot more to be convinced of it.”

Grace wasn’t angry with her colleague like she’d been with her bosses. Their doubts were different from those of Terri–Anne. She respected the other spook too, far more than she did those at the SIS Building. Terri–Anne was a field officer, usually serving abroad, and had the street smarts that the other two didn’t have. Her job was to tell apart lies and truths.


Fisher arrived a few hours later. Grace introduced herself to the MI-5 operative who she had been placed underneath for talking to Svetlana about her activities when she was last in Britain. He explained he had been fully briefed and that included the story that Svetlana was selling about Manningtree. His organisation, so Fisher informed Grace, took the official view which hers did: it wasn’t something believed. Still, Svetlana was useful and she’d be squeezed of all that was useful from inside of her head.

A late lunch was had. Meeting Fisher, Svetlana called him ‘yet another spook’ and there was dislike there in her that was evident to everyone. It didn’t take a detective to figure that out. She was cold and harsh towards him when they ate, and afterwards when he began a formal interview with her too. Grace and Terri–Anne sat in on that. Svetlana told of her time in the UK and all of which she had done, whom she’d worked with and everything she knew. Fisher took notes though had his own mini recording device which he had on the table between him and the Russian defector. He had plenty of questions to ask about the Sarah Sharpe identity too.

Svetlana talked at length, answering all of his questions. She sat cross-legged with her nose up in the air. She made it as clear as possible by her hostile body language that she really didn’t like him.

Grace could only guess at why that was the case.

Fisher was leaving – he’d be back though – when there was yet another visitor to the cottage that day. Grace was glad that there were no nearby neighbours who’d otherwise have spent the day curtain-twitching in reaction to all of the activity at the usually empty location.

It was Paul Phillips, her boss’ boss and he came unannounced to talk to Grace.


They went outside at his urging, in the garden surrounded on all sides with thick hedging disguising an impressive wire fence. There was some light rain this November afternoon and Grace brought her coat out with her.

“The Chief and I met today with the foreign secretary when he came back from America. We had a conversation about Svetlana, Grace, one I brought up in light of something she said.”

“I see.” Grace spoke up in his pause, unsure of what he wanted her to say in reply to that. Her mind went over that while she waited for him to say something more though.

MI-6 was an independent statutory government body. It directly reported to no minister nor department in Whitehall. Nonetheless, there was long a relationship of the hand-off yet detached responsibility between the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and MI-6. There was influence from the foreign secretary as there was with the Home Office towards MI-5.

“Forget the holding back on Svetlana’s allegations. I want you now to do the opposite instead.”

Grace let out a little whistle. It was an embarrassing tic she had, one which she was ashamed to have Paul witness. She only did so because she was stunned though at the about turn coming from the top of her organisation.

“Can I ask why?”

“You can,” he grinned at her, “but you’ll get no answer. It’s gone political, that’s all I say.

I want to hear Svetlana’s story for myself. Then, if it holds water, we’ll find out for certain if it’s true too.”

Relief swept over Grace. She was being listened to, finally. “Come inside because you’ve got to hear this.”

They walked back into the cottage. As she led the way, Grace put something together of the puzzle which she considered Paul was presenting. On the train back to Oxford, before she picked her MI-6 car back up from the station there, she’d been on her phone reading the news. The BBC had had an article about the prime minister being in New York at the United Nations. The foreign secretary had been in the Big Apple too with the two of them talking with the Americans and others about a certain additional country: Russia. There was reset in relations, wasn’t there?

One which Manningtree had, so the report had said, been at the forefront of. That was interesting indeed.

[jemhouston]

Great spin, but completely understandable why the Brits don't want to believe her.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

IIRC, TLA policy of 'Don't Even Surmise' goes back to the 'Harold Wilson PM' period, as he was suspected of being in Moscow's pocket.

Seems he wasn't, but a raft of his Labour colleagues were assuredly 'apologists', if not 'fellow travellers'. And some 'a disturbing number of Conservatives' were apparently beholden to the Kremlin, either recruited during their Oxbridge Uni days, or compromised since...

[Leander]

Great spin, but completely understandable why the Brits don't want to believe her.

They don't want to prove it nor disprove it. It's a terrible situation to be in.

IIRC, TLA policy of 'Don't Even Surmise' goes back to the 'Harold Wilson PM' period, as he was suspected of being in Moscow's pocket.

Seems he wasn't, but a raft of his Labour colleagues were assuredly 'apologists', if not 'fellow travellers'. And some 'a disturbing number of Conservatives' were apparently beholden to the Kremlin, either recruited during their Oxbridge Uni days, or compromised since...

This time though, a political figure is going to push for an investigation with the aim of reaping the supposed rewards. The fool.

[Leander]

Four – Svetlana’s story

They wanted her to tell it all again. That Svetlana did.


“I only met Alicia once. I wasn’t meant to either because it was all supposed to be through the cut-out, one she’d selected herself too. Have you spoke to Liam yet, watched him even? That man is in love! Real love, the crazy kind. What do the French call it?

Ah, I remember: amour fou. She has him spung in a web of what he thinks is love but, really, if you get close to her, as I did, you’ll see it’s something else.

She’s a sexual animal. Intense. In your face. Pressure applied. That’s how she has him doing what she wants. Without it, knowing him a bit as I did, I don’t think that Alicia would have him doing what he does for her.

There was an exchange arranged with Liam. Usually, we’d meet at Underground stations, the interchanges ones, either on the platform or in the foyer at busy times and do the brush pass with plenty of people around. He had the flu though. So, it was Alicia. She didn’t want to meet at a station though and had me, through Liam arranging it, link up with her in Hyde Park. There are public toilets in the middle, the ones which you don’t have to pay for unlike those ones on the outside of the park.

Buggers charge you a fee when you’re in need!

So, I’m in there and she comes in. That was right before she was promoted from a junior minister right into one of the Cabinet jobs. She pulled me into a cubicle. I tried to stop her, tried to do the pass by the sink. Alicia grabs me though and drags me in that tight little space. She closes the door and is up against me.

I like men. Women aren’t for me.

I don’t judge those that do, or like men and women both as she seems to do, but there are things which I would have done for the Rodina, for Mother Russia, and that wasn’t one of them.

I’m sure she was eager to kiss me, or maybe something else. Her hands were on my waist, her eyes ravishing me as if I was a doll to be played with. I whispered to her that I had the new SIM card for her phone and then I turned, opened the door and got out of there. Some little girl saw us, saw me anyway, but not the exchange.

Out of there I was, never wanting to be alone with her again. I put none of that in my contact report with my controller, Vladimir. I didn’t want him nor a perverted little nerd back home reading that with their imaginations running wild. I was worried that Vladimir would ask me to give him more details if I did. I put that out of my mind. You three here and the first people I’ve ever told of that. I tell you it to help you understand her better. She controls people using her body. She’s damn good looking, we all know it, but it’s more than that.

Be pressed up against a door by her and have her look into your eyes with her face inches from hers. Then you’ll see what I mean. That’s how Liam does her bidding. He’s not a real traitor like she is.

With Liam, I passed SIM cards that Alicia would put in disposable phones. There were flash drives to go into throwaway devices as well. I asked Vladimir once why we didn’t use more modern tech like apps or hidden online message services. He trusted none of that but, more so, apparently neither does Alicia. Once she was in the Home Office and going to more Cabinet meetings than she had when at her International Trade role, the contact became even more frequent. I must have visited every Underground station on the Tube map which was an interchange: we didn’t do the single stop ones, even at busy times. Once a week, a couple of times it was twice a week.

There were a few times that the pass went awry. Liam can be a bit sloppy with the pass. He’s not trained to do it, not by an expert anyway. He lost a SIM card I was giving him at, if I remember right, Embankment Station. Another time he bumped into me when giving over a flash drive for me to send back to Vladimir and I nearly lost it on Friday morning rush hour at King’s Cross. His eyes were always looking at my face when we made the passes. I kept mine down and my purpose seeming busy and disinterested in my surroundings but he wasn’t.

Dead drops were what I wanted to see done to limit such things but Alicia kept having her plaything say no. The preference was for hand-to-hand brush passes over everything else.

I’d been making the exchanges for two, maybe three months before Vladimir was swapped out for Nadezhda. We got on better than I did with her predecessor. She’s a lot more professional than him and has spent much more time in this country, living under a more complicated cover identity than Vladimir.

Nadezhda had me doing a few things that I thought that were an innovative idea considering the whole situation. She put me on watching Liam and Alicia, tracking the two of them when they were together as well as looking at Liam when he wasn’t with her. He was an interesting watch for me, maybe you won’t find him so: we’ll have to see. It allowed me to understand him better, seeing that he was all about pleasing her rather than anything else.

I was watching his flat one evening when Alicia’s then-husband turned up. It was right before the news broke that they were getting a divorce. The newspapers said she’d be out of Cabinet with that but then she goes to the Home Office when that vacancy arose there. The tide turned so fast for her in quite the coincidence.

Anyway, the husband turns up and punches Liam. Neither says nothing at all. One punch and Liam is on the ground inside the front door of his little flat in Walthamstow. Off the husband goes, stomping his feet while huffing and puffing like a maniac. I think he knew about his wife and Liam. That was how he dealt with it. Alicia took all his money, didn’t she? All he got in return was to punch one of the many people I know she was involved with intimately.

The day before The Punch, I was watching her. We had a tracker in her phone then, something she didn’t know about and that made her easy to follow. She went to some grotty, run-down B-&-B near Paddington Station: the type of place where they I’m sure that they still rent rooms for just the afternoon. Alicia was in there with some young woman for a couple of hours. It’s as I’ve said, it’s not only Liam whom she has in her little web.

As I told you, she’s been coerced into all of this. It goes back a long time, decades even to when the S.V.R was first being born.

I wasn’t there and I’ve never seen the file that there’ll be in the Archives about it all. Something happened when she was either in her late teens or early twenties. Someone ended up dead and the S.V.R could prove that Alicia was solely responsible. Man, woman, child… I just don’t know. When exactly, where and how are more details which I cannot give you because I was never told. I knew not to ask too.

That’s how they got her though and the hooks have been in since then. The kompromat keeps her as theirs.

Alicia’s career has been made for her. She’s got her own talents, and probably had some luck as well, but she’s where she is because she’s been put there.

Every day in your Parliament, in government jobs and then in the top job too, she’s been working to further Russian interests. If you look, you might think at first glance that she hasn’t been because she has that past reputation as a hardliner against my country’s last government. Look again though and the pieces will start to fall together.

Join the dots, put the puzzle together and you’ll see a woman who serves the aims of Russia while pretending that it is for this country that she acts. I cannot stress to you enough just how well the picture is muddled. Still, take your time and it’ll come because of what I’m telling you has happened under your very noses.

Who knows this back in Russia? More than probably should!

I don’t know how many Illegals like me have met with Liam, her too, over the years nor how many in-country controllers there have been. At Yasenevo, there’s got to be a good few people in the know; the same over in the Kremlin among this new gang of thieves and the last lot as well.

When we were back in Gibraltar, Grace, you and your colleagues were stunned there at what I had to tell. Your boss man here seems incredulous too. That means that no one has spilt the beans before… to your government anyway. Maybe someone told the Americans, the French, or the Israelis first yet none of them either believed it or picked up the phone. Whatever the case, I’m the first ones to tell you.

I’m happy with that.

I cannot go back home. Mikhail deserved what he got. It wasn’t the first time he’d beat me up. I wouldn’t give him what he wanted in bed – don’t make me say the details of that – and so he used my face as a punching bag again. I wasn’t his wife but Vanya said that I had to be as part of our cover. Regardless, wives, Russian wives at least, shouldn’t do what Mikhail wanted.

When he beat me before, I took it and moved onwards afterwards with my job in Spain. It’s important to the S.V.R what we were doing there. Vanya made that clear, especially when he told me that I couldn’t take a leave of absence to go home. Two days, three at the most. That was all that I needed. My mother was dying and I wanted to say goodbye. She’s the only real family that I have, no, had. She’s gone and I was all alone with Mikhail.

I could have just run. I killed him though and left him there to be found on purpose. I came to you because there was no one else who would make sure that I won’t be punished for it. The Spanish would put me in prison and the S.V.R would have me suicided in there. They can do that, believe me. The Americans might have taken me but what could I tell them that would be interesting?

So, I chose Britain. I know things that I know you’d want to know.

I planned out but I didn’t plan out my escape, if that makes sense. It was only to you that I could come. I’d thought about doing it many times though I knew that if I did, my mother would suffer. Then she lost her fight against that cancer which has long been eking out a slow victory. My brother, his wife and their kids are people I’ve never thought of as family.

As to my brother, when I was eight and he was two years older, he killed another boy and I saw him do it. Sergey got away with it and I never told. If they punish him for what I have done, then so be it.

He deserves worse.

I grew up hating my country. Long did I try not to and part of that was why I joined S.V.R when they recruited me. They watched me as an amateur actress – a drama student with big dreams to be honest –, believed in the patriotism I professed to get ahead and I could learn new languages fast. They decided I could keep on acting, but for them where they would have me telling lies.

I actually wanted the best for Russia, believe me. That wasn’t for long though, just a while when I was a newly minted intelligence officer. Those people who run it, who still do despite this new regime that they have, will keep on making it the same that it’s always been. So, I’ve found a new country now: one which I won’t hate.

I have no one at home to care about who will be punished for what I have done in running. Britain will take care of me.”


After she finished, Svetlana got up off the sofa and went to the toilet. She left Grace, Paul and Terri–Anne behind in the living room, going past a security officer in the hallway. She could hear them talking when she shut the door but was busy with her needs.

Looking in the mirror once done sitting down, Svetlana examined her bruises. They looked worse than they did back in Sevilla. Still, despite the swelling and the vivid colours, she knew she was healing. Talking helped with that too, even if she kept on repeating herself.

Back in the living room, after again going past the guard, this time wondering if he carried a gun in that big jacket he was wearing indoors, Svetlana found that Terri–Anne had made her a cup of tea. She nodded a quick thanks to her and then sat back down where she had been beforehand when relating her story to those who had come to listen to it.

She looked over at the man present. He hadn’t introduced himself. She knew what he was though: he was someone in charge.

He spoke to her for the first time.

“Svetlana, do you know that Liam Pearce is dead? It’s been two years now.”

Starring at him, Svetlana tried to gauge whether he was telling the truth. Like his flat tone, his body language gave nothing away. She had no idea what to make of such a statement so sought more information by a question of her own.

“Did,” Svetlana asked while keeping her eyes locked upon the boss man from MI-6, “he have a freak accident or do himself in? That’s what the S.V.R do to those who suddenly decide to go against them.”

“He was electrocuted in his flat.” The same flat tone. He gave nothing away.

She went to the window, looking out into the garden where she had seen him talking with Grace earlier. Svetlana kept her back to him as she said what she did next.

“What are the chances of that, eh?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “Alicia with have another pet she plays with, someone else who helps her with her treason. Find that plaything whom she has wrapped around her little finger and you’ll get your real proof of what I say is true.”

Terri–Anne had a question: “How do we do that, Lana?”

“How you do that is by finding out who is her cut-out, the one who is in contact with whoever now does my old job.”

[jemhouston]

Nice web you're spinning.

[Leander]

Nice web you're spinning.

Tangles will soon appear in that.

[Leander]

Five – Sub-contracted

Grace left the safe house and her baby sitting duties there. Terri–Anne was to be joined by Jacqueline, a woman from MI-5, with the two of them staying constantly with Svetlana. The security guys were joined by another pair with the same task of ensuring that a watch was kept on the Russian defector. The reason for the doubling of the presence of armed guards was word which Paul had received concerning a major undertaking in Spain by the SVR to locate her. They were looking all over for Svetlana. The chances of them discovering that she was in the UK, let alone in that Oxfordshire safe house were remote, yet he said that no chances would be taken with her safety.

There was no disagreement from Grace on that.

Meanwhile, she herself went to Vauxhall Cross. At the SIS Building, a secure work area (requiring authorised access even within the citadel that was that complex overlooking the Thames) was set aside to uncover whether there was any truth to what Svetlana was saying. Grace had hoped that it would be she who would be put in charge. That was a desire not fulfilled. Neil MacDonald, an up-and-comer close to Paul, received the post of head of the investigation with Grace as his second. Taylor was another MI-6 officer on the team with Debbie and Edward attached from MI-5 considering that it was a linked operation with the Security Service.

The task which the five of them set out to achieve, to provide proof of or disprove the allegations against the prime minister, had no grandiose title. It was just an investigation, not an Operation needing an identifier. The Chief of SIS was to whom Paul would report their activities and findings. Grace was made aware of that set up by MacDonald, who told her that the whole thing was entirely classified beyond those directly involved. She’d asked about the MI-5 people involved and he’d told her that it was all compartmentalised there too with those such as Fisher, Jacqueline, Debbie & Edward all having been brought in by that organisation’s Director General personally.

Word wasn’t meant to get out anywhere.

Upon the assembly of his people and with their first meeting, MacDonald had given them their opening task. They were to establish the people closest to Alicia Manningtree, those she was in regular contact with, and report back to him the leading candidates for whomever might be meeting in secret with a Russian cut-out at the prime minister’s direction.

Two days later, Grace reported back to him who she and the team considered the possible candidates.


“There are five names, Neil, of people which we’ve taken a look at.”

Debbie was in MacDonald’s office with Grace and passed to her the tablet with the put together profiles on. Grace knew all the information already though took the device from the MI-5 spook less there be specific detail which her new boss requested.

“It her sister on that list? Svetlana said it was more than likely to be a sexual relationship and… well…” Unlike him, from what Grace knew of him anyway, MacDonald stumbled over his words. The unsaid implication was unsettling.

“As you said, ‘likely’. Yes, she is. I’ll start with her because of the level of close contact, one which is near daily. Amy Holmes is four years older than her sister. Never married and no romantic partner in the picture past or present that we can find. She doesn’t have a job though Manningtree certainly pays for her rather modest lifestyle. That seems to cover childcare duties for Rebecca and Blake, including driving them to Chequers when the P.M is there at the weekend and to their father’s one weekend a month too. She’s in and out of Downing Street due to the childcare task she has. Amy’s an art admirer – not a buyer though – and is in and out of galleries and museums a lot. She has plenty of opportunities to meet people for brush passes and such like all over London.

She’s on the list because of that too: the opportunity to be a contact.”

MacDonald’s shake of the head was emphatic. He wasn’t keen on the idea that the person they were looking for was the prime minister’s busy sister.

“Who’s next?”

“Katie Fieldhouse.”

“Her chief of staff, I see.”

“Correct.” Grace confirmed that. “The P.M is, as expected, in near constant contact with her and the two of them are quite close, at least professionally. She’s married with young kids though can easily put in up to eighteen hours a day at the job she has. She lives in Clapham, which would be good for Tube connections to make contact with a cut-out, but is driven to work and back due to her schedule. She does nothing but work and doesn’t leave her office. People come to see her all the time though so there is regular traffic through her office door. If it’s her, that’s one way that contact could be maintained. Her loyalty, again of a political nature, is well known in Westminster.”

MacDonald once more didn’t fancy the chances of it being Fieldhouse. He shook his head. “Who else?”

“There’s Georgia Morgan, Manningtree’s best friend of nearly thirty years. They were at secondary school together and the two of them went into journalism at the same time despite being at different universities. They’re pretty close and survived rumours that the prime minister’s divorce was Morgan-related in some manner. Her own husband started those though and they were unfounded. Georgia and the prime minister have a close personal relationship based on their long-standing friendship. It’s been said by people who know them that they’d do absolutely anything for each other. Whether that means Georgia would commit treason for Manningtree, that’s debatable.

She’s a divorced socialite. On charity boards, doing good works and all of that. Out meeting people all of the time, Georgia could easily turn that into being a contact for message exchanges done on the sly.”

“You sound as if you don’t like her.”

Grace didn’t know where MacDonald got that from. She watched as he ran his fingers through his hair the rubbed the back of his head. He was thinking hard on all of this but gave away no clues this time as to how he thought about Morgan being the one whom they were looking for.

She carried on with the suspects. “Next up is Lauren Worthing. She’s young and the personal aide to Manningtree. She’s just come back from that New York trip that the prime minister went on. They have a tie going back many years to do with a relationship which Worthing was in with Manningtree’s younger brother. He’s long out of the picture but Worthing has been at her former fiancée’s sister’s side since then. She runs errands for the prime minister and will even pick up the younger child, Blake, from school when Amy is tied up with the older one.

Worthing lives on Portobello Road, in the fashionable bit of Notting Hill. Her live-in boyfriend has money because he’s a big shot in The City. There’s a social life that Worthing has though one call from Manningtree and she drops everything to do as commanded. The two of them are close though it isn’t a relationship of equals.”

“That,” MacDonald affirmed,” makes her a possible more than any of the others. Grace, are there any men on this list of yours or just women?”

“There is one name, yes.” Grace had left him to the end not because he was male but because she believed that he was more likely than the others: something that none of the others on the team had agreed with, all of them favouring Worthing.

MacDonald grinned and asked a question: “It’s going to be Hewitt, isn’t it?”

“That’s him.” He’d pre-empted her though she wasn’t that surprised. “David Hewitt, the Chief Policy Adviser in Downing Street. Formally a junior special adviser for the last Chancellor of the Exchequer, he became attached to Manningtree during her short and successful run for the top job in government. He’s been called the ‘prime minister’s brain’ by some.

I’ll be honest with you: he’s my top suspect, Neil.”

“For all the reasons which you are going to tell me why, let me, politely, Grace, knock them down.”

“Oh.” That came as quite the unpleasant surprise.

“You’re going to tell me that he and Manningtree and extremely close and spend quite the amount of time together. I’m guessing that Debbie spoke to the Five liaison over at Downing Street, the one who’ll be in regular contact with the police security team concerning threats to the prime minister. They repeated some insinuations about the pair of them though had nothing concrete there. Am I correct so far?”

“Yep.” He was right on the money there.

“Then it will be Hewitt travelling around a lot, meeting all sorts of people with the possibility for exchanges of messages. That would work. There is his character too with him being such a novel creature. He’s quite the extrovert and, from what I know about him from afar, he revels in the notoriety that he has long had. He’s one of those ‘move fast and break things’ people. He was a damn pain in the backside of the last government but with Manningtree bringing him in the tent, that’s calmed down. Now he is close to the very heart of government, will know plentiful secrets, will be close to the prime minister and, is by almost everyone’s reckoning, an unpleasant chap.”

This time, Grace just nodded in reply. She caught Debbie’s expression, one of amusement at hearing what MacDonald had to say. Grace wanted to ask her what was so funny though just shut up and listened to her new boss instead.

“The man’s unliked in this building like he is over the river at Thames House. No one in Whitehall can stand him too. That’s why your negative attention has been directed towards him, because of how obnoxious he is. Yet, that to me makes it highly unlikely he’s who we are looking for. Manningtree would never trust him. He’d give himself away. Hewitt would never work for a country like Russia, even with Manningtree’s hooks in him as Svetlana says she can do to almost everyone else.”

“Apart from Svetlana that is. She was immune.”

“Interesting read on that there, Debbie.”

Grace didn’t even look at the younger woman from MI-5 this time. She was annoyed at such a remark even, upon hearing it and therefore considering it too, had to agree with that.

“So, it’s a ‘no’ on Hewitt then, Neil?” Grace gave it her best shot at a neutral tone when she asked that question. She didn’t want neither Debbie nor MacDonald to know she was angry at them for trashing her whole view of why it would have to be the chief policy adviser. “Who else?”

“I’d say Lauren Worthing?” Debbie just wouldn’t shut up. Grace knew she was eager and wanted to be noticed, but she wasn’t supposed to be in this meeting for that reason.

“We will have limited resources to conduct a surveillance with almost all of those coming from Five. Debbie’s colleagues had the best people when it comes to that task here on home soil. I don’t think that any team on Hewitt would find anything incriminating. He’d keep them busy but it would all be for nothing.

If it’s anyone, it is Worthing. She fits the profile which the Russian defector gave us better than anyone else.

The Watchers will go on Manningtree’s aide. They won’t know the full scope of the mission but we’ll have them briefed to report everything back to us. Cheltenham is going to help out as well with this though I suspect that they will sub-contract out the physical stuff to an ally.”

Located at Cheltenham in the West County was GCHQ: the national communications interception & analysis service. It was a less independent organisation than the one which Grace worked for and was bound by more rules that MI-6 was too. When MacDonald spoke of ‘an ally’, she knew what he meant there. For decades, GCHQ had been tasking other members of the unofficial Five Eyes international grouping to spy electronically on subjects of interests. No UK laws were broken that way, nor was the edge of them even skirted. The Americans, the Australians, the Canadians & the New Zealanders would do what was asked in exchange for similar existence to get around their own laws and political inconveniences. Recalling something she’d heard of a couple of years ago, Grace thought that the Americans might be the ones to do it because GCHQ had (allegedly) bugged two sitting US senators on behalf of the then American president.

Full electronic surveillance for Worthing would be done remotely. The days of the Black Bag Job were long gone. There was no need to psychically have access to her phone, her computer and any other internet-connected devices which she had with her or came into contact with. The NSA, the Canadian’s CSE or one of the organisations from down in Australasia would do the job. GCHQ just needed a case number and again they, liked whoever did the job for them, wouldn’t know the whole picture.

“What PIN code have you been using so far with Five, Grace.”

All liaison work so far done with MI-5 during this investigation led by MI-6 had used a random four-digit number. Names had been absent, just that code.

“Two, Three, Seven, Zero.”

“That will do nicely. They’d track her and have her phone likely a Hot Mic too so it’s a speakerphone for us. That will come in handy indeed.”

At his computer, MacDonald typed them in and sent off his request for GCHQ to do what they did best. Worthing would be surrounded by invisible eyes and ears with all information on what she was up to communications wise, plus a track on her phone’s movements, feed back to him and the team which he led in place of Grace’s clear desire to do so.

“We’ll need the Five team to start straight away too. Worthing will take some effort for the Watchers.”

MacDonald said that it was Worthing they were going to put surveillance on by people who knew what they were doing, looking for fleeting physical contact with foreign spies among their skills, and so she wanted to see that done even if she thought that Hewitt deserved it more. They had the electronic surveillance too.

Grace had a question though: “What about Manningtree?”

“No Watchers on her.” MacDonald took off his oversized glasses and fussed over cleaning the lens for a moment. Grace stood beside Debbie waiting for him to say more. Only when he was done did he. “Her phone will get the Two, Three, Seven, Zero treatment though.”

Debbie shuffled uneasily though said nothing.

Grace couldn’t not have something to say to that.

“We’re tapping her phone, then? This country’s prime minister?”

Wow.

That broke the law.

“An ally will being do that,” MacDonald said with a grin, “not us. That means it’s okay.
Now… let’s get the Watchers arranged. Debbie, you assist Grace in setting that up. I want to soon find out how much of what Svetlana said holds water.”

Out of his office Grace went following that remark, with Debbie following. She didn’t know what the MI-5 officer was thinking but she herself was consumed by the consequences of the actual bugging of the prime minister’s phone. Worthing was one thing, but Manningtree was something different indeed.

She could only hope that something didn’t go wrong and it didn’t blow up in their faces.

[jemhouston]

It will blow in the faces.

[Leander]

It will blow in the faces.

That is a real risk indeed.