7th May
Vladimir Paulov sat down upon one of the seaside benches at Lee-on-Solent that looked out across the Solent towards the Isle of Wight.
He watched a family eating their lunch on the pebbly beach and wondered what life would have been like had his taken a more conventional route.
He had been born in Moscow in 1950. His father had been in the diplomatic service of the USSR and, in 1955, had been assigned to a post at the Russian Embassy in London. His wife and son, Vladimir, had moved with him to England.
Vladimir had been too young to understand why his father could not return to Russia or why the family had moved to the English south coast to begin a new life with new names. It was only in later years that his father had explained to him the reasons why he had defected to the West.
By then, the way in which the West was developing, in comparison to his homeland, was much clearer. The Berlin Wall had been constructed to stop those from the East moving to the West – not visa-versa.
That wall had been symbolic of a controlling, totalitarian state that had chosen a style of government which was ultimately doomed to failure.
His father, from the privileged position of a world travelling diplomat, had understood this fatal flaw in soviet ideology decades earlier than most.
The defection had been ideological, and Vladimir had respected that as a principled decision. Influenced by his father, Vladimir had also embraced the ideas of Western freedom and democracy.
Vladimir had studied physics at Cambridge, and it was there that he had been approached by MI6 as an ideal candidate for intelligence work – his knowledge of science, Russian culture and his fluency in the Russian language were coveted skills during the cold war.
Thus it was that in 1975 he had been teamed with Tom Meadowcote and Bill Stanford to set up a listening station in southern Turkey to eavesdrop on Russian communications.
Initially, this had been a relatively easy task – achieved under the cover of being archaeologists assisting Sam Collins with the dig at Gobekli Tepe …
Vladimir’s reminiscences were interrupted by another man sitting down on the bench beside him. ‘Hello, Vladimir,’ said the man. ‘How are things at Meadowcote?’
‘If the Permissive Action Link code is correct,’ Vladimir replied, ‘all we need is the presidential password on the day. Then we should be able to launch the American missiles and execute the American’s deflection plan for the asteroid.’
‘What about Arkangel?’ the man asked.
‘We need him to supply the data,’ said Vladimir, ‘but I don’t trust him.’
‘Do you think he has other plans for targeting those missiles?’
‘He may want the same outcome that we do – to ensure deflection of that asteroid – or he may want to target something else or he may want to disrupt the asteroid defence system if WAR fails to do so. I’m not at all sure about the relationship between Anglican Research for Knowledge and Worldwide Action for Righteousness. These religious nutcases are so unpredictable.’
Tom Meadowcote looked at Vladimir. ‘And we know that the non-religious ones aren’t any better, don’t we? After all, that’s why we joined Python, isn’t it?’
Tom stood up to leave. ‘One other thing,’ he said. ‘Adrian Holland has vanished. The official explanation is that he’s visiting an ill relative in Australia, but he wouldn’t have just left without reporting to Python. I fear the worst.’
‘Adrian was keeping an eye on ARK for us from the inside,’ said Vladimir. ‘If he’s vanished, I trust ARK even less.’