Stella Rimington - Breaking Cover

Miles woke early, while it was still pitch black outside, and got up straight away. He stayed just long enough to eat one of the cling-filmed sandwiches and drink a large mug of instant coffee, into which he poured the cream off the top of a glass bottle of milk. He put the other sandwich in his pocket; he had no idea where his next meal was coming from. Then he made the bed and washed and dried his mug, leaving the sparsest evidence that anyone had stayed the night.

He drove through sparkling snow-covered fields into the rising sun, heading further east across the vast rolling steppes. There was little traffic at first, but as the morning progressed people were out and about in the small towns he travelled through. When he stopped for petrol (he’d been told to fill up as and when he could) the attendant was friendly but spoke no English. He mentioned his destination, checking he was on the right road, but the man only shook his head. ‘Boom!’ he said, almost wearily. ‘Boom, boom.’

Soon Miles saw signs of the conflict; a motley mix of army vehicles drove past him, heading away from the fighting. Then he came to a roadblock manned by Ukrainian regulars, who looked at his Irish passport with curiosity then waved him through without asking his business, so he had no need to deploy his cover story that he was a freelance journalist writing human-interest stories about war zones.

His rendezvous with the source was in a second farmhouse within a dozen miles of the fighting and less than twenty from Donetsk, where the Malaysian airliner had come down. This was a grander affair than his previous night’s lodging. It was not really a farmhouse at all, more an old-fashioned hunting lodge built out of rough stone, with a roof of handmade mocha-coloured tiles. He banged the heavy iron knocker on the wooden door and waited. He felt the familiar stirring of anxiety that always preceded a meeting with a new source. The door was opened by a short, dumpy middle-aged woman dressed in what appeared to be a homespun woollen dress with an apron tied around her waist. She looked so much like the apple-cheeked farmer’s wife from a fairy story that Miles wondered if she could be one of Mac’s colleagues got up as a peasant for the occasion. He found the thought rather comforting.

She showed him into a long living room, which was warm from a blazing fire at one end. The woman disappeared and returned a moment later with a tray that held cold meats and two large rolls, as well as a glass of steaming tea. She pointed upstairs and put her folded hands against her cheek to indicate that was where he would be sleeping, then she gave a little bob and left the room. A few minutes later he saw her from the window, walking down a path towards another, smaller building a few hundred yards away. He hoped she was going to report his safe arrival to Mac.

Miles looked around the ground floor and went into the kitchen, which was so spotlessly clean that it was obvious no one had cooked in it for a long time. He searched through the drawers and found a steak knife. It had lost its edge but had a sharp point, so it would do.

When he went upstairs he discovered that the only bed had been made up, presumably by the woman who had just left. Putting his bag down, he took off his jacket and laid it on the bedspread, pushing back both lapels until its inner lining was fully exposed. He found the central seam and carefully inserted the steak knife’s point into one of the tiny knots, then twisted until it came loose. He repeated the process until the entire line of thread was visible and he could pull the two sides apart with his fingers. The left half of the lining flapped free and he reached behind it, extracting an envelope that was sealed on the back with tape. Ripping it open, he counted the hundred-dollar bills inside; it was all there. He rolled the bills up and put them in his trouser pocket, then went downstairs and back to the living room.

A man stood by the fireplace. He was holding an automatic pistol. As Miles entered the room, the man turned and pointed the gun at his head.

‘You must be Mischa,’ said Miles Brookhaven, standing still in the doorway with his hands held loosely at his sides. It seemed the safest thing to do and he had nothing to defend himself with anyway. If he were wrong about the identity of this man, Miles was probably going to get shot. ‘I’m Sean Flynn. My colleagues in Kiev said you had requested a meeting. It sounded urgent, so here I am.’

The man stared at him, then lowered the gun. He was dressed in black-and-olive combat fatigues, and was tall and powerfully built, with a rough beard and dark eyes that seemed too small for his face. He jammed his sidearm into the holster at his waist, leaving the butt sticking out. Miles stepped forward and held his hand out. The man shook it with a hard grasp. Miles noticed that the Russian had been eating the rolls and drinking the tea from the tray the woman had brought. ‘I bet that’s cold by now,’ he said. ‘Would you like some more?’

Again the man stared. Then his face broke into a grin. ‘I have a better idea,’ he said. He went to a knapsack he’d put down on a chair. Retrieving a bottle of vodka from it, he said, ‘You got glasses?’

Brookhaven laughed. ‘Sure to be some in the kitchen. Wait a second.’

Thank goodness Mischa spoke decent English – with about twelve words of Russian to his credit, Miles had been worried about how he would communicate with the informant. His request for a translator had been turned down – sending one man close to the war zone was dangerous enough without doubling the risk, and in any case, they’d said, it was not necessary.

In the kitchen as he searched for glasses he wondered what Mischa had to tell him that could be so important. He had been told that the Russian had been an accidental find, a ‘walk in’, who’d approached the Agency via an American journalist who was one of the first to get to the site of the Malaysian aeroplane crash. Mischa had been there ‘advising’, or more accurately directing the Ukrainian rebels who were guarding the site and disguising what had happened. Miles’s colleagues in Kiev had picked him up and had been meeting him since then in conditions of the utmost secrecy, and at high risk to Mischa himself. He was an officer in a special unit who’d been sent undercover with some of his men to train the rebels. His information about the extent of Russian involvement and the type of advanced weaponry they had supplied to the rebels was proving unerringly accurate, and crucial to the West’s understanding of the situation. His motivation hadn’t been explained to Miles, though money obviously played a large part in it, but the Kiev Station was apparently satisfied that he was genuine and clearly knew a lot more about him than they had thought necessary to tell Miles.

He returned to the living room with a couple of glasses, to find Mischa staring gloomily out of the window. He nodded as Miles lifted the vodka bottle, then watched as the American poured out two hefty shots of the liquor. ‘ Skål ,’ said Miles, lifting his glass and trying to lighten the mood.

Mischa smiled wryly. ‘Cheers,’ he said. He drained his glass in one go.

Miles followed suit, and almost choked as the fiery liquid went down his throat. He managed to say, ‘You speak excellent English.’

‘I was a postgraduate at Birmingham University – in computer sciences.’

‘And then the army?’ It seemed an improbable switch, but had to be voluntary. Mischa was a good ten years past draft age.

The Russian looked at him with amusement. ‘You are wondering how an educated man can end up like this?’ He pointed to his fatigues. ‘I am a technical specialist in advanced weapons,’ he said. ‘Not one of the ranks.’