Читать книгу A Colder War - Чарльз Камминг - Страница 14

The agent known to SVR officer Alexander Minasian by the cryptonym ‘KODAK’ had near-perfect conversational recall and a photographic memory once described by an admiring colleague as ‘pixel sharp’. As winter turned to spring in Istanbul, his signals to Minasian were becoming more frequent. KODAK recalled their conversation at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London almost three years earlier:

Every day, between nine o’clock and nine thirty in the morning, and between seven o’clock and seven thirty in the evening, we will have a person in the tea house. Somebody who knows your face, somebody who knows the signal. This is easy for us to arrange. I will arrange it. When you find yourself working in Ankara, the routine will be the same.

KODAK would typically leave his apartment between seven and eight o’clock in the morning, undertake no discernible counter-surveillance, drive his car or – more usually – take a taxi to Istiklal Caddesi, walk down the narrow passage opposite the Russian Consulate, enter the tea house and sit down. Alternatively, he would leave work at the usual time, take a train into the city, browse in some of the bookshops and clothing stores on Istiklal, then stop for a glass of tea at the appointed time.

Whenever you have documents for me, you only need to go to the tea house at these times and to present yourself to us. You will not need to know who is watching for you. You will not need to look around for faces. Just wear the signal that we have agreed, take a cup of tea or take a coffee, and we will see you. You can sit inside the café or you can sit outside the café. It does not matter. There will always be somebody there.

Of course KODAK did not wish to establish a pattern. Whenever he was in the area around Taksim, day or night, he would try to go to the tea house, ostensibly to practise his Turkish with the pretty young waitress, to play backgammon, or simply to read a book. He frequented other tea houses in the area, other restaurants and bars, often purposefully wearing near-identical clothing.

If it suits you, bring a friend. Bring somebody who does not know the significance of the occasion! If you see somebody leaving while you are there, do not follow them. Of course not. This would be dangerous. You will not know who I have sent to look for you. You will not know who might be watching them, just as you will not know who might be watching you. This is why we do not leave a trace. No more chalk marks on walls. No more stickers. I have always preferred the static system, something that cannot be noticed, except by the eye which has been trained to see it. The movement of a vase of flowers in a room. The appearance of a bicycle on a balcony. Even the colour of a pair of socks! All these things can be used to communicate a signal.

KODAK liked Minasian. He admired his courage, his instincts, his professionalism. Together they had been able to do significant work; together they might bring about extraordinary change. But he felt that the Russian, from time to time, could be somewhat melodramatic.

If you feel that your position has been compromised, do not show yourself at the tea house or at the Ankara location. Instead, obtain or borrow a cell phone and text the word BEŞIKTAŞ to my number. If this is not possible, for whatever reason – you cannot obtain a signal, you cannot obtain a phone – go to a callbox or other landline and speak this word when there is an answer. If we contact you using this word, it is our belief that your work for us has been discovered and that you should leave Turkey.

It seemed highly improbable to KODAK that he would ever be suspected of treachery, far less caught in the act of handing secrets to the SVR. He was too clever, too cautious, his tracks too well covered. Nevertheless, he remembered the meeting points, and the crash instructions, and committed the numbers associated with them to memory.

There are three potential meeting points in the event of exposure. Remember them. If you say BEŞIKTAŞ ONE, a contact will meet you in the courtyard of the Blue Mosque at the time agreed. He will make himself known to you and you will follow him. If you consider Turkey to be unsafe, make your way across the border to Bulgaria with the message BEŞIKTAŞ TWO. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to board an aeroplane. A contact will make himself known to you at the time agreed, in the bar of the Grand Hotel in Sofia. In exceptional circumstances, if you feel that it is necessary to cross into former Soviet territory, where you will be safer and more easily escorted to Moscow, there are boats from Istanbul. You will always be welcome in Odessa. The code for this crash meeting is BEŞIKTAŞ THREE.