Kompromat

by Stanley Johnson

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Concerns about immigration. That’s what’s going to swing it. The fear that we’re being overwhelmed by foreigners. The fear that before our very eyes the whole structure of the country is changing and changing fast. Too fast for people to adapt. All the research we’ve done – and we’ve really researched this – tells us that immigration is the issue which has come to the top of the pile. Of course there’s non-EU immigration, as well as immigration from the EU, but in people’s minds it’s all jumbled up. Our job is to keep it that way. We don’t need clarity here. We don’t need to break down the statistics. We just need to keep pointing the finger at the EU as the source of the problem. We need to build on that. Ram the message home. That’s what’s going to get us first past the winning post.’

  ‘I’m not being defeatist,’ Barnard said, ‘but I wonder what more we can do.’

  ‘Oh, we can do a lot more and we’re going to,’ Marshall said. ‘I’m just waiting for the signal.’

  That signal wasn’t long in coming. Harriet Marshall drove back to her home in north-west London later that morning. She stopped – as she did every day as a matter of routine – at the newsagent on the street corner which had a bulletin board outside on which locals could display messages of interest, such as ‘cleaner required’, ‘watches repaired’, ‘reliable mother’s help offers services’.

  Some of the messages had been there a long time. The ink had faded; the edges of the cards were curled. But she noticed one recent addition.

  ‘Three-legged black cat found. Call 077238954978.’

  Instead of going home, she drove to the other end of the street where, amazingly, she found a working phone box. She dialled a number. Not the number displayed on the card about the three-legged black cat, but a different number. A number she knew by heart.

  A recorded voice instructed her to ‘Please leave a message’.

  ‘Forty-five minutes,’ Marshall said and then replaced the receiver.

  Instead of going home, Marshall did a U-turn and headed for Hampstead Heath. Thirty minutes later, she parked the car and strode off across the huge, wild and open expanse which, miraculously, still managed to survive within the confines of the ever-expanding metropolis of modern-day London.

  Of course, historically, Hampstead Heath had provided many opportunities for activities which could be generically described as nefarious. Chief of these was espionage. For decades, controllers had been meeting their agents on park benches or beneath ancient oak trees. And they were right to take advantage of the possibilities that the Heath offered, Harriet reflected. Hotel rooms were routinely bugged, telephones were tapped and emails were gathered by the thousand, like standing wheat in front of a combine harvester. If you could find the right spot on the Heath, with a clear field of fire, as it were, you could get a lot of business done without having to wonder how many people were listening in.

  The Russians, of course, with their massive so-called ‘trade’ mission in nearby Highgate had, over the years, found Hampstead Heath tremendously handy.

  Marshall had already installed herself on an oak bench, inscribed ‘In Loving Memory of Lucy Penstock Who So Much Loved This Wonderful Place’, when a jowly man in a dark suit, about forty years old, sat down next to her. The man leaned forward to do up his shoelace as though this was simply an unscheduled stop at a convenient location, then he spoke out of the side of his mouth. (There were people who could lip-read at four hundred yards, if they had a good pair of binoculars.)

  ‘Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Next Tuesday. Night watch, 5pm,’ he instructed.

  Harriet Marshall arrived a few minutes before five at the appointed place. A cluster of tourists stood in front of the huge canvas. That wasn’t surprising since Rembrandt van Rijn’s ‘The Night Watch’ was certainly the most famous painting in the Rijksmuseum and probably one of the most famous paintings in the world.

  She joined the group of sightseers. If you want to look inconspicuous, merge in with the crowd.

  At two minutes past the hour, she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned round at once.

  ‘Good heavens, Yuri,’ she exclaimed. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

  Harriet Marshall hadn’t just been acting surprised when Yuri Yasonov tapped her on the shoulder. She really was surprised. She had no idea that the ‘contact’ she was scheduled to meet in Amsterdam would turn out to be a friend from her university days.

  Admittedly they weren’t close friends then. Harriet Marshall came from a modest background. Her father was a planning officer in Yorkshire. Yasonov by contrast was stinking rich, the son of an oligarch, who had cleaned up when President Yeltsin sold off Russia’s crown jewels – the gas, the oil, the minerals, the forests – to the highest bidder.

  Yasonov had gone to Oxford’s upper-class Christ Church College while Harriet had enrolled at brainier Balliol. But they had both been on the university chess team. Early on in their acquaintance, Yasonov had come to appreciate Harriet’s sheer intellectual brilliance. He was a highly competent chess player himself, but Harriet simply wiped the floor with him.

  They had also both played a part in the affairs of the Oxford Union. Yuri Yasonov had been President of the Union in his last year at Oxford and Harriet Marshall had succeeded him. Though the outgoing President normally gets to select the motion to be debated at the Farewell Debate, Harriet had good-humouredly suggested to her friend that a suitable topic would be: ‘This House believes that the power of the Russian Federation has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished’.

  Yasonov had gamely agreed and had been delighted when the motion was resoundingly defeated.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Yasonov suggested.

  They left the Rijksmuseum to stride along the canal. How beautiful Amsterdam was, Harriet thought, as the late evening sun caught the roofs of the tall buildings which lined each side of the waterway. They called it the ‘Venice of the North’ and they were not far wrong. She watched the sightseeing boats pass under the bridges, cameras at the ready. Instinctively she turned her head to one side. She didn’t want her face to appear, by accident or design, on someone’s Instagram account. Officially, she wasn’t in Amsterdam at all. She was taking a bit of time off in Wales, recharging her batteries before the big push. She certainly didn’t want to be photographed in the company of a senior FSB official, especially if the said official was chief of staff to the president of the Russian Federation.

  They talked as they walked. As they approached the Stadhous, the City Hall, Yuri Yasonov said, ‘Our information is that the British government is throwing everything they have at this one. Jeremy Hartley, the prime minister, has really gone out on a limb. He’s convinced he’s brought back a winning package from Europe with the so-called “renegotiation”. And the chancellor, Tom Milbourne, is pushing Project Fear for all its worth.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s worth very much,’ Harriet countered. ‘Scare tactics by the Treasury. That’s how I see it.’

  ‘I’m afraid our people in the UK see things differently. Our ambassador sent in a report two days ago. He’s convinced the Leave campaign is going to lose. Frankly, Popov is rattled. I don’t often see him rattled but he is now. You’re one of us, otherwise I wouldn’t speak like this, but I’m telling you that as far as Popov’s key foreign policy objectives go, Brexit is top of the list.’

  ‘Ahead of Ronald Craig winning the US election?’ Harriet interjected.

  ‘I stand corrected. Let’s give both objectives equal billing.’

  ‘So what does Popov think we can do that we’re not already doing?’ Harriet was nettled. She’d been working her socks off.

  Yasonov paused, picked up a pebble and tossed it into the water.

  ‘That was just a little splash,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a much bigger splash in prospect. President Popov is on his way to Berlin as I speak. Tomorrow he’s having informal meetings with the chancellor, then on Friday he is going to give a speech in the B
undestag at the invitation of the German government. I need hardly say that this is a great honour.’

  ‘And he’s going to make some key announcement in his speech, is that it?’ Harriet asked. ‘Something we can seize on, ammunition for our big guns as D-Day approaches?’

  ‘Helga Brun is the one who is going to make the big announcement, not Popov. After Popov’s speech to the Bundestag, Brun’s going to reply. Mark her words carefully. She’s going to give you the opening you need. A great wide-open goal. You’ll be able to drive a coach and horses through it.’

  ‘I’ve got to run,’ Yasonov said. ‘The plane to Berlin leaves in 90 minutes and I want to be on it. I’ve got to brief Popov at the Russian Embassy tonight.’

  He tapped his nose with his finger. ‘We’re still working on Helga Brun’s speech!’

  ‘Don’t tell me anything I don’t need to know.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ Yasonov smiled. He stepped off the pavement into the road to hail a passing cab.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  German chancellor Helga Brun cradled the tiger cub in her arms. ‘She’s so sweet, isn’t she? I can’t believe she’s so beautiful.’

  She lowered her head and nuzzled the young cub. ‘Thank you, Mr President. Germany thanks you from the heart.’

  She handed the animal back to President Popov, before stepping up to the microphone.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Brun began. ‘This is a wonderful moment for the Berlin Zoo, the most famous zoo in the world. Today, thanks to the generosity of President Popov and the Russian people, we are the proud possessors of our first Siberian tiger, truly one of the most beautiful animals in the world. A few weeks ago, I was in Moscow, at the World Tiger Summit organized by President Popov, and I learned then about the tremendous efforts which are being made worldwide to protect tigers. I learned in particular about the work which is being done to save the Siberian or Amur tiger. Am I right, Mr President, that there are around 450 such tigers in the wild?’

  President Popov, still cuddling the little tiger, smiled. ‘Sometimes they cross over into China, but they quickly come back. They know it’s safer for them in Russia.’

  Helga Brun laughed; the audience laughed. The TV cameras caught the moment and broadcast it to the world. The image of the Russian president standing next to the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, with an extremely photogenic tiger cub in his arms, was one of the defining moments of President Popov’s visit that summer to Berlin, the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Chinese government, back in the 1970s, had famously presented the Berlin Zoo with a baby panda, but Bao-Bao had recently died (of old age, nothing more sinister), leaving a gaping hole in an animal-loving nation’s hearts.

  ‘We must think of a name for our new guest,’ Helga Brun continued. ‘We should launch a nation-wide consultation. A referendum like our friends, the British, do.’

  The audience laughed again. This was the Chancellor at her warmest, most human.

  ‘Perhaps they’ll decide to name her Helga!’ Popov quipped.

  Berlin Zoo is situated at the western end of the Tiergarten, the great park which extends all the way to the Brandenburg Gate. On the north-eastern edge of the Tiergarten stands the Federal Chancellery building.

  ‘Let’s walk back across the park,’ Helga Brun suggested. ‘Some exercise will do us good.’

  If Helga Brun had deliberately intended to throw her security detail into confusion, she certainly succeeded. The German chancellor and the Russian president set off on foot across the Tiergarten while a phalanx of special agents trotted along behind them at a respectful distance.

  ‘Such a brilliant idea, bringing us that little tiger cub, Igor,’ Helga Brun said. ‘Not taken from the wild, surely?’

  ‘No, born in Moscow Zoo. Her mother had a litter of five. Too many really. I’m sure she was glad to give one up in the interests of international diplomacy.’

  ‘Her loss is our gain,’ Helga said.

  Popov took her arm. There was no way anyone could overhear them. ‘Quite like old times, isn’t it, Mina?’

  He used her codename deliberately.

  Growing up in East Germany, in the German Democratic Republic or GDR, at a time when East Germany was still part of the Soviet Empire, Helga Brun – from the KGB’s point of view – had obvious potential as a possible agent. She was young; she was pretty; she was phenomenally intelligent. She spoke Russian fluently. She had not only studied the language, she had visited Moscow twice on state-sponsored trips. She had come to Popov’s attention when he was head of the KGB office in Dresden and she was one of the youngest ever professors at Leipzig University, where she specialized in modern languages.

  Of course, when the Berlin Wall fell at the end of 1989, the whole world changed. It certainly changed for the KGB in Dresden. Popov remembered that December evening so clearly. From a side-balcony of the KGB’s mansion on Angelikastrasse, he had watched the crowds ransacking the hated Stasi headquarters. Then a bunch of them had broken off to attack the KGB office itself. In what was probably one of the most defining moments of his career, Popov had confronted them unarmed.

  ‘This house is strictly guarded,’ he had said in fluent German. ‘My soldiers have weapons. And I have given them orders. If anyone enters the compound, they are to open fire.’

  Later, of course, the story was much embellished. In some versions, guards were positioned with AK-47s at the windows of the building ready to shoot. Others claimed that Lieutenant-Colonel Popov, as he then was, had brandished a pistol when addressing the crowds. But the key point was through his prompt and successful intervention Popov gained vital time.

  Next day, they had destroyed most of the files; communications, lists of contacts, agents’ networks etc. They all went up in smoke. But Popov and his colleagues managed to spirit some of them back to Moscow. One of those files was Mina’s.

  Well, he had protected her back then, Popov thought. Thanks to him, KGB files from the Dresden office never fell into the hands of the government of the newly unified Germany in the way the Stasi files did. Had they done so, the government would certainly have learned about Mina and it would not have taken them long to discover Mina’s real identity. If they had, Helga Brun’s brilliant career might have taken a very different turn.

  ‘Those were the days weren’t they, Mina?’ Popov repeated. ‘Do you remember when we walked along the banks of the Elbe together?’

  ‘Don’t call me Mina. I’m not Mina.’

  ‘You’re lucky the Stasi didn’t keep a file too.’

  Helga Brun was suddenly indignant. ‘I would never have worked for the Stasi. Disgusting bunch!’

  She turned to face him. She had loved him then. They were virtually the same age. And there had been this powerful physical attraction. She had once, daringly, asked him, ‘Igor, were you born with an erection?’

  By this time they were nearing the far end of the Tiergarten. The security detail was closing up on them. The Chancellery building loomed ahead.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked. ‘You had better be quick. In another five minutes we’ll be surrounded by guards.’

  ‘I’ll give you a hug now, for old times’ sake.’

  He pulled her towards him in a brief embrace.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Sitting at the back of the Plenary Chamber in the row of seats reserved for high officials, Thomas Hartkopf, state secretary at the German ministry of the interior, watched with interest as President Igor Popov addressed the Special Session of the Bundestag.

  It was a brief but well-judged speech. At a time when NATO and the EU had been testing Russian patience to the limit with their ill-judged sanctions over Crimea and their crude enticements to both Ukraine and Georgia (encouraging them to join NATO, for heaven’s sake!) Popov knew full well that at least in Germany many people, including the chancellor, were reluctant to provoke the Russian bear into a counter-attack, since – as recent history of the twentieth
century had shown only too clearly – it would be, above all, Germany that paid the price.

  So Popov studiously avoided any mention of the European Union and its irritating ambitions. He emphasized instead the historic ties between Russia and Germany.

  ‘Above all,’ Popov said, ‘let us stress the friendship between our two great countries. Russian-German relations are as old as our nations. The first German tribes appeared on Russian territory in the late first century. In the late nineteenth century Germans were the ninth most numerous ethnic group in Russia. But what is important is not just the numbers, but the role played by these people in the development of the country and in Russian-German relations. They were peasants and merchants, intellectuals, military men and politicians.

  ‘As a good neighbour in the West,’ Popov continued, ‘Germany often symbolized for the Russians culture, technical intellect and entrepreneurial wit. Small wonder that in the past all Europeans were known as Germans in Russia and the Europeans’ settlement in Moscow was known as the German Village!’

  Popov paused, playing it for laughs. The Honourable Members duly obliged with a round of applause. What a showman the man was, Hartkopf thought.

  There was more to come. ‘Nor should we forget Princess Sophia Augusta Frederika of Anhalt-Zerbst, who made a unique contribution to Russian history. Ordinary Russians called her Mother, but she went down in history as Russian empress Catherine the Great.’

  He gestured towards the German chancellor: Helga the Great!

  By the time he sat down, Popov had them eating out of his hand. It wasn’t just his gift of oratory and the sly sense of humour. The claws for the moment were well-concealed, but they were still there.