The trouble was he found it hard to disagree with anything Wild had just said. However, just as he realized he had run out of any arguments to stay, he saw the base commander walking up the path toward him. “Tom. You’re wanted in Riga. The Director of the Constitution Protection Bureau, Juris Bērziņš, wants to see you. My car will take you.”
The statement came as a total surprise to Morland, as he had not considered himself important enough to have a one-on-one meeting with the head of the Latvian secret intelligence service. “Of course, Sir,” he replied and signaled to Wild to carry on without him.
As he signed his weapon in at the armory, he wondered whether this might have something to do with the crisis in Ukraine. Certainly, the Special Forces Latvians he was working with were convinced that the Russians were coming for them, sooner or later. The gloomy view in the All Ranks Mess where they ate, and the near single topic of conversation the previous night at dinner, was that this latest Ukraine attack was just a distraction for a more general attack on the Baltics.
Asked for his opinion, Morland had been careful not to insult his hosts by disagreeing outright, but he had counseled against overreacting. After only three weeks in country, he was already very aware that living next to this resurgent and belligerent Russia would induce paranoia in any Western-looking, democratic neighbor; especially one with a deeply discontented Russian-speaking population. But as far as Russia attacking a NATO country was concerned, that was something altogether different.
The received wisdom across the British Army, and repeated by most middle-ranking officers he had spoken to ever since, was that this was the talk of old Cold War warriors, nostalgically harking back to those dark and dangerous days when the enemy was obvious and military budgets and organizations were secure. The world had moved on and was now a very much smaller place. Even Russia had to find a way of living within the current world order, if it were to succeed and grow as a nation state.
But Morland also remembered the ever-cynical Mr. Midgeley and his thought-provoking lessons at school. “Listen, lad,” he would say in his broad Rochdale accent. “What does history continually teach us? That when everyone is convinced one thing is going to happen, you can bet your house and dog that the exact opposite is going to happen. Oh, and never listen to a politician. Not enough of them are historians.”
An hour later he was sitting in an anonymous government office in Riga. Bērziņš, in his early sixties, craggy faced and with a shock of white hair, leaned forward. “Very good of you to drop in, old boy; do have a brew… I get Twinings to keep me supplied with English Breakfast tea.” Bērziņš, the son of Latvian refugees and UK born and raised, spoke perfect English with a crisp Sandhurst accent, the product of his time as a senior officer in the British Army. He had moved to Latvia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He was now Director of the Constitution Protection Bureau, Latvia’s counter-espionage and internal security service, and Morland could see he was measuring him as he spoke.
“We’ve got a puzzling case here and I need some help from the Brits. I know you’re here to advise our Special Tasks Unit, but you have access to other agencies in the UK, and time is short. The police found the bodies of the two leaders of the Latvian Russian Union, Petrov and Zadonov, by the Monument of Freedom in the early hours this morning. It seemed that there’d been in a drunken fight; there were smashed beer and vodka bottles lying around and their throats had been slashed. But on closer inspection, both their necks had been broken. And, I have to say, most professionally. But what is really interesting is that when they were examined properly in the mortuary, they found the insignia of the Latvian Legion—those were the two SS divisions recruited in Latvia by the Nazis to fight the Russians during the last war—cut into their chests above their hearts.”
“OK…” said Morland, not yet sure what was required from him. For an infantry recce platoon commander, he was way out of his comfort zone.
“It’s pretty clear the Russians are behind this. We’ve been watching them applying the usual propaganda and disinformation operations to undermine and discredit Latvia for some time now. And my colleagues in Lithuania and Estonia report the same. So far, so normal. Or at least, our version of normal. But in the last week, the leaders of the Latvian Russian Union have stepped up their activity in advance of tomorrow’s demonstration. We know they’ve been talking to a Russian who’s recently arrived in country. He’s new and we’ve been watching him, of course. However, we could do with your team’s support in monitoring tomorrow’s demonstration. All indications are that it will get out of control. I’m appointing a liaison officer from my service to work with you. She’s outside waiting. I’ll introduce you now and you can get to work straight away.”
Bērziņš pressed a switch on his intercom. “Please ask Marina to come in.”
The door opened and a stunning woman walked in.
Morland looked her in the eye as coolly as he could. She was a couple of inches short of six foot, long ash-blonde hair, high cheekbones and radiating physical fitness. He’d have put money on her being a distance runner or a cross-country skier. Or both.
Her eyes held his gaze in turn; greeny blue, steady and appraising him without any hint of embarrassment.
Morland looked away and caught the humor in Bērziņš’s eyes. The old fox knew full well the effect Marina would have. But Morland was not going to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
“Marina Krauja, meet Captain Tom Morland. Tom, I’ve told the Service to give you all the support you need. Miss Krauja is your point of contact and will work with you while you are in Latvia.”
She extended her hand. “Delighted to meet you,” she said, in perfect English.
“Tom Morland. How do you do.” He shook hands with her before turning back to Bērziņš. “Sir, we’ll head back to Ādaži now. I’ll brief the Permanent Joint Headquarters from there and we’ll put together a plan.” He turned to Krauja. “Shall we get going?”
“Captain, can I suggest we take my car?” said Krauja. “That way we can talk. And we’ll need to be independent.”
“Good call,” agreed Morland, aware that honors were currently even and that neither of them had acceded command to the other. If Bērziņš was enjoying the duel, he kept his face impassive as he turned back to the pile of paperwork on his desk.
Morland quizzed Krauja on the way back to Ādaži. If they were to work together, he wanted to know something about her. He quickly discovered that her English was the result of a degree in English Literature at Durham, where she’d won a scholarship. She’d then worked for Goldman Sachs in London for a couple of years, before tiring of the City and heading back to Riga to serve her country.
Morland asked her about Ukraine, Russia and the threat to the Baltic states. Again, he got the same line. “There’s no question,” she replied. “The President is working up to something. All the indicators are there.”
Morland was surprised by how emphatic she was, but after only three weeks in country, he was also developing an uneasy feeling that when highly intelligent and cosmopolitan Latvians like Bērziņš and Krauja were so convinced of the President’s bad faith, then they might just be right.
“Our history has made us deeply suspicious of Russian intentions,” she continued. “Another time you should visit the Museum of Occupation in Riga. Then you’ll understand that there’s not a family in Latvia which wasn’t affected in some way by the Russian occupation of Latvia during World War Two, or the Soviet occupation that followed. My mother was born in a Siberian labor camp after my grandparents were deported in the 1950s. They were eventually released, but my grandparents never recovered… and tens of thousands never came back.”