The Moscow Sleepers

by Stella Rimington

  ‘But we found them easily enough,’ said Fane.

  ‘Well … think about it. The actual operations were intelligent, well thought out and well run – they could have gone on longer and done a lot of damage. We were lucky because we got on to it through Dieter, who via the Burnside couple in Brussels provided us with the name of Bartholomew Manor School. Even if we hadn’t had that tip-off, I’m sure it would have still come to our attention before long. How could you ever expect to hide the fact that sixteen young immigrants were smuggled into the UK to work on high-level software projects? The answer is – you couldn’t. That’s true, Chief Constable, isn’t it? Even in rural Suffolk?’ She looked at Pearson.

  ‘Particularly in rural Suffolk, I’d say,’ he replied. ‘Odd happenings stand out a lot in the country where mostly life goes on to a pattern.’

  ‘The Russians must have known that. They may have been surprised when I showed up at the college so quickly – even before the students had arrived. But once they learned who I was, they didn’t abort the project. I do wonder though whether Cicero and Sarnat knew the whole thing was meant to be discovered eventually. If so, why did they kill Miss Girling when they suspected her of snooping, and why did they pursue Thomma when he escaped?’

  ‘That would also explain why Sarnat and Cicero and the other teacher tried to cover their tracks by destroying documents,’ said Pearson. ‘That would make no sense if the whole thing was always intended to be discovered.’

  Liz nodded. ‘Once they had killed Miss Girling they had to get away. None of them would have fancied a life in prison, and the FSB was never going to tell them they were supposed to stay and face the music as sacrificial lambs. Look at the escape plan: they left hours after Thomma escaped; they were picked up at the same place as the students had arrived, a pretty basic no-no; their getaway ship had roughly the speed of a tricycle. That’s not what I’d call a brilliant fallback plan if things went wrong, and it was only through sheer luck that they got away.’

  ‘So they were meant to be caught?’ asked Fane sceptically.

  ‘Not necessarily, though they would have been if there hadn’t been such a stupid cock-up between Border Force and the Coastguard.’

  ‘And if they had been caught, how would that help the FSB?’ Fane asked, but intrigued now.

  ‘Because then the whole affair would have blown up – just like it did in Germany. The press would have been on to it in a shot. I can see the headline now: Private School a Secret Nest for Spies. The broadsheets would have run with it for days. Major Security Lapses, The Enemies Within. Etc etc. I don’t know if this government would have fallen, but it would have taken a hell of a knock. And so would we – MI5 and your Service, Geoffrey. We would have looked like fools. An internal inquiry would have been the least of it. Heads would have rolled.’

  Fane smiled wryly, perhaps recalling his visit from HR suggesting he could take his pension any time. ‘As it is, aren’t people going to be asking questions?’

  Pearson replied, ‘They already are. The local papers have been ringing us about the events at the college. But I think it can be handled.’

  ‘Really? And what do you propose, Chief Constable?’ Fane asked a touch condescendingly.

  Pearson was unruffled. ‘Well, I can’t guarantee anything. But we’ve devised a cover story that I’m pretty confident will fly. Child refugees arrive here thinking they are in the hands of kind people who are helping them to resume their disrupted education. At first, things go swimmingly. But unbeknownst to these young immigrants, their supposed patrons are crooks – no better than traffickers – who have brought them here specifically to defraud the authorities and philanthropic individuals for whatever they’re worth. Once suspicions are aroused, the trio do a runner and the kids are left behind, innocent victims yet again. That is near enough to the truth to satisfy my conscience, and my police commissioner agrees.’

  He stopped and Liz said nothing, her eyes on Fane. But he nodded grudgingly. ‘I can see that working.’ Then as if unwilling to concede too much, he added, ‘Mind you, don’t overdo it.’

  Pearson smiled. ‘We won’t.’

  Fane turned back to Liz. ‘So, what you’re saying, if I understand it correctly, is that in fact it’s a good thing these men got away.’

  Liz thought for a moment. ‘Yes. No scandal, no press, no publicity. It’s not as if we did anything brilliant. We were just lucky all the way through, particularly in failing to catch the Bartholomew three.’

  Fane had his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers together in a pyramid. ‘The Russians couldn’t really lose on this one. If we hadn’t discovered what they were up to, then they’d have continued on their merry way and done a lot of damage.’ Liz nodded. ‘If, conversely, we did uncover their operations, there would be a maelstrom of bad publicity about the ineptitude of Western intelligence agencies, the vulnerability of our institutions – from an American university to the European Commission and our fee-paying shills. None of which would do anything but help the reputation of the Russians – it’s not as if the world expects better behaviour from the FSB. Bloody hell, I wish I could see something retrievable in this situation.’

  ‘Cheer up, Geoffrey,’ said Liz. ‘Look on the bright side. If we manage to avoid a political storm like the Germans have got, then we will have succeeded. We’ve discovered what was going on; we’ve stopped it and hopefully there will be no fallout. What more do you want?’

  The room was silent as everyone tried to decide whether they were looking at a success or a failure.

  There was a sharp knock on the door and a familiar face looked in.

  ‘My God!’ exclaimed Fane. ‘From Russia with love.’

  49

  Bruno Mackay pushed open the door with one hand and came in, carrying a leather holdall in the other. Liz looked at him in astonishment. The man who walked into the room had the face and voice of Bruno Mackay but everything else about him was different. The straight blonde hair was now a wavy mahogany; the Savile Row suit had morphed into jeans and a leather jacket, and the striped Jermyn Street shirt and silk tie into something plain, dark-coloured and open-necked. This was Alan Urquhart, the investment banker, straight from Moscow via Beijing and Berlin.

  ‘Good heavens, Bruno,’ said Liz. ‘I’d never have recognised you.’

  ‘That’s rather the idea,’ he replied dropping his bag on the floor and reaching across the table to shake hands with Pearson and introduce himself.

  ‘I’m relieved to see you back,’ said Fane. ‘I hope the journey went well.’

  ‘It was quite an experience. Especially the drive out of Moscow. That team you sent to rescue me was quite something. But I’m still in the dark about why you pulled me out.’

  Richard Pearson stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll leave you all to it now. We’ve covered everything that affects me; I’m sure if anything else comes up you’ll let me know. Liz has agreed to come to Suffolk tomorrow to meet my commissioner, which will be a reassurance for him and a great help to me. But I’d like to thank you all for your help. And congratulations on your safe return,’ he said to Bruno, then left the meeting.

  There was a general reshuffling. Peggy waved a hand at the small table in the corner where tea and coffee were set out. ‘Help yourself, Bruno,’ she said.

  Geoffrey Fane and Bruno both stood up and moved across to the table, talking quietly. Then, to her great surprise, Liz saw Fane shake Bruno’s hand and pat him on the back.

  Fane turned around. ‘Bruno has just told me something that has come as a complete surprise. You won’t often hear me say that,’ he said with a rare touch of self-mockery. ‘Go on, tell them, Bruno.’

  For the first time in a long acquaintance with Bruno, Liz could see he was embarrassed. ‘Er,’ he started, then hesitated. He took a deep breath, then said, ‘I’ve just told Geoffrey that I’ve got engaged. I’m going to get married.’

  Peggy and Liz were transfixed. This was the gre
at Lothario of MI6 speaking. The most famous bachelor in the intelligence community.

  Peggy recovered first. ‘Do we know her?’

  ‘Yes. You do and she’s a great admirer of yours and Liz. It’s Sally Mortimer. That’s why I stopped in Berlin. I wanted to grab her before one of those Germans took her out of my grasp.’

  ‘From what I saw of them, there’s not much fear of that,’ said Peggy. ‘I’m so pleased, Bruno. She’s great. But I hope you aren’t going to whisk her away from Berlin. She’s doing so well there.’

  ‘We certainly can’t allow that,’ chipped in Fane severely. ‘I’m always being told that a woman’s career comes first.’

  ‘Congratulations, Bruno.’ Liz was beaming. ‘This is news I never thought I’d hear. I wish we could whistle up a bottle of champagne. There’s another cause for celebration today. Have you heard that Peggy’s been promoted?’

  More handshakes and smiles all round until Liz said, ‘Sorry to break up this bonhomie, but I think we’d better finish our analysis of what’s been going on and decide what if anything more we need to do.

  ‘I’m glad you’re back, Bruno,’ she went on, ‘because we need to try to understand the Moscow angle on what’s been happening here and in Germany and in the States. You’ll all remember that we originally learned about the FSB’s Illegals operations in the West from our source Mischa, and his information came from his brother the FSB officer, who we now know is Boris Bebchuk.

  ‘It was as a result of his information that we were able to uncover the two Illegals operating here, the Karpis couple, who were sent back to Moscow last year. Mischa also told us that there was another Illegal at work in America but that he was ill and not operating. The FBI persevered with that lead and eventually identified the man who had been working at Vermont University in the IT Department. He was dying but their interest was aroused when a mysterious visitor appeared who seemed to have been sent to clear up after he died. Everything else that has followed sprang from that.’

  ‘Yes,’ broke in Bruno, ‘and on our side, we and the Agency decided we would make a recruitment pitch to Mischa’s brother, who seemed to be the source of all this information.’ He looked at Fane. ‘So I went off to Moscow. I thought I was doing rather well there. Our Station in Moscow, working with the Americans, had found the brother, Boris Bebchuk. I got alongside him, cast the fly and he was nibbling at it. Another cast and I was confident I’d have him hooked, when you pulled me out. What happened?’

  ‘You should be glad we did get you out while we could,’ said Fane sharply.

  ‘We had a pretty clear warning,’ said Liz, ‘that the FSB were on to you. There was every possibility that if you’d shown up for that lunch with Boris, you would have been taken in for questioning.’

  ‘You mean my cover was blown?’

  Fane said, ‘Almost certainly. Apparently, after you failed to turn up, security people went round to your flat and took it to pieces.’

  Bruno looked startled. He turned to Liz, ‘But how did you learn that the FSB were on to me?’

  ‘About ten days ago, Mischa called me to another meeting in Berlin. He gave me a message – it was a warning, really – that no one should make a pitch at Boris. He clearly knew that someone was sniffing around his brother; he seemed to think it was the Americans, but that may just have been a blind. We know all his information has come from Boris, so it was clearly a message from Boris. He must have sussed you.’

  ‘Boris sussed me?’ said Bruno glumly. Then he went on, ‘But if he had spotted me, why did he tell Mischa and why did Mischa tell you? Boris doesn’t know Mischa is leaking stuff to us – or does he?’ he asked after a moment’s thought.

  ‘Well,’ said Liz, ‘that’s what’s been bothering me. This is what I think. It’s only a theory, and as we can’t check it with Boris and Mischa, I can’t prove it. But for what it’s worth here’s my view:

  ‘At the beginning Boris was a loyal FSB officer who had the unfortunate habit of confiding in his brother when he drank too much. Mischa didn’t share his loyalty, and in return for payments from the Americans and later from us too, he relayed the information about FSB operations that he learned from Boris.

  ‘But when we rounded up the Illegals operating here last year, Boris, along with his bosses, started to wonder how we had got on to them. Boris knew what his bosses in the FSB didn’t know, that he had been talking freely to his brother Mischa. It wouldn’t have been a huge leap for him to wonder if Mischa could have been talking to someone in the West. It wouldn’t surprise me if Mischa wasn’t starting to flash his cash around a bit, what with the retainer from the Americans and then what we started paying him. Boris would have wondered where the money was coming from – their army isn’t exactly Goldman Sachs – and put two and two together.

  ‘I think Boris might have confronted Mischa, who perhaps admitted what he’d done. Boris certainly wasn’t going to shop his brother – he would have been shopping himself, after all. So he decided to get in on the act as well. Between them they resolved to keep feeding us information – and split the proceeds.’

  ‘Right,’ said Bruno thoughtfully. ‘So then what happened, according to this theory?’

  ‘You showed up. Boris, knowing what he did by then about Mischa’s activities, must have been suspicious from the first. As I said, he may have thought you were American, and I know he has a low opinion of our transatlantic friends, so he started to worry that his FSB bosses might have spotted you as well. To cover himself, he reported his contact with you and his suspicions.’

  ‘Bastard,’ said Bruno. ‘After all the vodka I fed him – and I threw a great party.’ His face grew pensive. ‘But why didn’t he just let me get caught? Why send a warning through Mischa?’

  ‘Because once he had reported you, you were being watched. If he’d let you go on to make a pitch at him, he would have had to report it for fear they would discover it independently. You would have been picked up and he would immediately have come under suspicion. It doesn’t do an FSB officer any good to be the subject of an approach by a foreign intelligence service. The obvious question is “Why you? What have you been doing to attract the enemy?” And of course, we would have dropped Mischa like a hot potato, so the cash would have dried up. Bad news all round.’ Liz continued, ‘But this way he and Mischa hoped we’d be convinced they were both on our side, while simultaneously they hoped the FSB would think Boris was completely loyal to them. For that to work, they had to warn you off making an overt approach.’

  Bruno whistled lightly. ‘A bit risky for them, I’d have thought. But I’m glad you got me out of it.’

  Fane said, ‘If you’re right about this, Elizabeth, they didn’t cater for Bruno’s sudden disappearance. There are bound to be questions about why he’s vanished.’

  ‘There’s not much we can do about that. We’ll have to wait and see whether Mischa resurfaces. Then we can decide what, if anything, we should do.’

  ‘But even if Mischa resurfaces, can we trust anything he told us?’

  Liz looked at Fane and shrugged. ‘Who knows? We’d just have to judge that at the time. After all, isn’t that what they pay us for?’

  There seemed nothing left to discuss. Everyone started gathering their things when Fane said, ‘It seems to me that we have much to celebrate. I’d like to invite you all to take a glass of champagne with me. I know just the place.’

  ‘Good gracious, Geoffrey,’ said Liz. ‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said.’

  50

  ‘Coming about,’ shouted Pearson into the wind, and Liz had learned enough to duck as the boom slowly swung her way. The main sail shivered as they turned directly into the wind, then as air filled the vast cotton pocket and the sail ballooned firmly, the boat gathered speed, heading towards shore.

  It was called The Rubicon, and Geoff Gumm had built it himself. Constructed of larch and oak, it had elegant lines and was twenty-five feet long, drawing four foot, with a remodelled
cockpit and bulkhead. The current owner was moving to California and the price was greatly reduced because he was desperate to sell. Gumm had urged them to take her out for a trial, saying it would be its last sail for the season before he put it up for the winter in the nearby boatyard.

  Liz had come up on the train that morning for the meeting with Pearson and his commissioner. Pearson’s driver had collected her from Ipswich and driven her to Suffolk Police headquarters at nearby Martlesham. There she had explained MI5’s role in the investigation of Bartholomew Manor, omitting any reference to Mischa and his brother and Bruno’s activities in Moscow. The commissioner had seemed satisfied and grateful that she had come and hadn’t pressed for more information.

  After this, Pearson had sent his driver home, and Liz and he had driven in Pearson’s own car to the boatyard a mile south of Geoff Gumm’s working shack. On the way, Pearson described what had been happening at the college. ‘I’ve spoken to the police officers at Bartholomew Manor this morning,’ he said as they left Martlesham and drove north on the A12. ‘Everything’s OK for now. Aziz has got the students working on projects, and they all went to the college yesterday and worked in the IT building. Aziz has moved over to the annexe at the farm, so he’s acting as head teacher and warden. He’s also made Thomma his assistant. Both of them sound happy from the sound of it.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  ‘I’ve talked to the Home Office, and they’ll send somebody up this week to begin interviewing the students. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but at least they understand that these kids are victims, not criminals.’

  ‘Good,’ said Liz, confident that with Pearson involved, none of these refugee teenagers would be forgotten. They’d suffered enough and shouldn’t suffer any more at the hands of an indifferent bureaucracy.

  After meeting Geoff Gumm, they had taken The Rubicon a couple of miles out to sea, where a stiff breeze helped Pearson put the little boat through her paces. It was surprisingly warm for autumn, and the water sparkled in the sunlight from a largely unclouded sky. Eventually they turned back, the sail fixed on a steady course towards harbour. The wine was opened, the deli-bought panino produced, still warm from their foil wrapping. There was nothing left to do but enjoy the moment.