On that same day in London, the director-general of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, Graham Seymour, announced that four MI6 security officers had been killed at a cottage in a remote section of West Cornwall. Additionally, said Seymour, an employee of MI6’s personnel department had committed suicide by jumping from the upper terrace of Vauxhall Cross. Seymour refused to say whether the two events were linked, but the press saw the timing of his announcement as proof they were. It was one of the blackest days in the proud history of the service, and the fallout soon overwhelmed developments across the Irish Sea. The British press barely noticed when the body of a Belfast publican named Billy Conway was found at the edge of a forest in County Antrim—or, three days after that, when a hiker stumbled on the partially decomposed corpse of Liam Walsh across the border in County Mayo. Nine-millimeter slugs were recovered from both victims, though ballistics analysis determined they had been fired by two different weapons. The Garda Síochána and the PSNI investigated the killings as separate incidents. No link was ever found.

In Germany the police had made a troubling discovery of their own: another body, another 9mm bullet. The body belonged to a man who would later be identified as a Russian intelligence officer named Alexei Rozanov. Who had fired the bullet was anyone’s guess. Presumably he was linked to the team of operatives who had killed the Russian’s driver and bodyguard in Hamburg. Among the more disturbing aspects of the discovery was the fact that the Russian’s passport was found shoved into his mouth. Clearly, someone had wanted to send a message. And by all accounts, the message had been received. The BfV, Germany’s domestic security service, detected a distinct increase in the level of Russian activity. The BfV’s British counterpart, MI5, noticed a similar change in the Russian profile in London. In Moscow the Kremlin made no secret about its feelings. The Russian president vowed that the killers of Alexei Rozanov would receive the “highest measure” of punishment possible. Students of Russian intelligence knew what that meant. In all likelihood, another body would soon be turning up.