A Spy Alone: A compelling modern espionage novel from a former MI6 operative (The Oxford Spy Ring Book 1) by Charles Beaumont

Author:Charles Beaumont [Beaumont, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2023-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Oxford

May 2022

Kemi Williams’s youth does not limit her self-confidence. She speaks sharply, directly and quickly. There is a slight flare of her nostril as she listens to Simon, who feels rather stupid. He tells her the COSTELLO case history not as a meandering narrative of the sort he had shared with Sarah, but as a military briefing. What follows is an interrogation: Kemi fires off direct, specific questions that don’t allow for hesitation, deviation or repetition.

‘Why do you believe Gough is part of the network?’ she demands.

Simon admits that he can’t prove that. ‘That’s the bit we have to figure out,’ he acknowledges. ‘We only know he had the meeting at the embassy with Sidorov and then went to Russia. But Sarah’s told us that he worked with intelligence people in Russia. And COSTELLO operates as a network focused on Oxford. We know that. So, with the Kleshnyov file we might be able to find the dates of the meetings, track travel, who was there, so on.’

‘Yes, but Kleshnyov died in 2006. What about now? Who’s running this stuff now?’

It is another one of Kemi’s difficult questions, to which Simon has no answer. But then he has an idea. ‘The one thing we know about Kleshnyov is that he travelled on a genuine St Kitts passport. And you have to buy them. Kleshnyov can’t have been the only one using one of these. Maybe all the COSTELLO operatives used them.’

‘So we need to find out which other Russians acquired alias passports from St Kitts?’

They huddle round the shiny laptop that Kemi has brought with her. There are a variety of licensed operators offering ‘citizenship advisory services’ and, inevitably, ‘solutions’. Most of them have offices in Mayfair and slick websites full of pictures of exquisite Caribbean beaches and attractive, successful people with lots to smile about. What this means in practice is companies taking a cut on the messy business of selling passports to whoever is buying. And who buys passports?

‘You start out a pariah, from Russia, Iran, Venezuela, whatever,’ explains Simon, although he’s sure his audience already knows, ‘and come out a proud citizen of St Kitts. A small, blameless country whose citizens get to travel visa-free throughout Europe.’

Citizenship by investment, they call it.

‘Can we find who’s selling the Russians their passports?’ asks Kemi, getting straight to the point. As usual, asking all the right questions. But Simon still has something to offer: he has sources. A lifetime of networking, cultivating relationships, means that he can still do what he is best at: find someone who has the information they need.

‘The man we need to talk to is Iain Radcliffe,’ says Simon.

‘Who’s he?’

‘I knew him at the Pole. He had joined from private banking. All smooth hair and tailored suits. Good with people, but even better with money. So he got out once he’d made enough connections and got into the passport-sales business. I’ll need to go and see Radcliffe, find out how this whole racket works.’

‘What, in the Caribbean?’ Kemi sounds incredulous.

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