“I’m here now. You’re coming home with me this time. You’re gonna be safe, don’t worry.”
Keith breaks up the party over comms. I direct him to come round the back in 10 minutes exactly with Taylor. I turn to Anatoly and tell him I have business with my friends before we depart for home and to stay in the main room whilst I, Cheesy and my friends get everything ready, and if he needs to get anything for his new life in the UK to get it. Now was the time to collect all his things. He had five minutes.
Cheesy and I go back into the kitchen, closing the door. Okay, Anatoly was all but ready for extraction, Keith and I would look after Anatoly now, we would take the responsibility. Cheesy would take over babysitting Taylor and would be using Anatoly’s car for their onward journey together. Cheesy had that professional air about him, he was focused and time conscious, continuously checking his watch. I wouldn’t learn the plan for Taylor or his fate until I got back to the UK. The entire team were assembled in country to see out the pantomime of Anatoly’s death and to ensure it was played out using our friend Taylor as the decoy. Cheesy just wanted me to know everything had been carefully prepared and to fucking make sure that Anatoly made it to the UK undiscovered. Keith banged on the back door. Keith and Cheesy exchanged some papers and documents for Anatoly’s trip to the West. I wished Cheesy all the best and gave him a hug and thanked him for ensuring my friend had made it this far. Cheesy smiled and was very open when he said that all this effort was definitely worth it, I had a good friend in Anatoly, and he was awesome and knew now why the Steering Group wanted this action. It was as though Cheesy were doing this as a favour to me personally.
Cheesy left the house first, picking up Taylor on his way past the Volvo before upgrading to the BMW, Anatoly’s car. No need for the Iranian to see Anatoly; as far as Taylor was concerned this was just a driver and vehicle exchange at a safe house, a halfway point, perfectly normal in the underworld of people smuggling, and also perfect cover for Keith. Cheesy played the part beautifully and I have no doubt that during that long drive Taylor came to really like the man who was in fact probably going to kill him.
How bizarre to ride the lightning with your own assassin?
To journey in peace with your enemy,
A journey undertaken in trust.
To journey together, terrorist and Crown executioner,
A journey of corruption and purchased loyalties.
A journey to the place where even God has no light.
To journey in appeasement for those who desire power by might.
A journey to fulfil the promises of evil men.
To journey knowing the price of freedom and the cost of life.
A journey of destiny and majesty, as the light devours the night,
To journey and see the tent of night torn from sight.
A journey to dance the last ballet,
To journey riding the narcotic rush of the bullet.
A journey to the other side, where all seek freedom from this life.
To journey to virgins or the righteous, without prejudice or promise.
A journey that has no diadem and no remembrance.
To journey to the silent dark rows below the crows.
Keith and I gathered our shit together in an organised hurry as soon as we watched the rear lights of the BMW disappear into the woods. No time to lose, we got Anatoly to the car, managing to complete the turnaround in less than an hour. Anatoly was soon asleep in the back seat, no doubt exhausted from the loss of his patriotic fervour and the niggling betrayal that must now be chasing his every thought. I remember looking at him in the back seat – what a brave young man to defy such masters as he would have served. But just as Sarov looked ahead with confidence with all the young minds that remained there developing the world’s foulest weaponry, the whole ideal of defection fitted the realities of the modern life and world in which we occupied. Change, capitalism, freedom and the right to choose that freedom and peace above all other things, only such freedom would satisfy the bravest of souls. How could such a gentle soul as Anatoly be involved in the development and delivery of mass destruction? How does anyone become involved in the machine of war? I would ask myself that question many, many times after I left the service. But for my part I believe I did the world a small service that day.
We didn’t stop for nearly 10 hours and only because we were running on fumes. Keith and I had talked for hours about how attachment to families we had worked with had presented problems, for both the work we did and on a personal level. He too had very close relationships with families he had worked with in the Middle East, but never came as close as I to Anatoly. He envied my friend openly but in good spirit. His conclusion was to make the lives of all he met as happy as possible before the inevitable orders came, then to follow them without malice or any discontent towards those who issued them. I was lucky, I had found a way to save one of those people whose name was on a list, my friend, Anatoly.
The longer you worked for the Steering Group the easier it became to be detached from such relationships whilst maintaining the illusion of integration. I was pleased to have had so much time with Keith on that drive back into Europe. Not only did it give me time to talk with Keith but for him to meet and talk with Anatoly. It made a way for all three of us to understand the idiosyncrasies of our work, our lives and how it all entwined us so deeply in the tapestry of intelligence work, secret development projects and the whole world of national security. Enemies are just people with very different points of view that you feel the need to rebuke. Keith and I debated fervently all the issues of working with the Steering Group, and we did it in a healthy philosophical way. Not from a view to diminish or undermine our organisation but to better understand it; and yes, to confirm and seal our beliefs in all that we did for the organisation. I guess we needed to reaffirm with each other that what we were doing was right, because this was never going to be the end of things, rather the beginning. There was still a list to complete after bringing Anatoly home.
We refuelled at our checkpoint petrol station and then Anatoly talked all the way to the Russian border. He was scared, talking endlessly, which sort of took our minds off the border crossing that awaited us. It was all just gibberish about Sarov, the nuclear research centre and how it had changed, how one-third of those employed by the institute where he worked were people under 35, young scientists and engineers, closely guarded and monitored, the most sought-after minds in the world, he proudly explained. But then, falling into depression, he exhaled his malcontent with being so isolated from friendship and family. He explained that the mission was to sustain the reliability of Russian nuclear weapons, what he’d been working on, the problems of nuclear spectroscopy and nuclear structure and why he had to leave. We listened intently, both of us reminding him he no longer needed to worry about it, and he would be able to unload everything when we got home, make new friends and be free. We needed to press upon him that he was going home. This was a one-way ticket, there was no return option ever going to be offered. Keith and I completed the drive back to Finland from Yaroslavl in just under 19 hours straight. We were fucked, totally fucked. The tension, the excitement, the realisation of what we had just undertaken was fucking way too big to take in. We had made it back into Europe. We took Anatoly to the hotel in Suomussalmi, allowed him a swim and a few hours in the spa, got cleaned up and fucking crashed, Keith and I taking turns watching out for our prize.
Now, I don’t fully know the details of how the boys delivered the ‘Tragedy of Anatoly but from what I learned it was the most perfectly executed fake accident of a Russian scientist in history. You won’t find any story of it in the Google archives and I doubt very much any of it will be released out of the government archives for many, many years to come, if at all. What exactly happened on the Murom Bridge over the Oka River I simply don’t know. What little I did learn was that Cheesy delivered ‘Taylor’ to the Iranians on that bridge at an agreed time. They, the ‘terrorists’, havi
ng no idea who Taylor was (thinking he was Anatoly), were waiting on the opposite end of the bridge when Anatoly’s car arrived on scene for the exchange. There it was, a cash for persons exchange on the Murom Bridge. Well, that’s what it looked like.
Cheesy calmly got out of the BMW and took Taylor up to just beyond the halfway point, to the waiting ensemble, with a hood over his head, took the case (of money supposedly) and ran back off the bridge. But just as the deal was completed someone happened to execute a perfect sniper shot and kill poor Taylor just at the very second he got into one of the waiting cars. Chaos ensued with rapid fire coming from the BMW side of the bridge. A controlled explosion of the BMW rendered the bridge unpassable, adding to the confusion, possibly Baz’s work. Then chaos and confusion as the receiving party dispersed in full retreat, their withdrawal incredibly well protected (by UKSF perhaps?).
Somehow the Russian military had been present, made aware somehow; maybe the KGB was given a heads-up by someone from the FBI or CIA, who knows. But the main group of Iranians/terrorists managed to get away because the Russians couldn’t pursue them – an unpassable bridge and pinned down by heavy sniper cover. All that was left outside that wrecked vehicle was a dead pair of Iranians. No Anatoly. Anatoly had been taken by the Iranians, he’d gotten into the escape vehicle. There was nothing ever uncovered except Iranian bodies, Anatoly’s burnt-out wrecked car, a terrorist’s car stolen from Armenia and a whole lot of classified paperwork, maps, plans and correspondence from Iranian official departments authorising the removal of Anatoly Pavlovich back to Iran. How that was all left in that vehicle was a mystery, but of course none of that information was true, and there was nothing, not even a whisper, of our involvement.
I’m sure Moscow had many theories and suspicions, but I do remember that relationships remained very strong between Iran and Russia despite this possible setback to their nuclear and weapons programmes. Rather than to try and open up arguments over the loss of an engineer and scientist, Moscow maintained and opened up new avenues for cooperation with Iran for both increased arms dealing and nuclear technology, especially for the Iranian Bushehr nuclear reactor programme. I still can’t believe they didn’t suspect a third party; maybe we really were good at the shit we did, or were they playing a longer game? No one will probably ever know. The arms dealing had always been big, but perhaps not as corrupt or on such a scale as Moscow thought. I think it was all a bigger political move by Moscow because Tehran had previously not sided with fellow Muslims in the first Chechen War (1994-96) and wanted their continued support for territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. Who knows, but as far as the West was concerned those relationships must have been upset to one degree or another and that was enough. For us the politics was a distant game we never fully understood, but as the implements of government we did sometimes wonder as to the reasons why.
Keith, Anatoly and I got back to Plymouth thanks to the Royal Navy and a taxi ride on a lovely big British submarine with a miserable fucking CO. Brown and Marcus were aboard our ride home a T boat from Plymouth, and I left Anatoly with them in Plymouth to go on to the doughnut for the debriefing. Anatoly was expecting this, I had briefed him on the journey through Finland to be ready for a bit of an interrogation, but equally tried to instill in him that the people he would meet were my friends and the ones who allowed him to come over at great risk. I parted company with the group in Plymouth and headed to Canada for a break in Nova Scotia. Fucking crazy, I was probably less than 10 miles from home but the entire team was to assemble in Nova Scotia before picking up Cavalier for the ride back home. A decompression period out of sight, for me to be separated from Anatoly for a while, and a check to see if our tails were clean. We had to be off grid completely for a while; besides, we were all pretty knackered.
The Steering Group
Chapter 12
Kuznyechik
I arrived in Canada relieved to be finally off grid. We had taken a painfully slow military flight out of Brize to Greenwood Air Force Base Nova Scotia. The flight wasn’t exactly business class but I’d managed to catch some zzzs crashed out in some cargo netting. Fuck, what a reunion; the Steering Group – well, Marcus – had arranged for a country house to be made available about 40 minutes outside Halifax just for the team. It was an unofficial celebration. We got utterly smashed. There was a lot of catching up to do and it was awesome to introduce Keith to everyone. We had been sealed now, no one was ever going to be able to black cat this last fucking op; it had been a rush for us all, especially after the long build-up to actually deploying, yet simultaneously a sort of anti-climax in so much as there hadn’t been any high-octane moments to reflect on, not for me, maybe for the SF boys who had done the hard yards at the bridge.
Besides being individually debriefed by the Steering Group’s self-appointed ‘gestapo’, as we aptly named them, we pissed up, partied, cooked, BBQd and ate meals together and generally fucked around for two weeks. There was a pool, sauna and Jacuzzi which we all made full use of. Our friendships were solid, so unbreakable now, safe in the history of our own self-made legacy. It was like a big family holiday, a royal gathering of the Steering Group’s finest. The SF boys made sure they got in as much abuse and piss-taking of us N1 intelligence operatives as they could, all the usual shit, but we knew we couldn’t have pulled it all off if it hadn’t been for their efforts, and vice versa. No doubt the Steering Group would be able to showcase this joint venture to gain funding for future ops. But for this short time all everyone was focused on was taking a breath and enjoying the undeniable success of the team’s planning, efforts and hard work.
One particularly memorable evening of that standdown was a gathering of all the clans, N1, SF, the Steering Group inner circle, and the dustmen, who flew in for a few nights to join us before we re-joined Cavalier. I think the dustmen are more covert than us actual operatives; they’re like a group of Tasmanian devils, roaming around the planet cleaning up any carnage and removing any traces of the actual perpetrators and seemingly never getting involved. As I remember it, we had all gathered together for drinks in the main living area, which was all open-plan, encompassing the kitchen which was a huge open space, with plenty of sofas around the periphery, a massive island surrounded by bar stools and a log burner in the snug area of the room which was also home to the snooker table. Keith was playing the guitar, singing and taking the piss with a lot with substituted lyrics and the odd one-liner to make fun of anyone he could. He was a fucking bon oeuf. He was always the life and soul of a party, fucking typical southern shandy drinking southerner, drank way too much for me and loved all the drinking games. I can remember all their faces, each and every one, relaxed and confirmed in themselves after a success rivalled by no other. Happy faces. It was my family, a very close family to which I felt a warm belonging to all my brothers in arms. It was what I had sought all my life.
Cdr Brown and Marcus made their way around the room talking to everyone, shaking hands, laughing and joking. It was so cool to see them in a different light, and such a pleasant change to see them both so relaxed, relaxed probably for the first time since I had known them, and it was authentic, not some bullshit ‘happy to see you’ nonsense. This awesome brotherhood was my reason to continue on for one last push to clear the list with Keith. We all knew the next assignment was in the post, to finish the list and put the whole Russian file in the archives along with Keith’s portfolio of Middle Eastern entanglements, but for that brief time in Canada we were content and happy to celebrate this milestone. Success celebrated amongst such company and friends was emotional. Both Keith and I always got in a real emotional mess with each other, I don’t know quite why but we did. Cheesy always attempted to engage as a pissed-up counsellor of some sort, trying to make everything make sense to absolutely no avail. Cheesy was my prosthetic, without him I wouldn’t have made it this far, and the congeniality between the three of us had grown and was undeniable. I do think that from the outside we may have looked a bit w
eird, but I couldn’t give a fuck. When you’ve worked together and alone as we had, there is no poison strong enough to kill the bond.
I think we all needed time to process our work, and this downtime was what everyone desperately needed. Not only to be debriefed, but for each of us to celebrate and vent frustrations with each other after way too much to drink. What we were taking for granted was, we had made it back alive and unscathed. I was truly thankful for that as it could have been a very different outcome for many different reasons. These thoughts of survival were clearly manifested through drunkenness, with outbursts of emotions, anger, just standing crying (Keith did that a lot when we were together), sometimes fighting between ourselves, piss-taking and sudden fierce arguments, all extinguished quickly within the love of the brotherhood. It was a coming to terms with all the things we had gone through together, a reckoning of all we had achieved and what had yet to come.
Strangely, I do remember feeling that we were all getting older, Baz in particular looked brittle, battle-hardened, but Cheesy still looked like a fucking teenager and acted like one too! I had been with this team on and off at this point in my career for 10 years or more. How time had passed. Some of the team had kids now, had married then divorced, and we had each endured all the normal things in life on top of our military lives. It was all relative and apparent, but separate if that makes sense. I know I lived a double life but, talking to the boys, their lives were a bigger mess than mine in some cases. We all were living a dual life of some kind, our lives at home being short and sometimes very false, trying to pretend we were all normal and our life at work, real, raw, demanding and unforgiving but so rewarding. None of us really knew how to translate our work life in to something normal when we were at home. We worked for those we loved at home, yearned to be with them, but as soon as we were reunited we all wanted to be back together in our team, the second family – it’s fucked up. What can I say? For our partners it felt like we were having an affair.
The Steering Group Page 41
