Every spy a traitor, p.20
Every Spy a Traitor, page 20
‘I will get to Warsaw: I need papers and assistance to enable me to get from there to England. If you can provide that by this time next week then I will have more details of this man who is spying against you.’
‘How can you be so sure you’ll be able to get his name?’
‘I have some clues already. And I will have enough to help you find him even if I don’t get the exact name. You call this a traitor, don’t you?’
George Banks nodded. ‘Meet me at Mayakovski metro station this time next week. Wear a different coat, as will I. I will carry a copy of that day’s Izvestia. If I see any sign of danger, I will remove my hat. I would suggest you travel to Belorussia station and then walk to Mayakovski.’
* * *
It all came together for Sergei Grigoryevich Volkov on the Tuesday. He’d waited until then for an excuse to visit the Archives and Records Department and waited until late in the afternoon to do so when he knew it would be quieter, and when no one was watching he was able to take the key for the Registry, where the International Liaison Department files were kept, and then sat in a corner waiting for everyone to leave, until just he remained.
He’d already established that the Nikolai Vasilyevich the agent had referred to in Paris was Nikolai Vasilyevich Zaslavsky, a senior OMS officer. He knew the files in the International Liaison Department registry were organised under the names of the case officers and it took him half an hour to find the correct file, a sense of utter fear combined with mounting excitement. It was more than he could have hoped for: the man’s full name, his codename and details of how much he’d been paid and where and when he’d met his Comintern contacts.
He was surprised the much-feared OMS could be so incautious, it had been something of a long shot expecting the file to be kept in the Registry. The British would not fail to be delighted; with intelligence like this they’d probably fly him to London!
He wrote all the information down and took it home that evening.
That night, he memorised what he’d written down because he knew better than to risk taking the piece of paper to the meeting at Mayakovski metro station. He waited until he was alone in the apartment and then burnt the piece of paper and flushed the ashes down the toilet.
In the unlikely event of him ever being questioned they’d find nothing incriminating on him.
* * *
It unravelled for Sergei Grigoryevich Volkov in the most dramatic fashion on the Friday morning.
No sooner had he arrived at work than he was marched into the security office and asked what he’d been doing in the International Liaison Department Registry on the Tuesday evening and he replied he didn’t think he had been there: he’d been in the Archives and Records Department, and he supposed it was possible he could have passed by the Registry if the door was open and at that point the man who was questioning him started shouting and told him if he was going to lie then at least he ought to make a better fist of it, rather than treating him like a bloody idiot.
At first Sergei Grigoryevich was relatively calm: he knew there was nothing incriminating against him and so did his best to appear confident and said he really didn’t know what the problem was and then another man came up to him – just an inch or two from his face, so close he could smell the garlic on his breath – and he grabbed Sergei Grigoryevich roughly by the lapels and asked what he made of this and held up a photograph, which was unmistakably of him and the Englishman outside the Church of the Resurrection the previous Sunday, followed by more photographs, including one of them in the narrow street by the side of the Church of the Oppressed and he had no idea whatsoever how they’d managed to get that one.
‘Do you know who that is, Volkov?’
‘Which one?’
Sergei Grigoryevich became aware of the silence which greeted his reply and three pairs of eyes staring at him, unblinking and all unsure as to whether this man was possibly mad to have responded in such an impudent manner.
‘The man you’re talking to, you fool.’
‘I’ve no idea. It could be a man who stopped me for directions, I seem to recall that.’
There was another bout of silence then the third person, who’d not spoken yet, said to listen very carefully. He had a Georgian accent and spoke in a typically slow and deliberate manner.
‘You were spotted outside the British Embassy on Sofiyskaya Naberezhnaya the previous Sunday: it’s a place we monitor extremely closely – I’m surprised that didn’t occur to you. We followed you, established who you are and where you work and continued to keep an eye on you. We were watching you when you met this man last Sunday: he is a British diplomat called Mr George Banks who we assume is a British spy. We’ve been watching you even more closely since then. You were seen in the International Liaison Department Registry on Tuesday evening but unaccountably the officer who was monitoring you simply put it in his written report, which we only saw late last night.
‘We want to know everything: the nature of your contact with the British, what information you were seeking in the Registry and what you were going to do with it.’
He folded his arms and the other two did so at the same time and the three men watched him and Sergei Grigoryevich weighed up the situation in his mind. All things considered, it was bad, but possibly not nearly as bad as it could be. There was nothing incriminating against him other than a couple of blurred photographs: no doubt they’d be turning his apartment upside down, but they’d find nothing.
On the other hand, he had been spotted with the two Englishmen and in the Registry. He couldn’t deny that and nor could he think what to say so he told them he was very sorry, he’d been foolish – out of curiosity he’d gone to see the British Embassy and had been intrigued to meet a diplomat and one thing had led to another and the crucial point was they had asked him to get any intelligence he could lay his hands on but once he was in the Registry he’d realised what a fool he’d been and so had left it and to prove that was true, they could search everywhere but would see he’d taken nothing.
‘I may be guilty of poor judgement and letting curiosity get the better of me, but I’m no spy!’
‘Who said anything about you being a spy?’
Up to that point Sergei Grigoryevich was reconciled to losing his job. Now he realised he was likely to spend some time in prison, possibly at one of the dreaded prison camps. He’d have plenty of time to reflect on his foolishness.
He stood up meekly when told to do so and was handcuffed and was told he’d be taken to prison and dealt with in due course.
When he was out of the room the three men who’d been questioning him agreed that it was all most unsatisfactory.
‘He was certainly up to something, but without any evidence…’
‘Are we sure there’s no evidence?’
‘I’m assured there was nothing in his apartment or at his desk or on him. Of course, we do have the evidence that he met with that man Banks, but… that’s all.’
The most senior of the men repeated how unsatisfactory this was.
‘And the last thing we need is involving the NKVD: we don’t want them poking about in our affairs.’
‘Absolutely, definitely not!’
‘So, all in all… would it be best to…?’
The senior of the men said it would be best and ideally before the end of the day, before the NKVD got wind of it.
* * *
George Banks turned up at Mayakovski metro station on the Sunday, though not without taking the usual precautions. There was something very credible about the Russian he’d met the previous Sunday. He’d spoken with London and had details of where to tell the man he should go to in Warsaw. But he wasn’t terribly surprised when he didn’t show up. After waiting for an hour, he slipped into the station, out of another exit and into a van waiting to return him to the embassy.
He was left to ponder what may have been and wonder who the traitor was, if he really did exist. He was weary and supposed to attend the church service in the ambassador’s residence but decided to write his report to London instead.
At least he could tell them about Agent Archie.
* * *
The man who’d been told to see to it was a Belorussian from Minsk called Ivan who lived in constant fear of an early morning knock on his door and so was only too happy to oblige his masters.
He arrived at the prison and demanded to be taken to the prisoner Volkov’s cell and told the guard accompanying him to make sure the prisoner was shackled before he went in.
Sergei Grigoryevich Volkov looked terrified, as if he had an inkling of what was about to happen. He tried to explain everything and started to talk about an Englishwoman and a traitor and a spy in Moscow and he gave names, but it was such an incoherent babble the man ignored him.
When Sergei Grigoryevich saw the man take out his pistol he began to weep.
If only he’d listened, he thought. If only he’d listened to his grandfather and his former teacher.
May you never be noticed.
Chapter 18
London
August 1938
The meeting took place in a sweltering and dingy basement in the War Office, the brown wallpaper stained with damp and a large, noisy ceiling fan doing little more than circulating hot air around the room.
It was in almost every respect an inappropriate venue for such an important meeting, other than the fact it was one on which all four parties could agree.
The meeting had been called by MI6, but at least one of the participants had declined to go to their headquarters at 54 Broadway and when it was suggested that they meet at St Ermin’s Hotel, just round the corner, another participant had an issue with that, which was something to do with a disputed invoice. It had been proposed they hold the meeting at The Annexe’s offices in Bryanston Square, but Percy Burton said that was completely out of the question. How could you hold a meeting at a place which doesn’t officially exist?
The War Office, then, was the neutral venue for this intelligence community skirmish. Along with MI6, MI5 was there, as was a senior officer from the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police and Percy Burton of The Annexe.
They gathered in silence, like estranged family members at a funeral – reluctant attendees only present out of a sense of obligation and not a little curiosity.
The meeting was being run by a severe-looking MI6 man called Phillips – with two ‘l’s, as he never failed to point out – who Percy Burton knew little about other than he’d been a Royal Navy officer until the late 1920s and very much had the ear of Sir Hugh Sinclair, the head of MI6.
‘We have reason to believe that we may have a traitor.’ Philips looked around the table with an awkward smile on his face.
‘Are you not able to be more specific, Phillips?’ It was the man from MI5, a waspish type with the hint of a lisp. Simpkin, or something like that, Percy Burton seemed to recall.
‘I was about to say… In June, one of our diplomats in Moscow was approached in the street by a Russian gentleman in his late twenties or early thirties who spoke good English. He said he had some important information for the British authorities and he wanted to meet someone to discuss it. He asked to meet in the same place and at the same time the following week and said the person he met should carry a pair of gloves in his right hand and an umbrella in the left – or possibly the other way round.’
‘Sounds like he was playing at being a spy!’
‘Good procedure actually, Percy.’
‘Not in June: no one wears gloves in Moscow in June.’
Phillips looked furious, but continued. ‘There was some discussion between us and Moscow station and it was agreed that George Banks would meet the man. George is one of our more experienced and level-headed officers and although we were quite aware that this could be a trap, we felt it was nonetheless worth the risk.’
He paused to sip from a glass of water.
Simpkin from MI5 asked why it was worth the risk. ‘Sounds rather like a set-up to me, Phillips.’
‘Well, that’s the whole point of espionage, Simpkin: finding foreign spies in one’s own country as you do is all well and good but relatively risk-free. However, spying in a foreign country – as is our job – is by its very nature a risky and invariably dangerous business. If our agents were to sit in an office and read newspapers then they wouldn’t get very far. Often an approach to us from a foreign national proves to be very fruitful in terms of intelligence gathering. People have all kinds of motives for offering us information – be it financial, or personal, or a political disagreement – and an experienced agent like George Banks knows how to handle and assess the situation.’
‘And he was sure this wasn’t a set-up by the Soviets?’
‘No, he wasn’t sure – which is why I said there’s always an element of risk. But Moscow Station was of the view that this approach lacked some of the typical characteristics of a Soviet trap: such as us being asked for something in return first, or even provided with some information at the first encounter to draw us in.
‘Banks met with the chap the following week. He says that had the man been a Soviet stooge then he’d have expected him to be more confident – polished, was the word he used – but apparently this chap was polite, but clearly nervous and noticeably inexperienced in what he was doing. He told George that he had important information about an Englishman who’s a Soviet spy, codename of Archie. He said this man is “very highly placed” and the Soviet Union gets “excellent intelligence from him” – I’m quoting there from George’s report.
‘He told George he works for Comintern – he showed him his card – and that he was in Paris in May when this Archie met a Comintern agent there, who gave him a camera and received documents in return. He wanted a guarantee from George that in return for giving him the spy’s name he’d be provided with papers which would get him from Warsaw to England.’
‘Warsaw?’
‘Clearly, he wasn’t expecting us to provide papers from Moscow. I imagine he was planning to make his own way to Warsaw. Fairly easy from Moscow.’
‘And no clues as to the identity of this mysterious Englishman?’
‘I’m coming to that, Simpkin. George asked him how he was sure he could get the man’s name and he said – again, I’m quoting – “I have some clues already. And I will have enough to help you find him even if I don’t get the exact name.” He also referred to him as a traitor.
‘George arranged to meet at the same time the following week at Mayakovski metro station, but he never turned up.’
The man from the Special Branch – who Percy Burton thought looked to be too short to be a policeman – spoke next. ‘If this Englishman – this traitor, as he so rightly called him – is so important, how would this man be in a position to find out his name? Can we even be sure he works for Comintern?’
‘When he showed George his Comintern identity card he covered up his name with his thumb, so that George could see the words “Communist International” at the top, the correct address on Gorky Street and the man’s photograph with the official stamp. But he made a mistake. On the bottom right of the card was his signature, which George is certain was SG Volkov – or SN Volkov, apparently the “G” and the “N” look similar in Cyrillic script.
‘In the week after the chap didn’t show up, George was able to establish that many Comintern employees live in a series of apartment blocks in the Danilovsky district, which is in the city centre and south of the Kremlin. Apparently, it’s not unusual for organisations like the Comintern to provide accommodation like this, not least because it helps them to monitor their workers. George found a “Sergei Grigoryevich Volkov” listed as a resident in one of those blocks. The directory he saw was a year old, but we believe this is the man – and he was sharing the apartment with three other men.
‘He waited another week and then sent in one of our agents in Moscow, an electrician who works for the city council. He visited the block and found the apartment. Next to the door were the names of the occupants: the name of one of them had been removed.
‘So, there we are, gentlemen. We have reason to believe we have a traitor in our midst and that the person in Moscow who was going to give us his identity has disappeared. We know next to nothing about this traitor other than he was in Paris in May, has the codename Archie, is highly placed and is providing “excellent intelligence”. It should go without saying that finding the identity of this traitor is a matter of the utmost priority. The only way we’re going to find him is by co-operating with each other, which I will be the first to acknowledge is not always the case between our organisations. This country’s national security should transcend such relatively petty internecine issues as exist between us.’
‘One can see that, of course, Phillips,’ said Simpkin from MI5, ‘but this is all rather tenuous, isn’t it? And you say this happened back in June – if it’s so important, why have you waited until now to tell us?’
‘Because there’s been a recent development we believe corroborates the story about the traitor. At the beginning of last year, an academic from Cambridge was invited by Soviet authorities to visit Moscow to conduct an evaluation of icons stored in the Kremlin. We understand this is almost certainly connected with the Soviets selling some icons on the black market, especially in France where there’s quite a market for them. The academic’s name is Austin Branstone and when we found out about the visit, we asked the Provost of King’s to make co-operation with us a condition of his being permitted to go to Moscow.
‘We never expected an awful lot of him, to be honest, because he came across as a rather meek and ineffectual type; nevertheless, because he was going to be operating inside the Kremlin itself, we felt we had to ask him to keep an eye out for us and let us know of names and places he came across.
