But the prestigious First Chief Directorate, with responsibility for foreign espionage and intelligence operations, continued its operations without interruption. Except for two changes of name, that is. The first such change, to Centralnoye Sluzhba Razvyedki, or the Central Intelligence Service of the USSR, occurred in 1991. That designation lasted only until January 1992, when it then became the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvyedki Rossi, the name under which it still operates. The only other significant change at the time was the appointment of Yevgeny Primakov, an experienced professional intelligence officer, as the organization’s first head. Neither of these changes had any practical effect upon the ongoing operations at Yasenevo, apart from alterations in section titles and several irritating and largely unnecessary revisions to the internal telephone directory.
The SVR retained control of all agents recruited and run by the KGB, and has been diligently increasing their numbers ever since, not least because the break-up of the former USSR has significantly added to the number of countries from which Russia now requires intelligence data.
The new organization continues to work from the former KGB’s sixty-acre complex of offices at Yasenevo — bearing more than a passing resemblance to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency at Langley, Virginia. The main building was designed by Finnish architects and its construction utilized considerable quantities of aluminium and glass. The original seven-storey structure is shaped like three-pointed star, but is now dwarfed by a new twenty-two-floor extension situated at the far end of the western arm of the core building.
Raya Kosov walked towards the extremity of the northeasterly wing, passing on her way the separate entrance reserved for senior officers. She pushed through the glass double doors of the main entrance, stepped into a wide marble foyer,and again showed her pass to further SVR sentries. Striding past the bust of Feliks Dzerzhinsky standing in the middle of the foyer, she crossed to the news-stand to one side, where she bought a magazine. She then passed through a further checkpoint and into the new extension building, before stopping at the main bank of elevators.
As the doors opened, she stepped into the lift, and pressed the button for the fifteenth floor.
The land had been a part of the Paxton family estate in Suffolk since 1675, but the proximity of marshy fenland and the difficulty of providing proper drainage had ensured that it remained relatively unproductive. In 1724 Roger Paxton decided to erect a new family seat at the edge of the land, and within eight years the Paxton family had built the Hall and moved in.
Roger Paxton’s abiding passion, and his ultimate ruin, was gambling, and in 1742 ownership of the house, and the six acres of woodland that surrounded it, passed to one Giles de Verney in settlement of numerous debts. The new owner took up residence with his family, put up with the damp and cold for just over two years, and then gave the property to his cousin Charles.
Charles de Verney actually liked living in the Hall, and his descendants continued to reside there until the early years of the twentieth century. The last de Verney to own the property was Edith, who survived her husband by the better part of forty years and, after his death in 1876, retreated to the Hall in her widow’s weeds.
With the passing years, she became increasingly eccentric and erratic in her behaviour, virtually never leaving the premises and steadily filling each room of the large house with rubbish. Edith finally died in her small single bedroom at one end of the east wing, all alone as she’d been for fifteen years, and her body wasn’t found there for nearly three weeks.
William Verney — whose branch of the family had dropped the ‘de’ in 1863 — became the new owner, but preferred the social life of London and his spacious flat in Knightsbridge. He visited the property, and declared that it was one of the most unattractive houses he had ever seen, and certainly the ugliest property he had ever had the misfortune to own. He had the place cleared out and cleaned up, then secured it against intruders and the winds blowing off the North Sea, and virtually forgot about it.
For no readily discernible reason, the house was requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence in the latter stages of the First World War, but was not actually used for any known purpose. In 1919, with the male line of the Verney family all but exterminated in the carnage of the Somme and in Flanders, the few surviving members decided they had no need of this big, draughty old place on the edge of the fens, and gratefully accepted the ministry’s somewhat niggardly offer to purchase it.
Builders were employed to sort out the damp in the extensive cellars, windows and doors were replaced, and the interior was repainted and redecorated. Then, perhaps not knowing quite what else to do with the place, the ministry closed up the Hall and employed a local building firm to visit and inspect the premises on a monthly basis.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, the place was hurriedly opened up again and converted: first into a rest and recuperation centre for injured RAF airmen, and then into a training centre for Special Operations Executive (SOE) personnel. The explosions and noise of small-arms fire that echoed through the surrounding woods were a constant reminder of the difficult and dangerous missions being undertaken by the young men and women that the locals occasionally spotted in the village.
Oddly enough, nobody seemed particularly surprised when those noises continued after hostilities had ended. Locals who thought they knew exactly what was going on — which in Suffolk meant almost everyone — nodded wisely when asked about the Hall, and it soon became common knowledge that Royal Marine Commandos had taken over the estate for training purposes.
When the Special Air Service stormed the Iranian Embassy in London in April 1980, word spread quickly around Felsham that the Hall had been used for the final training before the attack. Many locals claimed to have noticed one or more of the troopers drinking in the local pubs before the assault took place and even to have recognized some of the black-clad figures seen clambering over parapets on News at Ten.
All of which, of course, was complete nonsense, but the stories suited the authorities well enough. In fact, neither the Royal Marines nor the SAS had ever been anywhere near Paxton Hall. At the end of the Second World War, ownership of the building had been quietly transferred from the Ministry of Defence to the Foreign Office, and the Secret Intelligence Service had moved in.
Or, to be exact, a caretaker staff moved in, and the Hall became one of two SIS safe houses in Suffolk. The cars and vans occasionally arriving at odd hours of the day and night did not contain SAS troopers eager to improve their shooting skills, although there was a firing range on the property which was still used occasionally. Instead, the vehicles conveyed SIS agents who had to be briefed prior to undertaking missions abroad; or defectors — only a few, but one of the most important sources of foreign intelligence — fetched in for initial debriefing, and intelligence professionals who needed a secure and discreet location for their meetings with members of other services.
The first car to arrive, early that afternoon, was a dark green Jaguar saloon with a single occupant. The vehicle stopped at the guardhouse, just outside the electrically controlled gates, and after a few moments was permitted to proceed up the drive. The second vehicle — also a Jaguar, but black and with three men inside — arrived ten minutes later.
The office assigned to Richter, on the first floor of the Old Admiralty Building, was almost exactly what he had been expecting. It was a small room, with yellowish-cream walls that badly needed repainting, preferably in a different colour, and contained two metal desks, with somewhat worn swivel chairs, and four grey filing cabinets. The single window looked out into a light well that extended up to the roof, and the gloom meant that the twin overhead fluorescent lights were switched on all day. Although clearly intended to accommodate two people, there was no sign of any other occupant. The only good thing about it, Richter thought, was that at least he wouldn’t be spending all his working hours here.