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.