The Russian Lieutenant

by Peter Marshall

  THE RUSSIAN

  LIEUTENANT

  Peter Marshall

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

  1. EXPECTATION

  2. NIKOLAI’S PLAN

  3. MARINA’S MOVE TO PORTSMOUTH

  4. “DOROGAYA”

  5. INTERROGATION

  6. THE TIP-OFF!

  7. “A RUSSIAN SPY?”

  8. OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT

  9. THE LAWYER

  10. “FIND MARINA”

  11. RUSSIAN CONSULAR VISIT

  12. IGOR AND SVETLANA

  13. THE FARMHOUSE

  14. VICTOR PETERS ARRIVES

  15. A MAN NAMED JACK

  16. THE “SAFE” FLAT

  17. ALDANOV IN COURT

  18. AN MI5 RECRUIT?

  19. INTRODUCING “MARY”

  20. MEANWHILE IN PUTNEY

  21. IT’S DISNEYWORLD

  22. A BOMBSHELL!

  23. LEARNING RUSSIAN

  24. “MARY” RETURNS

  25. NO SPYING TRIAL

  26. THE SPY SWAP

  27. BACK HOME

  28. THE CRIME SCENE

  29. WHO POISONED MARINA?

  30. A RED ROSE

  COPYRIGHT

  AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

  During my varied career, I served as an officer in the Royal Navy and in the reserves with the RNVR; I lived for a few years in historic Old Portsmouth, with a view across the Solent; I became a journalist for local and national newspapers and then the BBC; and later I worked in the satellite communications business in United States for 12 years before turning to writing in my retirement (and having eight books published).

  Readers will probably recognise these experiences as providing a framework for my story about Marina and the unexpected consequences of her on-line date with the Russian Lieutenant, introducing her into the ruthless world of international espionage.

  All the individuals named in this story are fictitious, and if they bear any resemblance to real people, alive or deceased, this is entirely coincidental. Most of the locations and events described in the book are also fictitious – with a few exceptions which I think readers will find self-explanatory.

  Peter Marshall

  Dorset, UK

  2020

  1.

  EXPECTATION

  Like thousands of others over the years, Marina was waiting on the sea wall by the old Semaphore Tower at the entrance to Portsmouth harbour, peering anxiously out to sea. Through the October morning mist, she was looking for that first glimpse of an approaching ship, just as wives and girlfriends had done since the years of sailing ships, always hopeful they were bringing their menfolk safely home.

  But unlike all the others before her, Marina was waiting to welcome a man she had never met.

  After spending her childhood, schooldays and early working career in South London, Marina Peters now felt at home in Portsmouth, a vibrant and expanding city combining a long seafaring history with modern developments. As she waited, she reflected on how much she had enjoyed the first three years of her new life there and being by the sea. There were all the attractions of the resort area of Southsea – with its seafront and beaches and the ferries chugging their way to the Isle of Wight and Gosport – and the enticing sight of large cruise liners passing through the Solent to and from Southampton. And of course, there was the glamour of the Royal Navy, its ships and its sailors, and the always impressive Royal Marines.

  She had made new friends in her office in the Portsmouth Dockyard, went to occasional parties and had started a couple of new relationships with interesting men she met – which had both fizzled out too soon. She signed up to join a local choir group, doing occasional concerts and widening her circle of friends. She enjoyed evenings at the cinema and tried not to become too dependent on the temptations of computer games and online shopping … until one life-changing evening.

  Encouraged and intrigued by the experiences she heard about from others in her office, and from stories she read in magazines and newspapers, she decided to explore social media and dating websites.

  Soon, she was hooked. Two or three times a week, at home in her small Southsea flat, she sat at her laptop computer late into the evening scanning the “find a friend” sites. In reality, she found very few pictures and descriptions which deserved more than a passing glance … until her attention focussed, one night, on Nikolai Aldanov. He was a handsome 35-year-old Russian, wearing a smart uniform, who said he was a widower with no children. He said he spoke good English and had special interests in literature and history and wanted to meet a lady who would help him to know more about these subjects, particularly from a British angle. But it was Marina’s own Russian ancestry which made her read this entry more than once.

  Her grandparents, Vlad and Marina Petrov, were Russian immigrants to Britain in the 1930s. Through friends, they had both found work in the warehouse of a London company in the docklands importing fabrics from Eastern Europe and the Far East. They were ambitious and, after working hard for a couple of years, they had learned enough about the business to rent a small shop, with a flat above, in a South London suburb. And there, with their savings, they started a small shop retailing those imported fabrics. It became a struggle in the years after the outbreak of war in September 1939, but they were accustomed to difficult times and kept going. They had two sons, Viktor and Anatoly, who were born during the early days of the war, and like so many East London families, they prayed and kept going and their home and business were fortunate to survive the wartime bombing unscathed.

  In 1945, they were proud survivors and decided to become British citizens, Anglicising their name to Peters. It was Marina’s father, now Victor Peters, and her uncle, now called Andrew, who eventually followed in their parents’ footsteps and started work in the shop when they left school at 16. The fabrics business had flourished and expanded in the post-war rebuilding of London, and in the 1960s, Vlad retired, and his ambitious sons took over and continued to grow the business successfully.

  The Peters family also grew. Victor married Shona, who had become one of his best customers. She was an Irish-born interior designer working in London’s West End, and they settled into a new and comfortable home in the Thames-side suburb of Putney. It was there, in the late 1980s, that all the family gathered to celebrate the arrival of Marina, the new baby who was given her grandmother’s name.

  As she grew up, and especially at family gatherings, Marina was fascinated by the stories they told, particularly those about her ancestors’ struggles in the impoverished city of Voronezh in Southwest Russia and how her grandfather, Vlad Petrov, and his wife had decided to seek a new life in Britain. They were ambitious and bold and had heard stories from others in the town about the new opportunities to be found by travelling westwards.

  And so, with few possessions and little money, the two of them had journeyed in stages across Europe by trains and buses and, finally, the cross-channel ferry to Dover. From there, tired and almost penniless, they had travelled by bus to seek out their only contact, “the friend of a friend” who lived in south London’s Russian community. These family conversations often went on to recall the story of how much of the home city they had left behind in 1935, had become a battle-scarred ruin in the Second World War; and how many of their friends and relations back there had perished or were driven out to become homeless in the surrounding areas; and how Voronezh, ignored for many years, had now been rebuilt into a thriving, modern metropolis. As she grew into her teens, Marina’s ambition to visit her roots grew stronger and stronger.

  It was with these family memories flowing through her mind that Nikolai’s picture began to glow more vivid
ly on her computer screen. Marina began to put together her first response, then paused for second thoughts, then deleted it. She looked at the information on her screen carefully, again and again; should she ignore her cautious instincts – just this once?

  But there was nothing to lose, she decided, and she could always say “no”. So, gathering her resolve, she started again – and finally made a positive contact.

  She had already signed into the website with her name and age, so she just needed to tick the box alongside the entry with its photograph of Nikolai Aldanov… and wait.

  After a couple of minutes, the screen came to life.

  “Hello Marina,” came the first response. “Where are you?”

  “In England – I live in the city of Portsmouth. Where are you?”

  “Hello. I was not expecting to hear from England, so this is very exciting for me. I am in the Russian navy port of Sevastopol in the Crimea. And I think Portsmouth is a naval port too?”

  “Yes, it is – that is an interesting coincidence. I think I recognised your Navy uniform in your photograph. I see lots of naval officers here.”

  “I am sure you do. Can you send me a photograph, too, Marina? That’s a nice name, and it will be even nicer to see who I am chatting to?”

  “Yes, of course.” And Marina quickly opened one of her favourites from her photo file and used the online system to copy it into their exchange of messages. It showed her with a glass of champagne at a recent birthday party, looking her glamorous best.

  “That’s very nice,” replied Nikolai. “Where was that taken?”

  “It was my best friend’s 30th birthday party last month in London, where I used to live … but I only drink champagne on very special occasions.”

  “Well, this is a special occasion. Let’s drink to our meeting up like this. I would like to know more about you, but I have to go now. When can we try to get together again?”

  They agreed to connect on-line again on the following Sunday evening at about 6 pm for Marina and 9 pm for Nikolai. She was slightly surprised, but pleased, to find that he was there and waiting when Marina signed on again as arranged, and they began to exchange more information. He told her he was a Lieutenant in the Navy, and she, in turn, described how she had moved from London three years ago to start a new career working for the British navy as a civilian in an office job, based in the Portsmouth Dockyard.

  “Well we do have some interests in common,” Nikolai typed. Marina warmed to the topic and told him that there was yet another common interest because her grandfather had come from Russia in the 1930s to start a new life in London. And she admitted that it was partly this Russian ancestry which had drawn her to respond to Nikolai’s on-line listing.

  After a few weeks of chatting once or twice a week about their respective lives, he became intrigued as Marina told him more about her grandparents’ memories of Russia. She told him how they had lived in poverty before deciding to try to find a new life in Britain, following in the footsteps of others from their neighbourhood, and how they had eventually started their own business in London. She said she longed to pay a visit someday to Voronezh, the city where they had lived, to explore what she could of their background. He told her that Voronezh was not too far from Sevastopol and he offered to help her to discover her roots, if and when she could find an opportunity to travel to Russia.

  Nikolai was also interested to discover more about Portsmouth and Marina’s work in the Dockyard, and she explained that it was with the Royal Navy in the offices of the Commodore of the Portsmouth-based fleet.

  “It’s fairly low-level stuff,” she wrote in reply to his question, “But it’s very interesting because we deal with all the communications between the HQ and the ships at sea.”

  “Sounds a bit like my present job,” he responded. “But I really preferred being on a ship to having an office job.”

  Their correspondence became more and more personal over the weeks, and they exchanged photographs from their younger days, of their homes and families and their travels. He said his wife had died tragically in childbirth five years earlier, and he was now alone instead of being the family man he had hoped for; he had faced the challenge of building a new life around his career in the Navy. His parents were now in retirement, living not far from Sevastopol, and he had a very supportive older sister, Anna, who helped to care for them.

  The plan for Marina to visit Russia began to evolve, perhaps during a period in the next year during Nikolai’s annual leave, when he would have time to be her “tour guide”, and she said how much she looked forward to meeting his friends and family. And they each spoke warmly about getting to know each other better.

  She started to research flights and fares from London to Russia. And with gathering excitement, she also began to assemble a file on the history of Voronezh and the local region – until one evening when Nikolai came on-line with a surprise.

  “I have some big news,” he wrote. “My wish has been granted. I have been appointed to join a ship again – it is a really modern frigate called the Admiral Essen, based here in Sevastopol. It is really exciting because it is one of a group of three ships from the Black Sea fleet which will go on exercises during the next month in the Mediterranean. And can you believe this – we are then scheduled to sail on to the Atlantic Ocean and will be making courtesy visits to several foreign ports – including a few days in Portsmouth!”

  This was sudden and unexpected news for Marina.

  “This is wonderful!” she said in her reply. “I hope this means we will be able to meet up sooner than we expected and maybe spend some time together. Let me know more details and dates as soon as you can so that I can arrange some time off work.”

  Once she had fully absorbed this new situation, she began to focus, instead of travel plans, on ways to welcome him to her own country and their first meeting when it came, presumably in the coming autumn months. There would be no more chat on the dating website, and it was a couple of weeks before Nikolai’s next message, an e-mail, in which he told Marina that he was now on board his ship and settling in as they prepared to sail. He explained that once his ship had sailed and was involved in exercises at sea, their contacts would become less frequent.

  Marina waited patiently for more news. And in the course of her job in the Dockyard communications office, she soon learned more information about plans for a forthcoming visit by ships from the Russian navy for refuelling in Portsmouth.

  And then, she received a brief message from Nikolai with a firm date for their arrival and confirming his intention to meet up with her “at the earliest opportunity”.

  2.

  NIKOLAI’S PLAN

  In the headquarters of Russia’s GRU Secret Service in Grizodubovoy Street, Moscow, not far from the Kremlin, agent Aldanov asked for a meeting with his supervisor. Nikolai Aldanov was a well-regarded member of the research and analysis team. He was also an officer in the naval reserves after serving for seven years in the Russian Navy, mostly at sea on board warships. He had gained a commission and promotion to the rank of Lieutenant. But after completing his required seven years, during which he was married, he had been persuaded by his young wife to make a change. She was delighted when he applied for a job at the Ministry of Defence in Moscow, her home city. And after several interviews, he took his naval experience with him into a second career with the GRU.

  The full name of the Russian ministry is the Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly known by its previous name of the GRU. The labrynthine headquarters buildings house what was previously called the KGB until the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. But the organization, in which Vladimir Putin made his name, is still much the same, but is now called the FSB – the Federal Security Bureau. It includes the GRU, the military intelligence agency of the Russian armed forces which, unlike other agencies, reports directly to the Minister of Defence. It is reputedly Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency
and is the beating heart of Russia’s spying operations.

  After his training period, Aldanov was appointed to the research department of the agency, and one of his tasks, in the beehive of activity, was to analyse the myriad of websites and social media sites originating overseas. He and others in his team were searching for useful snippets of information which could be followed up by agents in the field. After a while, one of his own ideas was to insert his own photograph in naval uniform on several international dating websites, just to see what might follow.

  When he was called up for the meeting he had requested with his “big boss”, he said, “I think I may have found something interesting.” He went on to describe how his dating efforts had eventually produced a response from a British woman working for the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. “And what is more, she had Russian grandparents,” he added.

  Asked what he had in mind, he explained, “I would like to have permission to open up a personal correspondence with this woman and try to discover by careful stages how useful she could be as a source. I would prefer not to involve our London office at this time, if you agree?”

  The director gave him the go-ahead but asked to be kept closely informed.

  Sadly, after just two years of their new life in Moscow, Aldanov’s wife had died in childbirth, and he was given special leave to deal with his family matters. But he was soon anxious to get back to his duties, where he threw himself into his work and stayed late into the evenings to fill his time, refusing social invitations and even drinks with his colleagues. In particular, he believed that his unconventional “dating” idea would help to enhance his reputation in the department.

  In between all his other investigative tasks, agent Aldanov began to develop the relationship with his British “date”, and he was surprised by her willingness to respond so readily to his questions about her Russian background and her job. He took things deliberately slowly, and among all their friendly and sometimes more romantic exchanges, he was able to discover that she was single, about 30, with special interests in travel and an ambition to visit Russia. He was able to report to his director that she worked in the communications office of the British Navy’s Portsmouth headquarters and had described how she was at the hub of information regarding fleet movements and the readiness of the ships of the fleet.