“I think we might have got to the end of the problem.”
Her face dissolved into a wide smile and, without even waiting to draw him into the apartment, she placed both hands around his head so that she could draw him down to her level. She kissed him full on the lips.
“Thank you,” she said. “You don’t know how grateful I am. What would I do without you?”
Primakov had met Captain Natasha Kryuchkov during a conference that had taken place in the Kremlin six years earlier. He had been there to listen to his boss, the Director of the SVR, speak about the intelligence challenges that had arisen thanks to Russia’s increasingly active role in world affairs. The first hour of the symposium had been deathly dull, and Primakov had decided that he would manufacture an excuse to leave as soon as the Director had finished. He had gone to get a cup of strong black coffee to help him stay awake for the second hour when he had bumped into a young, attractive brunette dressed in the green uniform of the Glavnoye razvedyvatel’noye upravleniye, or the GRU’s Main Intelligence Directorate.
Primakov’s wife had died of cancer five years earlier, and, since then, he had resigned himself to a bachelor’s life. It had been a bleak way to live. Natasha was attractive and attentive and the two of them had enjoyed an easy rapport. Primakov was not naïve enough to think that she was drawn to him because of his looks; he was thirty years older than she was, and, although he took care with his appearance, he still looked his age. He guessed that she recognised him and was flattered that he took the time to speak to her. He was encouraged by her evident interest and had invited her for a tour of Yasenevo. That had gone well and, ignoring the slight sense of ridiculousness that he was contemplating dating a woman so much younger than himself, he had invited her to dinner the next week.
They had enjoyed a pleasant evening together. She told him all about her career, and what she hoped to achieve. She worked in the Counterintelligence Service (Department), specifically within the Directorate for the Counterintelligence Support of Strategic Facilities. She had enjoyed a rapid rise through the ranks thanks to a tenacious approach, hard work and a fierce loyalty to her country. For his part, he explained how he had come to achieve a position of authority within the SVR, and how things had changed over the years. He admitted that he was disenchanted with how the service had been altered since the death of the KGB, and that he was looking forward to his retirement in five years’ time. That he felt able to be so indiscreet with her was, he concluded, a sign that there was more to their putative relationship than might otherwise have been the case. She had invited him to her apartment the week after their first dinner, and they had started seeing each other more frequently after that. They both agreed that their assignations should be clandestine, given that the relationship would be frowned upon by the Kremlin. His colleagues would deride him for an affair which was, they would say, inappropriate and embarrassing; her superiors would conclude that she was sleeping with him because she wanted to advance her career.
Their affair had developed into something different. Primakov could have lived with the suspicion that she was with him for her own career; it was a compromise he could make in return for being with her. But, as time went by, he came to accept that that was not the case. He had done her a few favours, put in a good word here and there, but nothing that would be enough to keep her around. She told him that she loved him and he came to believe that.
And then, a month ago, Natasha had finally turned to him for help. She had been in a blind panic as she explained that a senior engineer working in the Sukhoi factory had disappeared. Her investigation had revealed that the engineer had stolen several terabytes worth of data related to the new Su-58 that was being developed at the factory. The engineer was a woman: Anastasiya Romanova.
The chief of Natasha’s Department in the GRU was a man named Klimashin; Primakov knew him by reputation and knew that Natasha’s fears were well founded. Klimashin was an ambitious and devious man and would do everything he could to protect his own standing. He would absolve himself of responsibility for the intelligence failure and would sacrifice Natasha and anyone else if it meant that his own career could be saved.
Primakov reviewed the case himself. Natasha had started an investigation to find Romanova but had drawn a blank. The woman had simply disappeared. Her friends had been rounded up and questioned, but none of them had any idea where she might have gone. Primakov put two of his analysts on the case, warning them that it was sensitive and their findings were not to be shared outside of his office. They quickly made progress, revealing a motive for the disappearance. Her husband, Viktor Romanov, had built up a successful business in the oil and gas sector. He had come into conflict with an oligarch who was close to the president and, rather than be prudent and back down, Romanov had brought legal proceedings alleging fraud and embezzlement. It wasn’t difficult to join the dots and work out what had happened next. The oligarch made a call, and, within days of the filing of the proceedings, Romanov had been arrested. He was tried and convicted and sent to Penal Colony No. 14 on the banks of the Partsa River in Mordovia. He died six months later. The official account was that he had suffered a heart attack, but Primakov knew that the truth would have been more brutal. Romanov’s money found its way to the oligarch, a fraction was funnelled to one of the Stalinist romanticisers who ran the colony, and the Romanov problem was made to go away. His wife had been interviewed after his death and had responded badly. The agents responsible had reported that she blamed the state, and had recommended that she be removed from the factory until her loyalty could be confirmed. But she had vanished before that could happen, and a forensic investigation of her network activity suggested that she had illegally downloaded hundreds of terabytes of restricted information.
Primakov instructed his researchers to delve deeper. Anastasiya Romanova’s father was Pyotr Aleksandrov, who had been convicted of treason and then swapped for the illegals who had been captured by the CIA. It appeared that treachery ran in the family and, his instincts aroused, Primakov used EUREKA, the Directorate S agent that they had placed within MI6, to provide him with the father’s location. He then directed Vincent Beck to deploy two illegals to put Aleksandrov under surveillance.
It was a gamble, and Primakov had no reason to think that it would pay out. The file said that Aleksandrov and his daughter were estranged, but he still felt it worth the attempt. Romanova was alone, hunted by the state and with secrets to sell; why would she not go to her father? After all, he had experience in selling stolen intelligence and a direct line to decision-makers at Vauxhall Cross.
The fishing expedition was successful. They had intercepted the call that Anastasiya had placed to her father and learned of their plan to bring her out of Russia so that the two of them might be reunited and reconciled. But now Primakov had a dilemma: he couldn’t very well go to the Director and tell him that Anastasiya was offering the secrets of the new fighter because that would end up damning Natasha. But doing nothing would lead to the same result. He decided that a creative approach was necessary and, instead of the Su-58, he simply invented something else for Aleksandrov to sell. The phone call between Aleksandrov and his former handler, Geggel, was fortunate in its timing. Primakov amended the transcript and took it to the Director. Primakov’s version of the conversation suggested that Aleksandrov had acquired a list of active agents and their legends, source unknown, and that he had contacted Geggel in order to discuss their sale. Urgent action needed to be taken to prevent the information from falling into the hands of the enemy. Anastasiya was not mentioned at all.