His sentence about ‘feeling at ease’ in the context of his death, is not easily translated into English and can therefore be interpreted in at least two different ways. It could mean that he was now recon-ciled to his death, or it could mean that as a result of the past five days of co-operation and the absence of any further talk about carry-ing out his sentence, he was no longer so concerned about the threat.
It should also be acknowledged that whatever conclusions one draws from his ‘diary’ and the OGPU’s corresponding records, Reilly undoubtedly acted with courageous stubbornness during the weeks he was incarcerated at the Lubyanka. Whatever else one could say about his actions and motivations during his life, his final weeks were a credit to his personal courage and resolve. The fact that his resolve was gradually eroded by the effective psychological techniques applied by the OGPU should not detract from this.
By 4 November the OGPU had concluded that Reilly had no more to tell. Equally, there was also the risk that the longer matters progressed, the greater the chance that the border shooting story would be exposed as a sham. Some of those involved in the Trust sting were of the view that Reilly should not have been arrested, as by doing so the whole operation risked immediate exposure. However, the decision to arrest Reilly and ultimately carry out his death sentence was almost certainly taken by Stalin himself.
Boris Gudz remembers that ‘stalin insisted that the Politburo’s line was that under no circumstances was he to be released. He had to be shot, and quickly, because otherwise, eventually, rumours would start doing the rounds that we had him under arrest, foreign governments would find out about the whole thing, there would be all kind of diplomatic problems.’ Stalin foresaw all these difficulties and said: We have to put an end to him once and for all – execute him!‘.60 Although the decision to carry out the sentence was an irreversible one made at the highest level, it would seem that the OGPU officers on the ground did, in fact, exercise a degree of discretion in how it was done. Boris Gudz was personally acquainted with the four officers deputed to carry out the order, and believes that:
There was something quite humane about the way they went about it. Reilly was driven out for walks in the open air of Sokolniki Park quite often, so this particular trip was just another one of his regular outings so far as he was concerned. Maybe he suspected something, because there were a lot of people there that day. Anyway, it was done in such a way that the end came suddenly. I know that for a fact – it was very sudden.61
Grigory Feduleev, the OGPU agent who was in charge of the execution party, described in some detail the events which took place on the evening of 5 November 1925:
For the Deputy Head of KRO OGPU Comrade Styrne
I write to inform you that in accordance with the instruction received from you, Comrades Dukis, Syroezhkin, myself and Ibrahim drove out of the GPU yard with No. 73 at precisely 8.00 p.m. on 5 November 1925. We set out in the direction of Bogorodsk. We arrived at the spot between 8.30 and 8.45. It was agreed that the driver, when we got to the spot, would repair a fault in the car, which he did. When the car stopped I asked the driver what was the matter. He replied that there was a blockage and it would take 5–10 minutes to put right. I then proposed to No. 73 that we stretch our legs. Once out of the car I walked on the right-hand side and Ibrahim on the left-hand side of No. 73, and Comrade Syroezhkin on the right hand side about ten paces from us. When we had gone thirty to forty paces from the car, Ibrahim, who had dropped back from us, fired a shot at No. 73, who let out a deep breath and fell to the ground without uttering a cry. In view of the fact that his pulse was still beating, Comrade Syroezhkin fired a shot into his chest. After waiting a little longer, ten to fifteen minutes, during which time the pulse finally stopped beating, we carried him to the car and drove straight to the medical unit, where Comrade Kushner and the photographer were already waiting. At the medical unit the four of us – myself, Dukis, Ibrahim and a medical orderly – carried No. 73 into the building indicated by Comrade Kushner. We told the orderly that this person had been hit by a tram, in any case his face could not be seen as the head was in a sack, and put him on the dissecting table. We then proceeded to take photographs. He was photographed down to the waist in a greatcoat,62 then naked down to the waist so that the wounds could be seen, then naked full length. After this he was placed in a sack and taken to the morgue attached to the Medical Unit, where he was put in a coffin and we all went home. The whole operation was completed by 11.00 p.m. on 5 November.
No. 73 was collected from the morgue of the OGPU medical unit by Com. Dukis at 8.30 p.m. on 9 November 1925 and driven to the prepared burial pit in the walking yard of the OGPU inner prison, where he was put in a sack so that the 3 Red Army men burying it could not see his face.63
It is significant that Reilly’s body was put in a sack so as to avoid anyone not involved in the operation from identifying him. Clearly they were still concerned with word getting out that Reilly had not in fact died on 28 September after all. The fact that he had been shot unawares, rather than by firing squad, as would have been the case had the sentence been carried out in 1918, can be seen as dispensation or even as a mark of respect.
This aside, the way of his death should not obscure the ultimate question of why he found himself entrapped in the OGPU’s snare in the first place. Was Reilly’s death ultimately brought about by his own vanity and lack of judgement? Had the king of the confidence men finally met his match, or were more sinister forces at play?
On 12 August 2001 the Sunday Times reported on the imminent publication of a new book by Edward Gazur under the headline, ‘Double Agent may have sent Ace of Spies to his Death’. According to the report, ‘Gazur contends that Orlov told him that Cmdr Ernest Boyce, an MI6 officer and colleague of Reilly’s, played the key role in entrapping the spy. Boyce was a long-term double agent working for the Russians and was motivated solely by hard cash, said Gazur’.
The spy writer Nigel West was also quoted by the Sunday Times as saying, ‘The reason why this hasn’t come out until now is that Orlov, who was not debriefed by British intelligence, never told anybody but Edward Gazur’. It is therefore puzzling to read in Gazur’s book that:
In 1972, while Orlov and I were going over the Reilly affair, I was not concerned with the identity of the British intelligence officer who had been compromised by the KGB [sic] as it was of no particular intelligence significance in the modern sense and consequently I never thought to ask the name of this individual. To the best of my recollection, Orlov never mentioned or volunteered the man’s identity or if he did it is now long forgotten.64