Mischa smiled wryly. ‘Cheers,’ he said. He drained his glass in one go.
Miles followed suit, and almost choked as the fiery liquid went down his throat. He managed to say, ‘You speak excellent English.’
‘I was a postgraduate at Birmingham University – in computer sciences.’
‘And then the army?’ It seemed an improbable switch, but had to be voluntary. Mischa was a good ten years past draft age.
The Russian looked at him with amusement. ‘You are wondering how an educated man can end up like this?’ He pointed to his fatigues. ‘I am a technical specialist in advanced weapons,’ he said. ‘Not one of the ranks.’
Miles nodded as he refilled their glasses, and they both sat down in the armchairs by the fireplace. The Russian said shortly, ‘I asked them to send me a British expert and they have sent me another American. I have not much time. I need to get back before dark or questions will be asked. So are you a British expert? Can you get information to them quickly and secretly?’
‘Yes,’ Miles replied. ‘I live in London and I am the Agency’s chief liaison with the British agencies. I can get your information directly to them as soon as I get back.’
‘Good,’ said Mischa. He put his glass down on the side table next to his chair. ‘I hope you are aware of the conditions I set.’
‘I am.’ Miles stood up and took the roll of bills from his pocket. He handed it over to the Russian, who had remained sitting. ‘It’s dollars, as you requested. I think you’ll find it’s all there.’
The Russian riffled the bills with his hands, and seemed satisfied. Then he said warily, ‘You do understand this is a down payment. I will expect the rest in due course.’
‘Provided your information proves correct,’ Miles felt obliged to add. The sum agreed was $10,000 – and he had just handed over half of it. The amount was less important than the principle of part-payment – it was believed that paid sources should always be left hanging slightly, to incentivise the further flow of information.
‘It will,’ Mischa said sharply. ‘If you listen carefully, there will be no chance of any disagreement.’
I’ll be the judge of that, Miles thought. Yet soon he found himself gripped by the story the Russian told him.
Very briefly Mischa sketched the origins of his overtures to Western intelligence, seeming to assume that Miles would be familiar with this part of the story. He’d been sickened by the atrocities he’d witnessed in Ukraine, committed by the fighters he was supposed to help. After they’d shot down the Malaysian airliner, firing a missile system they were not trained to use, he was made responsible for helping disguise what had happened in an attempt to shift the blame on to the Ukrainian government forces, and now his conscience could bear it no longer. When he came across the American journalist on the site, he decided to try to use him to get in touch with American intelligence. It was an enormous risk; the journalist could have publicised his story, or he might not have made the contact on Mischa’s behalf, or Mischa himself might have been ordered back home to Russia. But the contact was made and since then he had been crossing the lines at great risk to himself to pass information.
But it was not simply the downing of the passenger plane, or the fact that his own Russian colleagues had urged the Ukrainian rebels on to ever-more brutal tactics, that had persuaded Mischa to consort with the enemy; it was also a growing conviction that Russia was reverting to the despotic totalitarianism his generation thought had been overthrown forever. Democracy had not come to his country, despite the promise of those first post-Cold War days, and Mischa was becoming more and more convinced that it never would.
Miles had heard this sort of talk before from informers from Russia and it was credible as far as it went, but the fact that it was almost always accompanied by requests for large sums of money rather took the shine off the idealism.
Having got his justification off his chest, Mischa turned to the story Miles had travelled all this way to hear. It had come through his elder brother Sasha, who was a middle-ranking officer in the FSB in Moscow. Sasha, unlike his younger brother, was not an idealist. Rather, he, like many of his colleagues in the FSB, was a cynic – cynical about the way the country was governed, cynical about the way the FSB behaved and the things he was required to do. And, like many cynics, Sasha – when suitably fuelled by late-night vodka during Mischa’s visits from the front – liked to talk.
On Mischa’s last visit home Sasha had started describing how the FSB had worked to prepare the ground for the Russian takeover of the Crimea. How they had covertly influenced the Russian-speaking population, stirring up and spreading dissension and separatism until the annexation became the desired outcome for the majority of people. Now they were doing the same in East Ukraine. Sasha had said that he was working in the department responsible for that type of covert action, but not in Ukraine – in Western Europe. There were two types of target in the West. The first, said Mischa, was Russians themselves, émigrés who were thought to pose a threat to the homeland.
Miles was growing slightly impatient. ‘That’s nothing new. We’ve seen it already, with Litvinenko.’
Mischa shook his head. ‘Litvinenko was ex-KGB. He was betraying his former colleagues. His murder was vengeance rather than the removal of a threat. I’m talking about something different. Since all the activity here,’ and he waved an arm towards the window, ‘Putin’s position is increasingly unstable. Sanctions are having an effect, and the people most affected by them are those who have got rich by corruption. Those who have been his supporters. They can’t move their money around as they could, and their stakes in oil and gas are worth half what they were. Until now, they needed Putin, but not any more. Putin is terrified they will fund a coup against him, and he may be right.’
The result, according to Mischa, was that the FSB were initiating a new campaign to undermine and destabilise the leading opponents of Putin living abroad. Action of various kinds would be mounted to destroy their position; it might be by damaging them financially or by destroying their reputation by scandal of some sort or even assassination. It would take place wherever they were living – in Switzerland, Hong Kong, the United States, but particularly Britain. The methods would vary, but all these plots would be organised and initiated by FSB agents working undercover.
‘Do you have any details of these plots?’ asked Miles. The news was concerning, but in the absence of specifics there wasn’t much the Western authorities could do: increase security, issue warnings, threaten further sanctions if Russian state involvement could be proved.
‘Not yet,’ said Mischa. ‘I will need to speak to my brother again but that’s not possible until I go home.’
Miles nodded, but he was disappointed. Was it just for this nebulous warning that he’d come all the way to the eastern edge of Ukraine? His colleagues in Kiev had been taken in by this man, who now seemed to have nothing worthwhile to impart.
Mischa said, ‘I will of course do my best to find out more, but I hope this is of value.’ When Miles said nothing the Russian seemed to sense his disappointment, for he added quickly, ‘There is something else I also learned from my brother.’
‘Yes?’ Miles’s voice was flat. This was when agents liked to lie. Seeing their handlers unimpressed, they began to invent.
‘You know the term “Illegals”?’
‘I do.’
‘Then you will know the Russian security service’s interest in using them.’