Russian Roulette: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Plot for Global Revolution by Giles Milton

Author:Giles Milton [Milton, Giles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620405703
Amazon: 1620405687
Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
Published: 2015-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

The Cheka had been extremely busy in the days that preceded Lockhart’s arrest. Within hours of the attempt on Lenin’s life, their operatives instigated mass arrests right across the capital.

Among those arrested was Elizaveta Otten, with whom Reilly had only recently started a love affair. She also happened to be one of his chief couriers. News of her arrest alarmed Reilly, for she was privy to countless secrets.

The Cheka officers immediately began interrogating her, bombarding her with questions. She played innocent, professing ignorance as to Reilly’s real identity. When the officers told her that her lover was an English spy, and a most dangerous one at that, she feigned indignation and shock.

In a petition she later wrote to the Red Cross Committee for the Aid of Political Prisoners, she said that she had been horrified to discover that Reilly was not who he claimed to be.

‘I discovered that Reilly had been foully deceiving me for his own political purposes,’ she wrote, ‘[and] taking advantage of my exclusively good attitude to him.’

Given that she had been working as his chief courier, her words must be read with a large dose of salt.

The Cheka officers were still interrogating Elizaveta when young Vi, one of George Hill’s agents, happened to arrive at her apartment. ‘The door was opened and Vi found herself covered with the revolver of a Cheka agent.’ So wrote Hill, who learned of the incident later that day.

Despite her youth, Vi remained remarkably cool under pressure. She pretended not to know Elizaveta and gained herself time to think by bursting into floods of tears. She told the officers ‘that she had simply brought a blouse for the lady which she had made herself.’

She was nevertheless interrogated and asked scores of questions as to whom she knew and why she knew them. ‘The Chekists failed to break down her story, though one of them, holding a revolver to her head, said she was lying.’

Unable to uncover anything incriminating, the officers eventually told her that she was free to go.

It was as she turned to leave that disaster struck. Sidney Reilly’s most important agent, Maria Friede, now arrived unexpectedly at the flat. It was most unfortunate that her visit coincided with the Cheka raid. She, after all, had supplied Reilly with a large number of military secrets obtained from her brother, Colonel Friede. Indeed, she had come to the apartment in order to drop off yet another batch of compromising documents.

‘On seeing the Chekists, she completely lost her head and begun to scream,’ recounted Hill. ‘The officials seized her and after a moment’s search had the documents in their possession.’

They were so pleased with what they had found that they failed to notice Vi slip quietly out of the front door and hurry off down the street. She dived into a shop, hoping that she had not been seen or followed. Then, after waiting a while, she took herself to one of Moscow’s public baths and spent two hours in the steam room.

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