The time is 05:15am. Freddie Clegg and Ellie are asleep in the early morning in their flat in London.
Freddie has always had the habit of waking early, something left over from his army career. That was years ago, but habits once formed are hard to shake.
There is a soft click as the bedside clock-radio switches on. Freddie keeps the volume low, to leave Ellie undisturbed. In the soft and dreamy country between sleep and wakefulness, he hears the hypnotic recitation of the Shipping Forecast(1.):
“ … Here is the shipping forecast issued at 0505 on behalf of the Maritime and Coast Guard Agency. The general synopsis … low southern Norway 1009 losing its identity. High Biscay 1026 dissipating. New high expected Faeroes 1032 by midday tomorrow…”
The soft gentle voice of the newsreader carries Freddie back deeper into sleep as the meteorological lullaby continues through the list of the Sea Areas.
“… Viking: Northerly 5 to 7, perhaps gale 8 later in east. Moderate or rough. Fair. Good. North Utsira, Northerly or north westerly 5 to 7 perhaps gale 8 later in east. Moderate or rough. Fair. Good. South Utsira, Northerly or north westerly 6 to gale 8. Moderate or rough. Fair. Good. Fisher: North or north west 6 to gale 8. Moderate or rough, occasionally very rough. Showers. Moderate or good …”
By the time she reaches the western side of the United Kingdom, Freddie is returning to wakefulness and glad he is safe in a warm bed, on land …
“Southeast Iceland, west backing south becoming cyclonic later, 7 to gale 8 later. High or very high. Squally showers. Rain later. Poor …”
Freddie turns and snuggles close to Ellie as “the Latest Marine Observations from Coastal Stations” is read and the Inshore Waters Forecast is intoned. He dozes, serene and comfortable until, during “News Briefing,” he hears the word “Kushtia.” Kushtia is a place. Kushtia is somewhere Freddie knows well, somewhere he has worked and carried on business for several years. Kushtia is important to Freddie. Suddenly he is fully awake and listening …
“… and here is our Diplomatic Correspondent Peter Archer to set events in context …”
A different voice takes up the story …
“Kushtia is a small mountainous country nestling between Afghanistan in the south and west, Turkmenistan, Kazakstan and Uzbekistan to the north. It is a rocky, hard country and socially it is very traditional, many would say ‘backward,’ and certainly oppressive towards women. The country has never had quite the strategic importance of Afghanistan and there has not been much international pressure for change. However, the NATO invasion of Afghanistan has changed all that. In its fight against the Taliban, NATO sees socially conservative Kushtia as somewhere extremists might seek sanctuary to plan attacks on coalition forces, so NATO will be delighted to hear news that a new Kalinin has been enthroned, particularly someone who is a western-educated technocrat, someone who wishes to see Kushtia step away from its cultural backwardness and become a more modern nation state. This will not be easy but the new Kalinin is showing an astute political touch and an awareness of the political sensibilities of the nations who might provide aid and development expertise. His first act has been a declaration of his intention to put women's rights to property, freedom of movement, and political rights on the same footing as those of Kushtian men. While that has been greeted warily within the country, it opens the door to investment and the promise of increasing prosperity to many ordinary Kushtians …”
By now Freddie is wide awake and out of bed. He knows all about the situation of women in Kushtia. He has helped a good number of western women to discover the unique pleasures of life in the country. The storm is no longer safe in Sea Areas Utsira or Southeast Iceland. The gravity of events in the East have caused the storm to wheel southwards, to vent its unpleasantness upon himself and Ellie and Freddie Clegg Enterprises.
Freddie and Ellie are driving from their flat in Knightsbridge to Freddie’s office in the work-a-day east end of London.
As in all large, busy cities, driving in London can be a chore and Freddie has opted for a radical solution. He would like to cruise through the streets in a Jaguar but, in fact, he drives a small electric Smart car (2.). The parking regulations are much more benign for electric vehicles and he does not have to pay the Central London Congestion Charge(3.). In addition, in a Smart Car, he does not look like the principal of a criminal organisation and Freddie likes to be self-effacing in these matters.
As he drives, Freddie finds Ellie in a reflective mood.
“Freddie?”
“Mmmm?”
“If this upset in Kushtia had not happened, you know: no new Kalinin …”
“Yes …?”
“Well, would we still be doing this in twenty years?”
“Huh? Twenty years? How do you mean?”
“We are both in our sixties. In twenty years we will be in our eighties. New Kushtian Kalinin or not, I just cannot see us still doing this when we are in our eighties …”
“Oh … well no, I suppose not …”
“So when should retire? We're not short of money. And, quite frankly, I think we have worked hard enough for long enough. I would just like to retire. Do what I want to do, not what I have to do. Do you see?”
“Yes, I see.”
“Don't you feel it's all a tie? The continued commitment? All those girls? Worrying about how they'll turn out, where they'll end up? It's like having a family — an infinite number of daughters.”
“How does the song go? 'When you're the father of girls... you do more than that, you pray,’ isn't it?”
“Freddie, be serious. We are not immortal. There has to come a time when we harvest what we have sown.”
“That sounds a bit ominous …”
“Well all right. If you prefer, there has to come a time when we start to live. Some people live to work. Some people work to live. It is time to live. Maybe these developments in Kushtia are a sign that life has to change for us.”
“Er, yes, well, perhaps you are right; it is just that I have enjoyed what we have done. Seeing the organization grow.”
“Are we talking FCE, the bit that everyone sees – or Special Products?”
“Oh … well, both of them really. FCE was the most difficult. Special Products was the most exciting. Retiring? — that makes me think I am getting old. I don’t want to get old. Not just yet. Anyway, we can’t dispose of FCE without a lot of careful thought. And, Ellie, we can’t walk out of the Special Products Division ‘just like that.’ We are going to have to put it to bed very carefully so it does not wake up and bite us.”
“Freddie, I think I know that, but the first step is to make a decision about what we are going to do with the rest of our lives. Then we can think about the transport business and, well, the rest of it.”
“Well, FCE is a private company. We could float the business or sell out. A competitor maybe, a venture capitalist perhaps. I'm not sure about flotation with the way the Stock Exchange has been lately. Selling out to a competitor would be better. That means fewer fish in the sea and so the fish which are left have more to eat.”
“Freddie, I think we are going to have to make serious plans. Let's make the decision and deal with the slavery business first. Agreed?”
“Yes … yes, agreed. It hurts but, yes, I agree.”
By 09:30, Freddie is in the “Board Room” in an anonymous commercial building in East London. He is with Ellie, Larry, Dr Pamela Jordan and Harry. Connie, his former Head of Training has left the organization to return to Africa. Sarah, Harry’s secretary and a slave herself, would normally attend Board Meetings to take notes but, this time, she has been confined to her office.
Freddie begins. “This morning, I learned that there is a new Kalinin in Kushtia and his first act of government has been to announce very significant changes in the status of women. I learned this from BBC Radio 4 ‘News Briefing,’ so it is safe to assume that the report is reliable and now widely known internationally. I am sure I do not need to tell you that the consequences for us could be considerable.”
Harry joins in. “Freddie, my first reaction is to ask if he will get away with it? Will this initiative last? What are the Kushtian household heads going to do without their domestic — and other — help?”
“And, how long will it take for these 'freedoms,' if that's what they turn out to be, to take hold?” adds Larry, the FCE liaison with Inward Bound, their subsidiary. “Is this anything more than 'window dressing' for a new regime? Heaven knows, there have been enough of them in Kushtia before.”
“The point is,” says Ellie, “the point is that the tide of events may be running against us. The immediate situation is that we have almost certainly lost our market in Kushtia. In due course, it could be months, it could be only weeks, some of our recent ‘exports’ might get the chance to make contact with their own diplomatic people and appeal for repatriation. There is nothing to hold them. The Kushtian Authorities are no longer going to stop them leaving the country and, again in due course, they will tell their story.”
Freddie begins to speak again. “To answer your question, Harry, I think the Kalinin’s chances of getting away with it depend on whether he can bring prosperity to his people and, first and foremost, to his henchmen. Of course, it may well be that those who have taken delivery of our 'product' in the past aren't keen on this change, but they won't have quite the benign climate for their enthusiasms that they have had in the past. Further to which, the new Kalinin is going to get a lot of help from the international community — the creation of an equal society is close to the ‘liberal heart’ and, if you think for a moment about the amount of blood and treasure the Americans are spending in Afghanistan, sorting out Kushtia is going to be peanuts by comparison. Also, dollars spent there to prevent it becoming a haven for the Taliban might well sound to them like a very good investment.”
There is a moment or two of silent reflection around the table before Harry begins again:
“Freddie, Ellie, I agree that we may have lost a market, but does this really mean that the whole business is gone? When you look around London, but I suppose it is going to be the same in all major cities in the developed world, there is a small number of people who have everything, and then a lot of people who have next to nothing, and finally a group in the middle in danger of slipping backwards towards the ‘have-nots.’ The people at the top can have anything they want, have the economic clout to get it, and have the connections with the powers-that-be to hang on to it. If they want people to serve them — slaves — we can still supply. We are taking people from the bottom and supplying them to people at the top. We are just a specialized form of recruitment and employment agency. Also, the modus operandi of the business — namely, request received, researching suitable targets, reconnaissance, abduction, training and export — all that is still viable. The only thing we have to do now is merely to adjust our position in the market. Sorted!”
“Sorted? You think?” Ellie’s skepticism is obvious in her voice.
Larry picks up the conversation: “We all know times change. The world is not the place it was when I joined the company and it is definitely not the place it was when Freddie and Ellie developed the Kushtia market. Harry’s pitch is very encouraging but, from my perspective, we need a safer business model. It seems to me that the Police are beginning to take people trafficking more seriously. The Government and the Police put it about that they are working to do what is ethically right — but I am sure they are just as worried about uncontrolled immigration, destabilization of the labour market, bad press in the newspapers, things like that — but actually it does not matter why they are taking more of an interest, they just are and that is a critical operational risk for us.”
He looks around the table. “I know you have been a bit skeptical about Inward Bound but Inward Bound really does alert us to submissives who might be potential slaves. Consensual at first but later, well … who knows? And we even get them to pay us for their training! We might be looking at a new way of operating the business, but I think we will still be a going concern in the future. Barring unexpected developments, of course.”
“Freddie, this risk business,” says Harry. “I can get Sarah to look at who we exported when and who their buyers were. I can review the information to see if I can have a stab at estimating the ‘risk’ that any particular slave might pose.”
“Thank you, Harry, but I don’t think we can rely on the slaves to wake up slowly to the new situation they are in. We have to think about the western ‘advisors’. We know about the reality of 'female oppression' in Kushtia because we have made a lot of money out of it. They know about it because it offends their liberal principles. You saw the fuss when the UN tried to run that ‘cultural experience programme.’ They will be off to Kushtia to make the world a better place and to see how many oppressed women they can liberate — and that is when the stories are going to be told.”
Ellie rejoins the debate. “Harry, you are right about ‘risk,’ but let’s start here, in London and the UK. What are the local risks we have to contend with?”
Harry looks down at some notes. “Right now we are between consignments. We sent out the last ‘units’ a month ago. Now Connie’s contract is over, we have been looking for a new Head of Training anyway, so there is no one at the Warwickshire Centre. That’s empty. In London, we have got Sarah, here, and Dr Jordan, you have got Suki and Larry has that Rachel Kernow woman…”
Ellie responds. “So what are we going to do with them? Can we leave them where they are or can we put them somewhere else for safe keeping until we get a better idea of what the future will be like? We can’t pack them off to Kushtia anymore, but maybe we could maroon them in some other middle eastern country doing normal jobs — shop work and such, domestic help, anything like that — but prevented from going anywhere because their employer has confiscated their passports from them. Slaves in fact if not in law?”
“Excuse me, but I bought Suki from Larry and, even though she is still a slave, she is my slave and we are de facto partners. I do not want Suki to go anywhere, nor does she need to,” says Pam Jordan, to keep the record straight.
“OK, thanks for that, Pam. That seems to deal with Suki. Larry, are you determined to stick with Rachel?” inquires Ellie.
“Rachel is fun, but I don’t feel any sort of commitment to her. She is congenial company, but she is a slave so I am happy to think about other customers for her. What about Anatoly Kustensky?”
“Unreliable. He would always put his own interest first. We can’t rely on him to get our chestnuts out of the fire,” Freddie replies.
“What about ‘The Contessa’?” offers Harry.
“Yes … mmmm … yes, I would go to her before I would go to Kustensky,” says Freddie and continues. “Larry? You bought Suki off Steve Glennis. He has his own Island. We can sell the girls to him or at least get him to stable for the time being or until we can sell them new owners, if it comes to that — that’s excepting Suki, with respect to Pam.”
Harry nods, “I like that idea. You can do business with Steve. The only problem is getting Sarah and Rachel across the Atlantic and on into the Caribbean.”
“Unless we ship them conventionally?” adds Larry.
Pam Jordan replies: “Uncooperative patients — slaves in our context — are always more difficult and technically challenging than newly broken slaves, who are normally the sort of subjects we are freighting out. Rachel might be an easier prospect if she felt inclined to cooperate. Perhaps if Larry starts talking about going on a Caribbean holiday, plants the idea in Racheal’s mind that she might have to be in custody for several weeks, and then Larry offers to take her with him, something like that? The biggest problem is Sarah. Sarah knows a lot about the Organisation. She also knows all our names. She will need secure enslavement abroad or we are going to have to make her an employee of the business and bring her on-side.”
“Yes, Pam is right. Sarah is a much more significant issue. I like the sound of Secure Enslavement. If Steve Glennis was to agree to look after only one of our slaves here, it would have to be Sarah,” agrees Freddie.
He glances round the table and sums up the meeting: “Very well. Let's leave matters there for now. I will speak to Glennis and the Contessa. I can level with Steve, but I will merely do business with the Contessa. Harry, you see what sort of risk estimation you can make about the units already in Kushtia. Ellie and I will decide what we are going to do with the Warwickshire Centre.”
“Freddie? Do you want me to do anything about Inward Bound just now?”
“Inward Bound?” says Freddie, blinking. “I think that is the least of our problems at the moment, Larry. Just keep the Inward Bound people happy …”
(1.) The Shipping Forecast on BBC radio: a long standing tradition with its own peculiar language, this weather forecast is a fixed point in many people's day.
(2.) Smart Cars : a range of small city cars, known for their high fuel efficiency and small size.
(3.) The London Congestion Charge tries to keep pollution in the capital at a tolerable level. It only applies to motor vehicles, people suffering with a bad head cold are exempt.
2. JOHARI’S WINDOW
Joe is at his desk when his mobile rings.
The screen announces an 02 number he does not recognise.
Joe sighs. He has had a rash of marketing calls recently of the “Hi, according to our records you were involved in a road traffic accident recently. Text YES to this number to discuss applying for compensation” variety. Ironically, Joe has suffered a major trauma in his life which has left him injured, and his wife even more so, but there is no compensation on offer for these all-too-real injuries. This will probably be yet another time waster — but equally it could be related to one of the projects he is involved with. He answers the call, anyway.
“Can I speak with Joseph McEwan?”
“Yes”, says Joe with more brightness in his voice than he feels.
“Oh hi, Joe. It’s Annie Elba…”
Joe’s heart sinks. The Police Psychologist, for goodness sake. Someone he could definitely do without speaking to just at the moment. He is definitely not in the mood to have to deal with Dr Elba. Joe makes a guess that she probably wants to ask if Jenny has said anything “funny” which might give a clue to what happened during her “absence.” Absence is what they call it. Abduction, Joe has decided, is what it was. Of all the people he has had to deal with, Joe now prefers to speak with Inspector Ackroyd. His flat, slow black-country voice is a very effective antidote to the dismay and fear which stalks Joe almost every day. Reluctantly, he tries to engage with whatever it is the woman actually wants.
“Have you a minute? I thought if I called about now I would catch you at the end of the morning but before you went for lunch. Is this an OK time?”
Joe smiles at the studied casualness of Dr Elba’s patter. He hardly knows her, but she still says “Hi Joe. Is this an OK time?” Nevertheless, Dr Elba’s choice of words is disarming and Joe begins warming to her, despite his feelings of the moment.
“Er, yes, I am pretty well done. How can I help?”
“That’s actually the wrong way round. It’s more ‘how can I help you’? Can I see you in person sometime soon?”
“To talk about Jenny?”
“No. To talk about you.”
“Me?” Joe begins to feel very much more anxious now. Have the police begun to wonder if he was in some way involved in Jenny’s abduction?
“Yes. You and Jenny have both suffered a really significant psychological trauma. I know Laura Malvern is looking after Jenny and it’s probably best if she does not also look after you. It avoids a conflict of interest and Jenny will want to know that what she says to Laura can’t accidentally leak out in any session Laura has with you. Anyway, I just thought you might find it helpful if we had some time together ourselves. What do you think?”
“Isn’t there another conflict of interest here as well? Jenny doesn’t really like you. I don’t want to feel I am some sort of informer — well obviously I don’t — so what about the things I might say to you? Where would they go?”
“I think if you have any information about Jenny’s time away, you should tell it to Brian Ackroyd. I was just thinking about you. Why don’t you think things over and let me know?”
Joe sighs. The feeling of fatigue begins to build inside him again, yet here was an offer of help …
“OK. Let’s meet. But where? I do not think the house would be good. I don’t really want to see you here at the office …”
“The house? The office? No way, but I could find some neutral ground in Coventry. Would that work?”
“Neutral ground sounds like a building site.”
“I was thinking about a redevelopment site. A friend of mine works at the Cathedral. I could borrow a room. It’s easy to get to. What do you think?”
On the night of 14 November 1940, the Luftwaffe razed Coventry almost completely to rubble, destroying 4,300 homes, two-thirds of the other buildings, and leaving the city centre in ruins. Amongst the buildings lost was the sublime Gothic Cathedral of St Michael. In the years after the war, the building was replaced by the flashy and confident architect Basil Spence, and the new cathedral has become something of a symbol of regeneration and reconciliation (1.) (2.).
Joe plays with these ideas in his mind as he approaches the building, the gaunt and blackened skeleton of the old cathedral standing in attendance to one side.
Joe feels no desire for “reconciliation” with Jenny’s abductors. He would like to feel that he was reconciled with his wife and there was no doubt at all concerning the need to see regeneration in their relationship. Perhaps, he thinks, Dr Elba has chosen a suitable venue for their meeting after all?
She is standing in front of the main door. She does not disappoint his first memory of her. She is wearing a black leather biker jacket with a bright blue scarf at the neck. She wears blue denim jeans which end far enough above her ankles to show a pair of bright blue-and-white striped socks disappearing into a pair of cherry red Doc Martens shoes, the red of the uppers set off by the yellow stitching joining the uppers to the dark brown soles.
Despite himself, Joe feels a thrill of sexual interest in her — and then feels a stab of guilt about wanting a woman who was not his wife and wanting that other woman here, of all places.
Dr Elba sees Joe, smiles broadly, and walks up to him, shaking his hand. Joe’s hand is cold and rough. Annie Elba’s hand is warm and soft.
“You need coffee — and cake,” she says. “Let’s eat before we talk. There is a branch of Starbucks over in Broadgate.”
The short walk through the city centre and the conviviality of Starbucks warms Joe both physically and emotionally. Now, sitting with Annie in a small quiet room in the Cathedral, he feels much more relaxed and ready to talk. This is probably one of the techniques used by psychologists, he thinks, to help their clients open up. He has to admit that the technique clearly works. He also wonders if this is one of the ways Jenny’s abductors wormed themselves into her mind and her affection? Did she ever sit with one of her abductors, drinking coffee?
Joe begins. “So, why the interest in me?”
“I am still attached to the case, as you might say. I am also a psychologist.
“You are a victim of crime — well, we are not exactly sure, but it’s a fair guess. Jenny is getting looked after by Laura Malvern, so I thought I should look after you.”
“I am paying for Jennifer’s care — and I am glad to pay, but how much are you going to be?”
“Ah, well, you are part of the investigation so I am being paid for by the ‘Met’.”
“So, is this an interrogation then?”
“No, it’s really not. I just wanted to see if you are OK and I thought it was part of my duty of care to touch base with you, to see how you are getting on, to talk a bit about how it’s been with you and Jenny, and to give you some advice on how you should deal with some of the things she might say or do. If it looks as if you are going to need more extensive counseling yourself, I will point you to someone here who could look after you, but not Laura Malvern, for reasons we both know.”
“Were you in Coventry anyway?”
“No, I came up specially to see you when you agreed to meet me.”
“Ah.”
“So, what’s it been like?”
“Odd.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t really know where to begin.”
“Mmmm?
“If I say things, do you have to report everything to Inspector Grantby?”
“If Jenny was planning to rob the Bank of England, I‘m sure Chief Inspector Grantby would be interested to hear all about it, but surely we are not talking about that sort of thing, are we?”
“Jenny attacked — sexually attacked — her friend.”
Annie Elba visibly winces. “Oh, now that is serious. You had better tell me about that.”
“It was just before Jenny began to see Laura Malvern …”
“Before we go on, has she done anything similar since she has been seeing Laura?”
“No, not at all.”
“Does Laura know?”
“I am not exactly sure. Jenny and Laura meet on their own.”
“Oh … well, Joseph, I did not expect to be in so deep, so soon. I think you should tell Laura — or I could, if you would prefer?”
“Can I tell you what happened, first?”
“Yes, please …”
“Jenny had gone back to work to see their Human Resources people and had a pretty unpleasant encounter with her Professor. You know Jenny’s friend, Cathy Corbin. had identified some academic work Jenny had done here before she disappeared, written up in a foreign journal after she went away?”
“Yes, I had heard that.”
“I think Professor Dawney accused Jenny of deliberately giving data away to the Professor’s foreign competitors. Anyway, Jenny went to see Cathy afterwards, to recover from the verbal attack she had suffered at the hands of the Prof, and Cathy asked too many questions. The result was that Jenny had a major flashback and tried to rape Cathy. Cathy told me that she thought Jenny was doing some of the things she must have been forced to do or was expected to do when she was away.”
“So how on earth did matters end?”
“Cathy managed to talk Jenny down. Told her to stop and she stopped. Like an automaton.”
“She has been all right since? She has not behaved like this to anyone else?”
“No. Jenny has not been back at work. She stays at home till I get back. She goes to see Laura Malvern — well, I take her.
“The only other thing was when she came to Birmingham with me. I had a meeting at Aston University and Jenny went to the shops. She got lost …”
“Anyone could get lost in Birmingham …”
“I know, but she called her abductors to ask for help, not me. I was so … so … well, I didn’t know what to think.”
“Mmm, I heard about that, too. Strange foreign women ringing you up and giving you orders …”
“Yes. Not very nice, really.”
“No. Not nice at all.”
Dr Elba looks carefully at Joe and says:
“Are you afraid of Jenny, now she has attacked her friend?”
“Afraid?”
“Yes. Afraid she might do the same to you?”
Joe sits back in his chair and takes a deep breath. It had not occurred to him to be afraid of his wife. Should he be? Although she was a woman she was now an Amazon of a woman. He had seen her at the Gym. He had seen her lift weights easily that he struggled to lift at all. When he thought about it, she could most likely overpower him in a fight, or in a rape … “
“Do you know”, says Joe, “I have spent two years longing to be back with Jenny that it never occurred to me that I should be afraid of her. Cathy – that’s the girl Jenny raped – said she did not think I was in any danger but just to get professional help for her, to keep Jenny calm and to keep her away from people she could not handle, like Professor Dawney. What you are asking me to think about is if I have I got back the girl I lost? That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is. Jenny will be deeply marked by her experiences. That will make her a different person. And you are different, too. In due course, you might need counseling as a couple if you find your relationship is becoming difficult.”
“Do you think I should be afraid of Jenny?”
“No, I don’t but I just wanted to know if you yourself had concerns and plant the idea that you have both changed, that you will never get back to exactly where you were before and for some couples it proves difficult to the point of impossible to go on in life together. You two might need other help. Do not be afraid to ask for it. Ask me or ask Laura Malvern and we will make the best arrangements we can but both of you would have to want help. You can’t have counseling for someone else or on someone else’s behalf. If you need relationship counseling, both of you have to want it.”
“Let's change the subject,” Annie Elba continues, “So what’s it like at home?”
“It’s like being married to one of the Stepford Wives (3.). Jenny is obsessed with cleaning. All the tins and packets in the cupboards are aligned. The house is immaculate. You could eat your dinner off the kitchen floor. All our clothes and the sheets and towels are perfectly organized in the drawers. When Jenny and I go to the supermarket, she has me buy … I suppose you would call it ‘athlete’s food.’ Salad. Vegetables. Fish. Lean meat …”
“So, no burgers?”
“Absolutely no burgers. No cake or sweet stuff, either. Porridge for breakfast. Only rye bread. Fruit — well, berries, but no sugary fruit like grapes — and we mostly drink black tea and water and hardly ever any wine and she always wants us to be in bed for half past nine in the evening.”
“Did she …”
“Buy this sort of stuff before? No. We bought ‘normal’ things. I mean, I suppose this is very good for me — for us — but it is very different to what we did before and now she will not vary from it. I just feel someone else has taken over our lives and is dictating how we live. Even down to how we clean our teeth.”
“Clean your teeth?”
“Yes: I was not doing it correctly, apparently. Jenny practically stands over me to check I have done it right.”
“Not literally?”
“Well, no, not quite literally, but it feels like that some times. The thing is, what she wants to do, what she does, what she wants me to do is, on one level, obviously the right thing to do …”
“Technically?”
“Yes, technically.”
“Like cleaning your teeth correctly?”
“Yes, that sort of thing. Right food. Right way of living. I don’t mind doing it but I want to feel that we are doing it because we want to do if for ourselves. I don’t want to always have the feeling that I am following orders given to Jenny by someone else!”
“So, if you do things which are technically correct, you always feel that you are doing what other people — certain other people — want? Wow, Joseph! That is some carry on … !”
“So, how long were you married before Jenny disappeared?”
“Three years.”
“So you were still getting to know each other?”
“That’s right, and the way things were going, I was beginning to think that Jenny was seriously different to the girl I thought she was.”
“Oh?”
“She had a much better sexual imagination than I had. Whilst I wanted to care for her and to be the best husband I could be, she wanted me to be some sort of Dom with her as sub.”
“Did you play a lot?”
“No, we did not play domination and submission games at all. I felt it really was not my thing.”
“Oh?”
“My Dad was very domineering towards my own mother and I did not want to be like him.”
“Joseph, there is a serious difference between ‘domineering behaviour’ and being a sexual Dominant. Domineering is destructive. Being a sexual Dominant should be a game. Amateur dramatics. A role you play and put aside. After all, you would not expect Lee Marvin, for example, to behave in life as he does in films?”
“Well, no, I suppose not. Anyway, after Jenny vanished, I went to look for the girl I had married in the things she had done.”
“Really?”
“I went to Inward Bound, went to a local Munch, and then to a fetish party, and I actually did a session with a Dominatrix — well, more than one.”
“Wow! You would not be the Dominant there? How did you decide who to go to?”
“It was someone who worked at Inward Bound, so I thought she would be ‘safe’ or as safe as these people ever are.”
“Sure … so how was it?”
“It was brilliant. Totally brilliant. Well, I suppose I really mean she, the Domme, was brilliant and I really enjoyed myself.”
“So now, you have a wife behaving like a slave — or so it sounds — and you personally actually enjoy being the submissive?”
“Yes, that is about it.”
“Hmmm …” Dr Elba pauses for several moments, as if she is carefully weighing what Joe has said, and then she says:
“Joseph, I would like to move the discussion on a bit and mention one or two things I think you might need to know.
“On the one hand, people are not like a pat of butter — exactly the same all the way through and in any way you slice them.”
“Well, I think I know that.”
“Maybe you think you do, but lots of people are surprised when their spouse turns out to be like a labyrinth of different rooms. When they get to look inside, some you like, some surprise you, and some you find difficult.
“As Jenny recovers, she will have to revisit some of these rooms and try to deal with what is inside. She will be able to invite you into some of the rooms easily. Some she will want you to stand close by when she opens the door. Some she will not want to open in your presence or she will be able to open them to other people but not to you. It does not mean she does not trust you or does not like you, but you do need to be patient and let her work things through at her pace.”
Joe sighs and sits quietly, digesting Dr Elba’s geographic view of the world.
She picks up her thread once more:
“In the nineteen fifties, there were a couple of American psychologists who described something they called Johari’s Window (4.). The name comes from mashing their first names together. Joseph plus Harry makes ‘Johari.’ Think of a square and divide it into four. Like the windows little children draw when they draw a house.
“In one square, you have the things you know and the things other people know about you. This is called the ‘Arena.’ In the second square, you have all the things you know, but other people don’t know. This is called the ‘Façade’ — it’s not surprising why it is called that! In the third square, you have things you do not know about yourself but everyone else knows and this is called ‘The Blind Spot.’ Finally, in the fourth window, there are things which you do not know about yourself and nobody else knows either and this is the mysterious ‘Unknown Area.’
“I think that the people who had control of Jenny were very aware of what was in her Blind Spot, could see behind her Façade and worked hard to place ideas into the Unknown Area where they could sit, secretly exerting control.
“A more up to date picture would be a computer virus controlling your computer in the background but otherwise leaving no trace.”
Joe, the engineer always ‘at home’ with technicalities interrupts. “Computer viruses always leave a trace at least to a trained expert. You need to find a different analogy.”
“I am sure that’s right, Joe,” replies Annie patiently, “but I am only giving you an analogy, painting a picture to describe what is happening to Jenny using ideas you might have come across before in more familiar contexts. Analogies are not often completely perfect … Anyway, the point is that the window panes change size. There is a lot Jenny might not want to appear in the Arena and other things which sit behind the Façade which she does not want to explore with you, because she does not know if you will still love her, or even like her when they come to light …
“My advice is to be patient and then gentle as she increases the size of the Arena and reduces the size of the Façade.”
At home, in the quiet of the late evening, Joseph and Jennifer are in bed. They have gone to bed early as Jenny now prefers. Jenny usually falls asleep quickly, tired after her housework during the day, but not tonight. Neither of them sleeps.
Joe is worried that, in some way, Jenny knows that he has been speaking to Annie Elba. Has he called out her name as he sleeps? But he has not been asleep and there are dozens of legitimate reasons for him to be late home from work, apart from the real reason: his assignation (for so it feels) with Annie Elba in Coventry Cathedral. Joe realizes that he is being completely irrational but he still feels that, somehow, Jenny just knows.
Vyera is thinking about the man she has been sent to be with tonight. She knows him and yet he is strangely unfamiliar. Tomorrow, she will feel as if she is a different person. The day-time person, Jennifer, is difficult. She has to make decisions, take initiatives, speak to unfamiliar people. As Jennifer becomes tired during the day, it is easier to be Vyera, the person she was trained to be, the person she is now. Vyera is a comforting person to be. She does not have to make decisions, she only has to do what she has been trained to do. Nice things happen to her when she just does.
Without warning, Vyera sweeps the duvet off the bed! She places a hand firmly on the man’s chest to pin him down until, a moment later, she has straddled his chest, her head and hands towards his genitals, her feet on each side of his body, pointing to his head. Jenny’s strong hand grips his testicles, forcing them to the bottom of his sac. She stretches out to lick! Her tongue travels from her hand, up over his taut sack and on up to the tip of his shaft. He has become erect, which is nice. It is a sign she is performing well.
Neena, her supervisor, will be pleased. “Vyera: sluts are made, not born,” Neena says and Vyera wants to be a good slut just as she wants to be a good slave, to please her supervisor and to make her Owners proud of her. Like a good slut, she takes the head of the man’s cock into her mouth and begins to rub with her tongue. Around the corona, over the glans, into the urethra and, finally, to pop her tongue stud into and out of his urethra, again and again and again.
Joe is just beginning his journey towards sleep when Vyera’s attack comes. The sensation is alarming because it is sudden and it is unexpected but also erotic. From Joe’s perspective, Jennifer the Predator has pounced upon her prey.
He feels her swallow the head of his cock into her mouth, swirl her tongue across the head, rub her teeth up and down over the sensitive ridge on each side of the frenum attachment, and then the sensation of her tongue tip playing with the lateral edges of his corona.
Joe’s breathing becomes quicker. He feels a tickling sensation behind his knees. The more Jennifer works on him, the more tender his cock head becomes. All the while, she keeps tight hold of his balls, squeezing them, stretching them. Finally, the cocktail of sensation becomes too much, the squeezing, the rubbing with her teeth, the ticking with her tongue and, in a moment, he has ejaculated, long and hard, right into her mouth.
Vyera can feel the tightening of his testicles as the man’s orgasm approaches. She relaxes her grip just enough to let his balls retract, before ejaculation. She maintains the momentum of her assault on his cock — and suddenly feels the hot musky salty taste as ribbons of squidgy semen begin to fill her mouth.
Vyera is pleased! She has made him come. Like a good slut, she will swallow every drop — and then have some fun of her own! She has noticed that a boy will become very sensitive in the moments immediately after ejaculation. How they squeal and buck when she sucks the last of the cum from their cock, and gives the head a farewell rub with her tongue. Tonight’s man is no different. How he gasps and squeals! Well, that is just too bad, because a slut knows how to clean up carefully and thoroughly and Vyera wants to be — has already become — a very good slut.
Jennifer lets him go! She lets his cock loose from her maw. She releases his body and cuddles next to him. She asks, “Was I OK?”
Joe says, “OK? For goodness sake, Jenny! I hope I am as good for you when it is my turn?”
Jenny pats Joe on his shoulder. ‘Well, perhaps you can try tomorrow, I am so sleepy now … By the way, I think you should keep pubic hair off your equipment? Let me shave you, or better still, have yourself waxed. Let me see if I can find somewhere in Coventry or Warwick for you to go. Then you will be smooth, like me, and I could perform even better on you. Will you?”
“Get waxed?”
“Yes, it’s just a small thing.”
“But, I have never been waxed before. Do men do it?”
“Of course they do, but, even if they don’t often do it here, I would like you waxed all the same …”
Joe embraces Jenny and cuddles her close. “It’s late,” he says, “let’s sleep.”
Jenny smiles and says, “Yes … let’s.”
Vyera notices that the man has not said “no” to being waxed. If the man does not say “no” he must mean “yes?” Tomorrow she would see if she is able to make arrangements …
(1.) Coventry : On the night of November 14th 1940, the Luftwaffe attacked Coventry. The bombing of Coventry was seen as the biggest test of British resolve up to that stage of the Blitz. Over 400 bombers attacked Coventry that night destroying the medievakl cathedral and much of the city centre.
(2.) Sir Basil Spence and Coventry Cathedral : Sir Basil Spence is most famously associated with his modern design for the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral following its destruction by bombing during the Second World War. Building commenced for his competition-winning programme in 1955, and by the time the new cathedral was consecrated in 1962 it had become an international symbol of regeneration and reconciliation.
(3.) The Stepford Wives: Ira Lewin's book Is a satirical comedy thriller novel in which a young mother comes to live in the idyllic Connecticut town of Stepford where all the homes of those they meet are immaculate and the wives docile and submissive, but are the women really robots?. Filmed in 1975 by Brian Forbes and again in 2004 by Frank Oz. Bryan Forbes 1975 movie is great but stay away from the 2004 film!
(4.) Johari’s Window: a tool for visualising character in four possible areas. The name comes from a contraction of the forenames of the tool's creators (Joseph Luft & Harrington Ingham)
Eva Smith is a Case Officer working for MI6, now officially referred to as The Secret Intelligence Service, the part of the British government security apparatus which collects secret information from abroad to further the welfare and safety of the United Kingdom and its citizens. (1)
Eva works under the supervision of the Director of Operations and her present task is to provide further information to assist enquiries begun by the Metropolitan Police and her colleagues at MI5, officially ‘The Security Service’ and that part of the security apparatus concerned with internal security. It is also the part which works most closely on a day to day basis with the police. She is to verify the information found first by the police concerning Anna Semyonovna Tereshkova and then to look into the academic career of a Vyera Anatolyevna Kuznetsova, both targets in Moscow.
According to the Police, Anna Tereshkova is a young woman who came to the UK in 2009 for a weekend with friends and left aboard a private aircraft belonging to Anatoly Kustensky after she had suffered a riding accident, except the Police are not entirely happy with the events surrounding her departure and they wish to have more information about her, to see if what she says about herself is really true.
Vyera Kuznetsova is an academic and junior author of a research article in a Russian academic psychology journal, but is there anything more to be found out about her? Her home address, her friends and family? Other articles she has written? Her personal history?
Eva has access to the relevant SIS archives to give her any available background information on her targets and she can access records of any signals intelligence, the mobile phone and email traffic from her targets if any has been intercepted by GCHQ, (2) the third arm of the British Security Services which works on signals intelligence. The organisation evolved from The Government Code and Cipher School which during the Second World War, undertook an ambitious radio eves-dropping operation to monitor German military signals traffic. In due course, the Organisation built and operated the world’s first electronic computer to routinely break the German Enigma codes and read the enemy signals traffic.
There was a time — quite recently — when much of this had to be gathered by MI6 agents working abroad, in the field, often at considerable personal risk. Nowadays, since the birth and spread of the Internet, Eva never fails to be impressed by how much foreign intelligence can be had from a few hours spent carefully, in the safety of an office, in London.
The job is rather like radio astronomy: searching for meaning in a stream of data transmitted by distant galaxies in the sky and the task in front of her at the moment is a classic example.
Eva Smith is particularly well placed to conduct this investigation because she has an intimacy and familiarity with Russia and Ukraine, from childhood. Eva’s father, Maksym came to the United Kingdom after the World War as a Ukrainian Refugee: a refugee from war and a refugee from the Stalin Terror. He sought safety, security and as far as possible, prosperity. His efforts met with success and now his youngest daughter works to defend the country he made his own. She is in fact Evgenia Maksymovna Babayeva, as he likes to remind her but now she shelters behind her married name: Eva Smith
Eva Smith starts with Anna. Anna has an active Facebook page which links to friends, stories of her adventures, lists of her likes and dislikes, tastes in music and hobbies. There are photographs which clearly show who she is and, along with the rest of the pages, suggest a very personable, attractive, self-confident and lively young woman. The Page talks about her hobbies, where in Moscow she goes horse riding and about the gymnasium she visits.
There is mention of the Hospital Institution where she works — Eva finds the hospital website easily on Google and verifies a picture of Anna apparently going to work at the institution, after saying farewell to friends, corresponds to a picture of the institution posted on Google Street View.
There are stories about her adventures on holiday. One of these is of great interest to Eva and her colleagues at the Metropolitan Police: the account of an ill-fated long weekend in London when Anna suffered an accident and had to be flown home.
As she explores the Facebook page, Eva is struck by how easy it is to learn about Anna, how the pages are clearly laid out and written in easy Russian for any casual visitor to see. It is surprising just how much people are prepared to reveal about themselves nowadays on social media — but there is another possibility. The page clearly verifies Anna as a real person and establishes particular facts in her recent history. Is this innocent, or perhaps created by very careful and artful design?
Eva now turns to Vyera Anatolyevna Kuznetsova and begins with her academic career. She decides to probe more carefully, anxious not to draw attention to her investigation. She finds a more local site, looks for the most appropriate telephone number and dials …
“Royal Society of Medicine?” says a voice. (3)
“Library, please.”
“RSM Library ... , ” says another voice.
“I would like to undertake a literature search on publications by a Russian author called Vyera Anatolyevna Kuznetsova. The only reference I have for her is in a Russian psychological publication called Psychological Letters earlier this year. The authors were II Mendeleyev, JV Romanova and VA Kuznetsova. The authors work at Moscow State University, according to the article. Would you be able to help?”
“I can certainly give it a try. Are you a member, may I ask?”
“Yes, of course ... ”
Eva supplies the details of a colleague who is an MI6 officer and a doctor and a member of the Society. She gives the librarian an “innocent” email address for the reply.
“Is there anything else?”
“Well yes, actually. VA Kuznetsova has a PhD according to the article I mentioned and I just wondered if there is further information about the degree anywhere?”
“If the academic work done for the degree has been published, the result will come up in the Publications in Medicine database or in a thing called Medline, which is the National Library of Medicine database. This is the American National Library of Medicine we are talking about, but they try to list every single medical publication in the world which comes to their attention. Beyond that, you could always try looking up the Faculty of Psychology, Moscow State University on Google or see if you can reach the catalogue of the university library on line. I guess you might need a native Russian speaker to help you there and unfortunately we do not have a member of staff who speaks Russian — at least, not at the moment.”
Russian interpretation is not a difficult hurdle for Eva Smith, who of course grew up as Evgenia Maksymovna Babayeva but she keeps carefully in-role as an interested doctor and merely says, "Well, thank you so much for what you have been able to do already — oh, but actually there is one other idea. If I can find a Russian-speaking colleague, I suppose I could read VA Kuznetsova's actual thesis. Can you get a thesis from a foreign university on an inter-library loan?”
“Well ... er ... theoretically yes, but in practice it is not exactly straight-forward. The library copy may be the only copy an institution has for general perusal, so they are usually reluctant to lend to other institutions. The fear is that they might not get it back. However, nowadays a thesis is written as an electronic document. It is difficult to imagine why anyone would want to write in hard copy. So the author of the thesis may have a copy they could send by email — or you could always ask permission to read it in the library in Moscow and visit in person, I suppose?"
“Ah ... Moscow is not terribly convenient if you live in London. I see that the article gives an address for correspondence so perhaps I can email the senior author and ask if they could forward my email to Dr Kuznetsova? Anyway, thank you once again for all your advice. This has been really useful.”
“Please, do not mention it. It is our job. I should be back to you soon with the results of the Medline and PubMed searches. Let me just confirm your email address ... ”
Eva pauses for thought. A direct approach to the senior author would show that someone was interested in the work published. To II Mendeleyev, the senior author, an unexpected interest in the third author on the paper would be odd — and provide a warning, which the Archivist is very keen to avoid.
She finds the main site for Moscow State University and begins to explore. (4) The “virtual tour” is outstanding, showing flamboyant if rather over-powering “Stalin-esque” wedding-cake buildings in lots of panoramic shots all taken on sunny days to show the University at its most attractive.
The site map directs her to the Faculty of Psychology page and this is rather sober compared to the glories of the Virtual Tour. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive list of staff, although the Dean is mentioned in person and his email address is quoted.
She clicks the link to the University Library. This page has to be read in Russian, and although she is a Russian speaker, she calls another colleague, to have a second pair of eyes on the problem. The two of them carefully search the library pages, but fail to locate a list of theses. They also fail to find VA Kuznetsova in the library’s catalogue index, searched in case Kuznetsova's thesis had been catalogued in its own right.
Was this surprising? If VA Kuznetsova is a recent graduate and the academic paper she had helped to write was taken from the data collected as part of her PhD research (the title of the article in question referred to “A Strategy For Investigation,” after all) the Library might merely be in the process of entering the details in their catalogue but it was disappointing to find no reference to her at all.
When the return email from the Librarian at the Royal Society of Medicine arrives, there is only one result: the article Eva already has in her hands. This adds to her impression that VA Kuznetsova is a young researcher (already implied because she is the third and most junior author). Perhaps this article represents her first serious academic publication?
What about the telephone book and Facebook? Has Vyera Kuznetsova the same energetic social life as Anna Tereshkova? It might be expected in one who is researching BDSM Play Behaviour? Eva smiles at what some of the research might have entailed. Entertaining, even if merely making observations?
She begins by entering “Moscow telephone directory online” into Google and finds a site called SpravkaRU.ru She puts Kuznetsova V A and Moscow into the search bar. There are 225 residential numbers listed. The link to yandex.ru, the popular Russian search engine, offers 670 references to people called VA Kuznetsova in the first 67 pages of results with every sign of many more pages still available.
Young people enjoy Facebook. Does she have a Facebook page?
She launches Facebook under an alias and enters VA Kuznetsova. None of the entries has any information which would correspond to a young research psychologist at Moscow State University. Researching Adult Play Behaviour and BDSM Games had to be one of the more racy topics for investigation. Was it the sort of topic that a ‘shrinking violet’ whose social horizon did not even extend to a Facebook page would be able to handle? It seemed unlikely.
Despite her very best efforts, Eva cannot find any further trace of the enigmatic Vyera Anatolyevna Kuznetsova .....
Stuart Rawlins opens a secure email from MI6 in London and scans the contents. He is one of the MI6 officers attached to the British Embassy in Moscow. He is asked to verify that Anna Semyonovna Tereshkova lives at the address associated with her on her Facebook page, to verify that she goes to work at a private hospital in the city, and to verify that she pursues her equestrian interests at the Izmaylovo Club, near the Izmaylovsky Park (5)
Everything so far is easy and can be accomplished with some careful long-range photography, but the final paragraph of instructions is much more challenging to his ingenuity. Could Anna be engaged in conversation and some discreet questions asked about a short weekend she had enjoyed in London in 2009?
“Ah ...”
Stuart checks the accompanying information about Anna once again.
The information to be had from her Facebook page is innocuous to say the least but not completely. Take the hospital where the girl works. This is not just any private clinic. This is the clinic which looks after the rich and powerful, so Anna is almost definitely a ‘somebody’ in her chosen profession and perhaps in other places, too. If the benign contents of her Facebook page are a clever cover for some underhand work Anna is involved in, it is likely — certain — that she would be more than capable of telling the same story if asked some casual questions, questions which would alert her to the idea that she had come under scrutiny in Britain. He reads through the background briefing once again.
“Enquiries at the request of the Met” ... well, that explains some of the naïveté of the request to ‘question’ Ms Tereshkova. Some over-anxious London police officer wanting to tie up loose ends, no doubt. Stuart sighs once more. What should he do? The surveillance tasks could be accomplished discreetly and effectively. The interrogation was another matter entirely. He could flatly refuse this part of the request. Yet, was there a way? Someone would need to happen across Anna in casual non-threatening circumstances when her guard is down — if ever it is. Who might be suitable?
He goes through the list of his colleagues. The issue he faces day-to-day is always how to keep them away from the attention of the FSB. But, what if he sent someone who would be returning to the UK soon, in any case? What about ... what about Martha?
Anna Tereshkova is a creature of habit. It is amongst the information about Anna that Stuart Rawlins’s colleagues have discreetly and successfully collected and now the MI6 surveillance is in its final phase. It is 19:30 on Friday evening and if Anna keeps to her routine she will go jogging, snaking through the streets near her flat in Lyalin Pere’ulok towards the Bulvar, the circular road which carries traffic around central Moscow and provides, between the clockwise and counter-clockwise carriageways, gardens for Muscovites to explore and enjoy in the summer and autumn evenings.
Beginning at the southern end, Anna will follow the gardens northwards before turning east and reaching her flat from the opposite end of the street — except today things will be different, because today she will have unexpected company.
Martha Holmes emerges from Kity Gorad Metro at the entrance on Varvar’ski’ye Vorota Square and treads a course southeast, along Ulitsa Solyanka, Pod’kolo’kolni'yy Pere’ulok to meet Anna head-on as Anna emerges from Ulitsa Vorontsovo Polye before the two of them turn northwards along Pokrovsky Bulvar. By the time Martha draws alongside Anna, Martha calculates she will be warmed up and actually look like a runner. In this way, she hopes to disarm Anna and make it easier to initiate conversation.
Anna is running to time — quite literally. As she rounds the corner and runs past the Higher School of Economics Building, Martha can cross the main road at the pedestrian crossing, taking care as she crosses the tram line and turns sharp left, to discreetly fall in behind Anna.
Martha has seen photographs of Anna but this is the first time she has seen her in the flesh, so to speak. She is about 5 foot 10 inches, slim but quite muscular. Her skin has a healthy tan and she sports a short spiky crop of hair which is the white blond colour Russian women seem particularly fond of. She wears white asics running shoes, white ankle socks, blue lycra shorts and a red T bar running vest which shows off her shoulders. She reminds Martha of an upside-down version of the Russian flag with her head as a white topped flagstaff. Anna has also found her pace which is graceful, flowing and just a shade faster than Martha would like.
Just beyond Dura'sovski'y, a street joining from the right, there is an entrance into the gardens and both runners turn left using the pedestrian crossing and turn sharp right to continue their run in the relative quiet of the gardens as the traffic rumbles on either side of them beyond the trees. By now Martha has edged alongside. She makes a conscious effort to steady her breathing …
“Hi, …”
“Huh?”
“I'm Martha. You?”
“Me? Anna. Good to meet you.”
“Aha.”
“You live near here?”
“Yes. You?”
“No. I live elsewhere. Exploring. The Bulvar is lovely.”
“Yes, very lovely. In winter, often icy.”
“In winter? In winter, I run at the gym.”
“Me too, but sometimes if weather dry …”
“Aha. Sokolniki Park is a very good place to run.”
“Yes, I like Sokolniki. You, you are not Russian?”
“No, I am British. Big accent, huh?”
“Ha! No, you speak very well. How many years in Moscow?”
“Five, but I go home soon.”
“Oh. Sad. I always live in Moscow. Turn right now.”
“What? Oh … Moscow: many changes?”
“Yes, many.”
“I am an administrator. You?”
“I am a nurse. I work at Polyklinik.”
“Aha.”
By now, Anna has had the opportunity to look at Martha. She sees a very personable Afro-Caribbean girl with a pale brown skin and hair neatly tied back. Martha has a tiny gold stud in the side of her nose and cheeky sparkling eyes. Anna likes what she sees very much …
“You live in London?”
“Yes, but family live in Barnstaple.”
“Bar-n-stap-yel? That is a funny word! Where is Bar-n-sta-pel?”
“South ... West ... England.”
“Oh ...”
“You ever visit UK? London?”
Gradually Anna has increased the pace and Martha is forced to work much more than she is comfortable with just to stay alongside Anna. As their rate of physical work increases, the flow of the conversation begins to suffer.
“London? Yes, two-oh-oh-nine. Autumn. Visit friends. Near Windsor. Windsor castle. Queen and Royal Wedding! William and Kate! Kate very beautiful. And dresses beautiful also. Alexander McQueen dress? Hmmm tasty! Sister of Kate … Philippa? was ‘Rear of the Year’, yes? I turn right here …”
“What? Oh … er … yes, I think so.”
“Careful: traffic on the road …”
“Yes, Queen sometimes lives Windsor Castle. You visit castle?”
“No … well, was plan … but I ride horse. I fall. Injure back. Go hospital in London then plane home. Friends have business friend. He has plane. Private jet. Very nice!”
“Ah … oh … sorry to hear that … you OK now?”
“Now? Yes, I am OK. I can ride horse again. We turn here … You?”
“Tired!”
“Yes. Me, too. And here is my flat ...”
Both runners come to a halt and stand for several moments breathing off the effects of the last two kilometres. For several moments, breathing takes precedence over conversation. Judiciously, Anna picks up the initiative before Martha has fully recovered.
"Would you like some water? Coffee? Orange juice?”
“Er … oh … er …”
“You are tired. Thirsty. Me, too. Come on …”
“Ah … er … OK. Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.
Martha and Anna climb the stair to Anna’s flat. The entrance hall is disappointing. The carefully crafted detail of the graceful wrought-iron bannister has been submerged under layers of pale blue institutional paint but, once inside Anna’s flat, the building is a revelation. The rooms are tall, large and airy. The ceilings join the walls with a flamboyant plaster cornice. Anna has a Scandinavian minimalist taste in interior decoration and has used a clever palette of colours to create a refreshing yet warm interior. (6)
Anna pauses inside the door and bends to take off her shoes and socks. Taking shoes off is normal polite behavior when you go to a Russian home and Martha is aware of what is expected. She follows suit. Anna leads Martha into the kitchen and pours cold orange juice for both of them.
“Let's get washed first”, says Anna. “You are sweaty and so am I.”
“But I have not got a change of clothes,” replies Martha, her anxiety at being inside her target’s lair steadily increasing and I should go home now.”
Anna merely shrugs and points to the washing machine. “You are wearing lycra. It will dry very quickly — and I have a dressing gown if you are modest. Come on, clothes off. The sooner they are in the wash, the sooner they are ready.”
To encourage Martha, Anna begins to peel her own kit off and in seconds she is standing naked in her kitchen. Without looking she holds out her hand to accept Martha’s damp sweaty kit. When Martha does not immediately follow through, Anna glances up and repeats:
“Come on!”
Martha deploys her rear-guard of reserved, considerate, polite British behaviour. “Thank you for the orange juice. You have been really kind but I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“It is no trouble! You can’t go back across Moscow in cold wet clothes, even if you run. Now give them to me. All of them.”
Now Martha is in a dilemma. There might be more to learn from her target, so there is merit in prolonging their meeting but she had not expected to spend her opportunity naked, yet Anna is determined to be hospitable. She raises her eyebrows and spreads her hands as if to say “Well, come on, then. I have not got all day.” So, finally, Martha allows her reservations to crumble and strips. Running vest. Sports bra. Shorts. As she does so, she is aware of Anna’s eyes on her.
As she peels off her shorts, Anna giggles and says, “Aha. I thought so. I saw no panty line. You went commando. Me, too. I am pleased. That is very good!”
With that, Anna takes Martha’s hand and leads her into the bathroom. The age of the flat had prepared Martha for ancient plumbing but the bathroom is very modern. The showerhead, for example, discharges straight onto the floor, composed of sparkly white tiles which have a gentle fall to a drain. Still holding her hand, Anna leads Martha into the deluge of warm water and, soaping her hands from a convenient dispenser, starts to wash Martha.
“They say English girls are very shy,” she says, “but I am an old-fashioned communist and this is a ‘collectivist bathroom’ so we will wash each other!”
It’s a joke and, in the circumstances, a very funny joke which succeeds perfectly in further breaking down Martha’s reserve. She laughs and returns the compliment — and is immediately aware of Anna’s hand heading south across her tummy and down to her mons and, before she can react, Anna has arrived. Soaping. Caressing. Cleaning. It does feel so nice and nice things deserve the compliment of a return.
Over the next few minutes there is nowhere on Anna’s body which is not visited by Martha and nowhere on Martha’s body that is unexplored by Anna. Toes. Arm pits. Breasts. Nipples. Scalp. Neck. Mons. Vagina. Anus.
“California!” says Anna. “What do they say in California? Save water. Shower with friend!”
Presently the shower is over. Anna says, “Coffee?” casting a glance over her shoulder.
“Yes, please,” replies the ever-polite Martha.
Anna snuggles into her bathrobe whilst Martha dries herself and, when she has finished, Martha realises that Anna has not given her anything to wear. The promised bathrobe is nowhere to be seen and the towel is too wet and too small to serve as any reasonable type of garment.
“Er, Anna?”
“Yes?” calls Anna from the kitchen. “Come on through.”
“But I have no, I mean there is no …”
“Come in to the kitchen! This is how you pay for your coffee. You are on display, for me to admire!”
It occurs to Martha that there is a serious risk she will not emerge from Anna’s flat with her virtue entirely intact. How does she feel about that? Is the information she was supposed to collect worth this? Should she just retrieve her wet running kit from Anna’s washing machine and walk straight out of the flat? Stuart is supposed to be shadowing her. He should be down in the street somewhere. She could just go but then, could she just go? She is trying to make some casual enquiries, so Anna does not form the idea that she, Anna, is being interrogated for some very specific information. In the context of her mission, Martha would have to stay and play her part?
“Marta! Come, now!”
The words of one of her Instructors now take the opportunity to emerge from memory, to come into conscious light and bring themselves to Martha’s immediate attention: ‘An Intelligence Officer will do whatever is required to complete a mission successfully’ Martha recalls that the Instructor placed emphasis on the word ‘whatever’. The things people have to do, thinks Martha, the things people have to do for Britain! (7)
“Sorry, coming.”
“Cumming?” exclaims Anna, raising a quizzical eyebrow and keeping Martha from assuming some modest pose by pressing a cup of coffee into one hand and a shot glass of ice cold vodka into the other. “Not yet — but definitely later. Now, drink. This is Russia. Vodka first!”
“Today is Friday. I am back at work on Monday. You?”
Martha is on her back on Anna’s bed. “Yes, me, too.”
Anna is sitting on her tummy, pinning her down with her weight and by locking her feet beneath Martha’s bum. “Monday?”
Anna herself is naked now. “Yes, Monday.”
Martha has no dry clothes so she has no other choice than to be naked. “Ah, so I can keep you as my naked prisoner till Monday. That is nice!”
Anna leans forward and takes one of Martha’s nipples in her mouth and sucks, gently pulling the nipple deeper into her mouth. “But I can’t go to the office in my running kit!” gasps Martha.
“Why not? You are beautiful.”
Anna nuzzles Martha’s other breast. “But it’s not what we do.”
Anna’s tongue begins to work its magic on the second nipple. “Oh. I work at Polyklinik. You?”
“Er … ah … ahahah … ah … I work to promote British trade.”
“British Trade?” replies Anna, sucking on the nipple of the moment, pulling, stretching, swirling her tongue around it.
“Yes, trade promotion,” says Martha to say more but to supply no more details.
"Hmmm," says Anna, "that sounds like Embassy work. Embassies are full of spies. I think you might be a British spy. I must make you confess by torture! Slow sexual torture!”
In a flash, Anna has released Martha’s bum and spun round so she is now astride her tummy but this time presenting Martha with a view of her buttocks. Anna bends forwards and begins to assault Martha’s labia with her tongue. Just go carefully, she thinks. This girl is probably a ‘bisexual virgin’. Let’s show her how nice another girl can be!
Martha continues to gasp with unexpected pleasure as her gentle rape continues. Anna makes steady progress at introducing Martha to the pleasures of a lesbian experience by beginning the insinuation of her tongue between Martha’s labia and down towards her clit.
“You are hairy!”
“Huh?”
“Hairy. Before you go, I must shave you smooth. You must continue after, every day, or you will itch. The itch – it will drive you crazy, so you must always shave from now – or wax. Understand?”
“Oh! Oh! Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I will shave from now on. I promise!”
“What else shall I shave?”
“What else?”
“Mmmm.”
“There is nothing else. I shave my arm pits already.”
“Yes, I see but there is something else.”
“Oh?”
“I ought to shave your head! All smooth! It feels very nice. Very erotic!”
“Oh No! Definitely no, please!”
“Why not? I shave my head sometimes. I had a shaved head in Windsor in two-oh-oh-nine. Feel very nice. You will feel very nice too. Promise. Also, you have beautiful eyebrows and beautiful eyes. Eyebrows are important if you shave your head.”
“Is there something else we can do?”
“Of course, but maybe not as nice?”
“How?”
“Well, perhaps I should spank you with riding crop, like I beat my horse if he naughty. You are a naughty spy so you deserve to feel the crop. On your bum. You choose. Have me shave your head or spank your bum? I want you to go back to your flat with a souvenir or our time together. So you will not forget me!"
“Spank my bum, please, Anna, just leave my head alone!”
Well, thinks Martha, desperately trying to justify the day’s ongoings, at least I have found out about what this girl looked like in two-oh-oh-nine. Let’s just hope this is all going to be worth it!
“Spanking is an art! Takes practice. With boys, you must be firm. With girls, I am gentle at first, then it is important to make it sting! Now, your mistress orders you. Breathe out. Out, slow …”
As Martha follows instructions, Anna’s riding crop connects with her bum and leaves an itchy tickly kiss. Martha is pleasantly surprised. It really does feel not too bad.
Martha is on her knees. Her bum is in the air.
“Breathe out slow.” … snick!
“Ha!” … Slightly harder but still nice.
“Breathe out.” … snick!
Were these strokes getting harder? They still felt nice ...
“Breathe out.” … snick!
But definitely harder work. Martha has to breathe through the sensation. Itch is giving way to sting.
“You sure you want to keep your hair?”
“Yes, please!”
“Breathe out.” … snick!
“Ha! Aaaah!”
“Sure? You would be very beautiful with bare head. Very exotic!”
“Maybe when I go on holiday …”
“OK. I will remember that. Breathe out.” … snick!
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ahhhh.”
“Just tell me if the crop is hurting too much and I finish spanking and I get my razor. First, I use hair clippers to get down to my scalp, then wet my head with warm water, then smooth on some shaving cream, then finish off with a razor. It feels completely wonderful, especially the first time and the first time is never the last time!”
“No, please carry on spanking!”
“Sure? OK. Breathe.” … snick!
The stripes are definitely harder now and Martha is having to work much harder to stay comfortable.
“Still sure? Hmmm?”
“Y .. yes, ..please.”
“Of course. Breathe.” … SNICK!
“Ah ha! Ah ha!”
“Oh dear! This beautiful British spy now has a very sore bottom. Looks very beautiful. OK, five more, hard. Marta? Think three, then one, then last. Now you must suffer for being spy and for not letting Anna shave your head. Remember, breathe out slowly …”
Martha is conscious that Anna is altering her stance. These are going to hurt, and yet she kneels and waits.
“Oh, Marta. Five? No, that is not good enough! Five is three from left and two from right. That is asymmetric. Asymmetry is not good. You will get six. Left three. Right three. Or maybe left six and right six? But definitely symmetric. Much better. Ready?”
“Yes …”
“Count?”
“Yes.”
“Good — ”
SNICK. “Ha … adeen.”
SNICK. “AH AH AH … dva.”
“Last from left … breathe.” … SNICK.
“AH … Tr … tre …eh …eh.”
“Good girl. Last three, now from right.”
Martha, even though her eyes are tight shut, can feel a slight movement in the air of the room as Anna changes her position.
“Now, tre.”
“No.”
“NO? Why?”
“The last stroke was tre. This time it is chetyri.”
Anna chuckles. “OK, chetyri. From the right …”
SNICK! “Ah Ah Ah! Chyet ..chyet .. chetyri.”
“There is still time to ask for head shave …”
“No, please …”
“Please? You mean you want head shave after all?”
“No, please no shave.”
“OK.” SNICK!
“Ah Ah Ah Ah! Pyaaaat.”
“OK, beautiful spy. This is the last kiss from the crop but not last kiss from you. This will hurt. Next time, you will go home with beautiful smooth head, but for now …”
Martha becomes aware that Anna has drawn her arm much farther back to deliver a very hard stroke. She can hear the crop as it makes a hissing sound as Anna accelerates it towards her …
S N I C K! “AAAAAAh. AAAAAAh. AAAAAAh.”
“Well?”
“Shest, Anna, SHHHyeeest.”
“Oh look! Such attractive marks. You will think about me each time you sit down next week. Mmmmm. That is so very tasty!”
… and, reflects Anna, a pleasure delayed is often a pleasure enhanced. She is hoping Martha might be back for more and next time she will know exactly what she is in for. Meanwhile …
Anna lays down her crop and turns to the squirming, sweating girl. “On your back!”
Martha obeys. Anna’s anal bud is gently tingling from the effects of the peppermint gel she has applied to it. Anna straddles Martha’s tummy again. Now, to round off the evening with something else which will be new for this demure English girl! Anna shuffles further and further back toward Martha’s face. “Now! We should both be clean — if you washed me properly. Now, lick!”
“But I can’t lick your bum!”
“Why not? You wash carefully?”
“Yes, but …”
“But what?”
“Please, Anna …”
Anna answers by shuffling yet closer to Martha. Her crop is still in reach. As Martha grapples with what she should say to avoid having to perform anilingus on Anna, Anna brings the crop down sharply on Martha’s thigh.
The pain is sudden. Unexpected. White hot. Burning. Before Martha can recover, Anna smacks the crop down again and then again. She turns to look at Martha. “Well? Lick, or I will start again …”
Tentatively, Martha extends her tongue. She connects with the skin above Anna’s anus. She is aware that Anna is pulling her buttocks apart, to provide better access — unfortunately. Martha is immediately aware of the cool taste of peppermint on her tongue. It encourages her on, just as Anna guessed that it might.
From Martha’s viewpoint, her journey is much less unpleasant than she feared it might be. She becomes bolder — just as Anna pushes firmly back onto her face. Martha finishes with her tongue flat across Anna’s anus, just as Anna starts to rub herself forwards and back and whether she wished it or not, Martha gets the full anilingus experience as Anna rounds off her evening perfectly!
Meanwhile, Martha reflects once again on her training: ‘An Intelligence Officer will do whatever is needed to complete a mission successfully’.
Turning up at the office with a shaven head would certainly show her colleagues that she took her work seriously … and who knows what might happen before Monday …
1. MI6 also know officially as the Secret Intelligence Service
2. GCHQ (Government Communications Head Quarters) is the Signals Intelligence branch of the British Security Services.
3. The Royal Society of Medicine : is one of the country's major providers of postgraduate medical education
4. Lomonosov Moscow State University : scene of earlier events in this story
5. Anna’s Equestrian Club can be found on-line. Launch the video to look round.
6. Anna's Apartment. The location for Anna’s apartment was inspired by a report on the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘From Our Own Correspondent’. The essay, by the former BBC Moscow Correspondent Daniel Sandford was called In Moscow, History is Everywhere.
The Google Street View Car has been to Moscow and you can follow Martha and Anna’s run if you put the street names into Google Maps.
7. Tradecraft: Some insights into the ‘Tradecraft ‘ of Intelligence Officers can be found in: The Spycraft Manual. The Insider’s Guide to Espionage Techniques, Barry Davis, (Carlton Books, London 2005, ISBN 1 84442 577 0) and in Spy. A Handbook, Harry Ferguson, (Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2004 ISBN 0 7475 7532 1)
4. A CASE CONFERENCE
Anatoly is having coffee when Igor Mendeleyev’s call is put through to him.
He is at the AKE Headquarters building, occupying several floors in one of the office towers which have grown up like so many steel, glass and concrete mushrooms in Moscow’s financial district. (1)
He can guess what - or who - this is going to be about. Anatoly waits as Mendeleyev rehearses the Slavic formalities, not sure whether to be optimistic in anticipation of good news, or to steel himself whilst Mendeleyev carefully details yet more difficulties. Through the glass wall which separates his own office, he can see the Lithuanian Girl who Mikhail Barysovitch has grafted into his organization, to report back to Mikhail and to be a constant reminder that Mikhail and those above him expect a strategy, operational plans and above all, results. The girl is holding a telephone handset. Anatoly is sure she is patched into his call.
“ … so I have heard from Professor Dawney” begins Mendeleyev. “She telephoned earlier today. It seems that Vyera has called to see her and my impression is that the meeting was not cordial”
“Oh?”
“Vyera’s project”
“Yes?”
“I thought of it in the first place and suggested it to Professor Dawney almost as a joke. I was really very surprised that she had taken up the idea so enthusiastically, to the extent that she has obviously forgotten where she herself got the idea from – which of course was me – and she went on to accuse me of poaching her student and the data and the original idea. Academic life is very competitive Anatoly Sergeyevitch. The root of the trouble is the scientific paper in ‘Psychological Letters’. Professor Dawney reads the Journal and recognized the account Vyera had written. I expected trouble from her anyway but she has connected Vyera Anatolyevna Kuznetsova with Jennifer McEwan. I am very sorry that Vyera’s name was included in the final copy which went to the Journal offices.”
“Igor Ivanovitch, you are telling me that the situation is getting worse. Angela Dawney now knows where Vyera has been, who she has been with and how she has spent her time – some of it at least.”
“I am afraid so, Anatoly Sergeyevitch. The solution to the Vyera problem will now have to include Professor Dawney in some way …”
Anatoly closes his eyes as if shutting out the light but actually he is trying to avoid looking at the Lithuanian Girl. If only he could make the world a simpler place, as it was just a few short weeks ago. What had possessed him to take Vyera on the boat trip? Why on earth had they gone to Stockholm, the girl’s motherland, as it were? Why did Sveta choose that moment to take leave of her senses and release the slave girl? Alas! So many ‘what ifs’. So few answers.
Anatoly opens his eyes again. The Lithuanian Girl is wearing a carefully tailored leather skirt and white blouse, with black tights. On her feet she has black mules. She is kneeling with one knee on her office chair and bending over the desk supporting herself on her forearms, presenting Anatoly with a view of her bum covered by tight, smooth shiny black leather. With her other leg, her foot plays with her mule, sliding in and out, in and out.
Anatoly closes his eyes once again, to shut out the sight of her. In his ear, Mendeleyev’s voice says,
“ … so I began to think about how Vyera will be reacting to her new surroundings …”
Anatoly’s coffee is cold and bitter. He can see exactly why Mikhail Barysovitch finds Mendeleyev so irritating: he was talking about Vyera as one might talk about an experiment with test tubes or space probes on the moon … “we gave her the name Vyera to remind her that she always has to be truthful, to be an open book to her superiors. Soon she will become aware of a tension between keeping her work with us - her new family - confidential and the responsibility she once had to keep the Inward Bound data confidential …”
“Igor Ivanovitch, I have followed every step of your argument and the information about Professor Dawney is … let’s just say interesting, but I was expecting more that a wearisome recitation of the problems and challenges in front of us? Have you anything actually positive to say or good news to tell me, or even a logical step which might lead us out of this mess?”
“But of course Anatoly Sergeyevitch. I have a proposal.”
“A proposal?”
“We must regain the initiative. We must begin to manage events. Neena must contact Vyera and give her instructions about the IWB data. Vyera must be told that we will keep the data confidential, so Jennifer McEwan’s original responsibility is discharged and Vyera has permission to tell the Inward Bound people that there will be no consequences for any of the subjects in Vyera’s data set, if she is questioned by them.”
“So why are we thinking about Inward Bound?”
“Because they might contact Vyera and she must have replies ready by her side which she can trust and can give with complete confidence. Also, Vyera might contact them on her own initiative and confess that the data has been in the hand of others. My scheme can take her off the horns of a painful dilemma. Loyalty to us. Loyalty to those she knew before.”
“Two horns but what about the third horn?”
“Third horn? That would be a trilemma, surely?”
Anatoly feels a flash of anger at Mendeleyev’s obsession with details but he controls his temper and says, by way of explanation “Professor Dawney. Vyera had a professional responsibility to her, I think?”
“Ah, of course. You are quite correct. Three horns. A trilemma. Well, there at last fortune has smiled. I think Professor Dawney wanted Vyera for herself and sent her to Inward Bound, less to be an objective scientist and more to fall under the influence of the programme. I think she hoped that Vyera would become more malleable and fall under her spell to the disadvantage of the husband, Joseph. I think the professor’s dismay at loosing her academic lead in this area and the knowledge that Vyera was much further from her influence sparked her anger and jealousy, which was directed at Vyera when they met. I believe that Vyera did not have a pleasant interview.”
“So they are no longer on speaking terms?”
“If I am optimistic, Anatoly Sergeyevitch the very best I can say is, the relationship is very sour and so there is no third horn to snare Vyera.”
After he closes the call, Anatoly gets up and leaves the building. He needs space, to see beyond the confines of his office. To feel the wind on his face and taste fresh air in his lungs. He is aware that several respectful paces behind, his security detail shadows him. Moscow is not what it was in the nineteen nineties but it remains wise for an Oligarch to have due regard to his personal security. Walking alone was in Anatoly’s experience, is the best way to get his mind to cut a problem down to size or to encourage some original thought. Presently, Anatoly and his Shadows reach Presnensky Park. He finds a bench and sits. The advance of winter was clear to see. Occasional stinging darts of rain were being blown in the wind beneath a grey sky and there was the rustle of fallen leaves.
What might his father do in circumstances like these? Anatoly allows himself to imagine his late father sitting next to him in his full General’s uniform: cap, tunic, high boots, medals. Together, they gaze over the Park, towards the old American Embassy Building as Anatoly presents his report …
‘The Situation. A member of my personal staff is in the hands of the British Authorities. She is alone and vulnerable but she is loyal. Eventually, she may crack and say more than she should.’
‘The Context. Vyera was acquired from the United Kingdom where she was Jennifer McEwan. She came to Moscow aboard the AKE aircraft masquerading as Anna Tereshkova. The deception is robust. Perfect maskirovka. (2)
The Present Difficulties. After re-education, Vyera worked on research data in Moscow and her investigation was published in a scientific journal. The authors were Mendeleyev, Romanova and Kuznetsova. Vyera Kuznetsova should not have been included. An unfortunate mistake.
Professor Dawney has read the ‘Vyera article’ and recognizes Vyera’s work from her words and phrases. She must realize that Vyera is Jennifer McEwan. This is a complication. Dawney is not likely go to the British Authorities but what might her colleagues do, someone friendly to Jennifer McEwan? This is a dangerous unknown.
Vyera worked aboad the Tupolev during our Baltic cruise. Idiotic! The Swedish port authorities have Vyera Kuznetsova recorded as a crew member on arrival and departure. Sveta released Vyera in Stockholm into the arms of her family. Inexplicable!
And then there is the Tracy Randolf fiasco …
For a moment, Anatoly feels panic rising inside hm. He feels he is in a dead end street with his enemies massing at the open end to prevent his escape. They could not extract him from Russia and it is almost inconceivable that the Russian Authorities would hand him over but his reputation would be badly tarnished, perhaps ruined and his life-style would be severely compromised if he was no longer able to travel abroad – and then as Anatoly struggles to bring his emotions under control, an idea flies swiftly across his mind, so quickly that Anatoly has difficultly in appreciating its form and shape.
He juggles with the idea as a football player might struggle with a wet, slippery, spinning ball.
The plain facts connected Jennifer McEwan and Vyera and Anatoly but if masikarovka could not effectively supress the simple conclusion, perhaps the answer had something to do with describing Vyera’s time in Moscow in alternative words, even very positive words? To acknowledge Vyera is Jennifer but provide an alternative description of her time in Russia?
That Lithuanian bitch could work that up! It would get her hands dirty. It would keep her out of his sight, Give her something to tell Mikhail Barysovitch, Give them both some thing to do. All in all, this could be the perfect solution for keeping them off his back!
Twelve people are sitting around a table in a conference room in New Scotland Yard. (3) There is a general rumble of conversation. Some are already known to each other. Others are strangers and are getting acquainted before the meeting begins. The man sitting at the head of the table checks his watch and brings the meeting to order. “Ladies and Gentlemen. Time is pressing. I suggest we start by going round the table and introduce ourselves. Let me begin. I am Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steven Davies. I have been asked to convene this meeting by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. I am chairing this meeting because of the potential sensitivity of the case and the international dimension." (4)
“David Rice. Commander Metropolitan Police Special Operations Command.”
“Colin Grantby, Chief Inspector, Special Operations Command, Metropolitan Police.”
“Michael Lockwood, Chief Inspector Counter Terrorism Command, Met’ .”
“Brian Ackroyd, Inspector Warwickshire Constabulary.”
“Joan Borland, Sergeant, Special Operations Command, Metropolitan Police.”
“Anne Elba, psychologist working with the Metropolitan Police.”
“Stephen Appleyard, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.”
“Anna Thomassen, Rikskriminalenpolisen Sweden.”
“Joan Wright, Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.”
“Peter Brook, The Security Service, MI5.”
“Mary Stamford, Crown Prosecution Service.”
Thank you, everyone for your attendance and especially for those who have come a rather long way to this meeting. Before we begin to look at matters in detail, I should like to make some general though I suppose not unexpected remarks. Today, there are twelve people here to discuss the case of a young woman who may or may not have been the subject of a crime. We have representatives of the police forces from two countries and from two police forces in the UK, also a representative from two of the UK Security Services, a representative from the Crown Prosecution Service and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a psychologist. I can’t recall a meeting like this before when there was still doubt over whether a crime has been committed or not. The Commissioner and the Senior Management Team are acutely aware that resources are limited and regrettably, we are just not able to investigate every curious incident which comes to our attention. At the end of this meeting I would like to have a clear view about whether we have a crime or at least an incident that we can properly engage with, leading to an investigation which produces a result. The result could be a benign explanation of hitherto unexplained events or it could be a clear criminal target to arrest and prosecute.
Now, with that strategic overview out of the way, can I turn to you Chief Inspector Grantby and ask you to go through the events as far as we know them?”
“Thank you, Deputy Assistant Commissioner. You will all have a short resumé in front of you about the Jennifer McEwan case and you may wish to follow it whilst I talk …” Grantby quickly runs through the history of the ‘Jennifer McEwan case’. He covers her disappearance, her reappearance. The last sighting in London, the first sighting in Stockholm and the interest of the Swedish National Investigation Bureau. He summarises the curious tale of her arrest and interrogation by the CIA and the relationship of her head of department to a former KGB officer, turned international businessman. He goes through the medical evacuation of someone bearing a striking similarity to Jennifer aboard an aircraft owned by the Russian businessman in question, the involvement of a surgeon who was brought up in the German Democratic Republic and the appearance of Jennifer’s academic work in a Russian academic journal. Grantby concludes, “Not all the people who seem to be involved in this case are normally resident in the UK and one in particular holds a diplomatic passport from a country with whom our relations are somewhat strained but he visits quite frequently. I would especially like to know if my team can detain Mr Kustensky for questioning the next time he comes to Britain.
DAC Davies turns to Ackroyd and Elba. “I believe you two have had the most recent contact with Mrs McEwan. Is there anything you can say to help us at this point?”
“I ought to say at the start,” begins Ackroyd, “that my original view was that we were not dealing with an abduction at all. We identified some … ah … potential marital tensions between the McEwans and also some ‘history’ between Mrs McEwan and Professor Dawney. I thought matters had got to a point where she could not cope with the emotional effort of holding everything in place and had taken herself off somewhere where she could either make a fresh start or try to resolve matters in her own time. Some recent developments cast the whole affair in a bit of a different light, though.
First, Mrs McEwan became lost and disorientated whilst she was shopping in Birmingham. Instead of contacting her husband who was also in the city she contacted someone she had been with during the period of her disappearance. The said female gave Mrs McEwan instructions to wait for her husband in a convenient branch of Starbucks and then telephoned Mr McEwan to tell him to go pick up his wife.
When Mrs McEwan’s phone was examined, it had been reset to factory default mode and the call to Mr McEwan was from a withheld number. This made me think again about events which might have happened before Mrs. McEwan disappeared so I then made contact with British Telecom who are the McEwan’s internet service provider and asked them to look at the phone traffic in the months before she disappeared. That was in November 2009 and the record only now extends back to August 09 but it shows that impressive quantities of data were being uploaded from the McEwan PC during the small hours of the morning to an untraceable IP address probably using something like TOR (5), which is of course, a way of sending a message across the internet by a very roundabout route, to make it hard to identify (in this case) the destination of the message. When we examined said PC after Jennifer McEwan disappeared, the hard disc had been wiped completely. At the time we thought the blank hard disc was consistent with Mrs McEwan covering her tracks after making a conscious decision to leave her husband. Now ... well, unfortunately the interpretation is still equivocal. You could say there is evidence that Mrs McEwan had planned to leave and transmitted her data to friends abroad deliberately. You could also say that this is evidence of Mrs McEwan being spied on in the months before she was lifted.
“If I may interject here?” It is Joan Wright from MI6 speaking. “ if you are going to use TOR to cover your tracks of the internet, you have to install TOR software first. Did you every find any?”
I am sorry to say that we did not look properly. If I could have my time again, I would make sure that a “more sophisticated examination of the McEwan PC was carried out but back in 2009 I am afraid I was not so clued-up.”
“Thank you Inspector Ackroyd and thank you for your frankness”, says the DAC, “I am sure many of us could say the same as you. Dr Elba? May I give you the floor at this point?”
Annie Elba has thought carefully about what she should say at this point, to this audience. The policemen and women would all be very interested to know about Jennifer McEwan’s psychotic breakdown: a physical attack culminating in a rape. There would be questions about what should be done; in particular, should Jenny be held in psychiatric custody until her state of mind improves? It was exactly the question she had put to Laura Malvern. Between them and thinking carefully about the events which came immediately before Jenny’s psychotic episode, they have decided that Jenny is better at home and away from work, to give her space and the reassurance of familiar surroundings to take best advantage of the work she was doing with Laura Malvern and to encourage the signs of recovery which Jennifer is gradually showing.
Annie says: “I think the best I can do today is to give you some insight into the psychological state of Mrs McEwan at the moment. You will know that persons abducted and especially those abducted for long periods can sometime begin to identify with their captors. This was first noted in the behavior of some victims of a bank hold up and siege in Stockholm. It is recognized as a psychosis known as Stockholm Syndrome. (6) When our colleagues in Sweden first saw Mrs McEwan (Annie glances at Anna Thomassen by way of reference) they thought she was displaying all the signs of the condition and my professional opinion is that they are correct. I have spent some time with Mrs McEwan myself and I have spoken at length with the psychotherapist who is treating her. For your information, this is a Dr Laura Malvern who has expertise in the care of patients recovering from psychological trauma. I know her work and she is very experienced and reliable. At first glance so to speak, Mrs McEwan generally seems to be a perfectly well adjusted, psychologically stable young woman but she has tried hard not to let anything slip about the people she has been with, the things she has done and the conditions under which she lived. She is in fact scrupulous to keep their confidentiality. There are two conclusions possible. First, that Brian (Doctor Elba turns and smiles at Ackroyd, to confirm to the others who she is talking about) is correct in his initial belief that Mrs McEwan needed space, and does not wish to rake over old and painful ground, especially now she is feeling better about herself. Second, that she was abducted and has been subjected to a particularly effective conditioning regimen and is still unable to break free from its influence. At present, I can’t be completely sure which is true. I would expect that any deliberate psychological conditioning will decay in due course if it is not reinforced - and its hard to see how that might happen - so I think we can expect further information will seep out from Mrs McEwan over the next few months and all we really have to do is wait. I do not expect this is the time scale you were hoping for but it is quite often the case in medicine and psychology, that treatment is like gardening. You just have to let the plants grow at their own pace. However, if I have to make a judgment right now, I think the evidence is in favour of an abduction and particularly effective deliberate psychological conditioning.”
“Inspector Thomassen”, says the DAC, turning to the Scandinavian visitor. “May I thank you for coming to visit us in London and invite you to tell us about the events of the night when Mrs. McEwan reappeared?”
Anna Thomassen smiles and with characteristic confidence glances at the faces before her and begins.
“I represent the Swedish Rikskriminalenpolisen. (7) We stand between the regular Swedish police force and our security services. We deal with crime which has a trans-national dimension and crime which has the potential to destabilise the state. One example is trafficking and supply of narcotics. Another example is the trafficking of people. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the Baltic States as independent nations once more, we have noticed a number of well-organised criminal networks with connections to Russia and the new nations. They are staffed, if I can express myself that way, they are staffed by capable, energetic, violent and unprincipled people and are a constant concern to us. They are active in both narcotics crime and people trafficking but in other areas too.
“When Mrs McEwan appeared to her family from out of the harbour in Stockholm, her father reported the matter to Stockholm county police who passed the case to us when they realised that Mrs McEwan was a wanted person in the UK. I interrogated her the next day and found just what Dr Elba found: she was very reluctant to say where she had been and who she had spent her time with. She was given formal psychological examination and our people also concluded that she was a victim of Stockholm Syndrome - or could be. She was also examined physically and found to be fit and well cared for. She did not have any signs of sexual abuse, so no anal dilatation, vaginal bruising or venereal disease. Her skin showed signed of superficial bruising, consistent with some mild BDSM practice. Her finger and toenails and cuticles were clean, shaped, filed smooth and ... Inspector Thomassen checks her notes ... and she was wearing nail varnish. These are not typical signs of a woman kidnapped into sexual slavery in our experience.
“We were naturally interested to think about why she was swimming in the harbour and the Harbour Control people were able to tell us that the private yacht owned by a Russian business man called Anatoly Kustensky had left it's berth bound for Tallinn at about the time Mrs. McEwan was found. The yacht’s identification beacon was picked up some hours later when the yacht was in international waters apparently bound for St Petersburg.
“When we questioned Mr McEwan and Mrs McEwan's parents, they had memories of a large yacht sailing past and of someone hailing them from the boat shortly before Mrs McEwan emerged from the water. There are again some possibilities here. First, she escaped from captivity and jumped from the boat but captivity is not really consistent with her physical condition - well not typical. Second, she fell overboard and the crew of the boat were sounding an alarm. Third, she was in the harbour already and the crew of the boat were shouting a warning to her. Mrs McEwan has dual UK and Swedish citizenship and is fluent in Swedish so it would have been easy for her to be resident in Sweden and not be noticed locally during her absence from the UK. She had no clear explanation for how she came to be in Sweden.”
The DAC hold up his hand and makes his own contribution. “So if I can summarise what we have so far:
In November 2009 Mrs Jennifer McEwan vanishes without warning. There is evidence that data was being exported from her computer in the weeks before but we cannot tell if it was being exported by Mrs McEwan or stolen by others? In July 2011 Mrs McEwan appears in Stockholm in good physical condition but reluctant to say where she had been or with whom. She might have been in Sweden and she might have been elsewhere. Russia might be one possibility. On the day Mrs McEwan disappears, a private aeroplane owned by a Russian citizen and personal friend of Mrs McEwan’s research supervisor leaves the UK with an injured young woman on board who bears some resemblance to Mrs McEwan. On the day she re-appears , a yacht owned by Mr Kustensky is in Stockholm harbour at the same time as Mrs. McEwan. Can we now deal with the issue of the injured woman who left the UK on the day Mrs McEwan vanished. Sergeant Borland, I have you down to speak to this?”
Joan Borland clears her throat and begins. “When Mrs McEwan returned to the UK, Inspector Grantby asked me to consider the ways someone could be spirited out of the UK with out coming to the attention of the police or Borders Agency staff. One method I considered was transport by air and specifically by private jet. In the London area, the airport which handles most private traffic is Farnborough and I discovered from the airport authorities that an aircraft had left Farnborough in the evening with an injured young woman on board who looked rather like Mrs McEwan. This was a medical evacuation. The woman, known as Anna Tereshkova, had been injured in the days before and had been a patient at a private hospital in London. She was brought to the airport by the orthopaedic surgeon who had cared for her. The surgeon in question has been interviewed by Inspector Grantby and I have interviewed the hospital staff. In addition, there is an account of her misadventures on what purports to be Ms Tereshkova’s Facebook site.”
“You said she looked significantly like Mrs McEwan. In what way?”
“Both Mrs McEwan and Ms Tereshkova had their heads shaven ...”
“Inspector Grantby. Tell us why you distrust the information about Ms Tereshkova?”
“Basically DAC, the timing is wrong. Doctor Hahn – he is the orthopaedic surgeon by the way - took too long to drive from the Wellesley Hospital to Farnborough.”
“How much too long?”
“About an hour.”
“Traffic hold ups?”
“Possibly. We have checked with the Traffic Division. They have no records of any major incidents but there are several well known traffic black spots on he way and the ambulance could have merely had a 'bad run'.”
“I see. Now I believe we have tried to look a little more closely at Ms Tereshkova?”
“Yes thank you DAC”, replies Michael Lockwood, taking up the story. “Colin – Chief Inspector Grantby - spoke to me about this case and asked if it would be possible to make some gentle inquiries about this girl on her home patch which is of course in Moscow, so I had a word with colleagues and it seemed that some reasonably painless inquiries could be made ...”
Joan Wright, the MI6 representative now begins to speak. “We put the situation to our people at the Embassy. We asked them if they could verify Ms Tereshkova's address, place of employment and whether she went riding – ah that is horse back riding.” This clarification of detail is met with a ripple of amusement from around the table. “Ms Tereshkova had apparently suffered a riding accident when she was in London in November ’09. These inquiries required one of our people merely to make some careful observations and we found that she habitually left the address quoted on Facebook, she went to work at a private clinic in the city and she was a keen equestrienne at the weekends. One of our people - someone who would be returning home reasonably soon at the end of her tour of duty - arranged to meet Ms Tereshkova socially and in conversation, Ms Tereshkova again told her doleful tale about her horse riding accident which forced her return to Russia. I believe the person we sent has continued her social contact with Ms Tereshkova to create the impression that the original contact was casual and fortuitous.”
Joan Wright smiles at the MI6 personnel record photograph of Martha Holmes and the video conference she had with Martha in the days before. Martha's head had been shaven. Curious … an effect of her 'social contact' with Ms Tereshkova perhaps?
“Colin?” says the DAC, “I think you had more to say about Ms Tereshkova?”
“Thank you, DAC. I thought Mrs McEwan and Ms Tereshkova had been switched.”
“Ms Tereshkova had been in hospital injured?”
“Apparently, but it could have been a sham...”
“Ah ... What did the hospital say?”
Joan Borland replies: “they were satisfied with the treatment given by the orthopaedic surgeon and the nursing staff I spoke to did not express any concern.”
“If Mrs McEwan was switched for Ms Tereshkova, is there any trace of Ms Tereshkova leaving the UK on another day?”
“No DAC. If we are correct, she left using another passport because she is back in Moscow now and living under her own name.”
“Mr Brook?”
“What interested MI5 about this case at first was the story about Mrs McEwan’s arrest and interrogation when she was undertaking the initial part of her research field work at ... (Peter Brook checks his notes) at ... ‘Inward Bound’ in Suffolk. We were alerted to this after Mrs McEwan was reported missing and I think Sergeant Borland was first to hear the story from Mr McEwan. We checked with out contacts in the CIA and they flatly deny any involvement and they have not modified their position at all over the past few years. We are inclined to believe them. Mrs McEwan and her colleague Professor Dawney are of no interest to us at the moment. Professor Dawney’s role in the Greenham Common anti-nuclear protests drew her to out attention when she was an undergraduate student but that was back in the nineteen eighties so it is very difficult to see why someone would want to go to as much trouble as they apparently did on her and Mrs McEwan's account. If it was not the CIA, it is had to imagine who it might have been. We wondered if it could it have been an 'adult experience' which the Inward Bound people failed to get consent for or carried out very clumsily and they have not felt able to come clean about their involvement? However, the information from Inspector Ackroyd about the data sent from or extracted from the McEwan’s computer is very interesting. We would want to think about that carefully. I will certainly talk to the people at GCHQ to see if they can tell us any more.”
“Ms Stamford. You are representing the Crown Prosecution Service. Is there enough here to wet your appetite for an arrest and a prosecution?” (8)
“When he CPS reviews evidence in case, there are three questions we ask. First, are we likely to get a conviction if the case comes to court? Is the chance significantly better than fifty percent? Second, is prosecution in the public interest? Third, is prosecution practical? This question mainly applies to situations when we are dealing with foreign nationals. We also pause to think how a jury might react to the evidence.
You all know it but it is worth repeating that all serious crime in our jurisdiction is tried by a judge and jury and the jury have to decide between guilt and innocence. Complex and confusing evidence is hard to see through, which may be why very carefully prepared prosecutions for complex financial fraud sometimes collapse completely or end with an acquittal for the accused because the jury becomes bamboozled by the complexity of it all and the sheer technicality of the evidence. In this case, there are several issues of that sort. Strange names. Exotic places. Strange internet sites. Accusations of dark deeds by shadowy intelligence organisations. Data mysteriously exported or maybe stolen from computers. And so on.
“This morning, I have heard some interesting circumstantial evidence but we really need more than circumstantial evidence to put before a jury. Remember, the Defence only has to establish a ‘reasonable doubt’ and if the jury agrees, they will acquit the accused. On the other hand, the Prosecution must prove their case beyond all reasonable doubt.
“So far, you have not given me a complaint from the alleged victim and that makes for a reasonable doubt straight away. There is no independent evidence. There is no forensic evidence. I do not think that Mr Kustensky’s aircraft has been subjected to forensic examination to find traces of Mrs McEwan’s DNA?
There are cases where we would proceed even without a specific complaint from a victim but we would need strong and unequivocal evidence that would make the case for the prosecution, all on its own.
At the moment, you just do not have that. Consider Ms Tereshkova. I agree that the person on Mr Kustensky’s aeroplane might have been Mrs McEwan and not Ms Tereshkova but Ms Tereshkova is sticking to her story on Facebook and in casual social contact. I think there is every chance that she would do so if she was to be cross-examined in court and a jury would be likely to believe her, leaving the prosecution unable to link Mrs McEwan’s departure from the UK to Mr Kustensky’s aeroplane.
“At the moment, I think there are grounds for suspicion but there is not enough to make me think there would be a successful prosecution. The key to this of course, is Mrs McEwan. If she eventually makes a complaint and can give a coherent account, such that a jury might believe her, then there is something to talk about seriously.”
“Thank you. Mr Appleyard, can make the final contribution and give us the Foreign Office view?”
Appleyard is in his early fifties. He has a thick head of immaculately cut black hair, fashionably streaked with silver. He wears a very well tailored dark blue pin striped suit with a pale blue shirt and a regimental tie. He speaks softly in perfect ‘received pronunciation’ English. His soft voice means all those present must keep silence as he speaks. In this effortless way, he seems to command the meeting
“Gentlemen, Inspector Thomassen and Sergeant Borland. They say that people who do not know history are destined to repeat it. Here you have a case which seems to involve a very highly placed foreigner in some monkey business. What has recent history to teach us in these circumstances?
“Consider Andrei Litvinenko. Mr Litvinenko died in University College Hospital in November 2006 from a lethal dose of radioactive polonium 210, which is not something one can buy from a branch of Boots the Chemist! (9) Before he died, Mr Litvinenko had met some old friends who were visiting London and who had come from Russia a few days before. The police discovered a trail of radiation from the restaurant where the friends ate together, to the seat in the Arsenal Football Stadium where they watched a game of football, to the seat occupied by one of them in the British Airways aircraft which brought him to London. I think we can all agree that this is very strong evidence that one of the ‘friends’ brought to London the lethal chemical which killed Mr Litvinenko.
“The United Kingdom applied to the Russian Authorities for the extradition of the man they suspected of the crime, which by now was murder. The Russians refused but offered to arrange a trial in Moscow. The United Kingdom refused because crimes committed in the UK should be tried here. There was an impasse and in due course, the suspect was elected to the Duma and now enjoys immunity from prosecution.
Here is a case where even the strongest evidence – almost a smoking gun, as they say – was rehearsed in public on the world stage but our authorities completely failed to bring the case to trial, let alone secure a conviction.
“In the McEwan case you have - as far as I am any judge – very little in the way of strong evidence. The victim has not made a complaint. She is in prime physical condition, has not become addicted to drugs and is even beautiful. There is someone else who is prepared to state on social media and in private that it was she who left Farnborough Airport aboard a private aeroplane on the day Mrs McEwan disappeared and the only doubt you can cast on this story is that the ambulance which took Ms Tereshkova from the private hospital to the airport took an hour longer than it might have to make the journey, negotiating several notorious traffic black spots on the way.
“Is this enough for the United Kingdom to approach the Russians and ask for the arrest and extradition of a wealthy and very well connected businessman with a hitherto excellent reputation?
Frankly, it is nowhere near enough. It would be a complete waste of time and the only effect would be to complicate our relationship with the Russians which are still seriously out of kilter after the Litvinenko murder.
“However, I would like to direct your attention elsewhere and I apologise if I am being impertinent but it seems to me that you have been caught up with chasing the ‘exotic’, namely Mr. Kustensky at the exclusion of the prosaic?
“Mrs McEwan’s troubles began at Inward Bound. Why don’t you look more closely at Inward Bound?”
As Appleyard speaks, a number of the police officers start to look uncomfortable or glance down at their papers or find that this is a good moment to gaze out of the window. What Appleyard is saying is correct. Uncomfortably correct. They ought to have concerned themselves with matters at home before looking abroad but Appleyard has not finished giving them a lesson in basic investigation: “Consider the CIA Rendition fiasco, for example. Suppose the CIA really are telling you the truth? Suppose the CIA was not responsible? Who were the men who abducted and interrogated Mrs McEwan and Professor Dawney? Who exactly are the owners of Inward Bound? Where does their money come from? What happens to the people who sign up for one of these peculiar courses? Perhaps if you can answer these questions, you can make some more progress with the investigation.
“And if Deputy Assistant Commissioner Davis will forgive me, surely there is enough money left in the Bank to ask a few more questions in Suffolk?”
Canopus ImpEx is the front organization for Freddie’s ‘Special Products Division’, his criminal enterprise. Canopus used to be surrounded by many similar import-export companies concerned with freight movements and located close to the London Docks.
The ships and the freight hauliers moved over a quarter century ago to the new London Container Terminal at Tilbury, a modern deep-water container port but there are still a few of the old ‘East End’ companies left, some operating, some fading away as their owners sell up and retire. Canopus ImpExp will also cease trading soon but perhaps cease trading only from their old London location …
Freddie and Ellie are in another private meeting. Just them, Larry Ross the liaison with Inward Bound, Harry the lead officer for Acquisitions and Dr Pamela Jordan. Sarah, the secretary is not present. They are debating the future of the Warwick Training Centre, in the light Freddie and Ellie’s retirement plans
Amongst the meeting papers is information from Warwickshire Planning Department about some residential building which has been approved. The development is uncomfortably close to the Facility.
“The trouble with Britain is that it is just too damn small. Too many people, too close together. When you find somewhere that’s empty it is too far away from anywhere else, too wet, too cold and too conservative. Like Scotland. The locals all know what’s going on and take too much of an interest in new developments.”
“Thats a bit glum, isn’t it Freddie?” responds Harry. “The Centre has done well for us over the years. I mean, is there anywhere else in the UK you would want to use?”
Dr Jordan joins the conversation: “if one was able to build a slave training facility from scratch I do not think it would look like the premises we have at the moment. I think Freddie is right about location. If there is to be a substantial residential development near by, the chances of accidental discovery increase. Everything from casual curiosity about what work is carried on at the Centre, questions about why there is the security fencing and also a greater the chance that someone who knows about the legitimate side of FCE might happen to pass the Centre and ask questions. I think Freddie is right to start thinking about its future.”
“I suppose”, adds Larry, “that if you were starting from scratch you might want something like Inward Bound which is of course exactly why we invested in them in the first place. The next question for me is what we do with the people who have been through IWB and are suitable to transition from amateur slaves to ‘professionals’ at some point in the future.”
“Agreed”, says Freddie, “you see, that’s where the Kushtian’s Cultural Experience Programme or what ever they called it would have been perfect however, the tide of history seems to be against us in Kushtia, blast it!”
Larry continues. “Also, think politics and social change. The police are so much more interested in unexplained disappearance and people trafficking nowadays.”
“Anyway”, continues Freddie, “as far as training centre is concerned, I find myself getting more and more envious of Steve Glennis and that private island of his. Small enough to be manageable. Large enough to cater for every aspect of training. Far enough away so the goings on stay completely private and surrounded by water which is full of sharks who provide the best of security and without cost. Much better than rusting metal fences with security cameras and lights.”
“Drones?” Adds Harry with a smile
“I expect he has radar and missiles”, offers Larry
“Back to work, boys, lets keep this serious,” says Ellie. “Freddie is right about Steve’s island. If we (she glances across to Freddie) were not minded to retire, I would be proposing that we make a more formal proposal to Steve, to merge our two organisations and of course that is still a way forward for those of you still working but today we have to take a decision about the old Training Center. The options are to sell as it is, after all trace of the specialized equipment is removed or to have it demolished and sell the site.”
“I think we should demolish” says Larry. “But I think there might be hoops to go through first. We need to apply for permission to demolish from the local council planning department – and we had better check the roof.”
“The roof?” asks Freddie. “What is the issue with the roof?”
“It might be made of asbestos. We will have to get surveyors in, to check. If the roof is asbestos sheeting, it all has to be removed by specialist contractors. I know because I have a cousin who is a Building Samples Analyst. She was telling me at a party.”
“I’m sorry to hear about the sort of parties you go to Larry,” adds Harry, in mock sympathy.
“The fucking roof …” says Freddie. “All right. Summary. Ideal world. Is the Warwickshire Centre ideal? No. Is it in use just now? No. Have we new enquires? Yes. Have these firmed up into new contracts? No. Would getting rid of the site raise any eyebrows? No. It is completely understandable. Recession. Firms selling off unwanted assets and property, especially old-fashioned facilities. I mean, it’s not near a transport hub and ‘legitimate’ FCE would not want a regional distribution depot there? So lets get rid of it. Harry - can you organize the removal and resale (if we can) of all the specialized equipment, prison doors, anchor points for chains in the walls and floors, all that sort of stuff. Larry, you seem to know about asbestos. When the place is ‘clean’ get the roof inspected. When that’s been done and we know what’s what, I will contact the Planning Department and say we wish to dispose of redundant facilities and apply for a demolition order so the whole place turns into a ‘brown field’ site for redevelopment.” (10)
With a flash of sophistication, Freddie adds “… and I am quite keen to see all the walls and floors and everything else that might have slave DNA on it disappearing into a concrete crusher.”
References
1. Moscow City
Moscow City is a new financial district built to provide a contemporary financial service hub, like the Canary Wharf Development in London and La Defense in Paris.
2. Maskirovka
A famous Russian technique of military deception
3. Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a location on the north bank of the River Thames near the Houses of Parliament which became the Headquarters of the Metropolitan Police in the nineteenth century The address became a synonym for the Force. The present HQ is in a glass and steel tower block near Victoria Station and is called ‘New Scotland Yard”
4. The Organizational Structure of the Metropolitan Police can be found on Wikipedia.
5. TOR
TOR is an acronym for The Onion Router and is a method of sending messages across the internet through a large number of independent routers, to make is very difficult be sure where a message originated from or was sent to.
6. Stockholm Syndrome
A recognised phenomenon where abducted victims come to take the part of their captors. First described in 1973 when it was observed in the victims of a bank siege in Stockholm.
7. The Rikskriminal Polisen
The Swedish national police force.
8. The Crown Prosecution Service
The body responsiblein the UK for bringing prosecutions on behalf of the state.
9. The Litvenenko Case.
There was a UK Government Enquiry Report published in 2016. It can be found online
10. Brown Field Sites
Ex-industrial land, suitable for development only when the mess of the last users has been cleared up.
5. ASYLUM.
As Anatoly strides purposefully thought the streets, the rhythm of his steps and the cool autumnal air once more prompt his thoughts to arrange and rearrange themselves in new and useful patterns. A few steps behind, his security team follow in discreet persuit.
The problem of the moment, the Vyera problem, is beginning to take up seriously too much time - which is often the case when a solution seems out of reach. Now at last, Anatoly has a plan to bring the situation under control. Now he understands how to fight the campaign. It is from an unexpected direction and it will be wise – actually it will be essential - for him to get the approval of Mikhail Barysovitch and the approval of those above him and beyond them, approval from those in the political sphere. Anatoly would generally try to avoid involving the very highest authorities with operational details but in this case, it is necessary.
Anatoly has chosen an opulent venue for lunch. He feels in charge of events again and he wants Mikhail to know it. The National Hotel (1) is very suitable and convenient for Mikhail’s office, less so for the AKE Corporate Headquarters but that is an advantage for Anatoly because as walks briskly towards the appointment, he can clarify in his mind exactly how to explain his scheme.
Anatoly finds Mikhail and another man - a body guard - waiting for him in the lobby. He holds out his hand to Mikhail and says … “I have arranged a private room for us two. There is no need for your assistant to wait out side” and turning to the ‘assistant’ he says “go to the dining room and order lunch for yourself along with my boys here”, as he indicates his own security detail. “Tell them to add it to my account for the day”. The assistant looks at Mikhail for guidance and Mikhail waves him away and lets Anatoly take him up to the private dining room which awaits them.
Anatoly is wearing a dark grey suit with a pale blue shirt and a restrained dark blue tie striped with white. He looks sober and his tie creates an impression of ‘freshness’. Mikhail on the other hand is all together more flamboyant. On this occasion he wears a pale grey suit brought to life with a thin white chalk stripe and contrasting bright lemon shirt and bright blue tie. The tie is spotted with yellow elephants raising their trunks, the elephants complementing the colour of his shirt.
Anatoly allows himself a smile as he takes in a statement in tailoring about the modern secret policeman. The observation Sveta had made about Mikhail Barysovitch was true: someone had taught him refinement and elegance.
“Ah, the room. Please Mikhail Barysovitch, after you.”
The view from this particular room is magnificent – Red Square. For most people it would be a distraction but for Anatoly and Mikhail, it is merely commonplace, a constant background to their lives.
Anatoly and Mikhail take their seats and Anatoly gestures to the menu.
“Mikhail Barysovitch, I have ordered lunch in advance. There is not much to say but a lot to think about I hope this will be acceptable?”
“The meal? Yes of course Anatoly Sergeyevitch, very acceptable but I see there will be four courses? says Mikhail glancing over the menu. “Is there really so much ground to cover?”
“I can merely repeat,” replies Anatoly. “ that there is not much to say but there is much to reflect on and my suggestions will need some careful reflection.”
A waiter enters the room and sets out tiger prawns with plums and pistachio and pours Anatoly and Mikhail each an ice cold vodka into shot glass. “A toast”, says Anatoly. “To success!”
“To Success”, echoes Mikhail Barysovitch with a careful smile. “We always had every confidence in you, Anatoly.”
“Igor Ivanovitch telephoned me yesterday”, says Anatoly, beginning the business of the day.
“Did he? I am sure that would be a valuable interlude in your morning”, replied Mikhail his sarcastic barb skewered into the virtual presence of Dr Mendeleyev in their conversation.
“Igor Ivanovitch is celebrated in his field. I agree that is not so reliable when we ask him to give opinions on matters outside his expertise but that may be our fault, not his.”
“Well there is that of course. So what did he have to say? I am sure there was plenty of theory but was there anything useful, anything practical?”
“He wanted to give advice about how we should manage Vyera with respect to her divided loyalties. Her responsibilities to us and Jennifer McEwan’s responsibilities to her husband and to the academics she was working with when she was in England.”
“Hmmm, that seems well outside neuropsychology so I don’t suppose he had anything in the least bit helpful to offer you?”
“I will not tax you with the details of his suggestions but his words actually were very helpful although not in the way he intended. You see, I realized there was a new perspective on the whole problem. Here it is:
Vyera is going to crack. It is just a matter of time. Inside her head, Vyera Anatolyevna and Jennifer McEwan are both present and each takes centre stage, according to circumstances. When the girl is alone and when she speaks with Neena, she becomes Vyera Anatolyevna. When her husband is at home and when she is out of her house she becomes Jennifer McEwan.
Vyera is under siege from the demands of her husband, her parents, the police, the psychologist and the academics she worked with before she was acquired. This cannot go on. A siege will always end in a surrender and in an engineering context, there is always the risk of failure at the interface between two different materials under stress. As I said before, she is going to crack. It is time we began to establish an alternative narrative of events in the minds of the people around her.”
“You are speaking as if we must leave the girl in place Anatoly Sergeyevitch? To let the crisis break?”
“The only alternatives to leaving her in place are to eliminate her or to abduct her once again. The first alternative will raise interest in the case and will have serious diplomatic ramifications and serious ramifications for me. I dare not think of the effect on Svetlana Nikitechna. I am sure you understand, Mikhail Barysovitch?”
“Of course, of course. We are merely looking at all the alternatives comprehensively?”
“Kidnap is also impractical. It would need the resources of the State and once again, there would be serious diplomatic repercussion with the British. The Americans and the Canadians would quickly become aware of the events, creating further serious difficulties between our countries and of course in my business activities. The Interconnector Project is always going to be at risk from diplomatic tensions and I could see AKE having to withdraw from the project completely but the worst aspect is – well, I expect you can easily imagine conservative voices who oppose the project asking why the United States and Canada would want a permanent connection between us in concrete and steel if the Russian Federation is involve in abductions and people trafficking? We have to accept that Vyera Anatolyevna is out of reach, and prepare for the moment when she begins to tell her story.”
The waiter returns, clears away the first course, sets out Gazpacho served with crab and apple mille feuille, pours more vodka and leaves them alone. Anatoly is sure of his scheme and wishes to set it out carefully course by course until by the time of the dessert, Mikhail has been won over. Anatoly needs more that agreement. He needs support and cooperation. The vodka should help to mellow Mikhail Barysovitch, too.
“Anatoly, this lunch is excellent. I like the insightful and realistic assumptions in your argument. Please …”
“Mikhail Barysovitch, let us start with the bald facts of the Vyera story, stated in neutral terms:
In 2009, Professor Angela Dawney and her research student Jennifer Karin McEwan are arrested by the CIA in the UK and interrogated about me and about my business intentions (2) In 2011, Jennifer McEwan travels from the UK and in 2013 returns to her family.”
“People were detained and interrogated by the CIA? About you? Excuse me Anatoly Segeyevitch but why have I not been informed about this before?”
“Because it was not actually the CIA. Merely a criminal gang pretending to be the CIA”
“You know the identity of the criminal elements involved?”
“I do. Exactly. They were people employed by Freddie Clegg Enterprises. They are known in the United Kingdom as a freight forwarding company. As a matter of fact, they are on the British Government list of approved contractors. There is, however, another secret division of the company which is actually the main interest of Freddie Clegg himself. It is a slave trading operation and they have been active in Kushtia for the past several years but have supplied many other buyers too.”
“Ah … so why did they … do they see you as a competitor?”
“It is hard to say for sure but I think that they became aware of my friendship with Angela Dawney and wondered if I was interested in what they were up to. As far as Angela Dawney is concerned, you will recall our interest in her when she was a leading protestor against American Cruise Missiles being deployed in the UK?”
“Yes, yes I remember quite well but I still do not understand why they came to be interrogating Dawney about you, Anatoly Sergeyevitch?”
“The Clegg Organisation have invested in an ‘adult experience’ company called Inward Bound. Perhaps they were using it as a vehicle to identify potential slaves. Perhaps they were merely trying to diversify. Perhaps they were trying to reduce their exposure to the slavery operation. The police in the UK are beginning to treat people trafficking and modern slavery much more seriously and the Clegg people will be well aware of the fact. Dawney sent one of her students to conduct research at Inward Bound and at some point, the Clegg Organisation must have become aware of Dawney’s connection with me. Anyway, the ‘CIA interrogation’ was a clumsy and particularly risky way to find out if I was.”
“Ah … and the British Authorities will be aware of this little charade by now …”
“Yes, I am sure they are. I expect the real CIA will have been asked about it too. So, on with my proposal:
Jennifer McEwan’s husband, her family and the UK police force will describe these events she has experienced as Abduction, False Imprisonment and an Escape to Freedom.”
“There is another way to describe these events. I am proposing a new narrative. Mrs McEwan accepted an opportunity to live in Russia. She was able to explain the work she was doing in the United Kingdom and complete the work to the highest standard using the superior facilities of our leading University. She enjoyed many adventures — enjoyed is the right word for her —when she was with us. She now has a new language, she has a new citizenship, and she has a Doctorate degree. She is stronger and fitter physically and intellectually and she is beautiful. In due course, she returned home.”
“Which narrative is true? Are they both true or is one more true than the other?”
“Mikhail Barysovitch, on the one hand, I think we may have to admit, at some stage, that Vyera Antolyevna Kuznetsova is Jennifer McEwan but, at the same time, we should promote the alternative narrative of events.
On the other hand, we can try to set the British and the Americans against each other by making a diplomatic protest about the clandestine and heavy handed actions of the CIA against me in respect of my international business activities when they arrested and interrogated Professor Dawney, who is an old friend and who both agencies know is an old friend. They will understand that Professor Dawney would have told me about her experiences at the hands of the CIA and this explains how we have the information to make our diplomatic protest.
“This brings the relationship between the British and the CIA centre stage. We can expect the Americans to convince their British friends that they had no part in the CIA charade. We can rely on the British Police to conduct a competent investigation at Inward Bound and uncover the hand of Freddie Clegg and his gang. The discovery will give the British real criminals to hunt down and expends their energy and resources on something very concrete. Meanwhile their attention is directed away from us and Vyera. She is no longer the main event. She becomes a signpost, pointing to the true criminals.”
The waiter returns He clears their table and sets out the main course, grilled rack of lamb served with green and white asparagus. He pours them each another shot of vodka and leaves.
Anatoly concludes his presentation. “Meanwhile, behind the scenes I am preparing to recruit Joseph McEwan to my team of engineers working on the Interconnector Project. We can send him somewhere in North America. His wife will accompany him of course and she will be away from the immediate influence of the police in the United Kingdom. North America is on the opposite side of the world to Russia, but she will still be securely connected to us through the employment of her husband”
Mikhail Barysovitch chuckles at Anatoly’s ingenuity. A method of dealing with the Vyera problem which complicates the British relationship with the CIA but helps the British to uncover a serious criminal conspiracy. That would be enough to shift their attention, surely? They would not be chasing phantoms any longer. They would have real criminals in their sights. Wonderful! Mikhail merely says: “I can see now why you wanted to leave time for reflection and thought, Anatoly Sergeyevitch. This will have to be considered by people much more senior than myself but it has many attractive things about it. Very attractive things. Let us now enjoy this excellent lamb. I do not wish to be greedy but even though you have given me so much to chew over (Mikhail laughs at his own pun) and I am still looking forward to dessert”
“Strawberry cold soup with vanilla ice cream, then coffee – and yes, me too,” replies Anatoly.(3)
Jenny is upstairs when she hears the rattle at the front door. She goes downstairs tentatively, unsure about exactly what to do. On the door mat there are letters.
Jennifer McEwan knew all about letters. She sent them. She read them. She sorted them. Some for her. Some for Joe. Some for them both.
Since Vyera has returned to England, there had been such a lot to get used to - like what to do with letters? Vyera never received letters - who would write to a slave? Instructions and tasks were a different matter. They were an every day affair, but letters?
Vyera picks them up and reads the envelopes carefully. She has to, nowadays. None of the letters look quite right. What they represent has to be sought from deep in memory. The written script she prefers is kyrileetsa. (4) Kyrileetsa in handwriting has a special flowing aesthetic. Vyera can remember carefully practicing each letter, capital and small in endless exercises until each was rendered perfectly and looked beautiful. It had to be both. Neither was good enough on its own. Mistakes were punished by the strap or the crop. Vyera remembers just how a tender bottom always reminded her to take more care over the next exercise.
One of the letters is addressed to Jennifer McEwan and after a moment’s reflection Vyera understands that Jennifer McEwan is her, now she is here, in England. The paper is nice, so it is not an official letter. The shape is almost square, so it is not about an appointment from Dr Malvern. She does not recognize the writing but she does not feel frightened of it. Ought she to wait until Joe is home, to open it with him there? She prefers to do that. It is safer that way. He is calm and reassuring but the letter seems “friendly” and so Vyera carefully makes a decision. She opens the letter.
Inside is a card and on it there is a beautiful picture of the gardens at Stow. It is a calm, reassuring image. She opens the card. There is neat informal feminine writing inside. Not too much, which is a relief and Vyera begins to feel more confident but by now, she has become Jennifer once more and reads the writing.
‘Dear Jenny.
We heard recently that you were back home and we all wanted to write and say how pleased we were to have your news.
If there is anything we can do, just pick up the phone. It would be such a pleasure to hear your voice again.
In fact, it you have time, why not come across to Suffolk to visit us? We would so look forward to seeing you in person again.
With all our love,
Corinne, Charlotte and Josephine'
Jennifer is taken completely by surprise. This is something she is not expecting at all. She reads and re-reads the note. It makes her feel happy and warm inside. Yes! She would like to go and see Corinne, Charlotte and Josephine again. Jennifer makes another decision. She is surprised how easy it is. She wants to go. She will go. She will take Joe. They will both go. She will wait for Joe to get home and then with him in the house beside her, she will call Corinne.
After a few moments pause, Jennifer retreats back upstairs. There was something she was going to do. What was it? And in that moment, Jennifer politely steps aside and Vyera re-emerges. There is cleaning to do! She spends a lot of time cleaning these days. Its what she has done for a long time now. Cleaning is simple, precise, orderly and a supervisor can see what has been done. The supervisor can also see what has not been done correctly and arrange punishment.
Punishment is a complex issue. It is unpleasant, to give a slave the opportunity to pay back for work not properly done. To make restitution. After all, a slave has no external resources of her own but she can suffer and suffering comes from within, so it is an almost unlimited resource and thus it teaches the slave generosity. It is educative, helping a slave to learn what is expected and hold the training in mind. It is restorative because afterwards, the slave starts with a clean page, the debt paid by suffering. It is an achievement, when borne stoically. It is – well, sometimes – almost pleasant, like a sports massage or a vigorous skin rub with an abrasive loofah, leaving the slave feeling happy, free from guilt for their recent infraction and their supervisor, no longer angry and disappointed with them. At such times, a slave has the opportunity to learn gratitude may even become euphoric.
Before, Vyera’s supervisor Neena was physically present. Now, Neena is virtually present and in a curious way, omnipresent. She is present in memory, in the results of the technical schooling Vyera has received and sometimes she is immediately present, when she appears without warning on Jennifer’s PC screen, when Jennifer is working on computer. These are the occasions when Vyera emerges in full force from the secret places in Jennifer McEwan’s mind. At such times, Jennifer fades to a pale transparent shadow and it is Vyera who occupies her physical form.
The cleaning and tidying done, Vyera feels that it would be appropriate to check emails on the computer. Sometimes she can deal with them. Frequently she tidies them into folders so she can check with Joe what to do.
Its funny: when he is with her, she is so more confident.
She feels safe. Like being with Dr Malvern, only better.
Today, she begins with the BBC News feed. When Vyera is alone, she will usually go to Pyervi Kanal (5) and sometimes sees Gaspazha Kustenskaya which is always a pleasure but is tainted by a tickle of home-sickness. What wonderful romantic musical names some fortunate people enjoy! Vyera rolls a familiar name I her mind, enjoying its poetic rhyme: Gaspazha Svetlana Kustenskaya; such a contrast to the awkward lumpy names of people in England. Ackroyd. Elba. Grantby. Borland. McEwan. The tickle of homesickness becomes a sting. Perhaps one day soon Vyera, one day soon…
Vyera has just opened their email account, her’s and Joseph’s when without warning, the image of Neena Alexandrovna Kirova fills the screen! It always comes unexpectedly and seems to come from a tiny spot in the top left corner of the desktop, expanding until it occupies the whole screen. Then Vyera must give Neena her whole attention but how could she ever not do so? Neena is her Supervisor.
“Good morning, Vyerochka!”
“Good morning Mistress. How can I help?” (Vyera notices that Neena has used the “affectionate” diminutive of her name, so Neena must be pleased with her)
“You are alone?”
“Yes, Gaspazha.”
“You are occupied?”
“I have just cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen. The wash hand basin and shower are clean, dry and polished, also the taps. In the kitchen, I have cleaned and dried the sink and given special attention to the plug and sink drain.”
“Plug?”
“Yes, Gaspazha. The plugs in the kitchen and bathroom wash hand basin.”
“Vyerka! That is a disappointing thing to hear you say. You know that we regard the western habit of putting plugs in sinks and washing with dirty water as a very retrograde and insanitary thing to do? A dirty thing to do?”
Vyerka. Now Neena is being critical and showing it.
“I understand, Gaspazha . I am sorry but I was merely cleaning them.”
“So, you do not use them?”
“No, Gaspazha. I wash in running water and tell Joseph he must do so and in the kitchen I rinse all the pans, crockery and knives and forks and utensils in running water. Then I put them into the dishwasher for final cleaning and items which cannot go there are washed by hand in the sink with clean hot water and detergent.”
“Much better! I was worried that you were beginning to be careless? Perhaps you know but in the fourteenth century, the Black Death plague did not cross into Russia and we attribute this to our traditional high standards of cleanliness. I do not want to think that you are picking up slovenly western habits?”
“No, of course not Gaspazha.”
“It must be hard for you to live in such circumstances. Of course it is part of your training and when you are ready to come back home, well what a relief that will be?”
“Yes, Gaspazha” When Neena speaks like this, it is so easy for Jenny to agree with her and so easy to forget Joe and her parents and Cathy and indeed, to forget who she really is.
“What else have you done?”
“The floor has been swept and washed and the work-surfaces are tidy and clean. Some letters have arrived and I have sorted them. There was one for Jennifer. Gaspazha, I opened that one …”
“Did you?”
“Yes …”
“And who was it from?”
“It was from Corinne, Charlotte and Josephine, the staff at …”
“Yes Vyera”’ Neena is speaking formally now rather than affectionately but she is no longer critical. “I know who they are. What did they have to say to you?”
“They said they were glad to know I was in England and said they would like to hear from me or even to see me, in person.”
“Did they? Did they? How interesting. That is the reason for my visit and of course, to receive your report about how you have spent your time this morning. So: Dr Mendeleyev. He has instructions for you!”
“Yes, Gaspazha?”
“The idea behind your research was first thought of by Dr Mendeleyev. He mentioned the project idea to Professor Dawney” - Vyera notices that when Neena or any of her new family speak of Professor Dawney, she feels no stab of fear or anxiety, only a feeling of complete calm - “who made arrangements to begin work on the project. This work was not authorized. Do you understand?”
Vyera does understand. Work not authorized must not be carried out until authorization and instructions have been received. This at last explains why it was necessary for Jennifer to be taken to Russia, so she could become Vyera. To re-establish control. At last Vyera begins to enjoy, inside herself, the reassurance of understanding.
“You made a confidentiality agreement with the Professional Staff at Inward Bound, to keep the data and analytical work confidential, I think?”
“Yes, Gaspazha.”
“Very well.” Actually Neena says Horosho. The sound of the word makes Vyera feel warm inside. Horosho. It was always a nice to hear the word Horosho. It meant all was well. It meant that her Superiors were pleased with her. Vyera liked people to be pleased with her …
“You have permission to visit Inward Bound. If the Professional Staff ask about your project, remember that the project belonged to Dr Mendeleyev. You are authorized to say that you worked on a project when you were away but the project belonged to your scientific supervisor. You are authorized to say that the data security is understood and is respected. Completely. There will be no consequences for any of the subjects or the Inward Bound Staff mentioned in the data you collected at the Inward Bound Centre. All except you, Vyera. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Gaspazha!” By now Vyera is smiling broadly. There would be consequences for her. That meant her new family still loved her, just as she loved them. One day she would be back with them. That would be Oichen horosho! (6)
“You may make your appointment and if asked, you may give that message. Repeat, once more, in your own words.”
“I am allowed to make an appointment to see Corinne, Charlotte and Josephine at the Inward Bound Centre. I am authorized to say that I worked on a project when I was away. A project that belonged to my scientific supervisor. The data I had collected at Inward Bound was available. Data security is understood and will be respected. There will be no consequences for anyone in the list of participants in the IWB trial, except me.”
“Horosho Verochka. Oichen horosho – but one more thing.”
“Yes, Gaspazha?”
“There is no need to mention the consequences for you. Simple messages are good messages. The consequences for you is our secret. You and me. The consequence for you is that you will soon come back to us. Understand?”
“Yes, Gaspazha, I understand”, says Vyera who notices how pleasantly wet she has become during her interview with Neena.
Neena’s image smiles broadly, blows Vyera a kiss and is gone - and Jennifer McEwan is alone once more, in a small house, in a suburban street, in the English Midlands.
Jennifer McEwan is at the Edgbaston Trauma Clinic. She is attending a regular counseling session with Dr Laura Malvern, a psychologist who specializes in the care of patients who have suffered psychological trauma. Jennifer has endured very significant trauma. She has endured an abduction and has been held captive in slavery for almost two years.
Jennifer is ambivalent about her recent history. She has a new language, is actually a citizen of a new country (something she has yet to confide to anyone in her home country) She completed her research and has graduated PhD from a prestigious European university (another secret) and there were aspects of her captivity which fulfilled some of her deepest desires but which simultaneously horrified and terrified her. All these emotions warp and flux in her mind. Who is she now? Is she once more Jennifer Karin McEwan a free woman and married to Joseph or is she really Vyera Anatolyevna Kuznetsova, a slave and someone who is owned? Should she be proud of what she achieved? Should she burn with indignation about how she was abused? How should she regard her erstwhile captors? With affection? With loyalty? With anger? With loathing? If only she could find some safe calm place to reflect in peace about what has happened to her. If only she could reach some understanding about how much she could and how much she should confide to her husband, her parents her friends and to Dr Anne Elba, the Police Psychologist who is also taking a very great interest in her case.
Jennifer is growing to like Dr Malvern. She feels Dr Malvern is on her side. She can speak to Dr Malvern with confidence because the meetings are in confidence. Even Joe will not know what she has disclosed, what she has confessed – and Dr Elba will not get to know, either.
“So how are you feeling today? Are you on your own or is Joe with you?”
“Joe is downstairs. Coming to see you is an opportunity for us to have time together. His firm give him the time away from work to bring me but I worry about it sometimes.”
“Worry?”
“Well, yes. He should be at work and I should be able to get here on my own. I am not exactly an invalid.”
“No of course not. Are his firm getting awkward about him having the time off?”
“Er … I don’t think so. Its just me. I don’t want to be a burden. I don’t want to queer his pitch with the firm. They have just merged with another company and - well I suppose it makes us a bit nervous about what might happen. You know?”
“Yes, I know. Jenny, if you feel you can come alone, you should. What would you have to do? Train from Warwick to Birmingham – its Moor Street Station, isn’t it? Then you could get a taxi to here. Could you manage that?”
“I will tell him, for next time.”
“Yes, for next time. So what about this time? What have you been up to at home?”
“I have been getting our home properly clean.”
“Was it in a bit of a mess when you got home?”
“No, not really. Joe is a ‘modern man’ Cooks, irons, knows how to clean the bathroom. That sort of thing. Its just … its just …”
“Go on. Take your time … “
“Its just that he had not done it to the proper standard.”
“Standard? You sound like a professional.”
“Well I suppose I sort of am now. He has not kept house to the standard I have been taught.”
“A friend of mine did a holiday job in a hotel in Switzerland. The woman who was in charge of the cleaning - I mean its was exactly what you would expect of Switzerland – was obsessed with getting the linen ironed ‘just so’ and having perfect ‘hospital corners’ on the bed sheets. Is that what you mean? Did you work in a hotel?”
“Work in a hotel? Oh no. No I meant when I was away.”
“Oh. Do you want to talk about that?”
“You won’t tell, will you?”
“Tell? Of course not. Tell who, anyway?”
“Dr Elba.”
“No, I will not tell Dr Elba unless you say its OK. You were going to tell me how to keep house?”
“When I was away, one of the jobs I did was to help keep the house clean.”
“Was it a flat or a house?”
“It was a house.”
“Was it big?”
“Big? It was enormous! Like a ‘stately home’. I suppose that is what it was.”
“Was there just you?”
“No, of course not. There was a permanent staff. There were four people on the domestic side, and a chef and he had an assistant. There was a gardener – well he had help too and then there were the security people. There was my supervisor and a gym teacher.”
“That’s … that’s about a dozen people?”
“Yes, twelve. That’s about right. Actually maybe it was fifteen or even twenty. Sometimes more.”
“So what was it like?”
“At first I just got simple jobs. Sweeping carpets and so on. I got kitchen portering jobs to do. I got to help the gardener sometimes. As time went on, I was able to do more. Everything I did had to be completely right or my Supervisor would notice.”
“What did he say? Or was it a she?”
“She would cane me if it was not up to standard. You soon learn to work to a high standard, if you might get caned …”
“You got beaten?”
“No, I was caned. ‘Beaten’ sounds a bit out-of-control. Caning is precise. Number of strokes. Placement. Strength. Its very precise, as I said.”
“What did … I mean how did you … I mean what did you feel about that?”
“At first I was really, really angry. Then I was distraught, especially when I thought about it going on like that for ever and ever. Then I thought the way to deal with the situation was to play them at their own game and to do better than they expected.”
“Ah … did that work?”
“No. No, of course not. First, because the more I did, the more they expected and second, the harder I worked the more the work seemed right and appropriate for me to be doing it. It ended up as a sort of defeat. I started out fighting and I ended up surrendering and accepting the role they gave me.”
“Is that what you did every day?”
“Yes and no. Yes, everyday there was housework to do and no it was not the only thing I did. I did a gym work out, usually first thing. Then I had language work to do. Cleaning next. PhD next.”
“You did research?”
“Yes. I had a psychologist and a statistician to work with.”
“Oh. But that must have been something you started there?”
“Oh no. I worked on the data I collected in the UK. It had all been copied and was there when I arrived.”
And then Jennifer realizes! She had not been authorized to say that. She had made a mistake in the message she had agreed with Neena! She blushes deeply and then she blusters, “I mean I worked on … you see the project really belonged to my scientific supervisor so really all the data was his. The UK data collection had not been authorized but there will be no consequences for anyone in the list of participants because data security and confidentiality is completely understood … I am so sorry … I really should not have said it that way …” and by now tears are filling Jennifer’s eyes and whilst she knows that Dr Malvern must be able to see but she can’t see Dr Malvern looking at her, through her tears, which in some odd way makes it better.
Dr Malvern leans back in her chair. She can’t quite get to grips with this latest unexpected revelation, the matter-of-fact way in which Jenny began to supply it and then anxiety and emotional turmoil Jenny had shown afterwards.
‘Uh oh’, she thinks.
“Jenny,” she says, “lets just take this step by step and stop when you have gone far enough, OK? Let me give you some ‘safe words’. I will ask a question and if you say ‘Green’ I will know that it is an easy question for you to answer. If you say ‘Amber’, I will know that answering is difficult. If you say ‘Red’, I will know that you can’t go on. Would that be better?”
“Yes thank you”, says Jennifer with a sigh, “much better”
“So what did you do at Warwick?”
“Green. I was a research student”
“Was that in the Psychology Department?”
“Green. Yes it was.”
“Were you working towards something like a PhD?”
“Green. Yes, I was.”
“Did you work on your research at the University?”
“Green. Yes, I worked in the Library and took part in the teaching but I did the data collection at Inward Bound, in Suffolk”
“I once read a book called ‘How To Get a PhD’ (7) and the authors spent a lot of time talking about the relationship between the supervisor and the student. I suppose it has to be … erm …”
“Amber … My supervisor at Warwick was … was … Professor Angela Dawney”
“That sounds if your relationship was not easy?”
“No, it was not easy. Angela and I were … had been … I am sorry I cant say any more about that. Not today. Its Red”
“Ah ha. So you did academic work when you were away?”
Jenny sighs and stays silent for several moments. “This is Amber” she says at last.
“Do you want to stop?”
“I am not sure. It depends on where you want to go.”
“Was it similar work?”
“It was academic work …”
“Was the subject area the same?”
Jenny pauses once more. She knows she has to speak carefully and then she realizes that whilst Jennifer must be careful, Vyera knows exactly what she can say and what she cannot say. She has been told by Neena. She has even practiced what to say, in Neena’s virtual presence. Now she can be confident! Just let Vyera do the talking and she will be safe! Vyera says: “I worked on a project when I was away. A project that belonged to my scientific supervisor. As background some of the data I had collected at Inward Bound was available. Data security is understood and will be respected. There will be no consequences for anyone in the list of participants participating in the IWB trial.”
Laura immediately notices the change of tone in Jennifer’s remarks, as if she is repeating a prepared statement. All the hesitation and anxiety of a few moments ago are gone. Dr Malvern gently probes deeper …
“So what was the focus of your project? The subject area, I mean?”
“The provisional title of my Thesis was going to be An Investigation into Changes in Human Play Behaviour Under Stress. Basically, I followed a cohort of people as they went through an IWB course and looked at how their psychological outlook changed during their experience, using questionnaire instruments.” (8)
“IWB? Tell me again?”
“It stands for Inward Bound. It’s a sort of adventure playground for adults. They put on courses for people who want to play with power exchange in the BDSM sense of the word. Playing at … at … at being sexual slaves.”
“And you were studying how their outlook changes during the time of the course?”
“Yes.”
“What about when you were away?”
Jenny notices that she is alone in the room with Dr Malvern. Vyera has gone. This is a new question and Vyera was not given precise instructions about how exactly to answer it. She has no prepared words. She no longer knows exactly what to say. A look of fear and panic darts across her face. She opens her mouth to speak and Dr Malvern says, “You know … what about stopping there? For today? What do you think?”
Laura Malvern notices that in the split second it takes for Jenny’s brain to compute what she has just said, Jenny’s countenance changes again and she becomes calm.
“Yes”, says Jenny. “Lets stop there”, but then she continues, “anyway, I am going back to IWB.”
“You are?”
“Yes. I had a letter from Corinne and Charlotte and Josephine to say that they had heard I was back and that it would be nice to meet up again and I thought it would be too, so Joe and I are going this weekend, just to say ‘Hi’.”
‘This’, thinks Laura Malvern, ‘might be a good moment to see how consistent Jenny is in what she has told me about her research data: how much reliance can I place on this rather strange story?’ She probes circumspectly, once more …
She says, “Corinne might want to know about the data you collected, about what happened to it and if it is safe. I expect you had to sign a confidentiality agreement and put special arrangements in place to keep the data secure …”
To her surprise, Jenny replies without hesitation. “Yes, you are quite right. We did (that’s Professor Dawney and me) sign confidentiality agreements with IWB and all the participants and had to demonstrate how we were going to safeguard the data and especially safe guard the list of participation subjects and staff. I was really worried about this because I knew the data had been used outside the context of the agreement. By me. When I was away. I knew I ought to tell Corinne – she runs IWB – but I did not have permission and now I have. It is such a relief! I have been given instructions – my Supervisor has been in touch earlier this week to say that I am allowed to provide complete reassurance that data security is understood and accepted and that there will be no consequences for anyone on the list of participants …”
Jenny’s answer is so slick, so confident and straightforward that there are only two possibilities. It’s the complete truth or Jenny is a complete fantasist and in fact the most accomplished fantasist Laura Malvern has even encountered. Malvern looks carefully at Jenny. She sits, her body now relaxed. Her face relaxed. Her eyes lightly resting on Laura. There are no signs of anxiety, only of complete assurance. ‘This girl is actually telling the truth’, thinks Malvern, but then … she contemplates the uncomfortable conclusion …
Jenny is speaking again, “I might have to point out that the data has been copied and that I completed the analysis and wrote up the research report, so really the project has been completed. If they ask me”
Laura Malvern asks “your supervisor?”
Jenny but actually Vyera this time, replies. “My supervisor where I lived but she passed on instructions from my academic supervisor”
Dr Malvern knows that patients who have suffered emotional and psychological trauma (as far as the two are ever separate) will never recover until the trauma stops. Painful memories are usually the source of continuing trauma. In Jennifer McEwan’s case, it seemed that the continuing trauma is being perpetrated by the people who had been responsible for Jennifer’s absence, perhaps even abduction and who are still in easy contact with her, still trying to control her.
Laura Malvern has a duty of confidentiality to her client. She also has a duty of care. The aim of the therapy is to restore Jennifer McEwan to heath. She cannot do that until the trauma stops. She is going to have to contact Annie Elba again and explain the position, explain the new information she has been given. Between them, they will now have to put some plan in place to isolate Jennifer from the continuing influence of her stalkers, perhaps her abductors and perhaps on reflection, Jennifer really does need asylum? An Asylum as a place of safety, where she would be out of harm’s way?
1. The National Hotel, Moscow
Five star luxury in the centre of Moscow. You can stay in the room Lenin used in March 1918 (#107), if you like.
2. Arrest & Interrogation of Professor Dawney & Jennifer
The story of this crucial incident is told in detail in Thesis, the first book in our story, in chapter 22
3. Mikhail & Anatoly's Lunch
The lunch Mikhail and Anatoly enjoy was selected from a menu available on the National Hotel website when this chapter was being written. Unfortunately, neither Phil nor Freddie has been able to try it out in person!
4.Kyrilleetsa, (êèðèëëèöà)
In English, ‘Cyrillic’ is the Russian written script developed by St Cyril and St Methodius to help them spread the Christian Gospel to the Slavic people.
5. Pyervi Kanal
Literally “First Channel” Pyervi Kanal claims to be the best funded Russian TV station.
6. Oichen Horosho!
(Î÷åí õîðîøî) Very good!
7.How To Get A Phd: A Handbook For Students And Their Supervisors
Paperback – 1 Aug 2015 by Estelle Phillips (Author), Derek.S. Pugh (Contributor)
Open University Press
ISBN -10: 0335264123
ISBN -13: 978-0335264124
8. Jenny's Research
Readers interested in looking at a genuine academic investigation into BDSM sexuality may enjoy
Through Pain, More Gain?
A Survey into the Psychosocial Benefits of Sadomasochism
Andrea Duarte Silva
Department of Psychology - Faculty of Social Sciences
Universitetet I Oslo
October 14 2015
which can be downloaded as a pdf document from the internet
6. SPEAR FISHING
In a quiet moment during his office day, Anatoly picks up the Vyera file and reads. He reviews the resume of the telephone calls and email traffic. He notes Neena’s ‘e-visits’ to Vyera and her appointments with the therapeutic psychologist, Malvern. The calls, text and emails to her parents. Vyera’s calls to her husband and his calls to her. Anatoly goes to the second section of the file to remind himself about Vyera’s husband Joseph. About the company which employs him, about what he did for the company and what he did when his wife Jennifer disappeared and became the new woman “Vyera” he is now getting to know. Anatoly notes Joseph’s calls to a colleague called Gwenda. If Sveta had not intervened and so to speak, altered the course of history, Anatoly wonders if Gwenda and Joseph might have found happiness together? Joseph is a brave and resourceful young man, the sort of person who could easily find a place in Anatoly’s organization, if only Anatoly is able to get the engineering right. And Joseph would bring Vyera with him …
As he grows older, Anatoly often finds himself thinking about his father.
He remembers standing by his father on one occasion as they looked at a picture of Army officers who themselves were standing and gazing at a map. In the picture, Anatoly’s father points to a location and glances up at his Commander, Marshal Gregory Zhukov. (1)
“It’s important Anatoly”, said his father, “to follow orders carefully. Especially if the orders come from a man like this”. He taped the image of Zhukov. “On the other hand there are times when you have to know which orders to disregard.
Did I tell you about the time when the German panzer leader Heinz Guderian lost the Great Patriotic War in West Europe by following orders?
In 1940, he had pushed the British forces right to the sea. There they were trapped along the Belgian coast. Guderian was poised to strike the final fatal blow which would have destroyed the ability of the British to resist Hitler on land in the west. For some reason, Hitler told Guderian to stop advancing. There he sat, tank engines running, consumed in frustration whilst a few kilometres away, the British slipped away across the sea in a ridiculous armada of small boats. (2) By and by his chance of finishing off the British vanished and all because he obeyed an order. Do you know what he should have done? Gone right ahead and told Hitler that the final attack was in progress and could not be halted! You see, Guderian knew better than the German High Command exactly what the position was on the ground. Orders from superiors do not excuse a soldier from using his brain. So that goes to show little Anatoly that sometimes you have to know when to disobey!”
Anatoly as a mature adult is now able to understand much more exactly the sage advice from his father, General Sergei Kustensky, Hero of the Soviet Union. Anatoly smiles. Mikhail Barysovitch Antonov is – in Anatoly’s opinion - not at his best in a crisis. He told Anatoly to dismantle the surveillance equipment planted in Vyera’s home in England. Clearly, a panic response. This was an order Anatoly had disobeyed – and he was reaping the benefits of holding fast. He will not mention the details to Mikhail Barysovitch but the information he is learning is sharpening his plans about what to do next.
After Petra finds the exact location of Jenny and Joe's home she formulates a careful surveillance plan. As an American she is unusual, although not the novelty she might have been years ago. Still, she would linger in memory if she had an accidental encounter with one or more of the McEwan's neighbours or worse still, an unexpected meeting with the McEwans themselves.
Petra begins in the safety of her hotel room in London and brings up the McEwan’s address on Google Earth. She has an excellent aerial view of their property and the neighbourhood and a street map which allows her to plan a drive-by in the most discrete way.
Petra has to gain some detailed knowledge of the McEwan's routine and of their immediate plans. The technical question is, how should she arrange the eves-drop?
Petra turns again to the satellite image and increases the size to maximum resolution. It seem almost as if she hovers above the roof of the property. Petra is searching for some vulnerability, some point of leverage she can exploit to help her find a technical answer to her problem ...
Over dinner that evening (she chooses to go ‘Oriental’, to Kai Mayfair because it is simply the best. Sharp. Elegant. Beautiful and with food to match.) (3) Petra muses over what to do about Tracy. She thinks back over the revealing conversation she had with Randolf and Chuck Yates, the Randolf Corporation Chief Financial Accountant. (4)
“So Petra, Chuck and I are gonna have to put you more in the picture about the Corporation. Give you some important context. Chuck? ...”
“Well Petra, it's like this. Frankly, the Corporation has been in poor shape over the past few years. We are seriously over-valued. We need real money to refinance and to get working capital to rebuild our financial foundations ...”
“So why not just go to the Bank and borrow?” Petra asked. “If people think you are a good risk and a valuable company, that should be no problem?”
“The banks are being much more careful and frankly, I don’t want them crawling over the company accounts” replied Randolf.
“and the reason is”, continues Chuck, “that the accounts have not told the complete picture about the corporate finances for quite a while, So what we did”, continues Chuck.
“Look, Petra it's like this” said Randolf, following through. “Along comes The Nineties. After the Soviet Union collapsed I could smell money. Could we cut some deal with the former soviets? Hell, I thought we’d be dealing with a bunch of engineers who knew fuck all about business or a collection of ex-pinko communist apparatchiks who did not know which way up the balance sheet went.”
“And I guess it did not turn out quite like that?”
“No siree girl, it did not. “
“... so we took a leaf out of the Enron Book” (5) adds Chuck. “We set up a number of Special Purpose Vehicles. These separate an investment from the main balance sheet. If it makes money, you can transfuse money into the main Corporation accounts. If it loses, it is off the books but the main thing is that the share price is not affected by what the SPV’s are doing.” (6)
“I wanted them just to bring investment capital into the Corporation” explains Randolf. “... and avoid tax” adds Chuck with an accountant’s precision.
“Well, ‘Boris’ found out that we were over-valued and he guessed that we had been using our East Europe operations to rebuild our finances” added Randolf.
... you see Petra, they knew that we had not been correctly declaring profits and The Treasury does not like that” the pedantic Chuck explained.
“... and I have no intention of doing jail time like that dumbass Jeffery Skilling” added Randolf. (7)
“... so Manfred sent Tracy to tie up the East European operation.”
“To cut the Russians loose?”
“Yep, that’s about it. A few more months and we would not have needed them any more” Randolf replied.
“And now they have Tracy, she is security to guarantee your good behavior”, says Petra, summarizing the situation.
“Yes Petra, that’s it. Tracy also knows where a whole lot more bodies are buried.”
Petra glances at her watch. 9pm in London but 3pm in Houston. Chuck Yates would still be at his desk. Petra places the call. She reaches the Corporation switchboard and is soon speaking with Chuck’s secretary.
“Mr Yates Office …”
“This is Petra Tennerby. Corporation Security. I would be obliged if you would put me through to Mr Yates?”
“Do you have an appointment, Ms Tennerby?”
“No I do not but I think you should let Mr Yates know I am on the line. It’s an expensive line, by the way. It goes all the way to London, England.”
“Just one moment, I will see if he can give you time …”
“Petra?” Chuck sounds tentative and unsure of himself.
“Chuck!”
“Petra, should we be talking like this?”
Petra is not to Chuck’s liking. She is attractive and sensuous in a sinuous rattlesnake sort of way and like a rattlesnake, she is dangerous with a fast, deep and poisonous bite. If he reflected carefully enough, Chuck would have to admit to himself that he is afraid of Petra and perhaps with good reason.
“Why the hell not, Chuck? We both work for the Randolf Corporation.”
“Yes but well, you know … you are Security.” Petra can imagine Chuck starting to perspire, beginning to squirm in his chair.
“Who better to speak with the Corporation Chief Accountant?”
“So how can I help?” Chuck sighs and Petra hears him down the line. ‘A good accountant maybe but not good with poker’ she muses.
“You have got my number?”
“Of course.”
“So go home, stop by Wallmart, buy a ‘pay as you go’ mobile and call me. I would like to take your call before midnight and its already 9pm here so call me by six, your time huh?”
“Ye .. yes Petra, I’ll try”
“No, Chuck. Don’t just try. Just do it, do you hear?”
“OK Petra, I’ll call.”
After she closes the call, Petra reflects carefully over some awkward facts: Randolf owes money – but is almost in the clear. Randolf is tied to a partner who is able to dictate terms. Tracy is surety. Tracy has insider information about the Corporation - but the value of her inside knowledge is fading with each passing day and other information about some less-than-honest financial footwork which has kept the Corporation looking like a sound investment.
Petra finds herself wondering when would Tracy cease to be of any real value to the Corporation? When would they get to a point where they did not need Tracy anymore?
“Petra? It's me, Chuck.”
“Good boy Chuck. You are calling on time. Are you inside?”
“Yes of course.”
“I would rather we had this conversation outside.”
“Do I have to?”
“Depends if you want to be overheard or not. Is it raining or something?”
“Petra you surely don't think our home is bugged do you?”
“Frankly Chuck I have no idea. It was clean last time I did a sweep but who knows now. Anyway the point is I don't want us to be overhead and it's less likely that your garden has been compromised. Bugs planted between the roses, you know?”
“OK just give me a minute ...”
Chuck keeps the line open as he goes outside. Petra can hear him shuffling through his house and eventually the character of the line changes as he gets outside. “So what is it you want to talk about that is so sensitive? Have you found Tracy?”
“No, but I have found the girl who might have been held captive with her.”
“Oh ... Well that’s good isn't it?”
“Yeah, that's definitely a step in the right direction but that is not why I am calling.”
“Oh? ”
“I was thinking back to the conversation you and Manfred had with me in Berlin. You remember: when you told me that the Corporation was headed down the pan and about what you did ...”
“Yes well Petra do we have to go over that again? I mean it's looking a lot like water under the bridge now.”
“Yes I hope so but its still a skeleton in the cupboard, right?”
“Erm, yes well ... Yes, I guess so, although I would rather not use that sort of language ...”
“So Chuck, Manfred said that Tracy knows where a whole lot more bodies are buried?”
“Petra, do we have to go over this again? Isn't your job just to help us get Tracy back?”
“My job is to manage the situation Chuck, which may involve getting Tracy back and maybe no.”
“No? Not get Tracy back? How do you mean Petra?”
“OK Chuck let's think this thing through. You are in Manfred's office, sat at the conference table but unfortunately, it's not just you and Manfred. There are people from The Treasury, people from the Department of Justice, FBI, Houston PD and maybe you two have gotten yourselves an attorney. The Treasury says 'we realise that no one has lost money but what you did was serious fraud and way out of line' and the Department of Justice people shake their head and say ‘yep, one of you two or maybe both of you is going down for twenty five years at least. We have got to set an example here. Uphold standards of good corporate behaviour. We do not want any more Gordon Gekko behaviour'. (8) What's Manfred going to do? How old is he now? Sixties? Sixty plus twenty five minus three for good behaviour minus two for a 'guilty' plea is eighty. Can you or Manfred last out in the State ‘Pen till you are eighty? Alternatively does Manfred say 'Well look here I gave my daughter a free hand to bring new thinking to the business? I think you are going to have to have a word with her because all these irregularities started after she joined the Corporation - and meanwhile he is thinking 'Tracy: she is thirty so thirty plus twenty five equals fifty five and she gets to walk out of the 'Pen and she still has a lot of years ahead of her?”
Chuck swallows hard. Petra's grim scenario seems all too dreadfully plausible. He knows that if the chips were really down, Manfred would always look after himself and would have no hesitation in throwing him and perhaps even Tracy to the wolves if the need arose.
“So what should we do Petra?”
“So let's think about Tracy. Why is she valuable to her abductors?”
“Well they will assume that Manfred wants his daughter back and will start toeing the line so they can do some sort of deal between us and them?”
“Something like 'give us a controlling interest in the Corporation and you can have the girl back again’?”
“Something like that.”
“What other value might she have? Pretend you were selling her to the highest bidder. Maybe pretend she was a bit like a football player.”
“Well if you put it like that Petra, Tracy is a trained accountant and a very good one actually. She knows the oil business. She knows the financial position of the Corporation and how we like to do things.”
“OK, let's take these things one by one. Accountant?”
“She is good but not uniquely good.”
“Oil business?”
“Well, plenty of people know about the oil business …”
“The financial position of the Corporation? That must change from day to day, right?”
“Sure. When she vanished, she would know the up to date situation. As time passes, her detailed knowledge becomes out-dated. That is inevitable.”
“So her knowledge of the Corporation is becoming less valuable as time passes?”
“Yes, well I guess but look Petra …”
“And then you add a little something if you roll all these things up together in one package?”
“Yes, that's fair but look Petra this is Tracy we are talking about. Manfred’s daughter.”
“Chuck here is some practical risk management. From what you have said, Tracy's unique value to you is that she knows where the bodies are buried, right?”
“Right.”
“So if there is no Tracy, there is one less person to open their mouth too wide. If Tracy comes home and sings in Washington or Houston, you and Manfred are in real trouble. If she sings in Moscow, who in their right mind is going to believe her, especially when you and Manfred have the opportunity to pour all the evidence down to the bottom of one of those deep wells Manfred wants to drill?”
“Ah ... I see what you mean … so where do we go from here? What are you going to do?”
“I am going to keep doing what I am doing at the moment. I am going to keep my eye on the English gal and encourage her to tell me where Tracy is - but when I have found out, that's when you me and Manfred have to do some serious thinking.”
“OK, I guess you are right ... Oh, Petra?”
“Yes? Why did you have me buy a new 'cell?”
“Mainly to keep you out of an Federal one! No one knew you were going to buy a new phone. No one knew where you we going to buy it from. No one will have a trace on it. This little 'brainstorm' we have had has been kept confidential. Do you know how to take out the SIM card?”
“Yes, er- I think so.”
“Go inside, take out the SIM and feed it into the kitchen waste disposal or your shredder if it is built to take it. Then buy a new SIM and set this mobile to one side in case you need me again. Only use it to call me and only use each SIM once. You got that?”
“Yes, Petra. I've got that.”
“Well done, Chuck! You take care now.”
In the Randolf Corporation offices in London, Craig Scott takes a call. It is Sandra, his secretary.
“Craig?”
“Yes?”
“There is a package in the mail room for you. It's from Houston. Do you want me to bring it up for you?”
“Huh? No, it's OK. I don’t suppose it is much. I'll deal with it. I am going in that direction anyway.”
Whilst Craig Scott was keen to let Sandra know she could safely discard the memory of the consignment from Houston, by his indolent and complacent reply he was actually very keen to learn of its arrival. It was something he had been waiting for. He took out his mobile and placed a call.
In Birmingham, Petra has is busy. She has rented a small industrial unit on an anonymous trading estate and bought a Ford Courier Transit commercial van from a used vehicle dealership. There are two advantages of a used vehicle: the relatively modest financial outlay but more important, there is no Manufacturer’s Warranty, and that means no-one is collecting her details. The vehicle she chooses has roof rails and is painted in Ford’s ubiquitous Frozen White colour, like thousands of others. All she has to do now is to apply some decals: one on each side and a smaller one on each door, together with an address. The decals read ...
Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe
Mobile Communication Signals Audit
... and provide a complete explanation for the occupant in the vehicle and why she might be found cruising the streets of Warwick. It also explained the aerials and the general look of the equipment Petra has installed on the vehicle roof.
“Petra?”
“Craig ...”
“Hi, look some kit has turned up for you here in London.”
“OK ...”
“I have had a look at it. It is in three large suitcases, reasonably heavy about twenty kilos each. I have checked the contents. Everything is in working order and all items present and correct as far as I can tell. How do you want it sent to you? Might be best to use a courier service. It's what anyone would do, so no one is going to pay attention. Because it's coming from the Randolf office in London, we would be better to use our normal firm so once again, the whole thing looks normal. Sound OK to you?”
“No, because there's a paper trail ...”
“So do you want to drive down here and pick it up? You would be recorded as entering the building and picking up the kit from the mail room ...”
“Craig, try this: you hire a small van from someone like Avis or Enterprise and drive it up to me. There's an underground car park beneath the Randolf Building. The building security will record the van’s entry and exit but there will be nothing to tie it to you, so your entry with the hire vehicle and your exit with the consignment is discreet in both directions. What do you say?”
“That would work. I will buy that. So I will see you ... about tomorrow lunch time or just after. That means The Company is just down for a day's hire.”
“Sounds good. Oh - Craig? Pay for the hire out of your own pocket and I will refund you in cash when we meet, OK? No paper that way!”
“Except for the cash!”
“Yeah, except for the cash!”
It is two days later and two o’clock in the morning. The evening revellers (as many as there are on a Tuesday in late November) have disappeared and the police on patrol to keep an eye on them have also disappeared.
Petra has parked her vehicle in a quiet cul-de-sac road about five hundred metres from Joe and Jenny's home.
She checks the weather: no rain has been forecast and none has materialised. There is a light breeze from the south west five. There is no moon and the orange downwards glare of the street lamps conspires to make the sky even blacker.
Petra checks her equipment once more: Batteries – charged; Target and course – uploaded;
Wind speed and direction - uploaded into the on-board computer; Night vision camera – active;
Payload batteries – charged; Payload – attached; Communications channels – open.The time is now zero two thirty. It is time to launch!
Petra feels a thrill of adrenalin as she begins. She switches on the drone engine and watches on her computer screen as the power increases. She releases the electromagnetic catches which hold the drone to the vehicle roof and the craft rises into the night sky. Petra now has a view from the drone downwards and sees the roof of her vehicle at first filling the screen, then getting smaller as the drone rises to one hundred feet. It is low enough to maintain an easy view of the drone's position but high enough to carry the noise of the drone out of earshot.
Petra does not want to risk a mechanical or electrical failure which might bring the drone down onto an innocent property or even worse, atop a large and unreachable tree, so she has programmed the drone to fly above the streets, to allow an emergency recovery if needs be. So much for the plan but the south westerly breeze seems to be increasing and it constantly pushes the drone off course. Petra keeps a careful watch on its progress, both as a spot travelling on the GPS map on her ‘screen one’ and from the downwards view she has from the craft itself on her ‘screen two.’ The wind is pushing the craft approximately to its destination but Petra still has to make regular course corrections.
Presently, the drone is outside Joe and Jenny's property, still steady at an altitude of one hundred feet. It is time for her to take full control. The drone is roughly square in shape with a rotor at each corner. This makes the craft very manoeuvrable. Petra has studied photographs of Joe and Jenny's home on Google Earth and knows that at the rear of the building, there is a dormer with a flat roof. She edges the craft off the street and across the main roof.
The night vision camera shows her the drop zone and Petra gently reduces power to let the drone land but it is not quite straight forward because the gusting of the wind means she must make constant adjustments to keep the drone on target. She has installed four lights - actually laser pointers - one at each corner of the drone, angled down and inwards. She can clearly make out the four small bright spots of light projected down onto the roof asphalt. The spots will all merge into one single bright orange spot when the drone has landed. As the craft descends the size of the roof enlarges and gradually fills the computer screen.
At twenty feet of altitude, the radar altimeter actives and at Petra’s work station, the computer speaker starts to say ‘Pah! Pah! Pah! with an increasing frequency as the drone gets lower and lower, just like the reversing alarm on a motor vehicle. The four bright spots move ever closer. The tempo of the audio altimeter alert is increasing. In a moment, Petra’s computer is plays a single sustained Paaaaaaaaaaah! to convey that in altimeter’s opinion, the drone has landed. Pressure sensors on the drone’s feet begin to report firm contact and in addition to the wail of the altimeter, the pressure sensors say Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! through the speaker but the lights from the laser pointers have not formed a round spot. It is an oval. The apex of the oval points towards the roof edge. Petra wracks her brain to make sense of what the controls are telling her – and suddenly, she realised what the contradictory information means. The flat roof is in fact a slope. It slopes towards the roof edge, to shed water into the gutter and all the while, the drone engines are still turning and the power reserve is draining away. Petra makes an instinctive decision. She shuts down the engines and lets the aircraft settle. There is not enough reserve in the flight batteries to bring the payload safely back. She must leave it and hope for the best, hope it does not skate off the roof to lodge in the rainwater gutter or smash onto the concrete path below!
Petra checks the payload one final time - it is active - and releases it from the drone. The Stingray slips ever such a little - and stays put and Petra heaves a huge sigh of relief. She feels as if she has just set down a probe on the surface of the planet Mars!
The payload is a thin black rectangular box, about the size of a DL envelope and 10 mm thick. From the narrow end, 10 cm of rubber coated aerial projects. The outer skin bears photocells to keep the unit charged by collecting ambient sunlight and in the centre is a rectangle of mild steel which can be held by the electro-magnet carried under the drone and held safe during flight.
Petra powers up the engine once more and the craft rises into the night sky, to make its return journey. As the drone ascends, Petra has a view of the Stingray left on the roof and getting smaller as the drone rises. A non descript rectangle of metal but with a sting in the tail projecting from one end. This time, the drone has to make headway against the wind, a wind which has changed from a steady breeze to become gusty and turbulent. Also, the drone has only only a modest flight endurance. Petra estimates a total flight time of 20 minutes. She is on the return leg but the power in the drone engine batteries is dropping quickly. The street where Petra has parked is still deserted and Petra decides to bring the drone back to earth in the road outside her van, to reduce the risk of a difficult landing on the van's roof. After all, the drone has one more mission to accomplish, to retrieve the Stingray when its task is done. With the drone still one hundred yards away, the power reserve in the engine batteries becomes critically low. Petra has no choice but to bring the drone to earth as quickly and as gently as she can, right in the middle of the road. As soon as the craft lands, Petra leaves her vehicle and sprints to where the drone is sitting in the middle of the roadway. It the distance, she can hear a car engine. It is coming towards her but is still out of sight.
Petra has just enough time to sweep up the craft into her arms and to run back to the vehicle before the car sweeps past the opening of the cul de sac where she is parked.
With the drone back inside the van, Petra takes a few moments to let her body recover from the tension and exertion of the mission. When her breathing has at last returned to normal, she pours herself a coffee from a flask and spends a few further moments resting to let the tension of the night’s work ebb away ...
A mobile phone constantly searches for the strongest Wi-Fi signal, to optimise the strength and reliability of any call. It also keeps a list of the Wi-Fi networks it has connected to in the recent past. Petra's drone has left a Stingray Wi-Fi beacon (9) as close as she can reasonably get to Joe and Jenny and as the drone returns to base, the beacon begins to transmit. Due to its proximity, it is guaranteed to be the strongest Wi-Fi signal in the immediate vicinity. Any mobile in the area will be seduced to connect itself to the Stingray beacon, as if it is merely connecting to its host network. (10)
By the time Petra has stowed the quadcopter safely inside the van, the beacon has captured the attention of several mobile telephones in the area, but there are only two which interest Petra.
Petra opens the files returned from the beacon and organises then according to the telephone number of the mobile whose attention has been caught.
Petra already knows Joseph's mobile number because he has (like many professional people) a page on Linked-In (11) which has his number to make him contactable. Petra sends a small Application to the beacon which passes the App on for the attention of Joseph's keen and attentive mobile. The App appears on the phone screen as a small message, saying:
'Software update available to fix security issues in Contacts and Messages. Recommended. Please click the link to download and then Restart.' (12)
Petra smiles at this ingenious fusion of Social Engineering - instructing the client to compromise his own phone by clever use of language and his own expectations of the device and Software Engineering. The App will copy Joe's diary, his phone directory, his list of calls and the notes he has made. These will be written into a file which will upload onto a commercial file storage site for Petra to download and analyse each day as the updates are made. In addition Petra will be able to command the phone to switch on its microphone and record the voices at any meeting in Joe's diary which seems interesting and useful to Petra's cause. Meanwhile, Joe will be unaware of the duplicity of his phone which will not make any record of its clandestine work.
Petra cannot find any evidence of Jenny's phone. Perhaps it is switched off? However, in the morning, when Jenny switches on, the snare will be there, waiting ...
References
1. Marshall Gregory Zhukov
Commander of the Belo -Russian front during the Battle for Berlin at the end of the Second World War.
2. The Dunkirk Evacuation
The extraordinary escape of the British Expeditionary force from mainland Europe in May 1940.
3. The Kai Mayfair Restaurant.
They've kept a Michelin star for the last 7 years.
4. The Meal at the Marriott
For a more complete account of Petra’s evening, see ‘Touchdown’ Chapter 3: Dinner at the Mid Town Grill
5. The Enron Scandal
An ingenious corporate scam resulted in their earnings being overstated by hundreds of millions of dollars and their share price climbing to over $90 before falling to less than a dollar and dumping many executives in gaol.
6. Special Purpose Financial Vehicles
A smart way of keeping some of your financial eggs in a very separate basket.
7. Jeffrey Skilling
Convicted for conspiracy and fraud for his role at Enron.
8. Gordon Gekko
Gordon Gekko is a fictional character in the 1987 film WallStreet and its 2010 sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Gekko has become a symbol in popular culture for unrestrained greed(with the signature line, "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good") and totally unscrupulous behaviour in the pursuit of financial gain.
9. A Stingray Unit
Clebver technology for intercepting mobile phone communications.
10. Mobile phone vulnerability to pirate Wi-Fi _ 33 beacons:
Check out the Snoopy Drone
11. Linked-In is a professional social media platform
Facebook for corporates....
12. Mobile Phone hacking:
It's not that difficult if you believe what you read on the web.
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