Valera had no desire to hear more of Zukolev’s lecture and knew the quickest way to get out of his office would be to simply agree with everything he said and promise to do better.

‘I believe I’m close to a breakthrough. I’m sure I can give Moscow everything they want …’ She paused a moment for effect ‘… without any more resources.’

A broad smile spread across Zukolev’s face. Victory was his.

‘Very good,’ he said.

He turned away and walked back towards his desk, a blunt signal that Valera was now free to go.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Malcolm White was stressed. One of Holland’s ambitions had been to transform MI5 into a truly modern intelligence service that combined the best of both human and technological expertise. In Manning’s new world order the pendulum was already swinging back towards something far more arcane, and MI5’s head of research and development was not happy about it.

White, like Knox, had been one of the shining stars of MI5. In the three years that Holland had been director general, White had built up the Service’s formidable research and development section from nothing to a point where it could rival America’s and Russia’s.

He was also the creator of Operation Pipistrelle. Pipistrelle, a top-secret bugging system, was MI5’s most advanced piece of surveillance technology. It was the current jewel in the research and development department’s crown, but Manning’s first decision as acting director general had been to hand control of it over to his freshly appointed liaison to GCHQ, the UK’s dedicated signals intelligence agency.

‘If we aren’t going to let our signals intelligence agency run our signals intelligence, then what’s the point in having one?’ Peterson, who had relayed Manning’s orders, had said when White challenged him.

Intercepting communications and secreting listening devices in sensitive locations had been standard practice for every self-respecting security service since the war. But the technology was far from perfect. Devices were cumbersome, difficult to install, and easy to detect. A simple sweep for radio signals would reveal their presence, no matter how well they were hidden.

After the Americans had discovered ‘The Thing’, a passive listening device the KGB had buried in a wooden carving of the Great Seal of the United States given to the American ambassador in Moscow as a gesture of post-war friendship, intelligence agencies on either side of the Iron Curtain had been developing more advanced and less detectable bugs.

Operation Pipistrelle was the game-changer everyone was looking for. White had not only worked out a way to radically shrink MI5’s listening devices so they could be installed in more places in less time and removed just as easily. He’d also introduced a failsafe into the bug’s transmitters, which temporarily shut them down whenever a room was being swept.