Dirty War

Book 19: The Spider Shepherd Thrillers

by Stephen Leather

Genres: Spy Thrillers

Synopsis

THE NEW MUST-READ SPIDER SHEPHERD THRILLER

The target - The Prime Minister. The assassins - hard-bitten jihadists with nothing to lose.

The only man who can stop them? Dan "Spider" Shepherd.

But Shepherd's reputation is also on the line - he helped get one of the jihadists into the UK during the final days of the War in Afghanistan.

Now he has to track down the man whose life he once saved.

But the assassins aren't lone wolf killers - someone much more devious is pulling their strings.

And the clock is ticking . . .

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Release date: July 21, 2022

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 372

Sample

The Bomber took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. His IED was almost half a kilometre away, buried by the side of the narrow road that twisted its way through the desert. It was a big bomb. Not the biggest he had ever built, but big enough to destroy any vehicle that the Americans had. The explosive had come from Russian MON-50 anti-personnel mines, concave rectangular devices that were copies of American Claymores. Each MON-50 contained 700 grams of RDX explosive and either 540 steel balls or 485 short steel rods, depending on which version it was. The Bomber had carefully prised open fifty of the mines, giving him close to thirty-five kilos of high-grade explosive. The RDX had been placed in the centre of six 42-gallon oil barrels and surrounded with homemade ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosive. There were detonators in each of the barrels, all connected to the command wire which led from the road to the trigger in his right hand.

The barrels had been buried at the side of the road and a spade had been used to cut a slit six inches deep in the sand for the wire. Four men had toiled through the night and by dawn the desert wind had smoothed over all traces of the work. The Bomber was kneeling by the window of an abandoned shepherd’s cottage that had been pockmarked with rifle fire. The building had been stripped, either by the former occupant or looters, and even the doors and window frames had been ripped out.

They were in the desert, about thirty miles north of Pul-e-Khumri, capital of the northern province of Baghlan. The Bomber squinted as he peered into the distance. American Humvees were coming down the road, at speed, with plumes of dust spiralling in the air behind him. He counted six. He twisted around to look at the three men standing behind him. ‘This time?’ he said.

The man in the middle of the three had an eyepatch over his left eye and there was a thin scar running across his cheek. His thinning hair was swept back and his greying beard was almost a foot long. They called him the Butcher because of the way he liked to torture captured soldiers. The Americans had put a price on his head. It had initially been half a million dollars, but over the years they’d increased it to 2 million. Two bodyguards stood with the Butcher, cradling AK-47s, their eyes ever watchful. They had arrived in a white SUV which was parked out of sight behind the cottage. The Butcher shook his head. No. Not this time.

The men who had helped build and bury the bomb had left in their pick-up truck at first light. Three snipers had arrived in a black SUV which was parked behind another abandoned cottage a few hundred yards away. One of the snipers had stayed with the vehicle, the other two were on the roof above the Bomber’s head. They were armed with Dragunov rifles, with comfortable wooden handguards and skeletonised wooden stocks. Rounds were fed into the weapons from detachable curved magazines, containing ten rounds, in a staggered zig-zag pattern and they had PSO-1 optical sights. The snipers were capable of taking out targets more than 800 yards away, so the road was well within range.

The Bomber looked back at the convoy, which was now speeding parallel to the house. Young men in Kevlar helmets and vests were standing in bulletproof turrets covering the area with their heavy machine guns. They turned to look at the shepherd’s cottage but there was nothing to arouse their suspicions and within a minute they were speeding away towards Kabul, the clouds of dust dispersing behind them.

The Bomber knew exactly where the bomb was. He had placed two empty water bottles about fifty yards apart on the other side of the road. If he looked directly at the bottles from his window, where his gaze intersected the road is where the bomb was buried. He looked up at the clear blue sky. The one worry he had was that a drone high overhead might see the parked vehicles and the snipers on the roof, but the Butcher had assured him there would be no drones in the area that day. The Bomber didn’t know how the Butcher knew that, but he believed him.

He peered down the road again. There was a vehicle coming from the direction of the Humvees. It was big, a transporter. As it got closer, he recognised it as an Afghan Army Navistar truck, which weighed more than four tons. There was no way of knowing if it contained troops or supplies. The Bomber looked over his shoulder and this time the Butcher smiled and nodded. This one.

The Bomber nodded and looked back through the window. His right thumb was pressing against the top of the trigger. His mouth had gone dry and he licked his lips. The Navistar was hurtling down the road at about fifty miles an hour. Timing was vital. Too soon and the driver might have time to turn the vehicle to the side, too late and the truck would be driving away from the explosion. The Bomber’s eyes were flicking from the bottles to the truck and back again. He was holding his breath now, every fibre of his being focused on the fast-approaching truck. Two hundred yards. A hundred and fifty. A hundred. He licked his lips again. Fifty yards. Twenty. He pressed the trigger. The bomb exploded with a muffled thud that he felt as much as heard. There was an eruption of sand and rocks and the truck flipped on to its side and scraped along the road. The truck was on fire, what was left of it. The cab had been virtually destroyed and most of the roof had been ripped off to reveal metal boxes and wooden crates inside. A man crawled from the cab, dragging himself away from the burning truck. A Dragunov cracked from the roof and the man went still. The truck continued to burn and a thick column of smoke wound up into the air. No one else emerged from the wreckage.

‘Congratulations, Abdul Qadir Akbari,’ said the Butcher. ‘That was perfect. It was everything I had hoped for. You truly are a skilled craftsman.’

The Bomber stood up, still holding the trigger. He frowned. ‘But that is not my name.’

The Butcher patted him on the shoulder. ‘Abdul Qadir Akbari is who you are from this day forth. And it is Abdul Qadir Akbari who will serve Allah in a way that you never could. Inshallah.’

The Bomber nodded. Inshallah. God willing. The Bomber didn’t fully understand what he was being asked to do, but he knew that he had no choice other than to obey.

They thought long and hard about where to seize the target. They could have just entered the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall, gone up to the fourth floor, and arrested him. But that would have attracted attention. They could have carried out an early morning raid at the target’s first-floor flat in Belsize Park, but that too would have caused a stir. If a passing stranger captured the moment on a phone, it would all be over.

A surveillance team had been following the target for four days. He left his flat at eight o’clock in the morning, assembled his folding bike, and rode the four and a half miles to Whitehall in about twenty-five minutes. There he would disassemble his bike and enter the building. He generally took half an hour for lunch, during which he would walk to a local sandwich shop. He would leave his office between six-thirty and seven and cycle back to Belsize Park. He took the same route each time: through Soho and Marylebone and along the east side of Regent’s Park, before heading north through Primrose Hill and Chalk Farm.

The decision was taken to carry out the abduction in the park. They performed a dry run and did it for real the following day. They used a six-man team. Three were on bicycles, dressed in Lycra and wearing helmets. They waited down the road from the Whitehall building and mounted up when the target appeared. He assembled his bike, put clips on his suit trousers, and put on his helmet. It was black with yellow stripes and the followers had designated the target as Wasp One.

As he started pedalling away from the building, the three cyclists followed, keeping a safe distance. There was no need to stay close, the target always took the same route.

The van was parked up close to the Royal College of Physicians, at the south-east corner of the park. There was a woman in the driving seat and a man in overalls sitting next to her, and in the back was another man wearing overalls. The driver was in radio contact with the three cyclists. Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. The rider with the designation Charlie was actually called Charlie too, a coincidence that had raised smiles at the lunchtime briefing.

Alpha, Bravo and Charlie took it in turns to take the lead, never getting closer than six car lengths behind the target. Once the target had crossed Marylebone Road, the van pulled out and began driving north along the Outer Circle. The van was in the livery of a bicycle repair company and the occupants of the van had the company’s logo on their overalls.

As the target cycled along the Outer Circle, Alpha, Bravo and Charlie edged closer. The van stopped and Alpha pedalled faster. Bravo and Charlie followed, riding two abreast.

When they were fifty yards from the van, Alpha accelerated and drew level with the target. The target turned to glare at Alpha once he realised he was keeping pace with him.

‘I need you to pull over, Craig,’ said Alpha. He had a gruff Glaswegian accent and it was a voice that was used to being obeyed.

‘What?’ said the target.

‘Pull the fuck over. We need to talk to you.’

The van was now about twenty yards away.

The target frowned in confusion.

‘Pull the fuck over!’ shouted Alpha. He moved his bike closer. ‘Do as you are fucking told!’

‘Okay, okay,’ said the target. He braked and turned towards the pavement. Alpha moved with him. Bravo and Charlie pulled up behind them and got off their bikes. The target looked at them nervously.

‘What’s going on, guys?’ asked the target, his voice trembling.

Alpha waved at the van and the reversing lights came on. The van started to reverse towards them. Bravo and Charlie moved close to block the view of any traffic coming up behind them.

The van stopped a couple of yards from them and the rear doors opened. The man in overalls inside beckoned for the target to join him. His eyes were hidden behind black Ray-Bans.

‘Get in the van, Craig,’ said Alpha.

‘Who are you?’

‘Get in the van. If you don’t get in the van we’ll Taser you and drag you in, and if we do that you’ll piss and shit yourself – and we don’t have a change of clothes for you.’

The man in the van pulled a Taser from his overalls. He pressed the trigger and sparks crackled between the metal prongs.

‘I’m not getting into …’

Alpha’s gloved left hand clamped around the target’s throat and his right fist thudded out like a piston, slamming into his solar plexus. As the target started to double over, Alpha, still astride his bike, pushed him towards the van.

The man in the van reached out, grabbed the target by the shoulders and hauled him inside.

Alpha picked up the target’s bike and swung it into the van. The man inside slammed the doors shut and the van drove off. Alpha looked around. Several cars had driven by but Bravo and Charlie had managed to hide the fracas from view.

The three cyclists began pedalling again as the van disappeared into the distance.

Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd was sitting at a table with his back to the window, facing the door. The blinds had been drawn and two lights with LED bulbs had been placed behind Shepherd, so that when the team brought Craig McKillop into the room the lights would be shining in his face. It was all about keeping him off balance and insecure. Shepherd had gone for a Men in Black look with a dark suit, a white shirt and a black tie, but had decided against sunglasses.

Sitting to Shepherd’s right was Ciara Kelly. Ciara was a recent recruit and had joined MI5 after realising she didn’t really want a career in accounting. She had been briefed to listen and say nothing, but to flash McKillop sympathetic smiles from time to time. Good cop, bad cop. Or more accurately, cute cop, bad cop. McKillop was a sucker for a pretty face, and Ciara definitely had that, along with a pixie haircut and bright red fingernails. She smiled nervously at Shepherd.

He winked at her. ‘You’ll be fine.’

She took a deep breath and nodded. ‘I hope so.’

There was a loud knock on the door and it opened. It was one of the snatch team. Bernie Quinn. He’d been designated Alpha on the operation. He was still wearing his cycling gear and Shepherd couldn’t help but grin at the bulge in Quinn’s Lycra pants. Quinn was a former British Transport cop who’d got bored with dealing with drunks on trains and was often called in when muscle was needed. Quinn nodded but didn’t say anything. The team had been instructed to say nothing once they had the target in custody.

A second member of the team was standing behind Quinn. Charlie Raines. He was holding McKillop, who had a black hood over his head. Quinn stepped to the side and Raines brought McKillop into the room and sat him down on the wooden chair facing Shepherd. Shepherd gestured at the hood and Raines ripped it off. McKillop blinked. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

Shepherd nodded at Quinn and Raines and they left the room, pulling the door closed behind them.

‘Who are you?’ repeated McKillop. He was trying to sound assertive but the tremble in his voice belied his fear. He was scared witless.

‘I’m the man who’s here to sort your life out, Craig. You’ve made a few bad choices and we’ve pretty much reached the end of the line.’

McKillop stole a quick look at Ciara before continuing. ‘You’ve kidnapped me,’ said McKillop. ‘What’s this about? Money? Because you’re wasting your time, I’ve got no money.’

There was an A4 Manila envelope on the table. Shepherd took out a photograph and slid it across the table. It was a head-and-shoulders shot of a blonde woman in her early thirties. Her hair was cut short and she had an upturned nose and full lips. McKillop squinted at the photograph. ‘Friend of yours?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Obviously you know she is, why else would you be showing me her photograph?’

‘What’s her name?’

McKillop sneered at him. ‘Seriously, you have her photograph but you don’t know her name? Sounds like you haven’t thought this through.’ He was starting to regain his confidence, presumably because no one had slapped him across the face or threatened to break his fingers.

‘You think this is funny?’

‘I was grabbed off the street and thrown into the back of a van, so I know it isn’t a joke. I’m just waiting for you to get to the point.’

Shepherd tapped the photograph. ‘She’s the point. Anna Schneider.’

‘Then you do know her name?’

‘Actually that’s not her name. It’s the name she uses with you.’

McKillop’s jaw tightened as he stared at the photograph. ‘What’s her real name?’

Shepherd shook his head. ‘I’m the one who’ll be asking the questions,’ he said. ‘Who is she? What does she do? For a living?’

‘She’s an analyst. She works for a think tank.’

‘In London?’

McKillop nodded. ‘They’re based in Berlin but they have offices in most European capitals.’ He frowned as he stared at the photograph. ‘What’s her real name if it’s not Anna?’

‘When did you start passing information to her?’

McKillop folded his arms and didn’t answer.

‘How did that work? She told you what intel she wanted and you downloaded it from the MoD computer? Did she give you a shopping list?’

McKillop looked up from the photograph. ‘That’s what this is about? Me sharing data with another analyst? Look, I’m an analyst with the MoD, she’s an analyst with a German think tank, every now and again we meet for a drink and we share data. It’s not as if sharing information is illegal, is it?’

‘Well, the Official Secrets Act – which you signed when you joined the MoD from university – would disagree with you.’

McKillop snorted. ‘I wasn’t giving her secret information. The data we shared wasn’t even classified.’

‘You say “shared”. What information did she share with you?’

‘She told me about the reports she was compiling, things she was working on. We’re friends, we chat. Like people do.’

‘But you did more than just chat about your work, didn’t you?’

‘That was mainly it.’

‘But you gave her MoD data when she asked for it?’

‘I helped her with her reports, one analyst to another. I’m sure if I’d needed help she would have helped me.’ He unfolded his arms and leaned forward. ‘Look, I don’t see what the issue is here. She’s German, working for a company here in London. I know that we’ve left the EU but we’re still all Europeans, aren’t we? Germany isn’t the enemy, despite what you might read in the Daily Mail.’

Shepherd held the man’s look for several seconds before speaking. ‘The woman you know as Anna Schneider works for the Russian Federal Security Service. What used to be the KGB in the bad old days.’

‘What? No.’ McKillop grimaced as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. ‘No fucking way.’

‘Yes. She works for the Russians. Which means you, my friend, have been a Russian spy for the past few months. So it’s not just a matter of you breaching the Official Secrets Act, you are a full-blown traitor. And you’re facing life imprisonment.’

McKillop shook his head. ‘No, you’re just trying to confuse me. She’s German. No question. She was born in Berlin, she talked about it all the time. I know the city really well and she was never wrong, not once.’

Shepherd smiled. ‘I didn’t say she was Russian. I said she worked for the Russians.’

‘No. The think tank that employs her is a real thing. I checked it out on the internet. They have an office in Victoria, they have a website, all sorts of publications.’

‘Mostly funded by Moscow,’ said Shepherd. He took a second picture from the envelope, this time of her standing outside the Russian Embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens, at the north-west edge of Hyde Park. She was lighting a cigarette.

McKillop frowned as he stared at the picture. ‘She doesn’t smoke.’ He looked at Shepherd. ‘She said she’d never smoked.’

‘Look, if it makes you feel any better, you’re not the only agent that they’re running. We’ve found another three being run through the think tank and there are almost certainly more.’

McKillop sat back in his chair and folded his arms defensively. ‘I’m not an agent.’

‘Yes you are,’ said Shepherd. ‘And Anna is your handler.’

‘I was just helping her with her research.’ His voice was trembling again.

‘By passing on official secrets. Secrets which went straight to Moscow.’

‘You keep saying that, but Anna is German. Why would she be working for the Russians?’

‘Lots of people work for the Russians who aren’t Russian. The history of MI5 and MI6 is littered with examples.’

‘I’m not a traitor,’ said McKillop firmly.

Shepherd ignored the statement. ‘How and when did you meet her?’

‘At a function at the German Embassy, about four months ago. There was an exhibition of young German painters and I was invited.’

‘Was that normal? To be invited to the embassy?’

‘I get several invitations a year. And the office knows about my interest in Germany and all things German, and they pass unwanted invitations on to me.’

‘That’s right. You got a first in Modern Languages at Oxford with a specialism in German, and a PhD in some obscure German author.’

McKillop sighed. ‘Theodor Fontane is generally regarded as the most important German language author of the nineteenth century,’ he said. ‘Hardly obscure.’

‘Obscure to me,’ said Shepherd. ‘What about Anna?’

‘What about her?’

‘Was she aware of Theodor Fontane?’

McKillop screwed up his face. ‘Maybe. I’m not sure.’

‘Come off it. You devoted several years of your life to the guy, you would have mentioned it. Or did she mention it first?’

‘I think we talked about my doctorate. That’s what people do when they meet. They talk about each other.’

‘And Anna seemed interested in you?’

McKillop narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you getting at?’

‘It’s a simple question. You met by chance at an art exhibition at the German Embassy. Presumably there were a lot of people there. What do you think attracted her to you?’

‘I don’t know. We were looking at a painting and we began chatting.’ He avoided Shepherd’s icy look and stared at the tabletop.

Shepherd pushed the photograph of Anna towards McKillop. ‘She’s a nine, going on a ten.’

‘What do you mean?’ muttered McKillop.

‘You know what I mean, Craig. She’s a beautiful girl. A head-turner. But you, even on a good day you’re barely a four. You must know that. Receding hairline, massive forehead, weak chin, nerd glasses, sloping shoulders – I mean you were obviously at the back of the queue when the DNA was being handed out. Didn’t alarm bells start to ring the moment she expressed any interest in you?’

‘We had a lot in common,’ said McKillop. He looked across at Ciara and his cheeks flushed red.

‘Well of course you did. She was primed. She was a bloody sex torpedo launched right at you.’

McKillop looked up and glared at Shepherd. ‘We never had sex,’ he hissed.

‘Well more fool you, mate, because she’d probably have been up for it to get what she wanted. She was a honey trap. Plain and simple. So what happened after the exhibition?’

‘We went for a drink.’

Shepherd smiled thinly. ‘And whose idea was that?’

‘Hers. Mine. I don’t know. We had a couple of glasses of wine.’

‘And talked about what?’

‘Brexit, mainly. She couldn’t understand why Britain was so keen to leave the EU.’

‘And you put her right?’

McKillop laughed harshly. ‘I told her that there’s no point in asking the Great British public what they want, because they don’t know. They should never have been asked. The referendum was a stupid idea and now we’re paying the cost.’

‘You were in agreement? About Brexit?’

‘Of course. Biggest mistake we’ve ever made.’

‘Okay. And how do we get from there to you offering to supply her with MoD databases?’

‘That’s not what happened.’

‘Well, actually it is,’ said Shepherd. ‘Though we might disagree about the terminology. When did she say she needed your help?’

‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘Tell me what it was like.’

McKillop swallowed. His Adam’s apple wobbled as if it had a life of its own. ‘We talked about our jobs, like people do. She was having problems getting information, problems that were a direct result of Brexit. Before we left the EU, she had no problems getting information from government departments. But post-Brexit, often the only way she could get government data was by issuing a freedom of information request. Basically she compiles reports for the German government and for German companies. Say the German government wants to know how the UK’s electricity consumption is rising and what scope there is for German companies to supply power stations. She would talk to the UK’s electricity companies, universities, government officials, and compile a report.’

‘Right. But you work for the MoD. So power stations aren’t your brief.’

McKillop sneered at Shepherd. ‘You asked how the conversations went. I’m telling you.’

‘But eventually she wanted MoD data, right?’

McKillop sighed. ‘She was compiling a report on how Covid had affected the armed forces. Not just in the UK, she wanted to compare the figures of armies throughout the world. She had applied for the MoD figures but they weren’t forthcoming so I offered to help.’ Shepherd opened his mouth to speak but McKillop held up a hand to silence him. ‘They weren’t confidential, never mind secret,’ he said. ‘They were there on the MoD mainframe and I had no problems accessing the files. She would have got the information eventually, I just speeded up the process.’

‘And how did you give her the data?’

McKillop frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Email? Thumb drive? How did you get the intel to her?’

‘It wasn’t intel. Why do you say that? It was data.’

‘Semantics,’ said Shepherd. ‘But the question is simple enough. How did you pass the data to her?’

‘I took photographs. Screenshots. And then I sent them to her through WhatsApp.’

‘And was that your idea or hers?’

McKillop shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’

‘You were already using WhatsApp?’

‘Yes. And she gave me her number and we used to chat that way.’

‘She never mentioned to you that WhatsApp is encrypted so it’s a safe way of sending information clandestinely?’

‘No. And I wasn’t sending it clandestinely, as you describe it. I’d just call up the information, take a screenshot, and send it to her. Look, there was nothing remotely sensitive about what I was sending her. If she’d been asking me about contracts or procurements then of course I would have said something. If she was looking for information on troop movements or battle readiness, then I would have ended the relationship immediately. I was just helping her with her projects. Why would the Russians care about how Covid spread through the UK’s armed forces?’

Shepherd ignored the question. ‘What was the most recent report she asked for help with?’

He sighed again. ‘She was researching asylum seekers, in particular from Afghanistan. The Germans have a much more sympathetic approach to asylum than the UK, and she was looking for facts and figures to illustrate how the Brits were coping with refugees from there. She wasn’t having much luck getting statistics on the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy and on the more recent Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme.’

‘And so she asked for your help.’

McKillop nodded. ‘The ARAP scheme was designed to resettle interpreters and others who had helped the army, so the MoD had to comment on all applications. A lot of applicants who are claiming on the ACRS scheme also have links to the military so again the MoD would have to comment.’

‘And she couldn’t get the information from anywhere else?’

‘She could, but the Home Office and the MoD were insisting on freedom of information requests so it was taking forever.’

‘So you offered to help?’

‘Why not? It wasn’t as if it was secret. It was just data on refugees.’

‘And what sort of data did she want?’

‘Basic statistics. Age, sex, work background, marital status, educational qualifications.’

‘And the MoD database had those breakdowns?’

‘No, we just had the applications. But she said if I sent as many as I had, she would break down the statistics.’

‘And that didn’t seem a strange thing to ask?’

‘Not really. If I’d have had to do the breakdowns, it would have taken forever. She said I could just send over the applications and she’d get an intern to do the work.’

‘And how many applications did you send to her?’

McKillop wrinkled his nose. ‘I don’t know. A lot.’

‘There were about eight thousand Afghans who applied for the ARAP scheme.’

‘Yeah, I gave her pretty much all of them. And I’m still working my way through the ACRS applications.’

Shepherd frowned. ‘You sent her eight thousand screenshots? That would have taken forever.’

McKillop shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I had to use a flash drive for that,’ he said quietly.

‘Because there were too many pages to send by WhatsApp?’

McKillop nodded. ‘But she wasn’t interested in the specifics. She just wanted a statistical breakdown. As I said, she’s getting an intern to run a spreadsheet that’ll show up all the characteristics.’

‘How many flash drives have you given her?’

‘Four so far. Each with two thousand applications on them.’

‘And how did you give them to her?’

McKillop frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean did you post the flash drives? Hand-deliver them? Or use a dead drop?’

‘What’s a dead drop?’

‘Just tell me how you gave her the flash drives.’

‘I handed them to her. There was nothing secretive. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I was just sharing data with her.’

‘And where were you when you handed them over?’

‘We’d have coffee or a drink. A couple of times we had a meal.’

‘Did she pay or did you?’

‘I did. Why?’

‘I’m just trying to get a feel for what she was doing.’

‘She’s a researcher. I was helping her. That’s all there was to it. And I don’t understand why you think Anna works for the Russians.’

‘I don’t think she works for the Russians. I know she does. She’s a Federal Security Service officer who has previously worked in Berlin, Vienna and Paris.’ Shepherd took three more photographs from the envelope and spread them out in front of McKillop. The photographs were of the woman standing outside the Russian embassies of the three cities. In one of the pictures – the one taken in Paris – she was lighting a cigarette. ‘She arrived in the UK just two weeks before she met you at the embassy, which suggests she was specifically sent to target you.’

‘But why?’

‘Because you had access to the information they wanted,’ said Shepherd. ‘And because you are clearly gullible. How could you possibly think it was okay to be taking files from the MoD and passing them to anybody? You signed the Official Sec