"Allow them to recruit me."
"That might take time."
"I know people."
"I'm sure you do. Let's jump ahead. What techniques will you use to identify our traitor?"
Nikolai spoke confidently. "Infiltrate records."
"You are convincing me, Colonel Semenov. I say, let's do it. There is no risk."
"I will need copies of all personnel files."
Anchev's brow furrowed. "Why is that?"
"So I can quickly access officer details. It won't do to allow the records clerks to know who I am looking at by requesting one file at a time. That's a certain tip-off."
"You're thorough, Semenov. I like that. Copy all files. But remember this, you must guard them with your life as if I checked them out."
"I understand, sir. Will do. Sir, one other matter. KGB Moscow watches KGB officers like me. Please caution Bucharov to keep his distance. It would ruin everything I'm trying to do if the Brits discover him while he's tailing me."
"That's an unusual request."
Nikolai tried hard not to scoff or smile. He had seen Bucharov surveilling him. Ironically, it would have been unacceptable to KGB Moscow had he failed to discover the trail.
"We will make our arrangements. Any more than that, I cannot divulge. Just go about your business, Semenov, and I will go about mine."
"I understand. Thank you, sir. "
31
Nikolai met with Bolling and Donovan at the safe house on Friday.
"I’ve been ordered to find the identity of ULYSSES," he told them.
"What?” said Donovan, surprised. “You've been ordered to find yourself? Anchev must really trust you."
"Yes, Anatoly Anchev has assigned ULYSSES to me. I have been told I find the mole among the twenty-five officers of KGB London, or it will be me who is the mole."
"Interesting," Bolling whispered. "No one saw this coming."
"Good and bad," Donovan said.
"Here's one reason it's good," Nikolai said, handing over a folder with copies of the personnel files of all twenty-five KGB officers of KGB London. "You're not going to believe what I just handed you."
Donovan was already placing it in his bag. "What is it?"
"Twenty-five personnel records. Complete records on all twenty-five KGB officers in London."
"What?" exclaimed Donovan. "That's nothing short of a miracle!"
"Of course, what we do with them is a whole other matter," Bolling said, adding a note of caution. "They cannot be expelled, lest Anchev knows who passed the records. All we can use them for, basically, is recruitment. Likes and dislikes, that kind of thing."
"And the discovery of buried agents."
"Obviously that," Bolling agreed.
Donovan was thoughtful. The head of the ULYSSES team would have the final say in how MI5 would handle Nikolai's predicament.
"He's thinking," Bolling said over a cup of tea. "I know that look."
Nikolai smiled. "Let's hope he thinks the right thing."
"All right," Donovan said slowly, ignoring their comments. "Here's what we're going to do. Every month we'll load Nikolai down with disinformation he has discovered about the mole. Eye color, age, things of that nature, and secrets divulged to us—all of it fictitious. But the identifying characteristics such as eye color and hair color and weight and appearance, all of that we’ll lift from our files on MI5 agents in London, and we’ll use those, dance around and make it seem like it’s this one, then that one, but then, no, this one over here, and on and on. That should get us quite far down the road. Until…"
"Until?" asked Bolling.
Donovan shrugged. "Until Nikolai defects, and there's no longer a reason to keep up the ruse."
"Open-ended," Nikolai said. "Explanations for the delay in finding the mole.”
"We can help with that. I'll put Charles Lightner on it. Charles's very creative."
"Charles has been accommodating. We meet around the city and talk. He's provided me with consistent disinformation. I'd be very pleased and feel very safe with Charles," Nikolai said. "My choice, indeed."
Donovan nodded and looked at Franklin Bolling. "Franklin?"
"Nikolai just said it. Charles has all of MI5 to help him. I'm onboard with Charles."
"Make arrangements next week when you see him," Donovan said to Nikolai. "If anything beyond that is needed, just let me know immediately, and I'll make it happen."
Nikolai smiled. "This is very good."
"Right-on. Enjoy your mole hunt."
Nikolai shook his head. "Enjoy my records. I'll see what else I can come up with while I search."
"Excellent."
32
Jason Donovan took control of the first meeting of the ULYSSES mole search. He had the total respect of his team, and they jumped when he asked. First, they pulled all MI5 personnel files. “Let’s start with a list of the officers who ousted the Soviet spies.”
“The three spies.”
“Yes.”
“Next,” said Donovan, “we need to know who saw the list.”
Bolling nodded his agreement. “The only thing is, that list was distributed all over London.”
Donovan looked up from the list. “Who received it?”
Bolling drew a deep breath. “Let me see. The list went to the Foreign Office, the Home Office, 10 Downing Street. And the chart listing all intelligence officers, the one Lana delivered to Anchev, was drawn up by K4.”
“My God. Who else?”
Bolling said, “Let me think. At least fifty copies went to various departments.”
Donovan saw the vast scope of the search. “All right, let’s cross-reference the officers Lana identified with the officers who know of ULYSSES. I need this because we're in the dark about how ULYSSES was included on the list Lana gave Anchev."
“Only the ULYSSES team knows there's a ULYSSES. It's one of us?”
The team members looked at each other.
"No, I don't think that at all," Donovan said. "But I think records were accessed from within MI5 by someone, maybe even a clerk."
The ULYSSES team winnowed out names of non-ULYSSES potentials. Two days later, they were down to three suspects, topped by the name of Robert John Ziegler.
Donovan reviewed the shortlist. "Ziegler's a loner who knows too much to get rid of. Who enjoys irony? So, MI5 accommodates his whimsy—he's an odd bird—while at the same time keeping him out of the vault. The long and short of it, Ziegler's been reduced to a high-paid clerk for all his loose screws."
"Look what I've got on him," Bolling said. "At Oxford, he applied for admission to the mathematics department because, he said in his essay, he wanted to improve the hydrogen bomb. During his history course, he dressed in an SS officer’s uniform from World War II and told fellow students he was searching down Jews in his dorm. It scared the hell out of people, and complaints were lodged. But he was finally talked down from that and kept in the infirmary for three days, nursing a minor breakdown. He then returned to his studies and eventually graduated from Oxford. How in the hell did we end up with him?"