I had to learn the art of ‘ninjutsu’, and not in some ridiculous getting dressed in black Hollywood silly way, but to understand invisibility, to be seen but not be noticeable. I spent many hours practising to be evident but insignificant, seen and quickly forgotten, like a tree in a forest of exactly the same trees, always there but ultimately never actually seen. My studies included carefully examining clothing and appearances, mannerisms and characters of natives in chosen destinations, which could be as simple as a market town in England, a market in St Petersburg or an elders meeting in Kabul. The local customs and the greetings, the way people moved and behaved. Training sessions were conducted on base and in local towns. It is a discipline of human stealth that involves misdirection, diversion, disguise, stealth, camouflage and very simple behavioural applications, enabling you to walk unobserved, penetrating forbidden areas unseen, departing at will without leaving a trace. It is the expertise and strategy of guerrilla warfare. This part of the training was actually quite fun and made for some interesting days out, upsetting local authorities and the general public on occasion. It would take time to perfect as with every discipline in life.
Thieves inadvertently employ this methodology – if you get dressed up as an engineer and go to a site and steal a works van and then take on the pretence of an engineer to gain access to a property in order to steal from it then you’ve succeeded in the art of deception. I once witnessed a team of thieves who turned up at a marina in a marine engineers van; they set about removing the outboard engines from a flash speedboat on one of the finger jetties; they engaged with other boat owners in polite conversation; and then casually walked away with over 10 grands’ worth of Suzuki outboards. They looked like they were meant to be there, that’s the trick.
I only had a brief introduction to self-defence and small arms this first encounter; after all, I was just training to be an English student studying Russian, making me feel the whole training was a massive overkill. There was extensive language training, no English spoken, all interviews and instruction given in Russian, including the whole mission package, targets, points of interest, people to observe, places to go, where to eat, what to observe, where to get money, when I would take leave and how I would travel home, how to report. My entry documentation to the universities and supporting certificates for the education all had to be carefully prepared and applied for by the team. I wrote regularly, with the assistance of the training staff, to Anatoly, working together to build the picture that I wanted to come and study Russian in Moscow. His excitement was plain to see in the letters sent to my home address that were intercepted and brought to the facility. I still have the photographs of me wearing the Russian hats he sent me, sitting on the sofa at home with all my family when I was on leave. They had no idea. I was sitting there with my whole family amidst an intelligence operation as though nothing of the sort was happening – it was great. The deception was easy; the truth had already been paperclipped, manufactured and deposited in all the right places. The entry point was established, the correspondence lined up and accommodation arranged. I’d live with Anatoly and take up a student’s life in Moscow. The organisation made all the necessary arrangements with the universities, and the dates all confirmed flights were booked, bank accounts opened and passports arranged.
I had to be Andrey throughout module 4 of the training, simulating family dinners, answering awkward questions about what I had been doing over the last few years, describing a false background and false family stories, events and holidays on my side, carefully avoiding any names of towns places, etc. that would give direction to my real family. Then we conducted interpersonal conversations with mock individual family members and with a number of hopeful targeted individuals it was hoped Anatoly would lead me to. My life had to be re-scripted and paperclipped into my character ready for the real event. Switching characters in this build-up was very hard as I still looked at Anatoly as a personal friend. There was no doubt betrayal would take place in this friendship and I was prepared for that by a seemingly endless timetable of interviews explaining the importance of what was being undertaken, and then hours spent with what must have been specialist councillors whose goal was to depersonalise everything in my mind and focus me on my training and my objectives. Then towards the end of the course I was introduced to the world of non-official cover – this, in simplistic terms, is intelligence work undertaken under assumed identities in private sector industry and how to access money etc. More of that later.
I guess this is where a compromise may have occurred; this is where to look in counter-espionage, at the innocents who must be removed to protect the Crown. I was now Andrey the Russian language student, and Andrew the junior mechanic in the Royal Navy, and Andrew the N1 operative, but always Andrew the boy who was now out from behind bars, chain free and living a new life. I was already adding my own paperclips, facts, lies, places, names and memories, true and false, lies and camouflage. Brilliant. I was actually in my element; it was an open invitation to reinvent myself which satisfied my desire for acceptance into a bigger life, into a new organisation, and to do it well to the best of my ability.
I left training and joined HMS Deptford bound for the States. I had some great runs ashore in Plymouth with the lads before the ship deployed, going to nightclubs and pubs, drinking all day. DTS (dinner time sessions) followed by drunken nights in The Two Trees, The Long Bar, The Malthouse, Boobs and The Tube, all finished off by a shit burger at Cap’n Jaspers, the local fast-food outlet in a mobile unit in the Barbican. I’m sure I was being watched; didn’t think of that at the time but the more I fitted in to a character the better, including getting into trouble and being drunk and disorderly. The very ability to be unnoticed, normal, totally encrypted with a chameleon characteristic to adapt and be unnoticed, but if seen to be totally in harmony with the surroundings – I was adapting. The training ground was within the safety of the second character. It’s a very clever programme because you can practise your skills with people you trust within the military; it’s a safe testing ground and a place to run back to and become invisible. It’s easier and safer to hide within the military and disappear off the grid when the need arises by sometimes simply disappearing to sea whilst hot scenarios or situations blow themselves out. It’s like a safe house that’s well hidden in a secure city, that city being any ship, establishment or base of the UK military – globally.
It was a great trip. I worked hard as a marine engineer for a number of months and sent the postcards, wrote the letters and got the souvenirs as were needed. I needed to be serving time out of the country to clear the snail trail of my ‘real’ life before making the switch. I continued to work at passing exams and boards for the engineering trade, which was a necessity and one I didn’t fully understand at the time as career grooming hadn’t crossed my mind at this point. It was all a repeat of the Gainsborough, I guess. A couple of things that I remember well of that trip included my first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. We had hit a huge storm and I remember going up to the bridge and asking permission of the captain to come on to the bridge and observe.
Never have I seen an ocean like the one on that first trip – beautiful blue skies, deep blue almost black mountainous waves, building up to fluorescent green curls before the white horses were blown from the tops of these mighty ocean skyscrapers that then came crashing down as if by controlled slow motion demolition. It really is something to watch a warship plough through such a storm; it’s not a violent affair with the sea, it’s just magnificent. It’s humbling to witness the power of the ocean in all its fury and to be at its mercy. I remember standing next to the captain, who was strapped into his chair smoking his pipe, seeing the sky disappear, looking at the bottom of the darkest troughs before seeing the 4.5 inch gun gently disappear beneath the water and the bridge go dark, illuminated only by the sun’s rays through the green water against the bridge windows – a very intense car wash experience. I have always loved being at sea. It feels sa
fe, you’re detached, a satellite that can communicate if you want to but generally just be alone away from the world and all the shit that goes on in it.
We had encountered storm damage and the ship had pulled into Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada. It was winter and there were snow drifts up to 10 feet deep everywhere. We had to conduct a boiler clean, so all the engineers would be working flat out for the first few days. Only fuck-up was we decided stupidly to blow soot during the night before the boiler clean, and the morning light revealed the extent of our pollution to the world. To everyone’s horror all the snow for miles was tainted by our soot and there was no hiding the fact it was the Royal Navy that had committed the offence. I’m sure there was a lot of explaining to do, but that wasn’t my concern.
A boiler clean is a really manpower-intensive job and I loved the whole experience of going inside the boiler and firing bullets from the Elliott tube cleaning kits through the boiler pipes, climbing into the cathedral and steam tubes. We all looked like the Black and White Minstrels, working long shifts in the hope to get a night ashore and get as pissed as farts. I made some great friends doing real shitty work. Isn’t that just always the case in life, where the worst or hardest times bring the best friendships? At the end of the clean the furnaces were wallpapered with newspaper, and maybe 20 crates of beer were brought into the furnace through a tiny unbricked entry point and through which the whole engineering department would enter for a furnace party. Fucking awesome. These were happy days. I remember waking up to the sound of the inspection glass cover being lifted and the Lucas torch ignitor being inserted into the furnace, indicating they were about to light the furnace. Screaming at the top of my voice thinking they were not aware I was still in the furnace, my screams were met with a quick blast of the ignitor to shit me up properly, before many smiling and laughing faces appeared at the inspection window! Bastards.
I left the ship and flew back on a MAC flight (Military Airlift Command) to Brize Norton, no airline ticket, no traceable travel, just fond memories of my crew mates whom I’d left with a compassionate cover story. I needed to change passports and luggage at Brize before travelling to Heathrow. Moscow was waiting and Andrey had an appointment with old friends and to start his course at Moscow State University and the language faculty. Flying Aeroflot was scary as shit and probably still is, but I enjoyed the rest and set about changing into a student mentality. I flew the day after my birthday on an Ilyushin Il-86, which is a four-engine jet airliner. Moscow, holy shit, it felt like I was on a holiday, an excursion or something, anything but a serious trip, a fucking mission or an intelligence assignment. I guess, looking back, that was a good thing as it helped with the whole experience and to keep my nerves in check. The lie felt real, it felt right, it felt normal. It was easy. I was probably expendable and didn’t know and didn’t care at that point in time. I’m not sure I was taking it all as seriously as I should have been; I was young and it was a great adventure, a trip of a lifetime. Actually it was a great laugh and an amazing adventure.
I arrived at Sheremetyevo International Airport Moscow, which is about a 35-minute drive outside central Moscow. Flight, immigration and customs were no problem, and I had to get a bus into the city. It was all a big step into a wider world. In no way did I feel anything other than I was there to undertake a language course. Fucking bizarre now, looking back; the Admiralty and the Steering Group, whoever the fuck they were, had just paid for me to have the greatest holiday experience ever. The weather was typically cold and around 18 degrees Fahrenheit, or -7 Centigrade, which does take some getting used to. I think I was always cold in Russia. It’s very, very cold, just plain freezing, and you talk about the cold all the time, not as cold as last year but colder than the year before, and then the old folks talk about the cold of 1938 which was really cold, and on it goes on and on and all the hardships are eventually lost to the past.
I needed to get city bus N851 to Rechnoy Vokzal (Речной вокзал) Metro station on green line 2 to get into the city. The fares are really cheap and luckily travel time is 40-50 minutes, which is the quickest time available to passengers during the working day. I bought my ticket in the ticket box for 50 roubles. I was headed for Patriarch Ponds (Патриаршие пруды). Little did I know it was, and I believe still is, an affluent residential area in the downtown Presnensky District of Moscow. To put it into perspective, it’s like living just inside the North Circular road in London which in turn is surrounded by the outer belt of the M25, to which the Moscow equivalent is the Third Ring Road, so I was very central. There’s a new campus accommodation building near there today that didn’t exist whilst I was there, and if it had I wouldn’t have had the same experiences or opportunities I enjoyed and encountered whilst staying with Anatoly.
I remember arriving at the park or the pond and Anatoly was waiting for me. It was so very emotional and exciting. Anatoly embraced me like a Siberian bear through his amazingly thick long black heavy coat fitted with deep dense soft brown fur around the neck. A bear hug from my dear friend. I remember just holding his arms and admiring his Russian ushanka black hat that sat upon his very thin white cold face, with his blue lips and frozen cheeks stretched into the biggest smile ever. He pulled off my hat and swapped it for his. He had grown his hair again and looked just as he had done in the photographs he had sent when we’d first communicated; he so looked like Nikolai Romanov but even more so now he had a moustache. I made fun of him, before he begged me to walk with him awhile before he lost me to everyone who would be waiting to greet me at home later after work. We dropped my case off at the lobby to his apartment and set out in the snow, my heart pounding with excitement to be in Moscow. I guess it’s the same feeling that is experienced by those who go on a gap year or go travelling today. That shit wasn’t really available in my time; joining the army or working down the pit were the real options that faced most school leavers of my era.
We walked together for what seemed like hours and hours, just busting with excitement and joy that we were finally together and how amazing it was I was here to study Russian in his home town. The streets were shining white with snow and ice, making each individual person look like a dark matchstick silhouette against this dynamic typical Russian backdrop. Any photograph would have most certainly resembled a Russian winter version of a Lowry painting. Clouds of snow blew around like dust clouds in this cold white ice desert, with caravans of Lada cars and Trabants and many other unusual looking cars racing to work through the snow- and ice-filled roads. My breath was almost ice before it left my mouth and my nostrils exhaled clouds of steam. Breathing in was like inhaling fire it was so cold, and I could feel my extremities painfully freezing up. We walked around the streets and the pond, lost in conversation as if we had been together for years already. The pond is about 9,900 square metres, with the depth about two metres, making it a great ice-skating rink when it is frozen. It was almost a cool cliché to be in Moscow and see children skating on the ice all wrapped up in thick coats and scarfs. Tverskaya Street, known at the time as Gorky Street, was close by and very busy, a mixture of modern buildings amongst the more imposing and more traditional older buildings, some of which were proudly flying the Russian flag from their upper balconies. Tverskaya Street led all the way to Red Square and the Kremlin and made for a breathtaking first walk in the capital.
We talked and walked aimlessly for hours, both for fun and secretly for me to deliberately negotiate the area, to familiarise myself with our location, what was close, my routes to college, perhaps taking in short detours. Mental details being taken, planning routes to cover objective observation points that I would build into a daily commute to a metro station at Kropotkinskaya, from which I may have the opportunity to observe two target persons on my list before taking the Metro to Lomonosovsky Prospekt in the academic district where my campus was located. Anatoly was eager to show me around and have me to himself so there was no rush, so it was easy to get started photographing the whole area
like a tourist.
We stopped for brunch in true Russian style; we were like comrades standing in line for cafeteria service as we waited ever so patiently for my first authentic Russian breakfast of wheat and potato pancakes and Karamazov omelette (with chicken livers, sour cream and caviar) for me and the Siberian omelette (Russian sausage, cheese, sour cream, pepper, tomato, onion and caviar) for Anatoly. I ordered in perfect Russian, joined the second queue to pay, then we sat patiently on creaky little wooden seats at a table in the window watching Moscow go by as we discussed such things as the latest UK pop music, CD players, Nike trainers, and many other brands that drew such an interest from young Russians of that time. We also chatted about our letters, my old school, hard times and good times, and Mr Richards who had coordinated the pen-pal scheme so long ago now. We were building our friendship and our trust which I would use, and use to my advantage; and although it pains me to think of how I used Anatoly, he was a vital portal and conduit into the Russian elite and was beyond any possible cover story that could have ever been manufactured by the security services. I guess everyone was using everyone else; who knows, maybe Anatoly was using me.
That evening was a very special one. Although I had suspected Anatoly was from a, let’s say, privileged background, I hadn’t expected the reception that I received back at the apartment block. We made our way back to the apartment that overlooked the pond at around 4.30pm; it was already dark, the interior lighting in the foyer making for a warm welcome that was surpassed by the whole family that was awaiting my arrival. The lift was out of order so we scrambled up a spiralling staircase to the 5th floor. Anatoly burst through the door and thrust me into the middle of the waiting crowd. I was stripped of my hat and coat and quickly made to sit in the middle of the room so everyone could see me and ask questions about my travel and welcome me to Moscow. It was a very warm welcome full of excited faces that seemed in shock to see an Englishman in their home. Of course, they all wanted to practise their English, which I have to say was better pronounced and with a more expansive vocabulary than my own, making me ask them to repeat as if I didn’t understand. I passed out gifts of CDs, chocolate and English souvenirs, but I had brought some Levi jeans and some Nike trainers for Anatoly (all nicely funded by the UK taxpayer); there was almost silence as everyone was taken in by such a gift. Back then there wasn’t the influx of Western goods so this was indeed a big gesture to have made. Anatoly was overcome with emotion as we were fast tracked into a close friendship beyond that of just mere pen pals.
The Steering Group Page 13