Understrike by Understrike (retail) (epub)

Author:Understrike (retail) (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911420507
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2019-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Friday

RV Thomas G Thompson, at sea

To Richter, it sounded like nothing more than the usual hype.

All defectors, no matter what their motives or nationality, invariably talked up their product, the classified information they were bringing out with them as their dowry, so that their new host country would hopefully feel more inclined to provide them with the kind of standard of living and income support that they felt they deserved for betraying their homeland. It was pretty much a standard ploy, and while Richter absolutely understood exactly why they did it, that didn’t mean he had to believe it. Just occasionally, a defector did manage to produce information that more or less matched his or her claims, but it was quite rare.

And the reality of the situation was that the intelligence services of most countries didn’t particularly want defectors anyway, because their usefulness as a continuing source of information ended – by definition – the moment that they fled. And there were economic problems too: setting someone up with a new identity, providing protection for as long as it was deemed to be necessary, finding them a house and getting them a job and, if necessary, funding an income for them for life, was all very expensive. What they really wanted were agents in place, people who had access to classified information that they were prepared to pass on to another country whilst remaining in post. People like that were infinitely more valuable as an information source and, perhaps even more importantly, could be asked specific questions or be asked to covertly research certain topics to clarify matters of concern.

But what made Pavlov’s information – about which Richter knew nothing – potentially more valuable than might be expected were the facts that a three-man CIA team had been sent out into the field to bring him home; that a senior CIA officer had been tortured to death to try to make him reveal information about the defector, and that a six-man Russian recovery team had been sent after Pavlov, clearly with instructions to execute him when they found him. None of which really made much sense if the man genuinely was just a young GRU trooper, because of the low access level that he would have had.

‘That’s a hell of a claim to be making, my young Russian friend,’ Barber said, ‘so I sure hope you’ve got something to back it up.’

‘I have,’ Pavlov replied, holding up the three memory sticks he had previously shown Richter. ‘I have copied all of the recordings onto these three thumb drives, and I still have the original data cards as well.’

He passed one of the sticks to each man, but Barber shook his head.

‘No point in me having one,’ he said, ‘because I hardly speak any Russian. When we get you to the States, you’ll be properly debriefed on all the material you’ve brought out.’

Pavlov shook his head decisively.

‘That will be too late,’ he insisted. ‘If you want to stop it, you have to listen now.

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