‘I was told it was going to be a closed conference on Central Asian policy, put together by the Eurasian Futures Foundation. There was an astonishing array of figures present: the Foreign Secretary and Chief of Six, the army chief of General Staff. There were representatives of the NATO Psychological Operations Working Group, individuals from Sweden, Finland and Croatia. Robert Carter, of course, along with the CEO of British Energy, the chief executives of Fortune Capital, Shell, Deutsche Bank.

Then a lot of foreign policy think tanks, Washington and Brussels as well as UK.

‘Eurasian Futures had arranged a presentation. We were shown data and forecasting on Central Asia, on Russian leadership and Central Asia, a set of scenarios that could unfold. All incorporated loss of Western influence, financial losses of billions, a complete shift of global power. Robert Carter had intelligence regarding a meeting in August between China, Russia and Iran. He claimed that Russia persuaded its allies that the West had become politically incapable of coordinated military response, and he believed they were about to take advantage of this to establish joint control of the region. More broadly, we lacked the means of responding to their psychological operations.

‘He presented data that showed Russian dominance of online media in more countries than not, said the effects of this would only be fully understood in the coming years. The argument made was that we needed to step up our own offensive psyop strategy urgently, before it was too late. The British government needed to take these warnings seriously. It was now or never.

‘I detached myself, so to speak, when they began talking about invading Syria and Iran. We would need Russia distracted etcetera. That was when I decided they were fantasists. Now I believe they had alliances within the MOD and beyond, in the States: individuals who backed a more aggressive foreign policy.’

‘How high up do you think it goes?’

‘I don’t know. I raised objections in the meeting. I was closed out. So I can’t say with certainty how things proceeded. I know Robert Carter bought Saracen a month later. Saracen hired the intelligence company, Vectis. Their founder, Callum Walker, had been one of the more positive voices at the meeting.’

‘Walker was there?’

‘He was there. I’ve no doubt his connections within the Secret Intelligence Service helped win initial support for whatever unfolded. The government did spend millions, I’ve heard. My own acquaintances were able to share that much. No other information came my way until six months ago when those acquaintances suggested my instincts had been right. The PM got cold feet, balked at the scale things had grown to. Perhaps they hadn’t realised that Kazakhstan was part of a much bigger play. You can imagine the government’s response to that. We can’t risk starting World War Three: thoughts along those lines.’

‘And then people moved out of Six,’ I said, as the pieces came together.