PART I

It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies? Who can smell out the fox without running with him?

John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Intourist Hotel discotheque, Moscow
23 November 1986, late night

The relentless drumbeat reverberated around Harry's skull, a sensation only strengthened by the multi-coloured strobe lights. He stood in the crush of bodies, only deigning to make a token movement every few seconds, but the Russian woman he was dancing with was undeterred. She gyrated against him enthusiastically, eyes half shut in ecstasy, and he was torn between jealousy at her ability to derive such pleasure from this mindless activity and irritation at her inability to notice his apathy. Where was Connie? He couldn't take much more of this. His eyes strayed to the bar – perhaps another shot of vodka would help dampen the god-awful musical onslaught. No. He'd had one too many already, and he was supposed to be working. Another would push him over the line from mildly inebriated to drunk, and that was dangerous. He was on an operation in enemy territory, and a loss of focus could cost someone their life. Whilst he might not be too bothered about his own safety, it would be irresponsible to endanger Connie and the operation. It had been his brainchild, Operation Renaissance. To try and trick the Russians into thinking that they had a mole within MI-5.

The Russian turned her back to him and ground her bottom against his groin. He stared over her head towards the wall, unmoved by her ministrations. He experienced no physical reaction whatsoever, and distantly wondered whether that was because he knew she was probably KGB – most of the Russians in this room were, they were the only ones allowed to mingle so freely with foreigners – or whether he should ascribe it to the evisceration of his heart and his sex drive by his recent messy divorce. Then again, it could simply be the alcohol. Isn't that why people drank, after all? To take the edge off? To dull sensation? Yes, better to go with that; then at least the vodka was good for something. With savage satisfaction he determined that he would have another in celebration as soon as his business with Connie was concluded. The Russian pressed closer to him and he suppressed a sigh; would this bloody song never end?

It was then that he became aware of the young woman in his peripheral vision. She stood against the wall, loosely attached to the group of people he'd earlier identified as Swiss embassy staff. He swivelled his head slightly to bring her into better focus, and it took him a few seconds to identify the reason she had attracted his interest. It was her vaguely uncomfortable expression, her sense of isolation. She was part of the group and yet somehow alone, and he stared at her, fascinated. A kindred spirit? The disco lights revealed her to him in coloured staccato images, as though she had been caught on a film reel that was running at the wrong speed. Dark hair, pale face, petite build. Shy smile, good legs. Nice breasts. She lifted a hand and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the gesture somehow endearingly awkward, and he was blindsided by a jolt of yearning so potent it made him catch his breath. He looked away, disturbed. She had to be at least ten years younger than him, for God's sake. The ink was barely dry on his divorce papers and here he was, ogling a younger woman. Was he already becoming that most horrid of clichés – divorced at thirty-three, drinking too much, chasing after younger women? Christ. He needed that shot of vodka urgently now, but before he could act on this impulse the Russian turned back to face him and threw her arms around his neck. She said something, rubbing herself suggestively against him, and even though he did not catch any of the words over the din of the music, he had no doubt that she had just brazenly propositioned him. He pushed her away, suddenly claustrophobic. "Nyet," he said, desperate to get away, to get to the bar. She grabbed his arm and tried to hold him back, but he shook her off. "Nyet!" he reiterated more forcefully and began to fight his way through the throng. When he looked back, she was staring after him with a furious expression.

The moment he reached the bar and signalled for the bartender, Connie materialised at his elbow and smiled at him serenely. For some reason it annoyed him. He felt off-kilter and alien, as though he had no grip on the situation he found himself in. It scared him; no matter how bad things had got in his private life previously, he could always count on his assuredness as an intelligence officer. He was good at it – brilliant even, according to many, and it had kept him going through previous personal crises. If he lost that too, now, he would have nothing. He would be nothing. The bartender finally came over and he pushed his money towards the man. "Vodka." Connie ordered a gin and tonic. Intelligence officers would ordinarily stick to the local poison so as not to attract undue attention, but Connie had always refused to conform. This time he didn't mind too much: they wanted the Russians to notice her.

The bartender moved away and Harry turned his attention to the woman next to him. "You're late," he grumbled, and she threw him a shrewd look. They knew each other well – had served in Belfast together, and she was no fool.
"And you're still charming the ladies, I see," she needled.
Her remark stung, as she had known it would; she was well aware of his acrimonious divorce and that it was Jane that had left him, and not the other way round. Irritated, he yanked more notes out of his pocket and shoved it towards the bartender, who had returned with their drinks. "Better make it a bottle," he snapped, deriving perverse satisfaction from Connie's peeved expression.
She leaned into his shoulder and spoke close to his ear. "For God's sake, pull yourself together. Drinking yourself into a stupor every night is not the answer."
"No?" he retorted. "Would you rather I shag a KGB agent and whisper all our dirty little secrets in her ear?"
Whilst he spoke, she felt his feather-light touch as he dropped the microfilm into her pocket. Even half-drunk and depressed, he didn't falter when it came to the job. One had to admire that. "You know what your problem is, Harry?" she countered. "You can't just have sex for fun. It has to have meaning. You need an emotional connection to get it up." She grabbed her drink and half-turned away. Over her shoulder she added, "Lighten up. You're in Moscow. You're supposed to be obvious this time. London wants you to screw the locals, just as long as you don't actually fall in love with them and get turned."

She ambled away and he did not watch her go. He kept staring straight ahead, painfully aware of the clink the bottle made as the bartender placed it in front of him. Connie was an excellent intelligence officer, one of the best he'd ever known. Cunning, clever and ruthless, she did not shy away from the darker aspects of their work, and she was the obvious choice to be the bait for Operation Renaissance. But sometimes even he was taken aback by how much of a bitch she could be. After an eternal pause he moved, picking up the bottle and sliding it into his pocket.

As he headed to the door he glanced towards the wall, but the young woman was no longer there. Perhaps that was just as well.

0o0

He chose to walk back to the compound. All foreigners were housed in such sealed-off estates – they could not stay wherever they wanted. Furthermore, most of them were constantly watched, followed everywhere they went. On this particular operation he was pretending to be a journalist, and as soon as he left the hotel his minder fell in behind him. Tonight it was the one he had dubbed Igor because one shoulder was always higher than the other. There were three that took turns following him around, and sometimes, just for the hell of it, he would lose them, and then watch them panic and scramble around until they picked him up again. But not tonight. Tonight, he did not have the energy for pointless games. Within minutes his face was numb from the cold. It had snowed earlier and the clouds still hung low; they were in for more throughout the night. Winter in Russia was quite unlike winter anywhere else, he'd found; it seeped right into your marrow no matter how well prepared you were for it. No wonder so many Russians drank stupendous amounts of vodka – at least the fiery alcohol prevented your blood from freezing in your veins.

He walked slowly, head down, pondering. The operation seemed to be going well despite his distraction. He supposed he had Connie to thank for that. She could have reported him, his excessive drinking, but instead she had simply got on with the job at hand. She had made contact with an attractive KGB operative named Vasily Popov, and over the last few weeks had allowed him to 'turn' her. The brush-pass in the discotheque had provided her with her first 'intelligence' to provide to the Russians, so everything was on track and proceeding smoothly. Harry had no illusions over how she had hooked Popov – Connie was a good looking woman and had no scruples about using her body to lure a target to her. He could hardly point fingers; he had done the same in the past. Still, he was glad that it was someone else's turn. Unlike some of his colleagues, he derived no pleasure from seducing a target; in fact it left him feeling empty and a little grimy afterwards. Perhaps there was something to Connie's spiteful psycho-analysis, he reflected sourly. Perhaps he did need an emotional connection to enjoy sex.

He had reached the bridge over the Moskva River and stopped halfway across. The river flowed below him, dark, half-frozen and sluggish, and he leant against the icy parapet to watch it for a while. The Soviet empire was crumbling; beset by economic problems and political upheaval, General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had introduced his glasnost and perestroika programmes to try and quell the growing dissatisfaction among the masses, but instead the increased freedom had only strengthened the fault-lines. Harry had judged this to be the perfect time for Operation Renaissance – the KGB would not be unaffected by the political turmoil, and would be fighting for their survival like all the other political structures. They would be anxious for a major coup to re-establish their credentials. If they could cultivate a mole within MI-5 and regain the access they had once enjoyed to the British intelligence organisation through Kim Philby and the Cambridge Five, that would boost their bargaining power immeasurably. And as Harry knew all too well from personal experience, spies found it hard to look a gift horse in the mouth. If an opportunity presented itself to recruit a major asset, most operatives would ignore any warning bells that might be clanging in their heads – such as the nagging suspicion that the recruitment had been just a little too easy.

These thoughts took him back to the mess in Berlin two years earlier. He had suppressed such suspicions then, and even now he was still not sure whether his doubts were justified, or simply another by-product of his feelings of guilt over the whole sordid episode. A wave of self-disgust washed over him afresh. He knew unequivocally that it had been the last straw in the collapse of his marriage. Yes, there had been his infidelity with Juliet Shaw, but then again Jane was not exactly innocent in that department. They could perhaps have overcome that, if not for his inability to leave his work and its impact on him at the office. If one was almost never at home, it became even more important to really be there when you were; not only in body, but also in mind and spirit. And he had simply never managed that. Ever since his baptism of fire in Belfast and the death of Bill Crombie, his close friend and colleague, he had withdrawn emotionally from Jane and the children, frightened that he might contaminate them with the darkness he dealt with on a daily basis. So by the time Elena Gavrik had come along, he was crippled by guilt on all fronts – about deserting his children every time he went into the field, about betraying Jane by having to seduce the wife of a KGB operative, and later about actually falling for his asset, only to abandon her to the Russians when the whole edifice came down around their ears. And the boy. Sasha. He hastily suppressed that most painful of thoughts. It was only with time and distance that he came to realise that he had mistaken guilt for love with Elena, but by then it was too late to save his marriage. Jane had had enough of living with a ghost, and he couldn't blame her. She deserved better, as did Catherine and Graham. The thought of his children caused a lump to rise in his throat, and he took the bottle of vodka from his pocket and opened it. Anything to make the pain go away. He took a healthy swig, yearning for oblivion, and turned to look back at the Kremlin, starkly lit against the dark sky on the bank of the river. Lifting the bottle towards it in salute, he mumbled, "Cheers, from one crumbling wreck to another." The vodka left a fiery trail down his throat and he took another swig before he turned away and resumed his journey across the bridge, picking up his pace in the hope that he would get home before the effect of the alcohol took full hold.

He had only progressed a few metres when he noticed the woman standing on the opposite bank, and a shock of recognition surged through him. It was her, the young woman from the discotheque, and his heart-rate sped up. She was not alone, however. There was a man with her, older and distinguished looking, and as Harry watched the man grabbed hold of her and pressed himself against her. Disappointment knifed through him. Her arms lifted and he expected her to embrace the man, to kiss him, but instead she pushed against his chest ineffectually. It took a few seconds for Harry to grasp the situation, to realise that the man's attentions were unwelcome, but when he did he moved towards them swiftly.

0o0

The snow-covered pavement dampened his footsteps and they only registered his presence when he spoke. "Everything all right?" he asked in English – he was supposed to be an English reporter, after all. Their heads jerked towards him and he kept his focus on the man, and as soon as their eyes met there was mutual recognition. He quickly stepped away from the woman as Harry advanced, and out of the corner of his eye Harry saw the look of relief that flickered across her face.
"Fine," the older man said as he gave the woman a warning look, and she nodded and murmured agreement. "We work together," he added.
Harry stood his ground, his head swivelling between them, and his posture made it clear he had no intention of leaving. The other man hesitated for a few seconds more before conceding defeat. He turned away and said shortly over his shoulder, "Don't be late for the meeting tomorrow."
The woman had begun to rally. "I won't," she responded to his retreating back, and Harry did not miss the flash of anger in her eyes as she looked after him.

They stood together in silence until he was out of sight before Harry turned to her. "You're English," he asserted and she looked at him in confusion.
"I'm sorry?"
"Your accent - you're English," he repeated. "I thought you were Swiss."
Her head tilted in a wordless query and he hurried on. "I recognise the oaf. Dieter Hoffman, Cultural Secretary at the Swiss embassy."
She relaxed somewhat, but was still eyeing him warily. "Oh. Er, yes, I'm from England."
"So am I," he confided with a cheeky smile, the alcohol lessening his usual reserve, and she smiled involuntarily in return.
"Yes, so I noticed," she said dryly and turned to move away, the gesture a firm dismissal.
"Let me escort you to the compound," he said quickly, eager to spend more time with her. He didn't even know her name yet. "In case old Dieter is lurking around a corner somewhere."
She turned back and looked pointedly at the bottle of vodka in his hand. "I can look after myself, thank you," she declared, and he felt his face flush in embarrassment. But even so he refused to be put off.
"Of course you can," he responded promptly, "but that doesn't mean you should have to." She hesitated and he pushed on. "Besides, it's nice to hear the Queen's English for a change."
She smiled at that. "All right."
He beamed back at her. "Harry," he said as he stuck out his hand, "journalist."
"Ruth. Translator," she responded and briefly shook the proffered hand, and he had to resist the impulse to hold on for longer than was decorous.

They walked on, chatting, and he made sure to leave a respectable gap between them. She told him that she had been in Moscow for about a month now, working as a translator for the Swiss embassy. She was fluent in French, German and Russian and had looked for a job where she could use these skills.
"So you work for Hoffman in particular?" Harry asked, trying to simultaneously keep track of the conversation and his footing on the slippery sidewalk. Those extra swigs of vodka were unfortunately beginning to take effect.
She glanced at him and ignored the question. "How do you know him?" she asked instead, and he shrugged.
"You get to know people in the compound after a while."
That seemed to satisfy her and he was relieved; he wasn't sure he could convincingly deflect awkward questions in his current state. But all the same he wanted to warn her that Hoffman wasn't quite what he pretended to be. "Listen," he began carefully. "You should be aware that most embassy staff in Moscow play more than one role." He looked at her to check whether she grasped his meaning, and as he did so his foot slipped. Thankfully there was a wall next to him and he put out a hand to steady himself. The world swayed and he did not dare move, cursing himself, the vodka, Jane and the whole sorry mess his life had become. Ruth stopped as well and surveyed him critically, and he could not hold her gaze.
"You're drunk," she observed, and his humiliation was complete.
"Yes, I'm afraid so," he agreed forlornly. No use in denying the obvious and compounding his misery. "When in Rome and all that," he added, trying to sound flippant but failing horribly. She just looked at him, unimpressed. At least the world was stabilising again. And suddenly he wanted her to know. "I got divorced two months ago," he confessed, "and it's…difficult. I miss my children." He looked at her then, and was surprised to see compassion rather than condemnation on her face.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly and stepped forward to take his arm. They continued on, arm in arm, and he could not find the words to express his gratitude. But for the few minutes it took to reach the compound, his soul was at peace.

And perhaps that was the reason why, when they parted in front of her apartment, he blurted out: "Ruth, be careful. Dieter Hoffman is a spy."

tbc