The Blind Spy

by Alex Dryden

  With a finality in his voice, Burt looked up the table at Theo Lish. ‘Damn fine run-down of the situation,’ he said supportively, as if the cyber warfare question was now done with. ‘Let’s get back to the table refreshed for the afternoon session.’

  As the meeting broke for lunch, Burt singled out Adrian.

  ‘We’re going to the Trois Couleurs,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you join us?’

  What did he mean by ‘we’, Adrian wondered. ‘We’ve only got an hour,’ he grunted, however. ‘It’ll take fifteen minutes to get out there and it’s the most expensive restaurant in Brussels.’

  ‘And the best,’ Burt replied. ‘What’s more, it’s pre-ordered and on me.’ He grinned. ‘We’ll eat the best food in this town – some of the best in Europe – and be back here only a few minutes late.’

  Outside the NATO building, a large, black, armoured limousine awaited Burt. He ushered Anna first into the long back seat – as if she were the bloody Queen, Adrian thought – and then stepped in himself, leaving Adrian to follow. There was nobody else invited, Adrian saw.

  The pre-ordered lunch was brought to the table in the time it took them to be escorted by the maître d’ from the entrance of the restaurant to their seats at a private table in a room at the rear. A bottle of Pomerol 56 had been decanted and was now poured. Burt waved aside the opportunity to taste it and the sommelier smiled as if in complicity with Burt’s apparently transcendental appreciation of the vintage and its quality.

  ‘Expect it to be good, and it will be good, eh, Adrian?’ Burt said, and raised his glass.

  Adrian was nonplussed. Burt’s curious combination of earthiness and, to Adrian, fanciful, airy-fairy, New-Age remarks like this one never failed to confuse him. ‘To lunch!’ Burt toasted, ignoring Adrian’s demurral and, tucking a four hundred-count linen napkin somewhere into his chins, he began to enjoy the boeuf en croûte.

  To Adrian’s surprise, the conversation was minimal and he began to wonder what was behind this invitation after all. Indeed, why were they in a private room if they weren’t here to talk? But Burt seemed intent on enjoying the dégustation and in no mood for talk, formal or otherwise. It was only when the bill had been invisibly paid – pre-ordered and on account, Adrian supposed – and they were heading back in the limousine for the afternoon session that Burt beamed at Adrian in a way that suggested something was coming.

  ‘Know what’s on the agenda this afternoon?’ he said.

  Of course Adrian knew, they all knew. ‘Iran. For the umpteenth time,’ Adrian replied patiently. ‘And then a general discussion about the perils of scaling down in Afghanistan. What the intelligence role in that eventuality will be.’

  ‘Ukraine,’ Burt said. ‘Russia and Ukraine. That’s top of my agenda.’

  ‘But it’s not on the agenda at all, Burt,’ Adrian protested.

  ‘I think you’ll find it is.’ Burt leaned slightly towards the MI6 chief. ‘And, Adrian, I know you’ll instinctively give your support for my – actually, for Anna’s – thesis. She’s been doing fine work in the past months. Particularly in the past few weeks. Work on the ground. And I just want you to know that your support will be a thing of great value to me.’

  Adrian looked past Burt’s bulk at Anna, but she didn’t seem to be listening. She was staring through the side window of the limousine somewhere into the distance. The long profile of her face was caught by the sun flashing behind the trees as they drove. She seemed to cultivate an impenetrable, enigmatic identity.

  Not for the first time, Adrian wondered what she was like in bed. She’d been Finn’s woman until his death, and after that she’d picked and discarded at least one other man in the past year that he knew of. Including Logan Halloran, he recalled. Unlike the girls in his office, who he felt regarded him as the leader of the herd, she gave him nothing. Once, when Finn was alive, she’d come with Finn to Adrian’s and his wife Penny’s house in the country. He’d made it clear to her what he wanted – practically in front of his wife – and she’d looked at him as if he were a piece of dirt.

  He snapped himself out of the memory. ‘A thesis about Ukraine?’ he said, momentarily baffled.

  Anna then looked round at him at last, fixing him with her expressionless gaze, and he felt the infuriating calmness of her presence once again.

  ‘Yes, Adrian,’ she said. ‘The second largest country in Europe which borders Russia to the east and the European Union to the west.’

  ‘Don’t tease Adrian.’ Burt grinned, and looked like he might pat her on the knee, but then thought better of it.

  With this arcane exchange completed, the limousine drew up outside the NATO building and they were in their seats just ten minutes late.

  Back in the committee room, Burt and Theo Lish drove a ‘cookie cutter’ – in Burt’s words – through the Afghanistan question, dicing it into bite-sized pieces that concluded the intelligence role there was all but finished.

  ‘Intelligence is a matter of pre-emption,’ Burt summed up flatly. ‘Intelligence protects, and intelligence is the tool to flush out our enemies. Afghanistan is over the edge. There’s no longer anything to pre-empt. We know our enemies, and our enemies are winning. We’re on an irreversible slide there. The White House knows it, even if it won’t admit it yet, and the Europeans know it.’

  Lish didn’t disagree and the European intelligence chiefs seemed almost relieved the Americans were leading the retreat.

  Then there was an hour discussing the latest intelligence in from Iran; its increased uranium processing facilities, the timeline for its nuclear weapons capability, Chinese support of the Iranian government, the illegal imports of material, the mindset of the ayatollahs and their political puppets, and the fledgling resistance to them. Finally, Theo Lish shuffled some papers and brought a sheet to the top.

  ‘The added agenda,’ he stated. They all shuffled papers and brought the swiftly printed sheet into view. ‘Events concerning Russia and Ukraine.’

  Burt rested his hand on the back of Anna’s chair and introduced her to the rest of the committee, as if most of them didn’t already know her and the rest didn’t know her by her considerable reputation.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ANNA SAT COMPOSED and still. The thin northern European light on this January afternoon slanted in through a window where the blinds were only half shut and made a pattern across the table that was elongating with the sun’s fall.

  She was aware of the effect she had in the room; the only woman among more than thirty men. She was aware of their curiosity and their attention, and she was equally aware of the resentment that emanated from some of them. But she had been accustomed to such undisguised male attention for as long as she could remember and had long ago developed a quality of absorbing it that was neither a barrier nor an encouragement, but just a kind of neutralising aura.

  According to Burt in a conversation with Lish earlier that day, which she had overheard – perhaps by design – she was the personification of Russia itself. In the kind of typically sweeping assessment of a person or event that Burt was fond of making, he had summed her up as follows: ‘Anna’, he had told Lish, ‘will tactically withdraw until the opponent is weakened, desperate and all out of ideas. Then, if she chooses, she picks him off. She’s like the history of Russia and its enemies, withdrawing into an endless interior until they’re exhausted and beaten.’

  Now, in the committee room, she effortlessly deflected the underlying motives of the men back in their direction and – brought face to face with their own conscious or subconscious thoughts about her – they experienced an uncomfortable moment of self-revelation. She destabilised the baser or more simplistic thoughts they held about her by exposing them in some sort of mirror.

  Looking at them in the long silence she’d allowed to settle following Burt’s introduction, the fractured group of Intelligence chiefs seemed a fragile defence against any single-minded, powerful and united enemy. Certainly the upper echelons of the KGB
had never been this democratic, let alone this diverse. These were a strange group of people, brought together by an old war seventy years before and then – after the Berlin Wall came down – augmented by the incorporation of Europe’s Eastern states, which had formerly been under the heel of the Soviet Union. Twenty years after the Cold War had ended – in the fond hopes of the West anyway – the Eastern European nations were now at NATO’s table.

  This committee, she thought, was as porous an institution as you could find, yet it was made up of the highest minds in the countries it represented, men who possessed the most secret and privileged information.

  Anna knew – they all did – that someone had been passing on to the Kremlin details of America’s proposed missile shield in Eastern Europe. But the committee had been unreliable for a long time. During the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, a French officer had passed NATO secrets to Serbia. Some people suspected Greece of doing the same. And the Estonian Defence Ministry security chief, Herman Simm, had been convicted of passing NATO secrets to the Russians. It was not surprising therefore that the nations represented around the table withheld their most private intelligence information.

  Her presence, she knew, would be reported to The Forest by someone – and maybe more than one of the men in this room. What she had to say now would be read at The Forest within days, if not hours.

  Not for the first time, she wondered what Burt’s game was. Burt knew the score where the committee’s trustworthiness was concerned, as well as anyone. One thing she was certain of, however, was that in this presentation he’d asked her to make Burt was undoubtedly making a play. He was putting a divining rod into the earth, as he liked to call it, to see what he would find. ‘Intelligence is a tool to flush out your enemies’ – his words from earlier in the week flashed across her mind. And our known enemies’ intentions, she’d silently added to herself. ‘We need conflict because that is where our enemies are revealed.’ And if this were a play of Burt’s – as it undoubtedly was – Anna could assume that the CIA was in on it, the Canadians, almost certainly, and Adrian . . . ? That was why Burt had openly solicited Adrian’s support in the car after lunch. Burt always played a long game and he never told everyone everything, her included.

  There was a hush of anticipation and of curiosity – even admiration, in some cases – both for her unique presence in this room and for her known exploits in the field. She was also the youngest of them by at least fifteen years and the only one who was still active as an operative.

  She leaned forward imperceptibly and her stillness and quiet drew the others’ attention even more. Theirs was the rapt concentration afforded to a person who speaks in barely audible tones. Anna’s cool demeanour and measured forcefulness was as effective, in its way, as Burt’s loud, bulldozing style. And the men in the room could not separate her skills and experience from her beauty.

  ‘The Kremlin is upping the ante,’ she began quietly. ‘It’s been well known to all of us here for a long time that the mood among Russia’s leaders has become increasingly belligerent since Putin came to power in 2000. Two years ago, Russian forces made their first military adventure outside Russian territory and invaded the sovereign republic of Georgia. There were complaints from the West, but no action. In other words, the Kremlin got away with it. Thus the appetite of the men of power, the siloviki and their allies among the patriotiy in the intelligence community, was whetted for a far bigger prize. Something the Kremlin wants more than anything. That prize, we believe, is Ukraine.

  ‘For the past ten years the Kremlin has engaged in a series of actions intended to destabilise its neighbour. The Orange Revolution in 2004 prevented the Kremlin’s stooge Yanukovich from gaining power in Kiev, but the Ukrainians’ democratic choice for president was nevertheless poisoned by the KGB, almost fatally. In the east of Ukraine, next to the Russian border, there is a large Russian community from Stalin’s time and before, which is sympathetic to Russian rule. This, combined with the great resentment among Russia’s intelligence community that Ukraine is an independent state, is creating a flashpoint which we believe the Kremlin intends to exploit. Today, from reports on the ground, as well as satellite pictures and KGB sources who are unfriendly to Putin’s KGB clan, we have formed an increasingly clear picture, but it’s still far from certain what exactly the Kremlin plans to do.’

  ‘If anything,’ Plismy, the French chief, said acidly. It was Plismy who two years before had ‘lost’ Anna to the Americans.

  The historical precedent of a female, former KGB officer addressing an internal NATO intelligence committee did not intimidate all of them and Plismy was one of them. Plismy was her enemy too now. She’d run from French protection two years before – ‘protection’ which had almost got her killed after she’d fled from Russia – and into American arms in the person of Burt and Cougar. The French were unlikely to forgive her.

  ‘Do we get to see the evidence of this clear picture you talk about?’ the head of Spain’s National Security Service, Jorge Barrius, enquired.

  ‘All the satellite evidence is available. Reports on the ground and from KGB sources are, of course, source-protected.’

  ‘How can we assess its reliability?’ This time the objection came from Ton Van Rijn, the head of the Netherlands intelligence agency, a trim man in his early sixties with a small moustache and sensible shoes like a schoolteacher’s or a policeman’s.

  ‘As it’s material that originates from Cougar, you can expect it to be of the usual high standard,’ she replied smoothly. ‘We have networks of agents in Russia and Ukraine that national agencies and the rest of the world would envy.’

  Burt grinned amiably. Anna paused to invite further questions, but none came.

  ‘First,’ she continued, ‘Russian interior ministry officers are handing out passports to citizens of Ukraine near the Russian border, as well as in the Crimea. This was a tactic they employed in Georgia and subsequently used as a reason for the invasion there: the defence of Russian citizens. Second, unusual movements of small numbers of military vehicles on the Russian side of the border in the Kursk sector seem to be connected to smuggling activities into Ukraine. Third, there is an obvious flashpoint for Russian anger to spill over into violence inside Ukraine, or result in direct military action. That flashpoint is on 20 May. On that day, the Ukrainian government is expelling all Russian intelligence officers from the Crimea. Up to now, the port of Sevastopol has played host to the Russian Black Sea fleet and its Ukrainian counterpart. That arrangement is set to continue until 2017. But by constant provocations on the ground, in and around Sevastopol, the Russians have finally forced the Ukrainian government to take a strong line. Hence the forthcoming expulsions. Again, provocation and a replay of the Georgian war. In my opinion, we in this room should be looking at offering our services to Ukraine’s government, whoever becomes president. And Europe and America should be ready to draw a line in the sand. That line should be to prevent Ukraine from becoming another Georgia, or worse. In other words, to stand up to Russia.’

  She paused, knowing that questions would come.

  ‘But that’s a political point,’ Kruger, the head of Germany’s BND, objected eventually. ‘Our remit is to look at intelligence matters only.’

  Everyone looked at Burt, expecting him to come to his protege’s aid. But he just sat back, apparently enjoying the show.

  ‘The role of intelligence is principally to prevent conflict by knowing what our enemies are doing. It is also to provide our governments with the necessary ammunition to expose our enemies’ intentions. Thirdly, it is to help our allies. Ukraine is an ally of Europe and of America.’

  ‘Are you saying Russia is our enemy?’ Thomas Plismy said. ‘We import half of our energy resources from Russia.’

  ‘We buy oil from Iran, too,’ Anna replied. ‘But Ukraine is closer to home. If Russia were to invade or effectively annex Ukraine in some other way, it would cause a split inside the European Union. East versus West. With goo
d reason, the Eastern nations view Russia’s intentions with greater concern than the Western nations do. They have a history of Russian domination and they note Russia’s threatening stance towards them today with increasing alarm. In 2005 Putin stated that the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century was the collapse of the Soviet Union. The nations to the east don’t take such remarks lightly. But any Russian move against Ukraine can be pre-empted, perhaps – certainly disrupted – by pooling our intelligence resources to expose whatever it is the Kremlin is planning to do. Revealing its hand will go a long way toward pre-empting any plans it may have to destabilise Ukraine.’

  As ever with questions of Russia, there was a deep division between Eastern and Western Europe, as Anna herself had expressed. There were twelve Eastern members of NATO, all formerly subjugated to the Soviet Union, and fourteen Western members, including the United States and Canada. Standing united, the Western members would always outvote those from the East. But Burt had successfully persuaded the CIA head to put America behind the Eastern vote, levelling the score, and now everything rested on Adrian. Despite Cougar’s power, Burt did not have a vote at this national level.

  Evidence was passed around the table, including the satellite pictures which Anna knew – and knew they all knew – were inconclusive. Russia could move its own military vehicles – unmarked or not – wherever it wanted to on its own territory. Evidence of Russian ministry officials nationalising citizens of Ukraine with Russian passports was provided, but this, too, provided a glimpse only. As the intelligence chiefs looked at the pictures and written evidence, Anna further explained the developing crisis in Ukraine.

  ‘The situation in Sevastopol has been spinning out of control for some time. There are the small things; like the street fights between Russian and Ukrainian sailors whose fleets share the same port. But full-scale Russian intelligence activity there has been increasing enormously in the past two years. Their agents and intelligence officers are everywhere. The policy from the Kremlin seems to be one of provocation. And the Ukrainians, provoked, predictably react. Their military personnel hold up Russian convoys that use the port for refuelling and rearming. In turn, the Russians react angrily. The heat is raised, the ratchet is tightened. That is why Ukraine has made the momentous decision to expel all known Russian intelligence personnel. What will the Russians do when that happens?’