How to Betray Your Country James Wolff (fun to read txt) 📖

around in their Yasenevo headquarters, shirtsleeves rolled up, laughing with delight at news of their latest success and toasting each other’s brilliance.

August toasts their brilliance too. It’d be churlish not to. He’s enjoying this more than he expected, now that Lawrence is getting into the swing of things.

Then there’s the matter of the German lorry driver. Or the East German lorry driver, to be exact. This was careless. If they needed to stage an accident in order to exfiltrate the defendant they should have used an agent from France or India or South Africa. Or even one from Bonn or Munich. But one from East Germany? Come on. Your Honour, this really gives the game away. Think how mortified they must have been when a vengeful August tracked their agent down, lured him to a meeting in a hotel lobby and then followed him home through the park. How close he came to uncovering the whole plot! If only he had gone through with it and given that man the thrashing of his life, he might have spilled the beans, he might have confessed to everything! One can only imagine the panic around the table when they heard of that, and the resulting scramble to recall their agent to Moscow for a routine meeting in the deepest, darkest corner of the Lubyanka, one of those meetings from which no one ever emerges…

What is she doing, just sitting there? Why won’t she look up? Why won’t she look at him? Doesn’t she know how bad this is looking for her?

It was amateurish, Your Honour, the whole operation – that is, once you begin to unpick what happened. The evidence presented today should explode once and for all the myth of Russian competence. In fact, I’m a little embarrassed for them. No wonder they chose not to turn up. One implausibility after another, the coincidences and unlikelihoods stacked precariously high. Take the defendant’s first encounter with August, for example. That she was seated next to him, an uncommonly beautiful woman of the same age engaged in an activity that positively invited collaboration. Who spends long-haul flights doing crosswords? And the way she studiously avoided fourteen across, the answer to which just happened to be the name of a writer he admired!

Is that … was that a shake of her head? It must be difficult to hear her deceit and treachery exposed in this ruthless fashion.

Now, I grant you this: she was wearing headphones and adopted a stand-offish manner, as though to deter him from conversation. This is what the defence will claim, Your Honour. They may even offer up the “male friend” she was travelling to visit, a male friend who suddenly and conveniently stopped being important to her once she had ensnared August, almost as though he had never existed. But we can all see what’s going on here, can’t we? It doesn’t require any particular expertise to understand that such crude obstacles as a pair of headphones, a frosty demeanour and a fictional boyfriend are little more than red rags to the bullish psychopathy of your typical case officer, selected and trained to exploit, manipulate and disregard social niceties in the service of their country. The truth is that the defendant might as well have jumped into his lap and thrown her arms around his neck.

She looks up, visibly distressed. She shakes her head and looks around for someone who might be on her side. But she still won’t look at him. She knows that he’s not on her side, not after what she did.

Let’s drag it all out into the light of day, Your Honour. While we’re at it. Look at the defendant and then look at August. Even putting to one side his dishevelled appearance today, it must be clear to everyone in this court that she is too good for him. Even he wouldn’t argue with that. In fact, his own statement indicates as much, that in his view she is funnier, cleverer, kinder … where’s that piece of paper? Ah, here we are. She laughs more and worries less. She gives better presents. I’m sorry, I really am, ladies and gentlemen – there’s some maudlin nonsense here. Something about enriching and enlarging his life. Solipsistic nonsense, if you ask me. I don’t know how the warning lights didn’t flash. She’ll be a wonderful mother. She is passionate about – oh yes, oh yes, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, look at this. We have a treat for you today. Lift your eyes to the dock. What a performance. As though anyone here is going to be fooled by a few crocodile tears after everything we’ve heard. And there is more, Your Honour – much more. Clerk, play the tape.

There is a pause as the clerk finds the recording and then a dusty crackle as the loudspeakers are switched on. The sound of breathing, the rustle of a page. Then her voice, saying:

— Gus, you still awake?

— Mmm. Not really.

— Listen to this. “Reading such a file you see how an informer is gradually played in, like a fish on a line, starting from the initial resolve to talk only of ‘professional concerns’ and ending up with the most private betrayal.” Is that what you do?

— Well, I suppose so, in a way. Sometimes. It’s not always like that. What are you reading?

Clerk, press pause. Your Honour, this is from a bug we planted in their bedroom. We acknowledge the privacy issues involved in playing this in open court but believe that it exposes the insidious way in which the defendant carefully dripped Russian propaganda into August’s ear over a period of time. Clerk, please continue.

— What about this? Don’t go to sleep, you big lump, this is interesting. I’ll change the names. Ready? “Here, in part 1 of the file, is August Drummond’s proposal to make contact with him, using a ‘legend’. Drummond will ring up, pretending to be from the city council. When they meet,