The Big Breach (16 page)

I got up to see if Anna, in the office next door, wanted some tea. She was typing up a YZ (highly classified) telegram for Fowlecrooke, which she covered discreetly as I entered - being a probationer, I could not be privy to such information. Anna had followed her brother and sister into the service; MI6 likes to recruit from the same family as it simplifies the vetting process.

`Has that telegram to Moscow gone off?' I asked.

`You only gave it a ROUTINE status - it'll go this afternoon,' she replied without taking her eyes off the computer screen. `I've got something more important to do for Mr Fowlecrooke, he'll be furious if I don't get it done immediately,' she added. Rick Fowlecrooke, a former army officer who had no work experience outside the military and MI6, had specially requested me for SOV/OPS, rather na‹vely imagining that the few hated months I had spent in management consultancy would give me invaluable insight into the Russian economy. Luckily he was soon moving to a new posting and Anna and I would have another line manager.

I made the tea, sat down at my desk and looked out from my perch on the 13th floor at the panoramic view of London, from Canary Wharf in the east to the Oval cricket ground in the south. The spectacular view contrasted with the otherwise dingy office. The walls were covered with maps of the Soviet Union, pinned above grey, chest-high steel safes, the only colour provided by a sickly spider plant. The battered safes were plastered with peeling stickers exhorting us to ensure that they were securely locked. The need for security had been drummed into us on the IONEC and every evening before leaving the office we had to ensure all our documents and every scrap of paper - no matter how innocuous - were securely locked away. The security guards diligently inspected each room every night and if they found even the slightest lapse the miscreant was issued a written `Security Breach Warning'. Paul, a GS clerk who shared my office, got `breached' one evening for leaving a monogrammed shirt on the coat hook after an evening football match. Three `breaches' in a year incurred a formal reprimand by personnel department which could mean being ruled out of consideration for overseas posts.

I switched on my ATHS (Automatic Telegram Handling System) terminal and waited for the cogs to start turning. ATHS was a neolithic internal networked computer system, designed especially for MI6 at great expense. Its development fell so far behind schedule that it was out of date when it eventually came into service in early 1990. It was supposed to allow officers to send and receive telegrams directly from their desks without the inefficiency of using a secretary and paper-based system. Unfortunately the word processing system was so cumbersome that only computer-literate junior officers used it, and the message handling system was so slow and unreliable that it was often quicker to resort to old-fashioned pen and paper. After what seemed like an eternity, the screen warmed up and I flicked through to see if there were any telegrams for me. There were none, so I would have to find something else to do. Such were the early days in SOV/OPS. The novelty was interesting but the slow routine was anticlimactic after the hurly-burly of the IONEC. Every few days I would debrief an agent - mostly British businessmen with interests in Russia - then spend the next day writing up the ensuing paperwork. So far, I had produced only the one rather obscure CX report. My contribution did not feel as if it was vital to the execution of British foreign policy - unless we were trying to do some paper-exporting nation a favour.

I joined the East European controllerate in changing times in both the controllerate and the geographical area that we covered. The Berlin wall had recently fallen and news bulletins were filled every day with the political break-up of the Soviet Union and the realignment of the former Sovbloc countries with the West. Changes swept through the old Soviet administrative machine and even the KGB had not escaped. Under the leadership of Yevgenniy Primakov the old directorates were reorganised into two new organisations. The SVR was responsible for gathering oveseas intelligence, roughly equivalent to MI6. The FSB was responsible for counter-intelligence, the approximate analogue of the British MI5.

In Century House this news was received with satisfaction at having defeated the old enemy, tempered with caution. MI6 had to reorganise its strategy in response and one of the first changes was to enter into liaison relationships with the SVR and FSB, something that would have been unthinkable only a few years earlier. Both sides recognised that dialogue would be mutually beneficial, so H/MOS, John Redd, was `declared' to the SVR and a programme of regular liaison meetings started. There were still more requirements for intelligence on Russia than on any other country, but their scope changed. The greater political openness brought by `Glasnost' meant that information which would once have been regarded as intelligence was now openly available. It was now fairly easy to find out from public sources what a particular factory in, say, the Ural mountains manufactured. What MI6 remained interested in was at a higher level; in intelligence parlance, the CX `threshold' was higher.

As a probationer in the service, I would not be indoctrinated into the most sensitive Russian casework, known as `YZ' cases, which were the source of most of this high-grade intelligence. I had to start at the bottom, with the consolation that even the most productive cases sometimes had the most humble and unlikely beginnings.

It was with this in mind that Stuart Russel, who had just replaced Fowlecrooke, developed my first serious task. Russel had served in Lisbon, Stockholm and most recently Moscow, and was now at the crucial stage of his career where he had to mark himself out to be a high-flyer (otherwise his career could peter out in a series of unimportant Head Office jobs or postings to sleepy stations in Africa and the Far East until compulsory retirement at 55). He had his eye on heading the Vienna station. It was one of the biggest and most important MI6 stations and would be an opportunity to prove his potential as a high-flyer. But first, he had to sort out SOV/OPS after the departure of the ineffective Fowlecrooke.

Russel called me into his office. He had enlivened the grim civil service decor with oil paintings and souvenirs acquired on his overseas postings, and from his desk he enjoyed a splendid view over Lambeth Palace and up the Thames. The new SOV/OPS chief was reading a telegram from John Redd, recording the first liaison meeting with his FSB counterpart. The first task in a fresh liaison relationship is to establish mutual trust, and Redd and his counterpart had done this by swapping details of suspect intelligence officers which each side had identified over the past decade. `They identified me while I was there and nicknamed me the ``Silver Fox'',' giggled Russel. Partly the nickname was attributable to his thick, smooth silver-grey hair, but partly it was because of his cunning tradecraft while under surveillance.

Discarding the telegram into his out-tray, Russel outlined my assignment. `I want you to devise an operation to sift through Russian defence journalists, and recruit one with good access to military secrets,' he explained. `As you know, journalists do not normally make good agents because their inclination is to publish what they know which instantly makes it unusable as CX, but they sometimes have good relationships with key decision makers which occasionally gives them access to confidential information.' Russel's objective was for me to track down such a journalist and cultivate him. `I suggest that you set up a fake newsagency in London, use that to make the initial contact, then see where that takes you,' Russel advised. `And go and see NORTHSTAR - he'll have lots of ideas for you, I am sure,' he added as an afterthought.

NORTHSTAR was the codename for Mikhael Butkhov, a former KGB officer who had defected to MI6 a year earlier. He had worked under cover in Norway as a TASS journalist, so knew many of the genuine Russian journalists. Hopefully he would be able to provide a long list of names to get the operation kicking.

I borrowed a maroon Ford Sierra from Century House's underground garage, one of a fleet of similarly uninspiring models in inconspicuous colours, falsely registered so they could not be traced to MI6. It was a two-hour drive to the pleasant commuter village of Pangbourne, just outside Reading. NORTHSTAR had certainly benefited materially from his defection. His modern four-bedroom detached house was set in a spacious garden, and parked in the drive were a new Rover Sterling and his girlfriend Maria's sporty red Citro‰n BX19 Gti, its dents and scrapes suggesting she had not mastered driving on Britain's clogged roads.

`Come on in,' called NORTHSTAR in impeccable English with only a distant trace of a Russian accent. He ushered me into the livingroom and bade me sit down on a black leather sofa. The room was dominated by an expensive television and hi-fi system and was sparsely furnished with brand new, soulless pieces from a soft-furnishing chain.

NORTHSTAR recognised me from a brief meeting on the IONEC. Trips to the Fort were important to his morale, as he was now suffering from post-usefulness syndrome. Every tiny detail of his training, his KGB colleagues and his career had been sucked from him, and the heady days of VIP treatment, champagne receptions and all-expenses-paid trips to visit friendly intelligence services in Washington, Paris and Sydney were now over. His value to the West, and the sense of importance that this had bought, was now gone and he was bored and demoralised. MI6 had tried to find him a new career, but without success. Work experience as an intelligence officer is not very marketable, and besides there are few careers which can match the fascination and intrigue. So although MI6 set him up with a nice house and a lifelong pension and persuaded the Russians to let his girlfriend and daughter join him, he was restless.

He made coffee and took me through to his study where we could discuss the plan in private. A half-finished model of a Sea Harrier jump-jet and a tube of glue lay on the desk with his computer and a few manuals. I sat down in a black leather chair and outlined Russel's idea. `Why not let me run it?' NORTHSTAR asked before I had finished. `I have worked as a journalist with TASS, am a trained intelligence officer and Russian is my native language - I have the perfect background.' NORTHSTAR's arguments were persuasive, but the Russians were still smarting over his defection and if they found out that we were using him in operations against them it might damage the fledgling liaison relationship. `I'll have to ask if it is OK,' I replied. `But no promises.'

Back in Century House, I wrote up the proposal in the form of a minute and popped it in my out-tray. First Russel, as my immediate line-manager, would want to pass comment. Next P5, the production officer for Moscow station, would want to check that there were no implications for other operations under his control. SBO/1, the security officer for Russian operations, would need to comment on operational security. R/CEE, the requirement officer, would want to comment on whether it was likely to yield any worthwhile intelligence. Finally, the controller of the East European controllerate, C/CEE, would want to be kept informed about what was going on beneath him. Such a circulation list was typical and it could often take many weeks for all the decision makers to have their say. This decision-making process would be impossibly cumbersome in a commercial organisation, but its advantage is that it usually avoids coming to the wrong conclusion. The disadvantage is that when the decision is obviously wrong, it is very difficult to reverse. Too many officers have laid down their reputation on paper and so stubbornly defend the decision, no matter how foolish it seems in hindsight.

Fortunately, this decision was quick. Only a few days later, the minute was returned to my in-tray by one of the messenger clerks. The hand-written scrawl by the various addresses added to the bottom boiled down to an agreement to allow NORTHSTAR to be involved in the operation, but on no account could he be allowed to run it alone. I would have to stay closely involved and monitor all his activities.

Setting up the operation was straightforward. The only equipment I needed was an ordinary fax machine, which TOS supplied. I called my newsagency `Trufax', alluding to the true facts that I hoped would be received by the facsimile machine, and attractively close to the name of the Russian newsagency `Interfax'. Normally operations of this sort would be run out of Century House, using an out-of-area telephone number and call diverter provided by British Telecom. But NORTHSTAR, like other defectors, was not allowed in the building so I rented a small office, hardly big enough for a desk, on the top floor of a rabbit-warren of an office block in Conduit Street. TOS manufactured a small brass plaque bearing the Trufax name, which the building's caretaker added to the other plaques on the outside door of the building, and G/REP, the printing and forging department, ran off some smart Trufax stationery. I got myself a fresh alias, Ben Presley, with matching passport and driving licence from CF (Central Facilities) department, but getting NORTHSTAR sorted out with an alias identity required a bit more imagination. Any Russian journalist on speaking to him would almost certainly enquire about his background and how he arrived in the West. The wisdom of a more experienced officer was needed to come up with a suitable legend, so I went to see SBO/1, John Bidde.

SBOs are in charge of overseeing operational security in each controllerate. They are sometimes casually referred to as `retreads' because they are past the normal MI6 retirement age of 55 and have been rehired for their rich operational experience. Their role is advisory and they have no control over operations, but only a foolish officer would ignore them. Bidde had been East European controller during the Cold War, so his experience was particularly valued.