With thoughts that I was on some kind of terrorist’s hit list or at the top of a want list somewhere behind the Kremlin, I wasn’t keen on saving any of it. Besides, my parents had never done anything in their lives apart from look after the four children. I wanted to go and do all the things they didn’t have a chance to, either before I became too old or was suddenly crossed off a list. This was made more apparent after the 9/11 attacks in America. We embarked on a series of holidays, no expense spared. A cruise on the QE2, New Zealand, Singapore – Raffles hotel, Hong Kong, staying in The Peninsula, a safari in Africa, five-star Quinta in Madeira and business class flights. We were millionaires if only for a brief time. This, coupled with a new kitchen, bathroom, UPVC windows and a central heating system to replace those shocking storage heaters, and a new car, saw all the money disappear and then some, ending up with a credit card bill the size of a small nation’s deficit! I don’t regret it, not one bit. Anna and I lived life and have always lived way outside our means because I refuse to go to the grave saying, “I wish I’d…”
Time passes as it always does and is the best healer and cover-up artist, which allows us as humans to move on even if we just pretend to be okay. I was soon back into the old routines. Anatoly and I continued seeing each other as much as we could before being reunited at the navy’s nuclear repair facilities and submarine bases. There were three subs in refit or build in the yards that he would be involved with, and I was to accompany him, or vice versa depending on your viewpoint. I headed up an engineering department for the naval overseers, and Anatoly was plunged into the design and change team, or A&As (additions and alterations), for the various submarine project groups. He had brought with him not only his engineering and scientific expertise but an endless compendium of plans, drawings, documents and manuals which he’d obviously been working on in my absence. ‘They’ had kept him very busy.
The keys to the detailed technical information he had brought with him had all been encrypted in the Kuznyechik cipher methodology. Kuznyechik means ‘grasshopper’, and basically Anatoly had used the grasshopper methodology to transmit the ‘keys’ to solutions and algorithms regarding nuclear synthesis and future reactor asymptotic neutronics to both me and the Steering Group in our endless correspondence. These keys opened and resolved calculations and other difficulties in Anatoly’s research. It made me laugh that all the brains at the doughnut hadn’t spotted any of the coding, which I relayed sarcastically through Cdr Brown. Brown retorted to say it was even more remarkable that the new FSB’s counterintelligence directorate hadn’t uncovered it either.
The remarkable and bizarre outcome of this discovery, as Marcus later tried to explain to me, was that Anatoly had reversed the encrypted correspondence to further re-code the ‘S’ boxes in a secondary layer of ‘P’ boxes back to the original input bits in the ‘S’ boxes prior and following correspondence packages. Basically, a code within a code within a code, which is like, to quote a phrase, ‘a riddle within Enigma’. You had to have all the emails and letters to put the jigsaw together because of the depth and complexity of the code. I didn’t understand a word of what Marcus explained to me or the significance of Anatoly’s research but tried to look impressed and interested. This was how Anatoly had set himself up to be a bigger catch than the Steering Group had ever imagined. I think from the day he revealed his hand in the doughnut to the Steering Group he had firmly secured his future. He had shown his cards and his terms and they were most agreeable.
Anatoly later told me that this had been his insurance plan all along, either to satisfy the wolves here in the UK on his arrival or to quieten the now FSB and SVR (former KGB) in so much that he could have threatened to decode or use the correspondence as a bargaining chip. His ability to unveil such technical advancements to the British, if they had discovered his intentions, would have been a significant bargaining point. This would have been the ace up his sleeve. From that time on everyone who knew Anatoly called him the ‘Grasshopper’. Fuck, it was all way beyond my skill set to say the least. Nevertheless, Anatoly was very gracious towards me and my limited intellect in this his field of expertise, and although never revealing too much he and I enjoyed long technical conversations which were really his way of thinking aloud to resolve technical issues he was working on whilst blowing my mind as we both got drunk with a good bottle of fine red wine.
I spent nearly 18 months with Anatoly at various sites around the country, and he took on the name of Anthony but I never used that name. I enjoyed our time together away from the pressures of the Steering Group. He must have impressed a lot of people whilst making his changes to those subs; the only reason I know that is because of the number of visits and functions he attended, some of which I accompanied him on. They were all very serious and usually held in the offices of one of the nuclear sites or a posh hotel out of town somewhere. I don’t know much at all about the projects he really worked on; he was good at appearing loyal to his new masters and keeping himself to himself. He usually worked away from everyone else but was always surrounded by a few people eager to learn from him, as he really was a genius in his field. I don’t suppose he found it all too different to his life working in Sarov.
From what little I got to know, and most of what I learned was after a great deal of drink so can’t be relied upon, he was the brains behind a new generation of nuclear reactors. Anatoly was the architect and engineer of a new hybrid of reactor that sat between the developments of the British PWR1 reactors and the American S9G (submarine ninth generation) pressurised nuclear reactors. He oversaw their construction, the fuel purification development, a highly enriched uranium, almost 99% enriched, the neutron shielding and the cooling systems with advanced inhibitors. Anatoly poured his every waking hour into his work. I think it helped him come to terms with his new life. I guess it was just something very familiar and what he had been used to. It was just another day at the office for him I guess; well, that’s what we all wanted for him in some way or another.
Anatoly had all but finished his work with the subs and was set to move into a role involving nuclear warheads. I don’t really know because he never told me much other than he wanted me to accompany him to his next assignment. So, he started dragging it out in order to spend more time with me at the sub bases, which slowed things down. The Steering Group had other projects for him to work on, more complex projects no doubt. I sometimes worked with him. I was out of my depth with him all the time, but it was noticed that he always seemed to deliver his projects quicker when I was around. I was linked to the project management teams for the surface platforms that were in build; it was a great trade-off as it enabled us both to be kept together, keeping both our identities and purposes perfectly secret. My main job, that sat underneath the daily grind of the RN, was with Anatoly, to really ensure his transition into his new life took hold, be a familiar face and a friend in a strange place, ensuring the Crown’s investment settled and bedded into his new identity. All the UK nuclear sub refit and build locations are the end-of-the-line kind of places, perfect for any issues to be calmly dealt with, and little or no secondary damage to worry about.
It wasn’t long before Anthony was mixing more with me and the crews of the sub building and refit projects; he helped us out both technically and with all the after-work drinking. I remember on one such night we had all been out on the town but it was too late to get a Joe Baxi so we decided to head back into the nuclear site and sleep under our desks rather than appear late for work. However, we ended up getting asked by the officer commanding the nuclear site why we worked so late and started so early. Security had informed him of unusual pass activity into the yard and the nuclear sites. We couldn’t deny it as you had to swipe your personal ID to get in the gates, which recorded your every movement. We were commended for all our efforts and commitments to the job! What bullshit. We later bribed the security guys to at least turn off the cameras, as we painfully tried to navigate the security turnstiles pissed out of
our heads, and cease reporting our early returns to the base CO. It only cost us a case of beer and 100 cigarettes each week. There was a real core group of us who had formed a friendship circle around Anatoly and who would later go on to the Middle East with me and the teams.
Anatoly became very engaged with my friends Taff and Steve, who had obviously clicked on to the fact that we were very different, and their suspicions were confirmed by the arrival of Keith who came to us just before our last op to the Middle East. They didn’t interfere or cause us any problems, just enjoyed the fact we had a different agenda, and they wanted to be there to help in some way. Sounds weird, but having a few regular guys helped enormously with our life on the subs but also in helping Anatoly feel normal. They really were a bad influence on the alcohol consumption side of things but fucking great friends to Anatoly. I had gotten myself into a world of shit with the navy guys who lurked around one of the bases, fucking desk drivers. They had no idea of my real purpose in the secure sites and it went against the grain that both Anatoly and I were supposed to keep a low profile, but we were always getting into bother with the regular RN officers who couldn’t get their heads around being told what to do, in so much as Anatoly and I were basically untouchable. No matter what fuck-ups we made or how rowdy we had been in a local pub, a call from London usually did the trick in our favour, but the Steering Group was slowly becoming less tolerant of our misadventures.
When we weren’t working or pissing it up with the build crews of the subs, we spent a lot of time together either drinking by ourselves or hidden away in our accommodations talking of the past and the future, just as brothers. We both had small houses allocated to us in the local areas, which allowed for some comfort and a bit of normality in the fucked-up world in which we were now living. Anatoly was actually fucking lonely and only wanted to be in my company all the time. I think he was becoming more and more of a recluse as time passed on. To help, I’d take him out just to go shopping, visit the supermarket, go to the pub, eat in a restaurant and go for a walk in the National Parks. He especially loved those hikes. It was then we could really talk and be alone. It was all a freedom he hadn’t experienced, a freedom to say and be anything he wanted. He too feared the future.
He loved having my company; he’d never been allowed friends in Sarov, always isolated in his work, hidden away from life and being watched all the time. So I guess he probably became a little too dependent on my being close all the time. I found this to be especially the case after my long weekends away at home with Anna. I’d return back to my digs to find Anatoly waiting for me, depressed off his face, or fucking shitfaced slumped in my doorway. I’d have to clean him up, which was a fucking nightmare as he’d always fucking shit himself and somehow get it everywhere. What can I say, I fucking loved him as my brother so I’d play fucking nurse and take care of it all. I was also painfully conscious that I’d been the architect of his situation and the assassin of his family, so a deep feeling of loyalty and duty to him lay beneath that love – because he was all my fault, all of my making. I had turned my childhood friend from Russia into an orphan, an alcoholic and a very depressed young man.
I usually disappeared back to Cornwall at the weekends and left Anatoly to his own devices. It was a great routine for me and I usually got four days at home every other weekend which was great for Anna. Fucking crazy times as we had moved to the South Coast to be closer together and now I found myself driving the five hours’ commute every fucking weekend up to Cumbria or nine hours to Faslane. It was on the return to Scotland late one Sunday evening – I had dropped off a few colleagues at their houses then returned to my housing assignment, opened the door and found Anatoly dead in my bath full of blood. I had given him a key a few weeks earlier. Fucking fuck, fucker! I was in a mess. I didn’t know how to react really; I couldn’t call the police or an ambulance, I needed to get hold of Marcus. I called Keith and he arranged for the Steering Group to send round the dustmen, along with Cheesy to get me the fuck out of that house so the team could take care of Anatoly’s body and the mess.
I had pulled him out of that bath after trying to resuscitate him. I just sat there on the floor wet through with him in my arms, stroking his blond blood-stained hair. I don’t know how long I sat there sobbing uncontrollably until Cheesy and Keith ripped me away from him. I was so fucking angry, we had a fight – well, an attempted one – before Keith had me pinned to the deck. Cheesy took me and Keith away to a place out in the back of beyond, isolated and away from the world, to deal with it. I never turned up for work that week, which was okay – we just drank ourselves into oblivion. We couldn’t believe what had happened, it was a fucking disaster. All that effort, the planning and the heartache I went through, all the talks and conversations I had had with him. I splurged it all out to Keith and Cheesy who simply helped me into an alcoholic coma. What a waste of almost my entire life, my childhood friend, the struggles we went through, the people we’d had to please, the fight to survive, all now lost. What was the point of it all? Now Anatoly was truly no longer an issue for the Steering Group or the Russians, he was as dead as he was supposed to be. What a complete waste of everything.
There are places in this life you can descend into that are dark, lonely and utterly depressing, places where you become a ghost in your own life. I had found this place. You have to fight the demons you harbour, they are masters of deception and lies, and for a time they were winning in my life. Their ability to trap you in a dark place surpasses all understanding. You feed them with your guilt and your helplessness in your grief-stricken drunkenness. The only antidote is found in those who can understand pain and loss. Anna knew pain – she had lost her mother at an early age. The pain is always there but to share it is a relief, a vent from within the pressurised anger of the heart. There is always light but it’s often hidden by the heavy blankets you throw over it. Having lost both my parents and now Anatoly, I was in a bad place. There wasn’t the bullshit option of going and seeing a shrink; I didn’t want to face up to my inner demons, I wanted to escape them. Anna had always been the secret strength, the power behind the man. She lay hidden often many thousands of miles away but always believed in me. When shit went south, I had to find a way back to the surface, a way to remind myself there was someone else in my life who was worth living for, be that from war, a mission, an assignment, or the grief and state of mind I would never recover from. I admitted to Anna some years later that suicide had been on my mind at this time, and still creeps in to offer a way out to this day. Although tempting and no matter how depressed off my face I now become, she is why I’m still here.
I went to Anatoly’s funeral, a small affair near the doughnut. Nothing special, just a gathering of people. There were those who had worked so hard to save him, those who had used him and those who had profited and benefited from him. He was cremated and his ashes went to Marcus. What a fucking waste. Time to move on. As Plato said: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
From out of the ashes, they say – well, that’s probably bullshit, but Keith and I worked together on a support vessel project as engineers and were now getting along really well with Taff and Tony. Keith never left my side. Marcus joined, took over command of the taskforce and brought in all the teams. Everything changed, including the bullshit naval overseeing officers who’d never seen a gun fired in action let alone been on the receiving end of one. They were all replaced. Marcus brought in an elite core of officers and crew and surrounded himself with key players, including Brown. It was fucking great to have them all back together. This was the final assignment. We put our heads down and did the prep, the hard yards before we deployed for work-up, then we would be off to face that fucking demon in the Middle East.
It was now time to finish the list and for me to leave the Steering Group and Foxtrot Oscar to retirement. First it was back to the briefing rooms and a repeat exercise, only this time it was totally focused on the remainder of the list and Keith’s intel. London, the
bunker, Poole then deployment. This time would be different – we were angry, more focused.
The Steering Group
Chapter 13
The Derelict
This was to be my final deployment to the Middle East and it came after a long time away from the team whilst I had been working with Anatoly on the sub projects. Looking after Anatoly until his death, coupled with the loss of both my parents, had made for a difficult and extended period of absence from the more complex world of the Steering Group. Now it was time to get straight back into the saddle with the team, who were ready, expectant, battle ready and current, as they had no doubt been busy and involved in other ops whilst I had been the babysitter for Anatoly. Fuck, I was afraid I had lost the edge, succumbed to the inevitable, a skill fade that might become apparent and sneak out to betray me when I was least prepared. I could tell they were totally up for this next deployment, there was a buzz, whereas I was apprehensive, nervous about making a mistake but equally determined to finish what I had started.
Keith had become a lifeline after Anatoly, almost a crutch for me to lean on, and I suspected he knew of my fears. He took care of it by continually asking questions and repeating procedures built into his own OCD methodology of preparedness, which passed unnoticed because we were always checking and rechecking kit anyway, a habit that would follow us into old age no doubt. I knew he was okay with my period of insecurity; it was as though he saw his own future in me, needing to know that whatever happened in his life, he could return also, so he tried to keep me in my comfort zone whilst I upped my game and got back up to speed. Keith had become a great fit into my old team; he was their new plaything but had yet to prove himself in multi-threat scenarios. He lacked that respect from the team at this time so we had a trade-off: he would ease me back into live ops whilst he broke his cherry in the field. We were all set to be deployed to the Middle East – ALL IN. This deployment would bring closure for the Steering Group’s list, removal of the Middle Eastern cell dealing in arms and technical information from Russia, whilst Keith would get to clean up the remnants of his past life in Iran.
The Steering Group Page 43