The MI5 man then explained that the Security Services had been monitoring internet communications between a woman working in the naval Commodore’s HQ in Portsmouth and a Russian naval officer for several months and that they had become increasingly suspicious. The couple were using a popular dating website, but they had exchanged various references to naval activities in both Portsmouth and Sevastopol. The messages were currently being analysed by his department to establish the identity of the Russian and to discover whether there were any security breaches, possibly by sending information in a coded form.
Tom Spencer went on to explain that the website they were using was completely open and not protected in any way. But in the course of these online exchanges, the messages had discussed the visit by these Russian naval ships to Portsmouth and then a plan for the couple to meet, so they decided to track the movements of the woman and were ready to detain them at the first opportunity. He described how his agents had observed the couple when they met on the quayside in Portsmouth and had then tracked them as they visited various places in the city, eventually arriving at the woman’s flat. Their conversations had been monitored from time to time, he said, including inside the flat, and although nothing incriminating was heard the decision was made to enter the flat late in the evening and detain them both for further questioning.
“So where are they now? And has anything leaked to the media about this incident yet?” asked Sir Oliver, in a firm voice.
“They have been at a Portsmouth police station overnight, with two of my people, and I am expecting a preliminary report very soon – and no, we are not aware of any press interest.”
“Won’t take long,” barked Sir Oliver. “The police leak like a sieve, so be prepared. This incident will have to go up to the Minister as soon as I get back to the office, so let me know as soon as you have more information.”
The officer from MI6 asked to be kept informed of any developments from the Russian angle and said he would liaise with their bureau in Moscow. The representative from the MoD said he was in touch with the Portsmouth Naval Command regarding the woman involved and that he would want to be told about in any inquiry relating to the operations in the Commodore’s office. The man from Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorism unit confirmed that the involvement by Portsmouth police was being carried out “by the book”.
Spencer had been through this sort of thing many times before, taking care to include the many different parties with a special interest, and he knew that time was not on his side in making a decision about the next move. Was this a serious spying incident, which would involve Government ministers, or was it something trivial? Maybe even just a budding romance, in which case, over-reacting could prove embarrassing. The meeting broke up, with a plan to reconvene later in the day, and the participants went back to report to their respective departments on the story so far.
Spencer was soon on a direct phone link to his two experienced colleagues who had travelled to Portsmouth the previous day to handle the assignment. “What’s the latest?”
He was told that the two suspects had been held overnight at the police CID department and were being questioned separately to establish as many facts as possible. Neither of them had yet been cautioned or charged, but they had confirmed that the woman worked in a sensitive part of the Commodore’s office in the Dockyard. A senior naval officer there had just been informed of the woman’s whereabouts, but they had not shared any details at this stage about the reasons for her absence from work.
The MI5 officers also reassured their chief that they had remembered to ask the police inspector on night shift to bring in the local on-call solicitor “just in case”. They said that a somewhat dishevelled man called Jeremy Scott had arrived to go through the appropriate legal instructions separately with the two detainees, advising each of them that they were entitled to say “no comment” in reply to any questions they were asked, and to request a break if they felt too tired to continue. The agent added that the Russian detainee appeared to understand English but was refusing to say anything until he had an interpreter and an officer from his ship or someone from the embassy with him. The woman was being hysterical at times and asking to talk to her boss in the Dockyard office, insisting that she had done nothing wrong. When asked, she had confirmed that in her online exchanges with her “date”, she had told him about her own Russian ancestry.
In their verbal report, the two agents went on to describe to Tom Spencer how, after two sessions of interviews with the couple about their past history, their special interests, and their friends and contacts, they had built up the profiles – more successfully with Marina Peters than with the Russian. They had decided that everyone needed a break soon after midnight and the local police team had set up camp beds with blankets for the detainees in the two interview rooms.
Some seven hours later, and after providing some breakfast of coffee and pastries, the two agents said they had continued their interrogation of the two individuals who were still being held in separate rooms. They had started on the next stage of the interviews, which was to try to establish how the relationship had come about and what each of them knew about the other. This was still in progress, they said, when this call came from their boss in London.
Tom listened carefully to their report, without interrupting, and then replied, “That sounds fine, so far. Let me have a written summary of your sessions to date as soon as possible – send it over on the usual link to my tablet. And get the CID people there to take a photo of each of them and have them transmitted to my office. But take care not to ruffle the Russian feathers too much at this stage. There’s already a problem at the Foreign Office, so ease off the pressure until I get back to you.”
The call ended, and the two agents decided to take a break from questioning to prepare the written report on progress while they awaited further instructions from London.
6.
THE TIP-OFF!
At about the same time, early on this Thursday morning, Gary Andrews was in his small bachelor flat in Fratton, trying to sleep off a heavy night down at his local pub, when his phone rang. He was the crime reporter at the Portsmouth Herald, and it was not unusual for him to be disturbed at inconvenient moments. This time it was one of his contacts at the police station.
“Sorry to call you so early,” Gary heard through his hazy brain. “It’s Bill here – are you OK? Look, there’s something a bit odd going on here this morning. Some plainclothes people we haven’t seen before brought in a bloke last night who looked like a foreign naval type, and there was a woman with him. I have been told that they have been questioning them here all night. Just thought there might be something in it for you.”
“Thanks, Bill – I’ll check around. Let me know if you hear any more.”
After grabbing a quick breakfast, Gary drove his small Fiat to his parking slot at the newspaper office in the town centre and soon found the paper’s naval correspondent at his desk. He asked him casually, “Any foreign ships in port that you know of?”
“Yes, I did a piece last night,” said Charles Williams. “There are three Russian frigates in the Dockyard – came in from some exercises in the Med. My contacts said they are probably here to get fuel before going on to join their Baltic Fleet friends. Not often we see them here, but it’s happened before… Seems just routine. Why do you ask?”