Tim Glister: Red Corona

Dixon had always been astonished by Valera’s seemingly limitless capacity for work. She was always the first in the lab in the morning and the last to leave at night. When he’d finally persuaded her to take a little break of her own and celebrate everything she’d achieved he understood why.

She told him about her years in Povenets B, growing up in Leningrad, and everything in her life that had been taken away from her, including her son. She talked about the old dream of her and Ledjo floating in a small boat on a calm lake, which she hoped would return every night when she fell asleep, but still hadn’t. And about the single physical memento she had – Ledjo’s small backpack – that had been lost when she’d been snatched from Stockholm. Her work was the only thing she had left.

It took a few weeks of phone calls, but Dixon managed to find the backpack. It had been given to the Swedish security service by the Hotel Reisen and filed away in evidence storage. They had no use for it now Valera was a long way from their jurisdiction and were more than happy to send it on. It was a small gesture, but Dixon was glad to see Valera produce a thin, brief smile when he returned it to her.

Now, she was about to unveil her latest world-changing piece of technology and Dixon was, as ever, behind in his work and chasing an elusive breakthrough. Half of him wanted to be back in his lab, but the other half didn’t want to miss out on what was about to happen.

So, he stood at the back of the room, waiting for Murphy to show up, and watching Valera move anxiously from panel to panel, surrounded by a cadre of assistants, checking every readout and making adjustment after adjustment to be sure everything would work perfectly when the big moment arrived.

Dixon hoped she felt some pride about everything she’d achieved since she’d come to America. But she didn’t.

Valera had felt something like relief when she reached Washington and wasn’t immediately arrested, but she had quickly realised that the United States wasn’t so different from the Soviet Union. She was still watched, still suspected, and still controlled. She was in the so-called land of the free, but she wasn’t. She’d been put to work at Langley straight away and even now she was called in for questioning whenever the CIA wanted to go over her life story again or check some new piece of intelligence about somewhere or something in Russia she’d never heard of.

At least most of the people she worked with respected her and tended to leave her alone. But there were still stares whenever she walked into a canteen or was seen outside the NASA compound. And some of her supposed colleagues were less than thankful when she was called in to solve an impossible problem that had stumped them for months.

She knew she owed the CIA for getting her out of the KGB’s reach, and she owed Dixon for giving her work that actually challenged her and for giving her back her only physical memory of her son. But she also knew she couldn’t work for them forever, being allowed to stray gradually further and further from her lab but always kept on an invisible leash.

Valera had been generous, giving NASA and the CIA as much of her brain as they could handle. But she was close to paying off her side of the bargain she’d struck in London with Dixon and Murphy. In fact, she’d decided that after her next major success, which might be mere minutes away, she’d wait for the celebratory party Americans were so fond of throwing to reach its height, then quietly slip out, put a jumper and some biscuits in her small backpack, disappear into the great American wilderness, and go find a lake somewhere to sail a boat on.

So, she was anxious as she moved from panel to panel, followed by her assigned acolytes, but not for the reasons Dixon imagined.

Knox walked through the front door of Leconfield House with absolutely no attention or fanfare, which was exactly how he liked it. For the first month after the Peterson affair and Holland’s return, whenever he arrived at MI5 headquarters he’d always encounter someone who wanted to congratulate him or apologise for believing the rumours and character assassinations that had been spread about him during his suspension. Now, a year later, things had settled down and it was back to business as normal.

MI5 had covered the cost of restoring Knox’s flat, and his extended stay at Duke’s Hotel on St James’s Place. When he’d stepped back into his flat again for the first time after everything had been repaired, he remembered Peterson calling him a hypocrite for using his connections to buy it in the first place. After three weeks of building work he decided the least he could do was introduce himself to the other residents who were starting to fill up the building, if only to say sorry for the inconvenience he’d put them through.

Knox had also been given his own office on the fifth floor of Leconfield House again, next to Holland’s and one that had been put aside for White but which he never used, preferring to stay down in the depths of the building with his engineers.

With Operation Pipistrelle still secure, White had vigorously campaigned for an expansion of its scope and use. He also insisted that primary control be brought in-house to MI5 from GCHQ and Atlas turned back on. After balancing the ever-growing need for better-quality intelligence with the increased potential for a breach that more Pipistrelle bugs in the field could cause, Holland cautiously agreed to both.

Holland had also faced repeated questions from Michael Finney about Pipistrelle. He had scolded Knox for revealing the name of one of MI5’s most important secrets to the CIA, but he also enjoyed seeing Finney squirm, aware that British intelligence had some sort of trick up their sleeve he knew nothing about.

The two men who had attacked Knox in Strand station and the man who had tried to assault Bennett in Hyde Park had been picked up by the police shortly after their identikit descriptions had been drawn and circulated. They’d all identified Peterson when they were shown his photograph. But none of them admitted to knocking Knox out in Kemp House, or being part of the masked team that had kidnapped Valera in Stockholm.

Knox’s first job once he’d been discharged from hospital was to work out just how badly Peterson had compromised MI5 over the years. The answer was, it seemed, mercifully little.

The Service had been very lucky. Knox combed through all of MI5’s most important operations over the last decade, as well as intelligence supplied by MI6 about Russia’s activities over the same period. He couldn’t find any major strategic decision or tactical move by the Soviet Union or operational problem that could be attributed to a KGB mole at the heart of British intelligence. In fact, it had taken getting access to Peterson’s bank accounts to establish when he’d started working for the Russians.

As Peterson had made clear to Knox as he stood over him in the suite in the Richmond, he wasn’t an ideological traitor. His relationship with the KGB had been strictly based on remuneration, and they’d paid him very well over the years for very little return. Peterson hadn’t left a record of exactly what he’d passed on to Russia, but by cross-referencing the timings of his second salary Knox was confident in his conclusion that the KGB had either ignored or chosen not to act on whatever information Peterson had given them.

The only loose end that still worried Knox was the ghost of Cecil Court. Even after she’d been sentenced, Sandra Horne had refused to confirm if it had been Peterson who had been helping the Calder Hall Ring. Knox couldn’t tell if she was trying desperately to hold on to one last sliver of power, or if she was bluffing and actually had no idea who the mysterious contact had been. Holland was happy to leave this particular thread dangling so it could be pulled on in the future if needed.