Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War & Reconstruction by Allen Guelzo (self help books to read TXT) 📕

“Is this the man you are after?” the analyst, a studious young man from Irkutsk, asked.

Kamenev sat at the analyst’s chair. There was Nia, big smile, camera flash reflecting off her emerald necklace and there behind her, nervous grin, was the Brit.

“Yes. That’s him,” Kamenev said. He turned to the analyst, “Well done, son.”

Kamenev returned to the computer. And read the caption:

“Nia Williams, the Welsh Spitfire, wows at the BFI. Nia Williams, 44, made a rare red-carpet appearance at last night’s BFI Southbank event. Nia, who just returned from filming in Canada attended with a new man in her life, Tom Price…”

The Russian zoomed in on the photo so that Tom’s face enlarged. “Tom Price, my friend, who the devil, are you?” Kamenev said in public school English. He turned to the analyst. “Print that out,” he ordered in Russian.

Kamenev made his way to the SVR Rezident’s office. The Rezident was a grizzled veteran of the intelligence game. A former KGB officer, he was a short timer now on a glide path to a welcome retirement. He had been given the London Rezident’s chair as a nod of recognition to his devoted service to the state. Service that began when Russia’s intelligence agency had different initials, was all powerful, and all brutal. He missed the prestige and fear that the old agency had engendered, but he didn’t miss the domestic and international brutality, he had never fully embraced the iron fist of state security. He recognised that the old violence and the cruelty had begun creeping back into Russian domestic politics and its foreign relations. He didn’t like it and, indeed, it now confronted him in the seat across his desk as he leant back in his chair and listened to Kamenev’s story. He knew Kamenev and Zalkind were one and the same. He was aware of Kamenev’s past and knew that the FSB man was rapaciously ambitious. He also knew that Kamenev and his various teams of thugs had put men in the ground from Afghanistan to Chechnya, Syria to Istanbul, and from Sweden to England’s Home Counties.

The Rezident had initially objected to Kamenev’s posting as he objected to the mission and the man. He also hated the power shift in Moscow that resulted in the expansion of the FSB’s power and operating authority at the expense of his SVR. The cagey old Rezident thought it incredibly arrogant and dangerous that Moscow would have ordered another direct action against a Russian dissident living in the UK. FSB arrogance. Madness, he thought, to do this so soon after the attempt on Sergei Skripal, the Russian double agent who had worked for MI6. Skripal and his daughter had survived being poisoned by a nerve agent, but an innocent English bystander was killed, and the dirty operation was exposed to the world’s press and opprobrium. Yet the attack on Skripal, the Rezident recalled, had instilled a heightened level of fear among the émigré opponents of the Kremlin. Many had gone silent, others went deeper underground, a few brave souls maintained their vocal opposition of Putin and the Kremlin. Kamenev was looking to quiet such voices.

The Rezident was secretly relieved to hear Kamenev’s report about being recognised at the BFI event believing, now, that it would end the scheme to kidnap or kill Daria Kirov, the influential émigré Russian journalist and activist. He was convinced that the plan was at an end. He looked at Kamenev smugly.

“So, what would you recommend as a course of action?” he asked.

“I’d like to find out more about this Tom Price. If he is someone from my past, my mission here could be jeopardised,” Kamenev said. “I’d like to put the actress under surveillance and, when Price shows up to see her, put him under surveillance until we know who and what he is. I don’t want anything to derail my task here. If he could cause a problem, then I propose that he be… removed from the equation.”

“Is it, is he, that important?” the Rezident asked.

“It is that important,” Kamenev replied brusquely.

The SVR man rubbed his chin; he had shaved poorly that morning. He couldn’t disguise his apprehension.

“Okay, I can make a surveillance team available… but just for surveillance. Time and resources, being what they are, means I can’t do any more than that.”

“Thank you,” Kamenev said almost with a sneer. “And if I require more than a bunch of watchers? If I need help… persuading Mr Price?”

The Rezident calmly leant over his desk and put his hands together almost in prayer.

“Colonel Kamenev, after the Skripal fuck up, the UK now watches our every move. Do you know that there are over half a million CCTV cameras in this city? We can’t move without MI5 or Special Branch following us. So, there will be no… extra curricula activities in this case unless I explicitly say so, is that understood? Furthermore, I am going to call Moscow with my recommendation that the mission be cancelled or at least postponed.”

Kamenev sulked. “Yes,” and, after a pause, “sir. That is understood. I’ll note in my report that SVR offered limited assistance in a matter that could be of utmost importance for state security.”

The old SVR man again leant back in his chair and a smile cracked his face. “I will also be recommending that Moscow recall you for impertinence and behaving like a jackass with the English bourgeois elite.”

Kamenev stood, “You do that, you old fool. I think you’ll find that I have more friends in Moscow and at the Kremlin, than you could possibly imagine.”

“Kamenev, I’m the Rezident here. Checkmate. Now fuck off… but do keep me appraised.”

Kamenev left the office clearly in a huff. The SVR man got up stiffly from his desk and moved to the window and his view